30 ms·

Moving from Macbook to Linux

• vondur 6y ago
  I think this is going to be a tougher sell for laptops as the M1 chip seems to be a game changer for battery life and performance. Once the majority of software gets native ARM support, it will only get better, not to mention this is only the first iteration of a desktop class Apple Silicon. I do understand from a philosophical point of view why people may not want to use MacOS, particularly after last weeks code signing fiasco.
  • rektide 6y ago
    Agreed, it is quite pathetic that the entire rest of the world is getting taken to school by one chip. I hate to fall back on the "good enough" argument, it's absolutely pathetic that we're here, but PCs are, generally, good enough. Battery life and performance are both pretty stellar in ultrabooks. I'm looking forward to larger & larger tablets becoming a thing, with Apple again alas having to lead the charge there too by introducing 12 inch tablets, which thankfully, others are doing. In general, a fixed closed ecosystem can advance wonderfully, especially fueled with a multi-trillion dollar market capitalization. But a lot of people are betting on literally everyone else on the planet, to suss & finagle better ways forward, organically, over time, with hopefully building inertia, and I think, maybe not for this decade but some decade, those bets on everyone are good bets.
  • fsflover 6y ago
    You can find GNU/Linux ARM laptops, too: https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/ https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/ (slow, but it's a start).
    • masklinn 6y ago
      > slow, but it's a start That it's slow makes it a bad one. It's the issue endemic to existing ARM laptop offering: in the best cases, either the performances are lackluster and the battery life is good, or the performances are terrible and the battery life is great. Sure the pinebook is super cheap, but the performances are bad and it gets 6-8h battery.
      • ognarb 6y ago
        The real problem is the driver situation for the GPU on ARM. If we could have more mainline supports, the Desktop Linux ARM ecosystem would be a lot better.
  • donor20 6y ago
    We don't yet know what the M1 can do with a higher power budget in desktop form. Very surprising though to see they can generate some reasonable seeming performance especially with native apps.
  • old-gregg 6y ago
    Docker performance on current Intel Macs is much worse than Linux. So if you're building software to run on an x86 Linux server, dealing with ARM-based MacOS is going to be even a bigger PITA: as both the arch and the OS will be different. I am definitely in the camp of replicating server setups on my laptops, so as sweet and incredible as M1 is, I won't be able to use it. But for new projects, I honestly do not know what will people do. If Amazon continues to evolve their Graviton chips, and other cloud providers follow, it will be quite tempting to try a 100% ARM setup...
    • masklinn 6y ago
      > Docker performance on current Intel Macs is much worse than Linux. One can only wonder why running linux containers on OSX would be slow.
      • heavyset_go 6y ago
        Soon people will be running x86 Linux containers virtualized on ARM Macs, making it even slower.
      • thawkins 6y ago
        Becuase macosx containers run inside a Linux VM, not on the native host OS, same with Windows;
        • masklinn 6y ago
          > Becuase macosx containers run inside a Linux VM, not on the native host OS My comment was sarcastic. > same with Windows Significantly less so as Microsoft themselves provide the virtualisation glue, with a custom kernel and a dedicated / special-cased VM, in the form of WSL2.
  • x87678r 6y ago
    Yeah it sucks I was going to buy my Dell XPS 15 on Black Friday... now I dont know what to do.
• fierarul 6y ago
  The MBP wasn't keeping up with CPU needs so I moved this year to the Lenovo Legion which has the 16-threads Ryzen 4800h. Being so new/modern it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the hardest to get everything right. It still has some usual resume from sleep quirks but everything finally works. From experience older laptops fare much better with Linux. In my developer group I think was among the few remaining with macOS. The M1 triggered some interest, but as a media device, perhaps.
• djhworld 6y ago
  I've been running Linux on my MBP (2015) for about 6 months now and it's been amazing. Great hardware + Fedora, not had any issues. It's really sad that >= 2016 models have problems getting Linux running properly (wifi, audio driver issues etc) and I don't hold much hope about getting anything other than MacOS running on these new M1 based Macs. The key differentiator for me has been the i3 window manager over anything else, I can't imagine ever going back to a non-tiling window manager!
  • spurdoman77 6y ago
    Was there any problems with drivers and so on? Running linux on apple hardware sounds like a great idea.
• skrowl 6y ago
  2021 is going to be the year of desktop Linux... for sure this time! /s j/k Chromebooks have been desktop Linux for years and they work great
  • rektide 6y ago
    It's more than being about what kernel our devices run. Android devices are Linux too, but we don't go around saying it's an era of the Linux Handheld. It is, sort of, but the "Linux Desktop" implies a wider free & open source stack of interlinked technologies, multiple disjointed entities working in different places but building towards some kind of intertwingularity. You can not get that endless-frontier expanding-ecosystem boon from a fixed monolithic consumer technology like Chromebook.
    • fsflover 6y ago
      > Android devices are Linux too, but we don't go around saying it's an era of the Linux Handheld. It is, sort of, but the "Linux Desktop" implies a wider free & open source stack of interlinked technologies... Or, you just can say that by "Linux" we actually mean GNU/Linux.
    • donor20 6y ago
      Except the sales numbers for Chromebooks are nuts at least in the education sector I'm in, linux on desktop is basically no where there (so far). Will be interesting if that changes. So there is some kind of boom happening even in these more locked down systems.
      • rektide 6y ago
        Indeed. It does seem like chromebooks are likely to be a great wonderful inroads to Linux, & overall a quite good experience at that. There's a lot to be hopeful here, & it definitely raises awareness. I'm still not super enthused about a Linux where only one entity drives forward the overall desktop experience. Sure many distos historically have one desktop environment that they prefer, but it's almist always a) a generally compliant piece of the freedesktop standards environment and b) easy to switch out if you want. If you had asked me a couple years ago, I would have recoiled & wretched at Chromebooks, seen them as another invading conquering anti-libre anti-Linux Desktop anti-option. For the moment, it seems we are much much better able to live in peace & coexist. Originally Chromebooks, like Android, used their own proprietary rendering stack, which was a huge immediate clear & present danger, that Chromebooks had no interest in working with anything or anyone else. These days, Chromebooks run the standard Wayland display server, & crouton/crosstini both seem like fairly good tooling to compute with. Wonderful on-ramps to have.
• silentsea90 6y ago
  Right as Apple launches the Mac with M1
• bootcampwhere 6y ago
  I've found basically the same setup on my own except Kde plasma is the greatest is I've ever had the pleasure of using.
• kowlo 6y ago
  In my opinion: generally speaking, not yet! But of course, you are making your switch in 2021 which is great. I have tried every year and always end up going back to either Windows or MacOS. However, I'm fed up with Windows now, so I've invested in MacOS for now. I'm saying this from my i7 MacBook Pro 2018 with fans blazing because HN on Safari can be demanding.
  • ApolloRising 6y ago
    Boot from an external SSD with a stock systems because that should not happen.
  • Pumafied 6y ago
    I'd take a look at your process monitor I'm on a 2019 MacBook Pro 13 with 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 and I barely ever have the fans kick on. Normally when something like that happens to me it tends to be me choking out the ram and causing the cpu to compress and uncompress RAM more than is reasonable.
  • brabel 6y ago
    > with fans blazing because HN on Safari can be demanding. You've got to be joking?! I have a MacBook Air from 2020, which should still be less powerful than a MacBook Pro from 2018 and even on huge websites full of crap the fans won't kick in, let alone on HN which is the lightest website I frequent often. The only time I hear the fan is when I compile a large project on my IDE or when the IDE re-indexes the JRE!
    • nikisweeting 6y ago
      It's all whats in your tabs, comparing otherwise is useless. I typically run between 100-200 tabs at any given time, most of them hibernated, but some readers only run 10 tabs.
