Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop • Hacker News Board

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#321

Post by tumblewit » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

As someone who is comfortable with linux and macOS and also someone who used an M1 MBA here is my take because this article does not do justice to each of the platform pros and cons:

1. The M1 Macs are amazing. If you are the kind of person who needs a GUI and involves lot of app related work go for it. (this person seems more interested in stuff like that so linux ain’t gonna cut it for him). The cons? A super restrictive platform (even more than it was under intel) and a very pricey hardware affair where getting anything fixed is hard. My speaker was faulty after my 2016 mbp already had a broken display thanks to apple. I hope new MBPs do a much better job at hardware after the keyboards that seem to be fixed now.

2. Linux can do everything almost that Windows / macOS can. But not necessarily better. In GUI it’s still a mess but wayland actually fixed tearing so I’m not sure what is the deal here. Overall I think you need to spend time with linux to become comfortable vs expecting a distro to solve all your requirements. If you really want the fine control go with Arch it’s usually good for cutting edge hardware.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#322

Post by lytefm » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:17 AM UTC

salamandersauce wrote: post #40

Eh. I've ended up with the opposite conclusion, at least for my purposes. Running Word is neat, but having to spend half a day figuring out what Apple did to C++ headers after an Xcode update so R will compile packages again is not fun. Unfortunately I can't really install Linux on the damn thing because of the hardware. Also mailspring is a pretty good Linux email client with conversation view...

I agree. The author makes it clear that using "business" tools like MSOffice and writing a lot of nicely formatted emails is important to him. Wouldn't have switched to Linux if that was the case for me. I'm writing I'm also on a 2018 Xps with Ubuntu 20.04 and everything just works.

To me, the clear advantage is how installing all kind of obscure R/Python packages is usually a smooth experience, whereas a working Mac version frequently doesn't even exist or requires struggling with obscure errors, especially after MacOs upgrades (e.g. https://mobile.twitter.com/mcmc_stan/status/1186923309662953...)

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#323

Post by eertami » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

arcturus17 wrote: post #296

carlesfe wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is built specifically around the irony of that contradiction

I can't tell what the contradiction is. I am a Mac user but I largely use the Google suite web apps, which I guess is the polar opposite of being a "power user". What's contradictory however about someone using Mail or Calendar and being a power user? Is there a world of productivity apps that are much better designed than those? Or is anything below "I do everything in emacs" not a power user? Saludos.

The Google web suite apps work quite well, in contrast to the Calendar app which I've never managed to get working.

I think the argument is more "How can a power user survive with something so flagrantly non-functional?"

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#324

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

xgbi wrote: post #116

ornornor wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t apt (for instance) work the same way? Or docker images without a tag? I’d you don’t specify a version in each case then you get the latest available. I’d you want a specific version pinned then you should specify it. I think I don’t see your point, works as intended. If you enforced mandatory version specification every time, you’d have to know exactly which version is which package for anything you install:…

It's not really how apt works but rather how Debian works: you use apt with a specific release repository of Debian (stretch, buster or whatever ISO you installed). Debian is really strict about its releases and won't push a breaking change in a specific version of the OS. For instance, `apt install htop` will only ever install the 2.X version of htop in Buster. Including security patches and all, but you won't get a…

> For instance, `apt install htop` will only ever install the 2.X version of htop in Buster. Including security patches and all, but you won't get a 3.0.0 version without going sideways and add a specific repository for that. Debian will ship with htop version 3 in the next release, but you'll have to upgrade the entire distro for that.

Debian has an official backports repository if you want that behavior. It just gives you the freedom to choose.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#325

Post by input_sh » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:19 AM UTC

phendrenad2 wrote: post #164

throwanem wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple Saturdays ago, I spent thirty minutes setting up WSL2 on a Windows 10 machine. Immediately afterward, I called Apple and spent a thousand dollars on an M1 Mac mini for same-day pickup. I've been running Linux devenvs on Windows, in Virtualbox, for something well over a decade now. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the vaunted WSL2 is literally just that, plus preinstalled OS images that save maybe a…

> Windows 10 is just a dumpster fire in every respect Well it works great for me. What issues are you experiencing?

No way I can list them all, but here's my top five:

1. Start menu is awfully designed, really slow, and doesn't even return exact matches sometimes. Seriously, it shouldn't take that long to launch something.

2. Lack of tabs in file explorer forces me to have like three-to-five windows open, making alt+tab navigation annoying.

3. It's like each app does its own thing with notifications. It does have a decent notification system, it just happens that nobody really uses it.

4. Lack of proper package management makes every app run their own update checker in the background. I easily have 10-15 items in my tray, and have to chase down something essential like Bluetooth across them. And half the time at least one of them doesn't have an icon!

