[HN Gopher] RavynOS - Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD
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RavynOS - Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD
Author : behnamoh
Score : 662 points
Date : 2022-08-17 04:55 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ravynos.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ravynos.com)
| rattray wrote:
| I really hope they build some kind of application registry,
| including listing projects that don't yet work on RavynOS, so
| that the community can see which packages are most in-demand,
| what % of apps that people want are supported, reviews from
| others on stability for the platform, etc.
|
| Could bootstrap this by looking at everything in Homebrew
| (including casks) and sharing whether it seems to work on RavynOS
| yet (or whether it's ambiguous, and how you can help
| disambiguate).
| LeSaucy wrote:
| The biggest gap from developers will be the lack of docker on
| freebsd.
| hericium wrote:
| > lack of docker on freebsd
|
| I'm using sysutils/docker on FreeBSD with DOCKER_HOST env var
| set to "ssh://user@linuxvm" where linuxvm is a local VM
| running on bhyve[1]. Part of local FreeBSD filesystem is
| shared with the Linux VM via virtio-9p passthrough.
| Everything plays together nicely.
|
| nerdctl[2] works with sysutils/containerd. You can't run
| Linux images on FreeBSD kernel (Linux jails may be an option)
| but there are FreeBSD images. Pkgbase[3] aims to make FreeBSD
| more modular, divided in chunks smaller than "base", "ports",
| "src"; feasible for containers.
|
| [1] https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve
|
| [2] https://github.com/containerd/nerdctl
|
| [3] https://wiki.freebsd.org/PkgBase
| sleepybrett wrote:
| You could do what docker does on the mac, put it in a linux
| vm.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Personally, I find that to be an asset not a failure.
| innocentoldguy wrote:
| This may be an issue for some developers, but not all. I'm a
| developer and I never use Docker.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| >we decided to abandon the current path of using X11/KDE desktop
| components and write from scratch a new UI that will align better
| with our goals. A very early UI on the new WindowServer is
| starting to take shape as of 2022-07-27.
|
| I get the desire to avoid X11, but why write a GUI from scratch
| instead of using Wayland?
| hollerith wrote:
| My guess is that it would take a lot of work to get Wayland
| working with FreeBSD.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| That still sounds like less work than writing the whole thing
| from scratch.
| smm11 wrote:
| If they nail drag-drop .app installs, that's pretty cool.
|
| Otherwise, Elementary GUI on Gnustep is pretty much it.
| nikitaga wrote:
| At this point, "Consistent shortcuts" is the main "feature"
| keeping me on MacOS.
|
| Cmd+, opens preferences in every app.
|
| Cmd+[ or ] goes "back" and "forward", in every app that has those
| concepts
|
| Cmd+Shift+[ or ] switches tabs, in every app that has tabs,
| except a handful of stupid chat apps who think they're too good
| for it.
|
| Cmd+W always closes the current tab, if the app has tabs, (or
| current window, if the app has no tabs), and does not quit the
| app - that's what Cmd+Q is for.
|
| Etc.
|
| Also notice how PageUp / PageDn, keys that my keyboard doesn't
| even have, are not used for crucial shortcuts like these.
|
| Seemingly small things, but absolutely maddening when developers
| don't respect the common convention, or when a common convention
| does not exist.
|
| I always thought this consistency was a feature of the app
| ecosystem and app developer attitudes rather than the OS itself,
| so I'm not sure what RavynOS can do to make third party apps obey
| their idea of consistent shortcuts? The wiki doesn't mention
| anything about shortcuts despite the language on the home page.
| dolmen wrote:
| Consistency????
|
| "[" on AZERTY french keyboard requires to type Option+Shift+5
|
| "]" on AZERTY french keyboard requires to type Option+Shift+)
|
| I can't even imagine how the equivalent of Cmd+[ could be a
| "shortcut".
| danschuller wrote:
| Really what I want is to define my shortcuts globally somewhere
| like github and just have every machine/piece of software I
| ever use refer to that.
| sofixa wrote:
| For the tabs Ctrl+tab/Ctrl+shift+tab is the standard on Windows
| and Linux, so i can see how some apps can forget about macOS'
| specialness.
| nikitaga wrote:
| Speaking of this specialness... having the main system
| shortcut modifier - Cmd - physically located under both your
| thumbs is priceless.
|
| In contrast, the Ctrl keys are usually located such that
| they're best accessed with your pinkies. Who thought that
| making people use their weakest fingers for the most common
| shortcuts is a good idea?
|
| Could you remap your keys to have Ctrl keys under the thumbs
| in Windows / Linux? Yes, but then:
|
| 1) It will become hard to use Ctrl-based text navigation
| shortcuts (such as Ctrl+left to navigate one word left) with
| one hand, and
|
| 2) Ctrl+Tab will now use the same physical keys as Alt+Tab
| used to, and your brain will never heal from this (at least
| mine refuses to).
| [deleted]
| opan wrote:
| It's also worth considering changing your keyboard itself.
| I use a Pinky4 and have all the modifiers easily reachable
| by thumb. Backspace and space as well. There is a gap of no
| keys in the corners that means the furthest left thumb key
| on the left half is still as far right as alt/command on
| traditional keyboards.
| wishfish wrote:
| Maybe I'm the only one, but I remapped Cmd to Ctrl. After a
| lifetime of Windows and Linux using Ctrl as the main
| modifier key, this made things much easier for me. Having
| it be pinkie based has never been an issue. At least not
| for me. Others will vary, of course.
| alana314 wrote:
| I use Karabiner-Elements to remap right option to right
| control. Apple should have made this key a control key IMO.
| comboy wrote:
| Have you tried mapping Ctrl to your CapsLock key? Pressed
| without any combination - Esc, with some other key(s) -
| Ctrl. It is under pinky, but in a very comfortable
| position, just like Enter.
| grimgrin wrote:
| re: "priceless", i mean i agree and set alt to ctrl for the
| same vibe on linux and windows
|
| but otoh ppl have strong opinions for the exact same
| reasons (hand/finger dexterity) by assigning ctrl to caps
| lock
|
| less weird-pinky/hand-rotation does feel like a win, though
| still_grokking wrote:
| > 1) It will become hard to use Ctrl-based text navigation
| shortcuts (such as Ctrl+left to navigate one word left)
| with one hand
|
| Why would it be any different than on macOS?
|
| > 2) Ctrl+Tab will now use the same physical keys as
| Alt+Tab used to, and your brain will never heal from this
| (at least mine refuses to).
|
| So why not switch this also? Where's the problem?
|
| At least on Linux there are no issues. It's mostly clicking
| one checkbox, and changing "Alt-Tab" to "Ctrl-Tab".
| nikitaga wrote:
| > Why would it be any different than on macOS?
|
| Because in MacOS those arrow-based text shortcuts are
| Alt-based, not Ctrl-based, and right Alt is already
| located right next to the arrow keys where it's most
| convenient for those particular shortcuts. It does not
| need any remapping since in MacOS the Alt key is not used
| for most other system shortcuts, unlike the Ctrl key on
| Windows/Linux.
|
| > At least on Linux there are no issues. It's mostly
| clicking one checkbox, and changing "Alt-Tab" to "Ctrl-
| Tab".
|
| Been there tried that, on Ubuntu, last attempt a couple
| years ago. Does not work, many apps have Ctrl+tab hard
| coded to switch between their tabs, so if you make
| Ctrl+tab the system shortcut for switching apps, you
| can't switch tabs in those hardcoding apps anymore.
| still_grokking wrote:
| > Because in MacOS those arrow-based text shortcuts are
| Alt-based, not Ctrl-based, and right Alt is already
| located right next to the arrow keys where it's most
| convenient for those particular shortcuts.
|
| Where's the problem to tick a checkbox and change that?
|
| > Been there tried that, on Ubuntu, last attempt a couple
| years ago. Does not work, many apps have Ctrl+tab hard
| coded to switch between their tabs, so if you make
| Ctrl+tab the system shortcut for switching apps, you
| can't switch tabs in those hardcoding apps anymore.
|
| Once again, that are GTK problems.
|
| Just avoid GTK (v3 and later) and Electron and there are
| no usability issues. Simple as that. But I'm repeating
| myself.
| nikitaga wrote:
| > Where's the problem to tick a checkbox and change that?
|
| What checkbox do you mean? (I understood the one about
| ctrl+tab, but not this one)
|
| I'll give KDE a shot next time, but I think some apps I
| use heavily are actually GTK apps (such as Firefox),
| we'll see how it goes.
| still_grokking wrote:
| > What checkbox do you mean? (I understood the one about
| ctrl+tab, but not this one)
|
| Maybe I'm confused, but I have an right Ctrl and a right
| Alt. Both keys are left to the arrow keys. I thought you
| wanted to switch around also those two keys. That would
| be ticking a checkbox in the keyboard config afik.
|
| > I'll give KDE a shot next time, but I think some apps I
| use heavily are actually GTK apps (such as Firefox),
| we'll see how it goes.
|
| I also use Firefox. It uses GTK. But this makes no
| difference as Firefox does its own thing anyway. It uses
| GTK only under the hood.
|
| The two most annoying things with Firefox are solvable:
| You can use custom.css to switch around the OK / Cancel
| buttons in dialogs (thankfully they don't use "real" GTK
| dialogs but some XUL, otherwise you would need to patch
| the GTK libs) and one can have proper file-dialogs by now
| through the desktop-portal interface. So Firefox remains
| its own thing but at least the GTK parts don't creep up
| anymore.
|
| Oh, and global menu does not work in FF (even it works
| for "normal" GTK apps). Also they still didn't manage to
| make keyboard shortcuts configurable. But that are FF
| issues on any desktop or OS...
| nikitaga wrote:
| > Maybe I'm confused, but I have an right Ctrl and a
| right Alt. Both keys are left to the arrow keys. I
| thought you wanted to switch around also those two keys.
| That would be ticking a checkbox in the keyboard config
| afik.
|
| Same layout here. I want the key that's used for arrow-
| based text navigation shortcuts (Alt on MacOS, Ctrl
| elsewhere) to be physically the rightmost key, right next
| to the arrow keys, then I can press it with my index
| finger and press the arrow with another finger.
| Otherwise, if that key is farther from the arrow keys, I
| find it hard to press those shortcuts. At the same time,
| I want the key that's used for most system shortcuts such
| as Ctrl+N / Cmd+N to be under my right thumb because it's
| the strongest and otherwise underused finger.
|
| So, on non-MacOS systems I end up wanting right Ctrl to
| be in two different places at once, since those systems
| use Ctrl for both types of shortcuts mentioned above. So
| unless I have a big enough keyboard to have two *right*
| Ctrl keys on my keyboard, I can't just remap the keys to
| solve this.
|
| Whereas on MacOS it's fine as-is because it uses Alt for
| arrow-based and Cmd for other system shortcuts
| respectively, and those keys are already where I want
| them to be.
|
| Anyways, this is getting too much about me, I doubt it's
| interesting to anyone. Cheers.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Cmd+` to switch windows within an app.
|
| For those more familiar with Windows and probably most Linux
| conventions, Home/End won't behave how you want but they move
| to the start/end of a scrollable view (which IMO is more
| useful).
|
| In most any app ^a will be your Home equivalent and ^e will be
| your End equivalent. If that sounds weird or weirdly
| familiar... a subset of emacs key bindings are built in for
| basically all native macOS text inputs. If you get weird and
| hook up a full keyboard to iOS devices, works pretty much the
| same!
|
| (I personally use ^t quite a lot because I accidentally
| rtanspose letters while typing all too frequently)
| alana314 wrote:
| Woah, I love this thread. I didn't know about the tab or
| preference shortcuts. And I used ^A and ^E in terminal but
| didn't know it worked in other apps. Are these all documented
| somewhere?
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Besides the documentation linked by sibling comment, I
| believe you can also still customize them per user in
| ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict, and reference
| the system defaults in
| /System/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236
| pdpi wrote:
| On a similar note, it's pretty damn handy that just about every
| text box in macOS implements readline keyboard shortcuts.
|
| Also, having ctrl and cmd be separate keys is a godsend. No, I
| don't want to kill the running app, I want to copy some text.
| kps wrote:
| For me it's word erase (Ctrl-W). CUA was a mistake, and
| 'desktop Linux' slavishly imitating Windows was a mistake.
| still_grokking wrote:
| "Consistent shortcuts" is the main "feature" keeping me on KDE.
|
| Cmd+Shift+, opens preferences in every app.
|
| Alt+Left or Right (or Back or Forward) goes "back" and
| "forward", in every app that has those concepts
|
| Cmd+Tab or Cmd+Shift-Tab switches tabs, in every app that has
| tabs.
|
| Cmd+W closes the current tab by default, if the app has tabs,
| (or current window, if the app has no tabs)
|
| Cmd+Q quits the app.
|
| Etc.
|
| What's again so special about macOS?
|
| One needs only to avoid GTK stuff, Electron, and Windows
| Software, and one gets perfectly consistent behavior.
|
| And those behaviors can be "even" _configured_ globally! (That
| 's something to mention specially of course when talking to Mac
| users as such an advanced feature like "configurability" is
| notoriously missing in the Apple universe).
| nikitaga wrote:
| Since you mention GTK, I assume that must be the root of my
| problem - I keep trying Ubuntu and some other GNOME distros,
| haven't tried KDE. Ubuntu was definitely a mess when it comes
| to consistent shortcuts when I last tried it (a couple years
| ago).
| still_grokking wrote:
| Yes, the lacking usability of GTK (3 and later) apps is the
| root of all problems with GTK desktops.
|
| But the issues aren't Linux specific of course.
|
| KDE is by now one of the most lightweight1, stable, and
| usable desktops by far.
|
| And KDE is completely configurable regarding look&feel. You
| can make it by now even look and behave like any other
| desktop with _one click_ using global "themes" (the
| feature switches more than the theme; that's why I've put
| the term in quotes).
