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

From OS X to Ubuntu

nicolas.perriault.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 403 posts

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#121

Post by nextos »

peller wrote: post #81
SkyMarshal wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, just get a laptop with any of Intel's wifi chips and you're almost guaranteed Linux won't have a problem with it.

Yep. Atheros chipsets also tend to be quite reliable. Broadcom used to be bit of a red flag, dunno if they've gotten better. https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers

Some Atheros are not only reliable but ubercool. They support a gazillion options, including promiscuous mode, power saving, higher power transmission, etc.

In fact, Alfa Atheros antennas are the preferred option of those doing pentesting. Besides, I have great experiences with some models connecting to super low SNR networks where Broadcom would never ever connect.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#122

Post by pier25 »

zzzcpan wrote: post #46
SloppyStone wrote: post #18

If only Linux had decent image editors... I would have made the jump years ago, but Gimp and Inkscape ain't just cutting it.

The workflow on Linux is very different, you just have to get used to it, but it's ok if not better in some ways. I mean instead of designing websites in raster with a bit of vector, like people do in Photoshop, you would have to do it in vector with a bit of raster, because the raster editor there being Gimp and all is quite limited and slow, but the vector one (Inkscape) is very powerful. So, for people coming from…

I've been using vector software since Corel Draw 4 and quite frankly I don't understand how people can design layouts in Photoshop. I've done it, but it's really a pita compared to working with any vector graphics software.

No wonder so many people are moving to Sketch.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#123

Post by nextos »

throwaway729 wrote: post #34
sk1pper wrote: post #31

IMO if money isn't an object, OS X is a better call when it comes to laptops. If money is tight, going for a Linux box is almost as good. Linux on desktops - as in, not a laptop - has worked pretty much flawlessly for me for >10 years. Not much else to say there. If desktop or server, this shouldn't be a discussion. As far as laptops go, I've just had better experiences with macbooks. Linux on a laptop is still 100%…

Wireless hasn't been a problem (for me) for at least the past 3 years. The really dramatic improvements happened prior before 2010, and things have only gotten better since then. Bluetooth is still a damned mess. That, and battery life, and GPUs "just working", are the big differentiators IME. Of course YMMV.

With some powertop tweaks battery life can be as good as in OS X. I do in fact get a bit more juice from Arch than from OS X in my MBA.

My setup is a very minimal on Arch, so the comparison is slightly unfair but it shows my point. OS X doesn't do any special magic. Linux can achieve equally low power consumptions with decent drivers and correct setup.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#124

Post by mnm1 »

The problem is/was never Linux. For me, it's always been X. At some point, it just stops working. I've had to reinstall from scratch so many times over the last 20 years that I've lost count. Tried again these last couple of months. Nope. The longest X has stayed stable has been almost 6 months, about 5 years ago. Same as 20 and 10 years ago. This time it was only a few weeks. After that, I'm lucky if I get a text login prompt at all. Maybe Wayland will be better but I'm not holding my breath based on what I've read so far.

On top of X's display issues, it has input issues, especially with trackpads. This should be self explanatory to anyone who's run Linux on an Macbook Pro and likely with any other trackpad. I think many of the issues can be fixed with many days spent on tweaking the drivers, but some of the issues don't seem to have a fix that the drivers support (proper double tap detection that only registers a double tap if my fingers are close together--should part of accidental touch detection--for example).

I really want it to work but X is simply insufferable in its current form. I shouldn't have to reinstall the OS multiple times just to test it out or debug X when it fails to load (it's just easier to reinstall). Ironically, everything else works perfectly for me, including all necessary software, wifi, nvidia gfx, etc.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#125

Post by terrywang »

mnm1 wrote: post #124

The problem is/was never Linux. For me, it's always been X. At some point, it just stops working. I've had to reinstall from scratch so many times over the last 20 years that I've lost count. Tried again these last couple of months. Nope. The longest X has stayed stable has been almost 6 months, about 5 years ago. Same as 20 and 10 years ago. This time it was only a few weeks. After that, I'm lucky if I get a text lo…

X is really old and should be phased out. That's why Fedora has made Wayland the default display manager in latest Fedora 25.

