How's the battery life on linux laptops these days?
The biggest issue is getting all the hardware supported out of the box. For example, there is a certain amount of mucking about you have to do to get any off the shelf laptop running Linux. On rare occasion system updates change something that the laptop doesn't like, hunting down that change can become tedious.
I've owned Samsung laptops, HP laptops, Thinkpads. I've built my own work desktops. I've never had any issues, as long as the hardware is ~6 months out on the market.
That's about the time it takes for linux devs to catch up with companies that focus on windows drivers.
The rule still is to get either a Linux-supported or at least a Linux-popular laptop, even if it's more expensive or doesn't match all your features/requirements. Then it doesn't matter whether it's 6 years old or brand new. It will work.
i.e. it's more important for it to be Lenovo and the correct line than the age. But not all Lenovo are equal. T/P stuff is likely supported out of the box even if brand new. X depends on popularity of the model. Tablets/IdeaPad stuff.... look elsewhere. (Lenovo is just an example, leaving other brands for the reader).
Even on very cheap HP laptops, following this rule has worked for me flawlessly so far. Between telling people "you should spend more money on X just to be sure" and "Y is cheaper and it is very likely that it will work", I'd 100% recommend them trying the cheaper option first. Even if it turns out to not work, they can always return it and go to the more expensive alternative later.
And not only I have _never_ bought a new laptop ( always used/refurbished/thrift) , but for the past 12 years I have been submitting patches to Linux to support the laptops I get. Once you get outside of the popular lines, there is very few people doing that. It will not happen in 6 months or 6 years unless you do it. Typing this from an HP laptop which even 6 years after release did not have all WMI hotkeys mapped.
I have 5 laptops on linux at home, all but one being from a "pro" line (ie Lenovo thinkpad, HP elitebook, Dell latitude, all have a working webcam. I'd say with the exception of fingerprint readers which I never cared to test all the functionnalities have been working from day 1.
I think anyone is safe provided you buy profesionnal models, don't buy the latest and newest tech and avoid nvidia GPUs.
The IPU3 (Kaby Lake era!) is the only one generation that has been upstreamed, and as of today it only supports 2 types of sensors that were used in a couple Lenovo Miix models. Nothing else! There are some patches floating around for the Surface devices of the era [1], but nothing upstreamed. And of course any newer IPU is out of the question (Intel is now at IPU6).
And it happens that all of these IPU3 webcams that work with upstream kernel are mostly because of the effort of just ONE guy, who is not employed by Intel, and who did not even know C a couple years ago (if you happen to be reading this, kudos to you!).
[1] https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/blob/master/p...
You have an even older model, I guess. Before SP4 webcams were USB.
Honestly, I don't.
I think all my laptops had only iGPUs. I always treated my laptops as secondary workstations for the times I was away from my main desktop.
Or don't out Linux on Windows hardware. System integration teams are a thing, and one person without access to documentation is going to do it poorly.
Instead, buy Linux in Linux hardware.
Fortunately, I can buy my personal hardware from whomever I wish, and it certainly will not be Lenovo.
That has _very_ much not been my and some colleagues' experience.
For reference, Windows on the same laptop gets about 6 hours while just sitting there.
Are you really that careless with your privacy and your basic freedoms to the point that you make your choices based on the ~battery life~ of your computing device?
Sorry to pick on you, but whenever I hear these sorts of questions I realize how shallow people can be, even those who are (supposedly) informed and smart enough to know better.
To be worried about the inconvenience of ~shorter battery life~ over fundamental freedoms is like failing the marshmallow test for tech people.
Not OP, but yes. In a laptop, battery life is the number one thing I'm looking for. That being said, Linux does fine when it comes to battery life in my experience.
2. Many of us simply do not agree that the use of an Apple computing device impinges on either our privacy or basic freedoms, or (more nuanced) that the marginal risk is so small that it’s not worth the moderately large inconvenience of shorter battery life.
2. There is no argument here: if you can not control what and how your device operates, your freedom is being taken. You can argue that you don't value this freedom over the convenience it brings you, but this is at best an admission of you being on (1).
Can you explain to me what the long term gain I could expect, exactly, by foregoing a MacOS laptop?
I have lots of computing devices; many are Linux, a couple are Windows, and I have an Apple laptop.
This follows two attempts at a Linux laptop, with crummier hardware in many ways, and many inconveniences from Linux-on-the-desktop sucking. It just works, and I have lots of battery life.
> 2. There is no argument here: if you can not control what and how your device operates, your freedom is being taken.
Am I supposed to be a free software zealot? If my computer sucks, that also impinges on my freedom.
Yes, there may be some hypothetical ability to clone lots and lots of repos and do a lot of troubleshooting and cure one source of suck-- and then argue with upstream maintainers and kowtow until eventually my fix is accepted. When the sources of suck on Linux outnumber the sources of suck on MacOS by a reasonably high multiple, I'd rather keep the MacOS device in my bag than the other machines I have that run Linux.
If you're going to argue about some kind of collective loss by many people making the same choice as me-- that we all lose freedom, etc-- spare me. Tragedy of the commons, etc: not enough people are going to make the choice you're posing to have any significant effect.