|
| https://store.kde.org/browse?cat=121&ord=rating
|
| 1 KDE beats mostly everything in this point, except maybe
| raw WMs and LXQt. Yes, it's more lightweight than say the
| GTK3 based Xfce by now... The "magic" lies to one part in
| Qt that gets optimized for embedded applications now for
| many years, and all the work in optimizing KDE itself after
| it got bad rep one and half decade ago for being bloated
| (which was indeed true back than; but they learned the
| lesson; only the internet FUD never dies).
| paldepind2 wrote:
| > One needs only to avoid GTK stuff, Electron, and Windows
| Software, and one gets perfectly consistent behavior.
|
| So as long as one avoids all the inconsistencies then one
| gets consistent shortcuts? ;) Only using Qt apps on Linux is
| very hard. A lot of good apps are GTK or Electron. On macOS
| there is no GTK & Qt divide and Electron apps are very good
| at implementing macOS shortcuts. Hence you get more
| consistent bindings.
|
| Also, many bindings are absent even in Qt app. For instance,
| on macOS you have Emacs-style bindings in every app (Ctrl+a,
| Ctrl+p, Ctrl+k, etc.). Those are very useful. You can get
| them on Linux (at leasts in GTK apps) but it's very hacky and
| it conflicts with a bunch of stuff, whereas they fit right in
| on macOS. Cmd+Shift+/ to search all menus is also super
| useful and I don't think you can do that on KDE.
|
| > And those behaviors can be "even" configured globally!
| (That's something to mention specially of course when talking
| to Mac users as such an advanced feature like
| "configurability" is notoriously missing in the Apple
| universe).
|
| If you don't think macOS can be configured then you are
| mistaken. It can't be configured to the extend that KDE can
| that is true (some of us consider that to be a feature). But
| a lot is still possible. As an example, kindaVim adds vim-
| style keybindings to every app which is kinda cool.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Which is true on MacOS too. Emacs doesn't care about Mac
| keybindings. Even worse, the MacOS "Emacs keybindings" for
| things like text fields aren't totally consistent with
| actual Emacs. Oh and Emacs was until super recently bundled
| into the OS too so even out of the box it wasn't totally
| consistent.
|
| I'm sure there's other programs on MacOS that don't follow
| the global key bindings.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| > Cmd+Shift+/ to search all menus is also super useful and
| I don't think you can do that on KDE.
|
| Not sure if this is what you're talking about, but KDE now
| has KCommandBar (or some name like that?), a HUD menu that
| can be invoked with Ctrl+Alt+I.
|
| Though I as a KDE fan concede that the need for some GTK
| stuff is kinda disappointing, for me Firefox and Inkscape
| (can't care less about Electron stuff, though). Inkscape
| AppImages have turned out very handy, but alas the Firefox
| ones don't bundle GTK so you can't have a GTK-free system
| if you want to use Firefox.
|
| Still though I don't think something as configurable as
| keyboard bindings are too much of a deal to promote or
| convince people about a DE or a OS.
| paldepind2 wrote:
| Yes, KCommandBar seems to do the same thing. Cool! Thanks
| for sharing.
| still_grokking wrote:
| > Only using Qt apps on Linux is very hard.
|
| There are even whole distris doing that... ;-)
|
| https://kaosx.us/
|
| I have hardly any GTK app installed and I would not know
| what I'm missing. (Firefox uses GTK but it has it's own UI
| anyway). Electron? That's the plague of modern times.
| Besides VSCode (which I will switch away in a blink as soon
| as the alternatives are ready) I don't use any Electron
| _peep_. Also here I would not know what I 'm missing.
|
| But of course, it's only me. YMMV
|
| > Cmd+Shift+/ to search all menus is also super useful and
| I don't think you can do that on KDE.
|
| Global menu is of course integrated in KDE. You can even
| use it form KRunner (of course with fuzzy search).
|
| https://libreddit.northboot.xyz/r/kde/comments/r85jcz/tip_y
| o...
|
| I think the idea of using a "HUD" in KDE is actually even
| older than the macOS feature.
|
| https://github.com/Zren/plasma-hud/
|
| > If you don't think macOS can be configured then you are
| mistaken.
|
| Apple products are made for the mass market. That's one of
| the reasons they actually follow the same philosophy as
| Gnome. What this means regarding options everybody knows I
| guess:
|
| Options are hard to maintain and "confuse the user".
|
| So Apple products are dumbed down even more with every
| release. (They even replace perfectly fine working software
| with "touch-ware" in the attempt to make everything more
| tailored to the causal users).
| kps wrote:
| How do you get Firefox to respect Cmd (Meta)
| consistently? I find it's been half broken since Quantum.
| paldepind2 wrote:
| I'm glad you like KDE and by all means keep using it. It
| sounds like it's the right DE for you.
|
| That being said, your statements about macOS sounds like
| they are coming from someone who's never used it and are
| making a fairly uninformed straw-man opinions about it.
| For instance, the statement "Apple products are dumbed
| down even more with every release" is just demonstrably
| false. Apple products gets more features with every
| release. For instance, the last macOS release got
| Shortcuts, Focus Modes, and Universal Control. All of
| which are power user features.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I switch between linux, windows and mac on a daily basis. Mac
| short cuts are far more consistent.
|
| Now, copy and paste. It is cmd-c in mac, in ubuntu you can't
| tell me unless I tell you if I am in a terminal or not.
|
| But most of all, readline shortcuts ctrl-a goes to the
| beginning of a line in nearly ever mac app. Not so in linux.
| choko wrote:
| I find Mac less consistent, especially around home/end key
| behavior. In some places, home goes to the start of a page,
| in others, the start of a line. In addition, the key
| combinations and gui behavior are annoying. Ever try to
| cmd+tab to a minimized window? You have to do finger
| gymnastics to add an extra key to get that window to open.
| Other than the cli, I've seen little benefit in using a Mac
| vs. a decent PC with just about any Linux distro or
| Windows.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I'm less impressed by MacOS shortcuts than you are.
|
| Out of the box, several short-cuts conflicts.
|
| Moreover, on non-US keyboards, many MacOS shortcuts are simply
| not reachable.
| coolandsmartrr wrote:
| Some of the offenders surprisingly include newer Apple apps
| like Books. Some of the commands are not included with
| shortcuts. Seems like they weren't thinking too much about
| desktop users when they ported it from iOS.
| lultimouomo wrote:
| The non-US keyboard thing is frankly ridiculous, on my layout
| I cannot even switch between windows of an app... _Quelle
| finesse_!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The big one for me is that Cmd+C and Cmd+V do the exact same
| thing in Terminal as they do everywhere else, unlike with
| terminal emulators under Linux. Copy and paste are too
| ingrained from decades of Mac/Win use to fight against muscle
| memory for that one exception.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Personally I find this kind of idea to be a dead end, since so
| much of what makes macOS special is really beyond the
| capabilities of anyone other than Apple. For example, total
| vertical integration, e.g. calling up kernel team and ask them to
| make a change for WebKit. SerenityOS also does this because
| Andreas Kling worked at Apple, realising that vertical
| integration is fundamental. But then there are other things, like
| incredible hardware integration with things like the trackpad and
| CoreAudio, as well as precise control over the CPU and power.
| I'll be interested to see if this goes anywhere but in my opinion
| there are better places to go, such as for example SerenityOS,
| which I think is a kind of operating system that is far more
| suitable for the space of people who don't want to buy Apple.
|
| I'm generally a bit sceptical of this "copy macOS" idea. It isn't
| a particularly amazing operating system, it is mainly just very
| well supported by third parties considering that it is a unix.
| You won't have that if you recreate it in this way, and I'm not
| sure if you will be left with a very good experience.
| yubiox wrote:
| Does it run Better Touch Tool? I use it to resize and move
| windows with trackpad moves (no click) and modifier keys and also
| to disable openapple-Q. Does it work well with an apple trackpad?
| spidey1 wrote:
| How does this compare to Hello System? [1]
|
| [1] https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/
| Diris wrote:
| From the FAQ[0]
|
| ----------------
|
| helloSystem: We have been in fact working with helloSystem! As
| some people have noticed, Release 0.2.X was basically
| helloSystem. (That was the second PoC. The first had been built
| on vanilla FreeBSD and had no GUI at all.) Under the hood,
| however, release 0.2.2 has a partial implementation of Cocoa, a
| modified compiler & linker that support frameworks, and several
| other additions that make it distinct. We have similar
| philosophies, and share technology and cooperate where it makes
| sense (e.g. Filer), but the project goals are quite different.
|
| helloSystem wants to create a computer that is simple to use,
| open, elegant, small and fast. Older Mac OS X and Classic are
| an inspiration to what that might look like, but they are not
| explicitly trying to create an open-source Mac. In fact,
| they're mostly avoiding Objective-C and XML plists and other
| Mac technology in favor of simpler and/or more modern ways
| (e.g. Qt, C++, JSON).
|
| ravynOS is explicitly trying to be compatible with Mac software
| at a source and eventually a binary level, without losing
| support for FreeBSD/X11 software, and to implement a very
| similar experience on the desktop and at the command line. For
| example, on ravynOS you can type open -a MyApp image.jpg and
| have image.jpg open in MyApp. You will find things in (mostly)
| the same directories as a Mac, like ~/Library or
| /System/Library/Fonts. This project is not as concerned about
| keeping the OS as small and simple as possible, and more
| concerned about making it clean, secure, performant, and
| compatible - implementing many of the features I use daily in
| macOS while skipping the lock-in and "tabletization" of the
| computer.
|
| Some of the more technical differences between ravynOS and
| hello are:
|
| - ravynOS uses a patched kernel with support for Mach, just
| like xnu, and a compiler suite that supports Frameworks and has
| preliminary support for Mach-O as well as
|
| - ravynOS has a package repo with software built to "standard"
| paths like /System, /etc, and /usr instead of the FreeBSD repos
| which are built into /usr/local
|
| - ravynOS desktop is being written from scratch with Cocoa,
| Mach, and OpenGL on a Wayland compositor, where hello's desktop
| is based on openbox, Menu and Filer (originally from LXQt) plus
| other lightweight services for notifications (dunst), screen
| color temperature (redshift) etc
|
| - helloSystem uses a simplified .app structure whereas ravynOS
| uses real Bundles for .app
|
| - helloSystem tends to use typical Unix paths and files, while
| ravynOS is moving towards typical Mac paths and files
|
| - ravynOS tries to provide the same APIs as macOS
|
| [0] https://ravynos.com/faq.html
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I hope it sticks around. If it's around long enough, it can
| be an alternative in its own right. Ever since ElementaryOS
| lost momentum (or really never found it, rather) I have been
| looking for a "third way". RavynOS could be a great way to
| develop Mac apps and also target the apps for RavynOS. Could
| be great for music appliances and whatnot.
| vdchuyen wrote:
| foxbee wrote:
| This looks promising but I can't get the installer to load. Would
| love to get updates on progress.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Hmm. I'm not sure what to think of all this special build stuff.
| I moved from macOS to FreeBSD + KDE mainly because I felt that
| macOS was becoming too dumbed down.
|
| And I actually like the UI and configurability of KDE.
|
| So no, I'm not going to use it but it probably could have made me
| move to FreeBSD a few years earlier. But with this kind of
| 'copycat' I always wonder if they manage to support a large
| enough ecosystem to make it work well. After all the biggest
| selling point of macOS is traditionally the 'just works'
| principle. Using FreeBSD as a daily driver I know the
| hardware/driver side needs a lot of tinkering. Which I don't
| mind, but macOS users would.
|
| I also wonder about their business model, it seems to be a
| company?
| znpy wrote:
| I looks worthless to me.
|
| If you're doing this kind of things, you'd better be producing
| and selling your reference laptop/desktop computer too.
|
| Otherwise all I expect from seeing the FreeBSD logo is 2005-ish
| hardware support nightmares (thanks but no thanks, I'm not a
| teenager anymore).
| justthinkhn wrote:
| This is a dead end. FreeBSD, lmao. Why not choose Linux, which
| supports way more hardware and features. Not promising for the
| general quality of decision making.
| nix23 wrote:
| Those Linux fanboy's always remind me of the song from NOFX
| "The Idiots Are Taking Over" -> Opensource ;)
| kryptiskt wrote:
| FreeBSD is a modern performant OS with broad hardware support.
| I don't know what feature you had in mind, but FreeBSD comes
| with kqueue and has largely the same core utils as MacOS, which
| isn't a lot but why not take the free wins you can get? Not to
| mention that if they manage to pull this moonshot off, porting
| the resulting work to Linux would be utterly trivial in
| comparison. So ingrained Linux fanboys don't have to worry, if
| this becomes a thing, they'll get in on it.
| jetpackjoe wrote:
| Being able to CMD+c to copy things in a terminal is one of my
| favorite things about programming on a Mac. Ctrl+c to copy
| everywhere, except the terminal (there it instead is an
| interrupt) is a major annoyance working in Linux
| horsawlarway wrote:
| If it helps, the vast majority of linux terminal emulators
| support rebinding ctrl-c to copy and ctrl-v to paste. Or simply
| copying to clipboard on select:
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Copying_text_from_a_termina...
|
| The default is usually ctrl-shift-c to copy and ctrl-c to send
| sigint - but setting the copy command to ctrl-c will usually
| flip them, making sigint ctrl-shift-c.
|
| I enable this on basically all the terminals I use. I also
| immediately rebind cmd to ctrl in mac, since I can't stand the
| RSI inducing placement of the cmd key.
| sbuk wrote:
| Ctrl-v was SIGINT long before it was a shortcut for paste
| (first added in Windows 3.1). Although it can be switched
| _now_ , it hasn't always been so. Of all the things that
| desktops (I'm not going to say Linux, as it isn't a Linux
| issue as it affect every system that uses KDE/GNOME and the
| like) designed to run on top of *nix like systems that were
| copied from Windows, this one really boggles my mind.
| jmprspret wrote:
| I don't use a Mac. How does one interrupt a program if Ctrl+C
| is bound to copy? At this point when I'm in a terminal Ctrl+C
| is muslce memory for interrupting a running program.
