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Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

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Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#701
post #409
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently also looking at Framework+AMD. I want Mac hardware but Linux software. The other makers build quality is horrendous. Especially in the 13inch segment which is my favorite. Using a pretty old laptop because there is no replacement right now. The new Ryzen AI looks really interesting! Sadly there is no Framework shop for me to look at it and they not ship to Japan..

> The other makers build quality is horrendous Out of curiosity, what are you basing this on? From having spoken to people who manage IT fleets, and being the person regular people ask for advice for what device to get, with the occasional exception (which Apple also had plenty of, cf. the butterfly keyboard), you get what you pay for. A 1k-1.5k+ Asus/Dell/HP/Lenovo will get you decent and good build quality. The che…

> A 1k-1.5k+ Asus/Dell/HP/Lenovo will get you decent and good build quality.

And it still won't be on par with a $999 apple silicon air, or a MBP.

I've deployed latitudes, precisions, and thinkpads. They all still make tradeoffs that you don't have to deal with on the mac.

The X1 carbon is probably the "best" but, even with that - you are still getting a 1920x1200 screen unless you spend more than a MBP for the 2.8k display (which is still less than the 14" MBP, and costs more than an equivalent specced M4 pro). The trackpad is worse, the speakers are worse, battery life is worse, and they're loud under load.

They're all fine for a fleet where the end user isn't the purchaser, which is why they exist, but for an individual that doesn't want tradeoffs (outside of the tradeoff of having to use macOS), there's no other option on the market that comes remotely close to the mac. For someone that wants Apple silicon MBP level hardware but wants to run Linux, there are zero options.

The screen is the most egregious tradeoff though, the PC world is still adverse to HiDPI displays and even on high end models 1080p or 1200p is still the standard. I can excuse poor speakers, it is a laptop after all, if I really had to I can deal with fan noise, but I shouldn't have to spend more than a MBP to get a decent 120hz HiDPI screen with sufficient brightness and color accuracy.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s perfectly fine. KDE and Gnome are both now more cohesive, more intuitive, and less buggy than either Windows or MacOS. The problem with Linux is that, while it’s very good, it’s different. Nobody actually cares how intuitive something is, at least not in absolute. People will still say Windows is intuitive. Pretty much nothing in Windows, from the registry to COM to IIS to setting/control panel/computer manageme…

If I pick up a Linux laptop right now, how well will it handle low latency audio? How well will it handle power management? My graphics hardware? Getting WiFi to work reliably is still an issue. Can I get a high performance Linux laptop with good battery life, fast graphics, that runs cool and silent?

Yes, but be mindful of the hardware you're using

What's high performance for you?

I can certainly get a Framework (Fedora and Ubuntu officially supported), throw my prefered Bluefin-Framework image in and get working

Battery life around 7 hours is the average I see reported, Fast/Silent will depend on the model, but I don't see the issue really Upgradability and easeness of battery replacement are a plus

I just picked framework because they were first to come to mind, but I think Dell has a nice Linux story, Tuxedo also comes to mind

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#703
post #10

There are some factual "gaps" there about how good Snow Leopard was, but I understand the sentiment. As someone who's been a Mac user since System 6 and has been consistently using Macs alongside PCs _daily_ for over 20 years I can say that Apple's software quality (either in terms of polish or just plain QA) has steadily decreased. It's just that me and other old-time switchers have stopped complaining about it and…

I have been using a Mac since the 128k came out. System 7.5.3 and Snow Leopard 10.6.8 are in my opinion the high water mark for both OS’s. I still have some 10.6.8 install media for both server and client. Truly loved them both.

> System 7.5.3 and Snow Leopard 10.6.8 are in my opinion the high water mark for both OS’s.

Wasn’t 7.5.3 the worst of the string of terrible releases between 7.5 and 7.6? In my memory 7.5.5 was much better, but I still preferred 8.1.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s perfectly fine. KDE and Gnome are both now more cohesive, more intuitive, and less buggy than either Windows or MacOS. The problem with Linux is that, while it’s very good, it’s different. Nobody actually cares how intuitive something is, at least not in absolute. People will still say Windows is intuitive. Pretty much nothing in Windows, from the registry to COM to IIS to setting/control panel/computer manageme…

If I pick up a Linux laptop right now, how well will it handle low latency audio? How well will it handle power management? My graphics hardware? Getting WiFi to work reliably is still an issue. Can I get a high performance Linux laptop with good battery life, fast graphics, that runs cool and silent?

Yes, I just bought one a few months ago actually. A new lunar lake laptop. It gets 12 hours of battery life and has plenty performance for programming, plus 32 gigs of ram. It’s under 3 pounds and the screen is OLED.

And yes, everything works. On bleeding edge 2 month old hardware.

I even use thunderbolt 4 to connect my external displays and peripherals. Not only does it work, but it’s pleasant. KDE has a settings panel for thunderbolt. I can even change my monitor brightness in KDE settings. No OSD required!

But wait, there’s more! I’m running 2 1440p monitors at 240hz and the system never even hiccups.

But wait, there’s more more! The battery settings are really advanced so I can change the power profile, maximum charge, everything.

