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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)

#631

Post by silon42 »

brimble wrote: post #477
jason0597 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? The desktop environment is not, no. Various applications one is likely to run on it are not, compared to some closed-source alternatives, including those provided on macOS. Heavy Linux on the Desktop user for about 10 years, here (~2001-2011). I still try it periodically. I see a lot more bad glitches, X/Wayland crashes (may as well be a whole system crash, on a desktop), a…

Personally, I'd have to spend as much or more time tweaking the mac (finding helper apps) to work the way I want (starting with Ctrl/Alt swap, and then reconfiguring the broken apps).

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

#632

Post by kergonath »

ihuman wrote: post #539
kergonath wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No way to fullscreen a window without moving it into a separate workspace. One of the reasons why I almost never use the full screen feature. You can click on the full screen button on the too left-hand corner of each window whilst holding Option, I think that’s the closest you can do out-of-the box. You can assign a keyboard shortcut for this very easily (seriously, the way we can define keyboard shortcuts for alm…

You can also fullscreen within the workspace by double clicking the window's title bar (or the window's toolbar if it doesn't have a title)

IIRC that’s something to activate in the system preferences and the default behaviour is to minimise the window to the Dock instead.

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

#633

Post by arinlen »

patrickserrano wrote: post #596
arinlen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd pay good money for an 'Always on top' window option on mac. I'd already be happy if maximizing a window on macOS worked reliably.

Out of the box macOS doesn't have a button to maximize the way Windows does. The green button in modern macOS is for full-screen and option-clicking that button will bring back the old "zoom" behavior which expands the window to fit the content being displayed. It's a lot less frustrating of an experience when you realize that the button doesn't do what you assume it does.

I'm not talking about macOS's green button. That doesn't maximize windows: it creates a dedicated workspace which might have one or two windows.

I've referred to macOS's "maximize window" feature, which you trigger by double-clicking a window's title bar.

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

#634

Post by NwtnsMthd »

ryandrake wrote: post #521
dahfizz wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mouse acceleration curve on Mac drives me insane. There is a way to set it to "0" with some command line incantation, but it still does not set it to 0. Also, the fact that I can't independently control the scroll direction of mice and trackpads is insane to me. The whole selling point of Apple is that "it just works" , but I can't even get my mouse working properly! That's like the lowest bar for an OS.

How do you "zero mouse acceleration" people survive? I have three monitors side by side. If I went with zero mouse acceleration, I'd need a 3 meter wide mouse pad in order to be able to move the mouse cursor edge to edge! Or do you do that mouse bicycle move where you constantly pick the mouse up, bring it back to its original position, move it some more, pick it back up, and so on? Such a weird subculture :)

Large mouse pads.

Growing up playing first person shooters has wired my mind to a degree that it's difficult to overcome the muscle memory. This makes mouse acceleration terribly frustrating. Fortunately, using a track pad with mouse acceleration doesn't use the same muscles and is much more bearable (if slower) to use.

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

#635

Post by freedomben »

jkubicek wrote: post #605
411111111111111 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "it just works" It does just work. You're just using it wrong. Keep that second sentence in mind whenever people say that first line and you'll never have any issues with apple fans

My secret to happiness on a Mac: focus your energy on figuring out how the designers want you to use a tool. Don't fight the design, work with it. Don't change the defaults, live with them. Some folks love to fiddle with settings and tweak configs to get everything just right... but this is a recipe for disappointment when an upgrade removes the secret config you found or hard-codes a setting that was previously avai…

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted because your opinion is (in my opinion) perfectly valid. I spent 6 to 12 months forced onto a Mac by the company I worked for and I reached the same conclusion. Learning to subjugate one's personal preferences to the way the designers designed it is a good strategy on Mac (and to some extent Gnome on Linux).

I spent untold hours on Mac trying to recreate my Linux environment, and after cobbling together a number of different tools (some paid, some not) I got it pretty close - and then a new version of the OS came out and broke everything. It took a few months before most of the tools I used were updated, and due to accessibility API changes some of them never did get updated.

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

#636

Post by greedo »

dahfizz wrote: post #586
aenis wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used a total of three external monitors with the original m1, via a displaylink hub. Saying "m1 does not support it" is not accurate. Its not like a amd 3950x supports any external monitors, does it?..

