15 ms·

Finding an Alternative to Mac OS X – Part 2

168 points by wezm 10y ago

0898 10y ago
Small point: QuickTime on MacOS does have speed controls. You press FF or RWD while holding command (or possibly option) and it will speed up or slow down by 10% each time.
- wezm 10y ago
  Thanks, never thought to try that.
  - wingerlang 10y ago
    Try holding option/alt on most controls, it usually have something nice hidden. E.g. alt+clicking the button that shows/hides the notification center (that's the name?) will toggle notification popups. Another one, alt+clicking the wifi will display additional data about it. Holding alt while right clicking on an app in the dock will toggle between "quit" and "force quit" as well. Etc.
- rcarmo 10y ago
  Am on my iPad right now, but it's most likely Option. Option/Alt is consistently used throughout the OS for fractional adjustments (volume, etc.)
- gjjrfcbugxbhf 10y ago
  For a platform that champions usability macos sure has a lot of magic keycombos.
rhodysurf 10y ago
My experience with elementary had a lot of the same warts. It looks nice and I want to like it but the packages are way too out of date, considering I was used to using Arch and OSX with Homebrew. I just dont see why elementary cant just be a shell (DE) project instead of a full OS.
- sacheendra 10y ago
  The shell of elementary OS, called Pantheon, can be installed on Arch linux. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon
  - wezm 10y ago
    I tried that and it doesn't look right because the elementary theme hasn't been updated for GTK 3.20/22. It only looks right on GTK 3.18.
    - rhodysurf 10y ago
      Yup... all because they use super outdated packages
- tornadoboy55 10y ago
  .. that's like saying 'why can't macOS just be a DE on top of Linux/BSD?' If you want something that's totally cohesive, centralization is the way to go. Having said that, there are definitely some major issues. One of the most contentious is not having a minimize button by default. Their reasoning is 'well if you close one of our apps, it resumes state when you start it up again, which is effectively the same as minimizing'. Not only do their apps not reliably resume state, most other apps don't support this, and their response is 'well that sucks.. but they should adjust their app to work with our specific distro gimmick kthxbai'. Another big one is multiple Window management: if I have 5 windows open of the same app and want to temporarily hide two of them, minimize accomplishes this easily. With Elementary, I have to pick which one I close last because that one will 'resume state'. Another baffling thing is them not using the 'global menu' in the menubar that Ubuntu (and macOS) have. The global menu is probably one of the main reasons people like macOS so much (even though they don't realize it).. you know that whatever app you're in, you can always find all actions in the menu bar. Preferences are always under $APPNAME, Print is always under File, Hiding and viewing interface elements is always under View, etc. Their (Ubuntu's as well) installer also doesn't use home partition encryption by default, nor does it offer an easy way to set up LVM on LUKS. This is a problem with most distros though.. with macOS having your disk FileVaulted is extremely straightforward and simple. It's literally flipping a switch. And the use of it is simple as well: Boot up, enter user password (which is also the encryption password) -> decrypt disk and login. They also do some funky stuff to the Ubuntu installer since installing 16.04LTS gives me working Wi-Fi on my MBP 2015 Retina, but installing Elementary OS (which is based on the same 16.04LTS) doesn't even detect my Wi-Fi chip. The firmware and driver are there, so it should work (doubly so because same base distro), but it simply doesn't.
makepanic 10y ago
If anyone is looking for an open source alternative to Pragmata Pro, I found Iosevka[1] to be a great replacement. [1] - https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka
- wezm 10y ago
  Wow that looks great, could have saved myself some €€€. Fabrizio has done an amazing job with Pragmata Pro though, so happy to support his efforts.
- blipmusic 10y ago
  I absolutely love Iosevka - language/character support (IPA!), efficient yet legible, lots of weights/character variants... A bit surprised how seldom it's mentioned, to be honest.
  - bostand 10y ago
    Can you explain to me the benefit of this compared to a traditional programming font like the Microsoft Consolas?
    - wezm 10y ago
      It's more compact so makes better use of the space available. Subjectively it's pleasant to look at and if the software supports it there are ligatures to make code look better.
      - bostand 10y ago
        Thanks, will give it a try when back at work
santaclaus 10y ago
> All the videos I’ve encountered so far online and offline have played fine. Unlike QuickTime X player on macOS the GNOME video player has speed controls! Is there a way to get better performance out of Gnome video player when scrubbing back and forth in a video? Quicktime 7 and X on macOS (and commercial tools like RV on Linux) are great at this, and it would be cool to have an open source equivalent.
- bostand 10y ago
  Wait, gnome has a video player? Why would anyone user anything other than videolan VLC?
  - jug5 10y ago
    Because mpv is better
    - bostand 10y ago
      In what sense? I don't think I've ever used mpv, I am really curious why you believe it is better. The reason ive stuck with vlc is because it can handle anything you throw at it, and has a responsive and minimal UI. If I find anything equally good I wouldn't mind trying it out
      - aorth 10y ago
        mpv beats VLC at that game. :)
        voltagex_ 10y ago
        ...aren't they both using ffmpeg? Where's the difference coming from?
zyngaro 10y ago
I started to look for an alternative after the recent MacBook pros refresh debacle and I found Thinkpad plus Arch Linux to be a fantastic combo.
m3kw9 10y ago
Lol there is no alternative, unless you don't care for any of macOS's features that makes it so great.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  What "great" features? Buggy and slow interface? Inferior terminal and UNIX support? Lack of customizability?
  - throwaway91111 10y ago
    Are you talking about macOS here or DOS cuz it's a weak move to take shots like that with zero explanation. Furthermore, you sound like you're describing Linux itself. You're either a troll or terrible at indicating sarcasm.
    - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
