[HN Gopher] Cosmic DE update: System76's new Linux desktop envir... ___________________________________________________________________ Cosmic DE update: System76's new Linux desktop environment Author : Santosh83 Score : 170 points Date : 2023-01-31 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (blog.system76.com) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.system76.com) | jagged-chisel wrote: | Are these four-finger gestures customizable? Is there perchance a | profile for the incoming macOS user to match what they expect? | | Edit: I suppose the assumption, based on the paragraph and | screenshot, is that they update depending on the arrangement of | workspaces: horizontal vs vertical | askvictor wrote: | I just want 2-finger gestures to be configurable (or at least | the same as on Windows as I use both). For some reason it has | been almost impossible to get a two-finger left/right swipe to | act as forward/back actions (the only browser it works for is | Epiphany, which doesn't support plugins until the most recent | version) | jagged-chisel wrote: | Oof. You are indeed welcome to your own customizations, but | having the scroll gesture suddenly become a navigation | gesture because I dared bump into the end of a scroll area is | absolutely infuriating. Customization ftmfw. | Kukumber wrote: | I don't know if that's the image compression, but the font looks | very blurry.. they need to fix that asap | | Also i'm not a fan of the color scheme, they'll need to make | things a little bit more vibrant | | Looks like it's still the Gnome Shell, not a fan at all | marginalia_nu wrote: | > they need to fix that asap | | Why does this urgently need to be fixed? | mardifoufs wrote: | Good text rendering is pretty essential imo, not only for | usability but also because it can make software look dated | and... cheap, I guess. Sure, looks don't really matter, but | for text they really do. | marginalia_nu wrote: | Huh, I usually associate poor text rendering with modern | software. | LinAGKar wrote: | It's the compression. There are some pretty heavy JPEG | artifacts in the screenshots. | resuresu wrote: | Just what Linux needs, more fragmentation. | krolden wrote: | Ummm, a vibrant ecosystem of desktop environments/window | managers is one of the best things about Linux. | BizarreByte wrote: | Except for the fact virtually all have serious usability | issues, bugs, and general problems. | | The community spreads its efforts thin into a thousand | projects rather than making one amazing one. | pmontra wrote: | Windows and Mac also have usability issues and they are | driven by two companies that don't allow break ups of their | DEs. | | I don't think that a FOSS community will ever converge on | an amazing DE without part of it breaking apart and | starting a new one, for the sake of building something even | more amazing or failing on the way. | ssnistfajen wrote: | The back-end stuff doesn't really change, so more DE options is | not going to be the end of the world. | Finnucane wrote: | Is there a right amount of fragmentation? Or is monolithic | control like Windows and MacOS better? Part of the promise of | open source software is that it can be adapted and extended. | Part of the promise of Linux is that the kernel and the DE are | not completely dependent on each other. So it can hardly be | surprising when people take these promises at face value and | make things with them. | Darmody wrote: | I don't actually see the fragmentation here. | | You can move from Gnome Shell to this without having to change | the software you use. | runjake wrote: | I think they are referring to the human resources part of the | fragmentation issue: capable people working on yet another | desktop environment. | | The, perhaps unrealistic and naive, thinking behind this is | that if these capable people combined their efforts into one | desktop environment, we'd have one great Linux desktop | environment, instead of several okay desktop environments. | Darmody wrote: | Well, they are not starting everything from the scratch. | And as you say, you can't have people with different ideas | working on the same project. | | Cosmic exists because Gnome devs have their own roadmap | that many people dislike. | kaba0 wrote: | That assumes they would even in theory work together, or | would have a design choice they can all agree on. | runjake wrote: | Yep, thus "unrealistic and naive." | Longhanks wrote: | With friends likr Gnome, you don't need enemies anymore. If | gnome were to collaborate with others, there would much less | necessity for forks (such as in the GTK2 days). But instead, | the close any feature request minimally differing their | pristine idea of what a desktop should look like, shut down any | other discussion about the topic, and god forbid if you mention | you want customization like themes or, gasp, tray icons. | | Sure, this may come off polemic, but I very much think that | gnome is largely to blame for the fragmentation of the Linux | desktop. | yamtaddle wrote: | Redhat. They've made some power-plays (including with Gnome) | and have been successful at it. | | Ubuntu tried to do the same more than once, but fell so hard | on their face every time that it can be hard to tell that | they were trying to do the same thing. | ssnistfajen wrote: | The only "fragmentation" GNOME directly caused was MATE being | forked out of GNOME 2. Fragmentation is just the natural | evolution of FOSS because there isn't a monopoly shoving | license terms down the throat of every customer. GNOME's | philosophy is kind of restrictive but they are not the one to | blame for the fragmentation of the Linux desktop especially | considering DEs and distributions are SEPARATE things and | many distributions provide multiple DE options bundled at | install. | still_grokking wrote: | You need to look further into the past. | | If Gnome wouldn't had poped up Linux would have a standard | desktop named KDE likely today. | | So the claim that they caused fragmentation seems not | completely off. | wmf wrote: | Nah, if GNOME never existed either KDE would have | fragmented or people would have invented other DEs. You | can't wish away diversity. | javier2 wrote: | I dont want themes at all. I just want a vertical dock and | tray icons! | johnchristopher wrote: | Meh. No, gnome is not. XFCE was there before gnome 3 and is | still here today. Same for all other popular desktop | environments. | LinAGKar wrote: | Mate, Cinnamon and Budgie were not. | johnchristopher wrote: | Gnome 3 can't be responsible for Mate, Cinnamon and | Budgie adding 3 fragments to the desktop environment | space instead of those 3 adding 1 by merging each other. | | Gnome 3 brushed people the wrong way but blaming it for | fragmentation when those 3 went away to do their 3 | different things