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Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

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Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#81

Post by iLoveOncall »

dmitriid wrote: post #68
iLoveOncall wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. The reasoning behind the popularity of MacOS is very well understood: marketing.

What amazes me is that people who pride themselves on being smart when faced with Apple always resort to the laziest and most stupid of explanations for Apple's popularity: "marketing". While marketing does play a bog role, it is still rooted in the reality: Apple makes good products (that are often leagues better than the competition in several areas), and as a whole the experience of using Apple products is better…

What amazes me is that Mac fanatics never have any factual argument as to why it would be better than Windows.

All I hear are attributes that are supposed to be better (spoiler, they're not), but always without a single concrete example.

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#82

Post by croon »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #10
iLoveOncall wrote: post #2

I honestly cannot believe that a person that uses both Windows and Mac frequently in 2022 would choose Mac if they had to choose a single platform. Not even a developer. MacOS is a masterclass in bad design and lackluster features. I always considered buying a Mac but was always hesitant to change. Once I got one for work I swore to never ever spend a dime on a Mac. People that will disagree haven't used Windows in y…

If millions of professionals are doing a thing a certain way, either they're all wrong and crazy or there's something I'm missing. It's a Chesterton's Fence situation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence

Or it's access to development tools required for making things for iPhones and iPads, and MacOS is just a side effect of that choice, and not a factor in the decision.

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#83

Post by bmitc »

bzzzt wrote: post #3
iLoveOncall wrote: post #2

I honestly cannot believe that a person that uses both Windows and Mac frequently in 2022 would choose Mac if they had to choose a single platform. Not even a developer. MacOS is a masterclass in bad design and lackluster features. I always considered buying a Mac but was always hesitant to change. Once I got one for work I swore to never ever spend a dime on a Mac. People that will disagree haven't used Windows in y…

One mans lackluster features is another mans streamlined interface. MacOS at least goes out of your way most of the time. Windows interrupts you regularly for stuff that's not important to whatever you're doing. Combined with third-party applications that are noisy as heck to make sure you don't forget you bought/installed them (especially AV scanners, but it seems like every app wants a place in your system tray and…

> One mans lackluster features is another mans streamlined interface. MacOS at least goes out of your way most of the time.

That is really just not true. I don't even think one could consider it an opinion. Irregardless of what Windows does, macOS constantly gets in your way. Try to rename iTunes, because that's the only way to keep it from opening every time you connect your non-Apple Bluetooth headphones (there's a convoluted procedure to do so). Try to control the brightness or volume of an external monitor. You cannot. Even the monitor itself isn't as good as it is on Windows due to poor resolution and text handling on macOS, and a Macbook Pro with a discrete video card struggles to drive the monitor. External mice and keyboards are touch and go with macOS and reset settings nearly on a daily basis for me. Developer tools, such as asdf or others installed from Homebrew are incredibly finicky and often require workarounds depending on whatever macOS version you're on and whatever thing it decided to break. (For example, it's actually easier to get Erlang's observer running on WSL on Windows with the GUI interface than it is on macOS, which requires all sorts of hacks in Homebrew.) I don't know why Apple doesn't get the same hate as Windows, because my Macbook Pro constantly installs stuff all on its own. I get pinged by several apps to update through their own update mechanism on macOS.

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#84

Post by ChadNauseam »

epicide wrote: post #78
ChadNauseam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently switched to macos because I wanted a new laptop and the m1 seemed best in class. Some UI issues I’ve noticed: 1) It’s very annoying that, in a full screen window, moving your mouse to the top of the screen causes the window to rescale. When reading a book in chrome, realizing the window causes the text to reflow to every time I accidentally move the mouse too far up (when trying to rearrange tabs, for exam…

1) I believe this is app-specific? I've definitely used many applications where the menu bar just goes over the full-screened window. 2) Yeah, this one could be better. Right/alt click and "Clean Up" might help you a bit. 3) You can also right/alt click the icon in the Dock to force quit [0], but agreed that a hanging application shouldn't cause OS components to hang. 4) I'll admit I wasn't even aware of the option-c…

Yeah. To some extent there is no good OS. I've been meaning to switch to NixOS on my desktop because the declarative package management thing seems really convenient, but IME linux guis are much worse than either windows or macos.

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#85

Post by jagger27 »

jitl wrote: post #48
jagger27 wrote: post #9

Ubuntu shouldn't be recommended anymore. Flatpak won. Snap is a disaster. If you ask me, Fedora is the new Ubuntu.

Last time I ran Fedora, the update schedule killed my system a few times. I was on a ski trip and wanted to play a movie on the cabin TV, but Fedora did an update and now launching X crashes. Something something, kernel version. Very sad. Has the 6 month release cycle gotten more stable?

Wayland has been the default for several years now, so yes I'd say whatever X-related pain (I can relate) has been eased since then.

I'm no Linux-on-the-desktop evangelist however, and still rely on a Mac for work use. My personal desktop runs Fedora currently, where I can afford to tinker. It's getting there.

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#86

Post by epicide »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #84
epicide wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I believe this is app-specific? I've definitely used many applications where the menu bar just goes over the full-screened window. 2) Yeah, this one could be better. Right/alt click and "Clean Up" might help you a bit. 3) You can also right/alt click the icon in the Dock to force quit [0], but agreed that a hanging application shouldn't cause OS components to hang. 4) I'll admit I wasn't even aware of the option-c…

Yeah. To some extent there is no good OS. I've been meaning to switch to NixOS on my desktop because the declarative package management thing seems really convenient, but IME linux guis are much worse than either windows or macos.

