Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

nibblestew.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 712 posts

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#511

Post by pico303 »

boudewijnrempt wrote: post #420
rjzzleep wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

And if you use the Apple toolkits, you lose around 95% of your potential market. For my project, Krita, made with Qt (not QT, Qt...), 90% of downloads are Windows, 7% Linux, 3% macOS. And since Apple seems hell-bent on making people share-croppers in their walled garden with asinine things like Metal, and notarizing and all that, well, in a year or two, it might be 0%, and I'll be fine with that.

Well, I just added a tiny bit to that 3%...I hadn't heard of Krita before, but it looks great. Looking forward to trying it out.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#512

Post by stefano »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #475
stefano wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried. It didn't help, the root issue is that Apple removed anti-aliasing, which is the only thing that can make fonts look readable on a 1080p resolution display. An old MacBook running OSX 10.6 looks perfectly fine on my external monitor.

http://osxdaily.com/2018/09/26/fix-blurry-thin-fonts-text-ma... Fixed the issue for me.

Thanks, but I tried that some time ago. It didn't make much of a difference.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#513

Post by stefano »

hibbelig wrote: post #326
stefano wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is your Mac running the external monitor in its native resolution? I have a 4k display, and when I select the "Looks like 3840 x 2160" option, UI elements are too small. Selecting "Looks like 2560 x 1440" results in blurry fonts. So I've selected "Looks like 1920 x 1080", and thanks to Retina, fonts are crystal clear. Unfortunately, UI elements (such as the menu bar at the top of the screen) are pretty gigantic now,…

Yup. It's a 1080p monitor running at 1080p. I tried all the other available (non native) resolutions and fonts looked blurry in all of them.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#514

Post by mmcnl »

esotericn wrote: post #291
llimllib wrote: post #240

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…

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…

Windows as a DE is quite excellent. Better than macOS even.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#515

Post by vips7L »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #463
dleslie wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I ran budgie for about a year before switching back to windows for work and its leagues better than Gnome in my experience. Though at this point I think I would go for KDE given the opportunity.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#516

Post by zucker42 »

mcv wrote: post #265

I guess what I really want to know is: is there a 2019 Linux distro which is the Mac OS of 2011? One where stuff just works, looks good, and works smoothly.

Either Mint, or Arch with i3, or Ubuntu, or Manjaro with xfce, or Fedora with KDE, or Elementary depending on who you ask.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#517

Post by gfdgsgaagrhstrs »

karmakaze wrote: post #397
threeseed wrote: post #20

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…

> 1. Never once seen an issue with USB-C to HDMI ... Apple's adapter only goes to 4k@30Hz. Which have you found to work? My monitor only has usb-c and two 4k hdmi@60 and two HDMI 4k@30. It's also annoying that Netflix on Mac doesn't do 4k where even my lowly Surface Go does.

That's not true anymore:

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MUF82AM/A/usb-c-digital-a...

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#518

Post by nothis »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #375
mikestew wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 works marginally better. Both remain vastly inferior to MacOs. That's where I'm stuck. We're all-in at our house on Apple stuff. I'm no Windows hater per se, hell, I used to work at Microsoft and my wife still does. And there was a time that I'd say about Mac OS: "this is what an operating system should be". Oh, you most certainly disagree, but bear with me. I don't say that anymore. Too much half-assed sh…

Find a used 2015 mbp. I love mine (15 inch, mid 2015). I probably would have upgraded for a better gpu, but the keyboards are too iffy for me. I shed a lot, and if dust/detritus is the mbp keyboard killer, it will never work for me. Honestly I mostly use my iPad now. Work-work is still a dell laptop with win 10, and is daily torture to use. Mostly from all the corporate spyware my employer loads it down with. At home…

I'm in the same boat as the guy you replied to and yea, I hear people recommend the 2015s all the time. Might do that, eventually. Then my laptop is 4 years old instead of 8 (and I'll probably still have to pay 4 digits for a used one). But what about 5 years from now? At one point, these options fade away.

My hope is that Apple is secretly listening.

They can't be happy about the negative butterfly keyboard headlines. They can't be completely unaware of "professionals" with a "Pro" model mentioning how they don't care about how flat their MBP is and would rather have better hardware. Any mention of the state of MBPs these days leads to a discussion about how disappointing they are. Every single time they get brought up!

That wasn't always the case, despite all the people making fun of Apple users being brainwashed and whatnot. Up until – yea, basically 2015, Apple users happily chuckled at these discussions as the overall usage of Apple products remained a pleasant experience. But I don't see that anymore. I see desperate clinging to pre-2016 models, a hope that "things will improve" and nervous looks at the alternatives (Win 10, Linux), which don't seem attractive at all.

Basically, if Apple announced a new MBP line tomorrow, 2mm thicker but with a proper keyboard, MagSafe, no-nonsense specs and an option to drop the gimmicks (touchbar) for shaving a few hundred dollars off that insane price (current 15" offers starting at 2.699,00€, here, that's with a 256GB SSD), I bet they'd get overrun with preorders within seconds.

I have hopes because, honestly, I'm out of options and it sucks. So I have to interpret certain things positively. Apple just dropped 3DTouch from the new iPhones, which is an indicator they're willing to let go when shit plain doesn't work out. Jony Ive leaving might be a completely random and unrelated event and I generally respect what he did for keeping things clean and focused – but maybe his departure is a signal to return back to more... "robust" design? Who knows. Whatever the case, Apple needs to get its head out of its ass and acknowledge just how unhappy even die hard fans are with their current MBP line.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#519

Post by deltron3030 »

boudewijnrempt wrote: post #420
rjzzleep wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

And if you use the Apple toolkits, you lose around 95% of your potential market. For my project, Krita, made with Qt (not QT, Qt...), 90% of downloads are Windows, 7% Linux, 3% macOS. And since Apple seems hell-bent on making people share-croppers in their walled garden with asinine things like Metal, and notarizing and all that, well, in a year or two, it might be 0%, and I'll be fine with that.

Many digital painters seem to have moved to the iPad and apps like Procreate which can be had for a few bucks. I also find eInk hardware like the Remarkable tablet and the like interesting, they run on Linux. Have you thought about a standalone tablet that runs only Krita? Even if it's only black/white, having the tools from Krita on a device like that would be killer.

Re: Apple of 2019 is the Linux of 2000

#520

Post by msbarnett »

esotericn wrote: post #291
llimllib wrote: post #240

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…

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 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.

This is the kind of hyperbole that Linux advocates like to throw around a lot, and it’s unfortunate, because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what people are asking for when they say things like “I wish there was a decent replacement for Karabiner”.

i3’s config files let you bind i3’s config. That’s not the same thing at all.

With Karabiner, in 3 seconds, I can have ^w bound to “delete word backwards” functionality in every single application globally. You can’t even remotely accomplish that in i3’s config by itself — you need to venture into X config files, and special gtk config files for gtk/gnome apps, and some other set of config for KDE stuff, and then after that you still have to deal with the occasional one-off app like Firefox closing a window when you went to delete a word out of force of habit, and so you get to spend time discovering yet another way to tell it to respect a key binding.

And then at some point during some random update some random set of apps will break all over again. It’s a far fucking cry from Karibiner.

Post reply on HN