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Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

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Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#101

Post by kuebelreiter »

kayoone wrote: post #85
anko wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sheer flexibility and number of choices for each and every part of the linux desktop world makes the whole experience chaotic, inconsistent, buggy and complex to setup and maintain. I think that's what vendors like ubuntu should be for. They should focus on stability and planning. Instead they just keep doing their own thing for a audience that might very well not exist.

Exactly. Ubuntu started out to be the mainstream distro that just makes the linux desktop experience smooth and free of worries, but instead they now build just another desktop experience on their own. Even for Ubuntu you have Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint and-i-dont-know-what else...thats just the wrong approach imo.

That's because people don't figure out that every Linux can run every WM or desktop environment anyway. So they need a seperate distribution just to switch from Unity to KDE...

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#102

Post by rajacombinator »

yes I've thought about it because

1) I've felt that the last few OS X iterations have been steps in the wrong direction, bloating the OS with crap "features" that are useless and add overhead. It's slower, more pinwheels, crashes, etc.

2) A lot of dev and computational tools run natively on Linux and you have to deal with 2nd best ports on Mac.

3) The absurdly high cost of Macs. For instance I'm about to upgrade my mbp when they finally update them next week and I expect it will run about $2700.

for #1, I'm hoping that 10.9 is an improvement since it seems to have a performance focus. i think all Mac users are dreading that Apple will slap iOS on our laptops. if they do, #1 will become a bigger factor.

#2 usually is not a huge problem. of course, when it is, it's enormously frustrating.

for #3, when I've looked, the cost of getting a similarly spec'ed non Mac is still around $2000 so the savings aren't that huge.

ultimately, the reasons for switching do not outweigh my perceived costs of switching. i don't want to tinker with my OS or evaluate which of the many Linux options is best. and for my typical consumer laptop use, the Apple ecosystem is just convenient. (syncs w my phone, etc.)

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#103

Post by gnaffle »

PLejeck wrote: post #94
gnaffle wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Linux exclusively for many years but switched to OSX for work some years ago. I still feel more productive in Linux, but it's because of a few tricks that I so far haven't found a good replacement for in OSX: - Focus follows mouse without auto-raise - Instant switching between virtual desktops (not possible to disable the animation in OSX last time I checked) - Instantly open a new terminal window with intelli…

The lack of good email clients on Linux is a real shame. I'd love to have something like Sparrow or Mailbox. 1password is also a sad thing to be missing. As for the others, we have locate(1) for searching and rdiff-backup instead of Time Machine. As for having desktops like that, if you mean monitors, then there's a great solution: Synergy. Hook up monitors to both computers and use Synergy to connect them.

I meant virtual desktops, mostly because I like to be able to take my laptop anywhere. I actually used Synergy at one point for my desktop setup (and also because the OSX mouse acceleration profile was broken for me for quite some time).

A cool hardware project might be to take a micro Linux ARM board with LVDS display output, mount it inside the CD bay in my laptop and make an internal LVDS switch to quickly switch between OSX and the Linux board. That would be pretty much ideal. :)

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#104

Post by gnaffle »

siculars wrote: post #21

This. +100. I'm growing increasingly uncomfortable with the Apple ecosystem. iProducts, iCloud, etc. I can't transfer this to that cause I'm not allowed, click here to accept this, turn on location services so we can track you - on your laptop. It's getting to be too much. What's the best laptop for running any Ubuntu flavored desktop?

I think most MacBooks are good for running Linux as well, if you like the build quality and features of the Mac. The Ubuntu Wiki has a good rundown of how well the different models are supported.

That said, I think Apple has done a pretty good job of being respectful of privacy. You are asked explicitly whether to share information (location services etc) and you can always say no. Compare this to the latest Ubuntu release where your local file searches are being sent to Amazon as a default feature.

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#105

Post by PLejeck »

gnaffle wrote: post #103
PLejeck wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of good email clients on Linux is a real shame. I'd love to have something like Sparrow or Mailbox. 1password is also a sad thing to be missing. As for the others, we have locate(1) for searching and rdiff-backup instead of Time Machine. As for having desktops like that, if you mean monitors, then there's a great solution: Synergy. Hook up monitors to both computers and use Synergy to connect them.

