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We Need a Better PC

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Re: We Need a Better PC

#281

Post by mbrock »

superuser2 wrote: post #185
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.

As a developer I work with text all day, a task made thoroughly more pleasant with good font rendering and proper HiDPI support, neither of which are available on Linux. I'll take my 13 inches of Retina display over a pair of 27-inch externals any day. SSH and rsync for remote editing work just fine from an rMBP.

It's possible to use HiDPI on Linux, but I guess it depends on what software you use. I've used it for almost a year. I set my DPI in X and GTK. I believe GNOME understands DPI, but I just use ratpoison so I don't know. After turning off hunting, fonts look very nice.

Don't bother trying to connect an external monitor with a different DPI though, hehe. I've heard that problem is unsolvable with the X11 paradigm but will be fixed in Wayland (whatever that is).

Re: We Need a Better PC

#282

Post by mntmn »

I recently got a Thinkpad T450s after using iBook & MacBooks for 10 years and I'm very pleasantly surprised about build quality and feel.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#283

Post by Zardoz84 »

derefr wrote: post #83
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…

HP's consumer and enterprise divisions are effectively separate companies (and, in fact, were acquired from separate sources.) The enterprise "workstation" laptops are some of the best-put-together, simplest-to-repair, most-natively-well-supported-without-needing-drivers, and otherwise most "obvious" in their design machines I've ever had the pleasure of refurbishing. The EliteBook line is the one laptop where seeing…

Like around seven years ago, I bought a tablet PC from HP. An Touchsmart TX2. 2h max if batery and usage if plastic, but durable. I don't have any problem with it except the disappointed 3d performance (I expected more from it), AMD stoping of update the graphics drivers, and very very rare freeze on boot (like one time every 3 months). Also, an OS update to Windows 8 was an really improve on performance (even using beta drivers from AMD)

How ever, I know friends with HP's that breaked very easy. One give small electric shocks. Other had an previous version of the same tablet PC that me, and it ended generating smoke (Old touchsmart TXs have a tendency to overheat)

Re: We Need a Better PC

#284

Post by captn3m0 »

akurilin wrote: post #187
hguant wrote: post #158

I recommend System76. Good laptops, clear website, and you know exactly what you're getting with the OS. https://system76.com/laptops

Their desktops are great, we use them for all of our dev boxes. Their laptops are basically branded Clevos, they're plasticky and feel like they were duct taped together. This is pretty typical of most of the "Linux Laptop" vendors.

As someone who owns and works on the exact same machine mentioned in the article (Galago Ultra Pro), I agree. It's build quality isn't that great and the non-computing hardware is sub-par (battery, fans, bezel, touchpad...).

I just wish there was a real alternative to the 13" Air.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#285

Post by chjohasbrouck »

habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet.

The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a great machine to live with overall.

Most of the PC options are steel and plastic, so they're hot and heavy. They'll burn your legs, they have comparably poor battery life. The screen looks terrible if your viewing angle isn't perpendicular. The hardware I've had has tended to die faster, too.

I do spend most of my time in Linux on this old Dell, though. The OS is more important to me and I prefer Linux. But Macbooks are great, and I wish I could find something as good to install Linux on.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#286

Post by jordanthoms »

Symbiote wrote: post #270
jordanthoms wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh absolutely, but there is only one laptop that can run Linux with proper hardware support, 10+ hr battery life, high-quality screen, good build quality: the Chromebook Pixel, and that is limited to 64gb storage and a 12" screen.

There's such an extreme lack of decent laptops around that working around the limitations of OSX seems to be the only option for now.

Maybe the next version of the Pixel will be more suitable as a general purpose development machine or someone else will make a decent linux laptop (if Google can do it, why can't Dell?)

Re: We Need a Better PC

#287

Post by maccard »

protomyth wrote: post #87
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…

We bought 120 HP netbooks and had almost 90% drive failure (Seagate) and their firmware only for service contract customers has really soured me on HP. I find SuperMicro makes better servers, so I am pretty much out of HP now.

90% over how long?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#288

Post by emerongi »

ekianjo wrote: post #121
habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

For the Asus Zenbook UX305LA, how flexible is it ? Can you open and change the battery by yourself, for example ? You mentioned the battery life is not great, can you share some numbers on Ubuntu ? How much time do you get on a full charge?

I have the UX305LA. I had a clicky trackpad[1], so I opened it up and fixed it. It was too good in other aspects, so I couldn't bother sending it back. Battery is replaceable.

Still though, with Asus you never know whether your laptop will be perfect out of the box or not. That's what sucks about PCs in general - if you want a hassle-free laptop, you either have to pay extra or invest a lot of time into research. I had to send 2 laptops back before I got the Zenbook, but even that had the clicky trackpad problem.

This is why I'm thinking that when I have to buy a new laptop, I'll first be looking at the Apple lines. I've never had a Mac (since they're pricy), but I'm done with doing hours and hours of research. I just need a laptop that works.

The Zenbook is great though. Love it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un6TSK0RCxQ

Re: We Need a Better PC

#289

Post by maccard »

beloch wrote: post #249
xlayn wrote: post #12

Do you like the MacBook but don't like the OS? go ahead and change it, you can have triple boot. Tiny fonts and pop ups doesn't have anything to do with the machine you are going to buy (unless you also want the website). HP makes the elitebook, magnesium construction a la thinkpad. And last but not least I would like to give this entry the RAGE post award, nomination points for What I want is a computer with: -Decen…

Question for those running Linux on an Apple laptop: If you had a hardware failure, did having a non-Apple-approved OS cause any problems when you tried to get it fixed?

I had a motherboard fail on a 2011 MacBook Pro running Windows 7 - I just wiped the drive on another Mac and put it back in and have it to them. No questions asked.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#290

Post by agarwalrishi »

Yup. I agree. We need a good PC with the form factor of Mac mini but without Mac OS. Only option I have is to buy a Mac mini and install Ubuntu on that. Or buy Intel mini PC (Intel NUC). Both options are quite expensive, at least in India.
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