Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

shkspr.mobi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 740 posts

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

#691

Post by KolenCh »

jedberg wrote: post #571
rsync wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" ... sshfs, which is built on top of FUSE, which is something you can install on a Mac ..." I've given a lot of thought to ssh/sftp mount points (for obvious reasons) and the standard recipe (and support answer) at rsync.net has been FUSE/sshfs. I've even written a handful of scripts and one-liners to support my personal use of sshfs on my own machines, etc. But lately ... I've just switched to using "Mountain Duck"…

You can install sshfs via brew, but it works a lot better if you just download the package manually. That being said, I wouldn't recommend using sshfs on Mac. I used it for about a year, and about 90% of the time it worked great. The rest of the time it would hang, just not sync, not let me write files, etc. and every couple of weeks it would break so badly that a restart was the only fix, usually at the most inoppor…

I remember at some point it would hang and becomes very difficult to remount after that. There was an issue that has a work around but wasn’t fixed by the time I give it up.

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

#692

Post by officeplant »

a10c wrote: post #674
officeplant wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, the fact that everything I want to tweak requires buying an app? I find this is often the case with MacOS, sometimes with open alternatives available. I wanted windows/linux like window snapping and found a free solution called Rectangle[0], but discovered however they do it was causing mouse lag in games. Apple dev friend investigated into it with logs from my machine and discovered they are "just not doing i…

Rectangle is fully open source, so rather than working with the community to fix the problem you're having (about 1/10th the effort you went into debugging the problem), you instead opt for a paid app? What you do if you were using Linux? https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

I don't have the skills or knowledge, I just want working snapping without affecting anything else negatively.

Maybe I should have bugged my dev friend who did the digging to submit a bug report, but I didn't think of that at the time.

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

#693

Post by officeplant »

KolenCh wrote: post #688
officeplant wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, the fact that everything I want to tweak requires buying an app? I find this is often the case with MacOS, sometimes with open alternatives available. I wanted windows/linux like window snapping and found a free solution called Rectangle[0], but discovered however they do it was causing mouse lag in games. Apple dev friend investigated into it with logs from my machine and discovered they are "just not doing i…

why wouldn’t closing the rectangle before launching game be the solution?

Because I don't mind throwing a few bucks at a dev so I can be lazy?

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

#694

Post by spacexsucks »

divan wrote: post #543

I switched from Linux to MacOS around 14 years ago. With Linux it's not only that I could change everything (system font, acceleration of the mouse pointer etc), but I literally HAD to do it. First days after buying new laptop and installing Linux I had to spend of configuring everything – from mouse pointers to Google calendar integration, often with obscure command line or config setups. That was fun. Until I bough…

14 years? I tried cars in 1950 thy were hand crank drove like boats. Imgave up on cars.

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

#695

Post by dotancohen »

kergonath wrote: post #447
dotancohen wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What keyboard shortcuts are you missing in Linux? At least with KDE, I can go the entire day without touching the rodent. And on the rare occasions that I do use the mouse, I'm mostly touching it only for webpages that don't work with Tridactyl, or for highlight-middle-click copy-paste.

I miss the ability to set arbitrary shortcuts and bind them to arbitrary menu items. Also, shortcuts are not very consistent across Linux applications, compared to macOS, which is much more homogenous and less surprising. OTOH, that's not a deal breaker and I keep using both Linux and macOS daily. macOS is frustrating to use without a mouse. On one side the shortcuts are consistent, work everywhere, and are very deep…

  > I miss the ability to set arbitrary shortcuts and bind them to arbitrary menu items.
In each application? Interesting that the OS provides that.

  > macOS is frustrating to use without a mouse.
My experience confirms this as well. I was really expecting an ergonomic, well-polished experience but I found that the Mac is polished like shark skin. It's nice and smooth if you do things - or can force yourself to do things - like the engineer in California does things. But if you like to keep your hands on the keyboard, or organize your applications (not just windows but applications), or anything else then you are going against the grain and that smoothness turns into obstacles and pain points.

