Yes.
Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
31–40 of 123 posts
Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#32I don't mean to be critical, but it seems like kind of the wrong question to ask. Anyone who would answer yes to this question has already answered it in practice: I have a mac, and I could well install linux on it, but I don't. I used to use thinkpads when they didn't suck, and I tried linux but always had driver and media troubles (that was a decade ago and has absolutely gotten better, but definitely not perfect).…
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Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#33I cant use a Mac laptop because it doesnt have CUDA.
Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#34What about System76? Aren't they in the exact market space/niche you're describing? https://system76.com/
I replaced my work laptop (MBP 15") with a System76 GalagoPro. I wanted the Galago for my personal machine, but stuff like the trackpad just didn't work half as well. I bought a Macbook Air for my personal machine, and will end up getting a Linux desktop for my home office.
Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#35Absolutely, yes.
I like the idea of System76, but I find the quality of the chassis they use to be abysmal. I considered installing Linux on Mac hardware, but the hoops you need to jump through to install it and the challenges with drivers on recent hardware were a turn-off.
That left me with my year-old Lenovo T440p, which I currently run Ubuntu on. It's not as nice as Macbook hardware, though. I don't care for the trackpad or the keyboard layout (though the action is great), and the backlight bleed on the screen is really disappointing. But it met my needs of a 14" laptop with a 4-core i7, 1080p display, and discrete graphics chip, and I'm completely satisfied with the performance. I'd love to see another high-end manufacturer out there.
Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#36No. But a lightweight (<1kg) passively cooled laptop with a great keyboard, an excellent e-ink screen with at least FullHD resolution, good battery life, and fully open source software and firmware would. Any arch (MIPS, ARM, SH4, whatever) is fine with me.
Recently I've read a bunch of people who want eink screens. I'm a bit confused: the refresh rate is terrible for eink. Typing text would be painful. Maybe the year 2020 will have great quality fast eink but today it'd be a pretty lousy experience.
Touch-typists don't need to look at the screen while typing.
More clock time is spent reading than typing.
E-ink is much less stressful on eyes.
Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#37I don't mean to be critical, but it seems like kind of the wrong question to ask. Anyone who would answer yes to this question has already answered it in practice: I have a mac, and I could well install linux on it, but I don't. I used to use thinkpads when they didn't suck, and I tried linux but always had driver and media troubles (that was a decade ago and has absolutely gotten better, but definitely not perfect).…
I do exclusively use Linux Mint on a Macbook Air 13'' (deleted the Mac partition) and I am extremely happy with it so far. The hardware is great and there is support for pretty much every piece of hardware on the device.
How's the battery life?
Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#38I have a MBP and an old F20 T61 beater, and both are great. Ubuntu 14 is great, too, and I sporadically run that in places but we all have our preferences and I like the EL-family of distros more.
Windows 7 is perfectly fine, too. They even seem to be rescuing 8 post-Nadella.
Really, the thing is a web browser and a shell. Anything with a physical keyboard is better than a phone or a tablet.
Either of them run VMWare or VirtualBox just fine, so I can run any OS I like, regardless. Generally I got with the MBP for that reason, because the build quality is good enough of the licensing PITA that Mac makes for virtualizing OS X.
Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#39This is the chromebook. Maybe it's not 100% there just yet, but in a couple years it might be. In any case, HTML + CSS + JS is the UI of the future, and your OS will be irrelevant by then.
Re: Would you use a Linux based computer, better or equal to a mac in quality?
#40Are you joking? Of course I would. But "better" and "amazing" are pretty ambiguous words. And, well, for that matter, I'm already using Linux laptop, not produced by Apple. There are some decent ones. Thinkpad T440s is pretty good, for instance, although I like metal cases indeed.
And one thing to remember is that one advantage of MacBooks as they come isn't the hardware itself, but that OS is well optimized for that particular hardware: if you're installing Linux on your MacBook battery lifetime becomes quite shorter. Wouldn't it be nice to optimize Linux that way? Yeah, it would, but I personally don't know how we can do that.