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My mini Ask HN: After over a decade of using Mac OS X, I am considering switching to Linux for my dev laptop. The tools I worry about are those that interact w

My mini Ask HN: After over a decade of using Mac OS X, I am considering switching to Linux for my dev laptop. The tools I worry about are those that interact with audio and webcam - Go To Meeting, Google Hangout etc. My work involves me having to teleconf with others often. Does anyone here have experience using Linux well in such scenarios. If so, what hardware are you using? Also, does sleep-on-closing-lid work well?

adamors 10y ago
If you rely on Skype in any way, avoid Linux. The Linux version was killed years ago and basic stuff like screen sharing isn't working as expected. Last time I tried (2+ years ago, it might be different now) Go To Meeting also wasn't working on Linux. I've used Linux on the desktop between 2009-2014 and basically anything multimedia related was a chore.
- Ianvdl 10y ago
  Linux is getting a new Skype version: https://blogs.skype.com/2016/07/13/skype-for-linux-alpha-and-calling-on-chrome-and-chromebooks/ https://blogs.skype.com/2016/07/13/skype-for-linux-alpha-and...
  - AhtiK 10y ago
    Unfortunately this seems to be just a wrapper around their web app. Meaning there is zero chance for a significant native linux skype client update.
    - minitech 10y ago
      It isn’t. It’s the equivalent of the Windows and Mac versions.
      - boomskats 10y ago
        Can confirm. They've brought in desktop sharing and it's a lot more stable. Now just need a 'stop sharing my desktop' button.
  - deleted 10y ago
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- deleted 10y ago
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- zanny 10y ago
  You can use the web version of skype now. I'd never install the dumpster desktop version but if anyone refuses to use alternatives I can just go to web.skype.com and it... works.
  - vram22 10y ago
    Does web.skype.com work on Windows Chrome too?
  - angry-hacker 10y ago
    Unfortunately you can't make calls from web. I mean to phone numbers. Screen sharing is not working either, obvious.
    - zanny 10y ago
      Hangouts can dial phone numbers if you want a web phone dialer. Phone numbers are agnostic and the client backing them does not really matter (since you should have no expectation of privacy over the PSTN anyway).
- eth0up 10y ago
  The web version of Skype works fine in Linux. Also, there is https://meet.jit.si/ https://meet.jit.si/ - This works very well in WebRTC capable browsers.
  - compuguy 10y ago
    I managed a internal version of jitsi meet, its great, but it has had a bunch of glitches and issues with parties with more than ~15 people on it.
    - jayroh 10y ago
      Heeeey so, if we're talking about potential alternatives here? I need to just leave this here and encourage anyone looking for something better to take a look: https://www.meetspaceapp.com https://www.meetspaceapp.com Full disclaimer: I'm a friend of the founder, however I'm a paying customer due to the fact that 1. It's worked wonders with my clients and 2. It's so much better than hangouts or skype. Compared to the big boys it may be considered a bit spartan but for what it does, it does it extraordinarily well.
      - compuguy 10y ago
        The reason we stuck with jitsi-meet is that it could be self hosted on an semi-airgapped network, and not break without internet. Also, your friend should invest in a ssl cert, because your link goes directly to a privacy warning.
        jayroh 10y ago
        Ah, the main homepage doesn't look like it's got ssl set up like the actual meat (a subdomain) of the app does. I'll pass it along to him. Thx
      - Whitestrake 10y ago
        Looks like your friend is serving a herokuapp.com certificate for his meetspaceapp.com domain. Should really get that fixed.
IgorPartola 10y ago
Laptop support will vary a bit, but some brands tend to work really well. Look for the specific model + Linux to see if there are hardware issues. I used to use Ubuntu and had Hangouts and GoToMeeting work just fine (also, Skype and Appear.in). I switched to Mac for two reasons: browser testing Safari and quality hardware (aluminum case, retina screen, support for 3+ monitors, nice hinges). I suppose iOS app development is another reason you'd want it.
cyphar 10y ago
Goto meeting does work on GNU/Linux. It even has some terrifying X exploit that allows you to share any window that X knows about. It works fine, you just have to use Chromium.
antouank 10y ago
I have a logitech camera, an old one, and hangouts work fine. For some reason I had to install "cheese" to make it work. But that's all. No extra drivers needed or anything else.
lukeschlather 10y ago
Google Hangouts works fine. Sleep-on-closing-lid works fine. I use Xubuntu. I'm using a Lenovo Tablet, an ASUS laptop, and a custom-built desktop. Bluetooth is kind of a mess, on Xubuntu at least.
- abrowne 10y ago
  > Bluetooth is kind of a mess, on Xubuntu at least. (Speaking as someone who likes Xfce, and is currently switching from MacOS to Linux and is mostly settled on Xubuntu), I think that's mostly an Xfce thing. GNOME (and therefore Unity, Budgie, possibly Cinnamon and maybe MATE) handle it better.
  - eth0up 10y ago
    I can confirm that Bluetooth can be a bit buggy using MATE DE/WM on Debian. Mostly I've used it for headphones, which require an unreasonable amount of resyncing. But there are multiple possible reasons for this – reasons I haven't discovered.
- zanny 10y ago
  Bluetooth depends on your controller. I've had fine bluetooth experiences with the onboard controller on AR9462 wifi cards.
fernandotakai 10y ago
