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What do you run on now? My worry is that while Apple is continually making their machines less and less useful for development (meaning macOS as an environment

by boulos 7y ago

What do you run on now? My worry is that while Apple is continually making their machines less and less useful for development (meaning macOS as an environment), that the Linux laptop story remains bad even on the Dell “Ubuntu Certified” machines or the Lenovo line of newer Thinkpads. I think this means I’m resigned to “No, I would rather ssh to a Linux workstation” because I want to spend ~0 hours per year fighting with “WiFi doesn’t work, Audio doesn’t work, or Suspend sucks”. A recent set of threads here suggested buying a sufficiently old Thinkpad that the Linux community has worked out the bugs. Thoughts? Edit: Thanks for the responses! (Sounds like a year or so back is plenty for solid support).

eikenberry 7y ago
If you want a laptop that runs Linux great out of the box, buy a Linux laptop. There are plenty of known dealers that sell them. System 76 getting the most press recently. If you want to stick with a specific brand (eg. I usually buy Lenovo) the trick has always been to buy one gen back. Laptops are all custom hardware by nature and if the manufacturer isn't spending the time to make sure Linux works on it then it is up to the community, and they can't do it until it is available. Once available it seems to take a year or so to get everything ironed out (assuming it is a major brand popular among Linux users). This really applies equally well to small, token lines, like Dell's, as they are really only a few steps ahead of the community due to limited resources.
Dunedan 7y ago
I use a ThinkPad now and I can't complain about missing hardware support. Something which feels almost magical to me is that Lenovo supports Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVDS) [1] which means you can issue a simple "fwupdmgr get-updates && fwupdmgr update" and reboot and you got the latest firmware updates for your machine. That's completely unthinkable with MacBooks as firmware updates come bundled with macOS updates and therefore the only good mechanism to update the firmwares is to run macOS as well. Regarding the need to fix occasional problems when using Linux: There is no silver bullet. While Linux has some advantages over the other operating systems, it also has its disadvantages. One disadvantage is that it's still quite niche, which I believe is the main reason for such problems. However from my experience it has already gotten _a lot_ better over the past two decades. More people are using Linux nowadays which results in companies putting more effort and resources into Linux development which then results in a better overall experience for everybody. If your goal is to spend no time at all fixing or tweaking your system, I'd say Linux isn't the right choice for now. [1]: https://fwupd.org/ https://fwupd.org/
- MonaroVXR 7y ago
  Linux user on ThinkPad here, I believe the firmware upgrade system is only for the higher-end ThinkPads.
  - Dunedan 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you consider "higher-end", but the list of supported devices is pretty long: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/#lenovo_thinkpad https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/#lenovo_thinkpad
mixmastamyk 7y ago
My dellbuntu works quite well.

by boulos 7y ago

eikenberry 7y ago

If you want a laptop that runs Linux great out of the box, buy a Linux laptop. There are plenty of known dealers that sell them. System 76 getting the most press recently. If you want to stick with a specific brand (eg. I usually buy Lenovo) the trick has always been to buy one gen back. Laptops are all custom hardware by nature and if the manufacturer isn't spending the time to make sure Linux works on it then it is up to the community, and they can't do it until it is available. Once available it seems to take a year or so to get everything ironed out (assuming it is a major brand popular among Linux users). This really applies equally well to small, token lines, like Dell's, as they are really only a few steps ahead of the community due to limited resources.

Dunedan 7y ago

I use a ThinkPad now and I can't complain about missing hardware support. Something which feels almost magical to me is that Lenovo supports Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVDS) [1] which means you can issue a simple "fwupdmgr get-updates && fwupdmgr update" and reboot and you got the latest firmware updates for your machine. That's completely unthinkable with MacBooks as firmware updates come bundled with macOS updates and therefore the only good mechanism to update the firmwares is to run macOS as well. Regarding the need to fix occasional problems when using Linux: There is no silver bullet. While Linux has some advantages over the other operating systems, it also has its disadvantages. One disadvantage is that it's still quite niche, which I believe is the main reason for such problems. However from my experience it has already gotten _a lot_ better over the past two decades. More people are using Linux nowadays which results in companies putting more effort and resources into Linux development which then results in a better overall experience for everybody. If your goal is to spend no time at all fixing or tweaking your system, I'd say Linux isn't the right choice for now. [1]: https://fwupd.org/ https://fwupd.org/

MonaroVXR 7y ago
Linux user on ThinkPad here, I believe the firmware upgrade system is only for the higher-end ThinkPads.
- Dunedan 7y ago
  I'm not sure what you consider "higher-end", but the list of supported devices is pretty long: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/#lenovo_thinkpad https://fwupd.org/lvfs/devices/#lenovo_thinkpad

mixmastamyk 7y ago

My dellbuntu works quite well.