Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#121

Post by teddyh » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 6:32 AM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #116

teddyh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. For some people this is not a choice , as such. It’s like wearing slightly uglier, slightly less comfortable clothes because they weren’t made by child slave labor. Is there a true choice what to wear?

Yes, you could wear the clothes that fed that child that day. Stuff isn't so black/white, I guess I'm trying to say.

If I’m understanding you correctly, you are implying that it’s OK to buy things produced by child slave labor, because otherwise the slave children would starve.

This is… an argument I won’t get into. Suffice it to say, I was merely trying to construct an analogy to demonstrate why, sometimes, using something less than the “best” product is preferable, and why, for some people, it can’t be considered a choice to use the less efficient product.

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#122

Post by gnaffle » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 2:05 PM UTC

epsylon wrote: post #110

gnaffle wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used Linux exclusively for many years but switched to OSX for work some years ago. I still feel more productive in Linux, but it's because of a few tricks that I so far haven't found a good replacement for in OSX: - Focus follows mouse without auto-raise - Instant switching between virtual desktops (not possible to disable the animation in OSX last time I checked) - Instantly open a new terminal window with intelli…

> If I could get a virtualization scheme where I could have one desktop with OSX and 3-4 desktops of Linux, that would be ideal. But I don't think that's possible with Parallels or VMware Isn't that the main feature of VMWare Fusion? (Although it seems more targeted at integrating Windows into OS X, it looks like it supports Linux as well)

Yes, but I don't know of a way to give one Linux instance several desktops, and enable super fast and seamless switching between them.

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#123

Post by LaSombra » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 2:14 PM UTC

kyriakos wrote: post #14

ryan-allen wrote: post #5

I switched from OS X to Windows 8, and I virtualise linux using windows as the host OS. I hate to say it, but I think Windows 8 is pretty good as a host OS (not having used Windows much since 2003). I wouldn't be able to do my job without the virtulisation though, in the end I got so fed up with trying to install stuff naively on OS X with brew and ports and from source and whatever I was virtualising on OS X for abo…

I'm using Windows 8 too and virtualization for server testing. What stops you from going Linux-only? In mine case its Adobe :)

Lightroom :(

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#124

Post by diminoten » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 2:25 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #121

diminoten wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you could wear the clothes that fed that child that day. Stuff isn't so black/white, I guess I'm trying to say.

If I’m understanding you correctly, you are implying that it’s OK to buy things produced by child slave labor, because otherwise the slave children would starve. This is… an argument I won’t get into. Suffice it to say, I was merely trying to construct an analogy to demonstrate why, sometimes, using something less than the “best” product is preferable, and why, for some people, it can’t be considered a choice to use…

Yes, and I'm trying to dismantle that analogy by demonstrating that such decisions are made without consideration of the consequences, and that nothing in this world is so simple that simply using or not using a product makes the planet a better or worse place.

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#125

Post by frou_dh » Tue, Oct 15, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

If I used nothing but CLI programs, I would happily switch to Linux or FreeBSD. But with GUI a consideration then, after becoming accustomed to the fit and finish of OS X and the quality 3rd party apps it attracts, it's too depressing to spend time in stuff that's at best amateur.

Becoming a fancy-pants appreciator of particular attributes is its own kind of lock-in...

Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

#126

Post by BruceIV » Thu, Oct 17, 2013, 3:43 AM UTC

tsomctl wrote: post #64

I love Linux. The year was 2005, I was 14. I had dialup, and I wanted to try out this Linux thing. I bought a 20 disc set of cds for Debian, and installed it on my computer. I had to install it several times before I figured out to press the space bar to select to install a graphical environment. I also got a free disc in the mail for another thing called Ubuntu. Installed that too. Rather ugly brown. I spent hours t…

A thousand times this. I never got so far into Linux, but I did run a Linux desktop as my primary system from about 2006-2010, and switched back to Windows because I got sick of fighting with it. I still run Linux on my work boxes because it's a much better environment for the development work I want to do, but I hate dealing with the maintenance. This is anecdotal, but here are a few issues I've run into within the last year:

1) This week Ubuntu updated something in the graphics system which FUBAR'd multi-monitor support for both myself and my supervisor (we have quite different hardware setups).

2) Support for suspend/resume is flaky, and has been for years - I'd never know whether either would work after a distro upgrade, so I always cold-boot Linux.

3) Broken network drivers on the install disk for Debian Testing around the end of last summer - I forget the workaround (if there was one), but I had trouble installing it on two different (very vanilla) systems.

If I did more dev work at home (and had $1000 to burn) I'd probably buy a Mac, but as is my Linux VM on Windows setup works fine.