i've been using linux on my macbook for the past 1.5 years and now i have it on my desktop. webcam both on the mbp and my logitech hd work out of the box. sleep on closing lid also works quite well -- and i feel waking it up is faster.
- eth0up 10y ago
  Using Deb on a macbook 4,1 from 2008. Camera doesn't work though. What year is your mackbook? I configured this one last week for a friend who had it laying around in the closet for years with a locked password and no particular interest in Macs. I convinced them to nix the MacOS and try Linux, arguing it would perform more efficiently, and compared to the MacOS version previously installed, it very much does. And tell me; did you reformat the drive, or just add a partition? I used gdisks and GPT partitioning and eventually wangled it, though not without a little trouble.
  - fernandotakai 10y ago
    i used the native osx disk utility to create a partition. i'm using archlinux on a mid-2012 macbook pro. which kernel were you installing?
    - eth0up 10y ago
      I'm not sure; it was an old Debian Stable dvd, from early last year. And the first thing I did was change the repos to Unstable and do a dist-upgrade. The kernel release is presently 4.7.0-1-amd64. It was all a fairly annoying task to begin with a blank hard-drive and end with a usable system, but it was pretty neat when I got it. It's a usable system now, with a few minor bugs.
zanny 10y ago
I have a Clevo 740su, the same model as the old Galago Ultrapro from System76 (I just got it from Sager instead) which has a webcam that works fine out of the box on Linux, the headphone jack works fine, etc. I use KDE and the plasma-pa tray applet easily lets you switch output audio devices for applications which I use (as an example) to playback movies from my desktop to TV.
sandGorgon 10y ago
linux works perfectly well in all these scenarios and is actually better than Windows. hangouts works brilliantly. skype (even the old version) works great with both audio and video. in fact i have switched over to the skype web version which works on the chrome browser (no video call for now.. but audio works brilliantly). i use fedora 24..which just works and is pretty cutting edge. i switched over from Ubuntu pretty recently and have been very happy. im on a xps 13. previously i was on a thinkpad. there is no dearth of cool laptops on Linux.
- satysin 10y ago
  Nice to see another Fedora user! I find it runs better than Ubuntu. Faster and more stable. Recently I have been using Cinnamon over GNOME3. What DE do you use?
  - sandGorgon 10y ago
    gnome 3. i really enjoy the way that gnome 3 has evolved. i think it is more usable than even OSX. plus it comes with all the new systemd security integration. i dont think cinnamon has been rebased on gnome 3 yet
  - glogla 10y ago
    May I ask what are you using to get media and crypto? As far as I know, Fedora doesn't ship media codecs (including mp3) and has limited cryptography, right?
    - satysin 10y ago
      I use this. su -c 'dnf install http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm' sudo dnf -y install cabextract lzip p7zip p7zip-plugins unrar gstreamer1-libav gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld gstreamer1-plugins-base gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer-ffmpeg gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-bad-free gstreamer-plugins-bad-nonfree gstreamer-plugins-base gstreamer-plugins-espeak gstreamer-plugins-fc gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-rtsp amrnb amrwb faac faad2 flac lame libdca libmad libmatroska x264 x265 xvidcore hexchat mpv smplayer vlc
e40 10y ago
No matter what this informal poll shows, there will be more problems than with macOS, over the long term. I know lots of people that use Linux and they very often have problems with audio apps. As for sleep-on-closing-the-lid, I think that's gotten better, but I don't think it will ever approach the stability of it on macOS. In 5 years, I think I've had a very small number of problems with this on macOS, and it always involved undocking from a physical keyboard, mouse and multiple monitors. My friends on Windows and Linux are always having problems with this.
- Johan-bjareholt 10y ago
  I have personally never had any issues with audio on linux the past 5 years. ALSA and pulseaudio have become pretty mature now. Only thing i needed for hangouts to work was to install Chrome instead of Chromium and then it worked. Webcam, audio and mic worked out of the box. I have however heard that there are some issues with the iSight camera on Macs under Linux, I have not tried this myself though.
- Brakenshire 10y ago
  With a ThinkPad, sleep-on-closing-the-lid has never been an issue, I actually wasn't even aware it was a problem that people faced. Presumably it depends almost entirely on the laptop.
reitanqild 10y ago
My idea that I think would work but never came around to before Windows became usable for me was to keep a linux workstation or decent developer laptop and then have an iPad (or some good Android pad) for Skype etc. That I think would be the best of both worlds for me.
dajohnson89 10y ago
Some laptops were designed around Linux. See e.g. system76
- calvin_ 10y ago
  Not really - they're just Clevo rebrands with the bare minimum effort. When graphics switching was new, they were quite helpless.
  - captn3m0 10y ago
    Can confirm this. I'm typing this on a System76 galago pro, which is more than 2 years old at this point. Over time, I've seen the very same issues which you'd expect from any other system: bluetooth misbehaving, graphics issues etc. In particular: 1. The graphic card (Intel onboard Crystal Eye) switches to low-power mode on battery. The windows Intel driver has an option to switch it to performance mode. No such option on the linux drivers. 2. The damn Xf86Display Key (Projector shortcut) isn't supported. However, I've realized over time that irrespective of your choice, you will face issues on _your device_. NTFS would stop working on your Mac, or your iPhone will refuse to connect to your Car's bluetooth one fine day. (/rant)
