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

#341

Post by turbinerneiter » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

Klonoar wrote: post #326

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.

No matter who reports breakage ever, on whichever machine, on whichever OS - this is always the answer.

"If it doesn't work for you, you are doing something weird."

It's both true and false - it's true, I've progressively gone more vanilla in my desktop Linux setup, because the more boring and closer to the original developers intention you run it, the less hassle and issues you have.

Its false because -everyone- is doing something weird, and nothing should break ever.

Breakage will always occur more often in the edge cases then mainstream use. Its still bad tough.

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

#342

Post by bitwize » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:37 AM UTC

spacemanmatt wrote: post #169

yellowapple wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, all of these things would be great reasons to use Windows, and I agree that these are nice (though I'd hardly call "seamless GPU switching" unique to Windows; my Linux laptops can do that perfectly fine with FOSS drivers). The problem is that the Microsoft-sanctioned Windows desktop experience seems to be actively hostile to user experience due to all the extra shit that Microsoft has tacked onto the "goodness"…

I've had Windows installs (in a VM) go sideways because Cortana started listening DURING THE INSTALL and I was on a conference call. Everything is wrong with that.

Microsoft has disabled Cortana during the Windows 10 install process for recent versions -- albeit not for this reason. Rather, it was due to IT personnel doing multiple installs for corporate deployments only to be faced with a room full of chattering Cortanas.

EDIT: It's more likely due to Microsoft decoupling Cortana from the OS and making it available as an app download. Since Cortana is not a selling point of Windows 10 itself it makes no sense to have it during the install.

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

#343

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:37 AM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #64

preommr wrote: post #39

What a topsy-turvy article. Mail is fine if you use browser-based solutions. Nobody is talking about only sending plaintext emails? Wtf? Why are they running so much stuff on wine? Why are they upgrading their kernel every few weeks? How does anyone think nautilus is good? How does anyone think that Gimp/inkscape are better than affinity designer? These are the things they find useful about linux? There's so much mor…

> Why are they upgrading their kernel every few weeks? This makes sense if you install a distro like Manjaro or Arch. Not something I'd ever recommend to someone who's taking Linux for a first spin. I don't think I've had any troubles doing regular kernel upgrades, though, the problems mostly laid in proprietary drivers, specifically Nvidia's. > How does anyone think nautilus is good? I have no problems with Nautilus…

Fedora also does kernel updates within a stable release, and some proprietary hardware works best with it while being mildly broken on Debian-derived distros so I might even recommend it to some first-time users.

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

#344

Post by herbst » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:38 AM UTC

addicted wrote: post #280

one2three4 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinks were a little better with previous ubuntu TBH. After upgrading to latest LTS I got the screen issues on top of everything else. Think twice before upgrading your distro.

Ubuntu has been going down the drain for a long time. The problem is that they successfully (and for good reason) became the de facto Desktop Linux for users who wanted a desktop and not mess with it much. They’ve cornered that market to the point there are very few alternatives (at least very few that will come preinstalled and supported) but because they want to IPO I guess, they’ve stopped focusing on the desktop…

The irony is by becoming the “it just works“ monster ubuntu tries to be right now it brought issues that no other major linux faces.

For me (using linux for 15+ years as desktop) ubuntu tends to break after only a few months. Usually complex dependencies like steam, wine or video editing stuff break first. I rarely manage to get out of a update without some dependencies breaking...

Fedora, Manjaro, Debian, ... nothing like that. Just a major stable operating system

Edit:// to clearify. I do like and use ubuntu server because its simple and well supported. I just think its mediocre as desktop OS and would recommend anyone to check Manjaro or Fedora

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

#345

Post by Hamuko » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

nmlt wrote: post #298

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The feature I miss most on Linux is hitting space to get a preview of any file.

Nautilus has sushi. It's not as good as Preview in MacOS but at least works similarily.

You mean Quick Look? Preview is the image viewer / PDF reader.

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

#346

Post by pschastain » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

I'm still bitter over the changes made to Preview.app post-Mavericks. Apple has hobbled some of their built-in apps for no apparent reason.

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

#347

Post by apareis » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:40 AM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #155

As an power user (dev), I would never consider switching away from Kubuntu for any other OS.

That I find interesting. Been trying KDE flavour more recently and the only distro that would work for me is openSUSE (Tumbleweed) KDE. Everything was pretty much perfect. I've tried KDE Neon and Kubuntu, both didn't have the correct dark icons for LibreOffice (as an example). As a developer about to switch companies, I'm now faced with a forced switch to Linux or if I want I could also stay on Apple (M1). I'm really inclined to say goodbye to Apple, as I have suffered too many uncomfortable changes over the most recent 12 years or so. I feel home in KDE, tried Gnome which I find too hard.

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

#348

Post by minimaul » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:45 AM UTC

the_local_host wrote: post #334

minimaul wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, TearFree does murder performance and lead to some horrible screen lag at times, and as an extra bonus AccelMethod sna is still crashy years after being introduced :( edit: there's also the modesetting driver + a reasonable compositor, but this can come with it's own set of bugs and issues in my experience.

I've been interested in recording music using free software on Linux. The exchange above is similar to the cycle I've been in... encountering problems, finding magical incantations that fix things in some ways but often involve some sort of tradeoff, and making gradual progress toward being as productive as I am using Apple's Logic. But I've been doing this three steps forward, two steps back routine for like three y…

It's exactly why I have mac laptops for work and personal use, although I also have a full time linux desktop (and also a windows one for gaming. still no real alternative there!).

I'm an easily frustrated person and I end up with enough pain points on linux for both work and personal use that I've never managed to make the switch full time.

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

#349

Post by dschuetz » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:49 AM UTC

I've heard that a lot: "If you complain about Linux then you installed it on the wrong computer, and you're using it wrong." Basically it's your fault when Linux doesn't work. Doesn't matter if 1 of 2000 packages or libraries has a system breaking bug. It's your fault if you "updated too soon", or "did not update yet". It's even your fault when bug reporting doesn't work the way the distribution maintainers designed it, because when the window manager throws errors randomly and you try to report it, the bug reporting crashes too. Because of "you must have done something wrong" and "why would you want to do that, use the website!".

I use Linux because it gives me good if crude tools, not because it makes me happy to use them.

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

#350

Post by dmm » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

gknoy wrote: post #290

beckman466 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your frustrations, yet your problem is with proprietary software and proprietary drivers. I’m sure there’s a way for you to go back to using the old drivers if you’re set on using the latest capabilities of your hardware (without it being FOSS). You don’t have to be the guinea pig, let others do it if it’s not your thing (many programmers do seem to enjoy it, and see it as a challenge).

That sounds a little like telling someone that their problems are that their cows are not spherical. For graphics drivers specifically, having tochoose between FOSS and something that works is very frustrating.

The FOSS amd and intel drivers work great and have for years.