Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop • Hacker News Board

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#651

Post by barrkel » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

mistersquid wrote: post #644

tomaskafka wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just take me to most recent non-minimized window of that app. And if there is no such window left, and I told system that I want to switch to the app, then yes, of course I want the most recent window unminimized. This isn't rocket science.

> And if there is no such window left, and I told system that I want to switch to the app, then yes, of course I want the most recent window unminimized. If one is screensharing or presenting to an audience and the only windows in the target app are minimized but contain sensitive information, one most certainly would not want one of those minimized windows to reveal. As a sibling to your comment points out, the solu…

Alt-tabbing in the middle of a presentation risks displaying random information no matter what. You could tab to browser showing mail, or to Slack, or a PDF viewer showing your latest payslip, or whatever. If you have sensitive information or something which might show alerts in the middle of an important presentation, you should probably close such apps and / or mute their notifications.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#652

Post by edgyquant » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

herbst wrote: post #344

addicted wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu has been going down the drain for a long time. The problem is that they successfully (and for good reason) became the de facto Desktop Linux for users who wanted a desktop and not mess with it much. They’ve cornered that market to the point there are very few alternatives (at least very few that will come preinstalled and supported) but because they want to IPO I guess, they’ve stopped focusing on the desktop…

The irony is by becoming the “it just works“ monster ubuntu tries to be right now it brought issues that no other major linux faces. For me (using linux for 15+ years as desktop) ubuntu tends to break after only a few months. Usually complex dependencies like steam, wine or video editing stuff break first. I rarely manage to get out of a update without some dependencies breaking... Fedora, Manjaro, Debian, ... nothin…

I vastly prefer Fedora but could never get tensorflow to work with my GPU (Nvidia 1660x,) and unfortunately now I can’t get it to work with Ubuntu either. Or, more accurately, I can’t get it to work while using display drivers. I have to install one or the other.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#653

Post by prestonbriggs » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

argvargc wrote: post #530

shaan7 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah thats the other thing I found fascinating about macOS, a bunch of useful features are very hard to discover. Mostly because you won't see any menu entries, but some sort of drag-and-drop will / alt+click will activate a very useful feature. Their idea of being user friendly, I guess.

Actually, this is one of my biggest problems with macOS. So many tremendously useful things are hidden . Why do they do this? It's not good for anyone. I can understand this concept of "just do what's intuitive - try it!", oh what fun - but nobody is going to risk messing up the important files they're working with by randomly dragging things onto other things just to see what happens. Just tell us how to use it. Alm…

Cynically, I think the publishers have a deal that Apple won't publish manuals.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#654

Post by chrisweekly » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #567

Preview is one of the most underrated pieces of software in the world today. I make the assumption that Quicklook uses Preview (because surely it must). Being able to hit spacebar on just about any kind of selected document/image type file and see a near instant look, multiple pages and all, is so important. Once you don't have that (move to the Windows world), you realize how much you miss it. And you can, with a sm…

Similar experiences (eg w my 2012 mpb15r).

You'll be happy to learn that your "#1 hate" is easily resolved: cmd-tab then hold option key down while releasing cmd-tab. Voila, the minimized window is restored with focus. :)

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#655

Post by tumblewit » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

minimaul wrote: post #328

tumblewit wrote: post #321

As someone who is comfortable with linux and macOS and also someone who used an M1 MBA here is my take because this article does not do justice to each of the platform pros and cons: 1. The M1 Macs are amazing. If you are the kind of person who needs a GUI and involves lot of app related work go for it. (this person seems more interested in stuff like that so linux ain’t gonna cut it for him). The cons? A super restr…

for 1. The cons? A super restrictive platform (even more than it was under intel) You can still boot arbitrary unsigned OSes - Apple still allows this, but it is obviously going to take time for other OSes to grow support for apple's custom hardware. So it's still a computer you can control if you want. for 2., wayland is still a very rough experience imo (I periodically try it on an all-intel system, which ought to…

True that its still new but with zero support from Apple this is going to require some serious reverse engineering to get anything useful especially with the GPU drivers.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#656

Post by chrisweekly » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #616

mromanuk wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you want to open the minimized or hidden window, after cmd-tab, do a option-cmd-tab and finally release cmd-tab. The window will get focus

