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One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

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

#211
post #163

What are everyone's thoughts on buying a new MBP this year with the announcement of Apple Silicon replacing Intel in the near future?

Any Intel Mac is likely to be a paperweight in 5 years; if history is any guide Apple will drop support sooner rather than later, and installing Linux is tricky at best because of the T2 chip. Amusingly pre-T2 Macs may have better longevity.

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

#212
post #103
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It just works with external displays" - ಠ_ಠ

Yes, totally the opposite to my own experience with mac. Getting external displays to work properly has often required nasty EDID hacks and disabling SIP on the machine.

I'm on my third MacBook Pro (the current one is MBP 16"), always used various external monitors (24" FullHD back in the day, recently mostly 27" 4k), with either mini DP, USB-C to mini DP, or USB-C with recent LG monitors, and in eight years since I'm on Mac I never had any issue.

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

#213
post #101

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

- machine marketed as "Pro" dies from a drop of water

This monsoon my backlight started to die. Kept it in a dry environment, it fixed itself. ffs apple.

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

#214
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…

how can you be an open source advocate and still work with adobe & friends? - no question on the quality/productivity of those, just on your argument. A more consistent argument would’ve been: “open source advocate, Gimp, Inkscape and others run even better on my mac than on linux” (would disagree on that, but at least it would be a more consistent argument)

Because the tool you use is just part of the equation. It's same reason I use Discord, Telegram, whatever. You trade convenience for money, time or privacy. Sadly, I genuinely don't think that any of the tools you mention come close to Photoshop or Lightroom (Darktable is getting there but still misses a few key things for me).

To be an open source advocate I have to only use open source software? How would I drive my car? Or use my phone? Or my TV? It's just not practical.

I advocate for mostly open source server side software. I wrote a Masters dissertation on Linux and normal peoples interactions with the Linux desktop. I record a podcast twice a month (selfhosted.show) and edit it under Linux sometimes and sometimes on Mac.

My argument, such as it is, is that the tool I use to build and maintain my open source infrastructure doesn't need to be open to allow me to further the open source agenda. Linux changed my life and I do everything I can to give back to the community.

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

#215
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…

> As to touchpad these are all disappointing on all ThinkPads but probably especially on T440s where it is something called "clickpad". The entire touchpad is a button and you need to press it and try to move your finger while pressing HARD to drag things, for example. My T440 also has the "clickpad", and I hate it for the exact same reason you described. It's another example of the modern design trend toward form-ov…

To be fair, there aren't many devices of any kind that don't have some kind of faults. You just take it as a whole package. I don't mind a bit of irritation as long as I decide that overall this is best option.

I would like a laptop that is perfect but, while I can easily imagine one, there does not exist a laptop that is perfect.

A perfect laptop for me would be a Macbook with LTE, ThinkPad keyboard, that would be serviceable by myself and that would not suck at running Docker.

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

#216
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…

Sounds like you’ve not had Linux on a laptop for a while, it’s no where near as bad as you describe. I run NIxOs on a Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2. I really love it and it “sparks joy” for me too. Especially because I understand how it’s lit together and sort of “built it” and contribute to the Platform. Very satisfying.

I have literally used Linux as my daily desktop driver at work for 6 years and counting.

I'm not saying it can't be a great experience if you have a well defined use case such as development. But for an all-round, no compromises experience when stepping outside of development (and this does annoy me btw) I find MacOS to give the least worst set of compromises.

I even watch DistroTube and read r/unixporn. I love Linux!

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

#217
post #100

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 whil…

Counterpoints for Linux: - Compose key blows your "ABC - Extended layout out of the water." It's more powerful than anything else. - ... I never really use my XPS 13 without a charger, because I don't really travel around much, but it also has USB-C like all the "cool stuff." I would imagine with some tweaking I can get better battery life but I know it does last a while on standby. - You won't get mainstream-mainstr…

- I looked up the keyboard shortcuts for compose key and it seems like it takes a lot more typing to get to the characters I need than ABC - Extended: To get an acute accent I type opt-e o, for example, to get ó. The same on Linux is compose-'' o. Everything requires at least two characters with compose held down. There are a handful of characters/diacriticals that are shift-opt to reach, but the most common ones are less typing. Also muscle memory makes a difference.

- Many of the alternatives to mainstream stuff have compatibility issues. Maybe this is better now than the last time I've dealt with them last, but part of why I use word is that I need to send documents to people who use word and I'd rather not have surprises (smaller thing but still significant—Word for the Mac shows the word count at the bottom of the window. Word on Windows doesn't (or at least didn't the last time I used it) and Pages on the Mac will show wordcount only in a mini window.

I'm much more productive with a trackpad. MacOS also includes a number of shortcuts on the trackpad that don't work as well with a mouse (even Apple's magic mouse).

I'd note that some of it is also that I've been trained into the shortcuts that I have on the Mac (both keyboard-based and trackpad-based). Muscle habit goes a long way towards keeping someone on a platform.

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is that when the machine wakes up, it's not associated with a wifi network until later, so isn't it a race if such a thing runs at wakeup?

OK so we sleep for 30 seconds and try again, maybe give up after 5 or 10 iterations of this. What's the problem?

Or have a script running on when network comes up and you check if you just freshly came from the sleep.

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

#219
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…

Well, macs don't run at full power either if you don't plug them in. And thermal issues are definitely a thing on macs. I have a friend who is complaining about stability issues on his 16" mbp already. And there is of course the whole notion with the uncertainty around ARM and their commitment to supporting what they are selling right now. So, I'm not super keen on buying that just yet though I probably will eventual…

They don't? I just ran Cinebench R20 and Unigine Heaven benchmark plugged and unplugged (10x each) and got the same scores each time.

This is the 16" MBP with the 5600m with HBM2 memory.

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

#220
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…

I am glad that you like your macbook, but your experience has been very different from mine. It has the worst WIFI radio in a laptop that i have used; one area of my house is basically off-limits to it despite every other Wi-Fi enabled device i own working there (phones and several laptop brands). The fancy metal case isnt properly grounded- I get occasionally a slight tingling /shock from it when I have it plugged i…

> It has the worst WIFI radio in a laptop that i have used

This is an extremely disputable claim. Wifi chipset used by Apple is by far the best in class in my experience. I have 4 laptops - ASUS, Thinkpad, HP laptop from work and MBP 16". All of them get a visit to the special room once a week at least. If we use my commode as a benchmark of wifi radio performance, when I am sitting on it and watching Monty Python, I can get every single joke with MacBookPro 16 streaming smoothly at 320p resolution. Not so much with other products of similar class.

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