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Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

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Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#731

Post by ddtaylor »

scarface_74 wrote: post #678
consteval wrote: post #646

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?

> Getting WiFi to work reliably is still an issue.

This should not be an issue. I have hardware that varies a lot and I literally buy random wifi dongles for $1, $4, $5, Amazon, AliExpress, etc. and they have all just worked on first plugin. I can easily take my phone and tether it to my PC using USB-C and it appears in my Gnome network list and just starts using it for Internet.

> how well will it handle low latency audio

Pretty well you can use OBS to verify this. There are plenty of settings if you want to tune that.

> My graphics hardware?

Just ignore Nvidia and move on. Sure they might figure it out one day, I gave up a decade ago and I use Intel integrated or AMD dedicated for GPUs. Nvidia does "work" for most purposes but it will cause you a headache eventually and those are not worth $400 to me.

> How well will it handle power management?

I enjoy the basic controls that Gnome provides that give me a simple way to basically say "go all out" or "save some battery" etc. There are finer grain controls available and I have used commands in the past to push crappy hardware to it's limits before I chucked it (old Intel iGPUs)

> Can I get a high performance Linux laptop with good battery life, fast graphics, that runs cool and silent?

You can get ones that are specifically marketed for this purpose. Tuxedo is one that specializes in this and obviously System76 also do. These have a higher price point than a regular Dell system, which IMO is the better option in some ways. Dell sells more systems and has more users and it will "just work". They sold Linux systems for years and still do I believe.

Regarding "running silent" this is a gripe I have, not that it runs loud but some laptops have custom RGB crap and sometimes in Linux I don't have access to the extra functionality to customize my lighting or manually set my fans to ramp up etc. There are projects that aim to do this, but I have not looked into them beyond the most basic `fancontrol` built in command.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#732

Post by scarface_74 »

joseda-hg wrote: post #702
scarface_74 wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 picke…

7 hours battery life is less than half of what I get on my MacBook Air. That wouldn’t last me on my ATL - HNL flight I took last year or my MCO - LHR 10 hour flight I’m taking this year.

These are the typical reviews I see around the Framework

https://community.frame.work/t/fw-16-review-the-good-the-bad...

Poor battery life, heavy, runs hot, poor build quality, bad speakers, and decent but not great graphics.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#733

Post by butlike »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #196
nextos wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux power management is pretty good. The problem is that defaults favor desktop and server performance. On a MacBook Air 11, my custom Linux setup and Mac OS had the same battery autonomy, despite Safari being much more energy efficient. The real problem is that, just like the grandparent post pointed out, Apple's software quality has been declining. The Tiger to Snow Leopard epoch was incredible. Apps were simple,…

What’s the actual argument that will credibly convince the top leaders of Apple, to push fixing MacOS up the list of priorities? Because right now it’s clearly so far down, beneath dozens of other priorities, that expecting it to just happen one day seems futile.

Probably nothing as it seems the major push is to get iPad OS and macOS in parity (and I assume to retire macOS completely)

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#734

Post by butlike »

api wrote: post #578
andrepd wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Apple, it's capitalism. "Unlimited growth is the ideology of the cancer cell", yet for Apple (or any corporation), it's not good enough to sell 100,000,000 phones. Next year you must sell 105,000,000. And the year after 112,000,000 (not even 110 or your growth is stagnating). So you get rid of removable batteries so customers have to toss their phones away more often, you gimp other feature, you spend more m…

Do you want to retire? Capitalism works this way because its customers, the investors, want it to work this way, because growth is how you get compound interest. Investors include anyone with an interest bearing bank deposit, a 401k, stocks, bonds, etc. No growth means it would no longer be possible for an investment to appreciate. I think of a similar thing when I see people complaining about how companies don't wan…

I buy the $10 one because the margin has to come from somewhere. 9/10, the more expensive product is better.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#735

Post by senderista »

o11c wrote: post #346
senderista wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean XP SP2?

I never tried the pre-SP XP, but even SP1 wasn't too terrible compared to what it was competing against (there was a lot of perfectly-usable 95/98/ME still around with their lack of privilege separation, and 2K was mostly better only if comparing at the same amount of RAM but XP machines were newer and often had more). For me, service packs were largely a question of "do we want to tie up the phone line for however m…

I guess it wasn't very obvious, but SP2 had a ton of security enhancements.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#736

Post by jajuuka »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #196
nextos wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux power management is pretty good. The problem is that defaults favor desktop and server performance. On a MacBook Air 11, my custom Linux setup and Mac OS had the same battery autonomy, despite Safari being much more energy efficient. The real problem is that, just like the grandparent post pointed out, Apple's software quality has been declining. The Tiger to Snow Leopard epoch was incredible. Apps were simple,…

What’s the actual argument that will credibly convince the top leaders of Apple, to push fixing MacOS up the list of priorities? Because right now it’s clearly so far down, beneath dozens of other priorities, that expecting it to just happen one day seems futile.

