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MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

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Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#221
post #131

I've been using linux distros (~5 years of Ubuntu and ~3 years of Arch) before switching to macOS somewhere around 2013-2014. And now years later I'm thinking about moving back. But every time I'm think about this I start with digging about current Linux situation and every time I realise than it is still a horrible system for anything outside of work, especially if you can't really do without a decent UI\UX. Apple's…

> iOS + macOS is still much better than anything on the market (no alternatives really).

The Windows + Linux combo is way better for all productivity, gaming and development than the mess macOS has become since Jobs passed away.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#222
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also my first choice for servers and have used it several times on desktop so Debian would also be my recommendation even for a desktop these days. Plus, if you're already familiar with how Debian works it should be a no brainer. None of that Ubuntu or other Debian-derived distros with extra sugar and bloat and that many times differ from actual Debian in just the right way to keep you scratching your head. Even Debi…

Debian still feels like home. Unless I try a BSD or something without systemd I think this is probably where I'll end up.

Well, Debian does use systemd by default now unless you want to go through some hoops to remove it (which I believe is still possible but not sure).

I personally have really no issues with systemd and now even go as far as completely removing the ifupdown, isc-dhcp-client, resolvconf and ntpd packages in favor of having my entire network stack configured by systemd-networkd, systemd-resolved and systemd-timesyncd instead.

It's pretty much a standard now across the board and I can't really find any arguments against it besides old habits so I've embraced it. Although it's obviously a bit opinionated, there is a good deal of functionality and flexibility on that thing.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#223

I can't upgrade IntelliJ any more, because it's trying to write to privileged file locations that I (the owner of the computer) no longer have access to. Believe me, I've tried to work around this, macOS has it locked down completely.

I use and upgrade IntelliJ fine. Install Jetbrains Toolbox and everything is installed in your home dir. What kind of locations are you having troubles with?

I agree: use Jetbrains Toolbox.

A few months ago I installed Rider (an IntelliJ-based IDE) on my Mac without toolbox, and upgrading it was a pain. I don't remember the details, but using JetBrains toolbox makes upgrading as simple as clicking a button and waiting until the download / install is complete.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#225
One frustrating experience on the Mac is keyboard shortcuts.

Yes, they have polished the GUI, which makes it easy to navigate by mouse. But, when you need to work in speed mode, then you reach for the keyboard shortcuts.

The problem, is that there are plenty, too much sometimes, and they are often inconsistent between applications.

And yes, the Mac has a keyboard shortcut assignment tool, but it often doesn’t work correctly.

I must give credit to Microsoft here. They at least seemed to have perfected most of the common keyboard shortcuts.

Some good features about Windows shortcuts.

1. Alt-Spacebar to open the windows control menu, to move, minimize, maximize, or close the window.

2. Alt combinations are used to control the active Window application itself.

3. Alt-F4 to close the window. But, I would have preferred Alt-Escape instead, to close the window.

4. Control key for shortcuts inside the application. Like, Ctrl-C for copy. O for open. P for print. Etc.

5. Then the Windows key, to control Operating System level shortcuts. Like Win-M to minimize all windows. Win-L to lock the computer. Win-R to launch a command.

Some feature I would like are to use, Win-Spacebar to open a command search, similar to Win-R, but with the ability to list all possible commands. Similar to activating the command palette on VSCode.

And Ctrl-Spacebar, to activate keyboard commands for the active window. Kinda like Emacs, where I can run macros on it, like highlighting the words that I want, and execute something on it, like changing to uppercase, or converting to comma separated, or whatever else is needed.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#226

I've been forced to update to this pile of shit because latest iOS requires latest Xcode which in turn requires Catalina. It's a nightmare. First off the new apps (music, podcasts, etc) are terrible. They killed off iTunes but replaced it with much worse. These apps don't behave like standard macOS apps, the UI is full of inconsistencies and is just so empty. This website has nice examples of the failures of modern M…

I've had a similarly painful experience upgrading last week. Though it doesn't seem quite so bad as the posters above, and after making a few fixes most everything is back to normal. My one remaining serious annoyance is that my external monitor color settings are screwed up and there appears to be no fix. Reds are purple and everything is just a little washed out, which is a shame for a 4k monitor that was beautiful…

> My one remaining serious annoyance is that my external monitor color settings are screwed up

Could it have something to do with Night Shift? Have you tried enabling and disabling it and see if it fixes that?

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#227

I am using Ubuntu 20.04 on a Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen2 and you would be surprised how "normal" it feels as a development machine. Sure there some little annoyances, the touchpad behaves a little worse than on windows, sound is a little worse. But the most important things, Keyboard and Screen are excellent. The system in general does not feel like the horror stories that people keep telling about linux on desktop(note…

I've gone full circle. Went from desktop linux (mostly Arch) to OSX ~7 or so years ago, and now due to a combination of frustration with the butterfly keyboards and then a slew of issues with macOS itself, I'm back to linux desktop for my dev machine.

From my perspective as a quote-unquote power user, it feels like Apple just constantly insists on shooting themselves in the foot with unnecessary and ill conceived innovations. Either way, I'm happy with my new setup and probably won't go back to macbooks anytime soon.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#228

Their "see!" shell script example is a bit rubbish because I get 0.012s, 0.005s on this Mac laptop whilst getting 0.022s, 0.023s on Linux box 1 and 0.006s, 0.006s on Linux box 2. Changing the filename to test2.sh on the Mac (which should trigger the delay, right?) gets 0.006s, 0.006s. I don't think the shell scripts are doing what they claim (and wouldn't the second run be faster anyway because of caching?)

If they are caching based on inode, this will not invalidate the cache. Do cp test.sh test2.sh and try again.

Sorry, when I said "changing the filename to test2.sh", I meant in the commands run, not `mv test.sh test2.sh`. i.e. I have both `test.sh` and `test2.sh` in `/tmp` now.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#229

I am using Ubuntu 20.04 on a Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen2 and you would be surprised how "normal" it feels as a development machine. Sure there some little annoyances, the touchpad behaves a little worse than on windows, sound is a little worse. But the most important things, Keyboard and Screen are excellent. The system in general does not feel like the horror stories that people keep telling about linux on desktop(note…

The dual GPU is a pain in the butt since Nvidia still doesn't support Optimus on Linux (and probably never will).

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#230
post #94
post #42

It looks like my time with MacOS is rapidly coming to an end. Any Linux distro recommendations these days?

After you've gotten used to Linux, you might want to try Arch. It is lightweight, since you choose everything that is installed, sort of opt-in. It has all the latest software. It has "rolling releases" which means there is never a giant lost-weekend distribution upgrade. It has the AUR (arch user repository) for just about any software ever.

I've never lost a weekend to a Debian dist-upgrade. Just read the release notes carefully beforehand, take a full backup of your data (which you should be doing anyway), make a note of any non-Debian applications you're using on that machine (that's the stuff that will need the most extensive testing post-upgrade) and it should simply work.
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