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Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

support.system76.com

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Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#111

Post by richnftio »

criddell wrote: post #21

I guess I don't get how operating systems are still something that people have such strong opinions on. All of the major operating systems are good enough or can be made good enough by installing a few packages. Pop may be great, but it's useless if you need to run Final Cut Pro. macOS is wonderful, but not if you want to play a lot of AAA games. Windows is fine, but if you are doing a lot of Ruby on Rails you may ha…

The Linux desktop is flexible and customizable. I wish mainstream apps would run on Linux as well, so we could experiment and further develop established UI paradigms.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#112

Post by kortilla »

pram wrote: post #90
windexh8er wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this comment disheartening. Not only because it diminishes the polished nature of today's landscape of open source options from IoT through to the data center, but the genuine disregard for anything that doesn't run niche commercial software. Beyond that many of us enjoy not running operating systems attached to overpriced hardware and/or organizations that legitimately spy on their users through their "OS".

The “niche commercial software” is how some people make a living jfyi

So what? Some people people make a living as a cook too. Doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate kitchen appliances not designed for commercial use.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#113

Post by 6figurelenins »

howdydoo wrote: post #33

This is a little off-topic, but I've been wanting to switch from Windows to Linux and the one thing stopping me is the lack of a good package manager. WAIT, let me explain. On Windows, you can just `scoop install ripgrep fzf jq` and you're in business. And updating all installed packages is one command away. Meanwhile on Debian, the system packages are often years out of date. So authors have started making their own…

The backports repo solves most of it, with an occasional supplement from testing.

    # /etc/apt/preferences
    Package: *
    Pin: release o=Debian Backports,a=bullseye-backports
    Pin-Priority: 500
    
    Package: *
    Pin: release o=Debian,a=stable
    Pin-Priority: 100
    
    Package: *
    Pin: release o=Debian,a=testing
    Pin-Priority: 98
    
    Package: *
    Pin: release o=Debian,a=unstable
    Pin-Priority: 50
Then:

    $ apt-cache policy ripgrep fzf jq
    ripgrep:
      Installed: (none)
      Candidate: 12.1.1-1+b1
      Version table:
         13.0.0-2 98
             50 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 Packages
             98 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
         12.1.1-1+b1 100
            100 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages
    fzf:
      Installed: (none)
      Candidate: 0.24.3-1+b6
      Version table:
         0.29.0-1 98
             50 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 Packages
             98 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
         0.24.3-1+b6 100
            100 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages
    jq:
      Installed: 1.6-2.1
      Candidate: 1.6-2.1
      Version table:
     *** 1.6-2.1 100
            100 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 Packages
             50 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 Packages
             98 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
            100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
PS. Don't curl into /usr/bin, the distro owns that. Downloads go to $HOME/bin or /usr/local/bin.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#114

Post by kradeelav »

multiplegeorges wrote: post #2

Is it finally the year of Linux on the desktop? But seriously, the work System76 is doing is really great. PopOS is really nice to use. The attention it is getting is well deserved.

I too just moved from a 2010 macbook pro over to a S76 lemur pro as my main machine a few months ago. I think a lot of people who fit that wedge of "not hardcore techies, but passionate about freedom of software" have been dismayed with the recent apple/microsoft moves/censorship/etc, and are realizing linux is actually pretty user friendly with plenty of software options versus ten years ago.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#115

Post by howdydoo »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #70
howdydoo wrote: post #33

This is a little off-topic, but I've been wanting to switch from Windows to Linux and the one thing stopping me is the lack of a good package manager. WAIT, let me explain. On Windows, you can just `scoop install ripgrep fzf jq` and you're in business. And updating all installed packages is one command away. Meanwhile on Debian, the system packages are often years out of date. So authors have started making their own…

If you want up to date everything you simply chose the wrong distro. It's not really the package manager's fault. Debian goes for stable versions during a release and backports security patches. It's one of their main design philosophies. It really shines for boxes you want to run something for years with minimal maintenance. Get arch, manjaro or another rolling distro and you'll have what you want :) Or perhaps Ubun…

I just think it's weird that I can't have an LTS OS with non-LTS userland apps. But I guess I have to accept that.

