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I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Windows 11 feels a practical joke played on humanity by Nadella. The new Macbooks have amazing hardware,

I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Windows 11 feels a practical joke played on humanity by Nadella. The new Macbooks have amazing hardware, but the software quality has deteriorated considerably - even spotlight has bugs nowadays. However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. If the Linux Software Foundation started a Linux-On-The-Desktop project that addressed core usability and stability issues, I would gladly contribute monthly towards it.

all2 2y ago
I hate that this is true. I have 10 year old hardware and I still haven't managed to get suspend on lid close to work. Also, power management? Linux seems really power hungry. I expect 6ish hours out of the battery I have, but with Linux doing browsing and coding I get 2 to 3ish hours, even with cpu throttling and the dimmest back light settings. Have mainline Fedora or Ubuntu solved these issues?
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  It all depends on your hardware and whether that is well supported. The blame lies with hardware manufacturers keeping secrets and proprietary software vendors. It is a reverse engineering effort to get this stuff to work properly.
- worthless-trash 2y ago
  No distro solves problems by itself, the upstream kernel does. Fedora pushes upstream first, ubuntu much later if it does. Because computers are complex, and there are many computers with many different hardware configurations nobody can answer if it solves the issues for you.
- daemonologist 2y ago
  I'm on mainline Fedora on a Thinkpad Z13 (Gen 1). Sleep works unless I connect or disconnect a thunderbolt device while the machine is sleeping (which hard crashes the system); I would say it's noticeably more reliable than Windows. Power consumption is still poor in all states - usable, but generally worse than under Windows and pathetic compared to a Macbook.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ac29 2y ago
  Any reasonably modern laptop has runtime power control, which can make a huge difference. Personally, I use TuneD: https://github.com/redhat-performance/tuned https://github.com/redhat-performance/tuned
realusername 2y ago
It depends on your laptop probably, I don't have any issue with sleep/suspend with my thinkpad. I do think that power management isn't there yet though on the other hand.
moffkalast 2y ago
I always found it funny that my ASUS laptop has always functioned perfectly under linux... except that putting it to sleep would trigger a full shutdown every time lmao. I may or may not have lost some data once or twice by being overly gullible.
yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
> However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. Pick any model on this list that has all green boxes. There is no step 2. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo (Sent from my thinkpad with perfectly working sleep)
- sshine 2y ago
  Sleep works perfectly on my Lenovos, and it fails miserably on my custom gamer laptop. Supporting arbitrary hardware is hard for an open-source project. Sticking to solid brands with well-tested models has other benefits.
- ac29 2y ago
  I've been using Intel Dells for years without sleep issues in Linux.
- bobsmooth 2y ago
  What if I have a laptop not on that list and I don't want to buy a whole new machine?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    Then it will probably still work, that just happens to be a nice way to ensure make sure ahead of time. Also, I would argue that expecting any OS to work on every machine anyone anywhere owns is a touch unreasonable; none of the other options (Windows, macOS, Android, ChromeOS) are held to that standard.
dismalaf 2y ago
> However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop ??? I've had 3 laptops over the last decade+ and sleep/restore has worked on all of them. You using some weird distro or DE?
switch007 2y ago
People simply can't have the same expectations of hardware as with Windows. You must select your hardware for Linux support. They make heroic efforts in supporting a variety of hardware but if you have the choice it's better to use hardware with better support. There are vendors like System76 and Dell who offer Linux support Ubuntu has a certified hardware list: https://ubuntu.com/certified https://ubuntu.com/certified I'm confused that people think it normal to go to Apple to get an Apple device to run Apple OS, but the idea of going to a Linux vendor to get a Linux laptop to run Linux is a weird idea.
- Tepix 2y ago
  The Dell Latitude 7440 has a webcam (made by Intel) that works with Ubuntu 22.04 but not with Ubuntu 24.04. A really crappy user experience. (I think the design of the webcam is to blame)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
seanhunter 2y ago
Umm get a framework laptop. Sleep/restore works out of the box. Admittedly I only tried it on QubesOS and Nixos, but if it works in both of those places chances are pretty good that it will work for any distro. THere’s a reasonable chance if you get a lenovo thinkpad or similar very mainstream laptop it will just work there as well, but get a framework anyway because they’re good and you deserve a nice laptop.
- sshine 2y ago
  They're not so available in the EU. Some countries they don't export to. Other countries the VAT + import tax just adds up.
- lenkite 2y ago
  Yes, framework looks really good. Wasn't an option before due to extremely heavy import duty and they didn't bother opening ordering. (But hopefully changing now that Trump has raised the reciprocal hammer and revised trade agreements are being signed..)
nektro 2y ago
i use a framework 13 with nixos and have perfect sleep and wake
fulafel 2y ago
> However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. This has not been true for over 20 years. You just need to buy known good hardware. (Anyone know when exactly we first got reliable sleep on the early Thinkpads with APM?)
thefz 2y ago
> The new Macbooks have amazing hardware Hm. You can't really repair or upgrade them, so you don't own the hardware at all. That's far from amazing.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  People who insist Apple makes good hardware are falling for marketing. Apple historically has had constant engineering poor choices and bad designs and outright flaws that they just never acknowledge, and for some reason people take that as "good". Back in the day, Apple laptops used to cook and kill themselves with poor GPU heat management. Several versions of macbooks shortened a display cable such that it would degrade over time because it simply wasn't up to task, and eventually your screen would be borked and have absolutely ungoogleable issues (this happened to me) They had an entire run of macbooks with flawed batteries. The entire keyboard fiasco, all in an effort to bikeshed computer thinness FFS. Meanwhile even before the butterfly tech, macbook keyboards have always been trash. They have un-ergonomic keys and no travel and just seem to prioritize aesthetics over usage. Internal connectors have 50v backlight pins right next to logic level pins which means instead of a drop of water just killing the backlight power supply, it routes 50v through everything and kills half your mainboard components. Pre M series macbooks hard thermal throttling issues if you charged them from the ports on one side, but not the other. Apple laptops have NEVER had good thermal management. Soldered SSDs that are stupidly tiny, especially in the early M1 machines that had 8gb RAM and bad swap behavior that was actively killing people's SSDs Apple buys good screens to put in their machines, and the frame is pretty rigid, and THAT'S IT. Nothing else about their machines is a step above other laptop manufacturers hardware wise
  - -__---____-ZXyw 2y ago
    Geez, bookmarking this one. I wonder if you've blogged about this anywhere? Would love to read more about the nitty gritty, and I'd love to see it existing concretely (in a general sense).
  - thefz 2y ago
    > Several versions of macbooks shortened a display cable such that it would degrade over time because it simply wasn't up to task, and eventually your screen would be borked and have absolutely ungoogleable issues (this happened to me) Had this happen to a 17 inch PPC, red line in the middle of the display then completely dead. Had to be hooked to an ext monitor. Never knew i it was a cable or inverter thing.
surgical_fire 2y ago
> I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Not sure what you use your desktop for. If your issue is that you need certain professional applications that are not compatible with Linux you may be out of luck. But if your complaint id "core usability and stability", I am not really sure what you are complaining about. I migrated my personal laptop from Windows to Linux Mint around 3 years ago, and it's amazing how much more stable and easy to use it is in comparison - case in point, back in Windows days I would have to do a fresh install every year or so. And don't get me started on OSX. I have to use it daily on my work-issued laptop, and I deeply loathe it how it is hostile to more technical users (I would sincerely prefere using Windows than that crap).

