The Macbook pro 2018 was the worst laptop experience I've had in at least 15+ years. So disappointing, but maybe this will let Unix laptops finally start taking real market share.
The Macbook pro 2018 was the worst laptop experience I've had in at least 15+ years. So disappointing, but maybe this will let Unix laptops finally start taking real market share.
I'd buy something different if there was a real alternative OS-wise (I feel too old to compile my own kernel for a glitchy wifi driver, and Windows? Nah, get away...)
There should really be a huge multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit for their keyboards and fixability to wake them up. I'm so angry.
> Gone is the gimmicky TouchBar, gone are the four USB-C ports that forced power users to carry a suitcase full of dongles. In their place we get a cornucopia of developer-friendly ports: two USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 ports, a redesigned power connector, and a long-awaited HDMI port.
I did it last year on my 2012 rMBpro after it have been complaining about servicing the battery for about a year, and while it wasn't a walk in the park, it all worked out great.
Tip: there are 2 ways to replace the battery.
One is by following the official iFixit etc instructions where you remove absolutely everything before you peel off the battery with acetone.
The other is by immediately peeling off the battery right away. In that case, you have to be careful that the acetone doesn't flow onto the speakers (because they'd melt.) That's the way I, and many other with me, did it. It still only took me about 1 hour to get everything back up and running.
Replacing a Macbook battery should be a routine task for any of them.
* Advice from the internet: procede with caution.
Last time I looked I was quoted somewhere in the neighbourhood of $600 for a rMBP battery replacement - but that was just the battery. Even that IMO is not a reasonable cost for what it is - the only reason it costs that much is the fact that it's glued in, and the fact that Apple charge so much for the part.
They did say that they might need to replace the shell (battery was slightly swollen in both machines) and that I'd be responsible for that cost, but that didn't happen for either box. I don't think they replace the shell unless it's really, really deformed. Neither of my machines would sit flat and both were obviously swollen. One I could practically spin like a top (and the trackpad was screwed).
I got both back with no deformities, a new battery, keyboard, and trackpad, and a 199 bill (plus tax).
I wouldn't rule out getting it fixed. If you do end up paying a little more, then you can probably sell it for more than the price it cost to fix.
i bought an $80 battery (ifixit? i can't remember now) and took it to a local shop and had it back in 3 hours. they charged $120. So... ~$200 but I had same day replacement.
You can also replace the thermal paste, although now that it's not overheating all the time, I won't have that done until next time it overheats and slows down and I need to have it vacuumed out again.
http://www.mackungfu.org/TheonethingtodotomakeyourMacBookPro...
Unfortunately it's not at all normal, it's swollen to the extent that the bottom of the case is slightly warped and the macbook will no longer sit flat. It's also affected the trackpad which doesn't click very well any more. I noticed these things a while back but didn't realise that the battery was the cause until I opened it up a couple of days ago to clean it out (something I do once or twice a year).
Now awaiting a battery replacement kit from iFixit and not looking forward to removing the old one. Probably going to try the dental floss method someone mentioned above (very, very carefully and far away from anything flammable).
Do you mean "not having anything other than USB C is lame", or "I dislike USB C and wished Apple had gone with something else"?
I really don't care about the "charge from either side" benefit of USB Type C. I do appreciate the fact that you can use aftermarket cables though - especially considering how poorly constructed Apple's are.
What do you dislike about the OS? Presumably it's running macOS Mojave?
I am sure I will think of some other annoyances. I've kept a 2012 MBP on Sierra, and love that machine far more, eg. keyboard is actually good and is quiet, real function keys, real ports as found on every other device in the universe, ability to use my audio interface, network ports etc etc
http://osxdaily.com/2018/10/15/dark-menu-dock-light-theme-ma...
Edit. It does to a degree. Firefox takes on the dark theme but everything else seems fine so far.
Have tried everything short of a complete reformat - NVRAM, SMC reset. Nothing in activity monitor gives me any clues either.
I even rolled back to High Sierra to check my sanity. No crazy fan spin. Reinstalled Mojave --> crazy fan spin.
I can see the Touch Bar probably makes sense for people who look at the keyboard while they type, which might be a majority for all I know, but for touch typists it's at best worthless, and the accidentally triggering is terrible.
WRT to an external keyboard with it - in addition to making keyboards more expensive and proprietary, the Touch Bar is powered by the T2 chip, which is not just used to power the Touch Bar and TouchID, but for system functions like boot-up.
Even with these features removed, dynamically paired TouchID sensors would be a change to Apple's security model (which requires a hardware/data reset to pair a new TouchID sensor for security reasons).
Courage.
While I personally wouldn't buy it (I'm kind of picky about the tactile feel of the keyboard), you can get this fully functional Bluetooth keyboard for $20.
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Bluetooth-Ultra-Slim-Keyboard-D...
My only complaints with the A1243 are that the top row is half-sized, and that it has a useless eject button between F12 and F13 which can't be remapped.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Keyboard#/media/File:App...
Plus, I actually use the "Windows" key now, so its absence would be missed.
I don't use tilde much.
There is no absence of a super key. Its on the spot where alt often is, and alt is on the spot super often is. It shares key with shift.
The ctrl is where caps lock is on today's keyboards. If I have caps lock I rebind it anyway. So ctrl and super are easiest to reach, whereas the spot where ctrl often is is difficult to reach (there is nothing there on the HHKB).
So in short this keyboard assumes you normally rebind caps lock to ctrl, it assumes you never use the ctrl elsewhere. It assumes you use super more than alt. It is pretty close to a traditional Sun keyboard.
Funny thing is also, you can buy the keyboard without print on the keys, so that you can rebind it in any way you prefer.
