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A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

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Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#171

Post by ryandrake »

vbezhenar wrote: post #114
Raydovsky wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the XPS were built to run ubuntu. You can even buy one with it pre-installed.

I have Thinkpad which is supposedly built to run ubuntu as well and even certified for RHEL and Ubuntu. It doesn't work so good, though. It works, but there are rough edges around sleeping, external displays, power management. I feel that it has nothing to do with manufacturer, though, just not good enough Linux support for laptops.

> It works, but there are rough edges around sleeping, external displays, power management.

Windows has these rough edges, too, though. It's actually pretty shocking that here in 2024, PC manufacturers and OS vendors are still struggling with basics like sleep/wakeup. Last job I had with Windows laptops, everyone would walk around the office from meeting to meeting with their laptops propped open because nobody could be sure that their OS would actually wake up when they opened the lid. And when you closed it and went home for the day, would standby actually work or would it be on fire and out of battery the next morning? Somehow, only Apple has seemed to be able to solve this Herculean problem.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#172

Post by jbstack »

INTPenis wrote: post #77
jbstack wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the advantage of the Surface is that it's one of the only tablets out there which is (a) reasonably priced for what you get, (b) has a x64 processor, and (c) can have Linux installed on it without too much difficulty. So if you want a Linux tablet, the Surface may end up being one of your only viable options.

How about the new Lenovo Tab? It's very reasonably priced, but I have no experience with it. All I can see right now is that it has a battery bump that people might object to. My goals with any device is to be as slim and as vanilla Android as possible, which means Samsung can go to hell. A friend said he liked the OnePlus tablet.

Not sure which Lenovo Tab you mean specifically, but I just had a glance at a few now and none of them were x64. If we're talking about ARM tablets, there are an abundance of those. It's Linux-capable x64 tablets which are rarer.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#173

Post by Dalewyn »

gosub100 wrote: post #144
jasonjayr wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last few years; Microsoft started pushing this "Modern standby"[1] thing, which lets the CPU run while suspended or something. IIRC it is so a PC can run background services, wifi and what not, like tablets + cell phones. It is causing so many issues, because the common use case for a laptop is to close the lid, and then stuff it into a padded bag. If anything starts up the laptop for whatever reason, all that…

I really hope this doesn't become a contributing factor in a future plane crash from an onboard fire in the baggage compartment. I could see someone throwing their laptop in a suitcase with a bunch of clothes and having that heat building up into a thermal runaway. It's asinine to me that there isn't a hardware thermal sensor that just shuts off power if the heat is too high. In addition to the tragedy of an accident…

>I could see someone throwing their laptop in a suitcase with a bunch of clothes and having that heat building up into a thermal runaway.

There's this thing called Shut Down. Use it sometimes.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#174

Post by burnte »

utf_8x wrote: post #24

Disables Swap and Zram, gets OOM killed, surprised pikachu face Joking aside, is there an actual legitimate reason to do this on a workstation? I understand why you would want to disable swap on something like a kubernetes cluster node but in my head, heaving at-least zram enabled is a good thing on a workstation so you *don't* get OOM killed... I call on thee, Linux wizards of HN, to help me understand the reasoning…

> Disables Swap and Zram, gets OOM killed, surprised pikachu face

On a machine with FOUR GIGABYTES OF RAM at that.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#175

Post by andrewaylett »

speed_spread wrote: post #85
andrewaylett wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where else are you going to put your anonymous pages when you don't want them for a while? Lots of the stuff you're using is backed by disk anyway -- and will be removed from RAM when there's any memory pressure, whether or not you have any swap. If you've got swap then the system can put anonymous pages in it, otherwise it'll need to evict named files more frequently. Unless you have enough RAM that you're liter…

The whole concept of "virtual memory" has tainted systems design for decades. Treating RAM as a cache relies on the OS making guesses about what will be needed and what can be passivated without it actually knowing the application requirements. Except that compared to CPU level caching, the cost of page faults is big enough that performance degradation is not linear and breaks the user experience. The idea that a 4GB…

Most of the time, you want to use RAM as a cache for the disk. I was trying to make the argument that sometimes that disk cache is more valuable than an under-used anonymous mapping.

Steve has responded to your comment about Rust; to your other comments:

Modern applications do a lot more than old ones. Even if you only use 20% of the features, you probably use a different 20% from any arbitrary other person. You also probably benefit from the OS being able to map everything into virtual memory but only actually load the bits you use :).

And I strongly disagree with your stance on being "serious". I'm sure you don't mean to gate-keep, but we need to teach people where they are rather than giving them hoops to jump through.

In my experience, some of the best software engineers have very little development background. And I say that as someone who implemented 64-bit integer support for the compiler and RTL for a DSP part back in the day. It's useful to have people around with a variety of backgrounds, it's not necessary for everyone to share any particular experience.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#176

Post by szundi »

ryandrake wrote: post #171
vbezhenar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Thinkpad which is supposedly built to run ubuntu as well and even certified for RHEL and Ubuntu. It doesn't work so good, though. It works, but there are rough edges around sleeping, external displays, power management. I feel that it has nothing to do with manufacturer, though, just not good enough Linux support for laptops.

> It works, but there are rough edges around sleeping, external displays, power management. Windows has these rough edges, too, though. It's actually pretty shocking that here in 2024, PC manufacturers and OS vendors are still struggling with basics like sleep/wakeup. Last job I had with Windows laptops, everyone would walk around the office from meeting to meeting with their laptops propped open because nobody could…

If you have an issue with windows, it’s abnormal - while with linux is pretty expected on several fronts

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#177

Post by cevn »

sbrother wrote: post #156
martzy13 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://system76.com/laptops

Are they built better now? I've bought a lot of stuff from them in the past and while their support is great and their pre-built desktops are fantastic, their laptops were just rebranded Clevo trash.

They are not. I have one and the trackpad sucks, and it has a USB C port which charges the laptop EXCEPT when it is fully dead..

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#178

Post by cevn »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #167
martzy13 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://system76.com/laptops

Don't waste your time. 1920x1080p @60hz in 2024...

I have the Pangolin which is 144hz, but good luck hitting that on the AMD 780m. Also the touchpad and charging sucks.

Other than that I have had some good gaming experiences but the drawbacks are too much for me to recommend.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#179

Post by tracker1 »

sbrother wrote: post #156
martzy13 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://system76.com/laptops

Are they built better now? I've bought a lot of stuff from them in the past and while their support is great and their pre-built desktops are fantastic, their laptops were just rebranded Clevo trash.

I really wish that System76 would offer a Framework based option... would definitely pay a bit of a premium for Pop OS support on Framework hardware. Those two companies are just screaming for a teamup IMO.

Re: A Review of Linux on Surface Pro 4

#180

Post by ericjmorey »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #157
sbrother wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they built better now? I've bought a lot of stuff from them in the past and while their support is great and their pre-built desktops are fantastic, their laptops were just rebranded Clevo trash.

No, still Clevo. Although the CEO said they are currently designing a custom laptop chassis in house. Probably still a minimum 2 years away, but at least they are working on it.

They don't exclusively use Clevo and they're now leveraging their business relationships to have designs guided by System76 priorities.

There's been no updates on the Virgo project for about a year. I hope they're able to get it to market, but it seems a ways off.

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