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The End of OS X

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Re: The End of OS X

#491

Post by ukd1 »

fsflover wrote: post #324
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…

> hardware drivers on Mac just work Same for GNU/Linux if you choose the hardware for it (or buy preinstalled).

Try getting hardware accelerated video in Chrome, or FF. Not supported.

Re: The End of OS X

#492

Post by lostmsu »

chongli wrote: post #235
wwweston wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I literally can think of no reason I personally would want to do this Being able to swap out RAM and storage and battery from factory-provided can extend the lifetime (and even increase the performance capacity) of a given machine at nothing more than the cost of the new parts. And Apple used to make it pretty easy to do this, and enough people did that there was a subeconomy of vendors selling for this purpose, al…

Being able to swap out RAM and storage and battery from factory-provided can extend the lifetime (and even increase the performance capacity) of a given machine at nothing more than the cost of the new parts. It isn't just the cost of new parts. It's also the cost of those parts being larger in order to accommodate user-accessibility and replacement. When everything is surface-mounted on the PCB it can be made a lot…

Huh? Most sold phones probably have a microSD slot.

Re: The End of OS X

#493

Post by snark42 »

ukd1 wrote: post #491
fsflover wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hardware drivers on Mac just work Same for GNU/Linux if you choose the hardware for it (or buy preinstalled).

Try getting hardware accelerated video in Chrome, or FF. Not supported.

Interestingly enough this causes all kind of weird distortion on my brand new 16" MBP. Not sure if it's a hardware issue, but it only happens in the browser with GPU acceleration turned on...

Re: The End of OS X

#494

Post by darkteflon »

davedx wrote: post #252
banachtarski wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just "use linux" and I get all the benefits with much better hardware (more memory, disk storage, speed for compilation), better drivers (important especially for GPU support for either graphics/rendering work or machine learning) and my downsides are... what exactly? Itunes, Mail, etc, none of the software shipping with MacOS is actually any good. I don't use Safari. From your perspective, what aspect of the "cust…

I use Safari as my main browser now due to the password generation/sharing with my iPhone. It's a killer feature for me.

Pray you never have to bulk export your passwords. It is extremely painful.

Re: The End of OS X

#495

Post by darkteflon »

danaris wrote: post #438
edjrage wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, Bitwarden does all of that and more (I guess except the Face ID thing, but I don't really want that so I'd disable it anyway). It has web, mobile and desktop apps, and browser extensions. All available in the free plan. Oh, and it's open source and self-hostable. https://bitwarden.com/ (Not affiliated with it, just a pretty happy (free) user!)

Neat, and glad to know about it! I've actually been surprised (and a little frustrated) that there haven't been any alternatives to iCloud Keychain for genuine seamless, e2e encrypted, password management. Does it actually work the same as Mobile Safari's interface on iOS? Automatically presenting options both for creating and autofilling passwords on webpages? (If it can do that in iOS Firefox, I might consider it..…

Yes, it does. The integration with both Safari and Firefox on iOS is excellent. In Settings -> Passwords & Accounts -> Autofill Passwords you just change the backend from iCloud Keychain to Bitwarden, then it otherwise behaves substantially the same.

A big benefit of switching to Bitwarden is that you can also get it up and running on non-Apple machines. Kicking myself for not doing it earlier.

Just be aware that bulk exporting your passwords from iCloud Keychain is non-trivial.

Re: The End of OS X

#496

Post by ytch »

banachtarski wrote: post #243
mstade wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I just "use linux" and I get all the benefits with much better hardware (more memory, disk storage, speed for compilation), better drivers (important especially for GPU support for either graphics/rendering work or machine learning) and my downsides are... what exactly? Itunes, Mail, etc, none of the software shipping with MacOS is actually any good. I don't use Safari. From your perspective, what aspect of the "cust…

I rely on TimeMachine to backup my MAC.

AFAIK, windows and linux still don't have suctions tool that can backup/restore without pain.

