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Home truths about macOS

eclecticlight.co

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Re: Home truths about macOS

#101

Post by lapcat »

Maursault wrote: post #81
lapcat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leopard to Mountain Lion were the glory days of OS X stability, with Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, and High Sierra standing out as focusing on bug fixes rather than introducing new features (and new bugs). This is a common misconception. Major OS updates always introduce more bugs than they fix. Bertrand Serlet put up a "No New Features" keynote slide for Snow Leopard, but that was highly misleading, because Snow Le…

> This is a common misconception. This is vague. > Major OS updates always introduce more bugs than they fix. This was my major point. > Bertrand Serlet put up a "No New Features" keynote slide for Snow Leopard, but that was highly misleading, because Snow Leopard had many big under the hood changes, But no new features. The major goals of Snow Leopard were to improve performance and reduce its memory footprint (by r…

> > Major OS updates always introduce more bugs than they fix.

> This was my major point.

I don't think your words said what you thought you might have meant: "with Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, and High Sierra standing out as focusing on bug fixes rather than introducing new features (and new bugs)"

Major updates never focus on bug fixes rather than introducing new features (and new bugs). Otherwise they wouldn't need major updates at all, they'd just keep releasing minor bug fix updates. There's nothing really special about 10.6.0 (Snow Leopard), 10.8.0 (Mountain Lion), or 10.13 (High Sierra) compared to other major releases. These were all much buggier than the previous stable release.

> Yes, thank you, this is the entire point of my criticism of annual upgrades in that a year is not enough time to fix bugs before introducing instability and new bugs in a major release.

Except the annual release cycle actually started with Mountain Lion, which was 1 year after Lion, and High Sierra was also 1 year after Sierra, but you put them in the "the glory days of OS X stability".

> Apple isn't pushing upgrades, and I don't think the OS can be configured to upgrade automatically, only update.

I wasn't talking about automatic upgrades, I was talking about how macOS annoyingly advertises new major updates, for example in Software Update, and even permanently badging your System Preferences Dock icon until you upgrade. This didn't occur in the days when major updates were on physical discs.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#102

Post by jayp1418 »

Maursault wrote: post #45
ticviking wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been leaning the same way. I’m curious why you also lean towards BSD instead of Linux? It’s a gut feeling for me after watching the Linux ecosystem churn a lot and seeing BSDs with well documented core systems and the “core/ports” distinction make clear what is and isn’t really supported

I prefer BSD to Linux for a few reasons. Firstly, BSD is not encumbered by GPL. Also, any BSD is a complete operating system while Linux requires distros subject to the whims of their creators, which seem to focus on form over function. Any long term stability is almost accidental, and there is no standard edition of Linux. Lastly and I think most importantly, the centralized BSD ports system is more trustworthy than…

Agreed. Also all BSDs have different characteristics.

Linux it self can't use GPLv3 shows that it is not innovation supporting License

Re: Home truths about macOS

#103

Post by jayp1418 »

protomyth wrote: post #30
ticviking wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been leaning the same way. I’m curious why you also lean towards BSD instead of Linux? It’s a gut feeling for me after watching the Linux ecosystem churn a lot and seeing BSDs with well documented core systems and the “core/ports” distinction make clear what is and isn’t really supported

I'm much more familiar with OpenBSD and FreeBSD on the server-side, and I don't feel real comfortable with Linux. The two biggest vendors, Red Hat and Ubuntu, don't really give the warm fuzzies. Maybe something like System 76 backs.

I have tried all three and much comfortable with NetBSD.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#104

Post by lioeters »

gorbypark wrote: post #66
kmfpl wrote: post #48

This is simply how Apple does things. They provide software support for ~10 years and then they drop it. Is it wrong? I’m not entirely sure. You can call that greedy, but take a few things into consideration. Firstly, Apple provides highly specialized software that runs extremely well and efficiently on their own hardware. Continuously providing support for old hardware while simultaneously maintaining the same level…

My ~6 year old MacBook Pro (13" late 2016 model (with touchbar), purchased new in 2017) is no longer "supported" (no Ventura). As far as I can tell, linux does not support WiFi or audio on it, so it's pretty much a piece of trash as far as being a laptop once apps stop supporting macOS Monterey.

