15 ms·

I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago. I bought an X220 (tablet edition) when it first came out. I still have it; with an i7 and 8 GB of RAM it quite f

by na85 5y ago

I went down this rabbit hole a few years ago. I bought an X220 (tablet edition) when it first came out. I still have it; with an i7 and 8 GB of RAM it quite frankly can still pull its weight despite being released in 2011 or so. Anyways, when it was new I kinda-sorta became obsessed about battery life and I tried all the tricks: Screen on minimum brightness, wifi and bluetooth disabled, SSD installed, all the options toggled in PowerTOP and tlp-stat[0], I could get that i7 down to just 6 Watts or so at idle, but of course even the interrupts from the keyboard would cause the power consumption to spike upwards. At 6 Watts it would last something like 9 hours, which is great when you're traveling. Pre-download a bunch of API documentation and man pages, and you can hack away on the plane. Powertop is a great tool that's only been getting better. I of course do not use that laptop any more; I gave it to my 4 year old daughter and taught her how to launch emacs. She plays a game where she makes fun letter patterns in the scratch buffer and I use a macbook pro as my daily driver. The battery life is substantially better, and I can't wait to try an M1. My wife's XPS can't hold a candle to the macbook as far as longevity is concerned. [0] https://linrunner.de/tlp/ https://linrunner.de/tlp/

yewenjie 5y ago
What's your best setting look like?
- na85 5y ago
  Nowadays I don't use Linux on laptops because the UX is so bad. But when I last did, I just installed tlp which now mostly incorporates every suggestion from powertop anyway.
  - windexh8er 5y ago
    I'm curious what you feel has gotten worse on Linux with regard to UX? I have the opposite experience. The only non-Linux machine in my office is a MBP from my employer which I feel gets in my way far more.
    - na85 5y ago
      Linux irritations that don't happen on mac: - laptop wakes up randomly when lid is closed, fans spin up, drain battery - wifi is flaky - trackpad drivers/trackpad behavior in general are inferior - battery life isn't as good even with obsessive levels of tweaking
      - windexh8er 5y ago
        That's the rub I think. I have a T470 maxed out I bought years ago and everything in it is well supported. I'd even say it's more reliable than my 16" MBP that often crashes if I leave it connected to a docking station over night. I will agree though that the one thing I find much better on Apple laptops is the trackpad. I do disable the trackpad and use the nub, which I find more convenient for most things anyway.
      - sildur 5y ago
        I have a MBP from 2018 and it's awful with wifi6, it always timeouts after a few minutes and I have to restart the wifi on the Mac. It happens on iOS too. No idea why, I'm still investigating.
      - jeroenhd 5y ago
        It's no secret that Macbooks are terrible Linux laptops. If you want to use Linux, buy a different brand, that's kind of the gist of it. Using Intel WiFi has never been flaky for me on Linux (Windows being a whole different story) and the weird wakeup have never happened to me as far as I remember. There's a project underway to delivers a better touchpad experience on Linux, but that's still a work in progress as far as I know. It also strongly depends on how much details the manufacturers disclose about their hardware, how willing they are to open source their drivers and how much they rely on copyrighted binary blobs of firmware. From what I've read about the Mac hardware, it's probably going to be a challenge to get everything running smoothly. Synaptics hardware, found in many laptops, isn't always much better in this regard. Apple applies some very optimised CPU power profiles to their laptops, which aren't directly available to other operating systems. It's why Windows consumes more power on Macbooks as well, and why the fans (if present) kick in more often. I have noticed that my Thinkpad lasts a lot longer on Linux than on Windows unless I turn the power settings down to the point where Windows' UI becomes janky. It really depends on the year, model and serial number of each laptop whether Linux will boost or degrade the performance and usability aspects of the device. Manufacturers that sell Ubuntu as an OS option seem to do well in this area, though. I'm hopeful for what the Linux touchpad project will bring. The new GNOME releases and the recent updates to the Pop_OS window manager seem to put more of an emphasis on touchpads, so things are moving in the right direction.
quijoteuniv 5y ago
I fixed a 2006 macbook pro for my 3 year old to watch Peppa Pig mostly on Netflix. Used powertop and it had lot of suggestions which i just went with it. That laptop has a really good battery still. Together with CPUPOWER on conservative i avoided the processors (which i repasted) heating up and d to watch netflix with no annoying fans. Until last month that netflix stopped supporting the 32 bit last version of firefox. But for 2 years that machine was at hand in the living room, and used to Ssh into other ones, use vim and browse the Internet myself. It did take a couple of hours to set up, change the hardrive to an ssd, an upgrade to linux. But more of this needs to be done. People have so much better computers lying in garages just because they never took the photos or documents out. And after many years they land in a landfill. Linux
- aledthemathguy 5y ago
  when watching netflix on mac u should be watching on Safari to get the full quality, if I am not mistaken (DRM stuff, I assume)...
  - beermonster 5y ago
    Yeah, check this article[1] for more details. Not sure Peppa Pig is really the program to wow someone with 4k. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/29/21307620/apple-mac-netflix-4k-hdr-macos-big-sur-dolby-vision-safari https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/29/21307620/apple-mac-netfli...
    - Fnoord 5y ago
      Last time I checked no MBP from 2006 does 4k. My MBP from 2010 does not either, but screen is quite good.
  - quijoteuniv 5y ago
    Is a macbook pro from 2006 with linux on it :). Good luck trying to surf the net with safari on Snow leopard Mac os 10.6 , which incidentally i had to reinstall before i could transform it into Linux! I use the browser to get me i believe rEFind by roderick w. Smith. That was an experience, i tell you. The DRM stuff is not s problem on firefox after you install the packages it needs.

