[HN Gopher] Things I can't do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu ...
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Things I can't do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)
Author : robin_reala
Score : 360 points
Date : 2022-04-26 09:31 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shkspr.mobi)
(TXT) w3m dump (shkspr.mobi)
| Macha wrote:
| Number 1 for me is definitely "Control which audio device an app
| is playing to, without that app having to implement an internal
| picker"
| Joeri wrote:
| Can't you do this with audio hijack?
| Macha wrote:
| What's audio hijack? Under Linux with pipewire or pulse its
| just a dropdown next to the application name in your OS
| volume mixer
| ezfe wrote:
| That's still something you have to install, or is
| pipewire/pulse included by default? If you have to install
| then it's the same as installing something like Audio
| Hijack on Mac.
| Macha wrote:
| No, Pulseaudio has been the standard audio system on
| Linux for most of the last decade. Pipewire is the
| standard one on some more cutting edge distros (i.e.
| Fedora). If your Linux install comes with a GUI, it will
| have one or the other.
| denysvitali wrote:
| - Sort folders before files
| pledg wrote:
| In Finder? This is possible.
| denysvitali wrote:
| Uhm, you're right. I'm confusing the issue with something
| else then.
| kcplate wrote:
| The nice thing about this post is that it seemed to stay away
| from the standard "Macs suck because they don't do this..." start
| a flame war vibe that a lot of these types of commentary's delve
| into. The author specifically said:
|
| > This is how I like to use my computer. And it is clear that the
| MacBook isn't my computer - it is Apple's.
|
| For me its the old adage - I can hammer a nail into a piece of
| wood with a screwdriver, but a hammer might do the job a lot
| better. If your company is providing you a screwdriver to use as
| a hammer, thats a problem.
|
| I kind of wish tech would operate more like the trades--where the
| tradespeople provide/manage their own toolbox and tools. BYOD has
| its benefits. Its unfortunately that a lot of companies tend to
| disallow it.
| elurg wrote:
| I recently bought a laptop which came with Windows 10
| preinstalled and I was shocked to find that not only does Ubuntu
| feel much faster but it has better support for Intel Xe graphics
| hardware.
|
| Windows frequently with 4K HDMI plugged in, the "System" process
| gets stuck at 10% and machine becomes unusable.
| spicymaki wrote:
| This is why I have a Mac and Linux/Windows dual boot systems at
| home. I realized each one of these systems have differences that
| will never be resolved. I can have my cake and eat it too, each
| machine fit for purpose.
| palotasb wrote:
| > Window snapping
|
| Not built-in, but the open source https://rectangleapp.com/
| supports window snapping by mouse and via shortcuts.
| swah wrote:
| Rectangle Pro is even faster/nicer...
| jason0597 wrote:
| But you have to pay for it...
| freetime2 wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestion. This is one of the things that I
| find most annoying about MacOS. I had been using a paid closed-
| source plugin, but like the idea of switching to something open
| source.
| ilikejam wrote:
| I'd pay good money for an 'Always on top' window option on mac.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Number 1 priority feature I'd ask for if I could get 1 free
| guaranteed feature request into next version of macOS.
|
| So many ways on windows / linux.
| enriquto wrote:
| Can't you just use a different window manager?
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Windows does not use a window manager like X does; the frames
| are drawn and managed by a library used by all applications,
| it's not a separate program.
|
| I'm not 100% sure but I'd say it's pretty likely Mac OS works
| the same way, just like on Mac OS the left part of the menu
| bar (including the system menu) is drawn and managed by the
| current application (using a system library so the
| application developer doesn't have to worry about how it
| works).
| lloeki wrote:
| > on Mac OS the left part of the menu bar (including the
| system menu) is drawn and managed by the current
| application
|
| IIRC it is not drawn by the application, it's a system app
| that gets the focused (or rather, activated) app menu
| hierarchy as the app instructs through some IPC, but it's
| not the app process itself drawing there. The only part
| where an app actually can draw is on the right part, when
| one implements menu bar extras (which previously required
| hacks to inject into because the menubar extra API was
| severely limited, but IIUC now has a dedicated, managed API
| to replace the hacks)
| Klonoar wrote:
| Fun fact about the top level menu: it's one of the last
| Carbon-heavy things around, at least last I checked.
| guerrilla wrote:
| On MacOS?
| capableweb wrote:
| > I'd pay good money for an X option on mac.
|
| > Can't you just use a different X?
|
| Lol, this is Apple we're talking about, the company famous
| for not allowing people to customize things to their own
| liking (for better or worse).
| enriquto wrote:
| I understand, and even appreciate, that they don't let too
| much customization on their default programs. But why can't
| you run a different program? It makes no sense.
| ratww wrote:
| Depends on what you mean by "run a different program".
| You can't really replace WindowServer on macOS, as it is
| pretty much macOS itself. macOS is not really as modular
| as Linux or even Windows. There are things that hook into
| it to give extra behavior (Helium, Afloat, Magnet,
| Amethyst, chunkwm, several others in the AppStore), but
| replacing it is not really practical, I believe.
| enriquto wrote:
| > You can't really replace WindowServer on macOS, as it
| is pretty much macOS itself.
|
| I find this very foreign. As if a unix system didn't let
| you change the shell!
|
| This is sad to hear, because I'm a happy user of a
| headless macOS (not set up by me), to which I ssh almost
| daily for testing purposes, and it is a fairly decent
| unix system. It has a few idiosyncrasies, sure, but those
| help to make your pipelines more portable. I always
| supposed that the GUI would be just a regular program
| running on top of that unix.
| lupire wrote:
| What window servers can you use on Unix? Wayland still
| doesn't quite work, after many years.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| I use Wayland every day on both my work and personal
| laptops. Works fine.
| capableweb wrote:
| The window manager is definitely a "default program" that
| is probably tightly integrated in various points of the
| OS. AFAIK, you can't even use the OS without having
| Finder running (not the actual window "Finder" but the
| process) as it's also involved in lots of things, like
| the desktop and such.
| ratww wrote:
| I believe Finder is not technically necessary, as seen on
| Apple's installers and restore mode (which are a smaller
| version of macOS). You can kill it with Force Quit, for
| example. It is indeed also the provider of the Desktop,
| but everything else works: Dock, Menubar, Command+Tab.
|
| It is launched via
| /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Finder.plist
| rufugee wrote:
| No...macOS doesn't work that way. There are a few hacks
| (Afloat, Helium) but all require disabling SIP, which is not
| desirable. And even if they didn't require disabling SIP,
| they only work part of the time in my experience.
| gundamdoubleO wrote:
| Likewise. Didn't realise how vital it was to my workflow until
| I switched.
| weeddy wrote:
| https://github.com/rwu823/afloat
|
| Also through dock you can configure a window to be on all of
| the screens
|
| *<-using macos 10.14
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I suspect that'd play absolute hell with either their UX
| concept or the underlying UI abstractions / implementations.
|
| This would create a situation where an application has one
| window foreground above the foreground application while it is
| not the foreground application.
|
| On the UI / implementation side: I don't think it's possible to
| have any windows of an app foregrounded past the foreground
| app's frontmost window if that app isn't itself foreground.
| They'd have to create a new category of window (and probably
| move a bunch of internal data structures around) to make that
| possible. I know, "it's just code," but it's code based on some
| very deep and old assumptions about the way the window manager
| works that probably have hard-to-predict consequences if
| violated.
|
| On the UX side: having a window floating foreground when the
| top-of-desktop menubar says another app's name in the corner is
| going to trigger a "WAT" for a lot of users, and I think Apple
| is deferring to them.
| arinlen wrote:
| > I'd pay good money for an 'Always on top' window option on
| mac.
|
| I'd already be happy if maximizing a window on macOS worked
| reliably.
| fnord123 wrote:
| Use Rectangles. It works better than the traffic light
| bubbles.
| patrickserrano wrote:
| Out of the box macOS doesn't have a button to maximize the
| way Windows does. The green button in modern macOS is for
| full-screen and option-clicking that button will bring back
| the old "zoom" behavior which expands the window to fit the
| content being displayed. It's a lot less frustrating of an
| experience when you realize that the button doesn't do what
| you assume it does.
| arinlen wrote:
| I'm not talking about macOS's green button. That doesn't
| maximize windows: it creates a dedicated workspace which
| might have one or two windows.
|
| I've referred to macOS's "maximize window" feature, which
| you trigger by double-clicking a window's title bar.
| karaterobot wrote:
| The thing that astonished me when I moved to MacOS was how many
| odd choices they made in Finder. For example:
|
| * Not being able to easily rename a series of files (i.e. with
| `tab`).
|
| * How it defaults to searching the entire computer rather than
| the current folder.
|
| * The unintuitive way that moving files works (i.e. you can't
| just cmd-x, cmd-v, like everywhere else, you have to copy it,
| then opt-cmd-v).
|
| I recognize that posting this invites someone to tell me I'm
| doin' it wrong, and there's actually a better way to do these
| things. I welcome that!
| togaen wrote:
| Surely there are more meaningful things to spend time thinking
| about.
| raspyberr wrote:
| Surely you and I could've done something better than writing
| these comments?
| sseagull wrote:
| Since we are all airing grievances - how about the ability to set
| different scroll directions for the touchpad and a mouse.
|
| I dunno, I guess my brain is just wired differently from what
| apple expects.
| _benj wrote:
| It might or might not be what you are looking for but it's
| possible to charge the scrolling direction on the trackpad
| preferences.
|
| It's defaulted to "natural" something and it's literally the
| first setting I change when I reinstall macOS
| sseagull wrote:
| Ah sorry, I wasn't clear. Setting the scroll direction there
| also changes the direction of the scroll wheel on a mouse.
|
| I don't have a mac near me but when I did, I could not get
| them set to be the way I wanted.
| fretn wrote:
| this tool might solve this problem:
| https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/
| dsego wrote:
| This is such a glaring omission, but I guess they don't sell a
| mouse with scroll-wheel so they don't care. Luckily there are a
| few 3rd party apps that sit in the menu bar, I'm using Scroll
| Reverser.
| sofixa wrote:
| And the worst is that there's a toggle for each one, which
| changes the other. Since i only occasionally use the touchpad,
| it took me a few back and forths to realise that's what's
| happening and that i didn't misremember fixing the setting.
| stewx wrote:
| I agree with you 100%. This software accomplishes that:
| https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/
| montebicyclelo wrote:
| Valid points in the article.
|
| Slightly related: I feel it's worth spreading the word about
| yabai [1], a tiling window manager for MacOs. I've been using it
| for >1 year, to get an i3 like experience, and find that it makes
| using MacOs very pleasant.
|
| Issues in the article are somewhat addressed:
|
| > Focus Follow Mouse
|
| Can do this with yabai
|
| > Always on top windows
|
| Can do this with yabai
|
| > Window snapping
|
| Can do this with yabai
|
| The way I use it: I have 9 desktops, and can switch between them
| via the keyboard (ctrl+<desktop_number>). Can move apps from one
| desktop to another via keyboard commands. Apps are automatically
| resized to fit. Can move apps around on screen via keyboard
| commands.
|
| [1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
| zoom_enh4nce wrote:
| This was my thought. Yabai totally changed my setup for the
| better.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| I've not used yabai as I now have the option of using Linux for
| work, but I'd tried several tiling WMs for macOS a few years
| back and none that I tried handled adding/removing displays
| well.
|
| When you plug in an external display, do windows move over to
| it? And if you change the resolution on one display when doing
| so, do the windows resize as they should?
|
| It seemed at the time like their reliance on macOS's
| accessibility settings to manage windows made them fairly
| limited.
| montebicyclelo wrote:
| I use an external display, but with mirroring on, so I can't
| answer your questions from experience. Looks like there is
| some support for external displays: https://github.com/koekei
| shiya/yabai/discussions/238#discuss....
|
| > reliance on macOS's accessibility settings to manage
| windows made them fairly limited
|
| I _think_ that yabai goes a bit deeper than other MacOs WMs;
| it gets you to disable (or partially disable) MacOs 's system
| integrity protection, so it can use the OS window manager
| directly.
| lordgrenville wrote:
| I'd like to try it but seems like it doesn't do much without
| disabling SIP, which I'm reluctant to do on my work laptop.
| xrd wrote:
| One thing I cannot live without is the ease at which you can
| setup network interfaces on Linux. For example, with docker
| compose I can add this snippet: networks:
| vpcbr: driver: bridge ipam:
| config: - subnet: 10.20.0.0/16
| gateway: 10.20.0.1
|
| And, then each service can use something like this:
| networks: vpcbr: ipv4_address:
| 10.20.0.6
|
| docker-compose up creates the network, and I can seamlessly
| access my services by a private IP address VPC. It's so powerful
| for testing real-world services where you need to have cookies
| created on the right IP address that is a different one from the
| auth server, etc.
|
| With OSX I have to use things like 127.0.0.1 and 127.0.0.2, but
| my docker compose file isn't aware of it, and it is very hacky.
|
| Linux networking supporting is phenomenal and so flexible.
| armitage wrote:
| caycep wrote:
| the thing about ubuntu desktop....
|
| it arguably runs the best on VMWare Fusion
| kristianp wrote:
| The only one that sounds painful to me is being unable to access
| files on an Android device. I know some will disagree...
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| In my experience, Android MTP worked semi-reliably on Windows
| (I'd often encounter "ghost files" which couldn't be renamed or
| accessed, since MTP and Android's media cache desynced from the
| underlying Linux filesystem), and often failed entirely on
| Linux (trying to open the phone hung or caused the Linux MTP
| daemon to crash immediately or after some time). I much prefer
| adb push/pull, which has always been rock-solid as long as adb
| can see your phone.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| MTP is a clusterfuck of epic proportions for anything
| involving more than a hundred files, much less 1000+, no
| matter the platform of either the host or the device.
|
| Seriously I have _utterly no idea_ why _no one_ has bothered
| to create a new protocol that is designed with the
| capabilities and capacities of modern devices in mind, not
| with "fits for managing a 256MB-sized MP3 player or a point
| and click consumer camera with a 2 GB SD card".
| capableweb wrote:
| As I've started to move my collection of music from Spotify to
| downloading FLAC from Bandcamp, I found that libimobiledevice +
| ifuse (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/IOS) seems to do the
| job good enough. Only thing that took some time to figure out
| is that I need to move the music files into a directory
| specific for the application I use (VOX) rather than the
| general "Music" directory, as it seems files are not shared
| between applications and the music app doesn't have any
| directory exposed for me to put them in.
|
| I'd love to be able to just plug the damn phone into USB and
| transferring files like a normal person though, but Apple
| doesn't seem to want to play that game, sadly...
| disruptiveink wrote:
| This is really the only issue from that post that I would
| really like on macOS. SSH mounting as well, potentially. The
| rest are annoyances that while I believe are very important to
| the author, they feel rather irrelevant to me.
|
| Right now, Android File Transfer of macOS is so bad I basically
| just use adb for everything.
| volume wrote:
| what about sshfs?
|
| brew install sshfs
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I have to agree on San Francisco, it's not a great font. It looks
| good on "retina" screens but it appears like it was designed to
| be less than optimal on non-retina displays. I've always assumed
| they just introduced it to get people to buy new machines.
|
| But I really hated the lack of customisation, and also the way
| that they change stuff around all the time, screwing with my
| muscle memory. macOS in the Tiger days was pretty perfect for me,
| but since then things have gone downhill. Now virtual desktops
| are no longer possible in a grid but only a line, expose has been
| replaced with Mission Control that doesn't work as well. The
| overall design is worse and every release they lock more
| configuration files down. Try to change sshd_config so you can
| only authenticate with private keys, not passwords - a very sane
| configuration that is widely recommended. macOS will revert it
| with every update.
|
| Anyway in the end I just decided I was done with it. I still use
| it for work but at home I moved to FreeBSD with KDE.. I love its
| customisation options <3
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| The article and this discussion are reasonable and interesting,
| but the whole thing feels as absurd as: Things I can't do with my
| luxury sedan that I can do with my old pickup truck.
| david-cako wrote:
| pointy elbows, doesn't work underwater. can't map the magsafe
| port to left mouse button.
| jacobmischka wrote:
| Yikes, one must be deeply suffering from Stockholm syndrome to
| think that wanting to do things differently makes someone
| unreasonable.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Which is ironic coming from acolytes of a sect that once used
| 'think differently' as a mantra.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Some things in that list are pretty silly (can you really blame
| Apple for not letting you swap the mouse button order or have the
| insane focus-follows-mouse option?)
|
| Here are some others anyway:
|
| * Record system audio.
|
| * Control HDMI audio volume (have to use Proxy Audio Driver which
| is somewhat buggy).
|
| * Set mouse acceleration (you used to be able to but they removed
| the option and now you can only set sensitivity).
|
| * Disable scroll wheel acceleration (needs a paid third party
| app).
| darkteflon wrote:
| Soundsource for HDMI audio control, Steermouse for fine grained
| mouse settings - including acceleration - and Blackhole for
| recording system audio.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah I use Steermouse (not free). Haven't tried Soundsource
| (not free again!).
| darkteflon wrote:
| Should this functionality be included in the OS itself?
| Sure. Is it a big problem? Not really.
|
| Every OS has its quirks, doesn't take more than hour to
| smooth the rough edges off a new machine if you're
| comfortable with the ecosystem. You have to do the same on
| Ubuntu or Win10 or Pop.
| edent wrote:
| As I say in the post, I have RSI and it hurts to use my index
| finger. Both Linux & Windows let me remap buttons.
|
| So is MacOS only for people in perfect health?
| mcphage wrote:
| > So is MacOS only for people in perfect health?
|
| Are there only 2 classes of people: people in perfect health,
| and people unable to use their index finger?
| randallsquared wrote:
| In the past I've used mice and trackpads on Mac that had
| their own control software that allowed remapping the
| buttons, mapping macros to buttons, etc.
|
| Wait, doesn't your preferred mouse have exactly that?!
| https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/05/review-evoluent-veritcal-
| mo...
|
| What is missing from this mapping control?
| q3k wrote:
| RSI issues are also a reason why I won't ever use a macbook -
| the only laptop input method that doesn't hurt me after a few
| hours of use is a trackpoint.
| mtreis86 wrote:
| For people who have certain disabilities, like arthritis in the
| wrists, focus follows mouse is quite useful as it requires
| fewer clicks to do things.
| nightfly wrote:
| > can you really blame Apple for not letting you swap the mouse
| button order Why not? > Or have the insane focus-follows-mouse
| option On Linux where your application menus are (usually) part
| of the window it works great.
| xvilka wrote:
| It also can't control external DAC volume while it's possible
| in Linux or Windows.
| q3k wrote:
| > the insane focus-follows-mouse option
|
| Is it that hard to believe some people prefer this behaviour?
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yes!
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Apparently so ... I usually like insane, but I think click-
| to-focus is the actual insane thing. In the Mac case this is
| tightly coupled with mandatory raise-on-focus.
|
| That's my biggest pain when I try to work on a Mac. I bet no-
| raise-on-focus also sounds insane to the same people, but I
| only want a window to come to front when I as for it. The
| article even touches on a simple case of this in "Sometimes I
| want to keep the calculator on screen while I type an email.
| Is that too much to ask?"
| bigiain wrote:
| > Is it that hard to believe some people prefer this
| behaviour?
|
| Not at all. But it's also really easy to see that giving
| someone used to one of those behaviours the opposite one -
| would make them unhappy.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Which is why it's good that this is configurable in Linux
| :)
| dpatterbee wrote:
| > * Set mouse acceleration (you used to be able to but they
| removed the option and now you can only set sensitivity).
|
| Using MacOS is such a miserable experience for this exact
| reason. I'm sure it's fine when using the trackpad but trying
| to use a mouse on macos is borderline torture.
|
| I fundamentally do not understand why anybody would ever want
| mouse acceleration. It just makes it harder to use the mouse.
| darkteflon wrote:
| You can change it with Steermouse - it's like $20 and 5
| minutes, and you gain all sorts of customisation options for
| button assignments, etc, too.
| IshKebab wrote:
| You want _some_ mouse acceleration. Otherwise moving to the
| other side of the screen requires picking up the mouse
| several times.
|
| The problem is Mac's acceleration code is pretty awful.
| howinteresting wrote:
| This is not true? I don't use mouse acceleration, I just
| use a high-quality mouse with a dialed-in sensitivity.
|
| As the other comments have pointed out, SteerMouse works
| fine at the cost of $20.
| bigiain wrote:
| > Some things in that list are pretty silly
|
| Maybe. I mean, I've never wanted to do most of the things he
| lists as impossible (on either my macOS machines or my Linux
| machines). But if that's a list of stuff that annoys him when
| using macOS, I guess they're not "silly" to him.
|
| Since my main daily driver for probably 2/3rds or more of the
| last three decades has been a Mac, I'm more familiar with it,
| so things like focus-follows-mouse takes a bit of getting used
| to when I open up my Pinebook or my RasPi400 - but I gt over
| myself and get used to it pretty quickly.
|
| People who complain that macOS isn't exactly the same as Ubuntu
| (or Windows or $randomLinuxDistroDeJour) seem, to me, to just
| be wanting to complain about stuff.
| _joel wrote:
| https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/ works, can use soundflower
| too if you want to compile etc.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I did try Soundflower but it didn't work. Hadn't heard of
| AudioHijack, thanks! Sucks that you have to pay to work
| around a restriction that Apple have added though.
| _joel wrote:
| Yea, it's annoying. It's worth it if you need it though,
| there is a trial time limited to test if it'll fit in your
| workflow. Soundflower has been a bit buggy since it's
| inception tbf.
| flaxton wrote:
| I've been using Linux for more than 20 years. For many years it
| was my primary computer platform, until I moved to the Mac.
|
| I recently put the latest Ubuntu LTS Linux on a spare laptop, as
| I needed a laptop. Sure, it was fun configuring everything for a
| day or so. But then it started to grind me down, as Linux always
| seem to do (for a personal computer - it's fantastic on servers).
|
| Then I had a new, big project come in and bought a new MacBook
| Pro 13" with the M1 chip.
|
| Wow.
|
| I have never had a computer anywhere near as nice as this. Very
| fast. Light. Days of battery. Screen is fantastic. Best keyboard
| I've ever used. Best trackpad I've ever used by far. Never gets
| hot, barely warm, fan rarely comes on. I can do things like
| extend my screen to my iPad Pro 12.9" OR use Universal Control to
| control both from either keyboard/mouse/trackpad.
|
| It has the Touchpad, which I'm undecided about but mostly like.
|
| I work on Linux servers all the time, and the free/open source
| iTerm2 is a really really good terminal app.
|
| It's BSD Unix under the hood, so most Linux commands also work
| here, and there's Homebrew to install whatever you like.
|
| And the productivity apps are fantastic, many of which only exist
| on the Apple platforms, like Omnifocus.
|
| So yes, I like Linux, but I'm so much more productive using a Mac
| these days.
|
| So I don't really get where the OP is coming from.
|
| Like window tracking - yes, I've used that on Linux but I
| actually find it equally annoying. If it's on, I don't like it.
| If it's off, I sometimes miss it ;-)
| rrdharan wrote:
| Does focus follows mouse actually work on Wayland?
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=focus+follows+mouse+wayland was
| inconclusive.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| - Debug apps which don't opt into debugging, using gdb/lldb,
| without disabling SIP. It's my computer, I should be root, I
| should be able to introspect how processes execute on it. Not
| being able to do so prevented me from debugging
| https://github.com/samschott/maestral/issues/597, since I had to
| disable SIP, which required rebooting, which stopped the bug from
| happening.
|
| - Edit $PATH for IDEs launched from the Mac GUI (to add
| MacPorts/Homebrew-installed Ninja to Qt Creator's binary search
| $PATH). ~/.profile isn't evaluated at login time (only in
| terminals), /etc/paths doesn't work (forgot if it affected
| terminals, definitely doesn't affect GUI apps), and `launchctl
| setenv PATH` didn't work in my testing.
|
| - Install libraries like SDL systemwide in paths searched by
| default by build systems and runtimes, like on Linux. MacPorts
| installs to /opt/local, Homebrew on M1 installs to /opt/homebrew,
| neither of which is searched by build systems. I might try
| setting up developer environments using Nix at some point, but I
| haven't learned how to use Nix/nix-darwin beyond editing the set
| of global apps.
| Klonoar wrote:
| >- Debug apps which don't opt into debugging, using gdb/lldb,
| without disabling SIP. It's my computer, I should be root, I
| should be able to introspect how processes execute on it. Not
| being able to do so prevented me from debugging
| https://github.com/samschott/maestral/issues/597, since I had
| to disable SIP, which required rebooting, which stopped the bug
| from happening.
|
| Another option is to re-sign the application with the
| entitlements necessary for debugging.
|
| e.g:
|
| https://gist.github.com/talaviram/1f21e141a137744c89e81b58f7...
| _joel wrote:
| Things I can do on MacOS which I can't on Ubuntu:
|
| Run Logic X and all the AU's.
| input_sh wrote:
| Things you can't do on Ubuntu: run Apple's app?
|
| Seems a bit disingenuous.
| _joel wrote:
| It was more to the point that's the only thing keeping me on
| MacOS vs Linux (I'd be on debian, not ubuntu) on my daily
| driver.
|
| Maybe one day.. https://www.darlinghq.org/ :D
| q3k wrote:
| There's always going to be software that supports some
| platforms but not others.
|
| For example, in the EDA world it's very common to have
| Linux/Windows support but not macOS support (eg.: Intel
| Quartus, Xilinx Vivado, Cadence Virtuoso and others, Mentor
| Graphics Calibre and others, ...).
| _joel wrote:
| Of course! We all have differing requirements :)
|
| They're important to me, moreso than what's in the OP's list.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Add: run a docker container without an entire VM.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Yes, this is a big one. I run full system containers on my
| Linux boxen with systemd-nspawn, and on macOS, with their
| system level protections, I suspect even chroots would be too
| much to ask. (Maybe it's possible, I just haven't had that many
| disposable hours to check just how much pain it would be for
| quite a while.)
| AlexSW wrote:
| Not sure whether you know something I don't but I'm not aware
| of any VM when I'm running Docker containers directly on my
| Mac?
| umanwizard wrote:
| Try running a docker container whose executable is called
| "foo" in macOS. Then go to activity monitor and try to find
| "foo", or try to attach to it from the host with lldb, or try
| to profile it with the Xcode profiling tools. You can't.
|
| This is because it's running in a VM, not natively on the
| host. On Linux you can do any of those things from the host
| directly, without needing to shell into the container.
|
| I actually found this so incredibly frustrating when I
| started working at a job that uses docker that I argued in
| vain against using docker at all, and then when that failed,
| I switched to doing all my coding and other technical work on
| a Linux VM and only using macOS for email.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| OSX is a distant third for a developer who is deploying
| docker containers. Microsoft and WSL2 are trying, but nothing
| beats a linux distribution for that.
| deadbunny wrote:
| Isn't WSL2 just a VM as well?
