Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Miss BSD/Linux

brainbaking.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 251 posts

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#91

Post by throwaway1105q »

sumuyuda wrote: post #75
Philpax wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple Silicon MacBooks are very, very good. They're efficient, fast, well-built, have great peripherals, don't power themselves back on when you close the lid, and are generally the best laptops I have ever used. The worst part of them is macOS, and I hope that either Asahi Linux can get all of the hardware working correctly or the other laptop manufacturers can get their act together. Unfortunately, I suspect th…

There’s still no USB-A support, so the dongle book was never truly fixed.

I haven't used USB-A single time since 2018... My USB-C display has it on its hub, but who cares...

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#92

Post by dxuh »

mattpallissard wrote: post #88
int_19h wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware support can be a problem as well. There are many combinations that "just work" - definitely more so than 20 or even 10 years ago - but you still need to be careful with network cards, for example. And graphics is still kind of a mess, enough so that all major browsers are still either using whitelists to enable hardware acceleration on supported hardware (like Firefox), or straight up disable it by default o…

> reduced by 30% on Linux with default settings With the default settings being the key there. I had the exact same laptop and was able to get idle power down under 3W. But to your point, that's a fair amount of friction for someone that understands all the moving points. It's insurmountable for the average user.

Would you mind sharing some of the settings you changed there?

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#93

Post by a-dub »

thinkpads are still a pretty good bet for linux- although battery life is still lacking compared to aarch64 machines. the upcoming snapdragon elite t14s looks pretty promising on all fronts!

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#94

Post by jwells89 »

mattpallissard wrote: post #88
int_19h wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware support can be a problem as well. There are many combinations that "just work" - definitely more so than 20 or even 10 years ago - but you still need to be careful with network cards, for example. And graphics is still kind of a mess, enough so that all major browsers are still either using whitelists to enable hardware acceleration on supported hardware (like Firefox), or straight up disable it by default o…

> reduced by 30% on Linux with default settings With the default settings being the key there. I had the exact same laptop and was able to get idle power down under 3W. But to your point, that's a fair amount of friction for someone that understands all the moving points. It's insurmountable for the average user.

Power/battery tuning differing between manufacturers, models, and even specific SKUs within models is perhaps the greatest hurdle to be overcome. It makes baking those settings into distros by default impractical and means there isn’t an easy string of commands that anybody can run to improve battery life on their Linux laptop.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#95

Post by anthk »

dmz73 wrote: post #71
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Debian: something I can trust, that gets out of my way, and changes slowly. Wholeheartedly agree. Debian has won the distro wars in my opinion. Their massive effort in safety and not breaking things means I can use stable as a "it just works" tool and focus on my actual work/fun.

Unfortunately, Debian is like Linux on desktop, always 80% there. You just cannot trust that plain Debian will get it right, even if it works that one time you install it. Two most recent issues that made me change to something else: 1) VLC in Debian is modified so it cannot play RTSP streams so you cannot watch video from your security camera. Windows VLC wroks. Flatpak VLC works. 2) Debian kernel update in point re…

Debian and Devuan and OFC by proxy GNUinos has backports. Probably a newer VLC has been backported wit the bundled compile flags.

If not, run apt-get build dep vlc, apt-src the package, make the changes and debuild it.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#96

Post by vundercind »

bitsandboots wrote: post #85
srazzaque wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At home, I no longer dual-boot because I vm. Curious, do you have a Windows host and Linux guest(s)? Or the other way around? I currently have Linux as my primary with a Windows guest OS for when I need it (e.g. Office - I actually think Excel is great - or if I'm doing any Win32/C++ dev). But, I'm thinking of doing it the other way around on my next PC.

Windows host, because I play VR games and GPU passthrough would be inconvenient. I just fullscreen the linux VM and it feels native for all the non-3D tasks I do with it. Even media viewing is a breeze.

My experience has been that Linux is significantly more stable under a VM on Windows or Mac than directly on all but the most conservative hardware. Fewer weird multimedia glitches, no needing to involve any part of the Linux wireless stack of any kind (Bluetooth especially, but also WiFi), fewer video driver issues, fewer program or windowing system crashes.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#97

Post by vundercind »

throwaway1105q wrote: post #91
sumuyuda wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s still no USB-A support, so the dongle book was never truly fixed.

I haven't used USB-A single time since 2018... My USB-C display has it on its hub, but who cares...

The vast majority of peripherals available at ordinary stores are still usb-a. If you just run into Target to grab [some peripheral] most or all options in that category will be usb-a.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#98

Post by vundercind »

adamomada wrote: post #72
hnarn wrote: post #40

The title for this blog post should be "I Miss BSD/Linux for Apple devices". Unsurprisingly, if you buy hardware from one of the most FLOSS hostile hardware manufacturers in existence, your BSD/Linux experience will not be great. > Why doesn’t a great MacBook alternative exist? I really don't understand this question. Is the author seriously suggesting that MacBooks are objectively the best laptops for any use case a…

Have a search in this very thread for “laptop manufacturers just don’t care”. To me Apple seems to be the last one to give a shit So, why doesn’t a great MacBook alternative exist? It’s a valid question.

Everyone seems to prefer to slot into some different niche in the market and leave Apple to have the “actually kinda decent laptops, sort-of” segment all to themselves with no actual competition.

We need a lot of trust-busting in general, but including among computer vendors.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#99

Post by throwaway1105q »

vundercind wrote: post #97
throwaway1105q wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used USB-A single time since 2018... My USB-C display has it on its hub, but who cares...

The vast majority of peripherals available at ordinary stores are still usb-a. If you just run into Target to grab [some peripheral] most or all options in that category will be usb-a.

Yeah but does anybody buy it? In my store the peripherals are covered in dust... And it's some cheap Chinese knockoff, nothing like the old high quality ones.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#100

Post by zamalek »

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…

I spent an actual month fixing the container story on MacOS where I work, as the first employee with an M1 (eventually wrote a facade for colima). Over the following 6 months I kept a tracker of time lost to MacOS nonsense in an effort to convince my employer to allow us to use Linux. I have objective data showing that MacOS wastes huge amounts of time.

MacOS is an objectively incompetent development OS, if you only count what is possible with what Apple provides. Even if you do consider 3rd party (brew, nixpkgs, colima) it remains a complete fucking mess. Even Windows supports native [Windows] containers. Linux containers in WSL were flawless last I used them (a few years back). And this isn't a critique of colima, that it is a tireless and thankless project that does what it can to pave over the utter incompetence of Apple. I have since been allowed to use Linux, as the sole person trusted to self-serve IT. I see people in Slack struggling with something new in MacOS weekly.

Post reply on HN