You're seeing an extreme case here. Macbooks are actively breaking other OSes. Better to treat it as: "look how much you can bend Linux to work on a proprietary toaster", rather than "look how hard it is to run Linux on a laptop".

Newer generations of macbooks just won't work at all. There's no workaround for recent sound (unless it gets reverse engineered) or wifi (unless you rewrite Linux stack to work around broken firmware) devices, and it's likely to only get worse. Here's a good collection for hardware support: https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

This is not representative of non-apple brands.

> You're seeing an extreme case here. Macbooks are actively breaking other OSes. Better to treat it as: "look how much you can bend Linux to work on a proprietary toaster", rather than "look how hard it is to run Linux on a laptop".

It's true that Macbooks are an extreme case, but as far as I can tell, there is not a laptop which runs Linux out of the box where tinkering won't be necessary.

Let's take another extreme case: I purchased a System76 Galago Pro, which came shipped with PopOS, a Debian-based Linux distro which is maintained by System76 specifically with the intent of providing better hardware support and quality assurance testing. This is the absolute best case scenario for a Linux laptop.

Two months in, I still haven't figured out how to get my webcam working on Zoom calls, and fonts display pixelated despite having a HiDPI screen (equivalent to MacOS Retina). I had to tinker with settings to get audio to not sound muffled, and connecting to WiFi took more tries than can be attributed to network instability (I'm not sure why it started working, to be honest).

To System76's credit, this is the absolute best experience I've ever had with a Linux laptop. Everything else has worked out of the box so far. In competition with other Linux laptops, including Dell systems which come preinstalled with Linux, System76's laptops win unequivocally in my experience. This is no small achievement, and if you're getting a Linux laptop, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

But competing with Windows and MacOS, I think this Linux experience is only competitive with the low-end of Windows installations (i.e. cheap netbooks where it's clear the companies didn't spend much time on getting the configuration right). A higher-end Windows laptop or any Mac laptop will require little-to-no tinkering to get things working.

It’s weird, people report all these issues, but in the past I bought Thinkpads for years & they always "just worked". Took a risk & picked up a Dell XPS 13 a couple of years ago, and that "just worked" too.

It’s like I live in parallel universe of Linux hardware support to some of you.

Same. Never had an issue with Thinkpads nor Dells of all stripes.

Now the Surface Pro on the other hand, was a disastrous time sink.

How does sleep/suspend work? That was always the biggest hangup for me. Although, it's been almost a decade since I last tried. However, a colleague's Dell running Ubuntu was a nightmare. Not sure if it was the model or how he had it set up though.

I have a Dell XPS 13 and have run various flavors of Arch without any problems. I didn't try Ubuntu, however.

Sleep and suspend just work. Battery life is good - typically 5-7 hours. Before this I had no problems with a Thinkpad and even on a MacBook Air (2012).

Maybe I'm just so used to Linux now that I don't notice problems since I've been on it since 1998-ish except for a short stint on OS X.

Dell support is terrible so I can't recommend the XPS. When I had a problem with the battery they wouldn't replace it under warranty since I was not in the country where I bought it, which is total BS.

I've had a Thinkpad too, and had issues.

A lot of these issues are minor, and easily fixed, so I suspect the "parallel universe" effect is indicative of a willingness to overlook small issues. The font issue I found is hardly critical, for example, and I suspect a lot of developers would just live with it.

Once you say something generally works, it's a magnet for "doesn't work for me" responses. "Yeah, just fine for me too" is not really a response worth writing / it's discouraged. Forums are terrible for finding consensus / getting real stats.

You have discovered Apple Marketing. Their security and privacy stances are no different.

My thinkpad runs Linux and everything works exactly as intended.

Seconding - my X1 Carbon 7 runs Ubuntu with no tinkering whatsoever.

My t460p suffers from battery drain issues due to nvidia graphics and intel wifi. Also, the fingerprint sensor requires tinkering after every os upgrade and cannot enroll new fingerprints in linux.

My ThinkPad does not at all.

I have two Dell Lattitude series laptops, and they've always worked without issues out-of-the-box (at least with Ubuntu Linux).

I do make sure that the hardware is compatible with Linux beforehand. This typically involves buying prior generation hardware (which works out because you can get them for much less), and avoiding Nvidia hardware entirely.

> there is not a laptop which runs Linux out of the box where tinkering won't be necessary.

Hp x360 requires zero fiddling, works out the box.

Dell precision 5570 requires zero fiddling, works out of the box.

Samsung Chronos 7 requires zero fiddling, works out of the box.

Every laptop in the past 6 years worked with Linux straight out the gate. Including acpi sleep, graphics acceleration, and wireless networking. Compare that to spending 8 hours last night trying to get windows 10 to run on a 7 year old system

On the one hand, yes, Apple is generally extremely hostile towards users tinkering with their platforms, be it iOS or macOS, so it theoretically should be harder.

