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When it comes to problems with Linux as a personal desktop OS, the appearance of the GUI is among my lowest concerns. What prevents me from considering Linux as

When it comes to problems with Linux as a personal desktop OS, the appearance of the GUI is among my lowest concerns. What prevents me from considering Linux as a desktop or laptop OS includes: horrible battery life times (worse than half for a friend's thinkpad when compared to it running Windows), how difficult it is to get Bluetooth and Wifi working, really bad multi-touch for trackpads. The problems with Linux as a replacement for Windows or Mac are that the fundamentals are not there. Recent hardware support is non-existent as volunteers have to write drivers so you're likely stuck with old hardware. You'll get anecdotes of people who are happy with what they have, but any such person that I've known long enough I've seen them gripe on IRC about things that are completely trivial or just not even issues on Windows or a Mac. Linux needs a hero with deep pockets that builds their own hardware and drivers. I thought Dell might have been that hero once, but it never became a priority for them. If you could get elementary OS working on a nice slim, powerful Samsung or Thinkpad laptop, with good battery life and driver support then I'd think you'd really have something.

throwaway9978 12y ago
Linux has worked very well on the business-class thinkpad machines for more than 15 years. Look for the T or X series, for example. These days you need to avoid machines with nVidia graphics. A T-series thinkpad with intel graphics will just work out of the box on any linux distribution.
- leorocky 12y ago
  > Linux has worked very well on the business-class thinkpad machines for more than 15 years. What does "worked very well" mean? That's an unhelpful subjective statement. How does the battery life compare? Can you get the full 10 hours of thinkpad battery life time running Linux if not what percentage? Do the Bluedriver work out of the box? Does it wake up from sleep and connect to wifi correctly? I don't think they've worked "very well" at all, but if you have some objective facts or experience please share, I would appreciate it because a Linux desktop that actually works would be awesome.
chroem 12y ago
This isn't 2004. The state of development of the various GNU/ Linux distributions has reached a point where everything "just works". I have yet to see an installation with driver problems. Not to mention that the battery life on my ThinkPad easily compares with, if not exceeds, that of a Windows installation.
- MisterBastahrd 12y ago
  Both my Windows and OSX machines know that if I connect my bluetooth speaker to them, to play the sound through the speaker. Likewise, they know that if I plug in a Logitech USB dongle into the machine, that the sound and mic should go through the dongle. Elementary is better than most at having some sort of easy to use, functioning bluetooth setup, but every time I use one of these devices I have to go into sound settings and switch them to the device. It's a pain in the ass that other companies have figured out.
  - eddiedunn 12y ago
    This can be fixed by editing your pulseaudio settings: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio#Automatically_switch_to_Bluetooth_or_USB_headset https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio#Automaticall... I do agree, though, that it is weird that this is not enabled by default.
- krbbltr 12y ago
  > The state of development of the various GNU/ Linux distributions has reached a point where everything "just works". Not really. I'd argue it has actually gotten worse in recent years, unless you enjoy using ancient hardware. Support for 802.11ac chipsets in particular has been bad in my experience: Intel only works properly with very recent kernels, Broadcom and Qualcomm/Atheros tend to be buggy or they don't work at all. Or they're just barely working and essential features like, oh, using the 5 GHz band, are missing. And these are the three vendors whose chipsets you'll find most commonly in Laptops at the moment. I guess it's possible I was just very unlucky. OP also mentions Bluetooth, which I would agree is a bad joke on Linux. The whole stack seems to be garbage. And of course, if you have a Laptop with anything other than Intel graphics, you might as well not even bother. All of this – except maybe the Bluetooth part – is of course mostly a problem of hardware vendors being indifferent or even hostile towards Linux, but that does not change the fact that very often it does not "just work". You need to pick your hardware very carefully.
yulaow 12y ago
Personally I recently had more problems with windows that with linux. I have a dell l502x of 2012. In linux all work perfectly (except obviously the nvidia card that require bumblebee) In windows8 my touchpad has not good driver. Those for win7 runs but the multitouch is broken and the "deactive touchpad" button does not work, so I keep clicking it while writing. Also the wifi card keep stoping randomly while on linux all work smoothly. Long story short: I think linux has made really enough improvements firmware side to be considered as main os for all days.
eddiedunn 12y ago
> What prevents me from considering Linux as a desktop or laptop OS includes: horrible battery life times (worse than half for a friend's thinkpad when compared to it running Windows), how difficult it is to get Bluetooth and Wifi working, really bad multi-touch for trackpads. Not sure where you are coming from, to be honest. Bluetooth and Wifi have unerringly worked out of the box for me since 2009 or so. While multi-touch, and the trackpad in general, is _horrible_ on my Asus UX31E Zenbook in Windows, it is very pleasant to use in Linux. As for power savings, have a look at TLP: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-management.html http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-man... Using TLP, battery life on my laptop is about the same as in Windows.
- leorocky 12y ago
  How much work did you have to put into configuring TLP to get it to work? How many different settings before you got it where it was comparable to Windows, or did you just install it and it just worked? Because that's how it works on my Macboook, it just worked. I didn't have to read TLP docs. This is what I'm talking about, Linux is a hobby, it's not something you get that just works. This is just battery life. Bluetooth worked for you, it doesn't for others. Every little thing can be a painful can of worms. Go through the comments here and just see the variety of responses. Avoid nvidia, 802.11ac chipset problems, bluetooth problems, editing pulseaudio settings. It doesn't "just work." A Macbook Pro, you turn it on, it "just works." Linux, is not like this.
dllthomas 12y ago
I don't have multitouch (completely unaware whether the hardware supports it, not terribly interested), but I have bluetooth, wifi, and tremendous battery life that all worked out of the box on my System76 laptop.