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| On Macs, Cmd+C to copy and Ctrl+C to interrupt in the
| terminal i.e. they're different.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| Ctrl-C is still bound to an interrupt -- it's Cmd-C (i.e.
| Super-C / Win-C) that is bound to copy. Most things that a
| regular user can think of (paste, print, select all, to name
| a few) that would be control mapped in user facing programs
| are typically mapped to the "command" key instead.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Macs have a Meta key called Command that can be dedicated to
| the shortcuts defined in GUI applications while leaving Ctrl
| free to be used by console stuff. So all the GUI
| copy/paste/windowing etc controls use Command key shortcuts.
|
| The original 1984 Mac keyboard did not even have a Ctrl key,
| it was added to later keyboards as people wanted access to
| terminal applications.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| On Mac, ctr+c is not bound to copy. cmd+c is bound to copy.
| ctr+c will interrupt in a terminal.
|
| On Windows, ctr+c in a terminal will interrupt a running
| process, or, if text is highlighted, will copy that text
| instead of interrupting.
|
| It works really well, and took me a long time of doing this
| without issues to realize what I was actually doing.
| adastra22 wrote:
| I have used Windows all my life, and I learned this just
| now. No one ever told me that!
| tasuki wrote:
| It isn't an annoyance for me: just select text and paste it
| with middle click? Why bother with ctrl+c ?
| trebbble wrote:
| Then you can select other text to paste over.
| [deleted]
| prmoustache wrote:
| The difference being that on linux you are for the most part
| free to implement the keybindings you want.
|
| Example on Kitty, my current preferred terminal emulator this
| is just a few map directives away in the config:
|
| map ctrl+c copy_to_clipboard
|
| map ctrl+v paste_from_clipboard
|
| map ctrl+shift+c send_text all \x03
| mattlutze wrote:
| I struggle with chasing after the MacOS appearance.
|
| It feels in passing like a lot of work to build a skin/UI that
| will always be a few generations of the design language behind
| and not quite there, just given the volume of staff at Apple and
| them being the ones defining where their design language goes.
|
| Like a choice between a Porsche and, according to Google a Zotye
| -- they'll look close but one will be the obvious "genuine
| article."
|
| Would it not be better to take all that talent and consider a
| fresh approach to the user experience of a personal computer?
| Croftengea wrote:
| > given the volume of staff at Apple
|
| Unrelated to RavynOS, but I see the size of the Apple staff
| more like a weakness not a strength. They became terribly
| inefficient in the recent years.
| pjmlp wrote:
| And still they will perform better than any FOSS attempt to
| clone their work.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Yeah, FOSS culture is unfortunately neither very good at
| design, nor attracting good designers for collaboration.
| Many engineers don't even respect design and/or designers.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| If FOSS culture is bad at design, then one could imagine
| it being _beneficial_ to just blindly copy an existing
| good design
| klabb3 wrote:
| Yeah, and there's no shame in that. Better copy something
| good than create something terrible. However, if you can
| only copy, you're limited to creating copycats of
| commercial software. In many cases, FOSS has strengths
| that others lack, where design and UX can be the
| difference between success and failure.
| meltedcapacitor wrote:
| I find Gnome has been doing quite nicely with design
| (despite the haters).
| mschuster91 wrote:
| That is because designers usually tend to push for
| "making stuff easy for users" by removing options,
| whereas engineers tend to like to expose everything
| configurable so that power users can customize the
| application to their optimal experience.
|
| I think that "old school Windows" aka Win95-Win7 (where
| you could still use the classic Windows UI) and "old
| school MS Office" was the perfect balance between "keep
| it easy enough for users to get started, with clear
| visual distinction to aid them" and "allow power users to
| work as well", and that was a large part of why MS
| Windows and MS Office became so utterly dominant. Only
| when MS started to go bonkers with Vista and then the
| disasters that followed from a design perspective, users
| suddenly started to look for alternatives.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > That is because designers usually tend to push for
| "making stuff easy for users" by removing options
|
| Yeah, although I think product managers are worse
| offenders. I think neither extreme is good. Customization
| is important but hard to get right, and creates rigidity
| and burdens for developers as well. One thing that
| engineers ignore, is the cost of mandatory customization
| or learning curves. Most users, even technical ones, may
| never get around to customizing so the defaults are more
| important than the full set of options. And engineers
| often underestimate the importance of sensible defaults.
| Google, for instance, had entire products that people
| didn't know about because they couldn't make users aware
| of them, despite them being free and good.
|
| > "old school MS Office" was the perfect balance between
| "keep it easy enough for users to get started, with clear
| visual distinction to aid them"
|
| I think that was an extremely cluttered UI, far more than
| saturation the attention of a new user. But otherwise I
| agree that hiding everything in menus or omitting
| features is not the solution either.
| [deleted]
| d3ckard wrote:
| As with code, imitate first, improve upon later seems like a
| reasonable approach.
| SantiagoElf wrote:
| Enough of those half-assed attempts at an "OS".
|
| Either use Windows with WSL2, or Debian, or FreeBSD with some
| GUI, or MacOS.
|
| Regardless of what OS you use - you will be using a Browser,
| Terminal, File Manager and VS Code/Rider/Visual Studio,
| emacs/vim. _GASP_
|
| Enough of this distro hopping - it is the moder-day
| procrastination.
| anthk wrote:
| This distro will implement Cocoa and a Mach-O ELF loader...
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Does MacOS really have that finesse they try to emulate? First
| thing I noticed when I started using a mac is that double
| clicking the Finder titlebar only expands it vertically while
| every other app expands both vertically and horizontally. Second
| thing, when I close a window and then press Cmd+tab, the icon is
| still there, and if I select it nothing shows up. There's more of
| these everyday things that work sloppy so I wonder why does the
| mac have that image of finesse when I don't really see it.
| moogleii wrote:
| Unlike Windows, there's a separation of concepts between
| "application" and "windows" on Mac. Closing all the windows of
| an app doesn't imply closing the app. I actually think the
| Windows way is sloppy (and I came from Windows). I want that
| kind of granular control. So many times back in the day, I'd
| accidentally close all my Internet Explorer windows, and have
| to pay the time-cost of reopening the app from scratch. It's
| less annoying now with SSDs, but reopening an app is still more
| expensive than opening a new window for an already running
| process.
|
| If I want the app closed, cmd+q / alt+f4. Repeated cmd+w /
| ctrl+w shouldn't also close the app (IMO).
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Windows has a similar distinction between applications that
| have one window per open document (SDI for Single Document
| Interface) and applications that have one window with tiny
| windows inside for each document (MDI for multiple document
| interference).
| smoldesu wrote:
| On the contrary, leaving so many apps open can make my
| machine feel like it's "dragging" when I really push it,
| mostly because I have software open that I'm not using.
| Especially on Macs, where memory comes at an extreme premium,
| I find myself frequently frustrated by the number of
| applications I have open. This also happens on Windows with
| tray-minimized apps, but to a much lesser extent.
|
| In either case, I find _both_ implementations sloppy. Apple
| 's solution is complete but redundant, and Windows' solution
| is simple but lacking. I have to give it to KDE and GNOME,
| both desktops manage to 'fix' this problem by encouraging
| people to minimize apps they aren't using. Your (X) icon
| still has the magic power to kill processes, and you get to
| keep your precious applications when you're done using them.
| Boom, no need for ultra-complex
| Application/Window/Form/Dialog hierarchy for the user to wrap
| their mind around. Simple solution to a simple problem.
| moondev wrote:
| I've seen this on Linux too, specifically with this VPN
| application https://github.com/yuezk/GlobalProtect-
| openconnect
|
| Closing it via the "x" will minimize to tray and hide
| (which is the behavior I want, but an example nonetheless)
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Double click on the titlebar on MacOS means "expand as much as
| possible to fit all content". Not "maximise".
|
| Of course, I'd argue that maximise is the intuitive thing to
| expect, but the behaviour is not strictly broken, just... odd.
| SllX wrote:
| Strictly speaking it's just different.
|
| The behavior is inherited from the classic Mac OS which
| initially predates and was developed contemporaneously with
| Windows. Apple assigned one behavior and Microsoft assigned
| another. To the extent that one is "more intuitive" it's
| because your expectations as to what should happen is
| different, and "maximize" is a lot easier to behaviorally
| define, describe and program than "zoom" so GUI programmers
| preferred it, or knew it better because the behavior and
| conventions they mimicked in X window managers were taken
| from what Microsoft was doing at the time.
|
| When screen resolutions are 640x480 or 800x600 or even
| 1024x768, maybe you just want maximize all the time; but
| maximize is an anti-feature to me on anything bigger.
| mhermher wrote:
| That's where window snapping comes into play. Maximize +
| Snapping is a much better system that "a hundred
| arbitrarily sized and arbitrarily overlapping windows".
| It's very much the opposite of finesse.
| SllX wrote:
| I disagree, but I respect your opinion. Overlapping
| arranged windows is exactly what I've become accustomed
| to and like using. Side-by-side or "snapped" windows are
| not my cup of tea.
| chrisoverzero wrote:
| > [...] double-clicking the Finder titlebar only expands it
| vertically [...]
|
| This behavior is called "Zoom", and it's defined per-
| application by that application. You could change that system-
| wide to minimize.
|
| > [...] when I close a window and then press Cmd+tab, the icon
| is still there, and if I select it nothing shows up.
|
| Yes, the application hasn't quit. You've only closed its last
| window.
| Forricide wrote:
| > Yes, the application hasn't quit. You've only closed its
| last window.
|
| To further expand on this, this is also application-defined
| behaviour. The application can choose whether it wants to
| stay open or close. This is no different from Windows (e.g.
| closing a Spotify window will just minimize it to taskbar),
| it's just that Cmd+Tab by default shows all running
| applications, whereas Win+Tab/Alt+Tab on Windows by default
| shows open windows.
| rewgs wrote:
| Your second point is by design. macOS lets apps run without
| windows. Hold Option while once you select the app via Cmd+tab
| and it'll open a new window.
| [deleted]
| ireflect wrote:
| > double clicking the Finder titlebar only expands it
| vertically while every other app expands both vertically and
| horizontally
|
| For me it fits-to-content both vertically and horizontally. I
| just tested in both list- and icon-view. Mac OS 12.
|
| > When I close a window and then press Cmd+tab, the icon is
| still there
|
| This is because the Mac UI application/document conceptual
| model, which has been consistent since at least the 1980s. An
| application is either open or not. If you have multiple
| documents open, they are open within a single instance of the
| application. You can also have zero documents open. The
| application doesn't quit automatically when you close the last
| document.
|
| Other operating systems flatten these two concepts into one,
| such that each new document appears as a new instance of the
| application.
|
| I'm not suggesting one is better than the other. Just that I
| don't consider this a lack-of-finesse since it's been my mental
| model for 25+ years.
|
| I'm also not disagreeing with your overall point. I can think
| of plenty of inconsistencies and lack-of-finesse in modern Mac
| OS UI, to be sure!
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Just a note, if you are in the context of a particular
| application command+`/~ will cycle you through the
| applications windows.
| sbf501 wrote:
| It's not "sloppy" it is just a different approach.
|
| It drives me nuts on Windows that when I close FireFox the
| entire APPLICATION closes! I just wanted to close the window.
| Now when I start it again / open a new window, I have to enter
| my LastPass credentials. And pay the boot penalty.
|
| IMHO, a multi-window app should not exit when I close the last
| window.
|
| Linux Desktops and Windows both do this, macOS does not.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > IMHO, a multi-window app should not exit when I close the
| last window. Linux Desktops and Windows both do this, macOS
| does not.
|
| On Linux' Firefox, this does not seem to be the case. I just
| confirmed by closing a window with a few dozen tabs, and my
| other windows were perfectly fine. Same goes for VS Code,
| IDEA, Ghidra, Tilix, etc. This might be Wayland-specific
| behavior, but closing one window does not appear to take the
| rest of the apps with it (unless they were a child process).
| sbf501 wrote:
| You are correct, with a subtle modification: there are a
| "Close Window" and "Exit Application" mode in some popular
| X-based windowed apps (see: VSCode). Some apps, like
| Eclipse, solve this by hosting the child windows in a
| parent container. But then you lose screen real estate.
|
| But you always need ONE child window open or it will exit
| entirely.
|
| MacOS has a different approach, where the application top
| level process keeps running, even if it has no windows, but
| this requires some sort of GUI element to communicate with
| application.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| When you close all open firefox windows is firefox still
| running? On MacOS it is. On windows and Linux it isn't. It
| has nothing to do with "other apps"
| smoldesu wrote:
| How can you make it behave like Linux and Windows? I
| don't want my applications to persist when their visual
| presence is gone, it's disingenuous to the user.
| danieldk wrote:
| _it 's disingenuous to the user_
|
| That is nonsense. It is just a different model and the
| model Mac users have been used to since the 80ies. When I
| close a window/document, I often want to another document
| with the same application, so why close it? If I want to
| close an applications, I can use _Cmd-q_. Moreover, their
| visual presence is not gone, such an application is still
| in the Dock and in the app switcher.
|
| And why do I care if an application continues running? If
| it hasn't been used for some time, macOS compresses its
| pages. And inactive native applications will be put in
| _App Nap_ , which freezes the application, so that it
| doesn't use system resources until it is activated again.
| sbf501 wrote:
| Uh oh: Haven't you ever typed "ps aux"? :)
|
| There is a third space on mac, different from a menubar,
| called "dock". In the old days it was integrated into the
| main persistent menu bar, but was removed maybe in the
| early 2000's. Personally I prefer one menubar, but at
| least I can hide the dock.
|
| EDIT: "dock" not "launchpad". Duh.
| amaccuish wrote:
| I'm the complete other way. First thing I did when setting up
| MacOS was to install RedQuits. I think it stopped working
| sometime after an update. I never liked my dock crowding up
| with things.
|
| And with Firefox, it would make the "Restore all tabs on
| open" not work, since clicking X didn't close the app, and
| thus pressing Firefox again would just create a new empty
| window. For it to work, I had to not use the red button, but
| cmd + q or the menu bar.
| adastra22 wrote:
| This looks like not a reskin of an existing FreeBSD or Linux
| windows system, but an actual reimplementation of macOS. Very
| interesting if they can pull it off!
|
| I wonder though, why start with old Objective-C cocoa APIs
| instead of Swift?
| cxr wrote:
| It's a BSD. (Knowing that, you probably wouldn't ask them, "Why
| C and not C++?") As a language (and ecosystem*) Objective-C is
| mature and lacks complexity in a way that doesn't apply to
| Swift.
|
| * They definitely did not start with Objective-C and a blank
| slate here; they're folding in monumental amounts of third-
| party code
| grishka wrote:
| Objective-C is the ABI of all UI-related macOS frameworks and
| it would probably always be. Even if you're writing in Swift,
| as long as you're using AppKit, you're using Objective-C
| classes under the hood. There's no such thing as "Swift Cocoa
| APIs". And SwiftUI is an abstraction layer on top of, again,
| AppKit/UIKit/WatchKit, which are themselves all written in
| Objective-C.
| johncoatesdev wrote:
| That used to be true.
