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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

#311

Post by wyldfire »

pizza234 wrote: post #187
codedokode wrote: post #151

I think that there should be a list of officially supported laptops and if you bought anything else then it is your problem and you are welcome to write necessary patches. It is unfair when people install Linux on an incompatible hardware and then complain.

To an extent, there is; Ubuntu holds a list of certified hardware, including laptops: https://ubuntu.com/certified . Notably, the latest Dell XPS is certified.

That is awesome, I didn't know this existed. I've stuck with xps13 for the last ~3 laptops and that's worked well. I'd like to consider one of those ARM laptops next, maybe I'll find one in here.

So far the first two or three generations of ARM laptops have been just okay. I'm hoping the fact that Apple has jumped all-in on ARM will encourage other vendors to invest more here.

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

#312

Post by adrian_b »

spadros wrote: post #153
vladvasiliu wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to me as a more generic problem with newer hardware, not specific to Linux. Likely devices rushed out the door to meet some idiotic deadline, badly specced and with incompletely implemented drivers. At the end of 2021 I got an EliteBook 845 g8 (Zen 3) that worked completely fine out of the box on Linux (Arch with up-to-date kernel). Every last bit of kit worked perfectly. Bluetooth, IR webcam, fingerprint…

In all my years I have yet to see HDMI output from a laptop to a monitor work on the first try in Ubuntu. Always need to install the proprietary drivers for that to work at all. If it can't even do that without a headache, after 10+ years of Linux use, I would call that a Linux problem, not a hardware problem. My colleagues seem to run into the same issue frequently as well. This article seems kind of ignorant. I'm g…

If you had problems with the HDMI output, I suppose that it must depend on the GPU model.

I have used Linux on many laptops and I never had problems with the video outputs, but most of them had NVIDIA GPUs and a few used the integrated Intel GPU. I have no recent experience with AMD GPUs on laptops.

I do not normally use Ubuntu, so that might matter, but when I bought a Dell Precision, it came with Ubuntu preinstalled and it worked fine until I wiped Ubuntu and I installed another Linux distribution.

I used once a Lenovo on which I had to waste a couple of days until I made the GPU work properly in Linux, because it was an NVIDIA Optimus switchable GPU, but even on that laptop there were no problems with the video outputs, but only with the OpenGL acceleration, until it was configured in the right way.

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

#313

Post by jll29 »

ratherbefuddled wrote: post #256
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…

> 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. I've had it work first time, perfectly on: - Tongfangs, 3 different models - Lenovo, many different models - Clevos, 2 different models - Asus Zenbooks, 2 different models - Too many Dells to count - Asus Zen2 deskto…

After 20 years of luck with Linux on many laptops, I couldn't get any Linux to Microsoft Surface 3 Laptop.

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

#314

Post by CoolCold »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #248
lmeyerov wrote: post #125

We burned an evening just last week tracing an Intel wifi driver issue to missing kernel headers that required upgrading the kernel to a new, non-LTS version. And only then did we move on to Nvidia drivers. So no, still not the year of Linux on the desktop. Our entire dev team does it, but largely because Nvidia and Apple stopped working together. The bigger surprise is Windows WSL2 is just about there for Ubuntu sup…

I really tried to make wsl work for the windows users on my team, but we kept getting tangled up with networking (I guess there's a virtual switch involved and so when a tool claims to have forwarded a port it's hard to figure out where it forwarded it to and why only half of your stuff can see it). Do you know if that situation has improved in the last year or so?

I'd like to know on your use case more, if possible. Not sure I've ever need to forward port or I probably read your description wrong way.

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

#315

Post by trm42 »

Haha, sounds super boring compared to 2004 when I bought Fujitsu Siemen's cheapest Pentium M laptop and had to build some kernel modules, build custom rules for power saving scenes (as there weren't that much of ready rules) and find the most optimal parameters for every module and CPUFreq configs etc.

Also, figuring out the sequence of disabling modules etc for suspend to disk and suspend to ram sleep modes with more custom scripts was super fun. Managed to squeeze whole 8 hours from a battery that was supposed to work 4-6 hours in Windows XP. Fun times.

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

#316

Post by avl999 »

pharmakom wrote: post #180

How nice for OP. Just a handful of my issues: - only one speaker works so volume is low - finger print scanner doesn’t work - battery life is poor compared to Windows on same machine - suspend and hibernate doesn’t work - random freezes - charging indicator unreliable - trackpad wrist filtering is very poor - boot failures after OS updates I have now switched to a Mac with Apple Silicon. I really tried with Linux for…

> - only one speaker works so volume is low

Never had this issue.

> - finger print scanner doesn’t work

Can't speak for this as I don't have a device with an FP reader

> - battery life is poor compared to Windows on same machine

I get ~6hrs on my laptop running Ubuntu + XFCE. I haven't ran windows on it but Amazon reviews claim ~5-5.5 hrs battery life for the same machine so seems to be inline for me.

