Live data from Hacker News

Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

nibblestew.blogspot.com

181–190 of 712 posts

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#181
post #93
post #50

I will say that Mac OS is incredibly disk-hungry (and MBPs get vastly more expensive when you add options like bigger (still not that big) disks). I don't want to become a Mac OS hobbyist and figure out how this happens (I like Mac OS overall because it's a BSD and I'm a BSD guy, but it is not my hobby BSD of choice) so I ended up just spending a few bucks on some "cleaner" program that purged a surprisingly huge amo…

What is wrong with using a lot of disk? If apps start faster, run faster, then using more disk is a good trade-off.

Nothing at all until you work somewhere that only buys 128GB models and the drives are soldered to the main board.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#182
post #94

1. Never once seen an issue with USB-C to HDMI or VGA connections. It doesn't even make any sense since MacBook Pro users with external, third party monitors are an extremely common combination. 2. I just downloaded Caret (Markdown editor) from their website and used Homebrew to install a CLI tool. Nothing has changed between the current OSX and previous ones. 3. If you have a tech support issue go into the Apple Sto…

Regarding the first point, I had to give up on using an external monitor because fonts look blurry and give me a headache after a while. The same monitor with Windows and Linux shows perfectly fine fonts. I tried all sort of incantations found on forums, and nothing works.

Apple redid font smoothing with Mojave, and now it looks like garbage on non-retina displays. Most 4K displays seem to be bigger, rather than denser, so you can't do much to fix it.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#183
post #13

TL;DR: A user is as frustrated with the Apple experience in 2019 as s/he was in 2000 with Linux. Then that user goes on to rant about some things that frustrate him/her, completely ignoring that one is FOSS and by no means a hardware manufacturer while the other is proprietary and primarily a hardware manufacturer.

Spot on. The smugness it takes to compare a paid product that spies on you to a gift from [paid and unpaid] volunteers.

Do you have any evidence that macOS spies on users?

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#184

Why did this even get upvoted? Every point is factually incorrect.

Because it is a humourous interpretation of the problems of the latest MacOS update and general imperfections of the platform. Humour is not a lost art, and please accept the fact that the update wasn't smooth sailing for many people. Maybe not the majority, but many.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#185

1. Never once seen an issue with USB-C to HDMI or VGA connections. It doesn't even make any sense since MacBook Pro users with external, third party monitors are an extremely common combination. 2. I just downloaded Caret (Markdown editor) from their website and used Homebrew to install a CLI tool. Nothing has changed between the current OSX and previous ones. 3. If you have a tech support issue go into the Apple Sto…

Linux 2000: writing a post summarizing Linux's issues will compel a point by point response in which a fanboy will either tell you "works for me" or "you're holding it wrong".

Apple 2019: writing a post summarizing Apple products' issues will compel a point by point response in which a fanboy will either tell you "works for me" or "you're holding it wrong".

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dropped my personal Dell laptop (XPS13) and broke the screen. Dell sent a tech to my workplace and repaired it. No charge.

You've paid for this and you know it.

And yet I'd bet the laptop was still cheaper tham a comparable one from Apple, where the built-in upcharges are for thinness, macOS, and extortionate non-upgradeable RAM that you'd better buy up front because you don't want to be stuck with not enough RAM in a year or two.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#187
"Linux 2000: There is only One True Way of installing software: using distro packages. If you do anything else you are bad and you should feel bad."

That is absolutely correct and if one is installing software in any other way than packaging it into an OS package, one is hacking in the worst possible, amateurish way, with the added bonus that every experienced UNIX system administrator will hate one's guts come time to automate the installation of one's software. It's enough to make my blood boil and suddenly get violent and I don't even work as a system administrator. This is not an issue specific to Linux, it's one quarter laziness, one quarter ignorance, one quarter incompetence and one quarter amateurism: if, as a programmer, one considers a programming tool like OS packaging too hard or too complicated, one is truly in the wrong profession.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#188

1. Never once seen an issue with USB-C to HDMI or VGA connections. It doesn't even make any sense since MacBook Pro users with external, third party monitors are an extremely common combination. 2. I just downloaded Caret (Markdown editor) from their website and used Homebrew to install a CLI tool. Nothing has changed between the current OSX and previous ones. 3. If you have a tech support issue go into the Apple Sto…

> 5. If you resort to calling groups of people "condescending elitist hipster latte drinkers" then pretty sure you've lost the argument.

They concluded with it. Resorting to it would mean that they had no other arguments to make.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#189
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im my case, I use Crossover and a VM. They work well for my use cases. > Word/Excel documents I run Office 2010 in Crossover, which works very well. (I have a copy of 2016 as well, but it is slower.) You can also try WPS office, which does a decent job of handling Office documents. > updating the firmware of IOT things I have a Windows VM and I use USB passthrough for things like iTunes. I usually use it less than on…

59 EUR for a year of non-commercial usage [1] is steep IMO. [1] https://www.codeweavers.com/store

I've never liked how much Crossover costs to stay on the latest version. I only pay for an upgrade when if it breaks. (You can use the last version you payed for indefinitely.) They also will occasionally have discounts.

Prior to having CrossOver, I used PlayOnLinux. When I last used it, Office 2010 worked, but had some issues such as fonts not being embedded in exported PDF files.

It may also be possible to install Office through Steam, which has the Proton compatibility layer based on Crossover. There is some information on using Proton for non-steam games here: https://streamable.com/pukwz

Of course, Crossover is just an enterprise supported version of Wine, so you could probably get Office working in plain Wine, but the automated setup support a tool like Crossover or PlayOnLinux provides makes it significantly easier to get things working without unusual and difficult to troubleshoot issues.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#190
Meh. I bailed out of the Mac ecosystem last year, as my mid-2012 retina Macbook was finally getting too creaky, and the latest Mac hardware was a regression in many respects, while simultaneously utterly unaffordable. I'm now dual-booting Ubuntu/Windows 10 on a Dell XPS 15".

What this experience has taught me is that computing in 2019 basically sucks. The problems with 2000-era Linux, as described in the article, are very similar to the problems with 2019-era Linux. External monitors are a particular pain point for me. I've got an HDPI laptop and I want to plug into an old non-HDPI era monitor. Doesn't work. Spend the next 10 hours poking around forums, trying weird XWindows options, installing Wayland, etc. Still doesn't work. Eventually, give up.

Windows 10 works marginally better. Both remain vastly inferior to MacOs.

I'm not saying that the grass isn't greener on the other side. Macs are regressing, but the grass isn't greener on either side. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

Post reply on HN