[HN Gopher] Liberating the MacBook Air 2013 with Linux
___________________________________________________________________
Liberating the MacBook Air 2013 with Linux
Author : ekianjo
Score : 320 points
Date : 2023-04-04 09:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (boilingsteam.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (boilingsteam.com)
| denysonique wrote:
| The only remaining bit is a Linux driver making the trackpad as
| smooth as under macOS.
| holoduke wrote:
| I have a macbook air from 2013 running ubuntu and hosting all
| kinds of things like home assistant, plex, sonarr, radarr. I
| placed the laptop in our storage room since 2016. Waiting for its
| final days :)
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| mikae1 wrote:
| A lack of web browsers for older versions of macOS shouldn't be a
| problem when there's https://github.com/blueboxd/chromium-legacy
| nntwozz wrote:
| There is also OpenCore Legacy Patcher
|
| https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
| mikae1 wrote:
| Yup, but an older machine does not always run a newer version
| of macOS as smooth as one would wish.
| j45 wrote:
| Neat app, it would be nice to be able to continue seeing a record
| button after the first transcription is done so it's just one
| interface.
|
| As well, if the voice notes could be indented it could be passed
| on to group information together as desired.
|
| The voiceliner app might be of interest to you.
| suction wrote:
| [dead]
| Jnr wrote:
| I installed Linux on Macbook Air 2012 the day I bought it in
| 2012. I actually still have it in use. :) Back then the driver
| support was great, until I think 2014 when the security chip was
| introduced and a few drivers were missing for some years.
| danieldk wrote:
| T1 was only introduced in 2016 on touch bar MacBook Pro models.
| The T2 only came too the MacBook Air in 2016. Luckily Linux on
| Apple Silicon Macs is becoming very good.
| theSIRius wrote:
| I have been thinking of going down the Linux route on my 2017
| 15". But I am unsure if it is even feasible to get it up-and-
| running with the T2.
|
| With the new ARM processors the discontinuation of support for
| Intel-based machines is just a question of time even though the
| hardware is still more than capable.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Check out https://t2linux.org/
| theSIRius wrote:
| Thanks a lot! I'll give it a chance once I have some time.
| jonotime wrote:
| Its doable, but takes some extra work for the T2. I put arch on
| my MBPro 2019. Wifi is fine, but video playback and audio are a
| bit glitchy.
| theSIRius wrote:
| Yeah, I would expect something in that vein. I think the pros
| outweigh the sluggishness of desktop rearrangement or non-
| existent updates. Maybe I would finally get into some driver
| development if it became my main machine.
| drblah wrote:
| I have tried this multiple times on my 2014 MBA and it works
| mostly. Unfortunately, my model has some weird hardware(?) issue
| where the screen starts flickering when the intel i915 driver is
| loaded AND something communicates on the smbus. So if the cooling
| fan kicks in, or I use the function keys to change keyboard
| backlight brightness, my screen starts flickering.
|
| Same thing happened when I tried dual booting Windows. I guess
| Apple has some workaround for this specific hardware model.
|
| Now this Macbook is running Debian and is relegated to be a
| headless controller for my 3D printer with Klipper. It's pretty
| amazing for this, as it boots in like 5 seconds.
| jokoon wrote:
| How is power management?
|
| I remember trying it ten years ago and a MacBook was asthmatic,
| always heating and ventilating.
| gabegm wrote:
| Still the same unless you're willing to spend hours tweaking.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I have a 2013 MacBook still runs perfect. I still use it to boot
| into windows on it the few times I need windows. plus the SD slot
| on it works where as the one on my adapter which I need to use
| with the m1 crapped out in months
| anony23 wrote:
| I installed ubuntu on my 2013 air aboit a year ago and it's a
| solid experience.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Some time ago did Linux install on iMac 27" which didn't accept
| macOS upgrades anymore due to old hardware (which is very
| decent!).
|
| I've been using Ubuntu for very long time.
|
| But I started using popOS (Ubuntu based) - and on my - I didn't
| realize how polished and perfect it is, all Ubuntu muscle memory
| can stay as is etc. I've got it on other machine (Ryzen with GTX
| 4090) and all this first class support for deep learning
| (https://support.system76.com/articles/tensorman/) is great.
| nehal3m wrote:
| Love their DE. Make sure you try the hybrid tiling mode!
| jgwil2 wrote:
| My 2014 Air is still my personal computer. The battery needs to
| be replaced but other than that everything still works perfectly
| fine. When I finally do replace it, I'll probably go with Linux
| though.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| FWIW you can run Monterey on all post 2012 macs with OCLP, and I
| highly recommend it, best version of OSX on my Mac yet (MBP 2012)
| focusedone wrote:
| OCLP let me run Ventura on a 2010 MBP. It's shockingly stable
| and runs pretty well. It's working a little harder than it did
| on Monterey, but I suspect a few updates will have it running
| cool again.
| jventura wrote:
| Is it fast enough? At least compared to previous versions (like
| Mojave, etc.).. I have my MBP late 2013 still on Mojave, but
| willing to move on if it's (almost) as good..
| josegonzalez wrote:
| I recently upgraded a Macbook Pro 2012 13" to High Sierra.
| Works quite well (already had 16GB of ram) and even recently
| got a security update late last year. I avoided newer OSs as
| there were complaints about UI performance and stuttering
| from my research.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| No there are no performance issues on Monterey for me.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Yeah it is, actually fastest OS yet for me, and most stable.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Hah I too have a 2013 Air that's collecting dust with its 4GB RAM
| that I want to boot NixOS on. Thanks for the nudge.
| whateveracct wrote:
| I really don't believe in trashing computers. That Air can
| probably still run emacs and ssh in 2030. That alone can be
| valuable.
| jandrese wrote:
| The biggest problem is usually the battery just plain giving
| up. Sometimes blowing up like a balloon and damaging the
| case. Unfortunately Apple makes it quite challenging to
| replace the battery on an Air, or any of their modern
| laptops.
| wrycoder wrote:
| I've got a 2013 Air. I've replaced the battery twice and
| doubled the size of the SSD. Compared to replacing the
| battery on an iPhone, it's a piece of cake.
|
| Just buy the battery from iFixit and follow their online
| instructions.
| fsagx wrote:
| On the older airs, it's very simple. I finally got around
| to replacing the battery on a 2011 air that I still use
| every day. Cost about $65 and took about ten minutes. The
| kit even came with the odd little screwdriver bits I
| needed.
| rgoulter wrote:
| I don't know how much of a limitation 4GB RAM is; but with
| NixOS, I'd also worry about storage space.
| johnvaluk wrote:
| I run NixOS on several old Chromebooks with 2 GB RAM and 16
| GB drives. It's doable if you stay on top of garbage
| collection. YMMV depending on your use case.
| winrid wrote:
| FWIW my 4gb 2012 air runs latest OSX pretty well. I mostly just
| run terminal and Webstorm. Gotta watch those chrome tabs lol
| Toutouxc wrote:
| FWIW my GF has just finished her Master's thesis on my old
| 4GB 2013 Pro. So apparently it's still good for that.