      • brabel 6y ago
        100 tabs? Don't you ever close them? How do you even find a tab again when you want it? Can't you just use bookmarks or something like Pocket? I think I never have more than 10 tabs open, so this is really surprising to me.
• DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
  The trackpad is still a dealbreaker for me. Nothing I have tried so far comes close to the trackpad on a macbook with the sensitivity turned up to max.
  • spullara 6y ago
    That and at least the Dell keyboards have a key configuration that I can't stand. https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Switching-Fn-and-left-Ctrl-keys/td-p/7350106 https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Switching-Fn-and-lef... Aside from operating system, the actual PC laptop hardware just isn't up to the standards.
    • brabel 6y ago
      I agree... switched from a Dell XPS13 that came from factory with Linux to a MacBook Air, and it's been a huge upgrade for me :D despite the fact that on paper, the XPS13 should be a lot more powerful. Every laptop I ever bought that wasn't from Apple (besides Dell, tried Sony, Toshiba and Lenovo - Lenovo was close but still comes short) has been a disappointment.
  • fsflover 6y ago
    Consider supporting this project then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615218.
    • jez 6y ago
      The saddening thing to me is how low on this list of voted improvements "Better tuned acceleration curve" is. I don't use touchpads, I use mice. That instantly "solves" the first couple problems: I don't need multitouch gestures, and I don't need touchpad palm detection. I understand that from these results I must be in the minority. But man it would be great to have better tuned acceleration curves.
  • jez 6y ago
    +1. I have been able to cope with just about every other part of the Linux desktop experience, but the pointer sensitivity is atrocious. I wouldn't make a big deal of it but it's so obvious every time I do anything in a GUI. I've tried trackpad and corded mice and they're all the same: When I turn the sensitivity down low, it caps the max "flick" speed to be sluggish. When I turn the sensitivity up high, even tiny delicate mouse movements lurch my pointer halfway across the screen. More than anything else, I want a mouse acceleration curve that works like macOS or Windows. Both those operating systems come out of the box good defaults and good configurability. Linux has neither.
• anderspitman 6y ago
  I got into Linux when I was younger because I thought it was cool, and I had plenty of time to fix it when things broke. It's been my daily driver for ~10 years now. But there's quite a bit too learn. If I were to try and switch from Windows or Mac today I'm not sure I'd succeed before giving up. But I'm grateful every day to have a machine that I have some semblance of control over. I use a rolling release distro. I'm running a recent kernel and haven't done a major re-install in 5 years. During that entire time my computing experience has been incredibly stable. No huge UI changes. No forced system updates. Just a reliable tool I can use to get stuff done. What I'm trying to communicate is, Linux desktop is usable, and it's worth pushing over the hump.
  • tomwojcik 6y ago
    > I use a rolling release distro This might be the first time someone could have said 'I use Arch' but decided not to.
    • jason0597 6y ago
      Could be Windows 10.
    • NullPrefix 6y ago
      Maybe it's because he uses gentoo?
      • anderspitman 6y ago
        I'm not cool enough for gentoo.
    • manaskarekar 6y ago
      Could be Debian unstable.
    • ognarb 6y ago
      openSUSE tumbleweed is a very nice rolling distribution. The only problem is that it needs an advanced user to configure it (installing video codecs and navigating the powerful and complex installer).
• crazygringo 6y ago
  > but with Apple downgrading its hardware (but still keeping those Apple prices!), the problems just kept stacking up. I get that the author wound up with a lemon, but the idea that Apple is "downgrading its hardware" with more problems arising is ludicrous. Especially now that Apple fixed the keyboards, its hardware is better than it's ever been. You might not like Apple for plenty of other reasons, but the notion that its hardware is getting worse, or a worse value, is insane. The new M1 MBA is the highest-quality best deal of a laptop ever made.
  • melenaboija 6y ago
    Macbooks getting worst has been the trend for the last 10 years and they released a new chipset 1 month ago. Maybe they will recover all of their fans but it might take more time for some of us. I think today there is still room for doubt.
  • vizzier 6y ago
    Heres what we've lost since the 2013-2015 MBPs that I'm currently running: Magsafe 2, Higher travel keyboards, Removable/Replacable SSds, HDMI port (still the most common for displays right now), an escape key, an SD card reader, USB-A which all my peripherals still use. Though we've gained USBc and performance. I'm not sure the "better than it's ever been" is so obvious personally. Replacing the previous input ports with dongles reduces the value proposition a fair bit for people with those use cases.
    • crazygringo 6y ago
      We've gained not just performance, but insane battery life, less weight, more thinness, amazing color gamut, amazing speakers, and the best trackpad money can buy. Apple has removed ports sure, but a dock fixes that problem pretty easily. But fundamentally we're having different conversations. Apple has removed features you personally liked, but the overall hardware quality has just gotten better and better and better. I don't see how that is even open to argument.
    • lispm 6y ago
      The new machines have ESC keys and the keyboards are usable again. The interfaces can be brought back with a single USB-C or thunderbolt dock, if necessary. What we are gaining right now is a much better combination of performance & efficiency. New machines are both fast, long running, quiet, cool. The old MBP + Intel combination had not much room for growth. My i9 MBP came with the largest battery possible and ambitious cooling. The entry level M1 is already outclassing the current MBPs for tasks like compiling code. See for example the comparison of compiling Webkit: https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/17/yeah-apples-m1-macbook-pro-is-powerful-but-its-the-battery-life-that-will-blow-you-away/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/17/yeah-apples-m1-macbook-pro...
• vamsipk 6y ago
  I'm in the market for a new one now. Are Thinkpad T/P series still the best for running Linux? How about the Dell XPS series which seem to have a better resolution and screen?
  • fsflover 6y ago
    Why just not buy preinstalled Linux? https://puri.sm/products/ https://puri.sm/products/.
    • brabel 6y ago
      Dell sells the XPS with Linux.. I know 'cause I have one.
  • symlinkk 6y ago
    You can buy a Thinkpad X1 Carbon from Lenovo with Fedora Linux: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x1/X1-Carbon-Gen-8-/p/20U9CTO1WWENUS2/customize https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x1/X1...
  • LawnGnome 6y ago
    I've been running an XPS 13 (with the high DPI screen) for the last 2¾ years as my Linux daily driver, replacing the X230 I had before it. No complaints; I'd recommend it if the 13" ultrabook form factor is what you're looking for.