The only thing I’m unsure about in your comment is “low latency audio”. It seems low latency to me, but I’m not an audio engineer.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#705

I keep being tempted to write same post but named "Does all software work like shit now?", because I swear, this is not just Apple. Software in general feels more bugged as a new norm. Most websites have an element that won't load on the first try, or a button that sometimes needs to be clicked twice because the first click did nothing. Amazon shopping app needs two clicks every now and then, because the first one di…

Maybe we should introduce Mean Time Between Annoyance (MTBA).

Many of my appliances (dish washer, coffee maker, …) work just fine for weeks before an annoyance pops up („deep clean“, for example). Many of my applications do not. For most I could measure MBTA in minutes. Definitely with Spotlight.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#706

Last week, I switched to a Mac for the first time in my life after using Windows and Linux for around 30 years. Naturally, I hate a lot of things due to old habits, and the shortcuts constantly confuse me. But what really surprises me is the number of obvious bugs in common workflows. At least five times a day, I catch myself thinking, "There's no way this is actually broken." I didn't expect macOS to be even buggier…

I took a Mac at my current job since I really don't like Windows and I figured I would probably be able to hack it. I use Linux for all my personal stuff, all I need is bash and a browser, yeah?

Pfft. Nothing works, and a patronizing, laggy OS that actively tries to fight me at every step because it knows better than me.

What a joy. I'm sticking with Ubuntu/Fedora and having to figure out a driver issue every once in a while.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#707
post #700
post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.protondb.com/app/2842040 Star Wars Outlaws Natively Supports: Windows only > https://www.protondb.com/app/2840770/ Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Natively Supports: Windows only > https://www.protondb.com/app/365590 Tom Clancy’s The Division Natively Supports: Windows only ---- You were saying?

I know, I worked on those games. Specifically, I worked on those games so I know what they natively support and how things transpired behind the scenes. Proton has absolutely no hope of working without the changes we made because of stadia, the code we wrote was deeply hooked into Windows and we made more generic variants of many things. The Division 1 PS4 release was significantly shimmed underneath compared to the…

> this became much less true over time as porting the renderer to linux (specifically debian)

Strange how you ported the renderer to Debian, and yet you couldn't even find a link to a game that has a native Linux support.

Was there ever a port?

> Proton has absolutely no hope of working without the changes

You keep saying this as the absolute truth, and yet at the time when Stadia launched Proton already had 5k working games under its belt.

Strange how Stadia is this monumental achievement without which Linux gaming wouldn't happen according to you.... and yet no one ever mentions Stadia ever contributing any code to any of the constituent parts of what makes Proton tick. Apart from the changes that engines supposedly made to work on a yet another game streaming platform.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#708
How does Apple Music not have an equivalent to Spotify Connect?! Renders Apple Music unusable, and no, we're not talking about Airplay, and no, we're not downloading iTunes Remote (can't believe it still even has 'iTunes' in its name!).

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#709
post #707
post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, I worked on those games. Specifically, I worked on those games so I know what they natively support and how things transpired behind the scenes. Proton has absolutely no hope of working without the changes we made because of stadia, the code we wrote was deeply hooked into Windows and we made more generic variants of many things. The Division 1 PS4 release was significantly shimmed underneath compared to the…

> this became much less true over time as porting the renderer to linux (specifically debian) Strange how you ported the renderer to Debian, and yet you couldn't even find a link to a game that has a native Linux support. Was there ever a port? > Proton has absolutely no hope of working without the changes You keep saying this as the absolute truth, and yet at the time when Stadia launched Proton already had 5k worki…

I don’t know how to say this without being unkind.

There is a functioning version of The Division 1, Division 2, Avatar and Star Wars outlaws that run on Linux internally at Ubisoft.

Nobody will release it because it can’t be reasonably QA’d. (Stadia was also very hard to QA, but possible, as it was a stable target and development was essentially funded).

I’m not sure what your problem is; I said - as clearly as I can - that architectural changes to the engine were neccessary for proton.

I know this, for an absolute fact, because Proton was a topic when I worked on those games and it was not until Stadia (codename Yeti) was on the roadmap, and our rendering architect lost all his hair working on it - that Proton started to even function slightly.

I’m not shilling for Stadia - there’s nothing to shill for, it is dead.

Get over yourself, if you don’t like the truth then don’t start going in on me because my reality does not match your fantasy. Sometimes corporations do things accidentally that push other things forward unintentionally.

I just want to share my thanks to Stadia because I know for a concrete fucking fact that at least some of the AAA games I worked on would not function at all on Linux without Stadias commercial interference.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#710
post #672
post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What games have you made to justify this statement? I worked closely with productions using proprietary game engines, I feel qualified in stating that Stadia had an outsized impact on our development process in a way that helped proton succeed. That you don’t see it as an end user, is exactly my point.

> What games have you made? You don't have to be a chef to judge what's coming out of the kitchen. What is the objective impact of Stadia which at its height had a whopping 307 titles [1]? At the time of writing ProtonDB lists 6806 titles as "platinum, works perfectly out of the box" and 4839 games as "gold, works perfectly after tweaks". Steam Deck alone has almost 5x the number of games with "verified" status [2].…

You are literally arguing that your ignorance is as valid as my experience. And you’re arguing that you didn't see the impact; which was kinda my entire point - there was impact beyond what was visible that propelled Proton forward.

You don’t know how the sausage is made just because you ate a hotdog.

Maybe you should consider things more carefully before making yourself look like an idiot on the internet and simultaneously raising my blood pressure.

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