[Osiris]

I switched to Linux after the TouchBar was introduced. I've been using it for work exclusively for 3 years. It crashes, hangs, and generally acts weird every day. It's not always greener on the other side.

The upside is 1) total customization, 2) if there is a problem you have a lot more power to fix it. There are just a lot more problems.

Here's a list of my daily Linux issues (NVIDIA driver required to use external monitors)

1. Resume from sleep causes browsers and electron apps to fail to draw anything. I have to close and restart them. I found a workaround for Chrome (turn on Vulkan) but that's not possible for Slack.

2. Periodically Linux reports I have no internal speakers and I have to kick pulseaudio

3. NVIDIA driver page faults several times a day requiring me to unplug, replug monitors and run xrandr to reconfigure the displays.

4. After an upgrade my system now boots to TTY and I can't figure out how to fix it.

5. Zoom annotations don't work

6. Discord audio didn't work until I found an obscure workaround.

7. External monitor detection doesn't work

8. The laptop display doesn't go into power saving mode ever

9. Usb devices have to be unplugged/replugged to be detected

10. Complete system crashes (hang with no recognition of any input, so no way to switch to TTY)

So, pros and cons.

edit: I should note that the last Macbook (2017 I think) would kernel panic randomly when connecting or disconnecting external monitors (like when going to a meeting).

[jackcviers3]

You need a laptop with verified compatible hardware.

I run an IdeaPad p400 with Ubuntu 20.04. Everything just works. Had a sager and a System76 that worked without issues, too.

Sometimes, it's the hardware that's the problem. Had a Dell and an HP for work that were so bad with Ubuntu that I had to give them up entirely for Linux machines.

Honestly, my next laptop is going to be a System76, top of the line model. If it can last as long as my Lenovo (2010, I think), it will be money well spent.

[Osiris]

It's a System76 laptop that comes with PopOS preinstalled.

[ryukafalz]

4, 7, and 10 are issues I've only experienced on systems running the proprietary NVIDIA driver. The cause isn't always clear, but I've easily had the most unexplainable graphical issues/crashes on my desktop with a GTX 980 compared to any of my Intel laptops running very similar software. Tend to chalk it up to that as a result.

[nitrogen]

The cause (on Debian/Ubuntu/etc) is often DKMS not updating the kernel module. It's often possible to find a better error message in /var/log/Xorg.0.log or in dmesg (for X11; I have never used Wayland and probably won't until X11 is completely removed, so can't help you there).

[Osiris]

Unfortunately I have to use that driver to support the external monitors on my laptop because the display ports are directly wired to the nvidia GPU and the open source one doesn't work at all for me.

[elcritch]

Stuff like this is why I haven't decided. Hopefully the new Arm laptops like the Pinebook or MNT reform will (eventually) provide better integrated experience. That route would be a lighter laptop + long battery mainly to remote into an amd ryzen desktop. LTE connectivity is pretty amazing these days. Though Apple still wins for fit and polish..

[ben-schaaf]

I have the same problem. Luckily working from home means I don't have to touch my laptop any more and I can instead use the rx580 in my desktop, haven't really had any graphics problems with the AMD open source drivers.