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Have you ever had anything that resembled the experience or a MacBook Air with a M1? I have a windows running Lenovo t14 for work, and it’s a decent enough lap

Have you ever had anything that resembled the experience or a MacBook Air with a M1? I have a windows running Lenovo t14 for work, and it’s a decent enough laptop but it’s sort of like the stone ages compared to my personal MacBook. It has a terrible mousepad, it’s bulky, it runs out of battery after a two hours even though its factory new (developer specs in non-tech enterprise), the screen isn’t very nice and it’s actually more expensive. I ask because I kind of want to get out of the closed ecosystem. Not so much because I dislike Apple but because I figure that with the way things are going for big American tech companies I’ll likely dislike them sooner or later. But I’ve never found a Linux (or windows) laptop that came close to the daily usage of a MacBook Air. Obviously I’m not in need of a powerhouse or a computer, weight, battery life and a good mousepad is my primary requirements, but yeah.

trelane 4y ago
I have had excellent experiences with System76. They fully support Linux, and work hard to make sure the hardware works with Linux. Also, their support is very responsive, though limited to business hours. Putting Linux on Windows hardware is a mug's game.
Dudemeister_ 4y ago
Have you tried an LG Gram? I got myself one, it is one of the closest laptops to a macbook air M1: - extremely light (my 14 inch is a little under 1kg), you'll absolutely feel the difference when holding it vs holding a macbook air M1, and it is very significant. - great screen - amazing keyboard - the fan is very quiet, but the laptop can get a bit warm under load - the touchpad is lacking on windows but is amazing on linux (I mainly use ubuntu / pop os) - expect 9-10 hours battery life in most use cases, it sometimes goes as high as 14h+ if you're simply surfing the web/reading or as low as 6 hours on heavy use When installing a linux distro, in some rare cases you might need to tweak a few bios option just to start the installation, but everything after that works out of the box.
- phren0logy 4y ago
  That battery life is impressive! Thunderbolt 4 and a better selection of ports than the MacBook Air M1, also. But, as great as the screen is, looks like it falls short of the 12" MacBook screen. Same 8GB of RAM in the base model as the M1, but memory bandwidth not the same. And the processor isn't going to keep up. I mean, it's nice, but I picked the base model M1 Air about a year ago for $750 - still seems like the laptop to beat, if you can live with MacOS.
  - eropple 4y ago
    I quite like my work M1 Pro, but (to help coworkers with Mac problems while I was using a ThinkPad) I had an M1 Air 8GB from work for a while and I honestly found it really pretty bad because of the RAM limits. It seems like there's a floor against which MacOS bumps pretty hard if you want to use the machine for development-ish stuff and it reacts really poorly to memory starvation if you get ahead of yourself. Having 16GB and up, though, an M1's fantastic. If I had to be resource constrained, though, I think I'd prefer something that handled Linux well.
    - phren0logy 4y ago
      Agreed, 8 GB is just not enough even for basic needs in the era of remote work and electron apps. I don’t know why they are continuing that as the base in this year’s MacBook Air M2, because it is just a worse user experience. These are already premium computers, even at the base models. I wish Apple would be a little bit more forward thinking about keeping users happy rather than saving a few pennies in the short term.
- EnKopVand 4y ago
  I’ll certainly look into them.
steeleduncan 4y ago
If you have an old MacBook lying unused, then Ubuntu tends to run out of the box on them. It is a lot lighter, so even though my 2014 MacBook Air is unusably sluggish with macOS, it runs Ubuntu 22.04 great.