sz4kerto 10y ago
I am using Slack, GotoMeeting, join.me, etc., and in general -- I'm working remotely. Linux is better for development, but worse for collaboration. You can get almost everything working, but it takes effort. GotoMeeting screensharing tends to work, but not always. Join.me doesn't. The tools for Windows (my other OS) are much better if you need to capture screenshots or recordings often (typical use case: hotkey -> record part of the screen -> paste into Slack.. this is doable on Linux, but on Windows, it takes almost zero effort). The audio is getting better on Linux, but I have many audio devices (external DAC, audio-through-Displayport, analog headset, etc.), and switching between them quickly is more painful than how it is on Windows. This is aggravated by the fact that I hate all DEs (except maybe Gnome3), so I use i3 WM -- which is brilliant but stuff like clipboard management doesn't work well out of the box. In general, Linux can work for my (your?) use case, but it's significantly worse than Windows. It's better for development though (in general). Currently I run Linux VMs under Windows, that works okay. Ah, and Skype for Linux alpha works fine.
- api 10y ago
  I've considered the switch too. Having a Windows VM on Linux seems workable albeit clunky for the ~5% of things that I must have like GoToMeeting, etc. Thing is I already use a Windows VM on Mac for some things like that because I am very security-conscious and OS-pollution-conscious and don't like installing intrusive stuff like GoToMeeting on my main OS.
- grimgrin 10y ago
  Can you elaborate on "Linux is better for development"? Guessing it can only come down to differences in apt and brew and not much more (not that this couldn't be reason enough)? edit: this article mentioned MacOS and Linux and so that's all I thought OP's comment was referring to. We all know the advantages compared to Windows. Of course Windows is constantly improving.
  - methyl 10y ago
    Lots of tools (one example is Webpack) are significantly slower under Windows.
SwellJoe 10y ago
"Also, does sleep-on-closing-lid work well?" Funny story: My new-ish Dell laptop (Inspiron 15 7559 i7 with 4k touchscreen display; which I got at an absurdly low sales price from the Dell outlet store) does not reliably recover from sleep under Windows, but does under Linux (neither worked when I first got the laptop, but now only Windows fails and now only some of the time). That's a first, for me, as I have had a huge variety of sleep related bugs in Linux over the years, but fewer under Windows. Google Hangouts works fine under Chrome on Linux, but is quirkier under Firefox (I don't think I ever got the voice/video plugin working under Firefox, but I rarely use the video features these days, so I just run Chrome when I need it). Both video and audio Hangouts work fine under Chrome. With very new hardware, you probably need a very new Linux distribution, and newer hardware can have installation quirks. Getting Linux onto my box took a lot of fiddling, but it now runs Fedora 24 quite nicely.
- matzipan 10y ago
  Exactly! For example, Skylake support is not mature enough in Linux atm.
  - kuschku 10y ago
    Can you give an example of issues? I’m running on a 6700 here with ARCH.
    - mehrzad 10y ago
      Here is an explation by an FSF board member. https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html
      - kuschku 10y ago
        Ah okay, the power savings issues. Basic "just run code" stuff seems to be working well enough, and on a desktop which always runs at max in my case it doesn’t need to support power savings modes either.
  - 10y ago
methyl 10y ago
Both GTM and Hangouts work well over web applications they offer.
ngauthier 10y ago
I founded MeetSpace, which is video conferencing for distributed teams. I developed MeetSpace on a linux laptop (yoga 2 pro) and a linux desktop (custom w/ logitech c922 webcam). I can tell you that for the most part it's worked flawlessly. The only issues I ever had were that linux rendering wasn't great, so sometimes the CPU was high just from rendering! We are browser-only, so because we don't have a native app we just use browser functionality. The only thing we use the extensions for is for security to ask for permission to use the screen (it's really like a dozen lines of code).
- ngauthier 10y ago
  Oh, and if you switch, Dell's XPS series tends to work very well in linux, especially if you buy their developer edition, because they support ubuntu, which means you can find the drivers even if you don't use ubuntu.
dkarapetyan 10y ago
I'm using project sputnik from dell. No issues the entire time I've had it. Skype works pretty well and people have told me several times that it is the clearest screen sharing experience they've had but I don't really know what that means. Been about 3 years now and has gone from ubuntu 12.04 to 16.04 without any problems. I expect it to continue to work fine and have been looking into upgrading to the latest model.
yellowapple 10y ago
I use Google Hangouts on Linux all the time. No issues at all. Sleep-on-lid-closing works reasonably well nowadays; I can't remember the last time I've run into a laptop which has issues on that front. However, I'd definitely do my research before buying a new laptop, especially if it's a very new one (in other words: you'll have better chances of power-management compatibility on laptops that are a bit more battle-tested).
metafunctor 10y ago