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Yes, but the integration with the host OS on windows is
| better, especially if you are using vscode.
|
| Not as good as native linux though.
| dpatterbee wrote:
| You might not be aware, but docker desktop is running a linux
| VM under the hood.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Docker machine uses qemu to make a Linux VM to run docker
| containers in.
| silviot wrote:
| And then does magic when you want to expose a volume from
| your macos host to your docker container. And that magic
| can slow down things. They improved things recently though
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.docker.com/blog/speed-boost-achievement-
| unlocked...
| martimarkov wrote:
| Docker is built against Linux not unix so not much can be done
| there. On windows you also need a VM AFAIR
| pjmlp wrote:
| Depends, Windows also has containers, unlike macOS, so the
| memory footprint is much lower.
|
| But yeah, otherwise it will be a Linux VM running on top of
| Hyper-V.
| ccouzens wrote:
| > not unix
|
| If it was built against a different Unix (say Solaris) it
| still wouldn't help MacOS
| zuhsetaqi wrote:
| That's like saying "Things Linux can't do Mac can: Run macOS
| without a VM"
| kiallmacinnes wrote:
| While technically, yes, you are correct. It kinda misses the
| point - developers are more and more working with containers.
| Doing this on a Mac is an awful experience compared to doing
| it on Linux (or, Windows - I hear docker + WSL2 is pretty
| decent - but I've not tried it!)
| zuhsetaqi wrote:
| I understand the point and totally agree, but in my opinion
| it doesn't fit to this kind of list in the article which is
| about features of the OS that don't work on macOS but on
| Linux. "Linux can't ran Adobe Creative Cloud Apps natively
| which a lot of designers use" would also not fit this kind
| of list.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Why not? Its a perfectly valid criticism of linux and a
| good reason to choose OSX if you need adobe.
|
| As a developer who needs docker, OSX is not the best
| choice. If I was a designer, OSX is a better choice.
| zuhsetaqi wrote:
| While it's a good reason to choose macOS or Windwos over
| Linux it's not a valid criticism of Linux because they
| can't do anything about it. It would be valid criticism
| of Adobe. Like I said the list of the posted article is
| about OS features and explicitly not about third party
| software
| jml78 wrote:
| While not wrong, certainly not the fault of Apple. This is a
| docker shortcoming.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Well, BSD might be the shortcoming here.
| lixtra wrote:
| What's the docker equivalent in Apple world to run something
| in a container?
| pjmlp wrote:
| In the Apple world, people don't care about containers
| other than application sandboxes.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| That is true, but containers are the most pervasive in
| macOS of all desktop OSes.
|
| That is something I do actually like there. And Apple
| isn't even forcing developers to do it (unless they want
| to publish in the app store which most apps I use don't
| do), just more and more app developers sandbox
| themselves.
| pjmlp wrote:
| macOS/iOS sandboxes and Docker containers aren't the same
| thing, not even from technology point of view.
| bsdooby wrote:
| bhyve/xhyve
| GlenTheMachine wrote:
| Sigh.
|
| Things I can do on macOS that I can't do on Ubuntu:
|
| - Buy a laptop, plug it in to my corporate network, and get to
| work in fifteen minutes.
|
| - Buy a laptop, hand it to a non-programmer, and rest easy
| knowing they will never ever ever need to open the terminal
|
| - use a CAC
|
| - get more than eight hours of battery life on a laptop
| danmur wrote:
| So much angst in this thread! I'm going to bed.
| jason0597 wrote:
| I want to ask a question in good faith to macOS users
| recommending people to download (and a lot of times pay for!) 3rd
| party tools to improve userspace functionality on macOS: Why is
| this the norm?
|
| Downloading a 3rd party tool is one thing (I wouldn't have a huge
| problem if it was open source), but a lot of times these tools
| are closed source and require you to pay out of pocket! This
| would never ever fly in the Linux community. How come this is
| commonly accepted and never challenged?
|
| (A controversial viewpoint I thought about is maybe that macOS
| users on average make more money than Linux users and hence never
| think about this, but I don't want to put it forward as _the_
| definitive answer)
|
| EDIT: Perfect example I thought of is my friend asking me for
| help on how to reconfigure deep click (or Force Touch as it's
| called) to open new tabs in his browser, and I had a look around
| and the recommended way is to pay for BetterTouchTool [1]. No
| free way to do this that I could find.
|
| [1]: https://folivora.ai/
| Klonoar wrote:
| Man, I'll counter your counterpoint: people deserve to charge
| for their work/time/support.
|
| Why on earth would I have an issue with a dev charging a few
| bucks for an app that does what I want? This is very normal
| behavior and Linux is the oddball.
| mmcnl wrote:
| Window management in macOS is from the stone ages. Maximizing has
| unpredictable behavior. Windows sometime fill the screen,
| sometimes not. Window snapping is absent. It works so
| frictionless in both Windows and Gnome: just drag the window to
| the left or right, and it automatically snaps with a satisfying
| animation.
|
| I don't get it, this is basic stuff. Not advanced stuff.
| larrik wrote:
| I switched from Linux Mint desktop to an M1 Air last year.
|
| Performance-wise, the M1 is very impressive, probably feels about
| 80% as fast as my 6 year old desktop (that sounds like snark, but
| it isn't). Meanwhile, the battery life is insane (I've never
| brought the charger anywhere but my desk, and will often use it
| for a week out and about).
|
| I opted for the Magic Keyboard and Magic Touchpad, because I had
| a lot of trouble with everything else.
|
| I could not get a mouse setup that worked (I'm strictly no
| acceleration, and macOS's acceleration was literally making my
| arm ache).
|
| I switched because I stopped being a fulltime developer, my main
| machine was getting old (6 years), and macOS has good MS Office
| support.
|
| Overall I'd say I'm about 70% efficient vs on Linux, a bit less
| so when in active development. The mobility makes up for it, and
| efficiency just isn't as important to my day-to-day for now.
|
| Many of my gripes are listed elsewhere, but things like middle-
| click paste is something that is easy to write off but was
| actually a gigantic part of my process. Also, the fact that
| everything I want to tweak requires buying an app?
|
| I had to pay for an app in order to properly emulate middle
| clicks on the touchpad! That's bonkers!
|
| I'll leave this final tidbit though:
|
| On Linux:
|
| * Open Spotify
|
| * Press play button on keyboard
|
| * Spotify plays
|
| On Mac:
|
| * Open Spotify
|
| * Press play button on keyboard
|
| * Apple Music opens ??????
| dahfizz wrote:
| The mouse acceleration curve on Mac drives me insane. There is
| a way to set it to "0" with some command line incantation, but
| it still does not set it to 0.
|
| Also, the fact that I can't independently control the scroll
| direction of mice and trackpads is insane to me. The whole
| selling point of Apple is that "it just works" , but I can't
| even get my mouse working properly! That's like the lowest bar
| for an OS.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > Also, the fact that I can't independently control the
| scroll direction of mice and trackpads is insane to me.
|
| Oh yeah I just plugged a mouse into a work Mac recently and
| was super confused at this. Yes I've gotten used to natural
| scrolling on touchpads by now, but no that doesn't mean I
| want it on a scroll wheel!
| mattnewton wrote:
| This starts to make sense when you see the mice that apple
| sells don't have wheels, they have a touch surface on top.
| And if you aren't using an apple mouse you're off the happy
| path and stuck toggling settings forever.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Yeah, I used to use a Magic Mouse years ago. They now
| aggravate my RSI terribly though. This kind of thing
| feels like Apple telling me their stuff is not for me.
| weiliddat wrote:
| I recently tried https://linearmouse.org/ and it seemed to
| offer both acceleration and sensitivity settings for mice.
| collin128 wrote:
| Hated that I couldn't flip scroll direction because I wanted
| the trackpad to be natural and mouse to be inverted. Found
| this: https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| > _" it just works"_
|
| It does just work. You're just using it wrong.
|
| Keep that second sentence in mind whenever people say that
| first line and you'll never have any issues with apple fans
| jkubicek wrote:
| My secret to happiness on a Mac: focus your energy on
| figuring out how the designers want you to use a tool.
| Don't fight the design, work with it. Don't change the
| defaults, live with them.
|
| Some folks love to fiddle with settings and tweak configs
| to get everything just right... but this is a recipe for
| disappointment when an upgrade removes the secret config
| you found or hard-codes a setting that was previously
| available as a preference.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Some of the defaults are just plain bad and assume you
| never want or need to use another computer. The scroll
| wheel thing is particularly bad. Like imagine if Apple
| decided all their laptops now were going to come with
| Dvorak keyboards instead of Qwerty. "Sorry Gram, I need
| to change your keyboard layout before I can solve your
| computer problem".
|
| Don't mess with users' muscle memories for your design
| for literally no gain. That's bad design.
| freedomben wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're being downvoted because your
| opinion is (in my opinion) perfectly valid. I spent 6 to
| 12 months forced onto a Mac by the company I worked for
| and I reached the same conclusion. Learning to subjugate
| one's personal preferences to the way the designers
| designed it is a good strategy on Mac (and to some extent
| Gnome on Linux).
|
| I spent untold hours on Mac trying to recreate my Linux
| environment, and after cobbling together a number of
| different tools (some paid, some not) I got it pretty
| close - and then a new version of the OS came out and
| broke everything. It took a few months before most of the
| tools I used were updated, and due to accessibility API
| changes some of them never did get updated.
| spicybright wrote:
| I'm a fan of apple MacOS as of late, specifically because
| the rigidity leads to easier computer usage to me.
|
| I'd hesitate to lump all apple fans around the few vocal
| ones. The vast majority of people that like apple don't
| push a cult of "it just works". Most people I know just
| recognize a computer as a computer, not an identity.
| babypuncher wrote:
| What I find amusing is just how much of an identity being
| anti-Apple has be come. You know, the people who will
| jump at any vague opportunity to profess their hate for
| anything Apple. I used to be in that camp.
|
| I gave up on fanboyism years ago and nowadays I've found
| I like almost every platform for different reasons.
| ryandrake wrote:
| How do you "zero mouse acceleration" people survive? I have
| three monitors side by side. If I went with zero mouse
| acceleration, I'd need a 3 meter wide mouse pad in order to
| be able to move the mouse cursor edge to edge! Or do you do
| that mouse bicycle move where you constantly pick the mouse
| up, bring it back to its original position, move it some
| more, pick it back up, and so on? Such a weird subculture :)
| ryukafalz wrote:
| If you use a trackball you have actual momentum to help
| keep the cursor moving (and no mouse surface to worry
| about). I usually use pointer acceleration anyway because I
| find it's more comfortable for me now to make smaller
| movements, but in the past I've used a flat profile and
| just flicked the trackball when I wanted my cursor on the
| other side of the screen.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Way back in the late '90s and early '00s, lots of PC games
| with mouse look simply drew a window behind the game and
| placed the mouse cursor in the center. Every frame it would
| measure the distance the cursor traveled from center and
| reset it to poll for mouse movement. This meant that your
| OS mouse acceleration settings directly impacted how your
| mouse felt in game. If you've ever had a game glitch out
| and show a mouse cursor stuck in the middle of the screen,
| this is why.
|
| Some of us who grew up playing these games got used to
| using Windows with no mouse acceleration. This is because
| it is easier to build muscle memory without it, since a
| certain distance traveled with the mouse will always
| produce the same camera movement in game regardless of how
| fast the mouse was moved.
|
| How we deal with it? I think there are three factors, at
| least in my case;
|
| 1: Mouse sensitivity. I run my mouse at 1600 DPI, which is
| 2-4x higher than your typical typical cheap office mouse. I
| can zip across a large display pretty quick.
|
| 2: Fine motor skills. Years of Quake and other fast paced
| shooters have elevated my mouse accuracy above that of your
| typical computer user, allowing me to function on the
| desktop at a high mouse sensitivity.
|
| 3: On-the-fly DPI adjustments. My mouse has buttons for
| cycling through a number of sensitivity presets. I set mine
| to have 400, 800, and 1600 DPI. When something requires
| high mouse precision (such as photo editing) I turn the
| sensitivity down.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > 1: Mouse sensitivity. I run my mouse at 1600 DPI, which
| is 2-4x higher than your typical typical cheap office
| mouse. I can zip across a large display pretty quick.
|
| I run my mouse at like 17000 DPI, then lower the
| sensitivity to compensate.
|
| This gives me sub-pixel precision in FPS games.
|
| Not that it helps much. I still have shit reaction times.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > 3: On-the-fly DPI adjustments. My mouse has buttons for
| cycling through a number of sensitivity presets. I set
| mine to have 400, 800, and 1600 DPI. When something
| requires high mouse precision (such as photo editing) I
| turn the sensitivity down.
|
| Ahh, very interesting and very cool. That's the
| explanation I was looking for! Didn't realize mice had
| this feature or that OSes supported it.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Well the m1 only supports one external monitor so thats not
| much of an issue ;)
|
| I use a Logitech G502 and I just like the high sensitivity.
| I don't need a huge trackpad or to pick up the mouse. When
| mouse movent maps 1:1 to pointer movement, your brain and
| muscle memory can do a much better job at fast & precise
| movement.
| electroly wrote:
| The Mac Studio supports up to 5 monitors.
| aenis wrote:
| I used a total of three external monitors with the
| original m1, via a displaylink hub. Saying "m1 does not
| support it" is not accurate. Its not like a amd 3950x
| supports any external monitors, does it?..
| dahfizz wrote:
| If you want to be pedantic...
|
| The Apple m1 is an SoC, not a CPU. It is not comparable
| to an AMD 3950X. It is perfectly reasonable to talk about
| the display capabilities of an SoC, because the GPU and
| display controllers are built into the SoC.
|
| Apple themselves markets the macbook air as supporting:
|
| > One external display with up to 6K resolution at
| 60Hz[1]
|
| And yes, I'm aware of the display link hacks. This works
| by emulating extra GPUs in software (VGC). The m1
| supports multiple displays via display link in the same
| way MacOs runs Gnome via an Ubuntu VM.
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/
| greedo wrote:
| If you want to be pedantic...
|
| You mentioned the M1, which is an SoC, not a computer. So
| when you said the M1 only supports one external monitor,
| you were being vague and incorrect. The M1 Mac Air only
| supports one monitor, but the M1 Mac mini supports two.
| If you expand the M1 SoC to encompass both the Pro, Max
| and Ultra versions, you can connect 3, 4, and 5 displays
| respectively.
|
| 14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro: Two external
| displays at up to 6K over USB-C and one at up to 4K over
| HDMI 2.0
|
| 14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Max: Three
| external displays at up to 6K over USB-C and one at up to
| 4K over HDMI 2.0
|
| Mac Studio with M1 Max or M1 Ultra: Four displays at up
| to 6K over USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 and and one at
| up to 4K over HDMI 2.0
|
| https://www.macworld.com/article/347919/how-many-
| monitors-ca...
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| The 3950x isn't a GPU or APU. It doesn't support any
| display out because that's not it's job. The low end AMD
| laptop APUs natively drive 3-4 monitors.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| ...by turning sensitivity up?
|
| I don't understand how this is even a question. It's such
| an obvious answer.
|
| My sensitivity is configured so that it takes about an inch
| and a half of mouse movement to move across one monitor.
| ryandrake wrote:
| But then you must be sacrificing small, precise
| movements. Assuming your monitor is 1920 pixels across,
| and your mouse's DPI is high enough, you'd need to move
| your mouse 1/1280 inches (or approximately 20mm) to move
| the cursor a single pixel. How does your hand physically
| move 20mm? If your 1.5 inches of movement spans a 4K
| monitor, then you need to move your mouse 10mm to move
| the cursor a single pixel.
|
| EDIT: babypuncher's reply seems to address this using on-
| the-fly DPI adjustment. Pretty cool!
| NwtnsMthd wrote:
| Large mouse pads.
|
| Growing up playing first person shooters has wired my mind
| to a degree that it's difficult to overcome the muscle
| memory. This makes mouse acceleration terribly frustrating.
| Fortunately, using a track pad with mouse acceleration
| doesn't use the same muscles and is much more bearable (if
| slower) to use.
| larrik wrote:
| Very fancy mouse with tiny precision.
| andrewjf wrote:
| > The whole selling point of Apple is that "it just works"
|
| It does (generally) just work! However, it works they way
| they want you to use it.
|
| That's fine for me and I usually am happy to adapt. It
| doesn't mean infinitely configurable.
| caycep wrote:
| it sort of reminds me of an interview someone did w/ a
| farmer's market vendor of gourmet jams/jellies....when they
| had a spread of 29-30 jams, no one bought any because it
| was too intimidating/confusion/bred indecision or whatever
|
| They changed their lineup to 6 jams and sales went thru the
| roofff
| dahfizz wrote:
| Okay, except this is nothing like that. Computer programs
| can have defaults.
|
| When you don't like the default, you go to the settings
| screen to change it. If you don't want to deal with
| settings, you never have to open up the screen.
|
| But the scroll settings is much more annoying than that.
| Apple provides two completely independent settings for
| "Mouse" and "Trackpad". Under each, there is a toggle for
| scroll direction. If you toggle one, it magically and
| silently toggles the other as well.
|
| That's not "simple", that's not "easy to use", that's
| 100% bad UX. If there's only one global setting, why
| present it as two independent options which are magically
| linked?
| lwkl wrote:
| Maybe they should present it as one setting. But linking
| it makes sense for the vast majority of users. Because if
| it wasn't you would see a flood of people asking why
| their mouse or trackpad is scrolling in the wring
| direction.
|
| I'm more and more convinced that the Apple way is the
| right way for the vast majority of users and deeper
| customization should only be available through the CLI or
| extensions.
| caycep wrote:
| versus ubuntu where the kernel may be fine, but it's
| certainly nontrivial to bork some random config file or
| the nvidia/xwin/wayland configuration setup or some other
| part of the app layer on top of it, and rather than spend
| the next few hours trying to google whatever arcane
| setting it is, I've just thrown up my arms and wiped the
| drive and reinstalled the OS from scratch...
|
| Don't get me wrong, I run ubuntu on a home fileserver/nas
| box but when I need it for some scientific computing
| package or something, the best way to run it is on top of
| Mac OS in a VM....
| dwighttk wrote:
| > Okay, except this is nothing like that.
|
| And yet... desktop Linux isn't widely popular.
| fsflover wrote:
| Probably because it's hard to come to a store and buy
| one.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Linux is "selling" a billion "jars of jam", a different
| one for each person... Apple is "selling" like 6.
| fsflover wrote:
| Why is this relevant? You probably know that Ubuntu is
| the most popular one. It should be enough to only offer
| this one.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Ubuntu's customizability (valued by the article's author)
| _is_ Linux offering a billion jars of jam.
| fsflover wrote:
| Default settings still exist and can be delivered just
| fine.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Original comment was "this is nothing like that"
|
| I'm pointing out how this is like that.
| a4isms wrote:
| > Okay, except this is nothing like that. Computer
| programs can have defaults. When you don't like the
| default, you go to the settings screen to change it. If
| you don't want to deal with settings, you never have to
| open up the screen.
|
| This is possible, but never as easy as it sounds when
| written down like that. Even when advanced settings are
| tucked away out of sight from regular users, at the kind
| of scale OS X or iOS operates in (or Linux, for that
| matter), there will be a non-negligible number of people
| who by accident or intent fool around with the advanced
| settings and get themselves into a state from which they
| lack the expertise to extricate themselves.
|
| This is why Apple layer their own UX on top of Bluetooth,
| for example. And why many settings have no UX, you have
| to know the magic incantation to use in Terminal.
|
| Again, I don't disagree, I'm just pointing out that
| "Making a boat for passengers AND for sailors" is a hard
| problem.
| kube-system wrote:
| > On Mac:
|
| > * Open Spotify
|
| > * Press play button on keyboard
|
| > * Apple Music opens ??????
|
| I just tried these steps. Spotify plays.
| benjilb wrote:
| If I have Spotify open, then Spotify plays. If I don't have
| it open, then Apple Music starts up instead.
| adamomada wrote:
| Try out BeardedSpice[0] which handles the media keys
|
| [0] https://github.com/beardedspice/beardedspice || brew
| install --cask beardedspice
| KnobbleMcKnees wrote:
| Same. Used half a dozen different MacBooks over the last 5
| years and always had the right contextual behaviour for the
| function/touchbar keys
| sneak wrote:
| * Apple music opens _and transmits your unchangeable device
| hardware serial, and your IP (coarse location) to Apple_
|
| Modern Macs literally have a one-touch "send my supercookie to
| the manufacturer" button.
| officeplant wrote:
| >Also, the fact that everything I want to tweak requires buying
| an app?
|
| I find this is often the case with MacOS, sometimes with open
| alternatives available.
|
| I wanted windows/linux like window snapping and found a free
| solution called Rectangle[0], but discovered however they do it
| was causing mouse lag in games. Apple dev friend investigated
| into it with logs from my machine and discovered they are "just
| not doing it properly, go buy bettersnaptool[1]"
|
| Sure enough I go spend $8 on bettersnaptool and all my mouse
| lag is gone and I've got the tweakable window snapping I crave.
|
| This is often the case it just depends if the open software
| solution is done "properly" or will have some small bug that
| may or may not bother you. Rectangle worked flawlessly in every
| other instance except once I would launch a game, the mouse lag
| was not present on desktop applications.
|
| [0] https://rectangleapp.com/ [1]
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?mt=...
| pg_1234 wrote:
| >Also, the fact that everything I want to tweak requires
| buying an app?
|
| Like three finger (middle click) on the touchpad ... Apple
| just can't do it ... Linux sorted it for multiple
| manufacture's touchpads years ago.
| adamomada wrote:
| Tap with three fingers does the spotlight quick lookup of
| what's under the cursor by default. On a machine from 2012
| and an OS from 2018.
|
| I'm not certain but I think if you turn it off,
| bettertouchtool would let you make it do something
| (anything!) else you wanted.
|
| Edit: I think I misread your "Apple cant do it" meaning
| physically, while you probably meant exposing a setting
| without using (paid) third party apps
| leaflets2 wrote:
| What about security, when installing "countless" of apps for
| minor things
|
| Do you trust Apple's app review
| FractalHQ wrote:
| On Mac:
|
| * Press cmd + option + S
|
| * Press space bar
|
| * Spotify opens and plays
|
| or
|
| * Press cmd + option + spacebar (opens terminal)
|
| * `sp` (my spotify cli alias)
|
| * Spotify opens and plays
|
| Custom hot keys are easy in MacOS settings menu. Even easier is
| the free app Hotkey! https://codenuts.de/en/posts/hotkey/
| MithrilTuxedo wrote:
| It seems like an oversight to have a physical backlit button
| with play/pause icons on it taking up space on the mac
| keyboard that can't be generally used to play/pause
| applications.
|
| It's like making TVs you can install arbitrary applications
| on, but shipping them with remotes with branded buttons to
| open one or two specific preinstalled applications.
| adamomada wrote:
| I just tested this with the most bizarre app I could think
| to open at the moment. Play/pause works as expected on Plex
| HTPC app
| weakfish wrote:
| I recommend linear mouse for acceleration - free and can also
| modify scroll behavior
| haneul wrote:
| defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1
|
| Works on my M1 Max well enough to be satisfied with my mouse in
| SC2.
| Arie wrote:
| Didn't that halve the cursor speed as well?
| dahfizz wrote:
| This helps, but does not actually result in a flat
| acceleration curve.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| In the before-times, in the long-long-ago, we could modify
| basic system settings from a nice discoverable GUI control
| panel. Why is the future year of 2022, no doubt filled with
| flying cars and personal jetpacks, continually found to be
| unable to deliver features we took for granted in 1995?
| cpleppert wrote:
| This doesn't work. Mouse acceleration isn't exposed using a
| defaults key anymore. You need to use a tool like linear
| mouse to modify the scaling value.
| larrik wrote:
| This simply hasn't worked for me in years. Haven't tried in
| about a year, though.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| Its not enough, you need a program called USB Overdrive, it
| completely fixes the issue
| ubercow13 wrote:
| LinearMouse works for disabling mouse acceleration and is open
| source
| ahepp wrote:
| > Also, the fact that everything I want to tweak requires
| buying an app? I had to pay for an app in order to properly
| emulate middle clicks on the touchpad! That's bonkers!
|
| Yes I have noticed this too! I love my MacBook, but the idea
| that I would pay what, $20, for the top tier window snapping
| app is completely ridiculous. That's something that should be
| built in to the shell!
| leaflets2 wrote:
| But Apple gets a 30% cut of the money you spend on the extra
| apps?
| Supermancho wrote:
| > Window Snapping
|
| Use https://www.spectacleapp.com/ - it's free.
|
| It's not exactly the same, but better in many ways -
| excepting the auto-drag snapping. Snapping is via key
| combination instead.
| trevoristall wrote:
| IIRC Spectacle is no longer maintained and is spiritually
| succeeded by https://rectangleapp.com
| 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
| > I had to pay for an app in order to properly emulate middle
| clicks on the touchpad! That's bonkers!
