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Moving from Macbook to Linux

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Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#271

Post by FireBeyond »

rektide wrote: post #146
anderspitman wrote: post #12

I got into Linux when I was younger because I thought it was cool, and I had plenty of time to fix it when things broke. It's been my daily driver for ~10 years now. But there's quite a bit too learn. If I were to try and switch from Windows or Mac today I'm not sure I'd succeed before giving up. But I'm grateful every day to have a machine that I have some semblance of control over. I use a rolling release distro. I…

> I got into Linux when I was younger because I thought it was cool, and I had plenty of time to fix it when things broke. > What I'm trying to communicate is, Linux desktop is usable, and it's worth pushing over the hump. Huge fan of all of the above. I do think though that now desktops are less inherently compelling than they used to be. They used to represent a center of activity, a locus of control for the user.…

Very true. For me, I still spend most of my time on a desktop (well a Mac Pro, so 'workstation'), but I acknowledge my use case is different from many. I have access to both cloud and DC resources, but for sheer immediacy (and not shuffling lots of data around, is hard for me to beat local (building build and test infrastructure for managed OpenStack installs).

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#272

Post by cpursley »

busterarm wrote: post #245
hacknat wrote: post #154

I would strongly recommend the following combination for beginners: Thinkpad + Fedora Fedora stays on the cutting edge of the kernel, which means that driver support is quite good. Additionally, most of the Linux kernel developers use Thinkpads, so the drivers for Thinkpad are always good. I've never had to download drivers individually. Here's a list of things that just "worked" without me having to do anything: 1.…

Not just any thinkpad! Stick to the X, T & to some extent P series. Avoid nvidia graphics if you can. Arch Linux (and to some extent OpenBSD) probably has the best support/documentation/fixes for any ACPI/APM management issues you have. I have a top-end 2017 MBP and I just recently bought a brand new 7th Gen X1 Carbon for very cheaply (like $800) and it _screams_ in comparison to the Mac.

Thanks for bringing this up. Can folk's recommend specific thinkpads that play well with linux? I'm specifically interested in Ryzen versions.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#273

Post by taylodl »

I do more with my Mac than just develop software. I also do photography, videography, and make music. For me Macs are hands-down the best for all of these activities. I had considered switching to Linux as my 2012 MBP is getting long in the tooth and I figured the Apple silicon Macs were going to be a disaster. Well I was wrong about that!

I had looked at Ubuntu Studio, but honestly, everything feels like a giant work-around. Moreover I have to re-learn my workflows and learn new tooling. I want to spend more time doing my hobby than futzing around with a computer to do my hobby.

I've got my eye on the MBA with 16Gb RAM and 512Gb storage. For $1499 I think it will do me fine. With any luck I'll get another 8-10 years out of it.

This is all to say - surprise, surprise - YMMV. Choose what works best for you.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#274

Post by cutemonster »

swalsh wrote: post #205
gorgoiler wrote: post #99

This is going to sound dumb or elitist but I am so much happier working since I ditched portable computing. I have a desk at home in an office. I have the same setup at work. I don’t carry my dev environment with me. When I need to work I go to the ’do work stuff’ place. Nice keyboard. Nice mouse. And a nice OS that, yes, took a whole day to configure but over which I have total control. (Full-screen focus-mode no-or…

That's easy to say in 2020 when mobility in general is non-existent. But if you travel even somewhat often, it's nice to have the ability to carry the environment with you. I used to take the train to work every day. I was never more productive then I was in that time on the train.

> I was never more productive then I was in that time on the train.

How long were the train trips

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#275

Post by monksy »

gonehome wrote: post #102
radlad wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly believe that the argument for switching to Linux has never been stronger. Windows has embedded bloatware, and Apple allows no control over your hardware. There's really no other option if you care about these things. (Full disclosure - I do own a Macbook for photography work, and use Bootcamp for gaming.) Like you, my Linux installs have been incredibly stable for a long time, even with a rolling release dist…

Linux on a desktop is okay, linux on a laptop is bad. I think Linux is cool and grew up playing with different distributions (starting around Fedora Core 4). I spent most of my time on Ubuntu because it worked the best, but also used Yellow Dog Linux (my first laptop was a 12in Apple power pc powerbook g4), Arch, and some others. Things that often gave me issues: - Suspend rarely worked without hacks, even with hacks…

I've been using linux on laptops for the last 16 years. It hasn't been that bad for me.

I've been using:

1. Dells

2. HP Elite books

3. Clevos (Branded by sager)

4. Asus Zenbooks

About 16 years ago, the suspend and hibernate was a bit of work to get right. Now it just works right out of the gate. Sometimes it doesn't.. but that's the same for Windows and Macs.

