One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro) • Hacker News Board

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#91

Post by yrro » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #34

lmilcin wrote: post #3

I am also running Linux on Thinkpad (Debian unstable on T440s). As to the battery life, this typically requires some work but I found it is generally possible to get good battery life. I am able to get my T440s to run for total 24 hours with the highest option 9-cell, the built in 3-cell and another 3-cell that came original with the laptop. This I did to be able to work on a long yacht cruise with no extra power and…

I find that I can tune the battery life on a ThinkPad to be pretty amazing, but it is hard to get my change to stick after a reboot or even a suspend/wake cycle. One of the things that seems to make a big impact is PCIe ASPM. But where do you change your config files so it's always on? At least on Ubuntu there are numerous config files that formerly controlled power management settings, are still referenced in Stack…

(For the benefit of anyone who is wondering)

A Type=oneshot systemd service that is WantedBy=sysinit.target (for early-ish boot) or multi-user.target (for late-ish boot) is the rough equivalent of an entry in /etc/rc.local.

The bootup(7) man page shows how these targets fit into the bootup process.

That said, systemd-rc-local-generator(1) provides backwards-compatibility with /etc/rc.local, so putting stuff in there should still work. Any output or error messages will be logged by the rc-local.service unit.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#92

Post by se32point1 » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

stuff4ben wrote: post #15

I'm seriously considering this since my MacBook Air is so pokey. I do use Microsoft Excel though on my Mac, however it's through Firefox and I find it perfectly acceptable compared to the desktop version I used to use. Anyone know if Excel on Firefox on Linux works as expected? I'd assume it did, but just wanted to make sure. Everything else I'm fine with.

> Anyone know if Excel on Firefox on Linux works as expected?

I'm not experienced with this, but I can safely say that if you're willing to, you can use Office 2007 (probably 2010 and 2013, and maybe 2016, but that last one is slow). Alternatively, OnlyOffice has extremely good compatibility with MS Office and works well for the purpose.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#93

Post by tarasmatsyk » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

I would put an asterisk near battery life as a downside, after switching to mpro 2020 13 realized that I overlooked batter life which is 7h at max, 5h if working aggressively (docker, builds), very disappointing. Macs always were laptops with great performance - battery life for me, so be careful with customizations and stick either to defaults or mpro 16 (which is like a plazma TV for me)

PS. moving to 14" system76/thinkpad too this year

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#94

Post by tarasmatsyk » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

mustardo wrote: post #81

x87678r wrote: post #71

I was looking at larger laptops to run Linux but they aren't cheap so MBP doesn't look such bad value. I want 15in screen with higher than 1080 resolution, 16GB memory, good battery life and there really isn't much less than $1500 from the main brands that will run Linux well. Any suggestions? Otherwise the MBP16 looks not such bad value as I know it'll be reliable.

Something from https://system76.com/ maybe? Ive never had one, anecdote but the two people i know who got the 16" MBP have had to return them with hardware issues, at least apples support is pretty good. Im hanging on to my 2015MBP for dear life, has great connectivity and reliability, id like the new 16" as it is nice but am waiting for a hardware itteration, suppose by then there might be something arm based releas…

arm released is not going to happen in the next 2 years, IMO mpro 16" is going to get better and it is good enough to switch to it permanently. I was testing a few mpros before purchasing one

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#95

Post by Upvoter33 » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

alexktz wrote: post #61

I recently purchased a 16” MBP despite significant personal concerns over the future of MacOS, being a strong open source advocate and Linux paying my mortgage. I did this ultimately for a few reasons. MacOS lets me run Adobe (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc), Fusion360, has a good terminal (iTerm and zsh unix like shell) and Logic. Mac hardware is still some of the best in the business, no other vendors seem to be able to…

This matches my experience. I have been using macs for 20+ years, and have on occasion tried to switch to Linux. Linux is definitely way faster (sometimes, amazingly so), but that is it; almost all other parts of the experience are quite a downgrade, so I haven't really come close to switching.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#96

Post by bryanrasmussen » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

krooj wrote: post #69

alexktz wrote: post #61

I recently purchased a 16” MBP despite significant personal concerns over the future of MacOS, being a strong open source advocate and Linux paying my mortgage. I did this ultimately for a few reasons. MacOS lets me run Adobe (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc), Fusion360, has a good terminal (iTerm and zsh unix like shell) and Logic. Mac hardware is still some of the best in the business, no other vendors seem to be able to…

"It just works with external displays" - ಠ_ಠ

one of the most infuriating phrases in tech is the mac "just works" one

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#97

Post by D13Fd » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

greatgib wrote: post #88

Most of this blog post looks like to be a standard user personal experience report. Most items make sense in this context I think, but there is one point that surprised me: > Wtf! In my opinion, that it worths mentioning that, shows at what point Apple marketing brain fucked the Apple device users... You buy a 2k$ computer, with dozens of high speed CPUs, for what? Putting stupid smileys everywhere? And in addition,…

If you're on a Mac, you use emojis in iMessage texts.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#98

Post by angio » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

FoomFries wrote: post #87

diminish wrote: post #57

What are the cons of mac? for me: - Sluggish UI - Inadequate package manager - Unintuitive ways to install stuff - Slow and large updates - Can't do Linux development - Can't try server tools - Slow boot-to-work time - Hard to add memory and ram - Limited interfaces - Hacker unfriendly - Can't have a minimal desktop - High memory usage of base system

I'm curious how you arrived at some of these conclusions. - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. - Inadequate package manager -> Somewhat nebulous, most package managers on Linux are available on Unix. - Slow and large updates -> I honestly don't pay much attention as I have updates install automatically while I'm sleeping, but what size differences have you noticed…

Not OP, but I share some of his views.

> Inadequate package manager -> Somewhat nebulous, most package managers on Linux are available on Unix.

Here he probably compares homebrew with apt/dnf/zypper. Compared to these three, homebrew is quite primitive and prone to be in a bad state. Luckily now you can use nix on MacOS which is a good package manager.

> Can't have a minimal desktop -> Beyond hiding all icons and the dock, what more are you looking for?

I run a minimal desktop with a tiling window manager (bspwm) and a status bar (polybar in my case), I don't need a window decorator and so I don't have one. I also don't need drop shadows on windows and so I disabled them (while keeping them on popups). AFAIK that is simply impossible to achieve on MacOS.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#99

Post by tarasmatsyk » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #70

> Can disable webcam in BIOS when not used Purism sells laptops [0] with real hardware kill switches for camera and microphone . Welcome to the future. > Maintenance: T480 is not slim and this is for the better. I can replace/upgrade most components by myself. Slimness has nothing to do with repairability / upgradeability. Purism laptops are slim and perfectly repairable. (I'm a happy owner). [0] https://shop.puri.sm…

it looks very interesting, I came around purism a couple of times but never got to hardware switchers section, very nice. Is there anyone who has any experience with puri.sm?

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#100

Post by dhosek » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 2:33 PM UTC

Things that I like about being on a Mac:

- The ABC - Extended keyboard layout gives me easy access to diacriticalized letters like é or č as well as typographic characters like – and –

- long battery life. I'm currently sharing a charger between my work laptop my personal laptop and my iPad and life is easy.

- access to mainstream software like Office, Adobe etc.

- I can easily use my iPad as an external monitor while I'm away from my desk.

- The trackpad is so much more usable than any Windows laptop I've been given from work

- I don't need to spend much time getting stuff in a workable state. Other than disabling caps lock and selecting ABC - Extended as my keyboard layout, I don't feel the need to do much customization on a new Mac.