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To me the year of Linux on a desktop arrived years ago. I'm waiting for the year of Linux on a laptop, because unfortunately, and I'm a free software supporter,

To me the year of Linux on a desktop arrived years ago. I'm waiting for the year of Linux on a laptop, because unfortunately, and I'm a free software supporter, I've to say that a Macbook works objectively better than a laptop with Linux on it (and there is small to blame to Linux to be fair, but to hardware manufacturers that doesn't provide a good support, and to be fair even Windows on the same hardware doesn't work that great in most laptop that I see...).

thecrumb 4y ago
What issues do you run into? I run PopOS on an ancient ThinkPad T420 and a new Lenovo P15 - no issues on either one. Wifi works. Decent battery life.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  The classic problems are suspend and hibernation issues, along with worse performance and battery life compared to windows (with manufactur optimised drivers).
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  I can't get Linux to not drain my laptop battery when the lid is closed. On my M1 Air I can close the lid and come back a week later with maybe a couple percent less battery; on my Framework with PopOS it drains after just a day (default settings).
  - fullstop 4y ago
    Same experience here. Also, getting Pop!_OS configured to hibernate looked quite daunting and not worth the effort if you have an existing install.
  - hatch_q 4y ago
    Probably goes to S2 instead of S3 deep sleep. Had the same issue on microsoft surface (running Linux on it) - i needed to tweak few kernel flags to force it into deep sleep.
- jnovek 4y ago
  I run Linux on a T480s and it’s pretty good, but there are issues. I’m using Ubuntu 22.04. It’s comfortably usable for me but it would be silly to pretend that these things aren’t major problems for many (perhaps a majority) users. Off the top of my head: - Waking from sleep with the lid closed while using an external monitor straight-up doesn’t work. Not with keyboard and mouse input, not even by hitting the power button. - Thunderbolt hotplugging JUST started working in 22.04, and it still flakes out quite a bit. I think my laptop would normally maintain days to weeks of uptime if it weren’t for Thunderbolt-related issues. - Battery life in-use is like three hours, max. I’ve never used anything but Linux in this machine so I don’t know how battery life stacks up in Windows, but I know that I was using a MacBook Air at work over a decade ago that did 6+ hours. I strongly prefer to run Linux and I’ve used it as my primary desktop OS since 2001, but I can’t think of a single Linux laptop in the past 22 years that hasn’t presented me with significant problems that I had to either work around or accept.
  - wildrhythms 4y ago
    +1 to all of these, plus any time I need some sort of mixed UI scaling, like 1.25x on the laptop and 1.75x on my extended display, it introduces a whole skew of problems, like applications not rescaling themselves when they move to the other display, blurry text all over the place, when I disconnect the external display out of frustration the windows don't migrate back to the internal display properly... ironically i3wm/swaywm with some very specific configuration works best for me, but the out-of-the-box experience on common DEs is awful. Windows and Mac OS have largely solved these problems.
  - bluedino 4y ago
    Have you activated tlp? That should double your battery life, I use a T490 and had to install that to get battery life comparable to when running Windows
- sirius87 4y ago
  Two things I really miss having moved to Linux are the MBP touchpad and power management (battery-life/sleep/hibernate). There are also weird audio/mic UX issues. Not sure if this is the same across all platforms, but - I usually have my laptop hooked up to an external monitor, audio output set to the external monitor, and my headphones plugged into the monitor. Yesterday, I locked my desktop and stepped away from my desk with the music still playing. When I came back, music was playing out loud from the laptop speaker. That's because the monitor went to sleep, so the HDMI audio sink went away, and the OS "helpfully" switched audio output to the laptop speaker which was set to full volume. Logically, it makes sense that would happen. Clearly, I am to blame.
code-blooded 4y ago
I'm having a very different experience. I've been using Linux on and off for many years, but 2022 was the first time I installed it on a new laptop (Thinkpad X1 Carbon) and I like my overall setup + work experience more than on a MacBook Pro. I was able to tweak a lot of things related to my flow that are more difficult to tweak on macOS. Battery life is excellent, performance maybe not on-par with M1, but still very good and I like the keyboard a lot more. Long live Linux. Edit: Oh yeah, the hibernation is still crappy on Linux, but suspend works well and the laptop starts extremely quickly.
- nequo 4y ago
  After so many years, it is shocking how much better the ThinkPad’s keyboard still is than even a MacBook’s. What WM or DE do you use? Is there anything that you miss from the macOS GUI?
  - code-blooded 4y ago
