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From OS X to Ubuntu

nicolas.perriault.net

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Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#131

Post by mgbmtl »

mnm1 wrote: post #124

The problem is/was never Linux. For me, it's always been X. At some point, it just stops working. I've had to reinstall from scratch so many times over the last 20 years that I've lost count. Tried again these last couple of months. Nope. The longest X has stayed stable has been almost 6 months, about 5 years ago. Same as 20 and 10 years ago. This time it was only a few weeks. After that, I'm lucky if I get a text lo…

I'm confused by your comment. Why would you have to re-install your OS because of a problem with X? X doesn't typically save a configuration, it doesn't keep a registry, etc. Its settings get regenerated when it boots. Maybe you're encountering application configuration issues? Deleting/re-creating your user account should be enough (or finding the Gnome/KDE/other configuration that is causing problem, but I agree that can be hard to find).

If your experience is mostly with Apple hardware, which I haven't used in a while, then you're taking a risk. The manufacturer/distributor is not playing nice with the community. I use mostly Intel generic hardware (including Intel video cards). At worst, I had to use Debian "testing" for the first few months after buying new hardware.

Wayland fixes issues in the Linux security model, but otherwise I don't know how well it does on hardware where the manufacturer isn't contributing. You need to direct that feedback to the people to whom you gave a lot of money :/

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#132

Post by mgbmtl »

peller wrote: post #117
developer2 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Linux laptops: buy pre-installed. The fact that hardware - though much improved in the past 15 years - is still a crapshoot on Linux, particularly when it comes to laptop hardware, is so frustrating. Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "ju…

> If the laptop comes with Ubuntu pre-installed, what are the odds I can replace it with CentOS or Arch? Very high. For the most part, drivers on Linux are determined by the kernel version[0]. Arch typically runs a pretty new kernel, so anything that Ubuntu supports, will most likely be fine. (That applies to pretty much all desktop-oriented distros.) CentOS is server-oriented, and typically runs a pretty old kernel,…

Not to mention, that before buying my Dell XPS 15 (at the time) in order to run Debian, I mostly relied on Arch's documentation to know if it was a good purchase or not, and what wifi chipset to choose :)

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#133

Post by mnm1 »

terrywang wrote: post #125
mnm1 wrote: post #124

The problem is/was never Linux. For me, it's always been X. At some point, it just stops working. I've had to reinstall from scratch so many times over the last 20 years that I've lost count. Tried again these last couple of months. Nope. The longest X has stayed stable has been almost 6 months, about 5 years ago. Same as 20 and 10 years ago. This time it was only a few weeks. After that, I'm lucky if I get a text lo…

X is really old and should be phased out. That's why Fedora has made Wayland the default display manager in latest Fedora 25. I have never had the problem you've described, most issue I've encountered (my VGA/GPU were all Intel/NVIDIA) can be fixed (using pseudo console, SSH, chroot etc...) without reinstall (which doesn't really fix the root cause). The issues you've mentioned, try to look for workarounds from distr…

I'm hoping Wayland does indeed solve the problems X has. Unfortunately, it's not just one problem but a series of them spread over multiple machines from various vendors. This latest one I think is probably not the graphics driver as it did work fine for a couple of weeks but the trackpad driver. I think I might give Fedora 25 a shot and see if there's a difference.

Without a doubt, however, Linux based OS's have come a very long way even in just the last 5 years, let alone the last 20. Mint KDE for example, works almost out of the box for me on my 2013 MbPro w/ external 4k monitor (except internal trackpad / Magic Trackpad 2). I suspect I'll be able to remove that "almost" in the next year or two if not sooner and once messing with X config is no longer required, hopefully X (or Wayland) will be stable.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#134

Post by corv »

Sure it's possible to use Linux on the desktop. It's also possible to find some laptops that are well supported.

