Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPad-only is the new desktop Linux

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 58 posts

Re: iPad-only is the new desktop Linux

#41

Post by soared »

teach wrote: post #29
mikeash wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's rather silly. Desktop Linux is like having a machine shop. It's a steep learning curve, but you can do amazing things. Advanced tasks on the iPad is like a dancing bear: it's impressive that it can even be done, but the actual dancing sucks.

I love the dancing bear analogy, but I'd argue that Linux on the desktop isn't a difficult learning curve. Not in 2016, anyway. The Linux desktop is different than Windows 10 or the MacOS, but it isn't harder, IMO.

For the average user (who uses w10 or osx) linux is miles more difficult. Turn on your mac, login to apple, and 1 click download anything and it works. Linux has dependencies, and not-so-straightforward app store, and plenty of little differences that aren't obvious like osx. Thats what makes it so powerful though.

Re: iPad-only is the new desktop Linux

#44

Post by wutbrodo »

addicted wrote: post #20
chmod775 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but imho a cheap Dell would be more comfortable to work on than some weird ipad/bluetooth keyboard/whatnot combo. And decent only starts on the far other side of that spectrum.

I think it would be interesting to see the amount of productivity people lose using their iPads. In my experience my iPad means I am using my laptop a lot less, but it's taking me more time to do the same things I did on the laptop on my iPad.

With the advent of ultraportable laptops a few years ago, I've almost entirely stopped using my tablet(s). The upsides of a smartphone's form factor are self-evident, but a suitably light laptop is (IME) so far superior to a tablet in comfort, usability, and efficiency that the category has been practically obsoleted for me.

My current laptop has a 13 inch screen and roughly the dimensions of an 11 inch macbook air. There are very few times I find it less convenient than a 7 inch tablet, and almost none compared to a full-sized tablet.

Re: iPad-only is the new desktop Linux

#45

Post by spv »

soared wrote: post #41
teach wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the dancing bear analogy, but I'd argue that Linux on the desktop isn't a difficult learning curve. Not in 2016, anyway. The Linux desktop is different than Windows 10 or the MacOS, but it isn't harder, IMO.

For the average user (who uses w10 or osx) linux is miles more difficult. Turn on your mac, login to apple, and 1 click download anything and it works. Linux has dependencies, and not-so-straightforward app store, and plenty of little differences that aren't obvious like osx. Thats what makes it so powerful though.

This is going to change with projects like snap and flatpak. Soon every app will be come bundled with its own dependencies like Windows exe's

Re: iPad-only is the new desktop Linux

#46

Post by 5ilv3r »

spv wrote: post #45
soared wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the average user (who uses w10 or osx) linux is miles more difficult. Turn on your mac, login to apple, and 1 click download anything and it works. Linux has dependencies, and not-so-straightforward app store, and plenty of little differences that aren't obvious like osx. Thats what makes it so powerful though.

This is going to change with projects like snap and flatpak. Soon every app will be come bundled with its own dependencies like Windows exe's

As someone who remembers apt-get update taking only a couple seconds back in the debian etch days, That sounds horrible.

Re: iPad-only is the new desktop Linux

#47

Post by 5ilv3r »

chatmasta wrote: post #8
DiabloD3 wrote: post #2

Except iPads don't run Linux, and iOS is ridiculously locked down and has very few usable apps for typical desktop needs (Android also has this issue, so I'm not shitting on iOS only).

Jailbroken iPad has all the "Linux" essentials you might need. Combined with a Bluetooth keyboard and SSH to a remote server, you've got a decent dev machine.

That's actually all the "GNU" parts of gnu/linux that people mention here and there when being pedantic about linux distributions. No linux involved at all as long as you are on darwin.

Re: iPad-only is the new desktop Linux

#49

Post by znpy »

I always found peculiar of computer science in general the fact that once something has got good enough, people in the field feel the urge to throw everything out of the window and rebuild the whole thing, just a tiny bit differently, possibly making the same mistakes that have been done in the past.

Re: iPad-only is the new desktop Linux

#50

Post by wtbob »

coldtea wrote: post #35
wtbob wrote: post #26

I don't get this idea that desktop Linux is challenging, not at all. I've been using a Linux box as my primary desktop since 1999, and as my sole desktop since 2000. It's not challenging, it just works. I won't say that there are never challenges, but they are rare and — unlike Windows and macOS — if I search a little I'll find an answer and am able to bend the OS to my will.

> I don't get this idea that desktop Linux is challenging, not at all. I've been using a Linux box as my primary desktop since 1999 Isn't that fact a huge tell-sign that perhaps you're not the kind of person for whom desktop Linux would be challenging? You speak of 2000, but historically even people like ESR, Linus Torvalds, JWZ etc have found Linux bad at usability and ease of installation. Of course people used to…

> Isn't that fact a huge tell-sign that perhaps you're not the kind of person for whom desktop Linux would be challenging?

Well, sure — but I didn't spring forth fully-formed from my father's forehead knowing how to use Linux. As a matter of fact, until I switched I was a Mac user.

And FWIW both my liberal-arts brother and his liberal-arts wife are now using Linux. My sister-in-law discovered the command line within a week.

I won't deny that there are things which are painful in Linux. But are they more common than painful things in Windows? I had to get a Windows machine to do some work on, and it's utterly terrible. I don't just mean the 'this doesn't work the way I'm used to' stuff: that's to be expected. I mean things like randomly prompting me for a smartcard PIN over and over again, when Linux would ask but once. I mean things like wanting to download OS updates as one large file, rather than many small files — which can mean that it's impossible to update the OS on a small disk.

I've not used macOS enough in the last decade to really have a critique; every time I use it, I want to hurl the computer through a window, but I freely admit that may simply be down to unfamiliarity, which is no more a critique of macOS than it is of Linux. It is annoying that I can't use a tiling window manager, though.

Post reply on HN