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Biased opinion: I work on ChromeOS at Google Biased but informed opinion: I own a Framework Laptop running Ubuntu 22.04. Linux on a server or a desktop isn't

Biased opinion: I work on ChromeOS at Google Biased but informed opinion: I own a Framework Laptop running Ubuntu 22.04. Linux on a server or a desktop isn't so bad. Linux on a laptop is awful. Hibernation isn't supported. Battery life is mediocre, and battery drain in sleep is significant. If I close the lid on my Framework at 75% and come back the next day, it will be at 25%. If I come back in 3 days, it will be completely dead. Even on a device designed to support Linux (Framework, Thinkpad, whatever) the Bluetooth experience is....err......well, if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything? ChromeOS isn't perfect, but as a laptop I'd much rather run it (with Crostini to get a Linux development environment) any day.

cbsmith 4y ago
System76 seems to have finally gotten to the bottom of the battery issues with their Lemur Pro. It's all about the drivers, and getting drivers that do power management right for devices that are miserly is surprisingly difficult.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  Can you confirm this for your own device? I am really waiting for a linux laptop, which is truly mobile. I also rather went with chromebooks so far.
  - cbsmith 4y ago
    Note personally (all my laptops are provided by work, and they don't do System76 :-(), but you don't have to look far to see people talking about the battery life: https://www.reddit.com/r/System76/comments/n235vc/a_lemur_pro_review_months_later/ https://www.reddit.com/r/System76/comments/n235vc/a_lemur_pr...
binkHN 4y ago
I concur. While I know all the world is Linux, I run OpenBSD on many of my hobby systems. I love OpenBSD’s simplicity, but, IMHO, it’s missing too many things to be a good laptop OS. With ChromeOS I get the support a laptop environment requires, while still having the Debian VM to take things further.
xorcist 4y ago
> Even on a device designed to support Linux (Framework, Thinkpad, whatever) There's apparently a world of difference. Nothing about the Framework suggests it was designed for Linux. A proper Thinkpad does not have issues with hibernation, or losing battery, or graphics, or any of the other things you mentioned. I just want something that works, and will receive updates as long as there are users. I don't want to muck about with VMs, or Crostini, or whatever it's called. Sounds like I must never let go of my Thinkpad.
- Arainach 4y ago
  I'm glad you've had that experience, but it hasn't been mine. I've owned other laptops running Linux and have had plenty of coworkers with experiences as well. Heck, there's an entire team at Google dedicated (full of incredibly smart people who know way more about Linux than I ever will) to trying to get Linux running well on laptops. Plenty of people shared their experiences in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32293541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32293541 The vast majority of people I know who tried running Linux on their laptop switched to Mac/Windows/ChromeOS. Containers and subsystems like WSLv2 or Crostini make it mostly painless to do Linux development while having a host operating system that has people paid to make the experience great rather than volunteers who generally want to work on shiny algorithms rather than fixing UX bugs. More specifically: I've run Windows on the Framework and it was generally great (I wished it was a touchscreen, but that's about it). Maybe with the right magical device I could get a great Linux experience, but it's not worth having to search and compromise for me. I can install Windows on anything and it will work. I can buy any of the few Macbooks on sale and it will just work. I can buy any Chromebook and it will largely work out of the box. Linux is the only OS that makes me carefully check that my exact set of chipsets and components will probably not be a complete disaster. I buy laptops based on their hardware specs (screen, keyboard, trackpad, weight, ports) rather than their compatibility with an operating system.
  - outworlder 4y ago
    > I can install Windows on anything and it will work. Not necessarily. There's plenty of instances of devices working poorly in Windows before the issues get patched (if they are at all). If you want something that 'just works', you are indeed better with the Apple ecosystem. They control the hardware and software. The only way around these issues is to pressure vendors to provide better Linux support. The only reason Windows laptops tend to work better out of the box (or at least with all hardware working to some extent) is because of all the testing done by vendors.
caskstrength 4y ago
Sounds more like a list of problems with Framework. Battery life on my x1c is similar to Windows (TLP FTW!) and with working S3 (what Lenovo calls "Sleep mode: Linux" in their BIOS) battery drain during sleep is very low. Can't say anything about quality of Bluetooth stack though since I don't use it.
duped 4y ago
I've noticed this on my framework running Pop but my XPS running Ubuntu has comparable battery life to the last MacBook I owned (granted, these are now both "old" laptops relative to the contemporary designs that have ludicrous battery life). I will say I agree, you can't use a Linux laptop and take a video call without being tethered to power.
outworlder 4y ago
> Linux on a laptop is awful. YMMV Sounds like something that Framework should fix. There's nothing wrong with the Linux kernel per-se. I have an older Dell Chromebook (turned into a Linux machine once Google stopped OS updates). Battery drain during sleep is pretty significant with either ChromeOS or Linux.
gausswho 4y ago
Adding TLP (https://linrunner.de/tlp/index.html https://linrunner.de/tlp/index.html) significantly improved sleep battery drain on my Manjaro based Framework laptop.
isr 4y ago
Well, as long as we're sharing personal anecdotes as absolute judgements, then allow me to throw my own hat into the ring. I have never had a problem with suspend, hibernate, nor excessive battery drain (beyond what the hardware should do) on any of linux laptop setups. Thats starting from a thinkpad in 1998 (yes), all the way to my current amd 4800 tongfeng (generic chinese oem laptop maker). Along with quite a few chromebooks thrown in along the way (all of which were developer-mode enabled, WITH secure verified boot turned back on, so had full access to linux apps WITHOUT using crostini vm's). But, seeing as how chromebooks are essentially machines running GENTOO LINUX with a custom google ebuild overlay, then perhaps their reliability should be another plus checkmark for "linux on laptops", and not somehow a ding against that. Anyway, take that for what its worth ...

