Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

drikerf.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 372 posts

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#331

Post by boogies »

jessaustin wrote: post #327
boogies wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell also sells an XPS “Developer Edition” with Ubuntu pre-installed and officially supported, and Lenovo recently announced a range of workstations and Thinkpads being certified to support Ubuntu and Fedora. There’s also Purism that created a custom PureOS to closely fit their custom hardware, eg. a TPM designed for user security instead of vendor lock-in.

Lenovo talk a good game, but I have thus far been unable to find a linux laptop available for purchase on the lenovo site.

I don’t think they ship anything with it preinstalled right now (unlike each of the other companies I and the parent mentioned). But they’ve had a reputation of generally good Linux support for a while now, and it’s seems they’ve just now decided to make it official, and there’s plenty of hope for preinstalled GNU/Linux in the future.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#332

Post by boogies »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #301
boogies wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addendum: And of course you can get ‘the macOS experience’ with Adobe products, etc. on a Thinkpad (making a Hackintosh seems easier than ever with OpenCore &c). Not that I as someone who has used Adobe products on macOS for a class and prefers free-as-in-freedom alternatives ever would.

Easier than ever now yes. Once they finish the move to ARM... :'(

Yep, now’s just the time to try elementaryOS or any free/libre OS and get weaned off Apple before addiction to macOS becomes more of a restrictive/oppressive/heavy burden than ever.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#333

Post by xenospn »

apetrovic wrote: post #212
pmx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, totally the opposite to my own experience with mac. Getting external displays to work properly has often required nasty EDID hacks and disabling SIP on the machine.

I'm on my third MacBook Pro (the current one is MBP 16"), always used various external monitors (24" FullHD back in the day, recently mostly 27" 4k), with either mini DP, USB-C to mini DP, or USB-C with recent LG monitors, and in eight years since I'm on Mac I never had any issue.

Same. It always just works, no matter where you are or what you’re connecting to.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#334

Post by asciimov »

stinos wrote: post #307
asciimov wrote: post #293

Some tips from someone who's been doing this linux laptop thing for a long while now (6 year's ago, I replaced my aging MBP with a cheap HP) 0. TAKE NOTES! Make a setup doc that keeps up with the issues of setting up your computer. ie... I have to do some funky things to get my onboard speakers to work, I never remember how to do it, but my notes remember it for me. 1. The trackpad will suck. Just get an external tra…

Wrt note taking for setting up software: I gave up on that in favor of a shell script for initial setup, and pretty much everything else is in Ansible. Works for almost everything, does take some work and sometimes needs updating. But also serves as notes by itself. Anyway the main advantage over notes for me is that I don't have to copy-paste a bunch of commands from notes anymore, and that large parts of it are com…

Shell scripting is good when you can use it. Some software I use is manually patched and that doesn't lend itself to automation.

The notes are also geared for the times I move distros or change a major component in the system. I include what I did, why I did it, where the info came from, and why I removed it or decided to go a different direction.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#335

Post by boogies »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #303
hashedout wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is because the integration is not there in the linux ecosystem. Apple has this very tight integration because it controls both the hardware and the software. But there are some companies which have started doing the same thing: - System76 - Tuxedo These companies test their devices well on a distro and well, it reflects in their pricing too!

No quite the same thing. None of the Linux vendors make their own laptops, they just use barebones from Clevo etc. So they can never achieve the same integration as Apple.

> None of the Linux vendors make their own laptops

Dell, Lenovo, Purism, Pine64 et al. do.

The two in your parent may (at least System76’s laptops are said to) use Clevo hardware, but they can still ship with custom open source firmware.

It’s also not as if Apple sells their own custom CPU at the moment. Even then, they’ll probably buy other parts from third parties (eg. they buy iPhone OLEDs from Samsung, though they’re said to calibrate them differently).

And finally, integration can be seen as a bad thing. It’s conducive to lock in (see above comment on ARM Macs ending Hackintoshes).

