Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop • Hacker News Board

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#101

Post by rudedogg » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:41 AM UTC

laurencerowe wrote: post #88

na85 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does apt solve that problem? If so, how?

Homebrew is like running Debian unstable, the world underneath you is currently changing. Mac OS itself doesn’t really have this problem since applications can bundle the exact version of their required frameworks, a bit like Ubuntu Snaps.

This doesn't really answer the question does it?

It's been a while since I used apt, but if I remember correctly you'd have the same problem the parent described, right?

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And regarding the 'name@version' criticism: If you want to stick to a version, how can you do it without specifying it?

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#102

Post by Wowfunhappy » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:45 AM UTC

guessbest wrote: post #77

smoldesu wrote: post #35

>apt-get was a revolution when it was released in 1998 and it is still the best way to manage software today. brew is a mediocre replacement. While apt still isn't the best package manager (my heart belongs to pacman, no matter what the haters say), I completely agree that brew is a failed imitation. I wanted to use MacOS for the longest time, because I've been told that it's a real "Unix system". Brew has distilled…

Macports is a system that installs in the /opt root folder to run along side your native applications without overwriting them, but it compiles each application as you install. Installations can be very slow. It seems like it was adopted from FreeBSD's ports system. Fink is more apt like but I haven't used it in years. All the packages are precompiled and the installations are much faster, but it seems out of date. F…

> but it compiles each application as you install.

No it doesn’t. Hasn’t been that way for years.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#103

Post by hysan » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

randmeerkat wrote: post #94

darkandbrooding wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one single feature of homebrew that regularly bites my coworkers. You can refer to software by name@version ("brew install postgresql@11" or "brew install postgresql@12") and there is no confusion about what you are installing; or you can refer to software by name only ("brew install postgresql") and the version number is calculated to be "most recently released." (v13 at the time this was written.) Hypothet…

Why not run a docker container locally with Postgres and code against that? Then everyone is using the same Postgres version.

We do this where I work and while it’s great that it solves this problem, but Docker on macOS leaves much to be desired. The situation with filesystem performance is abysmal, and if you’re unlucky, CPU usage can go through the roof even when running a few lightweight containers.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#104

Post by miles » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 5:00 AM UTC

> For some reason Mail.app gets a lot of criticism, but it does almost everything well

Mail Data Loss in macOS 10.15 https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/10/11/mail-data-loss-in-macos-1...

513 comments, the last one which reads:

"Adding to my previous post: Same issues with Mail on Catalina as on Big Sur 11.2.3. Mails keep vanishing."

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#105

Post by koirapoika » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 5:27 AM UTC

darkandbrooding wrote: post #80

xtian wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes Homebrew a failure? I don’t generally have issues with it for my needs.

There is one single feature of homebrew that regularly bites my coworkers. You can refer to software by name@version ("brew install postgresql@11" or "brew install postgresql@12") and there is no confusion about what you are installing; or you can refer to software by name only ("brew install postgresql") and the version number is calculated to be "most recently released." (v13 at the time this was written.) Hypothet…

I think you could also utilize 'Brewfile' with pinned versions, where needed, and the latest available for the rest. I manage my environment this way when migrating from one work laptop to another. Works fine so far.

Alternatively, you can create your own 'tap' to gain more control over some packages.

For databases, I'd stick to running them as containers, too.

Homebrew is not ideal, of course, but there are ways to achieve desired goals until we have something better.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#106

Post by darkandbrooding » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 5:44 AM UTC

randmeerkat wrote: post #94

darkandbrooding wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one single feature of homebrew that regularly bites my coworkers. You can refer to software by name@version ("brew install postgresql@11" or "brew install postgresql@12") and there is no confusion about what you are installing; or you can refer to software by name only ("brew install postgresql") and the version number is calculated to be "most recently released." (v13 at the time this was written.) Hypothet…

Why not run a docker container locally with Postgres and code against that? Then everyone is using the same Postgres version.

That is my preferred solution and I think it works great. I have persuaded a couple of coworkers to switch, but only a couple so far.

