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

Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#61

Post by abhixec »

bubblebeard wrote: post #7

I’ve used MacBooks since 2008, still do since the company I work for refused to supply PC laptops running anything but Windows. They can be great if you have a large wallet and simply want a computer that will integrate easily with your iPhone or any other Apple products. I use an iPhone myself because I’ve had bad experiences with Android devices, but every few years I try a new Android phone anyway. Apple does not…

But the sad thing is most manufactures are following apple and soldering the components so repair ability is questionable whichever way we look.

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#62

Post by ofalkaed »

fxtentacle wrote: post #54
abhixec wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry i should have made it clearer in my post, I have been using archlinux and xmonad for more than 10 years but i do reevaluate the choices i make/made. While the power settings has gotten a lot better over the course i was wondering if there is any laptop+os that gives close to macbook battery life.

The issue in most cases is that hardware that also runs windows will only support S5 Sleep so that Windows 11 can download fresh advertisements while your laptop is “sleeping”. In some cases, you can patch the DSDT tables in the firmware to reenable S3. But also many recent laptops will just not fully support deep sleep. And that means the MacBooks are superior on the hardware level and there isn’t really anything th…

>The issue in most cases is that hardware that also runs windows will only support S5 Sleep so that Windows 11 can download fresh advertisements while your laptop is “sleeping”.

That explains some things. When I got my new laptop I played with Windows for awhile before installing linux, was surprised by how much the battery drained when unplugged and supposedly asleep. Was also surprised by how poor battery life in general was with Windows. Linux solved both issues, guess I got a laptop which properly supports deep sleep?

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#63

Post by abhixec »

gonzalohm wrote: post #46

I'm not seeing any fairly priced MacBooks in the Apple store. Are you referring to second hand laptops?

Macbook Air is 999$ 16G RAM and 256Gb. I think if you look at the competition you would be right about the same territory but with better battery, perf of M silicon chip. For that price I think it is really hard to beat Apple. But once you go on the upgrade from base config that is when it begins to stop making sense and look elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#64

Post by abhixec »

v5v3 wrote: post #11

You should always have more than one machine (incase one breaks or is lost), so you can have both a Mac and a Linux laptop and switch between them. I mostly use a Mac, but also use android and Linux devices. It helps me remain vendor neutral as I ensure all applications I use work across all of them.

Haha sadly I am a all in or nothing kind of a person. I have a Thinkpad X1E and Macbook pro m2. If I decide Linux then I will go complete anti-Apple denounce my Apple devices and same for if I chose for Apple :P. Maybe that is where I am having trouble :P

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#65

Post by abhixec »

RandomBacon wrote: post #41

Do you want to fiddle with Linux? If not, then maybe try a different distro, like Ubuntu. If you want something that just works, Ubuntu on either a Dell XPS or Thinkpad is your best bet. If you want something with nice hardware, I would suggest a Dell XPS. The Dell XPS designs are not perfect, but Ubuntu just works on it aside from maybe the fingerprint reader which I never bothered with.

I was using Ubuntu shortly, certainly a great experience contrary to the hate I see for it in some Linux communities. I do not like snap(probably gotten better in the last 6 months since I used Ubuntu).

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#66

Post by abhixec »

herbst wrote: post #2

Apple has zero to horrible support. There is no community. It's tech is a black box, it may is working 98% of the time but when it isn't you are fully on your own and have no actual way to do anything. Not to mention that it looks and feels old, which most people likely don't care as it's still more modern than windows ever was since 95. You will constantly pay the differences. In the 1 year or so I worked with a Mac…

If you you can single command in Linux, what prevented you to do the same on Macos? brew install and you should have been able to run the command in macos too.

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#67

Post by bigyabai »

al_borland wrote: post #32

One thing to keep in mind is that to move to macOS you need to be willing to do things the Apple way. The people I’ve seen have a lot of trouble with macOS, and Apple’s ecosystem in general, is they are used to doing something one way and they stubbornly want to keep doing in that way on the Mac. This leads to a lot of pain. If you’re this kind of person, you’re going to have a bad time. If you’re open to change and…

Oftentimes Apple outright doesn't solve the problem you care about, or actively neglects solutions. Package management, GPU APIs, driver support and window management are a few of the more common sticking points.

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#68

Post by gofastercloud »

My wife has an old-ish Lenovo T14s which I’m debating stealing to play with Linux on. Last time I ran Linux as a desktop OS was Gentoo on a Sony Vaio about 15 years ago and, while the experience was good, the weekends spent building software from source were not!!!

I’ve been a Mac user for about 10 years now, but been doing Unix/Linux sysadmin since the late 90s. Hopefully I can pick it up again! What are people using for a distro nowadays? Any recommendations that work well with Thinkpads?

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#69

Post by herbst »

abhixec wrote: post #66
herbst wrote: post #2

Apple has zero to horrible support. There is no community. It's tech is a black box, it may is working 98% of the time but when it isn't you are fully on your own and have no actual way to do anything. Not to mention that it looks and feels old, which most people likely don't care as it's still more modern than windows ever was since 95. You will constantly pay the differences. In the 1 year or so I worked with a Mac…

If you you can single command in Linux, what prevented you to do the same on Macos? brew install and you should have been able to run the command in macos too.

That's a weird assumption. I am not talking about cd and grep I am talking about one of the thousands of tools available in any Linux repo.

It's more likely to get it run on WSL than assuming it would just work on a Mac.

Re: Ask HN: Is Linux for laptop worth the trouble?

#70

Post by arkoinad »

gofastercloud wrote: post #68

My wife has an old-ish Lenovo T14s which I’m debating stealing to play with Linux on. Last time I ran Linux as a desktop OS was Gentoo on a Sony Vaio about 15 years ago and, while the experience was good, the weekends spent building software from source were not!!! I’ve been a Mac user for about 10 years now, but been doing Unix/Linux sysadmin since the late 90s. Hopefully I can pick it up again! What are people usin…

Ubuntu is great option if you dont like to fiddle but if you are feeling adventurous then arch is great. I think people have misconception anout arch and rolling distro to mean that the you will always have things breaking and you need to keep reinstalling or fiddling. I have been on arch for more than 10 years now and i have never had any issues. I would say i had a pretty rock solid os. Only times i had to reinstall was user issue when i did something stupid and wanted a fresh start. Void is also a great option if you are anti systemd :P
Post reply on HN