cbsmith 4y ago

System76 seems to have finally gotten to the bottom of the battery issues with their Lemur Pro. It's all about the drivers, and getting drivers that do power management right for devices that are miserly is surprisingly difficult.

hutzlibu 4y ago
Can you confirm this for your own device? I am really waiting for a linux laptop, which is truly mobile. I also rather went with chromebooks so far.
- cbsmith 4y ago
  Note personally (all my laptops are provided by work, and they don't do System76 :-(), but you don't have to look far to see people talking about the battery life: https://www.reddit.com/r/System76/comments/n235vc/a_lemur_pro_review_months_later/ https://www.reddit.com/r/System76/comments/n235vc/a_lemur_pr...

binkHN 4y ago

I concur. While I know all the world is Linux, I run OpenBSD on many of my hobby systems. I love OpenBSD’s simplicity, but, IMHO, it’s missing too many things to be a good laptop OS. With ChromeOS I get the support a laptop environment requires, while still having the Debian VM to take things further.

xorcist 4y ago

> Even on a device designed to support Linux (Framework, Thinkpad, whatever) There's apparently a world of difference. Nothing about the Framework suggests it was designed for Linux. A proper Thinkpad does not have issues with hibernation, or losing battery, or graphics, or any of the other things you mentioned. I just want something that works, and will receive updates as long as there are users. I don't want to muck about with VMs, or Crostini, or whatever it's called. Sounds like I must never let go of my Thinkpad.

Arainach 4y ago
I'm glad you've had that experience, but it hasn't been mine. I've owned other laptops running Linux and have had plenty of coworkers with experiences as well. Heck, there's an entire team at Google dedicated (full of incredibly smart people who know way more about Linux than I ever will) to trying to get Linux running well on laptops. Plenty of people shared their experiences in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32293541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32293541 The vast majority of people I know who tried running Linux on their laptop switched to Mac/Windows/ChromeOS. Containers and subsystems like WSLv2 or Crostini make it mostly painless to do Linux development while having a host operating system that has people paid to make the experience great rather than volunteers who generally want to work on shiny algorithms rather than fixing UX bugs. More specifically: I've run Windows on the Framework and it was generally great (I wished it was a touchscreen, but that's about it). Maybe with the right magical device I could get a great Linux experience, but it's not worth having to search and compromise for me. I can install Windows on anything and it will work. I can buy any of the few Macbooks on sale and it will just work. I can buy any Chromebook and it will largely work out of the box. Linux is the only OS that makes me carefully check that my exact set of chipsets and components will probably not be a complete disaster. I buy laptops based on their hardware specs (screen, keyboard, trackpad, weight, ports) rather than their compatibility with an operating system.
- outworlder 4y ago
  > I can install Windows on anything and it will work. Not necessarily. There's plenty of instances of devices working poorly in Windows before the issues get patched (if they are at all). If you want something that 'just works', you are indeed better with the Apple ecosystem. They control the hardware and software. The only way around these issues is to pressure vendors to provide better Linux support. The only reason Windows laptops tend to work better out of the box (or at least with all hardware working to some extent) is because of all the testing done by vendors.

caskstrength 4y ago

Sounds more like a list of problems with Framework. Battery life on my x1c is similar to Windows (TLP FTW!) and with working S3 (what Lenovo calls "Sleep mode: Linux" in their BIOS) battery drain during sleep is very low. Can't say anything about quality of Bluetooth stack though since I don't use it.

duped 4y ago

I've noticed this on my framework running Pop but my XPS running Ubuntu has comparable battery life to the last MacBook I owned (granted, these are now both "old" laptops relative to the contemporary designs that have ludicrous battery life). I will say I agree, you can't use a Linux laptop and take a video call without being tethered to power.

outworlder 4y ago

> Linux on a laptop is awful. YMMV Sounds like something that Framework should fix. There's nothing wrong with the Linux kernel per-se. I have an older Dell Chromebook (turned into a Linux machine once Google stopped OS updates). Battery drain during sleep is pretty significant with either ChromeOS or Linux.

gausswho 4y ago

Adding TLP (https://linrunner.de/tlp/index.html https://linrunner.de/tlp/index.html) significantly improved sleep battery drain on my Manjaro based Framework laptop.

isr 4y ago

Well, as long as we're sharing personal anecdotes as absolute judgements, then allow me to throw my own hat into the ring. I have never had a problem with suspend, hibernate, nor excessive battery drain (beyond what the hardware should do) on any of linux laptop setups. Thats starting from a thinkpad in 1998 (yes), all the way to my current amd 4800 tongfeng (generic chinese oem laptop maker). Along with quite a few chromebooks thrown in along the way (all of which were developer-mode enabled, WITH secure verified boot turned back on, so had full access to linux apps WITHOUT using crostini vm's). But, seeing as how chromebooks are essentially machines running GENTOO LINUX with a custom google ebuild overlay, then perhaps their reliability should be another plus checkmark for "linux on laptops", and not somehow a ding against that. Anyway, take that for what its worth ...