I am not terribly impressed. The ability to build and run apps in a well defined and portable sandbox environment is nice. But everything else is kind of terrible. Seemingly simple things like having a package that contains multiple binaries aren’t properly supported. There are no LTS runtimes, so you’ll have to update your packages every couple of months anyway or users will get scary errors due to obsolete runtimes. No way to run a flatpak without installing. Terrible DNS based naming scheme. Dependency resolving requires too much manual intervention. Too much magic behind the scene that makes it hard to tell what is going on (e.g. ostree). No support for dependency other than the three available runtimes and thus terrible granularity (e.g. can’t have a Qt app without pulling in all KDE stuff).
Basically it feels like one step forward (portable packages) and three steps back (losing everything else you learned to love about package managers). It feels like it was build to solve the problems of packaging proprietary apps while contributing little to the Free Software world.
I am sticking with Nix, which feels way closer to what I expect from a Free Software package manager (e.g. it can do nix run github:user/project?ref=v0.1.0).
Intel A350, can’t say I have many complaints now. a lot of the issues have been ironed out. I’m not sure if the sparse work has landed for i915 yet, but once it does I don’t think I will have too many super major issues left. Im getting some artifacts when using gamescope, but that’s not a major issue for me since I don’t really need gamescope
Happens whenever my laptop goes to sleep and it’s really annoying. As far as I could tell it’s a KDE bug. The only fix (which didn’t work for me) is apparently to stop it trying to dynamically detect displays.
some things only work properly using Flatpak - Steam/CS:GO and Shotcut video editor, other things don’t work well at all - VSCodium so it depends i guess. i use Arch/Gnome/AMD gpu
Don’t think I have much experience with AMD, almost always Intel. Are there certain generations that are like cutoff for being too old to be stable, quick, and performant?
My first laptop was a MSI AMD+Nvidia, circa 2005. It was a low spec machine yet it outperformed and outlived laptops coworkers had with higher specs. Back then I used Ubuntu and drivers were available out of the box. It managed cpu better and the machine ran smoother than under windows, which would stress the cpu more. Ran it for almost 9 years and I retired it because it made no sense spending the €100+ to have the graphics card repaired.
From that point forward, all my AMD machines were always responsive and reliable.
My current desktop is already 10 years (Sempron based) old and it outperforms my laptop, which is 5 years younger (AMD as well).
I am a bit of a Linux missionary and every single machine I ever managed to bring to the dark side always ran smoother under Linux, regardless the core, but Intel often posed some extra hurdle to install. One particular case I still remember today was a laptop that required to manually install network card drivers, both wired and wireless. The required driver was available in the installer but it always failed to load.
I’ll risk anything from the last 10 years will be good. I’d personally recommend a minimum of 8GB of ram, DDR3. The technology is really cheap and mature at this point.
Intel integrated graphics and CPU are better imho. I have no GUI way of controlling energy saver on AMD while thats there in intel. Like changing the governor and all. Thats not even remotely there on AMD, there are apps but not on Fedora at least yet.
As anecdotal as this may be, out of several machines I owned and installed and reinstalled over the years, AMD centric were always easier to install, while installing Intel based machines from friends and family always got me grinding my teeth out of frustation.
I vouch for AMD based on my history with working it - and I repeat: I am not a tech guru - even without putting linux support on the table. I’ve ran AMD machines for over a decade, with no hardware problems, while I had Intel based hardware fail me in three or four years.
More recommendations mean more people using the hardware. More people using the hardware means more testing. More testing means more people learning and documenting how to fix problems. So in that sense, statements like that actually do become true over time regardless of their truth values at the beginning.
I’m moving to KDE I think. After using gnome forever.
I really love gnomes clean simple de. But to me (beginner/novice) gnome vs KDE is like iOS vs android. Gnome for work and KDE for a desktop that represents my soul haha.
My home directory is a lot cleaner, dependency issues are a thing of the past, it’s easier on the developers, I’m getting updates faster (not having to rely on distro maintainers), my installs are more portable than before.
I wish we had Android-like permission setting, where it pops up asking if each program can use X permission as it requests it.
And I wish Gnome settings would implement some of the more basic flatseal options (flatseal can still exist for power users), although that one isn’t a shortcoming of flatpaks itself, it’s more to do with development manpower on the Gnome side.
Overall I’m really glad that one of the biggest annoyances in Linux is getting resolved. We’ve finally pretty much agreed on an app distribution and packaging standard
Looks like they have no idea how to get their software working using Nix. The following blurb is absurd to most GUIX or Nix users:
NOTE: In most cases, end users should never compile fwupd from scratch; it’s a complicated project with dozens of dependencies (and as many configuration options) and there’s just too many things that can go wrong.
Users should just have fwupd installed and updated by their distro, managed and tested by the package maintainer. The distribution will have also done some testing with how fwupd interacts with other software on your system, for instance using GNOME Software.
