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KDE beats macOS

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Re: KDE beats macOS

#281

Post by pxc »

tgv wrote: post #217
bentheklutz wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The save location for cmd+shift+{3,4} can be configured through the command line. defaults write com.apple.screencapture location There is apparently a settings menu inside the Screenshot app now that allows this as well, though I found the above solution before the settings in that app came about.

For those wondering: cmd-shift-5 is the shortcut the very configurable Screenshot app, which allows you to do things like save to folder, clipboard, or straight to mail and more.

I remember Mac fans making a big deal when that app came out, decades after KDE got the feature. The disproportionate celebration and the impressively un-mnemonic, un-discoverable shortcut both stood out to me at the time.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#282

Post by pxc »

chii wrote: post #117
rhaway84773 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MacOS is interesting in that I know regular users who have used it for over a decade who still don’t grasp some of its basics. For example, the post actually makes a mistake when mentioning macOS doesn’t have Alt+TAB window switching. It does. You just have to do Alt+’. That being said, even though the OP is wrong, there’s a massive kernel of truth in that the majority of ordinary Mac users are unaware of this. Anoth…

and the thing is, the alt-tab is not even really a native idea for macs - Exposé is the way to switch windows (which, for me is the 4 finger swipe up on the touch pad - but some people can choose to use hot corner on the screen, or the dedicated hardware button).

Plasma has a feature like Exposé/Mission Control as well, but it's much better in one crucial way: it does fuzzy filtering as you type.

Besides directly summoning windows with hotkeys I've assigned, it's pretty much the only way I ever switch windows on Plasma.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#283

Post by pxc »

dsego wrote: post #241
stratosmacker wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The former is true, KDE ships with a clipboard manager with history, macos just has copy/paste. You need something like Maccy to manage history.

I love the irony of complaining about missing a native functionality that's available as a third party app, but turning a blind eye to general lack of productive software on the linux/kde platform. It's like little smug kids teasing other kids with petty things "ha ha, my OS doesn't have a decent commercial photo editor or video production software, but you don't have a native clipboard manager, ha ha".

It's pretty simple: third party, commercial software isn't an OS feature. It's not part of the desktop environment. Things like the clipboard and its behavior are.

And the macOS desktop environment is missing a ton of shit that you can take for granted across a dozen Linux desktop environments. They add up to a sense that the desktop itself on macOS is neglected and barren in its very fundamentals.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#284

Post by pxc »

johnchristopher wrote: post #146

Biggest burn I had: Drag and dropping a named folder on the desktop where a folder with the same name already lived resulted in the desktop folder content being replaced with the dropped folder content and the loss of all its content. I was expecting a merge or a copy/overwrite dialog, not the overwrite of the desktop folder content.

That is absolutely, stunningly bad UI.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#285

Post by pxc »

king_magic wrote: post #135
goosedragons wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being usable out of the box? With KDE I don't need to go find a 3rd party app for decent window snapping, I don't need a 3rd party app to put files on my Android phone over USB, I don't need a 3rd party app to have the trackpad and scroll wheel mouse directions be "natural" and "unnatural" at the same time, I don't need a 3rd party app to be able to use the volume buttons to change the volume level of a sound device…

Mighty strange definition of "unusable" you've got there. These are nothingburger complaints for 90% of typical Mac users. Sure, they might be annoying for you, but most users will just shrug at that list and think, yeah, but I can easily watch Apple TV on my Mac while I'm working.

Trying to settle in on a Mac coming from Linux yields a ton of moments like

> What the fuck? The window manager can barely manage windows!

> What the fuck? The volume mixer can't mix volumes!

These are the core functionality of the desktop environment. It's a whole host of absolute basics that are missing.

This also extends to lower levels. The filesystem has huge chunks of functionality missing to the point that it seems to basically defeat the point of running a CoW filesystem at all. Containerization support is pitiful. What the hell happened to multimonitor support?

Setting up your first Mac as a Linux user ends up feeling like a ton of work involving a ton of disappointing dead ends. That's what GP means by 'unusable'.

It's worth noting that this is not about being accustomed to doing things only one way. Most of these unmet expectations in DE functionality are part of a common minimum among Linux DEs. Sitting down at a GNOME desktop and getting to work is not nearly as frustrating for a Plasma user as trying to limp along with the builtins on the desktop that macOS provides.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#286

Post by gary17the »

timbit42 wrote: post #254
gary17the wrote: post #45

macOS UI capabilities aside, I have to mention that the latest Kubuntu 22.04 Long Term Support (LTS) 2022 release with KDE Plasma 5.24 is a fantastic upgrade. The system is snappy, much more so than under the previous Kubuntu 20.04 2020 release. Moreover, the 5.15 Linux kernel seems to be handling huge memory allocations for virtual machines an order of magnitude faster than the previous 5.4 kernel. If you are tired…

Snaps aren't snappy though. I switched to Linux Mint and put KDE on it.

