8 ms·

Being worried about the current trajectory of macOS, I’ve been thinking more and more about Linux and imagining how far it must have come since I last used it i

by minton 7y ago

Being worried about the current trajectory of macOS, I’ve been thinking more and more about Linux and imagining how far it must have come since I last used it in the early 2000s. Reading things like this really dampen my enthusiasm for trying Linux again.

macawfish 7y ago
My sense is that this kind of thing is typical for newer versions of the Linux kernel. Most people don't run the latest kernel release, and for day-to-day applications, running an older, more stable version of the kernel won't effect anything. I quit MacOS a little over 10 years ago now. I used to be a huge Mac fan, even subscribing to MacAddict magazine and frequenting the Mac Rumors website. It was a cult and I have absolutely no regrets leaving. Especially now that Bitwig runs on Linux, what would I ever need a Mac for? I'm using Arch Linux and it's the most stable operating system I've ever used. I've gone more than 4 years with the same installation. Thanks to the Arch wiki I now have working knowledge of things like systemd and how to compile kernel modules. These things really aren't nearly as scary as they sound. I didn't learn about them by reading the longwinded `man` pages... I learned about them from the Arch wiki!
- fredmorcos 7y ago
  > I'm using Arch Linux and it's the most stable operating system I've ever used. lol (from an arch user)
  - macawfish 7y ago
    Okay the lol is warranted... but in a certain way I'm serious: Ubuntu and MacOS were always changing things for me whenever I upgraded. Arch doesn't make any systemwide configuration changes. If some package has backwards-incompatible changes, I deal with those one at a time, but there's none of this "oh we rearranged the entire organizational structure of your root directory surprise!!!" stuff. And because I'm always getting the latest stable versions of things, bugs often disappear magically, rather than lingering on until the next major upgrade. And yeah I mean you gotta follow some key rules, like never install anything without the `u` flag, etc.
kitotik 7y ago
I recently put Linux on a MacBook Air. It’s the same as it’s ever been - extremely finicky and time consuming to get all your stuff working smoothly. Requires scouring random bug reports, stack overflow etc to find all the little work arounds. This is for what I consider critical stuff: network drivers, suspend/sleep, power management, display brightness etc. My impression is that it is not any more or less of a mess than it was in the 2000s, or even in the late 90s. All that being said, it’s still wonderful and gratifying once you have everything tuned to your liking.
- nextos 7y ago
  What MacBook Air version?
  - kitotik 7y ago
    Old! It’s mid-2012 model. Core 2 cpu with Broadcom 43xx
paulfurtado 7y ago
It's pretty atypical to upgrade to the latest mainline linux kernel the day the kernel is released. Most distributions take time to pick up a new kernel and make it part of a major distribution release that is subject to more testing. The OP must be using a bleeding-edge rolling-release distro like Arch Linux or running a custom kernel. I wouldn't anticipate such problems if running a popular release based distro like Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, etc.
- Hello71 7y ago
  Arch doesn't even have 5.6 in staging, let alone testing, let alone core. It was released less than 24 hours ago, that's barely enough time for the maintainer to test it on their own machines. No distribution releases a .0 kernel after 12 hours of testing to anybody except people who have explicitly opted into testing. and at that rate, there's a good chance you'll get -rc kernels too, and those are full of bugs (that's why they're -rc).
snori74 7y ago
Most (99.9pc) Linux users get all their updates via their distro. Not saying you can't get a bad update, but Much less likely if you're a little patient.
nextos 7y ago
Glitches like this are very infrequent if you run well chosen hardware. If you run e.g. an all-Intel setup which is a few months old, it's rare. If you are afraid of things getting broken, simply use NixOS. All upgrades can be easily rolled back, and you can freeze updates of some packages, or get packages through different channels with different stability compromises. I prefer to get everything through rolling release channels, as then bugs come one by one. I've been running Linux on a MacBook Air 11 2012 for years, and everything worked out of the box from day 1. For the record, that's a pure Intel machine with the exception of a Broadcom wireless card. Said card works equally bad in Linux and Mac, I don't get why Apple keeps sticking to this brand. I was hoping to upgrade to one of the new 2020 Airs, which are again providing terrific value, a great screen and keyboard. Sadly, the T2 chip makes things a bit difficult. It's getting support for Linux, but there are still many glitches. My Mac was broken by some stupid inspector in my rental property, and it's sadly not so easy to find a decent replacement with all COVID restrictions. Another option is the Surface line, which is surprisingly well supported. The Surface Go, for example, works incredibly well as a tablet. All recent Surface machines work quite well in Linux. Else, your best bet is a ThinkPad or an XPS. Unfortunately, Chromebooks are no longer so easy to reflash.
- sfilargi 7y ago
  > Glitches like this are very infrequent if you run well chosen hardware. 1 point sample here but I never manage to get reliable WiFi on a NUC6i7KYK. Hardware that should be included in the “well known” category.
  - nextos 7y ago
    Sometimes even this fails, what can I say. Ubuntu runs a certification program. I wish there was an independent party certifying hardware for Linux. And they looked into all the details, such as battery discharge triggering ACPI events, 802.11 functions supported by wireless card and things like that.
    - sfilargi 7y ago
      > Sometimes even this fails, what can I say. Not blaming you :D
hannob 7y ago
I'm sorry this is the impression I created. Ultimately we're talking about a .0 version here. That's not going to end up in a Linux distro without further testing. My post was directed to people manually installing latest kernels. That's not what the average "I want a Linux Desktop" user should do. It's targetted for people who tend to play with their systems. It's what they expect.
asveikau 7y ago
When I started using Linux in the 90s, especially because I was young and enthusiastic, sure, I would grab tarballs from kernel.org and build them on the day of release. That is simply not how it works anymore. Your distro vets the kernels. They patch them. They ensure that if that well known Intel wifi bug is still around that the patch is applied (note it already exists!) or better yet already in-tree. A late breaking bug of that nature is not a huge concern for your everyday Linux user.
- sigotirandolas 7y ago
  As for me personally, since a few releases I've taken the vice of waiting on Sunday midnight for building the new kernel release and seeing what's new and what's broken :) Judging from the bug reports, there's still quite a few people building the latest kernels - mostly from poweruser distros like Arch and Gentoo. If you use Ubuntu, Debian or CentOS, then yes, you're going to get an old and boring^W^W^W^W^W^Wstable kernel. But there's still enough of us around on cutting edge, I guess.
sparrc 7y ago
> Reading things like this really dampen my enthusiasm for trying Linux again. It shouldn't. If you use a major desktop distribution (ie, Ubuntu) it will be many months before you are actually using kernel 5.6.x.
mgalgs 7y ago
If you're running Linus' master branch, yes, things are going to break from time to time. Stick to LTS releases (which is what most distros use) and you'll be fine.
stjohnswarts 7y ago
Unless you're doing kernel development why would you be downloading and compiling the bleeding edge kernel on your desktop?