all2 2y ago

I hate that this is true. I have 10 year old hardware and I still haven't managed to get suspend on lid close to work. Also, power management? Linux seems really power hungry. I expect 6ish hours out of the battery I have, but with Linux doing browsing and coding I get 2 to 3ish hours, even with cpu throttling and the dimmest back light settings. Have mainline Fedora or Ubuntu solved these issues?

zelphirkalt 2y ago
It all depends on your hardware and whether that is well supported. The blame lies with hardware manufacturers keeping secrets and proprietary software vendors. It is a reverse engineering effort to get this stuff to work properly.
worthless-trash 2y ago
No distro solves problems by itself, the upstream kernel does. Fedora pushes upstream first, ubuntu much later if it does. Because computers are complex, and there are many computers with many different hardware configurations nobody can answer if it solves the issues for you.
daemonologist 2y ago
I'm on mainline Fedora on a Thinkpad Z13 (Gen 1). Sleep works unless I connect or disconnect a thunderbolt device while the machine is sleeping (which hard crashes the system); I would say it's noticeably more reliable than Windows. Power consumption is still poor in all states - usable, but generally worse than under Windows and pathetic compared to a Macbook.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ac29 2y ago
Any reasonably modern laptop has runtime power control, which can make a huge difference. Personally, I use TuneD: https://github.com/redhat-performance/tuned https://github.com/redhat-performance/tuned

realusername 2y ago

It depends on your laptop probably, I don't have any issue with sleep/suspend with my thinkpad. I do think that power management isn't there yet though on the other hand.

moffkalast 2y ago

I always found it funny that my ASUS laptop has always functioned perfectly under linux... except that putting it to sleep would trigger a full shutdown every time lmao. I may or may not have lost some data once or twice by being overly gullible.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago

> However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. Pick any model on this list that has all green boxes. There is no step 2. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo (Sent from my thinkpad with perfectly working sleep)

sshine 2y ago
Sleep works perfectly on my Lenovos, and it fails miserably on my custom gamer laptop. Supporting arbitrary hardware is hard for an open-source project. Sticking to solid brands with well-tested models has other benefits.
ac29 2y ago
I've been using Intel Dells for years without sleep issues in Linux.
bobsmooth 2y ago
What if I have a laptop not on that list and I don't want to buy a whole new machine?
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  Then it will probably still work, that just happens to be a nice way to ensure make sure ahead of time. Also, I would argue that expecting any OS to work on every machine anyone anywhere owns is a touch unreasonable; none of the other options (Windows, macOS, Android, ChromeOS) are held to that standard.

