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How is Linux now on things like suspend/resume and wireless networking these days? I was using Linux for my primary dev laptop until 2010. Once I realized I cou

by hosh 10y ago

How is Linux now on things like suspend/resume and wireless networking these days? I was using Linux for my primary dev laptop until 2010. Once I realized I could shut the lid and reliably wake it up -- something I have yet to see a Windows or Linux laptop do -- I switched over. (But I still use a Linux VM for the actual dev tools).

chrisper 10y ago
A lot has improved in the recent years for Linux on the desktop. If you have very new devices, it is recommended to run the newest kernel. Suspend works fine for me.
UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
Let's put it this way: We had someone in to demo a piece of software (webapp) this week which we were considering licensing, they had a Linux laptop (Ubuntu). They weren't able to connect to our corporate wireless and the meeting was delayed almost 40 minutes (ultimately we loaned them an in-house Windows ultrabook to do the demo). I felt embarrassed for them. I've not seen sleep issues on MacOS or Windows for over ten years. You close the lid it sleeps, you open the lid it wakes. Seems reliable.
- witty_username 10y ago
  Just curious, is that because of VPN?
  - UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
    No nothing I posted about has anything to do with VPN. The user wasn't able to connect to our guest 802.1X (EAP, 802.11n) wireless network using their Ubuntu laptop. MacOS clients and Windows clients have no issue (it is a guest network, non-employees use it often).
    - mos_basik 10y ago
      The only time I've ever had an issue connecting to a network with Linux was with a specific university network, which (forgive me if I mangle this because I'm not very familiar with networking protocols) used WPA2, PEAP and MSCHAPv2 and required a username and password to authenticate. The only tricky step was you needed to indicate to the network manager to use a certificate at /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificate.crt That was a pain to set up, and I switched to their alternative network that permitted whitelisted MAC IDs pretty quickly. Also, I've noticed that recently, when I connect to certain guest networks at office buildings and libraries and so forth, there is a "login" page where you consent to not look at porn or whatever on their connection that you are supposed to be automatically redirected to when you first connect and try to load a page. Sometimes the redirect doesn't work, and you are forbidden from loading pages until you've clicked the button on the page it failed to send you to. Going to 1.1.3.1 or 192.168.1.1 or some variant usually finds it. But for the most part! I have not had any issues with normal "type the password into the WPA network" or "associate with the unsecured network". See my other comment in this chain: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12881305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12881305 And in the worst case, I always have my phone with me, rooted with unlimited 4G and a USB cable to tether it with. YMMV.
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  My company-issued HP laptop running Windows 7 does not reliably wake from sleep. I have to use hibernation instead.
- hosh 10y ago
  I've never seen OSX sleep issues. I have seen Windows sleep issues, but less than for Linux. I'm hoping things are better now in 2016. But yeah, I got OSX because I know OSX can talk to everyone.
witty_username 10y ago
I have never encountered any wireless issue. Suspend works fine. (IIRC suspend issues are mostly due to proprietary drivers, which is basically nVidia and AMD to a smaller extent (AMD's open source drivers work well))
- hosh 10y ago
  I have, back in 2002 - 2010. That was when the fulltime job I signed on for issued me a MBP. Suspend and wake was terrible. I've had Linux geek swagger in there claiming they could fix it, and then running away when they realized, there was no fix. That was why I was asking if the state of things for Linux has improved now that it is 2016. Thanks for sharing.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gaius 10y ago
Even today the only way to make this work in Linux is to run Windows or OSX on the hardware, then VirtualBox or VMware, then Linux full-screen. Let the host OS do the tricky stuff like power management and networking.
- mos_basik 10y ago
  >Even today the only way to make this work in Linux... What? I'm running Arch with i3 right now, and networkmanager (with nm-applet for my tray) is doing just fine at finding and associating with networks. `systemctl suspend` suspends my system as desired. I'm sure if I spent some time looking, I could bind it to my power button or laptop lid. If your complaint is that user shouldn't have to use the command line to suspend their device - I've used Ubuntu versions since 12.04 and they all have this sort of thing built in and intuitively accessible. Were you referring to something besides network and power management?
- hosh 10y ago
  That was what I ended up doing. Dev work in VM, and let OSX be egregriously good at talking to people. After I switched to a cloud machine for the Linux dev and started using mosh, I don't really notice that I am not working on a cloud machine. Though if I want to say, take a 3-month coding cruise or travel by train across the US while coding, that might be different.
rogerbinns 10y ago
It does come down to the hardware. I have had no problems with wifi, video, suspend/resume, hibernation etc since a laptop ago bought in 2007. I have been buying the Thinkpad T series with all Intel components. Especially the wifi and gpu are Intel. Everything worked with Ubuntu. If you have Nvidia or AMD GPUs, some other wifi vendors (cough broadcom cough) then there can be issues due to drivers, firmware, binary blobs etc. They manifest as suspend/resume issues, wifi flakiness etc. So yes you can do it by selecting component vendors, but in general 100% of systems will not be robust.
wfleming 10y ago
As you've probably noticed in the other replies here, opinions vary widely :). These kinds of things are also part of why I switched to OS X in 2003-ish, so I understand the hesitation. In my experience, Linux is perfectly fine nowadays for these things. I've been traveling a bit recently (and so have been using a lot more random WiFi access points, tethering with my phone, and relying on battery for power), and everything's pretty much just worked for me. My company's development team is just about 50/50 Linux/Mac now, and I haven't seen any real difference between the two sides with issues for WiFi. In fact, I've probably seen more difficulty on the Mac side recently: I feel like the last few versions of OS X have had the habit of randomly dropping WiFi connections sometimes. One of my friends has an MBP that will drop a connection & refuse to reconnect until restarted (or at least he hasn't yet found a solution that doesn't involve restarting). It's possible a lot of the issues people report might be down to hardware/distribution choices: not all hardware support is equal, and not all Linux distributions are equal. FWIW I use Arch Linux on a ThinkPad. That all might sounds a little "works on my machine", but I'm not trying to say that the contrary stories of people having a terrible time aren't valid concerns. What I am saying is that many Linux users have perfectly stable & pleasant experiences, and many Mac/Windows users don't have stable/pleasant experiences, so ultimately YMMV regardless of what setup you choose.
- hosh 10y ago
  That sounds like it's worth for me to try again if that is the case. Maybe I can find some decent hardware that works well. Thanks for sharing. The flip side is for the work I do nowadays, I usually use a Linux VM on something like Digital Ocean. There was at one point I was using a 2011 11" Mac Air to dev work.