by minton 7y ago

macawfish 7y ago

My sense is that this kind of thing is typical for newer versions of the Linux kernel. Most people don't run the latest kernel release, and for day-to-day applications, running an older, more stable version of the kernel won't effect anything. I quit MacOS a little over 10 years ago now. I used to be a huge Mac fan, even subscribing to MacAddict magazine and frequenting the Mac Rumors website. It was a cult and I have absolutely no regrets leaving. Especially now that Bitwig runs on Linux, what would I ever need a Mac for? I'm using Arch Linux and it's the most stable operating system I've ever used. I've gone more than 4 years with the same installation. Thanks to the Arch wiki I now have working knowledge of things like systemd and how to compile kernel modules. These things really aren't nearly as scary as they sound. I didn't learn about them by reading the longwinded `man` pages... I learned about them from the Arch wiki!

fredmorcos 7y ago
> I'm using Arch Linux and it's the most stable operating system I've ever used. lol (from an arch user)
- macawfish 7y ago
  Okay the lol is warranted... but in a certain way I'm serious: Ubuntu and MacOS were always changing things for me whenever I upgraded. Arch doesn't make any systemwide configuration changes. If some package has backwards-incompatible changes, I deal with those one at a time, but there's none of this "oh we rearranged the entire organizational structure of your root directory surprise!!!" stuff. And because I'm always getting the latest stable versions of things, bugs often disappear magically, rather than lingering on until the next major upgrade. And yeah I mean you gotta follow some key rules, like never install anything without the `u` flag, etc.

kitotik 7y ago

I recently put Linux on a MacBook Air. It’s the same as it’s ever been - extremely finicky and time consuming to get all your stuff working smoothly. Requires scouring random bug reports, stack overflow etc to find all the little work arounds. This is for what I consider critical stuff: network drivers, suspend/sleep, power management, display brightness etc. My impression is that it is not any more or less of a mess than it was in the 2000s, or even in the late 90s. All that being said, it’s still wonderful and gratifying once you have everything tuned to your liking.

nextos 7y ago
What MacBook Air version?
- kitotik 7y ago
  Old! It’s mid-2012 model. Core 2 cpu with Broadcom 43xx

paulfurtado 7y ago

It's pretty atypical to upgrade to the latest mainline linux kernel the day the kernel is released. Most distributions take time to pick up a new kernel and make it part of a major distribution release that is subject to more testing. The OP must be using a bleeding-edge rolling-release distro like Arch Linux or running a custom kernel. I wouldn't anticipate such problems if running a popular release based distro like Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, etc.

