Switching to Linux: Reclaim Your Freedom | Hacker News Reader

Switching to Linux: Reclaim Your Freedom

linux-howto.org

71 pointsBimJeam78 comments

I loathe macOS but stick with it mostly for the hardware. I use a beefed-up 16-inch M3 Max for work and a baseline 15-inch MacBook Air for writing and OSS work.

I love the Air’s hardware and wouldn’t trade it for anything. Before switching to Mac, I was running a maxed-out 16-inch Dell XPS and enjoyed using Ubuntu and Pop!_OS on it. But the hardware just wasn’t there—the trackpad felt cheap, and the keyboard would creak. There were just too many small issues for such an expensive device.

Otherwise, macOS is bloated, slow, and has horrible window management. I also prefer GNU tooling over BSD, and having to install everything separately is an extra hassle. Plus, it’s getting more restrictive over the years, which I’m not a fan of.

The other advantage I see to macOS is commercial app support. Like it or not, it can be a fact of life for many. Photoshop users don’t want to use GIMP.

While Electron has made Linux on the desktop much more viable in this respect, there is are some key apps that macOS has where Linux is lacking.

And of course there is also working between mobile and desktop, which macOS/iOS seem to do best. Part of me longs for the days when this wasn’t a concern, but this is a big thing these days and makes running Linux on my main computer a problem.

>> Photoshop users don’t want to use GIMP

GIMP users don't want to use Photoshop.

Linux actually has some commercial apps available. Though I'm not sure how they compare to their Mac and Windows versions. Yes some apps aren't available but that's true of Mac as well, though to a lesser extent.

A lot of free software have a huge learning curve but the payoff long term is always much more than sticking with commercial software which gets nerfed and eventually subscription model with few feature additions and many subtractions.

> Photoshop users don’t want to use GIMP.

I'm very curious, as someone who is a hobby photographer and takes photos on both a phone and a decent mirrorless camera... What normal person needs Photoshop and what's the use case? Like, the phone and camera both do a good job of creating jpegs, both can adjust lighting, colour, highlights, etc..., and there's specific apps for adjusting lighting of photos. I can't say I've ever wanted to do intricate photo editing as a non-pro, even as a hobbyist.

Do normal people actually use Photoshop? Am I missing something in my life?

If you’re looking to point, shoot, and share with the phone camera, and keep your mirrorless stuff true to life, you probably don’t need Photoshop. If you’re looking to create things that didn’t exist before, or bend reality, that’s where Photoshop would come in.

My dad is a big into photography and while he does his management and RAW processing in Lightroom, he still uses Photoshop here and there. He’s been enjoying playing with their AI image generation to change up scenes, replace skies, etc. Even without the AI, it can be good for tweaking things in the image to your liking, like removing a random person from the background of your vacation photo. Depending on what you’re looking to do, this can either be easy or take incredible skill.

Myself, I have a bit of an obsession with desktop wallpapers, and will often make my own or tweak ones I find to my liking. At different points in my life, going back 25 years, I’d use it for various things in school, work, or socially online. Not because it was required, but because I enjoyed it and could make things that didn’t exist.

These days I use Affinity’s suite instead of Adobe, so I don’t have to pay a subscription. Apple recently acquired Pixelmator, which I also used for a while, so I’m interested to see what comes of that.

The technical answer is layers and destructive edits, you could probably summarize this as compositing (i.e., combining different images together). I don't think there's necessarily even a correlation between pro vs. non-pro (I'm not remotely a pro, but run into limitations of the Lightroom-approach to editing [which is what you're talking about, editing that can't do destructive edits or non-adjustment layers] quickly). I think what it correlates with is whether you want to quickly edit lots of photos (Lightroom) or deeply edit a single photo without limitations (Photoshop).

I need a Windows laptop for work but really appreciate the exceptional build quality of my MacBook Air. I had a ThinkPad, but it creaked and didn’t feel nearly as solid. Are there any Windows laptops that come close to MacBook-level hardware quality?

When my work laptop got an upgrade recently, I received a Dell Precision 5690 and it seems pretty MacBook-like, like they tried to clone a MBP. Granted, I haven't ever owned a modern MacBook so maybe it's not quite as high quality but it's definitely sleeker than my old ThinkPad. The one thing that's very non-Mac is the power adapter. It's a brick, and while it's USB-C, they used a non-standard voltage/wattage so it's unclear if/how well third party adapters would work.

