Hacker News Reader

Comment by Arbortheus | Hacker News Reader

Is there any Linux distribution with MacOS levels of reliability, simplicity, and productivity, that can reliably be updated without the boot partition getting full, random things like thunderbolt docks not working, or sleep states being faulty (or the machine not working properly after waking from sleep), or external monitor resolutions being wrong, and monitor scaling working properly when you have two monitors with different resolutions?

Most of my colleagues at work picked Linux over a MacBook, and they waste countless hours fixing their various Linux bugs.

View on HN

Sleep states are faulty on the Linux laptop I'm currently on, and I do occasionally waste time on interoperability with various commercial software, although countless hours seems excessive. But when it comes to running dev software or getting up and running with a new project, or compiling some github source, I think I save much more time than I've lost.

What frustrates me is that other Linux users will tell you with a straight face that you must be flat-out lying if you bring up sleep problems. Had three users tell me that on HN just about a day ago.

You must be lying! Are you implying S0x works badly and wakes too many times, pcie_aspm requires to be set to force to have decent results and enabling S3 is hidden somewhere in the BIOS assuming it's there at all?

You must be lying, I never heard of such stories!

NOTE: My computer came without OS. Assuming HP Dev One or System 76 behave better in this regard. But I'm a sucker for 2-in-1.

Linux doesn't have power nap. That being said, I can leave my Thinkpad in my bag for a few days without worrying about losing any of the work on it. It won't win awards for standby durability, but that may just be a lost cause for x86.

Powernap? You mean S0idle? If it is advertised it is used -- tested on Thinkpad Yoga L15 Gen...3? .

It's really very hardware-dependent. You can have five machines and sleep and PM works just fine, but if you get unlucky you also can have five machines and three don't go to sleep and two have poor battery life. Sometimes this affects even devices marketed for Linux, like the framework.

> Sometimes this affects even devices marketed for Linux, like the framework

I was interested in the framework laptop at some point but it increasingly looked like a Windows-first laptop on which the company is happy about you installing Linux on it.

There are laptops marked 10/10 on iFixit on which Linux works perfectly, I'll pick them until this changes.

Yea, but this is something unique to Linux, since everyone runs a different distro on different, never 100%-supported, hardware. So, they likely have never run into sleep problems- my desktop linux box doesn't have any at the moment.

Sometimes these difficulties have a silver lining, though, after they force you to learn more about the systems you're using. I thinks it's less of a trial-by-fire than it was even four or five years ago when I switched completely to linux, and only getting easier.

It indeed depends on the hardware. I had computers with capricious suspend in the past. The last ones worked fine, except one which sometimes hung on wake up and sometimes had graphical glitches and random hangs, but all this went away when I removed the faulty RAM stick it had…

I’m sort-of fine with the issues. I’m not fine with the increasingly hostile attitude you meet from most of the Linux world if you in the public eye dare ding their precious baby.

Well it's kinda understandable, although lamentable, since open-source development requires high morale/passion if there's no monetary incentives. If someone fixes your car for free, but afterward you complain about them scuffing the upholstery, they probably lose motivation. I know it's not the same thing, but I think it comes from the same place.

There's also the safety-in-numbers aspect, similar to editor wars, where people adopt the attitude that the more people that use their thing, the better it will be, so they are waging a propaganda campaign for their cause.

How dare you, though?

True and annoying. Writing as a f/t Linux user (Fedora Workstation on a laptop), and I appreciate where it shines enough to choose its particular set of tradeoffs for myself. But there's no doubt Linux users can be annoyingly obdurate about its deficiencies. Similar things crop up in tech circles all the time - eg. Rust programmers informing people having trouble learning Rust that there's nothing hard about it.

