[HN Gopher] macOS has become more reliable
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macOS has become more reliable
Author : spideymans
Score : 76 points
Date : 2021-10-30 20:53 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eclecticlight.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (eclecticlight.co)
| zevv wrote:
| I have been running Debian on all of my laptop computers since
| 1999, just copying the whole file system to new hardware when
| upgrading. I only re-installed it once when switching from 32 to
| 64 bit.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Same here, on a number of machines. One of them - an Intel
| SS4200, now retired - I migrated from 32bit to 64bit without a
| reinstall. This seamless upgrade path was my main reason to
| move from an RPM-based distribution to Debian somewhere back in
| 1998, having moved to Redhat from Slackware before than and
| from SLS to Slackware before that, from nothing to SLS
| somewhere in 1992.
| copperx wrote:
| Are you saying that you have been upgrading the same install
| since 1999 without having to ever reinstall from scratch? I
| find that to be impressive. Does it take a massive amount of
| effort?
| doubled112 wrote:
| The Debian upgrade process is very effortless, and if you're
| not running anything from an outside repository is just a
| matter of updating the release codename in your sources.list
| and doing an `apt update` then `apt dist-upgrade`
|
| Obviously your mileage may vary, but the 8 upgrades of Debian
| 10 to 11 I did were exactly that for me.
|
| Edit: realized I lied and the Canon driver wasn't ready for
| Debian 11 so rolled my print server back. You'll have to
| decide for yourself whether this is a Debian problem or not
| Jenda_ wrote:
| I was managing many systems from 2012 to 2019, upgrading from
| Debian 6 to 10 in the process, and it was always smooth (I
| was hitting some bugs, but I would hit these with a clean
| install too).
|
| I have written an article on this, unfortunately in Czech,
| but you can try Google Translate: https://www-abclinuxu-
| cz.translate.goog/blog/jenda/2020/12/2...
|
| TL;DR:
|
| - perform apt-get dist-upgrade, apt-get autoremove, apt-get
| clean
|
| - migrate postgresql database to a new version, if installed
|
| - run `aptitude search
| "?narrow(?installed,?not(?archive(stable)))"` to find
| leftover packages from older releases. Install alternatives
| and remove these old packages.
|
| - once in a while, run
|
| for p in `dpkg -l | grep ^ii | cut -d " " -f 3 | grep -E
| "^lib"`; do echo "if [ \\`apt-get -s purge $p | grep -E
| \"^(Purg|Inst|Conf)\" | wc -l\\` -eq 1 ]; then echo $p; fi"
| done | parallel
|
| to find libraries that nothing depends on
|
| - when taking over a system from a previous sysadmin, run
| debsums -c and maybe also a complete audit of all files that
| are not managed by a package manager (though this has lots of
| false-positives, so it needs an expert judgement)
|
| # locate * | grep -vE "^/(home|tmp|mnt|boot|opt|root|srv|usr/
| local|var/cache|var/lib|var/log|var/tmp|var/mail|var/www)/" |
| sort -u > /tmp/allfiles
|
| # sort -u /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.list > /tmp/allfiles2
|
| # comm -23 /tmp/allfiles /tmp/allfiles2 |less
| kzrdude wrote:
| You need a bit of continuous effort to be thoughtful of how
| you install software - not letting random make installs
| scribble over your install.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Why would it? Software doesn't rot with time (unless it's
| made to).
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| At least in my experience, it's a matter of separation of
| data vs os. I can reinstall the os or upgrade as needed. Then
| copy my data over separately from the OS itself.
| skohan wrote:
| One of the nicer things about Linux is that it's just software.
| It's not trying to implement any corporate ownership over your
| hardware.
| vmception wrote:
| Well they try. Almost all distros have tried/had someone try,
| over time.
| zulln wrote:
| So if you got malware the last 20 years your system could still
| be infected? Not saying that risk outweighs the pros, but that
| is something I think is nice each fresh install.
| Jenda_ wrote:
| You can audit that the installed files match these from the
| packages (with the debsums program), though I don't know
| where to easily get the checksum file from an independent
| trusted source (as the checksums themselves can be tampered
| with the malware to match).
|
| It is good to run this once a while even for non-security
| reasons: you can detect hardware problems (notoriously
| failing SD cards in Raspberry Pis) and mistakes, like
| installing a custom program to /usr instead of /opt and
| accidentally overwriting system files.
| ricardonunez wrote:
| My MBP2017 came with a few issues and a every update was a flip
| the coin, it could have go either way good or bad. Bluetooth
| didn't work well with my mouse, keyboard has some issues, speaker
| blowed off, etc. When Apple did the butterfly keyboard recall,
| they replaced the chasis and that pretty much everything aside
| from the bottom cover and the monitor. Since then, my computer
| has been amazing, no issues, better battery, better keyboard,
| connectivity, Bluetooth and more importantly every update has
| gone flawless. I'm wondering if it was a board problem, but
| whatever it was it definitely made MacOS way more reliable too.
| rurban wrote:
| This should carry a (2009) in it's headline.
|
| After Snow Leopard it went downhill with reliability and
| stability, but got new exciting features: iOS compatibility,
| yeah. No more x32 support, yeah! No more OpenGL support, yeah!
| New filesystem without identifier normalization, yeah! No more
| /use/local/bin/. No more kernel drivers. Mail and mDNSResponder
| constantly crashing, and every new release the list keeps
| growing. The new Windows.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| I'm guessing you are not an actual user of the system you are
| criticizing since you are wrong on so many points. Not my
| experience at all. Many of your criticisms are simply false.
