01-21-2020, 01:03 AM
So I thought I'd come back and close the thread out with a shipping update.
Purchased the PBP on Dec 5th, received shipping notification on Jan 17th from DLH via SMS, and was delivered the next day, the 18th.
Initial impression over the past couple days of messing around: it's a competent machine that will work well as a secondary machine for me, even with its software quirks.
I had issues with the default Debian installation w/ Firefox crashing on me. But that might be my fault since I just ran apt-get to update the system's packages first instead of following instructions. (Basically muscle memory at this point when I use Debian distributions.) So I installed Manjaro ARM w/ KDE on a microSD and it works surprisingly well. Obviously, it would run faster on the eMMC or SSD via NVMe but it's good enough for casual use.
Some bugs I expected to see, like the audio issues in Manjaro. The speakers output sound when using the headphone jack; I might just pull out the internal speakers all together since they are that bad IMO but I might be biased as a MacBook user. However, I didn't expect power management issues but apparently audio and power management are issues in the Desktop Linux world. In Manjaro at least, suspend doesn't work. Close the laptop and I can't activate the screen but the system is still on. So I just turn the thing off when I'm done.
The keyboard is probably better than my 2016 MacBook Pro; it appears to be more reliable at least, which is what counts the most. The display is pretty good and better than my old 11.6" MacBook Air with its lower res TN panel. However, there's a good amount of light bleed around the corners but only really visible on a black screen but no dead or stuck pixel on my unit. (I wonder if these displays are "lower binned" or QA factory rejects as a cost-lowering tactic. This is a good use of these displays, if that's the case.)
My Logitech MX Master 2S (and probably my MX Anywhere 2, too) works well. My Planck keyboard works and sits perfectly on the wrist rest over the trackpad. The trackpad is serviceable but pales in comparison to Apple's experience, which is obvious. I prefer to use a mouse/trackball when I can anyway, so it's nowhere near a deal breaker.
Not much a jarring transition from macOS to Linux because it's BSD and has access to Homebrew packages. All of the command line stuff works as expected. I installed: zsh (w/ Oh My Zsh for its plugin support), vim, neovim, neofetch, ranger (Python app for file nav leveraging vim-like beybinds), keepassxc-cli (local password management CLI app packed w/ the GUI KeePassXC). The most important Linux packages for the command line work: fortune, cowsay, lolcat, nyancat, and sl. (It's an important sanity check to run `fortune | cowsay | lolcat -a` on a regular basis, IMHO.)
So far, the software-related issues I have are and probably linked to my limited Linux desktop knowledge and experience:
* I don't know how to encrypt the OS volume and don't know if it's even possible in a relatively easy manner.
* The Tor Browser doesn't appear to work on aarch64 (might be a workaround to use tor directly).
* I can't get the KeePassXC browser extension to work w/ the KeePassXC app (probably some sandboxing issue or something).
Moving between macOS and this machine is obviously not that bad depending on who you are since Macs run BSD and has access to the most-used *nix tools via Homebrew. This is going to be a good secondary machine for me. There are times I don't need macOS-specific things like Xcode, etc., and/or don't want to use a more expensive machine in public. More RAM would be nice but I think this is a MVC (minimum viable all-in-one computer) that's more versatile than a cost-equivalent Chromebook, at least these days.
I feel like this laptop would almost be good enough as a primary machine if I was a computer science student. It would also probably be a competent web design/development machine for writing scripts and editing images, etc. Small C programs probably compile fast enough. Not sure how well the JVM runs for writing apps in IntelliJ and Eclipse IDEs. It definitely would be a good machine for system admins that don't need the full horsepower of an x86 machine or developers that remote into their dev environments such as writing backend code.
Even though you can get a used Lenovo Thinkpad for less money, this still represents good value if you can live the current roughness of the software. Can't think of many machines you can just pop an SD card in and boot anther OS. Kali Linux on an SD card could be useful.
Purchased the PBP on Dec 5th, received shipping notification on Jan 17th from DLH via SMS, and was delivered the next day, the 18th.
Initial impression over the past couple days of messing around: it's a competent machine that will work well as a secondary machine for me, even with its software quirks.
I had issues with the default Debian installation w/ Firefox crashing on me. But that might be my fault since I just ran apt-get to update the system's packages first instead of following instructions. (Basically muscle memory at this point when I use Debian distributions.) So I installed Manjaro ARM w/ KDE on a microSD and it works surprisingly well. Obviously, it would run faster on the eMMC or SSD via NVMe but it's good enough for casual use.
Some bugs I expected to see, like the audio issues in Manjaro. The speakers output sound when using the headphone jack; I might just pull out the internal speakers all together since they are that bad IMO but I might be biased as a MacBook user. However, I didn't expect power management issues but apparently audio and power management are issues in the Desktop Linux world. In Manjaro at least, suspend doesn't work. Close the laptop and I can't activate the screen but the system is still on. So I just turn the thing off when I'm done.
The keyboard is probably better than my 2016 MacBook Pro; it appears to be more reliable at least, which is what counts the most. The display is pretty good and better than my old 11.6" MacBook Air with its lower res TN panel. However, there's a good amount of light bleed around the corners but only really visible on a black screen but no dead or stuck pixel on my unit. (I wonder if these displays are "lower binned" or QA factory rejects as a cost-lowering tactic. This is a good use of these displays, if that's the case.)
My Logitech MX Master 2S (and probably my MX Anywhere 2, too) works well. My Planck keyboard works and sits perfectly on the wrist rest over the trackpad. The trackpad is serviceable but pales in comparison to Apple's experience, which is obvious. I prefer to use a mouse/trackball when I can anyway, so it's nowhere near a deal breaker.
Not much a jarring transition from macOS to Linux because it's BSD and has access to Homebrew packages. All of the command line stuff works as expected. I installed: zsh (w/ Oh My Zsh for its plugin support), vim, neovim, neofetch, ranger (Python app for file nav leveraging vim-like beybinds), keepassxc-cli (local password management CLI app packed w/ the GUI KeePassXC). The most important Linux packages for the command line work: fortune, cowsay, lolcat, nyancat, and sl. (It's an important sanity check to run `fortune | cowsay | lolcat -a` on a regular basis, IMHO.)
So far, the software-related issues I have are and probably linked to my limited Linux desktop knowledge and experience:
* I don't know how to encrypt the OS volume and don't know if it's even possible in a relatively easy manner.
* The Tor Browser doesn't appear to work on aarch64 (might be a workaround to use tor directly).
* I can't get the KeePassXC browser extension to work w/ the KeePassXC app (probably some sandboxing issue or something).
Moving between macOS and this machine is obviously not that bad depending on who you are since Macs run BSD and has access to the most-used *nix tools via Homebrew. This is going to be a good secondary machine for me. There are times I don't need macOS-specific things like Xcode, etc., and/or don't want to use a more expensive machine in public. More RAM would be nice but I think this is a MVC (minimum viable all-in-one computer) that's more versatile than a cost-equivalent Chromebook, at least these days.
I feel like this laptop would almost be good enough as a primary machine if I was a computer science student. It would also probably be a competent web design/development machine for writing scripts and editing images, etc. Small C programs probably compile fast enough. Not sure how well the JVM runs for writing apps in IntelliJ and Eclipse IDEs. It definitely would be a good machine for system admins that don't need the full horsepower of an x86 machine or developers that remote into their dev environments such as writing backend code.
Even though you can get a used Lenovo Thinkpad for less money, this still represents good value if you can live the current roughness of the software. Can't think of many machines you can just pop an SD card in and boot anther OS. Kali Linux on an SD card could be useful.