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I don't get why people still spread the lie that you have to tinker with Linux. Like right now, I can give you a laptop with a clean Linux Mint install, and you

I don't get why people still spread the lie that you have to tinker with Linux. Like right now, I can give you a laptop with a clean Linux Mint install, and you never have to touch the terminal for anything system config to do work. Seriously, its not that hard to say that you prefer MacOS because you like the feel of it. It does a lot of handholding for you, unlike Linux, which makes it way less likely for you to mess something up. You don't have to go the extra lengths to justify it lol.

mh- 2y ago
> I don't get why people still spread the lie that you have to tinker with Linux. It doesn't feel charitable to call people sharing their experience "spreading the lie". You're all over this thread talking to people that way. If you're trying to make the case that desktop Linux no longer has this characteristic, this isn't the way to go about it.
aunty_helen 2y ago
I’ll put this out there, currently there’s no better platform than macOS on apple silicon for developing ai systems. I’m not a stranger to Linux or the command line. I own, use, configure servers as part of my business, including the dreaded on metal cuda install. In fact, the terminal integration in macOS is one of the biggest things over windows for me. But, every time I try linux desktop, for the past 20 years, it’s been a horrible time sink and has driven home the point that building a competent and most importantly consistent gui based os is harder than everyone gives it credit for. I stopped using Linux mint after installing it on my desktop and having the screen saver require a hard reboot -sometimes- when trying to wake.
- ActorNightly 2y ago
  >there’s no better platform than macOS on apple silicon for developing ai systems. Lmao WHAT? The ANE system isn't even remotely useful, since is primarily designed for running Apple AI stuff. This is why its integration is so spotty. IIRC, Tinygrad is faster on apple silicon than pytorch at this moment, solely because they did a whole bunch of reverse engineering. Laptops for ML is just a lost cause as far as matrix multiply is concerned. Nobody is actually doing any serious work on ML stuff on laptops. >In fact, the terminal integration in macOS is one of the biggest things over windows for me. Which is funny, because Windows has WSL2 which works incredibly well, has native CUDA integration for ML tasks thats quite good, has an X server that lets you run GUI apps, and is actually linux (not BSD), without anything to get in your way, and its better because its an isolated system that you don't have to worry about bricking and not having a usable computer. > stopped using Linux mint after installing it on my desktop and having the screen saver require a hard reboot -sometimes- when trying to wake. The standard argument of "here is a particular bug that doesn't exist on Macs, therefore Macs are better" lol. Like I said, its not really that difficult to say that you just prefer the Mac OS experience and end it there. You don't have to go on these weird tangents.
  - itsoktocry 2y ago
    >The standard argument of "here is a particular bug that doesn't exist on Macs, therefore Macs are better" lol. Yeah, this article is literally about an annoying MacOS bug. I use a Mac 8 hours a day for work; it's a great machine, but I bet I'd have 20 glitches and annoyances that I work around, by reflex, all the time. MacOS is good, but it's certainly not flawless. And if it wasn't for Apple's magnificent hardware, I'm not even sure it's the best.
    - ActorNightly 2y ago
