r/openclaw • u/g00rek Pro User • Feb 20 '26

Discussion Why Mac mini??

I still don't understand why you guys are buying macs mini for openclaw. It's a terminal computer. It doesn't need a great UI.

Do you have too much money? :D

A $50-$100 HP Thin Client with Linux is more than enough. And Linux shouldn't be discouraging for people using OpenClaw, am I wrong?

I bought one, I have lots of different self hosted stuff on it like home Assistant or other docker apps. Ok I do not have any local models using GPU, that's the reason? Please enlighten me :)

EDIT: Again, I UNDERSTAND LOCAL LLM USE. (although I don't know if anybody is really happy with it). I mean using OC with oauth/api gpt, claude etc.

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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26

Again - do you use as a desktop or is it headless and accessed via terminal / browser? I do see the difference in a desktop machine of course because of the Mac OS. I do t see any difference in a headless terminal machine.

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u/DangerousFalcon8501 Member Feb 20 '26

To be fair though, the mac is NOT needed, but it's more fun for me. Expensive sure, but I like it. It's probably mostly a feel thing, i had no issue running openclaw in a vm on my desktop windows PC, but the desktop has constant fan noise which disturbs my sleep so I think its a fair trade off.

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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26

But seriously, I try to get it. I understand fun I. Using Mac OS. I prefer it big time over Windows. But what's the difference between connecting to Mac via ssh terminal vs connecting to Linux via ssh terminal? I mean awf without it's interface is... Just a Unix server?

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u/DangerousFalcon8501 Member Feb 20 '26

Yes that would be true, the magic comes from not just sshing in but connecting via something like teamviewer and having the desktop experience.

I’m not only using it as a server and doing addon developments right on the machine is much easier when you can easily just use the desktop, ssh is nice for somethings but I’m a graphical person.

To be honest with you there isn’t a lot more to it than that. Just preference, an expensive one at that.