I’m not sure I see the problem here? It does say most cases and I’d definitely consider Nix/GUIX users to be in the minority for this (on top of users who would even compile software themselves in the first place).
Also from what I experienced during my (not so long) time with NixOS, usually things in Nixpkgs were contributed there by community members who ported applications over to be compatible with Nix. Sure, it’s a nice extra thing when the application developer does so out the gate, but given how special Nix and GUIX’s environment is, the onus has never really been on the app dev.
I’m not pointing to a problem per se. I’m just saying that this dev dismissed the act of building this from scratch as impossible when it is not actually impossible. Honestly, I’m just trying to spread the word about Nix and GUIX because they make things that were previously considered impossible (like this) possible.
I see, that’s plenty fair enough, although I don’t think they meant it quite so literally (but rather as a method of lightening their support requests - I don’t have any fwupd capable hardware AFAIK however I get the feeling fwupd is pretty popular).
I find it really cool what Nix/Guix are doing and I give major props to their communities for what they’ve pulled off, for what its worth.
In general its not about the CPU or GPU. Even Nvidia works kinda okay on some Devices, at least according to Nick from TheLinuxExperiment. Some apps like Davinciresolve require it, and cuda is also only supported on Nvidia. Mobile AMD graphics are kinda underpowered for some tasks.
Its more about weird hardware that isnt supported, Fingerprint readers, even keyboards going into some weird hibernation and you need to hard reset the PC as you cant control it anymore (Acer swift). Some devices like Microsoft Surfaces need a custom kernel.
Lots ot refurbished business laptops like the Lenovo T series, HP or Dell business series works well, as they also dont have weird components.
Check linux-hardware.org and if you have a running laptop, install their HWprobe and run it, to share that your laptop is working. With comments you can add what is really working etc.
Personally I would also care about Coreboot. Checkout Novacuston (EU) or System76 or Starlabs, they have Coreboot laptops. I mean, installing Linux on some laptop with a proprietary garbage Bios that doesnt get updates (!!!) anymore is pretty hypocritical. Coreboot is awesome but rare, its awesome that there are some companies and people making it run on new hardware, so I would check those out.
good advice, thank you! oh ok, so since im on a budget and i’ll likely be buying refurbed or used, it’ll likely be an older machine. would older computers but from the good companies mentioned still be capable of running newer versions/kernels of distros?
Welcome to Linux! Every hardware runs everything. Its not Mac or Android. Old Devices work always, as the drivers already exist. Only reeeally old stuff gets thrown out of the kernel.
Thinkpad T430’s have a pretty high price on Ebay currently, I have one and its a great laptop, nice keyboard, Coreboot/Heads/Libreboot/1vyrain custom BIOS all run. But it is a really old Laptop.
Bought a Clevo MZ41 on Ebay, will attempt to flash coreboot. Was not pricey too.
Try Thinkpads, Dell, Hp. Normally older Acer or Asus too. If you find a laptop with
good 1080p display
good keyboard in your language/ you dont care about stickers
good battery life
everything normal broken, not completely old
Just search for “Linux MODEL” and you will probably find some reports.
For new hardware you want a recent Distro, Fedora (try Kinoite! ublue.it), OpenSuse Tumbleweed (try Kalpa) or EndeavorOS for easy Arch, are all good. Maybe avoid ubuntu, or use something like PopOS or TuxedoOS, which are better versions of Ubuntu, with newer packages and less annoying crap like Snap.
I am not sure if you already use Linux, but some general tips:
try to use Flatpaks from Flathub as much as possible. They are already often officially supported and have less bugs. Also the apps are isolated from your system, so they are more up to date, dont break your system, keep system upgrades small, and they have privacy advantages
use a Distro that supports Wayland very well. X11 is stupidly old and will be completely unsupported in a few years. Its already dead since a few years, as nothing changes.
try an “immutable”, image based Distribution like Fedora Atomic (Kinoite (KDE), Silverblue (Gnome)) or Opensuse Kalpa (KDE) or Aeon (Gnome). They are simply modern, stable, resettable and your changes are transparent.
if you want to do any crazy stuff like code, install apps with many dependencies, do it in a Distrobox. You can install apps normally, but they are still not bloating your system. If you dont need them, delete the Distrobox and your system is clean again. This goes especially for strange University etc. software that needs to be installed with some script or something.
use a root Distrobox if you need things like USB
use fish as your normal shell, simply by editing the Terminals “open command”. That way your shell in the Distroboxes has a different configuration, fish looks nice and colorful and has stuff like autocompletion.
do backups of your system and your data. Just do that always, on an extra drive. It saves so much horror of losing everything, if a drive breaks or your laptop gets stolen or whatever. If you want Cloud backups, use Cryptomator and any cloud you want.
use Syncthing, maybe disable global discovery for LAN only, for syncing your data between two or more specific devices.
use soundbound, SoundCloud Downloader (Firefox Addon) and youtube downloaders as long as they work. Download all of your music to not be dependend on those companies
try waydroid for Android apps on Linux. Use F-Droid basic as the application store, and check for “list of f-droid repositories” and add some.