Well, I would tweak that to say "there's no perfect/ideal OS (for everyone)".

A lot of what makes a good UI (which is the main part of the OS we've been talking about) is that it takes relatively little effort for the person to understand [0]. This is highly dependent on the person -- their preferences, modes of thinking, use-cases, and historical usage. Even the "type of user" they think they are can play a role [1].

One person's deal-breaking bug is another person's killer feature.

[0]: For lack of a less-overloaded term: "intuitive".

[1]: e.g. someone who considers themselves a "power user" might eschew anything that doesn't provide a ton of options... even if the only options available are the ones they would choose anyway.

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#87

Post by choko »

bmitc wrote: post #83
bzzzt wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One mans lackluster features is another mans streamlined interface. MacOS at least goes out of your way most of the time. Windows interrupts you regularly for stuff that's not important to whatever you're doing. Combined with third-party applications that are noisy as heck to make sure you don't forget you bought/installed them (especially AV scanners, but it seems like every app wants a place in your system tray and…

> One mans lackluster features is another mans streamlined interface. MacOS at least goes out of your way most of the time. That is really just not true. I don't even think one could consider it an opinion. Irregardless of what Windows does, macOS constantly gets in your way. Try to rename iTunes, because that's the only way to keep it from opening every time you connect your non-Apple Bluetooth headphones (there's a…

The auto-launching of itunes when I get off a call using my Bluetooth headset is super annoying! If it weren't for the CLI Mac would be worthless for development. The only reason I have one is for work, and only because I'm not allowed to use my own hardware (which would be a laptop with debian).

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#88

Post by nix23 »

sascha_sl wrote: post #36
nix23 wrote: post #23

Terrible article with lot's of errors: >So it bought CentOS, then killed it, as it did with CoreOS https://www.centos.org/ https://getfedora.org/en/coreos?stream=stable >SUSE Linux Enterprise – which is to say it has a painfully slow release cycle. 1 year is painfull? >"Tumbleweed", has a rolling release model, which means the exciting potential of breaking changes every single day. No, that's why tumbleweed is not e…

Did you really miss RedHat killing CentOS 8? The support was supposed to last to 2029 if I remember correctly. It was cut to end of 2021. Stream is a different product for a different audience. And CoreOS from the company CoreOS is actually dead. Fedora CoreOS is built from scratch. It's very similar to Fedora IoT (runs rpm-ostree, podman, ignition), but it downstreams to RHCOS, which you only get with OpenShift. Nei…

>Did you really miss RedHat killing CentOS 8

It's not death it's just "stream" now, and Centos7 is still without stream

>Fedora CoreOS is built from scratch.

Yes and? It's not death, you don't want to support different software for the same goal, flannel, docker etc.

>the release cycle of Leap and SLES is 3-4 years

Not true Leap15.3 = SLES15sp3. RHEL has the ~same kernel for every dot release, that's not the case with SLES SP's. Every SP has a new/different kernel and new software. You can do that "partially" with modules on RHEL, but just certain packages are in modules.

You can't compare SLES SP's and RHEL dot-releases.

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#89

Post by captn3m0 »

wazoox wrote: post #69
paol wrote: post #17

> It is a truth universally acknowledged that all operating systems suck. This could be engraved in stone. I know the title isn't really serious, but not being able to afford a Mac is not a good reason to use Linux. Use what you want/need/feel comfortable in, otherwise the experience will be miserable.

Frankly, I have a Mac too and I don't like it much. I keep it for the ability to run some pieces of proprietary software like Cubase and Garmin Express and similar tools to keep my gear updated, but OTOH I really dislike the overall software experience. If only it wasn't so painful to dual-boot linux on it, it would probably live running Linux 99% of the time (but when I need to flash some gizmo or import some propri…

Which MacBook is this? I was dual booting Arch on my MBA2015 and it ran Linux 99% of the time. Worked fairly well.

Re: Sick of Windows but can't afford a Mac? The cynic's guide to desktop Linux

#90

Post by bmitc »

choko wrote: post #87
bmitc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One mans lackluster features is another mans streamlined interface. MacOS at least goes out of your way most of the time. That is really just not true. I don't even think one could consider it an opinion. Irregardless of what Windows does, macOS constantly gets in your way. Try to rename iTunes, because that's the only way to keep it from opening every time you connect your non-Apple Bluetooth headphones (there's a…

The auto-launching of itunes when I get off a call using my Bluetooth headset is super annoying! If it weren't for the CLI Mac would be worthless for development. The only reason I have one is for work, and only because I'm not allowed to use my own hardware (which would be a laptop with debian).

You can get rid of iTunes launching by renaming it. If I recall correctly, there are a bunch of possible workarounds but that's the one that definitely works if you don't care about iTunes. But it required getting IT approval for upgraded permissions and then a whole reboot into safe mode and change the name procedure using some setting or shell command (something like that). I think it was like two or three reboots to change the name of the iTunes application, but I don't recall the exact procedure.

My CLI do you mean the Unix-like underlying system (like through Terminal, zsh, bash, etc.)? I enjoy WSL on Windows more because it's actually Linux and usually just works. The only trouble I have there sometimes is network related activities, as is usual for VM-like setups.

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