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Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

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Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#351

Post by doubled112 »

cycomanic wrote: post #218
spadros wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all my years I have yet to see HDMI output from a laptop to a monitor work on the first try in Ubuntu. Always need to install the proprietary drivers for that to work at all. If it can't even do that without a headache, after 10+ years of Linux use, I would call that a Linux problem, not a hardware problem. My colleagues seem to run into the same issue frequently as well. This article seems kind of ignorant. I'm g…

What Laptop is this? I never had an issue with the external outputs on any laptop I owned (and I've been running Linux since the 90s). I also don't know anyone who had these issues. The main issues I had were typically docking stations and suspend (but that has been super stable for my last 3 laptops).

This was a long time ago, but I had an HP Envy 14-1000. It had an Intel iGPU with a separate AMD card.

It was a muxed setup. The screen was switched back and forth between GPUs and one would power off as needed (assuming everything went well). The HDMI port was only connected to the discrete GPU. T here was no way to get video out on the Intel card. By default, Linux would power on both, but use the Intel.

This was well before any AMD cooperation, and I had the laptop much longer than the FGLRX setup was supported. The open source Intel driver and simply turning off the AMD card was eventually the only way I could get it to run.

Even in Windows it was a strange setup. You had to manually switch, and when you did the screen would turn black, you'd wait a few seconds, and now you were on the other GPU.

I'm sure the situation is better these days, but after that experience I just stick to integrated.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#353

Post by bayindirh »

a-dub wrote: post #245
Loic wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the past 20 years I have been only using Thinkpad from the T and the X series. The only one with an issue was I think the X220 with the SD card reader not being stable. All the other ones are working perfectly well. My current one is a T480. But I always take some time to look if somebody succeed in installing Linux on the laptop I want to buy before. If it means I need to wait an extra 6 months, then I wait a bi…

same. it's been rock solid on thinkpads because thinkpads are some of the strongest pc laptops and as such have been popular (and well supported by) oss developers.

HP Elitebooks and Thinkpads are designed and built with Linux in mind. I never came across an HP Elitebook or Thinkpad which failed to run Linux out of the box.

Dell XPS is the latest addition to this group.

Consumer laptops come with a lot of trickery analogous to WinModems of the era, which require Windows specifically. Hence these cost saving measurements create a lot of problems.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#354

Post by the8472 »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #287
uluyol wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch is a rolling release distro. So it gets hardware support faster than other distros that stick to older kernels and userspace. Most users are not on rolling releases. I personally like the rolling approach, but that doesn't reflect everyone's experience.

Ubuntu with the HWE kernel is basically rolling release for drivers, which seems like the best of both worlds.

you also want recent userspace for some components, e.g. mesa or libinput

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#355

Post by ccouzens »

stormbrew wrote: post #159
mid-kid wrote: post #70

Yeah, no. Maybe with old laptops, but newer laptops still have their fair share of issues. When I bought my thinkpad A485 kernels wouldn't boot without additional parameters, the graphics would freeze at times and cause a hardlock, sleep and hibernation have been fixed and broken again intermittently over several kernel versions, the wifi card's AP mode started causing segfaults in kernel 5.2 due to the driver's rewr…

It's not about new vs old but who makes the main parts and chipsets. Intel everything is always a really good bet, even when they're brand new, but there are other safe choices. It used to be quite hard to find new laptops with hardware combos that worked well with Linux but it's become a lot easier in recent years. Also my experience with windows has actually gotten quite a bit worse, actually, unless you use the st…

> I get stuck in a catch 22 where there's no network drivers for either the Ethernet or wifi so you wind up downloading some drivers off a sketchy site to put on a USB stick just to get started.

If you've got an Android phone and a USB cable, you should be able to USB tether to your phone's WiFi connection. This should work out the box on Linux and Windows.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#358

Post by just_boost_it »

londons_explore wrote: post #69

I have the reverse... Unless you have a thinkpad or some other popular hardware, you'll find Linux barely works at all out of the box, and even with hours of fiddling around, you'll still have to live without some features. For example, power saving features, sleep and hibernate, screen brightness controls, fingerprint readers, keyboard hotkeys and backlights, etc. rarely work. Prepare for broken external hdmi ports…

I got a Lenovo and it worked with no issues with pop os.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#359

Post by paulcarroty »

bayindirh wrote: post #353
a-dub wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same. it's been rock solid on thinkpads because thinkpads are some of the strongest pc laptops and as such have been popular (and well supported by) oss developers.

HP Elitebooks and Thinkpads are designed and built with Linux in mind. I never came across an HP Elitebook or Thinkpad which failed to run Linux out of the box. Dell XPS is the latest addition to this group. Consumer laptops come with a lot of trickery analogous to WinModems of the era, which require Windows specifically. Hence these cost saving measurements create a lot of problems.

Disagree, used to use Dell Inspiron and some cheap HPs, found nothing extraordinary.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#360

Post by autoexec »

petra wrote: post #338
autoexec wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

old IBM Thinkpads were pretty solid, but now they're made by Lenovo who has a long history of shipping devices pre-infested with malware and backdoors, usually in exchange for money. They've even been caught stuffing malware into UEFI so that users reinstalling their OS would be infected over and over again. However nice their laptops are, I could never trust them. They have already proved that they are perfectly wil…

What laptops brands do you buy? Why?

Right now I'm liking System76. Expensive, but I like that they come with linux working out of the box. They're specifically designed/tested to work well with linux so no worries about the hardware not being supported. Like many other companies they are basically selling re-branded laptops made by the Taiwanese company Clevo. I still can't audit every chip in them, but at least I don't have clear documentation of repeated abuses (so far).

System76 is looking into making their own hardware now too so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they come up with in-house.

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