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So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

richardmavis.info

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Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#511

Post by NotANaN »

Since the government insists that it has the authority to violate the 4th Amendment whenever it feels like if I'm in a 100-mile vicinity of a border, I really want devices to have "reset switches" which reset the device to, if not a factory-default state, then a state of "just completed initial configuration without logging into any services."

Which is the state I now feel compelled to set my devices whenever I travel, and then restore from a remote backup when I reach my destination.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#512

Post by stcredzero »

klardotsh wrote: post #476
stcredzero wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got to share several laughs about how "it's the year of the Linux desktop, yeah?" The amount of time that joke's been around should be taken as a sign of a persistent condition. unless my kernel does Strange Things and panics, I basically plug and play into whatever I want The kernel doing strange things and panicking doing plug and play was never a thing on OS X when I started using it. Seems to me it's not been a…

The only piece of this I'm going to engage on is the kernel panic bit, and only as far as a counter-anecdote (so take it as you will), but I had almost as many kernel panics on a 2016 Macbook Pro over a bit over a year of using it at a past job. In fact, almost the exact same scenarios that I'd see panics on Linux on an XPS 13, would panic the Macbook: plugging in external displays through USB-C/TB3 ports. Probably d…

I had almost as many kernel panics on a 2016 Macbook Pro over a bit over a year of using it

I'm still rocking my 2012 Macbook Pro. It's been solid.

The only OS I haven't had kernel panics on in recent memory is, indeed, Windows starting with 7, but I have a long list of other reasons I can't/don't/won't use it as my daily driver.

I can only stand to do my development on a windows machine by using a Linux VM.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#513

Post by stcredzero »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #467
stcredzero wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That being said, it's still got rough spots that OSX doesn't. It works great when it works, but when it doesn't.... Someone really needs to make Linux distros just work when hooking a laptop up to a projector. The fact that there's so much trouble that's so public and faced with so much concentrated embarrassment is a serious ongoing PR impediment to Linux. Linux distros got printing licked across the board, so it ca…

In Linux's defense even the corporate issued Dell laptops at my work running Windows 10 struggle with projectors. I see it daily in meetings people have to randomly mash the function key until display gets mirrored to projector properly, need to plug / unplug projector repeatedly until it works. People hit fullscreen in powerpoint and projector display just disappears and have to go through plug in unplug again dance…

From everything I've seen a projector "just working" seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

My experience with Macbooks has been excellent. Even Airplay over an Apple TV just does the right thing with presenter view in Keynote just working. The one time I had a rotten experience on a Macbook was when I had to use Zoom.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#514

Post by sam0x17 »

shinylane wrote: post #24
sam0x17 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that, try using the budgie ubuntu distro with the arc-dark theme. Way ahead of both macos and windows.

That sounds fantastic, I can Google but do you have a link? I love Ubuntu for my servers!

It's an official distro.

https://ubuntubudgie.org/

Go to "Budgie Themes" and you can set the theme from there. Things like the Pop theme from System76 are included in the list, as well as Arc etc. I personally like to install arc-dark manually from https://launchpad.net/~noobslab/+archive/ubuntu/themes

There are also some really good cursors in that PPA

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#515

Post by k_bx »

Dual-booting on my 2014 MBP. Works surprisingly wonderful, even has pixel-perfect scrolling in Chrome. Battery is great as well.

Only using it for development, and overall it was a great idea to switch from trying to set up macOS with Docker and other stuff.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#516

Post by davidy123 »

neuronic wrote: post #494
davidy123 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing something, but font rendering seems fine on Ubuntu without any after install steps. I've been using Ubuntu exclusively for well over a decade for everyday work, only occasionally going into a Windows VM, and it's really been perfectly fine, great even, as a developer. I bought a X1 Yoga the month after it was released and Ubuntu installed perfectly on it, the only thing that didn't work out of the b…

> and it's really been perfectly fine, great even, as a developer Here is the point. It absolutely is fine as a developer . But my parents would never be able to get accustomed to Ubuntu or any other distro. It was hard enough to make them use email. The truth is that the vast majority of people just want things to work. Like turning on a TV without any setup. Hell, people pay electronics stores 100€ to plugin a cabl…

But, I wasn't talking about your parents.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#517

Post by k_bx »

unfunco wrote: post #179

Anecdotal like other comments but I and a few others from my workplace have switched to Dell XPS machines and run Linux now, and it's because we're working with Docker, even with 16GB RAM and solid-state drives, the performance of Docker on MacOS is pathetic, and entirely unusable for our work. The XPS machines we have are ugly, they're flimsy, they have a grotesque carbon-fibre pattern on them, the keys leave imprin…

I am dual-botting my MBP 2014 and I absolutely recommend doing that. Not sure about more recent ones though.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#518

Post by davidy123 »

makewavesnotwar wrote: post #501
davidy123 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing something, but font rendering seems fine on Ubuntu without any after install steps. I've been using Ubuntu exclusively for well over a decade for everyday work, only occasionally going into a Windows VM, and it's really been perfectly fine, great even, as a developer. I bought a X1 Yoga the month after it was released and Ubuntu installed perfectly on it, the only thing that didn't work out of the b…

I was using Ubuntu exclusively for around a decade too. It's a great development environment. But about a year ago I needed a new laptop and with the one I purchased, some things didn't only require extra steps to get working, some of them were no fix issues until some indeterminate date in the future. You mention the fingerprint reader not working out of the box - with my laptop, Fingerprint GUI was basically waitin…

It's sort of an after-install thing that takes a minute, but I have some keyboard shortcuts that allow me to do things like jump into a sketching program with the current clipboard contents. And Krita itself (and a few other good apps) are available on Linux.

Not sure how Throttlestop compares to the latest Linux options. I've got many containers going, three instances of vscode, a zillion tabs, performance is not an issue.

But, I realize not everyone cares about a free and transparent world, even when it's more and less as good. It must at least encourages companies like Microsoft to keep opening up and getting better.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#519

Post by kingosticks »

PopsiclePete wrote: post #507
kingosticks wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've also found that on my XPS 13 with 18.10. Was fine previously on 16.04. Now I have to open and shut the lid a few times to get it to stop flickering. It's annoying and would otherwise be perfect.

Ah yes that. That’s an (old) bug about how logind interacts with gdm. A quick workaround is ctrl-alt-fn-F1 to force the screen to lock itself. Makes the flicker go away.

That trick worked perfectly. Thanks very much.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#520

Post by Klonoar »

pseudalopex wrote: post #490
Klonoar wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On non-retina displays, which... is nowhere near the normal use case for Macs at this point.

On all displays. It matters less on Retina displays. External displays are nowhere near the normal use case?

No, my point is that this change only affects non-Retina displays. In my experience (worldwide, many companies, etc) anyone who uses a Mac with an external monitor generally doesn't settle for some POS. It's a high-end screen that matches the MacBook, hence why it's not that big of a deal.
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