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We bought a ZaReason Linux laptop for my wife last year and it has really reset my expectations for what I can expect of a Linux desktop. It works mostly. But t

We bought a ZaReason Linux laptop for my wife last year and it has really reset my expectations for what I can expect of a Linux desktop. It works mostly. But things break somewhat regularly and it needs a happy reboot at least once every two days. In short, by 2017 standards it's a buggy piece of shit. For the average computer user who does not want a Mac, I would recommend Windows over Ubuntu at this point. It's more stable and less buggy. In terms of quality I would put it about 10-15 years behind Mac OSX or Windows. I almost never have to reboot my Mac because something broke, and when I use modern Windows machines I also seldom have to reboot them. So my message to Canonical is to make something that doesn't suck. My wife doesn't care what window manager is chosen, just pick one and stick with it until it works. And test the crap out of it. test, test, test... Find bugs and fix them. Your geeky Linux user doesn't care about little annoying bugs, but less technical users really do.

AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
Sorry to hear about your wife's bad experience. Never heard of the company, but based on the specs of laptops being offered from the website, I'd hazard a guess that the discrete GPU is probably the source of many of your woes. Linux has always been a second-class citizen for video cards, particularly since NVIDIA's binary blobs fly in the face of the FOSS spirit. If she doesn't do intense graphical editing or gaming, an integrated GPU from Intel would probably run much better on Linux. FWIW (and I hate countering anecdotal evidence with more anecdotal evidence), I've got a Dell XPS 13 running Fedora and it will run days/weeks without a problem. I reboot it maybe once a month in order to apply the latest kernel, and that's about it.
- ramy_d 10y ago
  It baffles me that your recommendation is to get off Nvidia hardware + restricted drivers and use an Intel integrated GPU. Have you had such bad time with Nvidia hardware and their drivers?
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    Why are you baffled? It's no secret that Nvidia's linux drivers cause problems and that Intel's tend to be very good. For the record, I had a really bad time with Nvidia hardware and their drivers on Linux, and the whole Optimus thing that they pushed 5-ish years ago. Never had a problem with Intel graphics, except that power management (RC6) support in Sandy Bridge chips took a while to mature.
    - ramy_d 10y ago
      I'm baffled because I had the exact opposite experience and this is really bad advice.
      - rlpb 10y ago
        Ubuntu developer here. I favor Intel drivers (for non-gaming) for the reasons given. It's certainly much more straightforward driver-wise. And I can recall a number of bugs that impacted Nvidia only, where one cause was that they have proprietary drivers. > and this is really bad advice I think that's a huge stretch. Disagree all you like from your own experience, but I believe that the statement "Intel drivers work more smoothly than the proprietary Nvidia drivers" matches the current consensus.
        ramy_d 10y ago
        I don't care. This is bad advice because it's armchair troubleshooting. Oh you have a problem? Stop doing this thing I don't like. Yay everyone, we did it.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    Remember the famous video Linus did where he just flipped a middle finger to nvidia because nvidia flipped a middle finger to the entire Linux community? Yeah, the advice is always "don't use nvidia with Linux".
    - ramy_d 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
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dijit 10y ago
I have to respond to this with my own experience on what is admittedly a very expensive machine. I recently bought a Dell Precision 5520 (a bumped up XPS 15 with Kaby Lake basically) and I have to say that the Ubuntu it shipped with worked pretty flawlessly- I had absolutely no issues at all it's shocking to me how well it ran and all the niggling things I expected to pose problems worked as flawless or even better than the last time I run them on windows. (Wifi/Trackpad/Battery and indicators) The only issue I had was the Thunderbolt 3 dock I bought with it, for some reason the USB ports didn't work. But after I installed archlinux with a more modern kernel even that went away. I would say that my laptop is almost better supported than my old Thinkpad. And that thing was damn near flawless already. Linux on the desktop is improving, and I think Canonical was and continues to be a huge driver of that- Ubuntu is the OS that is the target platform for a lot of these Linux supporting devices and Canonical has a lot of responsibility in that area. We might do well to appreciate that. Even if we don't like things like systemd/mir/whatever
mwambua 10y ago
I'm running a Thinkpad+Fedora combo and things couldn't be better. The sad reality is that software support will only be great if someone using the same hardware as you is actively participating in the distro's development. Most manufacturers simply don't have the financial incentive to put in time and labour towards supporting Linux.
dorfsmay 10y ago
I'm surprised by the need of so many reboot, I use https://ubuntugnome.org/ https://ubuntugnome.org/ LTS as my main desktop, and so does my wife and kids and have not experience such issue. I cannot use the UI in OS X (my brain cannot adapt to it somehow), but have to use MS Windows 8 machines for work, and am always surprised by how inefficient their UI is, considering how much money has been poured into it.
CalRobert 10y ago
I had a similar experience with a Galago Ultra Pro from System76, except I couldn't even type. It was an utter pile. However, I've really like using Ubuntu on an XPS 13 from Dell. To what extent could this be related to using hardware from piss-ant vendors who are trying to cobble something together from whatever Clevo has for sale?
quirkafleeg 10y ago
> things break somewhat regularly [...] reboot at least once every two days [...] it's a buggy piece of shit [...] 10-15 years behind Mac OSX or Windows [...] make something that doesn't suck Your comment would be more interesting and sound less like a troll without this. What are the "things" you're talking about and how do they "break"? What are the ways Ubuntu is at the standard of 15 year old versions of Windows or OSX? AIUI Linux is actually pretty well-known for its stability. On desktop I never reboot (Xubuntu) unless there's an update that requires it, and even then it's usually several days later, due to having so much running I don't want to close. If it "sucked" and was so buggy it required rebooting every two days then I think we'd hear more about it from its tens of millions of users, not all of whom are "your geeky Linux user", as you put it. > My wife doesn't care what window manager is chosen I don't care about window managers either. I don't have any of the problems you're talking about. > little annoying bugs For example? Actual bugs, or just things you personally don't happen to like or that don't behave like Windows?
eip 10y ago
>I almost never have to reboot my Mac because something broke I find that hard to believe. I have a crapbook pro they gave me for work and I have to reboot it every few days because it becomes unresponsive.