dismalaf 2y ago

> However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop ??? I've had 3 laptops over the last decade+ and sleep/restore has worked on all of them. You using some weird distro or DE?

switch007 2y ago

People simply can't have the same expectations of hardware as with Windows. You must select your hardware for Linux support. They make heroic efforts in supporting a variety of hardware but if you have the choice it's better to use hardware with better support. There are vendors like System76 and Dell who offer Linux support Ubuntu has a certified hardware list: https://ubuntu.com/certified https://ubuntu.com/certified I'm confused that people think it normal to go to Apple to get an Apple device to run Apple OS, but the idea of going to a Linux vendor to get a Linux laptop to run Linux is a weird idea.

Tepix 2y ago
The Dell Latitude 7440 has a webcam (made by Intel) that works with Ubuntu 22.04 but not with Ubuntu 24.04. A really crappy user experience. (I think the design of the webcam is to blame)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

seanhunter 2y ago

Umm get a framework laptop. Sleep/restore works out of the box. Admittedly I only tried it on QubesOS and Nixos, but if it works in both of those places chances are pretty good that it will work for any distro. THere’s a reasonable chance if you get a lenovo thinkpad or similar very mainstream laptop it will just work there as well, but get a framework anyway because they’re good and you deserve a nice laptop.

sshine 2y ago
They're not so available in the EU. Some countries they don't export to. Other countries the VAT + import tax just adds up.
lenkite 2y ago
Yes, framework looks really good. Wasn't an option before due to extremely heavy import duty and they didn't bother opening ordering. (But hopefully changing now that Trump has raised the reciprocal hammer and revised trade agreements are being signed..)

nektro 2y ago

i use a framework 13 with nixos and have perfect sleep and wake

fulafel 2y ago

> However, I need basic sleep/restore to work on my laptop - and it feels like this is a Mars-mission-effort level problem for Linux to solve. This has not been true for over 20 years. You just need to buy known good hardware. (Anyone know when exactly we first got reliable sleep on the early Thinkpads with APM?)

thefz 2y ago

> The new Macbooks have amazing hardware Hm. You can't really repair or upgrade them, so you don't own the hardware at all. That's far from amazing.

mrguyorama 2y ago
People who insist Apple makes good hardware are falling for marketing. Apple historically has had constant engineering poor choices and bad designs and outright flaws that they just never acknowledge, and for some reason people take that as "good". Back in the day, Apple laptops used to cook and kill themselves with poor GPU heat management. Several versions of macbooks shortened a display cable such that it would degrade over time because it simply wasn't up to task, and eventually your screen would be borked and have absolutely ungoogleable issues (this happened to me) They had an entire run of macbooks with flawed batteries. The entire keyboard fiasco, all in an effort to bikeshed computer thinness FFS. Meanwhile even before the butterfly tech, macbook keyboards have always been trash. They have un-ergonomic keys and no travel and just seem to prioritize aesthetics over usage. Internal connectors have 50v backlight pins right next to logic level pins which means instead of a drop of water just killing the backlight power supply, it routes 50v through everything and kills half your mainboard components. Pre M series macbooks hard thermal throttling issues if you charged them from the ports on one side, but not the other. Apple laptops have NEVER had good thermal management. Soldered SSDs that are stupidly tiny, especially in the early M1 machines that had 8gb RAM and bad swap behavior that was actively killing people's SSDs Apple buys good screens to put in their machines, and the frame is pretty rigid, and THAT'S IT. Nothing else about their machines is a step above other laptop manufacturers hardware wise
- -__---____-ZXyw 2y ago
  Geez, bookmarking this one. I wonder if you've blogged about this anywhere? Would love to read more about the nitty gritty, and I'd love to see it existing concretely (in a general sense).
- thefz 2y ago
  > Several versions of macbooks shortened a display cable such that it would degrade over time because it simply wasn't up to task, and eventually your screen would be borked and have absolutely ungoogleable issues (this happened to me) Had this happen to a 17 inch PPC, red line in the middle of the display then completely dead. Had to be hooked to an ext monitor. Never knew i it was a cable or inverter thing.

surgical_fire 2y ago

> I would love it if I could use Linux on the Desktop. Not sure what you use your desktop for. If your issue is that you need certain professional applications that are not compatible with Linux you may be out of luck. But if your complaint id "core usability and stability", I am not really sure what you are complaining about. I migrated my personal laptop from Windows to Linux Mint around 3 years ago, and it's amazing how much more stable and easy to use it is in comparison - case in point, back in Windows days I would have to do a fresh install every year or so. And don't get me started on OSX. I have to use it daily on my work-issued laptop, and I deeply loathe it how it is hostile to more technical users (I would sincerely prefere using Windows than that crap).