On the other hand, on the pre-2016 models, the components in use are largely off-the-shelf components, much like other manufacturers.

The major difference between Apple laptops and other vendors laptops is that the variation of components in use is significantly smaller on the Apple range, while 'non-apple brands' encompasses a huge variety of different hardware.

I would suspect that if you bought any random laptop, you'd have high odds of picking one that has various components that are not well supported, with even less online support available for you than if you tried it on Apple hardware. If only because the number of people using Apple hardware is so damn high, and the number of people on your particular component configuration is significantly smaller.

Pre-2016 will start dying though. For new hardware, we're pretty much left with macbook which is definitely broken, or literally anything else, which may be broken, but often isn't. If you're going for brands, most Dell, Thinkpad, HP, etc. (not lowest price) laptops will work just fine with linux. Some even come as certified compatible.

The Dell XPS 13 and soon some Thinkpads [1] even come pre-installed with Linux.

[1] https://fedoramagazine.org/coming-soon-fedora-on-lenovo-lapt...

> Pre-2016 will start dying though.

I guess, but my 2007 and 2010 laptops still work OK.

> Whenever I see people using Linux as their main laptop OS, I'm struck by remembering the amount of tinkering needed circa 1999 which was the last time I did it.

IDK, I finally broke down and replaced my rickety ~8 year old laptop and everything (aside from the fingerprint reader) worked right out the box -- surprisingly since it is also a fairly new model so I expected some tinkering while the drivers caught up to mainline linux.

Actually...I can't remember the last time (other than Gnome being stupid with defaults) I've had to mess with a basic install and I've been using linux as my primary OS since around '00.

> it feels like that's still the case

Very much not true these days. Linux on laptops is (in overwhelming majority) a great experience today. I suggest you just try out one of the live images for Ubuntu or Fedora.

On a tangential note I'm surprised that it's still relatively common on HN to see comments like "Linux on desktop doesn't work" or "Java is slow". That was 20 years ago. The world has moved on.

I've tried out Linux as a Desktop OS pretty consistently every 2-3 years for about 20 years on various Desktop and Laptop computers. I use Linux on a daily basis as a Security analyst, so while I'm not as good as many, I am far better off than the average computer user (I was offered a gig as an intermediate Linux admin once but passed it up to remain in security).

Every time I try it, I end up fixing a bunch of minor and sometimes major problems that take an amount of effort significantly higher than it would to just get things working on MacOS or Windows.

I have seen notable progress every time I try it though. In fact, my latest attempt is mostly an exception to my experience of all of the other times I've tried it.

I have only been running Linux Mint for about 3 weeks, but so far I only have two issues. One of them is significant, and the other one isn't really that big of a deal.

The significant issue is that my Gigabit Ethernet seems much slower than it was on Window when I attempt to download large files. However, my Wireless AC seems to be fine so its not the end of the world.

The minor issue is that Steam refuses to launch most games on my primary monitor the first time I open them. Even after opening and configuring the games individually, some of them still refuse to run on the correct monitor unless I set the resolution to something lower than the Monitor's native resolution. This happens both for games that are native to Linux and games that are running with Proton.

I think this time around the downsides are outweighed by the benefits of running Linux as a primary OS, so I am planning on sticking with it for a long time, but either of these issues would be a valid deal breaker for any reasonable person.

Your post seems to imply that its a myth that Linux doesn't deliver a near perfect desktop experience. If you haven't had any problems that's great. I'm sure a ton of people have no issues or almost no issues. A great desktop OS should serve all common use cases with virtually no issues that require a non-layman's level of technical knowledge to fix. Based on my experience with MacOS, Windows, and Linux, none of them are perfect, but the latter has the most work to do to meet that standard.

> I've tried out Linux as a Desktop OS pretty consistently every 2-3 years for about 20 years on various Desktop and Laptop computers

Well, I have used Linux as a desktop OS consistently since 22 years now. I started with Thinkpads and they did work well for me, and that's what defines my expectations today - that a laptop works without glitch. And the last two laptops I god were supplied by the respective organizations IT department, so they took care that it works.

On the other hand, I am kinda stuck with an Thinkpad X220 because I like the size, the matte display, the great keyboard, and to read my email or work on something in the train, I absolutely do not need more power than it has.

The key for all that is to buy compatible hardware, and research it before spending the money, not after.

I'm not saying its bad or that you can't have a good experience with it, but we should take the "Linux as a Desktop" idea in the proper context. When people bring this idea up again and again, they are usually claiming that Linux is ready to replace Mainstream Desktop OS's for average people. So it usually falls short of that standard because there are only a handful of vendors selling vetted Linux Hardware, only two of them are household names, and the average person cannot be expected to research which GPU Models, NIC Chipsets, etc, are going to work with a Linux install.

