Live data from Hacker News

So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

richardmavis.info

181–190 of 531 posts

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#181

I find the fetish for terminal-based music players a bit odd. I associate terminals with doing work , so the idea of having one whose sole purpose is playing music (presumably in the background while you do other stuff) to feel like a waste of screen real-estate and something I'm likely to accidentally pull up while trying to cycle between my other terminal windows where I'm doing stuff. I much prefer something that…

I run mplayer up in it's own rxvt

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#182
post #130
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also say that Apple has plenty of rough spots that Linux doesn't as well. Font rendering the Apple way is a style choice at best. What does "display/compositor fragmentation" mean to end-user?

> Font rendering the Apple way is a style choice at best. Given how much of a hacker's usage of a computer is working with text (reading pages, writing code and documentation, taking notes) it's a style choice that actually has a significant impact. (By the way, macOS Mojave deprecates subpixel antialiasing — a poor decision when there are many non-hidpi displays still being used)

I've used both macbooks and linux and have never noticed a difference, so I have no clue what sort of impact I'm supposed to be noticing.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#183

I find the fetish for terminal-based music players a bit odd. I associate terminals with doing work , so the idea of having one whose sole purpose is playing music (presumably in the background while you do other stuff) to feel like a waste of screen real-estate and something I'm likely to accidentally pull up while trying to cycle between my other terminal windows where I'm doing stuff. I much prefer something that…

I use cmus on the command line because it enables me to quickly slide over and really quickly adjust my playlist using only the keyboard. With a GUI player that would require much more steps.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#184

Hooking up three monitors, 2 of which are 4k onto Ubuntu is the most frustrating thing I've done with that OS. It just works on OSX though. Rough spots is a good way to describe it. Overall it works... But not without effort and competence.

That doesn't "Just work" on Windows 7 or 10, though, so not sure it's a failure on the part of Linux as much as a success on the part of macOS.

How does that fail? I've never had issues with multi-monitor, and they've always been 3 different resolutions (with one rotated 90). I'm not doubting you, as my current win10 install won't let me change the default JSON association away from visual studio and I can't find anyone else with that problem. I'm just curious what fails, since I haven't encountered problems with multi-monitor since XP.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#185

Hooking up three monitors, 2 of which are 4k onto Ubuntu is the most frustrating thing I've done with that OS. It just works on OSX though. Rough spots is a good way to describe it. Overall it works... But not without effort and competence.

Not exactly your experience, but using a single (non-4k) external monitor is slightly painful for me with my MBP. It sometimes takes ~10 seconds for my display to work after plugging it in, with lots of intermittent flickering as the OS "figures it out". And afterwards, the menu bar on the external is a bit glitchy looking on the right side until I click on it. With my other laptop running Fedora the experience is much faster/cleaner.

Not a big deal, but just thought I'd mention that macOS isn't exactly perfect when it comes to external monitors.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#186
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On a Mac, you can cut/copy/paste using predictable keystrokes in any application, anywhere Interesting, because Linux is my daily driver, and when I borrow my spouse's MacBook one of the things I get tripped up on is some programs seem to use Ctrl+C/V and other programs use Command+C/V for copying/pasting

Wait what? What programs are you using that use Ctrl for clipboard actions? Do they also allow their Cmd equivalents, or are they just using the wrong keys?

As far as I remember, Terminal, iTerm2.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#187
post #86

I find the fetish for terminal-based music players a bit odd. I associate terminals with doing work , so the idea of having one whose sole purpose is playing music (presumably in the background while you do other stuff) to feel like a waste of screen real-estate and something I'm likely to accidentally pull up while trying to cycle between my other terminal windows where I'm doing stuff. I much prefer something that…

With a tiling display manager like i3, dwm or awesome, system tray isn't that useful. You tends to have one app (or a group of app that you always use together) per virtual desktop that you access in one keyboard shortcut. You never circle through apps as it's not necessary. Most of the apps are in fullscreen or tiled depending on your need. No window is hiding another one. When you're use to it, having to move your…

I often have one window in the foreground, but type into a background window (I had point-to-focus on and raise-on-focus off).

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#188

Hooking up three monitors, 2 of which are 4k onto Ubuntu is the most frustrating thing I've done with that OS. It just works on OSX though. Rough spots is a good way to describe it. Overall it works... But not without effort and competence.

It sounds like you hit the point in Linux where this is painful: mixed DPI displays with mixed display scaling. Wayland fixes that. And soon, we'll finally have fractional scaling, too. GNOME is close to delivering that. So, it's getting better.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#189
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you're asking this question and suggesting that root cause is itself a significant part of the problem the OP was talking about.

Unfortunately, the openness allows for so much flexibility, that many people end up breaking it up. Invariably, they will blame the system and not their changes. If they used the defaults, like they do in other systems, it would not happen.

In this case though LastPass is broken in Firefox on Ubuntu by default.

Edit: akiselev said 1Password, not LastPass. My mistake. Interesting that I experienced this same issue with LastPass.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term Mac user, currently with Macbook Pro. It's Apple that offsets the damn touchpad. I don't want it central to the case, I want it central to the home keys (F and J) of the keyboard. Apple centres with the case. Which is broken. There's more keys on the right side of a keyboard than the left (without a number pad), thanks to punctuation and brackets, so hands rest slightly left of case centre line. Truth be to…

I have one of the old MacBook Pros where the homerow was centered on the case, and so was the touchpad. Which is exactly what I want.

So do I (2015).

There's roughly half a key of trackpad to the left of F, and roughly 1.5 to the right of J. For me that's mis-aligned with where my hands rest, even if both component blocks are neatly case centred for pretty and symmetric photos.

The moral of which is, I suppose, that personal preferences are hard to align. :)

Post reply on HN