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Comment by Symbiote | Hacker News Reader

> Running Linux, of course.

I wish more people would. That's the best way to get any issues fixed, whether by filing bug reports, writing up a workaround on a wiki or Stackoverflow to help others, or fixing the bug.

It's important for us to own our own tools, and keep the right to do with them as we wish. We expect this for our servers, but ignore it for laptops and desktops. If developers continue like this, then users will be corralled further into walled gardens of pay-only or data-leaking software.

HN is outraged when farmers aren't allowed to repair their John Deere tractors, yet the majority choose even more restricted OSs for work and personal use.

(This comment written in Firefox on KDE (Kubuntu) with a 4K screen, all working very nicely.)

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And why do you think that a lot of people who are painfully aware of all the issues you mention still refuse to use Linux on a laptop while happily using it on servers?

There is a riduculous repetitiveness about this debate. For me and many others, Linux on a laptop has always been unstable, insecure, hot and noisy. Many specific issues can be fixed if you put in the effort, but on almost every dist-upgrade something essential breaks and you're back to square one.

And the response to these issues has always been a mixture of disbelief, denial, accusations of incompetence and pointers to ridiculously convoluted and brittle workarounds. There are bound to be people on every message board claiming to have run Linux for years if not decades without any of the issues I'm seeing on a daily basis and have been seeing for decades on scores of different laptops.

So where do we stand on this? Will we ever get out of this unproductive loop of claims and counter claims while an oligopoly of corporations builds ever higher walls around more and more restrictive gardens?

> There is a riduculous repetitiveness about this debate. For me and many others, Linux on a laptop has always been unstable, insecure, hot and noisy.

> Will we ever get out of this unproductive loop of claims and counter claims...

Sounds like a no.

> For me and many others, Linux on a laptop has always been unstable, insecure, hot and noisy.

I've successfully converted many people with similar claims over to Linux and here's what I've found; most of them were trying Linux on a subpar, non-standard laptop, (Like an old MacBook or a slow Celeron), to lower their investment if they don't like it, which is fine, but then comparing the experience to their high end MBP running macOS, (try installing macOS to the same set of low-end machines most try to put Linux on, see how that goes). All it took is for them to get good, solid hardware, (like a recent Intel stack, or a Ryzen with a GPU compatible with the AMDGPU driver), and all was good. Not saying that is your case, but it is shockingly common, which is unfair to Linux, I'd say.

I'd agree with that, I run stock ubuntu on a thinkpad t460p. I have only one issue which is that display scaling is not fractional, its in set values which doesn't play well with resolutions above 1080p. Thats a gnome issue though and doesn't stop the screen working perfectly when the resolution is set to 1080p instead of 2550x1440 or whatever it is.

This is trivial to fix actually. Ubuntu 16.04 had "fractional" scaling by default but in reality all it did was between 1x and 2x use 1x with larger fonts. 18.04 lost that with the gnome transition but you can just change the font scaling manually. Less convenient and polished but still there in the tweak tool. Firefox also includes a scaling option in the configs. With those two settings my T460s with the 2560x1440 screen looks great. It does suck that the Gnome transition in the new LTS has been so bad. For all its quirks the Unity on Xorg experience was actually very stable and polished for years now.

Thats interesting to know, thanks for the tip!

FWIW I do the same as suggested and it's great, font scaling set to 1.4 on a 14"@2560x1440 T470P running @2560x1440 looks nice, the only very slight snag is that font scaling doesn't scale the window decorations but a few themes do work (Numix window decorations).

What happens when you plug in a second monitor?

I believe it applies to all screens. I've only been using external screens to project stuff fullscreen so I haven't checked what happens if I use my 1920x1200 screen as a work screen. If it's like in Unity you get the larger fonts but it's still quite usable. Having the font scaling be per-screen would be ideal though.

This, right here, is an excellent case-in-point illustration of the reason Linux isn't widely used on laptops: even on expensive, high end hardware with excellent Linux support, and the most popular distribution, very basic functionality like screen resolution not only doesn't "just work" out of the box -- getting it to work properly at all requires serendipitously stumbling across a random forum post somewhere that directs you to the needle-in-the-haystack magic config file tweak that makes it work properly.

