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Last active February 26, 2025 23:52
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Linux experience
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linux_experience.md

The bad things:

Hardware (XPS) issues:

  • Trackpad is imprecise and shaky.

  • Trackpad requires force to click.

  • Overheats A LOT (harmfully so) under load.

  • Fingerprint scanner only works 25% of the times (https://imgur.com/a/QL3bUts).

  • Battery life only lasts 33%-50% of the advertised (3h to 5h).

  • No security chip makes keys vulnerable to CPU exploits.

  • WTF? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uctv_yS5vv4

Software (Linux) issues:

  • Random crashes during startup (https://imgur.com/a/gtA1bbf)

  • "System program problem detected" every time I log in (https://imgur.com/a/rLXge5A)

  • No gestures: zoom/back/forward on browsers, 3-fingers to move desktops, etc.

  • Installing games requires a lot of work, is very hacky and flawed. (https://github.com/lutris/docs/blob/master/Battle.Net.md)

  • Must change the system resolution every time I want to play.

  • Game plays at a much lower FPS (30 vs 80+) than on my Macbook, even with better GPU.

  • No support for AirDrop, TimeMachine, FindMyMachine and other Apple-ecosystem features.

  • Tiling managers don't support hiDPI, so they don't work on XPS's 4k screen!

  • VIM takes ~2 seconds to load, because it attempts to connect to X. If I disable it, it won't be able to copy/paste. See question. NeoVim is suggested, but it doesn't properly run interactive shell, and can't display colors with :!, making Formality errors awful.

  • No official support, if you face a serious issue nobody is responsible.

Simple things are hard to do...

  • Spent 10+ hours trying to remap the keyboard. Tutorials on the internet suggest deprecated solution (xmodmap) which doesn't work. Errors on config files aren't reported and you need to guess. The solution was there, but finding it took too long.

  • Spent 4+ hours trying to add a PrevTab hotkey to a browser. Tried several possibilities. Ended up having to compile a Chrome extension myself (https://askubuntu.com/questions/1259974/is-it-possible-to-remap-prevtab-and-nexttab-to-c-h-and-c-l-on-chrome-brave).

  • Spent 6+ hours trying to install a bar. Lot of issues with many options. Managed to install and launch "lemonbar", but it was too small on the Dell XPS 13 screen because it didn't respect the DPI config on ~/.Xresources. Spent hours trying to figure out how to increase its size. Found many places suggesting I had to increase the font size with lemonbar -f FONT_NAME, but I couldn't find what to put on FONT_NAME. Some sources suggested I had to install a fork with XFT fonts. After a lot of googling and thanks to an user that replied his own question on stack overflow, I learned there is a command called xfontsel that allows me to pick a font and copy-paste its name on the lemonbar command. After 6 hours I'm finally able to have a top bar that says "Hello, World!". Now I just need to figure out how to build a volume bar, a battery meter, a desktop selector and a wifi/bluetooth connection panel on it! \o

  • Managed to get redshift (night mode) working after configuring it with the latitude/longitude of my house, but it keeps making the computer screen orange even at day time. I think every time I open/close the lid it launches another instance of redshift, which accumulates?

The good things:

  • The screen is a masterpiece.

  • The keyboard is the best I've ever typed on.

  • Feels very efficient when it works.

  • It is so small and solid!

  • It was nice to configure so many things from the terminal (but again, this is 99% the case on OSX too).

Conclusion:

I feel like the main selling point of Linux is that it is immensely customizable, which allows you to do anything you want. But at the same time, seems like most of what you'd want to do is already implemented by Apple, except as stable software that just works. And, when it isn't, 99% of Linux features are present since you have an almost-linux-compatible terminal anyway. Linux seems to have a solution for everything, but they never "just work": every small thing you want to do requires considerable research & effort, which takes precious time that could be spent elsewhere.

I think I had high expectations, and I don't think Ubuntu nor XPS are bad. But this experience made me value higher all the "invisible" effort Apple puts on its products. Things that were present on my Macbook that I didn't even realize; touch gestures, a good fingertip scanner, a superb trackpad, Apple's support, or just the lack of crashes, bugs and problems everywhere. Those things impact a lot of quality-of-life aspects of my work.

Untimately, in practice, I don't think I have much to benefit from using Ubuntu directly. The only thing I can think of, right now, is a snappy tiling windows manager, but even that didn't work as well as I'd expect. And I do have a lot to lose. So overall I don't feel like this is an update that will make my work or life better.

tl;dr the XPS 13 and Ubuntu aren't bad, specially if compared to Windows and other notebooks. But now I do think it is a downgrade coming from a Macbook, and not the notebook/OS for me.

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