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Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

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Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#31

Post by beecup »

meesterdude wrote: post #9

Here here! I recently did this - well, I moved to a linux VM. Somewhat. First, I did not move everything; I only moved my dev enviroment. I have things bound to OS X and I can't say goodbye just yet entirely. But with everything in a VM I have a nice walled garden that i know will work, and I can update OSX with less hesitation as most of my time is spent in the safe world of the VM. It also makes it easy for me to c…

Are you using a remote VM or are you running it local? I'm using a decent MacBook Pro (2014) with 8GB of RAM, but running an Ubuntu with VirtualBox is performant enough to work in it. Or are you just ssh'ing into your VM ?

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#34

Post by mntmn »

Good! I switched to Debian Linux on my Retina MBP about 4 months ago fulltime and after a few weeks of twiddling and fiddling it's super fun, fast and nice. I'm really enjoying it.

I normalized all the keyboard shortcuts using several methods, the most important one is to switch Cmd and Ctrl keys. I documented that here: http://mntmn.com/Hipster%20Linux#keyboard-cmd-ctrl-copypaste...

I use Terminator for Terminal and set up Ctrl-C und Ctrl-V for copy and paste shortcuts. Terminator will smartly handle Ctrl-C as a signal when there is no selection.

I use XFCE with a custom HiDPI theme and app switcher works with Cmd-Tab. I bound Cmd-Space to Application Finder which gives me a Spotlight-like launching experience. For fulltext search I can recommend recoll.

I use Ergoemacs which gives me CUA-like shortcuts in Emacs, too.

Feel free to drop me an email (lukas at mnt dot mn) if you need more tips. Almost everything can be made to work.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#35

Post by dethstar »

I use open box and I have

custom key bindings. Anything that I want.

About alfred: I have this script from crunchbang that uses dmenu and then displays and allows you to search for a binary to run. Also just alt+f3 in most DEs will open a dialog that you can run binaries/scripts in your path with.

If what you want is something more along the lines of a terminal where you can see the output, there's extensions for most DEs where a terminal will be opened on certain key combination and place it somewhere and hide it immediately when you're done with it.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#37

Post by jkaunisv1 »

dz0ny wrote: post #12

Gnome3 is also nice http://i.imgur.com/8ZxohmT.png :) [x] - I yet to have see terminal emulator shipped with ubuntu that doesn't wrap text [x] - Gnome 3 has Alfred like search over files, apps, windows... also mutate ( https://github.com/qdore/Mutate )

What are you using to browse HN? I would love to have a "fold" option for browsing comment threads.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#38

Post by trey-jones »

coldpie wrote: post #22

I'm a big fan of XFCE for your DE/WM. It allows you to set loads of keyboard shortcuts for various WM activities like launching programs, switching workspaces, moving/resizing windows. As far as non-WM activities, look elsewhere in this thread for program recommendations. The only Linux distro I can stand is Arch Linux. It will require you to become a sysadmin (comfortable with a shell, editing a few config files her…

My experience with Arch and updates is exactly opposite. Specifically, if I boot up a computer with Arch on it that has been sitting in a corner for a month or so, updating is almost guaranteed to break everything. I think this is just because of frequency of Arch updates. If you update every day, then it's probably no big deal. But then I find the same is true for other distros (go too long without updating software, updates break things). Personally I use Debian more than anything else, and that's mostly because I'm most comfortable and familiar with it.

Personally I use OSX (still Mavericks, for now) for development, but almost all of the code that I write gets executed in Linux VMs (often through Vagrant). For me, this eliminates most of the headaches that come from developing using open source technologies in a non-free environment. I'm sure it creates some headaches of its own, but I find it works well for me.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#39

Post by rnhmjoj »

wwarren wrote: post #33
rnhmjoj wrote: post #28

About iTerm, I have found this one: http://finalterm.org I have never tried it but it seems great.

"Final Term is in heavy development and neither stable nor feature complete!"

I know. I shared at least to keep an eye on the project.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#40

Post by tehwalrus »

After a MacBook air crash, I ended up on Debian/XFCE. This was more out of necessity than choice, as I could only afford a laptop with very limited resources.

I would recommend Fedora (what I'm using at work), if you like stable/reliable packages (Debian also wins here), especially if you're not requiring the latest and greatest everything.

In terms of UI, I really like what Elementary OS did, but they don't update their packages with any frequency (the current release is over a year old.) XFCE gives the customisability / get-out-of-my-way feeling that I sometimes want on OS X, but be warned that no Linux UI can match apple hardware and software for gestures.

In all, it's a minefield. Format a separate /home, and be ready to jump distros a few times to start with.

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