I think it's because it's an apples to oranges comparison. I'm guessing you installed Linux yourself on your PCs, instead of it coming pre-installed. Whereas for Mac OS, you can only get it on devices pre-installed, so naturally all hardware functions like sleep will work perfectly. I'm guessing if you buy a laptop from those distributors with Linux pre-installed, you will also get great hardware support

It's not exactly a desktop device (though it can be booted into a desktop), but Steam Deck is by far the best Linux experience I've had. It seems what you really need is a company with an incentive to make a good hardware+software package.

Steam Deck is the only way I am going to indulge Linux Desktop long term in the future. Just have to save a bit so I can buy the 512 GB version.

You can buy the cheapest version and upgrade the M.2 SSD

I have a box I've been updating Mint on for the last 10 years with no real issues for the last 6 or 7.

No. I am using Linux on PC hardware and I miss Mac OS X. I have a lot tweaks and hacks that just don’t cut it. For example, the PC Home and End keys for text boxes are hard coded into X.

Funny you should mention that because I always have to fix Home and End on Mac with Karabiner-Elements so they don't go the beginning and end of the entire document which is totally useless.

That said, I agree with you.

macOS is a mess. Some apps respect proper bindings home/end, some including native Apple ones are just crazy. Ctrl+A/Ctrl+E works as a super home/end for VSCode but as an ordinary home/end for Jetbrains. Mess, giant mess.

The only thing that macOS did good is a separation between ctrl+C and cmnd+C, so I can interrupt apps in console and copy text without issues.

I still haven't fixed that on my Macbook, as iterm2's changes mess with Karabiner's changes. It is a pain in the ass.

Your description of macOS's and MacBooks' reliability doesn't match my experience. I've been using MacBook Pros for about 15 years now, and every single one that I've ever owned or used long-term has always had some kind of bizarre issue that ended up forcing me to replace it.

It's actually funny that you mention issues with Thunderbolt docks and monitors, because I feel like those were some of the most frequent issues I've encountered. This year, I actually swapped my work MacBook Pro for a Linux laptop specifically because my Mac would completely and irrecoverably lock up every time I tried docking it to two 4K monitors. My new Linux laptop has some issues of its own, but nothing that severe, at least.

> without the boot partition getting full

This is very annoying. Some distributions are able to boot directly from the main partition, without a need for a separate /boot though, even with Btrfs. This is the case for the computer I'm writing this comment with running openSUSE Tumbleweed, I think I had that with Debian or Ubuntu in the past. [a]

> sleep states being faulty (or the machine not working properly after waking from sleep)

> or external monitor resolutions being wrong

Fine on my computers too.

> monitor scaling working properly when you have two monitors with different resolutions?

I gave up temporarily on this. It seems to work well on Wayland but I can't bear the blurry fonts that comes with fractional scaling on Wayland (and this is not just Linux, I think macOS is like this too), and I'm still on X11 the scaling is not very adaptative. HOWEVER KDE is getting proper fractional scaling support just right now [1]:

> “What does this do?” you might ask. It allows the Qt toolkit to turn on its pre-existing fractional scaling support on Wayland that it always had on X11. No more rendering to an integer size and then scaling down! This should result in Qt apps that are scaled to anything other than 100%, 200%, or 300% scale having better performance, less visual blurriness, and lower power usage.

And KDE on Wayland may be usable now, so that might be the thing that makes me switch in the coming months.

[1] https://pointieststick.com/2022/12/16/this-week-in-kde-wayla...

[a] edit: by the way, I just installed Debian on an old x86 tablet that was running Ubuntu (because i386 is not supported anymore, and recent versions of Debian are way better than recent versions of Ubuntu anyway). It had a separate /boot on Ubuntu, I installed Debian in a Btrfs subvolume, its /boot is there so now the separate boot partition is completely useless and I will get rid of it. So I can confirm it works on Debian too.

What partition configuration do you have? Do you have a fdisk printout handy (aka `fdisk /dev/FOOBAR` and run the p command)

  Disk /dev/sda: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
  ...
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: gpt
  ...
  
  Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
  /dev/sda1       2048   1050623   1048576   512M EFI System
  /dev/sda2    1050624 972578815 971528192 463.3G Linux filesystem
  /dev/sda3  972578816 976773134   4194319     2G Linux swap

sda1 is the EFI partition mounted on /boot/efi, /boot is a folder of /dev/sda2.

sda2 is fully encrypted, subvolumes used to be managed by snapper and I installed openSUSE with its installer which does a lot of magic so my mount is a bit of a mess. Grub is able to find its config and boot the OS but takes ages to decrypt so I replaced it with systemd-boot. Here's mount:

  proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,size=4096k,nr_inodes=3048348,mode=755,inode64)
  securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,inode64)
  devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
  tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,size=4883644k,nr_inodes=819200,mode=755,inode64)
  cgroup2 on /sys/fs/cgroup type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate,memory_recursiveprot)
  pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  bpf on /sys/fs/bpf type bpf (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on / type btrfs (rw,noatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=266,subvol=/@/.snapshots/1/snapshot)
  systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=28,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=16762)
  debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime,pagesize=2M)
  tracefs on /sys/kernel/tracing type tracefs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  ramfs on /run/credentials/systemd-tmpfiles-setup-dev.service type ramfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
  ramfs on /run/credentials/systemd-sysctl.service type ramfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /.snapshots type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=265,subvol=/@/.snapshots)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /boot/grub2/i386-pc type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=264,subvol=/@/boot/grub2/i386-pc)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /opt type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=261,subvol=/@/opt)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /srv type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=259,subvol=/@/srv)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=263,subvol=/@/boot/grub2/x86_64-efi)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /usr/local type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=258,subvol=/@/usr/local)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /root type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=260,subvol=/@/root)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /var type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=257,subvol=/@/var)
  /dev/mapper/cr_root on /home type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache=v2,subvolid=281,subvol=/@/home)
  tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,size=12209112k,nr_inodes=1048576,inode64)
  /dev/sda1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
  ramfs on /run/credentials/systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service type ramfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,mode=700)
  tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=2441820k,nr_inodes=610455,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000,inode64)
  portal on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse.portal (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
  gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000)
  tracefs on /sys/kernel/debug/tracing type tracefs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
  portal on /root/.cache/doc type fuse.portal (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0)
  gvfsd-fuse on /root/.cache/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0)

I have a similar setup on an nvme disk in another computer.

I might as well delete the 2G swap partition by the way, with 24G of RAM I'm not sure it's that useful.

My M1 Macbook pro is connected to a Dell thunderbolt desktop docking station. This had caused me so much grief with the screen, that I directly connected the 43 inch monitor to the M1 rather than go through the dock. Moreover, the ethernet on the dock is wonky, often dropping out. This makes the work VPN sometimes ... challenging.

Was just as wonky when I had the windows laptop that the mac replaced. BSODs were common with it, and its crashed the MacOS machine multiple times.

Linux OTOH, doesn't seem to have a problem with the other dock I have it connected to. Haven't had a crash.

But hey, doesn't fit the "linux sux" narrative, so YMMV.

My M1 pro is also way fiddlier and flakier with thunderbolt docks than my Linux thinkpad. Just monitor detection and enabling itself seems slower and buggier on a mac.

> that can reliably be updated without the boot partition getting full

Who hurt you? Pop!_OS?

Ubuntu, for like a decade. Made running Ubuntu servers real dicey.

I believe the bigger "problems" happen when a random laptop is used instead of the few that are rock solidly supported by major distros. I am the same BTW, I usually buy a laptop that maybe kinda supported and then cross my fingers and hope that it works. Then I start fixing those issues that can be fixed or create little workarounds around those that can't. For my wife I just bought a Dell XPS and that was that, no tweaks or workarounds necessary.

I occasionally try a Linux distro on a new computer that I'm building, like Ubuntu and Mint, and so far I've never been able to get it running satisfactorily without any major problems.