|
| That's just the traditional way in which the Apple ecosystem
| works. They provide you with a pretty phenomenal starting point
| and App developers fill in the gaps.
|
| Base macOS with Amphetamine, Magnet, and perhaps some utility
| for file/network access provide you with a desktop experience
| that comes close to the productivity of a tiling window
| manager, but certainly meets or exceeds the features built into
| Windows 10 or KDE for window management. Plus you can use
| AppleScript if you really want to get creative with desktop
| management.
| sneak wrote:
| The problem is that most of these apps are only available in
| the App Store which can only be used if you dox yourself to
| Apple (an Apple ID requires an email and working phone
| number).
|
| It also transmits your hardware serial to Apple when you use
| it.
| plafl wrote:
| > and macOS has good MS Office support.
|
| This. I get the M1 must be very good but what I really want is
| something I doubt I'm going to get: native Office support in
| Linux. I use Office rarely but on those rare occasions it sucks
| to use Office 365.
| nailer wrote:
| WSL gives you all the *nix bits of Ubuntu and native MS
| Office support.
| larrik wrote:
| Yeah, Office 365 web version burned me hard too many times
| while collaborating. I had to switch to desktop only (which
| is still 365).
| goosedragons wrote:
| Depending on your needs I find older Office versions play
| pretty well in Wine. 2007 is insanely easy to install and
| 2010 isn't too bad with PlayOnLinux or Crossover. Word, Excel
| and PP work very well although as you get outside those it's
| less good.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| The audio behavior is always a little funky on macOS, for the
| specific steps given I think the problem is that the 'play'
| button on the keyboard is more like a 'resume' button really,
| which can cause it to do seemingly bizarre things if you
| haven't been doing any audio recently. I would expect that if
| you clicked play in Spotify, then pause, then hit the key on
| the keyboard it should behave.
| nopcode wrote:
| For those using Windows, macOS and Linux regularly with
| Keyboard/Mouse I recommend for mac:
|
| CursorSense to customise the acceleration graph (or disable).
|
| SensibleSideButtons so you can use mouse4/5 in the browser.
|
| ScrollReverser so scrolling on mouse and touchpad both make
| sense.
|
| Rectangle for window snapping.
| microbass wrote:
| I love Rectangle. I have a couple of external displays, and a
| 25 key macro pad. I've assigned various buttons on the pad to
| move my windows around using Rectangle.
| fistynuts wrote:
| +1 for SensibleSideButtons and ScrollReverser. I find using a
| mouse painful without them, and I greatly appreciate that
| they're both free.
| als0 wrote:
| SensibleSideButtons is great, though I wish it was part of
| the OS in the first place.
| GlassKingdom wrote:
| I'm embarrassed to say that I've been using Mac for years and
| still don't know how to make an application fullscreen like
| Windows does. The green button hides the menu bar, and alt
| clicking the green buttom makes the app bigger but doesn't fill
| the whole screen.
|
| Either I am stupid or Mac is bad at discoverability.
| nadinengland wrote:
| To make it maximise the area in your current mac Space (i.e.
| not go "full screen" in a new Space) you can go: Mac Menu ->
| Window -> Zoom. I just usually double click the App's window
| bar and it stretches the same way.
| bejd wrote:
| Option + double click on the corner of the window (where your
| mouse changes to the diagonal resize arrow).
|
| I switched from Win10 to macOS recently and had to search the
| web to find this, so discoverability is certainly an issue. I
| suppose Apple would rather you just fullscreen a window than
| maximise a la Windows.
| dsego wrote:
| You can set it to not hide the menu bar in fullscren mode. By
| default it will show up when you move the mouse near the top of
| the screen.
|
| https://osxdaily.com/2022/03/17/keep-menu-bar-visible-mac-fu...
|
| rectangleapp.com enables the classic fullscreen with
| ctrl+opt+enter (or via snap to top).
| sirjaz wrote:
| You could get all those features and more in Windows, plus you
| have wsl2 :)
| darkwater wrote:
| Plus a bonus shitload of tracking and advertising in the Start
| menu
| rufugee wrote:
| And you'd have...Windows. That's a LOT of baggage IMHO.
| gabrielgio wrote:
| And that comes with all other sorts of lack of customization as
| well. Wsl is good, but I prefer the not handicapped linux
| version :)
| froh42 wrote:
| Yep. WSL and WSL2 are great. I used Windows with WSL, upgrade
| to WSL2 then noticed I don't need the "Windows" part of the
| system anymore and WSL2 cross-boundary file access is slow, so
| I deleted Windows and finally installed Linux again on my work
| laptop. (Used Linux up to 2007, bought a Mac, another Mac,
| switched to Windows after Apple locked down the system because
| "Windows has WSL, so I can do my work stuff" and switched back
| to Linux due to a slow Filesystem under Windows - for my use
| case).
|
| The only thing that pisses me off, is that the MS-Teams client
| for Linux is roughly 5 decades behind the Windows client,
| feature and stability-wise.
|
| (And still have Windows on my private laptop for Fusion360 and
| games)
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| If I wanted a duct-taped inconsistent UI, with advertising,
| "telemetry", forced updates when I am in the middle of
| something important, 30 min software installations and being
| the target of most existing malware on planet Earth and
| spending 10 min to copy a file, by all means I would use
| Windows.
|
| With Windows, put simply, you don't own your computer.
|
| I haven't used Windows in over a decade and cannot be happier
| about it.
|
| Windows at this point is a games console for keyboard and mouse
| games. Nobody uses Windows for anything serious, except old
| ATMs running Windows 95 and airports that want to embarrass
| themselves with blue screens of death. Most of the stuff on
| Azure including Azure itself is Linux based.
|
| Also, I hate Hungarian notation.
| ketzu wrote:
| While I like windows, I don't think it has native "always on
| top" support.
| tom_ wrote:
| There is a specific per-window style bit for it, that you can
| set with the Always On Top Power Toy:
| https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/always-
| on...
| ketzu wrote:
| I didn't know the power toys, thank you for the info.
| derbOac wrote:
| Image copy and paste; has been the most frustrating thing going
| from Linux to Mac:
|
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253299890
| tristor wrote:
| 2 of these 3 things, I have done multiple times on a Mac.
| Mounting NFS is natively supported in macOS and has been for
| nearly a decade. Mounting SSH is supported by 3rd-party tools,
| yes, but they're the same cross-platform 3rd-party tool you'd use
| in Linux... sshfs, which is built on top of FUSE, which is
| something you can install on a Mac and is not installed by
| default in most Linux distributions (although fair enough it's
| installed by default on Ubuntu).
|
| The only thing I wasn't familiar with is MTP, which is apparently
| a Windows-specific protocol that Microsoft forced into the USB
| standard in later versions, and as far as I know across decades
| of using Linux, BSD, Windows, and macOS across multiple computers
| on the same network with shared peripherals I've never even used
| this protocol.
|
| What's the complaint again?
|
| OS choice is mostly a personal preference. As far as I am
| personally concerned, FreeBSD is the best OS possible to use, and
| macOS is second best. But I don't write blog posts telling people
| that their preference is incapable of doing things my preference
| is capable of doing, and if I were to do so, I'd at least do my
| research first to make sure it was correct.
| [deleted]
| paradox_sphere wrote:
| I created an HN account just to second this comment. I still
| can't understand the thought processes that goes into similar
| blogs that like to trash one OS for another or another.
|
| If you like something, awesome! But making something else look
| bad because you didn't like it does not make your thing any
| better.
| rsync wrote:
| " ... sshfs, which is built on top of FUSE, which is something
| you can install on a Mac ..."
|
| I've given a lot of thought to ssh/sftp mount points (for
| obvious reasons) and the standard recipe (and support answer)
| at rsync.net has been FUSE/sshfs.
|
| I've even written a handful of scripts and one-liners to
| support my personal use of sshfs on my own machines, etc.
|
| But lately ... I've just switched to using "Mountain Duck"
| which does everything I want and is quick and easy and slick
| and professional.
|
| I forget what the license cost is, but it's worth it. The
| "official" FUSE for OSX and sshfs packages were getting old and
| came from odd sources (sshfs for mac is from 2014) and I don't
| think you can 'brew install' them, etc.
|
| Mountain Duck.
| jedberg wrote:
| You _can_ install sshfs via brew, but it works a lot better
| if you just download the package manually.
|
| That being said, I wouldn't recommend using sshfs on Mac. I
| used it for about a year, and about 90% of the time it worked
| great. The rest of the time it would hang, just not sync, not
| let me write files, etc. and every couple of weeks it would
| break so badly that a restart was the only fix, usually at
| the most inopportune times.
|
| I ended up just grabbing an old external hard drive and
| installing syncthing. The remote server still has all the
| RAID and backups and whatnot, but now I basically have a
| local cache on the old hard drive, so it works consistently
| and is fast. If it breaks, oh well, I'll get another one and
| sync it again.
| yodelshady wrote:
| > Read MTP devices
|
| > Mount an SSH or NFS drive
|
| I know fanboy debates are tiresome, but... I really do struggle
| to comprehend taking a device that _can 't_ do these things
| seriously as a computer.
|
| As a toy yes, or as a specialised tool for video or audio
| rendering, which... fair enough. But _moving bytes_ is something
| _any_ general purpose computing device should be good at. It 's
| almost something you have to actively design out. It's certainly
| a deliberate, non-budget-constrained choice from Cupertino to be
| bad at this.
|
| Crap like "should Apple be [scanning for CSAM | scanning for
| copyright | scanning for anti-CCP | whatever I've almost stopped
| caring ] before uploading to iCloud?" exists primarily because
| the devices are so bad at moving bytes around without relying on
| iCloud.
| bfgoodrich wrote:
| ROFL. Yes, "as a toy". Things that 99.9% of Hacker News (and
| 99.999999% of the general public) has literally _never_ had a
| need to do, their absence surely just invalidates it.
|
| Hot takes like yours are what make HN a hilarious joke to the
| rest of the world. Embarrassing.
| msh wrote:
| Why are specific protocol support needed to be a general
| purpose computer and not a toy/specialized tool?
|
| Nothing prevents people from writing programs to support this
| on the Mac, so it's a general purpose computer. Its like saying
| linux is bad because it does not build in X that I personally
| use on a daily basis.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| This reads like "my use case defines what a computer is," which
| is absolutely as tiresome an argument as any fanboy debate.
|
| I imagine iOS can't do those things, either, and yet an iPad is
| the computing platform of choice for an awful lot of people
| because it meets their computing needs. Examine your biases
| here.
| nine_k wrote:
| (1) Good hardware with good software support goes a long way.
| I'd say that iOS is much more of a polished OS than macOS. No
| wonder, considering that it's the iOS devices that fuel
| Apple's profits, not Macbooks.
|
| (2) For a lot of people, an iPad is more of a consumption
| device, or a device to run 2-3 specialized apps (e.g. for
| drawing or music). Maybe they would be glad if iOS offered
| wider universal computing capabilities, but their choice of a
| powerful and mobile device is pretty limited.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Your #1 is not a valid statement. _OS, be it Mac, iOS,
| WatchOS, TVOS has a huge shared codebase. It 's all _OS,
| tweaked to the particular need of the hardware.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| (1) It depends, as ever, on one's needs. iOS is limited by
| design in order to deliver the things it's intended to do
| more smoothly. There's a lesson there.
|
| (2) Many people really only use _any_ computer as a
| consumption device, but the general ding of iOS as "read
| only" has always rung hollow to me. A large number of
| people work primarily with text -- emails, posts,
| documents, spreadsheets, presentations. An iPad with a
| keyboard is a GREAT tool for them, and that's not a "read
| only" use case.
|
| As an aside, when I last updated my camera kit I added an
| iPad Pro to use for photo processing and culling when
| traveling instead of a laptop. It's actually GREAT for
| that, too, but this level of power is relatively new to the
| platform.
| xtracto wrote:
| Use 'nc' provided by OSX and linux. Fully compatible. There,
| you can easily move bytes between computers
| martopix wrote:
| You can use osxfuse to mount ssh filesystems on Mac.
| danmur wrote:
| > or require adding unsupported 3rd party software
|
| Not just unsupported, I think you need a kernel extension?
| protomyth wrote:
| No, heck, there are apps like Mountain Duck that do it
| fine. I should know, that's how we did share drives for
| offsite staff during Covid. There are plenty of free apps,
| I just went with a non-free option.
|
| Comparing a stock Mac OS to a Linux distribution with
| packages installed is pretty shady.
| smarmgoblin wrote:
| > As a toy yes, or as a specialised tool for video or audio
| rendering
|
| I think this is a useful framing. Apple markets an appliance
| like a microwave or a refrigerator -- both of those are
| computers in a sense but function only in a specific narrow
| capacity. You can warm a potato (if it's in one location and
| the door is closed), but you can't move arbitrary bytes around
| regardless of the capacity of the underlying hardware.
|
| On your Mac you have a way to watch movies, play music, even
| browse the web. General purpose computing I think is just not
| the overall goal of these devices.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| I'm willing to accept your argument that a Mac is not a
| general purpose computer. It then begs the question of why
| these devices are so popular for software development...?
| marlowe221 wrote:
| According to the Stackoverflow 2021 survey, it's not as
| popular as we might be led to believe.
|
| https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#technology-
| mo...
|
| MacOS comes in at 25.19%. Even Linux is higher at 25.32%.
|
| Meanwhile, Windows is 45.33% (over 48% if you include WSL,
| which was counted separately).
|
| 82,719 responses on the operating system question too...
| scubbo wrote:
| Software Development is also a specific purpose. One that
| has a much broader range of requirements than (e.g.) a
| microwave, but still. It is entirely possible that Macbooks
| fulfill those requirements while lacking some other
| properties required of a general purpose computer.
|
| (I'm not claiming that that's true - simply that your
| implication that "it is necessary to have a general purpose
| computer in order to develop software" is untrue)
| freedom2099 wrote:
| Actually it is very easy to mount nfs drive on Mac... i don't
| see why the post author has problems! I do it daily...
| yokoprime wrote:
| I daily drive a mac, it earns me my living doing everything
| from development to writing specs. There's a bunch of
| compromises, weird decisions etc, but none of them are holding
| me back from doing my job. I vastly prefer this setup over
| windows and wsl.
|
| I do find it interesting how strong the Apple anti-fanboy
| sentiment is though. Rarely do I hear people rabidly defending
| Apple around me. It's a tool, like a DeWalt drill or Milwaukee
| saw. It gets the job done, and of the tools I have to choose
| amongs I prefer this particular one.
| petercooper wrote:
| I'd not heard of MTP before, so looked it up: " _MTP is part of
| the "Windows Media" framework and thus closely related to
| Windows Media Player._"
|
| I wonder, can Windows natively work with APFS volumes..? I know
| with extra software it can, but then with extra software macOS
| can do all the things in the blog post too.
|
| There is at least one thing I can do on macOS though that I
| can't on Ubuntu: run the latest version of Photoshop in a
| stable manner.
| drcongo wrote:
| I briefly considered penning a response called "Things I
| can't do on Ubuntu which I can do on macOS" and then realised
| nobody has _that_ much free time, especially me.
| nagisa wrote:
| > I wonder, can Windows natively work with APFS volumes..? I
| know with extra software it can, but then with extra software
| macOS can do all the things in the blog post too.
|
| This is almost like saying that devices don't need to support
| dealing with USB sticks formatted with FAT32 because the file
| system originates with DOS.
|
| MTP today is one of the more prevalent protocols that many
| devices (including most if not all Android phones made in
| past decade) use by default.
|
| That said
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol#macOS
| claims that this is supported natively...
| jraph wrote:
| > I'd not heard of MTP before, so looked it up: "MTP is part
| of the "Windows Media" framework and thus closely related to
| Windows Media Player."
|
| This comes from [1] which is an interesting page.
|
| It's a de facto standard though. And now specified in the USB
| standard. Android devices expose themselves using MTP when
| connected with USB for instance. I think the goal was to
| allow devices to expose their media data / receive media
| stuff from the computer while still being able to be used.
| Exposing as a mass storage device was problematic because
| conflict could happen when both the device and the computer
| tried to access the drive, so at the time, most mp3 players
| just couldn't be used both as a mass storage devices and as
| an mp3 player at the same time. You can still use your
| Android phone while it is plugged as an MTP device
| (fortunately).
|
| Though it seems something like Samba, NTP or sshfs could have
| been possible. I don't know what is the full rationale behind
| the choice of developing a custom protocol. MTP probably
| provides some features that makes it easier to manage media
| stuff. I've not looked into it much. It does extend the
| Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) (used in digital cameras)
| which is an ISO standard so it's not completely custom
| neither.
|
| Apple went with their custom iTunes-related protocol with the
| iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, because why not.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol
| sseagull wrote:
| > Apple went with their custom iTunes-related protocol with
| the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, because why not.
|
| You can mount an iPhone as MTP. But only for pictures, not
| for music.
|
| I kinda get why, but blah. It's a bit of a weird
| distinction to me.
| skepticalwaves wrote:
| Sounds like maybe PTP?
| [deleted]
| twic wrote:
| I think you are making an understandable misreading (but
| perhaps i am!). MTP is a standard promulgated by the USB
| Implementers Forum [1], just like the mass storage or human
| interface device protocols. What that paragraph means is that
| _on Windows_ , MTP is dealt with by the media framework, as
| opposed to being part of the storage subsystem, as SMB and
| NFS are. Why is why you can't access MTP devices as if they
| were volumes on Windows.
|
| [1] https://www.usb.org/document-library/media-transfer-
| protocol...
| skepticalwaves wrote:
| What's a computer?
|
| https://youtu.be/3S5BLs51yDQ
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| NFS mounts are supported in macOS natively
|
| SSH mounts are done with osxfuse
|
| MTP support is also available:
| https://github.com/ganeshrvel/openmtp
|
| This article feels a bit like the author didn't look very hard
| for solutions to a lot of their problems, but instead skipped
| straight to writing an article to complain about things they
| didn't understand.
| native_samples wrote:
| For MTP he says: "On a Mac I need to install some shonky 3rd
| party software which rarely works."
|
| This seems like a reasonable complaint.
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| Oversights like these always make me wonder if the author is
| cunning and Cunningham's Law is at play.
|
| Why look very hard for solutions when you can just claim
| there are no solutions and wait for someone to disprove you?
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I wonder how much Cunningham's Law contributes to flakey
| search results? I can totally see people using it to game
| places like Stack Overflow which are far too trigger happy
| about removing duplicates.
| snapcaster wrote:
| Have you personally used OSXfuse/sshfs? it really sucks to
| get working properly and set up. I had it all working on my
| x86 laptop finally then upgraded to m1 now it's back to
| being broken again.
| GlassKingdom wrote:
| osxfuse is not a reasonable answer. The author says "without
| unsupported 3rd party tools".
|
| I have severe problems with osxfuse on M1: janky behaviour
| and system crashes. This stuff should be native.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Are SSH mounts natively supported on Linux ?
|
| In my case I use sshfs, which also uses FUSE and is a "3rd
| party tool". Is that more reasonable than osxfuse? (Honest
| question, I'm unfamiliar with the latter)
|
| edit:
|
| sshfs is "unsupported": "However, at present SSHFS does not
| have any active, regular contributors, and there are a
| number of known issues (see the bugtracker)."
|
| https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs#development-status
| Macha wrote:
| gvfs-sftp counts as native to me if you're using a gnome
| desktop. The author is using a fullfat gnome distro like
| Ubuntu, so it's probably even preinstalled.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I wasn't familiar with that (I don't use gnome). After a
| quick lookup, it seems it doesn't even use FUSE - but it
| does have a "fuse bridge" for interoperability with other
| apps.
|
| Apparently this supports a bunch of other "virtual
| filesystems", like Google Drive, as well.
|
| Since it's part of Gnome, I guess it's fair to compare
| this with MacOS and consider it "woking out of the box".
| prmoustache wrote:
| It is, I have been doing diff of files from different
| remote machines using meld and gnome gvfs mounting for
| years. It works out of the box and is really mature.
|
| Only thing app that wasn't working well with gvfs was
| libreoffice. I don't know if it is still the case but it
| refused to handle a file gvfs mounted on my NAS
| regardless of the protocol (ssh, smb, nfs).
| usrn wrote:
| Everything on Linux that isn't part of the "Linux-utils"
| package is a third party tool. (I guess GNU packages are
| "second party.")
| mvanbaak wrote:
| How many of the functionalities the author misses and
| doesn't want to install "unsupported 3rd party tools" are
| NOT 3rd party tools in ubuntu?
|
| Ubuntu linux is a distribution, and only a very very small
| set of tools and functionalities is "Ubuntu", all the
| others are simply packaged up 3rd party tools
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| > How many of the functionalities the author misses and
| doesn't want to install "unsupported 3rd party tools" are
| NOT 3rd party tools in ubuntu?
|
| I don't think any are. From a quick glance, everything
| should be included in Ubuntu's officially supported
| "main" section.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| Mac OSX is also a distribution, containing (formerly
| mostly GNU and now mostly BSD) third-party utilities.
| However, the surface area that Mac OSX tries to cover in
| terms of real UNIX utilities is getting smaller and
| smaller.
|
| It's _almost_ ;) as if Apple doesn 't care if real UNIX
| people prefer their laptops anymore.
|
| Apple has moved on, to a bigger and far less demanding
| market: "real" people who have never heard of the artist
| formerly known as UNIX.
| jraph wrote:
| These 3rd party tools are tested and supported by the
| distribution though.
|
| It's a big strength of Linux distributions. There is one
| central, easily reachable place where you can report and
| track bugs for pretty much everything you do on the
| computer.
|
| Obviously there are no guarantees that things will be
| fixed (fast) if you don't pay some sort of support but
| that's fair enough and still, the maintainers usually
| want the stuff they package to work reasonably well (they
| wouldn't spend their time packaging it otherwise) so one
| can expect a minimum level of functionality for most
| things unless explicitly stated otherwise.
|
| The supported area for Windows and macOS from Microsoft
| and Apple is small in comparison to BSD and GNU/Linux
| distributions and good luck reaching them anyway.
| dotancohen wrote:
| And no less importantly, on a Linux distro these 3rd
| party tools are installed with native package management
| tools from a (minimally) vetted source. No need to go out
| and search the wild web for forum posts of suggestions of
| which tools to risk your install on.
| mvanbaak wrote:
| If the problem is in the software provided by a package,
| most of the time you can report them in the bugtracker of
| the distribution, but it wont be fixed/supported by the
| distribution since the bug is upstream.
| skepticalwaves wrote:
| Let's not endorse launchpad bug reporting too strongly, I
| have bugs going on 5 years and 3 major releases.
| jraph wrote:
| Have you paid someone / some support to fix them?
|
| It's reasonable to have unfixed bugs for years if they
| are not really blocking many people (and even if they
| did, but that would be too bad). Maintainers are focusing
| on other things that need to be done (or not, anyway
| nobody is supposed to fix bugs for free if they don't
| want to).
|
| In this case, launchpad works as intended, as a place
| were you can track the (non) progression of your bugs.
|
| Me too, probably, by the way (in other projects). My bugs
| reports are more like FYIs to the community.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| sshfs is a third party tool on Ubuntu (what does first
| party even mean in the context of Linux?)
| ubercow13 wrote:
| macos also natively supports mounting sftp through Finder as
| long as password auth is available
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| osxfuse/macfuse requires a kernel extension which is a _lot_
| of troubles on newer macOS and apple is likely to forbid
| completely any day.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > apple is likely to forbid completely any day.
|
| You can always disable SIP and load unsigned kernel
| extensions, if they refuse to sign.
|
| If you're a power user, you've probably already disabled
| SIP.
|
| A couple of releases ago files like /etc/hosts and
| /etc/sudoers were protected by SIP. That's not the case
| anymore, though.
| vimsee wrote:
| > NFS mounts are supported in macOS natively
|
| ..and MacOS lets you mount an nfs share ootb as a user. On
| linux you need an fstab entry for that though that is really
| not an issue at all.
|
| How you ask? You do this with the mac specific command:
| mount_nfs Here is how I use it to mount shares from my NAS. $
| mount_nfs -o nolocks,nfsvers=3 /home/nas/myshares/nfs
| /Users/bob/nas/nfs
| MikeKusold wrote:
| You don't need an fstab entry on linux. You can just use
| the `mount` command.
|
| mount -t nfs ...
| abruzzi wrote:
| or, if you're in the gui -- command-k, then type
| nfs://server/share
| leohonexus wrote:
| OSXFuse is now replaced with sshfs, but it's now a PITA to
| install it via Homebrew because macFUSE, a dep for sshfs has
| turned closed-source and Homebrew would refuse to install
| sshfs for that reason.
|
| You'd have to install macFUSE binary from their official site
| first, and load their kernel extension via the GUI, before
| running the Homebrew command to solve it.
|
| Which begs the question: if I'm already jumping through hoops
| to get SSH mounts on macOS to work, why not use Linux
| already?
| rsync wrote:
| "You'd have to install macFUSE binary from their official
| site first, and load their kernel extension via the GUI,
| before running the Homebrew command to solve it."
|
| Agreed - again, from someone who has given a _lot_ of
| thought to sshfs and mounting ssh /sftp on OSX.
|
| See my reply to a sibling-of-your-parent, upthread: use
| Mountain Duck.
| whalesalad wrote:
| > if I'm already jumping through hoops to get SSH mounts on
| macOS to work, why not use Linux already?
|
| Jumping through hoops? It's installing a pkg file, takes
| about a minute and it is a one time operation you will
| never really need to do again.
|
| Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have changed
| but you will jump through hoops far more often than on
| macOS.
|
| - written from my frankenstein arch linux macbook pro
| warp wrote:
| > It's installing a pkg file, takes about a minute and it
| is a one time operation you will never really need to do
| again.
|
| Typically I have to do it once a year, because the kernel
| extension seems to break with every new macOS version.
| NoThisIsMe wrote:
| > Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have
| changed but you will jump through hoops far more often
| than on macOS.
