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I Miss BSD/Linux

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Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#21

Post by bitsandboots »

bozey07 wrote: post #5

> Why doesn’t a great MacBook alternative exist? I really don't get this either. Every laptop I've looked at has some wart somewhere - battery life, webcam, structural integrity, display, CPU, temperatures, speakers, IO, repairability (not that Macbooks are good here either). Some of these things aren't even hard to get right. It's like laptop manufacturers just don't care.

Most laptops are bad intentionally. Less effort, more profit, and replaced sooner.

But that's not to say good non-mac laptops dont exist, nor that mac laptops are the best. I currently have an m1 mbp and an asus zephyrus g14 They're the same size and weight, but

+ the macbook has longer battery life, though this varies. sometimes they are equal at 5 hours, and they both can go to 10, but it is easier for the mac.

+ the macbook has a webcam, but also a minus, because i prefer to unplug an external one when not in use, and there are really great portable external ones that have gyros to follow you around.

- the macbook's display is worse, because of apple's insistence on these terrible glossy finishes

- needlessly sharp edges. this could be user error, but if they didnt design it that way it wouldnt be.

- I/O? the thing does not have usb A ports. now I need adapters and hubs.

- no nvidia graphics card. part of the worse battery life of the g14 is controlling when that graphics card is in use, but at least it has it, so that i can do certain creative & ai workloads.

- keyboard is just worse. and that's before getting into that macos has forced the keyboard to be worse by having 'option' and 'command' keys to be an obstacle for anyone who uses every other OS that isn't macos. With enough key interception and remapping I got it to act like linux but the keys are still named wrong

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#22

Post by TheRoque »

hnlmorg wrote: post #19
sedatk wrote: post #9

(The page isn’t accessible from Turkey. I had to enable VPN to read the article) As I understand, the author’s main motive to try alternative operating systems is his frustration with mainstream operating systems, a lack of control and understanding so the speak. The fallacy of that is that instead of encountering a few significant problems with a mainstream OS, now the author has to experience a death by thousand cu…

Each year I spend close to zero hours dealing with edge case bugs and incompatibilities in Linux and BSD despite all of my personal devices running one form of FOSS OS or another. My personal laptop is ArchLinux and it definitely took longer to set up than macOS would have, but it’s been just as rock solid since. In fact, perhaps ironically, I’ve had more problems with my work MacBook Pro than I have with my personal…

Sorry, but this is still true IMO. For example no good driver is available for the GTX 1080 which will result in a buggy experience. Not even talking about software availability and functionalities. I have had other issues, but anyways I don't want to list them all.

I also find it misleading to claim that Arch Linux is "rock solid", just look at the news to see the amount of "manual intervention needed" listed. I love Linux and especially Fedora and OpenSUSE, but it still has its issue that make me sigh and say "ok... I'll just get windows".

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#23

Post by Woeps »

da_chicken wrote: post #2

This is not identical to my experience, but I definitely have the same problem with hobby computing. My lack of time and energy as I get older is frustrating, but also just the fact that I don't want all the hassle. I want a computer to do work in applications, not because I want to meticulously maintain and configure the operating system for a couple hours every week.

It's the same reason why I never buy the latest hardware but always something that came out a year-ish before.

Eventough I had issues with Windows not finding any drivers on my Lenovo. While OpenSuse had no problems at all ... which was a nice surprise for a change.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#24

Post by juliangmp »

He does make a good point: the arm laptops from apple are hard to ignore

I'm eagerly awaiting the day I can buy a high performance arm or riscv laptop and run Linux on it...

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#25

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

hnlmorg wrote: post #19
sedatk wrote: post #9

(The page isn’t accessible from Turkey. I had to enable VPN to read the article) As I understand, the author’s main motive to try alternative operating systems is his frustration with mainstream operating systems, a lack of control and understanding so the speak. The fallacy of that is that instead of encountering a few significant problems with a mainstream OS, now the author has to experience a death by thousand cu…

Each year I spend close to zero hours dealing with edge case bugs and incompatibilities in Linux and BSD despite all of my personal devices running one form of FOSS OS or another. My personal laptop is ArchLinux and it definitely took longer to set up than macOS would have, but it’s been just as rock solid since. In fact, perhaps ironically, I’ve had more problems with my work MacBook Pro than I have with my personal…

20 years brings you to 2004. You’ve either being dishonestly hyperbolic, or your experience is so slim or insanely lucky that it’s not useful as a representative account. That’s TWENTY YEARS. Not a chance in hell.

Sometimes I think that desktop Linux users get so used the background noise of system maintenance that they forget that they’re even doing it.

I say this as an ex heavy Linux desktop user. Distributions I used for a considerable period of time include both Ubuntu and Gentoo. I’ve seen the spectrum. But this is just ludicrous.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#26

Post by guenthert »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #7
bozey07 wrote: post #5

> Why doesn’t a great MacBook alternative exist? I really don't get this either. Every laptop I've looked at has some wart somewhere - battery life, webcam, structural integrity, display, CPU, temperatures, speakers, IO, repairability (not that Macbooks are good here either). Some of these things aren't even hard to get right. It's like laptop manufacturers just don't care.

macbook like touchpads is what amazed me most, Apple showed their great touchpads around 2006 with the Macbooks (not pro), and to this date no one seems to be able to clone them and deliver the same quality and smoothness.

Sure they do. The 2013 Chromebook Pixel for one.

But yes, it's hit or miss. My Dell M6800 'portable workstation' has an abysmal touchpad (really, what were they thinking?), but then, since it is way too heavy to actually reside on the lap, I use a mouse (which in any case is more precise) there. So the proper question is then, why did they bother with one at all?

Otoh, the cheap lenovo ThinkPad 11e has a surprisingly good one.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#28

Post by helpfulContrib »

sedatk wrote: post #9

(The page isn’t accessible from Turkey. I had to enable VPN to read the article) As I understand, the author’s main motive to try alternative operating systems is his frustration with mainstream operating systems, a lack of control and understanding so the speak. The fallacy of that is that instead of encountering a few significant problems with a mainstream OS, now the author has to experience a death by thousand cu…

[dead]

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#29

Post by atahanacar »

sedatk wrote: post #9

(The page isn’t accessible from Turkey. I had to enable VPN to read the article) As I understand, the author’s main motive to try alternative operating systems is his frustration with mainstream operating systems, a lack of control and understanding so the speak. The fallacy of that is that instead of encountering a few significant problems with a mainstream OS, now the author has to experience a death by thousand cu…

>The page isn’t accessible from Turkey. I had to enable VPN to read the article

I can access it just fine, no VPN, no DPI-prevention tools.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#30

Post by persnickety »

TheRoque wrote: post #22
hnlmorg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each year I spend close to zero hours dealing with edge case bugs and incompatibilities in Linux and BSD despite all of my personal devices running one form of FOSS OS or another. My personal laptop is ArchLinux and it definitely took longer to set up than macOS would have, but it’s been just as rock solid since. In fact, perhaps ironically, I’ve had more problems with my work MacBook Pro than I have with my personal…

Sorry, but this is still true IMO. For example no good driver is available for the GTX 1080 which will result in a buggy experience. Not even talking about software availability and functionalities. I have had other issues, but anyways I don't want to list them all. I also find it misleading to claim that Arch Linux is "rock solid", just look at the news to see the amount of "manual intervention needed" listed. I lov…

The nvidia situation is more of a "one big issue" than "death by a thousand cuts".
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