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We Need a Better PC

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Re: We Need a Better PC

#261

Post by thirdsun »

Steko wrote: post #102
viraptor wrote: post #66

> They display low ratings for their own products on their own website. What. How is this a complaint? I'd love other companies to post both good and bad reviews without filtering. > Except that page is deceptive, because that's actually the old X1 Carbon Don't know about other locations, but here the X1 got a really nice discount once the 2016 model got announced. (also visible in the screenshot) I got it and I'm re…

Just a note but while Apple doesn't show ratings for their main lineup of devices (and probably for exactly the reasons mentioned by link) they do show them for accessories and some of them are pretty low rated: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD818AM/A/lightning-to-usb...

And that's exactly why I wouldn't feature reviews on my website / shop. It may work for Amazon, but I'm pretty certain most people bothering to provide a review for something as simple as a lightning cable had a bad experience. Nobody writes rave reviews for a cable that just works.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#262

Post by ekianjo »

hsitz wrote: post #230
ekianjo wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 hours is not bad at all. (on Linux!) :) I'd be pretty happy with that.

I also have UX305 and I easily get at least 6 hours under moderate loads. Eight or nine with light web-browsing (avoiding javascript pages that spike cpu usage), ten or more with lighter use (text editor). I installed Ubuntu 14.x and i3 window manager. I have dual boot with original Windows install and power use is comparable between Windows and Linux. It's a pleasure to use. Only power management tweak I made in Ubu…

I have been trying TLP but I failed to notice any significant difference in battery life... is it absolutely needed to tweak its default settings?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#263

Post by teekert »

jseliger wrote: post #77

I'm surprised not to see a link to the Librem laptops: https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-13 . They're an attempt to solve the problem being posited, AFAICT, though they ship with Linux, not Windows. I gave $10 to their initial Kickstarter but have never used one.

Looking forward to the next Linux Action Show which will have a review of the 15" Librem. Meanwhile Chris talks about the Librem on Linux Unplugged, haven't listened to that one yet.

http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/

Re: We Need a Better PC

#264

Post by dtech »

xerophyte12932 wrote: post #241
SwellJoe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"HP makes the elitebook, magnesium construction a la thinkpad." I've been burned so badly by an HP laptop, that I'm unlikely to ever buy another HP product in any category. It is horrifically bad. Damned near everything is wrong with it. It also had some crapware, and the system restore partition didn't work...so I had a dead laptop for two weeks waiting for physical restore media to arrive (that I paid $10+shipping…

My anecdotal evidence points the other way. My own Ho dv6 gave me a good 4 years of running. - Yes, the crapware is unavoidable. but who doesn't ship with that? - For me the system restore worked like magic. I tried it a bunch of times on my own machine and those of some friends. The machine was virgin again with just a click of a button. - It's also very easy to get into. Very helpfully labeled; tons of guides avail…

> Yes, the crapware is unavoidable. but who doesn't ship with that?

Well Apple for one (unless you count their superfluous apps, but I find those much less intrusive)

I think the crapware is inexcusable. If almost every car manufacturer places a fresh pile of dog poo on your brand new car seat would you be okay with it just because everyone does it?...

Re: We Need a Better PC

#265

Post by barrkel »

manyxcxi wrote: post #193
ekianjo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For developers OSX will almost always be worse than a Linux distro, if only because of package management.

BULLSHIT I live in the command line and use a modern toolchain. Package management has no bearing on my development. mvn, npm, composer, gem, and pip all work just fine. Home brew gets you the OS packages and I've yet to run into an even remotely popular package not in a Homebrew repo somewhere. On top of all that- with Vagrant and (or even just) Virtualbox you have whatever flavor of Linux you want running on your d…

We've just given up on OS X for developers at my workplace. There are just too many little incompatibilities. Especially around clang replacing gcc messing with our C++ code, but also different revisions of various gems - especially browser testing - that cause hiccups. And then there's setting up all the ancillary services like databases etc. - not just once, but repeatedly, and reconfiguration when the arrangement changes. We can reuse many of our actual deployment Puppet scripts for setting up developer Linux machines; not so much for Mac.

Various utility scripts need to be written more defensively to run correctly in OS X with its ancient shell and BSD tools.

