Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

Re:Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop by redshirtrob on Saturday April 03, 2021 @10:00AM (#26681102)

I got a System76 Darter Pro for work, preinstalled with Ubuntu. It worked perfectly. It booted directly into a graphical display manager. All drivers worked out of the box. Not sure what else there is to say here. That sounds like what you're after.

For reasons, I ended up installing Arch on the same laptop. It was your typical Arch experience, but I was able to get everything working, including fiddly stuffy like keyboard backlights, and monitor backlighting. Keyboard hardware controls all function. And this was with existing Arch packages. I didn't have to go hacking anywhere.

If I had to levy criticism, I'd say the preinstalled Linux options are at the same price point as Apple, and no where near Microsoft. Yeah, it's going to be harder to find an off-the-shelf $300 laptop with Linux preinstalled. I can say the same about a Mac too.

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Re:Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop by 2muchcoffeeman on Saturday April 03, 2021 @12:11PM (#26682162)

System 76 is not cheap. Worse if you’re international. Dell has limited options available and none that are available with their discounts. So if you want a nice and powerful dev machine... back to researching and tinkering. Is the cheapest way and if something is messed up, you still have the Windows license.

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Re:Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop by redshirtrob on Saturday April 03, 2021 @12:53PM (#26682571)

> System 76 is not cheap.

I acknowledged as much. However, the OP's comparison is with a Mac so I don't think discussing the cheapest approach is in the scope of the discussion.

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