7 ms·

> - Apple can double speak all they want about digital privacy, but their actions tell the truth. As a paying Apple customer, you’re not deemed worthy enough to

> - Apple can double speak all they want about digital privacy, but their actions tell the truth. As a paying Apple customer, you’re not deemed worthy enough to even understand how your own machines work, less even to “tamper” with their working, and who knows what data is actually being shared? > - Personally, I say no thank you. I’ve been on Debian or a variant for almost 10 years now, and haven’t looked back. It’s only gotten easier, as software generally moves more and more to SaaS web apps and the intrinsic cross-platform nature of the browser. Personally, all the paying Apple customers in my family have been able to understand how the systems works to make video calls and talk to their grandchildren. 10years ago we tried installing Linux on an HP laptop we paid for and could barely get a picture opened up because... (do I really need to spell this out?) of unreliable display drivers means that the screen blacks out on whim. I find it so odd, Linux users overlooking the fact that people who don't tinker with computers all their life do not have the time to get Linux up & running.

seanw444 5y ago
Try again. Linux Mint is fantastically simple to use, and legitimately "just works" for average-Joe uses cases. Linux, and its various distros, are an ever-evolving tech. Linux 10 years ago was so much less capable than Linux in 2022. Just because it didn't work then, definitely doesn't mean it won't work now.
- 30367286 5y ago
  On what laptops does sleep/hibernate work correctly when you close the lid, with Mint? Seriously, swear to fucking god, every time someone says “oh Linux just works”, the next comment is “oh? I tried that distro on the recommended hardware and had trouble with…” Next response is ALWAYS: “Oh yeah that’s broken but I don’t use that feature.” Usually about hibernate. As in, apparently everyone using a laptop plugged into a wall and never closes the lid. Or uses a desktop. I don’t even know, it doesn’t make any goddamn sense. I just don’t believe you guys any more. Everyone who says Linux just works has adapted their workflows to be hyper specific to the things they do, and have just decided that basic-ass features present and working on mainstream OSes are just gimmicks that the rest of us should forgo out of moral purity. Also with this “try again” noise. Good lord, happy y’all are blessed with the patience to try again until you find the right Goldilocks set of hardware and tweaks that doesn’t give you a migraine but there exists a large contingency of the population that doesn’t spend every waking moment staring at glowing rectangles. Spare us a fucking thought, and spare a thought for our relatives who took years to learn how to double click.
  - digisign 5y ago
    My Dell Precision 55XX works fine with Ubuntu, everything is supported. For example I have two 4k monitors at HiDPI... which I've been using for over five years, despite frequent mentions on this site that it doesn't work.
    - 30367286 5y ago
      Cool, you should talk to ModernMech, he’s having trouble with power management. Or indeed any of the folks on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30644113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30644113
      - digisign 5y ago
        Not possible to reply any longer.
    - Damogran6 5y ago
      Interesting...my new Precision 7560 can't sleep _in_Windows_!
  - Animats 5y ago
    On what laptops does sleep/hibernate work correctly when you close the lid, with Mint? If anyone knows how to get XUbuntu 18.04 LTS to not shut down with the lid closed and power on, please let me know. I have a subnotebook that sits in a cabinet to run something, and since a recent "upgrade", it won't stay alive. Looking with Google produces at least five articles on this, all contradictory and none of which work. There's a GUI for setting this, it's set appropriately, and that doesn't work. There's a relevant configuration file where the "close lid" option can be set, and that doesn't affect this problem.
    - hiq 5y ago
      Is the relevant configuration file logind.conf, or another one? Whenever I had such issues it was always the one file I had to change.
switchbak 5y ago
I think Linux to many is a hobby much like woodworking, one that can also help feed their identity. I've been there myself. I don't think you can expect deep empathy and a strong desire to simplify things down to the grandparent level if much of the reason for using the system is for geek cred and a landscape for such endless tuning/tweaking. I'd even put myself in the latter camp, I like tuning things! Certainly Linux on the desktop has gotten dramatically better over the last few years, but I don't see it ever getting to appliance level without really cutting out what we typically associate with the flexibility of Linux (more like Android or a set top box)
- shrimp_emoji 5y ago
  I feel more like it's analogous to driving a stick shift or baking your own bread. "This is superior; everyone should be doing it!" The problem with that sentiment is that it's 100% true yet totally unrealistic (for reasons unknown -- I don't know why every grandparent out there can't learn to use the command line, from a neurological perspective), and the dissonance erupts like steam from a geyser when those people see the folly of not doing those things.
  - switchbak 5y ago
    That's a much better analogy. I just used an outrageously complex espresso machine to make myself some coffee. For most, that would be purely an inferior choice when compared to a drip machine. I think a lot of it depends on how much you want that last few %. I think a lot of people simply aren't interested in the investment required to get a little more out of their computers. And as a computer guy, of course that makes no sense to me :)
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Linux users probably skew more ethical than the average Mac user. Otherwise, Apple wouldn't make so much money locking down future generations freedoms.
dpedu 5y ago