philistine 4y ago
Make sure you don't forget display nits. So many laptops not made by Apple are so dim that you don't want to use them. Apple is at 500 nits with the newest Air with an M2 chip. That's positively bright!
filmgirlcw 4y ago
This does not exist. System76 and some others do a good job at trying, but despite many efforts over the last 20 years, this just isn’t possible. Consider that even the best Windows laptops are worse than MacBooks (and I would say this was true before the M1 but is inarguable now), despite the billions of dollars of investment from Intel, AMD, Dell, Microsoft, etc. I think the Surface line has historically had the closest experience for Windows, thanks to Microsoft's investments, but battery life and heat have been an issue on all x86 laptops for at least 5-7 years, with very recent improvements only coming from AMD and now on the 12th-Gen Intel processors. But nothing exists that matches the battery life and power/performance of the M-series. You can get a more powerful machine, but not one that will have battery life worth a damn. And even as trackpads have improved with the Precision Touchpad drivers, Macs are just better here. Period. If you don’t count Chromebooks (and I really don’t), there is no one investing anything close to what Microsoft and OEMs are in Linux, not just in software, but hardware, so even the best scenarios are going to fall short. It doesn’t help that the latest and greatest hardware takes to hit the kernel (understandable, of course), meaning you’ve got a lagging timeline from when the stuff is new/hot and when it works. My Framework is quite good and with Linux, but it took a few months for drivers to be included in most distros (Fedora being so bleeding edge made it a real hero), and now 12th-gens are coming out and I don’t know the status of those chipsets (though WiFi 6E and the like are supported), and Framework cares about Linux and that community. System 76 and Tuxedo basically just buy Chinese or Taiwanese laptops from Clevo or Tongfang and can make some adjustments to the firmware and hardware config, but they don’t control the whole stack. And even Purism, who sells itself as offering an Apple-like experience, falls embarrassingly short (like, their own firmware updates are bricking $2000 laptops running 2019/2020 specs. And the keyboards are terrible and their own Debian spin distro is not great). So it’s amazing we have what we have. That we can buy pre-configured Linux laptops. But unless you want to do a Chromebook and tweak into run Linux apps, nothing has the experience you have on Windows, let alone Mac. Someone will try to refute what I’ve said, but unless the hardware is very specific and the distro is very specific, you don’t get anything close. And it absolutely won’t have the power or niceties of a Mac. It just won’t.
- vinceguidry 4y ago
  System76 has started designing their own machines.
Wowfunhappy 4y ago
I'm personally expecting Apple Silicon machines to become really good Linux devices within the next year. A killer team is working on it, and they can benefit from the game console effect—ie, Apple sells a limited number of models in large quantities.
- hanklazard 4y ago
  Same. I follow a number of team members on twitter and can't wait for it to be a bit more complete. I'll buy an M1 or M2 at that point for sure.
- EnKopVand 4y ago
  That would be the best option. My last MacBook lived for 7 years, ideally this one will do the same.
- yencabulator 4y ago
  Apple has no incentive to pick e.g. wifi chips with reasonably open specs. And history has pretty much proven that no amount of volunteer effort without specs will make Broadcom chips behave well. Future Apple hardware being usable with Linux is not a bet I would make. I used to run Linux on a PowerPC iBook, and it's been downhill from there.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

