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

RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

ravynos.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 387 posts

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#321

Post by LASR »

johnisgood wrote: post #257
Naracion wrote: post #237

Ex graphic designer here, but don't (and never have) used Mac. I highly respect this project and initiative, and the following is more a commentary on my own reaction than your product. I read the title--finesse of MacOS. I open the link, and the first thing I see at the top is the circular raven logo vertically misaligned with the header on mobile. That made me think, okay let's try desktop version instead, so I swi…

> I don't use Linux, so I'll never really use this product Isn't it FreeBSD?

Yeah it’s a common misconception.

This is closer to macOS than it is to Linux.

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#322

Post by mhermher »

SllX wrote: post #318
WhyNotHugo wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double click on the titlebar on MacOS means "expand as much as possible to fit all content". Not "maximise". Of course, I'd argue that maximise is the intuitive thing to expect, but the behaviour is not strictly broken, just... odd.

Strictly speaking it’s just different. The behavior is inherited from the classic Mac OS which initially predates and was developed contemporaneously with Windows. Apple assigned one behavior and Microsoft assigned another. To the extent that one is “more intuitive” it’s because your expectations as to what should happen is different, and “maximize” is a lot easier to behaviorally define, describe and program than “z…

That's where window snapping comes into play. Maximize + Snapping is a much better system that "a hundred arbitrarily sized and arbitrarily overlapping windows". It's very much the opposite of finesse.

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#323

Post by grishka »

fipar wrote: post #239
grishka wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then a question: how does one call these APIs from another language? You can use Objective-C frameworks from anything that can call C functions, by manually doing objc_msgSend and all the related stuff. But will you have to write a Swift wrapper for these?

I would guess that's the linker's job? I don't need to do that in my day to day job, but I do remember that as part of an OS class at school (some 20+ years ago) one of the tasks we were assigned was that we had to work in pairs of teams, where one team would implement a function and another team would implement code that called that function, the only requirement being that both teams had to use different languages.…

In many languages you need to somehow define the symbols you import before the linker comes into play. How would you define Swift symbols for C++? For Java? For Rust? And that's provided their linkers would actually know what the Swift ABI is — and they most probably don't. So I guess your only option would be to descend all the way down to assembly and shove the right things into the right registers and then jump to the right place.

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#324

Post by systemvoltage »

Naracion wrote: post #237

Ex graphic designer here, but don't (and never have) used Mac. I highly respect this project and initiative, and the following is more a commentary on my own reaction than your product. I read the title--finesse of MacOS. I open the link, and the first thing I see at the top is the circular raven logo vertically misaligned with the header on mobile. That made me think, okay let's try desktop version instead, so I swi…

From a product marketing standpoint, they could have picked a better name. My brain keeps going "Rav-yin" instead of "Raven".

I know why these kinds of pseudo words are chosen for products, they're unique and easy to search. But there are better ways to do this IMO. FreeBSD is a prime example of a great product name.

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#325

Post by Delk »

bogwog wrote: post #225
jamil7 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the FAQ: The short answer is "hardware support". ravynOS should run on most commodity x86_64 hardware using FreeBSD's very stable and performant drivers. The longer answer is that plus I don't see any real advantage to using xnu. We have merged in Mach support now (big thanks to NetBSD, NextBSD and the iX Systems folks for that) so the xnu approach just seems to add complexity and the effort of writing and maint…

Regarding hardware support, will this run on actual Apple silicon? If not, it seems like Linux would have been the better choice for maximizing hardware support, if only for Asahi Linux's work. (btw, I don't know much about this kind of work, so I have no idea if it's feasible to port the drivers from Asahi to FreeBSD, or if they'll have to start mostly from scratch)

I know nothing about the project apart from the website, but the front page says they aren't a fan of the "ever-closing hardware", so I guess Apple silicon might not be a priority.