This is why I still choose to go with Mac OS X, even if their most recent hardware is very, very expensive. I don't have time to tinker with compiling kernels, configuring X11, figuring out which photo management software to use, setting up reliable backups, getting my Bluetooth headset to work, and, yes, getting the machine to suspend when I close the lid and wake up when I open it. These are basics that will just work with OS X, very, very, reliably. That said, if anyone can point me to a Linux distro (Debian/Ubuntu preferred) and hardware that actually work reliably together, please do.
- Frondo 10y ago
  Gosh, frankly speaking, I haven't had to do any of that stuff (except for the Bluetooth headset, I never had one of those, no idea how it works) in 7 years. In 2009 I installed Mandriva on a laptop--everything just worked. In 2011, I jumped ship to Mageia, the community-driven offshoot of Mandriva. Everything still just worked. Fast forward several laptops later, including mine and friends' and relations' laptops, and it all just works. Compiling a kernel? Wouldn't know how anymore. Fiddling with X11? No idea. I don't even have problems with Pulseaudio. Compare that to dual booting this one with Windows 10. For several months, Windows 10 had a bug where it wouldn't save the touchpad settings. Every time, I'd have to disable tap-to-click. UGH. They finally fixed it, but what a pain. (And when I had an OS X machine, received as part of payment for a job... between the beach ball and the not-infrequent crashes, where the screen dims and displays that fatal error message, it was a pain to get any work done.)
- aikah 10y ago
  > These are basics that will just work with OS X, very, very, reliably. That's fine, you are paying a premium for all this, it better "just" works. Elementary OS is free of charge.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  > compiling kernels, configuring X11, figuring out which photo management software to use, setting up reliable backups, getting my Bluetooth headset to work, and, yes, getting the machine to suspend when I close the lid and wake up when I open it. I haven't heard of the need for compiling kernels, configuring X11 etc. in a loong time. > setting up reliable backups, getting my Bluetooth headset to work, and, yes, getting the machine to suspend when I close the lid and wake up when I open it Again, works out of the box, just pick a laptop that is known to work well, i.e. a Clevo, Lenovo or some of the newer DELL machines to give Linux a proper chance - there's no point in trying a laptop that is known to work only with Windows and then complain about it - the same way you don't complain if macOS doesn't work well on a DELL. You pick a specific machine to run macOS, do the same for Linux and everything will work beautifully out of the box.
epidemian 10y ago
Google Hangouts works fine. I've had problems with Skype and audio after a distro upgrade on Ubuntu (but an `apt purge` and `apt install` fixed them). Sleep-on-closing-lid has worked fine for me for many years. It's funny that, with regards to Just Working after installation, Linux seems to be way ahead of Windows. I installed both of them on my laptop and while on Linux everything worked fine from the start without needing extra setup steps (including the multitouch trackpad; the not-so-standard function keys like keyboard brightness; even the this weird external subwoofer that came with the laptop), on Windows i had to download and install special drivers for all those things, and even for much more basic stuff, like the wireless card (had to dig through old computer stuff to find an ethernet cable to connect to the internet). Now, i understand why this is the case. Linux distros are designed to be installed by their users, while Windows is designed to come pre-installed on computers. But i still find it curious how Linux is much more non-tech-savvy-friendly in this particular regard.
aidenn0 10y ago
Only the g2m web client works on linux; anything you need the desktop app for (i.e. pretty much anything for which you are the presenter) does not work. WebEx's Linux support is excellent though. Google Hangouts works fine under chrome on linux. As far as hardware, webcam support is generally good. It's now at the point where if you bought a random webcam, there is a better than 50% chance it will just work. That being said, it's much safer to check if others have used it, or to just buy a laptop that has a webcam and ships with linux support (Both Dell and HP have laptops that ship with linux installed). I have a Creative Labs USB webcam that unfortunately has no model number printed on it (I have a long list of things I don't like about built-in webcams). Sleep has worked on all laptops I've tried in the past decade or so. Hibernate (i.e. suspend to disk) is much more spotty. Battery life lies somewhere between windows 7 and Mac, though certain applications are particularly bad at draining the battery (powertop can be useful in identifying these). In general linux on a laptop has gotten way better; in particular networking is much more bearable now that NetworkManager actually works and it's much easier to find laptops with linux supported wifi gear preinstalled. [edit] I saw someone mention audio issues; that reminds me. The situation there is more like what networking was like 5-6 years ago. Pulse Audio promises to provide all the basic features people expect from an audio stack), but sometimes crashes, or drains your battery or just causes weird sounds to come out of your speaker. On the other hand, getting ALSA+dmix setup correctly without pulse audio (which is the only real alternative), is fairly arcane, and leaves you without things like per-application volume control (though many linux applications provide their own software-implemented volume control).