• YourConcious 6y ago
  2019 - https://www.howtogeek.com/414036/2019-is-the-year-of-linux-on-the-desktop/ https://www.howtogeek.com/414036/2019-is-the-year-of-linux-o... 2018 - https://www.linuxnewssite.com/2018-year-linux-desktop-24122017770.html https://www.linuxnewssite.com/2018-year-linux-desktop-241220... 2017 - https://www.datamation.com/open-source/is-2017-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop.html https://www.datamation.com/open-source/is-2017-the-year-of-t... 2016 - https://www.datamation.com/open-source/2016-the-year-of-the-ubuntu-linux-desktop-on-windows.html https://www.datamation.com/open-source/2016-the-year-of-the-... 2015 - https://linuxaria.com/article/reasons-why-2015-will-be-year-for-linux-on-the-desktop https://linuxaria.com/article/reasons-why-2015-will-be-year-... 2014 - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjG5Y__75HtAhUcGVkFHSGYAVAQFjAAegQIAxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.infoworld.com%2Farticle%2F2610783%2F2014-is-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop.html&usg=AOvVaw2Ll5T2iUpX-P3lfuqy2hEU https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... 2013 - https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/11uh7q/2013_will_be_the_year_of_linux_on_the_desktop/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/11uh7q/2013_will_be_... 2012 - https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/133669-could-this-be-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/133669-could-this-be-the-... 2011 - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwil8JXI8JHtAhXSF1kFHUBIDRMQFjACegQIBRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Flinuxinsider.com%2Fstory%2Fthe-next-new-year-of-linux-on-the-desktop-2011-71470.html&usg=AOvVaw1X8IruzDGvy1fgdXaLqECh https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... 2010 - https://limulus.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/2010-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop/ https://limulus.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/2010-the-year-of-th... 2009 - https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/2009-year-of-the-linux-desktop.html https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/2009-year-of-the-linux-deskto... 2008 - https://lwn.net/Articles/258874/ https://lwn.net/Articles/258874/ 2007 - https://www.zdnet.com/article/2007-is-year-of-linux-desktop-far-from-it/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/2007-is-year-of-linux-desktop-... 2006 - https://gcn.com/Articles/2006/03/30/2006-The-year-of-desktop-Linux.aspx https://gcn.com/Articles/2006/03/30/2006-The-year-of-desktop... 2005 - https://www.financialexpress.com/archive/2005-will-be-the-year-of-the-linux-desktop/127860/ https://www.financialexpress.com/archive/2005-will-be-the-ye... 2004 - https://www.zdnet.com/article/2004-the-year-of-desktop-linux/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/2004-the-year-of-desktop-linux... As an avid user of Linux throughout all of those years, instead of this same nonsense, try making a rock-solid distro.
• cdelsolar 6y ago
  um, M1
• bsaul 6y ago
  The fact that many people reading this post title (including me) look at it with sarcasm is telling on how apple scored big points with its new cpu. Keeping up with mac OS and the trackpad was already quite hard, but CPU could be the killing blow. Which could lead us in a few years to a situation where mac developers will face the same fate as ios developers : forced to buy hardware to sign their app, forced to push them on the mac app store, forced to give 15/30% cut, forced to be removed whenever an app doesn't feel "right" to apple, or a government strong enough to force Apple. And competitors will probably follow the trend, because Apple will have proven that it's doable and profitable. That future looks extremely scary. What can we do, now, as developers ?
  • driverdan 6y ago
    > That future looks extremely scary. What can we do, now, as developers ? Stop buying, using, and supporting the Apple ecosystem. Vote with your money. The new chips are faster. So what? The laptop you have today works fine, you don't need the latest and greatest hardware.
    • bsaul 6y ago
      i code iOS (native) app for a living. I'm already stuck developing for the app store, using xcode to sign and deploy, using a programming language (that i love) swift that only really works on mac OS. My personal situation isn't going to change anytime soon unfortunately. I was about to dump my iphone next time i had to pick one (and keep my current one for testing), however my laptop is my work computer. I think "stop being part of the ecosystem" isn't realistic for many of us. We don't want to work on crap hardware, with a crap OS because that would make us unhappy and unproductive (or in my case, would simply not be an option at all). However, we can use this current hardware /software to try and build the next generation of tools we would happily be using. My question now being : where to start ?
      • jason0597 6y ago
        >We don't want to work on crap hardware, with a crap OS because that would make us unhappy and unproductive (or in my case, would simply not be an option at all). You consider a Thinkpad with Linux installed and configured properly as "crap hardware, with a crap OS"? Really?
• buzzert 6y ago
  Archive link in case you don’t want to pull in a hundred scripts just to read it: https://archive.is/wsnUY https://archive.is/wsnUY
  • nikisweeting 6y ago
    Theres a more static version with plain markdown download option here: https://docs.monadical.com/5QRy1k-dT_mbD724FC09fA https://docs.monadical.com/5QRy1k-dT_mbD724FC09fA
• daemonk 6y ago
  For normal daily use, I prefer something that don't require too much messing around with. I don't really care that much about customization either. For work, I'll just ssh into a remote linux server. I don't necessarily need to do everything on a single local machine.
• heavyset_go 6y ago
  I've written a few small posts on HN[1] about moving to Linux as someone with a decade of macOS muscle memory that I'd like to still take advantage of. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23607374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23607374
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• reidrac 6y ago
  Interesting that the author didn't consider stability or long time support as a factor to choose a distribution. I was a happy Fedora user, but I got tired of an uneven quality and only 13+ months of support for a given release. It is a great distro to use the latest versions of everything, but it was too much disruption for me. I guess I'm getting old. I'm currently on Debian stable, that comes with "good enough" versions of the software I need, and I can compile almost anything else. And it gives me plenty of time to do work without having to spend time on the OS.
  • massysett 6y ago
    I’ve got a laptop with Debian oldstable. I can’t be bothered to upgrade it because I just don’t care. I’m comfortable with Debian; otherwise I’d look for something with even longer term support, like CentOS. Computers are just boring now and not worth upgrading, which is a good thing.
• acatton 6y ago
  What matters is getting the right distro. I've been using Fedora as my daily driver for almost 13 years. But in my current company (a big search engine company), I was forced use a debian-based internal distro for work, and I realized why people say "linux is buggy and broken". Once a month I'm facing a pulseaudio or xorg issue which I've never had single time in my last 7 years using Fedora. Everything just worked out of the box. I've installed Ubuntu LTS on my parents' computer 5 years ago, same. Everything was working out of the box, never had a single issue.
  • snazz 6y ago
    I think that reflects more on your company's internal distro than Debian itself, especially since Ubuntu is itself based on Debian. I know that gLinux has some very non-standard package management stuff, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was related.
    • lavp 6y ago
      What exactly is the point of running an internal distro?
      • detaro 6y ago
        Central place to add your own stuff and basic setup, push out customized versions of tools with less conflicts, control over what people run (e.g. if your security people or lawyers don't want some software to be ever used).
      • snazz 6y ago
        Google includes their own fleet management software, a custom package management system for security (which involves getting other employees to sign off on new programs), and a few other things. Take a look at this document: https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/fleet_management_at_scale_white_paper.pdf https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/fleet_management_a...
• shmerl 6y ago
  Congrats! There were also a lot of refugees from macOS due to how Apple treats gamers. First they let OpenGL rot, then they didn't support Vulkan, then they dropped 32-bit. You don't have such nonsense on Linux.
  • ur-whale 6y ago
    OSX users are essentially at the mercy of Apple's whim. Most stuff is closed source, features are dropped randomly without a care for what users think, and worst of all (for me): anything you do on Apple is likely to be subjected to bitrot beacause most file formats are closed. People who still use Macs do this simply because they don't know better.
    • shmerl 6y ago
      Indeed. Apple is such a nasty company, I personally never had any appeal to touch anything they make.
• somesortofsystm 6y ago
  I've been running Linux since forever, and had an investment in Apple hardware since even longer. I've not used any laptop but an Apple since 2000, but consider Linux to be my primary professional realm. MacOS has been a 'decent front-end', but more and more the only love I have for it is physical. As soon as I can find a Linux laptop from a non-Apple vendor that feels as good to wake up to in bed, I'll ditch the Macbooks and switch. The trouble is, the physicality of the experience is important. A slab of metal is friendlier than a chunk of solid petroleum-based product. I do have a GPD Pocket, which fulfills the needs, and is indeed a great little computer .. if they rise to the challenge of building a bigger system while maintaining the language of their metal milled cases, I could consider very little need, indeed, for a continued investment in Apple.
  • molsongolden 6y ago
    > As soon as I can find a Linux laptop from a non-Apple vendor that feels as good to wake up to in bed, I'll ditch the Macbooks and switch. I've been using both MBPs and T-series Thinkpads for the past five years. I really want to love the Thinkpad (beyond the keyboard) but the physical experience is night and day.