| trustingtrust wrote:
| Liberating an M1 MacBook Air in another 4-5 years is going to be
| quite something. Asahi is making really good progress and in a
| couple of years maybe you may be able to hand out M1 MBAs with
| Linux like candy. My M1 MBA is already so fast compared to my
| intel DESKTOP from 2018 that I can't wait to daily drive Linux on
| it.
| kreetx wrote:
| If it's ok to run graphics on CPU (it supposedly is good
| enough) then we might have Mx MBAs running linux fairly soon.
| Hopefully not in 4-5 years anyway!
|
| FYI, "liberating" Intel macbooks has been possible for years,
| my 2015 mbp has been running Linux since 2019.
| nicoburns wrote:
| The GPU driver is already available.
| kreetx wrote:
| But it's an alpha, right? ARM is a architecture, so it's
| much easier to get working while maturing the GPU driver
| will take time.
|
| EDIT: Nevermind, development status summarized here
| https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Feature-Support
| nicoburns wrote:
| I mean the whole of Asahi is still quite immature, but my
| understanding is that the GPU driver has hit usable
| status.
| goosedragons wrote:
| The T2 models don't run Linux well still and probably never
| reach amazing levels. I don't think the keyboard/mouse driver
| is in the kernel yet still despite it being 5 years on for
| those models.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| There is just not as much invest in the T2 models because
| otherwise they are just boring old x86 machines.
| oblio wrote:
| I wish I could be as optimistic as you when people here mention
| that their 8 year old Mac laptops still don't work as well with
| Linux and some other people mention that their 15 year old Mac
| laptops do work well.
|
| I mean, if you can wait 15 years for something, more power to
| you :-)
| skyyler wrote:
| My 8 year old Mac laptop works great with Linux! :D
| gambiting wrote:
| Presumably the M1 Linux distro won't have access to the Rosetta
| translation layer to run X86 programs? Or will that work
| anyway?
| pharmakom wrote:
| Linux app ARM support is generally better since they're open
| source
| illiarian wrote:
| Being open source doesn't magically make them better at ARM
| support.
|
| Someone still has to do the work of actually adding ARM
| support.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| It practically makes them much better, no magic required.
|
| https://wiki.debian.org/Arm64Port
|
| > 98% of Debian is currently built [for arm64]
| jandrese wrote:
| For most applications ARM support should just be a
| recompile.
| alophawen wrote:
| ARM has been a mainstream target for Linux years before
| Asahi linux. See Raspberry Pi for example.
| illiarian wrote:
| I tried to use RaspberryPi last year. Quite a few apps
| weren't available for it because there are no ARM
| versions.
|
| Can't remember which (calibre was one of them, maybe?),
| but it was enough for me to reconsider using it
| sleepycatgirl wrote:
| IIRC Calibre supports ARM architecture since 6.0 release,
| which was July 2022
| illiarian wrote:
| It was probably not available at the time I needed it :)
| anonymous_sorry wrote:
| If the source is available, how much work is there to add
| ARM support, other than compile it for ARM? Some package
| managers compile from source at install time anyway. I'm
| sure there are various "I-think-you'll-find-it's-a-bit-
| more-complicated-than-that"s. I'm interested to learn
| what they are.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| It depends heavily on the project. Maybe it's using a
| bespoke/old build system that doesn't support targeting
| arm, obviously any uses of assembly need translation,
| bugs/compilation issues regarding signed-ness of char in
| C/C++, or page size. Those are at least all the issues
| I've encountered.
| macintux wrote:
| When Itanium was new, HP contracted with Progeny Linux to
| help them port Linux software. Despite the fact that
| Alpha had paved the way for 64-bit support it was a long
| effort.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| There is FEX emu which already works for Steam games
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Linux has a similar tech with the combo of binfmt_misc and
| qemu. It's pretty straightforward to setup and then any
| architecture can run any other architecture in an emulated
| manner. My ARM Android phone can actually run x86 (slowly) in
| its Termux Linux environment for example.
| baq wrote:
| In 5 years it might not be that big of a deal
| swexbe wrote:
| Rosetta binaries for linux are provided by Apple for use in
| VMs.
|
| https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run.
| ..
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| I would really like this. I opened up my 2018 t480 thinkpad
| with arch and xfce on it today, after half a year of using the
| M1 MBA exclusively, and I realized how much I truly miss using
| Linux. I don't get a good computingfeel out of macOS -- the
| last time I did was circa snow leopard. It's someone else's
| system that I'm allowed to use.
|
| The t480 is really noticeably slower than the MBA though it has
| twice the RAM. I didn't think there was anything wrong with
| that at the time, though. I have got a more powerful computer
| now -- but how much of that power is for me to wield?
| lenkite wrote:
| Wasn't Raspberry PI for desktop recommended for old macbooks
| earlier here ? https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/raspberry-pi-
| desktop/
| xnx wrote:
| Depending on your goals, ChromeOS Flex is another excellent and
| way to revitalize older laptops like MacBook Airs.
| cmcconomy wrote:
| * macbooks air
| qup wrote:
| i veto this
| UmYeahNo wrote:
| macs books air
| saghm wrote:
| maxboox?
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Smac Book Air
| [deleted]
| enriquto wrote:
| In GEOD, the author alternates freely between "the Duncan
| Idahos", "the Idahos" and (gasp) "the Duncans". I don't
| recall ever reading "the Duncans Idaho", but it would be
| cool.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I love both that a Dune book is being used as a source of
| truth, and you know the plurals used for the gholas.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I think that, even if you accept Apple's rather awkward
| usage, it's less clear that it works for the Duncan Idaho
| case; that's a single name which happens to be split into
| two words, whereas the 'Air' in MacBook Air is a
| descriptor.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Those generations of MacBook Airs were just unbelievably amazing
| laptops for the time. They were lighter and more portable than
| anything else, but still had plenty of ports and functionality
| (even the old beloved magnet-based power cables). It was the
| first non-Thinkpad laptop that I enjoyed using. This post is
| going to make me dust off an old 2013 Air I have kicking around
| and see if I can fix a broke space bar and get it running Linux.
| kome wrote:
| My MacBook Air 11-inch from 2015 with (1.7 GHz Dual-Core Intel
| i7; 8 GB of RAM) is still my main computer. And I love it, and
| it feels new.
|
| It's 8 years old, and it doesn't show them. Not even a bit.
| Perhaps I'm just lucky, but I made minimal maintenance and I
| use it everyday for hours. 8 years of daily use. I traveled to
| super remote places with it.
|
| I want to use it for 2 or 3 more years (10 years in total would
| be nice!)
| tomcam wrote:
| Incredible machine to be sure. My problem is that I find just
| too many websites don't work efficiently with its resolution.
| How do you deal with that?
| kome wrote:
| Honestly I never encountered this problem before, or I
| didn't pay attention
| tomcam wrote:
| Interesting, thank you.
| mrits wrote:
| I like my m2 air better than my 2013 Air. I'm assuming you
| looked up the specs but I actually assumed my m2 is lighter.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Have you tried the newer ASUS Zenbooks?