doesn't make sense. | | Come on, MATE and Cinnamon ? To be consistent Cinnamon | shouldn't exist and only MATE would make the cut if Gnome | 3 is the problem. | | Numbers I can find speak for themselves though: | https://eylenburg.github.io/de_comparison.htm | | There's no fragmentation, only KDE and Gnome. | lucsky wrote: | They call it "choice" I think /s | pxc wrote: | This but unironically. | | Use a different operating system if you want your vendor to | tie you up and tell you what to do. Buy a pretty toaster if | you want a slick appliance-- not a computer. | | I'm sick of this complaint, which boils down to this: desktop | Linux (taken collectively) isn't very much like a _product_ | for _consumers_ by a _vendor_ who wants to suck you into | their _ecosystem_. | | Guess what? That's *what's good* about the Linux desktop. | | If you want a no-choice monoculture whose design better | supports a thriving hellscape of proprietary crapware, you've | got options already. If you want to be a consumer instead of | a participant in a community and a tradition, go buy | something. | throwaway894345 wrote: | Hah, is there a middle-ground that likes choice in the | Linux world without subscribing to the delusion that | Mac/Windows ecosystems constitute anything a reasonable | person might describe as "a thriving hellscape of | proprietary crapware"? | | I'll buy/build a Linux desktop when we get quality hardware | and software options (where "good hardware" means more than | "fast CPU! big memory!"), but for now Mac is a pretty good | experience. You can't hack around the source code for | proprietary programs (I've pretty much never wanted to do | this on any desktop system), but you can run open source | alternatives for everything except maybe some core | software. | pxc wrote: | > Hah, is there a middle-ground that likes choice in the | Linux world without subscribing to the delusion that | Mac/Windows ecosystems constitute anything a reasonable | person might describe as "a thriving hellscape of | proprietary crapware"? | | I realize I come off as extreme here, but that's really | how I feel. | | I think that's an obviously fair way to describe the | Microsoft Store and the Google Play Store. (Idk about | iOS' App Store because I don't use iOS.) | | I'd also make the argument that it's a good way to | describe the setup of basically any macOS power user, | with their inevitable collection of brittle, mostly | proprietary, solo dev apps they use to hack basic | functionality back into Apple's anemic OS offering. | | (Windows suffers from that latter problem, too, though | it's not as egregious as macOS.) | | > you can run open source alternatives for everything | except maybe some core software. | | The core software is pretty much what we're talking about | here: DEs and/or bundled apps. | | > for now Mac is a pretty good experience | | I understand that many people like it and I think their | reasons for liking it are mostly good. But for me, using | macOS is genuinely miserable, not just a little off. And | I think the kind of app ecosystem that Mac people really | love, of thoughfully designed, hidden gems by very small | teams or individual devs, distributed as proprietary | software for a small fee... is just not that great. To an | extent that Mac lovers rarely admit or don't understand, | a huge proportion of those apps exist only to compensate | for Apple's own oversights, which wouldn't matter so much | in an open ecosystem. The rest just aren't worth the cost | of a closed ecosystem, in my opinion. | yamtaddle wrote: | > I'd also make the argument that it's a good way to | describe the setup of basically any macOS power user, | with their inevitable collection of brittle, mostly | proprietary, solo dev apps they use to hack basic | functionality back into Apple's anemic OS offering. | | Mainly a DOS/Windows user for about five or six years, | then Linux for about eight or nine (mostly Gentoo and, | later, Ubuntu), macOS for my serious-business desktop | needs since 2011. | | To this part of your comment: Wut. | | I truly have no clue what you mean by this. I think I use | one program that might fit this description (Spectacle-- | which has several active replacements I _could_ switch | to, and still works perfectly, not so much as a single | glitch, bug, or bit of jank that I 've ever seen, despite | its having been abandoned years ago) | | Meanwhile, "brittle and relying on tons of solo-dev apps | to hack in basic functionality" (ok, mostly not | _proprietary_ ones, sure) is about how I would have | described desktop Linux. But... I suspect we have | different definitions of "basic functionality". | | Power management I never have to think about or fiddle | with is table-stakes for me these days, for instance--I | don't got time for that shit these days, a computer that | can't do that fairly competently without my telling it | what to do is just _broken_ , same as a thermostat if I | had to go poke it every single time I wanted the AC or | heat to kick on, then watch carefully to make sure it | actually did what I wanted, would be broken. | | A good default en keyboard layout (why would the default | _not_ be a good one? It boggles the mind--and sure, that | 's a distro concern, not a "Linux" concern, but _so 's | everything that matters on Linux_). | | "Find my" or equivalent. | | Low jitter and reasonably consistent latency, at least | under light load. | | Solid, well-considered, capable, well-functioning | accessibility features. | | A trackpad good enough I don't even consider taking my | mouse unless I'll be gone several days. | | Bluetooth audio that works well enough that I don't hate | it and spend no more than a minute or two a week fiddling | with (and that mostly because I also use the same devices | on Windows). | | Seamless password & payment sync across all my (non- | server) devices, relying on biometrics on all of them so | I rarely have to type a password at all. | | I'd be "hack[ing] in" all of that--and far, far more-- | back in on Linux, if I could attain it at all, and that | stuff--the stuff that I rely on weekly, if not multiple | times a day--is what I regard as "the basics". | | I'd also still be using exactly one of those | "thoughtfully designed, hidden gems by very small teams | or individual devs, distributed as proprietary software | for a small fee" text editors if I went back to Linux. | Sublime beats anything else I've used on Linux, and it's | not a close contest--failing that, something from | Jetbrains. Open source editors and IDEs would only enter | the picture if I somehow couldn't get Sublime or | something from Jetbrains. Meanwhile, I struggle to think | of anything else in that category that I use. It's mostly | first-party or open-source. If I did more multimedia or | GUI design I'd probably use