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From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

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Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#391

Post by mbreese »

alanpearce wrote: post #377
commandersaki wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's even true with my m3 mbp16. I haven't tweaked with the power settings but I'm pretty sure it is in a connected sleep state when I close the lid; at least when I'm hotspotting my phone will register it as a connected device.

This can be enabled or disabled under the System Settings > Battery > Options > Wake for network access (Always / Power adapter / Never). Or possibly the phone registers it as connected for a while after it sends its last packet?

IIRC, Macs also do tricky networking things to make it faster to come back online from sleep. I'd be curious if the computer is actually sending packets vs. just keeping the address configured and waiting.

(That may just be on iOS though...)

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#392

Post by LtWorf »

coliveira wrote: post #339
LtWorf wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hibernation never worked properly You can blame microsoft for that unfortunately. They made the vendors to change how it all works to workaround windows issues and it didn't even work.

It is amazing that after decades Microsoft still cannot nail such an important usability issue... There's no way I can use Windows laptops full time.

Problem is they screwed it up for linux users as well, due to hw changes.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#393

Post by vishnugupta »

mythz wrote: post #272

I've owned several laptops over the years and have come to regret each of my non Apple laptop purchases which never got more than 3-4 years life without some hardware failures, Surface was the worst which died after 10 months of low sporadic usage. Whilst my gen 1 MB Air has been too slow for anything, my 2013 MB Intel still looks and runs great which the kids still make good use of. My latest M2 MB is by far the bes…

> my 2013 MB Intel still looks and runs great

I switched to MacBook in 2017. My first MB was a pleasure to use, solidly built and the keyboard a delight for a touch-typist.

But then Apple got crazily fixated on making them thin. By God they are some of the worst physical devices I've ever owned. That butterfly keyboard is so bad to the point of being non functional.

Fortunately they course corrected with M1 onwards. I still have their immediate predecessors of M1 as a secondary/backup device. While the spec is maxed out the physical device is just bad.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#394

Post by manaskarekar »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #290
pjerem wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say it’s barely 3 things : - The trackpad (but other manufacturers now have tolerable alternatives and anyway you can work without it) - The screen : at an equivalent price point (and even more), nothing comes close to Apple screens. The cheapest MacBook have a better screen than most high end PCs. - The audio : Apple truly did some sorcery to get such an awesome sound from machines that are flat as sheet. It’s s…

Interestingly, I really don't like MacBook trackpads. The actuation force is too high for my taste. Maybe this has changed.

And they're too large. I know, super unpopular opinion. I prefer the middle of the road size on trackpads with the physical buttons form the dell latitudes of 2010s. They work remarkably well with linux too.

The clickpads are pretty imprecise and poor, and compared to this the Macbook is much nicer.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#395

Post by dingnuts »

brabel wrote: post #382
baq wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also add a very important feature of ‘lid is closed - the computer is asleep and it wakes up when lid opens’. Both windows and Linux are simply broken in that regard. What I need is Apple MacBook hardware with a 100% supported Linux OS. This combination simply doesn’t exist and there’s no amount of money to make it happen (yes I know about asahi.)

My god I had to put my Linux (Dell xps13 with Ubuntu from factory, though I installed KDE later) laptop in the drawer as I just couldn’t make it sleep with the lid down. It would simply wake up in the middle of the night and drive me crazy with the fan!! I loved that laptop but it gave me trouble after trouble (stuff like sound breaking after upgrades, Bluetooth failures and many more). My Mac just worked so I use on…

funny, I had this problem with my last Mac ten years ago. ymmv ig

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#396

Post by mbreese »

likeclockwork wrote: post #307
mirzap wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, this was a great thread. I just investigated a bit which drivers I use, gpu.. And it turns out my arch was using built-in GPU (how?) glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer" OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi, raphael_mendocino, LLVM 20.1.8, DRM 3.64, 6.16.0-arch2-1) I've added a few env parameters Claude suggested in ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf, and now it shows: OpenGL renderer string: NVIDIA GeForc…

Wow. Your original comment reads very differently now.

