Live data from Hacker News

So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

richardmavis.info

331–340 of 531 posts

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#331

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…

Ubuntu and it's derivatives have pretty good out of the box font rendering IMO

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#333

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…

For me, Linux has improved a lot because Windows has gotten a lot worst, but the Linux distributions I've used have not improved that much (mainly Fedora and Ubuntu). I've been using Linux exclusively for many years and will probably continue to do so though...

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Apple, you can take it to any store and they'll diagnose it immediately. With business support (which isn't even expensive for individuals; it was $500/year when I had it) they'll give you a loaner on the spot. If you've got backups, your downtime for a dead machine maybe a few hours.

I appreciate the convenience of such stores where they exist, but neither Ireland nor Norway has any apple stores. Only third-party resellers, none of which are nearly as good.

I had an issue with a MacBook pro in Ireland. A 15 minute call with support and they couriered a new one out to me the following day and picked up the old one. I signed into iCloud and Dropbox, and was back up an running in a few hours. Doesn't get muxh smoother than that.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#337
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 E.g. the chore of somehow managing different software versions such as the outdated default one and a second one installed with homebrew.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…

I have a feeling that Apple doesn't want their users to install that kind of development environments, other runtimes, etc. to their MacOS installations. Time Machine also sometimes doesn't Backup these installations correctly. Similarly, TeX installation is hard and it's forcefully shoehorned on the installation, and you can't do anything better in the current situation. My solution is to run a Linux VM for these si…

> Similarly, TeX installation is hard [...]

Installing MacTeX has always been one of the most straightforward things I can imagine.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#338
post #48

I so wish the Linux community would get its act together and implement a working usable clipboard. It's the one thing I miss the most whenever I switch from Mac OS to Linux. On a Mac, you can cut/copy/paste using predictable keystrokes in any application, anywhere. And there is a single clipboard. On Linux, you have to deal with a multitude of behaviors (middle mouse button, Ctrl-C, others, and does it paste where th…

It won't happen because Linux users like it the way it is. It is consistent, it's just not the way you want it to be. I love middle click paste. It makes sense that it doesn't follow the text cursor because the mouse is separate and this adds extra flexibility. Ctrl+A should select everything and put the cursor at the end. Actually, in some apps the cursor disappears and in some the cursor goes to the end, but the be…

X's copy/paste behavior was meant to be used in conjunction with the secondary selection which is seldom used these days as most modern toolkits don't expose support for it.

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent analysis. After using i3 for about 3-4 years, I have to admit that I'm always a bit lost on floating WMs now and feel like an idiot for a few minutes until I'm somewhat comfortable again. To me tiling WMs are just vastly superior. Anecdotally, most people I know that have seriously tried to use a tiling WM usually end up sticking with them.

Is this true for you on a laptop as well? I could imagine this on something where I had a lot of screen real estate. But when I'm coding, in one virtual desktop I'll typically have the IDE, a few terminal windows, and a couple of browsers going. With a 14" screen, I can't imagine how I'd make a tiling window manager work.

Tiling wms support tabs and workspaces, not just tiling. Similar to how floaings wms support fullscreen and workspaces, not just floating

Re: So Long, Macbook. Hello Again, Linux

#340

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.

Doesn't Wayland still rely on X for remoting?
Post reply on HN