What?? I use it all the time: Tilde in vim for upper/downcase and bash for home and backtick for jumping to marks and in JS for template strings. Great key.
Have to give them credit for that.
One can only hope.
force touch -> force touchbar
;)
The touch mbp should've been a macbook air-like spin off, used to demonstrate the viability of the tech by letting people who want it choose it... instead of forcing everyone who wants a high end laptop to pick that model.
But yes, it's not even close to the retina IPS displays.
All of the non-iOS displays are calibrated via a munki.
The MBA display from this generation (my kids have the 11” MBAs with basically the same crap display) is the worst I’ve used by far. So bad it’s basically useless for photo editing. The contrast stinks. The color gamut stinks. You can’t look at it off-axis at all.
No no, I’ve looked at a lot of displays in my life. It’s my least favorite. The 2009 13” MBP display was better.
That there are non-Apple laptop displays that are even worse is cold comfort.
I measured the contrast of my 2013 MBA at ~800:1 with my Spyder3 back in the day, which is pretty OK for TN. It got somewhat close to 60% sRGB coverage.
For reference, my ThinkPad X230's TN display measured ~180:1 and couldn't even get to 50% sRGB.
No it isn't suitable for photo editing, but then no TN display really is due to the viewing angle colour and contrast shift. I haven't measured the 2015+ models but understand that the actual panel panel is meant to be the same. It's not what I would personally choose, but I thought it was acceptable at the time, even next to the TN MBP displays.
Every time I get out my 2013 MBP (not for the day job) I remember what a computer could be.
Docker - I don’t use it, but if it’s anything like the VMs I use to run, it also kill batteries.
I’m better off provisioning all of that on our DEV AWS Account and just connecting via my phone’s hotspot if I don’t have a reliable network connection and running very few things locally.
I used to use Outlook Web and might go back. The native client is a nightmare but does some useful things the web one doesn’t.
Docker has been a huge boon to my dev efforts, usually much lighter weight than an old school VM, so I’m no hater but if I had to work on battery more often I’d probably do the same thing, spend a few bucks on AWS and only work online but with better battery life.
All that still won’t get me more than 6h though.... :-(
Is Mail.app, or some other mail client, an option for you?
I do not mean officially, just get one in there, unofficially.
It had bad battery bloat but when I got it back from apple care everything looked new.
Ultimately if you want the longest battery longevity, keep it between 50% and 85% charged, and keep the machine cool.
Windows is perfectly viable for doing development, so is Linux. You can easily get a laptop that is cheaper and more reliable than a Macbook. About the only thing you'll be missing is a cool Apple sticker, but you can get those on eBay. Your wallet will thank you, and so will your fingers.
A Macbook was a reasonable, even logical choice in 2012. Now, not so much.
Apple can have me back if they want -- hey, take my money! -- but they have to stop fucking up. I don't know why the Apple board isn't simply pounding the hell out of the management that's been allowing the poor quality and user-hostile decisions of the past several years.
[Hmmm, I just looked at their board members. That would explain a lot...]
Admittedly the current MacBook trackpad is too big - but is otherwise functionally perfect in terms of its multi-touch and haptic feedback.
Also, you can use the external Apple trackpad they sell with any OS.
For you. I do all my development on a 13" laptop.
> Also, you can use the external Apple trackpad they sell with any OS.
I think the problem isn't the hardware, but the software (or more likely a combination of both). The MBP touchpad under Windows with Bootcamp is also quite terrible.
The Surface line trackpads are extremely close and their keyboards actually surpass current Apple boards.
It gets you pretty far, but not all the way. I guess for most people in most cases its fine.
Viable, yes. I've spent the last year (since replacing a 2013 MB Pro) with a Dell 15 XPS, roughly 50/50 Windows & Linux (Ubuntu then Fedora). Both work. They each run everything I need a laptop for.
Honestly neither is quite as good a desktop for me as macOS, but they are near enough that even if I liked the current generation of MacBooks (which I don't), I wouldn't consider it worth paying the premium.
There isn't a single solution I'm truly happy with. Windows 10 is yucky but for me fairly practical (meaning mainly it doesn't waste my time). Linux is more appealing and almost worth it for the speedy file access, but is too time-consuming for me to to commit to. MacOS is my favourite all-round OS, but (Hackintoshes aside) only runs on hardware I don't want (and certainly not at the price). I guess the only thing I haven't tried is ChromeOS. Maybe next time. 2019 desktop OS's are a sorry scene.
I hear a variation of this semi-often and I never quite get what that's supposed to mean. Maybe being a full-time Linux user for a decade has made me used to whatever people are complaining about, but I don't think so, people are complaining about having to fix broken HW/SW occasionally, however as someone who:
- Picks Linux-supported hardware specifically, as opposed to a random, generic PC, (something you wouldn't do with macOS either, btw).
- Runs a rolling release distro, so if anything should experience more breakage than the regular Ubuntu LTS/Fedora user.
I can honestly say that my workflow is basically:
-> Turn the laptop on, (or wake from sleep, yes that works well on solid HW)
-> Get my work done
-> Update the system every couple of days, (rolling release updates)
-> Repeat
Now does occasionally some package update their config that I'll have to merge or something like that? Sure, maybe once or twice a year.
When I do have to use macOS for builds, I experience glitches, (like the login bar loading and never finishing), various annoying updates, (& update prompts), apps, (like Duet Display), randomly breaking when you need them, occasional kernel panics, (but more frequent than I ever had on Linux, in fact I had one on Linux maybe once), choppy performance even on a top spec 2016 MBP due to poor thermals, video rendering issues when switchable graphics is enabled etc.