|
| > - written from my frankenstein arch linux macbook pro
|
| That depends entirely on what you're doing, what software
| and hardware you're using.
|
| Any Linux distro on a MacBook (unless it's an old model)?
| Yeah, lots of hoops.
| LeFantome wrote:
| I am installing Garuda Linux on a MacBook Pro later
| today. I have never installed Garuda before. I will let
| you know how it goes. After a good experience installing
| Manjaro on an iMac, I am expecting it to go well.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Use a properly supported hardware and the amount of hoops
| to jump through goes down to negligible.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have
| changed but you will jump through hoops far more often
| than on macOS.
|
| For about 25 years. Hard to agree.
| leohonexus wrote:
| It's easy to say so now that I've gotten it to work, but
| the whole process isn't documented at all on any website.
|
| I daily drive macOS, Debian, and Windows (for personal &
| work purposes) - the same can be said for Linux (auto
| mounting a WebDAV share on boot), but at least:
|
| - Linux's documentation is much more comprehensive than
| Apple
|
| - whatever you do on Linux some guy from 2003 would have
| already done so, whereas going from Catalina to Big Sur
| would've seen some big process changes and deprecations
|
| - Intel vs M1 compatibility concerns galore, the only
| times I need to worry about that on Linux is when I run
| VMs and LXCs on Proxmox.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| >whatever you do on Linux some guy from 2003 would have
| already done so
|
| Ah, sure, but that was pre-systemd. Or maybe the solution
| was for XFree86 and now I'm on Wayland... Or an
| interesting incantation of ifconfig, which might not even
| be installed by default?
| gentleman11 wrote:
| I've used Ubuntu for a few years. The hoops are pretty
| uncommon and usually involve a 2 minute search for syntax
| to fix
| erinaceousjones wrote:
| > written from my frankenstein arch linux macbook pro
|
| oh... oh you poor soul :P
|
| I used to use Arch on a high end gaming laptop when I was
| younger and had time to waste on things like dotfiles and
| perfecting my vim config and jumping through hoops like
| Bonus level Sonic.
|
| Now I opt for lovely simple boring functional Dell
| laptops from my employer and install Fedora on
| everything.
|
| Out of Windows OSX and Ubuntu/Arch/Fedora/Sabayon (Gentoo
| variant), Fedora wins the "everything just works" thing
| by miles on the supported Dell HW and _still_ supports
| stuff better out of the box with my home desktop.
|
| Yeah yeah I know everyone's experience is different,
| but...... Out of using all of the operating systems on
| the daily for 15 years, linux is the one I consistently
| begrudge the least.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Don't want to jinx it but the process has been painless.
| Technically I'm using EndeavourOS. Had to install with a
| USB wireless adapter but after the driver, it's great.
| Everything "just works" including suspend/wake with lid,
| keyboard backlighting, brightness/volume fn keys etc.
| andi999 wrote:
| Printing on HP deskjet? What about scanning? Can you
| share your files on a local network with samba?
| (painlessly I mean)
| whalesalad wrote:
| Printing to my laser jet wirelessly works. Accessing
| remote SMB shares works.
| cpfohl wrote:
| The main reason I switched over to a windows box (after
| WSL2 was released) was because I _hate_ dealing with
| obtuse hardware and driver issues.
|
| I am a software engineer, but I work in user space and
| have zero interest in managing hardware issues. When I
| plug in a device to a Mac or Windows box it just works
| 95% of the time or more. I never have to touch textual
| config files, I never have to adjust DNS settings and
| routing settings to work with the VPN, when I plug in my
| headphones it plays audio through them, and my webcam
| works nicely. I don't have to use the terminal to get my
| GPU to kick in at appropriate times.
|
| I have tried to make the switch to Linux _so many times_
| , I love the computational model, but I'm too busy to
| spend my time working out the user experience, and too
| cheap to use a Mac now that WSL2 gives me a real Unix
| environment on Windows.
|
| "Cheap, User Friendly, or Dev friendly, pick two" Was my
| mantra before WSL2 made windows dev friendly too... I'm
| not a fan boy for Windows, just too lazy to care anymore.
| I'd be happy to try Fedora...but I have my doubts...
| lukeschlather wrote:
| > When I plug in a device to a Mac or Windows box it just
| works 95% of the time or more.
|
| I quit using Macs a long time ago because I find I have
| to spend way too much time configuring them and adapting
| to the workflow, but between Windows and Linux I find
| devices work pretty much the same. If anything Linux has
| a better success rate, things "just work." On Windows it
| seems like every single time I plug in a mouse Windows
| starts "installing drivers." Even though it has the
| drivers. Usually "installing drivers" seems like it's a
| nothing but sometimes it actually seems to be downloading
| things and installing them while the PnP mouse already
| should work.
|
| Definitely, as a rule plugging things into Windows it can
| take 10-15 seconds to pick up while Linux works much
| faster on average.
| cpfohl wrote:
| I think that rings true to my experience. It does _not_
| ring true to my experience with audio peripherals in
| particular or with networking concerns.
| scarface74 wrote:
| A Linux user complaining about actually having to do some
| work to get their set up like they want?
| throwawayffffas wrote:
| I think you are misreading the author, their point is all
| this works by default on Ubuntu and not on Mac with the
| exception of NFS.
|
| It's not that there are no solutions, it's that the author
| and as a matter of fact I too resent that we have to look for
| solutions.
|
| From my point of view when I plug my phone in my linux box it
| just works but when I plug it in my Mac nothing happens, thus
| MacOs is an inferior operating system. As in it fails to
| operate in the manner I would like it to.
| st3fan wrote:
| I think a "Things I can't do on Ubuntu which I can do on macOS"
| article would also be fun.
| mr_ploppy wrote:
| I really hate window snapping, it drives me insane on the Ubuntu
| box I have to use at work. I'm sure I can turn if off, but I'm
| incredibly lazy.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| Try KDE/Plasma or XFCE
| mr_ploppy wrote:
| Thanks, I will.
| yalogin wrote:
| I like this post. For the first time someone actually provided a
| list of things and more so jumped right into them! Most of the
| apple posts go into a long philosophy rant about walled gardens
| and other bs. Glad to see a legit list and they have a legit
| point.
| D13Fd wrote:
| I was actually a bit disappointed in the article. I thought it
| was going to explain some kind of substantive work or task that
| the author can do on Linux but not Mac OS. Instead, the things
| he lists all boil down to Mac OS being a lot less customizable.
|
| That absolutely true but I feel like we all already knew it.
| edent wrote:
| Thank you - it's nice to receive feedback like this.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| rossvor wrote:
| Exactly, both informative for MacOS users and those who never
| used it. MacOS users can quickly scan and think yeah I don't
| care about this feature, or think huh this is something that
| could be useful and maybe I should look for a 3rd party app
| which has this. Those considering switching to MacOS can
| compare to their existing environment and have a greater
| picture of what possible pain points to expect.
|
| I would like to see more of posts like this for all Desktop
| environments. Like things you can do in MacOS but not in
| default Ubuntu setup.
| rodelrod wrote:
| This list is personal and far from exhaustive (which is
| fine). If I quickly scanned looking for things I care about,
| I'd find very little. However, as a Linux user I could very
| quickly come up with an equally long list of things that I do
| care about and that does not overlap much with this one.
|
| I think the larger point is: in Linux, some things are
| complicated but most things are possible. On Mac and Windows,
| some things are easier but many things are impossible.
|
| So there's definitely a tradeoff. But since I have to use
| this tool for the majority of my waking hours in order to
| make a living, the ROI from taking a bit longer to solve an
| issue and then having it solved virtually forever makes Linux
| a better proposition IMHO.
| kergonath wrote:
| > On Mac and Windows, some things are easier but many
| things are impossible.
|
| The obvious caveat is that many things are impossible _out
| of the box_. There are plenty of tools available to address
| a good number of the shortcomings mentioned in the story.
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| Why do we need a trade off between stability and control?
|
| I'd argue we could have both if not for commercial reasons.
| Apple deliberately chooses to limit control, Microsoft too.
|
| With all the resources they have, you really think they
| couldn't give you more control without sacrificing
| stability?
| oorza wrote:
| > Why do we need a trade off between stability and
| control?
|
| There isn't infinite time and money in the world. Every
| hour making one feature more stable means an hour not
| invested in another. Flexibility and control are just
| additional features. If you want to change the system
| font, you have to test (and support) a much wider array
| of things, especially if your UI guidelines are as
| restrictive as Apple's. Every piece of control you expose
| to the user increases the engineering cost of writing and
| maintaining the software.
|
| And frankly, if more people wanted that level of control,
| this year TRULY would be the year of linux on the
| desktop. But they don't.
| huffmsa wrote:
| Apple effectively has infinite money, they could make
| more man-hours
| pastacacioepepe wrote:
| It's not just control. It's control plus stability, as we
| said.
|
| Control is deliberately withdrawn to preserve the
| commercial interests of the producer, not because it is
| technically impossible to add it to stability.
|
| You want stability? Provide a perfect default
| configuration. You want control? Allow tweaking that
| configuration in detail for users that are willing to do
| it.
| uuyi wrote:
| These are all fairly trivial. There's a much larger list of
| things that Ubuntu says it can do but does such a bad job of it
| that I can't use it.
|
| Oh and Lightroom, Pixelmator and Excel don't work on Ubuntu.
| samizdis wrote:
| Trivial to you, and many people, perhaps. But this user is
| citing problems such as being able to read the menu, and to
| accommodate for RSI. So in this user's case, these things are
| sort of blockers.
| uuyi wrote:
| I don't think the user is aware that you can change the
| entire display scale for readability if you need to. There
| are also numerous mouse button remapping utilities out there.
| art4ur wrote:
| Depends on the user. Running Lightroom, Pixelmator and Excel
| are trivial to me because that's not my workflow.
| jewbot wrote:
| half of these are solved by BetterTouchTool fyi
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Can BTT do always on top?
| pleb_nz wrote:
| I recently went from fedora to Mac and as much as I am happy with
| hardware, and Im ok with macOS, I really do miss the Linux
| environment and the workflows. Maybe I need to give macOS more
| time, but to me, it doesn't feel as easy to navigate and
| configure.
| [deleted]
| nobeh wrote:
| The font configuration is a big surprise to me while I could find
| solutions or workarounds for other stuff.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31146370
| badrabbit wrote:
| Oh, there is a lot more you can't do on MacOS.
|
| Things I can do on MacOS: - Edit any document or video within
| minutues of installation
|
| - Use sed/awk/find/grep on any documents or text like with Ubuntu
|
| Linux desktop tries too much to be like macos making it even
| worse. Every time I have to remove avahi, cups and like 10 other
| things which breaks the whole damn thing and I have to figure out
| how to unbreak it then get rid of shitty networkmanager so I can
| write a systemd unit to get thr network to do what I want and
| avoid my dns resolvers being replaced and edit grub2 config at
| least 3 times to get it to actually take so the interface names
| are not e9xnfhsjfkszhfj02 but just eth0 and then spend half a day
| to get secure boot working. And then I have to find the apps I
| want to use and block a weekend aside to set them up.
|
| I use mac to just get things done, I use linux for control and to
| get them done the way I want.
| viraptor wrote:
| > Every time I have to remove avahi, cups and like 10 other
| things which breaks the whole damn thing
|
| I don't get it. You're removing services manually and complain
| it breaks your system. Why remove them then? (For extra irony,
| avahi is there to support Apple's Bonjour and cups belongs to
| Apple - I don't expect you're turning those off on your MacOs,
| right?)
| badrabbit wrote:
| Yes, that is exactly what I am doing, because I don't want
| random things I don't need running, because I desire control
| when I run Linux. If I want random junk that breaks
| everything and has no use to me running, macos and windows do
| that just fine.
| Klonoar wrote:
| I think everyone responding to you has misread your comment
| and believes you're saying the opposite of what you meant.
| recuter wrote:
| > Use sed/awk/find/grep on any documents or text like with
| Ubuntu
|
| fd, rg, and vim work just fine on the Mac..
|
| Bundled sed is the bsd variant, but you can bring whichever
| flavor of these you want, I'm very confused by your comment.
| MarcellusDrum wrote:
| > Linux desktop tries too much to be like macos
|
| I think using "Linux" here isn't accurate. ElementaryOS?
| Definitely. But default KDE Plasma for example does not attempt
| to look like MacOS at all, same as Cinnamon, which by default
| resembles Windows to an extent.
| badrabbit wrote:
| I meant with services and philosophy not just and look and
| feel. You can make kde look like macos if you want as well
| for appearance.
| fractalb wrote:
| I couldn't find a way to stop/pause in the middle of a big file
| download from iCloud drive. The only thing I could do was to
| disconnect the wifi.
| blfr wrote:
| As a decade+ loyal Linux and Android user I gotta go with "you're
| using it wrong" on the MTP point. You really should buy (get from
| your employer) an iPhone.
|
| They actually work together pretty well and when they're not at
| least you will be yelling at whatever Finder/iTunes interface,
| not a wonky 3rd party software made by some innocent dev who
| doesn't deserve the bad karma.
| z_zetetic_z wrote:
| What if he doesn't want to? IPhones have some pretty terrible
| UI issues too.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| My Android phones have had dual SIM for years, so I only have
| to carry around one device to access both work and private
| phone functionality. That's why I declined the provided iPhone,
| which only would have had one SIM slot. Apparently now Apple
| has arrived in the year 2012 with their new models - but by
| now, why would I switch?
| ralphc wrote:
| I miss wobbly windows. It's not something I have on all the time
| but they're fun. They were all the rage back in the mid 2000's,
| especially on Knoppix but I don't see any tutorials for doing it
| in modern Linuxes. Can anyone point me to one?
| JoeJonathan wrote:
| These threads are so boring.
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| It's interesting to me that these concerns are ancient it seems
| and yet apple has no interest in addressing them. They seems to
| have their own philosophy about what people use their OS for and
| it's sad because it drags down a good platform. Having switched
| to macOS for work like most people it feels like having the
| Ferrari of laptops but the Fischer Price of operating systems.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| My god, this kind of shit is tiresome.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Way back when (2006), chromatic posted a "switching back" article
| at O'Reilly Radar. Sixteen years (!!!) later, it still holds a
| great deal of truth. You'll have to dig it up on the Internet
| Archive though.
|
| Focus-follows-mouse, UI customisability, package management,
| second-hand citizen status of Linux apps, and a few others. It's
| also interesting to see what _has_ appeared as supported /
| possible, on both operating systems.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20060613222321/http://www.linuxd...
|
| Page 2:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20060613222321/http://www.linuxd...
|
| Page 3:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20060613222321/http://www.linuxd...
|
| Page 4:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20060613222321/http://www.linuxd...
|
| Best I can tell, that was never actually discussed on HN.
| [deleted]
| jbylund wrote:
| As a new mac user (~4 weeks with new employer) my biggest N are:
|
| 1) inability to ask the window manager "which workspace/desktop
| am I on" - it also seems like this ability has been progressively
| removed with newer versions (judging from
| stackoverflow/askdifferent questions) - after some hacking I've
| found a workaround for this
|
| 2) clicking on a browser notification just brings me to _any_
| window of the browser, not the one that sent the notification! -
| if anyone knows how to fix this please help me out
|
| 3) there's a delay on toggling caps lock that you can't disable
| without installing some small third party utility! it just feels
| super rude that they're essentially telling me that I didn't mean
| to press caps lock
| boringg wrote:
| Am I the only one who actually finds more desktop a drawback
| then a benefit? I clearly haven't mastered multiple desktops --
| do you split between projects and just leave it there always? I
| haven't figured out how to best optimize that which I feel I am
| leaving real value on the table.
| SuperCuber wrote:
| I use i3 (tiling window manager) basically as a maximize-by-
| default: I have everything either maximized or split
| vertically once. When I use more windows than that, I
| typically spread them between workspaces.
| jbylund wrote:
| I have a browser profile per workspace and git/aws/maybe some
| other env vars that are set up on a per workspace basis. To
| switching from project 1 to project 2 or personal I just
| click on the appropriate desktops in the status bar.
|
| Which reminds me, another missing thing is the ability to
| have desktops displayed in the status bar and click on the
| one you want to jump to.
| MivLives wrote:
| I tend to only use multiple desktops when I'm on a single
| screen or working on the laptop directly. In that case it's
| sorta a task thing, one desktop is chat clients (Slack and/or
| Discord), one is my editor, another is the browser, and a
| third is for terminals (for git etc). I use Rectangle to
| handle moving windows around.
| mikeryan wrote:
| _1) inability to ask the window manager "which
| workspace/desktop am I on" - it also seems like this ability
| has been progressively removed with newer versions (judging
| from stackoverflow/askdifferent questions) - after some hacking
| I've found a workaround for this_
|
| I just swipe up with three fingers on the Trackpad to see what
| desktop I'm on, are you looking for something different?
| jbylund wrote:
| Yeah, wanted to be able to programmatically ask the window
| manager such that I can tell new shells to source
| "~/.bashrc.d/{desktopname}.sh".
| reacharavindh wrote:
| Thanks for the list and your thoughts. Now I know I'm not giving
| up much from using a Mac with MacOS instead of a linux desktop
| distro. Because, I don't have the needs that you have.
|
| I need a computer that works without too much fiddling required
| for 80% of the way. When I shut the laptop lid, it should
| sustainably go to sleep, and when I open it up, it should let me
| work from where I left off instantly. It may be possible to do
| this with some linux distributions, but then I would either have
| to know some black magic or give up something else like have a
| decent battery life.
|
| I love and use Linux for all things serious _on_ _servers_!
| Desktop Linux has been a democratic tragedy of the commons. Too
| many chefs in the kitchen comes up with a meal that has too many
| flavours in a single dish.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I'm not a MacOS user but I recall using early versions of OS X
| finder for connecting to SSH shares, like early 2000s. Did they
| remove this feature?
| BruceEel wrote:
| FTPS yes, no SFTP in macOS 11.6 as far as I can tell. It's
| possible to add it though, as 3rd party apps can 'hook' this
| feature.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| The thing is... that MacOS works for "techies" because of that,
| limits are lack of configuration possibilities and lack of
| configuration possibilities are seen as user friendly, Mac OS for
| me as a Gentoo User day-to-day who see macOs only on company
| hardware is a limit, but it works, you accept the limits and you
| move on with your work, no matter if you are in the share of
| people who are not helped by it
|
| I mean I don't think it's wrong or good, I think it's limited and
| has its share of market within people who don't want to waste
| time reading manuals of being involved in software or systems,
| what I find upsetting every now and then is those cool people
| coming around communities and say "Why Linux can't be MacOS?" I
| think each system has it's target, all of them cover different
| needs, I really don't understand who uses something and wants
| something else to become like the something they use and not use
| the somethign they already use .. I wish someone had an
| explanation for this humanity trait for me
| saagarjha wrote:
| > Focus Follow Mouse
|
| > I have multiple screens and multiple windows. I want to be able
| to hover over a new one and start interacting with it without
| clicking.
|
| Having attempted to implement this once, doing this is
| nontrivial. If you try to focus anything under your mouse then
| you can end up changing the selection state of tables and
| controls, which is generally undesirable.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Have you tried AutoRaise?
|
| https://github.com/sbmpost/AutoRaise
| mnw21cam wrote:
| That's something different. I don't see why so many different
| OSes have a problem with a window that is not raised having
| focus.
| tomsmeding wrote:
| This is about _window_ focus, not focus on individual controls
| within a window. The former is useful (I tried GNOME for a
| while but went back to i3 for, among other things, this
| reason), but the latter is (as you found out) probably not a
| good idea.
| saagarjha wrote:
| They are one and the same, because when you are interacting
| with a window you are actually interacting with controls
| inside the window. It is easy to forward cursor events to the
| target window (hover and scroll already do this, FWIW) but
| when you want to say type something you'll need to focus the
| text element under the cursor before you can just blast key
| events to that application.
|
| Doing this in a way that feels intuitive is non-trivial. If
| you go the simple route and focus every control (so you can
| do things like tab between them) you run into the issue of
| the mouse activating some of them as you go over the element
| and giving it focus-for example, if you do it on a window
| sidebar, you'll switch between the tabs. I didn't get a
| chance to really thing about it, but I was thinking of just
| giving text elements focus and considering it to be good
| enough; but there are still challenges there: should you be
| able to focus on a search field (which might blow away the
| current context and replace it with a "searching" screen)?
| How should I handle keyboard shortcuts?
| projektfu wrote:
| Gnome has this but you need to install the tweaks ui to get
| it. It's how I run Gnome.
|
| With multiple monitors it makes much more sense to me than
| click to focus.
|
| I tried it on windows but a lot of programs don't expect it
| and raise themselves when they get focus. My mac has only one
| monitor.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There's a much deeper reason that MacOS doesn't make focus-
| follows-mouse easy.
|
| In most window managers (including Windows), the first-class
| entity is the window. Windows are related to applications (or
| processes), but they exist as their own thing, operate
| independently from most other windows without special handling,
| and usually have their own menu bar.
|
| Apple took a severely different tack on this fundamental
| abstraction: the first-class entity is the _application._ At
| all times, there is at most one application with foreground
| context and all others are background, and it 's actually a
| pretty expensive operation to switch between them. They did
| this for a couple reasons (some accident of history and some
| practical... for example, Apple's decision to put the
| application's menu at the top of the screen to coincide with
| the original usability studies on how the edges and corners of
| the screen were the easiest to mouse to implied there'd be at
| most one application at a time owning a global menubar
| context).
|
| This had huge consequences for the constraints put on
| applications. For a long time, it was hard to write a tiling
| window manager for Mac OS X because there was no language by
| which you could describe all windows; you'd have to query every
| app for the geometry of its windows, then compute a new global
| layout, then _foreground each app so it could update its window
| positions_. This is no longer the case, but it made any TWM
| implementation a toy for years.
|
| The upshot of this design for focus-follows-mouse is it has a
| lot of unintended consequences and can make the system actually
| quite hard to use in a focus-follows-mouse configuration. For
| one, it induces latency in all your mouse operations if you're
| constantly toggling the foreground app as you mouse around. For
| another, it actually makes it quite difficult to mouse to the
| menu bar if the menu bar is going to change when your mouse
| drifts over another window.
|
| (It is interesting to observe how, while at some level "they're
| all just window managers," the detailed decisions made by the
| different OS developers led to some things being subtlety much
| harder in one or the other).
| jp0d wrote:
| To each to their own. It's quite evident that the author simply
| dislikes MacOS. Many of these problems if these can be labelled
| as such, aren't really serious issues for the majority of users.
| And in some cases it seems that the author is used to other
| operating systems and hasn't spent enough time on MacOS or isn't
| inclined to learn the differences.
|
| > I know you're going to be tempted to reply with "you're using
| it wrong" - but I'm not. This is how I like to use my computer.
|
| This part of the closing statement simply baffles me. I use both
| Linux and a Mac and I like both. In fact MacOS has spoilt me in
| many ways and I get frustrated when things don't work as nicely
| on Linux. But I still like both.
| skykooler wrote:
| > Wobbly windows
|
| I miss back when you could do this in Linux. Ever since GNOME 3,
| compiz has become a piece of software that integrates poorly with
| the rest of the desktop and causes screen taring or straight-up
| driver crashes if you enable wobbly windows.
| kbutler wrote:
| Site down? archive.org has:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220426103006/https://shkspr.mo...
| carlosrg wrote:
| There's an option in Accessibility to make the menu bar and other
| menus font larger.
| emendation wrote:
| KDE Connect/GS Connect is invaluable to me on Linux. It can just
| do _so much_.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| KDE Connect almost works on Windows, but spawns background
| D-Bus processes (nitpick) and crashes on sleep-wake (near-
| dealbreaker). I hope to someday diagnose and fix the problem,
| but even building KDE Connect is a nonstandard process
| involving using Craft to install libraries and build the
| program (rather than building from an IDE directly).
| nicoburns wrote:
| My biggest bug bears with macOS:
|
| - No way to fullscreen a window without moving it into a separate
| workspace. All a new workspace achieves is making it difficult
| for me to switch between this app and my other apps! (individual
| apps can implement this, and some like VLC do, but most apps
| don't)
|
| - No native support for containerisation. Containers/Docker are a
| great technology, but even on my M1 mac where literally
| everything else is super speedy, they're really slow.
| synthomat wrote:
| For full screen on same workspace: option+maximize button or
| double click on title bar (works with some applications)
| felipelemos wrote:
| This is not full screen, it is "maximize". The macos bar is
| still there, the window is just using all space for the
| windows.
| Asraelite wrote:
| Neither this nor clicking it without option are actually
| fullscreen. MacOS doesn't have fullscreen, it only has two
| types of maximization.
| davweb wrote:
| Holding Option when you click the green window button will
| maximise the window - rather than make it full screen - for
| most, but but not all, applications. For some reason Safari
| only maximises vertically when you do this.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| macOS has never had full-screen maximisation. It maximises
| "for the content". Which means some windows will never be
| full screen because they don't have more to show.
|
| What you get when you hold Option is the way that was the
| previous "maximisation" option, before they added the full
| screen mode which I also abhor.
| lloeki wrote:
| If you want such maximisation (and not fullscreen as was
| described), you can use apps like Moom or Magnet.
| GlassKingdom wrote:
| That this functionality is not builtin is the most
| baffling MacOS design choice I have ever seen.
| lloeki wrote:
| We can split hairs and hold our breath til we're blue
| discussing design decisions we don't control.
|
| I'm just trying to be helpful, possibly barely pointing
| out that things claimed to be impossible are not (and not
| argumentatively, only because folks may stop at that and
| have to endure something when there are solutions that
| would fit their use case)
| mmcnl wrote:
| I hate the thought behind this. Often I don't maximize to
| see more content, but to hide everything else. Why does
| Safari decide for me that the window can't be any wider?
| That doesn't make any sense at all.
| happymellon wrote:
| Which is annoying for some applications which don't
| maximise, because the content isn't there but could be. I
| can't think off what does this off the top of my head since
| I installed Amethyst, but I think I remember Excel used to
| do this back in the day.
