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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)

#271

Post by jbverschoor »

quibono wrote: post #250
jbverschoor wrote: post #149

Sure I'll bite.. You're talking about Ubuntu, but can you do everything with Ubuntu running KDE or any other WM/DE? You probably mean GNOME or Unity. Didn't they abandon Unity? I dunno what's current, and frankly I don't care! > Resize the system font. I find the menu bar at the top too small. The only way to do this on MacOS is to lower the resolution of the entire screen! - Accessibility -> Display -> Menu bar size…

> Sure I'll bite.. You're talking about Ubuntu, but can you do everything with Ubuntu running KDE or any other WM/DE? Yes. Apart from the Menu bar size it seems like your answer to everything is third party tools, which the author mentions at the beginning of the post. > - Mouse -> Primary mouse button: left/right. Or use tools Which tools specifically? > - On Android you can set the type of connection when you plug…

Sure, but it doesn't mean you can't do it. There are plenty of things I can't do - out of the box - with Ubuntu. Doesn't mean you can't do it. Heck. If I install Ubuntu minimal I can't do anything. Ubuntu is one big 3rd party tool collection.

> Which tools specifically? bettertouchtool

On my xiaomi or galaxy, can't remember, as they are useless since the software isn't updated anymore. It prompts me on how I want to connect when I plug in a USB cable.

> I know you're going to be tempted to reply with "you're using it wrong" - but I'm not. This is how I like to use my computer. And it is clear that the MacBook isn't my computer - it is Apple's. (OK, OK! It belongs to my employer!)

This comment makes no sense. It's your computer. You can install all these tools if you want.

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

#272

Post by nagisa »

petercooper wrote: post #231
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 P…

> 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.

This is almost like saying that devices don't need to support dealing with USB sticks formatted with FAT32 because the file system originates with DOS.

MTP today is one of the more prevalent protocols that many devices (including most if not all Android phones made in past decade) use by default.

That said https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol#macOS claims that this is supported natively…

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

#273

Post by zoom_enh4nce »

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…

This was my thought. Yabai totally changed my setup for the better.

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

#274

Post by projektfu »

latexr wrote: post #167
edent wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I totally get why you would want these features. But why not just use Ubuntu if you want them? Because, as I say in the post, I have to use one for work. I agree that diversity is good but there are some things - like basic accessibility - which should be non-negotiable. And they certainly shouldn't be paid-for addons.

> there are some things - like basic accessibility - which should be non-negotiable. There are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticise Apple, but I disagree that lack of accessibility options is one of them. They natively support tons of accessibility features, and as far as I’m aware people with disabilities often choose Apple products precisely because they excel at it.

This was interesting. I was recently setting up a mac with Catalina preinstalled and no working monitor so I got the opportunity to use voiceover. It isn't very helpful to someone who hasn't been using it forever. Some issues:

1. Doesn't describe the screen well. Either "you are on a button" or will read everything with no positional context.

2. Doesn't tell you when the screen changes. You press "continue" and it says "you are on a button"

3. When you try to move through the list of wifi SSNs it jumps to the password entry every time you move without telling you which one was selected.

4. The default speed, 50%, is stupid fast. I had to look up how to change the speed.

5. The tutorial was hard to understand and I had to look up the online documentation to get an idea of how it works. The accessibility of that site seems pretty low but luckily I actually am visual.

https://support.apple.com/guide/voiceover/use-voiceover-util...

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

#275

Post by shadowgovt »

ilikejam wrote: post #3

I'd pay good money for an 'Always on top' window option on mac.

I suspect that'd play absolute hell with either their UX concept or the underlying UI abstractions / implementations.

This would create a situation where an application has one window foreground above the foreground application while it is not the foreground application.

On the UI / implementation side: I don't think it's possible to have any windows of an app foregrounded past the foreground app's frontmost window if that app isn't itself foreground. They'd have to create a new category of window (and probably move a bunch of internal data structures around) to make that possible. I know, "it's just code," but it's code based on some very deep and old assumptions about the way the window manager works that probably have hard-to-predict consequences if violated.

On the UX side: having a window floating foreground when the top-of-desktop menubar says another app's name in the corner is going to trigger a "WAT" for a lot of users, and I think Apple is deferring to them.

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

#276

Post by recuter »

_8j50 wrote: post #210

Oh, there is a lot more you can't do on MacOS. Things I can do on MacOS: - Edit any document or video within minutues of installation - Use sed/awk/find/grep on any documents or text like with Ubuntu Linux desktop tries too much to be like macos making it even worse. Every time I have to remove avahi, cups and like 10 other things which breaks the whole damn thing and I have to figure out how to unbreak it then get r…

> Use sed/awk/find/grep on any documents or text like with Ubuntu

fd, rg, and vim work just fine on the Mac..

Bundled sed is the bsd variant, but you can bring whichever flavor of these you want, I'm very confused by your comment.

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

#277

Post by ivanche »

dcow wrote: post #190
spoiler wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I recently started using an M1 Mac and found the fullscreen workspaces a bit weird (coming from i3), but kinda grew to like it? I got the external trackpad and use gestures a lot (before it was Control + arrows) to navigate the workspaces. My main issue is that all the different "Terminals" have subsets I like on them, but none have all the features I like lol. It's not a big deal though. FWIW I'm trying…

Try Kitty!

Good suggestion! IMHO Kitty is seriously underused terminal. Very fast, customizable, scriptable…

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

#278

Post by GlassKingdom »

larusso wrote: post #193
nicoburns wrote: post #47

My biggest bug bears with macOS: - No way to fullscreen a window without moving it into a separate workspace. All a new workspace achieves is making it difficult for me to switch between this app and my other apps! (individual apps can implement this, and some like VLC do, but most apps don't) - No native support for containerisation. Containers/Docker are a great technology, but even on my M1 mac where literally eve…

> No way to fullscreen a window without moving it into a separate workspace. All When you hold ALT while clicking the maximize button it should work. There used to be a setting for this when they introduced it.

alt click doesn’t work. Try it. It does not work. Maybe occasionally it does, but mostly it just enlarges the screen a bit, in a random manner.

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

#280

Post by nadinengland »

GlassKingdom wrote: post #269

I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve been using Mac for years and still don’t know how to make an application fullscreen like Windows does. The green button hides the menu bar, and alt clicking the green buttom makes the app bigger but doesn’t fill the whole screen. Either I am stupid or Mac is bad at discoverability.

To make it maximise the area in your current mac Space (i.e. not go "full screen" in a new Space) you can go: Mac Menu -> Window -> Zoom. I just usually double click the App's window bar and it stretches the same way.
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