You're using a different definition of "understand how the systems works". Your grandmother doesn't understand unix signals.
teknopaul 5y ago
Re: "I find it so odd, Linux users overlooking the fact that people who don't tinker with computers all their life do not have the time to get Linux up & running." Statement is a bit out of date, apart from a good PC, most Linux users don't even know they are using it. I find it crazy people have apps running on their Macs and windows desktops that they can't even find out what it is doing, let alone how it works. Thankfully we have a choice, each to their own.
- Animats 5y ago
  I find it crazy people have apps running on their Macs and windows desktops that they can't even find out what it is doing, let alone how it works. Have you looked at a Linux syslog lately? This is 20.04 LTS on desktop. It does a lot on its own. Probably too much. Mar 31 00:33:18 Nagle-LTS whoopsie[1278]: [00:33:17] Cannot reach: https://daisy.ubuntu.com Since the system was idle at the time, why did it need to contact that site? I think that's crash logging. Mar 31 02:17:42 Nagle-LTS snapd[503370]: storehelpers.go:721: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "brackets", "chromium", "core", "core18", "core20", "demo-curl", "gnome-3-26-1604", "gnome-3-28-1804", "gnome-3-34-1804", "gnome-3-38-2004", "gnome-system-monitor", "gtk-common-themes", "gtk2-common-themes", "inkscape", "remarkable", "snap-store" Mar 31 02:17:42 Nagle-LTS snapd[503370]: autorefresh.go:536: auto-refresh: all snaps are up-to-date I'm not subscribed to any optional Ubuntu services. Yet: Mar 31 02:30:09 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Starting Ubuntu Advantage Timer for running repeated jobs... Mar 31 02:30:11 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: ua-timer.service: Succeeded. Mar 31 02:30:11 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Finished Ubuntu Advantage Timer for running repeated jobs. Mar 31 03:05:03 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Starting Firmware update daemon... Something is trying to do a firmware update every few hours: Mar 31 03:05:04 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Started Firmware update daemon. Mar 31 03:05:05 Nagle-LTS fwupd[1434387]: 10:05:05:0005 FuPluginPciMei ME family not supported for 0:9.0.1.1333 Mar 31 03:05:05 Nagle-LTS fwupd[1434387]: 10:05:05:0007 FuEngine failed to record HSI attributes: failed to get historical attr: json-glib version too old Mar 31 03:05:05 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: fwupd-refresh.service: Succeeded. Mar 31 03:05:05 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Finished Refresh fwupd metadata and update motd. Apparently it didn't work because, despite this being a current system, something is out of date. The Ubuntu "snap" system is busy, although it didn't update anything today. Two independent systems seem to be updating "snaps", which are part of Ubuntu's container system for remotely updated applications. Mar 31 06:36:49 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Starting Daily apt upgrade and clean activities... Mar 31 06:37:11 Nagle-LTS dbus-daemon[936]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.PackageKit' unit='packagekit.service' requested by ':1.11660' (uid=0 pid=1437238 comm="/usr/bin/gdbus call --system --dest org.freedeskto" label="unconfined") Mar 31 06:37:11 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Starting PackageKit Daemon... Mar 31 06:37:11 Nagle-LTS PackageKit: daemon start Mar 31 06:37:11 Nagle-LTS dbus-daemon[936]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.PackageKit' .... Mar 31 06:38:52 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: apt-daily-upgrade.service: Succeeded. Mar 31 06:38:52 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Finished Daily apt upgrade and clean activities. Mar 31 06:43:56 Nagle-LTS PackageKit: daemon quit Mar 31 06:43:56 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: packagekit.service: Succeeded. There's a lot happening behind the scenes. Hopefully none of it is hostile or contains backdoors. One wonders.
c22 5y ago
I've been using "linux on the desktop" exclusively for the last two decades and it's always curious to me when people complain about having to be a techno wizard to operate it because for at least the last 10 years I've pretty much had to configure nothing and everything from fancy displays to networked printers has worked without a hitch. I can honestly say that I'm not even sure where I would look to configure or troubleshoot some hardware on my modern linux system because that's just not something I ever have to do. One thing I did do while I was building that first linux pc, and for every computer I've bought or built since then, was a tiny bit of research on driver compatibility. Just something as simple as typing '<laptop model> linux compatability' into google. Or, if while configuring a new system there is a choice of wifi cards or hard drives or whatever, I just look each one up and check before I buy. It is a minor hassle compared to the on-going benefits I derive from a linux system. Sure, in a perfect world all manufacturers would produce high quality open source drivers for all systems, but we are just not that well coordinated. It is getting better, though.
- philjohn 5y ago
  > One thing I did do while I was building that first linux pc, and for every computer I've bought or built since then, was a tiny bit of research on driver compatibility. Just something as simple as typing '<laptop model> linux compatability' into google And that's the reason you don't have problems - you're going for hardware/laptops that are well supported in Linux. Do you expect mom and pop to do the same? Versus buying something off-the-shelf with Windows, or MacOS and it just working, without needing to undertake that step?
  - c22 5y ago
    I dunno, my dad spent 6 months researching his new truck.
    - philjohn 5y ago
      I would guess that truck is a much larger outlay than a laptop? And is your dad a Truck person? He may have enjoyed the research process (heck, I enjoy researching tech purchases).
trelane 5y ago
Put Mac in the same laptop and compare.

