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

One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

drikerf.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 372 posts

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#251

Post by itsoktocry »

sidpatil wrote: post #153
lmilcin wrote: post #3

I am also running Linux on Thinkpad (Debian unstable on T440s). As to the battery life, this typically requires some work but I found it is generally possible to get good battery life. I am able to get my T440s to run for total 24 hours with the highest option 9-cell, the built in 3-cell and another 3-cell that came original with the laptop. This I did to be able to work on a long yacht cruise with no extra power and…

> As to touchpad these are all disappointing on all ThinkPads but probably especially on T440s where it is something called "clickpad". The entire touchpad is a button and you need to press it and try to move your finger while pressing HARD to drag things, for example. My T440 also has the "clickpad", and I hate it for the exact same reason you described. It's another example of the modern design trend toward form-ov…

>Lenovo must have realized their screwup, because the later T-series editions went back to discrete mouse buttons.

I have a T431s and a T450s.

The T431s was a sort of "special edition" which I believe was the first to offer the "clickpad". And I agree, it sucks. However, the T450s was already back to a classic trackpad. It doesn't compare to the MBP trackpad (nothing does), but I have no issue with it. So it sounds like the 440 series was the only Thinkpad with that clickpad?

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#252

Post by k__ »

benologist wrote: post #206
k__ wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use remote VMs too, but they aren't good for FinalCut Pro and Ableton Live.

Have you tried Thunderbolt accessories? You should be able to add NVMe storage and AMD graphics that might speed things up. I couldn't try this out because I have an nVidia eGPU, but using Apple's TB2-to-TB3 adaptor I can actually game quite acceptably in Bootcamp.

I will try that, thanks!

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#253

Post by robertoandred »

se32point1 wrote: post #189
dhosek wrote: post #100

Things that I like about being on a Mac: - The ABC - Extended keyboard layout gives me easy access to diacriticalized letters like é or č as well as typographic characters like – and – - long battery life. I'm currently sharing a charger between my work laptop my personal laptop and my iPad and life is easy. - access to mainstream software like Office, Adobe etc. - I can easily use my iPad as an external monitor whil…

Counterpoints for Linux: - Compose key blows your "ABC - Extended layout out of the water." It's more powerful than anything else. - ... I never really use my XPS 13 without a charger, because I don't really travel around much, but it also has USB-C like all the "cool stuff." I would imagine with some tweaking I can get better battery life but I know it does last a while on standby. - You won't get mainstream-mainstr…

And how do you scroll in any axis, swipe, zoom, 3D touch, etc with a mouse? There are plenty of things you can't do.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#255

Post by cma »

alexktz wrote: post #61

I recently purchased a 16” MBP despite significant personal concerns over the future of MacOS, being a strong open source advocate and Linux paying my mortgage. I did this ultimately for a few reasons. MacOS lets me run Adobe (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc), Fusion360, has a good terminal (iTerm and zsh unix like shell) and Logic. Mac hardware is still some of the best in the business, no other vendors seem to be able to…

My experience:

External displays of variable DPI unusable without a paid app like switchresx.

Suspend always drains the battery if using any kind of usb or microscope drive. Endless hacks to finally get it to fully hibernate when closing the lid. Updates break it over time and a new way has to be figured out.

x86 support suddenly thrown away in new updates, decimating game libraries.

Out of date OpenGL and heavy push into proprietary Metal.

App notarization that was promised to just be used for security now being used for iOS related business punishments, bleeding into the desktop.

Windows with WSL gets all the advantages of the terminal in OS X and finally was enough for me to move. With the WSL 2 GPU integration gets rid of the remaining issues, especially as it moves into GPU display application support and not just GPU compute.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#256

Post by brightball »

jononomo wrote: post #186

I simply cannot get over using non-Apple trackpads. The trackpad is such an important part of a laptop's user interface. Obviously I wouldn't drive a car with flat tires, so why would I use a laptop with a crappy trackpad?

I will say, my Dell Precision 7710's trackpad works very, very well. I was really concerned when I migrated away from a Mac 3 years ago because I kept reading stuff like this but was very pleasantly surprised.

In contrast, I don't understand the Thinkpad hype. Everyone that I've ever tried has just felt low quality to me. I don't understand why people like them so much.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#257

Post by mapgrep »

I am in the same boat, except my daily laptop is a ThinkPad X1 Carbon instead of a T480, coming from a specced out Macbook Air 11. My feelings are remarkably close to this. For anyone who spends a lot of time in emacs, browser, the terminal, with media editing as a secondary concern, I think it's a great setup. The ThinkPad hardware is stellar.

I would underline what he points out about the battery being a relative shortcoming though. Which is important for anyone who likes being away from a power outlet for a good while.

I think linux has historically really lagged on controlling battery use, Apple has exploited its tight hardware/software integration for years in this regard, and I only see this spread widening frankly. The ARM Macbooks will likely be absolute marathon runners in comparison to any linux laptop, at least for a good while. I'd love to be wrong.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#258

Post by cuddlybacon »

FoomFries wrote: post #87
diminish wrote: post #57

What are the cons of mac? for me: - Sluggish UI - Inadequate package manager - Unintuitive ways to install stuff - Slow and large updates - Can't do Linux development - Can't try server tools - Slow boot-to-work time - Hard to add memory and ram - Limited interfaces - Hacker unfriendly - Can't have a minimal desktop - High memory usage of base system

I'm curious how you arrived at some of these conclusions. - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. - Inadequate package manager -> Somewhat nebulous, most package managers on Linux are available on Unix. - Slow and large updates -> I honestly don't pay much attention as I have updates install automatically while I'm sleeping, but what size differences have you noticed…

> I'm curious how you arrived at some of these conclusions.

> - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP.

There seems to be a type a user who perceives any kind of animation as sluggishness. Before I switched to macOS, I used to hang out in #kde. From time to time someone would come in and complain about the sluggish UI. They'd often list specs that were impressive at the time.

I'd instruct them on how to globally increase KDE's animation speed. That almost always "fixed the issue".

I'm not sure what it is, but for some users animations are indistinguishable from lag.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#259

Post by Lio »

se32point1 wrote: post #189
dhosek wrote: post #100

Things that I like about being on a Mac: - The ABC - Extended keyboard layout gives me easy access to diacriticalized letters like é or č as well as typographic characters like – and – - long battery life. I'm currently sharing a charger between my work laptop my personal laptop and my iPad and life is easy. - access to mainstream software like Office, Adobe etc. - I can easily use my iPad as an external monitor whil…

Counterpoints for Linux: - Compose key blows your "ABC - Extended layout out of the water." It's more powerful than anything else. - ... I never really use my XPS 13 without a charger, because I don't really travel around much, but it also has USB-C like all the "cool stuff." I would imagine with some tweaking I can get better battery life but I know it does last a while on standby. - You won't get mainstream-mainstr…

I have a Dell XPS13 Developer Edition. I like it but the trackpad is the weak point for me. An external mouse is not the solution to that.

I haven't wanted to use a mouse since 2006. I much prefer the trackpad on my 2014 MBP to any mouse. For me it's worth it for the gestures alone.

Each to their own I guess.

Edit: The good news is that the trackpad support is improving constantly especially with Wayland.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#260

Post by loosetypes »

Is there a metric for battery performance while the machine’s asleep?

That’s been my only gripe in moving from a MacBook Air to an XPS running Ubuntu a little over a year ago.

Battery life is comparable in active usage. But if I close my XPS lid and then, for whatever reason, don’t use it for a day or two, I’ll be at zero battery.

I don’t remember this ever being something to even think about with my Mac laptop.

Post reply on HN