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Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by j7ake on Monday June 08, 2020 @03:35AM (#23454421)
Converting a machine that works well out of the box into a machine that requires custom scripts and constant tinkering to handle simple tasks seems like a waste of time.
Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by xyzzy_plugh on Monday June 08, 2020 @04:24AM (#23454690)
Honestly, I run Linux on a 2015 MacBook Pro. It works much better than it did "out of the box".

I get better battery life, because I can turn off things I don't need.

I don't have to restart the audio service before every Zoom call.

I don't have to reboot to get external monitors to work again.

My Yubikey doesn't drain the battery in a few hours.

My system boots to the login screen in the time it takes for the Apple logo to finish showing.

I don't have to fight with the App store to keep software up-to-date.

I don't have to work around a shitty developer experience with homebrew or docker/virtual machines.

I never have to deal with Xcode!

In any case, I probably spent a tenth of the time setting everything up, tweaks and all, than I did unfucking the default install of OS X to be usable.

Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by toyg on Monday June 08, 2020 @05:50AM (#23455144)
That sounds horrendous! My experience is fairly opposite though.

> I get better battery life, because I can turn off things I don't need.

I had horrible experiences with Linux and battery life on laptops. Fans on all the time, poor or absent support for sleep and hibernate... Proprietary systems consistently performed better for me in that area.

> I don't have to restart the audio service before every Zoom call.

That's really weird. I wouldn't even know how to restart the audio service on OsX.

> I don't have to reboot to get external monitors to work again.

I have occasional issues in that area, but typically it just takes a bit of "nagging" osx to re-detect the monitor, like bringing up the System Preferences panel related to wallpapers.

> My system boots to the login screen in the time it takes for the Apple logo to finish showing.

One shouldn't need to reboot OsX more than once weekly, or less, but yeah, boot times in OsX have gone to the dogs in the last few years. Windows absolutely smokes it, I guess some Linux distros would too.

> I don't have to fight with the App store to keep software up-to-date.

It's been alright until recently, but I agree that the last few moves to persuade us to move to "Vistalina" have been annoying.

> I probably spent a tenth of the time setting everything up, tweaks and all, than I did unfucking the default install of OS X

That's really the opposite for me. The time I always end up spending on stuff like fonts (!) on the average Linux desktop, is just ridiculous.

Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by cpursley on Monday June 08, 2020 @01:20PM (#23458525)
How did you get the Webcam to work?
Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by commoner on Monday June 08, 2020 @04:45PM (#23460570)
There is a reverse-engineered driver for the Facetime HD (Broadcom 1570) webcam on recent MacBook and iMac models:

https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie

https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie/wiki

Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by growse on Monday June 08, 2020 @04:15AM (#23454632)
"Works well".

I have a 2019 mbp16. It does not "work well". For me, the graphics driver crashes me out of my login session pretty much daily, the network stack occasionally shits itself (reboot) and various internal processes (the... window server?) like to use >50% CPU for no reason at all.

Looking around, I'm not the only one who has issues.

Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by jafjaf on Monday June 08, 2020 @05:11AM (#23454944)
AFAIK the macOS activity manager doesn’t show task usage as you’d expect. It displays resource usage based on total current usage rather than maximum capacity.
Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by gowld on Monday June 08, 2020 @01:02PM (#23458361)
Citation needed. That doesn't match my experience at all. When Activity Monitor shows high CPU in the process list, it corresponds to high CPU in the CPU monitor.
Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by jki275 on Monday June 08, 2020 @08:31AM (#23455917)
I have the same machine and none of those issues.

Probably yours is broken somehow. Would recommend bringing it in for service while it's in warranty.

Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by growse on Monday June 08, 2020 @02:51PM (#23459522)
The fact that I can point at both colleagues and strangers on the internet with the same issues makes me think it's actually just crap software that doesn't work.
Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by jki275 on Monday June 08, 2020 @04:42PM (#23460538)
I think if that were the case there would be a lot more people with the issues you’re talking about.

My whole shop uses Macs and nobody has this issue. I’m on one of three different variant MBPs (including one like yours) all day every day - literally around 18 hours a day - and I’ve never seen it.

That’s why I would really suggest opening a ticket on it, especially with a new laptop. I suspect there’s a hardware issue.

Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by djhworld on Monday June 08, 2020 @03:47AM (#23454494)
Couldn't agree more, but what's the fun in tinkering if you can't kill some time doing it?
Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by sgt on Monday June 08, 2020 @04:22AM (#23454675)
I'm running Linux on a 2015 MBP as a server. Rest of the household are Macs only, but I figured it would be useful to have a server and stick it into a closet.

It's rife with issues. Power management is odd, brightness sometimes doesn't work, and most annoyingly, the keyboard and trackpad sometimes stops working after 2-3 weeks of 24/7 operation.

I solved most of the issues by disabling the GUI and just letting it boot to the console. I also set mitigations to off in GRUB and it ran cooler. Not ideal with security in mind, but it's just a home server after all.

Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by viraptor on Monday June 08, 2020 @04:03AM (#23454565)
> that works well out of the box

That may be your experience, but it's not universal. I wanted to do this, regardless of how many hacks it took, but I'm on the new-and-broken model unfortunately.

Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by hugg on Monday June 08, 2020 @03:58AM (#23454541)
Learning scripting means you learn things that can be applied to other things.
Re:Running Linux on My MacBook by hajderr on Monday June 08, 2020 @03:45AM (#23454475)
Yup, Never ever would I try this. A running pc laptop is a much smarter choice.