I reay like the Asus TUF series in this regard. Except battery life and weight of course.

Unfortunately, in my experience, no. XPS is close but it has too many tiny little issues for a 3 grand device.

> appreciate the exceptional build quality of my MacBook Air

Wait until your battery dies.

> has horrible window management

I keep thinking I'll get used to it, but it's been years and every day I hate it a little more.

My escape is to maximize a terminal on a large monitor and use https://zellij.dev/ as my "window manager"

Asahi Linux has come a long way. I think the only finicky thing I dealt with was Bluetooth audio so switched to a USB DAC which works fine, and they don’t have hdmi over usbc working yet, but the hardware hdmi port works fine. (edit: just realized they are not up to m3 yet, just m1/2)

Besides that the fedora gnome desktop has won me over, I was able to install everything I wanted from the software app (logseq, gnucash, thunderbird, filezilla), stable as a cow

A couple of QoL wins against macOS (besides coming with a package manager {even windows has winget now!} and, you know, being free): they’ve combined the functionality of Spotlight with Mission Control/alt tab, just tap cmd and switch apps or search for app/file/setting. I cannot reacclimate to having two different shortcuts on Mac now. Drag window to the side for split screen or top for full screen works fine. The other is small: when I mouseover the volume slider in the taskbar I can scroll to control it. Mac does not, have to click and drag. Call it a finishing touch.

I liked it so much I slapped an SSD into a 2014 Intel Mac mini (can you believe we had gigabit and usb3 over 10 years ago?) and put fedora workstation on that too. Truly the year of the Linux desktop (for me anyway).

EDIT: oh yea! Only other annoyance is Signal doesn’t work on either! Electron builds fail for aarch64 (not asahi’s fault) and even on x86-fedora it throws up warnings that it doesn’t know what secure keychain to use, would I like to store database plaintext? Uh, no! I’ll just go back to email ffs

I have an M1 mac with Asahi Linux and Hyprland, and I just love it. Its sleek and powerful but has the freedoms of Linux and I hate that MacOS feels like playing in a padded room. Like wth is up with Finder? Its awful. But if I ever need photoshop or w/e, I just boot into the Mac partition and call it a day.

Yes I’m really impressed with how nicely the installer works and able to choose on boot. Brings me back to my boot camp days of triple wielding. Maybe someday now that windows is on arm…

I think I read a blog of theirs to the effect that the apple developers clearly made a choice to leave the opening in the secure boot chain to allow for a separate partition to install, giving them a hat tip, it would have been easy to lock out alternate OSes (Windows secure boot with bitlocker does) but Apple lets you have it both ways.

I word of warning for others - I did manage to fubar my install when I wanted to undo it, I didn’t pay enough attention and deleted a partition I wasn’t meant to and got in a boot loop. Following recovery to reinstall macOS worked fine, just had to blow away my macOS partition, so, you know, back it up if you don’t want to lose it :)

Many years ago Apple added twitter support at the OS level. At that moment, they chose to become an ad network instead of a technology company. The hardware is very nice of course and just like you it’s the only reason I stay.

Huh, what are you on about? I've never seen anything Twitter in macOS/OSX and I've been using it since 2002.

Edit: Looks like there was twitter integration in OSX 10.8/10.9 according to ChatGPT and eventually removed in 10.14.

This. I’ve worked with Linux on servers for more than 10 years. I know my way around. I’d love to use it on my laptop, but the hardware/firmware just isn’t there compared to a minimal MacOS. I feel that MacOS is bloated with features I don’t need or want. However, As a laptop with a kick-ass CPU, fast memory, fast(albeit limited and expensive) storage, high DPI display, solid battery capacity and importantly working “sleep and wake up” feature upon closing the lid and opening it, Apple has earned their money.

I could tune my way into making Linux do many of those things, but even in 2025, that feels like an exercise of putting lipstick on a pig.

So, I’ve made my peace and settled on a minimal MacOS on MacBook Air as the client, and do majority of my dev/admin work on a beefy Linux server that I can ssh into with ease. Play to each OS’s strengths..

I recently tried MacOS after a couple of years of not using it. The windows management hasn't gotten any better. It is just so horrible. The Dock still does not allow you to click on the icon of the application to minimize it.

