Instead of buying whatever windows/mac computer looks like a good deal and hoping it runs linux buy with linux in mind and you will have an easier experience.
I don’t disagree with your point but it only addresses part of my problem.
For one thing, the Linux UIs like GNOME and KDE are terrible. They do the job for some people but I would willingly pay more to use OS X without hesitation.
I also have experienced many situations like the following, although typically not quite as extreme...
A coworker decided to purchase a Lenovo with Linux as a developer at a company where everyone else had MacBook Pros. He was very smug the first day or two about the specs of his laptop and it being open source Linux instead of OS X. Within a few days he was having such major issues connecting it to a 30” monitor (along with a few other issues related to Bluetooth/USB as far as I recall) that he called it a lemon and returned it for a MacBook.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m waiting for the amazing developer Linux laptop that replaces my MacBook Pro. But I just don’t see it coming for a while.
If you define not working like OSX I guess its terrible seems pretty functional to me.
Personally I prefer i3wm and keyboard driven workflow and find the way mac handles multi monitor loathsome. This doesn't mean that it is objectively bad it means I find it unsuitable as a matter of taste.
The fact that he had hardware issues hardly means linux is terrible in fact its a fairly nonsensical way to qualify an entire OS.
You could I'm sure find someone who bought a singular mac and had issues with it in a workplace full of linux users and try the equally nonsensical if opposite conclusion.
As I said, the point wasn't that one person had hardware issues. Its that I constantly see people buy Linux laptops and have hardware/software issues as the two are quite related on Linux due to bad driver support and inconsistent hardware configurations. I relayed an anecdote that summarizes many of the problems I've seen. This one involved an extremely senior engineer with successful exits who was beside himself trying to make a brand new Linux laptop work.
Here is another anecdote, no hardware involved. Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04 upgrade was busted and several friends couldn't boot at all after upgrading via the GUI option. Sure that could happen on a Mac but its way, way less common.
Upgrading existing OS install to new versions is a known issue. On a non rolling release distro you are better off keeping /home separate and doing a fresh install for major releases.
This takes about 30 minutes every few years with Ubuntu lts for example. You don't lose or even have to move your files.
Since day one, every time I boot up there has been some sort of display error. The networking has never worked correctly.
Desktop linux needs to do what Apple did. Pick a hand full of laptops and desktops (or just ditch desktops) with some combination of hardware and just support those.
Until then, it's always going to be an "it works for me" situation.
Your methodology appears sound but if I can offer you some improvements.
Ubuntu's non LTS releases seem to suffer far more issues comparatively. I would suggest you stick with LTS releases and for software which you need more recent versions you may look to individual ppa's for that project. It's a common misconception that such releases are years out of date. By default they are for say the kernel meanwhile user oriented software like say your web browser is easily quite up to date and can even be bleeding edge if you don't mind adding a few repos for the software most important to you.
Unlike Apple there is no singular entity that called Linux that can opt to do anything like say abandon the desktop. This is rendered doubly insane when you realize that desktop workstations actually work fantastic right now and are an area where Linux makes a ton of sense. The hardware is standard and interchangeable. Unlike a laptop if a part does not have good Linux support its trivial to swap out just that part for something that does. Business users care about stability and a small finite number of apps. While users are turning to laptops or even mobiles some workstation users will continue to need the significant horsepower that a desktop provides. Triply nutty when you consider that there is nothing whatsoever to be gained by abandoning the desktop. You are thinking in terms of a company narrowing its focus to enable it to devote increased resources to a smaller group of products but desktops but there is nothing about this analogy that actually works.
While improving support for particular laptops is a laudable goal I'm not sure it makes any contextual sense. People working at improving Linux are presumably worried about broad projects and subsystems not device specific hacking. Presumably part of improving things is taking bugs from users but how do you propose they focus on a small subset of laptops? Privilege the tiny subset of bugs that come from those users?
Developers are already paid to focus on particular laptops. Those paid by the oem to support those sold with linux reinstalled. There are dell machines sold with Linux preinstalled as well as a number of smaller vendors. If you really want this to be a happening thing the logical thing to do is to support vendors that sell Linux machines with your money.
In short we can continue improve Linux support on a particular subset of laptops without abandoning the desktop and you can help.
I'm using a HP Elitebook 840 running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Didn't work with 14.04 LTS either.
I hope you appreciate that you wrote 4 paragraphs on how I could improve on picking a laptop from the Ubuntu Certified list to have fewer problems.
>If you really want this to be a happening thing the logical thing to do is to support vendors that sell Linux machines with your money.
I've been using Linux since 99. It's never worked without problems. It's been 20 years and I can't pick a laptop off a list of Certified hardware and be confident. I abandoned linux for home use a decade ago which makes me sad because I wish my side project laptop could be a linux machine. Development is so much easier on linux.
For one thing, the Linux UIs like GNOME and KDE are terrible. They do the job for some people but I would willingly pay more to use OS X without hesitation.
I also have experienced many situations like the following, although typically not quite as extreme...
A coworker decided to purchase a Lenovo with Linux as a developer at a company where everyone else had MacBook Pros. He was very smug the first day or two about the specs of his laptop and it being open source Linux instead of OS X. Within a few days he was having such major issues connecting it to a 30” monitor (along with a few other issues related to Bluetooth/USB as far as I recall) that he called it a lemon and returned it for a MacBook.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m waiting for the amazing developer Linux laptop that replaces my MacBook Pro. But I just don’t see it coming for a while.