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Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

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Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#311
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes true it's a hardware issue not OS and yes that's one option to use an external keyboard but I don't want to drag an external keyboard around with me otherwise I wouldn't have bought a laptop. The lack of a delete key actually labeled "delete" (not backspace labeled "delete") just seems to be a glaring error along with no separate number keypad. More thought went into making it look pretty than to make it useful.…

How do you want them to fit a number keypad on a laptop? Fn + Delete does what you want.

The speakers (on a 17" Macbook Pro) could be relocated, they're not much use where they are when I type since my hands block the sound partially anyway why not move then and expand the keyboard?

No, pressing the Delete key makes the cursor go back a space. On Linux and Windows Delete pulls the text in from the right towards the cursor deleting it.

I know Apple Macs are different but it seems odd why they wouldn't keep similar methods of using the keyboard, they made Darwin based on BSD (yes?) they obviously didn't keep the Delete and Backspace or does BSD not have Backspace only Delete?

As I said I'm new to Mac but triple booting would be nicer if 1 of the 3 OS versions didn't have a keyboard that was so weird.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#312
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They removed it for all apps that auto save. Save as doesn’t really make sense if an app auto saves and only serves to confuse. You now duplicate and then save.

When I saw the previews for Lion I thought autosave seemed like overkill. When I'm working on anything I "autosave" by reaching over slightly and hitting CMD-S every time I make any small amount of progress. The last time I experienced significant data/progress loss was probably about 3 years ago before I developed this habit. I don't see what problem they're trying to fix.

"When I'm working on anything I "autosave" by reaching over slightly and hitting CMD-S every time I make any small amount of progress."

I would say this is exactly the problem they are trying to fix.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#313
For an old (but still largely relevant) laundry list of things on Mac that drive Linux fans nuts (and generally, back to Linux), there's a 2006 ORA DevCenter article by Chromatic, "Switching Back". Both the column and comments are still highly germane.

http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/linux/2006/06/01/switching-back...

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#314

I think Tim is on crack. Snow Leopard was specifically about refactoring and bug fixes—huge under the hood improvements. It's true that Lion has some annoying bugs, but so did previous versions, I wouldn't say it's buggier on the whole (I certainly see far fewer kernel panics than I used to see circa 10.3/10.4). Lion is ambitious, so there are definitely some annoying UI changes, but there are a lot of meaty changes…

I just got a new Air, and began using Lion, I have to say I've been very, very pleased. Especially on this machine it seems like it was naturally made for this type of computer. I use Alfred, but confession, I sometimes find myself using Launchpad... Though this seems to be true of most new OS X features they've introduced over the years, I plan not to use them, decide to give them a try, and end up really liking it.

The only thing I can't do is the natural scrolling, because I switch between too many computers at work.

I share the App Store concern, but I think they're going to find the right solution, developers have always been a key part of their plans, they get things wrong of course, but they tend to make it right, just not always as fast as people want - understandable gripe.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I liked text manipulations shortcuts in native text input fields. They are very consistent and easy to get used to. Option (Alt) means "word". Opt+Left — move one word left, Opt+Right — move one word right. Cmd means "all". Cmd+left — move to beginning of line, Cmd+right — move to the end of line, Cmd+up — move to the beginning of the text, Cmd+down — move to the end of text. PgDown/PgUp/Home/End mean the s…

As a relatively recent Mac convert, the whole "Option (Alt)" thing still gets me. I regularly see shortcut hints and then have to sit there for a few seconds thinking "Which one's the Option key again?"

The confusion is in part perpetuated by Apple, who can't seem to make up their mind on the matter.

My UK MacBook Pro keyboard has "alt" and doesn't mention "option" at all. They have also shipped keyboards that just say option (no mention of alt). Many of their keyboards have both printed on them.

In most of their user-facing documentation it is referred to as the "Option" key. In Cocoa, it is the "Alternate" key.

The menus don't mention either: they use the ⌥ symbol. Which is on some, but not all of their keyboards.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In OSX you can only resize a window in the bottom right corner, in Ubuntu I can resize from any corner, or I can hold Alt and middle click anywhere near a corner of a window to start resizing it. No more hunting for the resize sweetspot. In Lion it's possible to resize from any window border. I don't know what these other complaints are. Personally, coming from Windows & Ubuntu, I just fell in love with the way ever…

"everything just works". haha. I like your sarcasm I hear that so often from Mac fans,... just after they get done telling me about their latest problem. As an owner/user of 4 macs, 3 windows machines and 3 ubuntu machines my personal mac experience has had no more or less problems than my windows or ubuntu experiences.