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#336

Post by dkarl »

pravus wrote: post #137
FoomFries wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how you arrived at some of these conclusions. - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. - Inadequate package manager -> Somewhat nebulous, most package managers on Linux are available on Unix. - Slow and large updates -> I honestly don't pay much attention as I have updates install automatically while I'm sleeping, but what size differences have you noticed…

At least as far as the UI is concerned: - No focus-follows-mouse options means I can't layer windows in a way that accelerates my workflows. Having to switch between windows constantly is a giant speed bottleneck for me. - No keybinds for quickly resizing and positioning windows as far as I know. I only use the mouse to quickly position windows and even then just use alt-drag on my Linux desktop. - Animations. Anythi…

After eight years of using Macs exclusively for desktop and laptop use, I still can't get used to the counterintuitive focus management. I'm scrolling up and down in an app, start using the keyboard, and the keystrokes go to a different app! Arg! It just does not compute for me that I can be interacting with app A, move my mouse to app B, start interacting with app B, see my interactions have effect in app B, then start typing and find that my keystrokes are going to app A.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#337

Post by cc23 »

As a C++ backend/distributed systems engineer, I cant imagine working on anything except Linux.

I even use Linux on my personal laptop. It's a Thinkpad actually. Yes, the touch pad on Mac is better. But Linux is just so much quicker and lighter, and really the only major annoying thing I've run into is electronically signing PDFs.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#338

Post by nikon »

krondor wrote: post #310
nikon wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've successfully configured my Mac to use AptX with my Sony headphones. Follow this guide: https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/31/mac-how-to-force-aptx-aac-on-...

Excellent, not sure what I missed before, but I have aptx and aac now! A good step in the right direction. Still would love LDAC and/or Aptx HD of course in the long run.

Agreed! Funnily enough, this doesn't work on my 2015 MBP, just my newer Touchbar one.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#339

Post by jamesponddotco »

loxs wrote: post #313
jimbob21 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I get some laptop recommendations with similar specs (and most importantly battery time) as the MBP from you? I've been looking around for a new one.

Currently I run the cheapest ThinkPad T495 (AMD hardware) on Arch Linux (but maxed the RAM on my own). Everything works great, except it doesn't remember the screen brightness level after a reboot, which is not a big deal at all for me - I don't reboot very often.

I have a Psomething (the one with Xeon) from work and a T480 for personal stuff, but as I have been getting rid of Intel in my life, the T480 will be the first to go.

How is the T495 with kernel 5.8? How does the GPU handle day to day life, and video acceleration? And more importantly, does the T495 have soldered RAM?

The awesome thing about the T480 is how I could upgrade a bunch of things, from Wi-Fi card, to RAM, to NVMe drive, and I would not like losing that.

The new T14, unfortunately, will take forever to show up in Brazil, so the T495 seems to be the logical option.

Re: One Year with ThinkPad and Linux (From MacBook Pro)

#340

Post by thefounder »

zdragnar wrote: post #102
alexktz wrote: post #61

I recently purchased a 16” MBP despite significant personal concerns over the future of MacOS, being a strong open source advocate and Linux paying my mortgage. I did this ultimately for a few reasons. MacOS lets me run Adobe (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc), Fusion360, has a good terminal (iTerm and zsh unix like shell) and Logic. Mac hardware is still some of the best in the business, no other vendors seem to be able to…

I am glad that you like your macbook, but your experience has been very different from mine. It has the worst WIFI radio in a laptop that i have used; one area of my house is basically off-limits to it despite every other Wi-Fi enabled device i own working there (phones and several laptop brands). The fancy metal case isnt properly grounded- I get occasionally a slight tingling /shock from it when I have it plugged i…

>> The fancy metal case isnt properly grounded- I get occasionally a slight tingling /shock from it when I have it plugged in.

Can confirm the issue with the latest 2 versions of MBA

Post reply on HN