• renewiltord 6y ago
  I use a Macbook and a Linux desktop that I dual-boot for games. Honestly, platform specificity except for the games is gone. I pretty much use the Mac and Linux interchangeably. I've got 20 years on a *nix so I imagine the only reason I don't use Windows for dev is that I don't know the ecosystem. It can't be very much harder, though. But my Macbook is a very good laptop. It isn't as good a computer as my desktop (latter more powerful, more RAM, more cooling capacity, bigger GPU) but it's a good laptop. Way better than the gaming laptop I have.
• sitzkrieg 6y ago
  linux on the desktop for me: i cannot get a usable mouse sensitivity (WAY too high, at 400dpi) without downloading sources and recompiling a driver. but mouse input has always been pretty darn barebones/bad for those who care about quality input like 1000hz and no accel. anyway unless you're willing to make many compromises, using linux daily is a test of time or patience for broken things
• senko 6y ago
  I find it funny when people complain Linux is not ready for desktop. Sometimes it's because Windows software doesn't run on it, sometimes because Apple makes a fast chip... Dunno. Been using it on desktops (well, laptops, mostly) since early 2000s, then some 6-year hiatus with OSX, then back to Linux. Works/worked great for me. So, Year of Linux Desktop is really old news for some. For most, it'll never arrive. And that's fine. What I do like is choice - to each their own. You can now use and be fully productive 3 on completely different platforms, depending on your personal choice and work you do.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • kitsunesoba 6y ago
    It's an incredibly personal choice. I've daily driven macOS for well over a decade, but periodically dip my toe into the Linux world just to get a feel of it's "there" yet or not. Unfortunately for my purposes, it never is, and so I end up returning to macOS. The biggest problem is that none of the DEs really fit my tastes — they all have to be poked and prodded into kinda doing what I want them to do, but they're never quite there and it's incredibly frustrating. I've also faced similar issues with starting with a bare WM and snapping together smaller pieces. To get what I want I'd likely have to build my own DE from scratch, which I'm not even necessarily averse to, but I have no idea where to start with the mess that is X11 and Wayland and all the "build your own WM" tutorials that could be used as a springboard are written for building hyperminimal borderless tiling WMs, which aren't straightforward to adapt for a more "typical" floating WM with titlebars and the like. So I guess the endpoint of this rant is that it's frustrating that building one's ideal Linux desktop from the ground up isn't all that accessible in reality. The configurability and openness is there on principle but it's difficult to take advantage of past a skin-deep level.
    • Liskni_si 6y ago
      If X11 had a future I would've recommended xmonad to you. It's advertised as a tiling WM configured in Haskell, but in reality it's more of a library to make your own WM, as it abstracts most of the low-level details but still lets you change almost anything. It's still quite focused on tiling, yes, so it probably wouldn't be a good fit for you, but the idea of having an abstraction layer above low-level X11/Xlib stuff enabling you to easily build a custom WM is, in my opinion, absolutely awesome. I find it really sad that in the Wayland world all the window managers are coupled with compositors (and possibly even more than that), which makes it that much harder to roll your own. I wish there was a generic compositor/input server/whatever with some sort of window management RPC interface that would allow running a separate window manager in a subprocess. This would make it so much easier to port xmonad over to the Wayland world and take it from there... (I'm aware of waymonad's existence, but I believe the process barrier between compositor and WM is really practical, especially during development where the WM rapidly changes, sometimes crashes, but the session still survives.)
• throwaway47399 6y ago
  Been a Linux Mint user for nearly 10 years now, never looked back. I installed it on plenty of computers, desktops or laptops, personal or professional. Everything just works out of the box, and keeps working. I really don't understand the fuss about Linux' usability, like we're still in 2004 or something.
• rickyc091 6y ago
  > Making screenshots and Gifs is easy and seamless on MacOS. To replicate these streamlined processes, I suggest the following: Wait, is there something built into MacOS to make Gifs? I've been recording videos and using ffmpeg which doesn't feel "seamless." Does anyone have any recommendations for a better workflow?
• yegle 6y ago
  People don't consider ChromeOS as a Linux desktop but I consider it a great one. With the addition of Crostini, you get a full Debian based Linux running near native speed inside a KVM vm, and you can communicate between the ChromeOS and the VM seamlessly. You can run Linux GUI programs and it will work (albeit the UI is a bit off, font etc), so vscode/IntelliJ works. You can listen to localhost:$PORT in the Linux VM and access it from ChromeOS. You can manage files inside and outside of the VM using ChromeOS's File app.
  • abnry 6y ago
    ChromeOS is excellent. It is such a pleasure to use. Yes, there are minor bugs from time to time, but I like it very much.
• fulafel 6y ago
  Isn't this a bit rash. Just start building and deploying Docker images on AWS ARM instances and RPis, and have a flag day when all your devs switch to M1 laptops. Yes you might have fewer provider or dev machine options after that but that just means fewer distractions.
• oriesdan 6y ago
  I'm on Gentoo myself, but for people coming from MacOS, I would recommend to give KDE Neon a try. It's based on Ubuntu, but made by interfacers (the KDE team). I have used it for about a year and I thought during that time that it was "osx on linux", because of how well integrated everything was. The Plasma desktop and the KDE project have been known historically to very well integrate their softwares with one another, but Neon is going a step further, by controlling the OS itself and being way less buggy that other distributions of the Plasma desktop. That would probably be a good transition OS coming from Apple products, before people get a taste for chaos and pure freedom and want to go wild.
• g42gregory 6y ago
  I’ve been thinking of switching for a long time but here is what’s stopping me: web site rendering in all browsers is seemingly much better on MacOS. The colors are more vivid, fonts are sharper, it’s more pleasing to the eye (vs. Ubuntu). Is there anything that could be done to bring Linux web site rendering closer to MacOS experience?
  • ur-whale 6y ago
    Although I have a hard time seeing any kind of difference between my Linux laptop and my SO's Mac, if esthetics are that important to you, you might consider that you have a finite number of minutes in your life and that productivity matters a great deal more than how shiny the colors are on a Mac.
    • snazz 6y ago
      I think that this argument goes both ways. You could also say "productivity matters a great deal more than configuring Linux to be 'perfect' when macOS works out of the box". Disclaimer: I'm typing this on a Mac with a terminal window SSH'd into a Linux box sitting next to me. Edit: I'm not saying that either is inherently more productive or easier to use, just that it's personal and these arguments cut both ways.
      • ur-whale 6y ago
        I would agree with you if the year was ~2002 where using Linux was indeed a lot of work. In 2020, everything works out of the box for me on Linux. YMMV of course, I'm only speaking for my own workflow.
      • boogies 6y ago
        But GNU works better out of the box. TFA recommends Pop OS which is preinstalled on System76 devices, and comes with simple window tiling, which many devs swear by as a productivity booster.
  • gorgoiler 6y ago
    What worked for me is a bit weird, but I stopped expecting perfection from my computer tools. I became more comfortable with the notion that it’s amazing this works at all, and it all seemed fine. Like, having to log in then run startx is odd (my choice) but I like it because it reminds me this is a bunch of things joined together, not a magic fantastic (and fallable) product. My machine is like a dusty but well organized workshop with cracked antique chisels and CNC lathes alongside each other and I love it.
• ur-whale 6y ago
  Been doing everything on a Linux laptop for the past ~12 years after kicking OSX to the curb around '08 because of Apple's increasingly fascist tendencies (which have only been getting worse in recent years). Rarely ever had anything to complain about. The occasional windoze-only app I've needed either runs on top of Wine or - worst case - qemu. None of these are ever a part of my daily workflow. Not claiming I'm a standard user, but if you're technically inclined and doing any kind of scientific work then Linux can't be beat AFAIC.
