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

shkspr.mobi

401–410 of 740 posts

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

#401

Before using a Mac I was told how glorious it was and a feat of engineering. Reality is that the Mac and associated products are not as perfect as Apple fans make it out to be. The window manager on Mac makes me want to scream. Navigating the file system in Finder is not intuitive and don't get me started on the Magic Mouse and it's charging port...

What do you find non-intuitive about the Finder? This is a serious question, not a troll or anything.

IMO it hides less about the disk layout than Windows Explorer does, but "it's better than Windows Explorer" is a low bar indeed.

"don't get me started on the Magic Mouse and it's charging port"

I use that mouse every day and I've literally NEVER needed to use it while charging. It warns me with ample time and charges insanely quickly. I get a warning? I'll plug it in when I get a coffee or over lunch. End of.

The other thing that nobody seems to pay any attention to is this: The current Magic Mouse is pretty much EXACTLY the same as the prior AAA-powered version except for the battery and charging. I'd bet folding money that one reason they went the way they did was that it allowed them to make zero design changes outside the area that USED to hold AAA batters, and now holds the rechargeable battery and port.

This means they could do a rechargeable version without a major redesign -- which would've been required. The whole upper shell of the mouse moves down when you click, which means putting a port on the front wasn't going to work.

But, again: it's 100% a non-issue for me. I don't actually know anyone in real life who has trouble with this.

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

#402
post #392
post #306

I'm always amazed at how many little third party utilities or programs people recommend downloading or buying just to bring the desktop experience on macOS up to parity with Linux (or even Windows!). The lack of snapping/tiling at this point is just a deliberately malicious decision. I can't fathom why they will not implement some version of this better than that half-hearted split screen view that requires a separat…

The catch is, with enough 3rd party apps MacOS can do all that stuff but no amount of 3rd party apps and utilities can make Ubuntu match the MacOS experience. To match macOS on Ubuntu you will need a full time Linux guru as PA to smooth things out for your. You will need another one for the after hours. Therefore, Ubuntu is great for really rich people or people who need that one thing that Ubuntu excels at and nothi…

As someone who uses both, I have to say I am not sure what's so special about the 'macOS experience'. I mean the desktop is not even a decent window manager imo, I have to get something like PathFinder for a decent file manager etc, yes there are some nice apps for macOS but it's not like the OS experience itself is some unbeatable benchmark.

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

#403
post #374

Before using a Mac I was told how glorious it was and a feat of engineering. Reality is that the Mac and associated products are not as perfect as Apple fans make it out to be. The window manager on Mac makes me want to scream. Navigating the file system in Finder is not intuitive and don't get me started on the Magic Mouse and it's charging port...

Some more that I find rather annoying: - Login screen sometimes has US keyboard layout even when the language selector shows otherwise. - "Installing apps" where you drag them on the applications folder and you get no progress for that copy operation anywhere. - Permission changes, for example for camera and microphone access, require application restarts. - Photos application unable to handle even a small amount of…

'"Installing apps" where you drag them on the applications folder and you get no progress for that copy operation anywhere.'

What apps do you install that take so long that a progress bar would be useful?

"- Photos application unable to handle even a small amount of pictures copied from my phone, crashes or freezes your machine."

I have thousands of pictures in Photos, and it has never once frozen or crashed. Are you doing something unusual?

"- Thumbnail size in file selection dialogs and even directly in Finder is completely useless."

This is adjustable.

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

#404
post #374

Before using a Mac I was told how glorious it was and a feat of engineering. Reality is that the Mac and associated products are not as perfect as Apple fans make it out to be. The window manager on Mac makes me want to scream. Navigating the file system in Finder is not intuitive and don't get me started on the Magic Mouse and it's charging port...

Some more that I find rather annoying: - Login screen sometimes has US keyboard layout even when the language selector shows otherwise. - "Installing apps" where you drag them on the applications folder and you get no progress for that copy operation anywhere. - Permission changes, for example for camera and microphone access, require application restarts. - Photos application unable to handle even a small amount of…

Trying to configure a keyboard that isn't US ANSI is terrible, I can pick UK in the keyboard preferences and the flag changes but it remains as ANSI.

I can use control+left/right to switch desktops, but can use shift+control+left/right to move a window left or right.

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

#405
post #35

Add: run a docker container without an entire VM.

Not sure whether you know something I don't but I'm not aware of any VM when I'm running Docker containers directly on my Mac?

Try running a docker container whose executable is called “foo” in macOS. Then go to activity monitor and try to find “foo”, or try to attach to it from the host with lldb, or try to profile it with the Xcode profiling tools. You can’t.