I meant virtual desktops, mostly because I like to be able to take my laptop anywhere. I actually used Synergy at one point for my desktop setup (and also because the OSX mouse acceleration profile was broken for me for quite some time). A cool hardware project might be to take a micro Linux ARM board with LVDS display output, mount it inside the CD bay in my laptop and make an internal LVDS switch to quickly switch…

I wonder if it'd be possible to provide a virtual display to a small ARM board and embed it into a window, so that you'd have the virtualization effects (two OSes on one machine) without the speed loss

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#106

Post by PLejeck »

rob05c wrote: post #99
PLejeck wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please never use OS X clones. But you're right that Linux stopped being ugly. Even in Tiling WMs, we're pretty beautiful now. My windows now have the same gaussian blur and shadow abilities as on Mac OS X, thanks to Compton. My status bar has beautiful text set by Pango and rendered by Cairo. My text rendering is as good (or better than, against transparency) in OSX, thanks to the Infinality patchsets. Really, it's o…

I agree, but I realize not everyone else does. Same goes for Windows. You can make Linux look like anything you want. If what you want is a clone of your old OS, well, I can't help your aesthetic taste, but I can at least make you happy.

But it's not even clone, it's just awkward.

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#107

Post by onazareth »

rtpg wrote: post #52
thex86 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use Beamer for presentations [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamer_(LaTeX) ] and never look back!

Do people really find using tex to make presentations worthwhile for things when it's not for academics? Maybe I'm just not good, but I take a lot less time to make something that looks nice with Powerpoint, especially when trying to touch things up (the feedback loop on WYSIWYG software should not be underestimated)/

Can you actually make something nice with Powerpoint? If so, you should teach my coworkers. I will stick with LaTeX.

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#108

Post by gnaffle »

PLejeck wrote: post #105
gnaffle wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant virtual desktops, mostly because I like to be able to take my laptop anywhere. I actually used Synergy at one point for my desktop setup (and also because the OSX mouse acceleration profile was broken for me for quite some time). A cool hardware project might be to take a micro Linux ARM board with LVDS display output, mount it inside the CD bay in my laptop and make an internal LVDS switch to quickly switch…

I wonder if it'd be possible to provide a virtual display to a small ARM board and embed it into a window, so that you'd have the virtualization effects (two OSes on one machine) without the speed loss

I think it's possible do to so, I remember seeing this ARM USB/HDMI board, which apparently can mirror the screen over USB: http://www.fxitech.com/technology/any-screen-ip/

Not sure how well it works, though.

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#109

Post by epsylon »

PLejeck wrote: post #94
gnaffle wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Linux exclusively for many years but switched to OSX for work some years ago. I still feel more productive in Linux, but it's because of a few tricks that I so far haven't found a good replacement for in OSX: - Focus follows mouse without auto-raise - Instant switching between virtual desktops (not possible to disable the animation in OSX last time I checked) - Instantly open a new terminal window with intelli…

The lack of good email clients on Linux is a real shame. I'd love to have something like Sparrow or Mailbox. 1password is also a sad thing to be missing. As for the others, we have locate(1) for searching and rdiff-backup instead of Time Machine. As for having desktops like that, if you mean monitors, then there's a great solution: Synergy. Hook up monitors to both computers and use Synergy to connect them.

I never used 1password (I don't own any Apple hardware), but if you need a password manager that works on Linux as well as Windows, KeePass (using Mono) is pretty good.

I'm using it on my laptop and desktop and use Dropbox to synchronize.

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#110

Post by epsylon »

gnaffle wrote: post #65
jmduke wrote: post #15

I'll say something that's vaguely awful: what's in it for me? I use Linux at work and it's not bad , but I'm less productive on it with 95% of tasks than I would be with OSX. It looks worse (I recognize this is subjective.) A lot of my friends use Linux and tell me that if I spend the right amount of time tinkering with it -- making it mine -- I'd reap the benefits of a bespoke OS, just like slipping on a suit that's…

I used Linux exclusively for many years but switched to OSX for work some years ago. I still feel more productive in Linux, but it's because of a few tricks that I so far haven't found a good replacement for in OSX: - Focus follows mouse without auto-raise - Instant switching between virtual desktops (not possible to disable the animation in OSX last time I checked) - Instantly open a new terminal window with intelli…

> If I could get a virtualization scheme where I could have one desktop with OSX and 3-4 desktops of Linux, that would be ideal. But I don't think that's possible with Parallels or VMware

Isn't that the main feature of VMWare Fusion? (Although it seems more targeted at integrating Windows into OS X, it looks like it supports Linux as well)

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