I do use Ubuntu Desktop (22 LTS now, went through 16 and 18) on one of my laptops but I also have Windows and must say, even as a power user Linux sucks compared to Windows.

I got constant bugs over time, I can't place a breakpoint directly in the Java Swing GUI thread because it will block my entire desktop, completely dead, so I have to ctrl+alt+fX login to a different virtual desktop and kill the Java process. No such bug on Windows. Also the browser sometimes gets crazy, jitters or something, I have to kill it and restart the app, not to mention the weird "chromium" processes taking up 100% of CPU that pop up every time I try to visit Yahoo Finance.

On games, which is the main strongpoint of Windows, I installed Counterstrike 2 and it would work .. provided I unplug the second monitor and run it on the small laptop one. There's no way to tell what happens if I leave the second monitor on, all hell breaks loose and I have to physically turn off the power to be able to reboot the machine.

I can no longer connect to the internet using the (faster) wired connection because a bug in the RTL8111/8168/8411 driver. I tried everything, update, configure, still unusable, works enything from seconds to half an hour then it's dead. On top of that, the WiFi connection also drops occasionally, it sometimes reverts when I turn off / turn it on from UI, but often I have to reboot to have it work again. Needless to say on Windows both wired and wifi work flawlessly.

So on a 2022 release of the most popular desktop Linux distribution, both the UI and connectivity are nigh-unusable to someone who actually knows their way around computers. And you want regular people switching from Windows and MacOS. Not gonna happen.

Normal people will probably not read these long essays, but they might complain about their M$ OS getting worse.. and that is a great opportunity to present linux as the solution (because it is), you can then explain how programs they use will continue to work (it's 2025, they will in most cases) and how there's nothing to fear.

For me, it actually worked! Of course I did offer some help just in case she got stuck or something, but it went relatively smoothly.

>you can then explain how programs they use will continue to work

Microsoft Office and games. No, not LibreOffice and Tux Racer.

Wine has gotten a lot better compared to years past, but if you need/want Windows software you still need Windows.

You also only get one shot at convincing them, since first impressions are everything. A better argument might be recommending MacOS, at least Microsoft Office works just fine there.

Also, if you're using esoteric hardware: Forget it.

> Microsoft Office and games. No, not LibreOffice and Tux Racer.

Not everyone will be as displeased with LibreOffice since not everyone uses MS Office professionally.. I'd argue further: for MOST people this is acceptable!

> Wine has gotten a lot better compared to years past, but if you need/want Windows software you still need Windows.

Not the case for PhotoScape for example (which was on the "required" list in this case). Also fortunately more and more programs are cross-platform, and again, for MOST people they're acceptable.

> Also, if you're using esoteric hardware: Forget it.

What?? It was the opposite, Linux doesn't require TPM, runs fine on older laptops and even runs faster with lighter DE's..

ok, but what if you need something off-the-wall, like a scanner?

These days, I personally haven't had any issues with odd scanners or printers and getting them to work. Years ago it was nightmarish, but now it tends to be a lot easier than Windows in my experience. My scanner still doesn't work in Windows (granted: I haven't sunk more than about 25 minutes into trying to get it to work), but it works just fine on Linux (with zero effort).

I'm running Void Linux + Brother ADS-1200 + Skanpage + paperless-ngx in Docker with almost no issues. I deliberately picked the ADS-1200 after poking around old HN threads for near bulletproof, reliable and well-supported scanners. If you already have a particular Windows-friendly scanner or printer and want to just switch OSes as seamlessly as possible.....yeah you'll probably have some frustrations.

The majority of games run well on linux. I've had exceedingly few issues. Between Steam/Bottles/Lutris/Heroic and more, the vast majority of games work with no effort.

The only reason I don't always play on Linux is games with an anti-cheat that doesn't like Linux and not having access to a some Nvidia software like DLDSR and RTX HDR. Nvidia has devoted far more resources to it recently. Linux even has DLSS frame gen now.

games is a terrible example here, basically everything runs perfectly fine. If you use Steam, there is absolutely no perceivable difference or inconvenience to speak of. The only argument to be made in this department is proprietary kernel level anti-cheats. Other than that, its download Steam -> install game -> click big green play button. I have like 500 hours gaming on Linux, from indie titles, to triple A games on day one (every fromsoft game, baldurs gate 3, even Genshin impact etc...) I have a Mac and the gaming selection is abysmal.

