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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.

#361

Post by megamark16 »

Caballera wrote: post #171
megamark16 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to judge it based on your existing preconceptions, of course it's going to come up short. Guilty as charged. I used a Mac for about 9 months, and I never got used to it, I never stopped being frustrated by the things that were difficult, annoying, or just plain Fisher Price dumbed down by default. I'm a developer, I could (and for a lot things I did) figure stuff out, tinker with stuff, but I just was…

I went from being a total Windows junkie to loving OSX since I switched over in May. No regrets. My windows desktop is left sitting, while I use my MacBook Pro all the time. I don't know exactly what you consider dumbed down, while some parts are now hidden, they can easily be found with minimum effort.

It's certainly not dumbed down compared to Windows. Shoot, you've got a full bash shell included out of the box! It only felt dumbed down (or maybe I should say "locked down, and candy coated") when compared to my Linux desktop, which gives me a huge amount of customization freedom and built in power tools. I went from Windows to Linux, then to OSX, and I missed a lot of things about Linux while not feeling like I gained anything extra. I'd take OSX over Windows any day, but at the end of the day I want to be working in Linux.

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

#362

Post by mturmon »

Tichy wrote: post #155
HSO wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suum cuique but some of your concerns really aren't: > 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. They changed that in Lion to every corner, every side. And you don't have to press ALT to do it. > When I click the Maximize bu…

I think your comments just highlight the user unfriendlyness. Am I really supposed to enter some cryptic shell command I copied from the internet to be able to see my hidden files? I can never remember keyboard shortcuts, even for screenshots I have to Google every time because I make them only infrequently. Instead of buying an alternative file manager, why not just install another OS...

There are a lot of options that are modified by the plist mechanism ("defaults write ..."). They tend to be little things of a very unixy character that serious nerds would like.

It makes about as much sense as changing a .login or .profile or .ssh/config or .emacs or .exrc or .Xdefaults or ... . At least it's always the same tools and the same file format.

Like you, I don't remember the screenshot shortcuts. I know vi and emacs bindings backwards and forwards, but I don't much like remembering special-purpose bindings. So I just use "Grab", the screenshot app (comes standard with OS X).

Grab saves in .tiff. If you want .png, just use:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

;-)

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

#363

Post by mturmon »

sjs wrote: post #285
mrgordon wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The full-screen mode is terrible. It leaves everything but your main monitor completely empty, making it essentially unusable for anyone with multiple monitors. Homebrew is awesome but it should be way easier to compile from source without installing Xcode.

> Homebrew is awesome but it should be way easier to compile from source without installing Xcode. If it was a real issue someone would have packaged up GCC or LLVM. There is absolutely nothing that prevents anyone from doing this. The truth is that nobody actually minds installing Xcode to get a compiler. Or at least the few who do don't actually care enough to do something about it .

And if you get Xcode, you also have Shark for performance optimization.

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

#364

Post by watmough »

sounds wrote: post #352
watmough wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fixed my WiFi not reconnecting by zapping my PRAM. Cmd-Opt-P-R on boot and hold down until you get a couple of loud bongs. Yeah! I know! First time doing that has ever fixed a damn thing for me, but not reconnecting to my WiFi was starting to become an annoyance. This was on a new main logic board on my 2007 MBP running a fresh install of Lion 10.7.2 copied out of the Install app and burned to an 8GB USB key.

Switched to a Broadcom chip and still can't resolve all the silicon-level bugs. http://wiki.debian.org/MacBook Broadcom may make Tim Cook happier, but Atheros is more the "Steve" of wifi chips. However, the 2007 MBP uses Atheros - yours is actually a different issue.

I actually made myself a Broadcom airport card, for less than $20 and it's faultless. Atheros cards have always worked great for me too.

The only time I've ever had WiFi problems is under really really old versions of Ubuntu on a ThinkPad.

I suspect a lot of problems are caused by interference, or really densely populated areas. Even out here in the boonies of North Houston, there are 8 - 10 WiFi networks visible, neighbors etc.

