6 ms·

> Nothing works right, on any of them. Copy/paste, batteries, wireless networking, drag and drop, high-res displays, multilingual input, even like fucking word

> Nothing works right, on any of them. Copy/paste, batteries, wireless networking, drag and drop, high-res displays, multilingual input, even like fucking word processing and email and image editors and terminal programs... Can you be more specific? i.e. - copy paste with a highlight+middle mouse button is frankly awesome in GNOME. - Batteries - yeah, Windows laptops usually don't have amazing battery life and it can even be slightly worse under Linux, however if you're working in a mode where you laptop is 99% plugged in and you just need occasionally a couple of hours from it, it's quite doable, which I'd imagine is the use-case for most "workstation" usage scenarios. - wireless networking - works great if you're willing to do a bit of research before buying, instead of just dropping Linux on any garbage PC and expecting it to work flawlessly, (why won't you try that with macOS and report back?) - drag and drop - that seems... highly unlikely, unless you're dragging/dropping from/to some weird, wrapped wine port that doesn't communicate with your desktop - high-res displays - not as good as macOS, but works quite well in GNOME 3 and improving all the time, (far better than Windows) - multilingual input, even like fucking word processing and email and image editors and terminal programs - things like multilingual input work well, word processing works well, but certainly there's no MS Office, (which isn't that great on a Mac either), there's no Photoshop, but I find it strange that Krita, GIMP etc. won't suffice you for many tasks, mail works well and terminal programs work amazingly well as well. In addition gaming on Linux is now miles better than on macOS, in addition to the far superior customisability and superior package management, not to mention not being under the will of a single company that does whatever it feels like that day, which matters to some.