| philistine wrote:
| I think part of the love for those models is how hobbled the
| successors to these laptops were. First the line basically
| stopped improving while the Macbook Pro went Retina, second
| there was the expensive Macbook no qualifier with a dreadful
| butterfly keyboard, and then the 2018 Macbook Air came out but
| still had a dreadful butterfly keyboard. Only in March 2020 did
| a proper, no compromise, better in every way laptop came out to
| replace a Macbook Air bought in 2012-2015.
| rsynnott wrote:
| It has to be one of the longest-lasting laptop designs ever.
| The first-gen MBAs were a little different, but from 2010 to
| 2022 there was almost no change to the basic design (they
| finally gave it up with the M2 one). Screens got better, ports
| went Thunderbolt-y, but the look and feel essentially never
| changed.
|
| I can't think of a laptop design that's been this static for
| this long. _Maybe_ the more conventional Thinkpad designs?
| johnatwork wrote:
| The first gen was also kinda terrible because SSDs were not
| standard on those. But the 2010s were and it really made it
| shine. I got a 2012 one and said "Ok I get it now".
| lupire wrote:
| In 2018 (and continuing in 2019) they switched to the
| butterfly keyboard (named that because after a while the keys
| mature and fly away from the keyboard).
| whitemary wrote:
| The late 2012 unibody retina Macbook Pros were truly
| unstoppable. I have replaced the battery in mine 6 times and
| it travelled the world with a photojournalist for the first 4
| years of its life. Still running strong w/ Ubuntu.
| toyg wrote:
| I had that, it's now used by my brother. It's unfortunate
| that Apple won't support old hardware.
| philistine wrote:
| The 2018 line kept the same aesthetic, but it was a
| completely new design. Thinkpads have been far more slowly
| evolving than the big break between the second and third
| Macbook Air chassis.
| creshal wrote:
| Even Thinkpads iterated more often than the basic Air design.
| And the direct competitor to the original Air got cancelled
| after two years.
| tomcam wrote:
| Yes. I used mine for a decade. Even bought a tweaked 2011 off
| eBay as late as 2021.
|
| Also I adore those keyboards.
| 12345hn6789 wrote:
| This will be the m1 in 5 years.
| sixothree wrote:
| I don't understand the attraction of openly hostile hardware.
| JLCarveth wrote:
| Does the CPU actively slap you while you use it?
| sixothree wrote:
| Maybe you'd like to demonstrate the ease of implementing
| Linux on M2 hardware. Where's that hardware driver source
| code? Oh, you're having to literally reverse engineer
| hardware? lol
| filoleg wrote:
| That's not hostile, that's indifferent. Hostile would be
| if Apple implemented intentional blocks and safeguards
| attempting to prevent people from running Linux on M2.
| From everything I've read about it, it has been the exact
| opposite.
|
| But they didn't provide any documentation, you are
| correct, so I wouldn't call it friendly or supportive.
| But I definitely wouldn't call it hostile either.
| sixothree wrote:
| And their direction in your opinion is moving towards
| openness or away from it?
| filoleg wrote:
| Looks like moving towards openness to me, because as far
| as I remember, there has not been such a high-functioning
| Linux distro on a Mac until Asahi. And implemented in
| such a short period of time, on top of that. Of course I
| wouldn't attribute it solely to that, the Asahi team
| seems to be doing a phenomenal job as well.
|
| Also, I haven't seen Linus Torvalds use a Macbook (an M2
| Air running Asahi Linux) until recently either.[0]
|
| 0. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/linus-
| torvalds-uses-...
| yoasif_ wrote:
| >Also, I haven't seen Linus Torvalds use a Macbook (an M2
| Air running Asahi Linux) until recently either.
|
| You're about a decade late:
| https://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-
| torvald...
| philistine wrote:
| 100% towards openness. Before the move to ARM, Macs'
| security standing was an all or nothing affair. Either
| all the OSes that ran on the Mac had a secure boot
| sequence, or none of them did.
|
| With Apple Silicon, you can keep a complete chain of
| trust with macOS and install an insecure Linux distro.
| It's great security compartmentalization, and no x64 chip
| can offer this granular control.
| lobocinza wrote:
| A fair point though it was downvoted because HN is biased
| in favor of Apple. It's better to avoid any discussion
| concerning Apple products here, it just doesn't have the
| quality that other topics usually have.
| smoldesu wrote:
| At least until their SSDs start failing.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| This. People forget that those old macs were so long
| lasting because the disks were easily swappable with newer
| and faster SSDs so they could be upgraded and kept along
| for longer.
|
| With the M* chips this lifehack will no longer be possible.
| Once the SSD storage fails, the entire motherboard is
| instant e-waste.
|
| I think the 2015 generation of Macbooks will outlive the M1
| generation from a HW pov. I still see people rocking the
| old Macbooks with the glowing Apple logo. I doubt the M
| series will see such longevity.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Calling it now, future Ebay listings will include drive
| cycles listed alongside battery cycles.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| I think especially the base 256GB models will be much
| more impacted by drive wear and failures. It's too early
| to tell but I'm calling it now for the near future.
| torstenvl wrote:
| I had a 2012 11.6" MacBook Air, maxed out. Loved that computer
| until it was stolen (I hate DC).
|
| Recently bought a decently spec'd one from 2015 for my
| nephew/godson to start programming. He just turned 11.
|
| They really are great computers.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| Had the same maxed out i7 11" air. I replaced it with a 2018
| 13" (the second model of the following generation) which was
| only faster when it wasn't thermal throttling... which was
| its general disposition. Those 2010-2015 era Airs were great
| laptops for their time.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Those 2010-2015 era Airs were great laptops for their
| time._
|
| Can concur. Back then Apple didn't go for thinness for the
| sake of thinness like the post 2015 machines did. And it's
| not like the 2010's generations of machines were think and
| bulky.
| usefulcat wrote:
| I have that same laptop (2012 air). It still works fine and
| my son uses it daily. It's a great little machine apart from
| the battery life, which is pretty awful by modern standards
| (~5 hours of light use, give or take) even after replacing
| the battery.
| samstave wrote:
| A lot of that generation of Airs have failing batts - my
| MBP from that era was part of the recall for catching fire,
| and mine caught fire, but apple refused to replace it due
| to, after having the machine for two MONTHS to investigate
| - they determined that one of the moisture sensors was set
| off, and thus they wouldnt honor the recall for the battery
| literally catching fire.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| iFixit.com has a great guide to replacing the battery on
| those units, and will sell you a new one for $70. Could be
| a great project for you and your son, too!
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Mid+2012+B
| a...