All in all, my macOS experience is actually somewhat worse than on Linux. It's nothing I can't deal with, but it's nowhere near as trouble free as people make it seem.
I honestly think it comes down to things like macOS being more animated by default, having 3D shadows under every window, the dock enlarging the icons as you scroll pass them, your coworkers having a Mac as a status symbol etc. rather than some big technical hurdle.
And I read that cookie-cutter response almost every time. Fine. Whatever. We have different experiences. I accept yours (because I think most people are more-or-less truthful). You don't accept mine (because ?).
> I honestly think it comes down to things like macOS being more animated by default, having 3D shadows under every window, the dock enlarging the icons as you scroll pass them, your coworkers having a Mac as a status symbol etc. rather than some big technical hurdle
Feel free. "Honestly think" any invented story you wish.
Linux use for me isn't so much a matter of large technical hurdles, but the death of a thousand cuts. By the time of my last f/t Linux use round (just a couple of weeks ago) I didn't have any outstanding tech issues. There was nonessential hardware I couldn't get working at all or well (fingerprint scanner, SD card reader, gpu switching), but I could live with that.
It's more a matter of having a constant barrage of small issues, often with new software I install, each of which is quite soluble, but only after reading documentation (often poor). That's just not how I want to spend my time. I'm not going to enumerate the issues because, as I say, by and large I solved them. They are mostly trivial but constant. I would rather have spent that time listening to music, or learning Mandarin.
I keep logs of all my computer admin & troubleshooting in markdown files. I've been roughly 50/50 linux and windows over the last year. Eyeballing the logs, it's clearly true for me - Windows gives me hardly any issues to solve at all. I install stuff. It works. I get on with my work and the rest of my life. In contrast I have vast reams of notes about the various little niggles I had with Ubuntu and then Fedora.
[Edit: sorry - I forgot your I just find it somewhat hard to wrap my mind around the specifics. So just one example. Nothing big, but bear in mind I'd have something like this at least 3 or 4 times a week. I want to be able to dial down power use sometimes - if I'm low on battery, doing undemanding stuff and won't be near an outlet for a while. Windows: I didn't have to read any docs. Click on battery icon, and slide left on the popup control. Fedora: click around in gnome and find nothing. Search for info on how the Gnome power management interacts with whatever service is started by systemd. Find nothing up to date (Fedora doc on the topic was from version 14 or 17 and bore no resemblance to my version 30). Read up a bit on tlp and powertop, but still unclear on their relationship to whatever Gnome does. Find broken links to relevant AskFedora posts because they've deleted all the old pages moving to Discourse. Ask a question. Get no answer. I could have solved it eventually with a bit more reading, sure. But like most things I wanted to do, it would take orders of magnitude more time to figure out than on macOS or Windows.]
It's nothing to do with 3D shadows under windows, the dock enlarging when I roll over it or my co-workers being impressed because I've got a Mac, because they all have Macs too.
That last point is the least of it - honestly, I have no desire to impress anyone with what technology I happen to use and find it quite extraordinary that anyone thinks owning a Mac is some kind of status symbol.
It's not as if Apple product ownership is a rare thing, people from all walks of life own Macbooks or iPhones or whatever, yet this falacy that Mac/iPhone owners buy these products to impress people still somehow persists.
No, it's the fundamental user experience on various desktop managers I've tried on Linux that while it clearly works for other people, it simply doesn't for me.
There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm sure if I persisted with it for longer then I'd perhaps be happy enough using Linux on the desktop but to be honest it's time I'm not that interested in investing, when I'm immediately productive on OSX, and was when I first started using OSX back in 2004.
My OSX experience is wholly different to yours - I get rare update notifications, possibly because of the software products I use? and performance on my 2018 MBP is as quick as I've ever experienced, but then it should be for a modern computer.
For me, OSX/macOS simply stays out of the way and lets me get on with doing work. I'm sure Linux does the same for you but be assured, the reason I use OSX is not a single one of those reasons you've suggested.
- Hit space to instantly quick-look almost any file, in the finder, in my torrent client, etc.
- Global menu bar doesn't waste space.
- Time Machine provides revision control for your entire drive, integrated into apps, where you can browse and revert to old versions. Even works when you only occasionally hook up your backup drive as it syncs.
- Window/desktop management with real multitouch gestures (not triggers that only kick in after you complete a gesture).
- Smooth font rendering without gamma or hinting errors. Smart kerning adjustment for long labels in tight spaces. Smart ellipsis that displays the start and end of long filenames.
- Icons represent files and can be dragged e.g. from document window titlebars. Right click to get a breadcrumb of all the directories the file sits in, so you can trivially open a finder window for what you're looking at.
- Half downloaded files are resumable bundles that keep the source URL inside. Can even copy to a different machine and resume there just by double clicking.
- Integrated disk, partition and image management, including creating encrypted disk images through the UI, and restoring images to drives.
Just a few things keeping me on this platform.
Oh also, when I upgraded my 2013 mbp to a 2015, migrating was trivial, as both laptops set up an adhoc wifi and transferred everything 1-to-1 without having to do anything. My customized Unix environment that lived though 3 or 4 major OS upgrades transplanted as if nothing changed.
Linux doesn't want to provide that level of convenience because it requires too much cat herding and agreement, while Microsoft can't without breaking years of legacy crap.
I also bought a Surface Go recently and this has convinced me I could move away from Mac completely (To a Surface Pro) if need be, the industrial design is excellent, the keyboard is an absolute joy to type on and it's so versatile, like a "Pro" machine should be.