throwaway9978 12y ago

Linux has worked very well on the business-class thinkpad machines for more than 15 years. Look for the T or X series, for example. These days you need to avoid machines with nVidia graphics. A T-series thinkpad with intel graphics will just work out of the box on any linux distribution.

leorocky 12y ago
> Linux has worked very well on the business-class thinkpad machines for more than 15 years. What does "worked very well" mean? That's an unhelpful subjective statement. How does the battery life compare? Can you get the full 10 hours of thinkpad battery life time running Linux if not what percentage? Do the Bluedriver work out of the box? Does it wake up from sleep and connect to wifi correctly? I don't think they've worked "very well" at all, but if you have some objective facts or experience please share, I would appreciate it because a Linux desktop that actually works would be awesome.

chroem 12y ago

This isn't 2004. The state of development of the various GNU/ Linux distributions has reached a point where everything "just works". I have yet to see an installation with driver problems. Not to mention that the battery life on my ThinkPad easily compares with, if not exceeds, that of a Windows installation.

MisterBastahrd 12y ago
Both my Windows and OSX machines know that if I connect my bluetooth speaker to them, to play the sound through the speaker. Likewise, they know that if I plug in a Logitech USB dongle into the machine, that the sound and mic should go through the dongle. Elementary is better than most at having some sort of easy to use, functioning bluetooth setup, but every time I use one of these devices I have to go into sound settings and switch them to the device. It's a pain in the ass that other companies have figured out.
- eddiedunn 12y ago
  This can be fixed by editing your pulseaudio settings: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio#Automatically_switch_to_Bluetooth_or_USB_headset https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio#Automaticall... I do agree, though, that it is weird that this is not enabled by default.
krbbltr 12y ago
> The state of development of the various GNU/ Linux distributions has reached a point where everything "just works". Not really. I'd argue it has actually gotten worse in recent years, unless you enjoy using ancient hardware. Support for 802.11ac chipsets in particular has been bad in my experience: Intel only works properly with very recent kernels, Broadcom and Qualcomm/Atheros tend to be buggy or they don't work at all. Or they're just barely working and essential features like, oh, using the 5 GHz band, are missing. And these are the three vendors whose chipsets you'll find most commonly in Laptops at the moment. I guess it's possible I was just very unlucky. OP also mentions Bluetooth, which I would agree is a bad joke on Linux. The whole stack seems to be garbage. And of course, if you have a Laptop with anything other than Intel graphics, you might as well not even bother. All of this – except maybe the Bluetooth part – is of course mostly a problem of hardware vendors being indifferent or even hostile towards Linux, but that does not change the fact that very often it does not "just work". You need to pick your hardware very carefully.

yulaow 12y ago

Personally I recently had more problems with windows that with linux. I have a dell l502x of 2012. In linux all work perfectly (except obviously the nvidia card that require bumblebee) In windows8 my touchpad has not good driver. Those for win7 runs but the multitouch is broken and the "deactive touchpad" button does not work, so I keep clicking it while writing. Also the wifi card keep stoping randomly while on linux all work smoothly. Long story short: I think linux has made really enough improvements firmware side to be considered as main os for all days.

eddiedunn 12y ago

> What prevents me from considering Linux as a desktop or laptop OS includes: horrible battery life times (worse than half for a friend's thinkpad when compared to it running Windows), how difficult it is to get Bluetooth and Wifi working, really bad multi-touch for trackpads. Not sure where you are coming from, to be honest. Bluetooth and Wifi have unerringly worked out of the box for me since 2009 or so. While multi-touch, and the trackpad in general, is _horrible_ on my Asus UX31E Zenbook in Windows, it is very pleasant to use in Linux. As for power savings, have a look at TLP: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-management.html http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-man... Using TLP, battery life on my laptop is about the same as in Windows.

leorocky 12y ago
How much work did you have to put into configuring TLP to get it to work? How many different settings before you got it where it was comparable to Windows, or did you just install it and it just worked? Because that's how it works on my Macboook, it just worked. I didn't have to read TLP docs. This is what I'm talking about, Linux is a hobby, it's not something you get that just works. This is just battery life. Bluetooth worked for you, it doesn't for others. Every little thing can be a painful can of worms. Go through the comments here and just see the variety of responses. Avoid nvidia, 802.11ac chipset problems, bluetooth problems, editing pulseaudio settings. It doesn't "just work." A Macbook Pro, you turn it on, it "just works." Linux, is not like this.

dllthomas 12y ago

I don't have multitouch (completely unaware whether the hardware supports it, not terribly interested), but I have bluetooth, wifi, and tremendous battery life that all worked out of the box on my System76 laptop.