by hosh 10y ago

chrisper 10y ago

A lot has improved in the recent years for Linux on the desktop. If you have very new devices, it is recommended to run the newest kernel. Suspend works fine for me.

UnoriginalGuy 10y ago

Let's put it this way: We had someone in to demo a piece of software (webapp) this week which we were considering licensing, they had a Linux laptop (Ubuntu). They weren't able to connect to our corporate wireless and the meeting was delayed almost 40 minutes (ultimately we loaned them an in-house Windows ultrabook to do the demo). I felt embarrassed for them. I've not seen sleep issues on MacOS or Windows for over ten years. You close the lid it sleeps, you open the lid it wakes. Seems reliable.

witty_username 10y ago
Just curious, is that because of VPN?
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  No nothing I posted about has anything to do with VPN. The user wasn't able to connect to our guest 802.1X (EAP, 802.11n) wireless network using their Ubuntu laptop. MacOS clients and Windows clients have no issue (it is a guest network, non-employees use it often).
  - mos_basik 10y ago
    The only time I've ever had an issue connecting to a network with Linux was with a specific university network, which (forgive me if I mangle this because I'm not very familiar with networking protocols) used WPA2, PEAP and MSCHAPv2 and required a username and password to authenticate. The only tricky step was you needed to indicate to the network manager to use a certificate at /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificate.crt That was a pain to set up, and I switched to their alternative network that permitted whitelisted MAC IDs pretty quickly. Also, I've noticed that recently, when I connect to certain guest networks at office buildings and libraries and so forth, there is a "login" page where you consent to not look at porn or whatever on their connection that you are supposed to be automatically redirected to when you first connect and try to load a page. Sometimes the redirect doesn't work, and you are forbidden from loading pages until you've clicked the button on the page it failed to send you to. Going to 1.1.3.1 or 192.168.1.1 or some variant usually finds it. But for the most part! I have not had any issues with normal "type the password into the WPA network" or "associate with the unsecured network". See my other comment in this chain: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12881305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12881305 And in the worst case, I always have my phone with me, rooted with unlimited 4G and a USB cable to tether it with. YMMV.
ScottBurson 10y ago
My company-issued HP laptop running Windows 7 does not reliably wake from sleep. I have to use hibernation instead.
hosh 10y ago
I've never seen OSX sleep issues. I have seen Windows sleep issues, but less than for Linux. I'm hoping things are better now in 2016. But yeah, I got OSX because I know OSX can talk to everyone.