Hi there. You can buy a sintech adapter on amazon that will let you put a standard NVME SSD into a macbook air/retina 2013-2015 model (and maybe some others).
It costs about $20.
With that, you can choose some of the cheap, new, fast, 2TB disks and get a massive improvement in speed and storage capacity for relatively little money. Google around; there are some recommended drives.
From what I've read the 'long' version of the sintech is the best one to buy. The upgrade process is on ifixit; it's super easy. You will also need a torx screwdriver; again you can buy a 'mac fixing kit' for $5-10 on amazon etc.
Although I had switched over to Windows by the time of the Pismo G3/500 (voted the best ever), I had my 540c upgraded with a PowerPC, and got many years of delightful service out of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_500_series
I had a 5300 for a while and it was a piece of crap compared to the sturdy souped-up 540c.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_5300
It had two big symmetrical removable battery compartments, so you could switch out one at a time and keep running on as many batteries as you have pre-charged without interruption! Plus there was an external dual battery charger.
And you could swap a hard disk drive or CDROM into one of those bays.
Plus it was fat enough that it was able to cool so it didn't overheat all the time like an MBP.
Anorexic thinness isn't a thing for me: I'd trade a lot of thinness for huge removable batteries and great ventilation.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060324140419/http://www.insane...
* Original white and black MacBooks had sharp edges and cracking wrist rests
* 2nd Gen MBP had 8600GT chip death issues
* First Unibody MB/MBP had glossy screen not suitable for indoor lighting
* First Polycarbonate Unibody had chassis cracking and rubber base warping issues (but was otherwise an excellent machine, too bad they didn't resolve those issues and keep selling it...)
* 2011 15" will all eventually fail due to faulty GPUs
* 2012 Retina MBs had underpowered GPUs
* Retina MBPs had soldered RAM and proprietary SSDs (10.13's NVMe support for those older machines with a simple adaptor has made a complete mockery of anyone defending Apple's stupid proprietary pinout, too), glued batteries and display coating problems
In saying that, the original aluminium unibody was a spectacular design. It felt so much more premium than any other machine of the time it was absurd.
I personally think absolute peak Apple notebook was the 2012 MacBook Pro 15" with the Anti-Glare display. All the best things about the pre-retina Unibody design, but serviceable, with USB3, no known serious GPU or CPU flaws, and none of the retina issues such as staingate or glued battery.
Had they made a Haswell revision of that to get the better battery life I'm reasonably convinced it would still be a seriously popular machine today.
This didn't affect me (and it didn't change until Retina, I think), but EM209 <https://randyzwitch.com/broken-macbook-pro-hinge-fixed-free/... hit me twice, the second time not covered by Apple.
Yes, glossy screen had an anti-reflection coating added for Retina models that then proceeded into staingate. To make matters worse they took away the matte anti-glare option entirely because they thought their new compromise was best. Yelp.
My favorite problem is activating Siri when I use Touch ID (yes, I know you can remove Siri from the Touch Bar). I miss the physical escape key. But the Touch Bar is great for volume control and scrobbling. Touch ID is awesome though (if I manager to hit the right area), I really miss Touch ID on my Linux machine.
I need a dongle for _everything and their mother_
Don't get me started on the dongles. I was a fairly early adopter (had the first generation 12" MacBook). They actually sold USB-C adapters initially where the USB-A port only supports USB 2.0. Yep 80 Euro for an adapter that only does USB 2.0.
Then their USB-C HDMI adapter only support HiDPI at 30Hz (due to supporting an older HMDI version). Again, unbelievable for an adapter that was initially 80 Euro.
So, I had to buy a USB-C <-> DisplayPort adapter to hook up a HiDPI screen at 60Hz (third-party USB-C <-> HDMI adapters universally had bad reviews). The adapter works fine on the MacBook Pro 2016. I updated later to the MacBook Pro 2018, and for some mysterious reason the adapter does not work on the MacBook Pro 2018, no output at all (still works fine with my wife's 2016). So I had to buy yet another adapter... (What's the point of USB-C as a universal interface if it is not universal?)
Using Windows 10 forces one to either use a low resolution screen, or deal with the consequences (most non-flagship software fails at scaling).
And that's not even getting into font rendering issues. Windows 10 can't render don't properly, except in design apps such as InDesign, for some reason. As for Linux compatibility, Win10 does a semi-decent job emulating Linux system calls with WSL.
This is not true.
Linux hasn't had issues with the major wifi chipsets in ages. It's as plug and play as Mac and Windows are. There are plenty of reasons people might choose to avoid Linux, but drivers (outside of specialty, niche or obscure hardware) aren't really a reason anymore.
… except (ironically) if you use Linux on a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. In this case there are severe issues with the wifi firmware making wifi completely unusable: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux#wi-fi
“Install Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp Assistant”
Also, if the system isn't shut down cleanly, it will never just boot up again in spite of supposedly using a journaling file system. She always has to run e2fsck in manual mode (i.e confirming every single repair), specifying the address of a backup superblock.
Printing and scanning is broken as well. Not for some niche hardware but for one of the most widely deployed HP printer/scanners.
So on her particular laptop, Linux is anything but plug and play. If you're saying that Linux works well on your laptop I will believe you. It has never worked well an any laptop I owned and drivers have always been the main reason for that.
I believe you cannot simply run Linux any laptop. You have to buy a laptop specifically for Linux.
For reference, it's recommended you use the open source drivers for Intel and AMD, and the proprietary drivers for NVIDIA. No PPAs required.
That said, avoiding that mess is fine for a non-gaming laptop. And I've had no trouble installing Linux on Dell, Asus, or Lenovo. Many configurations specifically listed Ununtu as an OS option (but why bother getting it preinstalled), so sure any of those would be fine. They're not especially rare anymore.
