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Lima: Linux-on-Mac

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Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#341

Post by zepto »

officeplant wrote: post #166
moshmosh wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This poster gets it. I use macOS because there's about 1/10 the likelihood that I'll have to burn half a day fixing its fuck-ups as there is with Windows and Linux. And I did plenty of that for years before ever seriously using a Mac. Nowadays when I check in on the Linux desktop to see how it's doing now, I notice how easy it is to get into the old habits of "oh this is pretty good, just a little tweak and I can get…

For me personally Windows/Linux falls under the same umbrella: I'm going to largely use it as it comes from my favorite distro (or microsoft) with slight tweaks that rarely break anything. These tweaks are usually accessible via settings panels (or regedit) For MacOS: Instead of tweaking things internally I have to reach out to third party application developers to fix things the OS lacks. Some examples: bettersnapto…

> Maybe that's my fault from growing up mostly in a Windows/Linux environment besides the few years I spent in OS8/9 in college.

I would say so. It took me a few years to adapt from Windows/FreeBSD when I bought my first Mac.

Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#342

Post by michaelmrose »

fnord77 wrote: post #233
Naac wrote: post #13

It's just a "better integrated" virtual machine: "Lima launches Linux virtual machines on macOS" This might be a controversial opinion, but I find developers flocking to macOS really bewildering. As a developer, why do you want to fight your operating system to get basic things done? This Lima thing, docker running in a virtual machine, Apple being actively hostile with the default coreutils requiring you to layer mu…

for me, I travel a lot. Have you seen the size of workstation-class laptops? Just the powerbrick on the top-end lenovo is almost the size of a shoebox. And even the upgrade screens don't hold a candle to macbook screens. So I will put up with Macos interop quirks with docker and so on for the great screen and ease of carrying.

> shoebox

it's closer to the size of a cellphone

https://www.amazon.com/Charger-Compatible-Lenovo-ThinkPad-Ad...

Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#343

Post by michaelmrose »

DCKing wrote: post #175
Naac wrote: post #13

It's just a "better integrated" virtual machine: "Lima launches Linux virtual machines on macOS" This might be a controversial opinion, but I find developers flocking to macOS really bewildering. As a developer, why do you want to fight your operating system to get basic things done? This Lima thing, docker running in a virtual machine, Apple being actively hostile with the default coreutils requiring you to layer mu…

> As a developer, why do you want to fight your operating system to get basic things done? This kind of thing easily goes both ways, and shows you're considering things only from a narrow angle. Which is understandable by the way - but please do consider other views :) There are lots of "basic things" that Linux doesn't get done, depending on your definition of basic thing. It's entirely reasonable for developers to…

The situation with steaming services only supporting a lower resolution on certain platforms reminds me of skype only supporting a certain resolution if you didn't buy a logitech camera or only supporting a lower maximum number of people in a video call if you weren't using an intel CPU.

It's a scam with no technical justifications that would magically disappear if there were enough users demanding it.

Most users may need the ability to read word files but proportionally few need word. Photoshop is far less useful yet. Out of 4.7B internet users 22M are using photoshop. 1 out of 213 internet users need photoshop now. Bloom is an app that costs you $50 once if gimp doesn't suit. Instead of paying by the month you pay if you want the updated version.

Nobody on earth needs little snitch. It's literally a fix for one of two things. Applications you don't actually trust that want to phone home and people keeping their cracked applications from realizing they are cracked. The actual solution is not to run applications you don't trust. Don't pirate software and don't install untrustworthy garbage. This is literally the reason why there isn't a good solution for this on Linux. There isn't an actual use case. It's a solution in search of a problem.

Incidentally KDE has good hidpi support out of the box but a few applications need particular configuration. Takes about 10 minutes to read an article and configure stuff. Add 3 more minutes if you need to configure this yourself by setting environmental variables.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI

Works well even on mixed DPI even on plain old X11. I can't speak for trackpads because I regard them as pretty crappy I'd prefer a small blutooth mouse even on the go. I've only tested the Mac trackpad in a show room I didn't find it particularly better or worse.

Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#345

Post by dkarras »

deergomoo wrote: post #318
dkarras wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use vagrant boxes (virtualbox) with nfs shares, works well. I'd still do it if I was on linux to be honest. My VMs are provisioned in a way that they have everything installed for the particular project and they are "stateless" in a way that I can and sometimes do reset them to their post-provision state (as virtualbox / vagrant supports snapshots) and my experience with the project stays the same. They are meant t…

Just as a heads up, I was finding that with NFS shares configured, my MacBook would never sleep if connected to power. Took me ages to work out why I kept sitting down at my desk to find a very hot, closed laptop with the fans screaming. Turned out to be NFS, though not sure if it was a bug or intended behaviour.

Thank you, that makes sense. I am using a desktop hackintosh so not suffering from it but good to know.

Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#346

Post by smoldesu »

dmitriid wrote: post #217
swiley wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It's incredibly useful basic functionality that both Finder and explorer inexplicably lack. This alone makes Linux desktops far more friendly even for novice users who want to do something beyond sharing gifs on web forums.

SFTP. Novice users. Why would a novice user want SFTP built-in to their file manager?

SFTP is a protocol, and "novice users" are actually using it every day without realizing it.

Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#347

Post by smoldesu »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #200
smoldesu wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could see myself delving into writing a macOS-clone DE (which as a sidenote, GNOME and Pantheon doesn't go far enough with) How do they not go far enough with it? The only thing that I can think of them not emulating is the menu bar in the top left, but the Gnome team is already flying pretty close to the sun with their recreation. Even still, there are ways to implement a global menu bar into Gnome with a little…

Global menubar is indeed a big part. The biggest issue with implementations of this feature on the Linux desktop is that support of it varies wildly between apps (which is where some of the mentioned modifications come into play). There's also a huge pile of small features that go beyond the scope of a comment to list, which are either implemented inconsistently or not at all. For example, in GNOME and Pantheon, wind…

I had to scroll back a long ways for this, but you might want to keep an eye on helloSystem[1]. While they don't seem to be super polished yet, their "MacOS Dream Clone" concept is something you might me amenable to.

>GNOME generally is rather odd, even if it's one of the more polished options. It strikes me more as a somewhat-desktop-adapted iOS than it does macOS.

That's because Gnome has to fulfill different responsibilities as a toolkit. It has to accommodate for touch-enabled devices, which pads out the UI quite a bit. It takes some getting used to, but I think I'm finally quite into it. It does a nice job of maximizing the actionable area of your window without sacrificing usability, uniformity or screen space. Compared to Big Sur's design language, the Gnome devs are already quite pretty far ahead of the game in my opinion. Gnome 40[2] positions the DE in a pretty good spot for the next several years, too.

[1] https://github.com/helloSystem/hello [2] https://forty.gnome.org/

Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#348

Post by honr »

d3nj4l wrote: post #274
honr wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use both. Here is my take on it: 1. Mac has shit for a window manager. When I focus and get in the flow, Mac's window manager becomes a massive showstopper for me. My productivity lives and dies by my window manager customizations and shortcuts. Mac's is just a joke when it comes to controling 20+ windows. I sometimes have 100+ editor, terminal, and browser windows. Linux has many window managers up to the task (i3…

> I sometimes have 100+ editor, terminal, and browser windows. Linux has many window managers up to the task (i3, xmonad, openbox, and countless more). Mac has the default one which you CAN'T change. This is so much my issue. I love i3wm, it's been a revolution for how I work. I never really understood the "desktop" concept with overlapping windows very much, and i3 works at an abstraction that is very close to how I…

I keep checking Amethyst every couple of years. Still not remotely comparable to i3 or other linux window managers. For one, it's extremely slow. I think it is about two orders of magnitude slower to say, move to another desktop/Space, than most (all I used, really) Xserver window managers.

The "Caveat" on the yabai's README page has been enough to deter me away (or rather, make it strictly impossible for me to try it). And it's not even yabai's fault that Apple has made the window manager (WindowServer) mandatory.

So, no usable window manager here so far, yet.

Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#349

Post by dmitriid »

swiley wrote: post #338
LordDragonfang wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Novice users use flash drives or emails, they don't set up ssh servers. In fact, I've never seen a non-power user set up an ssh server except maybe if you count a consumer NAS (which usually show up as networked drives). To that point, I'd be willing to bet money that any user that even has access to an ssh server they'd want to use either has the technical know how to set up those tools themselves, or has an IT pers…

On the OSes that have SFTP capable shells ssh is enabled by default. Other OSes lacking this is why everyone keeps their data in silos.

This still doesn't answer the question of why a novice would want SFTP.

Re: Lima: Linux-on-Mac

#350

Post by jorl17 »

hutrdvnj wrote: post #302
jorl17 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all just anecdotes. From you, OP, and me... > Been running Xfce since 2004 with no stability issues whatsoever. I ran Linux (and was a _fierce_ OSS fanatic) from ~2002 to 2012. I've been a mac user since 2012. I moved around, using LXDE, Xfce, Gnome, KDE, no DE at all (openbox...)... I used Ubuntu, Mint, Gentoo, ADIOS, Crunchbang, Fedora... Linux DEs were solid, but they never felt sufficiently polished. Wh…

What has to happen so that you would try to make the switch to linux again?

I believe the main drivers would be:

1. Give me a laptop that you can ASSURE ME runs linux amazingly well and in which I can instantly feel has the polish of mac hardware. I'm talking battery life, the amazing feeling of the butterfly keyboard, the trackpad (and respective software to enable it), the solidity of the device and overall ergonomics. Give me "Retina" HiDPI displays! This is definitely one of the top reasons holding me back: I don't want to purchase something and regret later because hardware support only "seemed to work, but actually really didn't".

2. Show me an operating system where things visibly work in an integrated fashion. I can drag and drop most things to most places. Progress bars exist and mostly make sense. All that jazz.

3. Make HiDPI work. I sometimes use a mix of heterogeneous displays, up to 4 at the same time. Some of these are widecreen, others are not. Some of these are HiDPI, some of them aren't. Some are connected via Airplay! The mac works amazingly well with all of them. Whenever I plug Linux onto these displays, something goes wrong. Things don't scale right. Everything feels slightly off. It's a nightmare!

4. Give me a VM solution with the incredible polish of Parallels Desktop. Perhaps these already exist, as I'll admit I don't tinker with VMs on linux often. Parallels Desktop changed my perception of what a VM can be, due to its amazing integration between the host and the guest. Applications usually just work, even in what they call "coherence" mode. Sure, linux guests sometimes misbehave, but Windows works like magic. I can drag and drop files between windows in the host and guest operating systems. I share clipboards. Windows from one OS appear in my taskbar as if they were native. I can very quickly enable passthrough on one device so it's in the guest instead of the host. I can easily setup different kinds of networks. This is INCREDIBLE technology that makes my life immensely easier either for work reasons (e.g. that weird chinese QR Code reader that only has software for windows, and therefore I set it up through passthrough) or just to chill and play some games -- actual, 3D accelerated games that run great, often better than their native versions on the mac (which is rather sad, sure).

5. Lastly, I am definitely very invested in the Apple ecosystem at the moment, and quite locked into it. I have over 5000 photos in the iCloud photos. I own an iPhone, Apple Watch, and Airpods Pro that I use daily (I own other versions of these accessories). I love the integration between all of these things. The way Airpods magically switch from one device to the other. The way that I copy paste from one device to the other (something which I use extremely often). I am definitely in severe vendor lock-in, and if I were to switch to Linux, I would have to deal with missing out on some of these things -- the Linux experience would need to be better than that of the mac, not just equally good (or "cheaper"). I don't really have many gripes with the mac -- as a developer, project manager, casual user, browser of the web, occasional writer, casual gamer, etc.

I guess, then, that Linux would have to blow me away with its integration and some kind of surprising set of features which I haven't seen yet. If it doesn't do that, then I have no reason to jump. I'm happily tied to the Apple ecosystem, and have no big complaints about anything other than the obvious fact that quality has been clearly going down -- but is still far, far, far ahead of my Linux experiences.

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