I know it's not Arch Linux but PopOS is a great pragmatic alternative. Everything worked out of the box on the old laptops I installed it.
From macOS to Arch Linux
201–210 of 256 posts
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#202Not Arch, but macOS to Linux related. As a developer, used macOS for 13 years. Switched to Ubuntu after Apple went to M1. It's been pretty much flawless and required no more tweaks during setup than a typical macOS install would. Developing on the same environment as our servers is a massive plus. The key is choosing the right hardware from the start. For my desktop, I chose an Asus TUF gaming motherboard that had ev…
Just curious, how’s the trackpad compared to a recent MacBook Pro? I’ve been using my Thinkpad T490 with Debian for 3 years and it’s fine. But then I tried the new MacBook Pro and that trackpad is very nice indeed. Feels a lot more precise. And the attention to smaller details and a consistent UI is nice to see too. I’ve also been kind of peeved about several small things in Linux lately. Installing apps is not simpl…
I’m pretty picky about trackpads and the XPS 13 is as good as my Late 2013 Macbook Pro, or even better. (The MacBook trackpad was only good in macOS, the windows/linux drivers were never as good)
Its large enough, no accidental registrations due to palm and the right click is actually physical (which I find better than the Macbook’s double finger right-click tap).
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks! I'll try this! I'm trying to get #boilinbaglaptop trending but will happily also use the term "Cook your Laptop" :-) Edit: I've been looking through the BIOS three times now and still can't find it :-/
S3 is actually totally gone on Tiger Lake and newer, so with a new laptop you are hosed. This is a really gross move by MS and Intel. If you want to make s0ix (which is what you'll need to now research if you're in this boat) suck somewhat less, start here [0] then follow the troubleshooting steps [1] (since it surely won't work the first time). It used to be I'd roll my eyes at the people on HN complaining about Lin…
the option for linux sleep mode exists on my thinkpad with an 11th gen intel CPU
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
True fact: proper sleep/wake on lid close is probably 40% of why I switched from Windows to Mac in about 1999 -- and that was when the Mac was on OS 9, not the BSD-based OSX. I can't imagine going to a system where it wouldn't work. That's baseline, out of the box functionality for me.
I thought this was a dealbreaker until I installed an SSD in my laptop in the mid to late 00s. When my machine is fully graphical in less than 5 seconds, I just didn't care. My browser restored tabs, my editor restored everything, my desktop restored windows. It was a complete non-issue as long as the machine could cold-boot quickly. As an upside, my machine also no longer overheated if I forgot to long press the pow…
Have also had a cooked laptop in the past (in my case it was a Mac). A few years later when using a Linux laptop I decided to disabled sleep entirely but left hibernation available instead [1]. This means that desktop environments will not show the sleep option at all, instead they will just show the hibernation option. Also I have the laptop set to automatically hibernate if it is running on battery power and the lid gets closed. Have also configured it to ignore any lid open events therefore it will only wake when the power button gets pressed. Waking from hibernation isn't quite as quick as from sleep but its not that bad and I've never had a cooked laptop again!
[1] https://www.tecmint.com/disable-suspend-and-hibernation-in-l...
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a more comprehensive package manager like apt or dnf I don't see how apt or dnf are any more comprehensive than pacman. What do you mean by that? Before Arch, I used Fedora. It used yum as its package manager. That thing managed to corrupt its own databases at least twice during normal usage. Distribution major version upgrades always caused problems. I never had problems like these after switching to Arch. > I don…
Not PP, but to me it means much less manual intervention/more hooks etc. . For instance, for debian I can just turn on automatic updates and basically never need manual intervention. For arch I am not supposed to use automatic updates and have to (!) read the news. Why? Why does arch need more manual intervention? Sure, I can do that but it just seems like a pointless waste of time.
> For instance, for debian I can just turn on automatic updates and basically never need manual intervention.
I question what sort of updates you're actually getting. Debian is known for being extremely outdated. This is a major reason for its stability.
Sometimes things change way too much. Sometimes they change in incompatible ways. Sometimes changes come from upstream and there's nothing the distribution can do about it. In these cases, our attention is required. Things break and we need to fix them. We need to adapt.
In order to avoid this, Debian must be outdated. It must avoid updates that break things and this necessarily means you end up using software that's years old. That's fine, it's a perfectly valid trade-off. I'm sure there are a lot of users out there whose wants and needs are perfectly filled by Debian.
If someone's interested in Arch, it's likely because of its huge repository of up-to-date unpatched software. The Arch user must be able to deal with change. Sometimes it's unavoidable and Arch culture makes it clear that users are expected to put such effort into their systems.
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#206Can an Arch person explain to me why their approach is worth it over something with a more comprehensive package manager like apt or dnf? I don’t mind compiling programs myself when needed, but for most things I’m happy to not have to hand-hold my OS when it comes to updates. From the wiki: > Before upgrading, users are expected to visit the Arch Linux home page to check the latest news, or alternatively subscribe to…
Arch is the first system I have been able to support, fully. As in, 100% of the issues I run across with my distro, I can resolve. I used to run Ubuntu as my gnome desktop distribution, and when it worked (99% of the time), it was a superior experience to Arch. However when running Ubuntu I would inevitably run across some issue that seemed to require a level of sysadmin chops that I never have possessed. For the pas…
This is the best reason I've heard stated for preferring Arch. Thanks for sharing!
