Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

news.ycombinator.com

311–320 of 493 posts

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#311
I'm 10 years early to this party but:

Desktop: Debian + i3wm is where I landed and stayed...

If anything were to change in future it would be Debian, but I'd be taking my setup with me (few dot files), which is a nice capability to have.

This is easier if you are a developer (not an iOS developer ofc), because most work on the CLI is just so much easier on Linux. I tried The BSDs at first, various Linux distros, and ultimately settled on Debian after using Ubuntu for a while. This is an opinionated area, and no distro is perfect, but I settled on Debian due to it's ubiquity as a base for other distros and therefore familiarity and wealth of support and knowledge, but also because it's the less opinionated base you can add whatever you want to... I also like their focus on openness.

My recommendation to anyone who _likes_, (or liked) Apple desktop and UI: don't try to replace it or replicate it in Linux, you will be upset. Learn to love something else: control, and the permanence and stability it brings to your life. If you want a ready made full desktop environment they exist, KDE and GNOME, but in a way they are just another Apple, dictating and evolving how you do things with each update - It's probably easier when you first switch, but you may eventually find yourself moving towards something simpler and less shiny... less is more, they are just window decorations at the end of the day, most of it is bloat.

If you do any kind of media, video, audio, raster, vector work... I wont lie and pretend this is a comparable alternative, you will need probably need either WINE or Windows, unless you know exactly what you need and know of a well supported program for Linux, e.g blender is supposed to be a pretty good contender for the proprietary 3D packages these days. While I like Linux, I agree Inkscape and Gimp are trash compared to Photoshop... i don't even like adobe products but I've used both, and the former are an exercise in pain endurance - they are last resorts, don't expect them to replace.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#313

Desktop - Ubuntu 20.04. Everything works and my requirements are quite advanced - bunch of games on Steam, pro level audio production studio just to mention a few things. Laptop - Dell Precision 7750, Xeon CPU, 64 GB RAM, bought with Ubuntu pre-installed. Beast of a laptop, superior thermals, wipes the floor with a mac. Phone - Google Pixel. I consider that a lesser evil choice to Apple's walled garden. It's rooted,…

May I ask what software you use for pro audio production? I'm looking for an alternative to Logic. Thanks!

I use Bitwig Studio. It has that polished feel of Jetbrains products and has very good MIDI production tools among other things. Of course the downside it's not free and rather expensive, but it's linux native. All the VSTs that I need work through wine/yabridge flawlessly - Ample Guitars, Pianoteq. Even the crappy Kontakt works, but I don't use it much. Backend audio server is JACK2 with Pulseaudio sink.

Ardour is probably most popular DAW on linux and it's OSS/free, but I found Bitwig better for my use, mainly due to MIDI functionality.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is right. US has complete power over people on their soil and basically in Europe and Asia as well. They do a LOT of extraditions of other countries citizens when they go traveling or to business trips from their citizenship countries. China, on the other hand, does not seem to give a single f* about foreigners, only about their own citizens. Most people are not so are not really endangered even if chinese spyers…

You should talk to this Swedish guy. He was captured in Thailand(!) by Chinese agents: https://www.dw.com/en/china-sentences-swedish-publisher-to-1...

I do feel bad for the man, but he's not just a "Swedish guy."

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#315

To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…

When a pedo gets released from prison, in some jurisdictions they are required to have scanning software installed on their devices. Apple makes every customer a suspected pedo. If you are comfortable with being treated this way, whatever floats your boat. Not everyone fancy receiving the same treatment as criminal on parole.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#316
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny how many people pick a random Chinese phone in their bid for privacy (???)

That would be... literally all phones available today, wouldn't it? With the possible exception of the $2000 Librem 5 USA. However, as one who's moved from an iPhone to a Nokia 8110 with KaiOS, which I in no way argue is as secure as iOS: It has less on it. It has far less on it. It has my phone calls, a handful of text messages, and while it has email access right now, I'm experimenting with if I actually need that,…

I might make this change. Are you using any kind of app for 2FA like Google Authenticator?

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple won't leave even the russian market in case the government demands to expand capabilities of the system. And they will never leave chinese market. Who will? Google? Microsoft? HP? Dell? Huawei or Xiaomi or Lenovo (lol jk)? Which computer or phone manufacturers or service providers refuse to do business in Russia and China?

JFYI Google left China. Not sure about Russia. Anyway that's not an excuse for implementing such a neat surveillance tool. Fortunately for now you have some escape hatches. I believe that it would be a smart move for everyone to stop paying for nooses for their own gallows and start investing into privacy. There are some realistic ways to do it, just buy a damn Fairphone for a no-brainer start.

> JFYI Google left China

I know they did briefly after some attacks, but I also know that they had very little market share to lose at the time and have subsequently worked to get back in. Do you have a good summary of their current position there?

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#318
post #50

Desktop: Arch Linux Phone: Pinephone At the end of this article: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7e77y/the-dollar149-smartph... "But even without those changes, this device could be enough to kickstart a Linux-driven mobile revolution."

Linux needs a decent productivity suite of apps (preview, mail, calendar etc) the current offering is terrible

https://linmobapps.frama.io/

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#319
post #165

Hackernews is by far the worst place to ever come for this advice. You're going to get the range of basically "use emacs, newb" to stupidly random Ebay laptops nobody has heard of. Roll your own thing and don't worry about what others use. I use void linux and I would never use hn for *nix advice.

I agree here as well. Criticism of linux here is like condemning Jesus at times.

I just use windows cause it's easy and everything almost always works on it.

Post reply on HN