Moving from Macbook to Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#461

Post by fendy3002 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 10:59 AM UTC

cercatrova wrote: post #442

least wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies that people are giving up significant control of their devices, which isn't true.

Aren't they? Look at the Epic vs Apple opinions online, people with iPhones say they actually want to be locked down to just one app store without any consumer choice.

Until some good / popular apps aren't available, or isn't compatible with Apple's terms and conditions. I know this is unlikely scenario since almost every companies want Apple's market share, however things happened with IE, so it's possible to happen again with ios.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#462

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 11:07 AM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #370

hacknat wrote: post #154

I would strongly recommend the following combination for beginners: Thinkpad + Fedora Fedora stays on the cutting edge of the kernel, which means that driver support is quite good. Additionally, most of the Linux kernel developers use Thinkpads, so the drivers for Thinkpad are always good. I've never had to download drivers individually. Here's a list of things that just "worked" without me having to do anything: 1.…

What about mobile workstations like Dell Precision, HP Zbook, Thinkpad P53? Those workstations usually claim to support Linux officially, they are really powerful workhorses, they allow using of server-grade components (Xeons, ECC RAM, Quadro GPUs). Do people avoid them because they are expensive, bulky or do not run long on battery? If I would buy laptop today, I would look into those machines first, they seem to ma…

[deleted]

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#463

Post by masklinn » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 11:42 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #375

jodrellblank wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux people don't want you to "not use Linux", they want you to see that wearing a burlap sack is good for your soul , then you'll embrace it wholeheartedly on their terms. The computing world is as tribal as the USA's Red/Blue[1] arrangement, but the origins of the tribes and the polarisation of opinions are as if perfectly tuned to avoid Linux on the Desktop. The people who like Linux for its customizability and m…

That, or maybe they're just helpfully pointing out the advantages of keyboard navigation to their fellow users. I'm about to hit Tab-Return to post this.

> That, or maybe they're just helpfully pointing out the advantages of keyboard navigation to their fellow users.

It's about as helpful as telling someone to go shit in the woods when they ask for bidet recommendations.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#464

Post by Fnoord » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 11:42 AM UTC

> Then, just after the warranty expired, came staingate: [picture]

Sucks to be you that you live in a country where consumer laws apparently suck. I got the screens of 2 MBPs who suffered from staingate replaced, for free, under the recall program (which, due to consumer law protections, lasts longer than 2 years for consumers (not businesses)). One barely suffered from it; they replaced it anyway. One of these MBPs I even bought 2nd hand. I wrote this message on it.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#465

Post by Fnoord » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 11:53 AM UTC

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #453

1_player wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a really bad time with Fedora 32, used to Arch Linux: it always felt like RHEL unstable, with many breaking changes not documented (Fedora 32 needed some kernel and firewall hacks to work with Docker [1]) and have their own set of unstandard tools, still not very much documented. I spent 3 hours trying to understand how to compile a patched mainline kernel -- need to learn about dracut, koji, fedpkg, rpmbuild -…

I've been running Arch Linux for many, many years now on three or four machines at the same time. I've never had anything break, unlike in Ubuntu. (Constant Ubuntu breakages were the thing that drove me to Arch in the first place.) Arch Linux is basically "default upstream Linux", which means less random patches and stuff built on top of it.

I call bullshit. You're doing something wrong on your Ubuntu installation. I run an Arch installation on my desktop. I mainly run Ubuntu on it (an artifact from a time where Ubuntu replaced Debian as my main Linux OS). Every once in a while, I boot to Arch to play around with it (to learn about the hype; there's a few things I like about Arch Linux. AUR is large, wiki documentation is ace). And, practically every time I boot into it, I got stuff to fix... unlike Ubuntu.

On Ubuntu I get security and reliability fixes, and every time I upgrade to a next version I got stuff to fix; ie. every half a year, if I upgrade to next release and decide to not stick on a LTS version. With LTS it is rock stable for years to come, at the sacrifice of not being able to run the latest and the greatest version of software.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#466

Post by theshrike79 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 11:57 AM UTC

nrvn wrote: post #318

Before I moved to macbook in 2014 I had had pretty positive experience with linux on the desktop. I don’t want to disclose the reasons for that move since here is discussed the opposite but I have a question. I absolutely loved my laptop and dwm instead of bloated desktop environments and I would be happy to move back to this universe. BUT. I got trapped to the apple’s ecosystem. I find it convenient to be able to sh…

The best part is that I was in a Microsoft developer event around 2010 or something. They showed a fancy marketing video about a construction guy going about his day. Seamlessly moving content between MS-made devices during his day.