The other thing is hyper-specific and proprietary peripherals, but even then, most things work well. I have multiple drawing tablets for example, and these guys even release Linux drivers these days.

If you specialize in using Microsoft Office daily, or Photoshop, then sure... but thats not most people.

Besides that, you don't need to be super absolutist about it, you can throw Asahi linux on a mac, or an older laptop/pc. Its not all or nothing.

> The only argument to be made in this department is proprietary kernel level anti-cheats

Just last year we saw that an actual cybersec company like Crowdstrike couldn't prevent a massive screw up with kernel level code. Given that, I am stunned that people are willing to trust game publishers with access to their kernels. Even leaving aside abstract notions of freedom, do people not get that this is extremely poor security practice? Is any game worth the risks that come with giving random game companies (who are presumably less cybersec savvy than Crowdstrike) the keys to the kingdom?

> Microsoft Office and games. No, not LibreOffice and Tux Racer.

It's not 2005 anymore... Most Steam games run on Linux via Proton. There's even a console that runs Linux.

I kind of hate articles like this. I use Linux, I think it's great, I think everyone should use it.

I don't think you need user skills to use it. Gnome is super friendly to use (although maybe it needs to make the dock visible by default). KDE isn't bad and is Windows-like.

I don't think Linux is more complex than Windows. Folders are laid out in a common sense way. Ever tried uninstalling a Windows program that was installed in a weird way by some proprietary installer?

I don't think normal users particularly need to care about OSS either, Linux is more than functional enough nowadays that it's a great choice merely for utility, ideology isn't needed.

What's up with everyone thinking they need Photoshop/GIMP? Those are photo editing tools. For design/content creation Krita is the best tool for raster images by far...

And NetBeans? Really? Is this article from 2005? IntelliJ Community is open-source. VSCode is kinda, VSCodium more so. Gnome Builder is really good now. So is QtCreator and KDevelop. Plus Vim/Neovim and Emacs, especially nowadays that distros make it easy to get started.

Linux nerds still don't quite get normies...

Here's my pitch: it's easier and less annoying than Windows. It's free. For normal everyday use, it has everything you need.

some quotes from the article:

switching to Linux is not some stroll through a digital park. It’s more like trying to navigate a labyrinth blindfolded while simultaneously herding cats. The potential drawbacks are like those pesky little flies at a summer picnic—annoying, omnipresent, and difficult to swat away.

One of the most immediate challenges that new Linux users face is the formidable learning curve. Unlike the user-friendly interfaces of proprietary operating systems, Linux can feel like a maze designed by someone with questionable intentions. For the uninitiated, the command line might appear as an ancient script etched on a stone tablet. It’s not uncommon for beginners to experience bouts of frustration reminiscent of a toddler trying to solve a Rubik's Cube.

WAT?

for one, i have never seriously used windows, and every time i do, i feel like the above. what does that tell you? for one, part of the problem is in the switch itself and in dealing with problems in an unfamiliar system. that goes for any switch, whether it is to linux, to mac, to windows or anything else. for two, i actually believe that linux is easier to use than windows. on linux, when i have a problem, i actually get help and answers. on windows when i have a problem, i often simply can't find any solution, because it's not FOSS and many solutions depend on microsoft who does not care to fix them. on linux, when problems amount that an app developer does not want to fix we get a fork.

and also this:

Another common myth claims that all Linux distributions are command-line driven and devoid of graphical interfaces. Spoiler alert: that’s as far from the truth as you can get.

yet a few paragraphs earlier there is the following:

Think of it as a workout for your brain; you’re trading intuitive GUI interactions for the raw, exhilarating power of the command line.

which one is it now?

Many popular applications, especially proprietary ones, do not have direct Linux versions

but no mention of wine? and how some windows apps run even more stable under wine than they run on windows?

i have yet to find any windows program that i needed or wanted to use that i could not run under wine. and most of the ones i did use are games.

your favorite video game might not run as seamlessly

not true in my experience. again, no mention of steam. why?

in summary, this article claims to clean up myths and misconceptions, yet it is perpetuating them.

> Those are photo editing tools. For design/content creation Krita is the best tool for raster images by far...

How would you make a case backing this up?

It's literally what each is designed to do?