It also inadvertently proves their point. The strength of Apple hardware is the OS integration. This level of integration and polish is only possible because of the limited components they have to support. Even if you have powerful components on the PC side (Windows or Linux), you're at the mercy of a few different vendors and how well they support the hardware. And even if you get supported components, it's possible to get yourself into situations where your configuration is sub-optimal.

Versus a Mac where you can just start it and get working. It's possible with PC hardware, but it takes more work for the customer (or vendor).

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#397

Post by setopt »

unethical_ban wrote: post #389
cycomanic wrote: post #76

> But the quality of MacBooks is just another level. I had 3 or 4 so far since 2010, and each of them held at least 5 years. Crazy good. When I read things like this it really sounds like there is some reality distortion field in the mac world. How is that anywhere special? I'm running a thinkpad X1 as my 2 main laptops (it was my only work machine until 2 years ago) and I never felt the need to replace it. It gave m…

Yes they are that good, and "lasting five years" might not mean physically functioning vs not. It could be "meets my computing needs". Yes it could also mean "before the nonservicable battery dies". I have a 2008 Acer, a 2018 Thinkpad, a 2019 HP, a 2024 framework, and a 2024 MacBook. I can't stand 1080p for personal use anymore, and never in my life on Windows or Linux have I gotten more than 4 hours out of a battery…

My 2021 M1 MacBook is still good, but my 2020 Intel MacBook Air (16GB RAM) has felt unusable since 2022 or so. After upgrading macOS past Big Sur it just got unusably slow, would randomly hang or have high idle CPU usage, battery power was short lived, and it was constantly hot. I therefore downgraded it to Catalina and was happy to have my laptop back, until Homebrew and App Store wouldn’t let me install new things anymore, then I upgraded it to the latest macOS again and found it unusable again.

Now I’m not sure whether to install Linux on it (I’ve used Linux as my main OS before the Mac), or try to downgrade to Catalina again and just build whatever software I need from source.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#398

Post by Der_Einzige »

dingnuts wrote: post #395
brabel wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god I had to put my Linux (Dell xps13 with Ubuntu from factory, though I installed KDE later) laptop in the drawer as I just couldn’t make it sleep with the lid down. It would simply wake up in the middle of the night and drive me crazy with the fan!! I loved that laptop but it gave me trouble after trouble (stuff like sound breaking after upgrades, Bluetooth failures and many more). My Mac just worked so I use on…

funny, I had this problem with my last Mac ten years ago. ymmv ig

Get your head out of the sand. It’s an intel X86 (hence why you had it) problem. Macs current ARM chips are excellent at sleeping and waking correctly

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#399

Post by gigatexal »

sersi wrote: post #257
gigatexal wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you just made my day I am so happy with this I could kiss you!* just saved me a bunch of coin cuz I was considering trading up for a m4 or otherwise to get better brightness amazing! * more a turn of phrase, a hug, a handshake, a thank you thank you thank you all suffice ;-) I insta bought the suggested app

Check out https://github.com/alin23/Lunar it's the most advanced app on mac when it comes to controlling screens

purchased as well. thanks! was looking for a way to tweak my connected monitors, too.

this brings up a good Q -- what monitors other than the absurd Apple XDR are out there that are good at high brightness. I'm loving the brightness above 500 nits on this main screen I want it everywhere.

Re: From M1 MacBook to Arch Linux: A month-long experiment that became permanenent

#400

Post by fredoliveira »

dingnuts wrote: post #395
brabel wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My god I had to put my Linux (Dell xps13 with Ubuntu from factory, though I installed KDE later) laptop in the drawer as I just couldn’t make it sleep with the lid down. It would simply wake up in the middle of the night and drive me crazy with the fan!! I loved that laptop but it gave me trouble after trouble (stuff like sound breaking after upgrades, Bluetooth failures and many more). My Mac just worked so I use on…

funny, I had this problem with my last Mac ten years ago. ymmv ig

Intel macs sometimes went crazy with fans. The leap from those to Apple Silicon hardware was (to me at least) as impactful as HDD to SSD.
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