8 ms·

The other good thing about this is that the Pixelbook is a 3:2 screen, so finally there's a laptop with a proper display resolution that can run Linux nicely.

The other good thing about this is that the Pixelbook is a 3:2 screen, so finally there's a laptop with a proper display resolution that can run Linux nicely. There's a good community of folks over at https://www.reddit.com/r/Crostini/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Crostini/ who have been tinkering with this for quite some time.

mschuster91 8y ago
> with a proper display resolution 3:2? No thanks I don't really want black bars when watching movies... What I'd really really like is something with the build quality (especially the touchpad!) of a MacBook Pro, with decent and recent hardware, first class Linux support for all features, support for both USB-C and "old" USB and a decent keyboard with it. And that without paying more than for an technologically outdated yet still top-of-the-line MBP...
- lallysingh 8y ago
  So a thinkpad.
  - mschuster91 8y ago
    Give me a Thinkpad with a full aluminium body, a touchpad with a size that's actually usable and we'll talk. Sorry but I have developed a real dislike for small touchpads incapable of reliable gestures and full plastic bodies.
    - nsriv 8y ago
      Thinkpads have magnesium chassis (X1 is carbon fiber).
    - willtim 8y ago
      A metal body is heavy, prone to dents and attenuates radio. Why are you so keen on having one? The X1 Carbon is lighter, tougher and more serviceable than a MacBook Pro, in part because of a better choice of materials. As for trackpads, Apple keep making them larger and larger, so a ThinkPad trackpad is no smaller than a MacBook from a few years ago. The keyboard is surely the primary concern.
      - mattnewton 8y ago
        The trackpad is also terrible compared to modern MacBooks aside from the size. It flexes, feels worse and does not reliably track gestures. The whole thing feels stuck a decade ago.
        grover_hartmann 8y ago
        > The whole thing feels stuck a decade ago. Says the macOS user... did you even get a newer version of bash yet? I heard even Debian stable has a newer bash version than macOS.
        AdamJacobMuller 8y ago
        `brew install bash` Software is trivial to upgrade and that's a very silly comparison to make.
        grover_hartmann 8y ago
        Yes, FOSS saving a close source platform, what's news? You are completely missing the point, my point was that Apple is so bad of a company that they completely refuse to ship with GPLv3 software, they are nothing but a bunch of immoral fascists. Take take take, but never give anything back. The GNU project did everything right by moving to GPLv3. And last time I checked, brew doesn't work so well when you have multiples users on the same system.
        crispinb 8y ago
        > they are nothing but a bunch of immoral fascists. Yep. The Apple death count must be nearing that of WWII by now surely.
        grover_hartmann 8y ago
        If you cannot see anything immoral in Apple, or if you're unable to see anything immoral/fascist beyond murder and WWII then I'm not sure you're ready to discuss this subject. I suggest you educate yourself on the matter, because judging by your comment, I can clearly see you're ignorant about the subject. https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html
    - xanderstrike 8y ago
      > a touchpad with a size that's actually usable The touchpad is inferior to the trackpoint, so I'd much rather they get rid of it entirely instead.
      - peatmoss 8y ago
        I wrote off the Trackpoint back in its glory days, but I recant my former position. Trackpoint is the bees knees once you get used to it. The Apple touchpads have gotten huge and easily triggered, Trackpoint is the cure.
        borcean 8y ago
        On macOS trackpad rejection is quite good, but if you're running anything else it's very frustrating. One of the primary reasons reinstalled macOS... too many triggers on Fedora :(
    - grumdan 8y ago
      This is pretty subjective, but I spend a lot more time typing than using the touchpad and while the MBPs touchpad may be nicer, I think the MacBook keyboards can't hold a candle to ThinkPad keyboards. I'm happy to trade a worse touchpad for that any day.
      - rifung 8y ago
        I use a Thinkpad with Linux for work and I agree that the keyboard is better than a MBP's. However, even though I use the keyboard more than the trackpad, I find that I still rather use a MBP because the difference between the trackpads is greater than the difference between the keyboards. Also I like the screen on the MBP better.
    - bduerst 8y ago
      So an HP Elitebook? Some of their mobile workstations are up to military standard.
  - city41 8y ago
    Are there ThinkPads with touchpads as nice as MacBooks? The touchpad on my T470s is not even close.
- dijit 8y ago
