5 ms·

I'm not on the forgive train yet, but with the Apple computer ecosystem (as in things that look and behave like a PC-esque device) becoming increasingly hostile

by kar1181 10y ago

I'm not on the forgive train yet, but with the Apple computer ecosystem (as in things that look and behave like a PC-esque device) becoming increasingly hostile, I'm actually seriously considering going back to Windows. The deal breaker is having a unix shell. I have worked on a system with a native unix environment for a decade and a half, going back to to the windows shell is not an option. Thankfully, the Linux Subsystem for windows works pretty well already and with some further iteration I think it could become viable for most of my development needs. When that happens I don't feel any loyalty to apple and will happily move over.

artursapek 10y ago
I'm in the same boat as you. What do you think is still missing in their Linux subsystem? I haven't gotten to play around with it yet, but my list of demands is pretty small: - tmux works - vim works - bash works like on a Mac
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  Processes don't work quite the same. There's no sysv init or systemd. There's not good user separation within the shell (run all as root) and the file permissions in places where the subsystem meet the PC are weird. Those were my first impressions. I'm cautiously optimistic about it though, and confident they'll work out the kinks with time. But right now it's still better to be on BSD/Mac if you like a unix-like development environment without running linux.
  - banashark 10y ago
    I'm curious what your use case for those are. Are you needing to `init 1` or `systemctl isolate rescue.target`? Or is it perhaps a need to `systemctl status` on services? I might just not be that experienced with the wide use-cases for these applications, but what are your hypothetical use cases?
    - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
      Really I just want a way to write simple service scripts and have the OS keep them alive. upstart, sysv init, systemd, whatever works... I don't like logging into my dev box and then manually starting one-off scripts for all of the services that I like running (docker, dnsmasq, apt-cache, foo.py, etc etc).
      - JdeBP 10y ago
        Then use the Ubuntu-packaged runit or daemontools; or port s6, perp, daemontools-encore, or nosh. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416376 * http://jdebp.eu./FGA/daemontools-family.html http://jdebp.eu./FGA/daemontools-family.html I don't know whether the Debian-packaged nosh will install on Ubuntu as it stands. * http://jdebp.eu./Softwares/nosh/debian-binary-packages.html http://jdebp.eu./Softwares/nosh/debian-binary-packages.html
  - JdeBP 10y ago
    Your first impressions did not include reading the release notes. (-: The authors made it very clear that it does not "run all as root". * http://askubuntu.com/a/754951/43344 http://askubuntu.com/a/754951/43344
- skrebbel 10y ago
  Last I checked, inotify didn't work and there were lots of cross platform quirks. This becomes rather important once you want to use the WSL for running your dev toolchain (think build tools, dev servers, whatever) but Windows apps for development (Sublime, VS Code, whatever).
- bergie 10y ago
  On that level, even the Termux app on Android gives you a workable environment. Also the other necessities like git and Node.js. That's the reason I'm currently working on an Android tablet, though Chrome OS is also promising.
- dingo_bat 10y ago
  > bash works like on a Mac It actually works better. Since everything is completely updated. In line with Ubuntu 16.
- tremon 10y ago
  What do you think is still missing in their Linux subsystem? A tiling and scriptable window manager.
- mitchty 10y ago
  Pandoc doesn't work, or any threaded Haskell rts application. Not enough ioctl's and other things are supported needless to say.
rayiner 10y ago
If the Apple computer ecosystem is becoming hostile, what does that make the Microsoft ecosystem? Apple isn't the one that tried to foist a tablet paradigm on desktop/laptop users. It's not the one whose flagship "PC" is a touchscreen convertible gimmick. In my view, the rMBP is the best "traditional PC" anybody makes. No touchscreen, no detachable or convertible gimmicks. Just a big screen (can I get a 15" surface book?), quad core processor, and the biggest battery anyone has shoved into a sub-5 lb laptop. Also an OS that hasn't changed more than superficially in a decade.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  > Apple isn't the one that tried to foist a tablet paradigm on desktop/laptop users Which they walked back heavily after the overwhelmingly negative reception. A company that makes mistakes isn't a bad thing as long as they listen to their customers and are willing to admit when something isn't working. Would you rather no one ever try anything new? > In my view, the rMBP is the best "traditional PC" anybody makes. No touchscreen... Only for the next hour or so. > It's not the one whose flagship "PC" is a touchscreen convertible gimmick. If you don't want that one, the OEMs will happily sell you laptops that don't have those things. Dell and HP have actually gotten their act together and are making pretty good ones.. That's what makes it an "ecosystem", something Apple can't really claim. What if you want a 17" MacBook, or one with a gaming GPU? You're SOL.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    HP doesn't have anything comparable to an rMBP. Their 15" laptops are either low-end, or x360 convertibles. Also they have tiny batteries (under 60 watt-hours in 15" models). The XPS15 is the closest rMBP competitor, but even that has a smaller battery, and much worse battery life with high-DPI screen (only moderately worse battery life with 1080p screen). The closest competitor to the rMBP is the T560. It's more than half a pound heavier with extended battery, has only a 1080p screen, and only a dual-core rather than quad-core processor.
    - willtim 10y ago
Jtsummers 10y ago
Setting aside iOS, how is macOS hostile? Admittedly, I'm just a user and not creating software to deliver to customers when I'm on it (professionally, my work runs on Windows and Linux, not macOS). But it doesn't seem to be terribly user hostile to me.
- graeme 10y ago
  For me personally, it's more the threat of hostility to come that's unsettling. Apple has gutted formerly excellent programs meant for professionals. I believe the photography and videography fields had controversies. But I'll speak to what I use personally. Apple had an excellent word processor, Pages. It could be used for print publishing. Then in 2013 they rewrote Pages to sync is with iOS. In doing so they removed most of the features professional writers needed. Many authors, such as myself, were left stranded. The old program still runs, but eventually an OS X update will break it. Increasingly Apple has turned away from its professional user base, and caters to mass needs. This is shortsighted, as the pro users tend to be evangelists, and also the ones that create software. Every developer apple loses to Microsoft hurts its ecosystem. But, all that said, I find OS X is generally still great. I'm just....uneasy in a way I never was before. And I'm glad Microsoft is now a viable alternative. I never thought I would say that, and that says something about Apple.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Thanks for the reply. I'd forgotten about, mostly because I don't use them, their applications. I'd used Pages ages ago in grad school, but that's before 2013 so I didn't experience that transition. I do realize I'm probably a bit of an outlier. I primarily use Safari, Mail.app, and a terminal with tmux and emacs. Scrivener, as well, when I'm in a more creative phase. The handful of other apps I use haven't had any problems (that I've noticed) with recent OS updates. I will concede that, regarding hardware, they're heading towards a gray area for me. I really like the idea of the MacBook, but dislike the single connector (we'll see what happens today). And the relative stagnation of their hardware is annoying for many. But the 2012 rMBP has lasted quite well for me, I've only recently begun to notice issues with the battery life and I'm pretty sure that's because I forgot to turn off Docker (wanting to understand containers/VMs better, trying to bring my current office's development workflow into the 21st century). EDIT: Given my relatively low resource use on the laptop, the reason I don't go with Linux is (from another post the other day), I got tired of trying to make things work on laptops. Along with rayiner, the MBP is a really solid and reliable laptop, and I want the Unix-underpinnings of OS X, without the hassle I experienced in Linux. Building a new desktop soon so I'll install linux there, see if things have changed enough for me.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by kar1181 10y ago