      I am talking about MacOS. I have MacOS on a separate partition, and everytime I boot into it I'm astounded by how slow the interface can be to do even simple things like resize things in Keynote, or resize windows, or open the launcher. The next issue I had was the lack of a nice, Apple-supported package manager. Homebrew and ports are poor replacements for things like Pacman and the AUR. There's no emphasis on many of the things that makes life on Linux easy. These are my top two complaints; the second can be debated, but the first is unjustifiable when Linux runs on the same hardware without hiccups.
      - eknkc 10y ago
        What is that hardware?
        Ar-Curunir 10y ago
        MacBook Pro 2014; runs Linux just great. MacOS also relatively Ok, but much more buggily.
brightball 10y ago
I went through a lot of the same experimenting and found a happy home in Fedora 25. I was totally up and running with all of may various accounts setup and software installed within about 2 hours...which came as a shock. There have been some adjustments but it's been very smooth. Adding the non-conflicted 3rd party repos suggested by Korora was a big help.
- agibsonccc 10y ago
  +1 for fedora. I have been using it for years. I have never been a big fan of doing the kind of tinkering arch and some of these other linux distributions require for getting work done. Driver/hardware wise I personally haven't had problems with fedora. I tend to buy asus and lenovo for those who are curious. Hardware aside,fedora strikes the right balance between control and easy to use for me. I also don't have high end requirements for my text editor though. I'm a java/c++ guy who uses commercial IDEs. At the same time I like that nvidia and others more or less "acknowledge" fedora exists and publishes drivers and rpms for most things. That being said, DNF also works well enough for me. I haven't had to build anything from source. I have tried macs, lived in SF for a few years surrounded by them, had colleagues who used them, and just never understood the appeal. I tried it once and just didn't feel the need to switch. Macs feel over priced and don't really get upgraded. For those who buy in to the whole apple ecosystem (including development) I could understand why you would do it though. I don't do mobile development though. Much of my experience is definitely specific but I think broad enough to match a certain kind of audience that might use macs but be on the "fringes" of the ecosystem without doing iphone development and the like.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
  Fedora may soon have its own port of Pantheon available if this awesome guy finishes his work soon: https://github.com/decathorpe/elementary-stable-rpms https://github.com/decathorpe/elementary-stable-rpms
- Kostic 10y ago
  Also happy with Fedora 25. Only thing that is still missing from the good UX on Fedora 25 is (proprietary) software delivery but I hope that that will be soon solved with flatpaks[1]. [1]http://flatpak.org/ http://flatpak.org/
Ar-Curunir 10y ago
I don't think that Linux on a Macbook will be problematic; I've been running Arch on mine for the past 2.5 years, and it's been mostly great. And I really enjoy the up-to-date nature of Arch compared to Debian distros; I don't look back fondly upon the trouble I had to go through to use new packages with Ubuntu back in the day.
- throwaway91111 10y ago
  It depends entirely on the luck of which MacBook you have.
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    Well, yes, newer Macbooks are probably not well supported, but anything older than 1 year probably is.
  - wezm 10y ago
    I have a 2013 MacBook Pro is that likely to be a good or bad one?
    - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
      I have a 2014 model; everything works great except the webcam, but there's efforts to get that working too.
- wodenokoto 10y ago
  Hows scrolling and battery life? I consider the track-pad and how most apps scroll in OSX one of the big niceties of the platform.
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    The trackpad actually works great; I haven't been able to get four-finger support working, but I think there's a program that helps with gestures like that; I haven't had time to look into it. Battery life is not quite as good as MacOS, but I think it's pretty good for my needs (at least 4-5 hrs running non-trivial workloads).
vacri 10y ago
> A Long Term Support (LTS) release makes sense for servers but for a desktop I think it’s the wrong choice. LTS releases make sense for plenty of desktop use cases: enterprise/education SOEs; kiosks; non-technical users; even developer workstations in some cases.
- timthelion 10y ago
  Personally, I find that an LTS along with a container system like Docker, snap, flatpak, or subuser is the best way to go. Stability + flexibility.
bostand 10y ago
I really don't get why someone would want to change platform while doing his damnest to keep things exactly as before. Instead of, I don't know... embracing the changes? Maybe try something new?? I mean switching to Linux but using a homebrew port instead of the native package manager? Really?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- a3n 10y ago
  The intent was access to better hardware. He believes Apple is falling behind.
  - johnpowell 10y ago
    Or getting some hits on their site.
- wezm 10y ago
  I tried Linuxbrew but didn't stick with it for exactly the reason you point out: > However it turns out Linuxbrew manages it’s own version of all the packages it tracks (makes sense I guess). This end up duplicating many of the packages available or already installed by the system package manager. This works on macOS since there is no system package repository but did not sit well with me on a Linux system.
  - bostand 10y ago
    Fair enough. But I am still wondering why linuxbrew exists to begin with. I mean, I understand the point of having snap or flatpack in addition to native distro packages, but linuxbrew?
    - tormeh 10y ago
      Sounds like with Linuxbrew you get actually updated packages, which non-rolling release distros lack.
djhworld 10y ago
Re: Slack Why not just use the web version? Seems to be exactly the same as the app as far as I can tell
- rcarmo 10y ago
  I have the app installed and it is nicer due to better hotkey support, but on the other hand the Electron shell its built upon takes up far more RAM than a couple of browser tabs. Edit: typos.
- wezm 10y ago
  Yeah it is basically the website wrapped in an app. Having it as an app makes it easier to launch, switch to (Alt-Tab), it shows up in the task list, can be pinned to one or all workspaces, this kind of thing.
  - mverwijs 10y ago
    Chrome profile. Done.
- navs 10y ago
  Also slack has an irc gateway so you can also use your favorite irc client like irssi.
haddr 10y ago
Honestly, just get Elementary OS, this is the closest you can get to MacOS if you are "get things gone" kind of person. And support the team too! They do a great job!