Can I please just get a Carbon X1 running MacOS?

Googling for the issue would get you the source where I got it from, so it's not as bad as you claim. And up to 16.04 the last few years of Ubuntu LTS releases have been smooth sailing in my experience. In 18.04 they did a transition into GNOME3 as the default and that's still showing the issues that showed up. Unity was actually quite polished and functional.

But let's not blow this out of proportion. It's not like Apple has not had plenty of QA issues with OSX lately. But I agree Linux desktop QA could use some more resources. Unfortunately it seems the Ubuntu desktop/mobile push is mostly over and they're now focusing on server/container where Linux has been great for a long time already. And since volunteers always prefer writing new shiny stuff than spending time doing QA the Linux desktop will probably never be extremely polished. I do find it much better than Windows and comparable or better than OSX in actual functionality for us technical types but your mileage may vary.

I'm running linux (manjaro - kde) on my thinkpad T470. It works marvelous, scaling works without issue, adding screens, updating, hibernate/sleep. It all just works.

Currently haven't rebooted my laptop for 45 days, updated in the middle (while still being able to work) and still works wihout issue.

Meanwhile my windows desktop keeps forcing updates/reboots every week interrupting my work. Also interesting to mention: windows always has the fans on of my laptop, on linux only under heavy load.

Bought the laptop especially for the linux support on the thinkpad series, very happy with it.

What’s the battery life like compared to windows? I have the t460p running w10 with the extended battery and I’ve never run out of power in the middle of a workday. It would be painful to give that up, but at the same time I’m interested in running linux as main OS.

Did you try converting Windows users? Did you face these problems with them? If not, what did you face?

FWIW, my Macbook (not my primary machine) cost me 400€ second hand and I spent another 100€ upgrading to 8GB Ram and an SSD drive. It's a ten year old machine which runs like a dream.

I challenge anyone to find a better computing solution for 500€.

You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook, nor would have access to the Apple ecosystem. A lot of programs for Mac are just really well made and nice to use.

> You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook, nor would have access to the Apple ecosystem.

I used a 2009 MacBook pro for close to 3 years.

The following are my opinions, they are not valid for everyone but for some of us they are very valid:

Keyboard had ctrl in a different spot than every other keyboard I ever spent significant time with. (Disclaimer: some other laptops come configured this way but I remap it in bios if it is my machine.)

Keyboard lacked home, end, page up and page down keys. Instead it had extra arrow keys that non of the two resident apple fans in my office could tell me the idea behind.

Basic things like selecting a word using the keyboard would take one of three key combos depending on which app. I think sometimes it was ctrl-shift-arrow, sometimes alt-shift-arrow and sometimes fn-shift-arrow. Resident mac fan explained it was because of an ongoing transition between quartz and cocoa or something.

The application menus would appear on one screen only, often far away from the application it belonged to.

So, while I wish more people would use Macs (because 1. Lots of people like it. 2. it forces application developers to think cross platform which benefits me as a Linux user, and 3. It also increases competition) I also wish people would understand that Macs are not the best choice for everyone.

Home, page up and page down is just CMD + left, up or down arrow isn't it?

Selecting a word: double click / tap on it.

> Home, page up and page down is just CMD + left, up or down arrow isn't it?

Back then I think that too depended on the application. I tried everything and googled it.

> Selecting a word: double click / tap on it.

I prefer the keyboard.

>Basic things like selecting a word using the keyboard would take one of three key combos depending on which app. I think sometimes it was ctrl-shift-arrow, sometimes alt-shift-arrow and sometimes fn-shift-arrow.

Whereas all Linux GUI applications follow a completely consistent set of keyboard bindings...

Yes! Exactly! It's the only environment where I can rely on all text entry working with emacs keybindings, though to be fair I have to poke a setting to get that.

Oh wait, you were being sarcastic. Well, at least you were wrong and learned something I guess.

(No seriously, you're wrong here. Linux desktops solved the uniform keybinding problem in a cross-desktop way like a decade ago. You just don't like it because they're different, not because they're inconsistent.)

All text entry works with emacs keybindings on OS X without having to poke at a setting. Or rather, one setting per toolkit:

https://superuser.com/questions/171925/enable-emacs-like-key...

