From OS X to Ubuntu • Hacker News Board

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#381

Post by thecrazyone » Tue, Jan 10, 2017, 8:04 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #250

pjmlp wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google the laptop model + Linux before you buy it. That increases the odds of getting a "it works out of the box" experience. I would happily do this when was a university student about 20 years ago. Nowadays, I want to go whatever store (physical or online) and just take what I want to buy. Yes, there are some online stores for GNU/Linux, but as I discovered with the one I bought (Asus + Ubuntu), it might happen t…

> Nowadays, I want to go whatever store (physical or online) and just take what I want to buy. If you bring Linux on a USB stick, a good store will let you boot into it on the exhibition piece. At least, that was the case for me, and it definitely contributed to my buying my notebook at that particular store.

I hadn't thought about this. Thanks for sharing :)

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#382

Post by boomboomsubban » Tue, Jan 10, 2017, 8:10 PM UTC

akarambir wrote: post #372

boomboomsubban wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's bizarre, considering 40% of Dell computers sold in China come with Linux.

Parent is from Taiwan and not China. They are different countries(for most parts of world). Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan,_China >> However, the term is problematic and potentially ambiguous because since 1949, two sovereign states with the name "China" exist, namely the Republic of China (ROC, founded 1912 and now commonly known as "Taiwan") and the People's Republic of China (PRC, founded 1949 and…

Sort of different countries that share a sea border and a common tongue, I have at least a base understanding of 20th century Chinese history. It would be bizarre if you were unable to buy a Linux laptop in Canada if 40% of Dell's sold in America came with Linux.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#383

Post by gsmiro » Tue, Jan 10, 2017, 8:14 PM UTC

qplex wrote: post #183

developer2 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Linux laptops: buy pre-installed. The fact that hardware - though much improved in the past 15 years - is still a crapshoot on Linux, particularly when it comes to laptop hardware, is so frustrating. Windows will work on practically any combination of hardware. OS X will work on any hardware it is permitted to operate on. Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "ju…

>Linux is the only consortium of operating systems that still suffer from the inability to "just work out of the box". Google the laptop model + Linux before you buy it. That increases the odds of getting a "it works out of the box" experience. You'll also usually find pretty straightforward instructions how to get things going quickly if they do not work out of the box, or the simple fact that the machine is not wel…

I have a 2013 MBP and mu wife a cheap 14" Dell bought around the same time. Fun fact: using my Samsung TV as a second display didn't work in MBP running Mavericks and worked in the Dell running Win 7. After I upgraded to Yosemite/Win10 things got inverted and now I have to stop coding in order my wife can watch Netflix in the TV with her girlfriends...

Bottom line: windows has crappy driver support for old hardware

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#384

Post by joantune » Tue, Jan 10, 2017, 8:38 PM UTC

Big questions (for me at least here)

How is the Pad sensitivity on that combo (i.e. X1 Carbon + Ubuntu + Gnome3)

Also: do you have the double finger scroll thing, what about the double tap for secondary mouse button? also three finger move and four finger gestures?

One of the things I love about my Mac is how easy to use the trackpad is with all of its features. (the other things are durability and being a POSIX system, both covered apparently by the lenovo and being a Linux). I won't pay an extra 1000USD or more for it though, especially if it's reasonably ok in the X1 for instance

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#385

Post by zaph0d_ » Tue, Jan 10, 2017, 8:49 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #218

sk1pper wrote: post #31

IMO if money isn't an object, OS X is a better call when it comes to laptops. If money is tight, going for a Linux box is almost as good. Linux on desktops - as in, not a laptop - has worked pretty much flawlessly for me for >10 years. Not much else to say there. If desktop or server, this shouldn't be a discussion. As far as laptops go, I've just had better experiences with macbooks. Linux on a laptop is still 100%…

> Linux on a laptop is still 100% usable and gets you everything you need. Unless one is into proper UI/UX design experiences, game and graphics programming specially with multi-GPU and all those nice buttons on the laptop.

IIRC macOs does not support OpenGL 4.5 or Vulkan. Also there is currently no high performance Apple Hardare to do things like CUDA or other GPGPU programming. CUDA on Linux is really an easy thing to do. For Game programming tools like Unreal Engine 4 are afaik alreasy supported on Linux, which gives you multiplatform support. For graphics, music or 3D modelling windows is currently the only solution.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#386

Post by HemanHeartYou » Tue, Jan 10, 2017, 9:14 PM UTC

ePierre wrote: post #143

timtadh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux laptops: buy pre-installed. If you want linux and you want to be sure everything is functional, AND you don't want to devote lots of time to a "project" buy a pre-install. Dell Developer Edition laptops (XPS 13, 15) make great laptops. I hear good things about system 76 and purism as well. Save time. Support having good laptops and good drivers. Buy pre-installed. Paying the "windows tax" and installing a Linux…

> Save time. Support having good laptops and good drivers. Buy pre-installed. Paying the "windows tax" and installing a Linux on a windows laptop isn't just more work, it is bad for the ecosystem. I wish I could. Unfortunately, I live in a country (Taiwan) where no one knows about Linux. It's impossible to buy a pre-installed Linux laptop here. You know the most ironic part? My job here is to certify hardware (includ…

Your smiley indicates to me that you are being facetious. If you don't like living there or doing that job, move.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#387

Post by trm42 » Tue, Jan 10, 2017, 10:16 PM UTC

pawadu wrote: post #280

trm42 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used Linux before really started photography hobby. After a while of fumbling with additional WinXP desktop for Lightroom 1-3, decided to start using my work Macbook for photography as well and it has made my life a lot easier. One reason being that keeping laptops working with Linux is PITA. Lightroom is amazing piece of software for its purpose, but the vendor lock-in of 9 years of raws stored and edited( ) with Li…

Did you read the article? > I've been a super hardcore Lightroom user and lover, but eventually found Darktable and am perfectly happy with it now. Its ergonomics take a little while to get used to though. I know one pro photographer that use Darktable, not because its free but because it has some fancy algorithms that Lightroom lacks.