"Gnu IMAGE Manipulation Program"

Versus Krita which is very obviously geared towards creation (from scratch) with it's plethora of painting tools. Or Inkscape for vector images.

Same goes for PHOTOshop versus Illustrator...

Ah you mean it's a better tool than the GIMP for content creation, not that it's the best tool period. I was confused by lumping Photoshop in there in the original statement. (I'd consider Photoshop more like a combination of Krita and the GIMP [i.e., Photoshop is a raster graphics program with both painting and photo manipulation tools], while Illustrator is more analogous to Inkscape [both vector graphics editors])

Well, Krita is easily the best painting tool I've ever used overall. I'd put it above everything for painting/creating raster art. Dunno it it's provable but it's a very, very good tool.

Definitely better than GIMP or PS.

I'm in the middle of sorting out my next laptop (leaning towards an M4 Macbook). I've used a Thinkpad for years, but the the product direction of Windows has been annoying, and while WSL is decent, it's not great. Someone suggested I try Linux, and I did. This was on a 6-year-old X1 Carbon, so it's relatively well-supported. I ran into a few hard blockers. 1) Couldn't pair my Airpods Pro after 15 minutes of googling 2) Would get stuck on the lock screen on resume, sometimes for a minute, sometimes indefinitely 3) VMware kernel modules were a headache 4) Occasional lockups (could have been VMware modules). The soft blockers were 1) Less consistent UI than Windows 2) Poor hidpi support (but it's improved) 3) The UI feels 5% off in a lot of ways, and I'm not sure how to describe it 4) full-disk-encryption is an adventure. I didn't even make it to testing my webcam.

Touching on UI. My experience is the opposite. I started by installing Xubuntu so XFCE desktop. I wanted the GUI shell to be fast and low reasources, and choose XFCE. 16 years later and my desktop shell is the same traveling with me through district hopping to Arch and now NixOS. Same UI and no one’s aiming to change it.

Disk encryption, straightforward luks w/ pass phrase. Setup was 3 terminal commands and and done. Pretty sure the GUI installers you just enter a passphrase and it’s done. All the knobs are available if the default isn’t good enough, using a key file on an external disk, etc.

Poor hdpi is real, it’s bound to change as us old graybeards finally get new monitors

Break free from commercial vendor lock-ins and start using free systems. What do you think, is it inevitable these days?

For the first time ever, I managed to run Linux on a primary machine for a year. Before that, either issues with software or hardware would consistently have me through my hands up and give up.

While it was pleasant while it lastly, I ended up reinstalling Windows on my Surface Pro 9 since the machine began randomly freezing after installing a set of updates (I was running Ubuntu with SurfaceLinux kernel).

Surprisingly, Windows with WSL has been more pleasant to use than I remember. I haven’t run Windows in 10+ years, but so far im encouraged to continue trying it.

Except that for user freedom I think the best distro for Linux beginers would be somehting simple with good docs like Slackware or LFS, not the super-complex windows wannabe distros like Fedora or Ubuntu. It's much more welcomming, with very little ceremony around building and modifying packages.

Missing the "/s"

No. Slackware was my first distro after MS-DOS and Windows 95/2000 and the benefit was that it was a really simple thing, conceptually, and quite malleable.

So if someone's suggesting a distro that's good for "reclaiming your freedom", then one of the simplest distros out there, made and maintained by a single person and well docummented, but still challenging enough that you end up learning something, should be a legitimate way to go.

And LFS is of course explicitly in this space. You basically build your own OS.

But Slackware has much smaller initial commitment, so I'd think it would be better to start.

Currently stuck in WSL2 on my Thinkpad, newish hardware that could use some more updates before jumping ship.

Switching to the linux world 20 years ago was one of the best decissions I ever made. What I learnt on the way is absolutely priceless. Thanks go out to all OSS developers!

Unfortunately, there aren't any Linux drivers for the audio hardware I use. The hardware replacement cost to switch to Linux would be prohibitive. I also would have a much narrower choice of audio and DAW apps.

Could you email the hardware vendor and ask nicely for Linux support? They won’t develop it if customers aren’t asking.

I had a great time with bitwig as a daw, no idea about the hardware issue though

I’ll chime in with a different anecdote than all the whiny ones. Fedora + Niri on a Dell XPS is great. Stock Fedora + Gnome is also great. I don’t miss Windows or OSX at all. The games I care to play work fine thanks to Proton. I don’t care about Adobe or MS Office. If you don’t care about those, either, then find a laptop with good Linux support and decent build quality and come on. It’s more than fine.