Last time, I was using an Intel barebones NUC for a stepmania setup, and ran into major problems with both audio and display resolution. Gave up and went to Windows 10, no major issues there setting it up, though the occasional boot screen interstitial is very annoying.

Random hardware which is designed for Windows typically gets Linux support within a couple years after its release. But if you are actually serious about trying Linux, buy it preinstalled.

Fedora Workstation

Fedora was much better than macOS for me. Don't have your kinds of complications though.

> that can reliably be updated without the boot partition getting full

I have the suspicion that this is caused by users who add extra kernels and don't use the system provided ones.

Ubuntu retains only a certain number of (distro-provided) kernels.

Ubuntu desktop version doesn't even use a separate partition for `/boot`, so there's no risk.

I remember this being a problem for Ubuntu Server, but it was long ago (I think 16.04, or maybe earlier).

> sleep states being faulty (or the machine not working properly after waking from sleep)

This problem can depend on two things.

S3 (suspend to RAM) became a bloody mess in recent times (possibly, because of Microsoft's push for the Connected standby). The firmware of some laptops (and even desktops!) doesn't advertise the state. One can verify this with `sudo dmesg | grep "supports S"`: if there is no S3, it's the producers fault. In such cases, I actually don't know how Windows works (for example, if they patch the ACPI tables).

If S3 is advertised, but it doesn't work well, then the producer didn't release proper drivers. Best thing is to open a bug in the kernel tracker; some producers do actually react.

Kernel v6.1 released a lot of fixes for laptops, so it's worth giving a shot.

I'm definitely not justifying the status quo, but it's a chicken and egg situation (small user base -> underdeveloped drivers -> small user base).

> random things like thunderbolt docks not working

I suspect this is a similar (hardware drivers) problem.

> external monitor resolutions being wrong, and monitor scaling working properly when you have two monitors with different resolutions

I suspect this is an X11 problem, which can be considered "Linux", although I'm not sure exaclty. Scaling is a bloody mess, and I think it's not related to drivers.

To summarize, the fault is a mixed bag. for hardware/driver cases (and they're many), there's nothing to do; some distros adopt kernels earlier, but that's not necessarily a good thing. For display scaling, I suspect there's nothing to do, either - this may still take some time.

> In such cases, I actually don't know how Windows works (for example, if they patch the ACPI tables).

It uses Modern Standby (aka S0 Low Power Idle).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...

> if there is no S3, it's the producers fault

Or it's Linux fault for not supporting the S0LP? Sure, there are a lot of problems with the S0LP implementation on Windows, but the idea itself is good - that's what all the phones have utilized for at least previous 10 years. Maybe Linux actually could do it better than Windows, if some effort was put into it?

> Or it's Linux fault for not supporting the S0LP?

That Linux should support all the crap in existence is a fair argument, however...

> the idea itself is good - that's what all the phones have utilized for at least previous 10 years

Phones are different from PCs, in the hardware design, but also in the usage pattern. If something makes perfect sense on a phone, it doesn't imply it does it on the PC as well.

I owned in the past two hybrid (Microsoft) laptops, which I carried and used on the way frequently, and still, the idea of a connected standby was evidently nonsensical (even ignoring the horribly broken implementation). If one wants to stay connected, they use a smartphone, and/or a smartwatch. A laptop can't be kept in a pocket and pulled it out in a second; it's also often awkard to use on the way.

There are no measurements around; embarrassingly, a presentation by an Intel engineer¹ has zero data, but has photos of cute animals. It certainly consumes more than S3, but how much, is carefully ignored (I bet considerably more).

The modern standby, and the convergence narrative in general, is pushed by the companies that couldn't set a foot in the mobile market (Intel and Microsoft), and are trying to appear relevant.

I hope it dies, although with M$ behind, it's unlikely that it will. It's tragic that a useless idea clearly invented by business suits, is affecting the hardware landscape so significantly.

> that can reliably be updated without the boot partition getting full

Funny you say that. I can't boot into my dual Windows-arch desktop atm. systemd-boot is broken after I tried to set up XBOOTLDR partition, which I only had to do since the default Windows EFI partition didn't have space after an update.