Yep, part of the reason I commented. Also the reason I listed some PITAs regarding LR. The author of the article didn't really describe his workflow regarding raws and jpegs so if he doesn't do really big edits, maybe he doesn't have the same problems as I do.

I truly like the idea of Darktable, but converting existing photo library to Darktable is big and problematic job and the workflow + UX feels really painful.

Sure there are other apps with great Algorithms for RAW editing like Capture One but that's another workflow/UX killer. Lightroom is actually quite awesome compromise between the quality, workflow and UX.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#388

Post by ekianjo » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 12:10 AM UTC

ascagnel_ wrote: post #334

foxylad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been ready for over ten years. I switched in the early '00s. As well as giving me a reliable* platform to work on, this had the enormous benefit of allowing me to say "I don't know anything about Windows any more, so if you want me to help you with your computer you'll have to switch to Linux" to friends and family. Many switched, and I must have saved myself months of fixing Windows machines. So I offer a heart…

I would argue that your asterisk means Linux is nowhere near ready for wide use on the desktop. Non-technical users can wreak all sorts of havoc with an OS setup, and it needs to be somewhat hardened to that (my personal favorite story is having to fix a friend's Windows install that somehow associated .exe files with Word, so Word became the shell and displayed the unicode garbage representation of explorer.exe).

> needs to be somewhat hardened to that

Oh so you mean like folks reinstalling Windows all over again? Seen that happening many times.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#389

Post by Whitestrake » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 12:10 AM UTC

ascagnel_ wrote: post #334

foxylad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been ready for over ten years. I switched in the early '00s. As well as giving me a reliable* platform to work on, this had the enormous benefit of allowing me to say "I don't know anything about Windows any more, so if you want me to help you with your computer you'll have to switch to Linux" to friends and family. Many switched, and I must have saved myself months of fixing Windows machines. So I offer a heart…

I would argue that your asterisk means Linux is nowhere near ready for wide use on the desktop. Non-technical users can wreak all sorts of havoc with an OS setup, and it needs to be somewhat hardened to that (my personal favorite story is having to fix a friend's Windows install that somehow associated .exe files with Word, so Word became the shell and displayed the unicode garbage representation of explorer.exe).

Agreed, I think it's less about being able to get it right, and more about being unable to get it wrong (because users can and will get it wrong in every way possible).

Linux is able to get it right in almost every way imaginable, but I can't think of any distro that's as resilient to the user as Windows. Almost all the bloat, crap, and bad decisions seem aimed ostensibly at making it difficult or impossible for the user to ruin their system, and obviously they still are far from impervious.

Re: From OS X to Ubuntu

#390

Post by WayneBro » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:17 AM UTC

hobarrera wrote: post #366

WayneBro wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Package managers... But bash on Windows includes apt. It's all of Ubuntu running on the Windows NT kernel instead of the Linux kernel... > WMs... Windows has one of the best window managers around and you can make it do pretty much anything you want. > ...understandable filesystem hierarchy... Done. And it's actually simpler than any Unix filesystem that I've seen. Obviously millions of users and devs use the Windo…

It's not the same to dumping some package manager on top of an OS (like apt on bash) to having it be part of the core OS. When a package manager is part of the core OS, it handles ALL installed apps, and can update, or remove anything. apt on bash won't update my firefox, or let me uninstall apps. Stuff will make it in sideways, and won't be tracked by any package manager. > Windows has one of the best window manager…

> ...can't do any of the stuff i3wm does..

What exactly do you think i3wm can do that Windows 10 can't be made to do?

Windows 10 has tiling and workspaces. I can add any number of automations via AutoHotKey.

> Users don't count, because they barely interact with it...

Didn't I mention the millions of devs that are on Windows? I also live with a 3rd grade school teacher and she absolutely uses the heck out of the Windows file system. Anyway - as a developer, I use Linux, Mac and Windows to build Node.js and Cordova apps and I use them all fully. Linux for servers, Mac for iOS builds and the occasional Swift app...and Windows for Android and Web development. I just can't see what you think is so "unusable" about Windows filesystem.

Honestly, it just sounds to me like you just hate Windows without even knowing anything about it.

> It's not the same to dumping some package manager on top of an OS (like apt on bash) to having it be part of the core OS...

It might as well be since even on Linux you have to break out of the package manager often in order to get work done!

Have you not seen the hundreds of FOSS projects that ask you to install by curling a shell script right off their site? You can't do shit with just a package manager.

In any case - I'd rather not get stuck using one OS forever. Linux leaves a LOT to be desired. That's why I use multiple systems and I am well versed in each of them. Life would seem so dull if I only knew one OS. I feel sorry for people who are so adamant about never using some tech because of their politics or whatever.