| kergonath wrote:
| > No way to fullscreen a window without moving it into a
| separate workspace.
|
| One of the reasons why I almost never use the full screen
| feature. You can click on the full screen button on the too
| left-hand corner of each window whilst holding Option, I think
| that's the closest you can do out-of-the box. You can assign a
| keyboard shortcut for this very easily (seriously, the way we
| can define keyboard shortcuts for almost anything and have them
| work in almost any app is amazing; nothing comes even close on
| the Linux side).
|
| Otherwise, you can use something like Magnet or Rectangle,
| which enable exactly what you want.
| dotancohen wrote:
| What keyboard shortcuts are you missing in Linux? At least
| with KDE, I can go the entire day without touching the
| rodent. And on the rare occasions that I do use the mouse,
| I'm mostly touching it only for webpages that don't work with
| Tridactyl, or for highlight-middle-click copy-paste.
| kergonath wrote:
| I miss the ability to set arbitrary shortcuts and bind them
| to arbitrary menu items. Also, shortcuts are not very
| consistent across Linux applications, compared to macOS,
| which is much more homogenous and less surprising. OTOH,
| that's not a deal breaker and I keep using both Linux and
| macOS daily.
|
| macOS is frustrating to use without a mouse. On one side
| the shortcuts are consistent, work everywhere, and are very
| deeply customisable. Really much better than anything I
| have tried on other platforms. All the menus are very easy
| to use without a mouse once you know the shortcuts (which,
| granted, are not obvious if you don't know they exist).
| Emacs-like shortcuts in _all_ text fields are absolutely
| fantastic. The fact that Command is used throughout the GUI
| leaves Control available for things like terminals, which
| is awesome (e.g. there is no conflict between Control-C to
| kill a process and Command-C to copy some text). But at the
| same time there are things like window management that
| pretty much require a mouse, but really should not.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I do use magnet. But something I do want something to be
| truly fullscreen (no menubar or anything else visible), but
| without being on another workspace. I think the most common
| use case for this is with videos. I often want to fullscreen
| a video, but still be able to quickly switch between windows
| so that I can for example reply to a message.
|
| Note that with any non-fullscreen window I can continue to
| see live updates to the window in the mission control view.
| So I could for example continue to watch a video (albeit
| smaller) while watching chat messages arrive in another
| window as my friend sends them. But with a macOS fullscreen
| window I can't do that. If I open mission control then I can
| only see the fullscreen window (because it's the only window
| in the workspace), and if I switch to another workspace to
| the see the contents of those windows I can no longer see the
| fullscreen window. Infuriating!
| ihuman wrote:
| You can also fullscreen within the workspace by double
| clicking the window's title bar (or the window's toolbar if
| it doesn't have a title)
| kergonath wrote:
| IIRC that's something to activate in the system preferences
| and the default behaviour is to minimise the window to the
| Dock instead.
| spoiler wrote:
| Interesting. I recently started using an M1 Mac and found the
| fullscreen workspaces a bit weird (coming from i3), but kinda
| grew to like it? I got the external trackpad and use gestures a
| lot (before it was Control + arrows) to navigate the
| workspaces.
|
| My main issue is that all the different "Terminals" have
| subsets I like on them, but none have all the features I like
| lol. It's not a big deal though. FWIW I'm trying out the Warp
| term now (used wezterm on linux) and it's been mostly enjoyable
| so far.
| mort96 wrote:
| For me, those gestures are next to useless because the
| animation is just waaay too slow. It's literally a whole
| second (exactly; I just timed it) of waiting for window focus
| to switch.
|
| The animation is shorter when you're on a model without a
| 120Hz screen, so it gets a little more bearable there.
| lmohseni wrote:
| In system preferences, under accessibility, there's an
| option to "reduce motion" or something that removes that
| annoying animation. It's great!
| mort96 wrote:
| I don't mind the animation, I actually really like the
| animations in macOS. I just don't want it to take a full
| second to switch the active window. "Reduce motion" keeps
| the full-second delay but replaces the nice animation
| with a less nice fade animation, which is kind of the
| opposite of what I want.
| romseb wrote:
| While this gets rid of the animation itself, the
| transition to the workspace takes the same amount of
| time.
| lloeki wrote:
| When using gestures, the animations kind of match the
| gesture, which makes them slow because you can physically
| cancel them.
|
| But some of these may help. There may be more (or less),
| it's been a while. defaults write
| NSGlobalDomain NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool
| false defaults write -g NSWindowResizeTime -float
| 0.003 defaults write com.apple.dock expose-
| animation-duration -float 0.15 defaults write
| com.apple.Mail DisableReplyAnimations -bool true
| defaults write com.apple.Mail DisableSendAnimations -bool
| true
|
| Also, try to use keyboard shortcuts: the animation is
| muuuuch faster than with gestures. In Keyboard prefpane,
| Shortcuts, Keyboard, Mission Control (make sure to have
| many desktops created). I have desktops set to ^1..^0 and
| left/right to ^left and ^right (which is sadly the only
| way to move to fullscreen apps), and disable MRU
| automatic space reordering in Mission Control prefpane.
| zamadatix wrote:
| It's got nothing to do with gestures, the key combo has
| the same switch delay as a quick gesture swipe (Which
| seems to have the same delay as mission control
| selection) when switching workspaces.
|
| I've spent more time than I'd like to admit trying to get
| rid of this workspace switch delay. The tipping point for
| me on it was switching to a 16" Pro with a 120 Hz screen
| and finding out that means it now takes longer to switch.
| lloeki wrote:
| Got it. In my experience switching with shortcuts takes
| half a second (which I understand can be annoying, being
| an i3wm user myself) and is visibly faster than evn quick
| gestures, which have a slower ease-out for me (but that
| may be due to how I swipe)
| dcow wrote:
| Try Kitty!
| ivanche wrote:
| Good suggestion! IMHO Kitty is seriously underused
| terminal. Very fast, customizable, scriptable...
| nicoburns wrote:
| I'd be interested to know what features iTerm2 doesn't have.
| It's a big plus for macOS for me!
| qubitcoder wrote:
| Yes, iTerm2 is one of the best macOS apps. It's the first
| thing we have new developers install if they're new to
| macOS.
|
| On the 120Hz MacBook Pros, there's an advanced iTerm2
| setting that lets you change the maximum frame rate to 120
| or above (adaptive frame rate also needs to be disabled).
|
| For monitors with a high refresh rate, it's worth checking
| out. You can see the difference by running:
| $ cat /dev/random | hexdump
| brimble wrote:
| I used it for a long time but switched back to regular
| Terminal for the lower latency, because I realized I
| couldn't even name an iTerm2 feature I used that Terminal
| didn't have. I'd just been using it because it was so
| widely discussed.
| nicoburns wrote:
| That's completely fair. For me the killer feature is it's
| multi-pane support. Being able to have several terminal
| panes side-by-side on screen at once without having to
| fiddle about with something like tmux is wonderful.
| deathanatos wrote:
| iTerm2 is pretty sluggish, has some memory leaks that I hit
| every now and then, and doesn't emulate some escape
| sequences correctly (bold, reset).
|
| But it has Cmd+Shift+E, which I wish some other emulators I
| like would just wholesale copy that feature.
|
| Honestly, it's one of the better emulators out there; it's
| my recommendation if you're otherwise stuck on macOS.
| larusso wrote:
| > No way to fullscreen a window without moving it into a
| separate workspace. All
|
| When you hold ALT while clicking the maximize button it should
| work. There used to be a setting for this when they introduced
| it.
| nik736 wrote:
| Thanks for that! Option key words perfectly.
| GlassKingdom wrote:
| alt click doesn't work. Try it. It does not work. Maybe
| occasionally it does, but mostly it just enlarges the screen
| a bit, in a random manner.
| larusso wrote:
| Yes the enlarge is a thing which unnerves me as well
| because some apps insist on keeping a specific aspect ratio
| and so on. I still use Better touch tool which has support
| for screen zone snapping. And I have a custom key binding
| to maximize windows setup via better touch tool.
| nottorp wrote:
| View -> Enter full screen?
| tgv wrote:
| Or simply the third button on the top left of nearly every
| window?
| GlassKingdom wrote:
| No, that hides the menu bar.
| Veen wrote:
| You can stop it hiding the menu bar in full screen.
| System Preferences -> Dock and Menu Bar -> Automatically
| Hide and Show Menu Bar in Full Screen (at the bottom of
| the window).
| aleskrejci wrote:
| Hold Option and double-click the window corner. This will
| probably do what you want (fill all of the available space).
| You can also do this with the sides of the window and have it
| grow only horizontally or vertically.
|
| I would also recommend trying out if BetterTouchTool can't
| change the behaviour of the green (+) button as it's pretty
| powerful.
| shric wrote:
| For those who don't mind "full screen" still including the top
| bar, I find https://www.hammerspoon.org/ to be a good
| compromise. I set up option+shift+f to full screen my window
| instantly.
| Macha wrote:
| If the top bar is still there, is this different to the built
| in "double click title bar" maximise?
| Veen wrote:
| The '+' button and double-clicking the title-bar doesn't
| maximize windows--it zooms them in Apple's terminology. It
| should just make the window big enough to display its
| contents, although some apps don't cooperate (Chrome).
| Hammerspoon can be configured to maximize windows, i.e.
| make them fill the screen.
| ivanche wrote:
| +1 for this. Hammerspoon is a godsend. I have keyboard
| shortcuts to switch to my desired apps instantly (around 10
| or so, hyper+I is IntelliJ, hyper+A is Atom, hyper+F is
| Firefox etc.)
| lloeki wrote:
| > Containers/Docker are a great technology, but even on my M1
| mac where literally everything else is super speedy, they're
| really slow.
|
| Either you're using Docker for Mac which itself is slow on IO
| mostly due to the macos-linux file share syncing every single
| fseventsd<->inotify or you end up running intel images on
| aarch64, which uses non-virtualizing qemu to emulate the
| foreign CPU (see github.com/tonistigii/binfmt)
|
| I'm using Docker in a Fusion instance, sharing /Users through
| vmhgfs (which in my tests performs better than DfM shares) and
| it's plenty fast as long as I stick to native images (intel on
| intel, aarch64 on arm64) and don't outrageously reach out to
| the shared dirs (notably DfM shares /tmp by default which is
| ridiculous)
|
| Container tech on Darwin would bring little in most cases since
| it would containerize a darwin userland, which, while cool, is
| probably not what most people want. There's no shortcut from
| running a Linux kernel in a VM to run a Linux userland on
| Darwin.
| flatiron wrote:
| Or they could do what windows did. Support windows docker for
| whatever use case that supports (never used it) and creating
| WSL which has Linux roots deep in the OS. I find WSL docker
| works great for development. Certainly wouldn't use it in
| production.
| lloeki wrote:
| WSL2 doesn't have Linux roots deep within Windows anymore,
| it's literally running a Linux VM with a full kernel under
| the HyperV hypervisor, so it's exactly like DfM (IIRC save
| for the fact that Windows then _also_ runs under HyperV
| with the hypervisor sitting on top, Xen-like, and as is
| achieved on Xbox, and Linux running side by side instead of
| being handled by an OS process underneath the main OS)
| neilalexander wrote:
| > Either you're using Docker for Mac which itself is slow on
| IO mostly due to the macos-linux file share syncing every
| single fseventsd<->inotify
|
| If you haven't tried the new VirtioFS accelerated directory
| sharing in Docker for Mac, it makes a _huge_ difference to
| I/O performance of mounted volumes.
| lloeki wrote:
| Admittedly I didn't, not the least because I expect it to
| be at best equal in speed to my current setup, plus my
| current setup gives me better control on the virtualised OS
| + memory ballooning of the VM (... and that there are
| _other_ things with DfM that rub me the wrong way).
|
| Nonetheless, I salute the years-long effort from the Docker
| team on that one.
| drcongo wrote:
| I'm using Docker for Mac on an M1 Pro and it's stupidly fast,
| to the point that my dev environment runs faster than the
| Intel production servers on some things.
| jjjbokma wrote:
| How well does it handle a large amount of writes to small
| files (say 1000 files, each about 8KB)?
|
| Edit: the static blog generator I wrote [1] takes 11
| seconds inside a Ubuntu virtual machine with the directory
| shared with MacOS on an Mac mini late 2014. Docker, on the
| same machine, takes 1m13 seconds using gRPC FUSE for file
| sharing. 1866 HTML files are being generated.
|
| [1] https://github.com/john-bokma/tumblelog
| jzellis wrote:
| You forgot "spend three days trying to get a Bluetooth keyboard
| to pair at boot every time". :-D
|
| I love Ubuntu and I use it with Cinnamon desktop on the daily
| alongside my Mac, and I love the customizability, but I also like
| just being able to turn on my laptop and do stuff without having
| to fiddle with a terminal unless I want to, or install a new app
| by just downloading a thing and clicking on it and agreeing that,
| yes, I'm trying to do this thing. And that's just not quite there
| with Ubuntu yet.
|
| (Also, trying to do music stuff is mostly a nightmare of JACK and
| Alsa headaches. I can write generative music code in at least two
| languages, but I just wanna plug my guitar in and record things
| and use plug-ins without having to recompile shit.)
|
| There's places for both. Use whatever works for you.
| stackdatcamp wrote:
| Does pipewire solve your problems in recording? I'm planning to
| get into the music making rabbit hole and I wonder if my
| Pop_OS! laptop is up to the task.
| q3k wrote:
| For realtime audio, Pipewire basically solves this problem on
| Linux. It appears as JACK, Pulse and ALSA to client programs
| and allows seamless interop between all of them. It's slowly
| landing in mainstream Linux distros as the default audio
| solution.
|
| This means that without any special setup, both real-time audio
| software (which uses JACK) and 'normal' software (Pulse, ALSA)
| can co-operate on a single system with a single digital
| patchbay between all of them and the system output devices
| (including Bluetooth audio devices).
| smallerfish wrote:
| > Also, trying to do music stuff is mostly a nightmare of JACK
| and Alsa headaches. I can write generative music code in at
| least two languages, but I just wanna plug my guitar in and
| record things and use plug-ins without having to recompile shit
|
| This hasn't been a problem in a while. You definitely don't
| need Jack for recording your guitar into a DAW with a backing
| track (I have a studio full of synths that I record - 24 tracks
| in, 24 tracks out, via a class compliant USB audio interface).
| And as the sibling comment points out, Pipewire makes things
| better still; you can point your DAW at "ALSA" (really Pipewire
| under the hood) and also play Youtube vids in a browser at the
| same time - this was of course possible with Pulseaudio or
| Jack, but both of them had their own quirks. Pipewire is
| overall really nice and just works cleanly.
|
| I am really curious what you had to recompile.
| andi999 wrote:
| And after all the fiddling, then there is an upgrade and you
| need to fiddle again.
| as1mov wrote:
| I use a pair of BT headphones (paired to 2 devices) and a
| keyboard. Both have worked without a hitch since day one on
| Ubuntu Mate. Funny enough, it's the only device I own that will
| work with my prehistoric HP printer from 2005 without any
| hacks. Newer versions of Windows don't work with it (I probably
| need to fish out the CD with the drivers), MacOS never did.
| vetinari wrote:
| It does not have to be ancient printer; I present you Samsung
| SL-M2070W, which HP is still selling under some other
| designation.
|
| I can print in MacOS, but I cannot scan. It used to work, but
| color scanning was broken few years ago, and about two years
| ago b/w scanning was broken too - Preview or Image Capture
| will just produce something malformed.
|
| There used to be a workaround using Samsung scanning utility,
| but it doesn't work since Catalina, due to the utility being
| 32-bit app.
|
| So what I do? RDP into other machine that does not have such
| problems (either Linux or Windows) and then transfer the
| scanned file.
|
| So much for "just works".
| rbut wrote:
| I can echo the HP printer comment, mines a printer/scanner.
| Every time I print or scan on Ubuntu I'm expecting it to not
| work, as that was my experience on macOS, but it works
| flawlessly. On macOS the driver was abandoned 6 OS versions
| back, and I had to do some pkg command line trickery running
| as root just to get the thing to install.
| simonh wrote:
| Sorry, I just want to get this straight. We're comparing
| Linux and MacOS, and having to do command line trickery to
| do something is a knock against MacOS? Really?
|
| I mean if that's a legitimate black mark, that's 1 ding
| against MacOS and we can bury Linux under a thick pile of
| back marks.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| How about middle click paste?
| SXX wrote:
| From personal experience - after a year on macOS you simply
| forget about such handy bits Linux has.
| bitmuncher wrote:
| You can change the menu bar size under "Accessibility -> Display"
| to "large".
|
| You should be able to mount a NFS share on login by mounting it,
| go to the login items settings of your user and add the mount
| there.
|
| For your mouse: Ask your vendor to provide a driver for macOS.
| This is a usual problem with a lot of hardware. A lot of vendors
| don't provide a driver for macOS.
| mistertester wrote:
| Before using a Mac I was told how glorious it was and a feat of
| engineering. Reality is that the Mac and associated products are
| not as perfect as Apple fans make it out to be. The window
| manager on Mac makes me want to scream. Navigating the file
| system in Finder is not intuitive and don't get me started on the
| Magic Mouse and it's charging port...
| ubermonkey wrote:
| What do you find non-intuitive about the Finder? This is a
| serious question, not a troll or anything.
|
| IMO it hides less about the disk layout than Windows Explorer
| does, but "it's better than Windows Explorer" is a low bar
| indeed.
|
| "don't get me started on the Magic Mouse and it's charging
| port"
|
| I use that mouse every day and I've literally NEVER needed to
| use it while charging. It warns me with ample time and charges
| insanely quickly. I get a warning? I'll plug it in when I get a
| coffee or over lunch. End of.
|
| The other thing that nobody seems to pay any attention to is
| this: The current Magic Mouse is pretty much EXACTLY the same
| as the prior AAA-powered version except for the battery and
| charging. I'd bet folding money that one reason they went the
| way they did was that it allowed them to make zero design
| changes outside the area that USED to hold AAA batters, and now
| holds the rechargeable battery and port.
|
| This means they could do a rechargeable version without a major
| redesign -- which would've been required. The whole upper shell
| of the mouse moves down when you click, which means putting a
| port on the front wasn't going to work.
|
| But, again: it's 100% a non-issue for me. I don't actually know
| anyone in real life who has trouble with this.
| gramie wrote:
| I work on a Macbook, play games on a Windows machine, carry
| around a Chromebook, and use Linux in various places (web
| hosting, WSL, etc.). I agree that the Mac is a nice machine but
| not everything is intuitive.
|
| When I had a PowerMac, every time I needed to burn a CD/DVD I
| had to look up the steps. Dragging a window from one monitor to
| the other often doesn't display the window, and if a window is
| full-screen, Option-Tab won't bring any other windows on top of
| it.
|
| The hardware is nice, and generally high quality, but my
| battery started to bulge and the repair (replace keyboard and
| new batter) was over $500.
|
| I like it, but I wouldn't turn up my nose at alternatives.
| Since most of my job is typing, and web browsing, almost
| anything short of a Commodore VIC-20 would be fine.
| aeyes wrote:
| Some more that I find rather annoying:
|
| - Login screen sometimes has US keyboard layout even when the
| language selector shows otherwise.
|
| - "Installing apps" where you drag them on the applications
| folder and you get no progress for that copy operation
| anywhere.
|
| - Permission changes, for example for camera and microphone
| access, require application restarts.
|
| - Photos application unable to handle even a small amount of
| pictures copied from my phone, crashes or freezes your machine.
|
| - Thumbnail size in file selection dialogs and even directly in
| Finder is completely useless.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| '"Installing apps" where you drag them on the applications
| folder and you get no progress for that copy operation
| anywhere.'
|
| What apps do you install that take so long that a progress
| bar would be useful?
|
| "- Photos application unable to handle even a small amount of
| pictures copied from my phone, crashes or freezes your
| machine."
|
| I have thousands of pictures in Photos, and it has never once
| frozen or crashed. Are you doing something unusual?
|
| "- Thumbnail size in file selection dialogs and even directly
| in Finder is completely useless."
|
| This is adjustable.
| happymellon wrote:
| Trying to configure a keyboard that isn't US ANSI is
| terrible, I can pick UK in the keyboard preferences and the
| flag changes but it remains as ANSI.
|
| I can use control+left/right to switch desktops, but can use
| shift+control+left/right to move a window left or right.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Sure I'll bite.. You're talking about Ubuntu, but can you do
| everything with Ubuntu running KDE or any other WM/DE? You
| probably mean GNOME or Unity. Didn't they abandon Unity? I dunno
| what's current, and frankly I don't care!
|
| > Resize the system font. I find the menu bar at the top too
| small. The only way to do this on MacOS is to lower the
| resolution of the entire screen!
|
| - Accessibility -> Display -> Menu bar size
|
| > Change the system font. I know you like Helvetica San Francisco
| - but I find it a bit too thin to read.
|
| - Seems like you have to change the resolution of your monitor if
| everything is too small. It won't impact the rest, as
| applications can still use the native resolution if needed.
|
| > Focus Follow Mouse. I have multiple screens and multiple
| windows. I want to be able to hover over a new one and start
| interacting with it without clicking.
|
| - Fair, although scrolling does work. It's just it won't transfer
| focus.
|
| > Change my mouse button order. On Linux, this is a complex
| command-line incantation. On MacOS it is impossible. I use a
| vertical mouse and use my thumb to click. RSI FTW!
|
| - Mouse -> Primary mouse button: left/right. Or use tools
|
| > Read files from MTP devices. If I stick a USB cable between my
| phone and Linux laptop, I can see the Android files on my laptop.
| I can open them, move them around, etc. On a Mac I need to
| install some shonky 3rd party software which rarely works.
|
| - On Android you can set the type of connection when you plug it
| in (debug/dev/files). I guess that all depends on which Android
| you have?
|
| > Always on top windows. Sometimes I want to keep the calculator
| on screen while I type an email. Is that too much to ask?
|
| - There are tools for that or you can script it. Applications
| that really need it usually have it built in.
|
| > No way to remove UI elements. I don't want a notification icon
| in the top right of my screen. I prefer having the clock on the
| left. Trivial in Linux, static in MacOS.
|
| - Correct
|
| > Window snapping. On Ubuntu, I drag a window to the side or to a
| corner, and it snaps into position. Vital when using multiple
| windows at once. On Mac there's a half-hearted splitscreen view
| which only supports horizontal splitting. Useless on a vertical
| monitor.
|
| - There are tools for this. But yeah the splitscreen really
| sucks.
|
| > See tooltips. I can't see them on Mac when I have a larger
| cursor. Weird!
|
| - You found a minor UI issue
|
| > Mount an SSH or NFS drive. In Ubuntu, I get a nice little GUI
| for picking network shares. Impossible on Mac.
|
| - Sure. There are tools for it, but there's also a connect
| window. Not as nice though.
|
| > Wobbly Windows! Seriously MacOS. Where's the fun?
|
| - I dunno.. The genie effect?
| quibono wrote:
| > Sure I'll bite.. You're talking about Ubuntu, but can you do
| everything with Ubuntu running KDE or any other WM/DE?
|
| Yes.
|
| Apart from the Menu bar size it seems like your answer to
| everything is third party tools, which the author mentions at
| the beginning of the post.
|
| > - Mouse -> Primary mouse button: left/right. Or use tools
|
| Which tools specifically?
|
| > - On Android you can set the type of connection when you plug
| it in (debug/dev/files). I guess that all depends on which
| Android you have?
|
| I don't think this will help for most Android devices since it
| will try to connect through MTP (which isn't supported by macOS
| without external tools?).