1h20m to backup the 500GB SSD. I had to restore it once already after a botched shrinking of a Windows data partition. There was also a problem where literally nothing would boot - not even a USB. I believe this happened because I accidentally copied my main SSD (with the arch/windows EFI partition at the front) to the 8GB USB drive, and (again, speculating) having two similar drives confused the BIOS enough that nothing would boot, it just kept defaulting to network boot. "(Drive not present)" on the Windows/arch boot options. Sigh...

Anyways, I still need to try adding/removing a timeout for the systemd-boot config. I've already tried hosting everything on a separate, larger EFI partition. When I boot to Linux from the BIOS it just shows me options for Windows 10 and back to boot.

TL;DR Linux is a huge PITA.

Pick a T-series thinkpad with an AMD CPU/GPU combo and the latest fedora. Done.

Don't forget that MacOS ships with very Limited hardware, too.

Sleep was broken for a year on those with the amd platform. Based on 4 laptops t14s gen 2 iirc.

Latest kernels seem to fix it. But tbh I felt like a fool handing those things to our freelancers.

Funnily enough, this is the exact spec of laptops (except with Nvidia GPUs) that all of my colleagues who have had these problems use.

Not surprising, since Nvidia is famous for terrible Linux support. I couldn't get scaling to work on my desktop with an Nvidia GPU, but my T-series Thinkpad (AMD CPU and GPU) works perfectly fine. In fact, sleep works better than on Windows since it doesn't do the stupid battery-draining "Modern Standby". If I send it to sleep on Linux, it actually stays asleep until I open the lid.

So exact spec except for the only spec that actually matters.

Bugs? sounds like they misconfigured their OS

Linux is not a commercial product that'll suit everyone all at once, you need to learn about its components, linux is just a kernel

If your argumentation is "various linux bugs", then you should stick to Windows, it has nice "various windows bugs", or macos, it has nice "various macos bugs"

There must be a reason why linux empowers the world from micro controllers to datacenters as well as the Steam Deck and the nintendo switch for its FreeBSD variant

Use what empowers you, no need to spread FUD

No FUD. On laptops I’ve repeatedly failed to get the correct battery life. I’ve also struggled with audio working correctly and reliably.

Sure, something might be misconfigured but the universe of misconfiguration for a Mac and Linux are substantially different because Linux is a much sharper tool.

Pointing the finger at the user is emblematic of the problems Linux has when people say it isn’t suitable for the desktop (and these days they mean laptop).

Linux empowers from micro controllers to data centers because there are domain experts being paid to keep the whole thing running AND NONE of those use cases are for interactive day to day customer use on a laptop (eg power saving, audio, video playback, video conferencing, etc) b with the exception of steam deck and switch that have a carefully tuned and tightly controlled OS distribution for a carefully chosen hw configuration. Windows is arguably the closest to the problems Linux faces but generally Windows does a much better job providing usable and stable APIs that vendors build against whereas Linux does not always do such a good job (+ vendors care about Windows whereas Linux is generally an afterthought except if it’s relevant to Android).

> On laptops I’ve repeatedly failed to get the correct battery life

You have to configure for it https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_management

Linux doesn't know nor care about what machine you use, it could be a microcontroller without battery to a datacenter to a laptop to a console, configure for what you use, it's not "windows for Intel PCs, RISC? what is that? fuck off"

> I’ve also struggled with audio working correctly and reliably.

That is very hard to believe, my bluetooth headset worked out of the box

> with the exception of steam deck and switch that have a carefully tuned and tightly controlled OS distribution for a carefully chosen hw configuration

That exactly prove my point, users usually misconfigured their OS, the moment you configure your Linux OS, just like Valve did, with your distro of choice to suit your HW, then everything works as expected, that's a one time job

If that workflow doesn't suit you, then linux is not for you, and that's ok

> Pointing the finger at the user is emblematic of the problems Linux has when people say it isn’t suitable for the desktop (and these days they mean laptop).

