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Comment by barbariangrunge | Hacker News Reader

I basically want a MacBook equivalent that runs Linux as a first class OS

Which means: great display, battery life, keyboard, light and thin (for couch use), and then to be available to try before I buy in some form. Eg, visiting a store to try the display/keyboard. Or else, free returns.

(nice trackpads are traps: MacOS makes you rely on their great trackpad, but it makes you more prone to RSI in the long run to use a trackpad all the time. Better to use gnome with its great keyboard shortcuts)

I wish system76 would put better displays in their machines. I hope virgo goes with 1440p or higher. This whole in-house laptop project is very encouraging, I cna't wait to see what they're building in 10 years

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I'm waiting for my framework laptop specifically for this. easy to swap parts, ryzen and they do support linux. in my book, its the best bet for a premium linux laptop as long as you're not doing heavy ML. (at least not till the 15" version is out)

What's the battery like?

I heard the first gen had bad power drain issues but the new 13th gen intels are drastically better. The new ryzen has the option of a 60 wh battery. I doubt its as good as a MBP but its on par with other PCs

What is "on par" to you?

7 hours? 10,14?

You won’t get it. Apple makes killer hardware and pretty decent integrated software. Great hardware/software integration is a lot of work and OSS devs just aren’t up to the task.

Honestly software is the last thing i will buy a Mac for, macOS is garbage, I would rather use windows.

How so?

My favourite desktop environment is gnome, because I almost never need to touch a mouse with it, and it’s nice and minimal (although you need to add a few extensions)

I love gnome too, but its way better than macOS, its way more advanced, doesn't lack basic features(que KDE crowd...) and extensions fill any gaps.

While macOS feels dated, has absolute garbage support for anything Linux releated and awful keyboard layout(just use Ctrl already).

GNOME still, to this day, doesn't handle fractional scaling properly. And don't get me started on its inability to handle something as simple as tray icons and instead go "Whoopsie! Something is running in the background!"

It's eternally 70% complete. The lack of polish drives me nuts.

Really basic features are missing on MacOS.

Okay so I can key shortcuts to move between virtual desktops, but how do I then move a window to a different desktop?

I have to install 3rd party tools, such as Amethyst. The papercuts with the Mac workflow are atrocious.

I’m hoping the Asahi folks get us there. Which is why I help support their efforts with a monthly donation.

You forget software. I have great 3-rd party display for my laptop, but with Linux it's often software that doesn't support that. Text looks too small, often times there is no scaling possible. Because of that I use Windows + WSL

You need to use KDE to the max if you want a polished graphical experience on Linux. You can have it all with KDE.

Unless you restart your computer and want to use some boot loader for picking up partition.

I mean it all sounds cool, but rough edges are everywhere. There is no such thing as "polished graphical experience on Linux".

Do you have a slightly more concrete example?

What sort of resolution is the external display, and do you have (just one would be fine) example of an app that messes up?

It's going to be the only way to fix this.

You will never get this. Small companies like System76/Framework don't have even 1% of Apple budget, so hardware and hardware/software integration will never be as good as the MacBook.

Lenovo carbon x1 optioned with oled display.

Is Linux battery life good?

Not sure, I use wsl2 which does the Linux stuff I need without the driver drama.

What's the battery like on windows?

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