trelane 4y ago

I have had excellent experiences with System76. They fully support Linux, and work hard to make sure the hardware works with Linux. Also, their support is very responsive, though limited to business hours. Putting Linux on Windows hardware is a mug's game.

Dudemeister_ 4y ago

Have you tried an LG Gram? I got myself one, it is one of the closest laptops to a macbook air M1: - extremely light (my 14 inch is a little under 1kg), you'll absolutely feel the difference when holding it vs holding a macbook air M1, and it is very significant. - great screen - amazing keyboard - the fan is very quiet, but the laptop can get a bit warm under load - the touchpad is lacking on windows but is amazing on linux (I mainly use ubuntu / pop os) - expect 9-10 hours battery life in most use cases, it sometimes goes as high as 14h+ if you're simply surfing the web/reading or as low as 6 hours on heavy use When installing a linux distro, in some rare cases you might need to tweak a few bios option just to start the installation, but everything after that works out of the box.

phren0logy 4y ago
That battery life is impressive! Thunderbolt 4 and a better selection of ports than the MacBook Air M1, also. But, as great as the screen is, looks like it falls short of the 12" MacBook screen. Same 8GB of RAM in the base model as the M1, but memory bandwidth not the same. And the processor isn't going to keep up. I mean, it's nice, but I picked the base model M1 Air about a year ago for $750 - still seems like the laptop to beat, if you can live with MacOS.
- eropple 4y ago
  I quite like my work M1 Pro, but (to help coworkers with Mac problems while I was using a ThinkPad) I had an M1 Air 8GB from work for a while and I honestly found it really pretty bad because of the RAM limits. It seems like there's a floor against which MacOS bumps pretty hard if you want to use the machine for development-ish stuff and it reacts really poorly to memory starvation if you get ahead of yourself. Having 16GB and up, though, an M1's fantastic. If I had to be resource constrained, though, I think I'd prefer something that handled Linux well.
  - phren0logy 4y ago
    Agreed, 8 GB is just not enough even for basic needs in the era of remote work and electron apps. I don’t know why they are continuing that as the base in this year’s MacBook Air M2, because it is just a worse user experience. These are already premium computers, even at the base models. I wish Apple would be a little bit more forward thinking about keeping users happy rather than saving a few pennies in the short term.
EnKopVand 4y ago
I’ll certainly look into them.

steeleduncan 4y ago

If you have an old MacBook lying unused, then Ubuntu tends to run out of the box on them. It is a lot lighter, so even though my 2014 MacBook Air is unusably sluggish with macOS, it runs Ubuntu 22.04 great.

philistine 4y ago

Make sure you don't forget display nits. So many laptops not made by Apple are so dim that you don't want to use them. Apple is at 500 nits with the newest Air with an M2 chip. That's positively bright!

filmgirlcw 4y ago

This does not exist. System76 and some others do a good job at trying, but despite many efforts over the last 20 years, this just isn’t possible. Consider that even the best Windows laptops are worse than MacBooks (and I would say this was true before the M1 but is inarguable now), despite the billions of dollars of investment from Intel, AMD, Dell, Microsoft, etc. I think the Surface line has historically had the closest experience for Windows, thanks to Microsoft's investments, but battery life and heat have been an issue on all x86 laptops for at least 5-7 years, with very recent improvements only coming from AMD and now on the 12th-Gen Intel processors. But nothing exists that matches the battery life and power/performance of the M-series. You can get a more powerful machine, but not one that will have battery life worth a damn. And even as trackpads have improved with the Precision Touchpad drivers, Macs are just better here. Period. If you don’t count Chromebooks (and I really don’t), there is no one investing anything close to what Microsoft and OEMs are in Linux, not just in software, but hardware, so even the best scenarios are going to fall short. It doesn’t help that the latest and greatest hardware takes to hit the kernel (understandable, of course), meaning you’ve got a lagging timeline from when the stuff is new/hot and when it works. My Framework is quite good and with Linux, but it took a few months for drivers to be included in most distros (Fedora being so bleeding edge made it a real hero), and now 12th-gens are coming out and I don’t know the status of those chipsets (though WiFi 6E and the like are supported), and Framework cares about Linux and that community. System 76 and Tuxedo basically just buy Chinese or Taiwanese laptops from Clevo or Tongfang and can make some adjustments to the firmware and hardware config, but they don’t control the whole stack. And even Purism, who sells itself as offering an Apple-like experience, falls embarrassingly short (like, their own firmware updates are bricking $2000 laptops running 2019/2020 specs. And the keyboards are terrible and their own Debian spin distro is not great). So it’s amazing we have what we have. That we can buy pre-configured Linux laptops. But unless you want to do a Chromebook and tweak into run Linux apps, nothing has the experience you have on Windows, let alone Mac. Someone will try to refute what I’ve said, but unless the hardware is very specific and the distro is very specific, you don’t get anything close. And it absolutely won’t have the power or niceties of a Mac. It just won’t.

vinceguidry 4y ago
System76 has started designing their own machines.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

I'm personally expecting Apple Silicon machines to become really good Linux devices within the next year. A killer team is working on it, and they can benefit from the game console effect—ie, Apple sells a limited number of models in large quantities.

hanklazard 4y ago
Same. I follow a number of team members on twitter and can't wait for it to be a bit more complete. I'll buy an M1 or M2 at that point for sure.
EnKopVand 4y ago
That would be the best option. My last MacBook lived for 7 years, ideally this one will do the same.
yencabulator 4y ago
Apple has no incentive to pick e.g. wifi chips with reasonably open specs. And history has pretty much proven that no amount of volunteer effort without specs will make Broadcom chips behave well. Future Apple hardware being usable with Linux is not a bet I would make. I used to run Linux on a PowerPC iBook, and it's been downhill from there.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]