a few more of those small- | team proprietary programs, but I don't think it's | controversial to assert that those largely blow anything | available on Linux out of the water (except the ones that | are cross-platform because they're--ugh--electron or | browser-based, so _do_ work on Linux) so it 's not like | I'm missing out on the riches of open-source, at least | when it comes to that kind of thing. | nibbleshifter wrote: | Exactly this. | | I don't know why some people seem to want a "one true | desktop" monoculture. | | The whole reason I use Linux is because I get to make | choices that make sense for me. | pxc wrote: | In fairness I think I do know what they want, which is | better support from third-party (and especially | proprietary) software vendors. A Linux workstation can be | painfully close to perfectly usable for a lot of | professionals who have various personal reasons to prefer | it to Windows or macOS-- reasons you and I would likely | emphatically agree with, no less! | | There's this hope that _if only for the fragmentation_ , | Linux might finally have Photoshop or whatever. | | I get it. I've contended with integrating disparate GUI | frameworks on my system. I appreciate what Apple's | virtual monopoly on app frameworks for macOS allows them | to do in terms of accessibility and integrations and UI | changes, in rapid, uniform ways. | | But you can't impose uniformity on the Linux desktop | without draining the oasis, without killing what makes it | a breath of fresh air in the first place. | robinsonb5 wrote: | I don't think it's even the UI that's the problem. The | problem is this: | | > ./GuitarPro | | ./GuitarPro: error while loading shared libraries: | libssl.so.0.9.8: cannot open shared object file: No such | file or directory | | I bought this program several years ago while using a | Mint 13 system - it won't run on Mint 20. Maybe I could | set up a Docker, or copy the correct version of the | libraries, or whatever - maybe it could be coaxed into | working, maybe not - but while end users are likely to | encounter this kind of roadblock Linux is just a non- | starter as a platform for commercial software. | nibbleshifter wrote: | Openssl specifically not providing a stable ABI is the | bane of my fucking life. | | Many other libraries are similar. See: glibc... | | At least the kernel promises not to break user space. I | guess because user space keeps fucking itself. | pmontra wrote: | > There's this hope that if only for the fragmentation, | Linux might finally have Photoshop or whatever. | | If Adobe builds Photoshop for Red Hat and make it run | only on Red Hat, people wanting to use Photoshop will | install Red Hat. The big problem is what happens when | Microsoft makes Excel work perfectly on Ubuntu and only | on Ubuntu. | pxc wrote: | > The big problem is what happens when Microsoft makes | Excel work perfectly on Ubuntu and only on Ubuntu. | | This is basically how Steam still works, pending the | release of SteamOS 3.0, and it hasn't been a problem for | other distros. They can sub in their own libs and | repackage the thing or use an Ubuntu chroot. | | This is what Snap and Flatpak are for though, and I think | they'll handle it well, going forward. | spoiler wrote: | I actually agree with you, but I think that's not what | people complain about. I think people mostly complain about | a lack of cohesion that Windows/macOS have. | | But then again, their design language has recently started | to be less cohesive too (or more precisely, mix of older | and newer design systems are apparent). | | Like, it's generally difficult to get something | working/looking nicely and consistently on Linux. A | somewhat exception to this rule is GNOME, but even then | there's issues with KDE/Qt app theming sometimes. | | Like, until 2021 (I think) I lived with a broken looking | inkscape and Krita (used it as a hobby) because I gave up | trying to figure out how to fix the theming, since none of | the fixes suggested online worked. Then one day after some | random update it started working | | So, there's a lot of space for improvement and better cross | compatibility between these "subsystems" | | Granted, though, it's getting better. But I assume not at a | pace an average user can perceive. So, i thinking that's | where people get frustrated. | jsz0 wrote: | In a strange turn of events I think you might have a | better shot at a cohesive experience on a carefully | curated Linux desktop these days than macOS. Even Apple's | first party apps are now a mix mash of different UI | styles. Once you start installing third party apps you | get something that looks more like a Linux desktop from | 15 years ago than the glory days of OSX. | throwaway894345 wrote: | The Windows ecosystem has never had a coherent design. I | fondly remember the Windows 7 days where we had Windows | Media Player, Windows Media Center, and Zune Media Player | each with a completely different design style despite | coming from the same company. Similarly, Outlook vs | Windows Live Mail vs etc or Word Perfect vs Word. And | these are just comparing similar Microsoft products. | spoiler wrote: | Ok I guess I've had a bit of a different perception back | then, since thinking back I think you're rights. | | I guess the thing I was thinking of being cohesive were | stuff like context menus, or integrating better with the | window manager (or whatever it's called on Windows) than | they do on Linux (since you had to integrate with the | only existing one, not choose one). My earlier complaint | about Krita/Inkscape is that most "labels" rendered in a | colour and labels that was almost indistinguishable from | the background, so I was largely working with shortcuts, | or from memory and sometimes squinting to see what I'm | clicking lol. It was an issue with all non-gnome apps, | but I mostly used those two. | prmoustache wrote: | Back in the days even on windows you had java apps with | different toolkit / experience. Now you have electron | apps, there isn't even much cohesion. | | I quitr remember that on Mac it is barely better. | | Now take some specialized areas such as DAW, video | editing software and 3D editors and you can just throw | that idea of cohesion out of the window regardless of the | OS. | spoiler wrote: | Hmm. I think that devs developing for macs tend to at | least try and reuse established design language forms. | I've only recently started using a mac for work and a lot | of stuff I use seems to try and feel "maccy" (with | varying degrees of success). But then again, I don't use | many mac apps either, so I could have a poor sample rate | and was recommended good looking apps by colleagues | | On Linux, if you used Gnome but ran a KDE app (or were on | Gnome but ran a GTK app) you'd by default get something | that looked horrendous