artursapek 10y ago

I'm in the same boat as you. What do you think is still missing in their Linux subsystem? I haven't gotten to play around with it yet, but my list of demands is pretty small: - tmux works - vim works - bash works like on a Mac

matt_wulfeck 10y ago
Processes don't work quite the same. There's no sysv init or systemd. There's not good user separation within the shell (run all as root) and the file permissions in places where the subsystem meet the PC are weird. Those were my first impressions. I'm cautiously optimistic about it though, and confident they'll work out the kinks with time. But right now it's still better to be on BSD/Mac if you like a unix-like development environment without running linux.
- banashark 10y ago
  I'm curious what your use case for those are. Are you needing to `init 1` or `systemctl isolate rescue.target`? Or is it perhaps a need to `systemctl status` on services? I might just not be that experienced with the wide use-cases for these applications, but what are your hypothetical use cases?
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    Really I just want a way to write simple service scripts and have the OS keep them alive. upstart, sysv init, systemd, whatever works... I don't like logging into my dev box and then manually starting one-off scripts for all of the services that I like running (docker, dnsmasq, apt-cache, foo.py, etc etc).
    - JdeBP 10y ago
      Then use the Ubuntu-packaged runit or daemontools; or port s6, perp, daemontools-encore, or nosh. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11416376 * http://jdebp.eu./FGA/daemontools-family.html http://jdebp.eu./FGA/daemontools-family.html I don't know whether the Debian-packaged nosh will install on Ubuntu as it stands. * http://jdebp.eu./Softwares/nosh/debian-binary-packages.html http://jdebp.eu./Softwares/nosh/debian-binary-packages.html
- JdeBP 10y ago
  Your first impressions did not include reading the release notes. (-: The authors made it very clear that it does not "run all as root". * http://askubuntu.com/a/754951/43344 http://askubuntu.com/a/754951/43344
skrebbel 10y ago
Last I checked, inotify didn't work and there were lots of cross platform quirks. This becomes rather important once you want to use the WSL for running your dev toolchain (think build tools, dev servers, whatever) but Windows apps for development (Sublime, VS Code, whatever).
bergie 10y ago
On that level, even the Termux app on Android gives you a workable environment. Also the other necessities like git and Node.js. That's the reason I'm currently working on an Android tablet, though Chrome OS is also promising.
dingo_bat 10y ago
> bash works like on a Mac It actually works better. Since everything is completely updated. In line with Ubuntu 16.
tremon 10y ago
What do you think is still missing in their Linux subsystem? A tiling and scriptable window manager.
mitchty 10y ago
Pandoc doesn't work, or any threaded Haskell rts application. Not enough ioctl's and other things are supported needless to say.