--

"Normal apps"

There is no Netflix app for linux. Flash is mostly gone away, firefox and chrome fixed that 9 years ago at least. Spotify works.

---

Monitor support, most of the X problems are resolved. Intel graphics support is great.

Nvidia Optimus is still a dumpster fire.

---

WIFI- what cards are you using? the intel cards work without an issue.

--

Sound

Yea I don't know what is the deal with alsa vs pulse etc. But most of the time they work out of the gate.. I've had minor issues mostly. Bluetooth audio is annoying. Haven't had complete stopages issues in a very long time.

---

Anti-aliasing/font-support- this is more of your desktop environment than anything. KDE tends to correct those issues.

------

macOS often times has issues with their own software and makes it difficult to troubleshoot when things go wrong.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#276

Post by busterarm »

cpursley wrote: post #272
busterarm wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just any thinkpad! Stick to the X, T & to some extent P series. Avoid nvidia graphics if you can. Arch Linux (and to some extent OpenBSD) probably has the best support/documentation/fixes for any ACPI/APM management issues you have. I have a top-end 2017 MBP and I just recently bought a brand new 7th Gen X1 Carbon for very cheaply (like $800) and it _screams_ in comparison to the Mac.

Thanks for bringing this up. Can folk's recommend specific thinkpads that play well with linux? I'm specifically interested in Ryzen versions.

The T14s might work, but IIRC most of the Ryzen models are in the E series and hardware support there is spotty.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#277

Post by gegtik »

I just installed popos on my 13" macbook pro (late 2013), the only issue I had was that wifi was disabled; I bluetooth-tethered to my android phone, and found in the pop-store the required broadcom drivers that needed installation to enable wifi.

since then it's worked well, I'd say the main issue I have is scaling, and I haven't been able to tune the two-finger scrolling to be "maclike", it moves too fast and coarse.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#278

Post by pkaye »

busterarm wrote: post #245
hacknat wrote: post #154

I would strongly recommend the following combination for beginners: Thinkpad + Fedora Fedora stays on the cutting edge of the kernel, which means that driver support is quite good. Additionally, most of the Linux kernel developers use Thinkpads, so the drivers for Thinkpad are always good. I've never had to download drivers individually. Here's a list of things that just "worked" without me having to do anything: 1.…

Not just any thinkpad! Stick to the X, T & to some extent P series. Avoid nvidia graphics if you can. Arch Linux (and to some extent OpenBSD) probably has the best support/documentation/fixes for any ACPI/APM management issues you have. I have a top-end 2017 MBP and I just recently bought a brand new 7th Gen X1 Carbon for very cheaply (like $800) and it _screams_ in comparison to the Mac.

So X1 Carbon works well with Linux?

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#279

Post by wayne »

busterarm wrote: post #245
hacknat wrote: post #154

I would strongly recommend the following combination for beginners: Thinkpad + Fedora Fedora stays on the cutting edge of the kernel, which means that driver support is quite good. Additionally, most of the Linux kernel developers use Thinkpads, so the drivers for Thinkpad are always good. I've never had to download drivers individually. Here's a list of things that just "worked" without me having to do anything: 1.…

Not just any thinkpad! Stick to the X, T & to some extent P series. Avoid nvidia graphics if you can. Arch Linux (and to some extent OpenBSD) probably has the best support/documentation/fixes for any ACPI/APM management issues you have. I have a top-end 2017 MBP and I just recently bought a brand new 7th Gen X1 Carbon for very cheaply (like $800) and it _screams_ in comparison to the Mac.

I setup a Thinkpad X-series with OpenBSD a few months ago and the hardware support was stellar. I researched ahead of time (lots of googling and reading HN and Reddit threads) and it seemed like the OpenBSD devs were using a handful of Thinkpad models so those worked perfectly. I've mostly used it to surf the web (Firefox) and code (Vim).

No one would say it's as seamless as using a Macbook, but being able to tinker with and customize everything has been half the fun.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#280

Post by monksy »

gonehome wrote: post #177
radlad wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent here - I used to say this too, but I am running Arch Linux on a laptop (ThinkPad T470p), and it's actually working great for me. I agree this used to be the case. - Suspend works perfectly fine for me, including hibernating (incl. disk encryption) after a predetermined amount of time, and invoking a screenlock on wait. - Spotify and 1Password X work perfectly fine for me. I have not tried Netflix any time rece…

These are good points (thanks) - and it's always good to hear that things are better than I thought. Consistent UI is nice and recent M1 chip + good battery life I think is also a bonus of vertical integration. It sounds like linux is becoming more of an option though for people that don't care about those things. From your description it sounds like baseline functionality mostly works (particularly on a desktop). Th…

ARM support for a linux laptop is already there. Pinebook sells a laptop with it as the main processor.
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