Buy $500 laptop with a fake description, install a hard distribution and complain that it doesn't work. Author buys a Macbook Air for God knows how much and say it's way easier. This is not really a fair attempt at switching! This is like using a Raspberry Pi and complaining about its performance. For the next time:
1. Get a decent laptop, preferably one that is known to work in Linux (though in my experience, most 1-5 yo laptops have decent drivers). I got mine for $650 with IPS 1080p (Zenbook UX305CA).
2. Use a easy distribution such as Ubuntu where you just have to click "next" few times.
> Buy a Macbook Air for God knows how much and say it's way easier.
...or buy a Dell XPS 13 which actually has Linux pre-installed by the OEM, and comes with hardware that's actually tested on Linux by the OEM.
Apple hardware is notoriously difficult with Linux, because they obviously don't test it on anything but OS X, and the hardware is completely opaque and may even vary within a given {model, year} combination, making it even more difficult for Linux developers to target than most PC hardware.
By contrast, Dell actually sources hardware specifically for the Linux edition (ex: they use a different wireless card for the Linux and Windows editions for this exact reason[0]) and pushes any driver patches upstream to the kernel.
Aside from the philosophical argument for voting with your wallet for a manufacturer that actually devotes resources towards building hardware that works with Linux, you'll just have a way easier time getting everything working.
I'm a longtime Linux user, and having experienced the process on an XPS 13, a Thinkpad, and a Macbook Air, each multiple times over, there's no way I'd ever consider running Linux on any laptop but an XPS 13 (or the Precision, its 15'' counterpart) again.
[0] In other words, don't buy the Windows edition and install Linux on it, because you'll probably have issues with your wireless card if you do. Even if you want to install a different distribution, buy the Ubuntu version - Dell upstreams all its patches, so the wireless card that ships with the Ubuntu version will work on any Linux distribution.
> I think the parent poster was referencing the Macbook Air purchased in the article, not suggesting it as a base for new Linux installation.
Right (they edited the comment after I posted, which makes it less ambiguous). That said, I wrote this mostly preemptively, because I've seen way too many people try to install Linux on the hardware that they happen to have available (usually an old Macbook of some form) and then complain that X doesn't work.
It's fine if you're just testing things out, but if you really want an apples-to-apples comparison for the top-of-the-line experience on each operating system, you have to run Linux on hardware that's actually tested with Linux in mind.
On the flipside, shortly after a discussion with my wife on how user friendly nixes had become, I attempted to convert one of my old Windows 10 boxes to Ubuntu, for the purposes of leveraging mdadm over whatever SW RAID Windows ships with.
I probably could have used Windows RAID tools, but I don't know what they are, and I'm pretty comfortable with the ease of use of mdadm.
Anyway, after downloading Ubuntu 16.04 and dding it to a thumb drive, I was off to the races. Two days later, I realized that "Failed to create a kernel channel" somehow relates to the USB settings, and I stumbled onto a stackoverflow post that had me add 'iommu=soft' to my boot parameters and finally, finally* I was installing software.
I'm not an expert, but I'm definitely not a novice, and while there might have been a short window in which Linux had hit peak compatibility, it seems that the numerous hoops I had to jump through to accommodate UEFI and USB BIOS settings may well indicate that the moment has passed. I hope it catches up again, because for non-technical people, installing an operating system is a really hard thing, and if it's non-trivial for any experienced users, it'll be monumentally hard for grandma.
Disclaimer: I work for https://system76.com, and I make my living selling machines with Linux preinstalled.
Well, but when's the last time you installed Windows or OSX on clean hardware? Especially one where Windows needed a third-party driver to read the disk? Neither are difficult, mind you, but it's not a task that's suitable for "grandma".
As an apples-to-apples counterpoint, I've been a full-time Linux user for a decade now, but I recently had occasion built a Windows gaming rig for the family. Getting from zero to first boot wasn't difficult, but I was shocked and dismayed at how nothing Just Worked. Instead, I had to go manually download drivers for half a dozen common pieces of hardware.
I'm not an expert, but I'm definitely not a novice, and while there might have been a short window in which Windows had hit peak compatibility, it seems that the numerous hoops I had to jump through to accommodate a mainstream video card and a simple software RAID may well indicate that the moment has passed.
> I got mine for $650 with IPS 1080p (Zenbook UX305CA).
@franciscop - which distro are you running? I'm primarily a mac user but picked up a UX305FA about 8 months ago to start poking around with Linux.
I've had Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint, OpenSUSE, Fedora 25 & 26, and most recently Ubuntu Studio.
In every case I have the same issues that end up turning me away - first and foremost is the screen. I hear it's a nice screen under Windows but no matter what I can't seem to get it to not strain my eyes. I've tried calibrating the screen, different resolutions, and Redshift but no matter what it ends up straining my eyes. Maybe my eyes are too used to Apples retina displays?
The other issue is the jumping cursor. No matter what I do, or how careful I am to keep my palm clear of the track pad, inevitably while typing the cursor jumps up to the top of the screen while I'm mid line. Drives me nuts.
Sorry, not trying to thread jack but seeing how you have a similar machine and seem to like it, I thought I'd throw it out there.
I really want to like this computer, over than those 2 issues it's a great little laptop.
I am using Ubuntu and do not experience these issues. However I come from a Windows/Linux background so it might just be that I am conditioned to avoid these unconsciously. So these issues might be when compared with mac or just because of the computer on itself.
1. Get a decent laptop, preferably one that is known to work in Linux (though in my experience, most 1-5 yo laptops have decent drivers). I got mine for $650 with IPS 1080p (Zenbook UX305CA).
2. Use a easy distribution such as Ubuntu where you just have to click "next" few times.
3. Enjoy your Operative System!