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The Mac Pro Lives

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Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#281

Post by yokohummer7 »

jrimbault wrote: post #269
yokohummer7 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, if Windows had a proper shell and cli tools, like cygwin with zsh, but native and not Ubuntu layer inside - that would be tremendous. It is PowerShell, and it really is. Until recently I thought Windows had poor CLI support, and I discovered PowerShell and now I favor it even more than bash. Am I crazy? Possibly, but PowerShell is truly a piece of gem in the CLI history. It is a thoughtfully craf…

But why is it that the PowerShell terminal emulator is (graphically) even worse than a tty ? I've worked on ttys more agreeable on the eyes than Windows terminal emulators. Windows is supposed to have better font support than Linux. Also, if someone here has an answer: Why in the design of Windows aren't programs installed or symlinked in the PATH by default? I guess that was a design choice somewhere along the histo…

It is not only ugly but also slow. One of the pain points while using PowerShell. It seems that Microsoft didn't care much about the emulator until recently. Thankfully things are changing, it was improved a bit in the Windows 10 anniversary update and Microsoft promised to improve it further. I'm optimistic about it.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#283

Post by lallysingh »

csomar wrote: post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

Thinkpads work out of the box for every regular feature (I had to write a shell script to make my X1 Yoga handle folding it into tablet mode -- ~15 LOC).

A thinkpad + ubuntu I think, will hit all your needs. Lenovo preinstalls Ubuntu on some of their thinkpads in some cases (afaict, large enterprises). The thinkpad line IIRC works to use well-supported hardware for Linux. You can check the certification list to be sure: https://certification.ubuntu.com/certification/make/Lenovo/

Dell also ships XPS models that ship with Linux. http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/xps-13-linux

I was on the mac a long time, but eventually switched to Linux and am much happier.

EDIT: Thinkpad P series has 16/32gb of RAM, donno about battery/size/weight, as there are a few models, and you'll have to figure out what your preferences are in trade-offs.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#284

Post by zeveb »

VelNZ wrote: post #229

Wow, what a torrent of negativity on this thread, I didn't see a single positive comment reading through the top level. This is excellent news, I'm chugging along on a 2010 Mac Pro and was very disappointed when the Apple Displays were cancelled last year. They are a staple of the lineup and always look gorgeous compared to what's on the market. I will definitely be buying the new Mac Pro and 2 displays to go with it…

> There is absolutely no way I will ever use Windows and having to downscale to an iMac or, worse, a MacBook Pro, when my Mac Pro is finally too old was filling me with dread.

There is a third choice: Linux. I've been using it as my desktop for 18 years now, and it really is wonderful. With a tiling window manager (no GNOME, no KDE, just X11) the UI gets out of my way and lets me work.

Yeah, I do kinda sorta wish that there were lighter or prettier laptops around, but on Linux I can get work done: on macOS or Windows my productivity is severely hampered.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#285

Post by haxxorfreak »

tachion wrote: post #240
yokohummer7 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's terrible to script I'm pretty sure you didn't try PowerShell. It is at least as good as bash, if not better. > you need to use the mouse too much I find this more problematic on macOS. I was forced to use a mouse much more on macOS. It doesn't even allow me to press the yes/no dialog only using a keyboard. On Windows nearly every item has a shortcut, sometimes even better than GNOME (but worse than KDE, IMO).

It does, you simply need to change a default configuration for keyboard shortcuts to be able to jump over UI elements with keyboard only.

Control + F7 (Fn + Ctrl + F7 if you're on a MBP or using the wireless keyboard)

Toggles on highlighting for all UI elements so you can Tab / Shift-Tab through them. It's usually the first thing I do when I touch a new Mac.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#287

Post by School-Cotton »

adtac wrote: post #193
csomar wrote: post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

>32/64GB RAM I'm genuinely curious - why do you need 64 GB of RAM on a laptop? Are there industries where this is a necessity? At that point, wouldn't you be better off having remote machines?