Because that's the reality of it, the problem is the user who expect things to work for him while ignoring its dimensional capabilities

That's not a linux problem, that's a user problem, it's arrogant and selfish to expect "Linux" to work just for your specific HW and specific usecase and all of the effort should be dedicated to you, just you, for your own sake

Do like valve did with steam deck and configure your Linux OS for your HW, if you are not ready for that, then use windows or macos

> You have to configure for it https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_management Linux doesn't know nor care about what machine you use, it could be a microcontroller without battery to a datacenter to a laptop to a console, configure for what you use, it's not "windows for Intel PCs, RISC? what is that? fuck off"

Sorry no. That’s not actually true. Linux the kernel and thus the distribution definitely knows I have a laptop. In fact, many things auto-configure themselves correctly around this fact.

> Because that's the reality of it, the problem is the user who expect things to work for him while ignoring its dimensional capabilities That's not a linux problem, that's a user problem, it's arrogant and selfish to expect "Linux" to work just for your specific HW and specific usecase and all of the effort should be dedicated to you, just you, for your own sake

Consider which OS then I’ll be choosing for my 70 yold mom who isn’t very tech literate. I disagree that it’s arrogant to expect buying widely available and relatively standardized HW (this is x86 not ARM) and expecting it to work well. That’s par for the course for Windows btw.

> Do like valve did with steam deck and configure your Linux OS for your HW, if you are not ready for that, then use windows or macos

Ummm… so you’re agreeing with the OP and me then? There’s no Linux distribution that provides a smooth out of the box user friendly experience? As a refresher, here’s what OP for this thread said:

> Is there any Linux distribution with MacOS levels of reliability, simplicity, and productivity, … Most of my colleagues at work picked Linux over a MacBook, and they waste countless hours fixing their various Linux bugs.

Within the specific context of this thread and what’s being discussed, is your post providing evidence for or against what’s being requested? I’m relating that my experience is similar. Sure, I’m not expecting a MacBook because that’s generally not feasible for general HW unless you have the dominance of Windows or Android. And the Linux ecosystem honestly has done a fantastic job in the x64 HW support all things considered. I’m fact, none of the issues I’ve had are really the Linux kernel itself so most of the benefit of the SW/HW layer configuration and isn’t even a distribution thing. And given that my laptop is fairly popular and has dedicated pages on Arch, one would think there might be community-supported “here’s default machine configuration that sets it up correctly” option.

There’s also the general weird design choices from KDE and Gnome, trackpad cursors still not working correctly (although much better than before thanks to that guy that’s taken on that task), Flame screenshot tool that still doesn’t work in a multi display setup despite that bug being open forever, Bluetooth audio switching not working quite so well, hibernation not working, laptop not going to hibernation by default on power loss, kwrite not automatically saving and restoring unsaved documents on power loss etc etc. These are all bugs or default behavior selection that doesn’t feel sane and I think it’s fair to say it’s not at the polish level of Windows let alone Mac. Since the vast majority of this isn’t about the HW/SW layer, I’d say comparing against the Mac is also fair game. That’s why I’m agreeing with OP and saying he’s not crazy and that I’m not aware of a distribution that is polished (Manjero comes close but the bugs are mostly upstream). What you’ve written sounds defensive and argumentative which makes it seem like you’re supporting the claim that there is a user friendly distribution that has the polish of Windows or Mac but all you actually seem to have said (and correct me if I’m wrong) is basically that that’s unreasonable to expect. I happen to disagree with that position since it’s actively harmful to trying to have Linux get market share, but that’s also arguing a different thing from what OP said. It’s kind of interesting to see this derailment whenever the comparison to user friendliness / polish of Windows and Max are brought up. I think the truth is that it’s really hard to achieve this in a bazaar model where you’re throwing together arbitrary components and no one is doing regular testing of livability of a distribution from scratch (everyone’s deployed their own workarounds when they hit bugs vs making sure that those workarounds are deployed by default for the users it’s relevant for, or even better fixing the issue when it’s not a problem with Nvidia).

