5 ms·

Every post like these, the TODO list is super long. This reminds me again why I don't want Linux in the first place.

djhworld 6y ago
I think the real answer is buy a laptop that just works and don't bother with Apple devices. However it's nice to be able to re-purpose old hardware, even if it's a bit of a hill to climb :)
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Yes, a much easier path would have been to eBay the MacBook and spend the money on a second hand ThinkPad. You would get more bang for your buck and less headaches.
  - echlebek 6y ago
    Well, maybe. My Thinkpad experience has been good, but not amazing. I own two Thinkpads, a 5th generation X1 carbon and a 2nd generation X1 extreme. Both very nice machines, but not perfect. On the newer machine in particular, the X1 extreme, I've had many annoying issues. Suspend did not work for over a year after purchase. If the laptop was left with the lid shut it would run out of battery in a couple of hours. It finally started working with Fedora 32. I don't know if it was fixed because of kernel updates or firmware updates. The laptop still uses way too much power when suspended, but at least I can stick it in my laptop bag for a few hours. Until Fedora shipped with Gnome running under Wayland, the integrated graphics were too slow to acceptably render the desktop at 4K, which is the native resolution of the panel, and the only resolution choice I am presented with in Gnome. I enabled the nvidia GPU with the proprietary driver, but then I'd get less than 2 hours of battery, and the thing could cook an egg. Compared to my 2012 Macbook Pro, which also has integrated graphics, the experience is much worse, even today, with Wayland. Battery life is not as good as Windows by default. For some reason, every Linux user with a laptop has to install tlp and powertop just to get decent battery life. Kernel development seems to consistently focus on this, and I'm confident than the situation is incrementally improving. The synaptics touchpad is hot garbage. If you compare it to a Mac's touchpad, it's just a tragedy how bad it is. I've used both the synaptics driver with Xorg and libinput with Wayland. There is noticeable lag when moving the mouse cursor from a resting position. The cursor will stay where it is, and then jump to where it ought to have moved to. This produces a very jarring UX. Interestingly, the nipple mouse does not have this problem. Finally, the scrolling gestures don't always work, depending where on the touchpad you initiate them. The keyboard would reproducibly lose keystrokes! This was not fixed until last week by a Lenovo firmware update, and it produced a lot of irritating typos when conversing with coworkers. Not that I care, but the fingerprint reader doesn't work. The sound is too quiet even at full volume, so you have to tweak the system config to allow you to adjust it past its default max volume. I use Linux as a workstation operating system because I write software destined to run on Linux. Despite these problems, I would gladly take them over having to virtualize my entire workflow on a Mac, which I find incredibly painful to do. But these quality problems have left me wondering if Lenovo was the right laptop brand to buy. I left a negative review with Lenovo, after they solicited me to write one, and instead of trying to resolve the problems, they simply refused to publish the review.
- perch56 6y ago
  I agree with your second paragraph and I’m definitely one of those that like to tinker with old hardware. I successfully installed Ubuntu on my Mac without too much fuss however Apple devices and MacBooks especially are already laptops that just work. I’m not a fanboy myself but the amount of time I spend configuring a Linux/Windows PC as compared to a Mac is almost always double.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  While that is my answer as well, it isn't a guarantee of success, I have had laptops sold with Ubuntu LTS break on me. Specially when FOSS gets into the way and a perfectly working driver blob was replaced by WIP FOSS driver, just because it feels good to push it down on the users, for example the way broadcom driver got replaced a couple of years ago.
vardump 6y ago
Linux is fine and nearly zero effort to set up in general. Unless you run it on very customized special built systems like what Apple tends to produce. Same might apply to some other vendors as well.
mirekrusin 6y ago
If you want to run macOS on non apple hardware - your list will be long as well.
izacus 6y ago
The list to get macOS working on other laptops is even longer - I thought it would be obvious to all of you that it would be hard to make a machine designed to run a proprietary OS. Just like you buy an Apple machine to run MacOS well, you can easily buy a machine to run Linux well (Dell, Lenovo, System76 are just a few manufacturers who build MacBoook class hardware with Linux preinstalled).
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  > Dell, Lenovo, System76 are just a few manufacturers who build MacBoook class hardware with Linux preinstalled Debatable. I have had an absolutely terrible experience with Linux on a new ThinkPad. System76 doesn’t have as great a build quality AFAIK. Dell is fine, but they don’t have anything with preinstalled Linux anymore.
  - Certhas 6y ago
    They do: https://www.dell.com/de-de/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-9300-laptop/cnx93019 https://www.dell.com/de-de/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-9300-lapt...
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      Oh, that's nice. I thought they stopped offering developer editions. My bad
  - izacus 6y ago
    Was that ThinkPad one of the Linux certified ones? Or was it again one random machine?
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      It was a non certified X390 Yoga.
tommyage 6y ago
I won't bother telling you the advantages I got over the other OSs, but I am curious why you are denouncing linux in the first place. Installing any non-free linux OS will grant you an complete out-of-the-box experience, imo superior to Windows/Mac. Even Nvidia Optimus powered laptops are fully supported. Hit me up if you managed to run windows on the same hardware as the OP. Or even running MacOS on any other computer. I am wondering if your documentation would be more concise. so long..