Recently my old MBP (2013 model) stopped working, with a mysterious kernel process taking up max CPU to grind everything to a halt on every boot. Fortunately I had its files backed up to a disk in Linux-compatible format (ExFAT32?), so I finally decided to wipe it clean and install Pop!_OS. https://pop.system76.com/

It gave new life to the laptop - I'd recommend trying it, you might be able to get more mileage out of the machine.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#105

Post by scarface74 »

goosedragons wrote: post #71
ben-schaaf wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what software engineer at Apple would be willing to take on that role? One being paid to do so? People still work with COBOL. If you have trouble finding engineers to do it, offer a higher salary. > Also, even if the hardware were supported, what third party software company would still support PPC Macs? Some software is still supported for Windows XP, and that's considerably older than the last PPC Macs. It would…

There's still Linux distros supporting 32bit PPC Macs.

And how many people are actually getting paid to do so and how many companies are selling software for them?

Re: Home truths about macOS

#106

Post by somebehemoth »

scarface74 wrote: post #60
somebehemoth wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s nice. The article and most comments are about mac os. Snarky android comment is misplaced.

From the parent comment > Sort of agrees with my own opinion, that your use of Macs and iPhones

I read that too. Parent went off topic for 1 word. Your entire comment is off topic. Do you have any thoughts on mac os you would like to share since that is the topic of the post?

Re: Home truths about macOS

#107

Post by LoganDark »

gw98 wrote: post #97
LoganDark wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also had to replace my Mac when its AppleCare ran out, but only because it started having random issues with its keyboard and USB ports. Stinks of logic board issue, not worth paying to replace when it'll just break again. Still unhappy about that because nothing will ever live up to my mid-2015 MBP.

This is why I get rid of it the moment AppleCare is gone. I want someone else to handle the risk of it turning into a brick.

This is true. It's easier to migrate your data from a functional machine that you can still use as a reference.

Personally my Mac still serves as a remote desktop server for when I need to do Mac things, but it's really infrequent because there is no remote desktop solution that properly supports the Retina display.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#108

Post by howinteresting »

halefx wrote: post #91
lkois wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs have a bunch of weird quirks where simple things simply do not work. I got a new mbp for work recently, second to my main windows gaming machine with 34" ultra wide 1440p monitor. And I've basically installed chrome, vscode, and a whole bunch of little packages to make basic hardware operate normally. There's an app to allow the track pad and mouse wheel scroll directions to be set differently. There's another t…

Macs only look good at a 110 or 220 pixel density. 34" ultra wide 1440p has a pixel density of about 110 ppi, and that should work just fine. You might need to use a different cable, though. You should look your monitor up on rtings.com and search for notes on Mac compatibility. I have a MacBook Pro 14 that I use daily with a 34" ultra-wide 1440p gaming monitor, and I've never had a problem. I had a MacBook Pro 13 be…

The problem is that macOS killed off subpixel anti aliasing, which is important to making text look good on 110ppi displays. So 220+ ppi displays are the only real option here.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#109

Post by howinteresting »

scarface74 wrote: post #32
lizardactivist wrote: post #13

Sort of agrees with my own opinion, that your use of Macs and iPhones and your stay in the ecosystem is only secure as long as you keep paying up. More specifically, you're good for a year after you do a major upgrade. After that you may or may not see critical issues addressed, and after two years all bets are off. I'm not sure how long Apple supports their overly expensive things these days, but I will not be surpr…

The iPhone 5s from 2013 just got a security update in July of this year. But if you care about how long the vendor supports your phone, you really should get an Android phone. I’m sure you will be delighted about how long they support their phones.

The iPhone 5s got a security update to Safari. Android phones get updates to Chrome and the WebView component for many years past EOL as well.

Re: Home truths about macOS

#110

Post by diebeforei485 »

gorbypark wrote: post #66
kmfpl wrote: post #48

This is simply how Apple does things. They provide software support for ~10 years and then they drop it. Is it wrong? I’m not entirely sure. You can call that greedy, but take a few things into consideration. Firstly, Apple provides highly specialized software that runs extremely well and efficiently on their own hardware. Continuously providing support for old hardware while simultaneously maintaining the same level…

My ~6 year old MacBook Pro (13" late 2016 model (with touchbar), purchased new in 2017) is no longer "supported" (no Ventura). As far as I can tell, linux does not support WiFi or audio on it, so it's pretty much a piece of trash as far as being a laptop once apps stop supporting macOS Monterey.

You have another couple years until apps stop supporting Monterey. That said, I think it was a poor decision by Apple to drop the 2016 version but keep the 2017.
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