4 ms·

For me the adoption story is 100% about wifi drivers. There's pent-up demand for linux laptops but if you installed linux on your laptop 3 years ago, odds are t

For me the adoption story is 100% about wifi drivers. There's pent-up demand for linux laptops but if you installed linux on your laptop 3 years ago, odds are the wifi didn't work. If broadcom decided today to follow intel/atheros and support linux, a huge class of devices would become linux-friendly overnight. I've bought and returned 5 different laptops this year and driver support has been the story every time. (even for hypothetically linux-based hardware like chromebooks -- the post-broadwell chromebooks have iffy linux support -- for new chromebooks, it's the graphics drivers that are most likely to give you trouble). Interface-wise, the feature stability of standard linux desktops (I use xfce) is probably a secret advantage over apple/msft/chrome. Every new version of windows/osx gets slower, more complicated, less keyboard-friendly and more notification-focused. A 2005-era windows user would probably be more comfortable on my mint xfce desktop than on a commercial alternative.

CaptSpify 10y ago
Don't forget video drivers! Those are still a flaky mess of closed-source and hacky solutions with unreadable errors. Personally I still have issues with sound-cards from time to time (I use debian, while ubuntu is much better about the OOTB experience), but getting rid of PA still fixes that.
- pantalaimon 10y ago
  With which video drivers are you experiencing problems?
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    nvidia
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
sqeaky 10y ago
I remember about 10 years ago this was a huge issue for me. Back then I would research and know which chip the wifi used before buying and carefully check versions. About 5 years ago I stopped when I saw that everything I looked up supported my stuff for at least 2 years. Since then every machine's wifi worked with a default Ubuntu install. It could also be a selection bias. Most of my machines are north of a thousand dollars and if you buy things in the price range of chromebooks then you are probably getting some low end stuff, maybe the drivers for cheap stuff are that much worse. Maybe the cheap stuff isn't up to spec and needs workarounds that are hidden inside the closed source drivers from the vendor which generally aren't used on Linux.
pja 10y ago
It may be that the lack of broadcom Linux drivers is starting to have some effect, at least at the high end? The new Dell 13" XPS comes with an atheros supported wifi device - I guess Dell got tired of having to create an entirely seperate SKU just for the developer editions.
- awinter-py 10y ago
  I have an XPS 13 from this summer. lspci says: 3a:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4350 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 08) The driver works mostly but once in a while I have to `sudo service network-manager restart`, rmmod/modprobe mwifiex_pcie, or worst-case reboot the system. Obviously this happens at the worst possible times -- meetings and in the middle of important work. Their 'developer edition' uses intel wifi, I think, but is intermittently sold out and weirdly more expensive. You can buy an intel card and add it.
  - pja 10y ago
    New XPS 13" comes with a Killer 1535 Wifi chipset, which is Atheros based I believe. Specs at http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-13-9360-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-13-9360-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC I think you bought the previous model. It’s possible that the UK gets slightly different specs of course, but seems unlikely?

CaptSpify 10y ago

Don't forget video drivers! Those are still a flaky mess of closed-source and hacky solutions with unreadable errors. Personally I still have issues with sound-cards from time to time (I use debian, while ubuntu is much better about the OOTB experience), but getting rid of PA still fixes that.

pantalaimon 10y ago
With which video drivers are you experiencing problems?
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  nvidia
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

sqeaky 10y ago

I remember about 10 years ago this was a huge issue for me. Back then I would research and know which chip the wifi used before buying and carefully check versions. About 5 years ago I stopped when I saw that everything I looked up supported my stuff for at least 2 years. Since then every machine's wifi worked with a default Ubuntu install. It could also be a selection bias. Most of my machines are north of a thousand dollars and if you buy things in the price range of chromebooks then you are probably getting some low end stuff, maybe the drivers for cheap stuff are that much worse. Maybe the cheap stuff isn't up to spec and needs workarounds that are hidden inside the closed source drivers from the vendor which generally aren't used on Linux.

pja 10y ago

It may be that the lack of broadcom Linux drivers is starting to have some effect, at least at the high end? The new Dell 13" XPS comes with an atheros supported wifi device - I guess Dell got tired of having to create an entirely seperate SKU just for the developer editions.

awinter-py 10y ago
I have an XPS 13 from this summer. lspci says: 3a:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4350 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter (rev 08) The driver works mostly but once in a while I have to `sudo service network-manager restart`, rmmod/modprobe mwifiex_pcie, or worst-case reboot the system. Obviously this happens at the worst possible times -- meetings and in the middle of important work. Their 'developer edition' uses intel wifi, I think, but is intermittently sold out and weirdly more expensive. You can buy an intel card and add it.
- pja 10y ago
  New XPS 13" comes with a Killer 1535 Wifi chipset, which is Atheros based I believe. Specs at http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-13-9360-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-13-9360-laptop/pd?ref=PD_OC I think you bought the previous model. It’s possible that the UK gets slightly different specs of course, but seems unlikely?