witty_username 10y ago

I have never encountered any wireless issue. Suspend works fine. (IIRC suspend issues are mostly due to proprietary drivers, which is basically nVidia and AMD to a smaller extent (AMD's open source drivers work well))

hosh 10y ago
I have, back in 2002 - 2010. That was when the fulltime job I signed on for issued me a MBP. Suspend and wake was terrible. I've had Linux geek swagger in there claiming they could fix it, and then running away when they realized, there was no fix. That was why I was asking if the state of things for Linux has improved now that it is 2016. Thanks for sharing.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

gaius 10y ago

Even today the only way to make this work in Linux is to run Windows or OSX on the hardware, then VirtualBox or VMware, then Linux full-screen. Let the host OS do the tricky stuff like power management and networking.

mos_basik 10y ago
>Even today the only way to make this work in Linux... What? I'm running Arch with i3 right now, and networkmanager (with nm-applet for my tray) is doing just fine at finding and associating with networks. `systemctl suspend` suspends my system as desired. I'm sure if I spent some time looking, I could bind it to my power button or laptop lid. If your complaint is that user shouldn't have to use the command line to suspend their device - I've used Ubuntu versions since 12.04 and they all have this sort of thing built in and intuitively accessible. Were you referring to something besides network and power management?
hosh 10y ago
That was what I ended up doing. Dev work in VM, and let OSX be egregriously good at talking to people. After I switched to a cloud machine for the Linux dev and started using mosh, I don't really notice that I am not working on a cloud machine. Though if I want to say, take a 3-month coding cruise or travel by train across the US while coding, that might be different.

rogerbinns 10y ago

It does come down to the hardware. I have had no problems with wifi, video, suspend/resume, hibernation etc since a laptop ago bought in 2007. I have been buying the Thinkpad T series with all Intel components. Especially the wifi and gpu are Intel. Everything worked with Ubuntu. If you have Nvidia or AMD GPUs, some other wifi vendors (cough broadcom cough) then there can be issues due to drivers, firmware, binary blobs etc. They manifest as suspend/resume issues, wifi flakiness etc. So yes you can do it by selecting component vendors, but in general 100% of systems will not be robust.

wfleming 10y ago

As you've probably noticed in the other replies here, opinions vary widely :). These kinds of things are also part of why I switched to OS X in 2003-ish, so I understand the hesitation. In my experience, Linux is perfectly fine nowadays for these things. I've been traveling a bit recently (and so have been using a lot more random WiFi access points, tethering with my phone, and relying on battery for power), and everything's pretty much just worked for me. My company's development team is just about 50/50 Linux/Mac now, and I haven't seen any real difference between the two sides with issues for WiFi. In fact, I've probably seen more difficulty on the Mac side recently: I feel like the last few versions of OS X have had the habit of randomly dropping WiFi connections sometimes. One of my friends has an MBP that will drop a connection & refuse to reconnect until restarted (or at least he hasn't yet found a solution that doesn't involve restarting). It's possible a lot of the issues people report might be down to hardware/distribution choices: not all hardware support is equal, and not all Linux distributions are equal. FWIW I use Arch Linux on a ThinkPad. That all might sounds a little "works on my machine", but I'm not trying to say that the contrary stories of people having a terrible time aren't valid concerns. What I am saying is that many Linux users have perfectly stable & pleasant experiences, and many Mac/Windows users don't have stable/pleasant experiences, so ultimately YMMV regardless of what setup you choose.

hosh 10y ago
That sounds like it's worth for me to try again if that is the case. Maybe I can find some decent hardware that works well. Thanks for sharing. The flip side is for the work I do nowadays, I usually use a Linux VM on something like Digital Ocean. There was at one point I was using a 2011 11" Mac Air to dev work.