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Impressions from a first-time Mac user

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Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#91

Post by bombcar »

emn13 wrote: post #76
bombcar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is that the majority of software in the Windows and Mac world doesn't come in a "package-manager" format, not really. For *BSD and Linux, the package manager is great because if you can think of it, it's probably there ready to be installed; as long as it's software like TeX or emacs or vi or something else available in an open-source way. But stand-alone programs? Not even things like Photoshop, I'm…

I've not used macs for a few years, but has homebrew become a lot better then? Because my recollection of it is that it worked fine for small sets of well-maintained packages, but it's much, much slower than the linux package managers, and there were tons of compatibility issues once you even slightly left the beaten path. Also, I remember fighting with many apple CLI tools; they seemed to be wildly out of date with…

It ... "works". For most things you may want, it works pretty well, but it's not at advanced as even Gentoo's portage, and once you leave the beaten path it can be all sorts of hell trying to figure out how exactly to compile something yourself.

However, I've experienced the same on Ubuntu and RedHat - if they don't have what you want in a repo already, and you can't find one providing it, trying to roll your own can cause all sorts of fun explosions.

Anything GPL included with MacOS is stuck at the GPL v2 - since many things like bash went to v3 they don't update anymore; one of the reasons MacOS changed to zsh as the default shell.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#92

Post by NoraCodes »

scns wrote: post #72
lbrito wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does energy efficiency matter here? Or rather, why are you implying that a Mac might be more energy efficient, and enough to matter? Geniuenly curious.

M1 coming secong at 10 watts shortly after a Ryzen at several times that? Check out the reviews on anandtech.

There is nothing inherent about having a bad window manager that makes it more power efficient; Apple could implement a better desktop environment and still have low power use.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#93

Post by vnorilo »

kemayo wrote: post #48

I actually like the command+tab behavior, and miss it when I use Windows. I'll explain: if you have a lot of windows open, I think it's nice to silo them. When I have ten Firefox windows and six Sublime windows and three iTerm windows, and a few other random applications, it's generally easier to go first to the app I want and then find the window inside it, rather than always having to shuffle through 19 different w…

If you pin apps to Windows task bar, you can cycle through the windows of the third one with Winkey-3 and so on. Currently daily drive a mac for work, but the above is my preferred way to switch windows on Windows.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#94

Post by Tagbert »

jihadjihad wrote: post #24

I totally get the window switching thing, especially if one of the windows is minimized. In that case, hovering over the window using Cmd + Tab will not open the window. You have to press Option while simultaneously letting go of the Cmd key. The only other major thing is how terrible Finder is out of the box. There are ways to make it less terrible, but it's still far less than ideal in usability.

What problems do you have with Finder? I feel the same about Windows File Explorer when I use Windows. If nothing else, I keep looking for a way to add a tab for a different path.

Admittedly, I tend not to use that many keyboard short-cuts. Beyond the basics, I find the effort to learn more of them not worth the effort unless it is an app that I use frequently. File management is not one of those cases.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#97

Post by bombcar »

smoldesu wrote: post #83
bombcar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is that the majority of software in the Windows and Mac world doesn't come in a "package-manager" format, not really. For *BSD and Linux, the package manager is great because if you can think of it, it's probably there ready to be installed; as long as it's software like TeX or emacs or vi or something else available in an open-source way. But stand-alone programs? Not even things like Photoshop, I'm…

> But stand-alone programs? Not even things like Photoshop, I'm talking something written by someone and you want to install it? That's not as compatible with the Linux method There's definitely some room for improvement here, but fwiw you can double-click executables on Linux to run them just like you would on Windows (or to an extent, MacOS). I think the "solution" here is not to rely on portable software, and when…

Yeah, homebrew isn't the greatest by any means, but it seems to have more stuff and more people use it than fink or macports anymore, so usually there's a workaround somewhere.

The MacOS "app bundle" is a really cute solution to the installation/library problem, and I wish something like it had caught on in the Linux world. It seems AppImage is heading this way.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#98

Post by Tagbert »

colinmhayes wrote: post #62
jonnycomputer wrote: post #3

All OS's should come standard with sophisticated windows management. I use BetterSnapTool on my Mac, have done so for close to 10 years now. I honestly don't know what I'd do without it--and I'm not doing too much fancy. But keyboard shortcutting to maximize, minimize, or tile (left right/corners/thirds) elimintes 90% of the fiddly annoying this about dealing with the too many windows I have open. But even this basic…

I'm pretty sure macOS was designed to have every window in fullscreen 100% of the time and the user would three finger swipe to switch windows. Seems like having a shitty experience when trying to do anything besides fullscreen is kind of the point, "do things the way we want you to or suffer."

I almost never use that kind of full-screen mode in Mac OS. I do too much work between apps and rarely restrict myself to just one. Drag-n-drop has been a major interaction model in Mac OS for many decades

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#99

Post by lbrito »

scns wrote: post #72
lbrito wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does energy efficiency matter here? Or rather, why are you implying that a Mac might be more energy efficient, and enough to matter? Geniuenly curious.

M1 coming secong at 10 watts shortly after a Ryzen at several times that? Check out the reviews on anandtech.

Ryzen 5700 has 25W TDP https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-7-5700U-Processor-Be...

IMO a 15-watt difference is basically negligible in this context. It is so insignificant it can be offset by pretty much anything. You know creating aluminum uses a ton of energy; maybe that fancy aluminum case of the Macs used more power than a tiny TDP difference will ever save.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#100

Post by lbrito »

lolpython wrote: post #81
lbrito wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agree. Build quality is meh, not even good. But the battery is seriously good. Like 10+ hours good.

Which model is that? My 2 year old System76 Galago Pro gets 1 hour of battery life.

This guy here: https://system76.com/laptops/lemur

>Up to 14 hours of battery life per charge

I routinely get over 10 hours.

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