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/GroupActivities
| grishka wrote:
| Then a question: how does one call these APIs from another
| language? You _can_ use Objective-C frameworks from
| anything that can call C functions, by manually doing
| objc_msgSend and all the related stuff. But will you have
| to write a Swift wrapper for these?
| terhechte wrote:
| On macOS, the Swift ABI is stable. It is different from
| the C or C++ ABI. Somebody would need to implement the
| Swift ABI for another language. Which is kinda tricky
| because Swift has many features that other languages
| don't have. Rust could probably do it, or C++ with a ton
| of templates I guess.
| fipar wrote:
| I would guess that's the linker's job?
|
| I don't need to do that in my day to day job, but I do
| remember that as part of an OS class at school (some 20+
| years ago) one of the tasks we were assigned was that we
| had to work in pairs of teams, where one team would
| implement a function and another team would implement
| code that called that function, the only requirement
| being that both teams had to use different languages. The
| point of the exercise was to show how, provided you had a
| defined API, thanks to linking you could use the best
| language for each job.
| grishka wrote:
| In many languages you need to somehow define the symbols
| you import before the linker comes into play. How would
| you define Swift symbols for C++? For Java? For Rust? And
| that's provided their linkers would actually know what
| the Swift ABI is -- and they most probably don't. So I
| guess your only option would be to descend all the way
| down to assembly and shove the right things into the
| right registers and then jump to the right place.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I wonder if Cocoa is that language specific or if it's become
| legacy tech. When Swift was announced and when I explored it
| for personal projects, I was very much calling Cocoa APIs. They
| definitely catered to ObjC-isms, but my impression was that all
| of the underlying UI frameworks were being preserved even if
| they might gain additive APIs to be used less awkwardly in
| Swift.
| pjmlp wrote:
| This year Apple made the point Objective-C is done, time to
| move on, for those that were still wondering.
|
| Around minute 4, or go through the transcript.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/102/
| LeoNatan25 wrote:
| "Objective-C is done, time to move on" ... except for Apple
| themselves, where we still see a steep rise in ObjC year
| over year with no visible sign of slowing that incline.
|
| Likewise for AppKit.
|
| Apple, the "do as we say, not as we do" company.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Except several systems have been rewritten in Swift for
| Ventura, also mentioned in other talks.
|
| Besides this is nothing new in the industry, some Android
| business units and Windows ones, are quite adverse to
| touch anything besides C++, regardless of the guidelines
| to the rest of us.
| tl wrote:
| While there are parts of Swift that I like, I am more and
| more convinced as time goes on that Swift in general, and
| specific sub areas of Swift (like SwiftUI or Swift
| Charts) are destined to follow the trajectory of .NET as
| decried by Spolsky in How Microsoft Lost The API War [1].
| To the extent this is true, it is likely smarter long
| term to avoid Swift except in cases where Apple has
| enforced its usage (like the watch).
|
| For problem areas where Apple's frameworks provide a
| useful or necessary solution, accessing them from
| Objective-C instead of Swift is more stable. Examples
| like Accelerate, HealthKit, and StoreKit come to mind.
|
| For problem areas where Apple has no advantage but you
| want to ship code there, oft derided but broadly usable
| solutions like C++ (which connects to Objective-C better
| than it does to Swift) or Javascript dominate.
|
| Even Apple appears to struggle at drinking its own
| koolaid, given the recent criticism of the Settings port
| to SwiftUI. [2]
|
| [1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-
| microsoft-lost...
|
| [2]:
| https://daringfireball.net/linked/2022/08/15/ventura-
| system-...
| jonhohle wrote:
| The more I use Swift, the more I miss Objective-C. I tend
| to like opinionated languages that take firm stances -
| all method calls are messages, everything really is an
| object, fail early, etc.
|
| Swift seems to be more and more a kitchen sink language.
| Compile time linking, v-tables, and dynamic dispatch?
| Sure! There's so much syntactic sugar masking seemingly
| unchangeable implementation details (throws/try/catch)
| and odd implementation choices (protocols associated
| types vs structs and classes generics). Builder methods
| are just plain weird, imho.
|
| I had a lot of hope for Swift early on, but it seems like
| a rudderless ship.
| salmo wrote:
| It's also funny to think of companies like Apple, MS,
| etc. as having 1 opinion or even tactic.
|
| I know they say it. But they're made up of 100s-1000s of
| groups. And at Apple especially, many of these groups are
| not allowed to talk to each other.
|
| From the outside it's easy to see companies that way. But
| if you've ever been inside a large company, you know what
| I'm talking about. That's not unique to tech, either.
|
| And rewriting software in a new language is always going
| to get back burnered by delivering new features. Until
| there's a fundamental change they want that justifies a
| rewrite, a codebase is staying in its current language
| due to inertia.
|
| Heck, companies will lie to themselves about these
| things. My favorite is this pattern
|
| Execs: We're all going to X!
|
| Crowd: Yaaay. [Some project leads look at each other with
| a mix of sarcasm and fear.]
|
| Initiative kicks off. Swag is distributed. Projects are
| identified.
|
| Exec: [Looks at $] Well, except this one. And that one...
| Ok, we'll replace all of these [waves arms] in 3-5 years.
|
| Narrator: 3-5 years continues to be relative to the
| current date.
| bigbizisverywyz wrote:
| .net being a good example of this
|
| I'm sure I still have CD case with 'Windows .net' printed
| on it which contains Windows 2000 and SQL Server... .net?
|
| The marketers really went to town on that one, would have
| loved to be in the creative pitch meetings for that swag.
|
| '.net, what is it??'
|
| 'Who knows??! But if we print .net in multicolour on
| enough stuff, somebody might figure it out!'
| thinkling wrote:
| > The marketers really went to town on that one,
|
| To be fair, the developers at Microsoft went to town on
| it as well, adopting C# for parts of Windows Blackcomb,
| including the File Manager, the Desktop Manager, and
| (some of) WinFS. It turned into a fiasco and the .NET
| adoption was mostly dropped, as far as I remember, when
| they did the "reset" and pivoted to Vista.
| andai wrote:
| Interesting, I wonder if that is for technical reasons
| (low level stuff; performance?) or just inertia?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Mostly inertia, the only new subsystem where Objective-C
| plays a major role is Metal, and even there most examples
| make use of the Swift bindings.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| All new projects I was involved in over the past three
| years or more were in Swift. I would say it is considered
| in bad form to start a new project in anything other than
| Swift.
|
| Further, I saw many legacy projects move from Objective-C
| to Swift (Podcasts comes to mind). (Some legacy
| Objective-C apps like iTunesU, sadly, were "sunsetted".)
|
| Until recently, I believe there were issues with
| frameworks written natively in Swift so I saw a few
| smaller frameworks thrown together in Objective-C. I
| believe that, whatever the issues were, are no longer
| pertinent.
|
| I can say too that there are many engineers that don't
| even know how to code in Objective-C. The younger
| engineers learned on Swift and are even hostile to
| writing in Objective-C (ha ha).
|
| Of course Apple is a big company and I can't speak for
| the whole of engineering - only the teams/orgs I was
| involved with. And since I left Apple last year I can
| only guess at the current state. But the direction was
| clearly away from Objective-C.
|
| As you can imagine, the biggest hurdle to 100% adoption
| is going to be bringing over legacy projects. Porting to
| Swift will probably always take a back seat to features,
| bug fixes. If the pace at Apple were more leisurely, not
| a suite of new OS releases every year, perhaps we could
| have our cake and eat it.
| eddieroger wrote:
| They can't be the ones to turn the lights off if they're
| not the last ones in the room. iTunes was famously Carbon
| for long after Apple said "use Cocoa now", but it came
| around. It's fine to tell everyone else "stop doing ObjC
| now", then to slowly strangle it out of their code as
| well.
| chrismsimpson wrote:
| SwiftUI is an intermediate step in this transition. Expect
| the UIKit/AppKit bits to eventually disappear.
| grishka wrote:
| Except SwiftUI is itself built on top of AppKit/UIKit.
| jamil7 wrote:
| Many of the views are, but some do not bind to
| AppKit/UIKit and instead are drawn directly (I think
| maybe Image is one?). The idea is you could keep
| SwiftUI's API stable while deprecating AppKit/UIKit
| piecemeal underneath.
| chrismsimpson wrote:
| This is what I meant
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The greater bulk of the macOS userland is still written in
| Objective-C.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Yeah but they expose the same ABI. If you can write in
| Objective-C, you could write it Swift and externally it'd be
| no different. And since they're reimplementing this stuff
| from scratch, I'm surprised they didn't just do that.
|
| (I'm saying this as someone who would be more inclined to
| contribute if it was written in Swift.)
| boucher wrote:
| I imagine they are using either GNUStep or Cocotron as the
| basis for their Cocoa support, not starting fully from
| scratch.
| IMcD23 wrote:
| Looks like they have copied and pasted large amounts of
| code from Cocotron.
| pjmlp wrote:
| How is this going to have a better future than GNUStep, while
| being up to date with macOS frameworks?
| Kukumber wrote:
| no KDE/GTK, no system-d
|
| global menu
|
| swift as a first class language
|
| swiftUI like API
|
| and you get my support! i'll donate
| nu11ptr wrote:
| I like the honest, modest, realistic goals of this project. Looks
| interesting.
| shortformblog wrote:
| I tried running this last night on an i7-8550u, and eh, I didn't
| get far. I got it to boot to a GUI, but nothing else loaded, not
| even an installer. And because the screen was 4k, my cursor (and
| everything else) was tiny. I think this is a cool project but
| just worth noting that this is a proof of concept right now
| rather than a complete thing. Best of luck to the RavynOS team.
| unixhero wrote:
| Great effort and idea. Don't forget to find a replacement foe OSX
| Quartz engine.
| oleganza wrote:
| I don't get it. The landing page promises finesse and then the
| very first screenshot displays horror typography and UI a-la
| linux 1998.
|
| https://ravynos.com/images/airyx_0.3_installer_confirm.png
| netr0ute wrote:
| The website didn't actually claim they had implemented those
| features yet, just that it's their goals.
| JacobSeated wrote:
| KDE is a better desktop environment than MacOS, by far. I have
| had so many usability issues with my Mac that does not exist in
| KDE/Linux. E.g. Apple confining the GUI and not including basic
| functionality.
|
| Specifically:
|
| - I really miss a decent address bar in finder that can be edited
| directly
|
| - some windows on mac are always on top, preventing access to
| other windows. E.g. Password dialogs for encrypted hard drives.
|
| - "Cut" does not work for files in finder, severely complicating
| moving files
|
| - The Maximize button does not maximize, but instead enters full
| screen, meaning that I never use it
|
| - There is a delay of ~100ms when pushing caps lock on the
| keyboard that can not be turned off without installing karabiner
| elements
|
| - Pressing enter in Finder renames a file instead of opening it,
| an action that is rarely needed and extremely unintuitive - this
| erroneous behaviour can also be corrected with karabiner elements
|
| - Sometimes audio balance will randomly shift to the left or
| right with bluetooth headphones, had to install yet another app
| to auto-fix it every time it happens because Apple is too daft to
| fix the bug.
|
| - There is no delete key on the Mac keyboard, meaning that
| deleting a file is suddenly a two- key shortcut combo, whereas it
| is much easier on Windows/Linux (hit delete). Sigh.
| solardev wrote:
| Coming from the Windows and Linux worlds, I had similar
| frustrations with the primitive Mac UI. Mostly a better
| keyboard shortcuts/window timer fixed them for me (Magnet).
| There are still some issues but they are relatively minor.
|
| What made me stick with the platform though was never having to
| worry about drivers, and updates being polite and patient, and
| not being bombarded with a billion ads everywhere like in
| Windows or Ubuntu. Also not having to drop into the command
| line to change monitor settings is nice. And the M1 is just
| soooo nice, fast and quiet and cool, no x86 laptop is even
| remotely close anymore. They put the ThinkPads, my previous
| favorite, to shame.
|
| So yeah, to your point, the dumbed down UI is a pain, but the
| rest of the experience is so much nicer now. I'd take needing a
| few extra apps over having to go back to desktop Linux...
| zitsarethecure wrote:
| > Also not having to drop into the command line to change
| monitor settings is nice.
|
| I can't remember the last time I had to do this on Linux.
| Sometime in the the 90's, I think.
| solardev wrote:
| I had to do it multiple times with hidpi monitors just a
| few years back. Not sure about ultrawide, hdr, high refresh
| rate, gsync, etc.
| trenchgun wrote:
| Linux works with M1
| sharikous wrote:
| Absolutely not ready for production environments. A lot of
| driver support is lacking. Audio is disabled since it could
| blow up the speakers. Wifi doesn't always work (for me at
| least). And that's without talking about GPU support or
| even Thunderbolt support.
