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From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

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Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#241

Post by sudosysgen »

pjerem wrote: post #80
cycomanic wrote: post #76

> But the quality of MacBooks is just another level. I had 3 or 4 so far since 2010, and each of them held at least 5 years. Crazy good. When I read things like this it really sounds like there is some reality distortion field in the mac world. How is that anywhere special? I'm running a thinkpad X1 as my 2 main laptops (it was my only work machine until 2 years ago) and I never felt the need to replace it. It gave m…

I’d say it’s barely 3 things : - The trackpad (but other manufacturers now have tolerable alternatives and anyway you can work without it) - The screen : at an equivalent price point (and even more), nothing comes close to Apple screens. The cheapest MacBook have a better screen than most high end PCs. - The audio : Apple truly did some sorcery to get such an awesome sound from machines that are flat as sheet. It’s s…

The screen point is just not true anymore. There are quite a few laptops at the ~1000$ price point with significantly better screens, such as the Zenbooks with OLED screens.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#242

Post by rwyinuse »

mirzap wrote: post #195
svelle wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also use a MacBook as my daily driver, but have used different ThinkPads for years and there is no way that that workload should bring any medium specced TP to its knees like you're describing.

Good to know. Many people recommend ThinkPads, but my experience has been with Dell. In the future, I might consider a ThinkPad or a Framework laptop.

I use Dell at work, Thinkpad at home. Either gets the job done, but to me it's clear Thinkpads have superior quality, at least if you don't go for the cheapest model. Keyboard and battery life are so much better on my old Thinkpad compared to 2 years newer Dell of same price range.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#243

Post by Pooge »

adastra22 wrote: post #70
0xfaded wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, I have a Mac at work and can suffer the horrible window management by just having more physical monitors (3 + the built in screen). I bought one for home use because I liked the hardware and the idea of running local llms. Long story short I'm still using my 6 year old Thinkpad running arch.

I think it is just us getting old. I used Linux since high school in the 90's, through all the way to the late 00's. I switched to OS X (long before it was macOS) because that's where all the and coming developer tools were, and I got tired of being sysadmin to my own Linux install as things break. Now I'm the opposite of you. I WANT to run Linux, and I have both a recent Framework and Lenovo laptop at home that I bo…

I just had PTSD from reading your comment. Laptop + Nvidia drivers + Linux just do NOT work together.

Nvidia drivers almost bricked my laptop once, and I'm glad a random guy in a Discord server could help me out because I couldn't even get to the boot screen.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#244

Post by jeffhwang »

cycomanic wrote: post #76

> But the quality of MacBooks is just another level. I had 3 or 4 so far since 2010, and each of them held at least 5 years. Crazy good. When I read things like this it really sounds like there is some reality distortion field in the mac world. How is that anywhere special? I'm running a thinkpad X1 as my 2 main laptops (it was my only work machine until 2 years ago) and I never felt the need to replace it. It gave m…

I’ve had 5 personal Mac laptops over the last 25 years. And all of them overlapped their service lives bc I usually had 2 active laptops at a time. None were the Pro, just iBooks and MacBook Airs.

The one I just retired was my portable workhorse from 2014-2024. I got annoyed towards the end bc the latest OS wasn’t supported (but still got security updates for my old macOS version at least).

Overall, I never needed to replaced battery, hard drive, cpus, screens or really any of the hardware on any of them over 2 decades. And I got at least 6 yrs out of each one.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#245

Post by rwyinuse »

hermanzegerman wrote: post #118
anon7000 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah, and my mom was using my old 2012 MBP until it was a decade too. Main reason to upgrade to an M1 Air was the battery and the performance improvement that comes with a decade of processor and efficiency improvements. And I bet that’ll last another decade. I sold my previous two work MBPs back to family members as well, which they’re still using. And btw a used M1 Air, at almost 5 years old now, is still a g…

No it isn't. If the cheap SSD inside has reached it's write limit it's a paperweight

For an average user the SSD will never reach its write limit though. But I agree, SSD's should be always user-replaceable.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#246

Post by nicoburns »

Novosell wrote: post #143
msh wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that a lot comes down to apple only selling quality laptop but a brand like Lenovo sells both cheap crap and quality laptops. So if you tell someone buy a apple laptop you know they will get a good laptop but if you tell them to buy a Lenovo they might end up with the worst crap.