You would not be contributing to an ecosystem controlled by a single entity who is increasingly abusing their dominance to extract more rent from consumers and other developers.
c.f.
> > If you're going to argue about some kind of collective loss by many people making the same choice as me-- that we all lose freedom, etc-- spare me. Tragedy of the commons, etc: not enough people are going to make the choice you're posing to have any significant effect.
So, I'd be using my market power to advocate for things that are disproportionately important to you at my own expense. That doesn't seem like "freedom".
I've been a Linux user and developer forever. For awhile, I was a kernel subsystem maintainer. I've walked the walk about making free software available and useful.
I also believe having a Mac laptop benefits me, and is worth the money, and that it is not morally corrosive. Can you please spare me the judgment that I'm "weak-willed" or stupid for my choice?
A billion flies can not be wrong...
I am not personally affected by what you choose to use. I could give two shits about it and go on with my day.
It's you who stands to gain or lose - along with all those that make a similar choice.
> That doesn't seem like "freedom".
You are also free to stuff yourself with sugar, drugs, play russian roulette, sleep around with any willing consenting adult.
But no, being free to do X does not mean that X is morally virtuous. And you don't get to say "spare me of your judgement" and you shouldn't be expecting any sympathy if you have to face any consequences when things blow up on your face.
This willfully pretends not to understand the argument (I hope). My use of MacOS is not likely to make a big difference in the adoption of MacOS, and therefore ascribing all of the massive network effect of usage to me is a tad unfair.
> I am not personally affected by what you choose to use. I could give two shits about it and go on with my day.
OK. Personally, I'm doing quite fine with MacOS for my laptop. Thanks for your concern, but you don't need to call names and judge me over it. If you really don't care so much, you can spare us all the invective.
> You are also free to stuff yourself with sugar, drugs, play russian roulette
All of these things have likely and measurable short term harms to the individual doing them. Using Apple carries some risk of individual and systemic negative effects, but also some benefits (both individually and communally).
Note, this is true of all things. I just drove to school to teach some classes to kids. I could have died on the way. There are possibly even better moral choices of where I could spend my time that are given up (opportunity costs). But, I judged this is what I wanted to do and the benefits outweighed the risks.
> But no, being free to do X does not mean that X is morally virtuous.
I'm pretty sure that I've done way more to make open systems possible on the desktop than you. The fact that one thing I'm doing isn't moving the needle that direction (but isn't hurting it, either) should be OK. Otherwise, you should immediately stop all activity which isn't helping the cause of open-systems-on-desktop to avoid accusations of hypocrisy.
> you shouldn't be expecting any sympathy if you have to face any consequences when things blow up on your face.
Anyone deserves sympathy when things blow up in their face.
It's not all to you. But you are contributing to it, and you shouldn't be excusing yourself on the basis of "look at everyone else doing it".
> I'm pretty sure that I've done way more to make open systems possible on the desktop than you.
This is not a competition to see who is more virtuous or less of a sinner. It is just me arguing that using Apple products is a moral failing.
> you should immediately stop all activity which isn't helping the cause of open-systems-on-desktop to avoid accusations of hypocrisy.
I am not perfect and I am not free of sin. But at least I am willing to call a failing as such. The first step to redemption is to accept your own faults.
I think there's room in the world for closed offerings and open offerings, and that they each have their own advantages and contributions to the world (and their own risks).
> The first step to redemption is to accept your own faults.
P'raps calling most of the world "weak-willed" (which I notice you've stealth-edited your prior comment to soften) and implying they may not be "smart" is going a bit beyond accepting your own faults and instead exposing others to harsh judgment for not valuing the things that you do.
You frame it that way -- most people don't.
I like having a MacOS computer. Lots of daily things work better. Including battery life.
Linux still exists and I still use it elsewhere. If Apple turns evil, I can move to having a Linux laptop again and just be slightly more miserable.
It is not a matter of "turning evil". They are already do "evil" things. It's just that you don't care because it doesn't affect you personally or the things that you consume from them.
I disagree. I think Apple has been a pretty good steward as a commercial vendor, with a few missteps. I have a pretty high degree of trust in them-- though my eyes are always open for any substantive problems emerging.
To illustrate something by exaggerating (one of) the numbers to make it crystal clear what I'm getting at:
A Mac that I don't fully control but has 12 hour battery life feels more free in practice than a fully-open platform with a 1-hour battery life. The latter leaves me less able to use the device for things I want to, and takes up more of my time hunting for wall outlets or just having a dead machine when I need one that's working. Time spent keeping my devices working does not feel like freedom, since I could have used that time for other things.
There's hypothetical freedom to do stuff I don't really care to do (audit or fiddle with my OS), then there's the actual range of liberty-of-action for stuff that I do care to do. Personally, I tend to favor the latter, strongly. The former's just a nice-to-have.
"Inconvenience caused by a shorter-battery life" vs "patronizing a company that is systematically abusing its power to take away freedom from everyone" is not such a case that requires any type of trade-off to be made.