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I'm excited about a company that will ensure a good, compatible experience with linux on a laptop. I develop on mac osx and linux vms (vagrant). I want to move

I'm excited about a company that will ensure a good, compatible experience with linux on a laptop. I develop on mac osx and linux vms (vagrant). I want to move to linux but the linux desktop experience just isn't there yet.

javert 12y ago
For me, the linux desktop experience is there. So I guess it depends on what you want. There's nothing I want to do I can't do on Linux as well or better, except play games, and that's not enough of a factor for me to not prefer Linux.
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  These days, most of the games I play are readily available and work well on Linux. All of the Valve Source games have been ported, Civ V works great, many independent and upcoming titles on Steam have good Linux versions. Steam has been really good for Linux games. I pretty much have no reason to reboot into Windows. I used to reboot for Netflix, but now it works in recent Chrome versions on Linux. That said, I've used Linux as my primary desktop OS since 1995 (but always with a backup Windows partition), so I'm not the ideal person to look to for whether Linux is ready for the desktop...it's been ready for my desktop for a couple decades. But, I think now I'm at a point where I don't feel any need to have a Windows partition, for anything.
- rtpg 12y ago
  From my testing, the macbook air is one of the better laptops on the market now in terms of battery life and general feel (the touchpad is second to none in my opinion). But even for a laptop this prevalent, getting it to work with Ubuntu is a pain, and you run into a bunch of little bugs consistently. I understand that it's a major uphill battle, but over the many many laptops I've tried to use with Linux, I've not found one that offers a good experience when it comes to the things that are important to a laptop (like battery life, secondary display support, and the like). I'm totally cool with using Linux on a desktop (though I don't own a desktop anymore), had some great experiences even when going full Arch.
  - chucksmash 12y ago
    I've been happily plugging away with Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T530 for a while now and an old Dell w/ an Intel Core 2 Duo for years before that. Both installs went smoothly. The hassle involved in getting Ubuntu working on a MacBook is not representative of laptop installations in general. Macs are special beasts and looking at the relevant support wiki page there are all sorts of hoops that I just didn't have to jump through in either of my non-Mac installations. I'm sorry you had a poor experience!
    - rtpg 12y ago
      I've had some Dell and HP laptops (and a super old thinkpad, but that one worked alright given it couldn't really do much), and have had extremely bad driver issues. The big one has been the graphics card, but also flaky wifi, and even sound card issues! Battery life was always an issue (I would have 4 hours on windows, only an hour and change on linux), but I think that was linked to graphics card issues. Having issues with a sound card gives me flashback to windows 95.
  - toolz 12y ago
    Have you tried putting linux on a zenbook? Easily as good or better than mac hardware and I've put archlinux on there with zero issues on multiple models.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      how's the battery life? Being able to go long periods without a charger is really important to me. I have a friend who has a zenbook, was pretty unimpressed by the build quality, but that might have been a lower end model.
      - toolz 12y ago
        depends on the model, I'm sure. I've never had any problems with the battery life, but that's highly subjective to the way people use a laptop. I'm always spending a couple hours here and there at a coffee shop, but I carry my laptop in a messenger bag so having a charger nearby isn't a problem. Plug it in when I need to, don't bother if I don't. I'm always curious why people talk about needing battery life so often. Only thing I can think of is if you fly overseas often you would need great battery life, but a mac wouldn't cover that use case either. Where are people going that they aren't within a few feet of an outlet when they are computing?
pherocity_ 12y ago
I don't think it ever will be. I first installed redhat linux back in 95, and it was a multi weekend project, and I had to solder something. Since then, the installation has gone from insane to Windows XP easy, but it seems stuck there. And even for a media server, I have to dip into the shell to get it working. If you still have to use the shell 20 years later for a non edge case, it isn't going to get better, there is something about the architecture that is preventing it. And I don't want an office suite, or movie recorder, or any of that crap. But I want the Gnome Terminal, or other pretty terminal where I have font smoothing or whatever that is called. I know I can do this with Arch, but I'm not a systems guy, I'm a developer, and I don't want to have to learn about all the systems crap. I just want a shell that is pleasant to look at, my fatigue is so much less when looking at pleasant non offensive colours.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  You can get font smoothing from xterm by using the -fa option. Use xfontsel to build the parameter string. There are probably "xresource" (iirc) settings to change its color palette, or you can use a 256color scheme for your editor. It's not exactly easy, but it is very fast and lightweight.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Linux has at least one nice GPL console font, courtesy of Sun Microsystems, https://github.com/talamus/solarize-12x29-psf https://github.com/talamus/solarize-12x29-psf
- bitL 12y ago
  Unfortunately, the only way to get fairly nice looking fonts on Linux is to use a 4k display :-( Even with font hinting, the quality you are used to from OS X or even Windows isn't there, and most people that develop Linux don't seem to have developed sensitivity for font quality, so you should not expect any improvements. Any time I look at my Debian server, I have that strange unpleasant feeling of fonts being somehow off. Ubuntu/Mint are better, yet still nowhere near the clarity of OS X.
cbd1984 12y ago
I personally use LinuxCertified laptops, and I have no problems. No Microsoft Tax, no incompatible hardware, build quality as good as a Thinkpad (my old Gold Standard Laptop), and they even allow you to spec out a custom system with an updating price on the webpage (within reason, but there are quite a few tweakable parameters). http://www.linuxcertified.com/ http://www.linuxcertified.com/
pfind 12y ago
Interesting. My experience -- such it be -- is meticulously constructed to exactly how I need it. My current system has been the result of 18 months of a slow but steady process of phaselocking the desktop with how I work with it.

javert 12y ago

For me, the linux desktop experience is there. So I guess it depends on what you want. There's nothing I want to do I can't do on Linux as well or better, except play games, and that's not enough of a factor for me to not prefer Linux.