| noodlebear wrote:
| Is this relevant to the submission, or simply a spot you've
| interpreted as a convenient one to air all of your grievances
| about Macs? I guess not only air them, but state them in a way
| where only your approach is correct ("erroneous" is
| inappropriate to apply to a UI decision that differs from your
| preference, for example)
| elcritch wrote:
| Note that you can do "Cut" in Finder by doing "Copy (Cmd-C)"
| but then using "Alt-Cmd-V". It'll move the file instead of
| copying.
|
| Also, you can also fix the "caps lock" issue by remapping it to
| "control". Completely fixes the "caps lock" button. It works on
| Linux too! ;)
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| This way of doing copy or move makes a lot of sense since it
| allows you to change your mind without having to go back to
| the original file and cut/copy again. Instead, it defers that
| decision until you get to your destination, where moving the
| file just takes an extra modifier on top of the usual paste
| shortcut.
| trebbble wrote:
| It only just dawned on me reading this--Windows doesn't
| actually "cut" files, does it? The behavior's different from
| "cutting" text. The files remain until you paste, right?
| Mac's choice makes a ton more sense, in that case, since
| _actually_ cutting files is probably a bad idea (if you
| forget to paste, they 're gone)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I really miss a decent address bar in finder that can be
| edited directly
|
| Press Command-Shift-G and it will appear as a small window. (I
| haven't figured out how to do this in a "Open/Save File"
| dialog, so if anyone can chime in, greatly aprreciated)
|
| > "Cut" does not work for files in finder, severely
| complicating moving files
|
| It's annoying that there is no shortcut equivalent, but if you
| need to actually move a file either drag and drop it, or press
| Option while right-clicking in the target Finder window - the
| menu entry will change from "copy here" to "move here".
|
| > The Maximize button does not maximize, but instead enters
| full screen, meaning that I never use it
|
| Yuck, yeah. Very irritating. Use SizeUp, well worth the 13 US$.
| speed_spread wrote:
| 100% with you. KDE is the only desktop environment, all
| platforms confounded, that hasn't sacrificed power user
| functionality on the altar of streamlined / dumbed-down
| "design".
|
| It's like a race to the bottom to please an elusive lowest
| common denominator class of users that doesn't exist. I find
| these other "modern" UIs incredibly condescending.
|
| Instead, discoverability should be #1, creating soft, natural
| learning curve that welcomes new users without capping or
| hiding advanced functionality.
| baq wrote:
| > always on top, preventing access to other windows. E.g.
| Password dialogs for encrypted hard drives.
|
| this is something that should be done everywhere, if it isn't,
| it's a potential security issue.
| [deleted]
| ysleepy wrote:
| None of those are bugs, just differences. sounds like you tried
| for a day and were annoyed it's not exactly as you are used to.
| Most of your issues simply work differently on macos, and many
| have been since before kde existed.
|
| Sure some could be better, but changing these would upset the
| whole user base. (And mac users could claim those things broken
| in kde in the same way)
|
| I have used windows, gnome2, gnome3, xfce, mac and so on and
| dislike kde, and gnome3, and all the others. Even mac is really
| dumb sometimes, but macos is the most polished by far.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Most entries in posters list are complaints with how things
| work. Two of these seem like bugs.
|
| > Sometimes audio balance will randomly shift to the left or
| right with bluetooth headphones
|
| > There is a delay of ~100ms when pushing caps lock
|
| Another seems objective not subjective
|
| > Pressing enter in Finder renames a file instead of opening
| it
|
| Who thinks the enter to rename is reasonable?
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Audio balance seems like a bug. Caps Lock delay seems like
| accidental activation prevention. Who thinks F2 to rename
| is reasonable?
| gattilorenz wrote:
| > Audio balance seems like a bug
|
| A long standing one actually. I remember having it in
| Mojave/El Capitan already on my 2102 MBP.
|
| The others are annoyances from not being familiar with
| the UI, some more motivated than others. But let's recall
| the sad story of the thumbnails in GNOME's file picker,
| for a second...
| michaelmrose wrote:
| Having it delayed by a portion of a second can never in
| any way shape or form prevent accidental activation as
| you don't have time to notice and correct the matter. It
| IS just enough to prevent several characters from being
| entered in the correct case.
|
| Users expect actions to match the sequence of inputs. If
| the user can type CAPS and "TITLE" and get "tITLE" its a
| bug.
|
| Basically 50 years of computer interfaces of all kids
| across all OS across planet earth use enter or return for
| activation. This includes Mac in all other contexts.
|
| F2 to rename dates back to windows 3.1 with environments
| like KDE using the same key that is familiar to windows
| users. Like many things it is an arbitrary choice without
| any inherently correct answer. The nice thing about it is
| in dolphin is that one can easily discover this by right
| clicking a file or folder and noting the shortcut listed
| beside the action so you can both complete the task
| visually immediately and learn the hotkey easily.
| LeoNatan25 wrote:
| > Who thinks the enter to rename is reasonable?
|
| Decades of MacOS users?
| still_grokking wrote:
| And what about all the bugs Apple seems to add on a daily
| basis and not fixing them than for month, years, or actually
| ever?
|
| I can read in the news more or less every day that
| fundamental things like input devices, monitors, audio, or
| basic GUI features are messed up or bluntly broken in macOS.
| People already "joking" that one needs to way at least two or
| three point releases before trying out major updates. That's
| even worse than the situation on Windows by now (and MS is
| also breaking things with _every_ update).
|
| As a Linux user that uses a "perpetual beta" distri (Debian
| Testing) I'm horrified about such news. Comparable breakage
| does happen on my OS maybe 2 times _in a decade_ on average,
| and when some catastrophe like that happens (monitor stops
| working, no audio, USB not working, or such) it 's usually
| fixed within _hours_!
| timeon wrote:
| > - "Cut" does not work for files in finder, severely
| complicating moving files
|
| Luckily macos is extensible so you can create your own service
| for that.
| solardev wrote:
| Mac has a different workflow for this. You copy and then
| "paste and move" at the destination, instead of the standard
| cut. But same result.
| dolmen wrote:
| I was used to Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V to move files on Windows.
|
| What is the shortcut for "paste and move"?
| gield wrote:
| [?]+C for copy
|
| [?]+V for paste
|
| [?]+|+V for paste and move
| philkrylov wrote:
| thanks!
| awill wrote:
| I generally really dislike when companies make comparisons like
| this. They pick a market leader, and imply their v1 is just as
| good. It never is.
|
| The Google of X The Apple of Y The Amazon of Z
|
| It's almost always hype and it's annoying. It's as if they think
| they deserve credit for the intent, or the goal, rather than the
| actual product.
| oxplot wrote:
| Hmm, looking at the screenshots and comparing with my current
| Gnome on Wayland, the latter is way more beautiful and with
| better utility.
| Naracion wrote:
| Ex graphic designer here, but don't (and never have) used Mac. I
| highly respect this project and initiative, and the following is
| more a commentary on my own reaction than your product.
|
| I read the title--finesse of MacOS. I open the link, and the
| first thing I see at the top is the circular raven logo
| vertically misaligned with the header on mobile.
|
| That made me think, okay let's try desktop version instead, so I
| switched to desktop render (still on mobile browser) -- this time
| the logo is vertically aligned but the padding / margin on top
| and bottom are lower than on the left.
|
| This is of course nitpicking in the larger scheme of things--I
| haven't tried the OS, but the screenshots look great and
| definitely look like MacOS. However, with the title setting up
| expectations and the first impression being of a misaligned logo
| made me (unfairly) dismiss the project since I felt you were
| trying to claim a level of finesse that might not be there.
|
| I don't use Linux, so I'll never really use this product, but
| it's interesting to me--why do people / projects/teams (in
| general--not just this product) try to emulate the "finesse" of
| Apple products? To me, it sets up unrealistic expectations from
| that product, and I might dismiss an otherwise excellent solution
| if it doesn't live up to that comparison.
| CaioAlonso wrote:
| https://github.com/ravynsoft/website/pull/28
| [deleted]
| johnisgood wrote:
| > I don't use Linux, so I'll never really use this product
|
| Isn't it FreeBSD?
| LASR wrote:
| Yeah it's a common misconception.
|
| This is closer to macOS than it is to Linux.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| From a product marketing standpoint, they could have picked a
| better name. My brain keeps going "Rav-yin" instead of "Raven".
|
| I know why these kinds of pseudo words are chosen for products,
| they're unique and easy to search. But there are better ways to
| do this IMO. FreeBSD is a prime example of a great product
| name.
| [deleted]
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I'm not sure that caring about the design of a desktop
| environment and website are equivalent - if nothing else,
| they're different skills to implement. And in any event, it's
| an early-stage project; that their goals aren't realized yet is
| hardly surprising.
| warning26 wrote:
| _> but the screenshots look great and definitely look like
| MacOS_
|
| Some do, but many look quite janky -- for example, check out
| the grey menu bar with Windows-98-style underlined shortcut
| keys in this one:
| https://ravynos.com/images/airyx_0.3.0pre_about.png
|
| Perhaps I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem
| particularly visually different than the "aqua skins" that have
| been available on *nix for years.
| eddieroger wrote:
| > why do people / projects/teams (in general--not just this
| product) try to emulate the "finesse" of Apple products
|
| Because people like them. Why do all sedans look kind of alike?
| Why are there dozens knock-off chairs that emulate the Aeron?
| Some people, myself included, really like the look and feel of
| macOS, but may want to run *nix instead. Enough of those people
| got together and made an OS.
| mwint wrote:
| Sedans mostly look alike because of safety regulations.
| There's only one basic shape that can meet all the regs and
| is plausible to manufacture.
| rdsnsca wrote:
| Moacos is a posix compatible Unix.
| brimstedt wrote:
| I didn't notice the misaligned logo until you pointed it out
| (but I'm a guy who prefers 'ugly things that work ' rather than
| 'unusable junk that looks good')
|
| What I did notice though was th first screenshot with the red,
| yellow, green buttons of osx window titles.
|
| I think this is a really bad design, and I don't understand how
| people can like this.
|
| Sure, nice round "buttons", but very unclear what their purpose
| is.
|
| I think this is something of a red line through Mac/iOS: The
| preference of unclear user interface that "looks good" instead
| of a clear interface that communicates with the user.
|
| I've used Mac for years, and still don't know what the yellow
| button does.
|
| I like the idea of this new OS, but please make better design
| choices that Apple :-)
| nusaru wrote:
| > I've used Mac for years, and still don't know what the
| yellow button does.
|
| Minimize. That's what the yellow button does. It's as simple
| as clicking it once.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| or, mousing over it and seeing the little minimize line.
| eknkc wrote:
| Kind of unrelated to the actual discussion but I just
| realised that I never minimize things on mac. I know what
| the yellow bubble does, never once clicked it, neither used
| the shortcut whatever it is.
|
| Is this common? I used it on windows but for years now, I
| have a ton of windows on top of each other or I just cmd+w
| my way out of one.
|
| Maybe this is the idiomatic way and I'm not an outlier
| though. Is it?
| thewebcount wrote:
| I've been using Macs since 1984 and I almost never
| minimize a window. I find that I generally don't need to
| since I can maximize a window properly. In macOS the
| Maximize function (which you need to use option to get
| from the green button) makes the window the largest size
| that makes sense for the content and fits on the screen.
| On Windows, the maximize button in MDI windows makes the
| window essentially full-screen which I personally never
| want. I can have multiple maximized windows on macOS and
| access them all by either just clicking between them or
| using Cmd-`. I have no need to minimize unless a window's
| maximized size is essentially full-screen.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| I'd propose going all the way back to NEXTSTEP and taking
| that as inspiration. It's similar enough to OS X that it
| would feel familiar to Mac users, but without the 20 years of
| being "function follows form"ed to death.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| In terms of an interface designed for clarity, I think the
| epitome was Windows 95.
|
| But that involved portable thousands of hours interviewing
| and videotaping regular people trying to use Windows and then
| addressing issues found.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > I think this is a really bad design, and I don't understand
| how people can like this.
|
| What do you think would be better? Can you give an example?
| [deleted]
| HenriTEL wrote:
| To be fair, I remember the apple website rendering pretty badly
| on mobile device for a long time, at some point it actually
| made me feel like this company had really low UI standards. (I
| think it was the versions between 2007 and 2017 and didn't used
| their products at that time)
| [deleted]
| lucideer wrote:
| I noticed the logo misalignment but the rest of the website was
| pretty good so I figured it was a one-off issue (rather than
| representative of a trend).
|
| Was there other issues that bothered you?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| ElementaryOS had similar goals on the desktop experience side.
|
| You may also want to take a look at OpenStep and Window Maker.
| aldrich wrote:
| I'm curious to know why they have chosen to use FreeBSD as a base
| as opposed to Darwin/XNU on which macOS itself is based.
|
| Nothing against FreeBSD (happy user here) so there's probably
| some good reasoning behind this.
| fithisux wrote:
| Possibly driver support. But I would feel better if at some
| point they co-operate with PureDarwin to run on real XNU.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| Probably because Darwin is half abandoned, while FreeBSD is
| actively maintained and with plenty of drivers
| samtheprogram wrote:
| Darwin is still open sourced, but mainly because of drivers
| and differences in certain other things (threads maybe, Mach
| ports / IPC, etc) that don't have the integration or
| implementation with existing software is a major headwind to
| attempting a full encompassing Darwin OS.
|
| PureDarwin was (is?) an attempt that hasn't been able to
| break through those headwinds.
| spyremeown wrote:
| Is Darwin used for something other than research? I'd
| really love to see some homebrew stuff with this kernel.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| There's https://www.puredarwin.org/ which is probably
| great for partial OSX/iOS emulation efforts. That's it as
| far as I can tell, though.
| jamil7 wrote:
| From the FAQ:
|
| The short answer is "hardware support". ravynOS should run on
| most commodity x86_64 hardware using FreeBSD's very stable and
| performant drivers.