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Sure, but it doesn't mean you _can 't_ do it. There are
| plenty of things I can't do - out of the box - with Ubuntu.
| Doesn't mean you can't do it. Heck. If I install Ubuntu
| minimal I can't do anything. Ubuntu is one big 3rd party tool
| collection.
|
| > Which tools specifically? bettertouchtool
|
| On my xiaomi or galaxy, can't remember, as they are useless
| since the software isn't updated anymore. It prompts me on
| how I want to connect when I plug in a USB cable.
|
| > I know you're going to be tempted to reply with "you're
| using it wrong" - but I'm not. This is how I like to use my
| computer. And it is clear that the MacBook isn't my computer
| - it is Apple's. (OK, OK! It belongs to my employer!)
|
| This comment makes no sense. It's your computer. You can
| install all these tools if you want.
| Liquid_Fire wrote:
| > It's your computer. You can install all these tools if
| you want.
|
| I'm not sure what you're arguing here - it's literally not
| their computer, but their employer's. The employer can set
| policies on what you can or cannot install, whether
| technically enforced or not. By installing random third-
| party software, they may be breaching these policies.
|
| And yes, one could possibly get approval from the employer
| to install them (or maybe not - can you trust that this
| tool will not steal all your data?), but that is a lot of
| hassle for fixing such trivial things.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| "it is Apple's"
|
| Sure they can set policies. But their policy is to use
| Apple. So no list of things will help here, as the policy
| is to _not_ use Ubuntu. Which means he can do exactly
| nothing with Ubuntu or Windows for that matter.
|
| They could also mandate to not use an external mouse and
| keyboard. They can be bugged or wireless traffic can be
| captured
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" I find the menu bar at the top too small. The only way to do
| this on MacOS is to lower the resolution of the entire screen!"_
|
| System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Display -> Menu bar size
|
| (This doesn't let you change the menu bar to a different font,
| but it does make the whole menu bar including the font _bigger_ ,
| without changing the screen resolution, which seems to be what
| the author wants?)
| edent wrote:
| Have you tried it recently? The difference it makes is - at
| least on my Mac - only a couple of pixels. The "large" size is
| hardly bigger than the regular one.
| lloeki wrote:
| > Resize the system font
|
| I thought Accessibility settings had that, but:
|
| > I find the menu bar at the top too small.
|
| So not system font, menu bar size relative to the rest.
|
| Accessibility settings>Display>Menu bar size>Large
|
| > Focus Follow Mouse
|
| There used to be this, not sure if it works still:
| defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -bool false
|
| Otherwise apps like AutoRaise can achieve that.
|
| > Change my mouse button order
|
| USB Overdrive is a crazy good piece of software allowing that and
| more like full tracking speed and acceleration control, for any
| USB or Bluetooth input device (keyboards, mice, gamepads) either
| globally, per device, and/or per app.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| > defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -bool
| false
|
| I've heard that ffm is available on Terminal. Cute, but I need
| it for every window and between apps.
| lloeki wrote:
| https://github.com/sbmpost/AutoRaise then, as mentioned
| before.
|
| Although what you can't do (I think) is having (input) focus
| on a non-raised window, because that would break the focused-
| app-is-active-app-hence-menubar (because keyboard shortcuts)
| model imposed by the window manager.
| asmr wrote:
| Using macOS is for a certain kind of experience. it's like fast
| food, they want basically every use to have the same experience
| indeterminate of skill level. also, cyberduck is pretty amazing
| for ftp/sshfs and so on.
| robotburrito wrote:
| For me I love GNU/Linux, but it seems I miss the things my Mac
| has when I'm on it, and when I'm on my Mac I miss some of the
| things my GNU/Linux box can do.
|
| Once mobile comes into play, it's literally not even a contest
| anymore, I gave up on trying to have a mobile experience as good
| as Mac.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Interestingly, changing the mouse buttons is a built-in feature
| of Windows. We can all shit on Windows but they are king of
| accessibility.
| mrob wrote:
| Some others I've noticed after using MacOS briefly:
|
| Disable font anti-aliasing and enable full hinting (essential to
| get sharp fonts without needing a slower and more expensive 4K
| monitor)
|
| Disable vsync (necessary for reducing latency to the absolute
| minimum when you don't care about tearing; requires Xorg)
|
| Disable window decorations (for a pseudo-fullscreen mode that
| leaves the panel visible)
|
| Disable mouse acceleration
|
| Disable mouse wheel acceleration
|
| Change mouse polling rate
|
| Set keyboard auto-repeat to arbitrary values (I use 72Hz auto-
| repeat with 200ms delay)
|
| Remap colors for compatibility with display hardware with non-
| standard black/white levels (I have a DVI to VGA converter that
| expects TV black level but computer white level)
|
| Send arbitrary DDC commands to the monitor (e.g. to change
| brightness)
|
| Disable and enable the mouse in software (to prevent accidentally
| waking from power saving with mouse movements)
|
| Switch virtual desktops by moving the mouse to the corner of the
| screen and then moving the mouse wheel (corners have infinite
| size for the purposes of Fitt's law, and mouse wheel inputs
| should only change presentation of data not the data itself,
| which means there's no danger from missing the corner, so this is
| the best way of quickly switching desktops by mouse).
|
| Disable all UI animations
| janandonly wrote:
| Here I was, all this time, being happy and fully content with my
| MacBook Air.
|
| How silly of me, I should have been upset and angry, and I did
| not even know it...
| timcavel wrote:
| z_zetetic_z wrote:
| Disabling acceleration on scroll wheels of 3rd party mice - Nope.
| Can you stand scrolling 1 pixel, 1 pixel, 1 pixel, 1/3 the whole
| screen? I can't.
|
| Want to use a 15 year old DSLR as a webcam over USB? Nope.
|
| I sent the MBP back. No way I'm putting up with that crap!
| threeseed wrote:
| > Disabling acceleration on scroll wheels of 3rd party mice
|
| That's an issue with your mouse software.
|
| > Want to use a 15 year old DSLR as a webcam over USB
|
| OBS Studio can help or Elgato Cam Link if your DSLR supports
| HDMI.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Also have the same problem and my mouse doesn't have its own
| software, it's just a standard USB mouse.
|
| So in a way, sure, it's a problem with my mouse software. The
| stock one. :)
| z_zetetic_z wrote:
| Sounds like "You are holding it wrong"
|
| Err, what software? I can set scroll wheel acceleration on
| ubuntu, with no additional software.
|
| Using HDMI on my camera has a lower resolution output than
| USB, plus it has an overlay. Again on Ubuntu, USB just works.
| spicybright wrote:
| > Change my mouse button order
|
| Wow, this one actually surprised me quite a bit.
|
| Apple makes some of the best accessibility tools (imo), but I
| just did a dive in the settings and couldn't find anything!
|
| Alternatives have been mentioned here, but I use
| https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ for stuff like this
| typically.
|
| It takes a bit of setup, but it's an extremely flexible and solid
| tool so far for me. It exposes a lot on a lower level which makes
| it feel more stable in general.
| ivanche wrote:
| At least changing mouse button order (and much more complex
| keyboard modifications such as remapping keys, assigning
| different commands to F keys, making a hyper key, turning on
| super-duper mode etc.) is possible with Karabiner Elements.
| rsync wrote:
| I thought focusfollowsmouse was now available inside
| accessibility settings menu ?
|
| That is, without any third party additions, I was under the
| impression you could achieve FFM by enabling a very particular
| setting inside the accessibility menu in system settings.
|
| I can't test this because I don't have a modern enough OSX
| running in my office but I swear I saw this as of High Sierra or
| something.
|
| Am I making this up ?
| Klonoar wrote:
| Oh, wow. I thought I was going crazy but this comment makes me
| think maybe not.
|
| When I was skimming this thread last night I was positive this
| was an option at one point but when I went into System
| Preferences to look I could no longer find it. Was making me
| lose my mind.
|
| Or maybe we're at a Berenstein/Berenstain situation here.
| rsync wrote:
| Well, again, I cannot look as I do not have any OSX running
| later than El Capitan ... but if anyone wants to poke around
| accessibility settings and look ...
| vondro wrote:
| Apart from written in the article, my 2 cents:
|
| - cannot invert scrolling just for mouse (I use normal mouse with
| wheel, not apple mouse) -> I have an app for that
|
| - cannot connect Mac to a low dpi screen (like 1080p) without
| macOS looking like crap
|
| On the other hand, macOS can run MS Office, or professional video
| and photo editing apps, which Linux cannot do. Alternatives
| exist, but are IMO worse.
| tgv wrote:
| IIRC, there's a horrible work-around for the first item: hook
| up a magic mouse, invert the direction, and then plug in your
| mouse.
| vondro wrote:
| Since I don't have (nor plan to have) Magic mouse, that's
| kinda expensive solution :)
|
| I use this instead: https://github.com/pilotmoon/Scroll-
| Reverser and it works well. Generally my preferred settings
| is like this: natural scrolling (ie. the mac default) for
| trackpad, but inversed (ie. linux/windows default) scrolling
| for mouse.
| zuhsetaqi wrote:
| So if you connect a Magic Mouse and change the scrolling
| direction for the mouse it DOESN'T change the scrolling
| direction of the Trackpad?
| hk1337 wrote:
| > If I stick a USB cable between my phone and Linux laptop, I can
| see the Android files on my laptop. I can open them, move them
| around, etc. On a Mac I need to install some shonky 3rd party
| software which rarely works.
|
| You didn't used to have to do that in macOS? I remember plugging
| in my android phone and it mounting my memory card. Is OP
| referring to accessing something else?
|
| > Mount an SSH or NFS drive
|
| > In Ubuntu, I get a nice little GUI for picking network shares.
| Impossible on Mac.
|
| I'm a little curious what the difference is between macOS and
| Linux here.
|
| There's definitely a lot of legitimate points here and a few
| questions on others.
| Haydos585x2 wrote:
| They're referring to Android File Transfer, which I agree is a
| shoddy piece of third party software.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Kind of like the app you had to use to side load apps and do
| android development back when it first started?
| Chernobog wrote:
| The keyword here is "MTP device". Some phones mount as mass
| storage device and works out of the box, but MTP requires extra
| software/drivers.
| hk1337 wrote:
| What's the difference? Do you get full access to the phone
| file system when it's mounted as a MTP device?
| deaddodo wrote:
| Mass Storage devices are attached as block devices. MTP
| devices are attached as file devices. As long as the OS
| understands the filesystem on a block device, it can mount
| it. For file devices, it needs to speak the protocol (in
| this case MTP). MTP is similar to how Apple handles
| attaching of its devices, just a different protocol.
|
| Mass devices can be easily corrupted and have to be
| unmounted from the current device. MTP can stay mounted and
| accessible by the mounting OS and source device
| simultaneously and are much more difficult to corrupt.
|
| It also allows the host device more security and control
| over what the guest can do.
| Liquid_Fire wrote:
| Older versions of Android used to allow mounting as a mass
| storage device, but there are several problems with this:
|
| - You can't allow apps on the phone access to the
| filesystem at the same time as it is mounted as a mass
| storage device (because you may corrupt the FS).
|
| - It doesn't work with full-disk encryption used by newer
| Android versions, because your computer doesn't have the
| key (and the key is probably stored somewhere in the TPM of
| your phone, encrypted by your password).
|
| - It requires the computer to support the FS used by the
| phone, which means necessarily using something that
| Windows/macOS supports (which mostly limits it to
| FAT/exFAT/NTFS)
|
| So starting from Android... 5 or so? you can't mount as
| mass storage anymore. This probably consists of 99.5%+ of
| currently functioning Android phones.
| zekica wrote:
| This refers to MTP (Media Transfer Protocol). Very old Android
| devices (with Android 2.x) used to pass-thru the SD card to the
| host as a USB Storage Device, but that solution was clunky as
| it requires detaching the SD card from the phone itself.
|
| MTP is file-level protocol and you can continue accessing all
| files on the phone at the same time as accessing them from your
| computer. MTP is part of the "Windows Media" framework and so
| works out-of-the-box in Windows. Linux supports it for 8+ years
| through GVFS and KIO, while Apple doesn't to this day.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Ah, thank you. Clearly, things have changed a lot since I
| used an Android device.
| hit8run wrote:
| Good luck doing iOS development on a Linux machine. The Mac is a
| polished system that also offers very good proprietary software
| that is hard to find on Linux. I also sometimes feel tempted to
| switch but the integration with my iPhone, iPad, appletv and all
| the software I bought established a very nice vendor lock. Also
| if I was to run Linux I seriously wouldn't know what PC to buy
| that comes close to a MacBookPro or any other m1 machine (I'm
| open to proposals).
| ostenning wrote:
| People who run macOS: Use the Rectangle app. It allows
| beautifully snapping windows to half or a quarter of the screen,
| and more.
|
| Which I switched from Arch back to macOS this was the first I
| downloaded to improve productivity.
| slowmotiony wrote:
| I remember I used to be able to force-quit an app by two-finger
| tapping on the red "close" button. Then suddenly after some
| update, the feature is gone. I hate when they change shit for no
| reason and dont think for a second about breaking peoples
| workflow.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| The Apple line of thinking probably is that force closing apps
| shouldn't be a part of peoples workflow.
| Klonoar wrote:
| They explicitly keep the Apple icon menu entry for this, so
| they're not hiding it from people.
|
| I'd put more money on people on Touchpad devices force
| quitting more often than anticipated, so they removed it.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Well my thinking is that homelessness shouldn't be a thong in
| a first world country, and but this'solution' is like making
| homelessness illegal and declaring that you solved the
| problem.
|
| Clearly the appropriate solution would be to somehow make
| sure that I never need to force close the application, but
| the damn thing won't even let me restart if some app has hung
| (I am looking at you MS teams!)
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| The line of thinking that they decide what should be part of
| my workflow is exactly what bothers me so much about macOS.
|
| For me it's also ingrained Command-Q into my brain to close
| an app. Especially because even before this change apps often
| didn't close when you closed the last window. It's always
| been like that. Only some apps like System Preferences do it.
| sgt wrote:
| Try the other way around. Much longer list, I guarantee you.
| edent wrote:
| I would be delighted to read your blog post on it.
| headsoup wrote:
| Go on then, you start
| sgt wrote:
| No need, you can just go read on https://itvision.altervista.
| org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.t...
| DocTomoe wrote:
| After a quick scan, that list is full of stuff that either
| has never been an issue with me (who has been a Linux
| desktop user since 2002) or is actually an advantage of the
| ecosystem (and won't be a problem for people not
| continuously distro-hopping, e.g. "desktop users"). Some
| even seem like wilful lies (e.g. the one about Windows and
| Mac allowing you to 'configure everything via the GUI').
|
| In short, it's FUD, and the author is not honest in his
| assessment. As such, the article is without merit. So, what
| can _you_ not do on Linux that you can do on Mac?
| franciscop wrote:
| I'll start with things that I'm happy to have in mac that
| didn't have in Linux :)
|
| - Cannot run a bunch of programs that stay on the topbar,
| like LINE (https://line.me/en/), Kap (https://getkap.co/),
| etc. I am a fairly heavy user of Kap and I love the
| interface, so this is probably the biggest differentiator for
| me. I can use Gimp, Inkscape, etc. on Mac so this is not
| really reversible.
|
| - The visual quality of the programs in Mac is generally a
| lot higher, and humans do like aesthetic visuals. For example
| the "CPU indicator" (iStat) I have in mac is an order of
| magnitude better, same as VPN tool, etc.
|
| - Upgrading the OS to a major version without worrying if
| I'll be able to boot next time.
|
| - (unfair?) 10+ hours of real-world battery usage, in Linux I
| could often get half of the advertised 5-6h battery life from
| the PCs if lucky
|
| - A lot more hardware stuff with the M1 Macbook Air, like the
| amazing touchpad, keyboard (in new models), etc. Some will
| say it's fair to compare them some won't, so I'll leave that
| up to you but summarize them all in this point. I want to try
| Asahi Linux when it comes out stable though!
|
| - Drivers all work very well, it's like they built them on
| purpose for their hardware (!). No more fighting with
| pulseaudio.
|
| However overall I've found them to be a lot more similar than
| dissimilar to my surprise, swapping from one to another as a
| normal everyday JS dev is fairly trivial. To add on the
| author's list, the biggest issue I have is with external
| USBs, I like having them encrypted for backups and there
| doesn't seem to be an easy way to do that with mac. I had no
| trouble with AndroidUSB, just install it and it behaves just
| like another filesystem program.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| "A program doent work on another OS" isn't really a fair
| complaint. If you need a screen recorder widget that can be
| done.
|
| The visual quality of a well-themed KDE or similar DE is
| imo above and beyond anything macOS can do.
|
| In 2022, booting a new OS update is not a problem that
| exists anymore on Linux. If you use a rolling release, you
| don't even need to worry about major updates, they're not a
| thing. Meanwhile, update hell on macOS has been a big issue
| for me in the past.
|
| As far as drivers, ime on dozens of laptops there is no
| real issue beyond GPUs on laptop (Optimus) and WiFi, also
| pulseaudio isn't a thing anymore. But it's a "cry once"
| kind of situation.
| franciscop wrote:
| I'm not complaining, I'm listing things that I'm happy to
| have in mac that I don't have in Linux, so def fair to
| list a specific program that is mac-only.
| fsflover wrote:
| > - Drivers all work very well, it's like they built them
| on purpose for their hardware (!). No more fighting with
| pulseaudio.
|
| Same with Linux - if you choose appropriate hardware
| designed for Linux, instead of installing it on random
| hardware.
| memetomancer wrote:
| "Lusers are stoopid" is no mantra, it is childish
| nonsense.
| fsflover wrote:
| This is not what I'm saying. Most people install Linux on
| their Windows-certified laptop and complain that
| suspend/WiFi/sound doesn't work. If you bought
| preinstalled, everything would be flawless (it is for
| me).
| viraptor wrote:
| > Drivers all work very well, it's like they built them on
| purpose for their hardware (!). No more fighting with
| pulseaudio.
|
| Pulseaudio is not related to drivers, but since you
| mentioned it, pipewire replaced pulse recently and it's way
| better than anything macos provides. You just can't operate
| on audio channels this way on a Mac.
|
| On the other hand, there's lots of drivers which are
| missing on a Mac or require obnoxious upstream apps. For
| example Logitech has a 300MB macos app for configuring my
| mouse, 200MB app for the camera, and printer/scanner comes
| with ads. They work... sind of. Same settings/devices are
| exposed in Linux by default, without extra work.
|
| > Upgrading the OS to a major version without worrying if
| I'll be able to boot next time.
|
| You've been lucky. I've lost the system twice due to
| updates.
|
| LINE works through Wine, if you ever need it on Linux. http
| s://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio...
| vondro wrote:
| > Upgrading the OS to a major version without worrying if
| I'll be able to boot next time.
|
| Yeah, well my friend's Intel Mac mini got bricked when he
| updated from Big Sur to Monterey in the first week after
| release. Needed to send it to Apple service. IMO Mac
| updates are almost as broken nowadays as Linux updates were
| 7+ years ago when I daily driven it.
|
| I also upgraded my Thinkpad X220 from Windows 7 to Windows
| 10 when the update showed in my system, and everything
| worked without any reinstall since then.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > the biggest issue I have is with external USBs, I like
| having them encrypted for backups and there doesn't seem to
| be an easy way to do that with mac
|
| Trivial using Disk Utility: https://support.apple.com/de-
| de/guide/disk-utility/dskutl356...
|
| As for backups, I'd just use the disk as an encrypted Time
| Machine target.
| IceWreck wrote:
| Feel free to make a list.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| Seems like the obvious tradeoffs you'd expect, mostly lack of
| control/ability to change things, which I'd expect of MacOS. In
| return you get stability, Apples locked down approach means the
| OS is far more predictable. Linux in my view takes the reverse
| approach, you lose stability relative to MacOS in exchange for
| complete control. Historically Windows has sat somewhere in the
| middle, though in recent years with all the telemetry and bloat
| has made it a hard sell in any area other than legacy
| compatibility (which is a shame, because that middle option is
| desperately needed by a lot of people, but I dont think its as
| indestructible as Microsoft seems to think).
|
| Though I haven't used MacOS in a very long time so I could be
| wrong.
| baby wrote:
| And airdrop. I could never live without airdrop again. It's
| really annoying actually as I want to try the folding phones
| from samsung but they don't have airdrop...
| dotancohen wrote:
| I'm not familiar with AirDrop, but KDE Connect can easily
| send files between the desktop and and Android phone.
| jason0597 wrote:
| > In return you get stability
|
| Does that imply that Linux is not stable? I've had my Arch
| installation for a full year and it has _never_ broken down on
| me. No package has ever broken, and updates are always smooth
| thanks to pacman.
|
| Meanwhile, I can recall a handful of instances where bugs
| slipped into the macOS userspace in the last year (and made it
| to the front page of Hacker News)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Does that imply that Linux is not stable?
|
| I think I've almost never seen someone connect to a projector
| from Linux without some kind of glitch along the way.
| ars wrote:
| I have to reboot my Mac machine every couple days because
| it forgets that the external monitor exists if you
| disconnect it and try to reconnect it.
|
| My Linux machine on the other hand has never even once done
| that.
| brimble wrote:
| > Does that imply that Linux is not stable?
|
| The desktop environment is not, no. Various applications one
| is likely to run on it are not, compared to some closed-
| source alternatives, including those provided on macOS.
|
| Heavy Linux on the Desktop user for about 10 years, here
| (~2001-2011). I still try it periodically. I see a lot more
| bad glitches, X/Wayland crashes (may as well be a whole
| system crash, on a desktop), and application crashes, on
| Linux than elsewhere. I find it's most stable when I build up
| from something minimal and hand-configure everything, but I
| just don't have time for that anymore, and stopped finding it
| entertaining years ago.
| silon42 wrote:
| Personally, I'd have to spend as much or more time tweaking
| the mac (finding helper apps) to work the way I want
| (starting with Ctrl/Alt swap, and then reconfiguring the
| broken apps).
| bodge5000 wrote:
| I wouldn't say its not stable, as much as I wouldnt say you
| have no control of macOS, its just less so, generally
| speaking.
|
| So many variables (mainly who's using the computer and for
| what) go into this that its impossible to speak for everyone,
| but yeh generally speaking macOS is more stable than linux.
| You might have experienced more stability, whereas someone
| else might have experienced more control using macOS than on
| linux.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| My personal laptop is a mac os, and agree with some of the
| criticism. However, stability-wise, it has been rock-solid.
|
| I also manage my own Ubuntu desktop for work, and had to
| reinstall the system 3 times from scratch because it magically
| stopped working. In the end it turned out to be something with
| a new kernel, but it took me, dunno, 2 days to debug.
| sircastor wrote:
| I've had work machines running stock Ubuntu, getting
| Canonical recommended updates totally fail to boot. Cue a day
| or so of trying to read instructions on my phone on how to
| roll-back the kernel, or simply reinstall Ubuntu over the
| existing installation so I could just get back to work.
|
| It's the reason I didn't move to Linux at home when Mac
| laptops were getting so awful a few years ago.
| marlowe221 wrote:
| I don't know what I have to do to get the sublime desktop
| experience that macOS is famous for...
|
| My work-issued Macbook Pro regularly forgets which monitor
| (my external monitor or the built-in display) is the primary
| monitor and moves the dock and task bar between them
| seemingly at random.
|
| My mouse sensitivity is cranked all the way up but my mouse
| still feels like it's mired in tar compared to my Windows and
| Linux machines.
|
| The dock is always in the way. I can hide it when a window
| approaches/overlaps it, but it often takes multiple swipes
| with the mouse to get it to reappear. Completely removing the
| dock (which would be my preference) does not seem to be an
| option. I was able to move it to the left side of the screen,
| which is better - why take up so much valuable vertical
| screen real estate with a top bar and a dock on the bottom???
|
| So... I don't know. I'm not seeing it personally. For me
| Gnome, KDE, Windows 10, and Windows all provide a better GUI
| desktop experience than macOS.
| Klonoar wrote:
| If you want to "get rid" of the dock, there's an
| unconventional trick for this I use: you can set a much
| longer hover timer via defaults in terminal.
|
| I set mine to around 40 seconds. I haven't seen my dock a
| year or so.
|
| Note I've not jumped to Monterey yet so this is untested
| there.
| skydhash wrote:
| > but my mouse still feels like it's mired in tar
|
| I think you need to increase the tracking speed in "Mouse"
| preferences. Mine is about 75% and I can move across a
| 1440px screen with just a small flick.
| somebehemoth wrote:
| People that don't know how to use and maintain Linux should
| not be the metric for Linux stability.
|
| Linux will let you shoot yourself in the foot. That is not a
| Linux problem, PEBKAC.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| If it's not working, you're obviously using it wrong.
| [deleted]
| bodge5000 wrote:
| > However, stability-wise, it has been rock-solid.
|
| Oh sorry, might not have been very clear, thats what I meant.
|
| As I say I haven't used MacOS in a while, but in my eyes its
| always been the strongest choice in terms of stability, with
| the tradeoff being control and to an extent (depending on
| what your doing with it) compatibility.
|
| Windows seems to specialise in compatibility, Linux in
| control (I prefer saying that than customisation, which in my
| view makes light of it) and MacOS in stability.
| danmur wrote:
| I must not be taxing my Linux computers enough :)
| tobbe2064 wrote:
| I am currently using M1 at work and it sucks Ass. The two main
| painpoints are the unpredicble window manager and the keyboard
| layout. WM: 1. There is no deterministict layouts available 2.
| You can not tab between windows of the same application,
| (problematic if you use multiple chrome profiles) 3. Switching
| to a window USUALLY opens the wrong one. In my case, I somehow
| always endup in VS Code when tabbing to Teams 4. Switching
| between workspaces (or maximized windows if) sometimes causes
| the computer to hang.
|
| The second painpoint is the keyboard layout, which also sucks
| ass; 1. ~|"@, are all in the wrong places. 2. Some idiot
| decided to prioritice control keys ahead of functions keys, so
| I have to press fn to use standard debugging keys.
|
| My i3/arch setup is far more reliable and ergonomic.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Point 2 is handled with cmd` (backtick). The fn keys thing is
| a setting
| epapsiou wrote:
| Stability ???? Ubuntu is far more stable. Have never had issues
| wrt stability. I have had issues with support as in some
| software do not work on linux (Turbo Tax , Games etc) but never
| in stability. Have been using linux desktops since 2010
| baby wrote:
| Just had a coworker who had to wipe out his laptop to upgrade
| ubuntu version. Literally never happened to me on mac
| dosethree wrote:
| in the old days I would format before upgrading osx. if you
| use a bunch of developer tools, they would often break with
| osx versions. remember macports? wiping every year or so
| isn't a big deal when everything is in the cloud. haven't
| needed to in years, though
| aulin wrote:
| I guess he wanted to upgrade to the newly released 22.04,
| am I right? upgrade is temporarily disabled due to some bug
| they're sorting out. Guess he didn't read the release notes
| and did a full reinstall out of frustration.
| https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/jammy-jellyfish-release-
| notes...
| dotancohen wrote:
| I haven't used Windows since 2005, so my opinion might be
| unwarranted, but I've been upgrading my home Linux distro
| since sometime before 2010 without a clean wipe. During
| that time I've heard of so many Windows "fix it by
| reinstalling" stories that I wonder if that is simply the
| default first step in Windows troubleshooting. After
| turning it off and back on, of course.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| To be fair. There's a bunch of issues around upgrading to
| 22.04 because of snaps...
| dotancohen wrote:
| Terrific, thank you. That is to be the project this
| coming weekend, though I wasn't expecting problems.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| > Have been using linux desktops since 2010
|
| Thats probably why its so stable for you, you know it well,
| and that increased control of it allows you to make it as
| stable as you need.
|
| However, generally speaking, Linux does not specialise in
| stability
| FredPret wrote:
| You're kidding right? Linux as a desktop OS is a dumpster
| fire in my experience. Many times I've had a system working
| for a couple of months, only to be laid low mysteriously by
| an update. This happened on everything from Ubuntu to Mint to
| Arch.
|
| The last straw for me (not stability related) was when I
| needed to scan something. Cue hours spent in the terminal...
| still no scanning.