  Cool, so buy something else; literally every laptop on the market is catering for you, and I'm genuinely happy for you-- but those of us who prefer taller aspect ratios have nothing.. please let us have this.
- confounded 8y ago
  You’re pretty much describing Purism’s Librem line of laptops: https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/
  - airstrike 8y ago
    Wow. Thanks for sharing. This is amazing... it's like it was made for me but I'm sure my wife won't approve the idea of buying yet another computer. Good daydreaming material, though!
    - dagw 8y ago
      Here's a review and discussion from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16894557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16894557
  - chi3 8y ago
    Aren't they just Clevo computers? If so, the ones I've used have _nowhere_ near premium build quality.
    - 8draco8 8y ago
      Because they are Clevo. In my opinion the whole "linux laptops" are just a scam in general. Virtually all of them are just slapping their logo on top of generic machine from vendor like Clevo or Compal and are saying that those are "machines designed for linux" ... no they aren't. The most that they are doing is to negotiate with Clevo to put a WiFi card that will work with linux out-of-the-box, which is basically the same what you can do yourself.
- donatj 8y ago
  > No thanks I don't really want black bars when watching movies... I genuinely never understand people that watch movies on laptops. I find it a wholly unenjoyable experience. Do you own a TV? You’re missing so much of the experience watching a movie on anything smaller than 45” and TVs are dirt cheap these days. I saw a 65” the other day for $250...
  - mastazi 8y ago
    > You’re missing so much of the experience watching a movie on anything smaller than 45” genuinely curious: given the same resolution, what's the difference between watching a e.g. a 45" from your couch and watching something like a 20" while getting closer to the screen until it covers the same angle of view? Just the fact that it's (probably) more relaxing for your eyes to focus on relatively distant objects?
  - fauigerzigerk 8y ago
    The TV itself may be cheap but the space it requires probably isn't. How do you fit one 45" screen per person in a small appartment? I genuinely don't understand why people put huge TV screens in their small rooms given that a smaller screen at closer distance produces the same visual effect.
  - welly 8y ago
    In my case, I live on a boat so don't have the room for a 45 or 65 inch TV. Laptop it is. But there are many, many circumstances why you'd watch TV on a laptop. I don't believe airlines would look too fondly on someone dragging their 65" TV on board.
  - jacksmith21006 8y ago
    My kids have nice TVs in their room and a rarely see them use them. Instead they watch movies on their Chromebooks majority of the time. Are go to for the kids are the Acer 14s. Just incredible machines for the money. All aluminum chassis, peppy performance, long battery life, etc. Get them Acer refurb for about $200. Best value you can get. Wife uses a CB+ and me a PB. Wife spends a ton of time on her CB+ and does often time watch movies on it. While I never do on my PB. Often times she will be watching a movie on hers laying in our bed while I am watching something on our TV in our bedroom.
nqzero 8y ago
huawei matebook x is 3:2 and runs linux nicely surface book appears to as well, but i don't have one of them to vouch for
- lunchables 8y ago
  The Verge makes it sound like the touchpad is basically unusable and battery life is apparently poor. https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16007692/huawei-matebook-x-laptop-review https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16007692/huawei-matebook-...
- jacksmith21006 8y ago
  This should be better battery life using GNU/Linux. The process the supports the VM runs under ChromeOS.
Daycrawler 8y ago
Why is 3:2 better than standard 16:9?
- ptman 8y ago
  It depends on what you do. 16:9 is better for wathing 16:9 movies. But if you read lots of text, narrower, longer columns are usually a lot more handy. We have way more vertical than horizontal scrollbars.
  - jeffhuys 8y ago
    I prefer 16:9 or 16:10 because I have a lot of windows side-by-side most of the time. I don't have 1 file open while coding, most of the time 2 or 3, in that case a wider screen is better in my opinion.
    - cube2222 8y ago
      I've got a surface and in my opinion 3:2 is actually better for multitasking. You can fit two windows vertically. So you end up having 4 windows side by side.
- aembleton 8y ago
  More vertical space for reading text, including code
- euyyn 8y ago
  Taller, better for coding.
- slantyyz 8y ago
  > Why is 3:2 better than standard 16:9? It's not better. It's usually just people projecting their personal preferences as though they should apply to everyone else. Every one is different, so as long as the individual is content with what they've got, it doesn't really matter what aspect ratio they're using.
- mindslight 8y ago