The X220 was an amazing machine. I've had a couple of Thinkpad T series over the years and they were my favorite laptops. The keyboards were great.

I'm hoping the trend of more vendors selling Linux laptops will continue. I think there's a good chance that large companies supporting the OS will lead to a more maintenance free / a more stable experience for a wider range of use cases.

I don't dislike Linux. I simply wish it worked better for my purposes. IMO the best OS would have Windows' Mouse drivers and gaming support, MacOS early-mid 2010's Workflow/UI and touchpad drivers, and Linux's everything else. I work with all 3 major OSs on a daily basis and there are things that each of them does better than the others. Interestingly, the thing I find to be poorly implemented on all 3 is Multi-Monitor support.

I think Linux itself is ready to go mainstream, but it's not going to work until enough laptop vendors start selling with Linux pre-installed, and with the issues worked out already.

I mean, I've run into all kinds of issues trying to install Windows as well, including digging through random vendors' websites looking for drivers. But most people's experience is fine, because the laptop vendor provided all of that out-of-the-box.

You wish. There's tons of edge cases that make it into a difficult experience. Recently observed a guy plugging his Linux laptop into an external screen to act as a projector during a meeting. That did not go well. I think primarily due to the external screen being HiDPI.

I've seen people still have that same issue with both Windows and macOS.

This is especially true for "major" distributions (e.g. Fedora, Ubuntu) that tend to have lots of driver support in the distribution on Dell XPS and Lenovo Thinkpad hardware.

By running more-commonly-used software on more-commonly-used hardware, you're more likely to find that someone has built in the driver support you need into the OS.

I've run Ubuntu, Fedora, and Manjaro on various Thinkpads and XPSs and it's always Just Worked. I also have Ubuntu running on an old (2012?) macintosh air and that also Just Works.

Yeah...I have a circa 2008 Thinkpad R500 that I got when I lucked into some WiMax testing/beta thing in my city back then.

It's currently running Mint and lives behind my TV as a basic media player/streaming PC. It's about as fast as you'd imagine given its age, but networking is fine, it can output 1920x1080 and stereo sound out of the HDMI port, and it does just fine with both the bluetooth keyboard and Logitech MX Master mouse (via their proprietary little USB receiver).

None of that stuff needed any weird setup or hoop-jumping. All of the tweaking I did was just UI stuff--finding a balance between performance and making it pretty/intuitive enough for others in the house to use it without headaches.

Honestly I just don't think that's true, every laptop I've had I've tried to put Linux on and it's always been a nightmare. My current one is running Ubuntu but Wifi constantly breaks unless I do a stupid hack with the airplane button, power support is weird and flaky, etc. etc.

Yup. For my main machine, I've never had a Linux laptop last more than six months without a problem that required reinstalling the os (wouldn't boot, wouldn't connect to display etc.). I had a laptop used mostly for web browsing that lasted a bit over a year back around 2006. I try it every few years but it always fails. It's especially a bad idea on Apple hardware. I'll check back in a few years but don't expect much.

Don't forget the new uninformed stick to beat jvm langs with: they're hard to deploy unlike new languages where I upload a single binary.

Linux on the desktop "works" today just like it did twenty years ago -- painfully and with a lot of work to work around the operating system's inability to be a desktop OS.

Same thing with Java. Sure, it's not as slow as it was 20 years ago, but it's still slow and painful in comparison to compiled languages.

I've used Linux actively for 30 years or more, and I've never had a "great experience" once with it. It's a tool that I have to beat into submission to get it to do whatever ridiculous workflow someone dreamed up that can't be done on a real operating system.

> I've used Linux actively for 30 years or more

"The Linux kernel was conceived and created in 1991"

29, whatever. When you've been doing this as long as I have the years run together.

> it's still slow and painful in comparison to compiled languages

Something tells me your opinion about Java is stronger than your experience. Java IS a compiled language. It just happens at runtime. https://www.oracle.com/technical-resources/articles/java/arc...

I see this as yet another example of people here repeating a severely outdated statements about the JVM ecosystem.

Sure. Of course Oracle wants you to believe that Java is faster than C.

Java has been broadly used in HPC and low-latency trading software for years now. That's not only because much more attractive time-to-market but also because in many cases Java is on par with c/cpp when it comes to performance. Sometimes even better.

I'm under the impression that you are not interested in educating yourself on the topic, however if I'm mistaken, have a look at some reasons why Java can be as fast or faster than c/cpp:

- TLAB (thread-local allocation buffer)

- Escape analysis

- Mono- and bi-morphic callsite optimizations

- JIT in general (dead code elimination, implicit null checks, CHA-based optimizations, etc).

Also, you don't have to use Oracle JVMs. There's IBM's J9, OpenJDK-based Zulu, or commercial JVM from Azul (Zing).

