[BoppreH]

Between these issues, the end of support for Windows 10, and the total lack of respect for customers ("yes/maybe later" is unacceptable), I'm happy for my recent switch to Linux.

Fedora Kinoite (atomic + KDE) has been a breath of fresh air. The Dolphin file manager alone was worth the switch, and connecting my phone via KDE Connect is the most excited I've been about software in a while. The atomic part has been surprisingly painless.

It hasn't been free from small bugs (what software is, nowadays?), but at least I know they're not there because of greed, so it pushes me towards contributing instead of hating the developers.

[apatheticonion]

I say this with love for Linux. Controversially, I don't think there is a file manager available on any platform as good as Windows file explorer. MacOS finder is an actual joke. Gnome's files is a less feature-rich finder and Dolphin comes close but still lags behind Windows explorer IMO.

I'd love to see a shameless rip of of Windows explorer for Linux

[BoppreH]

That's fine, it's a very subjective choice. Here a few reasons why I preferred Dolphin:

- Tree view on main panel (can expand folders without navigating into them).

- Checksum validation under "properties".

- Filter function (like search, but faster and persistent across navigation).

- When dragging and dropping, explicit distinction between "move here", "copy here", "link here", and "move into new folder".

- Browsing SFTP drives natively.

- Native Git integration.

- Well integrated notifications for long operations.

- Disk usage statistics (technically "filelight"). Like WinDirStat, but with circles.

[GreenWatermelon]

Also:

- Press F4 to bring up a console that stays in sync with your window. Extremely powerful.

[1718627440]

> as good as Windows file explorer

In what way is the MS Windows file explorer good? It neither has tabs, side-by-side view, pattern selection, performant search, an UI, that doesn't regularly blocks and becomes unresponsive, etc... .

What feature does it have, that some other file manager, doesn't have? I can't think of any?

[wkat4242]

The unresponsive thing is because the whole explorer.exe still seems to be one big single threaded process. One thing hanging kills everything. Including stuff completely unrelated to the file manager like the task bar. So weird.

[dmitrygr]

> seems to be one big single threaded process

This option has existed since win2k IIRC:

Tools > Folder Options > View > Launch folder windows in a separate processed

[wkat4242]

I don't think that actually fixes the issue though. Perhaps there's some shared message queue that's blocking things? I don't know. I know I've had that on in the past and it didn't solve it.

[dmitrygr]

After enabling that, at most one single window hangs, not the entire explorer ui.

[philistine]

Whenever something is weird about Windows, it's for backwards compatibility reason. There must be no way to keep win32 and rewrite explorer.exe.

[solnyshok]

taskbar is very much related, it is an instance of explorer exe with some parameters, that makes it show as taskbar. Try killing explorer.exe in the task manager, when no other explorer windows is running.

[1718627440]

That's an implementation detail though. While I find that sensible, most users are not technical and still consider that to be unrelated and a bug.

[wkat4242]

Yeah it probably traces back to the time when Microsoft tied internet explorer into every part of the OS just so they wouldn't be forced to remove it.

They're really bad at modernising legacy parts of the OS. Even to this day parts of the old control panel exist and it's been like a decade that they've been working on it.

[cam_l]

It does have tabs, you are probably just stuck on an old version because windows update broke.

The only feature that windows maybe kinda does better is the preview pane, but even then, it regularly loses certain file types and in the latest update it started taking 5 seconds or more just to render a text file.

Anyway, still doesn't come close to Dolphin.

[florbo]

fwiw Windows 11 Explorer does have tabs.

[1718627440]

Oh is that new? I haven't noticed that yet. Is it obvious how to use it? How do you use it? (C-T, C-W, C-Shift-T, ...?)

[plqbfbv]

Yep, close to regular browser tabs from my point of view. I don't know all the shortcuts, but the few that I used - CTRL+{T,W} - behaved like Chrome or Firefox.

[rkagerer]

I've been running tabs in file Explorer since windows 7. QtTabBar.

[sensanaty]

I would've agreed back in the Win10 days, but Win11 explorer is shit. I have a 9800x3d, literally top of the line CPU with a crazy fast brand new NVMe SSD, and Win11 explorer takes a good 3 seconds from time to time to load any folder on my system. VERY often, the explorer window is even blank as if it's loading a web application (it is) for a few seconds! There's some decent QoL like tabs and stuff like that, but I can't believe how fucking sluggish it is in regular operation, alongside all the other terrible changes M$ decided to make.

I upgraded back down to Win10 and plan on making it my absolute last Windows version I ever use, Win 11 is just unbelievably shit in so many ways even by M$ standards.

[xxs]

> file manager available on any platform as good as Windows file explorer.

How come? I can't think of a single redeeming feature of windows file explorer that I need (or use).

Heck, it effectively doesn't have text search (grep -R) and b/c it's so bad there is the "window search" service that even worse. It has the absolutely worst imaginable zip file (erm folder) reader as a side bonus. Security file permissions management is just horrid (along with the fact some of them are coupled with registry paths)

I don't recall seeing a correct file system operation time estimation.