Xcode will happily consume that much RAM on a big enough project.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#288

Post by driverdan »

VelNZ wrote: post #229

Wow, what a torrent of negativity on this thread, I didn't see a single positive comment reading through the top level. This is excellent news, I'm chugging along on a 2010 Mac Pro and was very disappointed when the Apple Displays were cancelled last year. They are a staple of the lineup and always look gorgeous compared to what's on the market. I will definitely be buying the new Mac Pro and 2 displays to go with it…

> ... and was very disappointed when the Apple Displays were cancelled last year. They are a staple of the lineup and always look gorgeous compared to what's on the market.

Have you looked at what's on the market? There are many great displays out there now, all far better than Apple's offerings. Apple's displays were good for about a year before the competition surpassed them.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#289

Post by joshstrange »

SippinLean wrote: post #186
csomar wrote: post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

>I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X Specifically? People typically point to the telemetry and forced updates, but I've managed to disable both, using what were admittedly much-too-difficult procedures or third-party software. It's annoying, but not that annoying. I really like Finder and Spotlight, but not enough to be tied, via licensing, to any specific hardware. Less cluttering--I can uninstall apps…

I think you touched on a big win for macOS in my book:

> Specifically? People typically point to the telemetry and forced updates, but I've managed to disable both, using what were admittedly much-too-difficult procedures or third-party software. It's annoying, but not that annoying.

Before I switched to macOS about 8 years ago I was used to the mindset of "oh this doesn't work the way I want but I'm smart enough to figure out how to fix it" and I took great pride in being able to fix my PC no matter what happened. I'd dig into the registry, I'd futz with inf files, and drivers. I didn't mind it too much, it wasn't "that annoying". And then I switched to a MBP my freshman year of college mainly because it meant I could use Windows/Linux/macOS and I loved how solid they felt and had people around me rave about the hardware and longevity of the machines themselves. I played with macOS and found that after getting used to it it was a joy to work with. It took a little longer for me to realize that I wasn't spending all my time making sure my computer kept working, it just worked on it's own. The OS that I had belittled and mocked for years for being "a toy" or "dumbed down" actually was insanely powerful under the hood, extremely intuitive, and looked beautiful. That last point may sound stupid, I know I used to think it was, but it's a big deal. You are going to be staring at this for 8 hours+ a day. Trust me it is way more enjoyable to look at something pretty than something not. When it comes down to it for me macOS is built on a rock solid core and makes switching between it and the linux servers I work on a breeze with beautiful apps and a beautiful UI all of which JustWorks (tm). For that I am more than willing to pay the MacTax (tm).

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#290

Post by m_mueller »

SippinLean wrote: post #186
csomar wrote: post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

>I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X Specifically? People typically point to the telemetry and forced updates, but I've managed to disable both, using what were admittedly much-too-difficult procedures or third-party software. It's annoying, but not that annoying. I really like Finder and Spotlight, but not enough to be tied, via licensing, to any specific hardware. Less cluttering--I can uninstall apps…

Specifically:

* HiDPI support in all apps, whethere they are aware of it or not.

* Built-in PDF editing and creation from all printable content.

* POSIX scripting and CLI.

* Very clean and consistent configuration system (defaults). Reset an app to factory? Delete one plist file and potentially an app support folder. Got a new Mac? You could even boot it up from the old harddisk. Good luck doing that with windows registry.

* Touchpad support.

* Systemwide fulltext search with indexing and complex search terms. Somehow MS still hasn't caught up with 10.4 Tiger it seems to me.

* Superb discoverability of power user features with in-app help system and hotkeys displayed in the menu.

* A consistent menu system.

* Powerful and system wide screenshots.

* Very good screen calibration out of the box

* Cmd-C / V work everywhere, including the Terminal.

* Very good terminal with good color schemes, tabs, unicode and even emoji support.

On the other hand Windows has:

* The best keyboard-only UI (although ribbons were a big step backwards in that regard - very hard to discover now)

* The best graphics drivers

* The best Office version (although Google Docs has mostly replaced the need for me)

* Windows-P, I really like that menu

* The Windows 10 task manager, pretty neat.

* Pen and Touchscreen support.

Overall MacOS beats it hands down for me when it comes to productivity.

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