Broken

This is a common question but particularly unfair on a post about Macs.

Buy hardware that ships with Linux, such as a Dell XPS that ships with Ubuntu pre-installed, and it'll work fine.

Try to install on some random hardware, and of course you may have issues depending on who has volunteered what quality of drivers for that hardware.

The same applies to all Apple hardware. Nobody expects to install macOS on some random hardware, so why in a comparison to Macs is this a concern?

I used to dream of setting up a company that sold solid hardware laptops with solid components and paying really good kernel hackers to write really good drivers just for those devices, and then running BSD and XFCE and selling it as the uber-menace choice for silicon valley types

Just saying simple and bullet proof goes a long way

Idk about your experiences but I've been using Linux Mint for over a year now and it's just been working smoothly out of the box (better than Windows even). The only part where I had some problems initially were graphics drivers but that's only because I messed with them unnecessarily.

>Does the hardware actually work?

Considering that HN is full of programmers and technical users, and literally every time Linux is mentioned people go "I had a problem getting Z working, but I did that and...", "X and Y did not work", "U is not supported", I'd say hit and miss.

Case in point, just from this thread, and from people who say they are otherwise satisfied:

"The worst of my Linux woes were the usual suspend/hibernate issues running Ubuntu on company-provided Thinkpads."

"Suspend/hibernate works on thinkpads with a moderately recent Linux kernel and a bios toggle."

"The only issues I have had is that the sound output sometimes does not automatically switch to/from HDMI when I unplug a TV, and that gnome gets slightly laggy after a really long uptime (its a really weak laptop performance wise)."

"I did have issues setting up certain drivers (i.e. the bloody wifi which tbh is still a bit iffy on my machine) but otherwise it's been amazing."

"actually, on one of my workstations I have a ten-year-old Quadro 4000 that was being a pain in the neck on Fedora 29 -- but the fellows over at LinuxQuestions sorted me out in two shakes."

"I have the latest X1 and almost nobody has a working mic. Also battery life sucks and Bluetoothd always needs a restart after suspends."

"I have a gen 6 and no issues. Is it a 7th gen? BTW what disto? Im on Fedora 30. I would check that you have linux compat turned on in firmware and patch to latest firmware."

"My only Linux laptop was a Fujitsu Lifebook. Turns out laptop manufacturers are garbage at writing ACPI drivers for their own hardware, and so Microsoft has been going around quietly patching them so nobody notices. I ended up having to create my own driver for the lifebook. I cobbled from two other people's failed attempts at making a better one (each fixed different problems) and some fixes from the newest model in that product line. At no point in time did I think it would be fun to write ACPI drivers."

> The biggest problem is communication. No one fucking communicates.

Elon Musk says something interesting about this here:

"Product errors reflect organizational errors."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ36Kt7UVg&feature=youtu.be...

He's specifically talking about how the product subsystems are effectively mapped out by the product departments and that they should try to interface with each other with minimal constraints.

But, my take was that there needs to be a LOT of communication between departments and an ongoing debate between them as well.

Edit: The more that I think about it...

This might a big reason why Musk companies defy the odds, and why it is so difficult for incumbents to catch up.

The over the air updates of Tesla are a good example of hardware & software departments working together to make something very difficult to compete with (if you're a regular old school siloed company).