Wow thanks people, that is a lot of comments. I really value that and most of your points are valid. It is interesting to see all these new insights from users like you!

Linux in a nutshell: Just awful in a laptop, meh in a desktop, and first-class as a server.

This comment is unworthy of your user name. The modern experience of Linux is miles ahead of Windows and as good as Mac: https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-4-best-linux-desktops-base...

It seems like the perception that MacOS and Windows are miles apart in quality stems from the two ends of the horseshoe theory refusing to admit they're next-door neighbors.

'the modern experience' is dogshit sliding down a wet stick for laptops. average it all out.

As a ThinkPad user, I disagree. I've been using Linux (Fedora + Arch) on my Z13 Gen 1 for three years now and it's been a first-class experience. Everything worked out-of-the-box, with literally zero issues. I can't think of a single thing that I'd want to improve, from a laptop user's perspective. For me, this is the definitive Linux laptop experience.

And I'm sure the laptop experience is equally good on "native" Linux laptops, such as the ones from System76, Slimbook, Tuxedo etc.

So to make a blanket statement like "'the modern experience' is dogshit sliding down a wet stick for laptops", is pretty disingenuous and very disrespectful towards all the developers who've worked so hard on making Linux viable.

It is disingenuous, yet also accurate.

HN mostly agrees:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32964519

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42569926

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42122686

I've never used anything but Linux on the 20 or so laptops I've gone through. Suspend can be an issue, fan control can be suboptimal, but the only thing I find intolerable is the touchpad, so I use a mouse. I've had one or two bad laptops, but most were sufficient. If I had a laptop presently, it would be running Linux.

You use it with a mouse... That is telling. Have you considered that people actually want to use the laptop all by itself? Without an external mouse? That's the experience you're supposed to benchmark for.

Yeah, and touchpad behavior in Linux can be configured to a satisfactory degree, but with admittedly excessive fenagling. Modifying dozens of different parameters in a command line interface to get full functionality is silly. The default settings can easily be interpreted as deliberate cruelty.

I am unusually OCD with touchpads though, and have a history of actually smashing them during times of high stress. Why the touchpad isn't taken more seriously in Linux-land is a mystery to me and certainly a point of contention. For all the other benefits of Linux on a laptop, it is something I've always just accepted and been otherwise very grateful for.

Wayland has had 1:1 trackpad gestures as the default for years. I know this because I've been daily-driving Linux (both KDE and GNOME) with a Magic Trackpad for years now, and the experience out-of-box is better than my Mac.

In fact, I think Apple should take a page out of Linux' book and put cursor acceleration in system preferences instead of the terminal. The amount of work that Apple puts into enforcing controversial defaults is mind-boggling.

https://youtu.be/aBEsxTVRsEo?t=95

Holy crap! Good stuff! Thanks.

Just need to get a laptop to try it.

You just linked to three anecdotes. That doesn't prove anything, it just shows that HN users are willing to take a stance one way or the other sometimes.

If you wanted to prove that it's accurate you might include qualitative data, or, gasp, ignore HN since it comprises largely of marketers and not so many engineers.

I run Linux on my laptop and desktop and have a MacBook.

I wouldn't recommend it for your laptop unless you're an enthusiast. Suspend/sleep is still janky, power saving is poor and dock support is hit and miss depending on the day. And this is after applying a lot of tweaks.

For desktop it's fantastic and I would recommend. It's not without some issues but what OSes is actually without any issues.

For server, I can't imagine using anything else.

As a ThinkPad Z13 user, I've had none of the issues you've described. I've been running Linux (Fedora + Arch) on it for three years now and it's been a first-class experience. Everything worked out-of-the-box, with literally zero issues. I can't think of a single thing that I'd want to improve, from a laptop user's perspective. For me, this is the definitive Linux laptop experience.

I had a similarly good experience with my previous laptop, an HP Elite Dragonfly. Only niggle was that not all bits of firmware was upgradable via fwupd, so I had to ocassionally boot into Windows to do the firmware updates. But other than that, I don't recollect any issues with it either, suspend/resume/power management all worked as good as Windows. In fact, battery life was better than Windows when I applied powertop's tweaks.