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

#696

Post by strzibny »

divan wrote: post #543

I switched from Linux to MacOS around 14 years ago. With Linux it's not only that I could change everything (system font, acceleration of the mouse pointer etc), but I literally HAD to do it. First days after buying new laptop and installing Linux I had to spend of configuring everything – from mouse pointers to Google calendar integration, often with obscure command line or config setups. That was fun. Until I bough…

Most people won't have this trouble with modern Fedora. It's pretty easy.

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

#697

Post by mikro2nd »

scubbo wrote: post #640
mikro2nd wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Yep. My notion isn't so much that you need a general purpose computer to do software development, but more that people who are interested in doing development are more likely than most to be interested in general-purpose computers.

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

#698

Post by randomsearch »

divan wrote: post #543

I switched from Linux to MacOS around 14 years ago. With Linux it's not only that I could change everything (system font, acceleration of the mouse pointer etc), but I literally HAD to do it. First days after buying new laptop and installing Linux I had to spend of configuring everything – from mouse pointers to Google calendar integration, often with obscure command line or config setups. That was fun. Until I bough…

Lots of replies saying Linux has changed. My experience is that it’s exactly the same: potluck. For some people, things just work, for most people they mostly work, and for a good chunk of people it’s a lot of effort to get a usable machine.

I switched to Mac around 2009 and have regularly gone back to Linux. It’s just not appropriate for a workhorse machine that you don’t want to have technical problems with, sadly.

I have a friend who loves Linux, has used it and nothing else since the 90s, and he said he would still never recommend it for anyone but a tinkering hacker.

Linux machines are great for dev, but terrible for any kind of management, and the UX generally sucks. I love Linux but it is not the right tool for the job unless your job is pure dev or you enjoy tinkering. Mac remains the best compromise, but it is a major compromise.

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

#699

Post by zmxz »

subjectsigma wrote: post #441
zmxz wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the person be kidding? Why is it a dumpster fire in your experience? My work PC has the uptime of 3 months right now. I've been using this particular PC for 26 months, with Ubuntu installed. No crashes. No problems. No slowdowns. These testimonials where someone says "but it's " are difficult to relate with. I also scan and print from time to time, I'm not advanced user of scanners/printers - but after plug…

We must live in a different universe then. My Ubuntu desktop crashed three times in one day yesterday. I was trying to run a Windows-only application in WINE and for some reason all of GNOME crashes when I open a pulldown menu. I had to C-M-F1 and use systemctl to restart the window manager. Never did get it working. If testimonials about Linux being unstable are hard to relate to, you are absolutely in the minority…

I'm sure you can see how condescending your comment is, you basically went into discrediting me instantly. For the sake of argument - I've been windows user since 1998 and Linux user since 2005.

I used it for a long time. I had problems with nvidia drivers, before that I had problems with modem drivers and the list goes on, from finding where xorg.conf is to which thing I need to modify so that I can have multiple monitors running. I tried many distros, I used i3wm for extended period of time until the keyboard navigation only started to bore me.

I believe my "membership card" has been shown.

Despite the problems, PopOS and Ubuntu have been very stable for me for the past 2.5 years. Problem is also often in users, who are quick to blame software when it doesn't work the way they imagined it must work. I haven't used software that instantly works great. However, for development (and running containers in particular), Linux has been stable and a total workhorse. I can even put up with uglier UI. It's also the only OS that I can shut down forcibly via button and it won't fall apart.

Could it be that the, often loud minority of angry users, simply reports problems because:

1. they imply knowledge and thus earn internet fame points? 2. they purposely twist the truth because they can? 3. they aren't particularly advanced users to begin with?

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

#700

Post by m463 »

goosedragons wrote: post #673
tristor wrote: post #448

2 of these 3 things, I have done multiple times on a Mac. Mounting NFS is natively supported in macOS and has been for nearly a decade. Mounting SSH is supported by 3rd-party tools, yes, but they're the same cross-platform 3rd-party tool you'd use in Linux... sshfs, which is built on top of FUSE, which is something you can install on a Mac and is not installed by default in most Linux distributions (although fair eno…

MTP is used by basically every single Android phone and tablet. It's also used by some other devices like MP3 players. Because of the first point it's actually extremely widespread...

and garmin watches (wonder if they have android beneath the covers?)
Post reply on HN