7 ms·

i3 is great, until you try to do something simple like change the time zone for your desktop clock or add some wallpaper. I switched from Linux to Mac because I

i3 is great, until you try to do something simple like change the time zone for your desktop clock or add some wallpaper. I switched from Linux to Mac because I was too well acquainted with making symlinks to /usr/share/ somewhere just to change my clock when I traveled, and then figuring out just how few processes I had to restart so it would take effect. Unfortunately the Linux desktops were actually worse than the barebones window managers like i3: there was some sort of glibc bug that screwed up clock display on GNOME for at least a year. GNOME assumed glibc did it right, which was a reasonable assumption...but an incorrect one, but with i3 I could control this. Now that I'm on Mac I look back in amazement at the time I spent on Linux learning ultimately useless stuff like why a bug in glibc would mess up my GNOME clock but not an i3 clock.

codeka 10y ago
Yeah, I found I needed to set up some keyboard shortcuts for controlling mute/volume levels, but other than that it's been pretty set-and-forget (timezones not being a problem on a desktop). The time I spent setting those things up has been more than made up for over the last year as I've spent less time managing windows and more time just doing work.
fusiongyro 10y ago
I'm on a Mac but at this point I could probably take it or leave it. Most of my life is shell + Firefox + Emacs + IntelliJ, and those all run basically the same regardless of OS. If anything, my plan would be to move more of my life into Emacs so that I'm even less exposed to stupid ideas from my OS/laptop vendor. I have been using i3 on a netbook for the last two days and I can definitely see how it would be lovely. But then again, Linux has changed a lot since I was into it seriously and I'm sure I will experience pain if I have to do anything substantial to tweak it, like symlink timezone files.
michaelmrose 10y ago
How could you not figure out how to do this? You can very well use gui configuration utilities + i3.
m45t3r 10y ago
> i3 is great, until you try to do something simple like change the time zone for your desktop clock or add some wallpaper. I switched from Linux to Mac because I was too well acquainted with making symlinks to /usr/share/ somewhere just to change my clock when I traveled, and then figuring out just how few processes I had to restart so it would take effect. Systemd makes using i3 so much easier. No more fiddling with consolekit and dbus just to get working external drives (logind solves the problem of local authentication), no more fiddling with symlinks to set time (timedatectl to the rescue). > Unfortunately the Linux desktops were actually worse than the barebones window managers like i3: there was some sort of glibc bug that screwed up clock display on GNOME for at least a year. GNOME assumed glibc did it right, which was a reasonable assumption...but an incorrect one, but with i3 I could control this. Gnome nowadays use timedatectl AFAIK to set time too. The last time I had a issue with setting date or time in Gnome was pre-systemd days. While some people may not like systemd, I find tools like timedatectl, localectl and hostnamectl to be quite useful. They work much better than trying to write a shell script or parse something.
- aexis 10y ago
  Most people hate systemd for the sake of hating something, or following the hate train. At least for me all my close encounters with it have been positive.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    The fact that your machines haven't personally been broken doesn't mean its a good or a bad design
  - vacri 10y ago
    A lot of people don't like systemd because it heavily violates the unix principle of "do one thing and do it well". It replaces a lot of subsystems (eg: goodbye to all your old ways of looking at logs). Also, the primary developers have a poor attitude. Systemd is relatively nice now, but the disdain for it wasn't just 'hate train'.
    - 10y ago
holografix 10y ago
This. It boggles the mind how much time one can waste solving admin, busy-work type issues on Linux, specially when trying to use a GUI. I mean wifi, Bluetooth, retina class resolution issues, drivers for multiple devices not being available... unless one is using Linux to learn and understand it as a server of some type I can't fathom using it as a replacement for Mac OS.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > unless one is using Linux to learn and understand it as a server of some type I can't fathom using it as a replacement for Mac OS. Perhaps some of us value our freedom? Perhaps some of us find that it helps to develop on the same platform on which we deploy? Perhaps some of us find that we don't, actually, spend all that much time on 'admin, busy-work type issues,' having decided on good, solid distros which fit our use cases (Debian works for me, others prefer RedHat)? At the end of the day, though, it really is about freedom for me. You complain that you must tweak your system; I value that I can tweak mine.
- fernandotakai 10y ago
  i don't know, i've been running archlinux on my mbp and the only busy work i did was installing wifi drivers (which i did using cower and it was quite easy). everything i have worked out of the box. and, as a plus, android usb tethering works a lot better on linux than on osx (thanks to networkmanager)
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  I'm assuming if you want someone else to ensure everything works for you without hassle then logically you would by a machine with linux preinstalled with a long term support release and then wait until a month after the next lts release to update after everyone else works out the kinks in the new release. You know kinda like you do with apple machines.
- deong 10y ago
  What you consider "busy-work admin issues", many people consider tier-1 features. For instance, take sloppy focus. On my Linux machines, I can type in one window while interacting with another, and I use that ability fairly often. On my Mac, I have to spend time resizing and rearranging windows because I have to click a window to type there, and clicking raises it to the foreground, obscuring my other windows. Does the amount of time I spend managing windows outweigh the configuration time for the Linux box? I doubt it. But the end result is that my Linux machine feels like I built it exactly to spec. I value the fact that my OS, window manager, etc. do exactly what I want them to do in the same way that many people value the trackpad. I'm absolutely as annoyed and frustrated by the fact that the maximize/fullscreen button on my OS X windows moves my window to Space N+1 instead of keeping it where it is where a quick Cmd-Tab would bring a background window quickly back on top of the still-visible fullscreen window than I am that the trackpad on my Arch Linux box is less reliable at interpreting a gesture.
peatmoss 10y ago
I've had good luck in the past with XFCE (in Xubuntu & OpenBSD) together with XMonad for this use case. Even now, where I don't use any of the panels and whatnot, I will occasionally fire up an XFCE control panel to do whatever it is that needs doing.