seanw444 5y ago

Try again. Linux Mint is fantastically simple to use, and legitimately "just works" for average-Joe uses cases. Linux, and its various distros, are an ever-evolving tech. Linux 10 years ago was so much less capable than Linux in 2022. Just because it didn't work then, definitely doesn't mean it won't work now.

30367286 5y ago
On what laptops does sleep/hibernate work correctly when you close the lid, with Mint? Seriously, swear to fucking god, every time someone says “oh Linux just works”, the next comment is “oh? I tried that distro on the recommended hardware and had trouble with…” Next response is ALWAYS: “Oh yeah that’s broken but I don’t use that feature.” Usually about hibernate. As in, apparently everyone using a laptop plugged into a wall and never closes the lid. Or uses a desktop. I don’t even know, it doesn’t make any goddamn sense. I just don’t believe you guys any more. Everyone who says Linux just works has adapted their workflows to be hyper specific to the things they do, and have just decided that basic-ass features present and working on mainstream OSes are just gimmicks that the rest of us should forgo out of moral purity. Also with this “try again” noise. Good lord, happy y’all are blessed with the patience to try again until you find the right Goldilocks set of hardware and tweaks that doesn’t give you a migraine but there exists a large contingency of the population that doesn’t spend every waking moment staring at glowing rectangles. Spare us a fucking thought, and spare a thought for our relatives who took years to learn how to double click.
- digisign 5y ago
  My Dell Precision 55XX works fine with Ubuntu, everything is supported. For example I have two 4k monitors at HiDPI... which I've been using for over five years, despite frequent mentions on this site that it doesn't work.
  - 30367286 5y ago
    Cool, you should talk to ModernMech, he’s having trouble with power management. Or indeed any of the folks on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30644113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30644113
    - digisign 5y ago
      Not possible to reply any longer.
  - Damogran6 5y ago
    Interesting...my new Precision 7560 can't sleep _in_Windows_!
- Animats 5y ago
  On what laptops does sleep/hibernate work correctly when you close the lid, with Mint? If anyone knows how to get XUbuntu 18.04 LTS to not shut down with the lid closed and power on, please let me know. I have a subnotebook that sits in a cabinet to run something, and since a recent "upgrade", it won't stay alive. Looking with Google produces at least five articles on this, all contradictory and none of which work. There's a GUI for setting this, it's set appropriately, and that doesn't work. There's a relevant configuration file where the "close lid" option can be set, and that doesn't affect this problem.
  - hiq 5y ago
    Is the relevant configuration file logind.conf, or another one? Whenever I had such issues it was always the one file I had to change.

