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Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

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Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#231

Post by petercooper »

yodelshady wrote: post #201

> Read MTP devices > Mount an SSH or NFS drive I know fanboy debates are tiresome, but... I really do struggle to comprehend taking a device that can't do these things seriously as a computer. As a toy yes, or as a specialised tool for video or audio rendering, which... fair enough. But moving bytes is something any general purpose computing device should be good at. It's almost something you have to actively design…

I'd not heard of MTP before, so looked it up: "MTP is part of the "Windows Media" framework and thus closely related to Windows Media Player."

I wonder, can Windows natively work with APFS volumes..? I know with extra software it can, but then with extra software macOS can do all the things in the blog post too.

There is at least one thing I can do on macOS though that I can't on Ubuntu: run the latest version of Photoshop in a stable manner.

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#232

Post by danmur »

bodge5000 wrote: post #159

Seems like the obvious tradeoffs you'd expect, mostly lack of control/ability to change things, which I'd expect of MacOS. In return you get stability, Apples locked down approach means the OS is far more predictable. Linux in my view takes the reverse approach, you lose stability relative to MacOS in exchange for complete control. Historically Windows has sat somewhere in the middle, though in recent years with all…

I must not be taxing my Linux computers enough :)

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#233

Post by sseagull »

_benj wrote: post #189
sseagull wrote: post #182

Since we are all airing grievances - how about the ability to set different scroll directions for the touchpad and a mouse. I dunno, I guess my brain is just wired differently from what apple expects.

It might or might not be what you are looking for but it’s possible to charge the scrolling direction on the trackpad preferences. It’s defaulted to “natural” something and it’s literally the first setting I change when I reinstall macOS

Ah sorry, I wasn’t clear. Setting the scroll direction there also changes the direction of the scroll wheel on a mouse.

I don’t have a mac near me but when I did, I could not get them set to be the way I wanted.

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#234

Post by vimy »

dotancohen wrote: post #72

I had to use a Mac at work some time ago. Here's my list: * Cannot drag to copy, middle-click to paste. * No way to disable sticky keys lock. * No way to set ESC as Caps Lock. * No way to set a keyboard shortcut for each specific language. (I use five) * Alt-tab to an _Application_, not a _Window_. How many times will I Alt-Tab to.... nothing! * Return from sleep will rearrange the order of the connected monitors, ev…

You can remap it in the keyboard settings. I use alt-tab to switch between windows of the same app.

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#235

Post by montebicyclelo »

ryukafalz wrote: post #145
montebicyclelo wrote: post #115

Valid points in the article. Slightly related: I feel it's worth spreading the word about yabai [1], a tiling window manager for MacOs. I've been using it for >1 year, to get an i3 like experience, and find that it makes using MacOs very pleasant. Issues in the article are somewhat addressed: > Focus Follow Mouse Can do this with yabai > Always on top windows Can do this with yabai > Window snapping Can do this with…

I’ve not used yabai as I now have the option of using Linux for work, but I’d tried several tiling WMs for macOS a few years back and none that I tried handled adding/removing displays well. When you plug in an external display, do windows move over to it? And if you change the resolution on one display when doing so, do the windows resize as they should? It seemed at the time like their reliance on macOS’s accessibi…

I use an external display, but with mirroring on, so I can't answer your questions from experience. Looks like there is some support for external displays: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/discussions/238#discuss....

> reliance on macOS’s accessibility settings to manage windows made them fairly limited

I think that yabai goes a bit deeper than other MacOs WMs; it gets you to disable (or partially disable) MacOs's system integrity protection, so it can use the OS window manager directly.

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#236

Post by nottorp »

I wonder if the OP has switched from Windows to Linux initially. And did he write a piece complaining that everything isn't exactly how they're used to then?

A lot of "i'd switch but" articles - in all directions - basically come down to "the destination doesn't work how i'm used to". Even though they're fundamentally as crappy in the background.

When someone asks me why I use Mac OS as my main desktop I answer "it's the least annoying". There is no "best OS" available now.

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#237

Post by DocTomoe »

blfr wrote: post #141

As a decade+ loyal Linux and Android user I gotta go with "you're using it wrong" on the MTP point. You really should buy (get from your employer) an iPhone. They actually work together pretty well and when they're not at least you will be yelling at whatever Finder/iTunes interface, not a wonky 3rd party software made by some innocent dev who doesn't deserve the bad karma.

My Android phones have had dual SIM for years, so I only have to carry around one device to access both work and private phone functionality. That's why I declined the provided iPhone, which only would have had one SIM slot. Apparently now Apple has arrived in the year 2012 with their new models - but by now, why would I switch?

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#238

Post by PragmaticPulp »

yodelshady wrote: post #201

> Read MTP devices > Mount an SSH or NFS drive I know fanboy debates are tiresome, but... I really do struggle to comprehend taking a device that can't do these things seriously as a computer. As a toy yes, or as a specialised tool for video or audio rendering, which... fair enough. But moving bytes is something any general purpose computing device should be good at. It's almost something you have to actively design…

NFS mounts are supported in macOS natively

SSH mounts are done with osxfuse

MTP support is also available: https://github.com/ganeshrvel/openmtp

This article feels a bit like the author didn’t look very hard for solutions to a lot of their problems, but instead skipped straight to writing an article to complain about things they didn’t understand.

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#239

Post by mschuster91 »

franciscop wrote: post #170
headsoup wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go on then, you start

I'll start with things that I'm happy to have in mac that didn't have in Linux :) - Cannot run a bunch of programs that stay on the topbar, like LINE ( https://line.me/en/ ), Kap ( https://getkap.co/ ), etc. I am a fairly heavy user of Kap and I love the interface, so this is probably the biggest differentiator for me. I can use Gimp, Inkscape, etc. on Mac so this is not really reversible. - The visual quality of the…

> the biggest issue I have is with external USBs, I like having them encrypted for backups and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to do that with mac

Trivial using Disk Utility: https://support.apple.com/de-de/guide/disk-utility/dskutl356...

As for backups, I'd just use the disk as an encrypted Time Machine target.

Re: Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020)

#240

Post by pastacacioepepe »

rodelrod wrote: post #178
rossvor wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, both informative for MacOS users and those who never used it. MacOS users can quickly scan and think yeah I don't care about this feature, or think huh this is something that could be useful and maybe I should look for a 3rd party app which has this. Those considering switching to MacOS can compare to their existing environment and have a greater picture of what possible pain points to expect. I would like t…

This list is personal and far from exhaustive (which is fine). If I quickly scanned looking for things I care about, I'd find very little. However, as a Linux user I could very quickly come up with an equally long list of things that I do care about and that does not overlap much with this one. I think the larger point is: in Linux, some things are complicated but most things are possible. On Mac and Windows, some th…

Why do we need a trade off between stability and control?

I'd argue we could have both if not for commercial reasons. Apple deliberately chooses to limit control, Microsoft too.

With all the resources they have, you really think they couldn't give you more control without sacrificing stability?

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