      > And if it wasn't for Apple's magnificent hardware, I would agree with this sentiment if people said something like "Apple has gotten the hardware right with the current gen, but the intel macs were colossal pieces of shit in both hardware and software".
  - aunty_helen 2y ago
    >Nobody is actually doing any serious work on ML stuff on laptops. Was just training a 52gb radiology model. Please point me in the direction of any other platform that can do that for 5k. >Windows has WSL2 Macos can run VMs too. >here is a particular bug that doesn't exist on Macs Yes, my laptop doesn't require a hard reboot after closing the lid. Linux fans won't understand this. If you want more particular bugs, network drivers, amd video cards, trackpad not clicking on the login screen, screen resizing, external monitors via usbc, TweaksUI as a concept. There's no point pretending this isn't a thing, everyone has a story. As I said, I'm not new here. I've been using linux for 20 years. Linux desktop is garbage no matter the tangent you want to explore. I have 3 developers using windows so know all about developing ai with wsl and the fun problems that come along with that.
justonenote 2y ago
That really depends on what type of work you are doing and your specific combo of hardware. And yes you can do work, but when sleep and power management doesn't work it's a significant QoL downgrade. If you want to use CUDA as a simple example, you'll have to go through the process of using nvidia proprietary drivers and I'm far from well versed on it but that gives me random warnings and I don't quite get the compatibility between it and Xorg/Wayland or which combo to use and I have on more than one laptop ended up with a system that works but that the desktop randomly freezes requiring a hard reboot. I still do use Linux Desktop and try various different Debian based or Fedora distros out but you definitely do end up tinkering. I don't use MacOS fwiw.
- ActorNightly 2y ago
  The only issue that I have ever had with drivers is when the ubuntu automatic install defaulted to the latest open source ones which weren't being recognized. For a whole bunch of other installations, following official linux instructions on Nvidia works incredibly well. Im probably up to like 30 installs of linux mint on laptops and desktops, without issues. I had a personal laptop with manjaro that suppored nvidia prime, I didn't even have to do anything special, just installed nvidia-smi, and prime-run worked out of the box. And generally, for equal comparison, I wouldn't consider laptops with discrete graphics to be in the same family as more business oriented Macs, the more apt comparison would be those with AMD chips with integrated video drivers, for which you don't need to fuck with any drivers.
  - justonenote 2y ago
    I don't know maybe I've just been unlucky, but at least for me on a couple of different laptops I regularly get full desktop freezes on Debian & Fedora from using things like VMs / GPU accelerated browser (Chrome) / Other things (I don't actually use CUDA/AI much at all but I suspect the issues come from sharing of GPU resources across apps, could be wrong) This doesn't happen on Windows nearly as much on the same laptops, I don't use Macs that much. And yes I agree it does seem more of an issue with laptops with discrete graphics. I do still use Linux desktop a lot, I'm happy to take the trade-off but my point was just that depending on the work you do, or the features of the laptop you want to use, like power mgmt or bluetooth, there will be tinkering. (and yes this is entirely manufacturers fault)
pjmlp 2y ago
Linux on laptops is lots of fun, last one was getting UEFI to even acknowledge there was anything Linux related on a SSD.

