MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design? • Hacker News Board

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#711

Post by indemnity » Sat, May 23, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

gubikmic wrote: post #388

robenkleene wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except all of Apple's other devices are built on macOS. Apple's clear de-prioritization of macOS based on revenue numbers is so insane I can barely believe it's happening. If developers, who use Macs in large numbers today, go to another platform, there's very real risk that their entire empire starts to come apart at the seams. And, this may just be me being naive, but it doesn't seem like that much work to keep mac…

100% agree! If more people understood this, I hope this narrative would gain some traction and eventually reach Apple management. To me, the idea that an OS is mostly finished is completely bananas. There's so much room for improvement and hardly any of that potential was tapped into in what's starting to feel like a decade. And if Apple had invested into a successor for Cocoa, there might be a larger gap between nat…

Tim Cook is Apple’s Ballmer, who is their Nadella?

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#712

Post by austincheney » Sat, May 23, 2020, 1:45 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #643

throwaway851 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to look at it is that Apple is making it harder to run the system in an insecure fashion. You may not agree with that decision, but I certainly appreciate how Apple is looking out for the safety and security of the user. Tangent: as much as some developers hate that the only way to distribute apps for the iPhone is through the App Store, as a user I consider that walled garden of apps to be a real securit…

Another way to look at it is that Apple is making it harder to run the system in an insecure fashion. You may not agree with that decision, but I certainly appreciate how Apple is looking out for the safety and security of the user. "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither." (Yes, I know the original intent was slightly different, but that old saying has gotten a lot more vivid recently, as companies a…

The original quote from Franklin was about liberty not freedom. A suttle but vitally important distinction as freedom requires security where liberty does not. If you sacrifice freedom for security you still at least have security, as in a despotism, but if you sacrifice security for freedom you have neither. Conversely if you sacrifice liberty for security you have less liberty without any increase in security just resulting in a net loss.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#713

Post by rsj_hn » Sat, May 23, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

api wrote: post #685

throwaway851 wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to look at it is that Apple is making it harder to run the system in an insecure fashion. You may not agree with that decision, but I certainly appreciate how Apple is looking out for the safety and security of the user. Tangent: as much as some developers hate that the only way to distribute apps for the iPhone is through the App Store, as a user I consider that walled garden of apps to be a real securit…

The problem is that there is more than one market here. There is a general market where people love the vendor looking after their security and doing things for them, and there is a pro/hacker market where people want to control things themselves and dont want a lot of this stuff.

This. Yes the option of a walled garden is a great thing and I wouldn't recommend anything but an Apple device to my non-technical relatives. But if Apple also wants to make the $$ that comes from selling "pro" gear, they need to stop relentlessly consumerizing and turning OS X into iOS. I don't think they realize the level of ill will they are engendering in the developer/pro market.

Perhaps it's time for a "Pro" and "Home" Mac OS.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#714

Post by KajMagnus » Sat, May 23, 2020, 1:54 AM UTC

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #491

kick wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux was always a disaster in terms of user experience and isn't improving. Curious: what have you tried? People who use "Linux" as a catch-all in terms of UX usually have only tried a single distribution with a single desktop environment.

I use Linux everyday, and it's a UX disaster. I have tried Gnome, Xfce, Cinnamon, KDE, I like none of them. The only DE that I somewhat liked (Unity) was discontinued. Linux sucks, but I use it becuase it sucks less than windows, for programming at least.

How interesting, I like Cinnamon and Gnome and KDE, but didn't like Unity. Instead, for me, the problem is poor printer support.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#715

Post by Myrmornis » Sat, May 23, 2020, 1:57 AM UTC

IncRnd wrote: post #686

Myrmornis wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an interesting line of inquiry. AIUI doing what you said would permit the network request to proceed, and it would fail because nothing is listening on port 80 [1] We already know that the phone-home bails out when there's no network connection, so perhaps that code also bails out on connection failure? Alternatively, is there some way to make DNS lookup itself fail for ocsp.apple.com? Last resort, if…

Sending to 0.0.0.0 will fail immediately. This differs from sending to 127.0.0.0/8 that may connect to a server on the local machine.

> Sending to 0.0.0.0 will fail immediately.

Right, and as far as we know that exception might be caught in the same way as "your computer doesn't have any network connection at all" is caught. Or would those be likely to generate the same exception? Either way, there's a chance that it would result in exec gracefully and quickly not doing the blocking phone-home isn't there?

