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Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

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Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#121

Post by thayne »

ornornor wrote: post #112
darkandbrooding wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one single feature of homebrew that regularly bites my coworkers. You can refer to software by name@version ("brew install postgresql@11" or "brew install postgresql@12") and there is no confusion about what you are installing; or you can refer to software by name only ("brew install postgresql") and the version number is calculated to be "most recently released." (v13 at the time this was written.) Hypothet…

Doesn’t apt (for instance) work the same way? Or docker images without a tag? I’d you don’t specify a version in each case then you get the latest available. I’d you want a specific version pinned then you should specify it. I think I don’t see your point, works as intended. If you enforced mandatory version specification every time, you’d have to know exactly which version is which package for anything you install:…

On most debian-based distros, most packages aren't upgraded to a new major version in the repos for a particular version of the OS. If a new version of postgres is released, it won't be added to the apt repos for the current stable debian, ubuntu, etc. distributions. Instead it will be included in the repo for the next major release of the distro.

There are exceptions to that, for example browsers like Firefox and Chromium, but upgrading the major version of Firefox is much less risky than upgrading the major version of postgresql.

Rolling release distros like Debian Sid (and archlinux, though that doesn't use apt) don't work this way, which is why rolling release distros have a reputation for being less stable.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#122

Post by grzm »

whateveracct wrote: post #118
ratww wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brew is the single thing that I absolutely loathe about macOS. It dog slow (does it really need to git pull from GitHub every 15 minutes, really?), doesn't support multiple users, doesn't support alternative folders, hates static compilation (which is mostly why the two previous break), and lots of new things are not available there anymore. In my new computer I didn't even install it, I just used the Rustup/Dotnet/R…

`nix-env -i` and `nix-shell -p` can pretty much replace anything you need brew for and they do it way better

IIRC, nix is not yet supported for M1.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#123

Post by thayne »

rudedogg wrote: post #101
laurencerowe wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homebrew is like running Debian unstable, the world underneath you is currently changing. Mac OS itself doesn’t really have this problem since applications can bundle the exact version of their required frameworks, a bit like Ubuntu Snaps.

This doesn't really answer the question does it? It's been a while since I used apt, but if I remember correctly you'd have the same problem the parent described, right? ------------------- And regarding the 'name@version' criticism: If you want to stick to a version, how can you do it without specifying it?

> It's been a while since I used apt, but if I remember correctly you'd have the same problem the parent described, right?

Only if you are running Debian Sid or equivalent.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#125

Post by jek0 »

akra wrote: post #70
smoldesu wrote: post #35

>apt-get was a revolution when it was released in 1998 and it is still the best way to manage software today. brew is a mediocre replacement. While apt still isn't the best package manager (my heart belongs to pacman, no matter what the haters say), I completely agree that brew is a failed imitation. I wanted to use MacOS for the longest time, because I've been told that it's a real "Unix system". Brew has distilled…

People state consistent shortcut mapping is an advantage of using Mac but after 2 years of being required to use a Macbook Pro I'm not really sure about that - often they are more complicated IMO. I still miss built in Linux and Windows key mappings. For example Windows + Left to move the window on the left side of screen for side by side apps on the same screen. Great for remote demo's and coding sessions. Ctrl + Sh…

On a mac I can't live without "Magnet" [1]. It lets you do organize your windows in half/thirds of screens with simple keystrokes. That should be part of the OS.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#126

Post by sammorrowdrums »

anang wrote: post #113
randmeerkat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not run a docker container locally with Postgres and code against that? Then everyone is using the same Postgres version.

If the solution to homebrews handling of major versions is to not use homebrew, I think it indicates there are issues. I think it should work like almost Linux distros where the major version is fixed for a release lifecycle, and any other installations require modification. So say brew install postgresql should always install 12, and if you want something else you have to add the version modifier.

This is a side point but the docker suggestion is far cleaner if you work on multiple apps as you can easily configure and run multiple versions with Dockerfiles and compose files to be exactly right for each app, with only the plugins the specific app needs, data stored in a custom location for each app, and the ability to turn off postgres for an app. System postgres installs and upgrades are a needles pain for development.

But I agree that's nothing to do with brew conversation.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#127

Post by ekianjo »

ericwooley wrote: post #12

I also switched to Linux, and I love it, but only on my desktop machine. I got uhk for key remapping, and that's been great. For email and calendar, I use wavebox, which side steps most of the app issues. As the article says: The laptop experience is not anywhere near as good. I had a lot of the same issues, even on a system 76. Eventually I decided to try giving windows wsl2 a shot for my laptop, and I gotta give Mi…

> All the benefits of windows ecosystem, hardware comparability, games etc

The etc contains the integrated spying and telemetry and a horrible update system. A big caveat.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#128

Post by sneak »

xtian wrote: post #44
smoldesu wrote: post #35

>apt-get was a revolution when it was released in 1998 and it is still the best way to manage software today. brew is a mediocre replacement. While apt still isn't the best package manager (my heart belongs to pacman, no matter what the haters say), I completely agree that brew is a failed imitation. I wanted to use MacOS for the longest time, because I've been told that it's a real "Unix system". Brew has distilled…

What makes Homebrew a failure? I don’t generally have issues with it for my needs.

One of the things that debian maintainers do is patch out the phone-home spyware nonsense in most apps installable via apt.

Homebrew actually went the other direction and embedded non-consensual spyware directly into the package manager itself.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#129

Post by piyiotisk »

akra wrote: post #70
smoldesu wrote: post #35

>apt-get was a revolution when it was released in 1998 and it is still the best way to manage software today. brew is a mediocre replacement. While apt still isn't the best package manager (my heart belongs to pacman, no matter what the haters say), I completely agree that brew is a failed imitation. I wanted to use MacOS for the longest time, because I've been told that it's a real "Unix system". Brew has distilled…

People state consistent shortcut mapping is an advantage of using Mac but after 2 years of being required to use a Macbook Pro I'm not really sure about that - often they are more complicated IMO. I still miss built in Linux and Windows key mappings. For example Windows + Left to move the window on the left side of screen for side by side apps on the same screen. Great for remote demo's and coding sessions. Ctrl + Sh…

I think the best mac app for managing windows using key bindings is https://rectangleapp.com/ . Also, is free and open source

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#130

Post by bostonsre »

smoldesu wrote: post #35

>apt-get was a revolution when it was released in 1998 and it is still the best way to manage software today. brew is a mediocre replacement. While apt still isn't the best package manager (my heart belongs to pacman, no matter what the haters say), I completely agree that brew is a failed imitation. I wanted to use MacOS for the longest time, because I've been told that it's a real "Unix system". Brew has distilled…

Yea, I think I've been through a similar thought process. Apple hardware is second to none and their machines do look awfully pretty. Macs have become the default engineering laptop in all the start ups I've been at in the past ~10 years but I never got to the point where I was really comfortable. I have grown to really love wsl 2 on windows in the past year that I've used it. To me it seems really elegant and has been a dream to work on. Most assume it's just a vm running on windows, but the integration it has between Linux and windows make it extremely powerful (eg from your Linux shell you can run windows executables, so you can do stuff like run powershell to write text to your windows clipboard or run 'code .' to open the windows vs code gui on your current working directory in wsl). I'm not sure if it would be best for everyone, but as an SRE it's great to have my Linux container have the same operating system my company uses in production so that I don't need to figure out how to do stuff on two different operating systems and I am just a lot more comfortable on centos.
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