broken visually but worked, and | sometimes the visuals actually managed to break the app | (ie thing being out of proportion, or invisible etc). It | would look great and cohesive if you ran a GTK app on | Gnome, or a KDE app on KDE, etc. | | I think it's gotten much better at some point when these | environments decided to support each others themes, | though. | | I wish they all sat down and came up with a unified | theming framework for apps (maybe based on CSS, since | they kinda use CSS flavours already), but have the rest | be implementation details. Dunno how realistic that is, | though. | | Windows I think I missed the mark actually. A lot of | people pointed out stuff I didn't think about or forgot | about (every Office Suite release looked different, Java | apps etc, branded stuff like Adobe or specialist | software, etc). | | I think it might be because I never really used those | apps that my much, since Windows was basically only my | gaming OS | throwaway894345 wrote: | Yep, I think cohesion is only going to die going forward, | and I think web technologies are going to be what kills | it. Electron is already popular, and nowadays every | platform has a system web browser that can run in a | "webview" mode so you don't have to bundle a full browser | with each app. And building apps with HTML/CSS/JS is | wayyyyyy easier than using native toolkits or cross- | platform toolkits, especially if you want to target | multiple platforms. | pxc wrote: | > But then again, their design language has recently | started to be less cohesive too (or more precisely, mix | of older and newer design systems are apparent). | | It's the age of Electron, baby! For better (more frequent | cross-platform support, rapid app development, empowering | the masses of web devs to create desktop apps without | retooling) and for worse (non-native look-and-feel, high | resource consumption). Nobody really has a cohesive | collection of apps on their desktops anymore, not even | Mac people. | | > I think people mostly complain about a lack of cohesion | that Windows/macOS have. | | Like we've both noted to some extent here, I think this | is pretty much a thing of the past. It can be pretty good | on Linux, at the same time. If you stick to KDE or Gnome | (which I think are both reasonable propositions), your | desktop on Linux will be way, way more cohesive than | Windows has ever been in my lifetime (maybe ever). | winrid wrote: | This is long overdue. The Linux desktop needs a lot of | polishing and i feel like we've hit a wall with productivity | considering the gnome file picker has had the same issues with | thumbnails since i was in highschool with Ubuntu 6.10. | | If Rust helps us actually improve and change things, then fine. | krolden wrote: | Try kde | winrid wrote: | I'm on KDE right now (KDE Neon). Basic stuff like, | installing Chrome still uses the GTK file picker, is an | issue. Loading screen goes to wrong monitor and oriented | wrong. Plugging in monitor sometimes makes both go black | requiring hard reboot (I think I fixed this with a kernel | flag...). Just overall polish. Although I do like Neon as a | distro so far. | criddell wrote: | It needs more than just polishing. It would great to see the | community come to agreement on a modern permissions model so | that you can do things like grant access to your | camera/microphone/calendar/location/photos/etc... for ever, | just this time, or never. I know it's being worked on and | there are some competing systems, but it would be great for | there to be a single API. | rrgok wrote: | On one hand, it is great to have different options. On the | other, think about the amount of effort wasted away. | | Sometime I wonder what can they pull off if KDE team, Gnome | team, XFCE team and now Cosmic team got together. | prmoustache wrote: | Same with billions of programming languages, frameworks. | | Do you guys complain because there is more than 1 game | studio? You'd rather have one movie/serie and a handful of | actors director so all movies and series are made by the same | team in order to not waste ressources? A single house | architecture plan so that everyone live in the very same | house with no customisation possible? | godshatter wrote: | People want different things. The extra work added on | different desktop environments is work that neither Microsoft | or Apple is doing, and I think that's a good thing. If you | want an environment for the average Joe, use desktop A. If | you want a techy "fiddle all the knobs" one than use desktop | B. If you want a minimalist one, use Desktop C, etc. MS | doesn't make three or more versions of their OS suited for | different populations, you get what they want to give you. | Same for Apple. | | Diversity is a strength of Linux. I don't think Pepsi worries | about fragmentation with their various flavors of Pepsi, | Mountain Dew, and whatever other hundreds of brands they own. | Sure, diversity can be a problem if there aren't enough | developers to go around but I'd rather have more options than | fewer. | ssnistfajen wrote: | There is no one-size-fits-all solution here because there | isn't a single entity controlling the development and access | of Linux desktop environments. Pretty sure if all of those | teams got together to somehow deliver a solution, neither the | devs or the users will be happy with the result. | prmoustache wrote: | The team working on a single desktop wouldn't necessarily | be much bigger anyway. | throwaway894345 wrote: | I'm fine with trying new things. In particular, I'm curious as | to whether people have tried to build a desktop environment | around webkit or similar--basically using the web stack instead | of traditional GUI toolkits? Is there some obvious reason this | is a bad idea (yeah, I know working in JS is unpleasant, but we | have alternatives these days and frankly all of the native GUI | toolkits for Linux are pretty unpleasant as well). | | EDIT: I know ChromeOS exists, but that's a lot more than a | desktop environment (can't even run a compiler natively for all | intents and purposes iirc). | dvdkon wrote: | I think Deepin's DE used to be based on HTML years back, but | they switched to Qt. | Eeems wrote: | So Gnome? | [deleted] | rrgok wrote: | That's a great question about using web tech to build a DE. | I've been wondering the same for sometime. Someone should | shed some light on this. | [deleted] | exabrial wrote: | My next laptop is going to be from them, no doubt. I'm hoping | someday they offer Arm offerings too! | eatonphil wrote: | Dumb question: when considering a company that sells branded | generic laptops, why not buy from the generic laptop vendor | directly (Clevo in the case [0])? | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17039414 | | (Yes there's a response in that link