>You just don't like it because they're different, not because they're inconsistent.

I didn't say anything about not liking Linux keybindings. It's a minor issue for me personally.

Sorry, I took your sarcasm to imply that linux desktop keybindings were inconsistent. If that's not what you mean (I mean, reading it again, I'm really pretty sure that's what you meant), then I apologize.

They are inconsistent between applications/toolkits. I was saying that this is not a big issue for me personally.

You still forget that I mentioned text selection shortcuts. They've been fairly consistent across 20 years of Windows and every major Linux Desktop environment.

Both linux and Windows seems to get basic text selection right, yes.

Of modern desktop os-es, Mac OS X was the only one who has ever consistently surprised me on this.

It might not be a big deal to everyone but for me who

- deal with text day out and day

- and prefer to keep my hands at the keyboard (even when I have a nice trackpad)

small thing like this matters.

Just like details like a good trackpad matters to other people I guess.

The text selection shortcuts are completely consistent on modern OS X, in my experience. At least, I can't find an app where shift+alt+right_arrow doesn't select a word.

I've also yet to find an instance in macOS where Emacs-style text navigation shortcuts didn't Just Work™ automatically. One of the few things about macOS that I actually like relative to the average Unix/Linux desktop.

I've moved on but between 2009 and 2012 this changed from application to application.

they have been for 30 years, NeXTstep and non-NeXTstep MacOS. I think Larry Teslar of Apple (long ago now) was part of that. Also, TextFields in the NeXT and now Apple codebase know various Emacs key bindings by default.

>Keyboard lacked home, end, page up and page down keys.

Thank you! At my desk at work I plug in an old HP keyboard and map those keys so that they do roughly the equivalent.

>I also wish people would understand that Macs are not the best choice for everyone.

I agree totally. Equally I wish that every Linux user (especially here) stopped hailing the system as a panacea. This whole debate is trite.

I guess you already read that part but for everyone else: yes, lets embrace os diversity.

I'm not against Macs. On fact I say: if possible give Macs to everyone at work who prefers them.

Linux is not perfect. My current Ubuntu has been particularly bad. (But that might be my fault as I got to the current state through unofficial states.)

I even grew an appreciation for Microsoft, partly because they changed a lot and partly because I learned a lot (about ABI stability, large scale software engineering, importance of documentation etc etc)

So lets advertise our OS-es but lets not pretend Mac or Linux is best. Not mentioning Windows here since they haven't annoyed me for a while : )

> Keyboard lacked home, end

^A, ^E, just like on a terminal or Emacs. ^K deletes to the end of the line.

Learned that.

But it doesn't compose with shift for selection.

I also learned and still use the official workaround for that which is pretty nice often: shift + arrow up/down while on start/end of a line

>But it doesn't compose with shift for selection.

Yes it does. Ctrl+Shift+E selects the text up to the end of the line.

As an interesting note, it doesn't work with MS Office.

Well, that's one problem you wouldn't have on Linux I guess.

On Linux ^A on a terminal (and on Emacs) behaves as God intended it to, but on a GUI it's usually "select all". It's really awful (albeit it kind of compensate for that with the select+middle-click dance).

> You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook

You're literally posting in a story about terrible Apple keyboards... The whole point to this subthread is about alternatives with better keyboards!

This. I've had linux on the desktop since 2002, and unstable, insecure, hot and noisy are the polar opposite of what I've experienced on the whole. Sure, from time to time a tool would experience issues and cause heat from pegging the CPU, or they're would be some vulnerability cause it to be insecure. I'd doubt it's anymore insecure than windows or osx, and I certainly feel like it's more secure.

Unstable? I really only run LTS, though prior to ubuntu I ran debian stable, and I rarely run into anything unstable except for certain glitches which are often graphics related and worked around with different approaches, sometimes resorting to using a different window manager.

How did I do it? I ran business level laptops. Not high-end consumer laptops - those are junk, I mean 3 generations of the Dell D series, 3 generations of the Dell E series, HP Z Books, etc.