Re: The End of OS X

#497

Post by jonhohle »

wool_gather wrote: post #425
saghm wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even Homebrew works pretty nicely It always surprises me when people cite homebrew as a plus rather than a minus in these discussions. Compared to the experience I have with Linux package managers, I've found homebrew to be extraordinarily slow even at the best of times. A simple "brew update" will generally take at least 30 seconds; in that time on something like pacman, I'll usually not only have already finished…

In my experience this is partly because Homebrew has steadily moved to a "knows better than you" stance and every time you ask it to do one thing, it goes off and does a bunch of other things first. MacPorts is well worth a spin if you're on a Mac and have trouble with Homebrew. I switched sometime last year and am very happy. I think I've actually been using it more because I know it's not going to be a pain every t…

I've been a MacPorts user since the days of Fink vs. MacPorts and tried and failed to use brew many times.

The biggest argument at the beginning for Homebrew over MacPorts was binary distribution and now MacPorts has that and can still compile custom versions if necessary.

MacPorts is always the first thing I install on a new Mac and has been for over 15 years. The several times I've seriously tried Homebrew, I get frustrated (terrible jargon, missing packages, spewing files all over my system, lax security) and go back to MP.

Re: The End of OS X

#498

Post by mycall »

chooseaname wrote: post #274
parasubvert wrote: post #84

I personally think that the MacBook Pro 16 inch is the world’s best laptop, and look forward to see what the next generations can do. But the whole point has been MacOS. I’m not sure what to think of the changes. If they stabilize the mess that was Catalina, then they’re doing the right things, even with the increased iOS-ification of the Mac. If they just slap more Windows 8 style touch gloss on deep and unresolvabl…

> Linux is only free if your time has no value. I don't get this. I have more issues with Windows 10 than I do Ubuntu. Linux used to be fiddly, but not anymore. Windows 10 forgets stuff. You have bluetooth? Nope, maybe if you reboot you'll get it back. Hibernate your laptop and take it to the coffee shop. Black screen. Have to reboot. I don't have issues like this with Linux. Now, some of that could just be Lenovo. B…

These sound like hardware driver issues with your Windows 10, these are not normal experiences.

Re: The End of OS X

#499

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

duskwuff wrote: post #439
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall them as the HIG group. I first encountered it at MacHack, in 1987, or so. There were a couple of HIG engineers, there, and they referred to themselves that way. The reason was, because they insisted that app developers follow HIG guidelines.

Are you sure? The story I've always heard is that the Blue (Mac OS) vs. Pink (Taligent) team split originated in a planning meeting around 1988, and the "Blue Meanies" were core members of the Blue team.

Maybe. I just remember people referring to them as "Blue Meanies" because of the characters in The Yellow Submarine[0]. They were the ones that hated music and creativity, and folks didn't like HIG telling them they couldn't have fuschia scrollbars in their new, five-thousand-dollar color Macs.

But that said, I think you are correct[1]. The last MacHack I attended (maybe 1989?), Dean Yu hadn't yet been hired by Apple, and was infamous for writing system-crashing inits (Kill Dean's Inits!). I think he wrote the "Energizer Bunny" init that could have the EB running around every computer on the network.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Meanies_(Yellow_Submarine...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Meanies_(Apple_Computer)

Re: The End of OS X

#500

Post by mycall »

homarp wrote: post #74
pjmlp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NT wasn't bought.

Maybe a shortcut of Dave Cutler plus what Wikipedia said "While creating Windows NT, Microsoft developers rewrote VMS in C. Although they added the Win32 API, NTFS file system, GUI, and backwards compatibility with DOS, OS/2, and Win16, DEC engineers almost immediately noticed the two operating systems' internal similarities; parts of VAX/VMS Internals and Data Structures, published by Digital Press, accurately descr…

Using VMS in the 80s at my university, it was a solid foundation for creating a proper OS that NT became.
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