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Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

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Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#161

Post by commoner »

askvictor wrote: post #99
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…

Having recently moved back to Linux (PopOS) from Windows, the one biggest annoyance is not being able to configure two-finger touchpad swipe to be browser back/forward. This is the default in Mac, easily configurable in Windows (perhaps it's the default?), and default in ChromeOS. But simply not an option in any Linux I've tried. The Epiphany Browser does it, but that lacks extension support so is a no-go for me. Any…

Touchpad gestures for Linux apps are being worked on:

- Latest update (December 2021): https://www.gitclear.com/blog/linux_touchpad_update_december...

- HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29555822

So far, pinch-to-zoom has been implemented in Firefox. (If you are using X11 instead of Wayland, then the environment variable MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1 needs to be set.) Gestures for back/forward navigation have not been implemented yet (Firefox Bugzilla issue: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1539730).

The project aims to support gestures in other Linux apps, too. If you would like to help fund this project, the developer has a GitHub sponsor page here:

https://github.com/sponsors/gitclear

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#162

Post by tom_ »

saurik wrote: post #138
Steltek wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headed in the other direction (Linux at home to Mac at work) for years now, I can't understand what the fuss is about with Mac keyboard shortcuts. In my experience, I don't find them consistent, useful, or pleasant to use. You hit the nail on the head with alt-tab. alt-tab is universal. Hell, alt-tab works on Android if you hook up a keyboard to it. Mac is the only thing where alt-tab falls on its face. Even if you r…

> Mac is the only thing where alt-tab falls on its face. Even if you remind yourself that you're on Mac and use cmd-tab... But alt on a Windows keyboard layout and and command on a Mac keyboard layout are the same key location, so I don't understand how you can be confused by this... maybe stop looking at the keyboard?

If you use the same keyboard for both, by default they end up in different places. The Mac treats the Windows key as the Command key, and the Alt key as the Option key.

(You can tweak this, if you need to, in System Preferences, Keyboard section, Keyboard tab, Modifier Keys... button.)

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#163

Post by upbeat_general »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #143
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.

Use NoMachine. It's by far the *best* experience I've had and I love it. Sure, it's not free software, if that's your thing, but like, it's _really_ good (really good latency and quality). Works on Windows, Linux, and Mac hosts, and clients for all three as well. Truly a wonderful piece of software.

That’s actually what I’m using. It’s the best I’ve found like you said but there’s no good support for rescaling/dynamic resolutions, and multiple displays. It’s good enough to click a couple buttons but not for any actual work, at least given my setup.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#165

Post by parkingrift »

Weird comparisons. On the left we have first party apps by Apple, and on the right we have whatever you want to download from the internet.

Particularly egregious for things on the right that are also available on the left, which is most of them.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#167

Post by upbeat_general »

renox wrote: post #50
upbeat_general wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vnc works for the basic use case of viewing a remote screen. It’s a mess for interactive use, especially with the default implementations you can find on Linux imo. macOS’s built in screen sharing is the only vnc server/client combo that has acceptable latency but even it fails to support basic features like dynamic resolution for different clients. And I agree that SSH is definitely far more common; I of course use…

On Windows tigerVNC has dynamic resolution which is very useful, but yes VNC’s latency is poor..

It’s truly amazing how good windows default RDP is in contrast. Unfortunately, I don’t ever plan to use windows…

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#168

Post by bscphil »

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…

> All of the major operating systems are good enough or can be made good enough by installing a few packages.

And that's exactly the problem - macOS and Windows don't have "packages" in the sense that they do in Linux distributions. You can install software on both, of course, but it's relatively speaking a mess and Homebrew / Chocolately don't really suffice to make the experience anywhere nearly as clean and consistent as it is on literally any Linux distribution.

Other than that, I would agree, though for computer experts I would argue that Linux gives you the ability to fully understand how your system functions and control it at every level, and that this can be valuable. It's also a lot easier to use primarily open-source software on Linux. On the other hand, Linux can't run a lot of proprietary programs that are readily available on other systems.

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#169

Post by eitland »

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…

> and be as consistent as my old Macs.

Would it help if I point out that this is just rose tinted glasses? ;-)

Or at least, when I used Mac full time back in 2009 - 2012, it was the least consistent thing I ever used: even such basic shortcuts as moving a word forward or backwards was inconsistent. Same with home/end: in one app it would be CMD + arrow left/right, in another it would be fn + arrow left/right. In Safari CMD + left meant back which kind of made sense but was hugely annoying when I filed out a web form in Oracle Enterprise Manager or something, wanted to select to the start of the line and ended up leaving the form, discarding half an hours work.

(Yes, bad web application. Feel free to tell Oracle that.)

That said, I kind of like Apple when they aren't messing up keyboards physically or logically and aren't busy snooping in my pictures. I've convinced my wife to use iPhone and switched most of my kids phones to iPhones and even use one myself and have bought a Mac mini lately - it is good as long as one can take it slowly, one careful step at a time - definitely not something I'd want to deal with in anger or if my life or the customers data depend on it.

And consistent - it is not!

Re: Switching from macOS to Pop_OS

#170

Post by na85 »

taeric wrote: post #116
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.

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

Doesn't command+c/command+v work?

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