I should also point out that mostly kept with distro packages. If I broke down and installed another, I kept it out of /usr and in my homedir or /usr/local to isolate it, or I used a PPA from a trustyworthy source (Just because it's a PPA doesn't mean it's written by a competent person). When things did break, upgrades, etc. I did not blame Linux, I blamed the package that caused it.

This is exactly why Linux isn't more widely used: most business and professional users regard "switching to a different window manager in order to work around repeated graphics glitches" as a dealbreaker-level problem in a tool they use for their work.

It's supposed to be an appliance that gets out of the way and enables higher level work, not a fascinating engineering project. The tool should _just work_, all the time. You shouldn't have to know or care what a window manager even is. That's what MacOS got right.

Now, if only Apple could go back to having the best hardware, too.. :/

I like how you take one particular anecdote and use it as representative; I have had pretty bad graphics glitches on a 2017 MBP at work, unless I disable graphics switching, which kills the battery.

Conclusion: macOS suffers from severe graphics glitches and has terrible battery life. /s

I have personally used Linux on the desktop and the server for many years. I know many other engineers who have also done this, and we've compared notes extensively on the topic. Sadly, this anecdote is not an anomaly, but a fully typical example of the broad experience.

It is, if anything, a rather too mild example of the general class.

I'm running linux on all my machines, including a Macbook Air and it works very well. Unstable, insecure, hot and noisy would not be words I would use to describe my setup.

The only noisy machine here is parked in another room and given its size and processing power it is noisy but that goes with the territory. Apple doesn't make anything that is even remotely equivalent.

Which means I can run the same software on all my machines which is another benefit.

And yes, I've been doing this for decades.

As for 'dist-upgrade', I don't normally do that, I go for long term stable releases and upgrade when the hardware gets replaced, which is once every few years.

May I ask what distro you're running? I tried Ubuntu 16.04LTS some time ago, and it didn't seem to get along very well with my mid-2015 MBP.

I was a happy user of Arch+i3wm on MBP 2015.

It boils down to what kind of trade-offs we are willing to make.

I might have been one of those Linux users that didn't have many serious issues for decades. Tried OSX for a while (2013-14), but didn't like how OSX gets in the way, though Mac hardware seemed decent. I would rather put up with an unusable fingerprint reader under Linux (Thinkpad Carbon X1), rather than OSX idiosyncrasies. There are other issues with the current Thinkpad (screen mirroring doesn't work reliably), but that is not a deal breaker for me

This. I gave up after several rounds of dist-upgrades broke, then fixed, then re-broke things. If you’re making fundamental architectural changes on a regular (monthly) basis, it’s pretty clear you’re not interested in being taken seriously in the business user world.

Stick with LTS releases. Those make no deep changes, and are supported for (with Ubuntu) 5 years.

Exactly! Personally I've been running Debian on my laptop for about 3 years now but come on! You can't deny that it is a pain in the ass to use especially if something breaks and the only way to fix it is to sift through many forums online to find the right commands solve even a simple problem.

Also, why is it so painfully slow to copy documents to a thumb drive using Linux as compared to Windows?

This is one of the things I am eagerly waiting to see answered :-) Hopefully someone suggests a better way to do this with a utility or something.

The problem is that "Linux" is ambiguous. A comment below is agreeing and they use Debian. I've heard of Ubuntu being flakey. I used Fedora and Arch for years with zero issues (this is shocking to people who prefer LTS systems). CentOS is a trainwreck.

Take any OS, twist the wrong knobs, and you're looking forward to a long night.

Mind that the priorities of the user are different. Most people, including programmers, aren't concerned with using all the utilities of Linux land. Programmers have eyes too, and likewise enjoy aesthetics.

For programming, I'd use Linux over MacOS any day of the week, but for music, MacOS is the clear winner.

> There are bound to be people on every message board claiming to have run Linux for years if not decades without any of the issues I'm seeing on a daily basis and have been seeing for decades on scores of different laptops.

Unless you think they are lying, it's an interesting observation. It could just be you are incredibly unlucky (a few samples in the global population will have problems, just like a few will never experience any, even on Windows). It would seem to me the distribution hump is rather on the relatively problem-free area (my mom is on Linux since the early 2000's and never had serious issues - of course, she doesn't use off-distro repos, doesn't compile her own kernel and isn't running either Sid or Rawhide), considering most people who run Linux are tech-savvy enough to get themselves in trouble. I myself had a couple desktops without sound in the late 90's but, since I switched mostly to laptops without any fancy components (such as multiple GPUs, smart-card readers, fingerprint scanners, stereo cameras...) I haven't seen a machine that doesn't run Ubuntu flawlessly.

