Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

I don't think Linux has gotten any better on the desktop since 2007 or so. Hardware support still isn't perfect, sleep/wakeup still isn't perfect, battery life is still lower than on OS X/Windows, 3D acceleration is still iffy. It's a total disaster.

View on HN

I agree, but some brand new laptops are fully supported out of the box.

I have a brand new Lenovo ThinkPad T530 and it's running Fedora 18 flawlessly. Wi-Fi, headphone plugged-in sensor, OSD, media keys, dual-monitor support, webcam, 3D acceleration, sleep/wakeup, all working since day 1 out of box.

I think the more business oriented laptops are safe to run Linux and the new XPS 13 doesn't look bad at all except for the pricing.

EDIT: My biggest issue with Linux is font rendering, which, out of the box, sucks. The day I discovered http://www.infinality.net/blog/ I was the happiest man at the office.

I exclusively used Linux on the desktop from 2002-2006. Font rendering sucked back then too.

Why aren't these merged into the mainline kernel? Is it due to possible patent infringement with ClearType and/or whatever Apple uses?

If you want it to work well you do have to be picky about hardware still, but there are absolutely entire systems that, out of the box, are well supported by linux now. My Toshiba z830 was nearly perfect out of the box for linux. Basically is most of the stuff in your computer is made by Intel you're probably golden.

This isn't really any different from OSX in that there is literally only one hardware platform on which that OS is supported out of the box.

It's very different. The difference is OSX is only trying to target one hardware platform (and succeeding) while Linux is trying to target the whole range of IBM PCs (and failing).

Before the era of the Linux on the desktop comes, we need an actual Linux desktop. Trying to target a whole host of hardware is too hard and unnecessary anyway - just copy Apple's strategy and let's move on to problems that are actually worth solving.

Well, someone is certainly free to do that even if no one has yet. But the fact that I can buy a machine from a major vendor now that, without even advertising that fact, can run linux perfectly out of the box is a clear step-up over 2007.

My experience is somewhere in between - I still use OSX often, but have a laptop with Ubuntu on it. There are some things that I miss, but for most purposes Ubuntu is fine. Hardware support is not bad, and this on an ultrabook that shipped with Win8. Ubuntu lacks a little of the polish of OSX (or even Win7), but it is perfectly usable for most of what I need (most of the apps I use are the same anyhow, FF and Chrome, Sublime, VLC, etc.)

Strange, that doesn't match my experience at all.

My ThinkPad X1 Carbon worked perfectly out of the box, including wifi, bluetooth, sleep/wake, media keys, 3d acceleration, external displays, webcam, mic, etc. It also gained an hour over its Windows 7 battery life.

[citation needed]

I've never had problems with sleep/wakeup (except bugs in the firmware). Battery life is equal if not better than under windows. Developers rarely need 3D acceleration, and for most webgl demos and games the intel open source driver does just fine.

I don't think you can disprove anecdotal evidence with more anecdotal evidence.

If the claim is "it sucks universally because of my anecdote," "it works fine in my anecdote" is actually a perfectly valid rebuttal.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/11/hands-on-with-the-dell-sp... (reports 4-5 hours)

http://randomtristan.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-review-of-dell-... (reports around 3 hours)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400986,00.asp (tested at 6 hours).

Citation from me - stuff that hasn't worked properly for me in the last 5 years:

Acer Timeline 1810TZ, Acer Timeline 3810TZ, Sony Vaio VPC-J1, Lenovo ThinkPad T61, Dell Precision 390, Dell Precision T3500.

All have irritating bugs, hibernation and sleep problems, random crashes despite being absolutely bog standard Intel hardware across the board supposedly fully supported by Linux. The same kit doesn't exhibit any problems under Windows.

The Timeline series machines under Windows 7 got a whopping 8-10 hours battery life of average load OUT OF THE BOX. Under Ubuntu, even with all the powertop tweaks etc, 3 hours was pushing it.

Current Ubuntu, CentOS and Debian were tried on each machine at the time.

Just can't be bothered any more. Linux (Debian) sits inside a VirtualBox VM on Windows on my T61 where ironically the battery lasts longer when it's in a VM than on bare metal...

Sorry, but it sounds like you just haven't used Linux on a desktop since 2007. Honestly, I can't remember having any hardware support issues since around 2009, and I've been through a lot of machines.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com