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This is the author's comment fwiw: ---- [Author here] > it is time you replaced that 13 year old laptop You tell me where I can buy one that's as good, has l

by rirze 2y ago

This is the author's comment fwiw: ---- [Author here] > it is time you replaced that 13 year old laptop You tell me where I can buy one that's as good, has lots of ports and easily-expanded RAM, disk etc, with above all else an excellent full-sized keyboard that isn't flat, isn't chiclet style, doesn't have half-size Fn keys that default to pointless media controls, and I'll think about it. The reason I use the things is because every more modern device I have seen or tried is inferior. --- Like the author acknowledges in the last few paragraphs, CachyOS is great on modern hardware. But using it to draw out performance from an old laptop is not it. I'm not surprised by the outcome of this article.

bastawhiz 2y ago
I think it's not unreasonable to expect that a perf-focused distro would perform poorly on old hardware. But I also think that a double digit percentage of the included window managers shouldn't fail, and the install shouldn't fail, and the system should reliably get through the boot process. In fact, the author of the article really didn't complain at all about the performance, they complained that the distro has rough edges that shouldn't really exist on any hardware. That said, I'm not sure what the author of the article was trying to do by testing this distro on old hardware. Even assuming the rough edges didn't exist, how useful is it to know how well it runs on hardware that's old enough to be in middle school? This is clearly not a distro for people with old hardware, so what reader is the author trying to reach? At best they were hoping it would breathe new life into the device (but it's pretty clear that's not what it was meant to do) and at worst they were looking to publish a "gotcha" article about how the distro didn't live up to the expectations.
snakeyjake 2y ago
>The reason I use the things is because every more modern device I have seen or tried is inferior. The Linux advocate's obsession with ThinkPads is baffling. Lenovo, through their phone and consumer device divisions mainly, has been accused of more GPL violations than practically every other company on Earth combined and that's only slight hyperbole. Plus, all of the security and privacy violations which make Microsoft look like a concerned and caring best friend. I suppose seeing sticker-clad ThinkPads at conferences makes it easy to see who is cosplaying as someone who cares, like a speaker at an PETA meeting arriving in a (SECOND HAND, BRAH! I didn't buy this NEW! GAWH!) fur coat.
- hakfoo 2y ago
  The appeal of Thinkpads is that they're more or less predictable. Some manufacturers tend to swing wildly from "really great" to "terrible and flimsy" from generation to generation. Thinkpads may, like everything else, be slowly enshittifying, but you can pretty much buy one at random and it probably won't creak when you pick it up, or overheat due to insufficient cooling capacity. On a per-model level they also tend to be very well documented. Knowing that it comes with specific wireless and GPU choices is important for Linux support, and is the sort of thing that they don't do with some cheap consumer laptops. I wish there were other manufacturers that did the same thing. I've heard good things about some specific commercial-grade Dell and HP ranges, but it seems like they don't have the same broad range... and often no trackpoint-alike.
retrochameleon 2y ago
https://frame.work https://frame.work

by rirze 2y ago

bastawhiz 2y ago

I think it's not unreasonable to expect that a perf-focused distro would perform poorly on old hardware. But I also think that a double digit percentage of the included window managers shouldn't fail, and the install shouldn't fail, and the system should reliably get through the boot process. In fact, the author of the article really didn't complain at all about the performance, they complained that the distro has rough edges that shouldn't really exist on any hardware. That said, I'm not sure what the author of the article was trying to do by testing this distro on old hardware. Even assuming the rough edges didn't exist, how useful is it to know how well it runs on hardware that's old enough to be in middle school? This is clearly not a distro for people with old hardware, so what reader is the author trying to reach? At best they were hoping it would breathe new life into the device (but it's pretty clear that's not what it was meant to do) and at worst they were looking to publish a "gotcha" article about how the distro didn't live up to the expectations.

snakeyjake 2y ago

>The reason I use the things is because every more modern device I have seen or tried is inferior. The Linux advocate's obsession with ThinkPads is baffling. Lenovo, through their phone and consumer device divisions mainly, has been accused of more GPL violations than practically every other company on Earth combined and that's only slight hyperbole. Plus, all of the security and privacy violations which make Microsoft look like a concerned and caring best friend. I suppose seeing sticker-clad ThinkPads at conferences makes it easy to see who is cosplaying as someone who cares, like a speaker at an PETA meeting arriving in a (SECOND HAND, BRAH! I didn't buy this NEW! GAWH!) fur coat.

hakfoo 2y ago
The appeal of Thinkpads is that they're more or less predictable. Some manufacturers tend to swing wildly from "really great" to "terrible and flimsy" from generation to generation. Thinkpads may, like everything else, be slowly enshittifying, but you can pretty much buy one at random and it probably won't creak when you pick it up, or overheat due to insufficient cooling capacity. On a per-model level they also tend to be very well documented. Knowing that it comes with specific wireless and GPU choices is important for Linux support, and is the sort of thing that they don't do with some cheap consumer laptops. I wish there were other manufacturers that did the same thing. I've heard good things about some specific commercial-grade Dell and HP ranges, but it seems like they don't have the same broad range... and often no trackpoint-alike.

retrochameleon 2y ago

https://frame.work https://frame.work