Who do you buy from when they’re all bad. I don’t think buying a Linux laptop is a serious option even for most enthusiasts. The software, hardware, and battery life just aren’t there.
It is quite a bit worse in practice depending on what you do.
For example, with web browsers, most Linux ones (including Chrome and Firefox) disable much of hardware accelerated graphics on Linux by default because of "unstable graphics drivers". If I remember correctly, Chrome just disables it across the board, while Firefox has a whitelist of drivers considered stable which is basically just Intel.
In my testing, unless you muck around with these settings, you're can easily lose something like an hour of battery life compared to Windows if all you do is just browse websites (and I'm not even talking about anything fancy here; my automated test was literally just scrolling the main Reddit feed).
I had one of the early Project Sputnik laptops (XPS 13 with Ubuntu preloaded) and loved it. Now I use a Framework which is fine, but not anything amazing.
I'm thinking either Framework or Lenovo. It might be interesting to see what good arm laptops will be available next year when I might finally decide to upgrade my current machine.
> The software, hardware, and battery life just aren’t there.
Writing this from a Framework 13. I've been using Linux laptops for the past 15 years, and this is the first time a Linux-friendly machine has checked all my boxes (including excellent battery life).
I think it's just some lingering propaganda of those who oppose adoption of Linux. Things are pretty usable and are there for those who want to use them. Not necessarily Dell though - haven't used them in a long time.
> Who do you buy from when they’re all bad. I don’t think buying a Linux laptop is a serious option even for most enthusiasts. The software, hardware, and battery life just aren’t there.
I'm writing to you from a $250 laptop running Mint (with 11 hours of charge remaining) that this is is pure, unadulterated FUD from 20 years ago.
Lenovo certifies their systems for use with both RHEL and Ubuntu [1] which means that most mainstream distros will work contemporary, high-end business ultrabooks that are widely regarded as some of the best in their class. Arch has a lush, green compatibility matrix [2] for these laptops too. Once a year on average I buy a four-year-old T series and throw Mint on it for a friend or relative and everything works out of the box. This has been the case for at least a decade. If you don't want to buy a Thinkpad then the acclaimed XPS 13 is one of many [3] Dell laptops that comes pre-loaded with Ubuntu. Others in this thread have also pointed out the numerous vendors that ship Linux on rebadged barebones hardware.
We need to cut it out with the "desktop Linux is hard" meme. It's a counterproductive mind virus. It hasn't been true since the Bush administration and almost always amounts to some hand-wavey comment like the above. The hoops you have to jump through with modern Windows a la Group Policy hacks, TPM requirement bypass, selecting the exactly-correct LTSC version, etc. are consistently greater than anything you have to deal with on modern desktop Linux in my experience.
> Don’t buy shitty products, or soon there will be no non-shitty products
The only way to fight enshitification is government regulation.
Otherwise, for the 0.1% of market population able to make an informed choice, there remains a 99.9% of consumers ready to buy the cheapest thing and then shrug up or whine.
I think we need more details: do you mean TVs aren't getting worse, or are? Why? What examples do you have?
I think LG's webOS is nice - its consumer friendly, but as a developer, you can whip something up and install it on your TV easily in an afternoon. OTOH, I believe not all the APIs are documented, as some of the interfaces provided to/from Netflix/Prime Video/Dinsey+ don't appear to be possible with documented APIs, and ofc, from a hardware perspective, they are completely locked in.
If capitalism means manipulating people to make choices that are against their own best interests or eliminating other choices that have better utility, then I’m on board.
But really, capitalism properly managed shouldn’t be about figuring how to profit by making things worse, it should be about profiting by solving problems.
When a business profits by creating problems rather than solving them, it is a parasite on society. Such businesses are effectively criminal enterprises, and should not be allowed to exist.
The whole point of capitalism is for a minority with the means to profit off of the majority without the means. It doesn't care about the quality of products as long sa they make money. Since owning all the means of production means owning the power, capitalism will never self-regulate: it doesn't have the interest of the majority in mind
"Capitalism properly managed" isn't capitalism anymore, so if that's what we want (and I agree with you) then let's use proper terminology. Workers-owned coops, democratically-chosen regulations, communities governed by and building for themselves,federating between each other, the stuff
We should call it out loud and clear where ever we see it.
Don’t buy shitty products, or soon there will be no non-shitty products.