Those who don’t have the time or appetite to tweak/modify/troubleshoot their computers: What is your setup for a reliable and low-maintenance system?

Context:

I switched to Linux a couple of years ago (Debian 11/12). It took me a little while to learn new software and get things set up how I wanted, which I did and was fine.

I’ve had to replace my laptop though and install a distro (Fedora 41) with a newer kernel to make it work but even so, have had to fix a number of issues. This has also coincided with me having a lot less free time and being less interested in crafting my system and more interested in using it efficiently for tasks and creativity. I believe Debian 13 will have a new enough kernel to support my hardware out of the box and although it will still be a hassle for me to reinstall my OS again, I like the idea of getting it over with, starting again with something thoroughly tested and then not having to really touch anything for a couple of years. I don’t need the latest software at all times.

I know there are others here who have similar priorities, whether due to time constraints, age etc.

Do you have any other recommendations?

  • lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    As someone who just had to bandaid an unexplained battery draw on his wife’s MacBook - no, Mac OS no longer “just works”. Apple buries some of the most basic settings inside a command line-only tool called pmset, and even then those can be arbitrarily overridden by other processes.

    And even after a fresh reinstall and new battery, it still drains the battery faster in hibernation mode than my Thinkpad T14 G1 running LMDE does while sleeping. Yeah, that was a fun discovery.

    That Thinkpad is by far one of my most dependable machines.

    • mbirth@lemmy.ml
      0·
      10 days ago

      If you have battery drain, make sure you’ve disabled the option to regularly wake up and do some background processing (check for emails, sync photos, etc.). Settings → Battery → Options… → Wake for network access. (Or search for “Power Nap” in the System Sertings dialog.)

      No need to use pmset for that.

      • lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        So here’s the thing - if you can think of it, I’ve already tried it 😅 I spent a week and a half sifting through countless forum posts on Apple’s own support center, Macrumors, reddit, and a host of other forums.

        The “Wake for network access” setting was the first thing I disabled after I wiped and reinstalled the OS. Among a number of other settings, including “Power Nap”. Still got the fucking “EC.DarkPME (Maintenance)” process firing off every ~45 seconds, no matter what I did, causing excessive insomnia and draining the battery within 12 hours.

        What I ended up doing was using a little tool called “FluTooth” to automatically disable wifi/Bluetooth on sleep (the built-in OS settings did fuck-all), set hibernationmode to 25, and a few other tweaks with pmset that currently escape me (edit: disabled networkoversleep, womp, ttyskeepawake, and a couple others I can’t remember as it’s not here in front of me).

        I put a solid 7 full charge cycles on the brand new battery before it finally calmed the fuck down.

        • SL3wvmnas@discuss.tchncs.de
          0·
          8 days ago

          I feel you. I still use an intel macbook with tweaks i cannot remember plus 3rd party utils like Turbo Boost switcher. That experience alone has kept me from upgrading to newer models.

          In retrospect my powerbook g4 (Ti) and os 9 was peak computing.

          • lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            0·
            8 days ago

            My Thinkpad T14 running Linux Mint (LMDE) gets better battery life on “Suspend” than that damn MBP does when hibernated. It’s the 2017 A1706, too - out of ALL the variants it had to be that one 😂

              • lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                0·
                6 days ago

                That thread was a godsend. Turning off tcpkeepalive was the other one that I couldn’t remember, but that seemed to help out as well.

                My wife has had multiple MacBooks over the years (I set up her old 2009-era A1278 with Linux Mint for the kids to do homework), and after I “fixed” it and talked about the longer wake-up process, she told me that’s what she was used to already and the “super fast wake up” was a very new thing for her when she bought it. So no complaints from her, and the battery performs better. Win/win.

                • SL3wvmnas@discuss.tchncs.de
                  0·
                  1 day ago

                  That is so good and satisfying to hear.

                  I’m also currently almost exclusively on Linux. My Spouse has a Fedora powered Notebook with a super fast 8/16 core amd processor and loves it dearly. (Cannot remember the maker, but since the BIOS/setup was huge PITA I wont be buying from them again.) I used to love the simplicity and light-weighted -ness of apples setup, but over the years Linux systems made it far easier to use them as a “digital hub”. Turns out I did not enjoy selling my soul to Satan (Oracle Virtualbox) or pay an extra 100 bucks per year (Corel Parallels) just so I could use a few windows only tools I had.