|
| The longer answer is that plus I don't see any real advantage
| to using xnu. We have merged in Mach support now (big thanks to
| NetBSD, NextBSD and the iX Systems folks for that) so the xnu
| approach just seems to add complexity and the effort of writing
| and maintaining drivers.
|
| Considering how big this project is already, I opted to stick
| with the BSD kernel - at least for now
| bogwog wrote:
| Regarding hardware support, will this run on actual Apple
| silicon? If not, it seems like Linux would have been the
| better choice for maximizing hardware support, if only for
| Asahi Linux's work.
|
| (btw, I don't know much about this kind of work, so I have no
| idea if it's feasible to port the drivers from Asahi to
| FreeBSD, or if they'll have to start mostly from scratch)
| Delk wrote:
| I know nothing about the project apart from the website,
| but the front page says they aren't a fan of the "ever-
| closing hardware", so I guess Apple silicon might not be a
| priority.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > We have merged in Mach support now
|
| Mach the kernel, the IPC system, or the binary format?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| "Can I run Photoshop?"
| oliv__ wrote:
| The website looks better than the actual OS...
| amrox wrote:
| For the page:
|
| > You will need real hardware to run it.
|
| Why doesn't it work in a VM?
| kkielhofner wrote:
| It is strange. Just downloaded and tried to boot in a KVM+Qemu
| VM targeting FreeBSD 13 (virsh). Booted but kernel hung with an
| obscure launchd dispatching job message. I haven't used FreeBSD
| consistently since the 4.x days so I have no idea what this
| means.
|
| Looks interesting enough to play around with but for such an
| ambitious project VM support should be one of the first dev
| priorities not only for dev and testing but for users wanting
| to take it for a spin.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Why not pick up where Elementary OS left off, instead of starting
| from scratch?
| Shorel wrote:
| Do you mean having huge useless toolbars eating valuable screen
| real state?
|
| It seriously had worse UI design decisions than Gnome 3.
| deaddodo wrote:
| I would argue picking up where GNUStep+Etoile left off, over
| Elementary.
|
| Elementary is just a nice skin with some particular tweaks and
| add-ons. Etoile's goal was more akin to what they're trying to
| achieve here, an actual Objective-C+Cocoa user space with a Mac
| compatible open library,
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| Nice project, however I'm worried about their scope
| (reimplementing the MacOs APIs?) being too large for their team,
| to achieve that level of 'finessse' a billion-worth company has
| made decades achieving.
|
| Moreover in my opinion the contributor pool might be thin, most
| potentially interested users would prefer using MacOs, and most
| linux users being notoriously not fond of the lack of
| configuration. Happy to be proven wrong!
| Dave3of5 wrote:
| Lawsuit from apple incoming in 3 ... 2 ...
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Interesting that they decided not to just spin Pantheon onto BSD
| but develop their own DE.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| The one thing keeping me on MacOS is that it is "*nix that
| works". I have never found Ubuntu / Linux to be as stable;
| worrying about updates breaking things, updates indeed breaking
| things, drivers randomly stopping working, googling in
| desperation for half-baked fixes online, randomly trying
| different options in some dotfile until stuff works etc. Mac just
| works; maybe there are features that Linux would give me, but as
| I spend my time between the terminal and the browser, I'm not
| sure I'd notice much.
|
| I think I'm not alone in this approach; I wonder if this project
| has the change to be as rock-solid as Apple's offerings. If not,
| I'm guessing it's not for me.
| croh wrote:
| I don't know what is the last time you used linux but lately
| there is great improvements in user experience. I know non-
| techie people using Linux Mint/ubuntu without any hassels.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I'm writing this from my Ubuntu desktop (LTE). Just a few
| months ago some update broke everything (graphics). Then
| somehow I fixed it, but it broke again on restart. It took
| best part of a week for me to fix.
|
| You might say it wasn't the best distribution for
| reliability, or that graphics with NVidia are always an issue
| etc. but the fact remains that, for me, for an OS to "just
| work out of the box", MacOS is much better.
|
| [I'm also not a Linux n00b, been using it for over a decade,
| though not an expert for sure]
| prmoustache wrote:
| So basically you played with fire(nvidia) and got burned.
|
| There is one way to run nvidia stuff on Linux and have a
| decent experience: run a distro that actually support and
| has partnership with nvidia, which mean a distro like
| Redhat Enterprise Linux. It has long term support too.
|
| It is the same with Apple or windows if you start using
| shitty drivers from a shady brand you will run into issues
| at some point.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Well, that's one way to look at it: you need to carefully
| pick your distro, make sure it's compatible with your
| hardware, and so on.
|
| My way is rather: I don't want to even pollute my brain
| cache with that. I want a Computer with an Operating
| System that Just Work. Because for me tinkering with the
| setup of my desktop is not fun, the fun bit is what I do
| with a properly working computer. I'll pay a premium to
| Apple for that (though, mind you, MBP is competitively
| priced with similarly-performant laptops), and I'd pay
| that same premium to a laptop+Linux provider.
|
| Except... my confidence in the latter working well is
| lower. Because apart from fixing broken graphics drivers,
| I've also had to, in my days, debug:
|
| - package managers that somehow got themselves into a bad
| state
|
| - fight with linkers when trying to build fairly benign
| stuff on my desktop
|
| - don't even mention printing
|
| and many other things I don't even remember anymore.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I've had more luck printing from Linux than any other
| operating system, funnily enough. It just seems to work,
| no 3GB of driver software or manual browsing for INF
| files required. The UI is a bit clunky when you want to
| configure advanced settings but it's no worse than your
| average HP driver in my opinion.
|
| My experiments with macOS actually had the same problems
| you list, though I haven't tried printing more than once.
| MacOS comes with ancient Unix tools and you end up
| downloading half a Linux install over Brew when you try
| to compile stuff, and now you have added an external
| package manager you need to deal with to as system that
| doesn't really support one.
|
| Mg experience with package managers is that if you ignore
| the warnings (adding --force to overrule errors, adding
| external repositories that replace system libraries or
| aren't maintained, mess with config files to override
| same defaults, mix package managers (apt+global pip =
| hell)) you won't see them break themselves. I've broken
| Windows installs by messing with my system in similar
| ways, though there never seems to be a solution when this
| happens other than a reinstall. Trouble mostly comes from
| outdated, misguided guides found on Google that'll ignore
| any best practices for your opersting system and set
| things up Their Way, turning your install into a ticking
| time bomb when the writers have long had to reinstall
| their operating system without ever updating their
| guides.
|
| All operating systems I've tried are bad in their own
| way. Windows worked great until 8 came out. MacOS works
| well enough if you don't mind Apple's
| control/decisions/limitations and accept the risk of
| buying a faulty device that the company will deny all the
| way up to class lawsuit settlements. Linux works well if
| you're lucky with your hardware. The BSDs work well if
| you don't plan on doing all that many things the OS isn't
| equipped to do out of the box and if you don't have any
| weird hardware.
| prmoustache wrote:
| >- don't even mention printing
|
| Sounds strange because both Linux and MacOS share the
| same Cups software for printing. AFAIK Cups main
| developpers are employed by Apple.
|
| I haven't run into any hiccups these last 15 years.
| Everytime I was in the market for a printer I just
| verified it was supported well on openprinting.org. On my
| current printer I just needed to install one rpm.
|
| Compare that to all the crappy software that was
| installed on my gf windows 10 laptop, involving a reboot,
| annoying popups telling you about ink level on every
| print and an app loading up at startup to stay in
| systray.
|
| I like to mention that I used for 18 years a scanner on
| linux and bsd perfectly while it was out of support in
| Mac and windows since 2001. It wasn't even a device that
| would have used very old connectors impossible to find on
| modern hardware. It was using USB! In that particular
| case I don't think that Mac really accounts for what
| you'd call a "Just Work" experience.
| prmoustache wrote:
| >Well, that's one way to look at it: you need to
| carefully pick your distro, make sure it's compatible
| with your hardware, and so on. > >My way is rather: I
| don't want to even pollute my brain cache with that. I
|
| That is exactly what you did by choosing Apple.
|
| If you go on the redhat website and choose certified
| system you can pick your hardware from any vendor the
| same way you choose your Apple machine on the Apple
| store.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| nvidia is the bane of my Linux desktop as well but "just
| don't buy the most popular, compatible, best bang-for-
| the-buck GPU" isn't really advice that'll help anyone.
| I'd love for developers and researchers to stop using
| CUDA but the problem lies upstream. When the hardware and
| drivers work well enough on Windows the root cause may be
| that nvidia is a terrible vendor but that doesn't improve
| the user experience in any way.
|
| With partial open sourcing efforts I predict that the
| nvidia situation will improve a lot the coming years,
| luckily. Until then, don't blame people who try Linux for
| nvidia's problems; there is no user friendly guide to
| find what hardware is supported how well for Linux and
| its kernel updates.
|
| Furthermore, even supported drivers are a mess sometimes.
| There was a bug in the Linux kernel for months where the
| kernel would freeze up less than a second after boot if
| you had an Intel GPU and were using a second screen
| through DisplayPort. My laptop didn't have audio on
| anything but a beta driver package when I bought it.
| Ubuntu and friends simply couldn't use modern Intel
| graphics with multiple displays or hardware acceleration
| because the drivers were never backported to an LTS
| supported kernel. One in five times, my Manjaro install
| kernel panics on boot when switching from text mode to
| graphics mode, with no obvious way to debug; I was
| advised to get two USB to serial port adapters to debug
| the issue which would likely help, but I don't want to
| bother to be honest.
|
| The world of Linux is full of driver issues, mostly
| graphics and sometimes audio, that are impossible to even
| debug without a second computer and a few years of Linux
| experience. Many common peripherals lack any kind of
| Linux support as well. The "shitty drivers" come from
| every brand on every product range and the only
| guaranteed method to work with you at stuff you'll find
| is to never ever upgrade your install once you get
| everything working.
|
| I want Linux to be better for everyone, but overlooking
| its obvious flaws and blaming users won't get that done.
| butterNaN wrote:
| I'm the de facto IT support for my family and neighbours.
| They are using Pop OS for about 3 years now. It has been
| great from both their UX and my maintenance perspective.
|
| My father even did the 20.10 to 21.04 LTS upgrade himself! I
| highly doubt if windows would've been as smooth an
| experience.
|
| (Macs are out of question for us since none of us are rich!)
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Windows upgrades go so smoothly they've been repackaged as
| updates. They're also highly fault resistant by default
| with automated rollbacks out of the box.
|
| I'm not saying Pop is bad, but Windows upgrades are super
| easy and user friendly (if you ignore the privacy risks
| that come with using Windows). I wish common Linux distros
| would pack something like system restore by default
| already! I know these tools (based on BTRFS/ZFS snapshots)
| exist and work great, but they need to be set up manually
| and most people won't.
| sharikous wrote:
| I agree but the *nix part became less and less significant.
| Bundled Unix tools are ancient. Compiling your own kernel is
| almost an anathema (it is possible but you will have nonstop
| hurdles, you will lose a lot of features and you will have to
| fight the security system too many times to remain sane).
|
| Even the UI conventions that let you use the keyboard instead
| of the mouse are now often broken by Apple itself (it impacts
| power users more than impaired people since accessibility
| features are still good).
|
| And no containers - those require you to run a different kernel
| on a VM.
|
| Frankly I feel that macOS went back to being like Mac OS 9 in a
| lot of aspects - it's just enormously bigger and has a proper
| foundation but the UI is again mouse centric and proprietary
| and the system is more tightly coupled than ever with the
| hardware
| prmoustache wrote:
| I hear a lot of people saying that. What I find out mostly is
| their last experience of linux on a desktop dates back to the
| early 2000 and or crappy distros like ubuntu.
| adastra22 wrote:
| What distro works more reliably than ubuntu?
| kristjank wrote:
| Literally every one, including Fedora, openSUSE (both Leap
| and Tumbleweed), Debian, Linux Mint, Manjaro, Void, Arch
| and Gentoo with their respective derivatives.
|
| Ubuntu is a mess that introduces config-breaking changes
| every release and rides the already existing market. If
| Canonical tried to release their products nowadays without
| their track record and existing user base, they would never
| succeed.
|
| The peak Linux experience for a Just Werx focused end user
| is probably openSUSE Tumbleweed on KDE or XFCE. Batteries
| included, fast and extremely hard to break package manager,
| YaST2 configuration manager, and lots of user repositories.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Definitely not my experience. I install an Ubuntu LTS
| release and I get 5 years of support with updates that
| never break anything. No doubt people have issues, but
| I've never encountered a problem during a security update
| that was not caused by my own previous mucking around.
| Rolling releases, on the other hand, are a nightmare for
| this, and smaller distros never work out of the box in my
| experience.
|
| If you're saying upgrading between releases causes
| problems.. well that's true but not how I read the
| original statement, and not something I particularly care
| about. Each release is a different product and there's no
| reason to update until support is dropped on the one
| you're currently using.
| trebbble wrote:
| Linux was my main desktop OS for about a decade. About
| four years of that on Gentoo, so yes, I do actually know
| what I'm doing, didn't just pointy-clicky install to an
| Ubuntu desktop and never learn how to actually use or
| configure it. I dropped Linux around 2012 for macOS (OSX,
| at the time) after I was forced to use that at work and,
| after about a month of getting used to it, realized what
| I'd been missing.
|
| I try desktop Linux again every year or two[0]. It's
| always just as bad as it's always been. Way more
| application crashes than I'm used to on macOS, jankiness
| galore, all the stuff I used to avoid doing out of habit
| because it often breaks things on Linux (and to some
| extent also on Windows) but am now used to doing because
| it's fine on macOS is still often a bad on Linux (e.g.
| drag-n-drop actions). Lots of little annoyances like the
| default US English keyboard layout being crap for no
| reason on most distros, which, sure, I can change it, but
| why not have a _good_ default? Still nothing as good as
| Preview on _any_ platform other than macOS, AFAIK, which
| hurts quite a bit.