No you don't. Ive had debian on a lenovo laptop for five years with none of the issues you speak of. Printing and scanning work great (dell and brother printers). It boots fine after a hard power off. No update has ever fubard anything. I have no more trouble hooking up to a projector than anybody else (my boss has a mac and complains about hooking up to projectors).
I've also run linux without issue on prior laptops from toshiba, acer and sony and some off brand thing from 10 years ago. I have a brother who runs linux on a dell laptop just fine (and has for years). A co-worker runs linux on a newish sony laptop. I guess I'm just living in the perfect intersection of hardware that just magically always works with linux. Or maybe, linux just works.
https://pop.system76.com/docs/difference-between-pop-ubuntu/
https://www.osboxes.org/pop_os-19-04-and-18-04-vm-images-ava...
It only reinforces the idea that PopOS is little more than a reskinned Ubuntu (which is not a bad thing!). The only non different default setting is the availability of a recovery partition, while the other features mentioned are basically just different defaults.
For us who don't prefer Mac OS:
It copied way to much from Apple.
The alt-tab is in particular has been a usability disaster for some of us I think.
For a while I'd install Ubuntu and try from time to time but now I've given up on them.
As of 2019, I'm fairly happy with Linux on the desktop; usability is really solid, WINE is significantly better than years before, and many games will play perfectly fine with basically no manual configuration thanks to projects like DXVK.
I'm running KDE on Arch. And, I'm definitely happier than I was on Windows.
There's a number of people who can't stand KDE because of lack of consistency in padding etc (I have to take their word for it because I cannot see such things).
Often such people seem to enjoy using Macs and I defend that choice.
Personally I prefer Linux or even Windows to Macs because of (drumroll) consistency.
I want my keyboard to look mostly the same year in and year out. I want the layout to be roughly similar either I sit on my laptop keyboard or an external keyboard. I want modifier keys to work the same between apps. As a heavy multitasker I want my alt-tab to work the way it used when I learned it.
As for why KDE/Linux instead of Windows I just really like it for some reason. On top of that I prefer the Linux ecosystem, the reduced build times I get when I compile, the snappier git etc etc.
Fwiw, it's my current setup - I'm currently trying to decide between installing it outside the VM, or migrating to a cloud desktop.
Unix still isn't a great desktop, but, as the alternatives get worse, it's coming into its own.
You can buy hardware that comes with Linux support including drivers. Changing your workflow is always a pain though, so Linux with a decent DE like KDE could be a suitable alternative for you but because of the big change you could get frustrated and hate the experience.
I am also at that period in life where I don't get pleasure from tinkering with compiling custom kernels, making the PC boot 10% faster, use the latest and greatest... so for me Kubuntu LTS fits perfectly it may be a good option for you too.
Here where I live they would have to refund you the machine, if they weren't capable to repair it within 30 days (while under warranty, which I assume X1 Extreme was). The only manufacturer, whose service is able to achieve 30 days here is Apple ;).
With Lenovo, and previously IBM, I've had experience to have issues fixed NBD, even when I was retail customer.
I just got it back and as much as I want to use it I'm trying to return it still...
I love those guys.
You'll be happy to hear about dkms then. Just install the driver, let your package manager update it and it will recompile on its own for whatever kernel you're using.
This is if you even need such a thing.
Guy spent a year trying to build a better slack, but then finds out people love to complain about slack, but will not make any steps to actually try any alternatives.
The usb-c transition happened too early, it’s annoying that you can’t even plug in an usb if you forgot to bring the dongle. The nice thing about it is being able to plug the charger at any port, but that’s no reason to have only the usb-c ports.
Agree on the OS, I’ve probably bought into their ecosystem way too much to make a smooth transition away. Also the trackpad experience is still superior. But the list of reasons why I would buy a macbook after this one bites the big one is getting shorter.
You can buy laptops with various flavours of Linux pre-installed from a number of different manufacturers right now, you know that right? In the distant past I used to regularly compile my kernels out of necessity and also out of curiosity and trying to eke every last drop of performance from my systems. Now? No way. Have not done that in ages. And you never need to compile a kernel to get a driver working these days, every now and again what you might find is that you have to blacklist a driver or drop a manufacturers firmware into place. In truth, I had to do the exact same on a Macbook to get a non Apple blessed SSD running at full tilt many years ago.
Linux, by any reasonable metric, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with MacOS and Windows today. I can't believe in 2019 with Chromebooks, Lenovo, Dell, Purism, System76 (and those are the ones that I know off the top of my head) you still think compiling kernel drivers is a thing. Even Microsoft makes Linux apps these days: VS Code, Skype, SQL Server, … so that's got to tell you something. The real hold-out is Adobe. I'd love if IBM bought Adobe (after their Redhat purchase) and made all Adobe's apps cross-platform.
I have a 2013 MBP at home that I still use every night, the worst thing that has happened to it in all those years of daily usage is 3 of the feet have fallen off. The thing has been an absolute champ and I would have dropped serious money on another by now if they hadn't changed it.
The XPS 13 has an edge-to-edge display/small footprint, the top of the line whiskey lake processor, 16GB of RAM, and a crazy-good battery life. (I opted for 1080p screen instead of 4k to get that 10+ hr battery life.) All of this for <$1200 with my employer's discount. The equivalent would be 2k+ on a Mac.
There have been one or two hiccups worth mentioning: 1) the trackpad, while not terrible, isn't as good as Mac's. 2) Multi-monitor support on Ubuntu hasn't been perfect. I couldn't get 18.04 to work out of the box with my three monitors; however, once I upgraded to Ubuntu 19.04, it worked out of the box. Phew.
