I'm considering switching my daily driver computer to Linux (for the 20th time)

[szabesz]

@kongondo I recently bought my son a used M2 Air, which was not too expensive and is in pretty good condition and a lot faster than my getting-old 2019 Intel MacBook Pro. Have you ever considered the UNIX experience without all the hassle? Just my two pence...

Personally, I am waiting for the M4 Mac mini:
https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac_Mini

And sorry for being somewhat off-topic, macOS is not Linux, but it feels similar in many ways and is a lot easier to tame.

[poljpocket]

On 10/1/2024 at 10:47 PM, kongondo said:

My Linux adventure has come to a swift end! I don't know what it is with me and Linux! There's always something.

That's very sad to hear..

I used to use Linux during my university days (15 years ago) because for computer science, it just made the most sense. Later, I used Windows mainly because I was forced to do so at work (in the past). So finally, I decided to again move away from Windows right about when Microsoft really added an unbearable amount of bloat and tracking bulls*** with Windows 10 and later on 11.

I first went with Manjaro because I thought it was an easy introduction to the "Arch way" but that was a mistake: Manjaro is still very opinionated and does a few things which didn't work for me. So this isn't any different to just using Ubuntu with pacman. So I took the courage and went full Arch. Installation isn't too bad if you know your way around the command line. Since I was using WSL on Windows and used to run Linux for years before, this isn't a problem for me.

I must say, I have never looked back. Arch isn't very plug-and-play, that's true. But also, it doesn't stand in your way. Back then, I even moved my work PC to Arch after a few weeks because I got very confident with using it at home. There also, I never looked back: Everything is just faster and especially when your machine is idling, it is actually not doing anything. Ever. Gone are random "jetplane takeoffs" and slowdowns (search indexing, updates, antivirus). Also, on my Laptop, the battery lasts forever longer than with Windows.

Right now, I am using a simple GNOME desktop environment on top of Arch. I am using PHPStorm and Docker CE for local development. All of these are just a few package installs away. No need to mention that web development is just so much easier on Linux. For my work scenarios: Printers are basically plug-and-play with Linux (much more than Windows!). Same for SMB shares on the network. Microsoft 365 has 99% of it's features in their web apps these days (Outlook, SharePoint, Excel, Word, ...), even Teams works perfectly as long as you are not using Firefox.

What am I missing? Basically nothing important! There are a few very small things. One example: We have a Miracast thing in the conference room to share our screens to which just doesn't work for Linux. No biggie, because there is also a HDMI cable 🙂

Edited October 27 by poljpocket

[wbmnfktr]

Funny thing happened this weekend...

I have had the great luck and opportunity to setup a brand new Windows 11 laptop this weekend.
And I must say a lot of things I hated in the past have changed significantly.

I never felt so un-welcomed, [redacted] and hated things even more than ever before.

It was a nightmare right from the start.

I had to create an account with Microsoft, which didn't work at all and took about an hour to finish. The 8th confirmation code worked and the session didn't expire in the meantime. Wow!

Then the fun begun. It started to finish the basic installation, installed a ****load of updates and created shortcuts/symlinks on the desktop to almost each and every programm you could imagine - even weblinks to the online version of Office365 even though the full version was already pre-installed. Then there was a clash between McAfee, G-Data, and another system tool. What a mix of bloat. After downloading around 6GB of updates for Windows itself, there were even more updates for various apps, firmware, and whatnot.

From start to finish: about 6 hours!

I had to go for a walk in the forest afterwards so I wouldn't end up as the main topic in a Breaking News/Sondersendung that day.

I really don't know and understand how people can live with this kind of p00h.
Ok, it was a consumer laptop and nothing a company would buy, but still this was a horrendous experience.
Do normal users/consumers don't see this or is this the reason people hate computers that much?
And why do 16GB of RAM on a Windows 11 machine feel like 4GB on a Ubuntu Gnome setup?

That was the last time I ever touched a Windows machine. Even for family and friends.

😭

• Side note 1: the hardware of that laptop is actually great and I would use the device, but not with Windows - for sure.
• Side note 2: took this sunday to re-install all my laptops with Debian 12.7 (custom DE/i3) and it took less than 2 hours in total.