• gorgoiler 6y ago
  This is going to sound dumb or elitist but I am so much happier working since I ditched portable computing. I have a desk at home in an office. I have the same setup at work. I don’t carry my dev environment with me. When I need to work I go to the ’do work stuff’ place. Nice keyboard. Nice mouse. And a nice OS that, yes, took a whole day to configure but over which I have total control. (Full-screen focus-mode no-ornaments note taking, web browsing, and hacking.)
  • csomar 6y ago
    I think desk setups are underrated. I got (a relatively cheap) one this March and the difference is touchable. I went the gamers way: Gamer keyboard, Gamer Mouse + pad, 3 screens, AMD for processor, nvme and also ArchLinux. Needless to say, I can no longer work on macOS or an Apple device. The speeds you get with a bare-bone install and a window manager are unparalleled.
    • m1 6y ago
      I went down the same route and wouldn’t change a thing. The difference really is striking. Just curious, as I’m looking to upgrade the processor that I bought - are AMD processors widely known as being better than Intel? Not trying to start an argument about which is better, I’m just genuinely curious as I have no idea as I’m not a gamer and have always gone for Intel processors.
      • csomar 6y ago
        I'm not sure what you do, so you should check. I do web dev + Rust, and so far I have had no issues.
        • nitrogen 6y ago
          The latest top of the line AMD gaming CPUs seem to beat out the last top of the line Intel gaming CPUs on almost all games. You can also get more cores for the same price on AMD, and they bench much higher on e.g. 3D rendering, so AMD should be faster for dev work, too. Gamers Nexus is a pretty good YouTube channel with detailed benchmarks, but there are others, too.
• conceptualspace 6y ago
  to me the most underrated thing i miss on Linux compared to mac is the file manager. I'm trying to get nnn setup efficiently but the out of the box options feel incredibly half baked in comparison to finder
  • throwaway47399 6y ago
    Finder has no "open in terminal" option - into the trash it goes
    • FeeJai 6y ago
      Drag and drop will do
  • mrschwabe 6y ago
    I recommend Nemo. If on Ubuntu, follow this guide: https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/07/how-to-replace-nautilus-with-nemo-file.html https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/07/how-to-replace-nautilu...
  • apjana 6y ago
    Can you please elaborate what you mean by "half baked"? nnn has macOS users and I believe the number is picking up given we are getting more bug reports from macOS users recently. Knowing macOS users, we can consider polishing some crude corners if the problem statement seems reasonable.
    • conceptualspace 6y ago
      the comment was directed towards the default file managers, nautilus etc, not nnn. i love nnn! keep up the good work!
      • conceptualspace 6y ago
        to elaborate on my experience with the others, generally they are slow or have poor ux for common tasks like search or rename, lack a decent content view (thumbnails), etc
• joerter1 6y ago
  That was amazing, thank you!
• nickthemagicman 6y ago
  I've installed Ubuntu 20 LTS and it's amazing. Everything worked out of the box on an XPS 15. Had some suspend issues, and chrome freezes up occasionally if I have a trillion tabs and windows open. But overall I like it so much better than Mac and Windows. Looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Ubuntu.
• ptcampbell 6y ago
  I did the same thing last year for similar reasons. Unfortunately there are some deal breakers for me and I’ll be going back to Mac. Easily the worst part for me, and it’s the same with Windows: Mouse scrolling, touchpad feel and gesture experience. Line scrolling without inertia feels ridiculous to me. Linux gesture replacements I’ve tried feel like hacky proof of concepts. Integrations like iMessages, Facetime, AirDrop, AirPlay are also hard to give up.
  • robertlagrant 6y ago
    > Linux gesture replacements I’ve tried feel like hacky proof of concepts. Shall I do it? I'm doing it. Shall I? Yes. It's proofs of concept.
    • ptcampbell 6y ago
      You are correct, I am very sorry.
• mdifrgechd 6y ago
  The timing of this is funny because I literally only switched to a mac from linux a month ago. I may be an outlier but I prefer the "polish" and user experience of ubuntu to apple - I find the unity gui to be easier to navigate and understand than mac, and I find the OS way less intrusive. But what caused me to switch to a mac was the constant CPU and memory problems I was having with ubuntu. Chrome and zoom both seemed to kill the machine when used for too long or in the wrong combination. That is the kind of problem I dont want to spend time debugging, and switching to Mac, it is gone, and my productivity is way higher, even accounting for the new annoyances. But now between the new architecture and the moves for greater control over how I use my machine, I really dont know how to think about what I want my next computer to be. While I dismissed WSL in the past, I'd say it is becoming a contender again.
  • MaKey 6y ago
    > But what caused me to switch to a mac was the constant CPU and memory problems I was having with ubuntu. Chances are that problem would have been gone too if you had switched to another device that isn't a Mac. If "kill the machine" means the machine getting incredibly slow then the problem might have been that the RAM was exhausted and your laptop began to swap - which could have been solved by upgrading the RAM or getting a device with more RAM.
• nicoffeine 6y ago
  Made the switch a month ago from Mac to Pop!_OS on a desktop. Everything installed without a hitch, including wifi, bluetooth, and a usb webcam. Incredibly, just turning on a paired wireless speaker instantly connects and selects it for output. The volume control on my keyboard also worked as expected without any configuration. Pressing "Super" (I mapped it to Caps Lock) floats all the active windows in my workspace and allows me to start typing for a search, and unlike Spotlight it actually works. "Alt + Tab" and "Alt + ~" cycle through open apps and windows within apps just like on OS X. No more fussing with homebrew, macports, or Apple weirdness when working with CLI programs. Everything is blazingly fast. The IntelliJ ecosystem works without a hitch. Zoom, Spotify, Slack, even Teamwork Chat have native clients. I have a Win10 VM in case I need it, but I haven't yet. The only thing I miss is Spark for email (Evolution is pretty good) and Carbon Copy Cloner for bootable backups. I have CloneZilla for that, but would be great to run a bootable diff without that hassle. Definitely worth the ~$4000 I saved for a comparable iMac Pro or Mac Pro.
• nathias 6y ago
  i3 with arch linux on thinkpad carbon, everything else feels clunky and wrong
• runjake 6y ago
  Plot twist: It looks like they are back on the Mac. [1] And so it goes. You look at almost all of these "I'm switching from Mac to (Linux|Windows 10)!" blog posts and they're almost always back to the Mac within weeks/months. I've attempted to go back to Linux plenty of times, and while the kernel and userspace is top notch, every GUI I've tried just pales in comparison to even the trainwreck that is the current macOS experience. 1. https://docs.monadical.com/uploads/upload_8293c5cdcc3cf0dc6a6024ea0b18a2ee.png https://docs.monadical.com/uploads/upload_8293c5cdcc3cf0dc6a...
  • apkallum 6y ago
    This is a different author at Monadical. The author of this article still uses Linux. (Source: I work at said company.)
  • nikisweeting 6y ago
    The screenshot is from my mac, the author is my colleague however who is still on Linux.
• keb_ 6y ago
  This page completely fails to load without JavaScript. :( It looks like just static content though?
  • nikisweeting 6y ago
    Yeah sorry it's a home-grown blog platform and we're still working out the kinks. No-JS support is on our list but has been low priority. Here's a static-friendly version: https://docs.monadical.com/s/SJagdPZ7w https://docs.monadical.com/s/SJagdPZ7w
    • keb_ 6y ago
      Thanks! It does look great, for what it's worth.
• csomar 6y ago
  I did too switch from Apple to Linux, but I think there is a difference between Macbook (the Laptop) and Linux (The Operating System). The author is complaining about Apple hardware but then went on to describe how Linux fixed his problems? Last time I checked, hardware that competed with Apple on specs and slimness was also quite expensive. I think this post should have been about the new hardware he is using.
