Comment by carlesfe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by carlesfe | Hacker News Reader

Hello, author here.

I knew that if this got posted to HN I'd need to explain myself more :)

To address some of the top comments:

- I clarified now in the article that the "Linux Laptop" is a Dell XPS 13" Developer Edition, which is marketed indeed as a Linux laptop, and the Ubuntu is marketed as "Ubuntu Dell".

However, this is missing the forest for the trees, because only a couple of the issues I mentioned were related to hardware. The main point of the article is software polish, not hardware compatibility. On the previous article where I decide which laptop to use I already mention that it's not an issue nowadays: https://cfenollosa.com/blog/how-i-moved-my-setup-from-a-mac-...

- What is a power user? Indeed, the core point of the article. I tried to be as detailed as possible with my requirements. Saying it is "a bunch of custom keyboard shortcuts" is a straw man.

- apt-get vs other package managers. I've used rpm/yum, emerge, pkg_add, brew, and port. I found that apt-get is very fast and reliable. brew is embarrassingly slow and doesn't apply important changes to config files, just drops you a notice asking the user to do it.

- The Mac also sucks. Yes indeed! That is why I ditched it for six months!

- What about Windows? Well, I install Windows 10 regularly for other members of my team. I hate it. Not only you have to work around the software, you have to actively fight AGAINST the system and its dark patterns. Preinstalled crap, "fake" requiring a Live.com user for a local account, constant and unexpected reboots, telemetry... sorry, it's not for me.

- Do you use Linux on your servers? Yes, indeed. Debian as base, then containers with Void.

- Didn't you expect you'd need to change your workflow? Sure, that is why I stayed with Linux for six months and not two weeks. I gave myself time.

By the way I have been using Linux non-stop since 1999, and 7 years as my only system. I know the Linux-isms

- Just do [the opposite of my requirements]. I wish!

- How can you like Nautilus? I just said it's better than the Finder.

- This is an article aimed at Mac users who are considering a migration to Linux in hope of a more polished system. If you've never used a Mac, you probably can't relate because you don't know what you're missing (happened to me before I tried a Mac!)

I'll hang around to answer more questions, thanks for all your feedback!

Since a lot of people asked, some of my "power user" requirements:

- Perfect support for HTML email with attachments, calendar invitations, and conversations

- Use MS Office and Adobe Reader (with Wine in my case)

- Perfect support for Google Meet, Teams, Slack and Zoom, including screen sharing (full screen or just a window)

- Ability to customize the action for any keypress, combination of keys, mouse keys including the scroll wheel, and trackpad gestures.

- A good way to manage a constant flow of notifications: chat, email, calendar/reminders, and such

- Connectivity with bluetooth headsets. My Airpods microphone wouldn't work so I had to buy another brand of headphones.

- Support for a Wacom tablet, it was good but it lost my settings on reboot

- Local copy of Google Drive documents (did this with Insync, a paid tool)

- Working with two clouds with the same user: work and personal. This includes unified inboxes and calendars, task lists, etc.

If all I needed was to send plaintext email and edit code in vim I'd use OpenBSD ;)

I have been running Linux (Arch) with Gnome on a Dell XPS 13 9380 for the past 2 years and I did not face major issues.

My first major complaint is the lack of fingerprint reader driver. It simply does not work.

My desktop environment is Gnome on Wayland.

The support of multiple monitors with different pixel densities is also problematic. You can set fractional scaling but the rendering was really blurry. So now I have a script that runs when I connect an external monitor that just changes text scaling in Gnome (usually when connected on an external monitor I don´t use the laptop screen).

Other than that I have better battery life than on Windows 10 even if video hardware acceleration is less efficient than on Windows (firefox is the only browser supporting it). And for server side development which I occasionally do on my personal laptop, I vastly prefer Linux over Mac or Windows (even with WSL2).

I think at some point it's just hard to get used to something new. Linux to me is incredibly polished in terms of both UX and customisability, compared to both Windows and Mac (both of which I've used commercially for 5+ years). But I've been using linux on desktop and server for at least 20 years so I'm probably just not able to see some of the things people complain about (or they're just non-issues for me).

All your points are valid as much as I can tell, but this one : "requiring a Live.com user for a local account,"

You can create a local account without any live.com user by just disabling internet while installing windows. I know it's still working around the software... But it's still doable.

I fell for the trick. Once you set up networking, you can't un-setup it even with a reboot.

Therefore, I had to disable the wifi in the bios. I felt fooled and it made me very angry.

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