I think the real answer is buy a laptop that just works and don't bother with Apple devices. However it's nice to be able to re-purpose old hardware, even if it's a bit of a hill to climb :)

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
Yes, a much easier path would have been to eBay the MacBook and spend the money on a second hand ThinkPad. You would get more bang for your buck and less headaches.
- echlebek 6y ago
  Well, maybe. My Thinkpad experience has been good, but not amazing. I own two Thinkpads, a 5th generation X1 carbon and a 2nd generation X1 extreme. Both very nice machines, but not perfect. On the newer machine in particular, the X1 extreme, I've had many annoying issues. Suspend did not work for over a year after purchase. If the laptop was left with the lid shut it would run out of battery in a couple of hours. It finally started working with Fedora 32. I don't know if it was fixed because of kernel updates or firmware updates. The laptop still uses way too much power when suspended, but at least I can stick it in my laptop bag for a few hours. Until Fedora shipped with Gnome running under Wayland, the integrated graphics were too slow to acceptably render the desktop at 4K, which is the native resolution of the panel, and the only resolution choice I am presented with in Gnome. I enabled the nvidia GPU with the proprietary driver, but then I'd get less than 2 hours of battery, and the thing could cook an egg. Compared to my 2012 Macbook Pro, which also has integrated graphics, the experience is much worse, even today, with Wayland. Battery life is not as good as Windows by default. For some reason, every Linux user with a laptop has to install tlp and powertop just to get decent battery life. Kernel development seems to consistently focus on this, and I'm confident than the situation is incrementally improving. The synaptics touchpad is hot garbage. If you compare it to a Mac's touchpad, it's just a tragedy how bad it is. I've used both the synaptics driver with Xorg and libinput with Wayland. There is noticeable lag when moving the mouse cursor from a resting position. The cursor will stay where it is, and then jump to where it ought to have moved to. This produces a very jarring UX. Interestingly, the nipple mouse does not have this problem. Finally, the scrolling gestures don't always work, depending where on the touchpad you initiate them. The keyboard would reproducibly lose keystrokes! This was not fixed until last week by a Lenovo firmware update, and it produced a lot of irritating typos when conversing with coworkers. Not that I care, but the fingerprint reader doesn't work. The sound is too quiet even at full volume, so you have to tweak the system config to allow you to adjust it past its default max volume. I use Linux as a workstation operating system because I write software destined to run on Linux. Despite these problems, I would gladly take them over having to virtualize my entire workflow on a Mac, which I find incredibly painful to do. But these quality problems have left me wondering if Lenovo was the right laptop brand to buy. I left a negative review with Lenovo, after they solicited me to write one, and instead of trying to resolve the problems, they simply refused to publish the review.
perch56 6y ago
I agree with your second paragraph and I’m definitely one of those that like to tinker with old hardware. I successfully installed Ubuntu on my Mac without too much fuss however Apple devices and MacBooks especially are already laptops that just work. I’m not a fanboy myself but the amount of time I spend configuring a Linux/Windows PC as compared to a Mac is almost always double.
pjmlp 6y ago
While that is my answer as well, it isn't a guarantee of success, I have had laptops sold with Ubuntu LTS break on me. Specially when FOSS gets into the way and a perfectly working driver blob was replaced by WIP FOSS driver, just because it feels good to push it down on the users, for example the way broadcom driver got replaced a couple of years ago.

vardump 6y ago

Linux is fine and nearly zero effort to set up in general. Unless you run it on very customized special built systems like what Apple tends to produce. Same might apply to some other vendors as well.

mirekrusin 6y ago

If you want to run macOS on non apple hardware - your list will be long as well.

izacus 6y ago

The list to get macOS working on other laptops is even longer - I thought it would be obvious to all of you that it would be hard to make a machine designed to run a proprietary OS. Just like you buy an Apple machine to run MacOS well, you can easily buy a machine to run Linux well (Dell, Lenovo, System76 are just a few manufacturers who build MacBoook class hardware with Linux preinstalled).

read_if_gay_ 6y ago
> Dell, Lenovo, System76 are just a few manufacturers who build MacBoook class hardware with Linux preinstalled Debatable. I have had an absolutely terrible experience with Linux on a new ThinkPad. System76 doesn’t have as great a build quality AFAIK. Dell is fine, but they don’t have anything with preinstalled Linux anymore.
- Certhas 6y ago
  They do: https://www.dell.com/de-de/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-9300-laptop/cnx93019 https://www.dell.com/de-de/shop/cty/pdp/spd/xps-13-9300-lapt...
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    Oh, that's nice. I thought they stopped offering developer editions. My bad
- izacus 6y ago
  Was that ThinkPad one of the Linux certified ones? Or was it again one random machine?
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    It was a non certified X390 Yoga.

tommyage 6y ago

I won't bother telling you the advantages I got over the other OSs, but I am curious why you are denouncing linux in the first place. Installing any non-free linux OS will grant you an complete out-of-the-box experience, imo superior to Windows/Mac. Even Nvidia Optimus powered laptops are fully supported. Hit me up if you managed to run windows on the same hardware as the OP. Or even running MacOS on any other computer. I am wondering if your documentation would be more concise. so long..