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

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

#281

Post by jjtheblunt » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #236

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…

The radio must be faulty. You should have it looked at or replaced by Apple. They are best in class or at least better than mid-ranged laptops, if you’re only comparing to specialty PC hardware.

Or an aftermarket sticker is interfering with the wifi antenna?

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

#282

Post by asciimov » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

loosetypes wrote: post #260

Is there a metric for battery performance while the machine’s asleep? That’s been my only gripe in moving from a MacBook Air to an XPS running Ubuntu a little over a year ago. Battery life is comparable in active usage. But if I close my XPS lid and then, for whatever reason, don’t use it for a day or two, I’ll be at zero battery. I don’t remember this ever being something to even think about with my Mac laptop.

The issue is that you are sleeping the computer vs hibernating it.

Sleep is still powering the ram. Hibernate writes the ram contents out to a file and shuts the computer off.

It often takes some tinkering to get hibernation to work, if at all.

That is why your computer kills the battery in a few days.

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

#283

Post by hollandheese » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

krondor wrote: post #210

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think LDAC should be expected to sound better than AAC or aptX, looking at that Sony.net page. Did you mean SBC?

No, I meant AAC. The XM3s do not seem to negotiate AAC over BT on OSX. They fall back to SBC and obviously sound bad. AAC would be a step up, but AptX HD or LDAC would be ideal. They work fine in my case on both iPhone and Android. So as I was saying I'm tempted to move back to Linux for my work laptop for LDAC over BT support as well as other reasons of course.

They shouldn't be connecting with SBC. Mine connect with AptX by default on macOS.

You can also force them to connect with AptX by following this guide: https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/31/mac-how-to-force-aptx-aac-on-...

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

#284

Post by numpad0 » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

sidpatil wrote: post #153

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…

> 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…

X240 also had it. I swapped mine out with X250 parts(some pliers work required). E440 as well, probably all of 3-digit 40 series.

I think the idea is as Lenovo not being IBM, they had to have ﾐ田 key and trackpad to get Windows license, while Apple is also praised of their huge clickpads, so the decision to integrate TrackPoint buttons and trackpad into single clickpad made sense on paper, except implementation sucked.

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

#285

Post by puranjay » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

I moved to a Thinkpad from Macbook. Honestly, I love the form factor, the keyboard, and the all black finish.

But the screen is still below par - 400 nits max brightness is too low. And the trackpad is substantially worse than Macbook's.

I'll still keep it because it offers something that Macbook doesn't anymore: reliability

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

#286

Post by zdragnar » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #281

1123581321 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The radio must be faulty. You should have it looked at or replaced by Apple. They are best in class or at least better than mid-ranged laptops, if you’re only comparing to specialty PC hardware.

Or an aftermarket sticker is interfering with the wifi antenna?

I definitely do not put any stickers on my laptops, and especially not ones that are not owned by me (i.e. company issued, which are the only macs I will use).

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

#287

Post by zdragnar » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #236

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…

The radio must be faulty. You should have it looked at or replaced by Apple. They are best in class or at least better than mid-ranged laptops, if you’re only comparing to specialty PC hardware.

I have used a few, and the other most recent one- a MacBook air- had the exact same issue. I wouldn't call anything I use specialty hardware, though both the go spectre and surface book 2 were, at the very least, on the high end of midrange. The Dell xps I honestly don't have much good at all to say about.

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

#288

Post by se32point1 » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

robertoandred wrote: post #280

se32point1 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... In all fairness, I use a trackball, where I can scroll in any axis. Zooming, of course, can be done with a keyboard. I'm not even sure what 3D touch is.

What trackballs offer free scrolling? And something done with a keyboard is by definition something not done with a mouse. And 3D touch is something that's very convenient.

I don't know if you answered my question: what is 3D Touch? Sure, it might be convenient, but it's hard for me to imagine without knowing what it is.

> What trackballs offer free scrolling? My trackball (Marble Trackball from Logitech) offers it, with a little configuration. Effectively, you're holding down a button and using the ball as a scroll wheel, letting you move left and right. I can imagine that any trackball (since by nature they have the "ball") with some configuration could be used for free scrolling (at least, well, on Linux).

> And something done with a keyboard is by definition something not done with a mouse. We scroll on a mouse. We can also scroll on a keyboard (with arrow keys). So they are interchangeable sometimes. I know Windows also has a feature to emulate the mouse with arrow keys. So this isn't inherently true, unless I'm misunderstanding.

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

#289

Post by zdragnar » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

jimbob21 wrote: post #233

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…

Can I get some laptop recommendations with similar specs (and most importantly battery time) as the MBP from you? I've been looking around for a new one.

I had a dell xps 13, and was not at all impressed. It ran arch alright, at least.

I had a surface book 2 which was actually really nice, but broke down within 2 years, and best buy couldnt get parts to repair it anymore and just refunded the money (laptops are one of tge few things I will always pay for an extended warranty).

Currently, i use an hp spectre x360- a windows partition for gaming, and pop_os for everything else. I was very unimpressed trying to get a few different linux distros to run well on it, though i was trying some strange combinations. Pop_os just works. Literally no tweaking needed whatsoever.

Lenovo's 6th gen carbon x1 got rave reviews, but there was a lot of mixed messaging about newer models and arch, so I never really bothered when i was last looking.

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

#290

Post by organsnyder » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #226

systemvoltage wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I've had Mac wifi adapters that didn't like certain access points in the past (a specific Ubiquiti AP firmware revision circa 2014 comes to mind). Not sure that's still an issue nowadays, but you might want to make sure your AP firmware is up to date.