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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/tra

by 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.
- dundarious 5y ago
  I presume they're referring to running Linux on the X220 from their first comment, not on an Apple laptop.
- tssva 5y ago
  I have a Thinkpad T495 which Lenovo supports both Ubuntu and Fedora on and still battery life is much worse using Linux. All the tweaking and playing with tlp settings doesn't help. The trackpad is smooth enough after I adjust the trackpad speed. It is slow as molasses by default. What is disappointing is the lack of multitouch support. Gnome 40 and the lastest Pop OS have some nice multitouch features for the desktop but support in applications is practically non existent.
- na85 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. Everything in that list was from my ThinkPads, of which I own several.

by na85 5y ago

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.

dundarious 5y ago
I presume they're referring to running Linux on the X220 from their first comment, not on an Apple laptop.
tssva 5y ago
I have a Thinkpad T495 which Lenovo supports both Ubuntu and Fedora on and still battery life is much worse using Linux. All the tweaking and playing with tlp settings doesn't help. The trackpad is smooth enough after I adjust the trackpad speed. It is slow as molasses by default. What is disappointing is the lack of multitouch support. Gnome 40 and the lastest Pop OS have some nice multitouch features for the desktop but support in applications is practically non existent.
na85 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. Everything in that list was from my ThinkPads, of which I own several.