Edit - since explorer.exe is both the shell and the file manager, and the former craps itself often enough (task manager or taskkill /im explorer.exe), it's another negative point.

[kwanbix]

It depends on your definition of perfect.

For me the perfect file manager is Total Commander or Midnight Commander or Double Commadner.

[0x073]

I tried to love the Linux file manager, but it's a mess with current fedora kde dolphin crashes randomly, mounted nas storage with smb or NFS (synology nas) is slower and depending on how you mount the storage some apps can't open the files.

Maybe the crashes could be solved with a more stable os like debian, but the explorer shell integration is on windows on another level with network storage.

[rizalp]

regarding dolphin mounted NAS storage issue, it could be due to KIO-Fuse location is not fixed https://invent.kde.org/system/kio-fuse/-/issues/18

[fluidcruft]

What specifically in Windows file manager are you talking about? I quite like Gnome's Files but mostly I like MacOS 's column mode and which it were elsewhere. I think it depends on what tasks you reach to the file manager for though.

[mihaaly]

> don't think there is a file manager available on any platform as good as Windows file explorer

Good joke, made my day! : )

(very sorry, it is late, would love to collect and expand in a dedicated thread later. a prime reason for hating to turn on my work computer - no Windows at home! -, me, the tech enthusiast since learned how to hold a screwdriver, is Windows Explorer. so many senseless inconsistencies with unfinished junk petrified into unmutable practicies that changing line of work where never ever need to use Windows again is getting increasingly attractive very fast. even goat herding sounds a sensible alternative sometimes)

[112233]

Does it still show "this folder is empty" while the OS is loading folder contents? And does Ctrl+A Enter stll launch all programs and files at once?

[httpsterio]

what else should ctrl+a and enter then do?

[112233]

Nothing. Opening selection of apps is such an arcane corner case it should not be the easiest to do thing, put it into twice nested menu. Same as typing should not delete selected text if there is no undo.

[jakubmazanec]

Not Windows Explorer; but I can't live without Total Commander.

[emeril]

check out directory opus - pretty much unmatched

[Refreeze5224]

KDE Connect is a wonderful piece of software, and works on more than just KDE! Most distros are supported, I believe.

[mook]

KDE Connect works on Windows, and I think mac too. I get the feeling that it's really just people making stuff for themselves and sharing it with the world, and not trying to "win" in some fashion.

[BoppreH]

It's still limited by the features the OS supports. For example, on Windows you can't mount the phone's filesystem wirelessly.

[heavyset_go]

If someone puts in the work, KDE Connect uses sshfs behind the scenes and sshfs is available for Windows. Don't know about licensing, though.

[devinprater]

Wow, you can mount the phone's filesystem wirelessly with it? That's just plain amazing!

[1718627440]

You can mount anything WebDAV, Samba, NFS, or SSH accessible, so that doesn't strike me as something new or unexpected, but of course it's still useful.

[rockyj]

Ah Dolphin. Forced to use MacOS at work, most things do the job but man I miss Dolphin. I really wish I could run it on MacOS.

[heavyset_go]

You can, I believe it's a build artifact if you go on KDE's Gitlab, or whatever, instance. Same thing for Windows. The Windows version doesn't have all of the same features as Linux, so I don't know how featureful it is for macOS.

[ubercow13]

You can build dolphin on macos using their Craft build tool. It works ok-ish.

[heavyset_go]

Set up Kate with some LSP clients and dig through the settings for stuff you'd use and you'll have a better Sublime Text replacement for when you don't want to break out an entire IDE to edit some text.

[hebelehubele]

Are there any Linux laptops with very good (read: all day) battery life for software dev in an IDE?

[nickjj]

I haven't gotten into battery optimization yet but I will say, I picked up a laptop not too long ago and put Arch Linux on it with Niri (window manager).

I am getting about ~4 hours of active usage where the display is on full time and I'm doing things (code editing web apps and scripts, running Docker containers, browsing, listening to music, etc.). I wouldn't mind more battery life out of it if possible, but it's not the end of the world.

What I'm really happy about is the price / performance ratio of Nimo's laptops.

I picked this one up: https://www.nimopc.com/products/nimo-15-6-n155-r7-6800h-fhd-...

It was $575 on Amazon a few months ago. It's a 15" 1080p IPS display, Ryzen 7 6800H (8 core / 16 threads), 32 GB of memory, 1TB SSD with an integrated AMD 680M GPU. That GPU can use up to 8 GB of system memory as its VRAM (you can configure the amount in the BIOS). It also has a 2 year warranty.

I initially got it as a travel laptop since I mainly use desktop machines. The keyboard is good and has a backlight, the trackpad is good to the point where I don't use trackpads much at all and I don't feel like it's in the way or a problem. Niri is super trackpad optimized too, I'm using 3-4 finger gestures a lot.

It's quite fast for what I'm doing with it and like it a lot. Once I'm back from traveling, I'll write an extensive blog post on my experience with it.

