Kind of lame that Geoff cites usability issues as being the main reason he switched to Linux, then tweets that usability issues weren't the reason he switched.
I don't get it.
Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
521–530 of 531 posts
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#522I 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.…
> I now have to do 10 extra steps just to Save As. I feel your pain. Fortunately you can have Save As back: System Preferences -> Keyboards -> Shortcuts -> App Shortcuts. Add a shortcut called "Save As..." with Command-Shift-S. Magically, Duplicate is gone.
Great suggestion, but I could not get "Save As…" (associated with Command-Shift-S) to appear in the File menu of the Preview app (where I'd like to see it), after following your guidance. I have 10.7.5. I don't care if Duplicate is there or not; I would like to add Save As as you described.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#523Photoshop remains the reason I haven't used Linux as my primary OS for a couple years now. I held out for a long time, but it's just a singularly useful piece of software with no reasonable equivalents.
I use Windows but Gimp is my "go to" graphic design app. It's a solid alternative to Photoshop.
yeah, Gim ps is best after photoshop you should also check the browser based http://www.toolpic.com Photoshop Online Free
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thinkpad X-series are made of carbon fiber[1] and you get the legendary keyboard. The Thinkpad keyboards are IMHO the next best alternative to mechanical keyboards. [1] http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-ca...
The current X-series keyboards are probably better described as "infamous" than "legendary". Not that they're necessarily bad, but no one who would ever use the phrase "legendary Thinkpad keyboard" was happy to see them go with yet another crappy chiclet Macbook clone.
Have any of the critics you refer to here actually used the current keyboards? For over several months? If that is even the case, they are probably those who prefer form over function, because the current keyboards are objectively no worse than the classical one and even better on certain aspects. The current keyboards have similar tactile feedback measured, even bigger touch space, better design for maintenance, and greater endurance against grease and dirt.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thinkpads work great.
Did you not see my links to where a ThinkPad, certified by Ubuntu, has broken screen brightness? I own an X140e and it has been a nightmare. I've had it for a year and I still can't get bluetooth to work[1]. I've also tried a Carbon X1 and it leaves much to be desired. Like I said, it's a gamble. Sometimes the hardware and drivers and phase of the moon is right and everything works. Sometimes no amount of kernel flag…
The backlight issue is not a bug inherent to Thinkpads. The kernel works very hard to sort out the whole vendor specific mess about backlight interfaces and works out an appropriate place to manage the controls for users (what users? system daemons? console users? desktop environment? desktop end users?) There has been some major rework around kernel 3.16 and many behaviors have changed.
In the case of ThinkPads, you have three interfaces to control backlight brightness: acpi_video0 (standard ACPI interface), intel_backlight (GPU interface), and thinkpad_acpi (vendor specific interface) all with different semantics conforming to ACPI standard, Windows 7 behaviors, Windows 8 behaviors, and vendor private behaviors, and you have user interfaces including BIOS wired special keys, sysfs, udev, X utils, GPU control panels, and desktop environment settings to control the brightness. You have these moving parts for just one vendor and the kernel needs to coordinate all the madness with all the vendors. And the fixes coming out in latest version kernel might not even make it to your version of distros.
So there is a lot of complexity in the even seemingly trivial screen brightness control. Linux still has much to do with the support of heterogeneous hardware. But this is the price you pay for the freedom.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#526It's important to notice that he's switching to a desktop running linux. Running linux on laptops is still a gamble. Sometimes things work great. Sometimes you spend months trying to fix basic stuff like screen brightness[1][2] on hardware certified by Ubuntu.[3] I think there's a market for a linux distro that targets a limited set of premium hardware. I'd gladly pay money for an OS that worked out of the box on any…
I have long argued that the marketing of various GNU/Linux distros as something you can install on any PC if you get tired of Windows for whatever reason was a huge mistake on the part of the community. This attitude created the insane expectation that Ubuntu (or whatever) should run on any machine that previously ran Windows. That is a (hopelessly) tall order to fill, especially considering that new versions of Wind…
XPS 13 developer edition. Factory installed with Ubu.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I now have to do 10 extra steps just to Save As. I feel your pain. Fortunately you can have Save As back: System Preferences -> Keyboards -> Shortcuts -> App Shortcuts. Add a shortcut called "Save As..." with Command-Shift-S. Magically, Duplicate is gone.
Great suggestion, but I could not get "Save As…" (associated with Command-Shift-S) to appear in the File menu of the Preview app (where I'd like to see it), after following your guidance. I have 10.7.5. I don't care if Duplicate is there or not; I would like to add Save As as you described.
I'm sorry, I can't speak to 10.7.5; though I'd be surprised if it didn't work. This trick works great in 10.8.x and 10.9.x.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have long argued that the marketing of various GNU/Linux distros as something you can install on any PC if you get tired of Windows for whatever reason was a huge mistake on the part of the community. This attitude created the insane expectation that Ubuntu (or whatever) should run on any machine that previously ran Windows. That is a (hopelessly) tall order to fill, especially considering that new versions of Wind…
XPS 13 developer edition. Factory installed with Ubu.
I looked at that, and almost went with it over a MacBook. One problem is that it has very mixed reviews and some history of heat problems. Clearly Apple has had its share of issues as well, but that brings me to the next problem: it's a Dell. I have attempted twice in the past to give Dell my money, in both cases they botched the order so badly that I canceled it. Even still, I actually started the process of buying an XPS 13, only to be told that it wouldn't ship for over a month. I just can't take Dell seriously outside the enterprise market.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
VLC, iTerm (& Terminal? I think), Chrome, Firefox, ... Most things I used had some sort of full-screen mode that was then "hijacked" by 10.7's native full-screen mode. I say "hijacked" because even versions that were pre-Lion would somehow end up using the native "feature". The thing to reverse would have been the "switch to new workspace when full-screening" - or at the very least make it optional . Certainly not re…
Ok, I get it: you don't like how the system full screen integrates with workspaces, and you were peeved when other apps adopted it in place of their own implementations. Of course Apple did not "hijack" anything: full screen support has always been strictly opt-in. But apps would feel pressure to adopt the system implementation. Full screen was an effort to make OS X more usable on small displays - recall that the 11…
Of course Apple did not "hijack" anything: full screen support has always been strictly opt-in. But apps would feel pressure to adopt the system implementation.
This doesn't make much sense, does it? Obviously apps adopt the system implementation. The problem the OP is talking about is that the system implementation became pretty weird, broke some apps that used to work just fine (especially lots of xquartz ones), and thought that the best use for your extra monitors was to just display a dark gray pattern.
Personally, I learned to live with it (sigh, uncheck "displays have separate spaces"), but it does seem like a good example of Apple shoving a half-baked idea out the door.