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So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

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Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#291

Post by caconym_ »

mrspeaker wrote: post #67

This is most definitely selection bias, but it seems like there's something in the air at the moment with people jumping off the "mainstream tech" ship. Lots of talk of nostalgia for 90s internet culture, switching to Linux (I also switched to Linux (and Emacs!) after a decade+ on Mac), more secure/transparent tech with phones etc. More willingness to put up with "rough spots" and "less shiny" for greater access to t…

For me it's because the big tech companies (one of which I work at) are making everything way too complicated, gimmicky, and over-integrated for me.

I want a keyboard, not half a keyboard and a weird touch display that does nothing useful for me I want a directory that's synced to durable cloud-based storage, not a monolithic service product that tries to work its hooks into every corner of my computer(s) and digital life in general. I want software that writes data in common formats to a filesystem I can understand and interact with as such, rather than squirreling away my data somewhere application-specific that isn't replicated on my personally owned storage, in some unknown format that's probably locked down according to business concerns I shouldn't have to care about, and subject to some arbitrary TOS picked out of the massive constellation of TOSs we all have little practical choice but to be subject to. And so on.

The more time passes, the more consumer products seem to drift away from what I want. It's a shame because a lot of the hardware is really quite nice and technically capable of hosting my workloads, but the software makes me feel dirty when I use it and often just can't do what I need. I think there is a crazy emphasis on consuming rather than creating, and it hobbles so many products that could be great.

For instance, I bought my girlfriend an iPad Pro for Christmas and it's amazing, and I'm so fucking jealous. But it can't run a *nix terminal without a boatload of caveats, doesn't have a real accessible filesystem, and there are a million other little problems (like, I can't remap caps lock to control). So, as much potential as I think that form factor has for me, the product itself is useless because it's pretending it's not a general-purpose computing device.

Rant over, I guess. Ultimately I don't expect big companies to go out of their way to cater to users like me, but it's a constant disappointment.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#292

Post by asselinpaul »

Recently tried the switch. Bought a top-spec Thinkpad P1, installed a few distros.

Ended up returning it due to:

    - poor scaling on 4k display (Linux)

    - awful speakers

    - poor battery life
Reluctantly back on a MBP — no complaints besides the useless Touchbar.

Things just work.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#293

Post by mitchty »

0az wrote: post #174
mitchty wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just use nix on OS X, better package manager than most linux distros have. I have my own copies of py2/3 and the system one, not a huge deal to be honest (outside of the pain of linux side nixos updates breaking derivations for macOS, but thats generally not a fault of the os).

The issue I have with Nix, vs a combined MacPorts+Homebrew is that Nix is a pain to get working. The time investment required for Nix is too high.

No argument there, I definitely agree, however its easily my favorite package manager. And lets me keep nixos config similarly.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#294

Post by davidy123 »

Tehchops wrote: post #42

End-user Linux has definitely improved in the last few years. It offers a lot of attractive features for what I imagine to be the typical HN demographic. That being said, it's still got rough spots that OSX doesn't. It works great when it works, but when it doesn't.... Font rendering, display/compositor fragmentation etc... Inb4 the anecdotal "well it works for me I just had to download the xf86 font library and comp…

Maybe I'm missing something, but font rendering seems fine on Ubuntu without any after install steps.

I've been using Ubuntu exclusively for well over a decade for everyday work, only occasionally going into a Windows VM, and it's really been perfectly fine, great even, as a developer. I bought a X1 Yoga the month after it was released and Ubuntu installed perfectly on it, the only thing that didn't work out of the box is the fingerprint reader.

Until a year ago, battery life wasn't as good as Windows/Mac, but it's very good with the latest versions.

Proprietary software that some people need to run, now that's another issue, but for most development tasks it's fantastically manageable and accessible, a real pushback against closed systems.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#295

Post by saagarjha »

Tehchops wrote: post #132
naibafo wrote: post #85

There are different issues with OSX though, that colleagues of mine had, that never occur with Linux. E.g. the chore of somehow managing different software versions such as the outdated default one and a second one installed with homebrew. Almost all my colleagues struggled with setting up python 2 und 3 correctly at some point, whereas this just worked for me on Linux. Some struggled with font rendering between a 10…

>Almost all my colleagues struggled with setting up python 2 und 3 correctly at some point, whereas this just worked for me on Linux. This is one area where I'd have to concede the Apple experience is objectively suboptimal. However, the Python ecosystem isn't doing anyone any favors here.