I believe this is one of the main contributing factors in people who strongly prefer iOS devices over Android as well. With iOS, there are no options really. You buy high end or you don't buy. With Android, people will end up buying some 150-200€ phone and being shocked it doesn't compare to their 1100€ iPhone.

It's different now with the main Android manufacturers offering 5-7 years of security updates. But for a long time the lifetime of an Android device was 2 (maybe 3) years, where as iPhones offered 5 years (maybe up to 7).

Perhaps not relevant if you're the sort of person who upgrades every year or two anyway. But a big deal if you're not.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#247

Post by imcritic »

realusername wrote: post #186
pjerem wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say it’s barely 3 things : - The trackpad (but other manufacturers now have tolerable alternatives and anyway you can work without it) - The screen : at an equivalent price point (and even more), nothing comes close to Apple screens. The cheapest MacBook have a better screen than most high end PCs. - The audio : Apple truly did some sorcery to get such an awesome sound from machines that are flat as sheet. It’s s…

I agree for the screen and the audio but the trackpad on the mac is significantly different from any other laptop so you either love it or hate it. Personally I hate it and would rate it similarly as a cheap laptop. My brother loves it though.

What's there to hate in it?

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#248

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

cycomanic wrote: post #76

> But the quality of MacBooks is just another level. I had 3 or 4 so far since 2010, and each of them held at least 5 years. Crazy good. When I read things like this it really sounds like there is some reality distortion field in the mac world. How is that anywhere special? I'm running a thinkpad X1 as my 2 main laptops (it was my only work machine until 2 years ago) and I never felt the need to replace it. It gave m…

I think it comes down to quality of materials and manufacturing. It would be interesting if someone knew of failure rate data of laptop manufacturers. I bet Apple's is far lower than others, maybe this is because they control the OS and firmware, etc. I don't care enough to go research but an HN thread isn't likely representative of "normal" laptop users.

I'm not an Apple fanboi, I have a lot of linux experience, back in the day built a Tivo like linux PC with TV capture card as a DVR and had to mess with all sorts of X11 settings, etc. Used to build PCs for gaming and mess with settings. The whole It Just Works is true with Apple, everything hardware wise is smooth. The annoyances of Apple software to me don't bubble up to the level of wanting to switch, but articles like above make me think about getting a cheap Mini PC to play around and see if things like Omarchy make the level of messing with settings much lower than it used to be.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#249

Post by nvarsj »

cycomanic wrote: post #76

> But the quality of MacBooks is just another level. I had 3 or 4 so far since 2010, and each of them held at least 5 years. Crazy good. When I read things like this it really sounds like there is some reality distortion field in the mac world. How is that anywhere special? I'm running a thinkpad X1 as my 2 main laptops (it was my only work machine until 2 years ago) and I never felt the need to replace it. It gave m…

I’ve never had 8h of battery life on a Thinkpad. More like 3h. Also my last two T series stopped working completely after ~4 years (dead motherboard / broken usb-c ports / cracking casing). The speakers, screen, touchpad all suck as well, let's be honest. The best thing about a Thinkpad is the keyboard and that it can run Linux.

I finally gave in and bought a MBP M3 Max 14" and the thing is a beast. Multiple days of battery life. Beautiful display. Indestructable casing and USB ports. Speaker quality is amazing - I can play music and podcasts in the background on it when traveling - I could never do this on any Thinkpad. The only thing it sucks at is the keyboard and OS X, but I've learned to live with both.

Doubt I'll ever go back to a Thinkpad or any non-macbook laptop until a company makes a similar quality one I can run Linux on.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#250

Post by btbytes »

Common things in all these Pro-Apple threads:

1. Macbook users who have/are using non-Apple laptops that find the average work-issued Intel laptops to be just meh or worse.

2. People that only buy some exclusive Lenovo, Framework laptops (that are not that common out in the real world (e.g: in US)) refuse to acknowledge the positive experience of Macbook owners.

I have had only 3 personal MacbookAir/MBPs since 2006 (and the previous i5 Mba is perfectly functional after a battery replacement and a HDD upgrade - sitting next to me running Mint Linux, that I plan to hand off to my 10yo.)

In the meantime, I've also had 4 other MBPs and 3 windows laptops through work.

In no way and form, the intel laptops were/are better than the macbooks on average.

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