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Well, great advice. Last winter, Apple introduced better end to
| end encryption for iCloud data. But, there was a catch! All Apple
| devices required an OS update, or none of your devices could use
| the better encryption.
|
| I has a MacBook Air 2014 and a slightly newer MacBook that could
| not be updated. I installed latest Ubuntu LTS on each, and they
| are now delightful to use. If in the future battery replacements
| are still available, with occasional Linux updates, these could
| be "forever laptops."
| mikae1 wrote:
| Just gave Fedora a go on my 2015 MacBook Air. The most
| frustrating thing was how bad the trackpad suddenly sucked.
|
| I haven't tried https://howchoo.com/linux/the-perfect-almost-
| touchpad-settin... yet.
| bilqis wrote:
| On my MacBook Pro 2015 touchpad works very good with Debian and
| Ubuntu GNU/Linux.
| toastal wrote:
| So Apple _doesn't_ have a monopoly on "good" trackpads and most
| things are fixed with software? But hardware is the arguments
| they make for their Apple purchases!
| Toutouxc wrote:
| As a customer I don't really care if it's hardware or
| software, Apple delivers where others don't.
| not_enoch_wise wrote:
| This!
|
| Apple delivers the proprietary ports that deprecate all my
| yucky existing cables, the walled garden that drives up
| costs and stifles external innovation, the orthodox design
| choices that refuse to update in the face of UX concerns,
| and the tv remote controls so divorced from human reality
| it guarantees I won't watch too much tv!
| MonaroVXR wrote:
| Such as? Genuine question.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Top menu with reasonable use of available space rather
| than the half-assed attempt to appeal to a hypothetical
| normie user on a 2014 tablet/netbook that gnome is doing
|
| Touchpad driver that isn't outright physically painful to
| use
|
| Progress in assistive technologies, font rendering,
| display technology and resolution rather than shipping
| hardly readable traditional Linux-style dark-blue on
| black terminal themes on today's dark default themes
| coupled with a lack of easy configuration
|
| Actually working power management, and actual power
| efficiency resulting in 10h running times (despite
| overreaching stuff such as systemd, the developer of
| which has now left for MS to feast on INIs)
|
| Focus on end user functionality rather than endless new
| developer improvements and abstraction frameworks for
| self-inflicted problems (snap/flatpack/Docker and other
| meta containers rather than fixing ld.so and glibc or
| just use static linking) when new apps aren't coming
| anyways
|
| A feeling that the desktop/Finder and UX is evolving and
| respecting habits rather than being restarted with every
| release
|
| State of the art commercial apps for media production
| rather than 90s apps struggling for compatibility as devs
| turn to new playgrounds
| zdragnar wrote:
| Funny, I've had consistently worse performance and
| battery life (due to worse performance) on macos / mbp
| than my lg gram running linux.
| eitland wrote:
| > Top menu with reasonable use of available space
|
| Top menu does sound like a reasonable compromise until
| one has to switch between the bottom left corner of the
| screen and the menu in the top left enough times. I'm all
| for efficient use of vertical space - I am one of those
| who still remove the top tab bar and use tree-style-tabs,
| but in practice I think there is a reason why most of the
| world allows the menu to follow the thing it is linked
| to.
|
| Also note that these menus doesn't add up on other
| systems either. I only "waste" space for one menu line on
| my Linux or Windows applications too.
|
| > snap/flatpack/Docker
|
| Meanwhile on Mac I still have to use AppZapper.
|
| > A feeling that the desktop/Finder and UX is evolving
| and respecting habits rather than being restarted with
| every release
|
| You are probably comparing to Gnome and Unity here I
| guess, not KDE 5 or Windows?
|
| > State of the art commercial apps for media production
| rather than 90s apps struggling for compatibility as devs
| turn to new playgrounds
|
| This varies with job description I think. In my field one
| of the reasons why I still hesitate to get a Mac next
| month - despite its _many_ advantages - is the fact that
| so many open source programs I use looked ugly on Mac
| last I checked and some weren 't available at all.
| Meanwhile on Linux I can just ap-get them or in Windows I
| can apt-get them in WSL and run them, GUI and all inside
| Windows. That is kind of magic!
| teddyh wrote:
| > _Top menu does sound like a reasonable compromise until
| one has to switch between the bottom left corner of the
| screen and the menu in the top left enough times._
|
| A top menu _was_ reasonable for the original 9" Macintosh
| display of 512x342 pixels. (The original Macintosh could
| not even multi-task, and the visual components of the
| operating system were not designed for multiple programs
| at once.) The top menu was always _close enough_ , and
| famously used Fitts's law to its advantage. The NeXT
| system (17" display, 1120x832 pixels) realized that
| something _even closer_ to the mouse pointer is _wherever
| the mouse pointer happens to be right now_ , and added a
| right mouse button to the NeXT mouse; this button was
| completely dedicated to showing the menu, and was not
| used for "right-clicking" anything.
| terhechte wrote:
| I would add Keybindings that are the same in all apps.
| Also, Having Command / Super as the keybinding key is
| awesome because it opens Control for the Readline / Emacs
| keybindings and doesn't end up in insane shortcut
| situations like every linux terminal where "copy"
| suddenly transforms from CTRL+C to CTRL+Shift+C.
|
| MacOS has by far the best idea and implementation of how
| desktop keybindings should work (and no, I love vim but
| having desktop-wide vim keybindings doesn't make sense
| because not every input field can easily be modal). I'm
| constantly surprised why no linux distribution has copied
| this.
| goosedragons wrote:
| You can't mention Emacs keybindings and claim
| "keybindings are the same in all apps" when Apple's Emacs
| keybindings are not the same as Emacs proper. For example
| moving a word left is now Ctrl-Option B instead of M-B.
|
| Most terminal emulators let you remap Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Z,
| Ctrl+V if you really want.
| terhechte wrote:
| Sure, it's not the full Emacs keybindings. But the
| existing ones are still better than what Linux Desktops
| offer. Some of the missing ones can be added by updating
| the `DefaultKeyBinding.dict` [1]. So in comparison to
| Linux not only does it have better Emacs keybindings
| support, macOS also allows adding a ton of custom
| shortcuts per system - without having to install weird
| xmodmap daemons that mutate your keys (which you _also_
| can do on macOS).
|
| [1] https://gist.github.com/jwreagor/9670905
| yamtaddle wrote:
| An eye-opener for me on how useful all the
| configurability of Linux actually is has been looking
| into getting macOS-alike keyboard layouts and shortcut
| behavior on Linux. There's pretty high demand for it
| (lots and lots of posts all over the Web from people
| trying to figure out how to make it happen) and there are
| whole projects based around it, so I assume a fair amount
| of time has been spent trying to make it work, yet all
| the options I've found are janky as hell and fail to work
| under all kinds of common scenarios.
|
| The more distance I get from using Linux as a daily-
| driver desktop OS, the more it looks like most of the
| benefits of its configurability and modularity are fairly
| superficial--especially in its GUI stack--while the harm
| it causes is deep.
| lobstrosity420 wrote:
| > Most terminal emulators let you remap Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Z,
| Ctrl+V if you really want.
|
| But that doesn't really help does it? Because now you've
| made killing and backgrounding a process just as hard.
| What you need is an extra accelerator key, which is only
| available on expensive boutique keyboards and not
| available at all on laptop keyboards.
| krylon wrote:
| That is the one thing I really miss after going back to
| Linux. Especially the Emacs-style keybinding in all text
| input were a delight.
| terhechte wrote:
| FYI: You can enable them in Gnome with Gnome-Tweaks.
| Apparently a very recent version of Gnome dropped this
| functionality for reasons that are beyond my
| understanding (but that's often the case when I look at
| the decisions that the Gnome devs make).
|
| However, getting the Control -> Command/Super thing to
| work is much trickier. The best way is to use this:
| https://github.com/mooz/xkeysnail
|
| However when I tried that, I ran into all kinds of weird
| behaviours all over the OS. Also, it doesn't work with
| Wayland.