from S76 folks but I'm | still curious on the buyer side your reasoning.) | ivarv wrote: | I bought my S76 laptop via my work's "choose your own | workstation" program. It's a great way to support continued | development of the software I use PLUS when you buy via S76 | you get lifetime support for the device. The support is not | something I've made use of often, but it certainly paid off | the one time I needed it. Basically, it depends on your idea | of "value" - do you value money (buy cheaper hardware) or | time (buy S76 with support)? | ok_dad wrote: | Yea, I had to pay for the battery, but when my battery died | they shipped one out immediately with free shipping for the | cost of the battery (no markup from the "aliexpress | special" I found later; and I bet theirs is more reliable | than that one). Also, when I had password issues with FDE | due to my own failure, _after_ the warranty ran out, they | emailed back and forth for days until we fixed the issue. | tilsammans wrote: | I bought a NUC from them years ago that was always a bit | wonky, but not unusable. Until one day I couldn't stand it | any more and sent it back for repair. At that point I'd had | it for well over a year, maybe more than two. It came back | with a fixed controller and has worked flawlessly ever since. | So, you pay for support. And the price difference is peanuts | compared to all of our hourly rates. | | Edited to add: the repair was free of charge. | autoexec wrote: | Same reasons other have stated really: | | It supports a company selling linux laptops, and they make | sure everything works out of the box, and provide support. | Pretty much the same reason to use their OS, which is | basically just Ubuntu + drivers. It should all "just work" | which is exactly what a lot of people expect from a laptop. | | If you have a desktop system that's giving you problems in | linux because of incomparable hardware or crappy drivers it's | a pretty easy to find what component is working well for | other people and swap some parts, but laptops are such a pain | I don't even want to open one up if I can help it. It sounds | like System 76 works with Clevo to put together certain | builds they might not offer normally. Why risk getting a | similarly spec'd Clevo only to find out it's got a different | wireless chipset or GPU variant and now you're stuck with a | bunch of of problems to try to work around. | ok_dad wrote: | I have one of their cheapest compact models, the Lemur, and I | love it. I don't use it much lately, but everything "just | works" for the basic cases, and I only have to sometimes deal | with poor Linux support for non-System76 peripherals which | would be an issue on any Linux notebook. | | I plan to buy a desktop from them soon because I'm not into | having a laptop now that I work from home permanently and I | also want to run some games on it that you absolutely cannot | run without a graphics card. | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote: | At this point, my white whale for a Linux laptop is | functioning sleep. Any problems/higher than expected power | consumption? | schaefer wrote: | I was in the same boat, but in my case I finally figured | out that it wasn't that the hardware that couldn't do it, I | realized the configuration wasn't optimized. | | So I'll share my number one optimization trick. Install | powertop and get familiar with all the tabs it provides. | | Use: sudo powertop --auto-tune | | it can make a HUGE difference. | | After a while all the tricks started to snowball and I was | able to set up my laptop so I could swap between nvidia | discrete graphics (2-3 hours off a full battery) and the | integrated Intel Xe graphics (13.5 hours off a full | battery). Power consumption on suspend under intel graphics | is negligible. Wake is flawless. Now I find myself wishing | I knew windows better so I could get the same graphics- | swap-trick working under windows too (dual booted system). | ok_dad wrote: | The power usage isn't great, but it's as good as any non- | Apple compact laptop I've ever owned. It sleeps fine, but | not in the "hibernate" type of sleep. | yamtaddle wrote: | NFTs exist, but _fully_ , and more-or-less reliably, | functioning sleep states are still something Apple can | use as a differentiator in 2023. | | Markets are weird. | gkbrk wrote: | Is it? My ThinkPad running Linux goes to sleep and wakes up | just fine. | nerdponx wrote: | Mine does too, but the battery still dies after a while, | unlike my MacBook which seems to have nearly unlimited | sleep capability. | pmontra wrote: | There are a number of factors. In my case it's the driver | of the graphic card. | | I never had problems with sleep on any of my Linux | laptops. The problem is with shutdown. Shutdown is | shutdown when I'm using the Noveau driver for my NVidia | card but it's reboot when I'm using the NVidia driver. | Unfortunately Noveau doesn't get sync right for my card | with both Wayland and X11 so I have to use NVidia with | X11. The few times per year that I have to poweroff I | press the power button right before the BIOS screen | appears. | | At least version 470 of the driver fixed the brightness | control keys. The didn't work for years and I remapped | them as hotkeys to run xbacklight. | phowat wrote: | In all fairness, windows laptops don't have functioning | sleep either. Only apple nailed it. | | Edit: This is what I'm talking about: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHKKcd3sx2c | bernawil wrote: | > Only apple nailed it. | | it used to be true, but sleep sucks now in the M1 line. | When I leave my 14 inch mbp on sleep with 20% battery | before bed I wake up to a dead battery. | ikurei wrote: | May be some app you use is preventing sleep from | functioning correctly? Is this something that happens to | many users? | | I have two M1 macbooks, one that I use almost daily and | another that I only use a couple times a week. None of | them have had any problem with sleep or battery life, I'm | actually extremely happy with them in this regard. | elteto wrote: | Sleep on the M1's is as good, if not better, as it ever | was. You might have a power hungry application throwing | things off. | vladvasiliu wrote: | Yeah, the classic let's copy Apple (power nap), but only | half-ass it. Bonus points for completely throwing out S3 | sleep (though I hear some laptops still support that). | | Speaking of Linux, on my particular HP laptops (Elitebook | 840 (intel 11th gen) and 845 (zen 3)) it wipes the floor | with Windows. Even though "HP Recommends Windows 11". | | Main reason being that it actually stays asleep. Windows, | half the time, will wake back up moments in. When it | stays asleep, there's a high probability that it will | somehow crash and reboot [0] or just randomly wake up | while being closed in a