|
| MacOS will keep working for years for most everyone and has
| all basic functionality in place or easily installable. The
| same is true for Linux as a server, which I use every day.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| > MacOS will keep working for years for most everyone
|
| My working mac hangs about 1 time in 3 days. With
| completely un-addressable memory leak and lag. And close
| everything don't help either. The only way I found to solve
| it reliably is a reboot. While my linux vm and main windows
| system lives like forever (heck, I don't even bother to
| reboot them if not a update, because why?).
|
| From my perspective, I though you are just kidding. I don't
| even see it runs perfectly more than one week.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| So what sounds more plausible:
|
| - Lots of people happily use "a dumpster fire" where you
| have "hours spent in the terminal... still no scanning" and
| are completely unbothered by serious issues you are
| describing.
|
| - Your exaggeration is absolutely ridiculous.
|
| Criticism is fine, but at least make it sound vaguely
| plausible.
| FredPret wrote:
| You are the one exaggerating by saying "lots of people"
| and "completely unbothered". Linux on the desktop is
| famous for being neither popular nor easy, surely this
| isn't new information for you.
|
| If you like it, knock yourself out. I'll stick to OS's
| that employ product managers for my daily drivers.
| zmxz wrote:
| Why would the person be kidding? Why is it a dumpster fire
| in your experience?
|
| My work PC has the uptime of 3 months right now. I've been
| using this particular PC for 26 months, with Ubuntu
| installed. No crashes. No problems. No slowdowns.
|
| These testimonials where someone says "but it's <insert
| reasons that confirm it's bad>" are difficult to relate
| with. I also scan and print from time to time, I'm not
| advanced user of scanners/printers - but after plugging the
| devices in via USB, they did their job.
|
| I had the pleasure of trying to work with containers on Mac
| the other day. After 10 minutes I gave up. Mac is a great
| machine but it's not for me, it definitely has its audience
| and I can tell it's great because it helps many types of
| users cut a lot of corners. I'm sure I could get containers
| to work with M1, if there was any kind of benefit to use a
| machine which is, hardware-wise, slower than the beefy one
| I use with Linux.
| subjectsigma wrote:
| We must live in a different universe then. My Ubuntu
| desktop crashed three times in one day yesterday. I was
| trying to run a Windows-only application in WINE and for
| some reason all of GNOME crashes when I open a pulldown
| menu. I had to C-M-F1 and use systemctl to restart the
| window manager. Never did get it working.
|
| If testimonials about Linux being unstable are hard to
| relate to, you are absolutely in the minority of computer
| users or you have not used Linux very long. I still
| remember the days where I had to (lightly) edit C source
| code to get my WiFi drivers working...
| icedchocolate wrote:
| I am literally never able to install my household name
| desktop apps that I use daily on Mac, when I try Ubuntu,
| without the thing crashing my whole computer. It's insane.
| viraptor wrote:
| Let me add: Use scrolling to adjust the volume or other sliders.
| This is so useful in KDE, but you can't do it on MacOs
| tambourine_man wrote:
| >I've never "got" the appeal of a Mac
|
| It's hard to keep reading when this is the first sentence. You
| can't really criticize something you admittedly haven't "got".
|
| I had the opposite experience almost 40 years ago with the
| classic Mac and 20 years ago with Mac OS X. The appeal was
| obvious and instant.
|
| The only thing I can relate to from the post is that I wish Apple
| added native support for FUSE.
| boesboes wrote:
| very true, macos is shit for cusomization & the window manager is
| always fighting me. I am actively paying for the development of
| Asahi so I can run a more customizable/less bloaty OS on my M1.
| ngl, I'd use windows on it if I had too. Luckily macos is
| available ;)
|
| That being said, I've tied using a pure linux system for my work.
| I gave up when I couldn't get a somewhat current ruby version
| installed withing 30 minutes. The grass is a vague yellow on all
| sides if you ask me.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I had to use a Mac at work some time ago. Here's my list:
|
| * Cannot drag to copy, middle-click to paste.
|
| * No way to disable sticky keys lock.
|
| * No way to set ESC as Caps Lock.
|
| * No way to set a keyboard shortcut for each specific language.
| (I use five)
|
| * Alt-tab to an _Application_, not a _Window_. How many times
| will I Alt-Tab to.... nothing!
|
| * Return from sleep will rearrange the order of the connected
| monitors, even though they have not been disconnected, if the
| laptop lid is not opened.
| serial_dev wrote:
| While your point is true, that you cannot set ESC to Caps Lock
| _without external apps_ , you can use Karabiner to do that.
| Very useful when typing, and with Vim https://karabiner-
| elements.pqrs.org/
|
| The command+tab switch is also driving me insane!
|
| I loved Ubuntu's (probably around 12.04?) window+workspace (or
| however they called it) handling, but as all the teams I worked
| on, the devs used Mac, I decided to give in and switch. I miss
| the window handling options, but hopefully I gain from other
| aspects (such as being able to rely on coworkers in case
| something doesn't work as expected).
| [deleted]
| shagie wrote:
| You can do it in the modifier keys section of the keyboard
| control - https://imgur.com/a/Mch75L0
|
| I've done this on my Macbook that has the Touch Bar and lacks
| an escape key to make vi possible.
| koprulusector wrote:
| Wait you want to set ESC as caps lock? I personally set Caps
| Lock to ESC but never heard of anyone wanting to do the other
| way around...
| dotancohen wrote:
| I use Caps Lock to swap languages. Win-1 is English, Win-2 is
| Hebrew, etc etc for Russian Arabic and Greek. But Caps Lock
| swaps between the last two used languages, e.g. so that I can
| write an English-Hebrew message to one colleague but I can
| write Hebrew-Arabic in a chat with a friend.
|
| As a VIM user, I prefer the Escape function closer, where the
| Caps Lock key is. But having the old Esc key function as Caps
| Lock allows KDE to recognize it to swap languages.
| shrew wrote:
| Ah that last point really struck a nerve.
|
| - Open lid
|
| - Lock screen shows
|
| - Screen fades to black as it realises there's an external
| monitor
|
| - Finally unlock, windows are all bunched up on the internal
| display
|
| - Everything becomes unresponsive, maybe even another fade to
| black
|
| - A minute after initially opening the lid, suddenly all the
| windows pop back into place
|
| I have no idea if this is improved on M1 machines, but it's
| frustrating enough on my Intel 16" that I've just pushed all
| the auto-lock timeouts to excessively large durations.
| shric wrote:
| It's vastly improved on the M1 machines, I shared the same
| frustrations on the Intel 16".
| maleldil wrote:
| IME, macOS (Monterey on M1 Pro) handles this better than
| Windows 10. Everything goes to the right places right away,
| whereas in Windows you'd have windows all over the place.
| shric wrote:
| Windows 10 also, last time I checked, doesn't understand
| the concept of DPI properly. No idea if it's been fixed in
| 11.
|
| That is, if you have for example a 27" 4K monitor next to a
| 27" 1080p monitor then the 1080p version is treated as
| though it's 25% of the size and the mouse gets "stuck" in
| the 4K monitor unless you're within the 50% of the screen
| that Windows thinks your 1080p monitor is adjacent to. This
| works sanely in macOS as it rightly treats each monitor as
| having the same size.
|
| It's even more comical if you have a very high dpi laptop
| next to a 1080p or 1440p large desktop monitor.
| happymellon wrote:
| Sort of. In my experience, MacOS cannot reliably handle
| multiple external monitors.
|
| It is really forgetful and switches the order of them when
| it wakes seemingly at random.
| natdempk wrote:
| You can use this app to get the alt-tab behavior from Windows
| on macOS if you want: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/
| latexr wrote:
| > Cannot drag to copy
|
| Hold [?].
|
| > Alt-tab to an _Application_, not a _Window_.
|
| It's [?]=.
|
| I think (at least some of) the others can also be done, but I'm
| not at my machine right now to check.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _Hold [?]._
|
| Okay, I tried it. Cmd+V doesn't paste what was highlighted.
| (The parent is referencing Linux's selection, which, AFAIK,
| doesn't exist in _any_ form on macOS. iTerm2 tries to emulate
| it by using the clipboard, but that 's not the same.)
|
| If I'm supposed to middle click, I have absolutely no idea
| how to do that.
|
| > _It's [?]=._
|
| If "=" is supposed to be "tab", no, that's no it. Cmd+Tab is,
| as op says, a switch between applications, and pulls all
| windows of a given app to the top of the Z-order. Alt+Tab's
| functionality (pull _this particularly window_ to the top of
| the Z-order) is usually exactly what I what -- I want a
| _particular_ browser window, which I have positioned to the
| side so that I can still see, e.g., my editor. But then
| Cmd+Tab fronts unrelated stuff on top of it.
|
| AFAIK, there is no equivalent to Alt+Tab is macOS. There's
| Cmd+`, but it is different still.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > * Return from sleep will rearrange the order of the connected
| monitors, even though they have not been disconnected, if the
| laptop lid is not opened.*
|
| macOS will, for me, happily rearrange windows even _without_
| sleeping it. Just returning to the machine after ~15 minutes
| (all while on external power) is sufficient to get a "hold on
| for 15 seconds while I rearrange the windows like a mad OS".
|
| Meanwhile Linux can resume from sleep pretty much instantly,
| but _Linux_ is the one that has all the trouble, according to
| folklore.
|
| The lack of Alt+Tab kills me to this day. Cmd+Tab just doesn't
| work as well.
| vimy wrote:
| You can remap it in the keyboard settings. I use alt-tab to
| switch between windows of the same app.
| tom_ wrote:
| To remap keys, you may be able to use hidutil. For example, to
| remap the Application key to right-hand Command:
| hidutil property --set '{"UserKeyMapping":[{"HIDKeyboardModifie
| rMappingSrc":0x700000065,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x7000
| 000e7}]}
|
| See
| https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2450...
| [deleted]
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" No way to set ESC as Caps Lock."_
|
| Huh?
|
| System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys -> Caps Lock
| Key
| Hamuko wrote:
| If it's about making the physical Esc key function as a Caps
| Lock, that's not an option in the modifier keys. If it's
| about making the physical Caps Lock key work as an Esc, then
| that's possible.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Oh, yes you're correct. Strange that they let you do it one
| way but not the other.
| shric wrote:
| It's probably because many people have no use for caps
| lock so want an escape key on the home row. Not many
| people want another caps lock key in a hard to reach
| position.
| jerrycruncher wrote:
| Karabiner Elements[1] should let you remap the Esc key.
|
| And, while I don't have personal experience with it, it
| does seem like it may allow you to set up locale-based
| shortcuts, as well[2].
|
| [1] https://karabiner-
| elements.pqrs.org/docs/manual/configuratio...
|
| [2] https://ke-complex-
| modifications.pqrs.org/#international
| lawtalkinghuman wrote:
| > No way to set ESC as Caps Lock.
|
| You should be able to do this with Karabiner Elements.
| lwkl wrote:
| I totally get why you would want these features. But why not just
| use Ubuntu if you want them?
|
| No OS should try to emulate everything that other Operating
| Systems do well. You can't make a highly opinionated OS like
| macOS highly customizable without compromising the initial
| vision. The same is true the other way around.
|
| MacOS allows for a surprising customizability through third-party
| apps and I personally think this is a great solution. It hides
| the complexity in a way that makes it invisible to users that
| would be confused by additional option and allows them to get
| customization as an app that is supported by a third-party dev.
|
| I personally think Windows is what you get if you want to be
| macOS and Linux. I'm financing my studies by supporting MS365
| instances and I don't think it works all too well. While I like
| the new scripting capabilities, the UI definitely got more
| confusing since the Windows 7 days.
|
| TLDR: I personally believe diversity is good for the OS market,
| not every OS has to accommodate every type of user.
| edent wrote:
| > I totally get why you would want these features. But why not
| just use Ubuntu if you want them?
|
| Because, as I say in the post, I have to use one for work.
|
| I agree that diversity is good but there are some things - like
| basic accessibility - which should be non-negotiable. And they
| certainly shouldn't be paid-for addons.
| latexr wrote:
| > there are some things - like basic accessibility - which
| should be non-negotiable.
|
| There are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticise Apple, but
| I disagree that lack of accessibility options is one of them.
| They natively support tons of accessibility features, and as
| far as I'm aware people with disabilities often choose Apple
| products precisely because they excel at it.
| projektfu wrote:
| This was interesting. I was recently setting up a mac with
| Catalina preinstalled and no working monitor so I got the
| opportunity to use voiceover. It isn't very helpful to
| someone who hasn't been using it forever. Some issues:
|
| 1. Doesn't describe the screen well. Either "you are on a
| button" or will read everything with no positional context.
|
| 2. Doesn't tell you when the screen changes. You press
| "continue" and it says "you are on a button"
|
| 3. When you try to move through the list of wifi SSNs it
| jumps to the password entry every time you move without
| telling you which one was selected.
|
| 4. The default speed, 50%, is stupid fast. I had to look up
| how to change the speed.
|
| 5. The tutorial was hard to understand and I had to look up
| the online documentation to get an idea of how it works.
| The accessibility of that site seems pretty low but luckily
| I actually am visual.
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/voiceover/use-voiceover-
| util...
| pacifika wrote:
| I double click on the title bar and macOS maximises it. Not sure
| if that's a third party handling it?
| natch wrote:
| Things I can't do on my Ubuntu machine:
|
| - play audio
|
| - record audio
|
| - anything that relies on the above
|
| The author mentioned a common retort which is "you're doing it
| wrong"... well in my case I most definitely am doing it wrong. I
| don't know how, exactly, but no doubt. But point is with macOS I
| can do nothing and it still just works. Who knows what I would
| have to do to get my Ubuntu machine to work. And it might be the
| machine, not the OS. Another reason bundling the machine and the
| OS together such that they just work is a good idea.
|
| I'll take working audio over any of the author's examples any
| day.
|
| And if your audio works on Ubuntu, great! That just doesn't help
| me though. So Mac it is, as far as audio is concerned.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Pipewire has mostly fixed Linux audio, once it's fully adopted
| I expect these concerns to go away.
|
| I'll agree though, even as a Linux user: audio sucks. For the
| past 20 years there's been like 3 different audio standards,
| each with their own advantages/flaws and nobody settled on one
| that we'd just all use. That's why pipewire exists: you can now
| mix-and-match between all of these systems and get a CoreAudio-
| like experience out-of-the-box. It's very nice, and I can
| genuinely not think of a single use-case that couldn't be
| served by it. You wanna screenrecord while recording from
| YouTube into your DAW while playing a game and livestreaming it
| all at the same time? PipeWire has you covered.
|
| The _real_ shame is window servers. Both xorg and Wayland are
| some of the worst software I 've ever used, and neither of them
| even come close to Quartz on MacOS. It's the main thing that
| keeps Linux feeling like a server OS running desktop software;
| neither of these solutions are complete or stable. There's no
| replacement for them either, Wayland took more than 10 years to
| build and it's still awful and works on a small handful of
| software.
|
| Desktop Linux will always be a niche experience. As someone who
| fits into that niche, I absolutely love it, but I'm not mad or
| confused when people say they simply don't like it; I get it, I
| really do.
| rubinlinux wrote:
| I got introduced to focus-follows-mouse mode when it was the
| default on some X11 unix system I used years ago. I have been
| using linux as a workstation for decades with this feature, and
| loosing it is the biggest barrier to my using a Mac or Windows
| machine for anything serious. (For a few years you could feasibly
| enable this in windows, but it doesn't work well enough to use
| anymore.)
|
| It saddens me that there are so many cases where the 'better' way
| to do things gets lost in the noise of the beginner-friendly
| masses, and can't be standard because people aren't used to it.
|
| Another example of this is electric vehicles and one-pedal
| driving. Only a few EVs (BMW i3, for example) allow you to mainly
| drive with the accelerator, where releasing it slows the car to a
| stop, without use of brakes.
|
| A lot of our electronics suffer from this too. You notice it
| sometimes if you compare electronics sold in Japan to those sold
| in the US. The market here is seen to not support 'too many'
| buttons and features so we get a dumbed down version.
| digisign wrote:
| I use a thing called AutoRaise on the work Mac, seems to work
| well with barrier (synergy).
| recursive wrote:
| > You notice it sometimes if you compare electronics sold in
| Japan to those sold in the US. The market here is seen to not
| support 'too many' buttons and features so we get a dumbed down
| version.
|
| I'm assuming "here" is USA. I don't know much about what's sold
| in Japan, but I feel like most gadgets still have _way_ too
| many buttons. I 'd wager that most microwave users don't know
| what most of the buttons on a microwave do. I certainly don't.
| I'd love to get one with a more streamlined UI, but they're
| hard to find. Remote controls are similar. I'm kind of scared
| to imagine what a Japanese microwave might look like.
| nottorp wrote:
| I wonder if the OP has switched from Windows to Linux initially.
| And did he write a piece complaining that everything isn't
| exactly how they're used to then?
|
| A lot of "i'd switch but" articles - in all directions -
| basically come down to "the destination doesn't work how i'm used
| to". Even though they're fundamentally as crappy in the
| background.
|
| When someone asks me why I use Mac OS as my main desktop I answer
| "it's the least annoying". There is no "best OS" available now.
| navjack27 wrote:
| It really shows people's true colors on how inflexible their
| brains might be by writing articles like this. If you can use
| every OS and have no troubles using each extremely deeply for
| meaningful work you might have a very fluid and adaptive brain.
| That's a plus in being able to get work done in different
| modes.
|
| I use macOS for the same deep work I use Windows 11 desktop for
| and I have no issues switching off into Linux on my cheap
| laptop to get some things done. Why waste time complaining?
| Adapt!
| everdrive wrote:
| Well said. This is always part of why everyone will have
| different favorites. Different OSes have different pain points,
| and not everyone is trying to accomplish the same things with
| their computers.
| unicornfinder wrote:
| I think you've hit the nail on the head. I'm happily using
| Windows now but used a Mac before and it took a long time for
| me to realise that my complaints about Windows largely boiled
| down to "it doesn't do things in the way that I'm used to".
|
| With that said, whilst I do like macOS overall I always found
| it infuriating how on macOS applications could steal focus.
| Something I do appreciate on Windows is that focus stealing by
| and large isn't a thing.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Something I do appreciate on Windows is that focus stealing
| by and large isn't a thing.
|
| Interesting. Focus stealing really is annoying, but from my
| experience Windows is not really better.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Yeah, same. I HATE HATE HATE it, but it happens to me on
| both platforms all the time.
| dotancohen wrote:
| In KDE one can set the focus stealability. That used to be a
| terrible paper cut for me, but now I haven't even thought
| about it in years.
| nottorp wrote:
| > With that said, whilst I do like macOS overall I always
| found it infuriating how on macOS applications could steal
| focus. Something I do appreciate on Windows is that focus
| stealing by and large isn't a thing.
|
| Interesting... I think the last time I used Windows everyone
| and their extended family stole focus all the time. But then
| I moved to Linux as my main desktop OS in like 1998... and to
| Mac OS in 2013.
| dlivingston wrote:
| > Something I do appreciate on Windows is that focus stealing
| by and large isn't a thing.
|
| Until you need to run an app as Administrator, and then...
| _everything_ disappears in favor of a blue screen (even on
| external monitors), with only a single confirmation modal
| remaining.
|
| I've never understood why what is effectively 'sudo' needs to
| be a full-screen event.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| "Things I can't do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu", the author
| forgot to mention that you have to pay ($$) not to be able to do
| those things...
| davidfstr wrote:
| Several of the missing capabilities mentioned here can be done
| with 3rd party tools.
|
| * BetterSnapTool for window snapping and maximization (although I
| prefer Moom for better control).
|
| * Afloat to force a particular window to always be on top.
|
| * TinkerTool to mess with various other settings.
|
| Sure, these may not be "built-in" as first party capabilities,
| but Apple has a history of slowly bringing such capabilities into
| the OS over time. Flux (for altering screen tint at night time)
| became standard. So did TextExpander (for auto-expanding
| abbreviations).
| krnlpnc wrote:
| Things I can't do on Ubuntu which I can do on macOS: Close lid to
| suspend
| throwaway-PII wrote:
| I just hate being told "no" by a piece of software that I paid
| for.
| sylens wrote:
| I'm always amazed at how many little third party utilities or
| programs people recommend downloading or buying just to bring the
| desktop experience on macOS up to parity with Linux (or even
| Windows!).
|
| The lack of snapping/tiling at this point is just a deliberately
| malicious decision. I can't fathom why they will not implement
| some version of this better than that half-hearted split screen
| view that requires a separate virtual desktop.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| In return, I'm amazed that people don't just use the software
| as it's designed. Why do people want to tweak like this?
|
| Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it where
| it is and get on with your job. Lack of customisability gives
| us more stable software.
|
| And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the point
| of that?
| generalk wrote:
| > Like he wants to move the clock. Oh my god just leave it
| where it is > and get on with your job.
|
| I have an ultrawide monitor. I would very much like for the
| macOS clock to be centered in the menubar (except when using
| the built-in display, which for some ungodly reason has a
| notch in it) or failing that at least to the left of the menu
| icons. It makes a huge usability difference for me, as
| otherwise I have to physically turn my head, and sometimes
| crane my neck depending on how my eyes are treating me.
|
| This is impossible out of the box, and _maybe_ possible
| depending on what third-party tools I hack together. IIRC
| command-dragging used to work on the clock, but either it
| never did and I 'm misremembering, or the clock and the iOS-
| replica Quick Settings panel are special and exempt.
| > I'm amazed that people don't just use the software as it's
| designed.
|
| Why? Sometimes it's badly designed for a use case you're
| unfamiliar with, and needs a fix. Sometimes it's just
| hobbyists being hobbyists. This forum _is_ called "Hacker
| News," after all.
| SSLy wrote:
| >What on earth is the point of that?
|
| Monkey brain sees shiny things. Monkey brain releases
| dopamine. Monke brain happy.
| sseagull wrote:
| Because people have different needs, expectations, and
| preferences. It's part of what makes humans interesting.
|
| Computers should be made to serve people, not the other way
| around.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Having different preferences, and using a different
| platform that serves them better, is absolutely fine.
|
| Deciding that the platform that doesn't meet your needs is
| somehow illegitimate, "not a computer," or somehow morally
| unacceptable is juvenile fanboy crap.
| nine_k wrote:
| Your game console, your smart TV, and even your microwave
| oven all have computers inside, crucial for their
| interaction with you. But they choose to not expose to
| you the _general_ computing capabilities they possess.
| (Yes, there is a reason for that.)
|
| Truth be told, a Macbook does expose itself as a general
| computing device all right.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't know - I'm a big fan of sensible defaults, lack of
| customisation (so lack of entropy) and just getting on and
| using it as designed, rather than trying to bend it to be
| something else.
|
| I'm not sure there can really be any reasonable requirement
| to move the clock. I think that's just being fussy.
|
| For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that has
| to be built, maintained, tested. Every boolean option you
| add doubles the state space of the application!!
|
| Less is more. This blog post is a set of requirements for a
| Homer car, not a sensible professional tool.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> I 'm a big fan of sensible defaults, lack of
| customisation (so lack of entropy) and just getting on
| and using it as designed, rather than trying to bend it
| to be something else._
|
| This does seem to be the basic philosophy Apple has
| adopted for its devices. Which is why I don't use them. I
| don't like their defaults (which means the whole concept
| of "sensible defaults" doesn't really make sense except
| in reference to some particular set of users, and there
| are many such sets with different preferences), I like
| being able to customize things (because my idea of how I
| want to work is never the same as some designer's idea),
| and I'm going to be doing things that the OS designer
| didn't think of (particularly since I'm a developer). In
| short, my experience with Apple devices is that they
| don't let me work the way I want to work. So I don't work
| with them.
| wara23arish wrote:
| You believe moving the clock is a wacky feature? You can
| already move the macOS dock, so its not like it's unheard
| of in that world.
|
| Sensible defaults are great, but after spending most of
| your day glued to a screen, you start noticing little
| improvements to your workflow. e.g. i dont want to turn
| my head all the way to the right to look at the clock
| (using external monitors)
|
| Thats not a big change, but I believe the sum of all
| those little changes add up
| sseagull wrote:
| I somewhat agree, except maybe:
|
| > This blog post is a set of requirements for a Homer
| car, not a sensible professional tool
|
| "Professional" is a wide category for sure, but I would
| argue professionals are the ones who need more
| customization, not less. They are the ones with esoteric
| tools and workflows, and where customizing their
| environment to match how their mind works allows them to
| focus on the problems at hand and not their tools.
|
| > For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that
| has to be built, maintained, tested
|
| True. However, these are trillion-dollar companies. Look
| at all the options for cars, or refrigerators, or
| whatever. And all these have the constraints of the
| physical world. And all made by companies with a heck of
| a lot less cash than Apple and Microsoft.
| m3adow wrote:
| Funny enough he's answering your complaints in the last
| paragraph. You're telling him he's "holding it wrong".
| Except individual taste can rarely be wrong.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Nobody said his taste was 'wrong'. I don't even know what
| that would mean?
|
| I'm saying he'd get more out the tool by learning and
| embracing the design of it, rather than wishing it was
| something that it isn't. Go with the flow, rather than
| fighting it. Reduce entropy not create it.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| It's the difference between being able to decorate your
| room and put things where they make sense for you vs.
| being given a cookie cutter room with everything bolted
| to the tables and floors. Can I use the latter? Sure. Is
| it functional? Sure. Would it feel like home? Not really.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The maker controls the tools, the tools do not control
| the maker.
|
| You're asking "but why not let the tail wag the dog?"
|
| The tool works or it does not.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > The tool works or it does not.
|
| That's the point. macOS works just fine without wobbly
| windows. We don't need the extra complexity of wobbly
| windows.