| benn0 wrote:
| Another option is https://kinto.sh . It worked perfectly
| for me out of the box on Pop OS, and with a few tweaks to
| shortcuts I'm pretty happy with the experience to the
| point where I can fairly seamlessly switch between
| computers and not be driven crazy by the shortcuts.
| sixothree wrote:
| Sound like you need to give Windows a shot. It may be
| hated, but Windows 11 pretty much addresses your issue
| point by point.
| alxlaz wrote:
| > Top menu with reasonable use of available space rather
| than the half-assed attempt to appeal to a hypothetical
| normie user on a 2014 tablet/netbook that gnome is doing
|
| This (space efficiency, not necessarily the top menu bar)
| is the main thing that's keeping me away from Linux at
| this time. "Liberating" a Macbook Air feels like a great
| idea right until you have to do actual work on it, at
| which point, unless you're using the terminal, the screen
| will be largely empty space and huge widgets, with
| whatever text or image you're working on cramped between
| all those beautifully hand-crafted organic breathable
| widgets.
|
| Edit: I'm not talking about window decorations being
| large, I'm talking about application _widgets_ being
| large. You can fit like three macOS buttons in the space
| of a single Adwaita- or Breeze-themed button. See e.g.
| this SE thread for a comparison -- not with macOS, but
| basically the same problem:
| https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/489533/how-to-
| get-a...
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Have you tried https://github.com/B00merang-
| Project/Windows-95 or any of the similar themes by that
| project? There's a bit of extra padding still but it's
| vastly more usable than the Adwaita default. (And of
| course you don't need to bother w/ the retro icon packs
| shown in the screenshot, the basic GTK+ theme is plenty
| enough.)
|
| (The best UI with that kind of widget style today is
| arguably SerenityOS, but the repo I linked above tries to
| provide something similar for existing GTK+ apps.)
| alxlaz wrote:
| I have, I've actually written my own GTK theme years ago,
| before I gave up on it. B00merang Project's stuff is cool
| -- still way larger than it ought to be but indeed better
| -- but GTK theming is a raging dumpster fire.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Not just GTK themes but all of the tweaks and extensions
| that are apparently necessary to have a UI usable by an
| adult. Even then it's a moving target and some GNOME
| update will break random shit or remove some control.
| It's absolutely infuriating.
| cwaffles wrote:
| I find the server 2003 theme to be much more eye
| pleasing, mainly because it is designed to use more than
| 256 colors. https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Windows-
| Classic
| alxlaz wrote:
| While I like the overall feeling of those themes for
| nostalgia reasons, they've got all sorts of quirks. E.g.
| toolbar icons aren't correctly aligned (you can see that
| in the screenshot, on the "forward" and "back" buttons in
| the left corner) -- both the horizontal and the vertical
| margins are wrong. It's not the authors' fault. I've
| poked at GTK's CSS before -- you _can 't_ make it work,
| not at the current abstraction level.
|
| Also, for comparison, a Finder sidebar item is about half
| the height of the (unresizable) Nautilus sidebar item in
| the screenshot. Thank God for Thunar at least :-).
| circuit10 wrote:
| Isn't this mostly a Gnome problem? Gnome isn't the only
| DE
| alxlaz wrote:
| No, it's not mostly a Gnome problem. The default KDE
| theme, Breeze, is equally tablet-quality, and unless you
| want to fiddle with old QtCurve (which is nowhere near as
| space-efficient as macOS anyway) you're largely stuck
| with Qt's Fusion, which is itself barely tolerable.
|
| As for Gnome applications, it's not a _Gnome_ problem, it
| 's a GTK problem, that affects all GTK applications,
| regardless of what DE they run under, and all GTK-based
| DEs, like XFCE.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Ubuntu Unity still works. It's basically the Mac desktop
| but better.
|
| You can get even better space efficiency with a tiling
| WM. A lot of them don't bother with window chrome or even
| have a status bar with a clock out of the box.
| alxlaz wrote:
| > You can get even better space efficiency with a tiling
| WM.
|
| If you try to run the numbers on e.g. sway/i3, that
| barely makes a dent. Realistically, you can squeeze maybe
| 6-8px out of a sane window decoration before it gets
| impractical.
|
| Meanwhile you can get like 10px of vertical space just by
| halving the vertical padding of a default Adwaita/Breeze
| button, and it's _still_ larger than the equivalent macOS
| button which non-technical users can click just fine.
| Sane sizing on three stacked widgets saves more space
| than any tiling WM.
|
| We can have nice things without going back to 1980s UI
| paradigms.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Then just don't use Adwaita/Breeze themes if that bothers
| you so much? And yes, it's tied to the theme. Ubuntu
| Unity's default "Ambiance" theme uses much less space.
| XFCE's default theme also uses less space. You can get
| themes like Chicago 95 for XFCE which also use less
| space.
|
| You could also just use MATE!
| alxlaz wrote:
| Having visited the third circle of hell before, and
| having actually gone as far as writing my own theme
| before giving up the whole charade, I would rather avoid
| revisiting the fourth circle of hell that GTK theming is.
|
| Edit: also, both Greybird and Ambiance are both really
| large compared to anything you get on other platforms.
| It's through no fault of their authors, GTK's layout
| rules break (or at least broke, I was on GTK 3.24 last I
| tried it) at low padding values, and it's _extremely_
| hard to keep alignment afloat on small widgets. I 'm also
| not exactly young anymore, the text contrast in
| Greybird's unfocused windows is pretty awful, and fixing
| anything related to GTK's :backdrop attribute is a very
| long-winded affair.
| agentgumshoe wrote:
| There are many desktops for Linux running the full gamut
| from large intrusive window dressing to _nothing at all_
| and all levels of efficiency in between.
| alxlaz wrote:
| I don't mind window dressing, it's touch-sized buttons,
| tabs & co. on a desktop monitor that makes it all suck.
| smoldesu wrote:
| This is actually the main reason I can't stand Big Sur
| and after - why is so much space wasted on touch
| interfaces if my Macbook has no touchscreen? The Quick
| Menu is the best/most frustrating example of this, but
| it's also apparent in the new widget design and settings
| app.
|
| Pure no, from me. KDE feels much more natural to me now
| that I've settled in.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| The trackpad.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Best speakers in-class, consistently decent keyboard and
| touchpad (butterfly aside), consistently decent
| monitor/screen, consistent software design language, "It
| Just Works(tm)" convenience, social status symbol.
| toastal wrote:
| With the speakers, it's the tuning, not the hardware that
| is great (though I will agree their tuning is the best).
| The rest related to hardware, every flagship also does it
| just as well, but a little different. Software, if you're
| comparing to Windows then anything will win, but
| macOS/iOS is really hostile to users in other ways. Idgaf
| about "status symbol".
| baq wrote:
| Everything up to macOS itself is top notch. Trackpad,
| keyboard, display, CPU - all best in class. What isn't
| best in class is good enough. macOS the desktop part...
| let's keep it polite and call it a matter of preference
| (it sucks)
| theK wrote:
| Agreed. When I was using Apple laptops as daily drivers I
| always got the questions why I was replacing the OS with
| Linux. Fact of the matter was that (at least for me) it
| was a much stabler environment to work with, less
| crashing, less unexpected feature failures, etc.