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#207Can an Arch person explain to me why their approach is worth it over something with a more comprehensive package manager like apt or dnf? I don’t mind compiling programs myself when needed, but for most things I’m happy to not have to hand-hold my OS when it comes to updates. From the wiki: > Before upgrading, users are expected to visit the Arch Linux home page to check the latest news, or alternatively subscribe to…
> a more comprehensive package manager like apt or dnf I don't see how apt or dnf are any more comprehensive than pacman. What do you mean by that? Before Arch, I used Fedora. It used yum as its package manager. That thing managed to corrupt its own databases at least twice during normal usage. Distribution major version upgrades always caused problems. I never had problems like these after switching to Arch. > I don…
> I don't see how apt or dnf are any more comprehensive than pacman. What do you mean by that?
In terms of the core functionality of package managers, they both have more robust dependency resolvers (and dnf's is actually complete[1]).
In the case of dnf, it's also more ‘comprehensive’ in the sense that the singular CLI tool handles more package management functionality (e.g., it includes repo management), and in the sense that it supports plugins.
They're also both more comprehensive in the sense that you don't need to resort to one of a dozen third-party ‘wrappers’ in order to use the bulk of packages available in those distros' ecosystems.
—
1: See the discussion of completeness here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.07851.pdf
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#208I just completed my migration in the opposite direction after using Arch Linux as my daily driver for ~10 years. I think Arch Linux is by far the better OS for pretty much all power users, but when using multiple devices, the benefits of the "Apple Ecosystem" outweigh the benefits of an amazing desktop OS for me, which is why I ended up switching to Mac OS. Some key points which I believe are much worse on Mac: * No…
I just got my first Mac ever: a MacBook Air M1. Coming from Arch I thought I would handle it easy. How bad can it be? It just works, right?… right? So I wanted a laptop instead of a desktop computer and Framework isn’t available where I’m from so I went for the MacBook. In terms of performance, all is fine. Some OS based decisions make me want to put everything back into the packaging and send the thing back. 1) I mi…
> The keyboard shortcuts feel complicated for the sake of complicatedness.
Mac's shortcut paradigms developed independently of IBM's CUA so they're definitely not complicated for the sake of complexity. I actually think for use with a unix-based operating system, they're much more sensible. There's no overlap with terminal commands that are mostly based on control, thus you don't need to remap basic things like pasting in the terminal to ctrl+shift+v.
> The delete key, man.
It doesn't exist as a physical key but it does work with an external keyboard. Alternatively, you might find something like Karabiner Elements [1] useful. You can make all sorts of arbitrary changes to the keyboard's behavior, including the built in one. This is sort of similar to setxkbmap, xcape, and interception-tools in linux land.
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not PP, but to me it means much less manual intervention/more hooks etc. . For instance, for debian I can just turn on automatic updates and basically never need manual intervention. For arch I am not supposed to use automatic updates and have to (!) read the news. Why? Why does arch need more manual intervention? Sure, I can do that but it just seems like a pointless waste of time.
I don't think Debian's automatic updates do major release upgrades automatically, do they? Those IIRC do require manual intervention - if nothing else you need to run the installer & possibly respond to prompts, but possibly more depending on your system.
> I don't think Debian's automatic updates do major release upgrades automatically, do they? Those IIRC do require manual intervention
For major release upgrades, the official upgrade procedure is to follow instructions like these: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/c...
So yeah, you have a somewhat manual upgrade process once every two years, if you're not on one of the rolling release (‘testing’ or ‘unstable’).
On the other hand, you do get to choose when you make those updates. You don't get caught by surprise with them because you forgot to read the news.
Debian's documentation on Testing and Unstable[1] contains some snippets that may feel familiar to Arch users, including this very relevant bit:
> Consider (especially when using unstable) if you need to disable or remove unattended-upgrades in order to control when package updates take place.
—
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable#What_are_some_best_pr...
Re: From macOS to Arch Linux
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do for regular users who use typical end user apps it doesn't just work for devs. Apple is not designing OS for devs their vast majority of users are not devs or even professionals these days, while macs can be used for development with some wrangling to get a POSIX like environment without too much performance loss, it is not linux. Docker will run in a VM and be slower and some basic stuff like procfs would be…
> Apple is not designing OS for devs their vast majority of users are not devs or even professionals these days yeah. So why are so many devs more or less forced to use MacBooks? someone tell their CTOs
I am a CTO and I use a system76[1] I would rather my devs used Linux systems, for a long time I did only deploy only Linux ThinkPads, but devs want MacBooks- even more so after M1 launched. A few have turned down offers because we didn't offer macs. Now we basically allow them to choose, but in the recent past not a single one has not chosen Apple .
I don't think it is all just CTOs either, there is lot of aspirational value partly driven by design of the system (light weight/looks) partly because expensive it becomes more exclusive.
Without M1 there was nothing else to go for technically they were not that much better, now atleast post m1 there is value to maybe justify the costs.
TCO for ThinkPads are way cheaper than macs upgrades are possible when it is not on macs or easier you don't need to send it apple service for ages, the in-house IT has no shortage of spare parts . No sensible CTO is going to choose apple over anything else if he had choice .
[1] ThinkPad X1 carbon before that both were much better devices just in terms of build quality than my last mac the 2016 pro .
Having linux just work is worth investing in frame.work or system76 or dell developer edition I rather do actual work than fiddle with drivers .