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I Miss BSD/Linux

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Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#181

Post by jwells89 »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #175
wormius wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a laptop user so I alas never consider these things in my needs, but I imagine "Year of the Desktop" will be followed up with "Year of the Laptop"

For me the "Year of the Laptop" happened ages ago. Everything from old clunkers to a relatively modern HP Elitebook 840 G6... install Fedora, done. I think the fingerprint reader might be tough, and Bluetooth on Linux is truly a sad state of affairs. But everything else works out of the box, and that includes suspend/resume and other power management, the special keys, Wifi and so on. WebGL just works, no need to twe…

For whatever it’s worth, newer Intel wifi/bluetooth chipsets (e.g. AX200 or AX210) have consistently worked very well for me under Linux. If your EliteBook has a socketed wifi/BT card, it might be worth buying an Intel card (they’re dirt cheap) and installing it.

My issue with battery life isn’t getting it to match what it is under Windows, but that x86 ultraportables tend to have disappointing battery life under either OS. Linux doesn’t make it worse but doesn’t fix it either.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#182

Post by MarkusWandel »

jwells89 wrote: post #181
MarkusWandel wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the "Year of the Laptop" happened ages ago. Everything from old clunkers to a relatively modern HP Elitebook 840 G6... install Fedora, done. I think the fingerprint reader might be tough, and Bluetooth on Linux is truly a sad state of affairs. But everything else works out of the box, and that includes suspend/resume and other power management, the special keys, Wifi and so on. WebGL just works, no need to twe…

For whatever it’s worth, newer Intel wifi/bluetooth chipsets (e.g. AX200 or AX210) have consistently worked very well for me under Linux. If your EliteBook has a socketed wifi/BT card, it might be worth buying an Intel card (they’re dirt cheap) and installing it. My issue with battery life isn’t getting it to match what it is under Windows, but that x86 ultraportables tend to have disappointing battery life under eit…

The existing (M.2) wifi/bluetooth module works just fine. My issue with bluetooth on Linux is that it's never been able to pass this testcase: Use a bluetooth headset as an audio I/O device. Repeatedly over disconnects/reconnects. For the past few years, it works when you first configure it - beautifully, you can choose your codec and so on - but soon stops doing so even if unpaired and re-paired. Maybe "the year of bluetooth" on Linux has arrived and I've just not tried lately.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#183

Post by wormius »

vunderba wrote: post #166
entropicdrifter wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as Ableton goes, have you tried Reaper? Reaper has a native Linux version and generally works quite well IMO. One of the better DAWs and certainly one of the cheapest to purchase a license for.

Unless Reaper has drastically changed since the last time I used it, it's not even in the same ballpark as Ableton. Ableton strength is using it as a pattern based nonlinear editor and live production. I can't even imagine doing something like that in reaper. To me reaper is more like a superior version of audacity than a competitor to things like Logic Pro, FL Studio, etc.

What's funny is that I personally am not an Ableton fan, so this applies more for my friends than me. I know Bitwig exists, and just looking now it seems to support Linux. It's not the same exactly but uses the same "pattern"/loop based mode that Ableton is built around.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#184

Post by wormius »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #142
wormius wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've got friends who are open to the idea (even though they still think the driver situation is the same as 20 years ago - I won't promise there aren't problems, but I think overall it's much better than it used to be). The main complaint is: I need my Adobe. I need my Ableton. I need my Office. Some people actually need the official Office products, but I think for most users it's not necessary, though they ge…

As far as Ableton goes, have you tried Reaper? Reaper has a native Linux version and generally works quite well IMO. One of the better DAWs and certainly one of the cheapest to purchase a license for.

I actually paid for a license, because I think Justin Frankel/Cockos is great for Reaper and supporting Linux. Even though I barely use it (I ended up not doing much music production) - maybe someday I'll get back into it.

I did check (based on the comment above about Ableton not being the same as Reaper in terms of how it's used) - and see that Bitwig (which is more like Ableton) does support Linux (not sure how well, but it looks like it's officially supported). But people who have Ableton specific plugins may not be able to use it, IDK.

I do feel like Reaper was more for "live recording" sessions as opposed to Midi sequencing and electronic production, but that was just based on my small experience. I'm sure it's good for both, just a different work flow.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#185

Post by awful »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #182
jwells89 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever it’s worth, newer Intel wifi/bluetooth chipsets (e.g. AX200 or AX210) have consistently worked very well for me under Linux. If your EliteBook has a socketed wifi/BT card, it might be worth buying an Intel card (they’re dirt cheap) and installing it. My issue with battery life isn’t getting it to match what it is under Windows, but that x86 ultraportables tend to have disappointing battery life under eit…

The existing (M.2) wifi/bluetooth module works just fine. My issue with bluetooth on Linux is that it's never been able to pass this testcase: Use a bluetooth headset as an audio I/O device. Repeatedly over disconnects/reconnects. For the past few years, it works when you first configure it - beautifully, you can choose your codec and so on - but soon stops doing so even if unpaired and re-paired. Maybe "the year of…

I'm with you there; simply so bad experience w/BT. And, it often worked at first OS install but then degraded through kernel, BlueZ, and interface updates until it was unusable. Until recently, when it has been solid enough through most? Fedora 39 and now into 40, though I've found at times the config gets confused, forcing me to delete and re-add the device, sometimes manually, forcibly. But still, been solid enough for my daily use mouse and HD-Aptx audio (among others, all while crossing my fingers as 40 ages).

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#187

Post by seized »

hulitu wrote: post #126
Ferret7446 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence the existence of Chrome OS.

> Hence the existence of Chrome OS. Which is useless besides browsing the internet.

ChromeOS can do quite a bit. Crostini is a built in take on Distrobox/Toolbox that gives you a Debian container to install anything. Newer versions can run multiple containers and do GUI pass through. ChromeOS can also run Android apps (although some apps don't do this well). And you get a hyper efficient immutable base OS. Five years ago I could get 10+ hours on battery without trying, on airplane WiFi for example.

Yes it's not perfect. But it is a lot more than it was when it was released. I only replaced it with Fedora Kinoite when the outdated Chrome browser version started getting in my way.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#188

Post by musicale »

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.

It's remarkable that Apple has maintained such a commanding lead for so long. The 2020 M1 MacBook Air raised the bar for performance and battery life in a fanless laptop, and the rest of the industry is largely still catching up.

The situation will likely continue until the availability of ARM-based ThinkPads, etc.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#189

Post by bozey07 »

tracker1 wrote: post #114
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.

Get a Framework AMD laptop and install PopOS... tada, Mac aesthetics (mostly) under Linux with good hardware upgradability.

I own a Framework :)

The build quality is pretty good - particularly given I can tear it apart. The speakers are okay. The webcam and microphone are poor. The battery life is acceptable, but I trust that's at least in part Linux' fault. The fans ramp up more often than I'd like... it's certainly good for a Windows laptop, and I like the ethos, but it's not at all MacBook territory.

For context, the last MacBook I owned was a 2017 model, the one with the awful keyboard. Ironic, I know.

Re: I Miss BSD/Linux

#190

Post by sedatk »

atahanacar wrote: post #29
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.

Might be an ISP issue then.
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