Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X. • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by yuhong » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 6:04 AM UTC

flomo wrote: post #237

pat2man wrote: post #124

When Apple release System 7 in 1991 people everywhere started complaining about the new changes and how it was worse than System 6. For instance it required a hard drive and couldn't boot off a floppy. Meanwhile the end users adopted it imediately and never looked back. Most of the complaints in the article are about features that we as developers love but that end users could care less about. As a developer I love g…

System 7 was definitely slower on the most common hardware of the day (1MB toaster macs). My college had entire labs of machines stuck on 6.0.8 for a long time afterwards.

Actually, I don't think System 7 could even run on 1MB Macs.

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

#372

Post by nitrogen » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 6:05 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #303

nitrogen wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not the only one to use vertical maximization. I really liked being able to middle-click the maximize button for vertical, or right-click for horizontal. It seems that's no longer the case in Gnome-3-hacked-to-look-like-Gnome-2-in-Ubuntu-11.10. I suppose it's replaced by Windows 7-style border dragging, but that's less flexible as you can only do maximize, left half, or right half.

I've got that action keybound to alt-space on my desktop. Which would be WindowMaker. Key benefits: virtually no development, Steve Jobs designed it, but for engineers on UNIX (well, NeXT), not idiots, and it's ~20 years old, so it's balazzzzzingly fucking fast on modern HW. Stays the fuck out of my face, lets me get shit done.

When I first saw a fully customized WindowMaker in 2002, I thought, "Wow, HollywoodOS does exist!" Back when Linux used to come with several functional desktops, AfterStep and WindowMaker (both clones of NeXTStep) were my favorite, followed by Enlightenment (the only place I've ever seen window buttons on the side of the window).

I can't explain your downvotes...

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

#373

Post by crazysim » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 6:08 AM UTC

angstrom wrote: post #305

sycren wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I use tools like Divvy http://mizage.com/#macdivvy more than I use the zoom icon, it makes it so much easier to position windows..

Looks a little like ShiftIt (a similar utility) http://code.google.com/p/shiftit/

You want to use the github fork which is still being developed.

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

#374

Post by earl » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 6:51 AM UTC

subsection1h wrote: post #366

earl wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Huh, thanks, I had no idea such large discounts were available for lenovo hardware.

I used to pay attention to fatwallet but I removed all that stuff from my life because I felt like I was buying a ton of crap I didn't really want or need, just because DEAL DEAL DEAL was arriving in my inbox / rss all the time...

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

#375

Post by earl » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 6:59 AM UTC

ugh wrote: post #63

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…

OS X obviously isn’t for you. OS X doesn’t have some features you would like it to have or you need. Looking at the features you are missing it doesn’t seem like they are central for most users. If a feature is not there you simply can’t use the OS. That’s fair enough. It just doesn’t seem like that’s really a problem OS X has. Especially when you are coming from a different background it also can be hard to understa…

if in terminal options you select "use option as meta key" [1], then option-b and option-f move forward / backward on words as normal in bash. You can also remap caps-local to control.

[1] http://earlh.com/dump/hn/terminal_settings_meta_key.jpeg

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

#376

Post by philwelch » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 7:34 AM UTC

kitsune_ wrote: post #343

philwelch wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from what Apple's done so far, if they really wanted to turn the Mac into an iPad, they would just quit selling Macs and try selling more iPads. Does it actually affect you that Apple isn't selling XServe anymore? It made some sense when Macs had PPC chips and PPC had a performance advantage, but nowadays I can't think of a good use for a rack-mounted Mac. Likewise, I'm going to miss the Mac Pro too, but have…

Thunderbolt doesn't "obviate" the need for slots. Do you have 10k plus invested in pro audio or video gear that requires pci-e? All those guys are going to switch to Windows...

There are PCI-E enclosures that connect to Thunderbolt:

http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp

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

#377

Post by fauigerzigerk » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 7:43 AM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #319

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #55

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 t…

Two things have made the Mac a little more comfortable for me recently. One is an OS extension/plugin called Witch. It allows you to switch between all open windows in MRU order the same way Alt+Tab does on Linux and Windows.

The other one is to enable "All Controls" on the keyboard shortcut preferences panel. That allows you to use the tab key to move between active buttons in confirmation dialogs like "do you want to save changes?".

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

#378

Post by dylangs1030 » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 7:47 AM UTC

I have to be honest, I really just don't agree. I use Mac OS X Snow Leopard (I'd upgrade to Lion, but it's not a priority right now). I can see why things like the windows not maximizing, etc. would be annoying. Here's a perspective, though:

1. That issue of windows not resizing is generally a complaint made by native Windows users who are already used to that property. I'm not saying this makes it an invalid complaint, just putting it in context.

2. Compared with Linux, Mac OS X has more support (this doesn't mean it's superior). Compared with Windows, Mac OS X (at least in my experience) is more sensitive to power users and coders, and people who know what they're doing more. Now, I've used different distributions of Linux, and ideally, I love Linux most. But it just doesn't have as much support as Mac OS X because proprietary backing breeds rapid progress (in the sense of universal or near universal support at least). Sometimes you have to fork your own solution when you're confronted with a problem in Linux. This also happens in OS X, but often times, there's more trouble shooting advice or solutions freely available and accessible. Just a perspective.

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

#379

Post by DanBC » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 7:51 AM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #157

DanBC wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$14 USD for something which is standard in most Linux desktop environments? (And is probably standard in Windows, but I can't remember.) This is exactly what people complain about. Yes, this stuff can be done, but you need to set a bunch of options via the command line (no problem, but annoying if you have lots of stuff you want tweaked); then set a bunch of program options; then install a bunch of apps (some of whic…

Why do you turn your Mac on and off all the time? Sleep works fine. Just close the lid and stuff it in your bag, then open it up again. Yes I know it never worked on Windows. It works on a Mac.* The only reason I reboot is for an OS update or for the occasional installer that's too stupid to just launch the services it just threw into the "start this at launch" system. * well eeeevery now and then shit gets in the wa…

Sleep has trouble with USB drives; sleep will just disconnect them uncleanly. Data loss and corrupt discs is not a feature of something that I would call "works fine".

There are other problems with sleep, but that's the most obvious.

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

#380

Post by robryan » Sun, Nov 13, 2011, 7:53 AM UTC

sjs wrote: post #353

quanticle wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your expectations don't make it broken. It's not 1990 anymore. All operating systems manufacturers need to understand that the vast majority of users have used Windows and are used to Windows' UI conventions. At the very least, one should offer a way for the Windows user to discover what the new conventions are, rather than having to Google and find websites that other people have made when they made the same transi…

> It's not 1990 anymore. All the more reason not to have a maximize button. Displays only get more pixels year to year.

There is probably more work to do out the box to change this perception though. OSX needs to introduce the user to this when they first open an app then make it dead simple to control.