| usr/local/bin is fine. OpenGL is an antiquated system that is a
| poor match to modern GPUs and it too was deprecated for a long
| time. mDNSResponder did have some issues but we have been past
| that for many, many years. Never had issues with Mail that a
| reindex command wouldn't clean up. APFS has been nothing but an
| improvement in my experience. 32 bit support was deprecated for
| over a decade. Sometimes it is time to move on.
|
| As far as kernel drivers, yes there are still some 3rd party
| kernel drivers, but the (ongoing) transition to system
| extensions running in user space is absolutely an improvement.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| I thought the whole point of using windows is an insanely long
| backwards compatibility and future support window? Hence the
| name windowS? :)
| acdha wrote:
| > Snow Leopard it went downhill with reliability and stability
| ... Mail and mDNSResponder constantly crashing
|
| If this isn't just hyperbole, try a clean reinstall after a
| hardware diagnostic. This isn't normal.
|
| (/usr/local/bin is fine, are you perhaps referring to Homebrew
| changing its preferred location?)
|
| You can argue about 32-bit support but given that the platform
| first went 64-bit in 2003 it's kind of hard to say you didn't
| have advanced warning. Similarly, the writing has been the wall
| for OpenGL since Microsoft stopped favoring it on the most
| popular platforms in the 1990s. The model doesn't fit how
| modern hardware works and it's not surprising that they don't
| want to keep supporting a standard which the industry
| increasingly doesn't use.
| thesquib wrote:
| The latest update bricked many laptops at work. Like no boot, no
| sad Mac, get a new laptop situation. We are at the point where
| people joke they are flipping a coin on whether the next update
| from Apple will brick their laptop or not.
|
| For me, the macOS ecosystem is no longer reliable enough as a
| daily driver.
| Tagbert wrote:
| I remember helping a friend a few years ago who thought he had
| truly bricked his MacBook. There is a restore process that
| reinstalls the OS when an update goes wrong. I don't recall the
| process now as I've never needed it since but it is somewhere
| on Apples site. I seriously doubt these laptops are truly
| bricked. Obviously something cause the installer to fail but
| there are recovery options built in that are not part of the
| OS.
|
| this is probably a good place to start
| https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-ma...
| my123 wrote:
| (this recovery process is also available for Apple T2 x86
| Macs)
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| I wonder if this "more sealed boot loader" will make it more
| difficult to dual boot Linux and MacOS? Curious if the Ashai
| Linux devs have a plan for this.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Nope. You can disable secure boot.
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198
| easton wrote:
| Their plan has always required disabling the secure boot stuff.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| How often are the SHA-256 hashes on the System volume snapshot
| checked? Could something that can write to the drive root, and
| understood APFS, silently change the file without updating its
| recorded metadata (including hash)? Or is the hash checked every
| time a file is opened?
| my123 wrote:
| Checked all the time, it's a Merkle tree structure.
|
| You can modify the seal when the Sealed System Volume feature
| is off. (which requires Secure Boot to be set to Permissive
| Security, and FileVault to be off at the time of disabling)
| nickjj wrote:
| I think popular applications should be included with OS
| reliability because in your day to day these are the tools you
| use.
|
| I've been using a MBP (2020 Intel) for work (work issued laptop)
| for about a week full time and if I leave Chrome open for more
| than a day every tab will crash even if I only have a few tabs
| open. It happens frequently. The system isn't stressed in the
| slightest too in terms of CPU or memory usage.
|
| Does this happen for anyone else?
|
| This hasn't happened to me ever on Windows or Linux after years
| of hardcore usage.
| [deleted]
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| Anyone know why macOS updates take so long? It's nuts, I just
| upgraded to one of the new MacBooks and even on that it took
| about 20 minutes to upgrade from 12.0.0 to 12.0.1, so not even a
| major release upgrade. The CPU is wicked fast, the SSD is wicked
| fast, so why does it feel like I'm suddenly using a Pentium when
| upgrading?
| glandium wrote:
| One reason is macOS updates are using LZMA, which is not
| exactly fast to decompress.
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| Yikes. As a Linux guy my instinct is to go in and fix that
| but I can't :( it hurts sometimes. I recall also that a guy
| hacking around with Linux on the M1 found a CPU feature for
| VM optimisation that isn't implemented in macOS. Again, would
| love to add support for that, but I can't.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| There could be a good reason for it not being implemented
| by Apple, but I agree. At least knowing why it's not yet or
| if it will be implemented would be nice, but it's generally
| a black box.
| easton wrote:
| I've been feeling that too as I've been trying to do little
| bits of open source. Windows has a ton of little bugs that
| probably wouldn't take much to fix, but the feedback goes
| into a black hole. I asked someone at Microsoft about it
| one time on GitHub, they said "that's broken, but even if
| we started the work now and fixed it, you won't see it for
| a year". I get there's good reasons for that sometimes, but
| other times things just don't work right.
| Tagbert wrote:
| In the last couple of version, updates are no longer
| differentials but full OS updates. They are shipped as a single
| signed package that is loaded into one of the protected volumes
| of the disk. This is supposed to be a security measure to
| prevent compromises of components of the OS. The downside is
| big slow updates. Hopefully they work on that and do more like
| the differential updates that they use for iOS.
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(page generated 2021-10-30 23:00 UTC)