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  Did you read the article? The author evaluated Elementary OS and found it lacking for a number of reasons.
  - haddr 10y ago
    Sure! And did you read my comment? I don't say "people who want to recreate their own desktop from all the software available" but rather "gtd" kind of people, who doesn't mind if their nvidia driver is from 4 months and not from yesterday. As long as everything works who cares? Sure, OP has his points (although the neovim is not the case anymore), but same bugs appear in other distros, unfortunately :(
    - ricardobeat 10y ago
      Sorry, but the parent commenter had a point - it sounds like you did not pay enought attention to the article. > elementary almost completely removes menus. As a heavy keyboard shortcut user this makes discovering shortcuts difficult > the Mac App Store, Homebrew and Arch Linux. With each of these it’s a simple matter to install the latest version of a tool or application. On elementary I ran into a number of cases where software I wished to install did not exist in the Ubuntu repos or were outdated > as time went on I started running into more bugs [...] At this point the system was actively harming my productivity This doesn't seem to fare very well for your 'as long as everything works' view. The difficulty to install popular software is the exact opposite of that. I love Elementary OS and its UI style/guidelines; found it many years ago, but have stayed with OSX since. As the author mentions, basing it on a Ubuntu LTS release comes with consequences and is a questionable decision for a desktop.
- lbenes 10y ago
rickette 10y ago
Let's just hope Apple takes the comments on the latest Macbooks serious. So next time we won't be having articles like this anymore.
Shoop 10y ago
Unrelated, but what do people think about enpass? I'm looking for an alternative to 1Password that runs on Linux. Lastpass is another candidate.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  Pass is pretty good; you synchronize across devices using a git repo, good command line support, and generally easy to use.
  - Shoop 10y ago
    Doesn't pass expose metadata?
    - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
      To your git repo, yes. If you have a private server set up, then it's not a problem, but if you're using the big cloud providers, then that's something you have to consider.
- wezm 10y ago
  I used LastPass for a couple of years and would definitely recommend Enpass over it. You get native apps and can choose how it will sync if at all instead of all your passwords being stored on LastPass's servers.
- mnm1 10y ago
  I love Enpass. Am using it currently on OS X mostly. My tech-inept family is using it. Compared to Lastpass ... for one it works so it's already infinitely better than Lastpass. A password manager that can't remember a saved password properly ... that's Lastpass. The infuriating thing is that sometimes it shows the right password but fills the wrong one in. Considering such behavior, I'd say Lastpass isn't even a password manager, just some random code that some company seems to continue to shit out. Their support is also on par with that shit, even if you've paid.
- fuzzygroup 10y ago
dragonshed 10y ago
Given all the friction and various issues, I still don't see why a hackintosh with well-supported hardware running macOS isn't an option.
- wezm 10y ago
  Mainly because, "well-supported hardware", could change at any time. It felt better to me to attempt a clean break.
  - adar 10y ago
    For what it's worth, I've been using my Hackintosh on the same hardware since 2011. It'll be 6 years in March. Just upgraded to Sierra 10.12.3 this morning, in fact. On top of that, I've actually had to spend far less time computer janitoring it than I have on the various *NIX installs I've run in those same 6 years. I totally understand not wanting any OS-based surprises while trying to get work done, but as long as your CPU and motherboard are supported, you're generally good to go.
- mwcampbell 10y ago
  Because it's illegal. Do we have no respect for laws anymore?
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    Yeah, no it's not. Apple hasn't launched iCountry yet.
- Ezhik 10y ago
  It's what I do, ThinkPad T420 running OS X Yosemite. I actually wrote about my experience: https://medium.com/@Ezhik/2fb487efe717 https://medium.com/@Ezhik/2fb487efe717 - but even disregarding obvious concerns like legality, there's still plenty of reasons to want to give Linux a shot properly, which mostly come down to the direction Apple is taking OS X and its hardware in.
erikbye 10y ago
My dev home these days is Arch + i3. This allows me to spend minimal time window-managing, and I tend to find most packages I need either in the official repo or the AUR. My Linux computing experience basically consists of bash, gcc, gdb, qemu, and emacs.
Terretta 10y ago
What's this no 4K at 60hz thing I keep seeing in threads this month? I'm driving two 4K@60hz Dells and the built in screen on an older MBP 15". Granted, it's finicky to get set up right, but it works w/ configurable screens and right cabling.
- wezm 10y ago
  You probably have a discrete GPU. The 13" 2013 era MacBook Pros like mine with only Intel graphics can't do 60Hz.
simosx 10y ago
> A Long Term Support (LTS) release makes sense for servers but for a desktop I think it’s the wrong choice. For many Ubuntu users, the LTS release is the best choice. The base packages remain stable and supported. The Linux kernel is updated automatically every six months and the next update is scheduled for next week when Ubuntu 16.04.2 will be made available (existing users will get upgraded automatically.) If you want any actual development packages which are not provided by the system packaging, you can (and should) install them with Ubuntu Make (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-make https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-make). Anything Jetbrains, all Eclipse packages, Go, NetBeans, SublimeText, Arduino, Android Studio, Scala, NodeJS, Kotlin, DART, and more. edit: typoes
- wezm 10y ago
  > The base packages remain stable and supported Problem is they weren't stable. I ran into bugs in the old so called stable packages that were fixed in newer versions.
EdSharkey 10y ago
Wouldn't it be fun if Apple turned this latest underwhelming MacBook Pro release for developers/professionals into something magnificent on the next release? Something like a MacBook Pro, Creator's Edition that attempts to address all the criticisms of the current crop of MacBooks. Sure, those laptops will sell for a double premium and nowhere near the volumes of standard MacBooks, but that's a small price to pay for keeping their developer mindshare.
- toyg 10y ago
