I'm currently running the latest release of ElementaryOS which runs off Ubuntu 16.04 it is great. It is very minimalist, and the desktop environment is really well done. Before ElementaryOS I was using ParrotSec OS which is on par with your typical pentesting / hacking type of distros but it comes with the latest and greatest of programming language tools. They're based off of Debian with their own modifications to the kernel to harden it, and out of the box you get TOR features that I never really used, but I'm sure that may interest some. Overall it was a great Distro my only gripe was not being able to properly install and use Steam on it. ElementaryOS has a nice Desktop Environment I appreciate but it either installs or doesn't. Fortunately this laptop took ElementaryOS, where in the past I have had issues installing it. I use ElementaryOS for everything from Python back-end RESTful service development to .NET Core application development with Rider. I'm also considering using SublimeText to save on startup time, although "Scratch" isn't too bad a text editor, it suffers poor naming (try to google for Scratch and you'll find the language before you do the text editor itself).
Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
191–200 of 342 posts
Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key is gone. The touchbar can be set to always show virtual function keys, though. Not the best option if you touch type, of course.
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.
I'm a touch typist, and there's no way I'm going to use touch bar. I've tested it in the local Apple store, and it just doesn't work for me, nor do their new keyboards.
I appreciated Apple's innovations in the past, but imho Apple shows little understanding of their remaining users in the "pro" market, or rather unwillingness to cater for them. Pro users want predictable work horses and a roadmap for their software purchases, not the new shiny and Apple doing away with basic functionalities of a computer system such as standard keyboards and ports.
Why didn't Apple make touch bar optional on the higher end Macbook Pros?
Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#193If you're an iOS/Mac developer, there's no alternative.
If you want an alternative for graphics work (or other development), try Windows.
For other web development, in general, you'll be able to work well with Linux.
Keeping work on different machines quickly starts to become unmanageable, that's why MacOS still leads. It gives the best of most options on the best hardware.
P.S. - I tried ElementaryOS last month, for couple of hours and didn't find it an alternative in any way. It's UI is quite clunky (of course, since they are trying to copy Macs UX, but don't have the finesse). The eye candy can't make it a Mac alternative in any way; it's still Ubuntu under the hood, and less intuitive than Ubuntu.
Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#194I've used a Mac for work for the past 5 years, I use Windows PCs at home but most of my computing devices are Android. I usually find if I need something specific for production use, it's in some Linux distro, and I'll either SSH into one for work, or fire up a VM with that distro in it and SSH into it. The best dev environment I've been able to conjure up is using WinSCP to act as a bridge to whatever system I'm con…
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Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#195I 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 ap…
> 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.
My guess is that it's missing something that being logged into a desktop session would have (e.g. Keychain access).
Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#196Another path you can take: build your own desktop and install a Hackintosh OS! Here's my build ( http://pcpartpicker.com/list/pYWQMp ), which runs into some driver issues but can be fixed with Kext utility. This setup allows me to do CUDA programming + Deep Learning stuff natively in OSX, while having access to pretty Mac software. It's great, I highly recommend it!
except that Hackintosh not exactly legal :-)
Breaking a contract is not illegal, it's a matter of civil law. And depending on where you live, such EULAs might not even be enforceable.
Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ap…
> 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. My guess is that it's missing something that being logged into a desktop session would have (e.g. Keychain access).
It's been a bit, so I might be wrong on some of the details here, but...
I did have keychain access, and was able to fully unlock the keychain and use it in other areas. However after chasing down several issues (including the keychain expiring after 300 seconds by default, moving the keys around between different keychains, various "jump up and down and spin around 3 times"-esque solutions of using multiple commands on the same line, or different lines, or in different orders, or others). I finally eventually figured out that I could unlock the keychain on the system manually, ssh in, then i'd have till it timed out to sign, only to have it be rejected on the upload...
Once I moved to just using a remote-desktop software and doing it through the GUI, it just worked. However now it's a 2 step process where our build system does literally everything but the signing then i need to manually remote in and click a button to sign and upload.
Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#198Many articles about wanting to leave the macOS ecosystem mention Sketch. Sketch is macOS only (and will be for the forseeable future), so it's understandable that people want to consider the implications of switching away from it. Recently, however, I stumbled upon Figma, a web-based, real-time collaborative interface design app (i.e., a competitor of Sketch). After convincing my group to experiment with it for a sch…
Figma seems pretty neat. Does anyone know of something similar but open source?
Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I have to absolutely agree on iterm2, I'd love to have the same on Linux... there are a few okay ones, none I've tried as good. On windows, I like ConEmu okay, still not as good, but better than default.
For the feature set I'm using, iTerm2 and Konsole (KDE terminal app) are on par.
Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel the need to point out that what "ships" with elementaryOS is basically meaningless. You can install what you want, easily, and the default configuration is a recommendation. Welcome to Linux-land. https://www.distrowatch.com/
isn't it the same on any OS? :-/ you can install what you want on macOS and you can install what you want on Windows. Both have custom terminal apps
No, it isn't. Debian packages, Ubuntu packages, etc. are tested together as a group and you can expect that they integrate properly. The same cannot be said for third-party OSX .apps. They're more like adding another repo to your sources.list. Hell, OSX won't even let you uninstall Terminal.app.