mh- 2y ago

> I don't get why people still spread the lie that you have to tinker with Linux. It doesn't feel charitable to call people sharing their experience "spreading the lie". You're all over this thread talking to people that way. If you're trying to make the case that desktop Linux no longer has this characteristic, this isn't the way to go about it.

aunty_helen 2y ago

I’ll put this out there, currently there’s no better platform than macOS on apple silicon for developing ai systems. I’m not a stranger to Linux or the command line. I own, use, configure servers as part of my business, including the dreaded on metal cuda install. In fact, the terminal integration in macOS is one of the biggest things over windows for me. But, every time I try linux desktop, for the past 20 years, it’s been a horrible time sink and has driven home the point that building a competent and most importantly consistent gui based os is harder than everyone gives it credit for. I stopped using Linux mint after installing it on my desktop and having the screen saver require a hard reboot -sometimes- when trying to wake.

ActorNightly 2y ago
>there’s no better platform than macOS on apple silicon for developing ai systems. Lmao WHAT? The ANE system isn't even remotely useful, since is primarily designed for running Apple AI stuff. This is why its integration is so spotty. IIRC, Tinygrad is faster on apple silicon than pytorch at this moment, solely because they did a whole bunch of reverse engineering. Laptops for ML is just a lost cause as far as matrix multiply is concerned. Nobody is actually doing any serious work on ML stuff on laptops. >In fact, the terminal integration in macOS is one of the biggest things over windows for me. Which is funny, because Windows has WSL2 which works incredibly well, has native CUDA integration for ML tasks thats quite good, has an X server that lets you run GUI apps, and is actually linux (not BSD), without anything to get in your way, and its better because its an isolated system that you don't have to worry about bricking and not having a usable computer. > stopped using Linux mint after installing it on my desktop and having the screen saver require a hard reboot -sometimes- when trying to wake. The standard argument of "here is a particular bug that doesn't exist on Macs, therefore Macs are better" lol. Like I said, its not really that difficult to say that you just prefer the Mac OS experience and end it there. You don't have to go on these weird tangents.
- itsoktocry 2y ago
  >The standard argument of "here is a particular bug that doesn't exist on Macs, therefore Macs are better" lol. Yeah, this article is literally about an annoying MacOS bug. I use a Mac 8 hours a day for work; it's a great machine, but I bet I'd have 20 glitches and annoyances that I work around, by reflex, all the time. MacOS is good, but it's certainly not flawless. And if it wasn't for Apple's magnificent hardware, I'm not even sure it's the best.
  - ActorNightly 2y ago
    > And if it wasn't for Apple's magnificent hardware, I would agree with this sentiment if people said something like "Apple has gotten the hardware right with the current gen, but the intel macs were colossal pieces of shit in both hardware and software".
- aunty_helen 2y ago
  >Nobody is actually doing any serious work on ML stuff on laptops. Was just training a 52gb radiology model. Please point me in the direction of any other platform that can do that for 5k. >Windows has WSL2 Macos can run VMs too. >here is a particular bug that doesn't exist on Macs Yes, my laptop doesn't require a hard reboot after closing the lid. Linux fans won't understand this. If you want more particular bugs, network drivers, amd video cards, trackpad not clicking on the login screen, screen resizing, external monitors via usbc, TweaksUI as a concept. There's no point pretending this isn't a thing, everyone has a story. As I said, I'm not new here. I've been using linux for 20 years. Linux desktop is garbage no matter the tangent you want to explore. I have 3 developers using windows so know all about developing ai with wsl and the fun problems that come along with that.

justonenote 2y ago

That really depends on what type of work you are doing and your specific combo of hardware. And yes you can do work, but when sleep and power management doesn't work it's a significant QoL downgrade. If you want to use CUDA as a simple example, you'll have to go through the process of using nvidia proprietary drivers and I'm far from well versed on it but that gives me random warnings and I don't quite get the compatibility between it and Xorg/Wayland or which combo to use and I have on more than one laptop ended up with a system that works but that the desktop randomly freezes requiring a hard reboot. I still do use Linux Desktop and try various different Debian based or Fedora distros out but you definitely do end up tinkering. I don't use MacOS fwiw.

ActorNightly 2y ago
The only issue that I have ever had with drivers is when the ubuntu automatic install defaulted to the latest open source ones which weren't being recognized. For a whole bunch of other installations, following official linux instructions on Nvidia works incredibly well. Im probably up to like 30 installs of linux mint on laptops and desktops, without issues. I had a personal laptop with manjaro that suppored nvidia prime, I didn't even have to do anything special, just installed nvidia-smi, and prime-run worked out of the box. And generally, for equal comparison, I wouldn't consider laptops with discrete graphics to be in the same family as more business oriented Macs, the more apt comparison would be those with AMD chips with integrated video drivers, for which you don't need to fuck with any drivers.
- justonenote 2y ago
  I don't know maybe I've just been unlucky, but at least for me on a couple of different laptops I regularly get full desktop freezes on Debian & Fedora from using things like VMs / GPU accelerated browser (Chrome) / Other things (I don't actually use CUDA/AI much at all but I suspect the issues come from sharing of GPU resources across apps, could be wrong) This doesn't happen on Windows nearly as much on the same laptops, I don't use Macs that much. And yes I agree it does seem more of an issue with laptops with discrete graphics. I do still use Linux desktop a lot, I'm happy to take the trade-off but my point was just that depending on the work you do, or the features of the laptop you want to use, like power mgmt or bluetooth, there will be tinkering. (and yes this is entirely manufacturers fault)

pjmlp 2y ago

Linux on laptops is lots of fun, last one was getting UEFI to even acknowledge there was anything Linux related on a SSD.