Overall it's just not worth the hassle, particularly when you need to ramp up new developer machines in minimal time.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#266

Post by microtonal »

ekianjo wrote: post #136
jolux wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not as good? I'm genuinely curious because I've used apt on debian derivatives and rpm on red hat and I prefer brew to both of them. My favorite is actually Nix/Guix but I haven't bothered to set it up on my daily driver.

A few reasons: - you have way more packages on any Linux package manager. - Linux package managers do not mess with /usr/local as expected in a UNIX compatible OS. Homebrew does. Linux package managers run as root, not in user-space. - Apparently Homebrew gets broken by Apple software/OS updates. - Linux package managers are an integral part of the OS environment and update process - it's structured this way even for…

- you have way more packages on any Linux package manager.

And Homebrew tends to be more up to date then most distribution repositories. Especially if I want to have a stable OS.

Linux package managers do not mess with /usr/local as expected in a UNIX compatible OS. Homebrew does.

You can install Homebrew in another directory, it works fine.

Linux package managers are an integral part of the OS environment and update process

Which is bad. Application updates are typically tied to base system package updates. Either you use some stable branch (like Debian) stable and you are stuck with old software. Or you use some rolling release, but then your kernel, X11, Gtk+, or whatever could break.

Decoupling the installation of applications from the base operating system is a good thing.

- Aptitude, for example, gets rid of older versions of packages, while Homebrew keeps all previous versions and simply changes the symlink.

    brew cleanup
...and old versions are removed and downloads are cleared. Also, you can add the --cleanup flag to upgrade and it will remove old versions. I prefer Homebrew's approach here, because it's easier to rollback.

While compiling from source is nothing wrong, it can take a lot of time depending on what you are building.

Luckily, Homebrew bottles most software that has long compile times. I have a MacBook with a Core M processor and install times have never been a problem (and I have installed Boost, Rust, and ghc, to name just a few larger things).

Re: We Need a Better PC

#267

Post by jakobegger »

threatofrain wrote: post #251
hartator wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you are spending more than 10 hours per day on your laptop, price shouldn't matter. On a side note, you've missed the retina thing, it's making a true difference.

What does a 'true difference' mean? (retina screen) => (mediating factor) => ( more productivity / better eyes )?

For coding, I use a smaller font size now than I used before I had a retina display. It allows me to use a physically smaller laptop, which is a huge advantage when working on the train / on the bus etc.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#268

Post by pja »

Symbiote wrote: post #231
knights123 wrote: post #90

It seems like you should really just buy a MacBook Pro. Sure the software isn't perfect, but it's an order of magnitude closer to perfect than Windows has been lately. You buy it, boot it up, and it works wonderfully. Of course the one day out of the year that it doesn't you go rage comment on how it sucks and it scares Windows users away from Mac, but the rest of the time you'd never consider going back to a typical…

Is it really only one day a year for you? I was given the latest MBP for my new job, which was the first time I'd used a Mac. The external keyboard uses a non standard USB port. That's broken. It's not easy to maximise a window fully. Apparently I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't like being told how I'm supposed to use a computer. Focus follows mouse can't be done. There are very few ways the window manager can…

Homebrew lacks many packages. Coming from Debian / Ubuntu, the package repository was always the first place to look when I needed some software.

MacPorts is more complete in my experience, but tends to lag behind Homebrew for the new and shiny a little.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#270

Post by Symbiote »

jordanthoms wrote: post #252
Symbiote wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really only one day a year for you? I was given the latest MBP for my new job, which was the first time I'd used a Mac. The external keyboard uses a non standard USB port. That's broken. It's not easy to maximise a window fully. Apparently I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't like being told how I'm supposed to use a computer. Focus follows mouse can't be done. There are very few ways the window manager can…

Mostly true, but you may want to look into Divvy (which makes it very easy to maximize and manage windows) and TotalSpaces2. I'd rather deal with these issues and run a ubuntu VM for some things than deal with the cornucopia of crap that is the PC laptop market but hopefully some day that will change.

Fixes like this remind me of installing TweakUI on Windows 98, or dodgy bits of freeware to have multiple desktops on Windows etc.

Installing Kubuntu fixed all of the issues at once, and should I decide to fix the issues it introduced at least I'm improving open source software.

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