• ben7799 6y ago
  This stuff is always a joke. Who knows what his actual job is but any time you see these articles they immediately start with long sections of all the hacks & work needed to make the basics work. Battery Life Issues Getting a mouse to work Getting displays to work Wifi Issues Fixing keyboard mapping issues You're not supposed to have to waste your time on this stuff. It's been about 3 years since I tried to make a laptop work for actual work with Linux. It didn't work well. The last time I successfully did so was from 1996-1999. Linux itself has improved immensely, but the pain of getting a laptop actually functioning is still pretty terrible. The thing is 20 years ago the Windows and Mac laptops weren't seemless either.. Linux wasn't that bad in comparison. In the meantime Linux hasn't kept up. It's all fine if the goal is to mess with linux or contribute to linux. You learn a lot and have fun. If you've gotta be contributing to some other piece of software someone else is paying you to work on it's not fun. It's too bad cause my job is working on software that's only supported on Linux. It'd all be great if we just used desktop linux workstations, but everyone seems to want to use notebook computers today.
  • lambda_obrien 6y ago
    You can't just install OSX on any PC, so why would you think Linux would be that way? I purchased a System76 and have zero issues with anything. I use a Toshiba for work also running Pop OS, and it has some minor issues, but I expect that because it wasn't designed for Linux like my personal laptop. Everyone wants their cake and eat it too, they complain about lock-in, complain about Apple's phone-home features (last week!), and then they just say "well Linux is hard to setup once, so I don't want to try" and punt the issue. If you want a good and easy Linux PC, then buy a PC designed for Linux, like you would a Macbook.
  • tristan957 6y ago
    Get hardware that supports Linux. I have setup many laptops over the years without a single hick-up.
  • ralph87 6y ago
    If you buy a matched OS + laptop in any other situation, why not also for Linux? Buy an XPS next time, or any other vendor (Lenovo?) with tested hardware, and just put an Ubuntu USB stick in. "I bought the top result for 'wheel' on eBay and ruined my life trying to fit it to this aircraft engine, this is such a joke!" Shit has just worked for years if you want it to work.
• testfoobar 6y ago
  "Por que no los dos?" I use Linux Mint on a multi-headed display as my desktop machine. Runs many VMs. Fast. Stable. Clean. I have a Macbook Air that moves around with me. I'm planning on getting an M1 Air.
• jcun4128 6y ago
  I got into Linux because I couldn't afford a Windows OS back in the XP days ha. So I would be able to boot some laptop/cheap desktop with Linux Mint at the time. Those were the days 20GB hard drive and 512MB of ram.
• kvz 6y ago
  Tried to give an honest rundown of my switch from macOS to Ubuntu: https://kvz.io/tobuntu.html https://kvz.io/tobuntu.html (it’s a long post with many hands-on tips)
• hacknat 6y ago
  I would strongly recommend the following combination for beginners: Thinkpad + Fedora Fedora stays on the cutting edge of the kernel, which means that driver support is quite good. Additionally, most of the Linux kernel developers use Thinkpads, so the drivers for Thinkpad are always good. I've never had to download drivers individually. Here's a list of things that just "worked" without me having to do anything: 1. My bluetooth noise cancelling headphones paired with no issues. 2. My desktop display with usb-c just works. 3. Old-style plugin iphone headphones worked as did their builtin mic. 4. Logitech camera plugging into my monitor and routing to the laptop via usb-c just works. 5. I have yet to find a printer (as long as its on the same wifi network) that I can't use (granted I barely print anything). 6. You can install and manage everything via the GUI. 7. Docker just works. Things that didn't work: 1. I had to install "gnome-tweaks" in order to remap my CapsLock key to Control. In my ten years of using Thinkpad+Fedora I've only encountered one issue and that was during the Wayland transition. The Zoom client (as in video chat) briefly didn't support screen sharing, but that was fixed several versions ago. Also, people saying that "M1" is a gamechanger: I totally get it for certain sectors, but for Software Engineers? Memory has always been my bottleneck. I don't think I've ever seen my CPU choke on a legitimate task.
  • busterarm 6y ago
    Not just any thinkpad! Stick to the X, T & to some extent P series. Avoid nvidia graphics if you can. Arch Linux (and to some extent OpenBSD) probably has the best support/documentation/fixes for any ACPI/APM management issues you have. I have a top-end 2017 MBP and I just recently bought a brand new 7th Gen X1 Carbon for very cheaply (like $800) and it _screams_ in comparison to the Mac.
    • Spivak 6y ago
      Avoid Nvidia Optimus (i.e. the W series). It’s so much worse than having a dedicated card because of the way it’s soldered on. It only kinda works. It still consumes power when “disabled”. You can’t use GPU passthrough. Stand-alone Nvidia GPUs are fine but on Fedora you have to do some work because the Mutter and Kwin devs are currently in a spat with Nvidia.
• nickbauman 6y ago
  I have only two reasons to keep using a mac: Devonthink (for my paperless office workflow and it's awesome document classifier and NLS search) and XCode to write iOS apps. Otherwise, I'd dump it in heartbeat. Anyone have anything on the Linux side that compares to Devonthink?
• hatsunearu 6y ago
  Instead of xournal, I recommend xournalpp. Thing has backwards compatibility with stuff created on Xournal and has a bunch of extra features, and it's better if you have a stylus.
• arkj 6y ago
  I am so glad that these posts are getting the attention of HN community. Linux is not perfect but it’s competitive in 2020 for PCs. As we head to an era where user data collection is blurring the lines of ethics, I think we should at least keep the OS clean. I switched to Fedora in 2018 and didn’t have to not look back. The fonts were crappy but that taught me a lot about truetypes, anti-aliasing and subpixel rendering. Some of the perceived shortcomings of linux can indeed make the PC more personal.
• dfgdghdf 6y ago
  My Linux experience has been bad, yet I would still choose it over the alternatives. I don't want to give up control over my devices or fight an endless battle against bloatware / spyware. Some of the issues: * Hibernate / suspend does not work reliably on my Thinkpad. I gave up trying to configure it. * Encrypting my drive was much more complicated to setup than on a Mac. * Trackpad does not feel nearly as good as on a Macbook * Palm rejection is poor * My desktop gets confused about audio inputs when plugging things (e.g. mic) in and out * Random UI freezes when running lots of high intensity applications, often requiring a reboot. Sorry, but the UI should always be given priority on a non-server distro * Various apps such as Slack do not work as reliably as on Mac * Need to figure out my own VPN / dev config when everyone else on the team is on Macs * I am yet to find a soundcard that works I'm sure people will chime in with "well it works for me" or "have you tried X distribution". That's great, I am genuinely pleased for you! But let's not pretend that Linux always works out of the box.
  • FireBeyond 6y ago
    > My desktop gets confused about audio inputs when plugging things (e.g. mic) in and out If it's any consolation my Mac Pro on Catalina insists on switching to my monitors as audio outputs upon any restart or display wake.
  • rurban 6y ago
    Switch from Debian to Fedora. This fixed most of my Thinkpad issues.
  • fsflover 6y ago
    Linux always works out of the box on my Librem 15, which was designed to run Linux from the beginning.
    • sildur 6y ago
      And you can run Qubes on it, which is a big plus.
    • phs318u 6y ago
      That’s exactly why, after 17 years as an Apple user, I settled on a System76 Lemur Pro, rather than a Lenovo or Dell . The OS integration (Pop-OS) is excellent, and the hardware explicitly supported.
• strawberrypuree 6y ago
  How can you know when it's really "The Year of the Linux Desktop"? Whenever you don't need a "how to make it not suck" blog post to get it to run for normal users.
