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Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

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Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#301

Post by khazhou »

dagw wrote: post #174
tracker1 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honest question. I spend my development time switching between OS X, Linux and Windows and I've been using iterm2 for years. Yet I have no idea why people claim that it is so much better than anything else out there. If I where to completely give up on OS X for Linux, iterm2 wouldn't even make the list of things I'd even consider missing. What unique killer features am I not using?

What's your editor? For me it's emacs (w/o X) so I"m inside iterm2 for the entirety of my Linux work.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#302

Post by khazhou »

Vinnl wrote: post #161
khazhou wrote: post #116

Earlier 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…

> 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.

I tried to disable it altogether, but couldn't.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#303

Post by pixelcloud »

hiram112 wrote: post #228
Klathmon wrote: post #162

Earlier 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…

I've also tried to use a Linux VM on Widnows due to issues with Node, paths in various Scala libs, and a dozen other problems. Cygwin works for 50%, but not for everything. I've tried Win 10 with Subsystem for Linux (Ubuntu Bash) and unfortunately it is not even close to production ready. Besides, I'm terribly disappointed with Win 10 after having been really happy with Windows 7 since its release. Running a few Java…

Try using Linux with a Windows VM (if required). I have a computer running Arch Linux + Plasma and it is quite nice. With a bit of tweaking you can get a OSX like or Windows like desktop environment. I will use the Windows VM to connect to a VPN and run work applications that require windows, but I can get my email and documents easily through Office365 90% of the time.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#304

Post by vermaden »

h4waii wrote: post #211
vermaden wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use FreeBSD as a desktop/laptop/workstation since years and it works great for me. Total control over the system You work on is priceless. Everything on my hardware works (ThinkPad W530). The WWAN(3g) connection, Wifi, SD Card Reader, Power Management, multi monitor setup, external disk in the Modular Bay ... Also having ZFS and ZFS Boot Environments on a system is great for updates/changes. You are literally bulle…

How is a non-tangible filesystem making you "literally" bulletproof? The BSDs are great for very specific tasks, but I find more general use users will prefer Linux with GNU userland. It has wider hardware support and a larger community for resources such as documentation and troubleshooting.

Please read about ZFS Boot Environments, no matter if from Oracle documentation or Illumos one, You will get the idea what it provides. There is beadm command same as in Solaris/Illumos and You can select BE at boot in the FreeBSD bootloader.

In short the idea is that You create snapshot (BE) of the current system state (filesystems), then make changes/upgrades. If something went wrong, then You reboot to that snapshot (BE) like nothing had happened.

About GNU userland, I also use SOME GNU tools like 'gls' (GNU ls) or 'gawk' (GNU awk). They are provided by the FreeBSD sysutils/coreutils package/port, I also use sysutils/moreutils like 'vipe' or 'vidir'.

The documentation part on FreeBSD is much better then on Linux, check the Handbook, or Wiki, or FAQ, or plain old MAN PAGES with useful examples. I sometimes read/use ARCH Linux wiki or Gentoo WIKI but for most of the time FreeBSD documentation is second to none. Even with a lot less people then Linux has.

BTW, while there are a lot more Linux people out there then BSD people, remember that Linux people are fragmented over about thousand Linux distributions while there are only several BSD distributions.

I do not want to sound 'bad' here but I also found many times that 'BSD people' known more about Linux then 'Linux people' if You know that I mean.

Regards, vermaden

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#305

Post by j_koreth »

wolfgke wrote: post #202
mrweasel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not exactly sure why this happens, but when I try to use Windows my hand (mouse hand) cramps up and I get angry and frustrated. In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system, compared to macOS. Windows 10 actually made it worse, because it's trying to accommodate both Windows 7 and Windows 8 design. Currently I don't think we have alternatives to macOS. I understand that I sou…

> In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system In my view GNU/Linux distributions are still miles away from Windows 10 in consistency across the entire system.

In my experience, GNU/Linux distros do not usually include 3 seperate GUI settings windows with completely differing GUI's just to manage devices.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#306

Post by flukus »

wolfgke wrote: post #202
mrweasel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not exactly sure why this happens, but when I try to use Windows my hand (mouse hand) cramps up and I get angry and frustrated. In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system, compared to macOS. Windows 10 actually made it worse, because it's trying to accommodate both Windows 7 and Windows 8 design. Currently I don't think we have alternatives to macOS. I understand that I sou…

> In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system In my view GNU/Linux distributions are still miles away from Windows 10 in consistency across the entire system.

How is windows 10 consistent? Half the apps are metro ones that fullscreen (pdf viewer) and half are still win32. Some work well on touch screen others horribly. Windows 10 is a frankenOS.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#307

Post by kitsunesoba »

fusiongyro wrote: post #93
bdcravens wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a company selling Hackintoshes. In the many years since, Hackintoshes have remained a thing and I'm unaware of any individuals that have faced criminal or civil penalties.

Until recently, a Hackintosh was a time-consuming way of producing a somewhat worse Mac. As Apple is starting to drive us away, I bet the phenomenon will grow, and then Apple's interest in squishing it will too. And the fact is, Apple could shut this phenomenon down in a matter of hours if they wanted to. This level of risk is fun but not for the faint of heart.

I don't think it'd be wise of them to shut down the Hackintosh community. The vast majority of Hackintosh refugees aren't going to be buying Macs, they're going to be wiping their macOS partitions and jumping ship to Windows or some random Linux distro instead. It'd shrink the number of people invested in the Apple ecosystem (including subscriptions like iCloud and Apple Music) and put a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people with sway of family/friend and perhaps even corporate purchasing decisions, not to mention strongly casts Apple in a Big Corporate Bully sort of light. There's not a scenario in which they kill off Hackintoshing that's a net benefit for Apple.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#308

Post by grzm »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #307
fusiongyro wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently, a Hackintosh was a time-consuming way of producing a somewhat worse Mac. As Apple is starting to drive us away, I bet the phenomenon will grow, and then Apple's interest in squishing it will too. And the fact is, Apple could shut this phenomenon down in a matter of hours if they wanted to. This level of risk is fun but not for the faint of heart.

I don't think it'd be wise of them to shut down the Hackintosh community. The vast majority of Hackintosh refugees aren't going to be buying Macs, they're going to be wiping their macOS partitions and jumping ship to Windows or some random Linux distro instead. It'd shrink the number of people invested in the Apple ecosystem (including subscriptions like iCloud and Apple Music) and put a bad taste in the mouths of a…

Apple is a hardware company. The services you mention are small in terms of revenue compared to their profits in hardware. If the Hackintosh community is large enough that the services revenue or impact on the ecosystem is signigicant, Apple would rather have the revenues associated with the hardware as well.

The fact that Apple hasn't done this already is because it's insignificant, not because of some benelovence on Apple's part. They're not going to encourage unlicensed use of the OS. The OS is there to sell the hardware, not vice versa.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#309

Post by andyhoang »

Hi guys, can you suggest me any laptop + os that have trackpad work like apple's (multi guesture, smooth scrolling) I love to leave them but, their trackpad... are so good. I can use *nix quite ok, so os isn't a problem for my dev station.

Re: Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X

#310

Post by TheNobleRobot »

flukus wrote: post #306
wolfgke wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system In my view GNU/Linux distributions are still miles away from Windows 10 in consistency across the entire system.

How is windows 10 consistent? Half the apps are metro ones that fullscreen (pdf viewer) and half are still win32. Some work well on touch screen others horribly. Windows 10 is a frankenOS.

Hello, time traveler from 2012 who is actually describing Windows 8.
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