|
| I think there was about a two-year high point in the late
| '00s when Ubuntu was just curating good defaults and
| smoothing things out and the future looked really bright,
| then Ubuntu rapidly deteriorated and it's back to how it
| had been before then, now, just shinier because of all
| the mostly-mediocre-or-bad GUI changes in the major DEs
| since then.
|
| My next attempt, I'll probably just shoot for the holy
| grail of FreeBSD on the desktop. Linux seems like a lost
| cause at this point. May not be any better but a lot
| about it sure is _way_ saner than Linux-land, so, worth a
| shot. Great on servers, certainly. Not expecting much
| because it 's mostly the same as Linux in the GUI
| department, though.
|
| [0] Last time: Ubuntu and Fedora (I don't like rpm-based
| distros, but thought I'd give them another shot), plus
| tried Void for the first time which was pretty great
| actually but I just don't _enjoy_ fiddling with configs
| anymore so, it 's a no for me.
| stolen_biscuit wrote:
| Interesting - my experience has actually been the exact
| opposite. I always hesitate to update my Mac OS machine as it
| will inevitably break or misbehave, whereas I rarely run into
| issues upgrading my Ubuntu machine.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Crazy how much experiences vary... been riding the wave of
| macOS updates for years, always running the latest and
| breakage is rare, temporary, third party in nature, and is
| usually a result of the dev of the app in question not moving
| off of some deprecated API despite warnings that it would be
| getting removed in the near future.
| [deleted]
| numbers wrote:
| Can it get the font rendering to the level that macOS or iOS
| have? If yes, then it's getting there. The few things that scream
| to me that I'm not using a mac:
|
| 1. Antialiasing of fonts, how crisp and clear does it look on my
| screen? Windows has struggled with this especially after
| ClearType.
|
| 2. Alignment of elements in various applications. The traffic
| light window controls look way too far into the app's header.
| Find a happy medium, copy macOS's spacing.
|
| 3. Is the contrast in colors strong enough to tell me this was
| designed by someone who has some design (hopefully color theory
| background) or was it just an attempt to use many colors?
| hbn wrote:
| > The traffic light window controls look way too far into the
| app's header. Find a happy medium, copy macOS's spacing.
|
| I noticed that too on the screenshots page. And it's weird
| cause it looks right under the "features you'd love" section on
| the main page. It looks like most of those images (the traffic
| light buttons, global menus, folder icons) are faked to look
| like macOS but then the screenshots don't actually look like
| that.
| denysonique wrote:
| There used to be Infinitaly that somewhat helped with that.
|
| If you find your fonts rendered to thin compared to macOS you
| may try changing some of the freetype settings, such as:
| FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35
| autofitter:no-stem-darkening=0 cff:no-stem-darkining=0"
| ayushnix wrote:
| It's basically impossible to have crisp fonts without a high
| DPI integer scaled monitor. The target monitor hardware for
| Windows and MacOS is vastly different.
| mike_k wrote:
| It is interesting how you only have purely visual "signs" on
| your list ). It can't be only this for a tech crowd. There is
| so much more about the way software is shipped, configured &
| used.
|
| Also, the hardware. (It is much harder to make it work
| reasonably well across so many platforms without an army of
| full time devs.)
| brailsafe wrote:
| Do you mean that for a tech crowd, you'd expect people to
| have a more robust list of desires?
|
| That's a genuine question, I just read yours in a few
| different ways.
|
| However, I'd argue that relatively small details just fall
| into the category of overall interface polish. Not just
| aesthetic people polish, but the category of things that make
| you put your hands to your face and scream in frustration.
|
| But yes, there are definitely important details in other
| layers that are worth considering. I think that when people
| make comparison's though, beetween macOS' level of finesse
| and something else, that finesse is defined by polish at most
| levels of interface with that hardware and so on.
| graphenus wrote:
| 1. Doesn't macOS turn off font antialiasing for retina
| displays? I believe retina displays (with desktop scaling) is
| the real solution to crispy fonts.
| kiicia wrote:
| apple was using grayscale shape-acxurate smoothing, it works
| on any display with any arrangement of subpixels
|
| windows clear type is using pixel-accurate subpixel
| smoothing, it works only in one direction with correct
| subpixel pattern
|
| what people (including me) dislike about windows fonts is
| aggressive hinting, that is snapping font shape to pixel
| grid, it made sense in displays around VGA (640x480) but does
| not make sense on FHD screen
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I think what you are used to has a big impact. I use a 22"
| 1200p screen and still like the aggressive hinting; I've
| tuned my fontconfig to be more like windows. Mac style
| rendering just looks fuzzy to me.
|
| As an aside the PPI of my screen isn't that different from
| the PPI of my 15" CRT running 1024x768 (both are about
| 100). Note that there was less than 15" of usable space
| since CRTs were rated based on the tube size, not the
| visible size.
| stakkur wrote:
| The challenge of course will always be hardware--notice the
| evolution of Asahi Linux on Apple hardware and how difficult it
| is. Then, throw in the device driver hellscape (wifi cards,
| drives, sound, video, etc.)
|
| This OS _sounds_ like a dream for me, but I have to imagine it
| will take many years and a lot of willing experimenters to make
| it usable. I wish I had that kind of time.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Nice to see more options for polished and user friendly Linux
| distros! Another one that has those qualities, and which I use
| often: https://zorin.com/
|
| Edit: my mistake, RavynOS isn't a Linux distro!
| haolez wrote:
| RavynOS is not a Linux distro.
| pabs3 wrote:
| Some of the words in the screenshots make it sound like this is a
| skinned version of KDE. Konsole, Kate, Plasma for example:
|
| https://ravynos.com/screenshots.html
| frostwarrior wrote:
| Today's KDE can be almost identical to a MacOS desktop, if you
| customize it properly.
|
| I'm a KDE user since 2010 and a week ago I purchased an M1 Pro
| (hopefully to install Asahi in the future). My desktop was
| basically a top bar with global menu, a few widgets and Latte
| Dock.
|
| If I didn't know that Mac came up with the functionality
| before, I would think that it is Mac that feels like a skinned
| KDE
| fsw wrote:
| > PLEASE NOTE: On 2022-02-14, we decided to abandon the current
| path of using X11/KDE desktop components and write from scratch
| a new UI that will align better with our goals. A very early UI
| on the new WindowServer is starting to take shape as of
| 2022-07-27. Thanks for your patience as we work to make ravynOS
| the best possible version.
| still_grokking wrote:
| Oh, the good old "rewrite the world" approach.
|
| Good luck to the developers!
| drums8787 wrote:
| Sure, a certain amount of good luck is always required.
|
| I've been involved in two rewrites during the past 5 years.
| While the rewrites were not by choice (one was forced by
| Flash EOL), in both cases there were multiple, very obvious
| (after the fact) benefits:
|
| - Better, modern technology top to bottom
|
| - Better dev process, facilitated by the better technology
|
| - An excuse to focus functionally, and rethink. We couldn't
| possibly reproduce a heap of legacy features and were
| forced to focus on what mattered, and managed to offer
| those key features in a far superior way.
|
| Done right, a rewrite can be fantastic. And sure, rewrites
| often happen for the wrong reasons and at the wrong time.
| adastra22 wrote:
| This is one instance where that approach probably pays
| dividends, if they can pull it off. Most macOS-like clones
| that I've tried fall short, due to there being only so much
| you can do to paper-over the Linux desktop experience. A
| sort of uncanny valley that I just can't get over and
| adjust to using.
| pjmlp wrote:
| To have the full experience they also need to clone the
| Objective-C and Swift frameworks, and IDE tooling.
| kelnos wrote:
| The GNUStep project has already done much of the ObjC
| framework cloning. I wonder if they're using that. Not
| sure about Swift frameworks, though.
| pjmlp wrote:
| If what you understand by macOS is how Panther used to
| be.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > If what you understand by macOS is how Panther used to
| be.
|
| That's a bit old for me (I started with Tiger), but I
| would definitely be all over an option to go back to OS X
| (where, I felt, the paradigm was that users should be
| presented with the best possible default experience, but
| also should be trusted to tinker if they chose to do so)
| before they started pushing this macOS = iOS integration
| (where the paradigm should be that users should be
| protected, even against themselves, from any need or
| ability to tinker).
| nirimda wrote:
| They mention in the faq that they do not use GNUStep's
| implementation of the frameworks, but they do use
| GNUStep's implementation of the libobjc2 runtime. There's
| licensing and goal issues. Apparently their Cocoa
| implementation comes from "the same source" as Darling's,
| but I don't know what that means. (Cross referencing with
| Darling's faq, I guess it's The Cocotron.)
| cestith wrote:
| GNUStep is GPL though, and one of the stated goals of
| ravynOS is to be BSD and MIT licensed. On the FAQ page
| they address this, even saying they might be willing to
| use it despite the licensing.
| wmf wrote:
| It's hundreds of person-years of work so no, they can't
| pull it off.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| If your goal is to replicate the UI quality of MacOS, then
| just reskinning the work of others will only result in
| inconsistent jank.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > Oh, the good old "rewrite the world" approach. Good luck
| to the developers!
|
| Yes, they definitely need some good luck, but sometimes
| rewriting the world is necessary to one day invent
| something new, or just eliminate architectural issues that
| are too entrenched in the old code to be easily
| circumvented without adding bloat and/or bugs. The price to
| pay is lagging behind the competition, with a potential
| bigger payoff only later, for those who persist. I see
| roughly a similar approach with the PinePhone: they
| probably went like "the heck with reverse engineering other
| phones, we make our own one from scratch!"; the result as
| of today is a ~90% working slow phone that very few among
| non tech users would want, but we see the much bigger
| potential if and when they'll reach hardware performance at
| least comparable to known brands. It takes courage,
| perseverance, and luck.
| f1shy wrote:
| I will never understand the people think you can never do a
| fresh start (in software, but not limited to it). Many very
| successful projects started as a green field. Sometimes I
| would even go so far as saying they would have failed if
| the had tried to build onto the existing code base. Also
| important to note: there is no "start from 0" most likely
| the work will be based on existing work, the ideas, code,
| or parts, modules, graphics can be reused. I see everyday
| in my job how this kind of thinking leads to code with
| parts that are over 20 years old, and are not changed
| because of fear that something could break.
| wsc981 wrote:
| "Write one to throw away" was a concept in one of the
| tech books I read. Perhaps The Pragmatic Programmer or
| maybe The Mythical Man Month.
| tommica wrote:
| Neat idea, hopefully they are successful!
| prmoustache wrote:
| Looks like lots of efforts to recreate the crappy MacOS X UI and
| user experience. I mean it was fine and less a mess than windows
| has ever been but it barely evolved since Nextstep in term of UI
| paradigm and feels dated nowadays.
|
| The interesting part in Apple products is mostly the hardware.
| thatguy27 wrote:
| My UI experience is very limited (Windows and Linux only, I
| currently use XFCE4). What do you consider to be the best UI(s)
| currently offered (in an operating system)?
| thepangolino wrote:
| The killer feature I saw in the last years was the HUD in
| that custom desktop environment Ubuntu had for a while before
| going back to gnome.
|
| The ability to just type and search through all menu items
| saved me so much time!
| KronisLV wrote:
| You probably mean the Unity desktop, which now seems to be
| maintained separately from what I can tell:
| https://ubuntuunity.org/
|
| While I think that your take on Apple UI/UX not being good
| is rather contrarian (given that many quote them as some of
| the best in the industry), I agree that using Ubuntu with
| Unity was actually a reasonably pleasant experience, at
| least in the later years when they had addressed most of
| the quirks that the earlier versions struggled with.
|
| Then again, I'm the kind of person who is also served
| perfectly well by something as simple as XFCE or LXQt, so
| maybe I'm a bit biased and my standards aren't the highest.
| Yet, I really appreciate a UI that's functional and feels
| snappy.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I feel gnome3 is a much better/faster/ergonomic. It works
| great regardless if you are a keyboard, mouse or touchscreen
| heavy user.
|
| My only gripe is I wish firefox would integrate it better
| instead with an UI similar to (now defunct?) Eolie web
| browser.
|
| Also I haven't spend enough time with it recently but I think
| kde plasma has the flexibility to be probably as good as
| gnome. I just don't like the default settings and have always
| been too lazy to dig deep into it. I used to love kde3.
| konart wrote:
| >Gnome3
|
| When people way gnome3 do they really mean gnome3 or
| gnome3..gnome43?
|
| I really like Gnome 42 and improvement that can be seen in
| 43, but I didn't like gnome3 at all
| prmoustache wrote:
| The earlier versions weren't as polished as what we have
| right now and it felt like we were missing features that
| were working fine on the latest gnome 2 release but this
| is all in the past. It happened in 2011.
|
| Ironically the same happened in the kde world a few years
| before. I had been a very happy user of kde 3.x and kde
| 4.x happened to be a crashy pos and it only really got
| better with kde5.
| drekipus wrote:
| Unironically gnome 38 for me, I'm on 41 and it seems a bit
| buggier
| adastra22 wrote:
| Not everyone feels this way about macOS.
| mirzap wrote:
| That's highly subjective point of view. I've used windows since
| high school (about 4-5y) until Win7, then Ubuntu for 7 more
| years, after that Mac. Switch was always hard, but now I would
| never go to neither Win nor Ubuntu. Mac's UI is so superior in
| my opinion - for my work and productivity, that I would never
| switch back. People often talk bad about some Mac UI stuff like
| they are "bad" because they are "different" than people are
| used to on Win or some imaginative "this is how it is supposed
| to be" stance, and I get puzzled because those are precisely
| features I like and I want.
| prvc wrote:
| Particularly the "simple installs" graphic on that page. Who
| wants to, using a mouse cursor, after opening an installer
| "shortcut", click and drag an icon onto some other icon,
| presumably representing a shortcut to an "app" folder, simply
| in order to install a program? What is that even supposed to
| represent, anyway? Big step backwards for package management.
| fourstepper wrote:
| Hi, I just wanted to let you know that the ravynos.com's top part
| of the page performs very poorly under Firefox, most likely due
| to some animation overload. Was firefox considered in the tests?
