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The End of OS X

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Re: The End of OS X

#481

Post by lostmsu »

lsaferite wrote: post #460
fluffything wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and my downsides are... what exactly? I've spent zero days, zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds fiddling with setting anything up in macOSX over the last 15 years. I manage a bunch of Linux systems, from laptops to desktop to servers, and over the last 15 years I've probably spent months of my life setting up stuff that should have just worked. I use a mac at home and as my dev machine, because I charge quit…

> I've spent zero days, zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds fiddling with setting anything up in macOSX over the last 15 years. I have to say that I 100% do not believe this statement. You mean you you've never used any wireless connections to your machine? You've never had to set up backups or change audio settings? You've never had to deal with setting up one thing in 15 years? Since when did OSX gain the ab…

His claim is he did it 15 years ago, and never had to touch anything else since. Definitely a stretch, but quite believable. Just a few days ago I had to figure out how to reinstall Nvidia driver after Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04 upgrade. And the damn thing still shows my primary screen panned whenever I log off/log back on.

I was glad to return to Windows when the Linux-specific issue was solved.

Re: The End of OS X

#482

Post by jki275 »

mstade wrote: post #148
lordleft wrote: post #64

I've looked at the trajectory of Apple these past few years with mounting bitter-sweetness. At its best, MacOS really felt like the best of Unix combined with the consumer focus alluded to in the article. I still adore the craftsmanship of the latest Macbooks, but my 2015 Macbook felt like the apex of Mac's design. It was the kind of device that was such a pleasure to develop on. You could leverage the power of Unix…

I keep reading these types of comments on HN but I just can't relate. I consider myself a power user, and precisely because MacOS feels like the best of Unix combined with customer focus is why I'm wholly invested in the Apple ecosystem. I simply can't relate to the statement that Mac is a "platform that contends with me every step of the way" and I'm curious to know more specifically why you feel this way?

This - precisely. I live on a Mac all day every day. Does everything I want, exactly how I want it, and makes me so much more productive than if I had to fight with Linux all day long.

Re: The End of OS X

#483

Post by pier25 »

jzelinskie wrote: post #314
pier25 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main thing I miss is Spotlight search, but there are third party replacements for that. Such as? I've been looking for a decent launcher for Windows but all the options are pretty mediocre compared to Spotlight (or Alfred which is what I use).

Microsoft is adding one to PowerToys: https://github.com/microsoft/powertoys

Oh this one looks nice. Thanks!

Re: The End of OS X

#484

Post by pier25 »

72deluxe wrote: post #477
pier25 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main thing I miss is Spotlight search, but there are third party replacements for that. Such as? I've been looking for a decent launcher for Windows but all the options are pretty mediocre compared to Spotlight (or Alfred which is what I use).

Everything from voidtools.com is a great search tool.

Yeah but it's only for files. No web search or other features.

Re: The End of OS X

#485

Post by lostmsu »

adolfojp wrote: post #466
gavinray wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything on Ubuntu just works, too.

Except for fractional scaling if you use the proprietary NVIDIA driver. This was an issue on the latest LTS release.

It became worse for me since I upgraded to 20.04. Now central screen in 3 screen setup gets panned, which can only be fixed from Nvidia control panel + graphics manager restart. It breaks on the screen lock. Don't upgrade to 20.04 yet, if that's what you have.

Re: The End of OS X

#486

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

askafriend wrote: post #247
ARandomerDude wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the React Native experience has been instructive. Android is quick and easy to develop, debug, and deploy. The iOS side includes multiple hoops, constant frustration stemming from XCode, long app release times, and minutes-long builds for production-size apps. Our team, without any policy dictating daily development habits, has coalesced around Linux/Android development with iOS testing before release.

As a consumer, I've never used a React Native app that I liked using. It's always janky and commpromises UX in ways that made me simply use the app less or had the effect of teaching me to "get in and out of the app as quickly as possible".