by na85 5y ago

yewenjie 5y ago

What's your best setting look like?

na85 5y ago
Nowadays I don't use Linux on laptops because the UX is so bad. But when I last did, I just installed tlp which now mostly incorporates every suggestion from powertop anyway.
- windexh8er 5y ago
  I'm curious what you feel has gotten worse on Linux with regard to UX? I have the opposite experience. The only non-Linux machine in my office is a MBP from my employer which I feel gets in my way far more.
  - na85 5y ago
    Linux irritations that don't happen on mac: - laptop wakes up randomly when lid is closed, fans spin up, drain battery - wifi is flaky - trackpad drivers/trackpad behavior in general are inferior - battery life isn't as good even with obsessive levels of tweaking
    - windexh8er 5y ago
      That's the rub I think. I have a T470 maxed out I bought years ago and everything in it is well supported. I'd even say it's more reliable than my 16" MBP that often crashes if I leave it connected to a docking station over night. I will agree though that the one thing I find much better on Apple laptops is the trackpad. I do disable the trackpad and use the nub, which I find more convenient for most things anyway.
    - sildur 5y ago
      I have a MBP from 2018 and it's awful with wifi6, it always timeouts after a few minutes and I have to restart the wifi on the Mac. It happens on iOS too. No idea why, I'm still investigating.
    - jeroenhd 5y ago
      It's no secret that Macbooks are terrible Linux laptops. If you want to use Linux, buy a different brand, that's kind of the gist of it. Using Intel WiFi has never been flaky for me on Linux (Windows being a whole different story) and the weird wakeup have never happened to me as far as I remember. There's a project underway to delivers a better touchpad experience on Linux, but that's still a work in progress as far as I know. It also strongly depends on how much details the manufacturers disclose about their hardware, how willing they are to open source their drivers and how much they rely on copyrighted binary blobs of firmware. From what I've read about the Mac hardware, it's probably going to be a challenge to get everything running smoothly. Synaptics hardware, found in many laptops, isn't always much better in this regard. Apple applies some very optimised CPU power profiles to their laptops, which aren't directly available to other operating systems. It's why Windows consumes more power on Macbooks as well, and why the fans (if present) kick in more often. I have noticed that my Thinkpad lasts a lot longer on Linux than on Windows unless I turn the power settings down to the point where Windows' UI becomes janky. It really depends on the year, model and serial number of each laptop whether Linux will boost or degrade the performance and usability aspects of the device. Manufacturers that sell Ubuntu as an OS option seem to do well in this area, though. I'm hopeful for what the Linux touchpad project will bring. The new GNOME releases and the recent updates to the Pop_OS window manager seem to put more of an emphasis on touchpads, so things are moving in the right direction.

quijoteuniv 5y ago

I fixed a 2006 macbook pro for my 3 year old to watch Peppa Pig mostly on Netflix. Used powertop and it had lot of suggestions which i just went with it. That laptop has a really good battery still. Together with CPUPOWER on conservative i avoided the processors (which i repasted) heating up and d to watch netflix with no annoying fans. Until last month that netflix stopped supporting the 32 bit last version of firefox. But for 2 years that machine was at hand in the living room, and used to Ssh into other ones, use vim and browse the Internet myself. It did take a couple of hours to set up, change the hardrive to an ssd, an upgrade to linux. But more of this needs to be done. People have so much better computers lying in garages just because they never took the photos or documents out. And after many years they land in a landfill. Linux

aledthemathguy 5y ago
when watching netflix on mac u should be watching on Safari to get the full quality, if I am not mistaken (DRM stuff, I assume)...
- beermonster 5y ago
  Yeah, check this article[1] for more details. Not sure Peppa Pig is really the program to wow someone with 4k. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/29/21307620/apple-mac-netflix-4k-hdr-macos-big-sur-dolby-vision-safari https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/29/21307620/apple-mac-netfli...
  - Fnoord 5y ago
    Last time I checked no MBP from 2006 does 4k. My MBP from 2010 does not either, but screen is quite good.
- quijoteuniv 5y ago
  Is a macbook pro from 2006 with linux on it :). Good luck trying to surf the net with safari on Snow leopard Mac os 10.6 , which incidentally i had to reinstall before i could transform it into Linux! I use the browser to get me i believe rEFind by roderick w. Smith. That was an experience, i tell you. The DRM stuff is not s problem on firefox after you install the packages it needs.