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> Quick question, when was the last time you did it? Gentoo was circa 2005 and Ubuntu was circa 2012. I spent months trying to make it work, but it was too muc

by jameslk 10y ago

> Quick question, when was the last time you did it? Gentoo was circa 2005 and Ubuntu was circa 2012. I spent months trying to make it work, but it was too much. Software ran slower, installing package updates was like playing Minesweeper and worst of all, I had to use Wine. A friend of mine tried it as recently as 2014, then gave up as expected. > Currently I have three full time Linux boxes: I'm glad it works for you. Maybe you have more experience with Linux than I? Or maybe more patience? Or time? Or maybe I'm wrong? Regardless, for my multiple attempts over the course of months trying to make it work, I couldn't stand it. I'm sure others can and I would encourage them to try, at the very least just for the experience. > Let's face it, this MBP just highlights the fact that its target market is not developers or power users. That may be your opinion. Time will tell if its a trend. Given the way things stand today, I don't really see it being the case, at least in the short term. I'm waiting for the next release.

gshulegaard 10y ago
> Gentoo was circa 2005 and Ubuntu was circa 2012. I spent months trying to make it work, but it was too much. Software ran slower, installing package updates was like playing Minesweeper and worst of all, I had to use Wine. A friend of mine tried it as recently as 2014, then gave up as expected. Ah cool! The reason I asked is that a lot has changed in the last four years or so. Dell's Sputnik (http://www.dell.com/developers http://www.dell.com/developers) program is the one that specifically comes to my mind. But it is possible to buy a variety of Dell workstation models with Linux pre-installed with support. And according to the recent new product blog (https://bartongeorge.io/2017/01/09/welcome-the-new-ubuntu-based-precision-line-up-mobile-workstations-plus-a-new-all-in-one/ https://bartongeorge.io/2017/01/09/welcome-the-new-ubuntu-ba...) the Sputnik project only released the first 13" DE a little less than 4 years ago. So I was asking since I thought it might be neat to know about some of the changes in the landscape (provided you haven't attempted in a while :) ...) Edit: Forgot to mention, that Dell's efforts generally improve the Linux driver ecosystem as well since they upstream their drivers to the kernel: > as many drivers developed for the laptop are "upstreamed" to the Linux kernel [1] [1] http://www.infoworld.com/article/3046115/linux/love-linux-dude-youre-getting-a-dell.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/3046115/linux/love-linux-du...
- jameslk 10y ago
  You're right, I haven't tried it recently since it became the norm for OEMs to release computers pre-loaded with Linux. Once bitten, twice shy as they say. Installing Linux distros were only half the battle for me however. Maybe that's changed too or maybe it was because I was always trying to force everything to run on top of KDE. I'll definitely keep an eye on this development, but my expectations are that it won't change the landscape much. Who knows.
  - gshulegaard 10y ago
    Totally fair, I myself only recently gave Linux on the laptop a try again (last 2 years or so). For a long time I had limited Linux to desktop use, but was pleasantly surprised by System76 and Dell so I feel compelled to spread the word. At any rate, as I say in another comment, there are definitely many other things that might dissuade you from going the Linux route (gaming being my personal challenge). I was just trying to comment on the massive improvement in the driver space in recent years.
mgkimsal 10y ago
> Maybe you have more experience with Linux than I? Or maybe more patience? Or time? Or maybe I'm wrong? Regardless, for my multiple attempts over the course of months trying to make it work, I couldn't stand it. Or... maybe different expectations? I never had audio 'just work' on various linux laptops from 2002-2008. Playing some music (amarok, whatever), then the IM client (pidgin or whatever) would make a ping, and ... music would stop. Not possible to play again until killing IM client. Oh wait... dude, don't use pulse! Use ALSA! No, wait... use the latest dev build of pulse! just upgrade your entire system! No... dude, just grab a binary from this site... Holy crap, you want to plug in an external monitor? xrandr, kxrandr, go edit config files, install some new Xorg libs, etc. Coming from that world, the Macbook world "just works". Yes, it's gotten a bit worse over time (2016 letdowns, etc). But I still have colleagues who spend far too much time making basic stuff work in various linuxes. This is normally the point in the story where people either say "you did it wrong" or "yeah, dude, i feel your pain - it used to be bad, but... ubuntu 'just works' and is great now'. Trouble is, I heard that years ago too ("hey yeah, it used to suck, but it's better now") and... it wasn't any better. After going through various laptops (cheap and expensive) never having a decent "just works" experience (out of the box: printer, wifi, external monitor, audio in/out, playing dvd movies and writing to dvd all just working)... I gave up. For people with different expectations (thinking that rebooting your session to edit an Xconfig file to get multi monitor support is acceptable, for example), they'll never believe there's anything wrong.

