Live data from Hacker News

From OS X to Ubuntu

nicolas.perriault.net

301–310 of 403 posts

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#301
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…

> X is really old and should be phased out.

Yeah, let the CADT flow...

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly I have yet to come across a functioning tiling window manager for wayland.

Sway (written in C, I contributed the libinput config), Way-Cooler (written in Rust, if of any interest) and Orbment all ride on top of 'wlc'. They're all at least somewhat functional. I think there's a few others but I haven't tried any of them.

[deleted]

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#303
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem here is that Apple doesn't really have to have a huge product range because they are pretty much focused on the premium price range. On the other hand, manufacturers like Asus, Lenovo and Dell have everything from the economy to premium range which makes the content organization a natural headache. And it looks like nobody has figured out a good way to fix everything up.

But Dell has a pretty nice web site despite having a huge range of products.

Yes and no. UI looks wise it is ok, but UX wise it is a nightmare.

When I try to find a product I often can't find it. Or I can only find the previous year/range's version. Or I can only find it if I pretend to be in the US. Or mostly it is out of stock. And all this time direct links works so the products exists, I just cant find them consistently.

Went through this recently trying to find the XPS13 DE for a friend. He bought his first macbook pro in the end instead(a 2015 one just after the touchbar launched).

Yes their SKU stock is massive compared to Apple, so navigation will be trickier, but why do they need to make it so hard by hiding products etc.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sadly I have yet to come across a functioning tiling window manager for wayland.

Sway (written in C, I contributed the libinput config), Way-Cooler (written in Rust, if of any interest) and Orbment all ride on top of 'wlc'. They're all at least somewhat functional. I think there's a few others but I haven't tried any of them.

Thanks, I will keep an eye on sway. :)

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#305

I went in the opposite direction. I downloaded Slackware over a 2400bud modem, and have used Linux ever since then. For a long time, Linux was my principle OS for a laptop, but occasionally using OS X on a Mac laptop. I have mostly been retired for a long while, and usually try to limit my work time to 4 hours a day. I want that 4 hours to be as productive as possible, and right now my little MacBook is a bit more pr…

I was lucky enough to get the Slackware book with the cd around 1993-94(?) so I didn't have to go through the whole floppydisk dance.

I did try something called minilinux before though that I downloaded off a bbs. I think it was 4 floppies :)

Still using linux to this day both at home and work.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't get it, try it. It's not just bash. It's the whole Ubuntu userspace. Yes, you can use apt-get there.

but it's _on windows_ so what's the point? :P

Hardware support + you can run the Adobe suites, Microsoft Office, etc.?

I think WSL will be very successful among developers. You can just get any laptop from the store that runs Windows 10 and have Linux running at native speed (except I/O, which is currently a bottleneck in WSL) at the same time without the hardware compatibility problems, etc.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#307
post #58

> And now I see their latest MBP line with the Esc key removed... What?! Ha. It almost seems like post-Jobs Apple "innovates" by removing classic user interfaces.

It's only technically removed. The function row including the escape button was replaced with a touch screen that can and does display an escape button in the given context. It's still bad because the escape button is in a different place and doesn't always display at the right time. As a emacs user, escape is my meta key, I dislike it because it messes with my muscle memory.

> It's still bad because the escape button is in a different place and doesn't always display at the right time.

It's actually pretty much in the same place (touchable area is bigger than the visual button) and I'm pretty certain it displays at all times.

Missing the feedback is more than understandable criticism (that I agree with) but muscle memory of hitting the key in the first place itself shouldn't really change, hasn't for me - as someone who does use vim a fair amount.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#308
post #24

If only Linux had decent image editors... I would have made the jump years ago, but Gimp and Inkscape ain't just cutting it.

Same for me - last I checked, Gimp's UI is too damn awful. But I only need 5% of PHotoshop's features (smart selection, fill with color, resize, crop, optimize for web) to optimize images for web work

GIMP is ugly? watch this video, just give it 5 minutes of your time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNoVb5k40sU&t=30

the guy (a pro photographer) explains how to make GIMP less ugly and more usable.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#309
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux laptops: buy pre-installed. If you want linux and you want to be sure everything is functional, AND you don't want to devote lots of time to a "project" buy a pre-install. Dell Developer Edition laptops (XPS 13, 15) make great laptops. I hear good things about system 76 and purism as well. Save time. Support having good laptops and good drivers. Buy pre-installed. Paying the "windows tax" and installing a Linux…

>> 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…

> 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 "just work out of the box".

Linux is exactly like Windows in this regard: it works just fine as long as you have the right third-party drivers. Hell, I remember having trouble installing my ATI drivers on win7 because win7 fallback was 640x480, and the braindead driver installer window was taller than that - you couldn't see the bottom of the window to click on the buttons (and windows wouldn't let you drag the top of the window offscreen). In the XP days, having windows completely fail to work with NICs was so frustrating that a friend of mine slipstreamed a vanilla installation disk with 676 NIC drivers on it, so 'no matter where you installed it, it would get network!'

So no, Windows doesn't work on 'practically any hardware' - you need to have the right drivers for it, same as linux/bsd/whatever.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#310
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux laptops: buy pre-installed. If you want linux and you want to be sure everything is functional, AND you don't want to devote lots of time to a "project" buy a pre-install. Dell Developer Edition laptops (XPS 13, 15) make great laptops. I hear good things about system 76 and purism as well. Save time. Support having good laptops and good drivers. Buy pre-installed. Paying the "windows tax" and installing a Linux…

>> 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…

Whenever in doubt buying a laptop for Linux, just consult the Arch Linux wiki on the specific model. If the given model (such as the XPS 13) is popular in the community, the amount and quality of the information collected there is mindblowing.

For example: the pages about the past 3 releases of the XPS 13: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9343) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9360)

From the compatibility point of view, usually more important than the distro is the kernel version. There are some minor exceptions to this, such as Ubuntu vs Fedora 25 on the 9343.

Ubuntu compiles the kernel with CONFIG_ACPI_REV_OVERRIDE_POSSIBLE=y (due to Dell asking for it), and Fedora does not. This results in the soundcard working properly in HDA mode under Ubuntu, but not working properly in I2S mode under Fedora. But this can be fixed, it just takes time and effort to find these information yourself.

No, the year of the Linux desktop - when you can just buy and use a laptop with Linux just as you do with Apple - has not come yet, and will not come in the near future.

Post reply on HN