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

The desktop and the developer

mjg59.dreamwidth.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 304 posts

Re: The desktop and the developer

#101

Post by pyre »

harel wrote: post #35
Haul4ss wrote: post #10

I think there are additional reasons MacBooks are more popular. Certainly you can't ignore the bandwagon effect. All the cool kids have MacBooks. I'm not saying that's why everyone owns one, but you can't discount it as a reason. Also, the hardware is really nice. I know I'm making Stallman cringe when I say it, but Apple makes products that are enjoyable to use. And if you're going to use the Apple hardware, OS X is…

I think today you'll be cooler not using a mac... Herd mentality causes the non mac user to be the new 'individual free thinking anarchist'

Is everyone that is 'cool' an 'individual free-thinking anarchist' nowadays?

Re: The desktop and the developer

#102

Post by DCKing »

curtis17 wrote: post #97

Adobe are in the position to do for Linux what Apple did for BSD/Darwin. Adobe OS. Take the Linux kernel, systemd and command line tools. Put a great gui on top. With Creative Suite and Open Office. Steam for games. Be prescriptive with the hardware re drivers. No crapware/bloatware (though Adobe have been guilty of this). Give developers the ability to make money with apps/content via purchase, subscription or ads.

In what way would Adobe profit from creating such a Linux distribution of their own? They probably can't even rationalize porting creative suite to the Linux desktop, let alone develop a partial OS around it. They're making a crapload of money on operating systems they don't own and their customers have no incentive in switching from.

Re: The desktop and the developer

#103

Post by pyre »

fideloper wrote: post #34

"The problem goes deeper" Virtual machines are now more easy to use than ever. Your host OS matters less and less. Furthermore, Linux flavored OSes don't support the "secondary" applications we require that Macintoshes do - Microsoft Word/Excel, Photoshop...and working sound card drivers.

> working sound card drivers

Has this really been an issue in recent times? The last time I had serious sound card driver issues was trying to run Linux on an old Powerbook G4 back ~2006.

Re: The desktop and the developer

#104

Post by lnteveryday »

jrajav wrote: post #53

Missing a killer feature here, at least for me: High-DPI support. No environment on Linux deals with high-DPI adequately yet. Between that and the other big one mentioned in the article, multitouch trackpad support, there is simply no way I can compromise. There isn't really anything else tying me down to OS X, but those two are huge. They're the only major changes I've seen in my workflow and desktop experience in t…

I guess it depends on what you are doing. I rarely use the trackpad at all. In fact, I'd say that 85-90% of the time I have my trackpad disabled. Whether I'm working or not I tend to get by with just the keyboard (tiling wm). I guess those would be important points to me if I did any work with graphics or UI.

Re: The desktop and the developer

#105

Post by ekianjo »

exodust wrote: post #100
cs02rm0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a macbook, but agree with you. Unfortunately as a piece of hardware it seems to me virtually unrivalled, the latest internal components are available to new machines promptly, they have great displays with loads of real estate, long battery life, very good manufacturer support and the 13" is a superb, thin form factor for travelling with. I run a cluster of Linux VMs on it using vagrant so it's just my browser,…

Surely it's a myth that macbook hardware is of superhero "unrivalled" quality. I haven't seen links to comparative data backing up the claim. Failure rates, service rates, lifespan, side by side images of components at a microscopic level, data showing resistance to heat, cold, dust, impacts etc. What you will find is a lot of people repeating the claim about Apple hardware and the OS. A belief based it seems on one…

> I wish more presenters and performers opted out of the glowing marketing campaigns of the equipment they use. The brand of your equipment is not the reason why you're up there presenting.

This. It looks like everyone is happy to promote the Apple brand on top of themselves. For free.

Re: The desktop and the developer

#106

Post by curtis17 »

DCKing wrote: post #102
curtis17 wrote: post #97

Adobe are in the position to do for Linux what Apple did for BSD/Darwin. Adobe OS. Take the Linux kernel, systemd and command line tools. Put a great gui on top. With Creative Suite and Open Office. Steam for games. Be prescriptive with the hardware re drivers. No crapware/bloatware (though Adobe have been guilty of this). Give developers the ability to make money with apps/content via purchase, subscription or ads.

In what way would Adobe profit from creating such a Linux distribution of their own? They probably can't even rationalize porting creative suite to the Linux desktop, let alone develop a partial OS around it. They're making a crapload of money on operating systems they don't own and their customers have no incentive in switching from.

Licences and a cut from app/content sales. The problem with the Linux desktop is the 'everything is free' mentality.

Re: The desktop and the developer

#108

Post by PaulHoule »

I've been involved with Linux since 1993 and it is a great server os but I am skeptical of the linux desktop since over time there has not beeen a trajectory of improvement but rather things have gotten worse.

Re: The desktop and the developer

#109

Post by levosmetalo »

exodust wrote: post #100
cs02rm0 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a macbook, but agree with you. Unfortunately as a piece of hardware it seems to me virtually unrivalled, the latest internal components are available to new machines promptly, they have great displays with loads of real estate, long battery life, very good manufacturer support and the 13" is a superb, thin form factor for travelling with. I run a cluster of Linux VMs on it using vagrant so it's just my browser,…

Surely it's a myth that macbook hardware is of superhero "unrivalled" quality. I haven't seen links to comparative data backing up the claim. Failure rates, service rates, lifespan, side by side images of components at a microscopic level, data showing resistance to heat, cold, dust, impacts etc. What you will find is a lot of people repeating the claim about Apple hardware and the OS. A belief based it seems on one…

That's why I have manufacturer logo on the back of my laptop covered by a innocent "no free advertising" sticker all the time, not only when presenting.

Even for the clothes, the only logo I occasionally have printed on my clothes is the logo of my employer on a clothes provided by them for free. That much advertising is acceptable for me.

Re: The desktop and the developer

#110

Post by mrweasel »

tomp wrote: post #42

For me, Macbook (1) is light, (2) has a trackpad more useful than a mouse, (3) lasts for hours, and (4) is reasonably performant (retina display, quad-core, 8GB ram, SSD). I use a terminal, a packet manager, and a browser, so the only thing I demand from an OS is (5) multiple desktops, (6) multitouch, and (7) getting out of my way (no need to tweak settings, compatible with USB/WiFi). If I knew I could get a similar…

It's really hard to find laptops of similar quality to the MacBook (Pro/Air). Of cause you could install an alternative OS on the hardware, but you'd get worse performance.

I really like Mac OS X, it does what I need and looks okay. Pretty much all the tools I use are available cross platform. If I where to replace it, it would be with one of the BSDs. I don't like Linux as much as I once did, I think it has become rather messy.

Post reply on HN