rayiner 10y ago

If the Apple computer ecosystem is becoming hostile, what does that make the Microsoft ecosystem? Apple isn't the one that tried to foist a tablet paradigm on desktop/laptop users. It's not the one whose flagship "PC" is a touchscreen convertible gimmick. In my view, the rMBP is the best "traditional PC" anybody makes. No touchscreen, no detachable or convertible gimmicks. Just a big screen (can I get a 15" surface book?), quad core processor, and the biggest battery anyone has shoved into a sub-5 lb laptop. Also an OS that hasn't changed more than superficially in a decade.

Analemma_ 10y ago
> Apple isn't the one that tried to foist a tablet paradigm on desktop/laptop users Which they walked back heavily after the overwhelmingly negative reception. A company that makes mistakes isn't a bad thing as long as they listen to their customers and are willing to admit when something isn't working. Would you rather no one ever try anything new? > In my view, the rMBP is the best "traditional PC" anybody makes. No touchscreen... Only for the next hour or so. > It's not the one whose flagship "PC" is a touchscreen convertible gimmick. If you don't want that one, the OEMs will happily sell you laptops that don't have those things. Dell and HP have actually gotten their act together and are making pretty good ones.. That's what makes it an "ecosystem", something Apple can't really claim. What if you want a 17" MacBook, or one with a gaming GPU? You're SOL.
- rayiner 10y ago
  HP doesn't have anything comparable to an rMBP. Their 15" laptops are either low-end, or x360 convertibles. Also they have tiny batteries (under 60 watt-hours in 15" models). The XPS15 is the closest rMBP competitor, but even that has a smaller battery, and much worse battery life with high-DPI screen (only moderately worse battery life with 1080p screen). The closest competitor to the rMBP is the T560. It's more than half a pound heavier with extended battery, has only a 1080p screen, and only a dual-core rather than quad-core processor.
  - willtim 10y ago

Jtsummers 10y ago

Setting aside iOS, how is macOS hostile? Admittedly, I'm just a user and not creating software to deliver to customers when I'm on it (professionally, my work runs on Windows and Linux, not macOS). But it doesn't seem to be terribly user hostile to me.

graeme 10y ago
For me personally, it's more the threat of hostility to come that's unsettling. Apple has gutted formerly excellent programs meant for professionals. I believe the photography and videography fields had controversies. But I'll speak to what I use personally. Apple had an excellent word processor, Pages. It could be used for print publishing. Then in 2013 they rewrote Pages to sync is with iOS. In doing so they removed most of the features professional writers needed. Many authors, such as myself, were left stranded. The old program still runs, but eventually an OS X update will break it. Increasingly Apple has turned away from its professional user base, and caters to mass needs. This is shortsighted, as the pro users tend to be evangelists, and also the ones that create software. Every developer apple loses to Microsoft hurts its ecosystem. But, all that said, I find OS X is generally still great. I'm just....uneasy in a way I never was before. And I'm glad Microsoft is now a viable alternative. I never thought I would say that, and that says something about Apple.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I'd forgotten about, mostly because I don't use them, their applications. I'd used Pages ages ago in grad school, but that's before 2013 so I didn't experience that transition. I do realize I'm probably a bit of an outlier. I primarily use Safari, Mail.app, and a terminal with tmux and emacs. Scrivener, as well, when I'm in a more creative phase. The handful of other apps I use haven't had any problems (that I've noticed) with recent OS updates. I will concede that, regarding hardware, they're heading towards a gray area for me. I really like the idea of the MacBook, but dislike the single connector (we'll see what happens today). And the relative stagnation of their hardware is annoying for many. But the 2012 rMBP has lasted quite well for me, I've only recently begun to notice issues with the battery life and I'm pretty sure that's because I forgot to turn off Docker (wanting to understand containers/VMs better, trying to bring my current office's development workflow into the 21st century). EDIT: Given my relatively low resource use on the laptop, the reason I don't go with Linux is (from another post the other day), I got tired of trying to make things work on laptops. Along with rayiner, the MBP is a really solid and reliable laptop, and I want the Unix-underpinnings of OS X, without the hassle I experienced in Linux. Building a new desktop soon so I'll install linux there, see if things have changed enough for me.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]