> Linux on a laptop has always been unstable, insecure, hot and noisy.

Wait -- insecure? How? You mean full disk encryption? I am typing this from thinkpad with full disk encryption and SELinux enabled Fedora. Sure there are problems with Linux on laptop but even if you don't have SELinux enabled - security has never been an issue (or no worse than Windows and OSX).

What I was specifically referring to there is that Ubuntu's NetworkManager (in combination with Open VPN) had (or still has?) a DNS leak right out of the box for years.

Am I underestimating that or is that are really small thing compared to "press-enter-twice-for-root" on one of the two big commercial OSes?

I think you are underestimating the importance of fixing glaring security bugs ASAP when they become public knowledge instead of denying or ignoring them for years.

Also, a DNS leak is potentially much more dangerous for a minority of people than any locally exploitable bug.

I really believe that what it will take is an actual business that makes actual money selling a laptop with good hardware and an integrated linux install that they maintain. Instead of getting into a flamefest on the ubuntu message board where you have a completely different set of hardware and drivers than the people you're debating, you file a support ticket that the audio on your IntegratedLinuxLaptop 5 seems to have stopped working, and someone at this company figures out what's wrong and patches the exact right driver or system software to fix it. If that doesn't sound like a viable business, well, that's why this is still a problem.

Hell, the second article on Phoronix at this very moment is "GNOME Will No Longer Crash If Attaching A Monitor While The System Is Suspended", and if you scroll back further, repeated promises that Linux power management is getting better.

OS X and Windows also have broken usability, but at least their users don't run around telling people "it works fine for me! Just make sure you use a LTS distro with 5+ year old packages and without any hardware made since 2005"

> It's important for us to own our own tools, and keep the right to do with them as we wish

At no point in my life have I had any investment in linux, it's not mine. I use windows at work, I develop using .Net-y languages in visual studio.

And I get you're speaking for a different subset of developers on hn. The real ones, who believe fervently in open source etc etc. But you say "us" and I don't think you should be comfortable representing an entire cross section of the internet so blithely.

> The real ones, who believe fervently in open source etc etc

The people who really care about owning their tools, privacy etc. usually care more about the whole principle behind free/libre software, rather than merely open-source. But I think the OP was making a point that it is important for all of us to care about this, not just people who already do, because in the end, it impacts all.

From Game Theory perspective, "not using Linux" is actually the game's equilibrium. Because if you have to choose between a proprietary OS (Windows, macOS) and an FOSS (GNU/Linux, BSD, ...), you'd have to choose the former in order to increase your own utility. If people said they're gonna start using Linux from now on, that wouldn't work, since at least some are willing to "unilaterally deviate" from that decision and use Windows/macOS to gain a boost against others.

If you want people to start using FOSS, you'd have to offer them something they can't have on non-FOSS alternatives.

The offer is there. It's freedom, and most people don't want it.

A 'free' computer that doesn't actually run any of the tools you need is worthless.

Makes a good doorstop, I guess.

Indeed. You are free to modify it to run those tools, or create alternate tools that do run (maybe not so much after Oracle v Google). But ain't nobody got time for that.

This is such a bullshit argument.

I don't want to spend my time making a toaster - I just want toast.

Also this is why FOSS software continually reinvents the wheel, badly. Want some BS program? There are a million of them. Want an actual tool that requires deep talent and domain knowledge? Outside of compilers, if it's FOSS, it is almost certainly garbage.

I think you are imagining the argument you want to see. Your comment is not responsive to what I actually wrote.

What bugs? I haven't had a hardware problem in linux since 2005.

I do have a problem reading visio files though. I have a solution, I tell them to f-off and send me a pdf if they want my views.

> haven't had a hardware problem in linux since 2005

have you heard of GUI?

I've run xubuntu on this thinkpad since 2010, currently 16.04.

I've just rdesktopped into a windows machine to run a cisco ASA tool. Just had to reboot it.

