Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#91

Post by stevekemp » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 5:56 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #63

jMyles wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> awesome community I think a lot of us have had mixed experiences. I've had some that were awesome, but some that made #python look like a hippie drum circle. (Of course, sometimes #python is a hippie drum circle, but that's another conversation.)

I agree. The problem is Ubuntu is too popular, so you get many "mainstream" users responding with really nasty hacks to make things work rather than fixing things properly. Arch linux (actually I use a spin off called Manjaro) seems to be a lot better in that regard.

Agreed. Too often it's the blind leading the blind.

"Oh download this script, and run it as root", or "Edit this file and paste the following". With no real understanding or awareness.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#92

Post by mntmn » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

rohansingh wrote: post #83

mntmn wrote: post #34

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…

Did you do anything for trackpad gestures? My last attempt using Linux on a MBP (~3 years ago) was abandoned because I couldn't get over not being able to do three-finger swipes, etc.

No, I'm not a big fan of gestures, for me keyboard control is more important. Smooth 2-finger scrolling works, though.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#93

Post by jawngee » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 5:57 PM UTC

johnward wrote: post #81

Can anyone explain why OSX apps don't have a maximize button? The full screen button is just terrible.

You can also just double click on the title bar.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#94

Post by astrodust » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

cheald wrote: post #84

NateDad wrote: post #20

Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr is where you want to be. It Just Works, plus there's a huge and awesome community to help out if you have questions. I haven't tried the derivatives, like Mint or Elementary, but I've heard good things. Note that even though Ubuntu is based on Debian, you do not want Debian... It's release cycle is a lot slower, the UI is much less polished, and you'll be stuck with versions of software that…

Fedora's another solid option; it's much more bleeding edge than the Ubuntu LTS releases, but it upgrades cleanly and tends to be very developer-friendly.

Fedora is a great platform if you like to be living in the future, where what Fedora does today is what other distributions will reluctantly pick up on in a few years.

Fedora was one of the first to move to chkconfig-style scripts, and it was one of the first to systemd. It sort of forces you to learn new things, even if you don't want to.

The big downside is the updates taper off really quickly, so unless you keep rolling forward, you'll soon end up with an orphan distribution. Fedora is the philosophical opposite of the Ubuntu LTS releases.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#95

Post by swah » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 6:00 PM UTC

Please, linux users, mention your experience with high-res displays since many of us would like to move to a 4k display in the near future.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#96

Post by neilellis » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 6:00 PM UTC

jawngee wrote: post #93

johnward wrote: post #81

Can anyone explain why OSX apps don't have a maximize button? The full screen button is just terrible.

You can also just double click on the title bar.

I think you have to opt-in for that behaviour now.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#97

Post by clebio » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 6:01 PM UTC

timbit42 wrote: post #72

I recommend Xubuntu. It's Ubuntu but with XFCE instead of the 1GB of RAM sucking Unity UI. I recently switched to Xubuntu from Linux Mint XFCE. The Linux Mint distros are a bit nicer, but they do not support dist-upgrade so you have to do a complete reinstall when you want to upgrade to the next version. Xubuntu supports dist-upgrade.

I second Xubuntu. Out of the box, it works great, looks good, and Ubuntu has very good hardware support these days (trackpads with multi-finger scrolling works, for instance).

Kubuntu is ok, but sometimes terribly laggy (like when logging in).

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#98

Post by vkjv » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 6:02 PM UTC

I use Mint 17 Mate Edition--Mate is the fork of Gnome 2. It just works and gives me a familiar interface.

You might want to check out guake as a terminal and gnome do as a quicksilver replacement.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#99

Post by joshuapants » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 6:02 PM UTC

dakoon2003 wrote: post #3

Try Elementary OS, its based off ubuntu and is almost a dead ringer for OSX. It has the window management you are looking for as well as a couple of apps. Try Synapse as a replacement for Alfred.

On the same note as Synapse, give Albert a try; it's inspired a bit more directly by Alfred

https://github.com/ManuelSchneid3r/albert

Re: Ask HN: Switching from OS X to Linux

#100

Post by greggyb » Thu, Feb 19, 2015, 6:06 PM UTC

neilellis wrote: post #82

lorenzfx wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or give a tiling window manager [0] a try. My favorite is i3 [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager [1] http://i3wm.org/

+1 i3 is pretty darn good. Would be great if it was a little more user friendly though :-)

I'm just curious what parts you find not quite user friendly enough?