switchbak 5y ago

I think Linux to many is a hobby much like woodworking, one that can also help feed their identity. I've been there myself. I don't think you can expect deep empathy and a strong desire to simplify things down to the grandparent level if much of the reason for using the system is for geek cred and a landscape for such endless tuning/tweaking. I'd even put myself in the latter camp, I like tuning things! Certainly Linux on the desktop has gotten dramatically better over the last few years, but I don't see it ever getting to appliance level without really cutting out what we typically associate with the flexibility of Linux (more like Android or a set top box)

shrimp_emoji 5y ago
I feel more like it's analogous to driving a stick shift or baking your own bread. "This is superior; everyone should be doing it!" The problem with that sentiment is that it's 100% true yet totally unrealistic (for reasons unknown -- I don't know why every grandparent out there can't learn to use the command line, from a neurological perspective), and the dissonance erupts like steam from a geyser when those people see the folly of not doing those things.
- switchbak 5y ago
  That's a much better analogy. I just used an outrageously complex espresso machine to make myself some coffee. For most, that would be purely an inferior choice when compared to a drip machine. I think a lot of it depends on how much you want that last few %. I think a lot of people simply aren't interested in the investment required to get a little more out of their computers. And as a computer guy, of course that makes no sense to me :)
fartcannon 5y ago
Linux users probably skew more ethical than the average Mac user. Otherwise, Apple wouldn't make so much money locking down future generations freedoms.

dpedu 5y ago

You're using a different definition of "understand how the systems works". Your grandmother doesn't understand unix signals.

teknopaul 5y ago

Re: "I find it so odd, Linux users overlooking the fact that people who don't tinker with computers all their life do not have the time to get Linux up & running." Statement is a bit out of date, apart from a good PC, most Linux users don't even know they are using it. I find it crazy people have apps running on their Macs and windows desktops that they can't even find out what it is doing, let alone how it works. Thankfully we have a choice, each to their own.