  That's more or less what is rumored to appear later this year: a no-hold-barrels high-end version with latest cpu, 32gb of ram, top graphic card and larger battery. Whether it really happens, though, it's another matter; the rumor might well be Apple trying to do some damage control.
  - crispinb 10y ago
    But it will not have a real keyboard, new macbooks having replaced it with a bizarre hybrid (3/4 of a keyboard + a tiny screen aka 'touch bar'). So it will be entirely useless for touch typists, ie. most developers. I like macOS, but my current MB Pro will be my last.
sslalready 10y ago
The two things that have kept me from switching completely from macOS to Linux (currently Fedora) all these years have been a good alternative to Mail.app and Sequel Pro (MySQL client). Are there any good alternatives available on Linux?
- jasonszhao 10y ago
  I just stumbled upon N1, although I haven't tried it: https://github.com/nylas/nylas-mail https://github.com/nylas/nylas-mail
  - wezm 10y ago
    I does indeed look good (to me) and they have hired a designer that I greatly respect to work on it (https://dribbble.com/sdw https://dribbble.com/sdw) but it's an Electron app (goodbye memory) and requires you to hand over your email account details to Nylas: https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/217518207-Why-does-Nylas-Pro-sync-email-via-the-cloud- https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/217518207-Why-do...
    - grinich 10y ago
      Hey-- I work at Nylas. We're transitioning away from cloud sync for almost all functionality. More info here: https://blog.nylas.com/nylas-mail-is-now-free-8350d6a1044d https://blog.nylas.com/nylas-mail-is-now-free-8350d6a1044d
      - sslalready 10y ago
        It would be nice if the client was usable without having to register with you guys. Is that something you're looking into? PS. SSL Labs gives your site an F grade due to CVE-2016-2107.
        grinich 10y ago
        Looking into both-- thanks for the heads up. Edit: Fixed now. We should have an "A+" rating. :)
throw2016 10y ago
I have a Windows system and a 13 Macbook retina laptop and by far prefer the Unity desktop for speed and polish. Unity is unbelievably sleek and fast and everything mostly just works. Those of us who have struggled with Linux desktops since the early 2000s will know what a massive leap this is. Now if you can get this experience pre-bundled by hardware vendors then those who are not locked in to other platforms by platform specific apps can definitely use this productively. But if they have to install the OS and fiddle with drivers then it becomes a completely different ball game like it would be if they had to install Windows or OSX from scratch.
matt4077 10y ago
Elementary OS is a shallow, ugly, uninspired and lazy attempt to make money. It's trying really hard to imitate Apple – they even have these "Human Interface Guidelines" somewhere that read like some sort of Apple parody. In reality it's a fake, thin veneer of a user interface bolted onto a generic Linux distribution. Apple software may have their own faults. I think most of the whining is just boredom, but iTunes for example is definitely not the pinnacle of UI. But the beauty of macOS has always been in getting some things exactly right with the competence and attention of a master craftsman/woman. I'd name text rendering as an example, or sleep. Elementary OS is made by people who think wearing a turtleneck makes them Steve Jobs, but they just don't get that you also have to throw a prototype or two at your CXOs from time to time :) I don't think Linux on the desktop will benefit from such cloning. Just look at Open Office: a UI that perpetually felt four years out of date that probably took five times as many hours of work as the google docs that actually made Office unnecessary.
- Longhanks 10y ago
  The drama around their statement "choosing $0 is basically cheating" was the point where I lost interest in the project. (https://funnelfiasco.com/blog/2015/02/13/elementary-misses-the-point/ https://funnelfiasco.com/blog/2015/02/13/elementary-misses-t...)
- Ezhik 10y ago
  I honestly haven't paid attention to elementaryOS drama, but I don't want to give them shit if they are at least trying, even if not entirely successfully. I admire open source, but open source software suffers very strongly from "programmer design". It's a difficult process to get these things right, and I wouldn't expect some distribution to pop up overnight that does things on the same level of refinement as OS X. These things take time, and we need to encourage projects that do try.
  - Shorel 10y ago
    Removing the window menu in all applications is not trying. Really, there is something as 'being too minimalist'. To the point of being almost useless. When I tried to use the default video player of EOS, there was no option in sight to add a subtitles file. I can understand not being able to fine tune the font used for subtitles. But removing the feature altogether?
fingerprinter 10y ago
For anyone thinking of switching, here are some thoughts. First, you'll hear all about arch. It's lovely, it really is. But, if you like the "just work" nature of OSX back in the day, look at Ubuntu proper or Ubuntu-gnome (if you don't like Unity). I'm sure people will chime in here with others that they have thoughts on here, though in my experience, Ubuntu is the best at this game and it's not even close. Yes, it has problems too (let's not start the nitpicking thing, I'm making a general statement), but it is by far the best stable linux desktop. Fedora is acceptable, particularly of late, but it /still/ is behind Ubuntu. Second, with Ubuntu/Debian, stick with whatever is in the archive or PPA. Everything else isn't worth the pain. Perhaps Snaps can improve this problem, though I'm sceptical. Linuxbrew and other such things will not be worth the problems they bring. Third, use a stable UI. Don't go with Pantheon, Mate, Cinnamon, Elementary or something else like that. Again, it's not worth the pain. I personally don't like KDE though it would qualify as "stable" along with Unity, Gnome-Shell and XFCE. I prefer Gnome-shell and Unity so that is what I use. Lastly, things will be worse in some ways from OSX, and much better in others. If the advise looks pretty straight forward, it is. Stick with the known working, well supported projects as your base, tinker in customisation to suite, and don't go with lesser known/supported projects if you only really care about something "just working".
- macco 10y ago
  If Arch is not for you, you can always try Manjaro. It is more stable, but still you get the power of Pacman.
- grandalf 10y ago