adamors 10y ago

If you rely on Skype in any way, avoid Linux. The Linux version was killed years ago and basic stuff like screen sharing isn't working as expected. Last time I tried (2+ years ago, it might be different now) Go To Meeting also wasn't working on Linux. I've used Linux on the desktop between 2009-2014 and basically anything multimedia related was a chore.

Ianvdl 10y ago
Linux is getting a new Skype version: https://blogs.skype.com/2016/07/13/skype-for-linux-alpha-and-calling-on-chrome-and-chromebooks/ https://blogs.skype.com/2016/07/13/skype-for-linux-alpha-and...
- AhtiK 10y ago
  Unfortunately this seems to be just a wrapper around their web app. Meaning there is zero chance for a significant native linux skype client update.
  - minitech 10y ago
    It isn’t. It’s the equivalent of the Windows and Mac versions.
    - boomskats 10y ago
      Can confirm. They've brought in desktop sharing and it's a lot more stable. Now just need a 'stop sharing my desktop' button.
- deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
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zanny 10y ago
You can use the web version of skype now. I'd never install the dumpster desktop version but if anyone refuses to use alternatives I can just go to web.skype.com and it... works.
- vram22 10y ago
  Does web.skype.com work on Windows Chrome too?
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  Unfortunately you can't make calls from web. I mean to phone numbers. Screen sharing is not working either, obvious.
  - zanny 10y ago
    Hangouts can dial phone numbers if you want a web phone dialer. Phone numbers are agnostic and the client backing them does not really matter (since you should have no expectation of privacy over the PSTN anyway).
eth0up 10y ago
The web version of Skype works fine in Linux. Also, there is https://meet.jit.si/ https://meet.jit.si/ - This works very well in WebRTC capable browsers.
- compuguy 10y ago
  I managed a internal version of jitsi meet, its great, but it has had a bunch of glitches and issues with parties with more than ~15 people on it.
  - jayroh 10y ago
    Heeeey so, if we're talking about potential alternatives here? I need to just leave this here and encourage anyone looking for something better to take a look: https://www.meetspaceapp.com https://www.meetspaceapp.com Full disclaimer: I'm a friend of the founder, however I'm a paying customer due to the fact that 1. It's worked wonders with my clients and 2. It's so much better than hangouts or skype. Compared to the big boys it may be considered a bit spartan but for what it does, it does it extraordinarily well.
    - compuguy 10y ago
      The reason we stuck with jitsi-meet is that it could be self hosted on an semi-airgapped network, and not break without internet. Also, your friend should invest in a ssl cert, because your link goes directly to a privacy warning.
      - jayroh 10y ago
        Ah, the main homepage doesn't look like it's got ssl set up like the actual meat (a subdomain) of the app does. I'll pass it along to him. Thx
    - Whitestrake 10y ago
      Looks like your friend is serving a herokuapp.com certificate for his meetspaceapp.com domain. Should really get that fixed.

IgorPartola 10y ago

Laptop support will vary a bit, but some brands tend to work really well. Look for the specific model + Linux to see if there are hardware issues. I used to use Ubuntu and had Hangouts and GoToMeeting work just fine (also, Skype and Appear.in). I switched to Mac for two reasons: browser testing Safari and quality hardware (aluminum case, retina screen, support for 3+ monitors, nice hinges). I suppose iOS app development is another reason you'd want it.

cyphar 10y ago

Goto meeting does work on GNU/Linux. It even has some terrifying X exploit that allows you to share any window that X knows about. It works fine, you just have to use Chromium.

antouank 10y ago

I have a logitech camera, an old one, and hangouts work fine. For some reason I had to install "cheese" to make it work. But that's all. No extra drivers needed or anything else.

lukeschlather 10y ago

Google Hangouts works fine. Sleep-on-closing-lid works fine. I use Xubuntu. I'm using a Lenovo Tablet, an ASUS laptop, and a custom-built desktop. Bluetooth is kind of a mess, on Xubuntu at least.

abrowne 10y ago
> Bluetooth is kind of a mess, on Xubuntu at least. (Speaking as someone who likes Xfce, and is currently switching from MacOS to Linux and is mostly settled on Xubuntu), I think that's mostly an Xfce thing. GNOME (and therefore Unity, Budgie, possibly Cinnamon and maybe MATE) handle it better.
- eth0up 10y ago
  I can confirm that Bluetooth can be a bit buggy using MATE DE/WM on Debian. Mostly I've used it for headphones, which require an unreasonable amount of resyncing. But there are multiple possible reasons for this – reasons I haven't discovered.
zanny 10y ago
Bluetooth depends on your controller. I've had fine bluetooth experiences with the onboard controller on AR9462 wifi cards.