I think the best argument is to remind Apple that they aren't selling the OS anymore, so they don't need a new version every year. And that macOS features is not what is pushing Mac sales. People aren't buying the M series machines because of the new macOS version, they are buying it because of the hardware. The M series chips are impressive and provide some great benefits that you can't get elsewhere.

And that hardware needs to be coupled with solid software to hook and keep people on this computer. So they can take more time to create more compelling upgrades and sand off more edges.

I think they need to desync all their OS's and focus on providing better releases. There really is no benefit to spending the day updating your Mac, phone, tablet, appletv, and HomePod. Especially when there are no good reasons to update. I feel like Apple became far to addicting to habit and routine that it's become more important to keep that than deliver product. Apple Intelligence is a good example of that.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#737

Post by joezydeco »

TuxSH wrote: post #626
joezydeco wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My group makes a custom executable to reflash a hardware device we produce. We build it for Linux and Darwin. Trying to get the program to work with our Mac users has become harder and harder. These are all internal developers. Enabling developer mode and allowing Terminal execution isn't enough. Disabling the quarantine bit works - sometimes - but now we're getting automated nastygrams from corporate IT threatening…

xattr -cr should clear the "download" extended attribute and make it as if the software was compiled on the machine itself, bypassing the ever-so-annoying Gatekeeper. For binary patching: codesign --force --deep -s - (no developer ID required, "ad-hoc signing" is just updating a few hashes here and there). Note that you should otherwise not use codesign as it is the job of the linker to do it.

Very aware of the attributes, unfortunately these machines are on a global corporate network so there are layers and layers of monitoring software to prevent internal and external attacks. Changing perm bits on an OSX executable is instantly noted and sent upwards as a possible security breach.

Last time we did this I had to spend a week explaining to management that Macs could actually run software other than PowerPoint and it was necessary for our job.

The local workaround that we use is to just spin up a Linux VM and program devices from there. The less legal workaround is using WebUSB and I'm afraid to even tell the necessary people how I did it, because it's sitting out on a public-facing server.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#738

Post by some-guy »

lor_louis wrote: post #150
pavel_lishin wrote: post #20

> I am not suggesting Apple has fallen behind Windows or Android. Changing a setting on Windows 11 can often involve a journey through three or four different interface designs, artifacts of half-implemented changes dating back to the last century. Whenever I find myself stuck outside of Appleland, I am eager to return “home,” flaws and all. Hard agree with this. I sometimes have to boot up a windows laptop to play M…

To be fair, win11 is a nightmare in terms of usability. I can only assume a committee of eldritch beings and accountants designed it. It blows my mind that when right-clicking on a file in file explorer, the 'delete' option is hidden in a sub-menu under 'more options'.

Windows 11 can be usable if you run this debloat script [1]. Of course, with every update it's a constant game of cat and mouse.

1) https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#739

Post by starik36 »

ankurdhama wrote: post #332
starik36 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with that. As an occasional user of MacOS, the new Settings app is quite bewildering. There are just as many dials as in Windows and sometimes requires a trip to ChatGPT. And for reasons I don't understand, why is the window itself not resizable?

It is resizable vertically but not horizontally as it doesn't make sense to resize the window horizontally considering the content of settings details panel (the right part of the settings window), you would end up with a lot of empty space if you were able to resize it horizontally.

You could say the same thing about the Windows Settings app, but it resizes in every way and it's very much size adaptable. In other words, UI components resize or become visible/invisible depending on the width.

Re: Apple needs a Snow Sequoia

#740

Post by ManuelKiessling »

hamstergene wrote: post #375

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…

Every once in a while I think „There is no public bugtracker for closed source software — wouldn’t it be great to have something like Github issues, but for all the software that is developed behind closed doors?“

Like, at least we had a central place to vent about the exact same stuff you just listed, and who knows, in the best case, at least some companies might feel shamed into picking up issues with the most upvotes or see it as a chance to engage with their userbase more directly.

Or I‘m naïve and the most likely outcome is getting sued?

What do you think?

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