| bogwog wrote:
| It's due to the use of the blur backdrop-filter which seems to
| have been enabled by default on release builds of Firefox
| relatively recently.
|
| Interestingly, it's a feature introduced to CSS way back in
| 2015. There must have been some major blockers on getting that
| out the door if it took ~7 years.
| drKarl wrote:
| That seems like a lot of work. If what you want is to be able to
| run MacOS X apps on a free (like in free speech) environment,
| there's https://www.darlinghq.org/ which is like Wine but for
| MacOs X apps.
|
| If what you want is to replicate the MacOS X UI you can customize
| the UI of your DE on Linux, or use something like ElementaryOS or
| use Pantheon.
|
| What are the goals of this project?
| moondev wrote:
| I find this gtk application theme and shell theme to go even
| further than elementary. The developer releases all sorts of
| themes with insane quality. You can even tweak them to suit
| your preference such as sidebar width and compact header size
|
| https://github.com/vinceliuice/WhiteSur-gtk-theme
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Cool. What kind of GUI apps work ? The FAQ doesn't say much
| except basic.
|
| Could we use Mac compatible apps in place of windows ones if
| Linux isn't available? Games? Productivity?
| drKarl wrote:
| I admit that I haven't personally used Darling but it would
| be rather pointless if it only worked for commander line
| apps. All command line apps I use on MacOs X are from
| homebrew and are available in Linux so for me it only makes
| sense for GUI apps. Also, I never really missed a MacOs X
| specific app when I use Linux, most apps I use are multi
| platform anyway, and the rare one that is not, it usually has
| a decent equivalent for Linux.
| gabegm wrote:
| From their GitHub page[0]: "Please note that most GUI
| applications will not run at the moment."
|
| [0] https://github.com/darlinghq/darling
| zinclozenge wrote:
| Does it also mimic the macOS command meta key? Ie cmd+c for copy,
| cmd+v for paste etc?
| potatopotarto wrote:
| Finesse? This is one of the least attractive MacOS rip off builds
| I've seen.
| mlindner wrote:
| The problem with all these things is that they only visually look
| like macOS. Once you try to use them, you find that nothing works
| as it is supposed to. Drag and drop is severely limited, programs
| don't share a common set of norms, or if they do, it's not the
| one you're used to. The hardware itself that you need to run it
| in is horrible in comparison (especially touchpads). Finally
| there's always the tremendous numbers of sharp edges shared by
| any of these types of OSes that will ruin the rest of your day as
| you try to figure out how to get past whatever the problem is so
| you can get on with what you were originally trying to do at the
| beginning of your day.
|
| Stop chasing the look of MacOS. Replicate it's functionality and
| feel first.
| stormking wrote:
| You obviously did not even look at this project because that's
| exactly what they're aiming at.
| sneak wrote:
| This is a great idea, but I think they'd be better off aiming for
| Linux.
|
| One of the main benefits of macOS is perfect hardware support.
| Linux has a definite edge on all other free software kernels
| here.
|
| I hope they succeed, regardless of technical decisions.
| ggm wrote:
| Their target is existing MacOS users. Thats a BSD derived
| kernel and OS API and the model is quite different. Making a
| Linux kernel look right, is a path ?Gentoo? took some time ago,
| and I am unsure you can call it an unqualified success.
|
| "does it run homebrew" is my lead question
| sneak wrote:
| Existing macOS users have Apple hardware. Does FreeBSD
| support recent x64 Apple gear well? Last I looked even Linux
| had less than perfect support.
|
| The situation is even more Linux-centric on Mx.
| ggm wrote:
| There is a huge community who port MacOS onto Intel
| architecture laptops with special set-aside hacks on the
| Apple .ISO files.
|
| I think, thats the target. not 'run it on my mac' but 'be
| like a mac, running on my Lenovo PC, which already supports
| FreeBSD well[*]'
|
| [*] does not always work well with blob demanding devices
| == 802.11/GPU
| sofixa wrote:
| > "does it run homebrew" is my lead question
|
| Or even better, a better package manager that isn't slow as
| hell and understands semver.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Heh. Or even "Xpm install ___" doesn't mean I want to
| update thousands of unrelated packages I've installed
| directly or transitively. Regardless of their semver
| compatibilities.
|
| Edit for people using macOS: if you want to install one
| thing without waiting to update unfold numbers of other
| things, hilariously Cakebrew (a GUI frontend for homebrew)
| will let you do that with homebrew as the package manager.
| joombaga wrote:
| You can also set the HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_UPGRADE
| environment variable to avoid upgrades.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| It will also break stuff for you. Homebrew doesn't have
| versioned dependencies, so I had, for example, my nodejs
| broken for me when libicu got updated from 69 to 70
| without also updating nodejs. Homebrew index doesn't take
| such things into account at all.
| p1necone wrote:
| > One of the main benefits of macOS is perfect hardware
| support.
|
| Insofar as you have perfect support for the very small subset
| of hardware that computers running macOS can have. I'm sure you
| could get similarly perfect hardware support on Linux by being
| careful about which hardware you run it on.
| sneak wrote:
| Nobody did this for Linux on the small subset of Apple-
| branded macOS-capable x64 machines before, much to my
| chagrin.
|
| I donated to marcan in the hopes that someone now will.
|
| There should be a free software OS installer that is as easy
| to use and supports as much hardware with full functionality
| as the Apple OS installer. Apple has already done the heavy
| lifting of a well defined hardware target.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I am confused. Domain and headline and frontpage says RayvnOS but
| by the screen shots it says airyxOS?
| andrem wrote:
| They rebranded due to legal reasons -
| https://twitter.com/ravynsoft/status/1520779114336071680
| [deleted]
| Sakos wrote:
| I don't know why the mobile version crawls when I scroll past the
| images on my high-end Samsung.
| mattnewton wrote:
| There is a subtle translucency effect applied to the top bar
| that picks up and scatters the large svg's behind it. I haven't
| seen how it's implemented, but it might not be performant on
| all web engines.
| Kayou wrote:
| Same on MacOS and Firefox with a 4K screen ans same on Firefox
| and a Pixel 6, scrolling lags hard on the section with
| pictures. Making a bad first impression of this new OS.
| throwaway7980 wrote:
| > Making a bad first impression of this new OS.
|
| This is more than a little ridiculous and you know it.
| seabrookmx wrote:
| Same with my Pixel 5 and FF mobile.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Running FF for Android on a mid range Samsung tablet and it
| seems to work fine for me. Maybe it's a GPU driver thing?
| elromulous wrote:
| Chrome on pixel 5 has no issue. Ff is slow for me as well.
| Maybe specifically an FF issue?
| kramerger wrote:
| Runs smooth with FF for Android here.
|
| Maybe the issue is something else entirely?
| ineedtosleep wrote:
| The images are svgs. Probably heavy processing from that.
| GoOnThenDoTell wrote:
| > built with our core technologies of Cocoa, Qt, and Mach
|
| Does this mean a mach emulation layer on top of or in the freebsd
| kernel?
| dmix wrote:
| > ravynOS uses a patched kernel with support for Mach, just
| like xnu, and a compiler suite that supports Frameworks and has
| preliminary support for Mach-O
| c4ptnjack wrote:
| I'm curious to see how performative this will manage to actually
| be... Itd be interesting if it could eventually run audio
| software and AU plugins at a low latency.
| weikju wrote:
| Looks like this is a rebrand from the Airyx project that was
| posted before [1]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068542
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _A macOS-like operating system based on FreeBSD_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28087092 - Aug 2021 (67
| comments)
|
| _Airyx OS_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068542 -
| Aug 2021 (254 comments)
| schleck8 wrote:
| They had a trademark issue because there is a German company
| called Airyx that uses an almost identical domain on top of
| that (airyx.com vs airyx.de)
| Nursie wrote:
| Thanks, yeah that slightly confused me because the screenshots
| on the sight all talk about Airxy, rather than RavynOS.
|
| Other than that it looks interesting, a sorta-Mac-aesthetic
| sorta-BSD.
| Sunspark wrote:
| This is a very cool project and I wish them success.
|
| From a technical standpoint, maybe it won't matter, but I am
| concerned about the fact that they're using (at this time) a
| Wayland compositor. I have read that Wayland has some problematic
| technical design decisions (which were not known when it was
| conceived) and now today we have the awful situation where most
| apps in my experience run better in X.org and some are ok in
| Wayland. From an eyestrain perspective, I find x.org less
| straining to look at than Wayland. This may have something to do
| with the drivers but the compositor plays a role for sure. I
| don't use Wayland by choice. Name a widely used app? Sure,
| Firefox web browser. Turn on "Use autoscrolling" in the
| preferences and see how it is. On X.org it is smooth, on Wayland
| it uses XWayland instead and is not smooth. Both projects are
| years old. Every single X11 app requires programmers to re-
| write/convert them to native Wayland. It should have just broken
| compatibility from day 1 and started from scratch.
|
| BSD DRI drivers are copied over from Linux, just older versions
| of them, so I don't have a lot of hope that there will be new
| drivers or a new compositor (likely years away).
|
| Apple, while Darwin is a direct descendant of FreeBSD, Apple is
| not using Linux DRI drivers, they have enough NDA access that
| they have their own closed drivers, and instead of using X11,
| they made their own GUI stack.
|
| I want to say what should be done is to do what Apple did, make a
| brand new gui stack on top, but that's incredibly difficult with
| limited resources. With Apple or MS you have endless amounts of
| money and developers, with X.org & Wayland you have years and
| years of incremental development. It's tough.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Wayland doesn't have broken technical decisions, they're just
| different and require applications to adapt.
|
| A typical examples is global hotkeys. On X11, any application
| can monitor all keystrokes at any time. On Wayland,
| applications only get keyboard events if they're in foreground.
| Global hotkeys must be done via a separate compositor API. This
| breaks applications which expect to be able to detect
| keystrokes when they're in background, but the "feature" they
| relied on also allows any random application to include a
| keylogger. Such applications need to update.
|
| You mention Firefox uses XWayland. Firefox also has native
| Wayland support (I'm writing on it right now!). This is likely
| a mis-configuration at some level, or maybe the Firefox version
| is too old.
|
| OTOH, things like scaling are completely broken on X11, and
| while the hacks around it improve over the years using a HiDPI
| display will likely never be as smooth as on Wayland. And if
| you have a laptop with a HiDPI display and a LowDPI external
| monitor, one of them is going to suck forever on Xorg.
|
| We are, of course, on a transitional period. A lot of
| applications still need refinement. Qt in particular still has
| lots of bugs on Wayland. But these can be fixed, there's no
| broken design decision which makes them unfixable.
| jhoelzel wrote:
| Thanks for your work, i like the design choices you made.
|
| I believe that a bigger factor today is the third party support
| for your system.
|
| stuff like teams not working, or netflix not being able to stream
| in 4k makes me still keep my windows machine, even though at this
| point its basically a firefox / vscode terminal with extra apps
| and of course a system level integration of docker.
|
| Im pretty sure there is enough room for a true developer OS but
| it still needs to do all the "little" things that we have grown
| accustomed to.
| fguerraz wrote:
| arghwhat wrote:
| You do realize that Netflix uses FreeBSD, right? That a good
| chunk of NAS builds, diy or not, use FreeBSD? That high
| performance network solutions often use FreeBSD because of what
| is commonly seen as a better/more mature network stack?
|
| Having a smaller user base than the world's most used kernel
| (Linux) doesn't mean it has a small user base in absolute
| terms. And being a smaller kernel in lines of code is certainly
| a positive thing.
|
| This pattern repeats, with OS's smaller than FreeBSD having
| good reason to be chosen in production.
|
| Fun fact: Apple used NetBSD on their Airport product series.
| babypuncher wrote:
| The OS on every Sony game console since the PlayStation 3 is
| forked from FreeBSD as well
| wink wrote:
| I'm not sure you should plainly compare FreeBSD on a limited
| choice of Hardware doing server things with "a general
| purpose GUI desktop OS".
|
| OP didn't say FreeBSD was bad in my reading, but as a
| somewhat irregular user you just notice 1000 papercuts (which
| are not the OS's fault per se for the most part) but which
| detract from the overall experience. Every nth software
| package you use for the first time needs a (small, 3-line)
| patch which is mostly because the people develop on Linux.
| Sometimes it's better if they develop on OSX, sometimes it
| doesn't matter.
| adrianmsmith wrote:
| Not to mention the PlayStation 4 OS as well - not a small
| number of installs there.
| malepoon wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| > Today, FreeBSD is used by many IT companies such as IBM,
| Nokia, Juniper Networks, and NetApp to build their
| products.[16][17] Certain parts of Apple's Mac OS X operating
| system are based on FreeBSD.[18] Both the PlayStation 3 and
| Nintendo Switch operating system also borrow certain components
| from FreeBSD,[7][8] while the PlayStation 4 operating system is
| derived from FreeBSD 9.[19] Netflix,[20] WhatsApp,[21] and
| FlightAware[22] are also examples of large, successful and
| heavily network-oriented companies which are running FreeBSD.
| pjmlp wrote:
| As that quote clearly puts out, it is mostly cherry picked
| components, and not a proper FreeBSD distribution.
| kristjank wrote:
| Juniper gear runs JunOS that's almost pure FreeBSD, with
| added device drivers for their hardware and a CLI layer on
| top.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| The next version of JunOS, JunOS evolved, is moving to
| Linux though.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| brigandish wrote:
| Software that everybody uses can be affected by terrible bugs -
| Heartbleed couldn't have happened otherwise - so what is the
| magic level of usage needed to avoid bugs and be stable?
| Cwizard wrote:
| Yes.. but FreeBSD is used by a lot of people! It's used on a
| lot of servers. Netflix' CDN for example runs FreeBSD.
| nix23 wrote:
| And FreeNAS/TrueNAS probably the most used selfmade NAS.
| rickstanley wrote:
| I was recently searching for something "EndeavourOS" like to try
| FreeBSD. Thi looks nice!
| toucaninsights wrote:
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