What is the more common case: a user switches to a hidden app and then does NOT want to actually see a window from that app, or the user switches to an app and wants to see it. I don't need to do research to answer this question. If a user switches to an app, it's because they want to use that app. And using most apps depends heavily on being able to see them. If I want to control things without a UI, I'll go to term…

I agree w you in principle, but the minor ergonomic friction -- adding the option key to alt-tab to restore and focus a minimized window -- is not a big deal to me. That said, I never got in the habit of minimizing windows (partly bc I didn't know about the keyboard-only way to restore them), so it's a non-issue for me.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#657

Post by 2muchcoffeeman » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

caslon wrote: post #221

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're complaining about Linux drivers please do so after using a Laptop that supports Linux (Thinkpads for example). So I Googled “laptops supported by Linux”. There is no official site. Ubuntu has a page. But it’s not on the first page of results. I only know about it because I’m familiar with it. Supporters keeps arguing people should jump through hoops. I’m on Linux right now, but people have better things to…

Not to give an argument along the lines of "You're holding it wrong," but...okay, yeah, I'm going to do that. You hold a gun in one way. If you mess that up in any fashion, you probably won't hit what you're trying to, and, worse, might shoot yourself. Saying things like "There is no official site" is holding Linux wrong. Linux isn't an operating system. Linux is just a kernel. So phrase your search the right way: "l…

With my latest Linux machine I actually picked some easy to get laptops on a steep discount and then started googling to find other people’s experience. I’ve been using some Linux distribution or other for a long time.

But that’s not what a newbie or outsider sees. And until there is the kind of assurance from some Linux distribution or whatever, all criticisms of the difficulty of getting a Linux machine running are valid.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#658

Post by linsomniac » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

michaelcampbell wrote: post #447

minimaul wrote: post #368

From someone who tends to try this switch about once a year (because the lack of TLC the Mac was getting in the last 5 or so years was getting very very worrying - M1 feels like Apple actually care about the Mac again), I agree with a lot of these pain points. My biggest personal issues end up being (and these are super subjective!): - Preview on macOS is great and no other OS has anything remotely equivalent. First…

> it's nigh impossible to eliminate tearing on multimonitor setups with X11, I haven't seen tearing in longer than I can remember, and can't remember anyone even mentioning it, so I think you're overplaying this point JUST a tad. I tend to use older laptops with Linux, and older screens (VGA, DVI), so maybe that's the reason. I hate touchpads. I don't do PDF editing. Everything's a tradeoff.

I was wondering if I just wasn't very sensitive to tearing, because I haven't noticed it. One setup is a 4K 46" or Dell 30" next to a 4K laptop, the other is 4K 46" with two 1080P wings in portrait.

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#659

Post by iwebdevfromhome » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #621

blunte wrote: post #567

Preview is one of the most underrated pieces of software in the world today. I make the assumption that Quicklook uses Preview (because surely it must). Being able to hit spacebar on just about any kind of selected document/image type file and see a near instant look, multiple pages and all, is so important. Once you don't have that (move to the Windows world), you realize how much you miss it. And you can, with a sm…

Windows users who switch to macOS will complain that their new shiny and expensive machine won't let them to go through their photos in a folder using the arrow keys and they have to open the photos one by one. Then you tell them to hit the space when a photo is selected, they first look at the keyboard then at the screen and they are like "O.K. that will work", you proceed to tell them to try it on a PDF or somethin…

Well damn, I’ve been a mac user for 6 years now and this is the first time I hear about this option haha and it was one of my main complains

Re: Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop

#660

Post by toyg » Sat, Apr 03, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

2ion wrote: post #629

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Windows users have long been dependent on Acrobat Reader (or lately, browser PDF renderers) for showing PDFs. If Apple had a relationship with a third party providing something akin to a system application like Windows and Adobe, they'd happily make a native equivalent and relegate the old product to the dustbin. Windows doesn't do that as much.

It does not stop at PDF / Acrobat. Windows sucks for media and document management. No thumbnails for random media / file types. No playback for random media types. Metadata may be in the files, but who cares? --- the OS makes no sensible use of them except in the details view of "library" folders to show the title and an obscure tab in Explorer's file properties dialog. Calendaring? Sorry, we don't support CalDAV. E…

Microsoft had to walk a tight rope, historically, for fear of antitrust action. If they had improved Windows too much, big developers would have gone ballistic and dragged them in the courts again. Apple never had to care about this, and it shows.