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

#365

Post by mturmon »

__david__ wrote: post #254
megamark16 wrote: post #39

I came from a windows background, tinkered with Linux for a few years on and off, and when I started my current job I was given a Macbook Pro. After a few months of using it I as so frustrated, and found myself spending more and more time in my Ubuntu virtual machine, that when they were ordering new MBPs for the design team I offered to give mine up to a designer and buy a ThinkPad, thus saving the company over $1,0…

> In the default Terminal app, there are no shortcuts (at least none that I could figure out) for moving around the text I'm typing quickly, like going forward and back a whole word, or going Home or End, you have to hold down the left or right arrows for a while. What? I don't think you understand how terminals work! The terminal commands (on every terminal I've used for the past 20 years) are interpreted by the ser…

And those commands have to be interpreted by the shell (e.g., bash) and not by the terminal emulator, because power users expect the shell to jump in, in the middle of a line, and provide information -- such as in-place file globbing or variable expansion, or command completion.

The parent comment must not be used to this standard capability.

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

#366

Post by subsection1h »

earl wrote: post #329
megamark16 wrote: post #39

I came from a windows background, tinkered with Linux for a few years on and off, and when I started my current job I was given a Macbook Pro. After a few months of using it I as so frustrated, and found myself spending more and more time in my Ubuntu virtual machine, that when they were ordering new MBPs for the design team I offered to give mine up to a designer and buy a ThinkPad, thus saving the company over $1,0…

I'm not hating on your preferences, but mac laptops are competitively priced. There's no way you got equivalent hardware for $1k less. also, cmd-G lets you type a path in finder. That is, btw, on the first result page if you google "finder type path", without the quotes.

    I'm not hating on your preferences, but mac laptops
    are competitively priced. There's no way you got
    equivalent hardware for $1k less.
Lenovo offers sales, coupons, and other deals. Signing up for deal alerts at sites like SlickDeals and FatWallet can result in huge savings. The last ThinkPad I bought was nearly 60% under retail.

Many Mac users seem to be unaware that products can be sold for less than retail price. I can understand not wanting to waste time searching for deals, but signing up for a deal alert for the words "Lenovo", "ThinkPad" or whatever takes mere seconds.

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

#367

Post by X-Istence »

dhughes wrote: post #311
X-Istence wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 kee…

You didn't read what I had typed.

Hold Fn and then hit Delete. Problem solved.

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

#368

Post by X-Istence »

brown9-2 wrote: post #284
X-Istence wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works for me right out of the box on a brand new Lion install. No settings have been changed yet.

Didn't realize that "alt" here meant the "esc" key.

I am talking about the "alt/option" key on the keyboard. No "esc".

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

#369

Post by subsection1h »

ricardobeat wrote: post #340
megamark16 wrote: post #39

I came from a windows background, tinkered with Linux for a few years on and off, and when I started my current job I was given a Macbook Pro. After a few months of using it I as so frustrated, and found myself spending more and more time in my Ubuntu virtual machine, that when they were ordering new MBPs for the design team I offered to give mine up to a designer and buy a ThinkPad, thus saving the company over $1,0…

Looks like you gave up on it before trying. It can do everything you complain about. Homebrew beats apt-get any day of the week.

   Homebrew beats apt-get any day of the week.
Great argument. I'm convinced.

By the way, apt-get is an inteface for APT, and one of many, so you should have stated that Homebrew beats APT. And of course, you wouldn't have needed to substantiate that claim either, because you are, after all, ricardobeat.

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

#370

Post by sjs »

subsection1h wrote: post #359
sjs wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you asked a friend or searched Google instead of writing your problems here perhaps you would have found the solutions. You took time to learn how to use Linux and the shell, why not take some time to learn how to use OS X as well before complaining that it doesn't do what you want? It does do most of the things you mentioned, and when it doesn't it's by design. Resizing from any side: Legitimate complaint. Fixed…

And Xmonad and the like seem primitive compared to just adding tiling goodies (Divvy, SizeUp) to a standard WM to get the best of both worlds. I don't use Xmonad and I don't know what you meant by "the like", but Awesome WM is vastly more powerful[1] than the OS X WM with any add-ons that I've encountered. [1] http://awesome.naquadah.org/doc/

By "the like" I mean tiling WMs. "Primitive" was the wrong word, I should have said "intrusive".

I used tiling WMs almost exclusively for quite a while. My problem with them is that they tile by default, which is fine for some things but I find it much less intrusive to add tiling actions to a "regular" WM. So I can do things like "move this window there", "make this window occupy the left half of this display", etc. I found that I really only ever wanted a handful of these kinds of commands. Your mileage will almost certainly vary.

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