> However, the Python ecosystem isn't doing anyone any favors here.

Apple isn't, either. They ship a version of Python by default that is woefully out of date and conflicts with any other Python that you install, and what's more, some of their tools (notably, LLDB) freak out if you have a newer Python on your $PATH.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#296

Post by vnorilo »

AWildC182 wrote: post #271
pjmlp wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet VC++ offers much better tooling, including pre-compiled headers, incremental compilation and linking, experimental support for modules, C++ friendly OS APIs, and a package manager actually written in C++.

And a project config system that will break everything at the slightest provocation! Seriously, setting up even moderately complicated multi-project solutions usually results in days lost to figuring out why x library isn't linking with y project. The editor is great, the build system is somehow worse than make/cmake.

Nowadays MSVC has a built-in cmake integration (a bit like vscode). You can open a folder with CMakeLists.txt and it will mostly work.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#297

Post by SllX »

naibafo wrote: post #85

There are different issues with OSX though, that colleagues of mine had, that never occur with Linux. E.g. the chore of somehow managing different software versions such as the outdated default one and a second one installed with homebrew. Almost all my colleagues struggled with setting up python 2 und 3 correctly at some point, whereas this just worked for me on Linux. Some struggled with font rendering between a 10…

To be blunt, Apple would be better served removing any and all of the outdated packages, not even bothering to include certain packages at all, and just telling people to use one of the several community supported package managers. The GNU packages especially come to mind since they are all out of date anyway.

If there’s no requirement from some OS feature to have a particular package preinstalled, I would rather not even have it in the base system if I’m just going to have to replace it with an updated (and updateable) version.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#298

Post by cmurf »

jasondclinton wrote: post #217
stcredzero wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That being said, it's still got rough spots that OSX doesn't. It works great when it works, but when it doesn't.... Someone really needs to make Linux distros just work when hooking a laptop up to a projector. The fact that there's so much trouble that's so public and faced with so much concentrated embarrassment is a serious ongoing PR impediment to Linux. Linux distros got printing licked across the board, so it ca…

This hasn't been an area where Linux has had problems for more than 5 years.

I think dual headed (integrated and discrete GPU) laptops using Wayland is still a problem for some people. I don't know why. I gave up on dual headed laptops a while ago and haven't had a problem with multiple displays using i915 graphics and Wayland.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#299

Post by djhworld »

roadbeats wrote: post #21

I guess the author actually meant to say “So long, OSX” as Macbooks (older than 2016 versions) actually are good hosts for running Linux. I myself run have two Macbooks (Air 13 and Pro 15) with dual boot setup, so I get the best of two worlds: perfect programming setup (i3) on Linux, perfect multimedia (I use Lightroom / Premiere sometimes) setup on OSX.

Here is a good github repo tracking the state of Linux on Macbooks >= 2016

https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

Doesn't look hopeful at the moment...

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#300

Post by dwighttk »

bch wrote: post #44
dwighttk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'd be much more open to Linux if I spent most of my time in emacs, but since I've spent like 8 minutes in emacs and about 14hrs in vim and have very little desire to increase either of those numbers, it only takes a small dose of Linux to re-enchant myself with Apple.

I’m not following how either of those portable editors tip the scale. Enlighten me?

It seems like there is a mindset in people I've run across that makes them especially willing to use Linux and also emacs (vim to a lesser extent, and other command line programs. I mentioned emacs because that's what the guy jumps to in the article). More of their interaction with their computer takes place inside their head whereas I need the computer to represent things more visually. And since emacs (and vim) work on lots of OSes, they can jump right in on any of them and feel at home, while I feel like I'm trying to eat with chopsticks while wearing boxing gloves.
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