fernandotakai 10y ago

i've been using linux on my macbook for the past 1.5 years and now i have it on my desktop. webcam both on the mbp and my logitech hd work out of the box. sleep on closing lid also works quite well -- and i feel waking it up is faster.

eth0up 10y ago
Using Deb on a macbook 4,1 from 2008. Camera doesn't work though. What year is your mackbook? I configured this one last week for a friend who had it laying around in the closet for years with a locked password and no particular interest in Macs. I convinced them to nix the MacOS and try Linux, arguing it would perform more efficiently, and compared to the MacOS version previously installed, it very much does. And tell me; did you reformat the drive, or just add a partition? I used gdisks and GPT partitioning and eventually wangled it, though not without a little trouble.
- fernandotakai 10y ago
  i used the native osx disk utility to create a partition. i'm using archlinux on a mid-2012 macbook pro. which kernel were you installing?
  - eth0up 10y ago
    I'm not sure; it was an old Debian Stable dvd, from early last year. And the first thing I did was change the repos to Unstable and do a dist-upgrade. The kernel release is presently 4.7.0-1-amd64. It was all a fairly annoying task to begin with a blank hard-drive and end with a usable system, but it was pretty neat when I got it. It's a usable system now, with a few minor bugs.

zanny 10y ago

I have a Clevo 740su, the same model as the old Galago Ultrapro from System76 (I just got it from Sager instead) which has a webcam that works fine out of the box on Linux, the headphone jack works fine, etc. I use KDE and the plasma-pa tray applet easily lets you switch output audio devices for applications which I use (as an example) to playback movies from my desktop to TV.

sandGorgon 10y ago

linux works perfectly well in all these scenarios and is actually better than Windows. hangouts works brilliantly. skype (even the old version) works great with both audio and video. in fact i have switched over to the skype web version which works on the chrome browser (no video call for now.. but audio works brilliantly). i use fedora 24..which just works and is pretty cutting edge. i switched over from Ubuntu pretty recently and have been very happy. im on a xps 13. previously i was on a thinkpad. there is no dearth of cool laptops on Linux.

satysin 10y ago
Nice to see another Fedora user! I find it runs better than Ubuntu. Faster and more stable. Recently I have been using Cinnamon over GNOME3. What DE do you use?
- sandGorgon 10y ago
  gnome 3. i really enjoy the way that gnome 3 has evolved. i think it is more usable than even OSX. plus it comes with all the new systemd security integration. i dont think cinnamon has been rebased on gnome 3 yet
- glogla 10y ago
  May I ask what are you using to get media and crypto? As far as I know, Fedora doesn't ship media codecs (including mp3) and has limited cryptography, right?
  - satysin 10y ago
    I use this. su -c 'dnf install http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm' sudo dnf -y install cabextract lzip p7zip p7zip-plugins unrar gstreamer1-libav gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugins-bad-freeworld gstreamer1-plugins-base gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-ugly gstreamer-ffmpeg gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-bad-free gstreamer-plugins-bad-nonfree gstreamer-plugins-base gstreamer-plugins-espeak gstreamer-plugins-fc gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-rtsp amrnb amrwb faac faad2 flac lame libdca libmad libmatroska x264 x265 xvidcore hexchat mpv smplayer vlc

e40 10y ago

No matter what this informal poll shows, there will be more problems than with macOS, over the long term. I know lots of people that use Linux and they very often have problems with audio apps. As for sleep-on-closing-the-lid, I think that's gotten better, but I don't think it will ever approach the stability of it on macOS. In 5 years, I think I've had a very small number of problems with this on macOS, and it always involved undocking from a physical keyboard, mouse and multiple monitors. My friends on Windows and Linux are always having problems with this.

Johan-bjareholt 10y ago
I have personally never had any issues with audio on linux the past 5 years. ALSA and pulseaudio have become pretty mature now. Only thing i needed for hangouts to work was to install Chrome instead of Chromium and then it worked. Webcam, audio and mic worked out of the box. I have however heard that there are some issues with the iSight camera on Macs under Linux, I have not tried this myself though.
Brakenshire 10y ago
With a ThinkPad, sleep-on-closing-the-lid has never been an issue, I actually wasn't even aware it was a problem that people faced. Presumably it depends almost entirely on the laptop.

reitanqild 10y ago

My idea that I think would work but never came around to before Windows became usable for me was to keep a linux workstation or decent developer laptop and then have an iPad (or some good Android pad) for Skype etc. That I think would be the best of both worlds for me.