• robertbalent 6y ago
  I switched to linux about a year ago (after 4 years with Mac and 10 years with linux before). However, transition was anything but smooth. I have Thinkpad X1 Carbon 7th Gen and there was plenty of issues, especially with audio/hardware support. For example: - Laptop has 4 speakers and it took months until they started working properly - There is weird cracking when using headphones (need to run command to fix it) - Attaching/detaching headphones will reset volume (created acpi hook which will change volume for me) - Fingerprint sensor not working (fixed now) - CPU throttling (need to use throttled fix) - Sleep/Suspend issues (fixed now) - Of course some minor scaling issues But in general, I'm very happy with my setup. I know about every service running and every package installed. This way I can keep my system lean and super fast. Also, big thanks to people updating Arch Wiki, otherwise I would be completely screwed.
  • busterarm 6y ago
    The sound issues should be resolved with the next PulseAudio version. I'm with ya. I mostly get around the issues by using the Creative BT-W3 with my wireless headphones. I have to have the device to use bluetooth audio with openbsd anyway. Everything else is fixed. I just bought my 7th Gen a month or two ago -- it pays to buy laptops at the end of their product cycle. Likely I paid almost half what you did for my laptop.
• gradstudent 6y ago
  I went down the same road last year and many of the suggestions are same I eventually found. I gave up scaling though because it's garbage. The gnome-tweaks solution mentioned in the article works, but it's buggy. Some apps ignore the setting (Dia, I'm looking at you!) and in some distros (Mint, I'm looking at you) parts of the OS bug out, with e.g., some dock icons being scaled and some not. Anyway, the resulting hodge-podge was awful enough that I'm using a 1080 resolution on my fancy 4K screen. Remaining issues include video playback, which bugs out from time to time, bluetooth, which mostly works except when it doesn't want to connect or when it sets the sound profile to the early-bleedingly awful HSP setting. One issue worth mentioning is new hardware. When I switched I bought a (then new) X1 Carbon 7, which turned out to have no support for its fancy new digital microphone. The driver took six months to make its way into mainstream distros and I spent this period doing telecon calls with voice via my telephone and video via the webcam. Anyway, everything mostly works these days. One thing I enjoy compared to modern macs is not having to fight my machine over the right to install software I want (code signing my own gdb binaries is an awful experience).
  • mcjiggerlog 6y ago
    I'm not sure what distro or desktop environment you're running, but integer scaling has worked perfectly on gnome, kde and others for years now. So 200% scaling of a 4k resolution should look exactly the same as unscaled 1080p, just sharper. No performance issues, no glitches, no inconsistencies. The jankiness of scaling on Linux is when you want to do fractional scaling.
• mbgerring 6y ago
  I did this in 2015, and then I switched back because I actually wanted to get work done instead of fighting with my tools. I wish the bet of luck to anybody who does this, but with time and maturity comes an understanding of the reasoning behind the trade offs Apple has made, and what the benefits are.
  • vlunkr 6y ago
    I tried Apple in 2015, then I switched to Linux because I wanted to actually have control over my own computer. I wish the best of luck to anybody who does this, but with time and maturity comes an understanding of the trade offs of using Linux, and what the benefits are.
• trey-jones 6y ago
  I haven't felt out the general attitude in the comments. I expect it's a lot of Linux people vs. Apple people. And maybe it's appropriate. I would say Linux people should use Linux and Apple people should use Apple. No problem either way. If you're a Linux-curious Apple person, then perhaps you'll find some good information here. I think most of us are probably very, very specific about our technological tools, so this is a very personal decision, yes? Personally I'm a Linux person that used a Macbook Pro as a daily driver for about 8 years. I still use the Macbook (2013) as a carry-home, but I started using a Linux desktop in the office about a year ago. For what I do (Linux sysadmin with developer tendencies), I like it much better, and this machine has 12 cores and 64GB of RAM and still cost about half of the top-end Macbook Pro of today. I chose Manjaro KDE for this, and I really like it a lot.
  • rfvrgvegbegn 6y ago
    > I would say Linux people should use Linux and Apple people should use Apple. No problem either way. You make it sounds like it's a simple as "take vanilla ice cream if you like vanilla and take chocolate if you like chocolate". It's not, if you read the comments, you realize there's much more to the debate, it's about ethics, the future of computing, our societies, monopolies, privacy, independence, freedom, and much more. From food to clothes to electronics, there is an ethical choice behind what you buy and we shouldn't reduce it to "pick your favorite color" without considering the monsters we are feeding by buying this or that product.
• LeoNatan25 6y ago
  So much work, just to get basic desktop/laptop functionality going. "The Year of the Linux Desktop" - what a joke. And this is coming from someone that would love to find an alternative to Windows and macOS.
• rv-de 6y ago
  McBooks only convince in two areas: display and touchpad. That's it. Nothing more. The rest is just hindsight justification caused by drinking too much of the KoolAid. Linux Mint on a ThinkPad and then you can just go on with your life. I have to use a MBP for work and it's a nightmare compared to my unsophisticated Linux setup. Updates take ages, possibly break your applications and are totally obnoxious.
• vlunkr 6y ago
  I just want to say that if you're waiting for Linux to be as smooth as Mac or Windows out of the box, it's never going to happen. A full Linux desktop is a combination of software from many different people, targeting the hardware of companies that really couldn't care less about Linux. Yeah there will be hiccups. Most can be avoided by picking the right hardware and consulting good online sources. And once you solve them they'll be gone for good. I'm not saying Linux is for everyone, just that it absolutely is usable, and in my opinion it's absolutely worth the trade-offs.
• taylodl 6y ago
  I do more with my Mac than just develop software. I also do photography, videography, and make music. For me Macs are hands-down the best for all of these activities. I had considered switching to Linux as my 2012 MBP is getting long in the tooth and I figured the Apple silicon Macs were going to be a disaster. Well I was wrong about that! I had looked at Ubuntu Studio, but honestly, everything feels like a giant work-around. Moreover I have to re-learn my workflows and learn new tooling. I want to spend more time doing my hobby than futzing around with a computer to do my hobby. I've got my eye on the MBA with 16Gb RAM and 512Gb storage. For $1499 I think it will do me fine. With any luck I'll get another 8-10 years out of it. This is all to say - surprise, surprise - YMMV. Choose what works best for you.
  • busterarm 6y ago
    I do all of these things with Linux quite handily. Videography: Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve runs very well in Linux. FFmpeg speeds up my workflows a lot already anyway and Linux makes that easier. Photography: rawtherapee, darktable, lensfun, gimp (gimp is probably the weakest here, but I don't do a ton of touchup). I've heard good things about Krita. Music: Reaper (my preference) & Ardour I can even use all of these in Windows if I'm desperate. Or even Mac. Most of the mac-native software for doing the things you mention has gotten worse right along with the hardware...
• gegtik 6y ago
  I just installed popos on my 13" macbook pro (late 2013), the only issue I had was that wifi was disabled; I bluetooth-tethered to my android phone, and found in the pop-store the required broadcom drivers that needed installation to enable wifi. since then it's worked well, I'd say the main issue I have is scaling, and I haven't been able to tune the two-finger scrolling to be "maclike", it moves too fast and coarse.
• rich_sasha 6y ago
  I’d leave Mac for Linux in an instant, except: - very few established brands sell beefy laptops with Linux preinstalled (Dell only?) - enough people report technical issues, or constant twiddling with the setup, that it feels a bit risky just buying a windows laptop, installing Linux and hoping for the best. I like all the upsides Linux has over Mac, but I just need a laptop that works fine with 0 twiddling. Reluctantly, I might end up buying a new Mac when my current one dies.