YMMV of course, and the plural of annecdote isn't data, but I find it hard to raise bugs when they don't affect me.

well i consider myself fairly technical and i've been trying various linuxes since 2003 - every single time there were some issues that i can't imagine non-technical person to deal with.

no matter the distro, no matter the desktop environment, no matter the hardware.

graphics drivers, sound system, xorg config, multiple monitors, wifi, you name it.

so excuse me if i take your comment about "no hardware problem since 2005" with a grain of salt.

I've had tons of problems on the occasions I've built a windows machine -- took me 12 hours to get a windows 7 machine running casparcg successfully in 2015.

I guess it's what you know.

>What bugs? I haven't had a hardware problem in linux since 2005.

Come on, we all love open source here, but let's be honest: this statement is false.

I assume GP was referring to his/her own experience, not everybody's.

Unless op is using the same laptop for years, but if you ever try connecting some new device to your machine, your in for some configuring at least with mint/debian. Linux is still worth the prodiuctivity gains, but sometimes you spend hours cursing your luck. For a short list off the top of my head.

Plugging in certain android phones, usb wifi, monitors not detected, monitors being forgotten, grub conflicts after windows updates, graphic cards drivers in messed up after apt upgrade shenanigans.

This stuff happens on all my machines, whether dual boot or pure linux. It really makes you feel helpless when your machine randomly stops working properly.

> Plugging in certain android phones

I don't have them, but then I don't do anything with phones over usb other than charge them

> usb wifi

It's built in (as is 4g, although I now tether on my phone)

> monitors not detected, monitors being forgotten

I've used an external monitor rarely, I don't recall any issues. I've seem people using external monitors on their macs and windows laptops, they often seem to have major problems.

> grub conflicts after windows updates

So a windows bug then. As I don't run windows that's not really a problem.

> graphic cards drivers in messed up after apt upgrade shenanigans

I run an LTS version of ubuntu, went from 8.04 to 12.04 to 16.04 -- took the opportunity to replace my SSD for something a little larger. Next time will be 20.04, but at that stage I think the laptop will really be due for a replacement.

Just get a Vega 64 AMD and see how you fare. Oh and no AMD wattman for you either.

I use Linux, but it does have limitations, especially when it comes to compatible hardware (mostly due to the manufacturer releasing no/bad drivers) and gaming.

I dual boot Linux and Windows.

I wish I could just use Linux, but any program that is likely to need to use my Nvidia graphics card just needs to be on Windows.

I don't want my laptop to be constantly using a hot gpu just for displaying the screen, as I need to have EITHER the gpu or integrated graphics selected for use - swapping requires a restart.

Windows has the capability to swap between the integrated graphics for simple display tasks, and GPU for more intensive tasks.

Linux has bumbleebee but it hasn't been actively developed in years. I know the main cause is Nvidia's attitude but it is still disappointing.

> We expect this for our servers

HPE, it seems, started a policy of requiring licenses to upgrade their BIOSes. :-(

How does hdpi work on kde?

99.9% great. Text looks wonderful, almost everything has hi-resolution icons in the correct size. It's not easy to find things to complain about.

My workflow hasn't really changed since upgrading — I still prefer to focus on one or two windows (often with the "Always on Top ᨑ" button) and just see more code/webpage in that window.

Anyway, I arranged some stuff and took a screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/7FOZkdk

Under KDE's display settings, I have the scale set to 2.0.

Problems:

- Minor UI issues. Some UI elements in Amarok don't quite line up correctly. The loading dialog of LibreOffice is at 50% size. GIMP's toolbox buttons seem small. The default steps of shrinking/enlarging text in Konsole aren't great.

- As far as I know, the HDR capability of the monitor isn't supported in Linux.

- About two years ago when I last tried, mixing resolutions with multiple screens didn't work correctly.

If you use a desktop, and can afford to upgrade all its screens to 4K together, I recommend doing so tomorrow. Investigate further if you'd be mixing resolutions; see if you can borrow one.

Referring to [1], I have a UHD-1 screen, which is much rarer than I thought. Just 1.2% of Steam users. The more-common WQHD screens could be OK without any scaling.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution#/media/File...

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