bag. | | There's no power management while the actual OS hasn't | started booting [1], so you get the screen going at full | blast, etc. Good times, especially in a bag or at night | [2]. It also sometimes starts spinning the fan while | pretending to sleep. It does indeed get rather warm, so | I'm not really sure what it does. | | What Windows sometimes does and Linux never does: wake | from sleep to a black screen, wake from sleep to a | garbled screen, sometimes with the fan blowing like a jet | engine. | | --- | | [0] No, it doesn't reboot for updates. The event log | talks about unexpected shutdown. It also doesn't run out | of battery, since it also happens while being plugged in. | | [1] I use bitlocker with TPM + PIN, so it doesn't boot on | its own | | [2] I don't usually close it because the screen touches | the keyboard, so it gets dirty. | gautamdivgi wrote: | I love my system76 laptop. Shit just works. No messing with | drivers, setting, etc. | brundolf wrote: | [deleted] | hoppyhoppy2 wrote: | Just to clarify, System76 doesn't make Framework laptops; | that's a different company. | brundolf wrote: | [deleted] | slaw wrote: | Framework doesn't sell Linux laptops. They have option to | buy laptop without operating system, which is very rare. | tssva wrote: | Framework laptops are capable of running Linux but they | aren't "Linux laptops"in the manner System76 systems are. | They ship with Windows or no OS. | haberman wrote: | What are people's opinions of PopOS? I tried it one after reading | a good review, but the experience had enough bumps that I | resolved to just do Ubuntu next time. | wilsonnb3 wrote: | I like it. Used it on an AMD/Nvidia desktop and had minimal | problems. | | The fact that it comes with the proprietary nvidia drivers is | nice for gamers. | | Main reason I stopped using it is because I dislike Gnome 3 and | there isn't much benefit to running popOS over another Linux if | you don't use their DE. | pbohun wrote: | I've run PopOS for over 2 years now, and am happy with it after | distro-hopping for years. It runs Steam very well, the | interface is great and works well with a hi-res display, and it | is very easy to setup custom keyboard shortcuts, which I use to | launch programs. | | My workflow is pretty simple, I mostly want the OS out of my | way, but when I have to interact with it, it's been nice. | FridgeSeal wrote: | I use it as the main OS on my desktop, fairly unsophisticated | usecase-some web browsing, programming, playing games via | Steam. I've encountered no real friction or hiccups. It feels | like "ubuntu but cohesive". | PartiallyTyped wrote: | I prefer it over Ubuntu simply because of the nvidia image | that's available instead of relying on generic drivers | initially and then installing the proprietary ones. I have had | no issues w/ it, though I had with Ubuntu over nv drivers. | | Unfortunately I am stuck with NVDA until well, Triton has AMD | support, or RocM PyTorch catches up in performance. | claytonjy wrote: | I like it a lot, using it on my Framework since I got it, and | on a S76 laptop before that. Came from Mint, I like the | simplicity of Pop. High "just works" factor. | | Only other place I can imagine going is NixOS, but I suspect | PopOS+Nix might be a better balance for me. | hexis wrote: | I like it, but I'm a fairly unsophisticated user of any Linux | desktop. | bokchoi wrote: | I like it! It's nicely polished and their Pop Shop app | installer is better than gnomes. | stonemetal12 wrote: | Running it pre-installed on a laptop. Other than the fact it | seems like they push updates multiple times a day, it has been | the closest I have had to "it just works" in a long time. | acomjean wrote: | I use it for work. I kind of like it, works well enough and it | keeps updating and not breaking which makes me happy. I feel | its like ubuntu on training wheels. | | The Gnome desktop environment is servicable, the only issue is | I which there was a shortcut on the top bar for sound | selections. | | Basically it seems pretty robust, and I don't have any issues. | WuxiFingerHold wrote: | This looks really good. I'm curious when we'll get to see the | first beta of the whole DE and especially how the tiling will | work. | | I recently switched back from Pop!_OS to Ubuntu because of really | annoying bugs with the tiling window manager and especially with | the suspend functionality. So I think they should not neglect | their current DE. | nilslice wrote: | recently updated firmware fixed the suspend issues I had on | lemur pro! | throwawaaarrgh wrote: | I would enjoy it greatly if people would stop making any more | fucking desktop environments for Linux, thanks. 5,000 of them is | enough. | [deleted] | gchamonlive wrote: | Nobody is forcing anyone to go through all the different DE | offerings. | | Sometimes, innovation springs out of reiteration. You find out | new ways of doing something, with its own set of tradeoffs, by | pursing different avenues. | | So please direct this energy towards something productive. | Maybe write your own DE, or your own IDE. Who knows what would | come out of it. Certainly something better than wasting energy | on aimless ranting, that is for sure. | wilsonnb3 wrote: | I kind of agree with the GP, mostly because I feel like if we | could focus the efforts of the various DE communities on a | single project then we could finally get a Linux DE that has | as much polish as Windows and MacOS. | | Probably just a pipe dream though. | aidenn0 wrote: | Not GP, but (all else being equal) the more people that are | using the same DE as me, the better off I am. The more DEs | that exist, the less likely a person installing linux will | use the same DE as me. | cmm wrote: | Things some people (ahem) learn only _after_ investing in | System76 hardware: most of the premium goes not toward Coreboot | development (S76 employs all of one full-time firmware guy) but | rather toward a largely-pointless rewrite of Linux desktop in | Rust. Welp, lesson learned | arp242 wrote: | How many people do you realistically need for working on | Coreboot/firmware stuff? I guess that one full-time person is | just all that's needed? | | And I bet that many System76 users don't actually care about | all of this either. _Some_ do, but I 'm not so sure the | majority do. It's certainly not something that actually sells | significant amount of machines in the mainstream market. Having | a usable functional desktop does. | cmm wrote: | > I guess that one full-time person is just all that's | needed? | | Emphatically not. I mean, just look at the bug tracker. Or | how about this data point: my Lemur Pro (lemp11) could not | suspend at all when shipped -- the model started shipping in | Summer IIRC, but the relevant workaround/fix was only finally | released in November. So yeah, the