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#716

Post by usmannk » Sat, May 23, 2020, 2:00 AM UTC

Myrmornis wrote: post #670

torstenvl wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if you edit /private/etc/hosts to point ocsp.apple.com to 0.0.0.0 and flush the DNS cache?

This seems like an interesting line of inquiry. AIUI doing what you said would permit the network request to proceed, and it would fail because nothing is listening on port 80 [1] We already know that the phone-home bails out when there's no network connection, so perhaps that code also bails out on connection failure? Alternatively, is there some way to make DNS lookup itself fail for ocsp.apple.com? Last resort, if…

0.0.0.0 is non-routable and generally only valid as a src not a dest

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#717

Post by jfkebwjsbx » Sat, May 23, 2020, 2:03 AM UTC

konart wrote: post #321

jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> twitter client, torrent client and a dozen of other everyday apps I don't install any of that in work machines, and I'd hope most devs don't either, specially if the company owns the device. If you really need those, why cannot you use the browser? > continuity and handoff Why do you need that for development? Even if your workflow requires it for some strange reason, why don't you use an alternative? There are ple…

I think you are missing a point here. tl;dr: I don't have and don't want to have two PCs for two use cases. I have my personal macbook that I use for work (development) and everything else. I use it when I have to be at the office or when I want to work outside of my apartment. Needless to say I want my personal computer to have applications that I use. For both - work and ... not work. >> continuity and handoff >Why…

That is definitely not wise.

Many companies lock down devices for good reason. For starters, to prevent employees doing that and risking the entire company.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#718

Post by jfkebwjsbx » Sat, May 23, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

konart wrote: post #244

jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm too much into gaming this days, PS4 is enough for me. As for the rest I've commented about win10 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23274273 and Linux distros: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23274492 I still find macOS to have best balance of productivity, development and feel. Windows is still terrible and linux is just for work.

The issue is that you claimed that "there is no alternative to macOS", but you are talking about your particular use cases (not gaming) and subjective opinions (does not like Win10, does not like Linux).

macOS’ only strength for development is the ability to target iOS. For the majority of developers, a Windows/Linux setup is better because it covers everything. Linux is the best environment for most dev fields. Windows is the best for some of them (graphics, gamedev, C#).

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#719

Post by Spivak » Sat, May 23, 2020, 2:14 AM UTC

mixedCase wrote: post #604

Spivak wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. Everything not specified in the FHS is the domain of the administrator and is a contract with the OS about what directories it wont touch. Nix, operating outside of the FHS, did the literal correct thing because there is no guarantee that the OS won’t install something in /opt/nix but there is a guarantee that it won’t touch /nix.

As a sysadmin you can do anything you want and are free to deal with the breakage you cause yourself. But the FHS pretty clearly establishes what behavior an application such as Nix should have: https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch03.html#p... Quote: "Applications must never create or require special files or subdirectories in the root directory. Other locations in the FHS hierarchy provide more than e…

But you’re missing the essential point which is that the FHS a set of rules that only apply to the distribution.

> Applications [shipped by the distribution] should not...

> Distributions should not create new directories in the root hierarchy without extremely careful consideration of the consequences including for application portability.

The OS is free to break 3rd party applications that don’t follow their rules but strict adherence to the FHS is not the justification for doing so.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#720

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, May 23, 2020, 2:17 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #704

userbinator wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another way to look at it is that Apple is making it harder to run the system in an insecure fashion. You may not agree with that decision, but I certainly appreciate how Apple is looking out for the safety and security of the user. "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither." (Yes, I know the original intent was slightly different, but that old saying has gotten a lot more vivid recently, as companies a…

The quote isn't at all relevant to technical decisions though. Eg, there is enforcement that a program can't arbitrarily access any RAM it likes on the same machine. That is trading freedom for security and it is a good trade. And there isn't really an argument against gatekeeping software - users as a body don't have time to verify that the software they use is secure. I'd be shocked if the median web developer even…

Of course it's relevant! Software is a form of expression. Apple controls what types of expression are allowed on your phone.

A developer made a game depicting bad practices at FoxConn. Apple removed it for "Objectionable Content"[1]. How is this inherently different from Apple saying you can't use your iPhone to read a certain book?

Apple's restrictions also make it easy for authoritarian governments to ban software they dislike: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2012/10/12/3495466/apple-bans-anoth...