  I end up choosing Ubuntu for the reasons you mention, and recently found that I get a lot of crashes of unity, seemingly due to the nvidia prprietary drivers running at 4K. I'd guess the crashes aren't this common for all users or else they would not be considered stable. My take on unity is that the main problem is simply bugs, not design defects of philosophical issues.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >I'd guess the crashes aren't this common for all users or else they would not be considered stable. You'd be surprised.
hota_mazi 10y ago
> For now Windows is off the table. It's a pity there's so much antagonism against Windows from MacOS/Linux users. I've been using both MacOS and Windows on a daily basis for the past ten years (and a lot of Linux before that) and to me, Windows has become the best OS for developers. First of all, let's get this out of the way: Bash works just fine. Install a distribution and a console with bash and you'll get everything (dotfiles, ssh, etc...) working under an hour. Another important point is that Windows is the most keyboard friendly OS out of the three. As a developer, I use my mouse as little as possible so it's vital that I have access to all functions and all menus from the mouse. MacOS is terrible in that area (how come I still can't pop up the File menu from the keyboard in 2017?). Windows also has some of the best file managers of all. My preference is for xPlorer2 because, again, I can manipulate files at the speed of light with just the keyboard, but there are plenty of alternatives. Anyway, keep an open mind if you're looking for another OS and make sure you include Windows 10 in your trials, or you might be missing out on something that will make you at least as productive as you used to be with your current OS.
- swang 10y ago
  I am both a MacOS and Windows user, I have trouble completely recommending Windows 10 to anyone solely on the basis of Microsoft's invasive telemetry services. That and the catastrophically anti-consumer upgrade paths they forced on people. I am still running Win 7, and still have a MBP with MacOS installed. At this time I'm not buying another Mac laptop/desktop(LOL) but if I do get a new laptop that is Win only I'm going to install Win 7 over Win 10. Windows Explorer to me is way more intuitive that MacOS Finder, which I find to be more difficult to use.
  - Longhanks 10y ago
    You'll probably have trouble installing Windows 7, it's not even supported on Kaby Lake processors anymore and the security patches are going to stop in 2020.
- warmfuzzykitten 10y ago
  Keyboard lovers unite! It's amusing to see GUI-resistance all these years later, after Microsoft has worked so very hard to make Windows work and look just like MacOS. Well, like it would look if it had been designed by people with no taste.
lobster_johnson 10y ago
As a Mac user, whenever I run Linux, I get depressed about how bad the font rendering is. It's getting better, though it sometimes requires installing a special non-free version of Freetype and setting some global config that I can never remember. I always lose track of which distros get it right without requiring any tweaks. However: While the glyph rendering in the article's screenshots looks quite, the kerning is just awful. For example, here [1], upper left quadrant: "Ap plications", "A ppC enter", "C alendar". Anyone know why it's so bad? Is it a configuration flag? [1] http://bitcannon.net/images/2017/4k-elementary.png http://bitcannon.net/images/2017/4k-elementary.png
- wezm 10y ago
  Interesting. I see it now and I was expecting this to be an issue with switching but I haven't really noticed it. Here are the same words rendered by macOS (9pt Open Sans): http://bitcannon.net/images/2017/open-sans-on-macos.png http://bitcannon.net/images/2017/open-sans-on-macos.png I think it's showing similar spacing.
  - lobster_johnson 10y ago
    Here's macOS, comparing Helvetica and Open Sans: http://i.imgur.com/6uGxKbQ.png http://i.imgur.com/6uGxKbQ.png While Open Sans is clearly not perfect, it's not as bad as the Linux screenshot.
    - wezm 10y ago
      Yeah definitely looks like it's Open Sans when viewed like that.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago
  Looks kerning related
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- notamy 10y ago
csomar 10y ago
> I had a custom PC built for work. It has a fast Intel CPU (4Ghz i7-6700K), plenty of RAM and fast SSD storage If I got this right, he built a desktop PC? How is he then comparing his custom-built PC to the Macbook Pro, which is a laptop. Maybe he should have saved the pain of finding the replacement and bought the Mac Pro?
- wezm 10y ago
  Step one was the PC. For about 6 months I sshed to the PC from my MacBook and used iTerm's tmux integration to do development on that machine. This is phase 2 using that machine without the MacBook. Eventually I'd like to get a non-Apple laptop (if the experiment sticks), but one step at a time.
ENTP 10y ago
Installed ElementaryOS for a friend who essentially just needed a browser. He absolutely loves it and i'd consider it should i find the need to switch.
tehwalrus 10y ago
A note on the unicode code points, I have found I can use the same keyboard layout on Mac and Linux (including right alt magic like # on the British layout) by using the "Mac" layout in the initial configuration. Works a charm of you are a flip flopper (which I am).
battlebot 10y ago
A lot of us are on this journey. Apple blew it. They lost me as a customer when I had to hurriedly replace my 2012 mac mini with a 2014 model and came to find out the RAM is soldered to the board making my 16GB DIMMS worthless. No forgiveness for cheapening their product and their brand.
jdalgetty 10y ago
I feel like this thread keeps repeating that there is no good alternative.
AlexAffe 10y ago
Windows is a proprietary, closed source OS. It is not a valid choice imo.
- ktta 10y ago
  The author actually was using Mac OS X before this, and it being proprietary wasn't a problem.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Proprietary hardware+software was the problem, proprietary software isn't much better.
AlexAffe 10y ago
I use the same setup of tools at work as at home on 2 different systems. OSX at work and Linux Mint at home. Love mint, it's fast, lean and simple (and has basically everything debian has)
- bitL 10y ago
  I wish they finally fixed the freezing bug in Cinnamon; every time I switch to a user while logged in as another user Cinnamon goes down hard (Intel systems, Core M and i5). And 1/3 of suspend/resume attempts end up that way. I use Mint for >4 years but this is starting to kill me :( HiDPI is fantastic on Cinnamon, 4k is a joy.
Rotareti 10y ago
I'm very satisfied with Linux Mint 18 and Cinnamon. Everything ran out of the box on my Thinkpad; It comes with nice looking fonts that render well; The Mint-y theme is quite beautiful (IMHO); It's a Debian/Ubuntu derivative, so you get very good support and a lot of packages; High-dpi scaling works very nicely, especially since version 18. If you need a replacement for Alfred, you should have a look at Albert [0]. I use Albert in Linux Mint as a replacement for the Main menu. [0] https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert
tambourine_man 10y ago
I'd love to switch to Linux but about 50% of my income depends on Photoshop. If there was a way run it fast and reliably I'd switch in a heartbeat. Basically no crashing, hardware accelerated (GPU) display/filters and a color profiled workflow. Booting to Windows to generate the profiles would be acceptable. Last I checked, however, neither virtualization (even with GPU passthrough) nor Wine where quite there. Besides, with the tight release schedule that the Creative Cloud imposes, I don't think it ever will.
ktta 10y ago
For people looking for good apps on linux, I'd recommend Franz[1]. It basically replaces all of your chat/messenger apps, including support for facebook messenger and Whats app. It runs in the background really well. [1]:http://meetfranz.com/ http://meetfranz.com/
pascalxus 10y ago
It's a shame that the new mac labtops are so bad, especially now that they've had that huge breakthrough in disk speed, in recent years.
crispinb 10y ago
The article mainly serves to remind me of why I switched from linux to mac a few years back. All that configuring stuff just isn't how I want to spend my time now. I can't think of the last time I spent any 'sysadmin' time with my macbook (other than clearing space off my undersized SSD). I won't repeat the obvious over-used marketing phrase, but it's been pretty much true in my experience. The trouble is with Apple falling so far behind on hardware, and enforcing the developer-hostile 'touch bar' faux keyboard to the few new machines they do bother to introduce, it's hard to see what happens next. For the first time in my computer-using adult life, there just isn't anywhere good to go when my current machine needs replacing. Linux demands more of my time than I'm willing to give it. Windows is adware. MacOS runs on hardware I don't want (Hackintosh? Might as well just go linux).
rocky1138 10y ago
sudo apt-get install neovim
bluedino 10y ago
Exactly the reasons I can't stay switched. Too much drinking around. When I was younger I loved fiddling with Linux but I'd rather do other things with my time so I use a Mac. Millions of people get their work done with Linux every day and it works great and people love it - but it's not the Mac feeling or way. You have to learn to like Linux for what it is, even if it's not perfect. You might miss a few features but it's easily ran on a variety of hardware these days and for the most part works great. The T450S I have Ubuntu on is the best it's ever been in my 15+ years of running Linux on laptops. Heck it wasn't even that bad back then with my Dell C600 and RedHat 7
- alfalfasprout 10y ago
  Exactly. I love Linux on servers. Easy to work with, easy to develop for, etc. But OSX is just much better for day to day task. Everything more or less "just works". Plus with modern C++ I can usually easily develop locally and deploy to Linux (with some CI to make sure compatibility remains).
tim-- 10y ago
> Things did not go as smoothly with Slack. [...] This feels like something that is harder than it needs to be in elementary. Especially since it is a simple double click on a stock Ubuntu installation. > After all, most parts of the elementary desktop environment (pantheon) are in the Arch User Repository (AUR). So, Mr. Author, let me get this right: in Ubuntu it was really easy to install Slack. Just a double click of a package. Then you thought that Arch Linux was better then Elementry because you couldn't double click a dpkg file, so you installed the Elementary stuff through the AUR. A website that would require you to use the command line before you could get Slack even installed? Ubuntu does have old versions of drivers and applications. As Elementry is based on Ubuntu, it is to be expected that you would recieve older driers inside Elementary.
balladeer 10y ago
As some are pointing out the perils or maybe horrors of not having what OSX offers - the ease, the "just works" thingy. To be honest so does Windows and a lot of Linux distributions now. What is one point here, and most important for me at least, is that Apple Air line probably going off the air. The price point (value for money) of it was what convinced me to buy my first Apple product (4+ years ago; and last so far except a keyboard as I couldn't find a decent third party one in India). The cost of a machine that I don't need and don't like much either is isn't justifiable just to remain in a particular ecosystem I became comfortable with. My battery is dying and the machine itself is showing signs of age. I know I won't like it but when the time comes I will be looking for alternatives too if I can't get OSX in an affordable way.
ssamuli 10y ago
Only reason I use OS X instead of Linux are the commercial apps. Not because of how Mac OS X looks. I like to pay for apps when/if they are better than their free/opensource counterparts, but very often those are not available on Linux. Wouldn't it be great if there was a commercial multiplatform apps marketplace, similar to Steam but more productivity focused? The marketplace could even provide developers with an SDK to enable them to easily create packaging, networking and UIs without having to use OS specific libraries. Basically anything that usually has to be done for each platform separately. Similar to how Unity3D helps with multiplatform game development. Something like this could push developers to release commercial software on Linux, too, because it would be basically just another build from the same source. And who knows some day Adobe and other big players might release their products like Photoshop, Lightroom etc on it.
wwarner 10y ago
You can use lesspass.com as an open source alternative to 1pass or enpass. Would love to hear how it measures up. I use keypass in a rather manual way myself.
dcdevito 10y ago
It's just so much work getting Linux to work on the desktop. The hatred and bios against Windows 10 is baffling. It's fast, stable, secure and reliable. I've been running it for 6 months and never had an issue. I run Linux VMs via VMware and they work great, especially in Unity mode (v7). And now with WSL it's becoming increasingly easier to keep using Windows. The "forced" reboots/updates is simply 2 config changes away from getting out of your way (takes 10 seconds) and the recommended apps takes 30 secs to uninstall. Seriously it isn't rocket science, it makes me laugh seeing developers (who are technical in nature) complain and struggle configuring the OS, all the while they'll gladly spend hours/days/weeks configuring Linux. For what? "Freedom"? Please.