I don't work for the company or have any affiliation with them, I bought it with my own money. The only interaction I had with them was calling their support before I bought it to see if it was still returnable if I formatted the drive and put Linux on it. They said absolutely, it's no problem. I had no intent on returning it unless the hardware died early. For reference when I called I got a human very quickly and they were friendly.

[heavyset_go]

Grab something that ships with Linux and has Linux support from the vendor you buy it from. Also, get somewhat recent AMD hardware without a dGPU.

If you spend some time tweaking some settings and tuning drivers, I've been able to squeeze 10-12hrs out of an 16t Zen 3 laptop on 7nm node, and 8-12hrs out of a 16t Zen 4 refresh laptop on a 4nm node. You should be able to squeeze more out of a Zen 5 refresh with efficiency cores on a smaller node.

Out of the box, Linux is configured for the widest compatibility, and that means not enabling or tuning all settings for optimal battery life. Getting good battery life is achievable, just expect to do some tweaking.

For example:

- Using the amd_pstate in active mode

- TuneD (or power-profiles-daemon, but it's less comprehensive)

- powertop --auto-tune

- ASPM in powersave mode

- WiFi/BT driver power management

- Tweaking amdgpu power management settings

- Adjusting brightness/backlight timeout

- Downclocking & undervolting CPU/APU

- Also look into the kernel's thermal governors

TuneD + powertop will take care of most of that for you automatically, modern Linux distros enable amd_pstate in active mode by default, there are tools for automating GPU powersaving, and backlight behavior has a GUI in DEs.

See:

- https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Category:Power_management

- https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Power_management

- https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/power/index.html

- https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/pm/devices...

- https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/thermal/in...

[miohtama]

Framework laptops are popular among Linux users

[felixfurtak]

Most laptops can become 'Linux Laptops'. You just install Linux. Battery life is often similar.

[skylurk]

With the dozen or so laptops I've switched over Linux, battery life is usually either much better or much worse. In the later case, some tinkering fixes it.

[throw-the-towel]

Can you share just what tinkering do you do on them?

[amlib]

The more reasonable alternative is to have a souped up linux desktop at home and access it remotely with a low latency "game" streaming protocol such as sunshine+moonlight. It's a bit involved to set up and make work properly trough a low quality internet link but the final result affords the choice of virtually any laptop, freeing you from worrying about performance and battery life when running things that saps energy. You can even buy a common pc laptop, install linux and as long as you can get it to use less than 5W of energy when doing the remote streaming (which is pretty easy with most laptops from the last 10 years), you will get between (assuming decent, non degraded battery) 6 and 11 hours of battery life and potentially way more if it has one of those giant 90Wh batteries in it.

In my case I went with an old thinkpad X220, the battery is heavily degraded and It can't do less than 13W while streaming even with hardware video decoding due to the old inefficient chips in it, but even then I get between 3 to 4 hours of remote usage out of it. I can connect it to my computer using whatever available wi-fi or 4g/5g tethering, tailscale takes care of encryption and making a direct connection (no hops, thats important for latency). I've swapped the wlan card (multiple generations behind) with a modern intel wlan with wi-fi 6 which helps getting good network performance.

Sunshine can achieve a fluid performance (60fps, low latency, low res) as long as it can get between 200KiB/s (idling) and 300KiB/s of bandwidth. Tuning sunshine was a bit of a pain since it was really made for local ethernet streaming at 10MiB/s+. The first thing is to sacrifice encoding latency by swapping the "inefficient" hardware encoder with a software encoder set to one of the "slow" presets. This will lower your bandwidth req. right away and the latency increase is negligible when taking into account typical wan network latency. Host CPU load is minor at low resolutions and 60fps. H264 is all that X220 can decode, so H264 it is, but newer machines should afford you fancier video encoders. For some reason you can't control the Opus encoder bitrate and in my tests it was encoding at 64KiB/s (512kbps !), so usually I disable sound. There seems to be a 128kbps mode in the code but it might be busted for now. Disabling FEC also helps. Just remember that sticking to low resolutions makes everything quadratically more efficient :). Chroma subsampling is the enemy of colorful text, so you will want to enable 4:4:4 mode in moonlight if your hardware decoder supports it! (and of course the X220 hardware dec. can't do that, so no sharp syntax highlight for me when on battery!, though because of my astigmatism I like using bold text which is less susceptible to that....)

Anyway, sorry for my info dump, just wanted to share.

[marcyb5st]

Pretty cool and thanks for sharing. I went down a similar path at some point to try to be a "road warrior", but in the end I bit the bullet, learned nvim and went the tmux + nvim + ... route.

However, another alternative to streaming the actual pixels from your home PC that doesn't confine you to the terminal would be use the built-in servers in some IDEs/editors (e.g. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/vscode-server, https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/remote-development-start... ) and you simply make your IDE/editor point to it.

[kwanbix]

Double Commander is the best (actually Total Commander but that is for windows).