> - suspend and hibernate doesn’t work

Works for me

> - random freezes

I can think of only 1 freeze I've had in the last year and that was due to me dropping the laptop

> - charging indicator unreliable

Pretty reliable for me except when it comes to the last 5%... my work macbook pro seems to have the same issue though when predicting how long that last 5% will last.

> - boot failures after OS updates

Never had this problem, on the other hand our work macbook pro has nothing but problems when upgrading os major versions. Atleast 1-2 people on our team always end up losing an afternoon whenever we are forced to upgrade it.

> I have now switched to a Mac with Apple Silicon.

> I really tried with Linux for philosophical reasons, but honestly what professional developer has time for all this?

What professional developers have the time or patience to deal with a Mac with:

* It's proprietary hardware without any ability to upgrade components

* Garbage oversized trackpad which registers false positives all the time

* Terrible built in keyboard

* All the nonsense with "we have a physical escape key, now we don't, now we do" actively making it unusable if you use Vim/Vim key bindings

* Whatever nonsense they have done replacing physical function keys with that touchbar thingy

* Actively user hostile decisions like putting the headphone jack on the right side of the laptop

* A complete inability to connect peripherals unless you buy a (often expensive) dock.

* Docker being a complete hog on these machines, yes that is not the fault of the mac but still something developers have to deal with every day

I am forced to use a macbook for work and the only reason I can even bear working with it is connecting it to external keyboard/mouse and using it in clamshell mode.

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

#317

Post by TulliusCicero »

This has not been my experience.

When I use Linux for work, I still hit random things that need the command line, and it's much less stable than Windows (hard freezes). I tried to use Linux (specifically Mint) as an HTPC to use with Stepmania, but immediately ran into problems with both audio coming through and the TV resolution, and had to fall back to Windows, which worked with no drama.

This has happened every time I've tried to use Linux at home: I end up running into random problems that are weirdly hard to solve, or things that won't work period.

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

#318

Post by autoexec »

a-dub wrote: post #245
Loic wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the past 20 years I have been only using Thinkpad from the T and the X series. The only one with an issue was I think the X220 with the SD card reader not being stable. All the other ones are working perfectly well. My current one is a T480. But I always take some time to look if somebody succeed in installing Linux on the laptop I want to buy before. If it means I need to wait an extra 6 months, then I wait a bi…

same. it's been rock solid on thinkpads because thinkpads are some of the strongest pc laptops and as such have been popular (and well supported by) oss developers.

old IBM Thinkpads were pretty solid, but now they're made by Lenovo who has a long history of shipping devices pre-infested with malware and backdoors, usually in exchange for money. They've even been caught stuffing malware into UEFI so that users reinstalling their OS would be infected over and over again. However nice their laptops are, I could never trust them. They have already proved that they are perfectly willing to compromise your security and privacy to line their own pockets.

All the builtin radios, cameras, microphones, and sensors in modern laptops make them ideal for stealing your private data. I already have an untrusted cell phone, I want my personal laptop to be something I can feel comfortable keeping my data on. Because I can't personally audit every chip, that means I need some level of trust, and Lenovo has demonstrated over and over and over again that they cannot be trusted.

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

#319

Post by emkoemko »

stormbrew wrote: post #159
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…

It's not about new vs old but who makes the main parts and chipsets. Intel everything is always a really good bet, even when they're brand new, but there are other safe choices. It used to be quite hard to find new laptops with hardware combos that worked well with Linux but it's become a lot easier in recent years. Also my experience with windows has actually gotten quite a bit worse, actually, unless you use the st…

man i remember those days when you had to go and find all the software you use from random sites and same with drivers, then having issues you can't figure out because of a outdated old driver vs Linux where you just get the latest stuff all in once place.

how do people on windows figure out what driver has updates? do you guys check the version installed and go to each manufacture to see if there is a new version>?

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

#320

Post by nijave »

spadros wrote: post #153
vladvasiliu wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to me as a more generic problem with newer hardware, not specific to Linux. Likely devices rushed out the door to meet some idiotic deadline, badly specced and with incompletely implemented drivers. At the end of 2021 I got an EliteBook 845 g8 (Zen 3) that worked completely fine out of the box on Linux (Arch with up-to-date kernel). Every last bit of kit worked perfectly. Bluetooth, IR webcam, fingerprint…

In all my years I have yet to see HDMI output from a laptop to a monitor work on the first try in Ubuntu. Always need to install the proprietary drivers for that to work at all. If it can't even do that without a headache, after 10+ years of Linux use, I would call that a Linux problem, not a hardware problem. My colleagues seem to run into the same issue frequently as well. This article seems kind of ignorant. I'm g…

Intel seems to have the best GPU support. My Dell XPS from a few years ago works fine with Thunderbolt dual monitor dock and USB-C to HDMI adapter.

My desktop with a AMD Vega 64 crashes weekly (with occasional stable months) running Fedora (usually about 1 minor version behind mainline) since I've gotten it (maybe 3-4 years ago now)

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