168 points by wezm 10y ago

0898 10y ago

Small point: QuickTime on MacOS does have speed controls. You press FF or RWD while holding command (or possibly option) and it will speed up or slow down by 10% each time.

wezm 10y ago
Thanks, never thought to try that.
- wingerlang 10y ago
  Try holding option/alt on most controls, it usually have something nice hidden. E.g. alt+clicking the button that shows/hides the notification center (that's the name?) will toggle notification popups. Another one, alt+clicking the wifi will display additional data about it. Holding alt while right clicking on an app in the dock will toggle between "quit" and "force quit" as well. Etc.
rcarmo 10y ago
Am on my iPad right now, but it's most likely Option. Option/Alt is consistently used throughout the OS for fractional adjustments (volume, etc.)
gjjrfcbugxbhf 10y ago
For a platform that champions usability macos sure has a lot of magic keycombos.

rhodysurf 10y ago

My experience with elementary had a lot of the same warts. It looks nice and I want to like it but the packages are way too out of date, considering I was used to using Arch and OSX with Homebrew. I just dont see why elementary cant just be a shell (DE) project instead of a full OS.

sacheendra 10y ago
The shell of elementary OS, called Pantheon, can be installed on Arch linux. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon
- wezm 10y ago
  I tried that and it doesn't look right because the elementary theme hasn't been updated for GTK 3.20/22. It only looks right on GTK 3.18.
  - rhodysurf 10y ago
    Yup... all because they use super outdated packages
tornadoboy55 10y ago
.. that's like saying 'why can't macOS just be a DE on top of Linux/BSD?' If you want something that's totally cohesive, centralization is the way to go. Having said that, there are definitely some major issues. One of the most contentious is not having a minimize button by default. Their reasoning is 'well if you close one of our apps, it resumes state when you start it up again, which is effectively the same as minimizing'. Not only do their apps not reliably resume state, most other apps don't support this, and their response is 'well that sucks.. but they should adjust their app to work with our specific distro gimmick kthxbai'. Another big one is multiple Window management: if I have 5 windows open of the same app and want to temporarily hide two of them, minimize accomplishes this easily. With Elementary, I have to pick which one I close last because that one will 'resume state'. Another baffling thing is them not using the 'global menu' in the menubar that Ubuntu (and macOS) have. The global menu is probably one of the main reasons people like macOS so much (even though they don't realize it).. you know that whatever app you're in, you can always find all actions in the menu bar. Preferences are always under $APPNAME, Print is always under File, Hiding and viewing interface elements is always under View, etc. Their (Ubuntu's as well) installer also doesn't use home partition encryption by default, nor does it offer an easy way to set up LVM on LUKS. This is a problem with most distros though.. with macOS having your disk FileVaulted is extremely straightforward and simple. It's literally flipping a switch. And the use of it is simple as well: Boot up, enter user password (which is also the encryption password) -> decrypt disk and login. They also do some funky stuff to the Ubuntu installer since installing 16.04LTS gives me working Wi-Fi on my MBP 2015 Retina, but installing Elementary OS (which is based on the same 16.04LTS) doesn't even detect my Wi-Fi chip. The firmware and driver are there, so it should work (doubly so because same base distro), but it simply doesn't.