 

[kongondo]

On 10/1/2024 at 10:15 PM, szabesz said:

Have you ever considered the UNIX experience without all the hassle?

No, I haven't. I tried a Mac once and the app window buttons location on the left (instead of the right) just confused me 😃. Thanks for the suggestion thoug.

[kongondo]

11 hours ago, wbmnfktr said:

I had to create an account with Microsoft,

Actually you don't. Make sure you are not connected to the internet and it will ask you if it can create one at a later time or skip or something like that 😁.

11 hours ago, wbmnfktr said:

From start to finish: about 6 hours!

Hmm, sounds very strange! 6 hours! Even with a slow internet connection this still seems very odd. I use a debloated Windows but that alone cannot explain why I haven't experienced such a long install time as you did. Granted, you had to install other stuff as well.

[bernhard]

3 hours ago, kongondo said:

On 10/1/2024 at 11:15 PM, szabesz said:

Have you ever considered the UNIX experience without all the hassle?

No, I haven't. I tried a Mac once and the app window buttons location on the left (instead of the right) just confused me 😃. Thanks for the suggestion thoug.

I can second what @szabesz said. I was never a fan of mac. I even installed windows on a macbook air when I once bought one and could not work with it for the same reasons that @kongondo mentioned. But then I had to use one in an agency I was working and I switched the hard way. I did intentionally not change and keyboard mappings and I did intentionally not change mouse wheel direction.

It took about 2 weeks to get used to it, but it worked. Now it's the new normal for me and I have to say with MacOS it's a far better experience than what I had with windows. Many things that seem to be "better" on windows are just a matter of habits. But MacOS is so much more polished and less chaotic. And things run so much more reliably. I can't remember when I rebooted my mac the last time. Just leave it after work and in less than a second it's back on the next morning. No more fear of running out of battery life on a 2h meeting. And no sound of annoying fans (on MacBook Air). Nothing. So much better!

And last but not least: It's UNIX. rsync, htop, wget... whatever... all there! And no problems because of "wrong" file path delimiters.

BTW: If any of the windows users could help me with debugging this RockFrontend issue I'd be very happy: https://processwire.com/talk/topic/27417-rockfrontend-🔥🚀-the-powerful-toolbox-for-processwire-frontend-development/?do=findComment&comment=245336

[wbmnfktr]

12 hours ago, kongondo said:

Actually you don't. Make sure you are not connected to the internet and it will ask you if it can create one at a later time or skip or something like that 😁.

I know this now and some other tricks as well.  Next time I'll use the tool from Chris Titus to get a custom ISO and go from there.

12 hours ago, kongondo said:

Hmm, sounds very strange! 6 hours! Even with a slow internet connection this still seems very odd.

It wasn't the fasted connection (50Mbit) but fast enough for tasks like that. I couldn't believe it took that long. Don't know why but to be honest I really don't wanna know. My best guess: Bloat. Tried it in a VM again and it took an hour or so to get up and running.

That's life.

[szabesz]

There you go, the M4 Mac mini: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/

Mine will be configured as:

• Apple M4 chip with 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
• 16GB unified memory
• 512GB SSD storage
• 10 Gigabit Ethernet
• Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI port, two USB‑C ports, headphone jack

Should you want to install Linux on it: https://asahilinux.org/2024/10/aaa-gaming-on-asahi-linux/

But probably a better option: https://eclecticlight.co/2024/01/01/virtualise-linux-on-apple-silicon-with-liviable-beta-4/

[FireWire]

*cough*windowsisspyware*cough*

Pardon me, must be a cold or something going around.

[wbmnfktr]

*cough*NoNoNo*cough*

Might be flu season again.

[FireWire]

@wbmnfktr Reminds me of the first model of iPhone where Apple removed the headphone jack and Phil Schiller was up on stage patting himself on the back for everything. When he got to the part telling everyone the headphone jack had been removed, he said:

Quote

"The reason to move on: courage. The courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us,"

It was the most dramatic and hilarious delivery ever. "The reason to move on..." (dramatic pause) "...courage". Like he just personally cured cancer or something,

What you're witnessing right there with that power button? Courage.

Apple is blazing towards the future. We're out here stuck in the past where we turn our computers on and off like cavemen and cavewomen with big ugly power buttons on our laptops staring us in the face.