This is because it’s running in a VM, not natively on the host. On Linux you can do any of those things from the host directly, without needing to shell into the container.

I actually found this so incredibly frustrating when I started working at a job that uses docker that I argued in vain against using docker at all, and then when that failed, I switched to doing all my coding and other technical work on a Linux VM and only using macOS for email.

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

#406

Disabling acceleration on scroll wheels of 3rd party mice - Nope. Can you stand scrolling 1 pixel, 1 pixel, 1 pixel, 1/3 the whole screen? I can't. Want to use a 15 year old DSLR as a webcam over USB? Nope. I sent the MBP back. No way I'm putting up with that crap!

> Disabling acceleration on scroll wheels of 3rd party mice That's an issue with your mouse software. > Want to use a 15 year old DSLR as a webcam over USB OBS Studio can help or Elgato Cam Link if your DSLR supports HDMI.

Sounds like "You are holding it wrong"

Err, what software? I can set scroll wheel acceleration on ubuntu, with no additional software.

Using HDMI on my camera has a lower resolution output than USB, plus it has an overlay. Again on Ubuntu, USB just works.

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

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSXFuse is now replaced with sshfs, but it’s now a PITA to install it via Homebrew because macFUSE, a dep for sshfs has turned closed-source and Homebrew would refuse to install sshfs for that reason. You’d have to install macFUSE binary from their official site first, and load their kernel extension via the GUI, before running the Homebrew command to solve it. Which begs the question: if I’m already jumping through…

> if I’m already jumping through hoops to get SSH mounts on macOS to work, why not use Linux already? Jumping through hoops? It's installing a pkg file, takes about a minute and it is a one time operation you will never really need to do again. Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have changed but you will jump through hoops far more often than on macOS. - written from my frankenstein arch linux macbook pro

> Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have changed but you will jump through hoops far more often than on macOS.

For about 25 years. Hard to agree.

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

#408
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah that last point really struck a nerve. - Open lid - Lock screen shows - Screen fades to black as it realises there's an external monitor - Finally unlock, windows are all bunched up on the internal display - Everything becomes unresponsive, maybe even another fade to black - A minute after initially opening the lid, suddenly all the windows pop back into place I have no idea if this is improved on M1 machines, but…

IME, macOS (Monterey on M1 Pro) handles this better than Windows 10. Everything goes to the right places right away, whereas in Windows you'd have windows all over the place.

Sort of. In my experience, MacOS cannot reliably handle multiple external monitors.

It is really forgetful and switches the order of them when it wakes seemingly at random.

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

#409
post #392
post #306

I'm always amazed at how many little third party utilities or programs people recommend downloading or buying just to bring the desktop experience on macOS up to parity with Linux (or even Windows!). The lack of snapping/tiling at this point is just a deliberately malicious decision. I can't fathom why they will not implement some version of this better than that half-hearted split screen view that requires a separat…

The catch is, with enough 3rd party apps MacOS can do all that stuff but no amount of 3rd party apps and utilities can make Ubuntu match the MacOS experience. To match macOS on Ubuntu you will need a full time Linux guru as PA to smooth things out for your. You will need another one for the after hours. Therefore, Ubuntu is great for really rich people or people who need that one thing that Ubuntu excels at and nothi…

> no amount of 3rd party apps and utilities can make Ubuntu match the MacOS experience

What kind of experience are we talking about?

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

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSXFuse is now replaced with sshfs, but it’s now a PITA to install it via Homebrew because macFUSE, a dep for sshfs has turned closed-source and Homebrew would refuse to install sshfs for that reason. You’d have to install macFUSE binary from their official site first, and load their kernel extension via the GUI, before running the Homebrew command to solve it. Which begs the question: if I’m already jumping through…

> if I’m already jumping through hoops to get SSH mounts on macOS to work, why not use Linux already? Jumping through hoops? It's installing a pkg file, takes about a minute and it is a one time operation you will never really need to do again. Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have changed but you will jump through hoops far more often than on macOS. - written from my frankenstein arch linux macbook pro

It’s easy to say so now that I’ve gotten it to work, but the whole process isn’t documented at all on any website.

I daily drive macOS, Debian, and Windows (for personal & work purposes) - the same can be said for Linux (auto mounting a WebDAV share on boot), but at least:

- Linux’s documentation is much more comprehensive than Apple

- whatever you do on Linux some guy from 2003 would have already done so, whereas going from Catalina to Big Sur would’ve seen some big process changes and deprecations

- Intel vs M1 compatibility concerns galore, the only times I need to worry about that on Linux is when I run VMs and LXCs on Proxmox.

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