dajohnson89 10y ago

Some laptops were designed around Linux. See e.g. system76

calvin_ 10y ago
Not really - they're just Clevo rebrands with the bare minimum effort. When graphics switching was new, they were quite helpless.
- captn3m0 10y ago
  Can confirm this. I'm typing this on a System76 galago pro, which is more than 2 years old at this point. Over time, I've seen the very same issues which you'd expect from any other system: bluetooth misbehaving, graphics issues etc. In particular: 1. The graphic card (Intel onboard Crystal Eye) switches to low-power mode on battery. The windows Intel driver has an option to switch it to performance mode. No such option on the linux drivers. 2. The damn Xf86Display Key (Projector shortcut) isn't supported. However, I've realized over time that irrespective of your choice, you will face issues on _your device_. NTFS would stop working on your Mac, or your iPhone will refuse to connect to your Car's bluetooth one fine day. (/rant)

sz4kerto 10y ago

I am using Slack, GotoMeeting, join.me, etc., and in general -- I'm working remotely. Linux is better for development, but worse for collaboration. You can get almost everything working, but it takes effort. GotoMeeting screensharing tends to work, but not always. Join.me doesn't. The tools for Windows (my other OS) are much better if you need to capture screenshots or recordings often (typical use case: hotkey -> record part of the screen -> paste into Slack.. this is doable on Linux, but on Windows, it takes almost zero effort). The audio is getting better on Linux, but I have many audio devices (external DAC, audio-through-Displayport, analog headset, etc.), and switching between them quickly is more painful than how it is on Windows. This is aggravated by the fact that I hate all DEs (except maybe Gnome3), so I use i3 WM -- which is brilliant but stuff like clipboard management doesn't work well out of the box. In general, Linux can work for my (your?) use case, but it's significantly worse than Windows. It's better for development though (in general). Currently I run Linux VMs under Windows, that works okay. Ah, and Skype for Linux alpha works fine.

api 10y ago
I've considered the switch too. Having a Windows VM on Linux seems workable albeit clunky for the ~5% of things that I must have like GoToMeeting, etc. Thing is I already use a Windows VM on Mac for some things like that because I am very security-conscious and OS-pollution-conscious and don't like installing intrusive stuff like GoToMeeting on my main OS.
grimgrin 10y ago
Can you elaborate on "Linux is better for development"? Guessing it can only come down to differences in apt and brew and not much more (not that this couldn't be reason enough)? edit: this article mentioned MacOS and Linux and so that's all I thought OP's comment was referring to. We all know the advantages compared to Windows. Of course Windows is constantly improving.
- methyl 10y ago
  Lots of tools (one example is Webpack) are significantly slower under Windows.

SwellJoe 10y ago

"Also, does sleep-on-closing-lid work well?" Funny story: My new-ish Dell laptop (Inspiron 15 7559 i7 with 4k touchscreen display; which I got at an absurdly low sales price from the Dell outlet store) does not reliably recover from sleep under Windows, but does under Linux (neither worked when I first got the laptop, but now only Windows fails and now only some of the time). That's a first, for me, as I have had a huge variety of sleep related bugs in Linux over the years, but fewer under Windows. Google Hangouts works fine under Chrome on Linux, but is quirkier under Firefox (I don't think I ever got the voice/video plugin working under Firefox, but I rarely use the video features these days, so I just run Chrome when I need it). Both video and audio Hangouts work fine under Chrome. With very new hardware, you probably need a very new Linux distribution, and newer hardware can have installation quirks. Getting Linux onto my box took a lot of fiddling, but it now runs Fedora 24 quite nicely.

matzipan 10y ago
Exactly! For example, Skylake support is not mature enough in Linux atm.
- kuschku 10y ago
  Can you give an example of issues? I’m running on a 6700 here with ARCH.
  - mehrzad 10y ago
    Here is an explation by an FSF board member. https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41713.html
    - kuschku 10y ago
      Ah okay, the power savings issues. Basic "just run code" stuff seems to be working well enough, and on a desktop which always runs at max in my case it doesn’t need to support power savings modes either.
- 10y ago

methyl 10y ago

Both GTM and Hangouts work well over web applications they offer.

ngauthier 10y ago

I founded MeetSpace, which is video conferencing for distributed teams. I developed MeetSpace on a linux laptop (yoga 2 pro) and a linux desktop (custom w/ logitech c922 webcam). I can tell you that for the most part it's worked flawlessly. The only issues I ever had were that linux rendering wasn't great, so sometimes the CPU was high just from rendering! We are browser-only, so because we don't have a native app we just use browser functionality. The only thing we use the extensions for is for security to ask for permission to use the screen (it's really like a dozen lines of code).

ngauthier 10y ago
Oh, and if you switch, Dell's XPS series tends to work very well in linux, especially if you buy their developer edition, because they support ubuntu, which means you can find the drivers even if you don't use ubuntu.

dkarapetyan 10y ago

I'm using project sputnik from dell. No issues the entire time I've had it. Skype works pretty well and people have told me several times that it is the clearest screen sharing experience they've had but I don't really know what that means. Been about 3 years now and has gone from ubuntu 12.04 to 16.04 without any problems. I expect it to continue to work fine and have been looking into upgrading to the latest model.

yellowapple 10y ago

I use Google Hangouts on Linux all the time. No issues at all. Sleep-on-lid-closing works reasonably well nowadays; I can't remember the last time I've run into a laptop which has issues on that front. However, I'd definitely do my research before buying a new laptop, especially if it's a very new one (in other words: you'll have better chances of power-management compatibility on laptops that are a bit more battle-tested).

metafunctor 10y ago

This is why I still choose to go with Mac OS X, even if their most recent hardware is very, very expensive. I don't have time to tinker with compiling kernels, configuring X11, figuring out which photo management software to use, setting up reliable backups, getting my Bluetooth headset to work, and, yes, getting the machine to suspend when I close the lid and wake up when I open it. These are basics that will just work with OS X, very, very, reliably. That said, if anyone can point me to a Linux distro (Debian/Ubuntu preferred) and hardware that actually work reliably together, please do.

