3 ms·

I can't say much about the MacOS side of things (I do use a Mac at my day-job, but only because the choice is Mac or Windows, no Linux option). But as far as Po

I can't say much about the MacOS side of things (I do use a Mac at my day-job, but only because the choice is Mac or Windows, no Linux option). But as far as PopOS goes... I've been using it full-time on my personal laptop for several months now, and I'm very happy. Surprisingly so, you might say. Why "surprising?" Well TBH, I always looked at PopOS as kind of a niche / oddball thing, along with any other distro that exists only because a device manufacturer is pushing it. I had assumed that when I got my System76 box I'd immediately install Fedora or something. But when it got here I felt too lazy to do that on "day zero" so I figured "Aaah, heck, I'll keep this PopOS thing around until I get some spare time, then I'll do a reinstall." Fast forward 6+ months now and I'm still running PopOS and am pretty happy with it. It mostly "just works" and I have access to basically all of the same packages as Ubuntu so everything I've needed to install (modulo a very small number) has been right at my fingertips, a quick "apt install" away. Net-net, if anybody out there is thinking of trying PopOS, I'd encourage you to give it a whirl. Note: I am not associated with PopOS or System76 in any way, aside from being a System76 customer. I have no financial stake in this discussion.

azangru 5y ago
Which System76 laptop are you using, and how has your experience been with it?
- mindcrime 5y ago
  I went with a Gazelle. I splurged a little bit and got 32GB of RAM, and both a NVMe drive and an SSD, so I have both plenty of RAM and plenty of fast storage. By and large I am extremely satisfied with this box so far. The only thing I really don't like, and this is admittedly a pretty subjective thing, is the layout of the keyboard vis-a-vis the right shift key. I prefer a full-length shift key, above the arrow keys. This has a smaller shift key, which is just to the left of the up arrow key and above the left arrow key. It's a minor nit, but it's not as convenient to the way I like to use the shift and arrow keys together for selecting text.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  I have a Galago Pro and in general I like it. some drawbacks I see: - Terrible battery life - Sound quality and volume not very good - Problems with suspend/wake and fan control. The fan turns on when a USB-C is connected and the device is in suspend mode. Sometimes the fan goes into super turbo mode at night and can only be stopped with a hard reset. This one really bugs me and I would like system76 to fix it Otherwise I like the machine. Display is good. I like the keyboard better than on my Macbook 2019. Trackpad works surprisingly well.
- acomjean 5y ago
  I have an old oryx4 (intel8th gen/ nvidia graphics). Its my daily driver. Its been quite durable, (I did have to replace a fan which wasn't too bad. In fairness I think my environment may have caused that. But its basically a clevo model laptop rebadged, so getting a part wasn't bad.). The screen/keyboard/ trackpad are decent. It can run steam/ unreal engine/ jetbrains/). Lots of ports. Its a great development machine. Its always been great with the auto updates and software installs for the most part. (although right now, its in some state where its got some libc packages ahead of where the next upgrade thinks it should be. so it fails.... my first real linuxy state issue). My main gripes are battery life when using the nvidia graphics and having to reboot to switch from nvidia to intel. For me its mostly a lugable hooked up to external monitors. They have a "hybrid mode" now, but when I tried last year it didn't seem to be great. Battery is much much better without the graphics card running. I'd buy another.
alpaca128 5y ago
Meanwhile I replaced PopOS on my ThinkPad a couple days ago, for some reason I had an increasing number of bugs and stability issues. I'm getting the impression polished/user-friendly distros just don't like me.
- opan 5y ago
  >I'm getting the impression polished/user-friendly distros just don't like me. Very relatable. I always seemed to get into worse messes with Debian, Ubuntu, Manjaro, whatever... than Arch, Void, or Guix System. What do you do when GDM breaks? Uninstall it, in my experience. These distros that are very shiny and preconfigured can quickly make me feel lost and not-in-control compared to the classic minimal wm (or wayland compositor) + assorted separate programs I chose on purpose and enjoy using. Downsides to this situation are that it's tough to recommend a distro to someone new. It'd either be one I don't actually like/trust or one that would give them a hard time as a beginner. Also that I may come off as overly negative in conversations with people using those more polished and popular distros.
yepthatsreality 5y ago
> (I do use a Mac at my day-job, but only because the choice is Mac or Windows, no Linux option). This is true at my employment too but we just tell them we're installing a Linux OS and IT does not care. You may want to check if you can get a Linux option by choosing Windows hardware.
- mindcrime 5y ago
  Nah, there's no way to get away with that here. This is a highly regulated industry and IT has everything locked down tighter than a drum. Running a non-approved OS on a company machine is probably a fireable offense. I'm not even sure if you'd get a warning first.