Animats 5y ago
I find it crazy people have apps running on their Macs and windows desktops that they can't even find out what it is doing, let alone how it works. Have you looked at a Linux syslog lately? This is 20.04 LTS on desktop. It does a lot on its own. Probably too much. Mar 31 00:33:18 Nagle-LTS whoopsie[1278]: [00:33:17] Cannot reach: https://daisy.ubuntu.com Since the system was idle at the time, why did it need to contact that site? I think that's crash logging. Mar 31 02:17:42 Nagle-LTS snapd[503370]: storehelpers.go:721: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "brackets", "chromium", "core", "core18", "core20", "demo-curl", "gnome-3-26-1604", "gnome-3-28-1804", "gnome-3-34-1804", "gnome-3-38-2004", "gnome-system-monitor", "gtk-common-themes", "gtk2-common-themes", "inkscape", "remarkable", "snap-store" Mar 31 02:17:42 Nagle-LTS snapd[503370]: autorefresh.go:536: auto-refresh: all snaps are up-to-date I'm not subscribed to any optional Ubuntu services. Yet: Mar 31 02:30:09 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Starting Ubuntu Advantage Timer for running repeated jobs... Mar 31 02:30:11 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: ua-timer.service: Succeeded. Mar 31 02:30:11 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Finished Ubuntu Advantage Timer for running repeated jobs. Mar 31 03:05:03 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Starting Firmware update daemon... Something is trying to do a firmware update every few hours: Mar 31 03:05:04 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Started Firmware update daemon. Mar 31 03:05:05 Nagle-LTS fwupd[1434387]: 10:05:05:0005 FuPluginPciMei ME family not supported for 0:9.0.1.1333 Mar 31 03:05:05 Nagle-LTS fwupd[1434387]: 10:05:05:0007 FuEngine failed to record HSI attributes: failed to get historical attr: json-glib version too old Mar 31 03:05:05 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: fwupd-refresh.service: Succeeded. Mar 31 03:05:05 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Finished Refresh fwupd metadata and update motd. Apparently it didn't work because, despite this being a current system, something is out of date. The Ubuntu "snap" system is busy, although it didn't update anything today. Two independent systems seem to be updating "snaps", which are part of Ubuntu's container system for remotely updated applications. Mar 31 06:36:49 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Starting Daily apt upgrade and clean activities... Mar 31 06:37:11 Nagle-LTS dbus-daemon[936]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.PackageKit' unit='packagekit.service' requested by ':1.11660' (uid=0 pid=1437238 comm="/usr/bin/gdbus call --system --dest org.freedeskto" label="unconfined") Mar 31 06:37:11 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Starting PackageKit Daemon... Mar 31 06:37:11 Nagle-LTS PackageKit: daemon start Mar 31 06:37:11 Nagle-LTS dbus-daemon[936]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.PackageKit' .... Mar 31 06:38:52 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: apt-daily-upgrade.service: Succeeded. Mar 31 06:38:52 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: Finished Daily apt upgrade and clean activities. Mar 31 06:43:56 Nagle-LTS PackageKit: daemon quit Mar 31 06:43:56 Nagle-LTS systemd[1]: packagekit.service: Succeeded. There's a lot happening behind the scenes. Hopefully none of it is hostile or contains backdoors. One wonders.

c22 5y ago

I've been using "linux on the desktop" exclusively for the last two decades and it's always curious to me when people complain about having to be a techno wizard to operate it because for at least the last 10 years I've pretty much had to configure nothing and everything from fancy displays to networked printers has worked without a hitch. I can honestly say that I'm not even sure where I would look to configure or troubleshoot some hardware on my modern linux system because that's just not something I ever have to do. One thing I did do while I was building that first linux pc, and for every computer I've bought or built since then, was a tiny bit of research on driver compatibility. Just something as simple as typing '<laptop model> linux compatability' into google. Or, if while configuring a new system there is a choice of wifi cards or hard drives or whatever, I just look each one up and check before I buy. It is a minor hassle compared to the on-going benefits I derive from a linux system. Sure, in a perfect world all manufacturers would produce high quality open source drivers for all systems, but we are just not that well coordinated. It is getting better, though.

philjohn 5y ago
> One thing I did do while I was building that first linux pc, and for every computer I've bought or built since then, was a tiny bit of research on driver compatibility. Just something as simple as typing '<laptop model> linux compatability' into google And that's the reason you don't have problems - you're going for hardware/laptops that are well supported in Linux. Do you expect mom and pop to do the same? Versus buying something off-the-shelf with Windows, or MacOS and it just working, without needing to undertake that step?
- c22 5y ago
  I dunno, my dad spent 6 months researching his new truck.
  - philjohn 5y ago
    I would guess that truck is a much larger outlay than a laptop? And is your dad a Truck person? He may have enjoyed the research process (heck, I enjoy researching tech purchases).

trelane 5y ago

Put Mac in the same laptop and compare.