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From OS X to Ubuntu

nicolas.perriault.net

91–100 of 403 posts

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#91
post #70
post #6

Linux is all about customized computer. Personally I love tiled window managers (i3) and urvxt for a terminal and I prefer my gui programs to be mostly KDE. I am the only person in the world like this. Welcome to your way (As long as you don't mind working for it)

> Linux is all about customized computer. While true for many Linux fans, the majority of regular Linux users, especially those in the enterprise arena, do not customize anything and simply use it the way it is installed/configured by default - pretty much as they would were they using Windows or MacOS.

These days I advise people to pick the most popular distro and leave everything as close to the default settings as possible.

I used to enjoy endless customizing (Enlightenment) but that ended up taking the place of actually doing work. These days I leave everything set to default and install as little software as I possibly can.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#92

Curious what the wifi, sleep, and battery life stories are like in comparison to Mac OS.

IME wifi isn't much a problem anymore. Might want to look up the chipset before purchase to be sure, but I've had zero issues since maybe 2006? Sleep is still kinda annoying. Every once in a while my machine ends up not going to sleep when I close the lid and I end up with a hot brick at 2% battery when I take it out of my bag. TBF this has happened to me with MBPs too, though. Battery life is a major differentiator.…

How well are high-dpi displays handled these days?

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#93
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stick with 16.04?

Not OP, probably because it an LTS release.

The LTS releases get a kernel upgrade and graphics libraries every six months or so. So, you get newer hardware support even if you stay at 16.04.

There is a new such update for 16.04 at the end of this month. It is the 16.04.02 update.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightdm/gdm (the service that provides the login screen) generally provides a way to choose an alternate session to start on login and then remember it on a per-user basis.

The way this works on Ubuntu is there's a small icon (circle-like) next to the user name, click this and if you have other desktop environments installed, you can select it. It's a great way to try out new ones. I tried Ubuntu + Cinnamon before making the jump to Mint.

I've pretty much given up on Linux desktop environments in favor of tiling window managers. First I tried XMonad and then, when I had an issue with my monitor layout that was causing XMonad to crash (X reporting my monitor size as 0x0 for some reason). I jumped to StumpWM and have been using it ever since (it had the same problem, but I found it much easier to locate and fix the bug in a Common Lisp program than in a Haskell program: especially because I could connect to the running window manager with Slime in emacs, catch the error, and then fiddle around in the REPL for a while to find the X calls that could actually return the right monitor size).

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#95
In my humble opinion,

OSX : Productivity, Linux : Development, Windows : Games

I've been with all of these for all my computing life & still doing the same.

OSX/macOS is great for anyone who doesn't want to meddle with their system, especially if you use iDevices. Though developers have historically liked OSX, it could be apt for web development or anything non resource consuming (like java/android). For e.g I symlinked my android sdk (15 GB) to another SSD and had the android studio run from the native partition & the android studio's instant run feature sure made whole lot of mess and took 1 hour to compile ~2,00,000 lines of code. Of course this is not the fault of OSX, but I can manage partitions better & expandability is cheaper in a linux based system. Of course

Linux : I use an external SSD with Arch Linux for android development with the Mac. It has improved my development productivity multifold. Of course you might need some tinkering to do, but will be straight forward unless it involves GPU. Basically GPU drivers, especially Nvidia sucks big time on linux.

Windows : DirectX.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#96
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switched my 68 yeard old mom to Linux five year ago. No complaints since that, except for video (so I upgraded CPU) and printer (cable or port is damaged, switched error handling to «cancel» instead of «pause»).

I feel old now. Running Linux since 1995, everyone in my family uses it.

I saw Linux for first time in 1997 (SuSE 5), running it since 1999, so yes, you are old, thus I'm still young.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone point me towards the new Dell XPS 15 Developer Edition (does it exist)? I'm able to find the Windows version [0], as well as the XPS 13 Developer Edition [1], but no XPS 15 Developer edition. I just want my 15 inches. I did 13 for years and the pain still haunts me. [0] http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9560-laptop/pd [1] http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...

I've heard the XPS13 has a nearly-15 usable screen size because of the tiny bevel, any owners care to verify?

I have the Developer edition of the older 13 - its a 13" display in closer to an 11" form. The 13" and 15" have really tiny bezels to hit their dimensions, with the new 15.6" being 14" wide.

The 13" developer edition was close enough to perfect for me with the 1920x1080 display, battery life takes a hit with the 4k screens. Getting a 15" this time around, but expect delays on the developer edition, they usually launch a few months after the regular 15" while they sort new drivers.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#98
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, just get a laptop with any of Intel's wifi chips and you're almost guaranteed Linux won't have a problem with it.

Yep. Atheros chipsets also tend to be quite reliable. Broadcom used to be bit of a red flag, dunno if they've gotten better. https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers

Broadcom still sucks. 50% of the time i boot my mbp in Arch the wireless interface just straight doesnt load even though the drivers are loaded and it is recognized with lspci

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#100

In my humble opinion, OSX : Productivity, Linux : Development, Windows : Games I've been with all of these for all my computing life & still doing the same. OSX/macOS is great for anyone who doesn't want to meddle with their system, especially if you use iDevices. Though developers have historically liked OSX, it could be apt for web development or anything non resource consuming (like java/android). For e.g I symlin…

The game situation is changing fast. Even CivIV was just announced that it is coming to Linux.

Perhaps the Vulkan drivers will make it even better to write crossplatform games.

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