Hacker News Reader

Comment by cik | Hacker News Reader

I've been running Linux in laptops, as painful as it can be since the 90s. The answer is that it depends on the laptop.

This is sadly why windows will always prevail. You can't expect volunteers to deliver correct drivers, even if they spend a lot of time reverse engineering things.

It's 2025 and I would have expected the linux foundation or canonical to at least create a label "linux compatible" or "linux tested", so that brands can license it, and maybe spend money to collaborate with hardware vendors so they can write correct drivers, but that has not happened.

I am not saying linux/OSS is at fault here, but I am confused why the situation is still so bad. You can even find several governments ready to use linux, but it's not reliable enough yet, or maybe they're too tech-illiterate.

Open source/linux folks are so politicized against capitalism, proprietary software and patents that they excluded themselves from the economy. Only valve and the steam machine might have a chance of changing that situation but it's not even guaranteed.

I keep giving proprietary software chances. A polished experience has value. I'm willing to pay for software. I'll even tolerate subscriptions when they come with continuous added value.

Then Google gives HSBC the ability to lock people out of their banking app if they installed a third-party password manager from the "wrong" app store and I start to think RMS was right about everything.

"and I start to think RMS was right about everything"

Does it always has to be this extreme?

I always thought he was right about some things, but wrong about others. (And all in all not great as a public face for the organisation)

I'm capped on the amount of money I can transfer out of my RBS app unless I send RBS a recording of my face and voice. Why the hell can't I opt out of dystopian "security" measures and accept the risk?

I opened my browser on the same device and transfered it that way. So much for "security".

You comment as if having windows ensures you have perfect laptop power management every time.

It doesn’t. I’ve had windows laptops that burn power when closed and apparently sleeping (in fact we still have it, a Lenovo yoga device), or just run up the fans when idle.

I’ve also had a MacBook that once in a while would be hot and thrashing its fans when I retrieved it from my bag (retina MBP 2014 IIRC)

> It's 2025 and I would have expected the linux foundation or canonical to at least create a label "linux compatible" or "linux tested", so that brands can license it, and maybe spend money to collaborate with hardware vendors so they can write correct drivers, but that has not happened.

A few distros do have something like this. Ubuntu has the "Ubuntu Certified" program https://ubuntu.com/certified and Fedora has "Fedora Ready" https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/marketing/ready/list/ . For a situation like this, that doesn't really matter though. Linux does run on the laptop and Lenovo does officially support running Linux on it. If there's a problem with the CPU scheduling or something for that line of processors, Intel would have to fix it, not Lenovo.

> Open source/linux folks are so politicized against capitalism, proprietary software and patents that they excluded themselves from the economy. Only valve and the steam machine might have a chance of changing that situation but it's not even guaranteed.

I don't know what you're talking about here. The vast majority of Linux kernel development is done by companies, not unpaid volunteers. This has been the case since at least as far back as the mid 2000s.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com