| catchclose8919 wrote:
| Or you can design the system generally enough and solidly
| enough in preserving useful invariants that _adding
| wobbly windows to it would be "trivial", and testing it
| would not even be worth it!_
|
| Decades ago a Linux window manager drawing engine added
| wobbly windows _just to show off that with their new
| system was trivial_ not because anyone needed it or
| wanted it! This is the kind of software and attitude _I
| love and want to see everywhere!_ Doing something so well
| that the cost of a "luxury" feature drops to almost
| zeros and you just add it to show off in some free time
| :) Unfortunately not all of Linux is build like this and
| most of its parts are not really compatible with each
| other so they need to be forcibly ducktaped together by
| layers of glue code to resemble a full system, but that's
| a different story...
|
| There's different ways to think about software and do
| software than our hellish local maximum we're stuck in...
| you're just going full "stockholm syndrome" and
| justifying the badly designed an non-extensible non-
| generalizable systems we're stuck with because doing
| things differently would've generated 5% less profit in
| the last quarter :)
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I left MacOS because it stopped working for me, after
| using it for 6+ years.
| sseagull wrote:
| I'll give a bit of a different example.
|
| I was recently playing the remastered Dark Souls on
| Switch. For some reason, they used the Japanese button
| mapping of B and A rather than the usual mapping in the
| US. And you couldn't change it.
|
| I mean, no big deal, I can learn the new mapping. And I
| mostly did. But even after 50-100 hours, I would still
| occasionally press the wrong button (accepting rather
| than cancelling). The previous configuration was so
| ingrained in me that I could not overcome my muscle
| memory without conscious thought.
|
| So even when I really try to "go with the flow" there is
| friction. People come from different backgrounds, using
| different software and different paradigms, and it's not
| really easy at all to remap their way of thinking, even
| if they want to.
| catchclose8919 wrote:
| > For every wacky feature or option someone wants, that
| has to be built, maintained, tested.
|
| No, it doesn't. We seem to have forgotten that there are
| more general ways to think about software and engineering
| and math and the world.
|
| You can just design a system that is guaranteed to work
| fine:
|
| - regardless of where widget X is positioned
|
| - regardless of what font and font size (from an
| interval) and color is selected by the user for a certain
| UI components
|
| - ...and you can have all UI on all apps on the whole
| computer be customizable in the same way _without having
| to write any (zero!) extra lines of code_ by just
| inheriting functionality for some common components
|
| - etc.
|
| You don't have to just dumbly test all scenarios to
| guarantee sane global behaviors of systems.
|
| And you don't get the burden of maintaining the "test
| cases for all possible scenarios" because _you just don
| 't write those tests in the beginning, they are useless
| in a well behaved system that follows LAWS and properly
| preserves INVARIANTS and just burn money through their
| tests-maintainance costs!_ (Like lots/some of pre-web
| systems actually were!)
|
| _We 've now built for ourselves a crazy computing world
| where there are no longer stable (across years and
| decades) contracts, laws and invariants in software, so
| we have to defensively code and over-test everything! We
| could've had-the-cake-and-eaten-it too if we would've
| just put the effort of building more solid software
| foundations for ourselves, but instead we're torturing
| ourselves building Electron web apps on desktops in
| languages with lacking or handicaped type systems and run
| them on operating systems that offer no sane components
| with contractually guaranteed interfaces..._
|
| </rant>
|
| ...imagine if _physics_ worked like that, you 'd have to
| re-test the laws of physics every time you wanted to
| build a house because the laws could vary by
| neighbourhood and not even basic invariants like the
| conservation of energy were guaranteed to hold. _Oh, you
| can 't just ask for more than a 1-room rectangular
| uncostumizable house of standard size, because properly
| testing anything else doesn't crash on you in our
| universe with non-uniform physics is just too expensive!
| Just get used with you sensible defaults citizen, stop
| questioning the party and the world!_
| toper-centage wrote:
| There are different brains out there, and they think
| differently, and understanding that is half way to developing
| empathy, but also extremely important when developing
| accessible applications.
|
| Maybe I don't want to see the clock whenever I look at
| notifications, or vice versa, because that's extremely
| distracting. Lack of customisability gives us less accessible
| software. Apple is _really_ good at accessibility, but at the
| same time really bad.
|
| > And he wants his windows to wobble?
|
| Some people are fun at parties, some are not.
| q3k wrote:
| > And he wants his windows to wobble? What on earth is the
| point of that?
|
| To have wobbly windows.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Window snapping is a pretty basic thing that every non-Mac OS
| and DE does... And it's annoying AF to not have it.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| That's why people always use fullscreen in mac. Because
| window just don't really work well. The only time I ever
| use window is dragging file from finder to vscode. Because
| mac is dumb enough that don't allow drag happen between
| different desktop. (Or I would just drag file from finder
| to vscode on different screen)
| wingerlang wrote:
| Who are these people? I absolutely hate fullscreen in
| macOS and literally only use it for fullscreen videos and
| the like. What part of the window doesn't work well?
| mmis1000 wrote:
| Snapping/alignment, gesture.
|
| The alignment, it don't even support snapping, place two
| windows side by side properly is just like impossible,
| and the + on window go fullscreen unless you hold opt.
|
| You can't just swipe to switch between window. You can
| only swipe between desktop.
|
| I'd wonder which part in mac's window manager actually
| works well (compares to other desktop manager)?
| lilyball wrote:
| > _place two windows side by side properly is just like
| impossible_
|
| macOS has supported automatic snapping while dragging
| windows for years now. Just drag it slowly when you're
| approaching the edge of the other window and the window
| you're dragging will snap to it
| neither_color wrote:
| I like window snapping when I'm using linux and I like
| opening apps in full screen on a mac, just like I do when
| I'm using a phone or a tablet. On windows the application
| window is the application instance, on MacOS the
| application instance is still running even though you
| closed the window. I think this is what throws people off
| when they switch from Windows to Mac. They're used to doing
| things a certain way and when it doesn't work that way they
| complain that it's "broken."
|
| It's like me saying Windows is broken because I have to
| install an app to use SSH, or because I can't just go to
| internet explorer and type vnc://.
| sylens wrote:
| I'll agree with you on things like the clock - never felt the
| need to move it, that's just how it is on macOS.
|
| But I would expect a mature desktop operating system to have
| improved window management capabilities in 2022
| LeFantome wrote:
| Alternative point ( as somebody that uses macOS, Windows,
| and Linux about equally )...
|
| Apple may leave "wobbly windows" or even window manager
| behaviour as the kind of thing a third-party could add.
| They might do this because they want software companies to
| be able to make money making software for the Mac. A rich
| community of software providers is good for a platform.
|
| As a user, this means that high quality software is more
| likely to be available for the Mac than it is for Linux.
| Companies struggle to make money on Linux and so fewer
| companies try. Microsoft used to get roundly criticized for
| adding stuff into Windows for free that third-parties could
| be selling for money instead. In fact, Microsoft was
| branded as "evil" by many for including a web browser for
| free shortly after Netscape had biggest IPO in history
| selling theirs for money.
|
| I prefer the "everything in my distribution" model myself
| but calling an OS a "toy" because it does not bundle a
| utility or functionality that is hardly universal in
| utility or preference does not resonate with me.
|
| Not being able to run the software I need for work is a
| more legitimate beef. I love Linux and I can use it for
| almost anything. I have to admit though that even just
| using it for my work email or calendar is a far inferior
| experience to either Mac or Windows.
|
| For most people, an article about how Linux is still a toy
| because it poorly integrates with iMessage or Face Time may
| even make more sense than complaints about NFS.
|
| I do not like macOS as much as I used to but there is a lot
| bundled into it. Even simple apps like Preview work a lot
| nicer than what I have on Linux. The Linux printing
| subsystem ( CUPS ) is a gift from Apple.
|
| Again, I like Linux more than Mac these days. I am thinking
| of putting Garuda Linux on my MacBook Pro later today in
| fact. That said, this article did not hit with me.
| weakfish wrote:
| Well I think it's mostly because Linux users tend to not
| realize it's an entirely different paradigm. Someone once put
| it roughly to me as Linux and windows being window focused,
| macos bring application focused
| Steltek wrote:
| Mac users eagerly recommend importing Linux tools (Docker,
| Brew) to make MacOS a tolerable dev environment. But they
| completely miss the fact that Apple makes it illegal to do the
| reverse: I can not run a MacOS VM on Linux.
|
| I can't understand the mindset that makes that kind of company
| behavior acceptable or the tradeoff worth it.
| usrn wrote:
| You don't want to anyway. OSX is _slow_ without hardware
| graphics acceleration.
|
| EDIT: I've hit my comment quota, here's my response: You
| don't need OSX for that, just their headers and libraries.
| People have built the build chain for Linux but it's useless
| without those and they cannot be redistributed.
| Steltek wrote:
| I just need to build iOS apps without any added absurdity.
| It can run at 640x480 VGA for all I care.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I'm sure most normal people would be equally "amazed" that they
| can't get Microsoft Office or Adobe's software for Linux...
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I'm always amazed at how many little third party utilities or
| programs people recommend downloading or buying just to bring
| the desktop experience on macOS up to parity with Linux (or
| even Windows!).
|
| You say that like there aren't always recommendations for GNOME
| extensions to install to make it act like it isn't a tablet.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Same reason they default to whole filesystem search and
| disorganized icons. No idea what the reason is, but there seems
| to be a wellspring of bad somewhere.
| mrtksn wrote:
| The catch is, with enough 3rd party apps MacOS can do all that
| stuff but no amount of 3rd party apps and utilities can make
| Ubuntu match the MacOS experience. To match macOS on Ubuntu you
| will need a full time Linux guru as PA to smooth things out for
| your. You will need another one for the after hours. Therefore,
| Ubuntu is great for really rich people or people who need that
| one thing that Ubuntu excels at and nothing else.
|
| It's essentially the same issue with iPhone v.s. Android.
| There's always some Android phone that can do one thing better
| than the best iPhone out there and to have an overall better-
| than-iPhone experience you need to use a dozen Android devices
| all the time(buying and maintaining multiple devices is
| unrealistic for most of the people, you need to be really rich
| and have a PA to manage all that for your. Another PA for the
| extra hours).
| Matl wrote:
| As someone who uses both, I have to say I am not sure what's
| so special about the 'macOS experience'. I mean the desktop
| is not even a decent _window manager_ imo, I have to get
| something like PathFinder for a decent file manager etc, yes
| there are some nice apps for macOS but it 's not like the OS
| experience itself is some unbeatable benchmark.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Good for you. Good experience essentially means good
| defaults, stuff work reliably as expected and when things
| break you fix them easily. That usually require good edge
| case handling and justified restrictions.
|
| Notice how OP complains about not being able to change the
| default font and text size? Well, he is technically right
| but the thing is that Apple has already addressed the
| reason behind changing fonts by designing a UI that works
| well with all kind of resolutions. You don't have instances
| of extremely large or extremely small text or buttons, for
| example. It's all polished very well so there's no reason
| for someone to need to tune font size or font face. Sure,
| some people have visual impairments or use their computers
| differently therefore they can choose a "UI zoom level"
| instead of resolution and font sizes.
|
| This works very well for most people and that's why most
| people are very happy with their device. For people who
| don't find this behaviour useful for them, there's Ubuntu,
| Windows, ChromeOS etc.
|
| I see a lot of Android screenshots with barely legible
| fonts as system font. Some things are better when left to
| professionals and for those who disagree, there's Android
| of course.
| Matl wrote:
| Yes, some of these make sense. I agree with you on fonts.
| On the other hand what makes the windows snapping
| behavior/lack of thereof without fiddling a good default?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yep, I also think that macOS can use some improvements on
| the window management department but there are very good
| tools to fix that.
| aulin wrote:
| > no amount of 3rd party apps and utilities can make Ubuntu
| match the MacOS experience
|
| What kind of experience are we talking about?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Stuff designed with workflows in mind and work well almost
| all the time in a consistent fashion and when they don't,
| there's an easy fix kind of experiences.
| dilawar wrote:
| > Read files from MTP devices > > If I stick a USB cable between
| my phone and Linux laptop, I can see the Android files on my
| laptop. I can open them, move them around, etc. On a Mac I need
| to install some shonky 3rd party software which rarely works.
|
| https://github.com/ganeshrvel/openmtp
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| Helpful tip for anyone with Android phone and macOS. I found
| that app will choke or crash if it is accessing folder with
| over 500+ photos. Create a new folder outside of that photo
| folder. Then use the Android file manager to transfer or copy
| the photos you want to the new folder. Connect it to macOS and
| you will be able to grab the photos from the phone to macOS
| without crashing.
| vondro wrote:
| Thanks for the tip. While the plugin from Google never failed
| for me during file transfer, it's incredibly limited! I was
| very surprised that that is absolutely NO macOS-Android
| compatibility out-of-the-box when I got a Mac recently.
| rwmj wrote:
| With the caveat that I've not used it, it seems the wonderful
| sshfs is available for macOS, which should solve the mounting
| files over SSH thing.
| workerdrone451 wrote:
| I don't use a Mac often (mainly Linux), but I do troubleshoot my
| significant other's. I'll add on my gripes:
|
| - SMB shares are wonky and will randomly disconnect with vague
| errors.
|
| - A large USB drive formatted with NTFS can't be mounted as
| read/write natively, you have to pay for a third party tool for
| that.
|
| - Mac's built in gatekeeper software is inferior to Windows
| Defender. While there's less malware available, the ones out
| there can cause havoc and don't get caught.
|
| - lastly, Mac restore process is not as easy as Windows, you can
| reset a Windows PC in a few clicks. Mac your manually nuking
| volumes, which for a newbie isn't really friendly.
| Macha wrote:
| My experience with SMB shares is that pretty much any client
| works ok with Samba, but only Windows is really reliable
| connecting to Windows over SMB.
| hguant wrote:
| The protocols on the wire are different than what's
| documented especially for older SMB servers - Windows
| "released documentation" on some of the protocols because
| they were being reversed, but the docs are flakey or
| incomplete.
|
| The actual transfer operations are pretty straightforward,
| but the negotiation steps are _very_ intricate and the
| Microsoft docs about the protocols are less than honest at
| times.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| "lastly, Mac restore process is not as easy as Windows, you can
| reset a Windows PC in a few clicks. Mac your manually nuking
| volumes, which for a newbie isn't really friendly. "
|
| This is not true. Macs had an in-place reinstall before Windows
| did, IIRC.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904
| freedom2099 wrote:
| This post feels more a rant of Linux user that doesn't know how
| to do things on Mac... Most of his remarks are completely
| possible with Mac. All he needs is a third party app (sometimes
| not even... nfs mount works out of the box)
| divan wrote:
| I switched from Linux to MacOS around 14 years ago.
|
| With Linux it's not only that I could change everything (system
| font, acceleration of the mouse pointer etc), but I literally HAD
| to do it. First days after buying new laptop and installing Linux
| I had to spend of configuring everything - from mouse pointers to
| Google calendar integration, often with obscure command line or
| config setups.
|
| That was fun.
|
| Until I bought first Macbook Air and discovered that I don't need
| to reconfigure everything anymore. Touchpad had just perfect
| speed/acceleration of the pointer. Mail/calendar/contacts was
| syncing out of the box. Fonts were awesome. Screens and external
| montiors just worked. Wifi just worked. Hybernation/sleep just
| worked.
|
| So this is true on Linux you can configure way more than on
| MacOS. But the reason behind it is what keeping me with Macbooks
| all these years.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The last 14 years have seen a _lot_ of changes to linux
| desktops and window managers. There are several high quality
| options that require very little to no configuration to have a
| pleasant experience.
|
| Hardware wise, things are a bit mixed. I'm writing this from an
| LG gram that runs perfectly out of the box- screen, wifi,
| sleep, everything Just Works. The battery life is fantastic.
|
| The only real configuration that I've done is the same
| configuration I would do on a mac anyway via karabiner /
| hammerspoon.
| xtracto wrote:
| I've used Linux for 20+ years. I have to give it to Linux
| Mint, it's _almost_ there, like 95% there. The remaining 5%
| is painful, but ignorable enough.
|
| Desktop linux has come a long way since the Corel or Mandrake
| Linux days.
|
| I use it in my PC nowadays and it's ok. I think the current
| iteration of the nonworking hardware (before it was
| soundcard/winmodem/bluetooth/graphics) are Laptop
| technologies like multi monitor with right resolution or
| fingerprint scanning.
|
| Linux has always had problems with hardware though (not your
| fault, but still your problem).
| mmcnl wrote:
| True. But have you tried the latest Ubuntu for example?
| Everything works out of the box on my HP EliteBook. Touchpad
| works great as well. I didn't need to configure anything.
|
| Time hasn't stood still. Both Windows and Linux have improved
| tremendously.
| stouset wrote:
| > but I literally HAD to do it.
|
| So much this. I realized I want to use my computer as a tool to
| perform work and consume entertainment, and not as a hobby in
| and of itself.
|
| I used Debian sid for about a decade and later switched to
| Ubuntu for a few years before biting the bullet and buying a
| Mac around OS X 10.5 (Leopard). I'm extremely thankful for my
| Linux years, as I gained now-invaluable information about low-
| level system issues that I use nearly every day at my job. But
| I don't think I'll ever use it as a desktop operating system
| again.
| kcplate wrote:
| Similar experience here. My macos (actually pretty much all my
| apple devices _just work_ ). Could it be better? Sure, in some
| cases...but does it work well enough...definitely.
|
| I watch other folks spend hours and days tweaking up a new
| machine. For me, I could swap out my Mac in less than an hour
| and likely have an identical user experience. That to me has
| more value than hyper levels of control.
| toomanydoubts wrote:
| The one that bugs me the most is the fact you can't disable the
| transition delay of 300ms when switching workspaces. Such a basic
| thing, but the number one reason I won't buy a Mac today.
| lmohseni wrote:
| There's an option for this under System Prefs > Accessibility >
| Reduce Motion
| wildrhythms wrote:
| It _seems_ like this would work, but unfortunately it just
| replaces the "slide" animation with a crossfade that takes
| the same amount of time.
| SXX wrote:
| I'll add some to the list:
|
| - Control external monitor sound volume. There are buggy paid and
| open source solutions, but they all trigger all kind of bugs with
| sound and macOS itself.
|
| - Capture game audio with OBS together with microphone input.
|
| - Being able to wait for files to copy and work Finder at the
| same time. Yeah I could find replacement for Finder, but why the
| hell?
|
| - Use Valve Proton. Yeah, Linux is great to play games now.
|
| And yeah PulseAudio is just so much better than everything macOS
| can offer.
|
| PS: Yeah I'm currently on Mac because M1 is amazing and I left my
| Linux desktop at home due to unexpected immigration. Still I
| really wish to come back to use Linux as soon as I have option
| to.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Have you tried Pipewire? It's pretty wonderful.
| SXX wrote:
| Not yet. I switched to use macOS as my daily driver and I
| still used Ubuntu 20.04 on my desktop. In any case Pulse
| worked well enough for me.
| defluct wrote:
| https://github.com/MonitorControl/MonitorControl
| vetinari wrote:
| Wrt audio:
|
| What any pulseaudio or pipewire-based desktop can do, is to
| route streams from separate applications to separate devices.
| You can have one application playing into your headphones,
| second into your speakers and third streaming over bluetooth to
| your soundbar. Never managed to do anything similar with Mac
| (also I never explored any 3rd-party apps to do it, they might
| exist, but with PA/Pipewire, it is built-in).
|
| You can also mark some devices as not to use - i.e. DisplayPort
| advertises audio out, but the monitor has no speakers? So does
| your dock, but you don't intend to connect any speakers to it?
| Easy, disable that device. Not so easy on mac, just be sure to
| never select it for output, there's only one global output
| device anyway.
| SXX wrote:
| I personally used advanced PulseAudio features all the time
| by playing different audio in headphones and speakers, but
| it's still rarely used feature compared to audio volume
| control.
|
| One of neatest things I did on Linux is playback of multiple
| audio streams while watching series when using VLC. It's very
| cool when you have some international group of friends
| together and e.g someone prefer to watch in German, someone
| in English and then someone in some other language.
|
| So basically 3 people can connect their headphones to Linux
| PC and then everyone listen to their preferable language.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| How do you rig all that stuff up? Commandline or is there a
| pretty gui for doing it?
| vetinari wrote:
| Getting VLC to output multiple tracks simultaneously (or
| more correctly, all tracks) is via command line
| parameters (--sout-all --sout \\#display).
|
| Mapping the streams to specific devices can be done via
| clicky GUI in pavucontrol.
| lloeki wrote:
| control external monitor sound: if your monitor supports DCC,
| MonitorControl is FOSS and allows direct control. Also, see
| below.
|
| capture sound: there's a flury of apps that allow you to do
| that, Rogue Amoeba has a couple that go from simple to very
| advanced audio routing. This audio routing also allows you to
| set the output volume (so, indirectly volume sent to a monitor)
| using the standard macOS controls.
|
| > And yeah PulseAudio is just so much better than everything
| macOS can offer.
|
| Someone has never dug into Audio Midi Setup, which can do a
| bunch of nice things already, including creating aggregated
| audio inputs and outputs.
| GlassKingdom wrote:
| Having to install an app to control volume does seem like
| something from the early 1990s (and I'm a mac guy).
| post_break wrote:
| Imagine having to install kernel extensions just to adjust
| the volume over a digital output like HDMI, maddening since
| you know it can do it, but stock MacOS won't allow you to.
| Or how about volume levels by app?
| lloeki wrote:
| It's annoying that Apple doesn't implement DDC control
| alright (neither volume nor brightness). I'm just trying to
| be helpful and point to solutions that I use daily for
| these use cases, not making a case, barely pointing out
| that things claimed to be impossible are not (and not
| argumentatively, only because folks may stop at that and
| have to endure something when there are solutions that
| would fit their use case)
| nottorp wrote:
| > And yeah PulseAudio is just so much better than everything
| macOS can offer.
|
| The PulseAudio that is one of the factors that drove me off
| desktop linux in 2013? :)
| lawl wrote:
| > The PulseAudio that is one of the factors that drove me off
| desktop linux in 2013? :)
|
| Yes that one :)
|
| It still sucks if you have to get too close to it and work
| around some of it's uh... things. But during normal usage,
| "it just works" these days and has been for a long time.
|
| I'd still easily pick it over audio on windows. Also it's on
| the way out, and pipewire, which is replacing it is way more
| powerful again, while being drop-in. Let's see how long it
| takes for pipewire to be really stable though. But imo
| windows and OSX cannot compete with pulse, and certainly not
| with pipewire.
| jpetso wrote:
| Shockingly, years of continued development can indeed resolve
| a lot of issues with software.
| vetinari wrote:
| Not only development of PA itself.
|
| Since the message that PA was here to stay was received,
| everyone got the point that the only way forward was to fix
| all the buggy audio drivers. It's no surprise, that it
| helped. Sure, it sucked for the affected users at the time,
| but in the long run, we all are better off.
| nottorp wrote:
| I believe it's because we know who is now concentrating on
| systemd. Maybe in 2080 that will be flawless too. Even
| usable perhaps? :)
| robertoandred wrote:
| > Being able to wait for files to copy and work Finder at the
| same time.
|
| What?
| SXX wrote:
| Exactly what I posted. I have no idea why, but while I wait
| to copy somethign to USB stick Finder show that copy popup
| and dont let me do anything else.
| norman784 wrote:
| > - Control external monitor sound volume. There are buggy paid
| and open source solutions, but they all trigger all kind of
| bugs with sound and macOS itself.
|
| For me this is one of the most annoying missing feature of
| macOS, while there are 3rd party apps, I'd want to have it
| without installing anything extra. But as we know it hard (if
| not impossible) that Apple implements this feature for other
| than their supported devices (that is mostly their products and
| maybe some of the 3rd party displays that they sell in their
| official web store).
| fanf2 wrote:
| You can use macOS's Audio MIDI Setup app to control the volume
| of each sound channel separately. Not easy to find, but it is
| built in.
| ask_b123 wrote:
| Awesome! Now I can listen to music using headphones while
| being able to play it through the MacBook speakears at the
| same time. That'll provide a better social experience of
| listening to music.
|
| I'm sure there are more uses to be found but that was the
| most immediate I found.
| harshitaneja wrote:
| Routinely use Audio MIDI to watch content with someone using
| multiple bluetooth earphones. Quite a nice and easy
| interface.
| SXX wrote:
| Yeah I used Audio MIDI Setup and it does enable some use-
| cases. It's still wont let you capture app's audio without
| 3rd-party dummy device driver and said drivers are buggy
| mess.
|
| Even Discord offer an option to audio game capture and one of
| first steps to install is "Disable SIP".
| [deleted]
| subjectsigma wrote:
| If these things are deal breakers for the author, fine, that's
| his/her decision and they can do what they want.
|
| If the author is arguing that these are deal breakers for the
| average person, they are ignorant or delusional.
| thenoblesunfish wrote:
| Most of the criticisms here are about the fact that the UI is
| more customizable on Ubuntu - fair enough, but I can't help but
| feel that the implication is being made that this is better. I
| think it's pretty clear that macOS is trying to give you less
| options (there are, after all, lots of hidden options), but in a
| considered enough way that almost all users will be happy to have
| their lives simplified.
|
| I move back and forth between macOS and Ubuntu, and think the
| combination is wonderful. It keeps me honest in terms of which
| tools and workflows are actually portable, and makes me
| appreciate the things each system does better.
| ProAm wrote:
| A customizable UI is the first point of contact for usability
| and productivity. There isnt a reason to not provide these,
| stability is not an excuse especially when a lot of the answers
| in this thread are to install a 3rd party utility to accomplish
| them.
|
| Window tiling and mouse button customization are easy and safe.
| Klonoar wrote:
| I would argue that the massive company doing usability
| studies is the first point of contact for... usability. Most
| people legitimately do not give a single shit about changing
| this stuff themselves - hell, once they enter Chrome many
| seem seem to forget the rest of the OS even exists these
| days.
| digisign wrote:
| How about, turn off the icloud and telemetry daemons I don't
| want?! Can't be done, boot volume is read-only!
|
| Little snitch is a thing thankfully, but it is still nagging me
| for $49 dollars and will probably have to give them my PII to pay
| for it.
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