Wow, I truly appreciate this response. So i’ve been using Linux for a decade and know a “fair” amount, never made it a goal to learn the ins and outs, though I am now. So I hear business laptops make great linux machines. My main question is, most of the computers within my budget that are “known” to be decent linux machines are very old. Are they capable of still keeping up with all the newest and latest versions of distros? or are you stuck on older models just because the nature of the device being older?
Rule of thumb, avoid intel generations younger than 7-8 and avoid i3, on AMD I am not sure but probably the same. Avoid weird cheap brands you never heard, chances are huge that nobody cared to support every hardware piece of them.
Best are noname OEMs like Tongfang and Clevo, if you get those, chances are very good and they are cheaper.
Also a little reminder from debloating a Windows “Gaming laptop” today. Windows doesnt support shit, its the manufacturers making the hardware work by bloating the system with horrible software.
No, these OEMs are noname but not cheap. They are noname because they produce PCs sold under different Brand names. Many Linux Laptops use Tongfang or Clevo hardware, put some branding on there and custom parts and thats it.
Aha I see! thanks for the info. I think i’m going thinkpad though, just gotta decide which model. they are incredibly cheap! especially for what you get
Nope, no thank you… I’m not touching anything other than native, AUR or Flatpak packages. AppImage has only been an inelegant and overall inferior alternative in my experience. The Windows experience, with Linux portability issues. “Find an installer online from some website, have it do whatever the hell it wants, polluting my home folder with random crap and hope it’s not a virus” with essentially zero advantages over Flatpak or even Snap.
What makes Flatpak so good? Honest question. It is a new package manager for me, I have mostly been on Linux server, not desktop. For all my use cases Flatpak has never been mentioned, I’ve always used apt-get until I installed Ubuntu as a desktop OS and it comes with Snap. The next thing I see is Flatpak > Snap and no mention of apt-get.
It’s not some miracle packaging system and while Flatpak-installed programs tend to start just as fast as native ones, I consider it inferior for most cases. Its two big advantages are that Flatpaks have a runtime they specify and depend on. It gets downloaded and installed automatically if missing when you install a Flatpak. So you’re much less likely to run into issues where a program won’t run on your system because of an incompatibility with a missing, or newer version of some library. Each Flatpak also gets installed in its own fake environment and is essentially a sandbox when you run the program. You can use a program named Flatseal to give each Flatpak access to specific directories or functionalities, or restrict it further. But the one big negative is that this runtime uses a lot of disk space. ~800MB per runtime.
It tends to work really well and I’ve been told that years ago a guy would use this packaging system to bundle pirated windows games with a preconfigured version of wine, which made them run out of the box, with zero tinkering. On top of essentially being sandboxed and unable to access your real home folder, internet, camera or microphone. Just to illustrate its versatility. It also kind of already won the war when Steam Decks started using Flatpak as their main packaging system.
It appears to be only desktop, what would explain why it is new to me despite being creating in 2007 (itsfoss.com/what-is-flatpak/, quick search).
Thanks for taking the time to explain. So from what I understand, it is a universal package manager (which apt-get is not) and it is FOSS (which I understand Snap is not)?
I don’t remember anyone mentioning Snap being closed source, but it receives many complaints for interfering with the functioning of common programs, on top of slowing down the execution of programs installed through it and is now being forced on users. I haven’t touched any *buntu distro in years, but it always seemed half-baked from the comments I keep on reading about it.
Also yes, Flatpak is what I believe you could call a universal package manager. Package it once and it should run on any Linux distro since it takes most things out of the equation, save for the kernel and drivers. And yes, it mostly is used to distribute desktop applications. It’s ideal for safely running random applications or older programs that wouldn’t run through a modern runtime.
I started on Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora. Native apps where often horrible. I remember SciDavis for Ubuntu being completely broken, Libreoffice for Fedora, and Flatpak just worked.
Officially supported Flatpaks are great, a bit like the Windows way but better, as they are reviewed, containerized and in an actual repository.
But flatpakking random apps isnt that easy, but I really want to learn it. Especially an easy semi-automatic way of converting Appimages (may they burn in hell) to Flatpaks. Like BalenaEtcher and so many more.
Also, Flatpaks are not secure in the case of biig projects. Nearly all the known Linux apps like Libreoffice, Gimp, Inkscape etc are unisolated. And trying to specify the permissions (only home and all the mounts, instead of your entire root partition) gives you “they are insecure anyways and should get portals” and your PRs closed.
So they are in a very incomplete state currently, and you need to manually secure them to be actually kinda protected. But without Portals, entire home access is not actually isolated.
Problem here is that many apps like VLC, that work great, are not yet adopted by upstream, so the verified repo is not really usable currently.
And native messaging (keepassxc-browser, etc.) and other things are not always working. Drag&drop is, for some reason, but not in Firefox, maybe there are different ways.
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