[kongondo]

3 hours ago, szabesz said:

There you go, the M4 Mac mini: https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/

Mine will be configured as:

Dude! Now you've got me really, I mean really, interested! Aside from the 'marketing' talk (in the announcement), this little guy looks like it packs a powerful punch! All that and managing to keep it cool? Hmm. We are seriously OT-ing, sorry, but are you able to please recommend a 'portable' screen to go with it? Thanks! 

[szabesz]

44 minutes ago, kongondo said:

a 'portable' screen to go with it?

That was my thought too. Since the machine fits in a pocket (well, you need a large coat for that, but there are such pockets...) if I buy a small keyboard and a small screen, I can easily temporarily relocate my office when I need to.

I have no idea which keyboard and small monitor to buy just yet, but I will definitely purchase them in the end.

BTW, here is a quick review for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxgnSiK5qBA

 

[olivetree]

For years I have had a hop-on/hop-off relationship between Windows and Linux. I am not and was not a Windows guy, coming from then SGIs desktops and their GUI. in the meantime I've had years of different hardware with many Linux distros (from Slackware, Debian to Suse to RedHat, Mint and many more), but also the very consistent OpenBSD and FreeBSD also as a desktop. With all these unixoids, I kept missing some of the necessary, even proprietary software, for school or my business, for which I had to run on a separate Windows box then becasue of hardware dongles. VM was not a seamless solution. The desktop applications and VMs of unixoid OSes are good, stable and fast today, hardware support is also good.
But I had the feeling that it was often only about being able to configure everything, down to the last window, and often only to use an OS without software costs. That's good, but at some point I didn't liked configuring and system administration any more. I simply wanted a system that gave me a good GUI with a unixoid shell, basically a modern BeOS/Haiku OS. Then bought a mac, a macbook, then an imac. After that I tried it out again with a Win10 box. I didn't work quite as smoothly as with macos, but it also progressed. Hardware crashes with an AMD processor and a popular collaboration suite were difficult to solve as a lecturer during the pandemic. I solved this with a quick buy of a mac mini m1 and it still runs around with sensationally low power consumption (max. 36W). Almost green;-) And now 4 hardware steps further, lets see. Mac is not that only alternative, but it is also a usable one.

Edited October 29 by olivetree

[kongondo]

5 hours ago, szabesz said:

Apple M4 chip with 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine

M4 Pro beyond your budget or you have no need for the beast?

[szabesz]

9 hours ago, kongondo said:

M4 Pro beyond your budget or you have no need for the beast?

Good question. Actually, yesterday I started to consider getting the 20-core GPU version (the most expensive one), but only if I decide to get into 3D seriously once and for all. I'm giving myself some time to think about that, as it would mean a lot less web development work, which I love with ProcessWire. As long as Ryan is around, I don’t think I will ever leave PW, but if I switch my main focus, then obviously I won't have as much time to work on ProcessWire-based projects.

As for web development, I am pretty sure that even the cheapest M4 Mac mini would be just fine. My daughter's original base model M1 MacBook Air is at least twice as performant as my current 2019 Intel MacBook Pro in almost all respects, and the latter is still perfectly fine for DTP and web development. So why spend the extra money on features I do not use?

However, I still want to replace my current Intel Mac, as I would like to make more homemade videos from our family footage recorded over the years, and any M series Mac is a lot better for that than my aging Intel CPU based laptop.

[kongondo]

42 minutes ago, szabesz said:

I started to consider getting the 20-core GPU version (the most expensive one), but only if I decide to get into 3D seriously once and for all

I see, thanks. In my case, the consideration is mainly if it can run an LLM locally without 'much fuss'. 

[szabesz]

9 minutes ago, kongondo said:

if it can run an LLM locally without 'much fuss'

Yeah, that would be nice to have for sure. Since all M4 Mac Minis come with 16-core Neural Engine cores, I guess* they will be equal in this regard. Checking out M3 Mac reviews available out there might help you determine which M4 chip variant can be good enough for running local LLMs.

*Edit: I could be mistaken, and other cores are also important to have. Having an Intel CPU based Mac, I have not yet dived into this topic just yet.

Edited October 30 by szabesz