A few things
You can use Subversion/svn, you just need to setup a server on your laptop. You can find binaries at
http://subversion.tigris.org/getting.html#osx. I found something by googling install svn server mac
http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Subversion-on-Mac-OS-X
If you want to use a distribute source control system, then NetBeans supports Mercurial/hg. Although Git is VERY popular in linux land, Google code, Sun and others are using Mercurial.
Although the development cycle with SVN works well for some, I would say that using a distributed source control system does have some significant pros, along with some cons
The big pro for me as a developer is being able to commit code without having access to the "central" repository. This is a life saver. You can also do adhoc sharing with others and then push back to a central repo if you so wish. Also, the history of the code is usually included in your local copy, so you dont need the server to go look for previous versions. Two cons in my view are important. It is something new to learn. Understanding that you have a local repo that you commit to is nice, but it can also confuse you as if you are used to central, then commit is all you need to do. In case of distributed, you need to commit to local, then to push to your "central" or next level up repo.
Regardless of WHICH you choose, I am REALLY happy people are thinking about source control