Snap is a nonstarter for me for many reasons. Startup speed is important for shell pipelines, and also it's insane to bundle that much stuff just to run a statically-linked binary. And it wouldn't even solve the version problem, it looks like ripgrep on Snap is two years old. https://snapcraft.io/ripgrep

It looks like manjaro is the most recommended arch distro so I'll give it a try.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#116

Post by taeric »

im_down_w_otp wrote: post #53

All I want in life is a Linux distro with a package repo full of meticulously reworked & reconfigured packages that make all the keyboard shortcuts across the entire system and every application be like and be as consistent as my old Macs. I've been full-time Linux (Kubuntu) for a few years now, and I've hobbled together something that only irritates me to death about 30% of the time rather than the 100% of the time…

I find this funny, in that I struggle with Mac all the time. The worst grievance lately is that I don't know how to just pop back and forth between three windows. Something about the way command tab works just kills my ability to reason about what the window stack currently is.

And, for the life of me, I never get copy paste from a terminal to work like I want it to.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#117

Post by emptysongglass »

howdydoo wrote: post #33

This is a little off-topic, but I've been wanting to switch from Windows to Linux and the one thing stopping me is the lack of a good package manager. WAIT, let me explain. On Windows, you can just `scoop install ripgrep fzf jq` and you're in business. And updating all installed packages is one command away. Meanwhile on Debian, the system packages are often years out of date. So authors have started making their own…

For the CNCF landscape of tooling there's Arkade, which would at least cover you on the k9s front. [1]

Personally, I just use Nix plus a Home Manager "flake". [2] It's completely self-contained so on any new computer I can install Nix, then build this flake manifest and have my entire developer environment ready to go in a few minutes. Having clean installed or adopted so many computers, at home or work, I have become obsessed with the fewest number of steps to productive environment.

[1] https://github.com/alexellis/arkade

[2] https://dee.underscore.world/blog/home-manager-flakes/

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#118

Post by multiplegeorges »

coldtea wrote: post #14
multiplegeorges wrote: post #2

Is it finally the year of Linux on the desktop? But seriously, the work System76 is doing is really great. PopOS is really nice to use. The attention it is getting is well deserved.

> Is it finally the year of Linux on the desktop? Considering that the hope behind this term was about winning the desktop user share from Windows, and not just "being usable" on the desktop, or "being used" on the desktop, no.

Yeah, it was a joke.

Every year can be that year if you just use it.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#119

Post by kortilla »

howdydoo wrote: post #92
ahepp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered using Debian testing or even unstable, if you want newer packages? I absolutely agree that manually installing software leads to a maintainability nightmare. How does scoop solve the problem? Is it simply by moving faster (which one could do with the less stable Debian repos), or is it doing something like isolating all shared dependencies for every package (I know this is in style these days, but…

The name "testing" kind of turns me off tbh. I want my OS to boot reliably. I don't want to be a test subject. > How does scoop solve the problem? It skips intermediate packaging steps and goes directly to the source. e.g. if the author publishes on GitHub, Scoop will request `github.com/ripgrep/releases/latest` (or whatever) and then download `ripgrep-$version.exe`. It has very primitive dependency handling, but I d…

How is that genius? It basically ignores compatibility and stability as concepts entirely. Most people don’t want breaking changes to happen at arbitrary updates.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#120

Post by aunty_helen »

upbeat_general wrote: post #8

Having switched from macOS to PopOS very recently, it’s been pretty smooth. My only real issue is that Remote Desktop support is worse than macOS which is itself far worse than Windows RDP. I know it’s a Linux/Debian wide problem, but I’d really like someone to step up and bundle something polished out of the box.

I've been using chrome remote desktop to get to a box and it's been alright. I also use teamviewer. Which is ok but struggles with scrolling.

I'm still pretty unhappy with myself for using chrome remote desktop though. It's something I wouldn't be doing if this system had anything private on it.

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