5 ms·

Used to develop full-time using Arch Linux with a tiling WM (i3), and the reasons I switched to using a MacBook when my company offered me one are: * The tra

Used to develop full-time using Arch Linux with a tiling WM (i3), and the reasons I switched to using a MacBook when my company offered me one are: * The trackpad is awesome, it's well integrated with the OS and feels fantastic. I've yet to use a PC trackpad that isn't completely awful. * Networking doesn't randomly break. This used to happen A LOT. The most stable solution I could find was just using wpa_supplicant and maintaining a load of config files, which was irritating and time consuming. * There's a pretty unified well tested operating system that is designed for this piece of hardware. And it shows. * The battery lasts for ages, even in this 2.5 year old laptop. * The text rendering is pretty. * The operating system is aesthetically pleasing and it's interface makes sense to me. I'm up for giving Linux a gander again, but honestly I want something that's as bug free as possible and allows me to get on with coding instead of tinkering around fixing bullshit.

falcojr 10y ago
You'd probably have a lot better luck with Ubuntu or something that isn't rolling. Rolling and bleeding edge distros like Arch have a tendency to break more often when updating.
loup-vaillant 10y ago
Using a "generic" laptop whose origin is not exactly easy to track (it bears the brand of the distributor, not of the maker). I installed ubuntu (LTS) with the proprietary (yuck) Wifi drivers. So far: * The trackpad works. I use a mouse anyway. * Networking didn't randomly break so far. * Don't care about "unified". Apart from a suspension bug, it works. * The battery lasts for 6-7 hours of programming. * Text rendering is pretty. * Xmonad + LXDE is pleasing and their interface make sense —to me at least. It took a little tinkering around fixing bullshit. The lingering suspension bug prevents me to log back in if I close the lid when logged out. On the other hand I can stay the hell away from Apple and their shiny locked down empire.
- idm 10y ago
  The fact we're still discussing the trackpad, suspend/wake, fonts, networking, and UI - in 2017 - means the problem still isn't solved on Linux. I gave a decade over to that quest (1996-2006) and then spent the next decade using MBPs. With a macbook pro, I have never once wondered about my trackpad, suspend/wake, fonts, networking, UI, or a host of other things like printers, scanners, USB, bluetooth, or external displays. That level of compatibility is a miracle, from the perspective of a daily Linux user. I have used my laptop for heavy computation, software dev, academic work, major presentations, video and multimedia, casual browsing, gaming, etc, and it has NEVER given me trouble due to compatibility. Having spent way too much of my life thinking about those problems on Linux, you have no idea how liberating it is to be free of those concerns. I get OCD about using a specific brand of disposable pen, so you'd better believe I think about the most important tool in my life: my laptop. The MBP is too good to accept any alternative. The 2016 was underwhelming, but it's still the best laptop/OS combination out there. It costs too much for the market and it's not enough-better to justify the upgrade, but dammit there's nothing that even compares. I've been thinking hard about alternatives to the MBP during the past few months, and my decision is that I can't give all this up and still be a functioning academic and entrepreneur. I'll pay the $1000 premium and if I value my time at $25/hour, I'll recover that additional cost within 2 months compared to Linux maintenance. I wish it weren't so, but the maths don't lie.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    As a counterpoint, I've been a daily Mageia linux user since 2011, and Mandriva since 2009. I've had that "just works" experience for both of them, on a variety of cheap laptops, pretty much from the start. Whatever they do to detect hardware, it works. I wouldn't even remember how to hand-edit a config file anymore, seriously. That knowledge is gone.
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      Good for you. The fact that so many don't have that experience means it's still a problem.
