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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)

#221

Post by lmilcin »

danielbarla wrote: post #120
Galanwe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always fancied switching to track balls but never dared to jump. Can you be as fast as with a mouse with it? As precise?

I've managed to play slow-paced FPS'es with the trackball (e.g. PUBG) and remain - well, not "competitive" exactly, but not total trash either. You can generally dial it in for great accuracy but slow turning, or less accuracy but fast turning. But not really both at the same time, unlike a mouse. (since there you can your elbow for large movements, and your wrists for smaller ones) With the latter option, you would…

So I just now remembered why I don't use trackball. I have two huge monitors side by side and jumping from the end of one to the end of other was really uncomfortable with trackball whereas it is a snap of the wrist with the mouse

I move the width of the mouse to span two monitors yet I have no trouble clicking on a 4 dot cluster on 27inch 4k monitor (which would be equivalent of a single pixel on full HD).

Now I am not sure I want to use regular mouse with a PC and trackball with a laptop. In my mind this is either or choice.

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

#222

Post by kube-system »

fsh wrote: post #131
kitsunesoba wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve experienced the grounding thing, but almost always only in houses with dodgy wiring. It never happens in office buildings or newer apartments. I’m not sure that is actually the MacBook’s doing.

USB-C and proprietary laptop chargers are double insulated Class II devices. This means that the metal chassis is essentially floating and can charge up if there is some leakage in the charger circuit. I don't see any way how the wiring of the building can influence this behavior.

Just grabbed my multimeter -- my MagSafe MacBook has continuity from the metal chassis to the grounding lug of the power adapter. It stands to reason that a properly grounded outlet used in conjunction with the 3-prong cable would dissipate such a charge -- and potentially, a live ground could introduce a charge.

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

#223

Post by fractalb »

zdragnar wrote: post #102
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…

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…

> I get occasionally a slight tingling /shock from it when I have it plugged in.

I always noticed it when the device was plugged in.

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

#224

Post by vicedvin »

pwython wrote: post #144
aeyes wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Did this happen to you? Funny story, I spit a mouthful of La Croix on my 2016 touchbar MacBook Pro just the other day (not for fun, wrong pipe). Keyboard, screen, etc. I thought it was a goner. But I wiped it down and it's still fine.

Make sure to dry it completely, and the insides too. My friend spilled coffee on a macbook air and it was fine for a month and then died. All the internals were rusted. Coffee is different from soda, but still, take care.

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

#225

Post by j45 »

Devs can spend a lot of time getting Macs and Window computers to behave like Linux.. especially given the idiosyncrasies that pop up with docker on them.

It does seem reasonable to develop on Linux.. for Linux.

I've heard of a few recent experiences specifically using Ubuntu 19/20 on a Thinkpad X1 Carbon/T4xx of some type resulting in a really nice experience, including optimized battery life.

While Ubuntu might not be my desktop of choice, it does seem to have done the most that I can find to work well on laptops from a battery life/driver support/sleep perspective.

I have it loaded on a desktop and it's working flawlessly, and I continue to try and find an issue with it. As a development environment, it may be something to consider seriously.

Part of me is wondering if an Ubuntu/Linux laptop could open up a way to use an iPad as a secondary computing device that where I could continue to enjoy the things that I wanted there.

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

#226

Post by zdragnar »

systemvoltage wrote: post #220
zdragnar wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

YMMV, I guess. We have a lot of wood paneling, plus the furnace is in between me and the router, so it would be understandable if the issue was universal.

My HP Spectre x360 has not had a problem with the reception once, but I can barely attend video calls or load Jira with the macbook. Likewise, my wife's chromebook and my previous surface book 2 were all perfectly happy.

That said, the Dell XPS 13 was pretty close to equally bad as the macbook, though I haven't had it in a long enough time that I've since re-arranged my sitting area- whether it actually was worse or not I'm not sure.

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

#227

Post by Krasnol »

lmilcin wrote: post #221
danielbarla wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've managed to play slow-paced FPS'es with the trackball (e.g. PUBG) and remain - well, not "competitive" exactly, but not total trash either. You can generally dial it in for great accuracy but slow turning, or less accuracy but fast turning. But not really both at the same time, unlike a mouse. (since there you can your elbow for large movements, and your wrists for smaller ones) With the latter option, you would…

So I just now remembered why I don't use trackball. I have two huge monitors side by side and jumping from the end of one to the end of other was really uncomfortable with trackball whereas it is a snap of the wrist with the mouse I move the width of the mouse to span two monitors yet I have no trouble clicking on a 4 dot cluster on 27inch 4k monitor (which would be equivalent of a single pixel on full HD). Now I am…

You just have to set the speed higher. I work on 3 screens with it. For precision, the ergo has a small button near the ball which makes slow.

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

#228

Post by falcolas »

alexktz wrote: post #219
jillesvangurp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You'll get the same performance, but you'll see a decline in the battery charge when really putting the hardware to the test. I've seen it happen just using a Google Hangout.

Modern macbooks can ship with a 40 or 60 amp power supply, whereas they should have 90 or 120 amp power supplies. They assume, mostly correctly, that the really intensive workloads will complete before the internal battery is in trouble.

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

#229

Post by zdragnar »

kube-system wrote: post #222
fsh wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB-C and proprietary laptop chargers are double insulated Class II devices. This means that the metal chassis is essentially floating and can charge up if there is some leakage in the charger circuit. I don't see any way how the wiring of the building can influence this behavior.

Just grabbed my multimeter -- my MagSafe MacBook has continuity from the metal chassis to the grounding lug of the power adapter. It stands to reason that a properly grounded outlet used in conjunction with the 3-prong cable would dissipate such a charge -- and potentially, a live ground could introduce a charge.

I actually only notice it about 5% of the time I use it, and it is almost always plugged in at the same outlet, with the same charger (in this case, the two prong adapter). I seem to recall having tested all of the outlets in the house with an outlet tester, but it was two years ago so I'm not 100% sure.

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

#230

Post by filmgirlcw »

funkaster wrote: post #170
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…

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 you need to actually get your work done and need to interoperate with files from others?

Being dogmatic and pure about the license of every piece of software you use might win internet points but it’s not going to actually get the job done.

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