I've used Java in the enterprise plenty. Not a fan. And no, it's really never faster than properly written C/C++.

And no, the actual HFT stuff is written in C++.

> And no, the actual HFT stuff is written in C++

This is how I know you have no idea what you're talking about.

Source: been working on low-latency HFT Java apps for shops like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS and others for 10+ years.

Not going to reply any more. Not worth it.

Of course you have.

Not worth it, indeed.

> it feels like that's still the case.

It isn’t. But it still has some rough edges for sure. It highly depends on the hardware you are using. MacBooks are not manufactured to make it easy for alternative OSes.

OP is also trying to use the i3 window manager. It’s barebones, labor intensive and meant for tinkerers and advanced users. If you want an easy plug and play experience you should use a desktop environment.

On my multiple Linux laptops, suspend just works. Has for a long time (many years) with no tinkering.

In this case, MBP is uncommon HW for Linux users, and things may not work that well. I imagine windows 10 would have similar problems there.

> I imagine windows 10 would have similar problems there.

Microsoft allows resellers to use “supported by windows” marketing material on their hardware they sell only if they pass a stringent set of automated tests. So a windows hw provider wouldn’t “have similar problems here” because their consumer hardware would have been designed and tested for windows.

Microsoft set the standard in quality assurance for backwards compatibility

You're trying to run a generic operating system on a closed platform whose vendor publishes no documentation on anything. Some manual work is to be expected.

I can assure you it is not 1999 anymore and things are a lot smoother today when you're not trying to coax proprietary black-box appliances into doing things they were explicitely designed not to do.

Buy a Linux certified laptop like the many from Dell or Lenovo and it'll work out of the box.

It worked pretty well by then. Somewhere around the year 2000 I had RedHat 7 running on my Dell Latitude CPi, everything worked out of the box.

You'd still have problems on other machines with things like winmodems and integrated graphics, so you'd have to get into downloading driver modules or rebuilding kernels.

You can configure a new Dell XPS or Dell Mobile Precision laptop with Ubuntu for a no-hassle solution.

If you want CentOS or Red Hat, I've had good luck picking any Ubuntu Dell that is also listed as being tested and certified for Red Hat at https://access.redhat.com/ecosystem/search/#/ecosystem/Red%2.... The only real hassle has been when I wanted to use an Nvidia driver, which requires a driver reinstall after kernel updates, although I believe you can now avoid this with DKMS. I expect that Fedora would also work without issue on any of these.

Last year I had to use a Dell 7540 (may have the exact model number wrong, but it was one of their enterprise "workstation" laptops) with Ubuntu for work. I was also skeptical for the same reason as you, not having used Linux as a daily driver for a long time.

FWIW these laptops were rock solid and ran Linux just fine. Sleep also seemed to work as well(I'd have tried hibernation if I knew how. That's my preferred mode on Windows to save unnecessary power consumption).

I was quite impressed and while my personal daily needs are fully Windows-based, I would not hesitate to recommend those laptops to anyone who wants to get away from Windows.

Since you even need to 'maintain' scripts on either upgrades or whenever you want to move to another distro, chances are that those scripts will break upon that migration or upgrade. Then more tweaking, digging, googling and more command line testing to fix that simple annoyance for hours or even days.

I know I don't want to play around with my desktop just get work done and for Macbooks, its either macOS or Windows with WSL2 which the former gets out of the way and "just works" and no need for tweaking.

I was in the same situation. Tried it every few years, and my rule was "If I need to google a CLI solution, I don't want it".

But 3 years ago I tried Fedora on an Asus N56VZ and it's been flawless. Well, less issues than Windows anyway. That's my definition of flawless.

I will admit it's a bit of a hardware and distro lottery though.

Ubuntu works fine on a number of laptops out of the box with zero issues. Lenovo, Dell, HP and more all have plenty of options that just work.

Macbooks have become increasingly difficult for Linux to work on, in some cases it has been made more difficult.

depends on the laptop. macbooks are among the worst machines for running linux and require much more tinkering than normal.

do you think computers should just go to sleep when you close the lid? how naive...

I don't remember the last time I got in a real trouble with Linux on my laptop. Been using it happily for 10 years now.

Just took my 7yr old laptop that wouldn't boot windows in reasonable time and installed a brand new Ubuntu to give away to a non technical person.

Had another machine, a strong one with i7 and dedicated card running windows8. Wanted to upgrade it to windows10. The installer bricked my bios. After people who actually know what they're doing reflashed my bios, the windows installation was theoretically working but it took literally 10 minutes to start up a browser. Meanwhile Linux was fine booted from pendrive. I gave it to a friend to get the disk replaced. He wiped everything clean and reinstalled and got it working.

I guess I'm biased and that's why I'm getting the opposite experience to what should happen... ;)