Coreboot/firmware field is | very understaffed. | Karsteski wrote: | I certainly care a lot about having a Linux desktop that works | well with the hardware I bought for it, and has a company with | a vested interest in keeping it that way. I admire how Apple | controls their entire stack and is able to do interesting, | smooth integrations with all of their offerings. | EFreethought wrote: | That is why I went with System76. | | A year ago I asked on my local Linux mailing list for some | hardware recommendations, and I mentioned I would like to buy | something w/Linux pre-installed. A lot of people got upset | with that idea. | | I am done installing OSes. I never learned anything from it, | and I buy a system to use it, not to configure it. | nix23 wrote: | > Welp, lesson learned | | Yes go to HP/Dell/Lenovo/Apple where no one works on open | firmware, i don't understand your mindset.... | cmm wrote: | I wonder what's worse: not supplying open firmware at all, or | doing it at the S76 level. You get laptops that don't suspend | as shipped, you still cannot remove of disable Intel ME, but | yay another desktop shell! | newsclues wrote: | Are these S76 level bugs, or issues from their suppliers? | | The leap in scale from using Clevo designs with S76 | software to designing your own hardware is massive. | | They worked with HP. But if you are expecting Apple MacBook | Pro level devices in the Linux flavour, I think it's going | to take a few more years of buying what they are selling to | achieve that scale. | ndneighbor wrote: | I am still kicking myself for not scooping up the Dev | Ones when they were $200 off. They had a keyboard nipple | dammit! | nix23 wrote: | >You get laptops that don't suspend as shipped | | They have not suspended the laptops during shipment? | | >you still cannot remove of disable Intel ME | | Yeah right? Another good point for open firmware. | krolden wrote: | Every vendor that seems to say they care about coreboot | implementation seems to just be doing it to capture the eyes of | people like us who actually care about it. But then as you | stated, they'd rather spend their time/money to write their own | DE than give a shit about open firmware. | | If I was going to buy a coreboot laptop it would likely be a | higher end Chromebook that mrchromebox has a hack for. | faefox wrote: | I'm curious to know who you would suggest supporting instead. | Shared404 wrote: | I'm actually very happy to see this. | | I like S76's additions to GNOME, and I'm happy to see them | moving to a place where they'll no longer be stuck on GNOME's | whims and wishes. | | They've been positioning themselves to have a more put together | and unified stack as time goes on, and this is just one part. | On top of that, it seems to me that a DE is a very good place | to get memory safety, so I'm glad to see someone moving that | direction. | snvzz wrote: | Can't upvote you enough. | | You'd think they'd have clear priorities, yet they don't seem | to understand firmware matters, and that there are enough Linux | desktops already. | | I don't like the idea of supporting a Linux distro or DE I | won't use or ever care about. | JasonFruit wrote: | Things I learned after buying one of their machines: I now have | a nice usable laptop that has great hardware compatibility with | every Linux distro I've tried. They can spend the money however | they like, if you ask me. | kibwen wrote: | I got a System76 last year and I have no urge to go back to | Windows. I was worried from prior experience with desktop Linux | 10+ years ago that I'd be suffering a constant toll of minor | breakage and annoyances, but it's been a lovely experience. (It's | also possible that every Linux DE these days is this good, I only | have a single sample.) | colordrops wrote: | My experience now is that the Windows desktop is intolerable | compared to Linux at this point. Overwrought, buggy, and | confusing. Mac is better but it's far too locked down. If you | are willing to put some effort into customization, especially | with tiling window managers and other WMs besides gnome, you | can get a sublimely efficient and natural experience. I'm | currently using Sway and it's vastly better than commercial | desktops for software dev. | NovaPenguin wrote: | In a way it has stripped out a little of the fun of it, but | that is a very VERY minor thing by comparison to systems that | now just work! | | As for Desktop environments, it is very rare that I have had | any game breaking events on these for a very long time. The | foundations are mature and hardened nowadays. | | I have had the occasional issue on a elderly T400 Thinkpad when | transferring large files on Mate and Enlightenment DE but I get | the feeling that is potentially a hardware issue. | okamiueru wrote: | I was about to reply to you before reading your last sentence. | I'd say that is very much the case. In fact, I tried pop! out | of curiosity, and found that I liked it less than arch + gnome. | At least overall, there was a little mix of pros and cons. | alexklarjr wrote: | They changed text from puke orange to puke grass. This is | progress I aways embrace. May be in far away future my | grandchildren will be able to select the text colour or even | define it themselves at their loking. That quantum leap would be | called "century of linux on desktop". | deafpolygon wrote: | I'd like to see how things develop with this. But a fundamental | issue is that the underlying system is still just.. Linux. | | edit: Downvotes all you like, but it's the truth. | Shared404 wrote: | The downvotes aren't because you've stated some uncomfortable | truth, it's because you've not added anything to the | conversation. | | Duh it's Linux. It's S76. Lot's of people here _want_ Linux. | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | > the underlying system is still just.. Linux. | | Don't be ridiculous. It's GNU+Linux. Linux is only the kernel. | | In all seriousness, though - yeah, that's... the point. Linux | distros have their pain points, but they beat Darwin or NT. | charcircuit wrote: | The GNU software is insignificant compared to the rest of | what is included in the operating system. Most casual users | won't even actively use GNU software. | yjftsjthsd-h wrote: | You still need it. I'm struggling to imagine any sense in | which GNU is less vital to the functioning of the system | than Linux, though it's true that both are potentially | somewhat under the hood components. | timeon wrote: | > But a fundamental issue is | | Is it? Is it really though? | skrtskrt wrote: | I'm waiting for (probably far off) day when System76 makes its | own laptops instead of using Clevo hardware. I just can't deal | with that keyboard & trackpad quality. | | Everything System76 makes themselves is awesome. | samtp wrote: | Really wish they would just merge with Framework to make an | amazing Linux based hardware & software package. | rpdillon wrote: | I just wrote into System76 support looking for a replacement | battery for my Lemur Pro (swollen battery), and mentioned I'd | switched to my Framework in the meantime. Just got a response | a few minutes ago: | | > I received your message in the support ticket that you have | gotten a Framework Laptop. A great choice. | | Gave me a burst of hope for official Pop!