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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

#741

Post by matwood »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #499
one2three4 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 I find it absurd that (some) linux supporters find it not only ok but even a must, to have to tinker around your machine in order to make everything work. I could understand it in the 90s but this is a very different era we're in. I get zero value from having to tinker with my x-org settings to make the external screen work (sometimes). I'm using a computer to create value elsewhere and having to even think about…

I dunno, not my experience these days. Our family Lenovo all-in-one windows machine with its preinstalled windows: Time synchronization doesn't work. Have to set the clock manually. When logging in and if another user is logged in the start bar freezes for up to 5 minutes before it lets me do anything. All sorts of things like this. Random problems like that. My personal Windows machine upstairs loses sound output vi…

> Time synchronization doesn't work.

Windows insists on the source port of NTP to be 123, and many ISPs (like ATT) block this port. No idea why MS hasn't fixed this issue.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e16117c3-0...

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

#742

Post by curun1r »

tambourine_man wrote: post #599
blunte wrote: post #567

Preview is one of the most underrated pieces of software in the world today. I make the assumption that Quicklook uses Preview (because surely it must). Being able to hit spacebar on just about any kind of selected document/image type file and see a near instant look, multiple pages and all, is so important. Once you don't have that (move to the Windows world), you realize how much you miss it. And you can, with a sm…

> when I cmd-tab to a window There’s no such thing. You command-tab to an application, which can have many or no windows. The different mental model is probably the reason for your frustration.

Not built in, but: https://manytricks.com/witch/

Gives you the best of both worlds.

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

#743

Post by _Microft »

sbuk wrote: post #712
dang wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Didn't have the option to flag, and can't find an option to report 'bugs'."

Click the time on the comment (e.g. "2 hours ago") to go to the comment view. There is a "flag" link above the comment now.

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

#744

Post by matwood »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #553
robert_foss wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. The screen tearing sucks. Use Wayland instead of X11.

I was trying to make the Mac to Linux switch just like the author, mostly due to excitement around sway (wayland). But it was awful, none of the basic things I wanted to do seemed doable...I would research solutions and they wouldn’t work. So I tried switching to i3 in the hopes of at least having a more established ecosystem to rely on. But similar story. Half-baked (or sometimes, overcooked) support, configs that w…

> I was trying to make the Mac to Linux switch just like the author

I've tried a couple of times, but finally decided what's the point. Linux is amazing on all the servers I run and manage. It's lightweight, supported well, and does a great job. I also rarely have to tinker with it. For servers, it really does just work.

On the PC side not so much. I used to run linux in various flavors on the desktop side for years. It provided more power than windows IMO. Then OS X came out with actual unix underpinnings, a functional media system (UI, audio, video), and fully supported creative apps like Ps, MS Office, and later LR.

Against my better judgement I tried a final time move to desktop linux a couple of years ago, but multi-monitor mixes of hi and low dpi were just unworkable. I actually posted a question (it may have been here on HN - can't remember), and one of the responses was 'no one needs HiDPI screens'. Got it.

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

#745

Post by specialist »

eyesee wrote: post #718
specialist wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CSV, markdown, plaintext, and JSON plugins are must-haves for office work. BetterZip's plugin is okay. Even better would be: I'd sacrifice my first born child for a "Show Package Contents" option supporting zip, webarchive, and other common composite files. (Using Finder: highlight file with .app or .dmg extension, right-click to show context menu, chose "Show Package Contents", opens new tab with selected file as "m…

Because they’re not really “composite files”, they’re packages. It’s just a normal directory with a bit set to treat it as a file in context (also driven by file extension). “Show Package Contents” just opens a Finder window rooted within the package. From CLI you’ll see them as a directory.

Aha. Feeling dumb that I didn't know that. Of course they're directories with some metadata. Duh.

I always kinda guessed that DMGs were something like a ZIP file. Well, not really:

"3. Mounting DMGs

DMGs can be mounted, just like any other file system, though technically this is what is known as a "loopback" mount (i.e. a mount backed by a local file, rather than a device file)"

http://newosxbook.com/DMG.html

Pretty cool. Thanks for the tip.

Now wondering about differences between loopback mount, FUSE, potential for seamless Finder UX integration...

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

#746

Post by beckman466 »

pjmlp wrote: post #292
beckman466 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your frustrations, yet your problem is with proprietary software and proprietary drivers. I’m sure there’s a way for you to go back to using the old drivers if you’re set on using the latest capabilities of your hardware (without it being FOSS). You don’t have to be the guinea pig, let others do it if it’s not your thing (many programmers do seem to enjoy it, and see it as a challenge).

There is no way, because the only way to make it work is to dig out a pre-historic kernel from the same year Asus released 1215B with Linux support. Proprietary software for 1215B, e.g. Windows, is working just fine with Windows 10, even though it was originally released with Windows 7. So we are talking about Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and several Windows 10 releases, all supporting the original Windows 7 dr…

Ah okay, thanks - then my take was a bad take.

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

#748

Post by sbuk »

_Microft wrote: post #743
sbuk wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Didn't have the option to flag, and can't find an option to report 'bugs'."

Click the time on the comment (e.g. "2 hours ago") to go to the comment view. There is a "flag" link above the comment now.

Thank you. There wasn't when I clicked.

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

#749

Post by dang »

sbuk wrote: post #712
dang wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Didn't have the option to flag, and can't find an option to report 'bugs'."

You have the option to flag - everyone with > 30 karma does.

The site guidelines contain a straightforward way to contact us.

Even if the above sentences weren't true, it's still not ok to break the site guidelines yourself, regardless of what someone else has posted—so please don't do that.

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

#750

Post by nightowl_games »

lrvick wrote: post #735

I honestly have not met another Linux user in Silicon Valley that actually lives here and I have been here 7 years. I have to fly to Germany and hang out at CCC to find people that know how to be productive with open source hacker-friendly software. It is even rare over there to meet a Mac user. I meet more FreeBSD users than Mac users in Europe. Meanwhile in the US It feels like at every new employer or client it is…

I'm up in Canada using Linux for c/c++. Im no expert in Linux either. I just use mint pretty much out the box and it works awesome for me. I'm just too cheap to buy a MacBook and prefer desktops anyways. I understand that docker is bad on mac too, that seems like it'd be a big deal.
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