Live data from Hacker News

Switching from macOS: The Basics

blog.elementary.io

561–570 of 610 posts

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#561
post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing works right, on any of them. Copy/paste, batteries, wireless networking, drag and drop, high-res displays, multilingual input, even like fucking word processing and email and image editors and terminal programs... Can you be more specific? i.e. - copy paste with a highlight+middle mouse button is frankly awesome in GNOME. - Batteries - yeah, Windows laptops usually don't have amazing battery life and it can…

> Batteries - yeah, Windows laptops usually don't have amazing battery life and it can even be slightly worse under Linux, however if you're working in a mode where you laptop is 99% plugged in and you just need occasionally a couple of hours from it, it's quite doable, which I'd imagine is the use-case for most "workstation" usage scenarios. Unfortunately, it turns out this usage pattern is terrible for the battery.

> Unfortunately, it turns out this usage pattern is terrible for the battery.

If you let it sufficiently (not fully!) discharge at least once a month, I don't see why it would be particularly terrible for the battery, what am I missing?

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#562
post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Batteries - yeah, Windows laptops usually don't have amazing battery life and it can even be slightly worse under Linux, however if you're working in a mode where you laptop is 99% plugged in and you just need occasionally a couple of hours from it, it's quite doable, which I'd imagine is the use-case for most "workstation" usage scenarios. Unfortunately, it turns out this usage pattern is terrible for the battery.

> Unfortunately, it turns out this usage pattern is terrible for the battery. If you let it sufficiently (not fully!) discharge at least once a month, I don't see why it would be particularly terrible for the battery, what am I missing?

As far as I am aware, letting it discharge is only for calibration purposes (to ensure the battery gauge reads correctly).

I've been using my laptop battery for about three years with exactly this pattern, and what once lasted ~4 hours on a charge now lasts about 25 minutes.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#563
post #357

My own burning hatred towards Apple runs a little hotter than most, and I have been seriously googling (and trying) alternatives since 2012. That was when my $9000 Mac Pro — which had been a great machine, and still was, except for the little detail about not having been updated since 2009 and thus being stuck with USB 2 (!!!) to say nothing of Thunderbolt and any kind of modern accoutrements — started to feel like a…

> Nothing works right, on any of them. Copy/paste, batteries, wireless networking, drag and drop, high-res displays, multilingual input, even like fucking word processing and email and image editors and terminal programs... Can you be more specific? i.e. - copy paste with a highlight+middle mouse button is frankly awesome in GNOME. - Batteries - yeah, Windows laptops usually don't have amazing battery life and it can…

Copy is Ctrl+C in your browser, in your notepad, in your IDE, but it's Ctrl-Shift-C in your terminal.

Paste is Ctrl+V in your browser, in your notepad, in your IDE, but it's Ctrl-Shift-V in your terminal.

Now copy a bunch of IPs from your AWS page into terminal to ssh into them for an hour or so.

Fuck that shit, I'm getting a second mortgage for the MBP and a set of 19 dongles.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#564
post #357

My own burning hatred towards Apple runs a little hotter than most, and I have been seriously googling (and trying) alternatives since 2012. That was when my $9000 Mac Pro — which had been a great machine, and still was, except for the little detail about not having been updated since 2009 and thus being stuck with USB 2 (!!!) to say nothing of Thunderbolt and any kind of modern accoutrements — started to feel like a…

Windows is the better OS. Microsoft never dropped support for power users. They give you options to do everything that you want to do, way more than macOS. It's also got the better business model. That's why every business in the world runs on Windows and not on Apple's OS.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows? It's really not that bad.

I can see the marketing now. "Switch back to Windows: it's really not that bad."

Why would they say that?

They could simply point out all the things that you can do on Windows that you cannot do on macOS because Apple will not let you.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#566

It's great timing for elementary. I'm having a lot of software problems with the Mac, and since I develop exclusively for Linux it seems like it'd be a lot easier if I could build and run everything on my target platform.

The elementary community would love feedback on how to solve pains with mac. There's a subreddit or you could post bug reports on launchpad.

No - Linux runs great, it's macOS I'm having issues with!

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly something, but no idea what. I only use a small number of apps (iterm2, neovim, chrome, spotify, etc). Spend most of my day in iterm2, and avoid using new programs because i prefer cli programs.

Well, usually when an application crashes in macOS, it offers you send a crash report, so you should know what exactly crashed.

Not sure about the last crash reports (the os froze until i force restarted it), but other weirdness are things like the keyboard going apeshit. Spazzing out like a variety of buttons are being held down. That's happened 3 times since updating, never before. Another one is all input not working, etc. Both keyboard/pad related though, i assume there's a wonky driver in Sierra but i haven't researched it (and frankly don't want to atm).

I'm not complaining/etc, just saying i'm not getting a crash report on the last two items - and i'm unsure about if i received one the times the OS actually crashed.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#568
post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shipped with it from dell

Shipped with Dell but wifi not working? I don't buy it.

The Broadcom wireless card my XPS 13 (9343) Developer Edition shipped with absolutely does not play well with Linux. Including the Ubuntu 14.04 version it shipped with.

It's a known issue, and that's not all. When the machine originally launched there were huge problems with the audio, the trackpad, the bluetooth, and the screen brightness control.

You don't have to buy it. I did... for $1100, and now it mostly sits on a shelf. I had to go back to my MacBook Air to get multi-modal work done. I can use Linux as a primary machine if the only thing I ever use is Emacs. The instant I have to venture across different applications and different modes of content creation (docs, code, slide decks, etc.) it's a very bespoke and inefficient experience.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#569
post #469
post #357

My own burning hatred towards Apple runs a little hotter than most, and I have been seriously googling (and trying) alternatives since 2012. That was when my $9000 Mac Pro — which had been a great machine, and still was, except for the little detail about not having been updated since 2009 and thus being stuck with USB 2 (!!!) to say nothing of Thunderbolt and any kind of modern accoutrements — started to feel like a…

Speak for yourself. Linux is a perfectly viable option for non-lazy people, who don't complain about everything. And Windows 10 is excellent too if you don't care about privacy. And it's Ubuntu not Ubuttnu. >> a sneering fuck you directed at not just me, but everybody remotely like me. You overpaid 8k for a machine so why should Apple care? You are clearly going to buy their next product. >>But we're mostly all gonna…

Non-lazy or should I say ok-to-deal-with-all-this-shit http://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.th...

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most apps I use on Ubuntu work well on hidpi. The main problem I face is when I connect my laptop with 4k screen with some external monitor with 2k or 1080p display.

A couple of years or so ago, I managed to "solve" this issue in Ubuntu 14.04, if I remember correctly. I somehow figured out how to drive Unity at 162% scaling for my XPS 13 and scale it down to 100% for my external display. There definitely were some artefacts, but it basically worked. I'm sorry to say though, that I don't remember how I did it, since I've been using mainly macOS and Windows for quite some time now.

Did that solution involve using xrandr scaling parameter? unfortunately that's not right solution IMO, as I observed it takes lot of CPU. Hacky and feels laggy.

My solution is to organize myself so that I don't have to move windows around. I mostly need browser, terminal and emacs. I open chrome in one monitor with specific scaling option, and when I move emacs or terminal around I manually decrease font size with Ctrl-+/-

Post reply on HN