[Liftyee]

Out of curiosity, when was the last time you used Linux on a laptop platform? Anecdotally, it's come a long way since 5 years ago - daily driving Ubuntu 24.04 on my Thinkpad, and I can get 8 hours of use (engineering workload) in a day. It's not ARM level of performance, but far from "useless".

[trinix912]

That's "It works on my machine". Especially with ThinkPads, Dell XPS, and other laptops usually used by the Linux folks. Try it on a random cheap HP and you might not even have sound working (I've gone through this a few months ago). You can sometimes easily fix it through the terminal, but then we get into the debate of whether a normal user would be able to do that.

[guenthert]

Well, how many "it works on my machine" does it take to make it a general statement? It works on all of my machines, from dirt-cheap lenovo EDU series ThinkPad to portable workstation Dell M6800 and Pixel Chromebook in between.

It generally doesn't work for people buying computers from vendors who use hardware were the manufacturer doesn't disclose the documentation. Just don't give money to those who seek to prevent free software.

[wruza]

Solid advice, but choosing good hw for the rig is already a challenge. Tick the virtual "linux" checkbox and you often get an empty list. That is, if you have that checkbox, in any sense. How the hell should I know if a mobo/laptop is supported? Googling "<model> linux issue" always yields hundreds of threads regardless. Even when <model> is Thinkpad: https://www.google.com/search?q=linux+thinkpad+issue

[josephg]

I mean, yeah? But it’s far from the seamless experience of macOS or windows. On my desktop pc:

- My wireless card isn’t detected

- I’m using Linux mint, which means I’m still on X11. Some software doesn’t support X as well as wayland. Some only supports X I guess?

- I use Davinci resolve - which has a native Linux install. But I need to use some weird tool to convert it to a dpkg to install and run it. It doesn’t have a window bar - so the only way I can change the size of the window is by right clicking in the task bar

- My two monitors have different DPI - so I need to use window scaling. This confuses IntelliJ - which made all the text super tiny for some reason. I have a DPI override for that in a weird Java config file.

- I want consistent copy / paste shortcuts. I can’t use ctrl+C in terminal because that’s SIGINT. So I have it set to meta+C. But I can’t bind meta+C in IntelliJ because of Java limitations. So my copy/paste shortcut is just different in different apps now.

- Smooth scrolling is still an inconsistent mess between different programs. Particularly Firefox.

I’ve also been running into problems where my second monitor won’t turn on after I resume the computer from sleep. But apparently that’s a bug that affects windows as well when using recent nvidia drivers, so that isn’t Linux’s fault.

I’m not saying it’s bad. It mostly works great! I love my workstation, and I’m enjoying distancing myself from Apple’s increasingly buggy software stack. But it’s far from perfect.

I’m happy enough to use Linux despite all its warts. But when my parents ask for a new computer, I recommend macOS or windows.

[chuckadams]

> - I want consistent copy / paste shortcuts.

I really miss Sun keyboards, with dedicated copy and paste keys.

The skinny Enter key, not so much... anyone else ever set SUNKEYBOARDHACK in zsh?

[wruza]

Anecdotally, it's come a long way since 5 years ago

I hear this trope for two decades now.

my Thinkpad

Are you even surprised that I'm not?

[chuckadams]

2025 is truly the Year Of The Linux Desktop.