tomtheelder 10y ago
> copy paste with a highlight+middle mouse button is frankly awesome in GNOME Oh my gosh, this is my least favorite thing about using gnome! I accidentally paste all the time and can't turn it off particularly easily. Very sad.
- claudius 10y ago
  It’s a generic feature of X available in all desktop environments (essentially there’s two copy-paste mechanism which you can use independently). Much easier to use than manual C-c C-v, especially if you have a third mouse button also on your laptop.
  - mirkules 10y ago
    And this is the problem. There is zero thought being given to different usage scenarios, and when it is, it's a chaotic solution that works some of the time. How do you middle-click-paste if you are on a trackpad with only two buttons, for example? I'm only picking on this to illustrate the point: things are hacked together at almost every level for a workstation. This is why "The Year of the Linux Desktop" never happened. In stark contrast, I am much, much happier with Linux as a server machine than as a workstation, and prefer it to any others.
    - snowwindwaves 10y ago
      I know for sure that in CDE with SunOS and HP-UX middle click was for paste. I think also on SGI with Irix, but that is going back to 1994 when I was a young teen so I don't remember exactly. Middle click to paste also worked on some linuxes, which is why it was important to get a 3 button mouse even though the middle button did nothing on windows. I want to say that "middle click to paste" is and old unix convention, but I only have the 2.5 examples.
      - ScottBurson 10y ago
        Middle click to paste is indeed an old convention. Xterm supports it, so I suspect it goes all the way back to the early days of the X Window System, c. 1984.
        mirkules 10y ago
        I don't have a problem with middle click being a backwards-compatible convention. It's that the option to change it is non-obvious, and therefore excludes laptop users. As a counter-example: Much earlier versions of Windows had a menu in the top left corner. The shortcut to close a window used to be double-clicking in that corner. In Windows 7 (not sure about 8 or 10), that menu button/icon is gone. Of course, you can close a windows with the X in the right corner, but the old shortcut still works even though there is seemingly nothing there. I can't remember where I read this, but I always think of it when it comes to UX design: Always have more than one way to do the same thing in a UI. Users will pick whichever works better for their worklow.
- AgentME 10y ago
  Why on earth is there not a way to turn this off? I could be a bit understanding if there was just no UI option for this and I had to make an edit to an X conf file, but it's baffling that there just doesn't seem to be a way at all to turn it off. Some applications like Firefox let you change middle-click to autoscroll but that doesn't help outside of Firefox. I'm so worried I'm going to highlight my password and then absent-mindedly middle click and paste it into a chat twenty minutes later!
- yrro 10y ago
  You can turn it of in gnome-tweak-tool
beojan 10y ago
> Batteries - yeah, Windows laptops usually don't have amazing battery life and it can even be slightly worse under Linux, however if you're working in a mode where you laptop is 99% plugged in and you just need occasionally a couple of hours from it, it's quite doable, which I'd imagine is the use-case for most "workstation" usage scenarios. Unfortunately, it turns out this usage pattern is terrible for the battery.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  > Unfortunately, it turns out this usage pattern is terrible for the battery. If you let it sufficiently (not fully!) discharge at least once a month, I don't see why it would be particularly terrible for the battery, what am I missing?
  - beojan 10y ago
    As far as I am aware, letting it discharge is only for calibration purposes (to ensure the battery gauge reads correctly). I've been using my laptop battery for about three years with exactly this pattern, and what once lasted ~4 hours on a charge now lasts about 25 minutes.
maratc 10y ago
Copy is Ctrl+C in your browser, in your notepad, in your IDE, but it's Ctrl-Shift-C in your terminal. Paste is Ctrl+V in your browser, in your notepad, in your IDE, but it's Ctrl-Shift-V in your terminal. Now copy a bunch of IPs from your AWS page into terminal to ssh into them for an hour or so. Fuck that shit, I'm getting a second mortgage for the MBP and a set of 19 dongles.
- sgtpepper43 10y ago
  It's been years since I've used linux, but my muscle memory for copying/pasting in the terminal is still there, to the point of it being the reason I can't use non Mac layout keyboards in OSX. I'll just keep pressing shift if I'm in the terminal.
wruza 10y ago
>- wireless networking - works great if you're willing to do a bit of research before buying, instead of just dropping Linux on any garbage PC and expecting it to work flawlessly, (why won't you try that with macOS and report back?) Why doesn't Linux track actual hardware proved to be compatible. Each year the same 'bit of research' with no guarantees at all. Oh, wait, Linux does not — because it isn't a Product.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  > Why doesn't Linux track actual hardware proved to be compatible. Sure it does [1]. The "bit of research" involves finding out if your desired machine has one of the many chips known to work flawlessly, which shouldn't be a problem, unless you don't mind what you spend your money on and just buy impulsively. There are also chipset manufactures which are known to be more friendly than others, for example almost any modern Intel Wireless chip will work just fine. Even for generally unfriendly OEMs, you can find amazingly clear documentation [2]. > Oh, wait, Linux does not Again, you just asserted stuff without any evidence, see above. > because it isn't a Product Not sure by what definition of "product" you're going by, (if any), but you can absolutely get commercial support from a number of companies i.e. Canonical, RedHat, SuSE and even Oracle if you so desire. [1] - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupp... [2] - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/broadcom_wireless https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/broadcom_wireless
  - wruza 10y ago
    Must confess that 10 years ago I lost around 5 years in deep linux setup & programming, and I know all that you say. Neither [1] nor [2] do not list recent specific hardware models, I mean, notebooks and PCs, not chips or boards. Regular user has to unpack the device and `lspci -vnn -d 14e4:` (amazingly clear for regular user?), or something in live-usb system console at the store under manager's sight to maybe estimate whether this wifi is able to work with specific distro, which alone is a big question until you try it. Repeat these steps for all the hardware in potential purchase, and good luck to find all the specs, because often it is just i5/16Gb/13". There also are unresearchable timebombs like fast battery discharge and sleep issues under non-supported OSes. "Product" is at least a site like easylinux.com, where you see that in late 2016 you can buy compatible X,Y and almost compatible Z (bios-only fan control), and in 2015 there were A,B,C, and in 2014 D was the best choice. Please click on direct link, torrent or ftp to download a distro image that already contains all the specific drivers and software. Obviously, I'm unable to provide any evidence for something that doesn't exist.

tomtheelder 10y ago

> copy paste with a highlight+middle mouse button is frankly awesome in GNOME Oh my gosh, this is my least favorite thing about using gnome! I accidentally paste all the time and can't turn it off particularly easily. Very sad.

claudius 10y ago
It’s a generic feature of X available in all desktop environments (essentially there’s two copy-paste mechanism which you can use independently). Much easier to use than manual C-c C-v, especially if you have a third mouse button also on your laptop.
- mirkules 10y ago
  And this is the problem. There is zero thought being given to different usage scenarios, and when it is, it's a chaotic solution that works some of the time. How do you middle-click-paste if you are on a trackpad with only two buttons, for example? I'm only picking on this to illustrate the point: things are hacked together at almost every level for a workstation. This is why "The Year of the Linux Desktop" never happened. In stark contrast, I am much, much happier with Linux as a server machine than as a workstation, and prefer it to any others.
  - snowwindwaves 10y ago
    I know for sure that in CDE with SunOS and HP-UX middle click was for paste. I think also on SGI with Irix, but that is going back to 1994 when I was a young teen so I don't remember exactly. Middle click to paste also worked on some linuxes, which is why it was important to get a 3 button mouse even though the middle button did nothing on windows. I want to say that "middle click to paste" is and old unix convention, but I only have the 2.5 examples.
    - ScottBurson 10y ago
      Middle click to paste is indeed an old convention. Xterm supports it, so I suspect it goes all the way back to the early days of the X Window System, c. 1984.
      - mirkules 10y ago
        I don't have a problem with middle click being a backwards-compatible convention. It's that the option to change it is non-obvious, and therefore excludes laptop users. As a counter-example: Much earlier versions of Windows had a menu in the top left corner. The shortcut to close a window used to be double-clicking in that corner. In Windows 7 (not sure about 8 or 10), that menu button/icon is gone. Of course, you can close a windows with the X in the right corner, but the old shortcut still works even though there is seemingly nothing there. I can't remember where I read this, but I always think of it when it comes to UX design: Always have more than one way to do the same thing in a UI. Users will pick whichever works better for their worklow.
AgentME 10y ago
Why on earth is there not a way to turn this off? I could be a bit understanding if there was just no UI option for this and I had to make an edit to an X conf file, but it's baffling that there just doesn't seem to be a way at all to turn it off. Some applications like Firefox let you change middle-click to autoscroll but that doesn't help outside of Firefox. I'm so worried I'm going to highlight my password and then absent-mindedly middle click and paste it into a chat twenty minutes later!
yrro 10y ago
You can turn it of in gnome-tweak-tool