_OS Framework | laptops sold through S76. | bcrosby95 wrote: | If that means getting 15" framework laptops with discrete | GPUs, sure. If it means sticking to the current framework or | a larger one with the same basic hardware... nothanks. | fsflover wrote: | You can consider Purism instead, which already are making their | own hardware. Happy owner here. | m463 wrote: | I have one too. I love the very standard hardware - even a | regular barrel jack for the power adapter. | | That said, the keyboard could be better. | | I hate the trend in flat-top keys we have now. I honestly | love the feel of gently recessed keys. I had an early macbook | pro and the keys seemed to press against my fingertips | uniformly instead of having the "hotspot" you get in the | center of the flat key. | laptop-man wrote: | I actually got a laptop from sager (clevo) and after 5 years of | heavy use. my biggest complaint is the dam case. all the | plastic clips broke. only a few screws holding it together. | lots of gaps now. and a few cracks in the plastic. | | but it's been thrown in a back pack and gone through several | years of traveling in a back pack | deepsun wrote: | But how about "do one thing, but do it right"? | CoastalCoder wrote: | Similar for me. When I looked at System 76 laptops 1-2 years | ago, the keyboard type was a deal-breaker for me. They were | like Asus ROG laptop keyboards, whereas I strongly prefer | keyboards like my Lenovo Legion's. | | I was hopeful when they announced an all-AMD laptop recently. | But unfortunately it's too small / underpowered / non- | upgradeable for my needs, and I couldn't tell from the pictures | if the keyboard was more to my liking. | | To be fair, even Framework laptops don't have swappable | keyboard types, AFAICT. So even a System76-Framework team-up | wouldn't necessarily fit my needs. | mardifoufs wrote: | Weren't they working on making their own hardware a while ago | (5 years ago, I think)? Have they ever given an update on that? | showerst wrote: | Yeah, they announced that in 2019 if not earlier. At some | point they said it would be delayed, presumably due to the | pandemic. | cameronhowe wrote: | You'll be happy to know that system76 pangolin laptops are not | clevo. | | source: https://fosstodon.org/@soller/109677885135544538 | Finnucane wrote: | I have a ~6-year-old Clevo laptop (from Mythlogic, which tells | you something). After about five years, the keyboard kinda | crapped out. Got a new keyboard, took about ten minutes to swap | it in. The hard part was getting the part, had to order it from | China. | chrismorgan wrote: | I have one from mid-2014 (base model W550SU, now-bankrupt | distributor), used about as heavily as anyone would ever use | one (probably averaging sixty hours a week). Its keyboard was | not great within one year (spongy), and distinctly unpleasant | after two years ( _very_ spongy), with its space bar becoming | extremely unreliable during the third year. It became | impossible to type at speed on it. | blondin wrote: | > I'm waiting for (probably far off) day when System76 makes | its own laptops instead of using Clevo hardware. I just can't | deal with that keyboard & trackpad quality. | | oh, i never knew that! i thought they made everything. | | for real though, who thought that having pgup and pgdn as mini | keys on top of the left and right arrow keys was a good idea? | and how did that get through quality assurance? | JonathonW wrote: | Page up and page down in that location is fairly common in | business-class laptops; Lenovo, Dell, and HP all do it in at | least some models. | trinix912 wrote: | IBM ThinkPads had Back/Forward buttons there. They acted | like the back/forward buttons on mice these days. Very | useful for browsing in Windows Explorer and IE. I loved | them. | qotgalaxy wrote: | [dead] | m000z0rz wrote: | I vastly prefer pgup and pgdn there. Moving between tabs in a | browser is Ctrl+PgDn / Ctrl+PgUp, and physically mapping it | near left/right arrows matches my mental mapping. | trelane wrote: | It's really common. The term is ODM: https://en.wikipedia.org | /wiki/List_of_laptop_brands_and_manu... | mardifoufs wrote: | They make their desktops but not their laptops. That's | probably why their laptops can sometimes have some weird | quirks (keyboard layouts, screen resolution options, etc). | gowld wrote: | Why don't Clevo's customers ask Clevo to upgrade the hardware | and create a premium line? | wilsonnb3 wrote: | It's sold out now but they did a collab with HP called the Dev | One. I haven't seen one in person but I hear the hardware | quality is quite good. | | https://hpdevone.com/ | pmontra wrote: | I don't get it: a Linux laptop with physical buttons on the | touchpad but only two of them. I've been pasting text with | the middle button all the time since forever and any time I | had to use a two buttons mouse or touchpad it was hell. My | ZBook has three buttons. It was one of the reasons I bought | it. | | Less visible downsides: only 1 TB SSD (I have 3 TB now), 16 | GB RAM (I have 32) and the screen is smaller as the laptop is | "12.73 x 8.44 x 0.75 in; 32.34 x 21.46 x 1.91 cm" | | The only good points are that it weights almost half of mine | and it's numberpad free :-) | slaw wrote: | The reason I haven't bought HP Dev One is glossy screen. | etrautmann wrote: | I purchased a high end workstation and was incredibly | disappointed by the case construction and extraordinarily weird | design choices made in service of aesthetics or...something. | CoastalCoder wrote: | I'm surprised. I have a 2 year old Thelio, and I really like | the internal layout for my use case. | [deleted] | Eeems wrote: | what are some of the examples that you were dissatipointed | by? | Temporary_31337 wrote: | I can't speak for the OP but just take a look at any | $50-100 ATX PC case and see all the features it has in | terms of cable management, connectivity, airflow/ cooling | of all critical components and modularity. That in my view | is the bar that a high end workstation should be better at. | whalesalad wrote: | "Pop!_OS" - the name of this distribution is also a potential | name for a future Elon Musk offspring. Also probably a great | forcing function for ensuring that all of their build tooling | works with bizarre names lol. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-01-31 23:00 UTC)