5 ms·

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

by 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?
    - rtpg 12y ago
      I'm in enough places without easy access to outlets. Even in a restaurant (like a Denny's or something) where I'll go without that many outlets. At least the starbucks around my area don't have that many plugs either. Another advantage of having such a long battery life is that I basically can go anywhere after work (where I do have a charger) and not worry about plugging it in at all until the next day. Also, not having to carry around my charger makes carrying around my laptop great. It's definitely a priority thing, and also dependent on lifestyle. In college there were power outlets basically everywhere so I didn't have the issue, but ever since I've started working in various spots not having to look for the power outlet has been a net benefit.
      - toolz 12y ago
        If you needed to find an outlet, would you have to change anything other than where you were sitting? Maybe you're in a large city and all the outlets are taken at coffee shops? I mean I can even find outlets at fast food restaurants. I'm not in college, I work remotely, so I'm moving around as much as anyone out there. It's not uncommon for me to work from three locations in a day and it's highly uncommon for me to only work from one.
javert 12y ago
I've had excellent experiences running Arch on Thinkpads (I think this is the 3rd, maybe 4th Thinkpad I've run Arch on). One time I looked into getting a macbook for the nice hardware and running Arch on it, and quickly nope'd out of there. That is not a project for the faint of heart.

by rtpg 12y ago

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?
  - rtpg 12y ago
    I'm in enough places without easy access to outlets. Even in a restaurant (like a Denny's or something) where I'll go without that many outlets. At least the starbucks around my area don't have that many plugs either. Another advantage of having such a long battery life is that I basically can go anywhere after work (where I do have a charger) and not worry about plugging it in at all until the next day. Also, not having to carry around my charger makes carrying around my laptop great. It's definitely a priority thing, and also dependent on lifestyle. In college there were power outlets basically everywhere so I didn't have the issue, but ever since I've started working in various spots not having to look for the power outlet has been a net benefit.
    - toolz 12y ago
      If you needed to find an outlet, would you have to change anything other than where you were sitting? Maybe you're in a large city and all the outlets are taken at coffee shops? I mean I can even find outlets at fast food restaurants. I'm not in college, I work remotely, so I'm moving around as much as anyone out there. It's not uncommon for me to work from three locations in a day and it's highly uncommon for me to only work from one.

javert 12y ago

I've had excellent experiences running Arch on Thinkpads (I think this is the 3rd, maybe 4th Thinkpad I've run Arch on). One time I looked into getting a macbook for the nice hardware and running Arch on it, and quickly nope'd out of there. That is not a project for the faint of heart.