    I use GNOME with a few extensions. I love that GNOME setup that comes with PopOS has great keyboard shortcuts, snapping and tiling (if desired - on my 14" laptop I don't use it much) out of the box. From macOS GUI I miss: 1) And the only big one: a good implementation of fractional scaling. Not an issue for the current laptop, but likely will annoy the hell out of me once I upgrade to 1600p in the future. 2) Screen casting works better on macOS. 3) (nit-picky) emoji selector 4) The ability to instantly look up answers to all GUI problems, because so many devs use macOS.
- kcartlidge 4y ago
  I'm curious about the battery life on the X1 Carbon (and the model/specs). I'm on an M1 Air, but over the years I've also been running (mainly) Mint on various ThinkPads and whilst I loved the experience I never got more than a few hours. And I'm now getting days with Mac OS on the Air, which is the main reason I'm using it - I have become used to not worrying about the battery life, and certainly never having to constrain performance workloads to preserve it. So I read "Battery life is excellent" and am curious. I get that it won't be M1 (ARM) level, but for doing stuff like a mix of writing plus development (with for example smallish Go compilations) do you have a feel for any kind of averages?
JodieBenitez 4y ago
Same here... should I use a desktop computer, Linux has been fine for that for quite a while. Laptop is an entirely different matter though. When called to the meeting room, it's sure fun to see my colleagues go there with their lid open and their chargers.
javajosh 4y ago
Agree macOS on M1 is the best DX you can get today. However, I've been running Ubuntu 22 on a Framework (Intel 11th gen) laptop - and it's 90% of the DX of macOS.
- washadjeffmad 4y ago
  My $150 Costco special 14" 1080P Chromebook gets as much use as my M1 MacBook Pro because it's also 90% of the DX of a system 10x its cost. I was initially interested by the Framework, but if I'm spending $1000 or more, I really don't want something that generic in every regard. After moving to OLED, HDR, and/or HFR this year, "here's a laptop that might cost you less if it fails from a repairable issue outside of our 1-year limited warranty, otherwise it's another $1000 for a new mainboard" didn't seem like that awesome a feature in the face of AppleCare+, upcycled ThinkPads, etc.
mistrial9 4y ago
don't you understand that MSFT and OEM contracts are literally locking the boot process right now -- the cheaper the laptop, the more locking of the boot process. This is an active situation, while smart people here wail like sheep
davidy123 4y ago
I dunno what you're talking about. I have a 2022 T14s with AMD 6850U. It runs fast and battery lasts at least 5h (not epic, but more than good enough for a day, and I've done no tuning whatsoever). As a daily driver, I have not had serious problems with Linux (Ubuntu) on a notebook (though I stick to Thinkpads) for a long, long time. Until about 5 years ago, battery story wasn't great, but no real issues since then. Have not had problems with suspend to RAM or other day to day features in quite a long time. In fact I tried a Macbook around 2000 and it had those problems, couldn't wait to get rid of that silver blimp. While hacking is neat, I prefer things to just work with an -intentionally- open ecosystem, one that can't be taken away because of a marketing decision disguised as something else, with companies that are there for this fundamental idea first, and am more than happy with the constant ability to manage the system comprehensively.
- jnovek 4y ago
  It’s not hard to find examples of people having problems with Linux on modern laptop hardware, there are already half a dozen anecdotes as I’m typing this if you scroll down the thread a bit. I don’t know why this is such a thing in Linux-land, but people love to say, “works for me, case closed”. Desktop Linux is more forgiving with each passing year, but it’s not productive to ignore problems just because you aren’t experiencing them.
  - davidy123 4y ago
    Well, in one case you have "it works great, just make sure you have reasonably supported hardware" out of thousands of choices, on the other, you have "You have to use Apple hardware." So I think it's more than reasonable. As for the "5h is not enough" comments, it seems like a pretty arbitrary number, my work days are not usually longer than 5h per location. USB chargers these days are tiny and ubiquitious, planes have outlets, so it's really not a big deal as a tradeoff for an intentionally open system. People make it sound like they're walking around naked in the world with only their Macbook for weeks at a time and that's the only reality they accept. If I were doing a weighted choice, at least 5h battery would be critical, but anything more than that is a frill compared to an open ecosystem, which is the world I want to live in.
kodah 4y ago
Linux doesn't run as universally on laptops as Windows does. Microsoft has an army of programmers and partnerships that make that happen, Linux has demand and voluntary contributions. My Lenovo X1 Extreme runs Linux great, but Lenovo now produces Linux drivers on a regular schedule. Most other folks rely on generic drivers.
vanderZwan 4y ago
Yeah, the blame only matters in the sense of where to demand a fix. Whether or not to put up with the struggle is largely independent of that.
buu700 4y ago
I have to agree. My M2 Air is a fantastic dev machine. I'm looking forward to installing an immutable Linux with 100% working and stable hardware support, sleep, multitouch, Wayland, etc., but in the meantime all I can do is continue donating to marcan and crossing my fingers.

