"refused to load whatever distro I tried from SSD" sounds very much like a feature in AMI InsydeH2O firmware (and possibly others) where-by one has to manually "trust" the boot-loader file the boot menu entry points to. This doesn't seem to apply to Microsoft Windows boot loaders so I've always assumed the signing certificate is checked directly against the MS UEFI CA root rather than the intermediate 3rd party certificate that is used by Microsoft to sign distro shim files.

I have kept a screenshot of the firmware setup for years to remind me where the option can be found; looking at it now:

menu: Security > "Select UEFI file as trusted"

That would bring up a file-chooser where one can navigate the files in the EFI System Partition and select the distro's initial boot-loader file. For example, for a Debian install it would either or both of:

/EFI/debian/shimx64.efi /EFI/debian/grubx64.efi

I’m not sure what your point is?

You were ahead of the curve on displays and behind the curve on phones and I guess congrats on the 2e start, I had an early Mac.

What does this have to do with the price of CPU cycles in clamshell PCs?

You abstained until ARM because you could see the future and you knew that the specs you demanded we’re gonna be available eventually?

Apple did some OS optimizations. But the next to last x86 laptop generation (the butterfly keyboard era) was really bad. The keyboards were bad and they had poor thermals

I remember battery life on my Late 2015 MBA was great for the time. It easily got through my post-secondary classes, 3-8 hours depending on the day, with leftovers. IIRC Apple claimed 12 hours of battery life. That was a significant improvement over the suggested 5 hours of my previous laptops.

Yeah, but that’s Mac, not Linux on Laptops of the era designed for Windows

It's important to distinguish between the Framework 13 and the Framework 16. The Framework 16 is by far the most ambitious of the two, and so it has had a lot more issues. I use a Framework 13, and I've loved it. It's light, has a solid frame, and runs Linux great. The battery life isn't great, and the speakers aren't either, but I've been able to mitigate the latter with EasyEffects.

If the 16 performs worse in the power efficiency department, that is not great, but it doesnt make my machine run any worse. Calling it heavy is crazy to me, the thing is tiny. If you think it's heavy you'd have trouble using an iPad. The screen thing was a shitty manufacturing issue, they released a kit to fix it, which I luckily didnt need since mine came after they fixed it in production.

Sleep just ceased to exist in the last few years and got replaced with an always on, low power mode.

I believe the reasoning was partly that suspend to RAM had serious reliability issues due to the complexity of saving the state, partly that people starting expecting cell phone-like performance where eg, mail is always received.

I haven't really played around with that much, sorry. I don't typically use sleep on my laptops. I prefer to either hibernate or just shutdown and start up again when I need it.

I'd guess that the X13s hardware support in Ubuntu is likely as good as Debian, and switching probably wouldn't help you much. I have noticed that newer kernel versions (notably 6.12 and later) and the latest firmware (as of sometime last year) really fixed a lot of little issues for the X13s. That probably makes a bigger difference than the distro. I'd check to see which versions you're using.

I have two laptops running linux. One is a MSI gaming laptop with RTX card that no one would recommend for linux.

I had to try about 10 distros before I settled on linux mint. Everything else had some problem but the driver manager on linux mint made setting up the RTX so flawless.

After 8 months of use, it is the best machine I have ever used. If I had just stuck with my old favorite KDE neon though I would have been posting on how not to get MSI if you want to use linux.

They certainly aren't in Europe, Africa or Asia, as not everyone has the income to afford Apple prices.

Just to be clear this is entirely a response to what I have in the parentheses, right?

Ok, perhaps it is not niche. I don’t know. I have never had to use a laptop for 12 hours without any ability to recharge but if that’s a common use case I’m happy that folks are finding a way to satisfy.

I think what you're running into is that you have a different attitude than some of us do about technology. I've been using computers for a very long time as well, but I don't feel a sense of entitlement to the latest and greatest features because it often comes with other compromises regarding freedom and control. Because Linux is several years behind Windows and Mac in terms of adopting those technologies, there is an evergreen argument in every thread about Linux which boils down to "Why can't it do this thing from the last four years?"

This is uniformly tiring and uninteresting. I've been using 1920x1080 displays for 25 years and they're just fine. A retina display is not necessary to do anything that I need. Similarly with these requirements about particular thermals and particular battery lifetime. I can buy a battery and I can find a wall outlet.

You're comparing not having those features to having your husband assassinated during a play. But I don't think a lack of those features ruins the computing experience the way having your husband assassinated would ruin the play. The thing that ruins the play for me is when they chain me to my seat and tell me I have to watch the whole thing while they pin my eyelids open. And that's how I feel about using Windows or Mac OS.

So to turn your original comment around, Windows and Mac OS can call me when they allow me to configure my system as I see fit, and not shove ads for their auxiliary services in my face every time I try to start a program or modify a setting.

If you know what to look for, you can also get good battery life. The 268V CPU will give you pretty good battery life.

Come on, buddy, at this point, nobody could take you seriously.

You are attributing to the software and OS a difference that exists because of hardware.

You can’t seriously sit here and say Linux battery life on x86 doesn’t reach your par when you’re comparing it to a completely different computing architecture.

You’re comparing apples to oranges and complaining the oranges are more sour than the apples.

Run Asahi Linux and tell me how it goes.

> travel - consulting

That's why pity

Pretty much every laptop on the planet will run Linux. Maybe your optics are tinted because you seem to be a Mac person, and Linux support for newer Macs has known issues with low power modes.

I note how your 12+ hour claim was reduced to 5 hours when you actually put it to real work. It's still impressive, of course, but 5 hours aren't out of reach for Ryzen laptops either.

BTW, I have a RISC-V platform with 8 1.6GHz CPUs that uses under 5W under full load; on your 100Wh battery it would last for 20 hours. It's not a complete system, and performance lags behind Apple/Intel CPUs, but I think in few years RISC-V may take a bite out of both.

I personally don't care about battery life, there are power outlets around everywhere I'll be more than several hours.

Still, no one is getting that kind of battery life outside apple, just the way it is. If your existence revolves around battery life there's no substitute.

But note, this thread is about replacing Windows, and Wintel does not do as well as Apple either. So this thread is off-topic.