Nonsense like this make Linux difficult to use on a laptop that you have to carry around and get real work done.
[1] https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_F...
There were minor issues on 5.5 at the start of the cycle when some patches were overlooked, but that's all fixed now.
I honestly don't experience more problems than with my MacBook, (especially after major upgrades).
Maybe the issue is people just keep defaulting to Ubuntu and equating their experiences there with Linux as a whole. Maybe it just isn't the best distro around.
I'd honestly go with EndeavourOS, Manjaro or if you want to stay in the Ubuntu ecosystem, maybe Mint. I know everybody always says just switch distros, but honestly Ubuntu hasn't been the best distro around for anything for over a decade.
I do appreciate that this is subjective, I just wished Ubuntu isn't the only choice people evaluated when trying Linux.
Freezes due to graphics drivers (on Intel) is something from ~3-5 years ago, I'd say.
And let's be realistic, when people are just trying GNU/Linux (for the first time), they will go for the most popular and user-friendly distro available. Or, at least, they should.
I stick to several year old thinkpads for hardware and LTS releases though. Mostly I just want the OS to get out of the way.
Normally it just works though.
When it comes to Arch, there is a long thread about this issue in the forums:
1 - https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5....
Typically Intel GPUs were a safe bet across the board and you had to avoid some of the other ones.
I’m curious to read more into what went wrong, it seems to be across a few bug reports.
Linux, and by that I mean all distros, have always had difficulties with basic things such as wifi or hibernation for the better part of the past twenty years.
It's baffling to me this is still an issue in 2020.
When anyone else can resell your code, your work becomes a public good.
Public goods are underprovided in equilibrium.
If that's the case hopefully it gets more attention eventually. Often with OSS it's some random developer working at some big company supporting these various drivers, not just people in their spare time.
This will always be problem with all software that changes, especially ones supporting hardware that also constantly evolves.
My thinkpads haven't really had issues. Had linux exclusively since 1999.
GPU hang on transition to idle https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/intel/issues/673
I don't know whether this qualifies as a break with no regressions in user space rule. I didn't run into it on either 5.3 or 5.5. My understanding is the backport to fix on 5.4 would be too complicated. Therefore I wonder why not just revert the whole thing from 5.4? I don't know the answer to that. I gave up on it totally and moved to 5.5rc kernels, rather than deal with 5.4.
Given this fact of 5.4's behavior, I think it's a bad idea for a distribution to pick that kernel to use, if they can't do the backport themselves, and yet expect to support i915 hardware. Yep, it's an LTS kernel. Ordinarily it's reasonable to pick an LTS for a distribution, but not this time around. Maybe Ubuntu should have shipped a late 5.3.x and then updated to 5.4 once fixed? I don't know if it even has been fixed now in 5.4, although I haven't gotten any emails on that bug since March 10.
Which DE? Ultimately most DEs use NetworkManager but they have different GUI frontends. KDE Plasma's frontend has all options inside one menu. I never found it more difficult than Windows but that being said, I've left Windows behind about 9 years ago after years of dual booting, so my Windows experience might be outdated.
> Lots of extreme battery drain when trying to do certain activities
I guess that's due to no native video decoding. It's getting there, very slowly. It's being worked on as we speak: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1610199
I just assumed that life would only be better on a System 76 machine. I was very surprised by this post.
Takes a little bit of research and tweaking to get it into a good state, but once one has the right kernel opts and GPU power management stuff worked out, it's a breeze. Not everyone wants to do that, but that's the cost of running Linux.
From that point, I found it to be more reliable and pleasant than Windows 10 or Mac, all of which I use on a regular basis.
I tried many fixes, including new kernels, to no avail. Finally I upgraded to 19.04 and everything has worked flawlessly for the past 6 months.
I wonder if this laptop would make a good upgrade from the T460s for me.
It did require Debian testing, because the Intel GPU drivers for the latest Intel CPUs are not in Debian stable yet. But it's a solid machine, and like the new Lemur Pro, it comes with Coreboot preloaded which is excellent.
That whole kernel 5.4 thing with missing critical fixes for the Intel GPUs was a major screwup though, that's true. But they are all in 5.5 I believe, and have also been backported to the 5.4 kernel that's in Debian testing. Since those landed, my machine has been a pleasure to use.
Again, not disputing your experience, just saying mine was different. It was a Galaga Pro vs. your Lemur Pro, but I would have thought the software issues would be more similar than that.
Ten year old FUD!
I have stuck with System76's branded Ubuntu named Pop!_OS and always install their updates. So far it has been fairly trouble free except for a little time spent when updating CUDA drivers for the GPU.
Granted the only video conferencing I've done is google hangouts or facebook.
Needing to restart applications when switching monitors seems particularly strange.
Edit: Ubuntu non lts and gnome anything after 2 have been mediocre bug factories for a while. It's not too shocking to find they still are.
The other issue was with the WiFi - sometimes I had to restart it like literally 10 times to make WiFi module work :|
(once it was connected I had no issues until I've turned laptop off / restart it)
Is the lemur notably different?
I had IT at my job buy me a Lemur Pro (previous model) a year or two ago.
If I just stayed at my desk all day it would have been better than the Macbook Pro.
But software issues were always letting it down, and I was wasting lots of time trying to patch/fix linux configuration issues & bugs. It got to be such a waste of time I gave up and went back to the MBP.
Main issues were:
- Lots of issues with wifi not connecting, wifi setup 1000x more complex than windows/osx.. mostly around linux not having autodetect on the myriad options on wifi
- Switching between wired at the desk and wifi was problematic, difficult to get up with the laptop and go to a meeting
- Lots of issues with applications needing to be restarted when switching from external to internal monitors
- Lots of extreme battery drain when trying to do certain activities.. e.x. video conferencing apps like zoom, webex, etc.. the fan would go 100% the whole time and the CPU would peg due to video acceleration issues. The battery could drain down 100% in a 30 minute meeting, etc..
I tried 2 different distros. It didn't really make a difference.
So realistically.. hardware on this thing is probably fine, if not as fancy looking as a MBP. It has more useful ports, so less need to carry dongles.
But it's a time waster in a lot of office/dev environments if the software integration hasn't improved.
This is the kind of stuff that wouldn't bother me on a personal laptop where the goal was to hack on linux. But it was a deal breaker on a corporate laptop where I needed to focus on the product.