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System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

blog.system76.com

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Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're using PassMark instead of Geekbench. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Apple-M1-8-Core-3200-MH... Apple M1 - CPU Mark: 14,872 / Single thread: 3,630 AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U - CPU Mark: 20,659 / Single thread: 3,237 The AMD is 38.9% faster on the multi-core benchmark, and 10.8% slower on the single-core benchmark.

OK, so is PassMark more accurate than Geekbench? (And, still, that's with M1 having 4 cores tied behind its back for better battery life).

Neither bench reflects real world performance. Run cinebench, 7zip, h265 encode, blender render, etc.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#312
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note the latest AMD 5850U chip is... Can you buy one today other than the HP EliteBook 845 G8, which starts over $2300? Because you can buy M1 laptops yesterday for less than half that and I can't find any other 5800U series laptops for sale.

If you're looking for a cheaper model, the HP ProBook x360 435 G8 is available with either a 5800U or PRO 5850U starting at ~$1000: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-probook-x360-435-g8-not... (performance should be the same but the PRO models include some extra security features: https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/pro-security ) Lenovo has a number of 5000U models coming out (including various Thinkpads), but if…

Apart from CPU these laptops look and feel decade old. Why those companies don't even try?

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#313

I wish they had a laptop with a latest and top AMD, 14" 4K IPS matte panel, programmers friendly keyboard (pg up/down home end on dedicated keys at least), expandable RAM and nvme drive, silent fans and metal chassis and a Linux support. Less important physical camera and wi-fi cut off switch. If there was an ARM chip with comparable performance to M1 I would consider it too if it was running Linux. After watching th…

> pg up/down home end on dedicated keys at least

You know, I thought that that would bother me on a keyboard. However, it turned out that having PgUp/PgDn/Home/End on Fn+arrow keys, after getting used to it, is a speed improvement (at least for me). I don't have to move my hand as much. In fact, I liked so much that I have Alt+Left/Right arrow mapped as Home/End in AHK (on normal keyboards).

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TDP rating != wattage consumed. In an ideal world it would, but it has long since stopped meaning that generally. This includes the M1, which will happily exceed 15W of power consumption, and the 5850U almost certainly does as well since AMD's previous generation CPU in that class happily exceeded 15W. You'll have to wait for a proper review that does power measurements to get a sense for how they actually compare on…

I agree, it'd be fairer to compare wattage at peak load. Notebookcheck indicates 40W for AMD and 30W for M1, so I guess the perf/watt is closer between the 2 chips.

One could perhaps conclude from those stats though that if it were limited to 30w (i.e. same as M1), that it would still edge out on performance.

My only question is what it's idle power consumption is like.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Pop OS I just stuck with gnome-terminal, it was plenty good if not quite as slick as iterm2.

Try installing tilix and 'Oh-my-zsh'. I did that to my desktop and couldn't be any happier.

Or if you are up for something new, try fish, which has a nice out of the box experience and so many nice features. Like 'alt + h' for manpage of the command you are working on, or 'alt + s' to toggle sudo. Multi-line editing is a bliss too. The only thing I dearly miss is cmd <<< "string".

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#317
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTerm2 is a beauty, is there a closest equivalent on Linux? There seem to be 25 popular choices especially now with the GPU-accelerated ones. Tried a few of the classics like Termite and they all seemed painfully outdated and crappy compared to iTerm.

I don’t get the love for iTerm2. I tried it before and see nothing appealing for me over the built in Terminap.app. And it seems to be slower too. On Linux, I just use whatever ship with the distro Gnome Terminal, Konsole... and they work fine.

On iTerm2 my windows are full-screen, black background, zero border or window decorations. I cycle between windows with cmd-` it switches instantly from one full-screen terminal to the next. It's what to me a console should be.

Every terminal app I've tried on Windows or Linux insists on having a goddamn window border. I don't want even a single pixel of border.

And yes, this is enough to make me a die-hard iTerm2 user.

(users care about little things more than developers sometimes realize)

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#318
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTerm2 is a beauty, is there a closest equivalent on Linux? There seem to be 25 popular choices especially now with the GPU-accelerated ones. Tried a few of the classics like Termite and they all seemed painfully outdated and crappy compared to iTerm.

I don’t get the love for iTerm2. I tried it before and see nothing appealing for me over the built in Terminap.app. And it seems to be slower too. On Linux, I just use whatever ship with the distro Gnome Terminal, Konsole... and they work fine.

Most terminal emulators are missing support for splits; moving from iTerm2 was painful for me. Been using terminator and kitty, but I still miss iTerm2 5 years later.

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#319
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're looking for a cheaper model, the HP ProBook x360 435 G8 is available with either a 5800U or PRO 5850U starting at ~$1000: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-probook-x360-435-g8-not... (performance should be the same but the PRO models include some extra security features: https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/pro-security ) Lenovo has a number of 5000U models coming out (including various Thinkpads), but if…

Apart from CPU these laptops look and feel decade old. Why those companies don't even try?

What do you mean?

Re: System76 Developing “Cosmic” Desktop Environment

#320
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The concept of Evince is one document, one window"

Cite a usability experiment showing that sharing user interface paradigms between applications on the same system helps usability. :-)

"The concept of Evince is one document, one window"
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