beojan 10y ago

> Batteries - yeah, Windows laptops usually don't have amazing battery life and it can even be slightly worse under Linux, however if you're working in a mode where you laptop is 99% plugged in and you just need occasionally a couple of hours from it, it's quite doable, which I'd imagine is the use-case for most "workstation" usage scenarios. Unfortunately, it turns out this usage pattern is terrible for the battery.

AsyncAwait 10y ago
> Unfortunately, it turns out this usage pattern is terrible for the battery. If you let it sufficiently (not fully!) discharge at least once a month, I don't see why it would be particularly terrible for the battery, what am I missing?
- beojan 10y ago
  As far as I am aware, letting it discharge is only for calibration purposes (to ensure the battery gauge reads correctly). I've been using my laptop battery for about three years with exactly this pattern, and what once lasted ~4 hours on a charge now lasts about 25 minutes.

maratc 10y ago

Copy is Ctrl+C in your browser, in your notepad, in your IDE, but it's Ctrl-Shift-C in your terminal. Paste is Ctrl+V in your browser, in your notepad, in your IDE, but it's Ctrl-Shift-V in your terminal. Now copy a bunch of IPs from your AWS page into terminal to ssh into them for an hour or so. Fuck that shit, I'm getting a second mortgage for the MBP and a set of 19 dongles.

sgtpepper43 10y ago
It's been years since I've used linux, but my muscle memory for copying/pasting in the terminal is still there, to the point of it being the reason I can't use non Mac layout keyboards in OSX. I'll just keep pressing shift if I'm in the terminal.

wruza 10y ago

>- wireless networking - works great if you're willing to do a bit of research before buying, instead of just dropping Linux on any garbage PC and expecting it to work flawlessly, (why won't you try that with macOS and report back?) Why doesn't Linux track actual hardware proved to be compatible. Each year the same 'bit of research' with no guarantees at all. Oh, wait, Linux does not — because it isn't a Product.

AsyncAwait 10y ago
> Why doesn't Linux track actual hardware proved to be compatible. Sure it does [1]. The "bit of research" involves finding out if your desired machine has one of the many chips known to work flawlessly, which shouldn't be a problem, unless you don't mind what you spend your money on and just buy impulsively. There are also chipset manufactures which are known to be more friendly than others, for example almost any modern Intel Wireless chip will work just fine. Even for generally unfriendly OEMs, you can find amazingly clear documentation [2]. > Oh, wait, Linux does not Again, you just asserted stuff without any evidence, see above. > because it isn't a Product Not sure by what definition of "product" you're going by, (if any), but you can absolutely get commercial support from a number of companies i.e. Canonical, RedHat, SuSE and even Oracle if you so desire. [1] - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupp... [2] - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/broadcom_wireless https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/broadcom_wireless
- wruza 10y ago
  Must confess that 10 years ago I lost around 5 years in deep linux setup & programming, and I know all that you say. Neither [1] nor [2] do not list recent specific hardware models, I mean, notebooks and PCs, not chips or boards. Regular user has to unpack the device and `lspci -vnn -d 14e4:` (amazingly clear for regular user?), or something in live-usb system console at the store under manager's sight to maybe estimate whether this wifi is able to work with specific distro, which alone is a big question until you try it. Repeat these steps for all the hardware in potential purchase, and good luck to find all the specs, because often it is just i5/16Gb/13". There also are unresearchable timebombs like fast battery discharge and sleep issues under non-supported OSes. "Product" is at least a site like easylinux.com, where you see that in late 2016 you can buy compatible X,Y and almost compatible Z (bios-only fan control), and in 2015 there were A,B,C, and in 2014 D was the best choice. Please click on direct link, torrent or ftp to download a distro image that already contains all the specific drivers and software. Obviously, I'm unable to provide any evidence for something that doesn't exist.