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Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

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461–470 of 712 posts

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#461
post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been using macOS and Ubuntu for years now, and while I try to make Ubuntu my primary operating system so I can ditch my slow MacBook Air 2018, I always end up going back to it. Look, I love Ubuntu. Heck, I am a recognized Ubuntu Member, was the leader of the LoCo Team for my country for a while, helped a few universities in my state switch to Ubuntu from Windows, have a plaque signed by Mark Shuttleworth acknowledgin…

> My Ubuntu machine — which I built to edit photos and game — currently runs on a Threadripper 2950X with two VEGA 64 GPUs. It should be a beast, and it is, but the entire computer freezes from time to time and requires a hard reboot to come back to life. That's the story with all the assembled pcs out there. Something is faulty, replace it. When I stopped doing it myself and started buying workstations with an actua…

I commented above, but this is not faulty hardware — the same issue do not happen in Windows 10 or Ubuntu 18.04, for example.

The whole point of leaving macOS for me was to be able to build my own hardware without spending an insane amount of money. You think MacBooks are expensive in the US, come to Brazil and try to buy one.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#462

Wow, this article is bad -- like, literally WRONG on nearly every boldfaced point. 1. "External monitors don't work". Wrong. I present often, and frequently use hotel projectors or monitors. I've never had a problem connecting to a monitor. 2. "You can only install software from the App Store". Wrong. Software installation is simple. Sure, you can use the App Store, but you absolutely do not have to. 3. "Only a limit…

1. "Works for me" is not an argument. 2. Not the argument made. 3. "Works for me" is not an argument. 4. Not the argument made.

As predicted, the anti-Apple contingent, and right on time -- and with exactly the sort of paper-thin rebuttal I was expecting, too.

1. The argument he made was "plugging an external projector will most likely not work." All that is necessary to disprove this is to show examples where it does work. I do that all the time, in a variety of locations with a variety of ages and brands of projectors and monitors, and never see an issue, it seems that pointing out my experience is relevant. The author has made a blanket and unsupportable statement easily disproved with one counterexample, so there's not a lot that needs to be done here.

2. In point of fact, the author made NO argument. His (erroneous) complaint is "there is only one true way," but this is also easily disproved with a cursory survey of major vendors, nearly all of whom provide direct-download installers today just as they have done for 20+ years.

3. See #1. "only a small number of things work" is not an argument, either. He can claim this, but it's not true; as many, many other folks have pointed out, Mac hardware is broadly compatible with peripherals from a wide range of makers. In 20+ years of using Mac laptops, I've never had a problem with a peripheral not working.

4. Yeah, it is. Tech support with Apple, by phone or in person, is far superior than the support you'll get from any major hardware vendor without purchasing a pricey service plan, and probably better than you'll get even if you do. That the author contends it's no better than random Googling means either s/he didn't try Apple support, or that s/he is fantastically inexperienced with (e.g.) Dell or HP service.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was linux-only from 2002 to about 2009, on laptops, when I switched to Mac. I just set up a linux desktop for kicks the last couple of weeks, and it doesn't seem to me to be any better than it was a decade ago. * No way to adjust mouse scroll speed; official answer seems to be "don't want that". (Or install imwheel and change your mouse scroll to be equal to hitting the down button (!) which breaks other stuff) * T…

Stay far away from Gnome3; it's a performance, usability and accessibility dumpster fire. MATE, XFCE, LXDE and KDE are all better choices.

Dont forget Budgie. While not quite as polished as it can be its a newcomer so I am not surprised. It is otherwise a sweet DE for me.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#464

While I want to sympathize with the author here he hasn't given any examples. If he/she has come up with blanket statements like "does not work with external monitors" or "hardware support is a pain" he should substantiate his claims by telling us what he did and how many monitors he tried. He also does not mention why having one channel to install software is a bad thing. I am sure he saw issues but presenting use c…

He didn't provide examples for monitors or hardware, I suspect, because he cannot do so in a way that doesn't make it clear his claims are extremely weak and thin.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#465
post #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…

Yes. My 2012 retina MacBook was getting long in the tooth last year, so I got an X1 Carbon with all the bells and whistles. Remarkably, the on board LTE just plain never worked. (It would randomly die after a few uses requiring a hard reboot.) The screen bezel delaminated and has to be replaced. Developed three dead pixels after a few months of use. Recently started rebooting randomly with a full battery. My dad had…

Just my personal anecdote, I run Mint 19.2 x64 on my X1 Carbon and love it, no issues beyond some initial fiddling to get my hotkeys set up the way I like.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#466

