Years ago I started using Macs to have a stable Unix desktop that also played well with commercial software while keeping Linux on the side as a hobby. Somewhere around 2010 or so I think finally switched away from Macs to pure Linux after my Mac that worked just fine was dropped from support of the latest version of OS X and by that point Linux on the desktop seemed far more stable and I was working with it much more professionally any way. Linux started getting really good as a desktop OS and I think it peaked for me around Ubuntu 16.04 and got very much to a "just works" state that I enjoyed with Macs and Steam was on Linux along with a handful of games I cared about(mostly Civ 5). Then a weird thing started happening and new updates on the same hardware started having weird issues on my laptop, mostly around sleep and power saving. It was possible to fix most of the issues, but the brief "just works" periods seemed to be over. It was still mostly fine on my desktop, and even improved when Valve launched Proton.

Eventually I used my Linux desktop mostly and later my Linux laptop went away in favor of a Chromebook, which supported their beta Linux environment. It wasn't perfect, but sleep/suspend worked and I could do most "Linux" things I needed to do. I also started using a Macbook Pro at work again after being off of OS X for 5 or 6 years and it was just a reminder to me that a Unix-like desktop that didn't need as much fiddling around existed(of course some of you may point out that the fiddling is more restricted on OS X, which is a fair point as well), but the thermal issues of the later Intel Macbooks kept me from buying one for personal use.

So fast forward to last year. I was moving and some other stuff was in flux and my already long in the tooth desktop needed to be put away for a while and while my Chromebook was useful, I didn't like relying on it as a primary machine. Since I didn't play too many demanding games anymore I thought this would be a good chance to kill two birds with one stone and get a laptop that capable playing the meager game library I had, which meant mostly better integrated graphics rather than discrete, and since it was before Intel Xe came out, a Ryzen 4000 series CPU seemed like the obvious choice with a GPU that was roughly GTX 1050ti class, just enough for me. Sadly it appears that AMD pushed forward with some new kind of "hybrid sleep" or what ever they're calling it and wast supported by Linux very well at all(I'm not sure of the exact state at the time of writing this, there was some talk of support landing in 5.13, but I'm not sure of that happened or if it got pushed out to 5.14). So I did the Windows thing full time for the first time in a very long time with WSL, which I actually grew to like somewhat, but I still wasn't happy with the laptop.

By the end of the end of 2020, Macbooks with the M1 were in the wild and the results seemed very good. And since I was still using a Macbook Pro for work during this time, I still had mostly positive feelings about macOS. It had its peculiarities, but I liked it better than Windows, and required less effort to keep running than Linux, I just didn't like the jet engine that my Macbook turned into when ever I tried to do anything remotely demanding. In fact I've always hated fans, and fan noise was a one of motivating factors in dumping my desktop. My "grail" machine has been a fast laptop with no fans or other moving parts. SSDs have been a thing for a while, but we've not had a rally solid performing fanless machine until the M1 Macbook Air(in the 21st century, I'm not counting the fast for their time fanless machines of the 80s and early 90's). So I felt almost obligated get that machine and that's what I did and haven't regretted it for a second(though ask me again in 4 or 5 years if/when Apple starts dropping support for these first gen ARM devices). It can silently keep up with any work I would do compared to my work 16" Macbook Pro which runs much hotter and louder and so far the M1 Air has been able to do what I've needed it to do.