That's the mantra we all repeat at work when somebody's Mac crashes or just generally makes life difficult in some way.

I've banished my Macbook to the corner of my office, where it will stay until the next time I go on foreign travel. For SC11, I brought along my Thinkpad X201 tablet with Debian and Stumpwm; it just works.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miles ahead how? It's the same thing, but written in Ruby instead of Perl (Fink) or Tcl (MacPorts).

Homebrew tries to use the default libs and utilities that come with OS X / Xcode. MacPorts and Fink try to create their own little microcosm of a Linux system complete with all libraries and utilities. They generally seem to fail at this because major packages are broken all the time and conflict in a million little ways with the system ones.

MacPorts and Fink try to create their own little microcosm of a Linux system complete with all libraries and utilities.

That's more like a philosophical (and failure prone) difference that both Fink and MacPorts intentionally abandoned through experience, not really a "miles ahead" difference.

Not reproducing Apple's OS dependencies is a nice idea, but let's say I want to use python2.7 with openssl 1.0. Apple only shipped openssl 0.9.8 in Lion. If I mix modules that use OpenSSL 1.0 and OpenSSL 0.9.8, weird stuff happens. Now what?

(The answer is: now you have to start reproducing OS dependencies. This only gets worse as the OS dependencies grow more stale).

They generally seem to fail at this because major packages are broken all the time and conflict in a million little ways with the system ones.

I haven't observed this.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#319

I'm using OS X right now but I really hate all OSs at this point. OS X is a usability nightmare for me, slowing me down even after many years of using it and trying to adapt to its ways. Lion is buggy on top of that (never ending wifi troubles). Linux has huge driver issues and the package managers make me think like a data center sysadmin rather than the sole user of a dev workstation that I am. And Windows is horri…

Got to agree ... every OS these days seems to annoy me in huge ways. I was surprised after I moved to a Mac that it had huge usability issues and even a lot of basic bugs. For some reason I always just accepted that Apple nailed usability but OSX (Snow Leopard) was annoying as hell. I miss so much the standard ability to navigate menus with hotkeys in Windows. I'm forced to use the mouse for a huge number of things that I never had to in Windows.

But then in Windows there are an almost equally number of annoying things, the primary being the lack of a Unix-like environment by default. I end up going with Cygwin but that has all its own issues.

Then Linux is just a neverending pita with driver issues, crappy versions of things like Skype, no possibility of MS Office, etc.

In the end I don't particularly care what OS I use because I know each and every one is just going to require me to customise the crap out of it before I'm happy (I will say for Windows and Linux that I nearly always end up getting there, so far with OSX I'm not and I'm not optimistic about the future with the direction Apple is moving).

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#320
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a teenager before a date Mac seems to be entirely about looks, oh everything works well both OS and hardware but sometimes it seems looks come before function. No separate delete or backspace keys, no multiple desktops, breathtakingly expensive hardware and software, awkward layout of files in the GUI, closing apps frustrating X doesn't close the app it minimizes it but you also have a minimize button (??), am I…

When's the last time you used one? There've been multiple desktops ("Spaces") since 2006. And I've never had any confusion between copying, pasting, and cutting. Ever. Unless you're talking about expecting that weird-ass Windows behavior where you "cut" files to copy them around? Why's "open two windows and drag stuff to move, maybe with alt held down to copy" so hard? OSX makes a big distinction between "quitting an…

Last time I used a Mac? As I said this is my first one ever.

My comparisons are the different behaviour between Mac, Linux and Windows or specifically how Windows and Linux are similar but Apple OS X is just slightly (annoyingly) different.

I right-click on a file there isn't any visible/intuitive option to move not copy that file to another location other than just copy it. Don't you find that weird? Forget keyboard shortcuts there are probably hundreds for each OS that nobody ever uses or knows about, in fact most people I know at work are shocked when shown CTRL+X, CTRL+V, CTRL+C. Yes Command+C copies, Command+V pastes but Command+X does nothing except play a mellow jazzy error sound.

I can't even delete a file using Delete key now you have to admit that's screwy! Pick a file, click to select press Delete - nothing happens.

Who knows maybe I'll get used it to that's my point for getting a Mac I'm just amazed at OS X's awkward differences between Windows and Linux. Different isn't bad it's just different.

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