mschuster91 8y ago

> with a proper display resolution 3:2? No thanks I don't really want black bars when watching movies... What I'd really really like is something with the build quality (especially the touchpad!) of a MacBook Pro, with decent and recent hardware, first class Linux support for all features, support for both USB-C and "old" USB and a decent keyboard with it. And that without paying more than for an technologically outdated yet still top-of-the-line MBP...

lallysingh 8y ago
So a thinkpad.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  Give me a Thinkpad with a full aluminium body, a touchpad with a size that's actually usable and we'll talk. Sorry but I have developed a real dislike for small touchpads incapable of reliable gestures and full plastic bodies.
  - nsriv 8y ago
    Thinkpads have magnesium chassis (X1 is carbon fiber).
  - willtim 8y ago
    A metal body is heavy, prone to dents and attenuates radio. Why are you so keen on having one? The X1 Carbon is lighter, tougher and more serviceable than a MacBook Pro, in part because of a better choice of materials. As for trackpads, Apple keep making them larger and larger, so a ThinkPad trackpad is no smaller than a MacBook from a few years ago. The keyboard is surely the primary concern.
    - mattnewton 8y ago
      The trackpad is also terrible compared to modern MacBooks aside from the size. It flexes, feels worse and does not reliably track gestures. The whole thing feels stuck a decade ago.
      - grover_hartmann 8y ago
        > The whole thing feels stuck a decade ago. Says the macOS user... did you even get a newer version of bash yet? I heard even Debian stable has a newer bash version than macOS.
        AdamJacobMuller 8y ago
        `brew install bash` Software is trivial to upgrade and that's a very silly comparison to make.
        grover_hartmann 8y ago
        Yes, FOSS saving a close source platform, what's news? You are completely missing the point, my point was that Apple is so bad of a company that they completely refuse to ship with GPLv3 software, they are nothing but a bunch of immoral fascists. Take take take, but never give anything back. The GNU project did everything right by moving to GPLv3. And last time I checked, brew doesn't work so well when you have multiples users on the same system.
        crispinb 8y ago
        > they are nothing but a bunch of immoral fascists. Yep. The Apple death count must be nearing that of WWII by now surely.
        grover_hartmann 8y ago
        If you cannot see anything immoral in Apple, or if you're unable to see anything immoral/fascist beyond murder and WWII then I'm not sure you're ready to discuss this subject. I suggest you educate yourself on the matter, because judging by your comment, I can clearly see you're ignorant about the subject. https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html
  - xanderstrike 8y ago
    > a touchpad with a size that's actually usable The touchpad is inferior to the trackpoint, so I'd much rather they get rid of it entirely instead.
    - peatmoss 8y ago
      I wrote off the Trackpoint back in its glory days, but I recant my former position. Trackpoint is the bees knees once you get used to it. The Apple touchpads have gotten huge and easily triggered, Trackpoint is the cure.
      - borcean 8y ago
        On macOS trackpad rejection is quite good, but if you're running anything else it's very frustrating. One of the primary reasons reinstalled macOS... too many triggers on Fedora :(
  - grumdan 8y ago
    This is pretty subjective, but I spend a lot more time typing than using the touchpad and while the MBPs touchpad may be nicer, I think the MacBook keyboards can't hold a candle to ThinkPad keyboards. I'm happy to trade a worse touchpad for that any day.
    - rifung 8y ago
      I use a Thinkpad with Linux for work and I agree that the keyboard is better than a MBP's. However, even though I use the keyboard more than the trackpad, I find that I still rather use a MBP because the difference between the trackpads is greater than the difference between the keyboards. Also I like the screen on the MBP better.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    So an HP Elitebook? Some of their mobile workstations are up to military standard.
- city41 8y ago
  Are there ThinkPads with touchpads as nice as MacBooks? The touchpad on my T470s is not even close.
dijit 8y ago
Cool, so buy something else; literally every laptop on the market is catering for you, and I'm genuinely happy for you-- but those of us who prefer taller aspect ratios have nothing.. please let us have this.
confounded 8y ago
You’re pretty much describing Purism’s Librem line of laptops: https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/
- airstrike 8y ago
  Wow. Thanks for sharing. This is amazing... it's like it was made for me but I'm sure my wife won't approve the idea of buying yet another computer. Good daydreaming material, though!
  - dagw 8y ago
    Here's a review and discussion from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16894557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16894557
- chi3 8y ago
  Aren't they just Clevo computers? If so, the ones I've used have _nowhere_ near premium build quality.
  - 8draco8 8y ago
    Because they are Clevo. In my opinion the whole "linux laptops" are just a scam in general. Virtually all of them are just slapping their logo on top of generic machine from vendor like Clevo or Compal and are saying that those are "machines designed for linux" ... no they aren't. The most that they are doing is to negotiate with Clevo to put a WiFi card that will work with linux out-of-the-box, which is basically the same what you can do yourself.
donatj 8y ago
> No thanks I don't really want black bars when watching movies... I genuinely never understand people that watch movies on laptops. I find it a wholly unenjoyable experience. Do you own a TV? You’re missing so much of the experience watching a movie on anything smaller than 45” and TVs are dirt cheap these days. I saw a 65” the other day for $250...
- mastazi 8y ago
  > You’re missing so much of the experience watching a movie on anything smaller than 45” genuinely curious: given the same resolution, what's the difference between watching a e.g. a 45" from your couch and watching something like a 20" while getting closer to the screen until it covers the same angle of view? Just the fact that it's (probably) more relaxing for your eyes to focus on relatively distant objects?
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago
  The TV itself may be cheap but the space it requires probably isn't. How do you fit one 45" screen per person in a small appartment? I genuinely don't understand why people put huge TV screens in their small rooms given that a smaller screen at closer distance produces the same visual effect.
- welly 8y ago
  In my case, I live on a boat so don't have the room for a 45 or 65 inch TV. Laptop it is. But there are many, many circumstances why you'd watch TV on a laptop. I don't believe airlines would look too fondly on someone dragging their 65" TV on board.
- jacksmith21006 8y ago
  My kids have nice TVs in their room and a rarely see them use them. Instead they watch movies on their Chromebooks majority of the time. Are go to for the kids are the Acer 14s. Just incredible machines for the money. All aluminum chassis, peppy performance, long battery life, etc. Get them Acer refurb for about $200. Best value you can get. Wife uses a CB+ and me a PB. Wife spends a ton of time on her CB+ and does often time watch movies on it. While I never do on my PB. Often times she will be watching a movie on hers laying in our bed while I am watching something on our TV in our bedroom.