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#326

Post by microtonal »

smoldesu wrote: post #317
stonemetal12 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you close all open firefox windows is firefox still running? On MacOS it is. On windows and Linux it isn't. It has nothing to do with "other apps"

How can you make it behave like Linux and Windows? I don't want my applications to persist when their visual presence is gone, it's disingenuous to the user.

it's disingenuous to the user

That is nonsense. It is just a different model and the model Mac users have been used to since the 80ies. When I close a window/document, I often want to another document with the same application, so why close it? If I want to close an applications, I can use Cmd-q. Moreover, their visual presence is not gone, such an application is still in the Dock and in the app switcher.

And why do I care if an application continues running? If it hasn't been used for some time, macOS compresses its pages. And inactive native applications will be put in App Nap, which freezes the application, so that it doesn't use system resources until it is activated again.

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#327

Post by moondev »

smoldesu wrote: post #310
moogleii wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Windows, there's a separation of concepts between "application" and "windows" on Mac. Closing all the windows of an app doesn't imply closing the app. I actually think the Windows way is sloppy (and I came from Windows). I want that kind of granular control. So many times back in the day, I'd accidentally close all my Internet Explorer windows, and have to pay the time-cost of reopening the app from scratch. I…

On the contrary, leaving so many apps open can make my machine feel like it's "dragging" when I really push it, mostly because I have software open that I'm not using. Especially on Macs, where memory comes at an extreme premium, I find myself frequently frustrated by the number of applications I have open. This also happens on Windows with tray-minimized apps, but to a much lesser extent. In either case, I find both…

I've seen this on Linux too, specifically with this VPN application https://github.com/yuezk/GlobalProtect-openconnect

Closing it via the "x" will minimize to tray and hide (which is the behavior I want, but an example nonetheless)

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#328

Post by sbf501 »

smoldesu wrote: post #317
stonemetal12 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you close all open firefox windows is firefox still running? On MacOS it is. On windows and Linux it isn't. It has nothing to do with "other apps"

How can you make it behave like Linux and Windows? I don't want my applications to persist when their visual presence is gone, it's disingenuous to the user.

Uh oh: Haven't you ever typed "ps aux"? :)

There is a third space on mac, different from a menubar, called "dock". In the old days it was integrated into the main persistent menu bar, but was removed maybe in the early 2000's. Personally I prefer one menubar, but at least I can hide the dock.

EDIT: "dock" not "launchpad". Duh.

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#329

Post by denysonique »

numbers wrote: post #313

Can it get the font rendering to the level that macOS or iOS have? If yes, then it's getting there. The few things that scream to me that I'm not using a mac: 1. Antialiasing of fonts, how crisp and clear does it look on my screen? Windows has struggled with this especially after ClearType. 2. Alignment of elements in various applications. The traffic light window controls look way too far into the app's header. Find…

There used to be Infinitaly that somewhat helped with that.

If you find your fonts rendered to thin compared to macOS you may try changing some of the freetype settings, such as:

    FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35 autofitter:no-stem-darkening=0 cff:no-stem-darkining=0"

Re: RavynOS – Finesse of macOS, freedom of FreeBSD

#330

Post by amaccuish »

sbf501 wrote: post #294
hiccuphippo wrote: post #256

Does MacOS really have that finesse they try to emulate? First thing I noticed when I started using a mac is that double clicking the Finder titlebar only expands it vertically while every other app expands both vertically and horizontally. Second thing, when I close a window and then press Cmd+tab, the icon is still there, and if I select it nothing shows up. There's more of these everyday things that work sloppy so…

It's not "sloppy" it is just a different approach. It drives me nuts on Windows that when I close FireFox the entire APPLICATION closes! I just wanted to close the window. Now when I start it again / open a new window, I have to enter my LastPass credentials. And pay the boot penalty. IMHO, a multi-window app should not exit when I close the last window. Linux Desktops and Windows both do this, macOS does not.

I'm the complete other way. First thing I did when setting up MacOS was to install RedQuits. I think it stopped working sometime after an update. I never liked my dock crowding up with things.

And with Firefox, it would make the "Restore all tabs on open" not work, since clicking X didn't close the app, and thus pressing Firefox again would just create a new empty window. For it to work, I had to not use the red button, but cmd + q or the menu bar.

Post reply on HN