Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by microtonal | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I keep a Linux laptop on the side and usually buy what Linux fans recommend and is Linux certified, which is typically some kind of ThinkPad. It is certainly usable, but I wouldn't recommend it to most people.

It starts with much worse quality (not Linux' fault), like worse displays, borderline unusable fingerprint scanners, etc.

But beyond that, I regularly get kernel panics recovering from sleep with a Thunderbolt display connected (last time I checked the exact DDC-related bug has been open for a while). With some displays the USB-C get misconfigured (another known bug), resulting in worse frame rates. Sometimes hardware doesn't come up after a resume.

Battery life is generally much worse. Even if you hyperoptimize it with powertop, etc. battery life is still much worse. Not only that, but it puts Bluetooth and USB in autosuspend, which often breaks waking by using an external mouse or keyboard. Even if your laptop still supports S3 sleep, the system often runs out of battery while suspended in 12-24 hours (yes, it's fully suspended and does not wake).

I could go on for a while, it's death by a thousand paper cuts.

We have a bunch of MacBooks in the family. They are insanely fast, batteries last forever, and I cannot remember the last time I had a panic. Displays always work between Apple Studio Display, Dell Thunderbolt, and a bunch of USB-C LG displays.

But yeah, I'm still keeping a Linux laptop around, just in case Apple restricts macOS more, extends their surveillance capitalism, and other contingencies.

While the similar does not happen for me anymore with my TB3 docks or displays-with-built-in-docks like Dell U3219 or Thinkvision T32p, back in the Mac M1/M2 days (2023?), my work laptop would turn the display into a state where I'd have to power-cycle it by physically disconnecting the power and then back on. Never had that with Linux on Thinkpad X1 Carbons (or one T14s with Ryzen I had in between).

Realtek network hardware (1Gbps and 2.5Gbps) — part of almost every dock I've seen — was very unstable for a long time, though it seems to work well today too.

Even today, my USB audio device connected through my TB3 dock (behringer UMC22) usually does not show up on my Mac. Sometimes it does, but I do not bother figuring out why that happens, and resort to built-in speakers and microphone instead of my nice desktop monitors and pencil microphone pointed at me :)

My point being that similar stuff happens with Macs, just depends on your "luck" — I am sure there is other hardware that still fails with the latest Macs.

Even compared to Windows (but with very limited anecdotal data), my Linux works much better with random hardware I pick up.

I've only used Macs for the last 5 years or so professionally, but hitting all the issues, I was mostly like: where is that supreme experience? Granted, I've been a Linux user since late 90s, so I can figure things out there easily, and I am certainly biased, but Macs had similar or worse problems just with stability of hardware.

> It starts with much worse quality (not Linux' fault), like worse displays, borderline unusable fingerprint scanners, etc.

Interesting; one of the primary reasons I bought my current machine (Thinkpad Gen 2 AMD P16s, rolls right off the tongue) was because it was one of the few laptops I could find that had a 4K screen. The screen on this computer looks pretty good. Everything looks sharp, relatively high-contrast, and it gets very bright.

Honestly this has been the least-headache-inducing Linux laptop I've ever had.

You're right about the battery life. Even with Sway, and even mucking with powertop, I still don't get nearly as good of a battery as I did with my Macbook. I haven't had the issue with suspending though; I've had the system suspended for multiple days and woken it up with plenty of battery.

Dunno, maybe I just got a lucky model.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com