Pretty happy with this setup!
The NUC has the same quad core Intel i5-8259U, with double the RAM and double the SSD size at approximately a quarter of the price of MacBook Pro. If you don't have an existing screen, you can buy a good Dell HiDPI screen for ~500 Euros.
The Linux NUC feels much faster than the MacBook Pro, probably because of faster syscalls on Linux, and generally better optimizations in Linux. But for me the killer feature is NixOS. NixOS has a steep learning curve, but with atomic updates/rollbacks, declarative system configuration, and the ability to have virtualenvs with any package, it is hard to go back to a system that does not have these features. (I use Nix on macOS, but it is more of a gateway drug than the whole experience.)
Of course, there are some sharp edges, Bluetooth headset (including Airpods) support is better on macOS, you can't beat Microsoft Office for Office compatibility (duh), and Skype works better on macOS.
Cloud apps like Google Docs, Hangouts, Slack etc.. were supposed to make the OS less important. It's too bad we're not there yet.
* your documents cannot leave your company network,
* you need features not supported by gdocs,
* you need to work offline,
* you need 100% compatibility for produced files,
* (fill in your favorites)
Lack of MS Office (non-365) availability for Linux is quite a barrier to Linux adoption in more places.
Recently I purchased an HP Envy with and AMD chip for $550 USD and got myself used to sway + i3statusbar-rust. Everything is simple, can be backed up using git and I use at most 300mb of ram after boot. Computer startup is less than 10 seconds and shutdown is less than 3.
I think this is the third time I feel this way about computers. First one was when someone told me about Apache and Linux in 2000, second when I discovered postgis + geodjango in 2007.
I use Kubuntu, since I've been using KDE for 15 years. I use 5% of the configuration options — just by looking, you'd think it was a default install — but I really miss that 5% if I'm on a Mac or Windows.
Freedom to choose good components, a fanless case, and a functional OS like NixOS.
If I need a laptop for a meeting or to travel, I can either use "my" 5-year-old one, or the spare new one. Or the conference room desktop, which has a real keyboard and mouse.
I guess the one exception (other than gaming?) is if you need to run any MacOS only software. (I can't even name any, other than that written by Apple, off the top of my head.) I have Mojave running in Virtualbox, but it's noticeably slower than both Linux natively and Windows 10. That could be the 8 year old laptop thing again.
For example, I tried a smartcard reader inside VM (host: macOS, hypervisor Virtualbox, guest: Windows) and it worked.
We're still a way off passing through graphics cards etc in a 'just works' sort of way (yes there's hugely involved ways to get it done) so it's going to be a short while before I could agree with you that Windows VM's are fully ready to replace native installs for situations like mine.
I've not had a single issue with the MacBook Pro yet. Not a single crash/kernel panic, no keyboard issues, no T2 or TouchBar issues. I open the laptop in the morning and it wakes from sleep and works all day. I almost only ever reboot it for system updates that require it so usually every 4-6 weeks.
I'm not super keen on the keyboard but it honestly isn't horrible to type on. I do worry about reliability though. However I am at almost 300 days of zero problems where I had issues with my XPS out of the box that seems are still not fixed having looked at /r/Dell on reddit recently. Shocking that Dell have taken close to a year and things like speaker pops are not resolved.
I also had a ThinkPad but sadly Lenovos quality control isn't what it used to be and the two units I received had hardware defects. And with modern ThinkPads being less serviceable (the new T series has soldered RAM, CPU and WiFi?!) I can see even Lenovo starting to go the Apple way with soldered storage within two years.
Also while I do no deny Apple screwed up with the butterfly keyboard I do feel all the attention being on Apple is a little unfair and can lead people to think Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft are much more reliable which just isn't true in my experience. In the past few years Microsoft's Surface line has without question been the worst laptop experience I have ever had with software and hardware issues not to mention even less repairability than Apple laptops!
For example:
* The trackpad on 2016+ models is too large for many users who experience palm rejection issues. * The display cable on 2016 and 2017 machines was too short, and is now starting to cause the issue known as "flexgate". It's almost a given that with enough use, every one of these machines will suffer this failure. To make matters worse, unlike the 2015 machines where the display cable could be replaced on its own, the entire display assembly is glued together on 2016+ machines and has to be replaced as a whole unit. * Stupid electrical decisions such as putting pins for high voltage backlight power and low voltage data signalling right next to eachother mean that there's a good chance the machine will fry itself if it gets at all humid inside (most machines do at some stage, especially if used on a lap). Most other notebooks do not do this and are much more durable in this regard. * The storage being soldered is fucking braindead. Apart from being planned obsolescence due to NAND flash's finite lifespan and macOS's increasing hunger for storage space, data recovery is not possible without a proprietary system to connect to a lifeboat port on 2016-2017 machines. 2018 machines have no such port and at this stage, there is no known way to recover data from working flash chips on a dead logic board without board-level repair.
Apple made far better computers in 2015. The competition also being shit doesn't excuse Apple's regressions.
Totally agree with you there.
My opinion on it being "unfair" on Apple is more to do with the fact that such things are not unique to Apple yet they are the only ones who get pulled up in the tech and even media.
I had two Surface devices from Microsoft; a Surface Book 2 and a Surface Laptop and both were pieces of crap yet cost the same (or there abouts) as an Apple laptop. Sure I see people complain about it here and there but no way near the level you see complaints about Apple products.
