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If you think Linux Desktop is in decent shape, your hardware choices must line up with those of your platform maintainers. Good for you -- but your experience w

If you think Linux Desktop is in decent shape, your hardware choices must line up with those of your platform maintainers. Good for you -- but your experience will be very far from universal. Some Ubuntu LTS highlights: Ubuntu 14: By default, Dell display backlights toggle on/off 30 times a second Ubuntu 16: By default, BIOS boots broken due to boot files landing in too high of a sector Ubuntu 18: By default, Solid State boot drives break because /dev/sda was hardcoded Ubuntu 20: By default, Bluetooth and fans broken. Never fixed. Sleep broken but fixed. Ubuntu 22: By default, NVidia graphics get 100% screen saturation after install. "Then don't use Ubuntu" Ubuntu isn't my daily driver. It isn't even a majority of my installs. I'm using it as a benchmark for conservative linux choices because smaller distros tend to be worse, not better. I know this because I daily drive a less popular distro, and I also distro hop for fun, and these all tend to be worse, not better. Besides, many hardware and software vendors target Ubuntu, and "works on Ubuntu but nowhere else" is a very common problem. Across the board, the Linus Tech Tips linux experience is the rule, not the exception. Many desktop linux users just have selective community-enforced amnesia. Look, I am super thankful for the maintainers. I have gotten so much more value from them then they have asked in payment, but Linux is nowhere near Windows in the "just works" department. That is to be expected, given the price, but the rhetoric has gotten out of line with reality. Desktop linux still has a lot of rough edges and new rough edges appear at a rate that is not converging to 0. "It works if you buy dedicated Linux hardware." Yes. This is how you make it work.

eikenberry 4y ago
"It works if you buy dedicated Linux hardware." Yes. This is how you make it work. You buried the lede.
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  Nope. I can understand how you might prefer that I had been writing about workarounds, but I was not writing about workarounds. I was writing about the incorrect and alienating rhetoric coming from the Linux community. Also, literally my first sentence: > your hardware choices
pmontra 4y ago
I've been using Ubuntu since 8.10 as my only OS. A HP nc8430 until 12.04, then a HP ZBook 15 since 14.04. Both laptops came with Windows (XP and 7.) I had my share of problems but none as bad as the ones you wrote. Currently there are two problems 1. Poweroff is reboot, so I press the shutdown button when the BIOS starts. It has been like that for ages through more than one LTS but I shutdown very few times per year. 2. The fn brightness control keys don't work so I made two hotkeys to run a X11 brightness control program that steps up or down the backlighting by 5 points, 0 to 100. This is probably on NVidia's driver. Everything else is fine and that's great considering that probably HP never tested these laptops with Ubuntu. Two nuisances is still better than the alternatives: the very same hardware with Windows or an Apple machine with OSX (I can't stand the UI.)
derekp7 4y ago
Don't you need very specific hardware to get Mac OS to work too? I think it is useful when comparing OS environments to make sure you are comparing on the hardware that is optimal for each OS. And you can get Linux optimal hardware from a lot more sources than Mac OS optimal hardware. The biggest issue is that on the Mac side, it is really easy to get the OS and the optimal hardware together, and know that it "just works". For Linux, we have several small vendors, and a couple larger ones, that have Linux-advertised hardware, but most of the Linux optimal hardware doesn't advertise itself as Linux (Android phones/tablets, Chrome OS, etc).
triknomeister 4y ago
Same is true for windows, but due to prevalence of windows and the effort of MS (certified for windows program), most hardware tries to make itself work on windows. It also makes sense given that Windows still has 78.5% share in the market. So, it is not that linux does not work with a lot of consumer hardware. It's that most consumer hardware cannot be bothered to work with linux and invests itself in working with windows. There is also a factor in-kernel vs out-of-kernel drivers.

eikenberry 4y ago

"It works if you buy dedicated Linux hardware." Yes. This is how you make it work. You buried the lede.

jjoonathan 4y ago
Nope. I can understand how you might prefer that I had been writing about workarounds, but I was not writing about workarounds. I was writing about the incorrect and alienating rhetoric coming from the Linux community. Also, literally my first sentence: > your hardware choices

pmontra 4y ago

I've been using Ubuntu since 8.10 as my only OS. A HP nc8430 until 12.04, then a HP ZBook 15 since 14.04. Both laptops came with Windows (XP and 7.) I had my share of problems but none as bad as the ones you wrote. Currently there are two problems 1. Poweroff is reboot, so I press the shutdown button when the BIOS starts. It has been like that for ages through more than one LTS but I shutdown very few times per year. 2. The fn brightness control keys don't work so I made two hotkeys to run a X11 brightness control program that steps up or down the backlighting by 5 points, 0 to 100. This is probably on NVidia's driver. Everything else is fine and that's great considering that probably HP never tested these laptops with Ubuntu. Two nuisances is still better than the alternatives: the very same hardware with Windows or an Apple machine with OSX (I can't stand the UI.)

derekp7 4y ago

Don't you need very specific hardware to get Mac OS to work too? I think it is useful when comparing OS environments to make sure you are comparing on the hardware that is optimal for each OS. And you can get Linux optimal hardware from a lot more sources than Mac OS optimal hardware. The biggest issue is that on the Mac side, it is really easy to get the OS and the optimal hardware together, and know that it "just works". For Linux, we have several small vendors, and a couple larger ones, that have Linux-advertised hardware, but most of the Linux optimal hardware doesn't advertise itself as Linux (Android phones/tablets, Chrome OS, etc).

triknomeister 4y ago

Same is true for windows, but due to prevalence of windows and the effort of MS (certified for windows program), most hardware tries to make itself work on windows. It also makes sense given that Windows still has 78.5% share in the market. So, it is not that linux does not work with a lot of consumer hardware. It's that most consumer hardware cannot be bothered to work with linux and invests itself in working with windows. There is also a factor in-kernel vs out-of-kernel drivers.