nqzero 8y ago

huawei matebook x is 3:2 and runs linux nicely surface book appears to as well, but i don't have one of them to vouch for

lunchables 8y ago
The Verge makes it sound like the touchpad is basically unusable and battery life is apparently poor. https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16007692/huawei-matebook-x-laptop-review https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16007692/huawei-matebook-...
jacksmith21006 8y ago
This should be better battery life using GNU/Linux. The process the supports the VM runs under ChromeOS.

Daycrawler 8y ago

Why is 3:2 better than standard 16:9?

ptman 8y ago
It depends on what you do. 16:9 is better for wathing 16:9 movies. But if you read lots of text, narrower, longer columns are usually a lot more handy. We have way more vertical than horizontal scrollbars.
- jeffhuys 8y ago
  I prefer 16:9 or 16:10 because I have a lot of windows side-by-side most of the time. I don't have 1 file open while coding, most of the time 2 or 3, in that case a wider screen is better in my opinion.
  - cube2222 8y ago
    I've got a surface and in my opinion 3:2 is actually better for multitasking. You can fit two windows vertically. So you end up having 4 windows side by side.
aembleton 8y ago
More vertical space for reading text, including code
euyyn 8y ago
Taller, better for coding.
slantyyz 8y ago
> Why is 3:2 better than standard 16:9? It's not better. It's usually just people projecting their personal preferences as though they should apply to everyone else. Every one is different, so as long as the individual is content with what they've got, it doesn't really matter what aspect ratio they're using.
mindslight 8y ago