It's possible to run the entire Kubuntu system with `apt` and/or local `deb` packages only - I uninstalled `snapd` a long time ago.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#287

Post by dsego »

pxc wrote: post #283
dsego wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the irony of complaining about missing a native functionality that's available as a third party app, but turning a blind eye to general lack of productive software on the linux/kde platform. It's like little smug kids teasing other kids with petty things "ha ha, my OS doesn't have a decent commercial photo editor or video production software, but you don't have a native clipboard manager, ha ha".

It's pretty simple: third party, commercial software isn't an OS feature. It's not part of the desktop environment. Things like the clipboard and its behavior are . And the macOS desktop environment is missing a ton of shit that you can take for granted across a dozen Linux desktop environments. They add up to a sense that the desktop itself on macOS is neglected and barren in its very fundamentals.

It's probably missing a couple of practical things, not a _ton_ of shit. Most of those things are solved with 3rd party addons.

On some linux environments I can't take for granted that I will see an image preview in the file picker, so there is that.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#288

Post by selfhoster11 »

mro_name wrote: post #150
selfhoster11 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intuitiveness is just what you are used to at this point. No, it is not. The word "intuitive" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "readily learned or understood" and "knowable by intuition". If the UI is not one of these things, then it is not "intuitive" in the general sense of the word.

there are few intuitive things other than a mother breast. Take doors handles or light switches. Must be learned.

I disagree. Both of those are relatively simple mechanisms with one, perhaps two degrees of motion, and provide immediate feedback when operated successfully. Take an alien who’s never been to Earth and give them ten minutes to master each of those, and they’ll be able to.

Re: KDE beats macOS

#289

Post by pxc »

dsego wrote: post #287
pxc wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty simple: third party, commercial software isn't an OS feature. It's not part of the desktop environment. Things like the clipboard and its behavior are . And the macOS desktop environment is missing a ton of shit that you can take for granted across a dozen Linux desktop environments. They add up to a sense that the desktop itself on macOS is neglected and barren in its very fundamentals.

It's probably missing a couple of practical things, not a _ton_ of shit. Most of those things are solved with 3rd party addons. On some linux environments I can't take for granted that I will see an image preview in the file picker, so there is that.

> On some linux environments I can't take for granted that I will see an image preview in the file picker, so there is that.

That is indeed a jarring and annoying limitation! I'd count that as likewise failing to meet reasonable minimum expectations.

I don't really have some complete, ideal feature comparison in mind. If you take an experienced, dedicated (that is, not having used other computing environments regularly for many years) user of macOS and an experienced, dedicated user of Plasma and sit them down at each other's computers, both might reasonably feel like on balance, things are missing and the experience is lacking.

I have strong intuitions about what parts of a whole desktop computer system are 'operating system features' or part of 'the desktop environment'. But the reality is that the demarcation (and whether one cares about it) between is cultural. My view of that is shaped by my own experience and preferences.

Still, the impression is overwhelming when one comes to macOS as a power user from elsewhere that lots of the basics are missing, and that the majority of Apple's efforts go into the integration of applications that sit on top the core operating system and desktop environment rather than the software that comprises those things. That impression is made much more grating by macOS high reputation as well-designed and something that 'just works out of the box'.

For me, at least, some of the third-party applications which add back in macOS' missing features just irritate me more. Consider what has to be done to disable mouse acceleration on macOS, for example. Why does that OS care so little for flexibility or accommodating common use cases that a precarious driver hack which intercepts my mouse input events and relays them to the operating system as tablet presses or some crap is necessary for such basic configuration as linear mouse movement? Should I be grateful that I can pay for the privilege of a workaround that Apple will almost certainly break in some future OS update? And what about the depressing process of discovering, first, that none of the still-documented `defaults write` secret config changes work, and neither do any of the other third-party drivers or utilities? Often, the bit of missing functionality comes with its own miserable journey of discovery. The Plentycom developer is great, SteerMouse is brilliant and I'm glad they figured out a way. But nothing about that situation leaves me with a positive impression of macOS itself!

Re: KDE beats macOS

#290

Post by goosedragons »

rollcat wrote: post #244
kuschku wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think integration within the Apple ecosystem is what really outshines all competition That may be, but a good OS should offer the same level of integration with devices of all kinds. Like the good old "Mac vs PC" ads suggested back in the day. KDE has KDE Connect for shared clipboard, sending files between devices, and such functionality. Which even supports Windows on PC, and allows syncing between multiple mobi…

I have no doubt KDE Connect works on more platforms - which is great, but this is exactly my point vs OP's claim: all of these things work on Apple devices out of the box, whereas on other platforms, you have to (at least) install a third-party app.

Windows actually has very good support for Android devices built-in and at least some OEMs like Samsung ship with what's needed for the two to connect out of the box for features like SMS message forwarding, copy/paste etc. They actually support things that Apple doesn't. It's possible to use apps from your phone on your PC for example.

And while you do need to download KDE connect to get the fancier features on KDE, out of the box you do still get USB file transfer. Which is great when you want to give someone a file that's on your phone. They don't need to download anything, link accounts or need a device from the exact same manufacturer as you. Unless they use MacOS.

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