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Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

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Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#281

Post by GigabyteCoin »

Why choose any one operating system at all?

It's pretty tough to a buy a run of the mill laptop (as I do every few years) without Windows pre-installed.

I have been triple booting Windows, Ubuntu, and Arch linux all from the same laptop for the past few years now and loving it.

Windows is great when I need stuff to "just work". For example, when I want to quickly plug my laptop into the hdmi cable to watch a movie in better quality on my TV. Or if I need to quickly print out something on a random printer the plug and play features built into windows are amazing.

I spend most of my time using Arch Linux, with Ubuntu being my fallback if I really run into trouble (Arch can be... finicky. But I wouldn't use anything else.) with what I am trying to do with linux.

I would probably have OS X on there too if it came for free with my laptop purchase to be honest.

With an SSD Hard Drive any operating system you desire is only a reboot and 15 seconds away. So why choose?

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#282

Post by brador »

I did the same last year. 2 weeks and I moved my life out of the Apple ecosystem to Win 7/android. It's nice to feel happy to sit at a computer again and have everything just work and feel mine again.

I recommend you look at your options and consider the same.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#283

Post by PhasmaFelis »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #149
brianstorms wrote: post #101

I haven't quit it, but the problems, annoyances, surprises, seeming ineptitude, and creeping iOSification of OS X that the author describes sure do resonate. Every new major release of OS X is a day or week spent disabling things, shutting down Spotlight again, trying to restore things back to the way they were instead of the way some Designer with a capital D thinks they should be, for no other reason than, "Beauty.…

Why do people update OS X? Just curious. If it works how you like, why update it? Security flaws are probably the main reason, but isn't there a way to get those without acquiescing to an OS redesign?

The reason--the only reason--I'm seriously considering upgrading from 10.6 is that new programs increasingly don't support it anymore. I download a simple little helper app and it says "The program requires OS X 10.8 or higher."

My best guess is that programmers build with the latest libraries, and the latest libraries require the latest OS version. If the dev is running on the latest version, it never crosses his mind to do otherwise.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#284

Post by proveanegative »

virmundi wrote: post #246
lucisferre wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the term they use is "buttery". I'm with you on moving back to Linux, having sufficient experience with both I'm loathe to move back for both hardware and software envrionment frustrations. I do have hope that things will get better on that side of the fence, but OSX would have to become pretty terrible for me to do that anytime soon (though they seem to really be pushing their luck lately).

Here's my OS X vs Linux experience circa 2014. I have a new OS X MBP. 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA Something (650?), SSD, Yosemite, i7. I have an older i7 Sager, 16 GB RAM, Nvidia 550m, HDD. The Sager for years has been a terrible computer due to the WIFI support. It was crappy in Windows and worse in Linux. I actually looked forward to getting the MBP. Recently, however, I found a guy's opensource driver for the RealTek WIFI.…

Does OS X' swappiness affect performance?

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#285

Post by yourad_io »

jonhohle wrote: post #32

While I haven't switched to another OS, Yosemite has been the worst release of OS X that I've used (I've been an OS X user since Jaguar). The general rule is to wait until at least 10.x.1 (or later), but even now, there are still bugs that indicate that there is little to no structure release or QA process at Apple, and it's likely that few teams have gotten the religion of testing. * In 10.0.0, systems on Exchange i…

Single data point (me):

The pains of switching were greatly exaggerated in my head.

First you get a good base: Ubuntu / Debian / Fedora (?), etc.

You may have to spend a few hours sorting out drivers. I personally haven't had to do so for ages.

Then you ditch Unity (or $default) and try out a few window managers until you find what you like.

Then you "fix it" by customising away your annoyances and tailor it to your workflow.

I'm too tired to re-write this to sound less preachy - so downvotes are welcome - but I was a diehard OSX (up to 10.6) user until I put my toe in the Linux pool. I was expecting it to be freezing and "braced for impact", but actually, it was quite warm and inviting.

Exception: If need OS X apps, your path may be met with more friction. If there's a Windows equivalent to the OS X app, give Wine a try (Windows Emulator) - I keep hearing about how it gives people grief, but as far as I've seen, even my (distinctly non-technical) mother has installed and used small Windows applications without a glitch (or even realising that she is running Windows applications on her Mint). I think I read about some Mac-wine kind of thing, but not sure how mature it is - Google will help you.

To borrow a slogan: Just do it. You may be as surprised as I was.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#286

Post by aidenn0 »

kevindication wrote: post #119

My primary professional OS progression went something like: Slackware -> Debian -> Ubuntu -> OS X. As with the author, I'm pretty sure I'm done with OS X. If I want to go back to Linux, what is the best path? Mint? Back to Ubuntu? Something new?

I have never had a linux laptop, so I can't make recommendations there, but both debian and arch are quite nice. IMO, Ubuntu tends to be a bit too aggressive about adopting new technologies before they are ready (I'm happy to benefit from the increased attention, and bugfixes that happen in new components due to others using Ubuntu though).

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#287

Post by [deleted] »

kordless wrote: post #235
yourad_io wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free upgrades can still come at a cost. Multi-monitor full-screen was broken from 10.7 through 10.8. Thousands complained, Apple claimed it a feature. Not fixable, not tweakable, not reversible. 10.6 or one full-screen monitor at a time. Fuck off, Apple.

> Fuck off, Apple. Log off, user.

[deleted]

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#288

Post by [deleted] »

kordless wrote: post #235
yourad_io wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free upgrades can still come at a cost. Multi-monitor full-screen was broken from 10.7 through 10.8. Thousands complained, Apple claimed it a feature. Not fixable, not tweakable, not reversible. 10.6 or one full-screen monitor at a time. Fuck off, Apple.

> Fuck off, Apple. Log off, user.

[deleted]

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#289

Post by sxcurry »

jwise0 wrote: post #29

I've been considering this for a while -- especially after the Yosemite upgrade, in which my machine has been randomly hanging [0], and in which my machine gets noticeably slower (cmd-tab takes a quarter to a half a second to actually finish switching and repainting windows) over the course of a few days of uptime. OS X software quality is very clearly not a priority at Apple, which is a shame, because this machine i…

This really sounds like a hardware problem, not Yosemite. I've upgraded 4 Macs (2 Airs, older iMac, and old MacBook Pro) and haven't seen any problems like you describe.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#290

Post by ridiculous_fish »

jqm wrote: post #90

Admittedly I've never used OS X and have been a Linux user for years (so I may have picked up some things along the way that seem like second nature now), but I've not had any troubles that so many talk about. i3 and KDE do everything I need wonderfully. How much better are Firefox and Thunderbird on OS X? And media players and terminals? Because other than a calculator or an occasional spreadsheet, those are about t…

The OS X terminals, both the built-in Terminal.app and iTerm 2, are better than what I have found in Linux so far.

Both do automatic text wrapping and reflow it on window resize, which is hard to find on Linux terminals. Also, neither relies on the control key for menu item key equivalents. Copy is Command-C, SIGINT is Control-C.

On Linux, Control-C is copy everywhere except in terminal windows; there Control-C is SIGINT and Control-Shift-C is copy. I often type the wrong one, and either fail to copy text, or worse, abort a long-running process by accident.

When you use Linux, do you use key equivalents in the terminal (copy, paste, etc.)? How do you handle the inconsistencies with other apps?

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