by jameslk 10y ago

gshulegaard 10y ago

> Gentoo was circa 2005 and Ubuntu was circa 2012. I spent months trying to make it work, but it was too much. Software ran slower, installing package updates was like playing Minesweeper and worst of all, I had to use Wine. A friend of mine tried it as recently as 2014, then gave up as expected. Ah cool! The reason I asked is that a lot has changed in the last four years or so. Dell's Sputnik (http://www.dell.com/developers http://www.dell.com/developers) program is the one that specifically comes to my mind. But it is possible to buy a variety of Dell workstation models with Linux pre-installed with support. And according to the recent new product blog (https://bartongeorge.io/2017/01/09/welcome-the-new-ubuntu-based-precision-line-up-mobile-workstations-plus-a-new-all-in-one/ https://bartongeorge.io/2017/01/09/welcome-the-new-ubuntu-ba...) the Sputnik project only released the first 13" DE a little less than 4 years ago. So I was asking since I thought it might be neat to know about some of the changes in the landscape (provided you haven't attempted in a while :) ...) Edit: Forgot to mention, that Dell's efforts generally improve the Linux driver ecosystem as well since they upstream their drivers to the kernel: > as many drivers developed for the laptop are "upstreamed" to the Linux kernel [1] [1] http://www.infoworld.com/article/3046115/linux/love-linux-dude-youre-getting-a-dell.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/3046115/linux/love-linux-du...

jameslk 10y ago
You're right, I haven't tried it recently since it became the norm for OEMs to release computers pre-loaded with Linux. Once bitten, twice shy as they say. Installing Linux distros were only half the battle for me however. Maybe that's changed too or maybe it was because I was always trying to force everything to run on top of KDE. I'll definitely keep an eye on this development, but my expectations are that it won't change the landscape much. Who knows.
- gshulegaard 10y ago
  Totally fair, I myself only recently gave Linux on the laptop a try again (last 2 years or so). For a long time I had limited Linux to desktop use, but was pleasantly surprised by System76 and Dell so I feel compelled to spread the word. At any rate, as I say in another comment, there are definitely many other things that might dissuade you from going the Linux route (gaming being my personal challenge). I was just trying to comment on the massive improvement in the driver space in recent years.

mgkimsal 10y ago

> Maybe you have more experience with Linux than I? Or maybe more patience? Or time? Or maybe I'm wrong? Regardless, for my multiple attempts over the course of months trying to make it work, I couldn't stand it. Or... maybe different expectations? I never had audio 'just work' on various linux laptops from 2002-2008. Playing some music (amarok, whatever), then the IM client (pidgin or whatever) would make a ping, and ... music would stop. Not possible to play again until killing IM client. Oh wait... dude, don't use pulse! Use ALSA! No, wait... use the latest dev build of pulse! just upgrade your entire system! No... dude, just grab a binary from this site... Holy crap, you want to plug in an external monitor? xrandr, kxrandr, go edit config files, install some new Xorg libs, etc. Coming from that world, the Macbook world "just works". Yes, it's gotten a bit worse over time (2016 letdowns, etc). But I still have colleagues who spend far too much time making basic stuff work in various linuxes. This is normally the point in the story where people either say "you did it wrong" or "yeah, dude, i feel your pain - it used to be bad, but... ubuntu 'just works' and is great now'. Trouble is, I heard that years ago too ("hey yeah, it used to suck, but it's better now") and... it wasn't any better. After going through various laptops (cheap and expensive) never having a decent "just works" experience (out of the box: printer, wifi, external monitor, audio in/out, playing dvd movies and writing to dvd all just working)... I gave up. For people with different expectations (thinking that rebooting your session to edit an Xconfig file to get multi monitor support is acceptable, for example), they'll never believe there's anything wrong.