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Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

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Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#161

Post by Vinnl »

khazhou wrote: post #116
rbanffy wrote: post #108

People worry too much about what they use to host text editors and terminal windows...

Sure, except that OSX's iterm2+Karabiner is so much better than any terminal on Linux. Awesome full-screen switching (⌘-Enter), easy shortcuts to create subwindows, natural clipboard support, great keyboard compatibility with Emacs (after futzing with keyboard settings and Karabiner mappings). On Ubuntu, all of these have been lacking. Hell, I can't even use the terminal for a single session without accidentally trig…

> Hell, I can't even use the terminal for a single session without accidentally triggering the App Launcher several times.

Pretty sure that has to do with you being used to different keyboard shortcuts, not with any inherent properties of the terminal app. I'm currently experiencing this the other way around (working on OS X being used to Ubuntu), and struggling with it as well.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#162

Post by Klathmon »

slantyyz wrote: post #102

I know the OTA dismissed Windows, but when I switched from OSX to Windows a couple of years ago, I found Scott Hanselman's "Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows" [1] to be indispensable. I've been doing Rails work on Windows since switching, but ymmv depending on what your workflow and toolchain are. I also found that there were a lot of workarounds/alternatives to software/tools that I thought I…

I gotta say I've tried to do the VM thing. I REALLY tried. But it just isn't something that will work for any significant amount of time.

It would break with any updates, half the time xcode just wouldn't work, and it would sometimes be so slow that you'd need to wait minutes for some fancy animation to run.

And this wasn't even to get around buying a MacBook, we had one, I just wanted to compile and sign a hybrid app for iOS easier than using another physical machine.

Then we also found later that you can't sign an app on OSX while SSH'd into the machine... It just fails with a generic signing error.

So now I have a MacBook with remote-desktop software that's just permanently on in the corner of the room so I can open the GUI once a month or so and re compile and sign the latest version of our app...

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#163

Post by pacifika »

hartator wrote: post #155

Anyone knows an alliterative to Alfred in Windows or Linux? I really really like the ability to search apps with a few keystrokes and I really really like to be able to search clipboard history with another few keystrokes. Nothing I've found are doing both or one as good as Alfred.

Farr (http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/findrun/index.h...) and ArsClip (http://www.joejoesoft.com/vcms/97/)

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#164

Post by dvtv75 »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #65
rickyc091 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ESC key being missing gets blown out of proportion. Every time I hit it, I'm amazed at how it just works. Apple has made it so hitting any where in that vicinity basically triggers the ESC.

The key not physically being there is unnerving. There's no tactile feedback, _unlike every other key on the keybord_. As a touch typist, I found this extremely distracting during the week that I tried out the MBP 2016. Not every attempt to hit Esc worked, so I found myself constantly and instinctively hitting it 2-3 times "just to be sure", and then also constantly glancing down to see whether in fact I was aiming r…

I wondered about the lack of a tactile response, and tried out one of the new MBPs a few days back. I'm also a touch-typist, and you're absolutely right. It bugs me immensely, not having tactile feedback.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#165

Post by majewsky »

tzs wrote: post #72
rickyc091 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ESC key being missing gets blown out of proportion. Every time I hit it, I'm amazed at how it just works. Apple has made it so hitting any where in that vicinity basically triggers the ESC.

Alternatively, couldn't one use CTRL-[ instead of ESC? I doubt anyone is going to remove CTRL or [ anytime soon, so getting used to that would future-proof you quite well.

That may work... unless you're on a layout where [ is accessed with Alt (or whatever modifier is used on macOS to go to Layer 3).

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#166

Post by Lio »

frik wrote: post #109

Or the other way: Finding an Alternative to Windows 10 That non-optional phone-home, non-optional updates, ads on startmenu, little QA (buggy like never before) - Windows up to Win7 was so nice, since Nadella everything went downhill, so sad, but true. Good that Win7 is supported until 2020, and promising alternatives are around the corner with Google Android/Fuchsia, macOS, Linux - although, the transition will be p…

I see the downvotes for the parent post but no rebuttals to the phone home/privacy issues in Windows 10.