One area that bugs me quite a bit is YouTube and tech website "reviewers" such as The Verge et al. Right out the gate the 2018 15" model was ripped apart for the thermal throttling (and it should have been, it was a problem that Apple mostly fixed within a week to be fair) but the same people never mention the same or worse throttling from an XPS or Surface. Or any other long term issues those product lines have had and never been properly addressed. The XPS 15 coil whine, DPC latency, colour saturation issues, speaker crackle, squeaky spacebar, etc. All have been issues on the XPS 15 for several revisions and Dell have still hardly even acknowledged such problems.
So while I think Apple did fuck up with several design decisions on the current MBP I feel it is only fair to point out that the alternatives people often recommend come with their own set of issues as well. My Surface Laptop had a fan issue after just two days. The solution? Total unit replacement because the whole thing is glued together and you can't open it without damaging the alcantara keyboard fabric! So that meant a full system backup and restore which brought along another issue as the machine had been upgraded to Windows 10 Pro via the Windows Store but that is locked to the motherboard and ARRRRRRGH it was such a pain in the ass.
The sad truth is Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Microsoft, Asus, etc. all make shitty hardware decisions in the name of appearance and/or thinness. It sucks but it is reality. I just wish people would bitch about Dell, etc. as much as they do Apple. Maybe then they would fix things rather than deflect to Apple for being "worse" (which is false but believed to be true because of reporting).
I've also defended Apple a lot in the past for usually "getting most things right" where other manufacturers just don't. And you're right, they deserve to be cut down for stupid solved-problems-a-decade-ago like coil whine and rattling fans.
My viewpoint comes from expecting better from Apple because they've been better in the past, and only have a small number of SKUs to deal with. 2006-2012 saw Apple introduce new generations that solved problems and almost unilaterally improved upon their predecessors. They made a few hiccups (such as 2008's glass displays), and 2009's non-removable batteries, but they were reasonable well-thought compromises. Apart from serviceability, the 2012-2015 Retina era did the same.
On the other hand, Dell/Lenovo/HP etc vomit product lines all over the place and have done for as long as I can remember. Seldom do they keep the same basic chassis for more than 2 releases, and even when they do they don't seem to learn lessons and iterate to improve.
In saying that, comparing 2019 XPS, Latitude, Inspiron, and ThinkPads to their 2012 counterparts show marked improvement in many aspects, and few regressions. I guess that's a sorry indictment of PC notebooks at the start of the decade more than anything else...
I guess you could call that unfair on Apple, but then you look at the price they ask for their machines and quickly forget about fairness...
I've yet to have to replace my battery. I'm hoping that the 2019 edition is worth buying, e.g. this stuff built in: * Escape key * SD card reader * Older USB and new USB C sockets * HDMI out * >1TB SSD * magnetic power adapter
I'd also like to see touch screen but let's see. I'd give that up for all the above.
I really don't see the point in making the macbook pro an ipad with a keyboard and some extra umpf. They're totally missing the target audience.
Took it in for an official check up to double-check it as i was thinking about ordering fan parts to repair it myself. They said the battery looked to be swelling which they thought was causing the insane fan noise and quoted me $200 for the battery replacement. I thought I could buy the battery cheaper but grudgingly accepted as they said it would cover all the repairs with that fee. They shipped it to a repair center and then upped the fees by $100 for labor. I again grungendly accepted it as I just wanted it fixed, I could mess up the personal repair, and having them do it saves me time.
After getting the laptop back that looked brand new with all the replacements, I remembered why I love Apple. I'm just surprised they didn't tell me all the parts they were going to replace for the $300 as that would have sold me instantly especially considering my trackpad had been half broken but I did not associate it with the swelling battery at the time.
Full disclosure: I am a Dell employee and obviously these views are my own and not that of Dell.
I occasionally try switching but always get frustrated with the amount of time I have to spend fussing with graphics drivers, multitouch drivers, keyboard shortcuts, etc, but it's possible that's because I've only really attempted it on Apple hardware.
I'm in the google ecosystem, so life was crazy easy.
The XPS is probably the most positive experience thus far, it'ss a 9550 with i7/16GB RAM/1TB NVMe/GTX 960/4K. It's currently running Mojave 10.14.3, everything except the SD Card reader and Nvidia GPU work (including the touchscreen, WiFi OOTB, Bluetooth, etc.). The GPU really isn't a problem, Intel graphics work with full acceleration and anything GPU-heavy gets done on the desktop. Helps with battery life too; my system's battery health is down to ~45% but I can still squeeze out a good 4 hours from it. It's not very well supported, you really gotta stay on top of updates and be ready to fix what breaks, but when it's running it's a dream to use.
The desktop on the other hand is a completely different beast. It's got an i3-4150/8GB RAM/GTX 980 and currently running High Sierra 10.13.6 (because of a lack on Nvidia drivers in Mojave). Getting it setup was a little bit of work, the WiFi/Bluetooth card needed an enabler kext and audio needs a bootloader tweak to work, otherwise it's functionally indestinguishable to a legitimate Mac; It can even be updated through the Mac App Store, iCloud/iMessage works, Handoff works.
It'll run great (NOT problem free) for 6 months; just enough time to forget everything you learned over the entire weekend you dedicated to initially getting it working, then update or something will break and you have to dive back into the tonyx86/etc rabbit hole for another entire day or an entire weekend.
Look at what he said, it's great when it works. That's the problem.
Stuff will usually still "work" but your video drivers will drop your resolution to 640 and you have to fight with that and try new kexts, sometimes your sound will flake and you'll research how to fix it, etc.
If your time is remotely valuable and you want your personal equipment to just "work" and not have to be tinkered with it's unpleasant.
That's why I was so excited the Mini finally got updates, but that doesn't really work with egpus so I wound up just going back to my MBP.
