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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)

#321

Post by sseagull »

jraph wrote: post #285
petercooper wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'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." This comes from [1] which is an interesting page. It's a de facto standard though. And now specified in the USB standard. Android devices expose themselves using MTP when connected with USB for instance. I think the goal was to allow devices to expose their media data / rece…

> Apple went with their custom iTunes-related protocol with the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, because why not.

You can mount an iPhone as MTP. But only for pictures, not for music.

I kinda get why, but blah. It’s a bit of a weird distinction to me.

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

#322

Post by kergonath »

unicornfinder wrote: post #265
nottorp wrote: post #236

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…

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I'm happily using Windows now but used a Mac before and it took a long time for me to realise that my complaints about Windows largely boiled down to "it doesn't do things in the way that I'm used to". With that said, whilst I do like macOS overall I always found it infuriating how on macOS applications could steal focus. Something I do appreciate on Windows is that focus stea…

> Something I do appreciate on Windows is that focus stealing by and large isn't a thing.

Interesting. Focus stealing really is annoying, but from my experience Windows is not really better.

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

#323

Post by drcongo »

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 briefly considered penning a response called "Things I can’t do on Ubuntu which I can do on macOS" and then realised nobody has that much free time, especially me.

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

#324

Post by post_break »

GlassKingdom wrote: post #286
lloeki wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

control external monitor sound: if your monitor supports DCC, MonitorControl is FOSS and allows direct control. Also, see below. capture sound: there's a flury of apps that allow you to do that, Rogue Amoeba has a couple that go from simple to very advanced audio routing. This audio routing also allows you to set the output volume (so, indirectly volume sent to a monitor) using the standard macOS controls. > And yeah…

Having to install an app to control volume does seem like something from the early 1990s (and I’m a mac guy).

Imagine having to install kernel extensions just to adjust the volume over a digital output like HDMI, maddening since you know it can do it, but stock MacOS won't allow you to. Or how about volume levels by app?

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

#325

Post by usrn »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #316
GlassKingdom wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

osxfuse is not a reasonable answer. The author says “without unsupported 3rd party tools”. I have severe problems with osxfuse on M1: janky behaviour and system crashes. This stuff should be native.

Are SSH mounts natively supported on Linux ? In my case I use sshfs, which also uses FUSE and is a "3rd party tool". Is that more reasonable than osxfuse? (Honest question, I'm unfamiliar with the latter) edit: sshfs is "unsupported": "However, at present SSHFS does not have any active, regular contributors, and there are a number of known issues (see the bugtracker)." https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs#development-sta…

Everything on Linux that isn't part of the "Linux-utils" package is a third party tool. (I guess GNU packages are "second party.")

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

#326

Post by jason0597 »

I want to ask a question in good faith to macOS users recommending people to download (and a lot of times pay for!) 3rd party tools to improve userspace functionality on macOS: Why is this the norm?

Downloading a 3rd party tool is one thing (I wouldn't have a huge problem if it was open source), but a lot of times these tools are closed source and require you to pay out of pocket! This would never ever fly in the Linux community. How come this is commonly accepted and never challenged?

(A controversial viewpoint I thought about is maybe that macOS users on average make more money than Linux users and hence never think about this, but I don't want to put it forward as the definitive answer)

EDIT: Perfect example I thought of is my friend asking me for help on how to reconfigure deep click (or Force Touch as it's called) to open new tabs in his browser, and I had a look around and the recommended way is to pay for BetterTouchTool [1]. No free way to do this that I could find.

[1]: https://folivora.ai/

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

#327

Post by dotancohen »

baby wrote: post #312
epapsiou wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stability ???? Ubuntu is far more stable. Have never had issues wrt stability. I have had issues with support as in some software do not work on linux (Turbo Tax , Games etc) but never in stability. Have been using linux desktops since 2010

Just had a coworker who had to wipe out his laptop to upgrade ubuntu version. Literally never happened to me on mac

I haven't used Windows since 2005, so my opinion might be unwarranted, but I've been upgrading my home Linux distro since sometime before 2010 without a clean wipe. During that time I've heard of so many Windows "fix it by reinstalling" stories that I wonder if that is simply the default first step in Windows troubleshooting. After turning it off and back on, of course.

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

#328

Post by MarcellusDrum »

_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…

> Linux desktop tries too much to be like macos

I think using "Linux" here isn't accurate. ElementaryOS? Definitely. But default KDE Plasma for example does not attempt to look like MacOS at all, same as Cinnamon, which by default resembles Windows to an extent.

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

#329

Post by chrisseaton »

jason0597 wrote: post #317
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…

> In return you get stability Does that imply that Linux is not stable? I've had my Arch installation for a full year and it has never broken down on me. No package has ever broken, and updates are always smooth thanks to pacman. Meanwhile, I can recall a handful of instances where bugs slipped into the macOS userspace in the last year (and made it to the front page of Hacker News)

> Does that imply that Linux is not stable?

I think I've almost never seen someone connect to a projector from Linux without some kind of glitch along the way.

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

#330

Post by nottorp »

jpetso wrote: post #309
nottorp wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yeah PulseAudio is just so much better than everything macOS can offer. The PulseAudio that is one of the factors that drove me off desktop linux in 2013? :)

Shockingly, years of continued development can indeed resolve a lot of issues with software.

I believe it's because we know who is now concentrating on systemd. Maybe in 2080 that will be flawless too. Even usable perhaps? :)
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