I have never had the problem you've described, most issue I've encountered (my VGA/GPU were all Intel/NVIDIA) can be fixed (using pseudo console, SSH, chroot etc...) without reinstall (which doesn't really fix the root cause). The issues you've mentioned, try to look for workarounds from distro wiki or stackoverflow (sister sites), or even Gentoo/Arch Docs, try to get mentor who's a Linux veteran will save you time and effort.

I've been running rolling release for many years and it has never broken once after the sysV init -> systemd migration (I did a reinstall). Even Ubuntu / Kubuntu LTS versions have been stable, I wonder if it the VGA/GPU driver causing all the troubles.

HTH

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#126

Post by enraged_camel »

falcolas wrote: post #105
ekianjo wrote: post #11

> So, is Linux ready for the desktop? > For me, the answer is yes. Honestly it's been ready for years on the desktop (of course, this does not apply if you are an expert user in Y software only available on Z platform and need to use it for your job/company, etc...). Ubuntu 16.04 did not bring anything significant on the table, it's just that most people have not noticed. I switched full Linux back in 2009~2010 and I…

Opinion follows: I don't think so. My three day old vanilla Ubuntu desktop install completely froze up on me the other day. I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary - browsing Reddit with Firefox. It was a mostly default Ubuntu install (nvidia and broadcom drivers) and otherwise completely up to date. I was frustrated enough I haven't bothered to troubleshoot it yet, but my best guess is somehow I ran it out of th…

Is it a brand new machine?

My PC, which runs Windows, does the same thing. I've determined that it's actually an issue with the power supply. It has nothing to do with the operating system.

I guess what I'm saying is, do some troubleshooting first before you blame it on Ubuntu.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#127

Post by noobermin »

sk1pper wrote: post #31

IMO if money isn't an object, OS X is a better call when it comes to laptops. If money is tight, going for a Linux box is almost as good. Linux on desktops - as in, not a laptop - has worked pretty much flawlessly for me for >10 years. Not much else to say there. If desktop or server, this shouldn't be a discussion. As far as laptops go, I've just had better experiences with macbooks. Linux on a laptop is still 100%…

I have two laptops, the 2015 macbook and a yoga 13 with linux on it. The yoga 13 was refurbished and has hardware issues and freezes from time to time[0] on both linux and windows(hence why I bought the macbook)...but the wireless on the macbook drops so frequently I've stopped using the macbook and use the glitchy hardware laptop. The laptop is heavier, a few years older, and uglier (missing screws at this point), but is a more pleasant usage experience over that macbook any day.

Ready for the kicker? When running Linux on the macbook, the wireless doesn't drop, but the macbook does not have a linux keyboard driver so I can't use it outside my house.

Sample of one, etc.

[0] It crashes every few days while running continuously, to give a sense of time. The macbook's wireless drops at least once every hour or so. Hence why the laptop is better for me than the macbook.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#129

Post by noobermin »

viraptor wrote: post #37
sk1pper wrote: post #31

IMO if money isn't an object, OS X is a better call when it comes to laptops. If money is tight, going for a Linux box is almost as good. Linux on desktops - as in, not a laptop - has worked pretty much flawlessly for me for >10 years. Not much else to say there. If desktop or server, this shouldn't be a discussion. As far as laptops go, I've just had better experiences with macbooks. Linux on a laptop is still 100%…

I guess you can still find weird wireless cards, but in practice, I've gone a decade or so (3 upgrades) without issues. A really minimal research will likely give you a fully compatible choice. Anecdata: I have a wifi extender at home just so a MacBook doesn't disconnect every few minutes. ThinkPad with Intel wifi and Linux didn't need it.

I commented elsewhere that in the room with my router I have frequent wireless issues with my MacBook...but not with Linux.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#130

Post by lucaspiller »

contingencies wrote: post #74
desireco42 wrote: post #33

Most important part here, and what is mostly stopping me from jumping ship is photography. Darktable is probably fantastic software, however there is number of great plugins for Lightroom that I would miss dearly.

You can virtualize or dual-boot if your photography workflow is anything like mine (mostly huge, batch-oriented). You can even use eg. VMWare unity mode to right-click to open in Lightroom in a virtualized windows or OSX instance. Performance won't be perfect but it's definitely good enough. Less so for video editing. Personally the bigger irritation has been printer drivers. I have a Canon Pixma Pro 1 which has no d…

Wasn't unity mode been removed from Linux hosts? Or did they add it back?

http://planetvm.net/blog/?p=2936

Post reply on HN