3 ms·

Time before last when I went to a Golang meetup, the presenter's Linux laptop embarrassed him for a few minutes, and lots of devs with Macbooks made some linux

Time before last when I went to a Golang meetup, the presenter's Linux laptop embarrassed him for a few minutes, and lots of devs with Macbooks made some linux jokes at his expense. This was the story with printing in Linux as well, back in the day. It would work fine for some, and be a nightmare for others.

jandrese 8y ago
This is definitely a case where the details matter. The guy who runs Slackware on some no-name laptop is probably going to struggle more than the guy running Ubuntu on the Dell.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  It was Bionic Beaver. He was a well heeled SV manager, and he had a fairly new laptop. Not sure if it was a Dell. This also happened with printing. People would say it worked fine for them, then point out that scroungers on quirky old laptops were getting what they deserved. Really, the fault wasn't those quirky old laptops, but rather fragile and not so well standardized software.
klardotsh 8y ago
This is rarely (but entertainingly when it happens) a thing - I once waltzed into a job interview and fought xrandr for like 5 minutes to demo my take-home project: turns out mirroring my 1080p built-in panel to a 4k HDMI screen with herbstluftwm/xrandr command line hackery _only_ was... non-trivial. Thus, for the whole 13 months I worked there, I got to share several laughs about how "it's the year of the Linux desktop, yeah?" Embarrassing at first, but life moves on. (fwiw the sway 1.0 betas, which are more or less i3 ported to Wayland, handle this type of case beautifully, and unless my kernel does Strange Things and panics, I basically plug and play into whatever I want, much like one would expect from the GNOME/KDE experience)
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I got to share several laughs about how "it's the year of the Linux desktop, yeah?" The amount of time that joke's been around should be taken as a sign of a persistent condition. unless my kernel does Strange Things and panics, I basically plug and play into whatever I want The kernel doing strange things and panicking doing plug and play was never a thing on OS X when I started using it. Seems to me it's not been a thing for Windows since before Windows 7. It's long been speculated that one problem with Linux is cultural. Are Linux desktops trapped by cultural expectations?
  - klardotsh 8y ago
    The only piece of this I'm going to engage on is the kernel panic bit, and only as far as a counter-anecdote (so take it as you will), but I had almost as many kernel panics on a 2016 Macbook Pro over a bit over a year of using it at a past job. In fact, almost the exact same scenarios that I'd see panics on Linux on an XPS 13, would panic the Macbook: plugging in external displays through USB-C/TB3 ports. Probably double or triple the frequency if those displays were connected to a full docking station - probably something odd in PCIe code, potentially even firmware level. The only OS I haven't had kernel panics on in recent memory is, indeed, Windows starting with 7, but I have a long list of other reasons I can't/don't/won't use it as my daily driver.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      I had almost as many kernel panics on a 2016 Macbook Pro over a bit over a year of using it I'm still rocking my 2012 Macbook Pro. It's been solid. The only OS I haven't had kernel panics on in recent memory is, indeed, Windows starting with 7, but I have a long list of other reasons I can't/don't/won't use it as my daily driver. I can only stand to do my development on a windows machine by using a Linux VM.

jandrese 8y ago

This is definitely a case where the details matter. The guy who runs Slackware on some no-name laptop is probably going to struggle more than the guy running Ubuntu on the Dell.

stcredzero 8y ago
It was Bionic Beaver. He was a well heeled SV manager, and he had a fairly new laptop. Not sure if it was a Dell. This also happened with printing. People would say it worked fine for them, then point out that scroungers on quirky old laptops were getting what they deserved. Really, the fault wasn't those quirky old laptops, but rather fragile and not so well standardized software.

klardotsh 8y ago

This is rarely (but entertainingly when it happens) a thing - I once waltzed into a job interview and fought xrandr for like 5 minutes to demo my take-home project: turns out mirroring my 1080p built-in panel to a 4k HDMI screen with herbstluftwm/xrandr command line hackery _only_ was... non-trivial. Thus, for the whole 13 months I worked there, I got to share several laughs about how "it's the year of the Linux desktop, yeah?" Embarrassing at first, but life moves on. (fwiw the sway 1.0 betas, which are more or less i3 ported to Wayland, handle this type of case beautifully, and unless my kernel does Strange Things and panics, I basically plug and play into whatever I want, much like one would expect from the GNOME/KDE experience)

stcredzero 8y ago
I got to share several laughs about how "it's the year of the Linux desktop, yeah?" The amount of time that joke's been around should be taken as a sign of a persistent condition. unless my kernel does Strange Things and panics, I basically plug and play into whatever I want The kernel doing strange things and panicking doing plug and play was never a thing on OS X when I started using it. Seems to me it's not been a thing for Windows since before Windows 7. It's long been speculated that one problem with Linux is cultural. Are Linux desktops trapped by cultural expectations?
- klardotsh 8y ago
  The only piece of this I'm going to engage on is the kernel panic bit, and only as far as a counter-anecdote (so take it as you will), but I had almost as many kernel panics on a 2016 Macbook Pro over a bit over a year of using it at a past job. In fact, almost the exact same scenarios that I'd see panics on Linux on an XPS 13, would panic the Macbook: plugging in external displays through USB-C/TB3 ports. Probably double or triple the frequency if those displays were connected to a full docking station - probably something odd in PCIe code, potentially even firmware level. The only OS I haven't had kernel panics on in recent memory is, indeed, Windows starting with 7, but I have a long list of other reasons I can't/don't/won't use it as my daily driver.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    I had almost as many kernel panics on a 2016 Macbook Pro over a bit over a year of using it I'm still rocking my 2012 Macbook Pro. It's been solid. The only OS I haven't had kernel panics on in recent memory is, indeed, Windows starting with 7, but I have a long list of other reasons I can't/don't/won't use it as my daily driver. I can only stand to do my development on a windows machine by using a Linux VM.