Comment by normie3000
4 days ago
> it seems that basic stuff like wifi still doesn't always just work
This is true. I've been using Ubuntu since 2006, but still see issues with
Wifi: Ubuntu 22 didn't work out of the box with a 2014 macbook air
Bluetooth: maddening trying to set "listening" mode instead of headset mode on JBL earphones - it seems to choose randomly every time it connects, and the setting isn't exposed in any UI
Sleep: I don't think I've ever seen sleep/suspend working reliably on a Linux laptop, to the point I don't know the difference between the two. I have one thinkpad which never wakes from sleep, and also never fully shuts down on system shutdown without a long press of the power button.
I accept all this so that I don't have to wait seconds for basic UI things to happen, like switching virtual desktop (osx) and opening the application launcher (windows).
Counterpoint: I've been using enterprise thinkpads for the past 15 years and never had issues with wifi, or suspend. So again, it's about how you choose your hardware so it works with Linux...
I had a Thinkpad T480s that was absolutely perfect with Linux (Mint), although very underpowered, but that was due to Intel CPU.
This year I got a T14s Gen6 AMD as a replacement, and it's essentially unusable on Debian-based distros (Ubuntu, Mint), but works fine with Fedora and with Windows.
On Ubuntu and Mint, X just locks up every 80 seconds or so, and I have to hard-reboot it (or switch ttys and restart X). Nothing in syslog, nothing in dmesg, nothing in X.org.log to show what might be going on.
I have the T14s Gen3 AMD and everything just works with CachyOS and Fedora. In general I tend to use as recent kernel as possible with AMD. They do update their drivers a lot in every Linux version.
I've also used enterprise thinkpads for the last 10 years. No wifi issues on those, but sleep and bluetooth issues as described. I have no idea if Windows would have been more reliable.