And I'm sure the laptop experience is equally good on "native" Linux laptops, such as the ones from System76, Slimbook, Tuxedo etc.

So personally, I wouldn't make a blanket statement like "I wouldn't recommend it for your laptop unless you're an enthusiast". To be clear, I'm not claiming that the issues you describe don't exist, but at least for laptops known for having official support for Linux, the experience should be good.

I have a Slimbook Elemental 15 (or some such) and it's crap. The keyboard has a backlight you can change the colour of... with an application which is only available on specific distros (it isn't even on the AUR) and even then half the time it doesn't work.

Its audio system is also fucked, if you plug in headphones tte thing will play from the headphones at the volume of the speakers. The system doesn't see the headphones, it only has a generic audio output and switching between speakers and headphones happens IN HARDWARE.

The battery life ain't great, though I don't know about hibernate 'cause I ain't wasting 32 gigs on swap. Suspend seems to work fine, though I don't know how much power it'd drain over the course of, say, a night.

Ubuntu works fine on the Dell XPS 15 9500 laptop I use for work. It came preinstalled with Windows, but I shrank the partition so I can dual boot. (Having all data encrypted-at-rest was a requirement which made things a little trickier.)

The only weirdness I've encountered is some crashing in some lid-open-or-closed software, probably because I tried to make sure it wouldn't sleep just because I wanted to carry it to a conference room.

Presumably because servers have components that are predictable and stable over their production runs, whereas laptops seem to be assembled out of whatever bits the supplier has on hand that week?

There are two main issues.

Servers are configured differently (config files, puppet) with static configs. This works great for server deployments. On laptops, too much is always changing--new networks, powering on and off, etc.

The other issue is yes, drivers, but not only because of supplier pressure. There seem to be more peripheral devices (sound, webcam, bluetooth) from low-end vendors, so the devices are buggier and less likely to get support. Servers care about disk and network. There aren't as many vendors, and the have incentives to have decent Linux support.

I always buy Lenovo laptops. Never really had an issue until the latest Lenovo I purchased. The suspend/sleep gets weird sometimes. Other than that, I am pretty satisfied with my dev box.

Asides from what sibling comments have mentioned, this is in large part true for me because I've yet to experience a Linux desktop environment that I've found to be great from a UI perspective. On a server, that's not applicable.

In my experience, Linux works quite well on laptops that are intended to run it.

I’ve only tried the System 76 Lemur Pro and the Framework 13, both of which worked smoothly. The Framework has better build quality, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who wants to try a Linux laptop.

Framework has been rock solid—I've had it since the first batch, and it's worked flawlessly across three mainboards, two screens, and two webcams (all upgraded along the way).

Arch Linux ran without a hitch. KDE on Wayland is now incredibly polished and, surprisingly, a far better UX for me on a laptop than Apple's.

I can add that Linux is also pretty solid on Asus machines well, despite the company actively advocating for MS on their sites. I have an old G46, some i7-1065 Zenbook Flip, and a newish Zenbook with a 6800U. All of them running Debian 12 with GNOME or KDE, all hardware components supported. That also includes the sensors for tablet mode in the Flip! Also used to have an 8000 series Intel AsusPro something, same good support.

It takes around 1 to 2 years for the kernel to catch up on more stable distros, but I can wholeheartedly recommend Asus laptops for Linux use.

I'm heavily biased and an expert user, but I do also have a Mac from work, and my Linux laptop genuinely is more trouble-free with docking and Bluetooth acrobatics than the Mac (a M1 MBP).

Every time the Mac decides today's another day when flipping it shut will randomly also disable the external display, I get a little more frustrated, or when it's dumb about not switching my headphones out of bi-directional headset mode to a HQ audio profile once a call ends. These things are just flawless on my Linux system.

Battery life on the M1 Mac is absolutely stellar and probably about double of the Intel-based Linux one, though, which I agree is a valid deciding factor for quite a few users because it can really change how you go about your day.

Dunno, I've had no issues running Linux on laptops for the last 15 years. Had a ThinkPad, a cheapish Acer and now an MSI. All ran Linux flawlessly. My current MSI laptop even has a touchscreen, stylus and fingerprint reader. Everything works flawlessly.

I'd give this laptop to my grandma even. It's great to use. Gives me zero trouble, can't say the same for my wife's Windows laptop.

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