thecrumb 4y ago

What issues do you run into? I run PopOS on an ancient ThinkPad T420 and a new Lenovo P15 - no issues on either one. Wifi works. Decent battery life.

hutzlibu 4y ago
The classic problems are suspend and hibernation issues, along with worse performance and battery life compared to windows (with manufactur optimised drivers).
wildrhythms 4y ago
I can't get Linux to not drain my laptop battery when the lid is closed. On my M1 Air I can close the lid and come back a week later with maybe a couple percent less battery; on my Framework with PopOS it drains after just a day (default settings).
- fullstop 4y ago
  Same experience here. Also, getting Pop!_OS configured to hibernate looked quite daunting and not worth the effort if you have an existing install.
- hatch_q 4y ago
  Probably goes to S2 instead of S3 deep sleep. Had the same issue on microsoft surface (running Linux on it) - i needed to tweak few kernel flags to force it into deep sleep.
jnovek 4y ago
I run Linux on a T480s and it’s pretty good, but there are issues. I’m using Ubuntu 22.04. It’s comfortably usable for me but it would be silly to pretend that these things aren’t major problems for many (perhaps a majority) users. Off the top of my head: - Waking from sleep with the lid closed while using an external monitor straight-up doesn’t work. Not with keyboard and mouse input, not even by hitting the power button. - Thunderbolt hotplugging JUST started working in 22.04, and it still flakes out quite a bit. I think my laptop would normally maintain days to weeks of uptime if it weren’t for Thunderbolt-related issues. - Battery life in-use is like three hours, max. I’ve never used anything but Linux in this machine so I don’t know how battery life stacks up in Windows, but I know that I was using a MacBook Air at work over a decade ago that did 6+ hours. I strongly prefer to run Linux and I’ve used it as my primary desktop OS since 2001, but I can’t think of a single Linux laptop in the past 22 years that hasn’t presented me with significant problems that I had to either work around or accept.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  +1 to all of these, plus any time I need some sort of mixed UI scaling, like 1.25x on the laptop and 1.75x on my extended display, it introduces a whole skew of problems, like applications not rescaling themselves when they move to the other display, blurry text all over the place, when I disconnect the external display out of frustration the windows don't migrate back to the internal display properly... ironically i3wm/swaywm with some very specific configuration works best for me, but the out-of-the-box experience on common DEs is awful. Windows and Mac OS have largely solved these problems.
- bluedino 4y ago
  Have you activated tlp? That should double your battery life, I use a T490 and had to install that to get battery life comparable to when running Windows
sirius87 4y ago
Two things I really miss having moved to Linux are the MBP touchpad and power management (battery-life/sleep/hibernate). There are also weird audio/mic UX issues. Not sure if this is the same across all platforms, but - I usually have my laptop hooked up to an external monitor, audio output set to the external monitor, and my headphones plugged into the monitor. Yesterday, I locked my desktop and stepped away from my desk with the music still playing. When I came back, music was playing out loud from the laptop speaker. That's because the monitor went to sleep, so the HDMI audio sink went away, and the OS "helpfully" switched audio output to the laptop speaker which was set to full volume. Logically, it makes sense that would happen. Clearly, I am to blame.

code-blooded 4y ago

I'm having a very different experience. I've been using Linux on and off for many years, but 2022 was the first time I installed it on a new laptop (Thinkpad X1 Carbon) and I like my overall setup + work experience more than on a MacBook Pro. I was able to tweak a lot of things related to my flow that are more difficult to tweak on macOS. Battery life is excellent, performance maybe not on-par with M1, but still very good and I like the keyboard a lot more. Long live Linux. Edit: Oh yeah, the hibernation is still crappy on Linux, but suspend works well and the laptop starts extremely quickly.