If you want a desktop experience that comes close to MacOS on Ubuntu, give Budgie Desktop a try; it's developed for Solus:
https://github.com/solus-project/budgie-desktop
...but is available for Ubuntu - you can install it separately, or as it's own distro:
Note that the 18.04 LTS will have the older version of Budgie and not the latest; the latest version is available with 19.04, but won't be available for LTS until 20.04 - though I am sure there's ways of getting it installed if you really wanted to.
I switched to Budgie Ubuntu 18.04 LTS after my super-long-in-the-tooth-modified-to-hell-and-back Ubuntu 14.04 LTS install face-planted after I tried to install a new version of the NVidia proprietary driver using a very hacked and patched together gcc setup (something I did for an online MOOC where I needed a greater version of C++ than 14.04 supported - not the smartest thing I ever did, but it worked well for a while, and long enough to complete the MOOC).
My 14.04 install started with a Minimal version, then I built it up from there to a look-and-workalike Crunchbang (#!) system. This was done just after #! ceased being supported (after I had played with it and liked it), but before the community picked up the pieces (ultimately resulting in Bunsen Labs distro).
It worked well, but after it finally fell over, I decided I wanted to go a different route on a new install - and Budgie Linux with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS is where I ended up. I couldn't be happier; it allows me a desktop experience that I swear is very close to what I have on the MBP I use at my employer, but I have customized my own way (though I did grab a set of SVGs for a better looking trashcan for Plank). I also had to write a new wallpaper switcher (in python) as I didn't like anything as well that exists. Minor things, though. Overall, it's a great desktop - gives me some freedom to play, but is still beautiful and highly functional.
One thing I'll never do again, though, is install anything that isn't "standalone" in /home or a "deb" package (or something like AppImages); anything that must be compiled from source will either be made into a package to install, or I'll put it on a VM (that's what ultimately led to my old system falling over - too much crap in too many places without any kind of tracking, etc - my fault, ultimately).
Always had Windows available in Virtualbox, but its definitely slower & had endless audio issues with conferencing (you don't want to be the guy who always has sound problems)
Now switched to Windows 10 on a dual boot - which is much easier on the fan, laptop not running nearly as hot as switching between the GPU & onboard graphics is seamless. Despite decades of Linux experience (servers & desktop) I could never get Prime working properly to switch to onboard graphics when needed...wasted days of my life on this.
Despite this Ubuntu 19.04 has big improvements in driver support & if it wasn't for Office, I would have gladly stayed on Linux.
Now its Kali in Virtualbox for me which is almost as good as running natively.
Windows has better toolbar management, mouseovers & switching between apps. Also since Ubuntu moved back to Gnome, switching between Virtualbox VMs has been buggy (display driver issues no doubt)
Linux has a better file browsers (windows explorer hasn't changed in a decade, no tabs & looks terrible) & much better terminal options.
I'll miss Linux as my daily OS, but I guess MS has its grip tightly on most organizations balls these days.
I find both Mac and Windows' window managers much less pleasant than one of the many tiling window managers on Linux, since they automate away a ton of manual window management. That being said, I invested an unreasonable amount of time into configuring xmonad to behave in the way I want to, and the default window manager on, say, Ubuntu, is indeed pretty bad compared to Windows / Mac.
Amethyst, an xmonad-clone for Mac, works well enough, but still has bugs and is nowhere near as configurable as tiling WMs on Linux.
https://medium.com/@agathver/nvidia-gpu-optimus-prime-and-ub...
No problems with the nvme ssd that I've noticed. I went with Ubuntu because Dell ships with Ubuntu as an option, so I figured they worked the kinks out :)
What version of Ubuntu are you running? Is it produced by Dell or the generic release?
edit nevermind I found a fix: in the BIOS (F2 while booting), I needed to set System Config -> SATA Operation -> AHCI. With that, the nvme is found just fine.
After that, it's been awesome. While inch-for-inch I like Mac trackpads the best, I hated the giant trackpad on the current macbook line, and the Dell trackpad is the right size and probably 95% as good. I don't care too much about not having all of the swipe shortcuts Mac has, so I didn't try to get more working on Ubuntu, but that could be a pain if you are into them. (Ubuntu has two-finger support out of the box that works great).
I was really pleased that closing the screen and opening it works just as well as Macs for suspending and resuming. Win10 does subpar at that.
The UI isn't quite as smooth as Mac, but it is still very smooth and easy. Just like the Dell 5530 isn't as thin as the current Mac, it is totally thin enough. Apple is just polishing for the sake of polishing at this point.
Plus, I have Ubuntu underneath, which makes it awesome for more line of work (software guy, call it "full stack", I do all kinds of stuff, but all Linux-based).
The battery is nearly dead. Maybe worth it for me to have it serviced and just keep using it for some more time.
Not if Windows 10 detected that you have "major" hardware changes. In which case, your new installation won't be activated (granted, Microsoft doesn't enforce activation on). You may need to extract the license key from UEFI and type it in manually to get activation to work. It's a hassle.
Unlike in the past, when all you had to do was call in and recite your license key, these days their policy is to accept nothing else but a proof of purchase, which in my case was from almost 10 years prior. Luckily enough, I had it archived.
The newer version (version 1511 and above) of Windows 10's digital licenses are essential a private key (as in asymmetric cryptography, called digital entitlement[1], stored in UEFI), as opposed to the a 25-character product key we used before. If for whatever reason the activation program cannot find that key, it won't be activated.
[1]: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12440/windows-10-ac...
> which in my case was from almost 10 years prior. Luckily enough, I had it archived.
If you bought your Windows license online with a Gmail address, Google has you covered. https://myaccount.google.com/purchases