5. Updates. Booted into Windows after about a month, it restarted twice + gave me multiple notifications that it's gonna restart again outside active hours. I only need to use it for like an hour or so.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#326

Post by Klonoar » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:20 AM UTC

eertami wrote: post #317

I disagree. The hardware and build quality of the XPS13 is notably better than my MBP, except for better CPU performance which I do not notice at all in daily usage (I know all ultrabook keyboards are terrible but the MBP is an a whole other level of awful.) Linux on the XPS has surprised me. I hadn't used desktop Linux for ~6 years, but I remember lots of tinkering to get what I wanted. Now... If I had to describe i…

You have to be doing something out there if text rendering in Terminal of all things breaks after an update.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#327

Post by dvdkon » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

aniforprez wrote: post #179

ActorNightly wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ther than messing around or spending days playing around with my setup or window manager. I don't get why this narravitve still exists today. Linux works out of the box on many distros perfectly fine. Keybindings are a very special use case, and if you need that customizability and its better on a Mac, then get a Mac. Doesn't mean that Macs are "more productive" If you want to argue actual semantics in terms of valu…

Ubuntu literally does not have an easy way to configure what happens when you close a laptop. I want it to hibernate instead of sleep. Someone else didn't want it to go to sleep at all. None of the settings options allow this. While Googling it for a friend the only result was running a few commands and changing some stuff in some config file. You cannot possibly expect a business analyst who hasn't even opened the t…

So, does "Just Work" now include easily accessible noob-proof configuration of the things you want? In that case, macOS doesn't Just Work for me, because I want to be able to see what apps are playing sound or recording and manually set them to different sinks/sources, maybe even have sound playing from multiple devices at the same time. On Linux with PulseAudio and pavucontrol, this is effortlessly configurable with an intuitive GUI. I'm not even sure this is possible on macOS.

My point is, unless we agree on roughly what features are required, "Just Works" is a useless subjective specifier. We all have different priorities, so we either have to accept that there's no universal way to evaluate OSs or agree on some subset that really should Just Work.

By the way, KDE Plasma has pretty comprehensive GUI settings on power-related settings. I think having GNOME 3 and Ubuntu be the de-facto standard Linux experience is actually harming the perception of desktop Linux. People switch expecting a customizable, power-user friendly experience and get a DE that's trying to be the opposite.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#328

Post by minimaul » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

tumblewit wrote: post #321

As someone who is comfortable with linux and macOS and also someone who used an M1 MBA here is my take because this article does not do justice to each of the platform pros and cons: 1. The M1 Macs are amazing. If you are the kind of person who needs a GUI and involves lot of app related work go for it. (this person seems more interested in stuff like that so linux ain’t gonna cut it for him). The cons? A super restr…

for 1. The cons? A super restrictive platform (even more than it was under intel) You can still boot arbitrary unsigned OSes - Apple still allows this, but it is obviously going to take time for other OSes to grow support for apple's custom hardware. So it's still a computer you can control if you want.

for 2., wayland is still a very rough experience imo (I periodically try it on an all-intel system, which ought to be a good target as everything is OSS supported, etc). Lot of apps still don't have native wayland backends (although this is improving!) and it seems generally less stable than boring old X11 for me.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#329

Post by c7DJTLrn » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

eertami wrote: post #317

I disagree. The hardware and build quality of the XPS13 is notably better than my MBP, except for better CPU performance which I do not notice at all in daily usage (I know all ultrabook keyboards are terrible but the MBP is an a whole other level of awful.) Linux on the XPS has surprised me. I hadn't used desktop Linux for ~6 years, but I remember lots of tinkering to get what I wanted. Now... If I had to describe i…

I have an XPS 9370 and it feels rickety and poorly made. It can't be opened without holding it with both hands. The screen gets smears on it from getting in contact with the keyboard. The bezels scratch very easily. The light from the LED in the power button bleeds out from the edges. The charging brick makes a high pitched whine when being used.

I use a MacBook 2015 for work and that feels much nicer and has better build quality. I don't plan on buying another XPS.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#330

Post by peferron » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

konart wrote: post #270

peferron wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tiling wms like i3 target a very narrow user base. Unless you are a sysadmin or just work only with terminal they are pretty useless. If you only use the terminal, you don't need a tiling WM because tmux and others offer similar functionality out of the box. Tiling WMs are useful in the opposite scenario, when you use many different apps and need a unified way to manage them all.

Valid point, I stand corrected. I just can't imagine working in an environment where you have, say, 4 apps occupying 4 parts of your screen continuously. Splitting screen in two (terminal and browser) is the common scenario for me but you don't need i3 for this.

I agree that you don't need i3 for the common scenario (IDE + terminal in my case). i3 is more about the myriad of uncommon scenarios that come up all the time.

For example, maybe I want to keep an eye on several terminal commands at the same time. With i3 I just press the terminal shortcut n times and I have n new terminal windows sharing the space. If one of the commands fails with a long error message I press another shortcut and the terminal windows are now tabbed and full height, with the IDE still visible on the side.

Or maybe I want a small browser window or Slack window in a corner to keep an eye on a meeting or discussion while I work.

Whatever uncommon layout best serves my needs right now, i3 can get it done in seconds.

You never really need a tiling WM, though. i3 just solves my problems really well, so well in fact that I actively enjoy using it. Some people feel the same way about vim, and you never really need vim either.