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Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

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Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#291

Post by mafuy »

pessimizer wrote: post #258
RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pop has gone from something that was expected to "just work" to deciding it's more of a developer or enthusiast product. Linux still needs an 'it just works' version. I really thought pop would be it, but the last year of development has been very disappointing with system breaking updates being pushed (I'm on system 76 hardware).

Debian? Ubuntu? Mint? Linux is mostly it just works versions unless you're only looking for the trendy new thing. I run debian stable on my headless desktops/television and testing on my laptops. It's so easy it's boring.

I run debian stable on my headless desktop and I could not get sound to work

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#292

Post by [deleted] »

whatever1 wrote: post #63

No it does not. Give it to me for 5’ and I will find at least 10 things that are broken. Energy management, monitor color profiles, external monitors, discrete gpu / integrated switching, Bluetooth, webcam settings all these are broken. Stop defending the state of Linux in personal computing. The best we can do is to put it in a VM and run it in a OS that has actual hardware support.

[deleted]

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#293

Post by bee_rider »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #119
londons_explore wrote: post #69

I have the reverse... Unless you have a thinkpad or some other popular hardware, you'll find Linux barely works at all out of the box, and even with hours of fiddling around, you'll still have to live without some features. For example, power saving features, sleep and hibernate, screen brightness controls, fingerprint readers, keyboard hotkeys and backlights, etc. rarely work. Prepare for broken external hdmi ports…

From everything I've read, ThinkPads (IBM/Red Hat devs seem to use them), Acers (have pretty standard parts, nothing funky), Dells and HPs (both have Linux dev laptops) all seem to run pretty well. The worst seem to be gaming laptops, non-Lenovo Chinese brands, Asus, etc...

Recent Asus zenbooks seem to have a decent reputation.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#294

Post by KaiserPro »

The fuck it does.

I have a lenovo t14 something or other. I have to fiddle with the bios to get suspend work. This means that the battery lasts about 4 days.

However whenever it resumes, the touchpad appears to only work at 5 frames per second.

Moreover, its impossible to hibernate with secure boot.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#295

Post by coryrc »

pessimizer wrote: post #274
mid-kid wrote: post #70

Yeah, no. Maybe with old laptops, but newer laptops still have their fair share of issues. When I bought my thinkpad A485 kernels wouldn't boot without additional parameters, the graphics would freeze at times and cause a hardlock, sleep and hibernation have been fixed and broken again intermittently over several kernel versions, the wifi card's AP mode started causing segfaults in kernel 5.2 due to the driver's rewr…

Why would anybody expect that new hardware that has to be reverse engineered and for which no Linux drivers are provided to work out of the box as soon is it is available? It's an impossible expectation, and also one that no other OS would have a chance of fulfilling unless hardware vendors specifically catered to them. It's like asking for a book review of a book that hasn't been published. Yes, other people have pu…

Windows users don't have to reverse engineer anything before their hardware works.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#296

Post by pessimizer »

Klonoar wrote: post #237
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OS that has actual hardware support. Give me 5' with such an OS and I will find at least 20 things which are broken.

Trivial nitpicking is not the same issue as hardware support.

It's odd how you can hear two people make the same vague statement about Linux and OSes that aren't Linux, and the statement about Linux registers to you as insightful while the one about Windows/MacOS registers as "trivial nitpicking."

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#297

Post by jll29 »

Linux worked out of the box (Ubuntu LTS or Lubuntu) with:

- Lenovo ThinkPad T41

- Lenovo ThinkPad X61s

- LenovWo ThinkPad X220

- Lenovo ThinkPad X230

- Lenovo ThinkPad X1

- DELL Latitude E7762

- DELL Latitude E7480

- Apple iMac 27"

Problems encountered:

- The touchpad on the Lenovo ThinkPad 240 mad random jumps, not sure if this is a Linux issue since I never tried Windows (I usually wipe it right after unpacking).

- Couldn't install any Linux flavour on the Microsoft Surface 3 laptop. It was painful to get rid of Windows and UEFI boot, and apparently a kernel patch is needed to go further (according to Microsoft support, who didn't provide said patch). Does anyone here have that patch BTW?

Generally speaking it is getting harder and harder to install Linux, due to Microsofts efforts to make PCs "more secure" (which - oops - prevents the installation of competitors' OSes, how convenient).

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#298

Post by rvdginste »

ufmace wrote: post #42

I have a feeling that the overall reality is far more hit-or-miss than the author implies. If you happen to be lucky to have all hardware that Linux supports well, then everything does work nicely (which is infact a nice improvement over the early days). If you get unlucky on your hardware, well buckle up, it's gonna be a ride. You are of course more likely to have good hardware support on very old devices. Windows h…

> I have a feeling that the overall reality is far more hit-or-miss than the author implies.

I really think that is the state of the matter.

Personally, I have been using Linux as main OS since 2000, so when I buy new hardware, I know it will be running Linux and I do my research on the hardware before buying anything. When you do that, chances are you'll end up with hardware that is supported and works well on Linux. The last 15 years I have been using high-end Dell Precision laptops through my employer and those run linux just fine; it's already been several years now that you can actually order them with Ubuntu.

Still, I've been on location where they used USB-C docks to access external screens and the network. The network was working fine out of the box, but for the screens I needed to install DisplayLink drivers, which was not a nice experience. It also did not work out of the box with xrandr. And then I got a linux kernel upgrade and it was no longer working. So, while the laptop itself is working just fine on linux, and is working out of the box with external screens connected through a cable (HDMI, DisplayPort), you still don't have good support for something like DisplayLink, which seems to be used more and more because it allows user to project wirelessly on a screen.

I try to avoid depending on closed source drivers in Linux. I did use Nvidia long time ago, but switched to AMD for that reason. In a way, it's nice that companies support Linux and that they are releasing closed source drivers. It is better than not having any driver at all. But depending on closed source drivers is misery sooner or later, so I avoid them.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#299

Post by pessimizer »

coryrc wrote: post #295
pessimizer wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anybody expect that new hardware that has to be reverse engineered and for which no Linux drivers are provided to work out of the box as soon is it is available? It's an impossible expectation, and also one that no other OS would have a chance of fulfilling unless hardware vendors specifically catered to them. It's like asking for a book review of a book that hasn't been published. Yes, other people have pu…

Windows users don't have to reverse engineer anything before their hardware works.

No shit. The hardware vendors do all the work for them.

Re: Linux on the laptop works so damn well that it’s boring

#300

Post by sofixa »

noirbot wrote: post #80
blowski wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I try, it works 90% great, but little things are problematic enough that I switch back. The power management doesn’t quite work, so fans stay on and it doesn’t sleep when you close the lid. The screen doesn’t quite have the same quality graphics. The trackpad isn’t as smooth.

Yea, hibernate/suspend issues are by far the biggest problem I have with Linux on laptops. Years of being in the mac ecosystem where you can just close the lid and it'll barely have lost battery over weeks of being idle spoiled me. I essentially have to treat my linux laptop like a small desktop computer and just shut it down fully when I'm not using it and can't leave it plugged in to power or else it loses 5-10% ba…

> Years of being in the mac ecosystem where you can just close the lid and it'll barely have lost battery over weeks of being idle spoiled me.

Funnily that's not at all my experience with an M1 MBP. It either sleeps when lid is closed even with an external screen, or never (even if i explicitly click on the sleep button). And even if I manage to get it to sleep, Bluetooth is always on and battery is at 0% after 2 days.

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