That’s your bias. Most consumers have mo clue what react native is

Re: The End of OS X

#487

Post by jjcon »

badRNG wrote: post #375
jjcon wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you want to install a game or other program not in the limited Pop!_Shop?

The Pop!_Shop isn't like the Linux app stores of yesteryear (namely Ubuntu's graveyard that is Software Center.) It has tons of software in it. Should you need software that isn't in the Shop (which almost never happens for me) you can install stuff the same way you would on Windows: download the DEB/flatpakref, double-click, and the Pop!_Shop will take over from there. For non-Steam games, I use Lutris, which is pro…

>And the Pop!_Shop will take over from there.

From installing my vpn app to games from gog I find I have to go to the terminal for a good percentage of my installations.

Even with simple utilities though, I find that the app store is FULL of garbage. Why are there multiple VLC entries in the store published by people other than VideoLAN?

There is a Gog galaxy client published by a random developer that is just a wine wrapper of the windows client (and also doesn't work). This is not a good experience and I don't think the average user is ready for that sort of thing.

> I can get 90%+ of my titles running this way.

I'll agree that a majority can come from the app store (for me its probably more like 70%) but it needs to be way higher imo to be ready for the average user.

Along similar lines I am currently having an issue with my ubuntu 20 install where i have to change the audio device every time I boot my computer, there doesn't seem to be a way to set the default device -again- without popping into terminal. It is frustrating to deal with all these idiosyncrasies which is why I prefer to work on MAC OS when I can.

Re: The End of OS X

#488

Post by darkteflon »

potta_coffee wrote: post #472
y7 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applications and hardware drivers on Mac just work. Even Homebrew works pretty nicely. The visuals of Mac are vastly superior to any flavor of Linux I've tried: smooth graphics, font rendering, HiDPI support, etc. Some aspects of Mac hardware (screen, touchpad) are very hard to come by with other manufacturers. At this point I'll probably switch to Linux as soon as my 2015 Macbook stops working, but I would've really…

I switched to Ubuntu for work about a year ago, I've done zero fiddling since the day I set it up. Linux has really come a long way even in the last 5 years, IMO. I still have a 2015 MBP that I use for my personal work and it's still solid.

Same, as of late last year I now run an Ubuntu desktop and the Macbook together. What I really like about this setup is the ability to sidestep some problems instead of having to solve everything, allowing me to focus on doing paid work instead of troubleshooting the platform.

Re: The End of OS X

#490

Post by shmerl »

oneplane wrote: post #478
shmerl wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple for example refused to support Vulkan and don't allow anyone else to provide drivers for it. It means they have control over what features you can use - you have no say in it. Even Windows being as closed as it is doesn't have such restrictions. So I'd say macOS is closed to a sickening level and it's completely disingenuous to call it open. May be if you compare it to iOS which is closed in even worse ways, yo…

That's a rather extremistic view. Apple doesn't support vulkan because they tried to get OpenGL and OpenCL working. Nvidia didn't play ball and AMD wasn't in the picture back then. The result was that Apple had to come up with something else (Metal) and that has worked out great with them. But unless you are writing a graphics engine (which almost no user does) that doesn't even matter. Regarding your openness, you s…

I don't really care for their excuses why they don't do it. Even if anything of that applied in the past, they have no excuse today.

The bottom line - they don't do it and don't allow let's say hardware makers to provide drivers, like they can do even on Windows. That alone is an indication that it's anything but open.

> You can still run Vulkan on macOS if you want -- you are free to implement it, run it, make shims or layers if you wish etc, just not with Apple's support.

You aren't free to do that. Hardware drivers for macOS are all controlled by Apple. Otherwise you'd see AMD, Intel and Nvidia providing native Vulkan for macOS already. The only thing you can do is to provide translation into Apple's Metal lock-in (like MoltenVK, gfx-rs and so on).

macOS is one of the worst examples of closed systems.

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