Now it's 2020 and I still can't do that with Microsoft tools. With Apple, it's a reality.

I can open a link on my phone and my laptop automatically suggests I open it from the dock. All data is synced between my laptop, tablet and phone automatically with practically no delay.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#467

Post by lytefm » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 11:59 AM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #113

gonehome wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux on a desktop is okay, linux on a laptop is bad. I think Linux is cool and grew up playing with different distributions (starting around Fedora Core 4). I spent most of my time on Ubuntu because it worked the best, but also used Yellow Dog Linux (my first laptop was a 12in Apple power pc powerbook g4), Arch, and some others. Things that often gave me issues: - Suspend rarely worked without hacks, even with hacks…

All your problems seem to come from the unsupported hardware. Consider a laptop with preinstalled Linux.

Yup. Basically comparing apples to oranges. Unless you're looking at a System76 Laptop or at least a Thinkpad/Dell that's certified.

I've had a great experience with my XPS 13 so far. Everything (Headphones, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi,...) just works, Dell even provides Bios updates. Whereas Windows 10 didn't recognise that my headphones also have a microphone. Only downside is the limited battery management, this is definitely better on ThinkPads.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#468

Post by theshrike79 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 12:07 PM UTC

dfgdghdf wrote: post #193

My Linux experience has been bad, yet I would still choose it over the alternatives. I don't want to give up control over my devices or fight an endless battle against bloatware / spyware. Some of the issues: * Hibernate / suspend does not work reliably on my Thinkpad. I gave up trying to configure it. * Encrypting my drive was much more complicated to setup than on a Mac. * Trackpad does not feel nearly as good as o…

The old adage is that Linux is free only if you don't value your time.

When I was younger, I enjoyed debugging all the weird issues on Linux. Now I value my free time way too much.

I'd rather pay a premium for a device that Just Works. I can have a separate hobby machine I can fuck around with and compile drivers and stuff, but the machine I do my work on? It needs to work and work well. Every minute I spend debugging some driver or fighting the trackpad is a minute I'm not earning money.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#469

Post by thinkingemote » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 12:18 PM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #468

dfgdghdf wrote: post #193

My Linux experience has been bad, yet I would still choose it over the alternatives. I don't want to give up control over my devices or fight an endless battle against bloatware / spyware. Some of the issues: * Hibernate / suspend does not work reliably on my Thinkpad. I gave up trying to configure it. * Encrypting my drive was much more complicated to setup than on a Mac. * Trackpad does not feel nearly as good as o…

The old adage is that Linux is free only if you don't value your time. When I was younger, I enjoyed debugging all the weird issues on Linux. Now I value my free time way too much. I'd rather pay a premium for a device that Just Works. I can have a separate hobby machine I can fuck around with and compile drivers and stuff, but the machine I do my work on? It needs to work and work well. Every minute I spend debuggin…

There's also the cost of getting out of the Apple ecosystem to factor in.

As we've seen with recent mac issues, they seem these days to Only Just Work.

Some flavours of Linux just work these days, see other comments. There really is no need to tinker these days, but if you want to tinker, you can!

But a hugely underestimated cost is the cost of moving away from Apple. Watch, phone, tablet, music, accounts etc makes it an ecosystem. It's not a simple computer, Apple is a brand that integrates with lives.

Of course just how much of the population don't care about privacy so long as they can use a nice UX, many people will not care about Free Software so long as they have a good experience. Linux on the desktop is not going to win UX wars, just like how duck duck go will not win the search wars.

People don't use Linux because it has a better experience than Apple! There are other reasons.

In the future when users can only rent Mac's and not own them, people will still be saying the same thing: I don't care that I don't own this thing, I just want it to work, and it feels better than this other thing.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#470

Post by nix23 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 12:29 PM UTC

totony wrote: post #433

akiselev wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the exception of the X1 ultrabooks, I don't think any Thinkpad has soldered RAM. My X1 Extreme Gen1 with 64GB and a family member's P51 (or p53 dont remember) with 128 GB definitely do not. I bought the cheapest RAM tier and put in my own modules as soon as I got it. Except for ultrabooks where the sacrifice makes sense, I don't expect Thinkpads with soldered RAM to ever become standard. That's just not their ta…

I can't seem to find any that's not soldered, e.g. all the T14s AMD are soldered, so are the X13, so are the X390

>I can't seem to find any that's not soldered

OK first i was thinking that must be BS. But your are right and I'm really angry about it...seams that my x250 is my last Thinkpad until they change that BS. I understand it for a superlim thing, but NOT for a T or P series.