Apple 2019: plugging an external projector will most likely not work. Is this true? Because I'll tell you a story about my early days of using Mac OS. We've all sat in meetings waiting for someone to do the Fn-F5/Ctrl-Alt-F3 dance trying to get the laptop to output to the projector. I had to do a presentation, and using Mac OS for the first to do so. "Oh, shoot, I don't even know the keyboard dance to do to hook it u…

It's not true. I've traveled & presented with Mac laptops for 20 years, and never had a problem.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opinions are a funny thing, I find MacOs vastly inferior to Windows, but I grew up with Windows so I'm biased that way; I'm betting you and people claiming 'the good old days of mac' are biased too.

I grew up using Windows and after 20 years switched to Mac and could not believe I had waited for so long. What parts of Windows do you prefer over MacOS?

The taskbar. Explorer. Keyboard acceleration. Window management. Speed. Apps. Freedom.

I like the taskbar configured the classic way, not the new way that tries to copy the macOS Dock. Unfortunately, to get all the features that I want out of the taskbar, I have to install a utility called 7+ taskbar tweaker. With that, you can arrange items however you want and middle clicking a taskbar item becomes useful, to close a window. If you like middle-clicking to close tabs in Chrome, it's the same thing... I wish there was a similar utility for macOS because I like to use the taskbar to track what I'm working on. In macOS the easy path is basically to put everything in full screen and use the touchpad to swipe between them which I find very inefficient. Or, you can use Mission Control/Spaces but I would rather have something on the screen at all times rather than something I have to bring up with a gesture or key combo.

I love the Windows Explorer because it's very extendable. For instance, you won't find anything like Tortoise Git on any other platform that can match its quality. I also like using the keyboard to do things and the keyboard commands for Explorer make sense compared to Finder. Like pressing ENTER to open a file or Delete to delete a file.

Keyboard acceleration on Windows and other platforms that emulate Windows (like XFCE) are generally much better than on macOS in my opinion as well because its a simpler system. Instead of memorizing 1,000 unique Mac keyboard shortcuts, I basically have to memorize 1 or 2: Alt + any underlined letter in a menu. Alt + Space to do window commands (move, minimize, etc). From there, I can do anything. Furthermore, I find the notation for Mac keyboard shortcuts to be inscrutable. They display symbols on the menus that are not printed on the keyboard keys and it always takes me a second to figure out which key to press.

For Window Management - I won't list every function that Windows lets you perform on application windows, but suffice it to say that snapping built-in is great because it's on every workstation/server and I find Apple's insistence that you shouldn't maximize windows to be very weird and annoying.

Finally, I find many things to just work faster and more efficiently on Windows. In my experience, on the same exact hardware, common apps like web browsers, code editors and so forth are just snappier under Windows. I also like having a choice and there is a plethora of apps and hardware for Windows in any category.

However, in today's world - I have to run all three to get by. For Linux, I love Manjaro XFCE or Xubuntu very much and Manjaro is on my main workstations at work and home. I mainly use Windows now only for Windows-specific stuff. Same for Mac - I keep one 2015 Macbook Pro around to compile React-Native stuff for iOS and I actually have one old Mac Pro from 2012 in my basement because it's such a nice looking piece of hardware that I hate to get rid of it! I might re-purpose it as a Linux box one day.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gnome (3) is just a bit crap. It's the Windows DE of the GNU/Linux world. It's explicitly designed to be boring and not very customizable so that delicate users don't get scared. I use i3 and basically everything is configured via text files. Keyboard shortcuts are trivial etc. You don't need Karabiner to "rebind" because you can directly bind. You don't need to go scary tiling WM, Xfce probably works well, it's been…

I still maintain that the problem is the UI toolkits. The mac ecosystem now has _multiple_ viable indesign and photoshop alternatives. AppKit, Cocoa, UIKit and all those frameworks gradually added all the features third party app developers hacked into their own UI libraries. GTK is something developers frequently curse about and theme developers frequently abandon because the gnome team keeps breaking their themes.…

Good point. I’m also convinced that macOS are more willing than Linux users to pay for software, which makes it possible for the developers to get some monetary return on the time they invest in creating good and usable software.

FOSS development can of course be funded via Patreon, donations, etc. But IMHO those models doesn’t seem to work so well for sophisticated GUI applications. (With some exceptions here and there.)

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#470

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".

It'd help if the author didn't list items that simply aren't true. The MBP 15" has had 4 usb ports since 2016.

It shows a disregard for the facts that some may rightfully call "flamebait".

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