Hello71 7y ago
Arch doesn't even have 5.6 in staging, let alone testing, let alone core. It was released less than 24 hours ago, that's barely enough time for the maintainer to test it on their own machines. No distribution releases a .0 kernel after 12 hours of testing to anybody except people who have explicitly opted into testing. and at that rate, there's a good chance you'll get -rc kernels too, and those are full of bugs (that's why they're -rc).

snori74 7y ago

Most (99.9pc) Linux users get all their updates via their distro. Not saying you can't get a bad update, but Much less likely if you're a little patient.

nextos 7y ago

Glitches like this are very infrequent if you run well chosen hardware. If you run e.g. an all-Intel setup which is a few months old, it's rare. If you are afraid of things getting broken, simply use NixOS. All upgrades can be easily rolled back, and you can freeze updates of some packages, or get packages through different channels with different stability compromises. I prefer to get everything through rolling release channels, as then bugs come one by one. I've been running Linux on a MacBook Air 11 2012 for years, and everything worked out of the box from day 1. For the record, that's a pure Intel machine with the exception of a Broadcom wireless card. Said card works equally bad in Linux and Mac, I don't get why Apple keeps sticking to this brand. I was hoping to upgrade to one of the new 2020 Airs, which are again providing terrific value, a great screen and keyboard. Sadly, the T2 chip makes things a bit difficult. It's getting support for Linux, but there are still many glitches. My Mac was broken by some stupid inspector in my rental property, and it's sadly not so easy to find a decent replacement with all COVID restrictions. Another option is the Surface line, which is surprisingly well supported. The Surface Go, for example, works incredibly well as a tablet. All recent Surface machines work quite well in Linux. Else, your best bet is a ThinkPad or an XPS. Unfortunately, Chromebooks are no longer so easy to reflash.

sfilargi 7y ago
> Glitches like this are very infrequent if you run well chosen hardware. 1 point sample here but I never manage to get reliable WiFi on a NUC6i7KYK. Hardware that should be included in the “well known” category.
- nextos 7y ago
  Sometimes even this fails, what can I say. Ubuntu runs a certification program. I wish there was an independent party certifying hardware for Linux. And they looked into all the details, such as battery discharge triggering ACPI events, 802.11 functions supported by wireless card and things like that.
  - sfilargi 7y ago
    > Sometimes even this fails, what can I say. Not blaming you :D

hannob 7y ago

I'm sorry this is the impression I created. Ultimately we're talking about a .0 version here. That's not going to end up in a Linux distro without further testing. My post was directed to people manually installing latest kernels. That's not what the average "I want a Linux Desktop" user should do. It's targetted for people who tend to play with their systems. It's what they expect.

asveikau 7y ago

When I started using Linux in the 90s, especially because I was young and enthusiastic, sure, I would grab tarballs from kernel.org and build them on the day of release. That is simply not how it works anymore. Your distro vets the kernels. They patch them. They ensure that if that well known Intel wifi bug is still around that the patch is applied (note it already exists!) or better yet already in-tree. A late breaking bug of that nature is not a huge concern for your everyday Linux user.

sigotirandolas 7y ago
As for me personally, since a few releases I've taken the vice of waiting on Sunday midnight for building the new kernel release and seeing what's new and what's broken :) Judging from the bug reports, there's still quite a few people building the latest kernels - mostly from poweruser distros like Arch and Gentoo. If you use Ubuntu, Debian or CentOS, then yes, you're going to get an old and boring^W^W^W^W^W^Wstable kernel. But there's still enough of us around on cutting edge, I guess.

sparrc 7y ago

> Reading things like this really dampen my enthusiasm for trying Linux again. It shouldn't. If you use a major desktop distribution (ie, Ubuntu) it will be many months before you are actually using kernel 5.6.x.

mgalgs 7y ago

If you're running Linus' master branch, yes, things are going to break from time to time. Stick to LTS releases (which is what most distros use) and you'll be fine.

stjohnswarts 7y ago

Unless you're doing kernel development why would you be downloading and compiling the bleeding edge kernel on your desktop?