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Switching from macOS: The Basics

blog.elementary.io

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Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#571

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.

What issues do you face, because I currently use that exact workflow with a MacbookPro retina, and a 24" dell monitor. Apart from windows not resizing/positioning automatically (so I have to manually re-layout everything whenever I switch from monitor to laptop), I haven't really suffered any problems so am curious to know what issues I'd face if I switched to Ubuntu.

I use a tiling window manager, so positioning is not a problem. Problem is that, on a my laptop (4k) screen things look normal, but on 2k external screen things look bigger by default. Ideally the GUI toolkit should be able to pick up per screen scaling factor.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle click to paste is indeed an old convention. Xterm supports it, so I suspect it goes all the way back to the early days of the X Window System, c. 1984.

I don't have a problem with middle click being a backwards-compatible convention. It's that the option to change it is non-obvious, and therefore excludes laptop users. As a counter-example: Much earlier versions of Windows had a menu in the top left corner. The shortcut to close a window used to be double-clicking in that corner. In Windows 7 (not sure about 8 or 10), that menu button/icon is gone. Of course, you ca…

There are two ways of doing copy/paste. The middle clicking and Ctrl+C/V.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#573
post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Broadcom fix is literally one apt-get install command. The driver issues keep happening because companies are loathe at releasing drivers for Linux or even provide support and assistance for third party drivers. Here's looking at you Realtek.

Also I don't understand how something can be bespoke and inefficient at the same time. With MacOS, you learn the Apple way, with Linux you have the freedom to create your own workflow. This freedom is what stops Linux from being a noon friendly OS, and frankly, I am happy about that.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, that functionality has a tendency to break after being used a few times in OSX. Specifically, dragging images from your browser to the finder works the first few times, providing an overlay image which becomes a file icon as you hover over the finder window. A few transfers later, the file icon stops appearing. Then the semi-transparent image stops appearing; though the files are still being copied. Then, silentl…

Macs have become a lot worse at this sort of thing - weird, intermittent user interface failures - over the last few years. Sometimes I can't drag attachments out of emails (which is about the only damn reason I don't use Mutt for everything) on the first few attempts; I thought for a while it was because the attachment hadn't completely downloaded, but no, it doesn't seem to be as predictable as that. Moving files a…

Not being a Mac user, a similar thing that always struck me as strange is that those Mac users I know all seem to have a huge amount of windows open in the background (multiple Finders etc.). I found that being interesting because it is the first habit I got rid of when starting out in the new Gnome Shell: I have a workspace for every task going on, and each workspace contains no more than two windows, that are neatly aligned - or maximized if there's only one.

I switched to AwesomeWM a while ago, and the first thing I changed in the RC is that it replicated Gnome's automatic/endless workspaces behavior.

Of course that is highly subjective, but i always thought that going for a window hunt everytime you have to switch context is pretty backward, and I can't figure out why even the more sophisticated Apple users I know won't use workspaces for their benefit. On Windows, I get it - if only because that sort of workflow was impossible without special tools before Win10.

Does anyone have thoughts on this? Is this a "culture thing", or is it because users that switched over from Windows never even thought of the workspaces feature?

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been a Linux user for a long time ( ArchLinux with Xfce ). Recently, I switched jobs and my employer issued me with a Mac. I am having the same problem : the fucking OS . Why do I need to press multiple buttons to see how many applications I have open ? Why does command + tab cycle through every open application ? Why does it not limit itself to the applications in the current space ? What are spaces for anywa…

Protip: use karabiner to bind command to control when you're using a windows VM ;)

I discovered Karabiner too late, after upgrading to Sierra, now I'm waiting for it to work on Sierra :-(

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#576
post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been a Linux user for a long time ( ArchLinux with Xfce ). Recently, I switched jobs and my employer issued me with a Mac. I am having the same problem : the fucking OS . Why do I need to press multiple buttons to see how many applications I have open ? Why does command + tab cycle through every open application ? Why does it not limit itself to the applications in the current space ? What are spaces for anywa…

>Also why do I have to press Command + whatever when there is a perfectly functional control key on the keyboard ? If I am remoted into a Windows machine now I have to remember to press Control + whatever and revert back to Command + Whatever when I am back on my Mac It's worth pointing out that Apple is the odd one out when it comes to modifier keys. Switching between Linux and Windows, alot of the keyboard shortcut…

What is really frustrating is to go back. You never get that shortcut consistency like it is between different osx apps. Not to mention that my leftmost finger stopped being sick, because Cmd is just below thumb, not in the dead corner. Many linuxoids even remap control on capslock for that reason.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#577
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…

>- wireless networking - works great if you're willing to do a bit of research before buying, instead of just dropping Linux on any garbage PC and expecting it to work flawlessly, (why won't you try that with macOS and report back?)

Why doesn't Linux track actual hardware proved to be compatible. Each year the same 'bit of research' with no guarantees at all. Oh, wait, Linux does not — because it isn't a Product.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USB-C ports and the processor + RAM limitations will be fixed by time. As soon as Intel rolls out their full Kaby Lake line, the Macbook Pro will get a rev that will improve speed and permit 32GB of RAM. Counting in design and manufacturing time, that could be about a year from now. And USB-C is clearly the future for connectors. In a year or two a lot more peripherals will be shipping with USB-C as the default c…

> As soon as Intel rolls out their full Kaby Lake line, the Macbook Pro will get a rev that will improve speed and permit 32GB of RAM. Can you comment on why you think this is true? A cursory look at Kaby Lake does not seem to indicate any sort of intrinsic change that would allow the MBP to have more memory.

I believe that Kaby Lake brings support for LPDDR4, whereas Skylake doesn't have it. Apple only uses LPDDR on its laptops, so you can't get 32 GB as this would mean DDR4 and higher power consumption.

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#579
post #577

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…

>- wireless networking - works great if you're willing to do a bit of research before buying, instead of just dropping Linux on any garbage PC and expecting it to work flawlessly, (why won't you try that with macOS and report back?) Why doesn't Linux track actual hardware proved to be compatible. Each year the same 'bit of research' with no guarantees at all. Oh, wait, Linux does not — because it isn't a Product.

> Why doesn't Linux track actual hardware proved to be compatible.

Sure it does [1]. The "bit of research" involves finding out if your desired machine has one of the many chips known to work flawlessly, which shouldn't be a problem, unless you don't mind what you spend your money on and just buy impulsively.

There are also chipset manufactures which are known to be more friendly than others, for example almost any modern Intel Wireless chip will work just fine.

Even for generally unfriendly OEMs, you can find amazingly clear documentation [2].

> Oh, wait, Linux does not

Again, you just asserted stuff without any evidence, see above.

> because it isn't a Product

Not sure by what definition of "product" you're going by, (if any), but you can absolutely get commercial support from a number of companies i.e. Canonical, RedHat, SuSE and even Oracle if you so desire.

[1] - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupp... [2] - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/broadcom_wireless

Re: Switching from macOS: The Basics

#580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

source?

I'm part of the community. I have seen alot of work being put into making hidpi work properly. I can't find any changelog mentions though :( Here's a community post: https://www.reddit.com/r/elementaryos/comments/53gkr1/elemen... And some hidpi icon work: http://blog.elementary.io/post/124193007916/whats-up-with-hi...

Found it: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/hidpi-su...
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