azangru 5y ago

Which System76 laptop are you using, and how has your experience been with it?

mindcrime 5y ago
I went with a Gazelle. I splurged a little bit and got 32GB of RAM, and both a NVMe drive and an SSD, so I have both plenty of RAM and plenty of fast storage. By and large I am extremely satisfied with this box so far. The only thing I really don't like, and this is admittedly a pretty subjective thing, is the layout of the keyboard vis-a-vis the right shift key. I prefer a full-length shift key, above the arrow keys. This has a smaller shift key, which is just to the left of the up arrow key and above the left arrow key. It's a minor nit, but it's not as convenient to the way I like to use the shift and arrow keys together for selecting text.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
I have a Galago Pro and in general I like it. some drawbacks I see: - Terrible battery life - Sound quality and volume not very good - Problems with suspend/wake and fan control. The fan turns on when a USB-C is connected and the device is in suspend mode. Sometimes the fan goes into super turbo mode at night and can only be stopped with a hard reset. This one really bugs me and I would like system76 to fix it Otherwise I like the machine. Display is good. I like the keyboard better than on my Macbook 2019. Trackpad works surprisingly well.
acomjean 5y ago
I have an old oryx4 (intel8th gen/ nvidia graphics). Its my daily driver. Its been quite durable, (I did have to replace a fan which wasn't too bad. In fairness I think my environment may have caused that. But its basically a clevo model laptop rebadged, so getting a part wasn't bad.). The screen/keyboard/ trackpad are decent. It can run steam/ unreal engine/ jetbrains/). Lots of ports. Its a great development machine. Its always been great with the auto updates and software installs for the most part. (although right now, its in some state where its got some libc packages ahead of where the next upgrade thinks it should be. so it fails.... my first real linuxy state issue). My main gripes are battery life when using the nvidia graphics and having to reboot to switch from nvidia to intel. For me its mostly a lugable hooked up to external monitors. They have a "hybrid mode" now, but when I tried last year it didn't seem to be great. Battery is much much better without the graphics card running. I'd buy another.

alpaca128 5y ago

Meanwhile I replaced PopOS on my ThinkPad a couple days ago, for some reason I had an increasing number of bugs and stability issues. I'm getting the impression polished/user-friendly distros just don't like me.

opan 5y ago
>I'm getting the impression polished/user-friendly distros just don't like me. Very relatable. I always seemed to get into worse messes with Debian, Ubuntu, Manjaro, whatever... than Arch, Void, or Guix System. What do you do when GDM breaks? Uninstall it, in my experience. These distros that are very shiny and preconfigured can quickly make me feel lost and not-in-control compared to the classic minimal wm (or wayland compositor) + assorted separate programs I chose on purpose and enjoy using. Downsides to this situation are that it's tough to recommend a distro to someone new. It'd either be one I don't actually like/trust or one that would give them a hard time as a beginner. Also that I may come off as overly negative in conversations with people using those more polished and popular distros.

yepthatsreality 5y ago

> (I do use a Mac at my day-job, but only because the choice is Mac or Windows, no Linux option). This is true at my employment too but we just tell them we're installing a Linux OS and IT does not care. You may want to check if you can get a Linux option by choosing Windows hardware.

mindcrime 5y ago
Nah, there's no way to get away with that here. This is a highly regulated industry and IT has everything locked down tighter than a drum. Running a non-approved OS on a company machine is probably a fireable offense. I'm not even sure if you'd get a warning first.