codeka 10y ago

Yeah, I found I needed to set up some keyboard shortcuts for controlling mute/volume levels, but other than that it's been pretty set-and-forget (timezones not being a problem on a desktop). The time I spent setting those things up has been more than made up for over the last year as I've spent less time managing windows and more time just doing work.

fusiongyro 10y ago

I'm on a Mac but at this point I could probably take it or leave it. Most of my life is shell + Firefox + Emacs + IntelliJ, and those all run basically the same regardless of OS. If anything, my plan would be to move more of my life into Emacs so that I'm even less exposed to stupid ideas from my OS/laptop vendor. I have been using i3 on a netbook for the last two days and I can definitely see how it would be lovely. But then again, Linux has changed a lot since I was into it seriously and I'm sure I will experience pain if I have to do anything substantial to tweak it, like symlink timezone files.

michaelmrose 10y ago

How could you not figure out how to do this? You can very well use gui configuration utilities + i3.

m45t3r 10y ago

> i3 is great, until you try to do something simple like change the time zone for your desktop clock or add some wallpaper. I switched from Linux to Mac because I was too well acquainted with making symlinks to /usr/share/ somewhere just to change my clock when I traveled, and then figuring out just how few processes I had to restart so it would take effect. Systemd makes using i3 so much easier. No more fiddling with consolekit and dbus just to get working external drives (logind solves the problem of local authentication), no more fiddling with symlinks to set time (timedatectl to the rescue). > Unfortunately the Linux desktops were actually worse than the barebones window managers like i3: there was some sort of glibc bug that screwed up clock display on GNOME for at least a year. GNOME assumed glibc did it right, which was a reasonable assumption...but an incorrect one, but with i3 I could control this. Gnome nowadays use timedatectl AFAIK to set time too. The last time I had a issue with setting date or time in Gnome was pre-systemd days. While some people may not like systemd, I find tools like timedatectl, localectl and hostnamectl to be quite useful. They work much better than trying to write a shell script or parse something.

aexis 10y ago
Most people hate systemd for the sake of hating something, or following the hate train. At least for me all my close encounters with it have been positive.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  The fact that your machines haven't personally been broken doesn't mean its a good or a bad design
- vacri 10y ago
  A lot of people don't like systemd because it heavily violates the unix principle of "do one thing and do it well". It replaces a lot of subsystems (eg: goodbye to all your old ways of looking at logs). Also, the primary developers have a poor attitude. Systemd is relatively nice now, but the disdain for it wasn't just 'hate train'.
  - 10y ago

holografix 10y ago

This. It boggles the mind how much time one can waste solving admin, busy-work type issues on Linux, specially when trying to use a GUI. I mean wifi, Bluetooth, retina class resolution issues, drivers for multiple devices not being available... unless one is using Linux to learn and understand it as a server of some type I can't fathom using it as a replacement for Mac OS.

zeveb 10y ago
> unless one is using Linux to learn and understand it as a server of some type I can't fathom using it as a replacement for Mac OS. Perhaps some of us value our freedom? Perhaps some of us find that it helps to develop on the same platform on which we deploy? Perhaps some of us find that we don't, actually, spend all that much time on 'admin, busy-work type issues,' having decided on good, solid distros which fit our use cases (Debian works for me, others prefer RedHat)? At the end of the day, though, it really is about freedom for me. You complain that you must tweak your system; I value that I can tweak mine.
fernandotakai 10y ago
i don't know, i've been running archlinux on my mbp and the only busy work i did was installing wifi drivers (which i did using cower and it was quite easy). everything i have worked out of the box. and, as a plus, android usb tethering works a lot better on linux than on osx (thanks to networkmanager)
michaelmrose 10y ago
I'm assuming if you want someone else to ensure everything works for you without hassle then logically you would by a machine with linux preinstalled with a long term support release and then wait until a month after the next lts release to update after everyone else works out the kinks in the new release. You know kinda like you do with apple machines.
deong 10y ago
What you consider "busy-work admin issues", many people consider tier-1 features. For instance, take sloppy focus. On my Linux machines, I can type in one window while interacting with another, and I use that ability fairly often. On my Mac, I have to spend time resizing and rearranging windows because I have to click a window to type there, and clicking raises it to the foreground, obscuring my other windows. Does the amount of time I spend managing windows outweigh the configuration time for the Linux box? I doubt it. But the end result is that my Linux machine feels like I built it exactly to spec. I value the fact that my OS, window manager, etc. do exactly what I want them to do in the same way that many people value the trackpad. I'm absolutely as annoyed and frustrated by the fact that the maximize/fullscreen button on my OS X windows moves my window to Space N+1 instead of keeping it where it is where a quick Cmd-Tab would bring a background window quickly back on top of the still-visible fullscreen window than I am that the trackpad on my Arch Linux box is less reliable at interpreting a gesture.

peatmoss 10y ago

I've had good luck in the past with XFCE (in Xubuntu & OpenBSD) together with XMonad for this use case. Even now, where I don't use any of the panels and whatnot, I will occasionally fire up an XFCE control panel to do whatever it is that needs doing.