Do I want to replace Lightroom, Sketch, Pixelmator, 1Password and Alfred with inferior replacements? No, because my livelihood depends on good tools and I think it's fair to pay money for them.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#135

Post by throwaway729 »

falcolas wrote: post #105
ekianjo wrote: post #11

> So, is Linux ready for the desktop? > For me, the answer is yes. Honestly it's been ready for years on the desktop (of course, this does not apply if you are an expert user in Y software only available on Z platform and need to use it for your job/company, etc...). Ubuntu 16.04 did not bring anything significant on the table, it's just that most people have not noticed. I switched full Linux back in 2009~2010 and I…

Opinion follows: I don't think so. My three day old vanilla Ubuntu desktop install completely froze up on me the other day. I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary - browsing Reddit with Firefox. It was a mostly default Ubuntu install (nvidia and broadcom drivers) and otherwise completely up to date. I was frustrated enough I haven't bothered to troubleshoot it yet, but my best guess is somehow I ran it out of th…

Nvidia drivers are always a worthy culprit.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#136

Post by kajecounterhack »

corv wrote: post #134

Sure it's possible to use Linux on the desktop. It's also possible to find some laptops that are well supported. Do I want to replace Lightroom, Sketch, Pixelmator, 1Password and Alfred with inferior replacements? No, because my livelihood depends on good tools and I think it's fair to pay money for them.

FWIW Figma is quickly becoming a great replacement for Sketch. And I think Adobe is working on cloud equivalents for many of their offerings, so when those are ready at least some of your concerns will be removed.

1Password definitely has replacements that aren't inferior. Alfred is OS specific tuning and you can easily get settings you enjoy on your Linux desktop.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#137

Post by WalterSear »

noobermin wrote: post #127
sk1pper wrote: post #31

IMO if money isn't an object, OS X is a better call when it comes to laptops. If money is tight, going for a Linux box is almost as good. Linux on desktops - as in, not a laptop - has worked pretty much flawlessly for me for >10 years. Not much else to say there. If desktop or server, this shouldn't be a discussion. As far as laptops go, I've just had better experiences with macbooks. Linux on a laptop is still 100%…

I have two laptops, the 2015 macbook and a yoga 13 with linux on it. The yoga 13 was refurbished and has hardware issues and freezes from time to time[0] on both linux and windows(hence why I bought the macbook)...but the wireless on the macbook drops so frequently I've stopped using the macbook and use the glitchy hardware laptop. The laptop is heavier, a few years older, and uglier (missing screws at this point), b…

I have to flap my macbook's wifi and/or reboot several times a day. I can't find out how to fix it from their joke of online support - just a load of people bitching about the same thing and deleting the plist file, IIRC, which is a temporary fix.

Very frustrating.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#138

Post by StavrosK »

rhodysurf wrote: post #102
StavrosK wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that you like about Arch? Maybe I should give it a shot, although with Ubuntu you know you'll have both the solutions and the software available somewhere.

For personal use its the most up to date and because its rolling release i never have to actually upgrade or wait for releases. Also newer kernels for newer hardware.

Doesn't that break things too often? I always run across at least one breaking change on each new Ubuntu version, and I'd imagine this happens much more often with a rollling release OS, is that not the case?

Also, how is packaging? With Ubuntu, someone always has a PPA for everything.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#139

Post by favadi »

criddell wrote: post #92
throwaway729 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Unity hands scaling well, but many applications just don't work well with HiDPI. But same problem happens with Windows 10. In this regard, OS X does the job better.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#140

Post by agibsonccc »

sk1pper wrote: post #31

IMO if money isn't an object, OS X is a better call when it comes to laptops. If money is tight, going for a Linux box is almost as good. Linux on desktops - as in, not a laptop - has worked pretty much flawlessly for me for >10 years. Not much else to say there. If desktop or server, this shouldn't be a discussion. As far as laptops go, I've just had better experiences with macbooks. Linux on a laptop is still 100%…

I've owned 3 laptops over the last few years and have struggled to have problems like this save 1 example where the wifi took a bit of work (this has since been fixed). I have found the newer asus zenbooks pretty well, I had a thinkpad, and even an asus gaming laptop (I do deep learning work) and haven't had the problems people report with things like the nvidia drivers.

I use fedora though.

A few things here: Don't worry about being on the bleeding edge with linux. I'm sticking with fedora 23 for a while. I still update the kernel and the like. Other than that, things have by and large worked for me. I would love to hear contradictory stories though. I'm not sure where the gotchas are. I'm definitely not so starry eyed about linux that I know there are problems, but I've found I can't use stand windows or osx.

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