If you want to be pedantic... The Apple m1 is an SoC, not a CPU. It is not comparable to an AMD 3950X. It is perfectly reasonable to talk about the display capabilities of an SoC, because the GPU and display controllers are built into the SoC. Apple themselves markets the macbook air as supporting: > One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz[1] And yes, I'm aware of the display link hacks. This works by e…

If you want to be pedantic...

You mentioned the M1, which is an SoC, not a computer. So when you said the M1 only supports one external monitor, you were being vague and incorrect. The M1 Mac Air only supports one monitor, but the M1 Mac mini supports two. If you expand the M1 SoC to encompass both the Pro, Max and Ultra versions, you can connect 3, 4, and 5 displays respectively.

14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro: Two external displays at up to 6K over USB-C and one at up to 4K over HDMI 2.0

14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Max: Three external displays at up to 6K over USB-C and one at up to 4K over HDMI 2.0

Mac Studio with M1 Max or M1 Ultra: Four displays at up to 6K over USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 and and one at up to 4K over HDMI 2.0

https://www.macworld.com/article/347919/how-many-monitors-ca...

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

#637

Post by lilyball »

mmis1000 wrote: post #621
wingerlang wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are these people? I absolutely hate fullscreen in macOS and literally only use it for fullscreen videos and the like. What part of the window doesn't work well?

Snapping/alignment, gesture. The alignment, it don't even support snapping, place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible, and the + on window go fullscreen unless you hold opt. You can't just swipe to switch between window. You can only swipe between desktop. I'd wonder which part in mac's window manager actually works well (compares to other desktop manager)?

> place two windows side by side properly is just like impossible

macOS has supported automatic snapping while dragging windows for years now. Just drag it slowly when you're approaching the edge of the other window and the window you're dragging will snap to it

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

#638

Post by Damogran6 »

nine_k wrote: post #388
ubermonkey wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like "my use case defines what a computer is," which is absolutely as tiresome an argument as any fanboy debate. I imagine iOS can't do those things, either, and yet an iPad is the computing platform of choice for an awful lot of people because it meets their computing needs. Examine your biases here.

(1) Good hardware with good software support goes a long way. I'd say that iOS is much more of a polished OS than macOS. No wonder, considering that it's the iOS devices that fuel Apple's profits, not Macbooks. (2) For a lot of people, an iPad is more of a consumption device, or a device to run 2-3 specialized apps (e.g. for drawing or music). Maybe they would be glad if iOS offered wider universal computing capabili…

Your #1 is not a valid statement. OS, be it Mac, iOS, WatchOS, TVOS has a huge shared codebase. It's all OS, tweaked to the particular need of the hardware.

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

#639

Post by rsync »

Klonoar wrote: post #606
rsync wrote: post #517

I thought focusfollowsmouse was now available inside accessibility settings menu ? That is, without any third party additions, I was under the impression you could achieve FFM by enabling a very particular setting inside the accessibility menu in system settings. I can't test this because I don't have a modern enough OSX running in my office but I swear I saw this as of High Sierra or something. Am I making this up ?

Oh, wow. I thought I was going crazy but this comment makes me think maybe not. When I was skimming this thread last night I was positive this was an option at one point but when I went into System Preferences to look I could no longer find it. Was making me lose my mind. Or maybe we’re at a Berenstein/Berenstain situation here.

Well, again, I cannot look as I do not have any OSX running later than El Capitan ... but if anyone wants to poke around accessibility settings and look ...

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

#640

Post by scubbo »

mikro2nd wrote: post #357
smarmgoblin wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a toy yes, or as a specialised tool for video or audio rendering I think this is a useful framing. Apple markets an appliance like a microwave or a refrigerator — both of those are computers in a sense but function only in a specific narrow capacity. You can warm a potato (if it’s in one location and the door is closed), but you can’t move arbitrary bytes around regardless of the capacity of the underlying hardw…

I'm willing to accept your argument that a Mac is not a general purpose computer. It then begs the question of why these devices are so popular for software development...?

Software Development is also a specific purpose. One that has a much broader range of requirements than (e.g.) a microwave, but still. It is entirely possible that Macbooks fulfill those requirements while lacking some other properties required of a general purpose computer.

(I'm not claiming that that's true - simply that your implication that "it is necessary to have a general purpose computer in order to develop software" is untrue)

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