Friendly Linux|Gnu

[rygD]

On the eeePc I did manage to have similar battery life, on the X31 and my current X220, I don't. Maybe I suck at using Linux, maybe drivers are better on Windows, maybe Microsoft is evil and made ACPI so Linux cannot be efficient, maybe I'm a fool and don't deserve to use Linux as I can't configure it well enough to reach my goals.

What are the specs on your x220, including battery, what are typical tasks/settiings on battery, and how long does the battery last you? I want to compare with what I get. I haven't actually tested or tracked it, but I regularly use mine (i7, 8GB, not sure about the battery) for 5+ hours with the screen brightness dropped a bit. I will ask someone I know with an i5 tablet version with 4GB and Windows 7 tomorrow, too. I have a SSD in mine, so I guess that matters.

I am considering coreboot, although I suspect that will mess things up for me, just like Linux on a laptop does for you.

 

[benoitb]

It wildly varies depending on usage. I have an i5, TN screen, 6GB RAM(4+2), 7200rpm HDD.
My battery is a 6 cells I think (not the huge one, not the slimest one). It is worn out, retaining about 66% of its original capacity.

I didn't measure scientificaly but these should be pretty accurate:
Low-usage: web browsing, movie in a movie player, screen around 11/15 -> 5h
Intensive: streaming flash video, screen around 13/15 -> 2h30m
Very intensive: playing Hearthstone with maxed screen -> 1h45m

If my battery was new, you could add +50% to these figures. I do have a new battery in stock for when I'll need it.

 

[Caine]

Missing the option to mention both.

Linux at home and Windows at work (unfortunately).

 

[Klumpen]

I still use a WinXP partition for some games since I prefer native ports and don't like fiddling around with WINE too much, that puts me in the "both" category as well, I guess.

 

[Wally]

I use OSX, Windows and Linux. There's really no point trying to use one given the nature of some of our jobs.

I would preference to OSX and Linux over Windows.

 

[rygD]

The poll doesn't work for me since I fit into all 4 categories and at least one that isn't listed.

It wildly varies depending on usage. I have an i5, TN screen, 6GB RAM(4+2), 7200rpm HDD.
My battery is a 6 cells I think (not the huge one, not the slimest one). It is worn out, retaining about 66% of its original capacity.

I didn't measure scientificaly but these should be pretty accurate:
Low-usage: web browsing, movie in a movie player, screen around 11/15 -> 5h
Intensive: streaming flash video, screen around 13/15 -> 2h30m
Very intensive: playing Hearthstone with maxed screen -> 1h45m

If my battery was new, you could add +50% to these figures. I do have a new battery in stock for when I'll need it.

Most of what I do on battery is pretty light. I don't know what condition my battery is in. I will see if I can find a way with Linux. Like you said earlier, many have said they lose a bit of time on battery when running Linux, so I kinda knew what to expect. Either way, I am quite happy with how much time I get since I don't think any of the laptops I have owned, or even those I have used at work that were better than what I buy, has had so much battery life.

 

[_jr_]

All I want for gaming is that it works.

So, you don't even read the EULA or compare prices? It's convenience above all? I've never seen any economical theory where this will lead to any desirable future. You probably don't care either.

 

[ElPoco]

I use what allows me to do everything I want. Looks like that's an unrational choice.

 

[PowerGod]

Why Windows is defined a "not rational choice" ? If you have to run something made for that OS, it is the MOST rational choice there is !!

I suppose that the purpose of this thread is already lost, because as always it became an OS war

 

[comradekingu]

Its not.
Decide if that is forcing you to use it, or if it comes down on the side of rationality.
Dont make a post about it.

 

[_jr_]

I use what allows me to do everything I want. Looks like that's an unrational choice.

Even if it is created using slave labor or torturing animals?

I know that you and Askarus didn't mean it that way and probably are just annoyed because of the pretentious poll options.

There is nothing wrong with a conscious decision to use windows/ios/linux/bsd/pencil and paper for your computing needs and the reasons don't have to be as transparent as https://www.nager-it.de/static/pdf/en_lieferkette.pdf but IMO just reducing it to an unconditional I want is too easy.

For the record, I checked irrational choice (even if it happens to currently be GNU/Linux), because the poll options are crap. Better ones could be:
I'm using whatever OS, because I've always have without checking my options
I'm using whatever OS, because someone (employer, peers, etc) is inducing me to
I'm using whatever OS, because I've considered my use cases, looked for options, and tried to calculate the relative benefits, arriving at my current choice

The first two being the ones where it may be a good idea to start looking for options, because the current choice may not be optimal.

edit: and even these poll options would be somewhat pretentious on this board

 

[WizardStan]

Am I the only one who read the title and the poll and thought the whole thing was a joke? Why is everyone being so serious?

 

[rygD]

Am I the only one who read the title and the poll and thought the whole thing was a joke? Why is everyone being so serious?

Some of us aren't. As you may have noticed, most of my posts were off-topic, but I did try to explain why the poll options don't really work for me in a "serious" way because I enjoy discussions like this with ck.

 

[_jr_]

With ck I usually cannot tell whether it's a joke.

 

[Klumpen]

 

[Alperoot]

I would LOVE to switch to Linux because running it in a VM is a pain (Probably Debian or Ubuntu) but I am on Windows 8.1 and I installed a lot of games/programs to it. Wiping my computer would not be great in such a situation. I also tried dualboot but no luck...

 

[comradekingu]

@Alpibrine28

What kind of computer do you have, what happened?
I use devuan, its debian without the systemd. The new kubuntu 16.04 release is probably the one with the least treshold of entry and most ease of use.

What do you rely on in win 8.1?

 

[ZXDunny]

Shit poll is shit.

Whoever said that Linux is better for old hardware hasn't tried to get an old laptop running with it.

I have a Panasonic CF-41 Mk 1 (486 DX2/50Mhz), and Linux will not run on it. Well, it does (Debian Woody) but I have to boot into MSDOS first so I can then loadlin - can't boot directly into linux. But then I have no CD drive because it's proprietary (the MS cdrom drivers handle it just fine as a default, but I have yet to find a linux driver for it). It can't run X, because it hasn't got enough memory (24MB RAM, 128KB Video RAM) for anything other than 1BPP.

It runs Windows98SE like a champ though.

 

[Klumpen]

Whoever said that Linux is better for old hardware hasn't tried to get an old laptop running with it.

I have a Panasonic CF-41 Mk 1 (486 DX2/50Mhz), and Linux will not run on it. Well, it does (Debian Woody) but I have to boot into MSDOS first so I can then loadlin - can't boot directly into linux. But then I have no CD drive because it's proprietary (the MS cdrom drivers handle it just fine as a default, but I have yet to find a linux driver for it). It can't run X, because it hasn't got enough memory (24MB RAM, 128KB Video RAM) for anything other than 1BPP.

It runs Windows98SE like a champ though.

old ancient

 

[comradekingu]

With 4MB ram you can run http://pizza.slitaz.org/tiny/
http://tinycorelinux.net/faq.html#req will run on 28, and that is a modern kernel

Support ended for 98se over a decade ago.