  - loup-vaillant 10y ago
- antihero 10y ago
  Ah, forgot suspend/wake. I've literally never ever been able to get something remotely dependable with suspend/wake working with Linux. Like, it will work 90% of the time then you open it up and it just...wont.
- nottorp 10y ago
  For some reason, Apple laptops are the only ones usable without a mouse. The trackpad simply sucks on anything else I've tried. Just like people are used to OSes that crash all the time, they're used to unusable trackpads. Sad.
freehunter 10y ago
>honestly I want something that's as bug free as possible and allows me to get on with coding instead of tinkering around fixing bullshit Arch is the very definition of "tinkering around". That's the appeal, that you can (and have to) customize it to what you want. Mint, Ubuntu, and Fedora are all "out of the box" experiences. The old Unix greybeards on the Internet hate them because they're one-size-fits-all, but that sounds like exactly what you're looking for.
juliangoldsmith 10y ago
>Networking doesn't randomly break. This used to happen A LOT. The most stable solution I could find was just using wpa_supplicant and maintaining a load of config files, which was irritating and time consuming. Did you try using NetworkManager instead of netctl? netctl can be a bit fiddly. In any case, as an Arch user for a few years, I can definitely say that Arch is not for people who want something that Just Works. If you go back to Linux, you might want to look at Linux Mint, or even Ubuntu, if you aren't put off by Canonical.
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  I know that I've tried wpa_supplicant directly, network manager, and a plethora of others... on anything that uses wifi (even when teh chip is 100% supported), it's always been hit or miss. The frustrating thing is that nothing in the system tells you why. Networking suddenly just stops networking over wifi. No logs show that anything happened at all -- but it's not going to work again until you restart services (or in some cases, reboot). This happens to me 2-3 times a week, usually at the most inconvenient times... Nearly as much fun is using the nvidia driver. Every time I pull down kernel updates, I hope that my desktop will return... actualy this was a worry under noveau as well, so perhaps it's only made worse by nvidia. With that said, I still like it better than my few years with Mac OS. It probably costs me ~2 hours a week in "crap I should not need to waste my time on", but I accept that tradeoff in order to have an environment that lets me work the way I prefer to work. (Not to mention the bump in hardware performance, memory, and ssd size that I was able to get for the same $$)
  - Frondo 10y ago
    I know it's just anecdotes, but I've simply never had this problem with Linux networking. In the last several years, I've switched from one low-end laptop to another, and they've all just worked with the wifi and Network Manager.
    - GrinningFool 10y ago
      I have to assume most people don't really see this - if it was as significant enough problem, someone would've gotten frustrated enough and fixed it. Or at least made enough noise about it :) Without any hints from the system, though, I find I'm not really interested in doing the deep dive needed to figure out the real cause. If it was just a little more frequent - so that it became more impediment than nuisance - I'd likely end up doing so. In my case, I'm sure some of the problems are self inflicted. I got away from NetworkManager because of the same issue. I tried wicd, and am currently just using direct configuration in /etc/network/interfaces. Since it still occurs and presents the same way, it seems to suggest either wpa_supplicant or the driver itself is at the root of it.
grive 10y ago
Then you are probably not the target for the Arch distrib. Others are better suited for your needs. You were using a distribution made for people who want to take time to tinker, then complain that it requires that you take time to tinker. Using Arch is sometimes a status symbol, a way to signal that you are a hacker that likes to control every bit of your system. There is no need to try this hard. You can also simply use Ubuntu or any variants, or even Fedora for what's matters. That's what I do.