Containerized Postgres is a real win, but running OpenLDAP (+ custom schema) as a containerized application has measurably improved my quality of life. Kudos and great gratitude to the people behind https://github.com/osixia/docker-openldap

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#107

Post by yellowapple » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 5:45 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #93

zepto wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being immune to bugs This is a total straw man. “Just works” has never meant free of bugs. It means not having to do a bunch of incidental configuration, tuning, and setup. Things do just work.

> This is a total straw man. You use this word, "straw man". I do not think it means what you think it means. No, it is not a straw man to point out that bugs interfere with the notion that something "just works". When bugs interfere with getting things done - as I've found they often do in the course of using macOS daily, like when I can't open firewall ports for development or share my screen via Google Hangouts be…

(As a follow up here: turns out the Dock crashing is a MacForge thing AFAICT, so I won't blame macOS for that beyond the fact that I wouldn't need MacForge at all if macOS supported things that even ChromeOS supports, let alone a "real" Linux distro. Still janky that I have to disconnect from my docking station to log in, though; that's a far cry from "just works")

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#108

Post by koirapoika » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 5:46 AM UTC

hysan wrote: post #103

randmeerkat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not run a docker container locally with Postgres and code against that? Then everyone is using the same Postgres version.

We do this where I work and while it’s great that it solves this problem, but Docker on macOS leaves much to be desired. The situation with filesystem performance is abysmal, and if you’re unlucky, CPU usage can go through the roof even when running a few lightweight containers.

True that. I see them actively working on the issue, trying to improve the overall experience, which implies improvements, but also regressions.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#109

Post by darkandbrooding » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:05 AM UTC

na85 wrote: post #85

darkandbrooding wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one single feature of homebrew that regularly bites my coworkers. You can refer to software by name@version ("brew install postgresql@11" or "brew install postgresql@12") and there is no confusion about what you are installing; or you can refer to software by name only ("brew install postgresql") and the version number is calculated to be "most recently released." (v13 at the time this was written.) Hypothet…

Does apt solve that problem? If so, how?

Apt sidesteps this problem because Debian-based releases are not rolling releases. Unless you install a custom PPA, if you are running Ubuntu 18.04 and you "apt-get install postgres" you will always get version 10.x. The major version number will not get bumped for Ubuntu 18.04.

If want to use a version of postgres other than 10.x, you can either use a different version of Ubuntu or install a custom PPA.

Apt's target audience is systems administrators. Homebrew's target audience is independent developers who might need to have four different versions of Postgresql installed simultaneously on their laptop, because they maintain Rails/Django/Node apps for four different clients who are each unwilling to upgrade for whatever reason.

IMO homebrew is "messy" because it is trying to solve a harder problem. If there is such a thing as an average enterprise software developer, I would argue that homebrew is trying to solve problems that the enterprise developer does not have.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#110

Post by jeeeb » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 6:06 AM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #99

jeeeb wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t say I agree with this. I’ve been using Windows as my daily driver for the last decade since switching back from Mac+Linux for work reasons. Honestly there’s lots to like in Windows 10 even if there’s a bit of bloat around the edges. I cannot imagine wanting to go back to the bad old days of ME. Modern Windows is stable, secure, fast and has plenty in there for power users. Driver support and sleep mode is seaml…

See, all of these things would be great reasons to use Windows, and I agree that these are nice (though I'd hardly call "seamless GPU switching" unique to Windows; my Linux laptops can do that perfectly fine with FOSS drivers). The problem is that the Microsoft-sanctioned Windows desktop experience seems to be actively hostile to user experience due to all the extra shit that Microsoft has tacked onto the "goodness"…

Didn't realise Linux did seamless GPU switching these days. It's good to know. Personally I wish they'd move to proper driver isolation though.

Agreed about the BS. Honestly I'd pay more money to get rid of it and have thought about switching back to Linux a few times but the day-to-day Windows 10 experience is smooth enough that I always end up staying (maybe I just have Stockholm syndrome from the downright abuse Apple and Google throw at their mobile users though..)

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PS: Snipping Tool is still around btw and works fine. Sometimes you might want to hit print screen to capture mouse over state though.

Also as long as you don't connect to the internet you can skip creating an MS account on setup and Cortana won't bother you either afterwards either.