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Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

blog.hypergeometric.com

111–120 of 177 posts

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess would be "In your face, Apple!" being one of the reasons. The need for this attitude is beyond my comprehension.

Based on the number of apple-negative articles recently, i think apple have subconciously hurt a number of people here rather than it being an in your face attitude.

You have a point here. I'd say it is still more the perception of being hurt than being hurt for real, but as they say "The 90% of everything is attitude".

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the new Lenovo Carbon X1 - from what I've heard it pretty much ticks all of those boxes.

Anything Lenovo usually does. I've got a T61 and an X220 tablet here which everything in Ubuntu 12.04 works fine. The only problem I've had was connecting to an SSTP VPN but that was resolved easily with an ssh tunnel.

My wife's got a Lenovo laptop and upfortunately the trackpad is appalling. Not just worse than my MacBoook Pro, but worse than the bottom of the range Tesco/eMachines laptop that she had before it.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#113

> Two days ago I got my Dell XPS 13 as part of a Dell beta progam called project Sputnik. This makes it unclear if I can actually buy this thing (in Europe). >I got a special version of Ubuntu, with some kernel patches, and some patched packages for sleep and hibernation. Why isn't this in the official Ubuntu distro? I don't trust binaries from Dell.

From a comment further up:

http://hwe.ubuntu.com/uds-q/dellxps/

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#114
"I got a special version of Ubuntu, with some kernel patches, and some patched packages for sleep and hibernation."

What version of Ubuntu is this hardware specific patched one?

Are Canonical or Dell guranteeing updates? If so, for how long...

Best of luck with it.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#115
post #17

1. What's the battery life like? 2. Are all devices supported with drivers - Bluetooth, 3D, graphics, sleep/wake, 802.11n, webcam, internal mike, ... 3. Does it do instant sleep/wake like a Mac - 100s of times without crashing/rebooting? 4. How does it handle external displays? Plug and play like a Mac? Does it handle display rotate? The internal display is only 1366x768 ? 5. Does it detect a headphone and switch fro…

[deleted]

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#116

Sophos tell me that this site is blocked because of Troj/Unif-B. Did it happen to anyone else ?

Sophos had a false positive bug today: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/09/19/sshupdater-b-fsop...

had the Troj/Unif-B warning too! seems to be an other warning then the false positive one!

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#117
post #86

Ironically the biggest reason for me to stick with OS X is Microsoft Office. If you are working with other organizations, they will use Office. Excel seems to run the world and is used for accounting, specifications, I've even seen customers give us mockups they have made of the website they want in Excel. The various tools on Linux or the web for reading Word docs have come a long way and I'd say are mostly good eno…

If I need Windows, I use a virtual machine. Works very well, and I usually don't need to stay in Windows-land for a long time. YMMV, of course.

The problem with this for me was that I used Windows so seldom that when I started it, it would spend a long time installing all the updates accumulated since the last time.

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#118

I go to a coffee shop often and among other things, I notice people's machines and how they interact with them. Two observations: 1. People with non-Mac machines always plug their laptop into AC power before starting work (unless it's a netbook). My previous Windows laptop had battery life of about 2 hours while my Macbook Pro has about 5 hours. 2. People with non-Mac machines have to be very careful where they sit,…

This is pretty crappy generalization. Much more accurate would be to say "people with shitty laptops" or even better "people with laptops that have short battery life or glare screens". I have a non-Mac and I don't have to do either of the two things you listed. That's because I put great care into selecting my machine and because I don't like paying out the ass for Apple's overpriced laptops, although I know a lot o…

[deleted]

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#119
post #108
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Linux on a VM, running under OSX. OSX is ... finicky ... with dev tools. Apple does the compilers, and the bolt-on distributions (brew, Macports, fink) seem to have trouble keeping things compatible. Linux distributions don't end up falling behing their own compilers every time the compiler gets updated. I'd rather stay off the bleeding edge compilers, and have everything just work. There is the "Apple tax", bu…

> OSX is ... finicky ... with dev tools. Apple does the compilers, and the bolt-on distributions (brew, Macports, fink) seem to have trouble keeping things compatible. Linux distributions don't end up falling behing their own compilers every time the compiler gets updated. Seem to? From first hand experience, while MacPorts shows its age and cruft, homebrew just rocks. I just recently upgraded a SL+XCode 4.2 machine…

I've heard brew is great, but I haven't tried it (as my system is currently working OK).

But the reality is, no matter how good brew is, apt-get on a stable Linux distro is just going to be better. Unless you want OpenGL ;)

Linux can be fun when you want media. I told my brother to try Dwarf Fortress. He then proceeded to screw around for half an hour, installing OpenGL drivers (to display a text-based game, WTF?) and an audio library (to run the solo guitar track). It took something like the page-breaking apt-get here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=113626.0)

Re: Thanks Mr. Jobs, But it Seems I Can Use a Linux Laptop Now

#120
post #94
post #17

1. What's the battery life like? 2. Are all devices supported with drivers - Bluetooth, 3D, graphics, sleep/wake, 802.11n, webcam, internal mike, ... 3. Does it do instant sleep/wake like a Mac - 100s of times without crashing/rebooting? 4. How does it handle external displays? Plug and play like a Mac? Does it handle display rotate? The internal display is only 1366x768 ? 5. Does it detect a headphone and switch fro…

You missed one, critical: - does it handle GPU switching (Optimus&al) without piles of hacks?

I think everyone knows the answer to that question, and it is: not yet. Future support has been announced but it's not there yet.
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