AdmiralAsshat 10y ago

Sorry to hear about your wife's bad experience. Never heard of the company, but based on the specs of laptops being offered from the website, I'd hazard a guess that the discrete GPU is probably the source of many of your woes. Linux has always been a second-class citizen for video cards, particularly since NVIDIA's binary blobs fly in the face of the FOSS spirit. If she doesn't do intense graphical editing or gaming, an integrated GPU from Intel would probably run much better on Linux. FWIW (and I hate countering anecdotal evidence with more anecdotal evidence), I've got a Dell XPS 13 running Fedora and it will run days/weeks without a problem. I reboot it maybe once a month in order to apply the latest kernel, and that's about it.

ramy_d 10y ago
It baffles me that your recommendation is to get off Nvidia hardware + restricted drivers and use an Intel integrated GPU. Have you had such bad time with Nvidia hardware and their drivers?
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  Why are you baffled? It's no secret that Nvidia's linux drivers cause problems and that Intel's tend to be very good. For the record, I had a really bad time with Nvidia hardware and their drivers on Linux, and the whole Optimus thing that they pushed 5-ish years ago. Never had a problem with Intel graphics, except that power management (RC6) support in Sandy Bridge chips took a while to mature.
  - ramy_d 10y ago
    I'm baffled because I had the exact opposite experience and this is really bad advice.
    - rlpb 10y ago
      Ubuntu developer here. I favor Intel drivers (for non-gaming) for the reasons given. It's certainly much more straightforward driver-wise. And I can recall a number of bugs that impacted Nvidia only, where one cause was that they have proprietary drivers. > and this is really bad advice I think that's a huge stretch. Disagree all you like from your own experience, but I believe that the statement "Intel drivers work more smoothly than the proprietary Nvidia drivers" matches the current consensus.
      - ramy_d 10y ago
        I don't care. This is bad advice because it's armchair troubleshooting. Oh you have a problem? Stop doing this thing I don't like. Yay everyone, we did it.
- freehunter 10y ago
  Remember the famous video Linus did where he just flipped a middle finger to nvidia because nvidia flipped a middle finger to the entire Linux community? Yeah, the advice is always "don't use nvidia with Linux".
  - ramy_d 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dijit 10y ago

I have to respond to this with my own experience on what is admittedly a very expensive machine. I recently bought a Dell Precision 5520 (a bumped up XPS 15 with Kaby Lake basically) and I have to say that the Ubuntu it shipped with worked pretty flawlessly- I had absolutely no issues at all it's shocking to me how well it ran and all the niggling things I expected to pose problems worked as flawless or even better than the last time I run them on windows. (Wifi/Trackpad/Battery and indicators) The only issue I had was the Thunderbolt 3 dock I bought with it, for some reason the USB ports didn't work. But after I installed archlinux with a more modern kernel even that went away. I would say that my laptop is almost better supported than my old Thinkpad. And that thing was damn near flawless already. Linux on the desktop is improving, and I think Canonical was and continues to be a huge driver of that- Ubuntu is the OS that is the target platform for a lot of these Linux supporting devices and Canonical has a lot of responsibility in that area. We might do well to appreciate that. Even if we don't like things like systemd/mir/whatever

mwambua 10y ago

I'm running a Thinkpad+Fedora combo and things couldn't be better. The sad reality is that software support will only be great if someone using the same hardware as you is actively participating in the distro's development. Most manufacturers simply don't have the financial incentive to put in time and labour towards supporting Linux.

dorfsmay 10y ago

I'm surprised by the need of so many reboot, I use https://ubuntugnome.org/ https://ubuntugnome.org/ LTS as my main desktop, and so does my wife and kids and have not experience such issue. I cannot use the UI in OS X (my brain cannot adapt to it somehow), but have to use MS Windows 8 machines for work, and am always surprised by how inefficient their UI is, considering how much money has been poured into it.

CalRobert 10y ago

I had a similar experience with a Galago Ultra Pro from System76, except I couldn't even type. It was an utter pile. However, I've really like using Ubuntu on an XPS 13 from Dell. To what extent could this be related to using hardware from piss-ant vendors who are trying to cobble something together from whatever Clevo has for sale?

quirkafleeg 10y ago

> things break somewhat regularly [...] reboot at least once every two days [...] it's a buggy piece of shit [...] 10-15 years behind Mac OSX or Windows [...] make something that doesn't suck Your comment would be more interesting and sound less like a troll without this. What are the "things" you're talking about and how do they "break"? What are the ways Ubuntu is at the standard of 15 year old versions of Windows or OSX? AIUI Linux is actually pretty well-known for its stability. On desktop I never reboot (Xubuntu) unless there's an update that requires it, and even then it's usually several days later, due to having so much running I don't want to close. If it "sucked" and was so buggy it required rebooting every two days then I think we'd hear more about it from its tens of millions of users, not all of whom are "your geeky Linux user", as you put it. > My wife doesn't care what window manager is chosen I don't care about window managers either. I don't have any of the problems you're talking about. > little annoying bugs For example? Actual bugs, or just things you personally don't happen to like or that don't behave like Windows?

eip 10y ago

>I almost never have to reboot my Mac because something broke I find that hard to believe. I have a crapbook pro they gave me for work and I have to reboot it every few days because it becomes unresponsive.