• strangus 6y ago
  I went back to linux on my laptop this year after using MBP for about 15 years. What sold it for me was the System76 Lemur. I had been waiting for a solid linux laptop that was not a brick. The hardest part for me was getting used to something other than the MBP keyboard and trackpad.
• mraza007 6y ago
  Very interesting post I have been using linux for about three years. I started out with ubuntu later switched to manjaro i3 edition. However the day new apple m1 chip came out I’m kinda stuck whether to move to macOS or upgrade to latest xps 13 and install linux.
• maxk42 6y ago
  I first began running linux at home in 1995. It was a wild ride for a few years but I eventually returned to Windows and then OS X. But back around 2013 I got back into Linux on the Desktop. First Ubuntu, then Arch, and now Fedora for the past three years. Just set up my third Fedora machine. With the Cinnamon window manager, it's honestly better than the experience provided by OS X. Plus I can put it on a $200 netbook and use it for real-world work, which I did for a year around 2015.
• nrvn 6y ago
  Before I moved to macbook in 2014 I had had pretty positive experience with linux on the desktop. I don’t want to disclose the reasons for that move since here is discussed the opposite but I have a question. I absolutely loved my laptop and dwm instead of bloated desktop environments and I would be happy to move back to this universe. BUT. I got trapped to the apple’s ecosystem. I find it convenient to be able to share copy-paste buffer between my devices at hand. I find it useful that when I take a photo it gets uploaded somewhere and then I can see it on my laptop screen. Reminders, notes, music, phone backups. I have a 7 year old tablet that still receives critical OS security updates. If something turns my laptop, phone or tablet to ashes I can get a new one and get it back to the working condition pretty quickly. Laptop will require a bit more hassle because I don’t do backups and I haven’t created a provisioning script for it but still it is a matter of hours. I don’t care about the logo and the company behind tools that I use. I just want a tool that fits my needs best and allows me to focus on things that are really important for me. I want a phone/tablet that will still get official love and support from the vendor even 7 years after release. I want my day to day getting things done be synced across my devices flawlessly. I want smooth user experience and I don’t want spend my motherfucking time on choosing across multiple options related to the tools I use. Or at lease I am ready to spend some time in advance in order to forget about all that crap for a long while to focus on really interesting stuff. Apple is very good at selling stuff to you. They are effing effective. Once you get one of their devices you will get used to it and will try more. And then out of a sudden you are surrounded by their shit. And it seems like you are happy about it. Linux is fun. And the open source is fun. I am allergic to Android to the point of disgust. But what is the alternative to apple’s “ecosystem” in the open source world? Like phone, tablet and laptop/desktop + cloud sync among all three. I am ready to jump. Just tell me where.
  • theshrike79 6y ago
    The best part is that I was in a Microsoft developer event around 2010 or something. They showed a fancy marketing video about a construction guy going about his day. Seamlessly moving content between MS-made devices during his day. Now it's 2020 and I still can't do that with Microsoft tools. With Apple, it's a reality. I can open a link on my phone and my laptop automatically suggests I open it from the dock. All data is synced between my laptop, tablet and phone automatically with practically no delay.
• justinzollars 6y ago
  I've done this and one thing to consider is Linux has terrible power management. Linux sucks battery life even out of the best configured laptops. I'll probably move back to mac.
• thelastwave 6y ago
  What are the best metal construction laptops to run Linux on? I really prefer Apple's unibody hardware to any plastic shell laptops I've seen. I'm especially partial to MacOS, but honestly they're great machines.
• vermaden 6y ago
  For a painless start with moving from Mac/Apple to Linux I would suggest Ubuntu Mate on ZFS install with Cupertino layout. Example here: https://www.bitblokes.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/01_cupertino.jpg https://www.bitblokes.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/01_cuper... I would suggest ElementaryOS but they still haven't find a way to provide icons on the desktop.
• codecamper 6y ago
  sweet. i'm looking forward to reading this. So sick of apple.
• dilly_li 6y ago
  Reading all the "improvement" table of content reminds me why I left Linux. > Here’s my guide for how to improve the Linux desktop experience: Distro, Battery life, Scaling, Mouse, CTRL Key, Shortcuts, Multitouch Gestures, Gifs and screenshots (peek and flameshot), Emoji Keyboard, Clipboard Manager, Password Manager, xournal Tbh, at this point, I don't know why on earth I would switch away from Windows and macOS. Ya I know the stupid macOS things that Apple is doing. But hey, at least the scaling and mouse work out of the box!
  • AsyncAwait 6y ago
    > a I know the stupid macOS things that Apple is doing. But hey, at least the scaling and mouse work out of the box! I hate these random 'anecdotes' because guess what; the mouse and scaling work on my Linux box out of the box too and I get to own my machine and not deal with Windows adware or Apple trying to scare me from running what I want and lock everything down. But I guess not being able to launch any non-Apple app because Apple's servers are overloaded counts as zero hassle to you.
• princevegeta89 6y ago
  I've had an amazing experience with any of the polished high-end distros. I've tried Solus, Mint (with Cinnamon), Ubuntu, Manjaro and now currently on Zorin. All of them just rocked my Inspiron 2 in 1 touchscreen laptop. What's great is the support for touchscreen and touch-keyboard is inbuilt! And everything just works!
• coupdejarnac 6y ago
  Transitioned from MBP to Dell Precision with Ubuntu at the beginning of the year. I was an indie iOS dev, but that's all done now. I have zero desire to use any Apple product or Windows.
• charliebrownau 6y ago
  Wouldnt moving to Apple to Fedora/Ububtu/etc Just be moving from one corporation + Anti Repair + Anti consumer platform to another one with the same problems Consider moving away from * Closed Source * Cloud * Corporations Yet to see a single Ryzen Laptop produced without AMD PSP/TPM by anyone else outside USA
• new_realist 6y ago
  Poster decides to ditch the Mac based on experience with hardware that is 6 years old, with no idea how reliable the replacement Linux hardware will eventually be, and despite a previous positive experience with another Mac laptop. They then proceed to list all of the problems they’ve experienced. Sounds like a win.
• new_realist 6y ago
  Generally Linux is slowly fixing their problems, because there’s been no innovation in the product. It’s still slowly copying Linux and the Mac. What is changing, like Wayland, is almost 20 years behind compositors on MacOS and Windows (literally) and still has a ton of issues.
• twmiller 6y ago
  I have a Thinkpad that I have popOS installed on. I have Bootcamp installed on an exteral HDD. I find the user experience on both Linux (desktop) and Windows to be pretty miserable compared to macOS. Having said that, I run three headless 4GB pis with ubuntu installed on them and continue to love the cli experience in linux, as long as I can drive from macOS. :)
• nbzso 6y ago
  Go buy macs they say, convenience is king they say, M1 is a new benchmark and future for computing, and Apple is good, they say. I am ex MacOs user not Apple hardware fetishist. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-uighur/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-u...
• cynik_ 6y ago
  I installed arch linux on my personal macbook air (2012) and it's given a new lease of life to the laptop; and I enjoyed it enough to switch from a macbook to a Thinkpad at work as well. (I like more minimal UIs, so I ended up going with dwm/dmenu instead of dealing with Gnome).
• koolhead17 6y ago
  thinkpad + Ubuntu LTS
• wilsonpie 6y ago
  Question: Can anyone comment on Thinkpad L13? I see people recommend X and T series only, but those are a little expensive.
• Fnoord 6y ago
  > Then, just after the warranty expired, came staingate: [picture] Sucks to be you that you live in a country where consumer laws apparently suck. I got the screens of 2 MBPs who suffered from staingate replaced, for free, under the recall program (which, due to consumer law protections, lasts longer than 2 years for consumers (not businesses)). One barely suffered from it; they replaced it anyway. One of these MBPs I even bought 2nd hand. I wrote this message on it.