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Linux today isn't worse, but laptops are much more prevalent now, and they're harder to support drivers for than desktops. Especially Apple laptops which I've b

Linux today isn't worse, but laptops are much more prevalent now, and they're harder to support drivers for than desktops. Especially Apple laptops which I've been using for a long time now, they're notorious for not being that easy to get Linux running smoothly on. Some people can manage it but more people have trouble. I've wasted dozens and dozens of hours trying to get Linux working smoothly on this thing and I just gave up a few years ago. But when desktops were king and the internet just started to become mainstream and everyone was flooding into that new space, it was a great time for desktop Linux.

tobmlt 8y ago
Yep. I've been running dual boot OSX/mint for some time and god the hardware has never been happy about it. Especially with regard to the GPU and multi-monitor support but I suspect also with regard to battery usage and other power issues. It always ran just cool enough that I did not do anything about how hot it was. The display issues cropped up so that I could at least anticipate when it would occur and try to minimize that. GPU computing... well these old macbook pros with Nvidia chips were dogs anyway. Would a windows laptop fair any better with Linux? Honestly asking because I really want a solid Linux laptop for HPC/computational engineering development but not sure what to do.
- greenhatman 8y ago
  I've never hand multi monitor problems with Linux. I'm running Mint on my MacBook. The only thing that was difficult for me, was installing my webcam drivers.
  - tobmlt 8y ago
    Wow - that is interesting to hear. Let me toss in a caveat by saying that I had 2 different multi-monitor setups that I transferred between while running straight off the machine quite often as well. Typically problems would crop up after shifting to or from the non-mac monitor setup. Never tested the cam on the linux side.
  - tobmlt 8y ago
    Did I mention that I was running mint as well? With 2012 macbook pro hardware.

tobmlt 8y ago

Yep. I've been running dual boot OSX/mint for some time and god the hardware has never been happy about it. Especially with regard to the GPU and multi-monitor support but I suspect also with regard to battery usage and other power issues. It always ran just cool enough that I did not do anything about how hot it was. The display issues cropped up so that I could at least anticipate when it would occur and try to minimize that. GPU computing... well these old macbook pros with Nvidia chips were dogs anyway. Would a windows laptop fair any better with Linux? Honestly asking because I really want a solid Linux laptop for HPC/computational engineering development but not sure what to do.

greenhatman 8y ago
I've never hand multi monitor problems with Linux. I'm running Mint on my MacBook. The only thing that was difficult for me, was installing my webcam drivers.
- tobmlt 8y ago
  Wow - that is interesting to hear. Let me toss in a caveat by saying that I had 2 different multi-monitor setups that I transferred between while running straight off the machine quite often as well. Typically problems would crop up after shifting to or from the non-mac monitor setup. Never tested the cam on the linux side.
- tobmlt 8y ago
  Did I mention that I was running mint as well? With 2012 macbook pro hardware.