falcojr 10y ago

You'd probably have a lot better luck with Ubuntu or something that isn't rolling. Rolling and bleeding edge distros like Arch have a tendency to break more often when updating.

loup-vaillant 10y ago

Using a "generic" laptop whose origin is not exactly easy to track (it bears the brand of the distributor, not of the maker). I installed ubuntu (LTS) with the proprietary (yuck) Wifi drivers. So far: * The trackpad works. I use a mouse anyway. * Networking didn't randomly break so far. * Don't care about "unified". Apart from a suspension bug, it works. * The battery lasts for 6-7 hours of programming. * Text rendering is pretty. * Xmonad + LXDE is pleasing and their interface make sense —to me at least. It took a little tinkering around fixing bullshit. The lingering suspension bug prevents me to log back in if I close the lid when logged out. On the other hand I can stay the hell away from Apple and their shiny locked down empire.

idm 10y ago
The fact we're still discussing the trackpad, suspend/wake, fonts, networking, and UI - in 2017 - means the problem still isn't solved on Linux. I gave a decade over to that quest (1996-2006) and then spent the next decade using MBPs. With a macbook pro, I have never once wondered about my trackpad, suspend/wake, fonts, networking, UI, or a host of other things like printers, scanners, USB, bluetooth, or external displays. That level of compatibility is a miracle, from the perspective of a daily Linux user. I have used my laptop for heavy computation, software dev, academic work, major presentations, video and multimedia, casual browsing, gaming, etc, and it has NEVER given me trouble due to compatibility. Having spent way too much of my life thinking about those problems on Linux, you have no idea how liberating it is to be free of those concerns. I get OCD about using a specific brand of disposable pen, so you'd better believe I think about the most important tool in my life: my laptop. The MBP is too good to accept any alternative. The 2016 was underwhelming, but it's still the best laptop/OS combination out there. It costs too much for the market and it's not enough-better to justify the upgrade, but dammit there's nothing that even compares. I've been thinking hard about alternatives to the MBP during the past few months, and my decision is that I can't give all this up and still be a functioning academic and entrepreneur. I'll pay the $1000 premium and if I value my time at $25/hour, I'll recover that additional cost within 2 months compared to Linux maintenance. I wish it weren't so, but the maths don't lie.
- Frondo 10y ago
  As a counterpoint, I've been a daily Mageia linux user since 2011, and Mandriva since 2009. I've had that "just works" experience for both of them, on a variety of cheap laptops, pretty much from the start. Whatever they do to detect hardware, it works. I wouldn't even remember how to hand-edit a config file anymore, seriously. That knowledge is gone.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    Good for you. The fact that so many don't have that experience means it's still a problem.
- loup-vaillant 10y ago
antihero 10y ago
Ah, forgot suspend/wake. I've literally never ever been able to get something remotely dependable with suspend/wake working with Linux. Like, it will work 90% of the time then you open it up and it just...wont.
nottorp 10y ago
For some reason, Apple laptops are the only ones usable without a mouse. The trackpad simply sucks on anything else I've tried. Just like people are used to OSes that crash all the time, they're used to unusable trackpads. Sad.

freehunter 10y ago

>honestly I want something that's as bug free as possible and allows me to get on with coding instead of tinkering around fixing bullshit Arch is the very definition of "tinkering around". That's the appeal, that you can (and have to) customize it to what you want. Mint, Ubuntu, and Fedora are all "out of the box" experiences. The old Unix greybeards on the Internet hate them because they're one-size-fits-all, but that sounds like exactly what you're looking for.

juliangoldsmith 10y ago

>Networking doesn't randomly break. This used to happen A LOT. The most stable solution I could find was just using wpa_supplicant and maintaining a load of config files, which was irritating and time consuming. Did you try using NetworkManager instead of netctl? netctl can be a bit fiddly. In any case, as an Arch user for a few years, I can definitely say that Arch is not for people who want something that Just Works. If you go back to Linux, you might want to look at Linux Mint, or even Ubuntu, if you aren't put off by Canonical.

GrinningFool 10y ago
I know that I've tried wpa_supplicant directly, network manager, and a plethora of others... on anything that uses wifi (even when teh chip is 100% supported), it's always been hit or miss. The frustrating thing is that nothing in the system tells you why. Networking suddenly just stops networking over wifi. No logs show that anything happened at all -- but it's not going to work again until you restart services (or in some cases, reboot). This happens to me 2-3 times a week, usually at the most inconvenient times... Nearly as much fun is using the nvidia driver. Every time I pull down kernel updates, I hope that my desktop will return... actualy this was a worry under noveau as well, so perhaps it's only made worse by nvidia. With that said, I still like it better than my few years with Mac OS. It probably costs me ~2 hours a week in "crap I should not need to waste my time on", but I accept that tradeoff in order to have an environment that lets me work the way I prefer to work. (Not to mention the bump in hardware performance, memory, and ssd size that I was able to get for the same $$)
- Frondo 10y ago
  I know it's just anecdotes, but I've simply never had this problem with Linux networking. In the last several years, I've switched from one low-end laptop to another, and they've all just worked with the wifi and Network Manager.
  - GrinningFool 10y ago
    I have to assume most people don't really see this - if it was as significant enough problem, someone would've gotten frustrated enough and fixed it. Or at least made enough noise about it :) Without any hints from the system, though, I find I'm not really interested in doing the deep dive needed to figure out the real cause. If it was just a little more frequent - so that it became more impediment than nuisance - I'd likely end up doing so. In my case, I'm sure some of the problems are self inflicted. I got away from NetworkManager because of the same issue. I tried wicd, and am currently just using direct configuration in /etc/network/interfaces. Since it still occurs and presents the same way, it seems to suggest either wpa_supplicant or the driver itself is at the root of it.

grive 10y ago

Then you are probably not the target for the Arch distrib. Others are better suited for your needs. You were using a distribution made for people who want to take time to tinker, then complain that it requires that you take time to tinker. Using Arch is sometimes a status symbol, a way to signal that you are a hacker that likes to control every bit of your system. There is no need to try this hard. You can also simply use Ubuntu or any variants, or even Fedora for what's matters. That's what I do.