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Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

eclecticlight.co

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Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#391
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see anyone in these replies really addressing the touchpad. Would love to hear from people who have used macbooks if they have found a Linux machine that matches the Apple trackpad. “Never tried a MacBook, my Linux machine trackpad always worked perfectly” is the usual response I get when I press for a response… but without trying Apple (on this one thing) you’ll never understand until you’ve experienced the…

> but without trying Apple (on this one thing) you’ll never understand until you’ve experienced the downgrade. I don't doubt you find something special about the macOS trackpad experience, but I've used a Mac every day at work for 3 years and I genuinely don't feel any more or less fond of its trackpad than I do the one on my Framework laptop running Linux. They're both trackpads that do trackpad things. Shrug.

Do you use a mouse most of the time? That’s the other variable I wonder about. When I used Linux I found it normal to plug in a mouse whenever possible, but when I switched to macOS and got used to the trackpad I stopped using a mouse or keyboard, even if I’m plugged into a bigger screen.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my shining moment! I just happened to setup a new Dell. It was far more cumbersome than dealing with a new Mac. Here's some of the stuff I had to do on my new Dell, from memory: - Uninstall all the bloatware apps that come installed with Windows 11. They nag and beg you not to uninstall them, but after several prompts, they mostly seem uninstalled? - Remove the trial offers from the Start menu. - Remove the t…

I haven't used Windows in years, but surely a clean install addresses some of that? I don't think I've ever used whatever default OS was preinstalled on a laptop or PC that I bought. Or is the default Windows 11 just that full of shite?

Home edition comes with a few offers.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#393
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proper sleep.

If your computer fails to sleep, or fails to wake up correctly after sleeping, when running Linux then the problem is almost always the hardware manufacturer’s fault. Many motherboards come with frankly broken ACPI tables that should never have made it out of QA. Remember this ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45271484 >) recent story? This is just the tip of the iceberg. For every well–researched story we have…

It's not that Linux is "bad" when the hardware is incompatible, it's not "Linux's fault". It's that, at a certain age, I don't want to spend my precious few hours of free time working _on_ my computer, I just want it to work.

(big fan of MacOS, and esp. third-party Mac software, the quality of which simply does not exist on any other platform)

(Also, I have huge affection for Linux. I used Linux exclusively for years personally, and any place I could sneak it into my work environment)

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#394
post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but without trying Apple (on this one thing) you’ll never understand until you’ve experienced the downgrade. I don't doubt you find something special about the macOS trackpad experience, but I've used a Mac every day at work for 3 years and I genuinely don't feel any more or less fond of its trackpad than I do the one on my Framework laptop running Linux. They're both trackpads that do trackpad things. Shrug.

Do you use a mouse most of the time? That’s the other variable I wonder about. When I used Linux I found it normal to plug in a mouse whenever possible, but when I switched to macOS and got used to the trackpad I stopped using a mouse or keyboard, even if I’m plugged into a bigger screen.

On my Framework, I only use the trackpad, don't have a mouse for it. My work mac laptop lives on a desk so I mostly use a mouse for it, but also use the trackpad plenty when I head to a conference room for meetings etc.

One thing you might've missed in the last decade, is Linux relatively recently gained a new click mode that works like macOS does. One finger left click, two finger right click, two finger scrolling, etc.

Since it's Linux, it is very configurable and may not be enabled by default depending on your distro.

https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/clickpad...

https://smarttech101.com/libinput-fix-your-linux-touchpad-us...

However, more user friendly distros will hopefully(!) do that configuration for you or present a nice UI to enable it.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#395
post #43

I don't mind how Liquid Glass looks at all. It's just insane how buggy the system has become. Even Messages will bug out, like deleting my first word if I type too fast after opening a conversation or auto scrolling and not letting me scroll down until I exit and re-enter. Unacceptable for the premium you pay for Apple software. Unacceptable for any software one is paying for. I hope they get their shit together and…

> The thing that amazes me most is that everyone on the teams responsible is probably using their Apple devices and running into these same bugs!

Would be funny if devs @Apple were using Surface machines when developing the newest MacOS, just like MS devs were using Apple hardware when developing Windows.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's felt bloated for a while. Everytime I setup a new Mac I have to remove all of the icons from the doc. A new Dell isn't that bloated.

This is my shining moment! I just happened to setup a new Dell. It was far more cumbersome than dealing with a new Mac. Here's some of the stuff I had to do on my new Dell, from memory: - Uninstall all the bloatware apps that come installed with Windows 11. They nag and beg you not to uninstall them, but after several prompts, they mostly seem uninstalled? - Remove the trial offers from the Start menu. - Remove the t…

> Remove the third-party stub apps from the Start menu (eg. TikTok).

It comes with... TikTok?!?

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#397
post #318
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love an XFCE (or even gnome tbh) environment on a properly built laptop, unfortunately only Apple is able to build something that works in all areas that matter: sleeps when lid closed, wakes when lid opens, touchpad and display don’t suck.

I don’t see anyone in these replies really addressing the touchpad. Would love to hear from people who have used macbooks if they have found a Linux machine that matches the Apple trackpad. “Never tried a MacBook, my Linux machine trackpad always worked perfectly” is the usual response I get when I press for a response… but without trying Apple (on this one thing) you’ll never understand until you’ve experienced the…

Around 2018 I used a Mac at work and a Dell XPS at home and I had zero issues with the trackpad on the Dell. It was a bit smaller than the Mac's, but I actually preferred that because it was so large I'd sometimes move the mouse accidentally. Back then I thought PCs had finally caught up with Mac trackpads, but was extremely disappointed when the next XPS had one of those trackpads that is just integrated with the laptop cover (it's like a touchscreen instead of a pad inside a cut-off, if that makes sense). My guess is they changed for the aesthetics, but it was so bad that I returned it. I haven't used a good trackpad on a Linux PC since that Dell.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#398
post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proper sleep.

It's funny that you say that, given that since S3 was effectively killed, I can't say I experienced proper sleep in Windows or macOS either. Linux so far is closest to my expectations.

Same. Windows just stopped going to sleep across multiple laptops. I gave up and run "shutdown /h" when I really want to guarantee it doesn't drain the battery. MacOS in theory sleeps, but I can't get rid of the periodic wakeups that drain a lot over a longer time.

It's a weird time when Linux has the best sleep support overall.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#399
post #18

liquid glass is a total disaster. what the hell is going on in the ux teams at apple? this is like their windows vista era. i hate it so much

I'm almost positive that it's because they want to make as many apps as possible VisionOS-friendly. I suspect that they were rather shaken at how poorly AVP was received.

Sure, supposedly.

Except Liquid Glass looks nothing at all like visionOS. If they had just taken a carbon copy of the visionOS UI and put it on Mac and iPhone, I doubt there would have been any controversy. Buttons don't look like they hover way higher than the UI. Sidebars and toolbar buttons are indented, they don't scream "LOOK AT ME!".

Dye is just a moron.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be newsworthy if Linux laptops could compete with MacBooks on performance and quality. Maybe reconsider Windows if you feel the need to switch?

Well, Mac hardware is good, but in what universe is anything working better on Windows than Linux?? Same hardware available, less bloatware.

I would expect Windows to have better battery life than Linux, just because Linux is so much worse than MacOS on power consumption, but I also haven't run Windows on a laptop in over a decade so I really don't know.
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