> the nintendo switch for its FreeBSD variant

Nintendo Switch doesn't run FreeBSD, although it does use some code from FreeBSD. The Switch OS (Horizon) is a proprietary microkernel-based system that isn't POSIX-flavored at all. I don't think the full lineage/history is publicly documented, but CFW and homebrew toolchain developers have noted strong similarities to the 3DS OS.

In principle I would love to use Linux, as the developer experience isn’t great on Windows, and I would rather not be tied into expensive Apple computers.

However, I don’t want to learn about components of my operating system, that is below my pay grade.

I’m not trying to spread FUD, I’m speaking firsthand on some of the experiences my colleagues have had with their brand new $3000 business Thinkpads running all manner of Linux distributions.

I don’t doubt Linux is the right choice when you are creating a tightly integrated, walled off product like a Nintendo Switch.

How can learning of your tools being below your pay grade? Ability to use tools properly is a prerequisite for any professional. That sounds very weird to me.

An operating system isn’t a tool, it’s a means to an end.

It’s like saying it’s bad I don’t know how all the internal components of my car work because I rely on my car to get to work.

As far as I am concerned, my operating system is a black box for interacting with VSCode, Slack, Outlook, Firefox, and use a terminal in a user-friendly way. I don’t care how it works, its components, or how it is constructed. I certainly don’t expect to have to fix it - making the operating system reliable and user-friendly is someone else’s job.

Most people don't want to be mechanics just to drive to get groceries.

My grandfather was truck driver. He knew his truck as his fingers. He could reassemble drive of his car at weekends. If he wouldn't possess skills to repair his truck, he would die somewhere on the winter road when that truck breaks, so it's not even question of preference, it's question of survivability.

It's not as drastic for programmers, but I, personally, trying to keep that attitude myself and I'm trying to learn systems I'm using to some degree.

I bet most people aren't going to the local supermarket on a long distance truck.

Software development is full of anti-intellectualism and friends. So many "professionals" don't think they should Learn New Things. Said "professionals" tend to be excellent org chart climbers otoh.

People don't have enough time in their life to learn about everything they touch and need to say no to some things to get anything done.

Maybe those professionals want to learn tools for their actual job instead of fighting with the platform underneath. Just like artists want to draw, not learn how to fix their graphic tablet's broken driver.

Well, a painter probably knows a thing or two about the paint and the canvas, and a musician knows a thing or two about their instrument and... well... music theory.

Doesn't sound crazy to expect a software developer to know a thing or two about their system. Not necessarily down to the device tree, of course. But being stuck at "learning to use a terminal is below my pay grade" feels like the other extreme to me.

Most of the learning I'm talking about is like an hour of work. But the resistance doesn't even let people get to that point.

Your points doesn't make sense since you expect Linux to be Windows, it is not Windows

If you need Windows you use Windows

If you need an OS that is configurable and open, you use Linux

If you don't like to configure your OS, then you don't use Linux

That's not "elitism", that's respecting the work done by countless people to offer a free and configurable OS without strings attached

There is FUD in OP's comment since my original reply to tell people to use what empowers them got downvoted, -3 pts right now

"FUD: Fear, uncertainty and doubt is a propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear."

I think you have some serious rose tinted glasses on if you are positing that these fixing OS bug scenarios are limited to Linux and do not also commonly occur on proprietary OS. The QA on Microsoft releases has been awful in recent years.

Sounds like you would not actually love to use Linux, then :-)

> linux empowers the (...) nintendo switch for its FreeBSD variant

But BSD isn't Linux... Both belong to *nix family, but so does macOS

Sure there are lots of reasons, with free beer UNIX clone being the top one.

Nintendo Switch doesn't use BSD, it is a microkernel.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com