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Moving from Macbook to Linux

monadical.com

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Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#421
post #387

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.

Thinkpads all have soldered ram which is a pratice I can't support, is there a model I missed that has ram slots?

[deleted]

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#422
post #253
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit of laptop is that it's ... everything. It's a replacement for desktop, for TV in living room, for TV in bedroom, for something to look up stuff in kitchen or workshop, and you can take it when you travel, use it in a hotel room or in a train or plane ... It's not perfect and perhaps not good replacement for many of those things, but it is so practical. Especially if you live in a small apartment where des…

I've been rockng a Macbook Air since 2013. I love the thing and it works fine, but I can't do video editing, which I need to do. The new Macbooks were on the horizon, but I figured I'd wait for v2 of whatever came out. So I bought a Dell gaming machine, for the GPU. First impressions from the week: * Windows is still pretty kludgy. * There are no good Gmail cients for Windows (settled on eM, but it crashes a lot, on…

The M1 Macs are impressively capable at video editing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxH3RabNWfE

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> linux on a laptop is bad. I think it at least partially depends on the hardware. > - Suspend rarely worked without hacks, even with hacks laptop would often wake and heat up to thermal shutdown in backpack. Hibernate was similarly bad. I did experience this a little bit, but it's been 2-3 years since the last time it happened. > - 'Normal' apps often didn't work or worked poorly (Netflix, flash, Spotify, 1Password)…

> > - Monitor support was typically bad and caused problems, connecting to monitor, multiple monitors, resolution issues on wake, etc.

> Only issue I had with this was one TV wouldn't take HDMI output at the same time as displaying to my laptop screen.

I just wanted to throw out some non-Linux issues I've hit in the past couple years.

I believe I had a MacbookPro 2015 and Apple's USB-C to HDMI I consistently had RGB noise patterns and it worked terribly. I switched to a third-party USB-C to DisplayPort and it worked great. I heard about similar issues online. Some talked about it being specific to hardware configuration (that series of MacbookPros) and others pointed to OS updates that triggered it.

I've had trouble with a Windows desktop and an Nvidia card with detecting which port was used to send video signal to on boot. I think it assumed the first HDMI port when I had the intention of using the DisplayPort. I think it got extra confused if the monitor was off on boot (it was trying to detect the signal?) I would often get the BIOS to show up on one output, then Windows may try and use a different one.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#424

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.…

QUESTION: As a Mac Dude: Did you ever get the Apple Magic keyboard to work? I think it was the right mouse click that never worked. (I never used a Mac) If you look for a Laptop, Dell XPS are pretty good. If you buy one used, avoid the one which has the camera at the bottom of the screen. People look right up your nose in meetings I was told.

I have that same xps and it looks weird honestly that’s one of the reason I’m trying to switch to latest xps

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#425

This stuff is always a joke. Who knows what his actual job is but any time you see these articles they immediately start with long sections of all the hacks & work needed to make the basics work. Battery Life Issues Getting a mouse to work Getting displays to work Wifi Issues Fixing keyboard mapping issues You're not supposed to have to waste your time on this stuff. It's been about 3 years since I tried to make a la…

I've been running Fedora on a Thinkpad for 10 years and I haven't had to do any of the things you just listed other than remapping CapsLock to Ctrl, but that was trivial to do. There are definitely use cases that Linux hasn't kept up on, but the mature distros cover a lot of use cases now without even needing to touch the command line. IMO, if you can't work with a mature Linux distro (not Gentoo or some other Flavor…

> if you can't work with a mature Linux distro (not Gentoo or some other Flavor-of-the-day)

Mate, Gentoo is twenty years old, has a board of trustees, a council, a non-profit foundation, and is the distro Google Chromebook ChromeOS was forked from. Through that it's quite likely the most used laptop consumer Linux in the West, especially in terms of working WiFi and such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_Linux

https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/ChromeOS

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the opposite. I get tired of sitting at my desk for 8 hours a day. I really like mixing it up during the day. I also tend to do different types of work in different places. * Coding - Desk with monitors * Meetings - Table looking out of the house * Writing - chilling out on a couch

Do you use the same machine for all that stuff though? My work is done at a desk with monitors, meetings with a tablet and stylus, and my laptop is for recreation and work when I have to travel.

Yep. I have a dock at my desk to hook up to my monitors.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#428
post #25

The fact that many people reading this post title (including me) look at it with sarcasm is telling on how apple scored big points with its new cpu. Keeping up with mac OS and the trackpad was already quite hard, but CPU could be the killing blow. Which could lead us in a few years to a situation where mac developers will face the same fate as ios developers : forced to buy hardware to sign their app, forced to push…

Freedom is less important than convenience. People will put up with all sorts of draconian control as long as they can have smoother scrolling, or a nicer feeling trackpad.

This implies that people are giving up significant control of their devices, which isn't true.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you not want people to use linux?

Linux people don't want you to "not use Linux", they want you to see that wearing a burlap sack is good for your soul , then you'll embrace it wholeheartedly on their terms. The computing world is as tribal as the USA's Red/Blue[1] arrangement, but the origins of the tribes and the polarisation of opinions are as if perfectly tuned to avoid Linux on the Desktop. The people who like Linux for its customizability and m…

I feel like Ubuntu has literally been the user friendly Linux desktop OS for ages now. I don’t really know what all else competes w/ it because in my view nothing has really toppled it since its introduction.

Pop_OS! is impressive, as is elementaryOS but Ubuntu tends to be their & many others base.

Linux distros need to think in layers in regards to users & either ramp up or ramp down the level of complexity better. This idea of one size fits all is dumb, make some difficult decisions & create an OS that caters to at least 2 or 3 different type of users & I think Linux distros could compete a lot easier.

Instead we waste our time talking of merits of one approach vs another. We can walk & chew gum at the same time, it’s not about the approach as much as just recognizing where people are at & meeting them there.

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