|
| Its funny how the reality distortion works for MacOS,
| people really look very incredulous when you tell them
| that Linux on Mac works better for you than MacOS on Mac
| :-)
| xibo9 wrote:
| People might look at you incredulously because their
| experience isn't mirroring yours. For instance, I
| honestly do not recall the last time macOS crashed on me.
| It does what I want it to do 99% of the time without
| getting in my way. But.. that's my experience. Linux on
| Mac might work better for YOU, don't presume that is the
| same for everyone else.
| jcz_nz wrote:
| I'm not sure when your experience dates to, or what kind
| of dev you were working, but I've had the exact opposite:
| on MacBooks for ~15 years, range of dev (full stack on a
| few stacks down to large footprint performance critical
| golang), VM's etc. In all that time I can count the
| number of full on crashes (kernel panics) on healthy
| hardware on one hand. macOS has been supremely stable in
| my experience.
| wafer_thin wrote:
| I run arch linux on my ancient macbook pro 2011. The
| reason I installed this flavor of linux was to disable a
| faulty gpu, and the guidance I found was using this
| distro. This mac has been my all-day-every-day workhorse
| ever since. And as for linux, with i3 window manager it
| is fantastic. It runs all the latest things I need for
| programming and it runs them _fast_. I almost never boot
| into mac at all anymore.
| matwood wrote:
| I always wonder what people are doing where their
| computer crashes all the time. I've been using Macs since
| the G4 days and have rarely had any crashes. But, the
| same is true for Windows for many years when I was a
| developer for Windows software. Linux is probably where
| I've had the most crashes b/c it lets you shoot yourself
| in the foot - which I did many times while learning linux
| in the 90s-00s.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Trackpad. It's basically the only thing I always notice
| when using any other brands of laptop. Even the "really
| good ones" suck by comparison.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Maybe the hardware AND the software matter.
| eropple wrote:
| The hardware's part of it. They use a big trackpad and they
| position it centrally, which a lot of manufacturers don't do.
| But of course a good bit of it is software, Hackintosh
| touchpads (when they worked) inherited most then-OS X
| features. I don't know anyone who ever suggested otherwise.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I've been using Macs almost exclusively since the 90s,
| through all of the ISA and OS transitions, and this is
| literally the first time I've ever heard that preference for
| Mac trackpads might have anything to do with hardware.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| I've been running Linux exclusively for over a decade on
| MacBooks and other laptops (flagship models from ASUS, HP,
| Lenovo) and I can tell you for certain it's the hardware.
| There may also be differences due to software, but if so,
| they're things I don't care about. The major thing for me
| is that I generally can't press to click on the other
| trackpads without immediately noticing that I have to press
| noticeably harder in some areas (eg: near the top) to
| register the click. On the MacBooks, it's absolutely
| consistent across the entire trackpad. Literally no other
| manufacturer seems to be able to do this. I hate using
| touch "tap" because it messes with typing, and no matter
| how good the software implementation of "disable tap when
| typing" it sucks. Pressing the trackpad gently and feeling
| the click, is the only way for me to use a trackpad.
| kalleboo wrote:
| In case you're wondering, this is because on the MacBooks
| it's not physically depressing at all - it's detecting a
| push and then generating haptic feedback that feels like
| a click. I wonder why PC manufacturers can't do this -
| patents?
| hot_gril wrote:
| The haptic trackpads are a newer thing, though. I think
| introduced around 2013. Mac trackpads have been above the
| rest as far as I can remember, like 2000.
| kaba0 wrote:
| Yep patents, but there was some recentish news that
| another company found another way to imitate those
| mechanics, so it might just come to other manufacturers
| as well soon.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Steam Deck does it already.
| eecc wrote:
| No no, it does. Apple has bought trackpad company -- was it
| FingerWorks? -- that developed special HIDs for medical
| purposes. These things are a combination of pickup and
| signal processing, therefore hw and sw, that provides many
| extra layers of data that will contribute. Basic tracking
| will work out of generally understood signals, but the
| nuance comes from those that only proprietary sw can
| render.
| ris58h wrote:
| Haptic trackpad is the only reason I'm stuck with macs.
| other trackpad suck, pre-haptic Apple trackpads suck too.
| macintux wrote:
| It's funny: I love the trackpad, but I forget that it's
| haptic because I love tap to click so much that I almost
| never trigger the haptic feedback.
|
| I probably have to push to click once every few weeks.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Really? I think it's more arguable that it's
| mostly/entirely software _today_, but there was a fairly
| long period where an Apple trackpad was a large glass thing
| whereas the average PC trackpad was a small thing made of
| soft plastic which didn't support multitouch at all. There
| clearly _was_ a major hardware gap, though I do think it's
| less clear there is today.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Trackpads like many peripherals are a combination of tightly
| coupled hardware, firmware, and software. If it were a simple
| issue, you'd think Microsoft and the Linux people would've
| fixed it by now.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| For Microsoft, it's a hardware vendor driver problem.
|
| For Linux, Peter Hutterer [1] has been working at it for a
| long time, and you're quite right.
|
| [1] http://who-t.blogspot.com/2023/01/libinput-and-custom-
| pointe...
| komali2 wrote:
| Alongside the mouse comment, I also wonder if Linux people
| don't care about trackpad because many (most?) of us don't
| like using mouse / trackpads because we prefer using
| keyboards mostly.
|
| I think I can make an argument that trying to do most
| things on a keyboard will result in faster workflows and
| less wrist strain, but to do so feels similar to the
| arguments I have about avoiding super-googlifying your
| life, preference for using communication solutions like
| Signal rather than captured applications like messenger or
| instagram, recommending libre software, etc. For whatever
| reasons, normies just wanna slide fingers on trackpad /
| upload their faces to companies / give up their software
| rights!
|
| Maybe I'm off base but I really feel similarly about
| keyboard usage as I do to other "nerd shit" like above. The
| best argument I've ever heard for it though was from the
| World of Warcraft days: people who click their spells with
| their mouse, rather than using extensive keybindings (you
| have more than 9 spells so need to involve shift, ctrl, and
| start using the keys around wasd as well), you would simply
| never be as good as a keyboard user. We called mouse-users
| "clickers" as a derogatory term. I started as a clicker
| (like most kids I'm sure) and was so astounded by how much
| better I got at the game, and how much easier it was to
| play, when I got used to keyboard bindings for spells, that
| I started trying it in other software, like MS word and
| power point. "Clickers suck" was a trueism there too, and
| so from like age 13 on I've always been the kind of person
| to invest maybe 5 minutes to an hour learning a new
| software's keybindings and I think it's paid dividends.
| hot_gril wrote:
| For GNU/Linux I get it. A lot of gaps there are just
| cause those people aren't interested in certain things.
| For Windows, I'm actually surprised Microsoft and
| Dell/whoever haven't gotten together to make a decent
| trackpad.
