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From macOS to Arch Linux

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Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#131

Post by acomjean »

rbut wrote: post #31

Not Arch, but macOS to Linux related. As a developer, used macOS for 13 years. Switched to Ubuntu after Apple went to M1. It's been pretty much flawless and required no more tweaks during setup than a typical macOS install would. Developing on the same environment as our servers is a massive plus. The key is choosing the right hardware from the start. For my desktop, I chose an Asus TUF gaming motherboard that had ev…

I went Mac->linux too. I took the notebook route when apple wasn't making anything compelling 3 years ago. I did the pay to solve compatibility problem (I bought a system76). It really has been pretty flawless in terms of upgrades and install. A fan broke after a couple years, but I replaced.. It even runs Steam very well.

Its not great with power unless I switch to "intel graphics" from Nvidia. (The intel graphics don't drive external monitors though..).

Very happy with it.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#132

Post by jagrsw »

I also use Iosevka on my Linux desktop since a couple of days. Subjectively a very aesthetically pleasing monospaced font.

My aesthetics skills are 2/10, and I usually don't care about UI feel much, but for some reason I really dislike "not nice" (R) fonts. But recently I switched to the combination of the default Windows 11 font (Segoe) for desktop, and Iosevka for consoles, and this feels good.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#133

Post by selfhoster11 »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #16
Kalanos wrote: post #6

Getting your custom stack tuned feels great, but maintaining that entire stack across updates is daunting. You can't join meetings because your headphone/ mic/ video drivers aren't working? yikes. i trust apple to handle hardware and os for me. I've switched to: macOS > brew (basic cli utils & gui apps) > some basic zshrc (not ohmyzsh) > docker (not environment managers) > done. ^ but i've lost trust for them to hand…

> You can't join meetings because your headphone/ mic drivers aren't working? yikes. I really don't know where you're getting this from. This isn't 2004 and you don't have to screw with ALSA drivers to get basic audio functionality on Linux. On both PulseAudio and Pipewire, I've never had this problem and I know many others who haven't had issues either, and I really just don't think audio input/output is a gigantic…

I've been a Linux user since before PulseAudio came onto the scene, and it's starting to get better. But, applications still have issues with new audio devices being connected or disconnected, and not detecting the change. Teams for Linux is a big offender here, but also OBS Studio.

Bluetooth headphones work too (which, with my previous experiences, I never expected to work beyond a tech demo), but they sometimes get stuck in HSF/HFP mode and have to be switched manually. But, at least there's a good GUI for it.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#134

Post by breakfastduck »

fsflover wrote: post #25
hnrj95 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i agree. the mental overhead is too much for me to justify, personally, for my own machine

So don't use Arch. Use Debian.

Or if you really don't want to have to deal with the overhead, choose macOS or Windows.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#135

Post by philliphaydon »

blux wrote: post #88
tanjiro wrote: post #29

Its not just the initial setup that's painful with Arch, the whole rolling update model means things break often and I no longer have the patience to patch them. But I do agree that linux provides a better env for development compared to macOS. On Ubuntu atm and works like charm with flexibility to extend it as I like.

"...means things break often..." Citation needed. I can provide some anecdotal evidence to the contrary; I've been running Arch both privately and professionally now for about 15 years and sure there were some issues initially but the last decade or so I've been updating my systems fearlessly on a regular basis.

I've only been running arch on my laptop for a year, and it hasn't broken once, unlike Ubuntu which I constantly had issues with.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#136

Post by julianlam »

pmontra wrote: post #121
ubermonkey wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True fact: proper sleep/wake on lid close is probably 40% of why I switched from Windows to Mac in about 1999 -- and that was when the Mac was on OS 9, not the BSD-based OSX. I can't imagine going to a system where it wouldn't work. That's baseline, out of the box functionality for me.

I press the resume/suspensd button on my laptop. I explicitly disabled the suspend and resume on lid close. Maybe I suspend and don't close the lid (hot machine after something CPU intensive) or maybe I fail to fully close it? A button is safer.

Your comment made me realize that I've unintentionally adapted my behaviour to do the same thing.

I press the power button, and wait for the power LED to turn off before I close the lid.

Had a laptop stay on twice in a bag... never again.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#137

Post by paco3346 »

nmstoker wrote: post #51

Was interested in the idea of Arch in a commercial environment. Presumably this only works in a certain kind of place: one with motivated individuals and without the "oh my God people might do what they think is sensible" types from an overactive Compliance group. Personally this would be a very satisfying kind of place to work because the single biggest challenge I face in my company is the endless fiddling that the…

This is what my org does. Devs are allowed to pick their own OS as long as they can support it when IT doesn't know about the particulars. We've even contemplated running it on production servers instead of Ubuntu so that we don't have to wait 18 months for Canonical to publish the next version of a package.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#138

Post by blacksmith_tb »

emidln wrote: post #86
ubermonkey wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True fact: proper sleep/wake on lid close is probably 40% of why I switched from Windows to Mac in about 1999 -- and that was when the Mac was on OS 9, not the BSD-based OSX. I can't imagine going to a system where it wouldn't work. That's baseline, out of the box functionality for me.

I thought this was a dealbreaker until I installed an SSD in my laptop in the mid to late 00s. When my machine is fully graphical in less than 5 seconds, I just didn't care. My browser restored tabs, my editor restored everything, my desktop restored windows. It was a complete non-issue as long as the machine could cold-boot quickly. As an upside, my machine also no longer overheated if I forgot to long press the pow…

Maybe weird, but not alone - I have a couple of Ubuntu laptops (with SSDs) and I generally just shut them all the way down and boot back up if I am taking them anywhere / not using them for a while.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#139

Post by zdragnar »

shbooms wrote: post #104
sunaurus wrote: post #10

I just completed my migration in the opposite direction after using Arch Linux as my daily driver for ~10 years. I think Arch Linux is by far the better OS for pretty much all power users, but when using multiple devices, the benefits of the "Apple Ecosystem" outweigh the benefits of an amazing desktop OS for me, which is why I ended up switching to Mac OS. Some key points which I believe are much worse on Mac: * No…

> Setting up ergonomic custom keyboard shortcuts is painful and requires (multiple?) third-party applications to do well. Take a look at Hammerspoon[0] for this if you haven't already. It requires some work to get it working the way want (you'll be writing some basic Lua code) but it's by far the best, all-in-one solution I've found for this problem on macOS. It has a ton of built-in modules for automating things inc…

Hammerspoon is what makes macOS usable for me (plus karabiner for caps lock twiddling). The randomly rearranging layout of mission control has to be the most user hostile annoyance I have ever experienced in an OS to date.

Ironically, there isn't anything equivalent to it in linux land, and once I had gotten some really nice customizations, going back makes me a little sad.

Re: From macOS to Arch Linux

#140

Post by zdragnar »

Offpics wrote: post #37
sunaurus wrote: post #10

I just completed my migration in the opposite direction after using Arch Linux as my daily driver for ~10 years. I think Arch Linux is by far the better OS for pretty much all power users, but when using multiple devices, the benefits of the "Apple Ecosystem" outweigh the benefits of an amazing desktop OS for me, which is why I ended up switching to Mac OS. Some key points which I believe are much worse on Mac: * No…

Im going to switch from arch to mac in one month. What I should consider installing on it beside homebrew?

Hammerspoon is fantastic
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