I ask this as someone who hasn't really used Windows for 10+ years, could someone who knows please discuss the state of privacy in Windows 10?

Is this a non-issue because you can turn off all the monitoring? How would one go about that?

Is it a non-issue because Windows 10 doesn't send private information back to Microsoft? What does it send back?

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#167

Post by holografix »

massysett wrote: post #41
codeka wrote: post #20

> The first option I tried was an i3 based desktop. However whilst I wanted to like tiling window managers I decided it wasn’t for me. It took me a week or so to get used to i3, but once I did I can't see myself ever going back. I've been using i3 at work and at home for about year now, and every time I get on my (Mac Book) laptop it's a frustrating experience: I feel like I spend more time trying to figure out how t…

i3 is great, until you try to do something simple like change the time zone for your desktop clock or add some wallpaper. I switched from Linux to Mac because I was too well acquainted with making symlinks to /usr/share/ somewhere just to change my clock when I traveled, and then figuring out just how few processes I had to restart so it would take effect. Unfortunately the Linux desktops were actually worse than the…

This. It boggles the mind how much time one can waste solving admin, busy-work type issues on Linux, specially when trying to use a GUI. I mean wifi, Bluetooth, retina class resolution issues, drivers for multiple devices not being available... unless one is using Linux to learn and understand it as a server of some type I can't fathom using it as a replacement for Mac OS.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#168

Post by ShinyCyril »

jseliger wrote: post #2

The lack of equally high standard replacements for software such as For me, it's Devonthink Pro ( http://www.devontechnologies.com/solutions/writers.html ) in particular and also Lightroom. Yes, there is progress on Dark Table, but there's too much useful software on OS X and despite Apple's faults its laptop hardware still leads the pack. Yes, the lack of ports on the new MBP is annoying. If I had to buy a new MBP t…

Obviously I'd avoid it for commercial editing, but I've had good success running Lightroom 5 under Wine.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#169

Post by tracker1 »

Matthias247 wrote: post #141
Clubber wrote: post #12

>Note that I don’t currently consider Windows a viable alternative. For the work that I do (Rails) and tools I use something *nix based is the best choice for me. For what it's worth Windows 10 now has a bash shell based on Ubuntu available. http://www.howtogeek.com/249966/how-to-install-and-use-the-l...

As an alternative to WSL docker for windows is also very helpful. I use it to spin up linux images that contain all the devtools that I need, and mount files/code from windows in there. For a terminal just enter the image with exec /bin/sh. To get a consistent experience I also use msys bash (which is bundled with git for windows) for terminal use on windows. With that setup entering and exiting linux containers feel…

I run a full Linux VM in HyperV, I install git for windows, which comes with everything I need for the most part.. VS Code and my browsers. From there, I'll do samba sharing from the VM so I can edit in windows, and run in linux.

I've tried docker for windows, and even WSL+Ubuntu+Bash, and it's just not as good. I use conemu, VS Code, and Chrome more than anything else.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#170

Post by rz2k »

gladimdim wrote: post #112
Clubber wrote: post #12

>Note that I don’t currently consider Windows a viable alternative. For the work that I do (Rails) and tools I use something *nix based is the best choice for me. For what it's worth Windows 10 now has a bash shell based on Ubuntu available. http://www.howtogeek.com/249966/how-to-install-and-use-the-l...

I switched to Windows 10 (Microsoft Surface 4 Pro) after ~15 years of using Linux and 5 years of MacOS. In Bash (based on Ubuntu) 99% of utilities just work. I can use npm, install modules and they still work. For me in Windows 10 - everything just works. Though I still miss: 1. MacBook's touchpad :-( 2. Emacs-like keybindings everywhere in OS (like MacOS has).

If you force yourself to use the keyboard you might find it as convenient in Windows as it was in OS X. However, it is almost modal like vim. When I used Windows, I was used to `alt` followed by a series of keys for repetitive or common commands.
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