| mbreese wrote:
| _> you 'd think Microsoft and the Linux people would've
| fixed it by now_
|
| I wonder if Microsoft and Linux developers tend to use a
| mouse over a trackpad? If they don't use a trackpad, it
| isn't a pain point for them and thus not something that
| would get prioritized. Apple (on the other hand) has
| historically had horrible mice (pretty, but poor
| ergonomics) and solid developer laptops, so trackpads get
| used more. [1]
|
| Regardless of the platform, if a developer feels a pain
| point, that particular issue will be dealt with sooner. If
| windows/Linux trackpad usability is "good enough", it's not
| going to be a high priority.
|
| [1] source: me. I've used many Apple mice and loved the
| Magic Mouse, even with the strange charging port. That is
| until I started having carpal tunnel inflammation and
| switched to a trackpad and finally a more traditional
| mouse.
| hot_gril wrote:
| > Apple (on the other hand) has historically had horrible
| mice (pretty, but poor ergonomics) and solid developer
| laptops, so trackpads get used more.
|
| If you have a Mac desktop and don't like the mouse (cause
| they always did suck), the natural replacement is a
| third-party mouse, not an external trackpad. I think
| Apple and its userbase have always been more laptop-
| oriented, though.
| npteljes wrote:
| I have always wondered about this. I have never used a
| Macbook, but I haven't had any issues with the trackpad
| on Linux either - I flick my finger, point, tap to click,
| pinch to zoom, double finger to scroll etc. I'm always
| using laptops a couple generations behind, and it always
| worked, often out of the box.
| jon-wood wrote:
| It may be a bit of a chicken & egg thing. All the people
| I've seen regularly using Windows laptops carry around a
| wireless mouse with them that gets used anytime they're
| using it for an extended period, presumably because the
| trackpad is so bad. That's going to mean MS' metrics say
| most people use a mouse, even when a trackpad is
| available, in which case why bother improving it?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| That's what I used to do, when I was a Windows and Linux
| user, because the trackpad on PC laptops was intolerable
| to use for more than about one minute (and I could never
| get the hang of trackpoint).
|
| Developed a habit, like checking that I had my keys and
| wallet, when taking my laptop anywhere. Grab the mouse,
| grab the power supply, throw them in the bag, because the
| trackpad was always nigh-unusable and the battery life
| was only good enough for hopping between outlets unless
| you had a (charged!) extra battery to carry along.
|
| Took some time to break those habits after switching to
| Macbooks, where neither was necessary unless I'd be away
| from my desk more than a day. Unplug laptop, pick up,
| walk away, don't think about anything else. Go figure, a
| portable computer that lets you treat it like it's
| portable.
| kaba0 wrote:
| No matter how good a hardware is, it can be made sucky with
| bad software -- I honestly don't see how you came to the
| conclusion that it is fixed in software, that's just faulty
| logic on your side.
| rsynnott wrote:
| It's likely a bit of both.
| pseudostem wrote:
| Not exactly, I tried to configure the trackpad open-source
| (driver?) ages ago.
|
| The hardware itself has so many features/switches which are
| not open and hence not available to the software.
|
| The hardware and software go hand in hand IMO.
|
| Maybe things have changed now, this was at least 7+ years
| ago.
| sixothree wrote:
| I am constantly astounded watching people use trackpads as
| their primary cursor control. It's so frustrating watching
| people just waste your time doing something "the slow way". The
| least they could do is learn some hotkeys or something.
| msravi wrote:
| On my mid-2010 Macbook Pro, with Linux Mint (Xfce), the
| trackpad works just fine...
|
| Edit: Here's a video showing mouse movement and 2-finger
| scrolling - https://imgur.com/a/f6zImz6
| LesZedCB wrote:
| works yes but it is jumpy and no gestures by default. my
| ability to precisely mouse over a target and click is
| significantly diminished from osx. I only installed a few
| months ago so the loss is still near to me.
| msravi wrote:
| Gestures are not there on Linux, but in terms of mouse
| movement and scrolling I don't see a difference!
| RileyJames wrote:
| I similarly found the trackpad fine with Linux mint.
|
| Tho I found the difference in gestures quite annoying.
| Primarily in web apps like Miro. And window / app switching.
|
| With enough hacking around it seemed like all the gesture
| support was there, but making it all work in the same way as
| OSX was going to require a lot of configuration.
| xputer wrote:
| Have you ever used said MacBook intensively with OSX? I
| guarantee you the difference in trackpad performance will be
| mind boggling and frustrating. Literally the only thing
| keeping me away from using Linux.
| [deleted]
| hot_gril wrote:
| I'm extra careful with compatibility claims after the
| number of times someone says how Linux works great on
| whatever Mac, or Mac OS runs great on a Hackintosh, only
| for me to discover how many "inconsequential" things are
| broken. Like it'll not sleep, not have wifi or bluetooth,
| run the fans at 100%, and be missing various forms of
| hardware accel.
| msravi wrote:
| Yes, I have, intensively for 5 years or so. Apart from
| gestures (which I don't use), I find the trackpad
| performance just fine.
| macintux wrote:
| Gestures are a huge part of the appeal for some of us, so
| that's good to know.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| I think they are available on Gnome
| fevangelou wrote:
| I can at least confirm that Ubuntu 22.10's out-of-the-box
| touchpad support is PERFECT on a 2008 Macbook Aluminum (Core 2
| Duo / 8GB RAM / SSD). Exactly as you'd expect with macOS.
|
| I was actually astounded at how better this model worked with
| Ubuntu compared to El Capitan (last official supported version)
| or even Catalina (the last unsupported version I tried with
| dosdude1's patches, as I didn't know about OCLP at the time -
| perhaps OCLP didn't even exist when Catalina was out).
|
| Granted it's an older model (compared to yours) and the Linux
| kernel probably already has support for its touchpad generation
| baked in, but I'm sure it won't be hard to load an extra driver
| (e.g. Synaptics?) or tweak some config file to get it to work
| like on macOS. I had a similar issue with T440 & X240 Thinkpads
| and the touchpad performance improved dramatically by
| installing the Synaptics driver from Ubuntu repos (on Ubuntu
| 20.04 at the time).
|
| Seeing how you can resurrect much older hardware with Linux,
| the only question that remains is why some freaking companies
| still refuse not to support Linux with their software - and I'm
| not just talking about Adobe here, but companies like Panic,
| Pixelmator and others that choose to be Mac only.
| oblio wrote:
| > Seeing how you can resurrect much older hardware with
| Linux, the only question that remains is why some freaking
| companies still refuse not to support Linux with their
| software - and I'm not just talking about Adobe here, but
| companies like Panic, Pixelmator and others that choose to be
| Mac only.
|
| Statistically people who use hardware from 15 years ago won't
| pay much for brand new software licenses :-)
| fevangelou wrote:
| And this is what you understood from that?
|
| Intel Macs will soon become obsolete. Lots of folks will
| not just throw away a few years old machines. So between
| the choice of ditching perfectly fine hardware due to an
| unsupported OS or switching to Linux, it's really a no-
| brainer. Unless of course you live in the SV bubble and
| change devices every 6 months in which case kudos to you.
| oblio wrote:
| I was referring to this:
|
| > Seeing how you can resurrect much older hardware with
| Linux, the only question that remains is why some
| freaking companies still refuse not to support Linux with
| their software - and I'm not just talking about Adobe
| here, but companies like Panic, Pixelmator and others
| that choose to be Mac only.