nequo 4y ago
After so many years, it is shocking how much better the ThinkPad’s keyboard still is than even a MacBook’s. What WM or DE do you use? Is there anything that you miss from the macOS GUI?
- code-blooded 4y ago
  I use GNOME with a few extensions. I love that GNOME setup that comes with PopOS has great keyboard shortcuts, snapping and tiling (if desired - on my 14" laptop I don't use it much) out of the box. From macOS GUI I miss: 1) And the only big one: a good implementation of fractional scaling. Not an issue for the current laptop, but likely will annoy the hell out of me once I upgrade to 1600p in the future. 2) Screen casting works better on macOS. 3) (nit-picky) emoji selector 4) The ability to instantly look up answers to all GUI problems, because so many devs use macOS.
kcartlidge 4y ago
I'm curious about the battery life on the X1 Carbon (and the model/specs). I'm on an M1 Air, but over the years I've also been running (mainly) Mint on various ThinkPads and whilst I loved the experience I never got more than a few hours. And I'm now getting days with Mac OS on the Air, which is the main reason I'm using it - I have become used to not worrying about the battery life, and certainly never having to constrain performance workloads to preserve it. So I read "Battery life is excellent" and am curious. I get that it won't be M1 (ARM) level, but for doing stuff like a mix of writing plus development (with for example smallish Go compilations) do you have a feel for any kind of averages?

JodieBenitez 4y ago

Same here... should I use a desktop computer, Linux has been fine for that for quite a while. Laptop is an entirely different matter though. When called to the meeting room, it's sure fun to see my colleagues go there with their lid open and their chargers.

javajosh 4y ago

Agree macOS on M1 is the best DX you can get today. However, I've been running Ubuntu 22 on a Framework (Intel 11th gen) laptop - and it's 90% of the DX of macOS.

washadjeffmad 4y ago
My $150 Costco special 14" 1080P Chromebook gets as much use as my M1 MacBook Pro because it's also 90% of the DX of a system 10x its cost. I was initially interested by the Framework, but if I'm spending $1000 or more, I really don't want something that generic in every regard. After moving to OLED, HDR, and/or HFR this year, "here's a laptop that might cost you less if it fails from a repairable issue outside of our 1-year limited warranty, otherwise it's another $1000 for a new mainboard" didn't seem like that awesome a feature in the face of AppleCare+, upcycled ThinkPads, etc.

mistrial9 4y ago

don't you understand that MSFT and OEM contracts are literally locking the boot process right now -- the cheaper the laptop, the more locking of the boot process. This is an active situation, while smart people here wail like sheep

davidy123 4y ago

I dunno what you're talking about. I have a 2022 T14s with AMD 6850U. It runs fast and battery lasts at least 5h (not epic, but more than good enough for a day, and I've done no tuning whatsoever). As a daily driver, I have not had serious problems with Linux (Ubuntu) on a notebook (though I stick to Thinkpads) for a long, long time. Until about 5 years ago, battery story wasn't great, but no real issues since then. Have not had problems with suspend to RAM or other day to day features in quite a long time. In fact I tried a Macbook around 2000 and it had those problems, couldn't wait to get rid of that silver blimp. While hacking is neat, I prefer things to just work with an -intentionally- open ecosystem, one that can't be taken away because of a marketing decision disguised as something else, with companies that are there for this fundamental idea first, and am more than happy with the constant ability to manage the system comprehensively.

jnovek 4y ago
It’s not hard to find examples of people having problems with Linux on modern laptop hardware, there are already half a dozen anecdotes as I’m typing this if you scroll down the thread a bit. I don’t know why this is such a thing in Linux-land, but people love to say, “works for me, case closed”. Desktop Linux is more forgiving with each passing year, but it’s not productive to ignore problems just because you aren’t experiencing them.
- davidy123 4y ago
  Well, in one case you have "it works great, just make sure you have reasonably supported hardware" out of thousands of choices, on the other, you have "You have to use Apple hardware." So I think it's more than reasonable. As for the "5h is not enough" comments, it seems like a pretty arbitrary number, my work days are not usually longer than 5h per location. USB chargers these days are tiny and ubiquitious, planes have outlets, so it's really not a big deal as a tradeoff for an intentionally open system. People make it sound like they're walking around naked in the world with only their Macbook for weeks at a time and that's the only reality they accept. If I were doing a weighted choice, at least 5h battery would be critical, but anything more than that is a frill compared to an open ecosystem, which is the world I want to live in.

kodah 4y ago

Linux doesn't run as universally on laptops as Windows does. Microsoft has an army of programmers and partnerships that make that happen, Linux has demand and voluntary contributions. My Lenovo X1 Extreme runs Linux great, but Lenovo now produces Linux drivers on a regular schedule. Most other folks rely on generic drivers.

vanderZwan 4y ago

Yeah, the blame only matters in the sense of where to demand a fix. Whether or not to put up with the struggle is largely independent of that.

buu700 4y ago

I have to agree. My M2 Air is a fantastic dev machine. I'm looking forward to installing an immutable Linux with 100% working and stable hardware support, sleep, multitouch, Wayland, etc., but in the meantime all I can do is continue donating to marcan and crossing my fingers.