Frondo 10y ago
Gosh, frankly speaking, I haven't had to do any of that stuff (except for the Bluetooth headset, I never had one of those, no idea how it works) in 7 years. In 2009 I installed Mandriva on a laptop--everything just worked. In 2011, I jumped ship to Mageia, the community-driven offshoot of Mandriva. Everything still just worked. Fast forward several laptops later, including mine and friends' and relations' laptops, and it all just works. Compiling a kernel? Wouldn't know how anymore. Fiddling with X11? No idea. I don't even have problems with Pulseaudio. Compare that to dual booting this one with Windows 10. For several months, Windows 10 had a bug where it wouldn't save the touchpad settings. Every time, I'd have to disable tap-to-click. UGH. They finally fixed it, but what a pain. (And when I had an OS X machine, received as part of payment for a job... between the beach ball and the not-infrequent crashes, where the screen dims and displays that fatal error message, it was a pain to get any work done.)
aikah 10y ago
> These are basics that will just work with OS X, very, very, reliably. That's fine, you are paying a premium for all this, it better "just" works. Elementary OS is free of charge.
AsyncAwait 10y ago
> compiling kernels, configuring X11, figuring out which photo management software to use, setting up reliable backups, getting my Bluetooth headset to work, and, yes, getting the machine to suspend when I close the lid and wake up when I open it. I haven't heard of the need for compiling kernels, configuring X11 etc. in a loong time. > setting up reliable backups, getting my Bluetooth headset to work, and, yes, getting the machine to suspend when I close the lid and wake up when I open it Again, works out of the box, just pick a laptop that is known to work well, i.e. a Clevo, Lenovo or some of the newer DELL machines to give Linux a proper chance - there's no point in trying a laptop that is known to work only with Windows and then complain about it - the same way you don't complain if macOS doesn't work well on a DELL. You pick a specific machine to run macOS, do the same for Linux and everything will work beautifully out of the box.

epidemian 10y ago

Google Hangouts works fine. I've had problems with Skype and audio after a distro upgrade on Ubuntu (but an `apt purge` and `apt install` fixed them). Sleep-on-closing-lid has worked fine for me for many years. It's funny that, with regards to Just Working after installation, Linux seems to be way ahead of Windows. I installed both of them on my laptop and while on Linux everything worked fine from the start without needing extra setup steps (including the multitouch trackpad; the not-so-standard function keys like keyboard brightness; even the this weird external subwoofer that came with the laptop), on Windows i had to download and install special drivers for all those things, and even for much more basic stuff, like the wireless card (had to dig through old computer stuff to find an ethernet cable to connect to the internet). Now, i understand why this is the case. Linux distros are designed to be installed by their users, while Windows is designed to come pre-installed on computers. But i still find it curious how Linux is much more non-tech-savvy-friendly in this particular regard.

aidenn0 10y ago

Only the g2m web client works on linux; anything you need the desktop app for (i.e. pretty much anything for which you are the presenter) does not work. WebEx's Linux support is excellent though. Google Hangouts works fine under chrome on linux. As far as hardware, webcam support is generally good. It's now at the point where if you bought a random webcam, there is a better than 50% chance it will just work. That being said, it's much safer to check if others have used it, or to just buy a laptop that has a webcam and ships with linux support (Both Dell and HP have laptops that ship with linux installed). I have a Creative Labs USB webcam that unfortunately has no model number printed on it (I have a long list of things I don't like about built-in webcams). Sleep has worked on all laptops I've tried in the past decade or so. Hibernate (i.e. suspend to disk) is much more spotty. Battery life lies somewhere between windows 7 and Mac, though certain applications are particularly bad at draining the battery (powertop can be useful in identifying these). In general linux on a laptop has gotten way better; in particular networking is much more bearable now that NetworkManager actually works and it's much easier to find laptops with linux supported wifi gear preinstalled. [edit] I saw someone mention audio issues; that reminds me. The situation there is more like what networking was like 5-6 years ago. Pulse Audio promises to provide all the basic features people expect from an audio stack), but sometimes crashes, or drains your battery or just causes weird sounds to come out of your speaker. On the other hand, getting ALSA+dmix setup correctly without pulse audio (which is the only real alternative), is fairly arcane, and leaves you without things like per-application volume control (though many linux applications provide their own software-implemented volume control).