|
| Those companies don't care because those people are non-
| clients anyway.
| Liberonostrud wrote:
| [dead]
| smoldesu wrote:
| Did you double-check that you're on Wayland? My Magic Trackpad
| works like a charm in KDE Plasma Wayland.
| mikae1 wrote:
| I _believe_ so. Isn 't Wayland default on Fedora? Did you
| compare Wayland to X11? I also went for the KDE Plasma spin.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Aren't they both using libinput? How would Wayland make a
| difference there?
| smoldesu wrote:
| I just don't get trackpad gestures on KDE or GNOME under
| x11. My Magic Trackpad only really "works" when running in
| a Wayland session of either desktop.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| "Are you tired of not getting security updates?"
|
| Not really, as I'm not running Android
| e4e5 wrote:
| My first Linux device was a 2013 MacBook Pro, a phenomenal
| device.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| Dropped Ubuntu 22.04 on an original 15" rMBP. Nice to finally
| have a high end Linux laptop. Now, if only the cmd-ctrl
| functionality was consistent across OSes.
| bilqis wrote:
| My favourite laptop of all time is Macbook Pro mid-2015, with
| Debian GNU/Linux. It works flawlessly and almost out of box, SSD
| can still be easily replaced, and the screen is amazing.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| The hardware is a joy to use, i used several years a macair
| 2011 snd now upgraded to a macair 2015 with ubuntu. Only had ti
| fix the wifi. Such a nice machine. Looking forward to get my
| hands on an M1 when they start to be old :D
| simongray wrote:
| The M1 Macbook Air is such a good machine, even several years
| after its introduction. So nice, in fact, that the M2 version
| really isn't all that enticing.
| cdelsolar wrote:
| The M1 MBP is the best machine I've ever owned. Fast,
| ridiculous battery life, etc. I can use it all day without
| worrying about plugging it in. I actually built a Linux
| workstation with 16 cores and a state of the art 12th gen
| Intel chip etc and on a core-for-core performance, the M1
| is actually a little faster.
| Yaggo wrote:
| Also it's equipped with plain old HDMI and USB-A ports, still
| so useful.
| masklinn wrote:
| TBF and much to my dismay HDMI was returned with the ARM mbps
| (the real ones not the 13").
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Why would having an HDMI port be a bad thing?
| atoav wrote:
| I just recently pulled an old one of these out with linux mint
| installed because I needed a device that uppon receiving power
| boots up and plays a video loop -- my usual goto raspi3 for
| some damned reason would not negotiate EDIDs above VGA
| resolution with the projector in use.
|
| I booted the MBP after not having had it on power 4 years and
| it worked flawlessly. It then took maybe 20 minutes to run vlc
| on boot and set the propper bits to make it boot automatically
| when it receives power.
|
| I cannot recall when things worked this flawlessly the last
| time
| abyssin wrote:
| How easy is it to keep a version of MacOS alongside? How long
| could I expect a new battery to last on a charge? I was
| thinking of buying a new MacBook M1 but I can't afford the
| crazy price, and it's been a nightmare to manage the OS
| updates.
| kreetx wrote:
| Re: battery; don't know for a new battery, but my original
| lasts 4-5 hours running linux - which is very good (IMO)
| given that it was bought at the start of 2016.
|
| Don't know about having a MacOS alongside but if the disk is
| small, you might not want that anyway. And I presume you
| could always go back to MacOS later.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| There are battery replacements, but some are sub-par and
| won't hold as much charge as they report. I returned a
| battery I bought from Amazon and bought another from a
| Duracell license holder, it worked better.
| wsc981 wrote:
| I recently tried a dual-boot configuration with my iMac 27"
| with both macOS and Ubuntu and after a short while the boot
| system got messed up. Couldn't fix it.
|
| I read this is also an experience many Windows users have
| had when setting up dual booting systems with Linux.
|
| At this point I think it's generally a bad idea to setup a
| dual-boot system with Linux, better to use it exclusively.
| rtontic wrote:
| Hm, I disagree. I have two desktops that I dualboot with
| windows 10 and various linux distros, currently ubuntu
| lts. If you install windows first then linux, it should
| work ok.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| It's not the "with Linux" but that's the bad idea though,
| is it? It seems this is an area where Microsoft (I don't
| know about Apple) are getting away with anticompetitive
| practice in the guise of security.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| I wonder what happen, in my experience updates sometimes
| make that OS take over booting from each other, you
| should check rEFInd and the info on the website. He is
| the guy dealing with this
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| Mac hardware is really good at booting MacOS from external
| devices. That's how I would dual boot if I cared for such a
| set up.
| johnvaluk wrote:
| Note that some firmware upgrades will only be applied if
| MacOS is booted from the internal drive (NVME support was
| added this way to some models). I leave MacOS on the
| machine for as long as it's supported and dual boot other
| operating systems from external devices. Some can run
| completely in RAM if there's room, which is nice.
|
| When the model is no longer supported with MacOS updates, I
| wipe the disk and install Linux. Sometimes I'll keep a copy
| of MacOS on an external drive if I need to access or
| troubleshoot specific features of that model (like digital
| optical audio before support matured on Linux).
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| Super easy, just need to install rEFInd
| (http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/) . Some OS upgrades might
| hide partitions again but you can make it persist trough
| updates with a script. ALL hhe info is on the page.
| johnvaluk wrote:
| You can also hold down the Option key when booting to
| select bootable partitions or external devices. Different
| models may require extra steps to enable this, but I've
| never needed to use rEFInd.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Be careful of planned obsolescence in the apple world, it
| sadly applies to their computers too. A MacBook from
| 2013-2015 almost certainly can't be upgraded to the latest
| Mac OS releases and stopped getting security updates long
| ago. IMHO just go full Linux on it.
|
| But if you do need to dual boot I remember doing it a few
| times and the refind bootloader was very nice:
| https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/
| ecliptik wrote:
| Using OpenCore Legacy Patcher [1] older Macs can run newer
| versions of MacOS that no longer officially support the
| hardware.
|
| I'm running MacOS Ventura on a Macbook Air 2013 and Macbook
| Pro 2015 with it. They work reasonably well and get patch
| updates via official updates when released.
|
| 1. https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
| pridkett wrote:
| Ventura (current MacOS release as of April 2023) is the
| first major version of MacOS that does not run on a 2015
| MacBook Pro.
|
| Security updates are still happening.
| [deleted]
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| I might be impressed except I ran Linux for a while and
| Linux gets updates even longer and the devs writing those
| patches often don't get paid
| actionfromafar wrote:
| For now it works, with Opencore Legacy Patcher. Pretty easy,
| I reinstalled with their boot loader on USB.
| bxparks wrote:
| The MacBook Pro 2015 (13 and 15) are amazing, but they have
| glued-in batteries. iFixIt says it would take 45min to 2h to
| replace, and it is rated "Difficult". It's the only reason why
| I won't buy them on eBay.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Disp...
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Retina+Disp...
| ja27 wrote:
| It took me a good hour and left me pretty sticky. If you have
| a little money it's worth having someone else do it.
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