SwellJoe 12y ago
These days, most of the games I play are readily available and work well on Linux. All of the Valve Source games have been ported, Civ V works great, many independent and upcoming titles on Steam have good Linux versions. Steam has been really good for Linux games. I pretty much have no reason to reboot into Windows. I used to reboot for Netflix, but now it works in recent Chrome versions on Linux. That said, I've used Linux as my primary desktop OS since 1995 (but always with a backup Windows partition), so I'm not the ideal person to look to for whether Linux is ready for the desktop...it's been ready for my desktop for a couple decades. But, I think now I'm at a point where I don't feel any need to have a Windows partition, for anything.
rtpg 12y ago
From my testing, the macbook air is one of the better laptops on the market now in terms of battery life and general feel (the touchpad is second to none in my opinion). But even for a laptop this prevalent, getting it to work with Ubuntu is a pain, and you run into a bunch of little bugs consistently. I understand that it's a major uphill battle, but over the many many laptops I've tried to use with Linux, I've not found one that offers a good experience when it comes to the things that are important to a laptop (like battery life, secondary display support, and the like). I'm totally cool with using Linux on a desktop (though I don't own a desktop anymore), had some great experiences even when going full Arch.
- chucksmash 12y ago
  I've been happily plugging away with Ubuntu on a Thinkpad T530 for a while now and an old Dell w/ an Intel Core 2 Duo for years before that. Both installs went smoothly. The hassle involved in getting Ubuntu working on a MacBook is not representative of laptop installations in general. Macs are special beasts and looking at the relevant support wiki page there are all sorts of hoops that I just didn't have to jump through in either of my non-Mac installations. I'm sorry you had a poor experience!
  - rtpg 12y ago
    I've had some Dell and HP laptops (and a super old thinkpad, but that one worked alright given it couldn't really do much), and have had extremely bad driver issues. The big one has been the graphics card, but also flaky wifi, and even sound card issues! Battery life was always an issue (I would have 4 hours on windows, only an hour and change on linux), but I think that was linked to graphics card issues. Having issues with a sound card gives me flashback to windows 95.
- toolz 12y ago
  Have you tried putting linux on a zenbook? Easily as good or better than mac hardware and I've put archlinux on there with zero issues on multiple models.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    how's the battery life? Being able to go long periods without a charger is really important to me. I have a friend who has a zenbook, was pretty unimpressed by the build quality, but that might have been a lower end model.
    - toolz 12y ago
      depends on the model, I'm sure. I've never had any problems with the battery life, but that's highly subjective to the way people use a laptop. I'm always spending a couple hours here and there at a coffee shop, but I carry my laptop in a messenger bag so having a charger nearby isn't a problem. Plug it in when I need to, don't bother if I don't. I'm always curious why people talk about needing battery life so often. Only thing I can think of is if you fly overseas often you would need great battery life, but a mac wouldn't cover that use case either. Where are people going that they aren't within a few feet of an outlet when they are computing?

pherocity_ 12y ago

I don't think it ever will be. I first installed redhat linux back in 95, and it was a multi weekend project, and I had to solder something. Since then, the installation has gone from insane to Windows XP easy, but it seems stuck there. And even for a media server, I have to dip into the shell to get it working. If you still have to use the shell 20 years later for a non edge case, it isn't going to get better, there is something about the architecture that is preventing it. And I don't want an office suite, or movie recorder, or any of that crap. But I want the Gnome Terminal, or other pretty terminal where I have font smoothing or whatever that is called. I know I can do this with Arch, but I'm not a systems guy, I'm a developer, and I don't want to have to learn about all the systems crap. I just want a shell that is pleasant to look at, my fatigue is so much less when looking at pleasant non offensive colours.

nitrogen 12y ago
You can get font smoothing from xterm by using the -fa option. Use xfontsel to build the parameter string. There are probably "xresource" (iirc) settings to change its color palette, or you can use a 256color scheme for your editor. It's not exactly easy, but it is very fast and lightweight.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Linux has at least one nice GPL console font, courtesy of Sun Microsystems, https://github.com/talamus/solarize-12x29-psf https://github.com/talamus/solarize-12x29-psf
bitL 12y ago
Unfortunately, the only way to get fairly nice looking fonts on Linux is to use a 4k display :-( Even with font hinting, the quality you are used to from OS X or even Windows isn't there, and most people that develop Linux don't seem to have developed sensitivity for font quality, so you should not expect any improvements. Any time I look at my Debian server, I have that strange unpleasant feeling of fonts being somehow off. Ubuntu/Mint are better, yet still nowhere near the clarity of OS X.

cbd1984 12y ago

I personally use LinuxCertified laptops, and I have no problems. No Microsoft Tax, no incompatible hardware, build quality as good as a Thinkpad (my old Gold Standard Laptop), and they even allow you to spec out a custom system with an updating price on the webpage (within reason, but there are quite a few tweakable parameters). http://www.linuxcertified.com/ http://www.linuxcertified.com/

pfind 12y ago

Interesting. My experience -- such it be -- is meticulously constructed to exactly how I need it. My current system has been the result of 18 months of a slow but steady process of phaselocking the desktop with how I work with it.