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The $80 web development workstation

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Re: The $80 web development workstation

#161

Post by WayneDB »

morgante wrote: post #3

Really? Are we still talking about how OS X doesn't give you "full control over the system?" Given the popularity of Macs in the developer community, it's pretty clear that you have as much control as you desire—Unix has incredible power. And if you still somehow feel that OS X is actually constricting you (rather than just hiding advanced settings in the command line), you'd never be able to run Linux on a Mac. No,…

Does OS X even let you turn off an external monitor yet? (Via a control panel setting or other software driven interface?) In Linux and Windows I can use the OS to turn it off. The Mac forces me to unplug the monitor or power it off manually.

Didn't OS X users just get the ability to resize windows by any edge or corner? They only had to wait 10 years for that wonderful feature.

How about being able to properly replace the Dock? You can't, because Apple does not allow non-Apple programs to affect NSScreen visibleFrame.

Maybe you can tell us how much Finder can be controlled versus the file browsers in Windows or say Gnome/KDE? Wait, nope - turns out it's sorely lacking in extendability hooks.

Furthermore - OS X has shitty package management and limits what you can do with your terminal as well because you cannot replace certain packages without breaking your entire system - http://cloudhead.io/2011/04/18/why-osx-doesnt-cut-it/

So, no...OS X is not as maleable as other operating systems.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#162

Post by zhemao »

uggedal wrote: post #128
zhemao wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently running Archlinux on a Macbook air. The instructions in that wiki article were rather confusing. I had to fiddle around quite a bit to get the EFI boot manager to work. The wireless driver is shit cause the MBA uses a Broadcom card. The version in the latest stable kernel actually segfaults and crashes the OS when you try to use a WPA2 network. Also, I still can't get the audio capture to work in ALSA.…

Switching to the proprietary Broadcom driver fixed all connection issues for me: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/broadcom-wl-dkms/

Yeah, I've had plenty of problems with that in the past. I'm currently using an older version of the kernel. Apparently, the problem has been fixed in 3.11 (currently in rc). I'll just wait until that becomes stable before upgrading.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#163

Post by dinkumthinkum »

cenhyperion wrote: post #132
dinkumthinkum wrote: post #49

Come on, we can do better than that. This is not to besmirch Apple or any silliness like that, my comment here is about this view point. The "de facto standard?" This view is probably common among programming hipsters but its hard to take seriously. There is a world out there besides Apple and RoR that is not just enterprise slog ... As far as the $80 machine ... I mean ok ... If you are on a serious budget but ... I…

>The "de facto standard?" This view is probably common among programming hipsters but its hard to take seriously. I didn't realize the entire web developer community was comprised of only "hipsters", whatever that word even means now.

Certainly not, but people that hold onto these kind of views are ... It's hard to deny the existence of this "culture" that has popped up that seems to dominate the conversations.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#164

Post by pbhjpbhj »

millstone wrote: post #125
bendmorris wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem here is that you can't really compare OSX to Ubuntu because Ubuntu is not a desktop environment. It has a default desktop environment, but it isn't itself one, and you can swap in another effortlessly and there are typically a wealth of customization options. I'm using XFCE, and I can drag windows to other workspaces just like you, don't have the focus stealing issue, etc.

I've also tried Xubuntu (= Ubuntu + xfce) and I preferred it to Ubuntu, although Xubuntu's window resizing is even more busted. Your post prompted me to give it another try. I found that you can drag windows between workspaces in the "mini workspace viewer" in the upper right, which is definitely an improvement over Ubuntu. However, you can't move them by simply pressing the windows against the side of the screen. Th…

>Start launching an app and switch to another window; the app will jump in front when it's done launching. Argh! //

In common it seems with most features of the UI KDE has a setting for that!

It's in the settings with the "focus policy" slider (click at one end, hover at the other) labelled as "focus stealing prevention". IIRC it was in KDE3 too.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#165

Post by superuser2 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #98
superuser2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows are scriptable. http://mizage.com/divvy/ https://github.com/jigish/slate/blob/master/README.md

Neither of which solve the problem. Edit: And if being able to script is your proof that everyone has full control over OS X, you also need to share your definition of "full" as it definitely doesn't mean what you think it means.

What window management features, exactly, are impossible to implement because OSX is proprietary?

You obviously have a visceral and emotional opposition to closed-source software, and I respect that, but what exactly is the functionality that you need that OSX can't be made to provide?

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#166

Post by [deleted] »

jasonlotito wrote: post #98
superuser2 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows are scriptable. http://mizage.com/divvy/ https://github.com/jigish/slate/blob/master/README.md

Neither of which solve the problem. Edit: And if being able to script is your proof that everyone has full control over OS X, you also need to share your definition of "full" as it definitely doesn't mean what you think it means.

[deleted]

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#167

Post by pbhjpbhj »

quaunaut wrote: post #21

Honest question here: Why would anyone ever think OS X has "world-class interface design"? It's missing basic interface features that have been bog standard in Ubuntu/Windows for years, like any sort of proper window management. Hell, the maximize button actually doesn't work - it has such inconsistent use that you have almost no hope of actually getting what you want out of it. To get even decent window management,…

>Why would anyone ever think OS X has "world-class interface design"? //

Because it sells worldwide to people who describe the OS as being ergonomic and beautiful?

I wouldn't know, I seldom use it and so find it clumsy and strange.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#168

Post by zhemao »

blairbeckwith wrote: post #117
zhemao wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workspaces? What workspaces? No, having a bunch of full screen apps does not count.

Am I getting whooshed here? You can definitely have multiple workspaces (with multiple windows in each - not just fullscreen apps) and switch between them by swiping...

Oh, okay, I just figured it out.

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_use_spaces_mac_os_...

That was completely non-discoverable though.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#169

Post by 14113 »

lambdaloop wrote: post #26
14113 wrote: post #20

The author mentioned using "Chromium with Vimium". For someone wanting easy keyboard shortcuts (like Vim) for a browser, I'd recommend luakit. It's a webkit based browser, scriptable (or written with?) lua, along with vim style navigation (eg, ":open www.google.com" to go to google). afaik, it's also available in the arch core (or extra possibly) repositorys, which means no fiddling about with the aur! (good news)

Turns out it's in arch community. Note: AUR isn't really that bad, as long as you install a package manager that handles it (like yaourt).

ah, my mistake, I didn't check.

mm, It's still (slightly) more effort, and more prone to breaking than pacman.

Re: The $80 web development workstation

#170

Post by samspenc »

StavrosK wrote: post #155
kevincrane wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's popular to hate on Ubuntu, but I personally love it and its UI. I've used Ubuntu since 11.04 and run 13.04 on my personal laptop (for development and day-to-day stuff). I'm a sucker for pretty things like translucent title bars and snapping windows to full-screen, but I also love how easy it is to develop with Linux (as opposed to Windows). Everything is usually a single command away on the command line (sudo ap…

I use Ubuntu as my sole OS too, but it gets on my nerves with some things. I have cmd+E mapped to a new nautilus window, for example, and it doesn't work half the time (I always have to press it twice). Sometimes the focus gets lost and alt+tab won't work until I click on a window. It's also not very responsive. Windows, on the other hand, are extremely snappy everywhere. Pressing cmd+E immediately launches Explorer…

This. I use Ubuntu as my primary OS too, and as much as I love it, I really wish they would address UI issues on the desktop.

Having said that, I'm hopeful Mir will solve these issues. Fingers crossed.

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