makepanic 10y ago

If anyone is looking for an open source alternative to Pragmata Pro, I found Iosevka[1] to be a great replacement. [1] - https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka

wezm 10y ago
Wow that looks great, could have saved myself some €€€. Fabrizio has done an amazing job with Pragmata Pro though, so happy to support his efforts.
blipmusic 10y ago
I absolutely love Iosevka - language/character support (IPA!), efficient yet legible, lots of weights/character variants... A bit surprised how seldom it's mentioned, to be honest.
- bostand 10y ago
  Can you explain to me the benefit of this compared to a traditional programming font like the Microsoft Consolas?
  - wezm 10y ago
    It's more compact so makes better use of the space available. Subjectively it's pleasant to look at and if the software supports it there are ligatures to make code look better.
    - bostand 10y ago
      Thanks, will give it a try when back at work

santaclaus 10y ago

> All the videos I’ve encountered so far online and offline have played fine. Unlike QuickTime X player on macOS the GNOME video player has speed controls! Is there a way to get better performance out of Gnome video player when scrubbing back and forth in a video? Quicktime 7 and X on macOS (and commercial tools like RV on Linux) are great at this, and it would be cool to have an open source equivalent.

bostand 10y ago
Wait, gnome has a video player? Why would anyone user anything other than videolan VLC?
- jug5 10y ago
  Because mpv is better
  - bostand 10y ago
    In what sense? I don't think I've ever used mpv, I am really curious why you believe it is better. The reason ive stuck with vlc is because it can handle anything you throw at it, and has a responsive and minimal UI. If I find anything equally good I wouldn't mind trying it out
    - aorth 10y ago
      mpv beats VLC at that game. :)
      - voltagex_ 10y ago
        ...aren't they both using ffmpeg? Where's the difference coming from?

zyngaro 10y ago

I started to look for an alternative after the recent MacBook pros refresh debacle and I found Thinkpad plus Arch Linux to be a fantastic combo.

m3kw9 10y ago

Lol there is no alternative, unless you don't care for any of macOS's features that makes it so great.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago
What "great" features? Buggy and slow interface? Inferior terminal and UNIX support? Lack of customizability?
- throwaway91111 10y ago
  Are you talking about macOS here or DOS cuz it's a weak move to take shots like that with zero explanation. Furthermore, you sound like you're describing Linux itself. You're either a troll or terrible at indicating sarcasm.
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    I am talking about MacOS. I have MacOS on a separate partition, and everytime I boot into it I'm astounded by how slow the interface can be to do even simple things like resize things in Keynote, or resize windows, or open the launcher. The next issue I had was the lack of a nice, Apple-supported package manager. Homebrew and ports are poor replacements for things like Pacman and the AUR. There's no emphasis on many of the things that makes life on Linux easy. These are my top two complaints; the second can be debated, but the first is unjustifiable when Linux runs on the same hardware without hiccups.
    - eknkc 10y ago
      What is that hardware?
      - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
        MacBook Pro 2014; runs Linux just great. MacOS also relatively Ok, but much more buggily.

brightball 10y ago

I went through a lot of the same experimenting and found a happy home in Fedora 25. I was totally up and running with all of may various accounts setup and software installed within about 2 hours...which came as a shock. There have been some adjustments but it's been very smooth. Adding the non-conflicted 3rd party repos suggested by Korora was a big help.

agibsonccc 10y ago
+1 for fedora. I have been using it for years. I have never been a big fan of doing the kind of tinkering arch and some of these other linux distributions require for getting work done. Driver/hardware wise I personally haven't had problems with fedora. I tend to buy asus and lenovo for those who are curious. Hardware aside,fedora strikes the right balance between control and easy to use for me. I also don't have high end requirements for my text editor though. I'm a java/c++ guy who uses commercial IDEs. At the same time I like that nvidia and others more or less "acknowledge" fedora exists and publishes drivers and rpms for most things. That being said, DNF also works well enough for me. I haven't had to build anything from source. I have tried macs, lived in SF for a few years surrounded by them, had colleagues who used them, and just never understood the appeal. I tried it once and just didn't feel the need to switch. Macs feel over priced and don't really get upgraded. For those who buy in to the whole apple ecosystem (including development) I could understand why you would do it though. I don't do mobile development though. Much of my experience is definitely specific but I think broad enough to match a certain kind of audience that might use macs but be on the "fringes" of the ecosystem without doing iphone development and the like.
AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
Fedora may soon have its own port of Pantheon available if this awesome guy finishes his work soon: https://github.com/decathorpe/elementary-stable-rpms https://github.com/decathorpe/elementary-stable-rpms
Kostic 10y ago
Also happy with Fedora 25. Only thing that is still missing from the good UX on Fedora 25 is (proprietary) software delivery but I hope that that will be soon solved with flatpaks[1]. [1]http://flatpak.org/ http://flatpak.org/

Ar-Curunir 10y ago

I don't think that Linux on a Macbook will be problematic; I've been running Arch on mine for the past 2.5 years, and it's been mostly great. And I really enjoy the up-to-date nature of Arch compared to Debian distros; I don't look back fondly upon the trouble I had to go through to use new packages with Ubuntu back in the day.

throwaway91111 10y ago
It depends entirely on the luck of which MacBook you have.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  Well, yes, newer Macbooks are probably not well supported, but anything older than 1 year probably is.
- wezm 10y ago
  I have a 2013 MacBook Pro is that likely to be a good or bad one?
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    I have a 2014 model; everything works great except the webcam, but there's efforts to get that working too.
wodenokoto 10y ago
Hows scrolling and battery life? I consider the track-pad and how most apps scroll in OSX one of the big niceties of the platform.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  The trackpad actually works great; I haven't been able to get four-finger support working, but I think there's a program that helps with gestures like that; I haven't had time to look into it. Battery life is not quite as good as MacOS, but I think it's pretty good for my needs (at least 4-5 hrs running non-trivial workloads).

vacri 10y ago

> A Long Term Support (LTS) release makes sense for servers but for a desktop I think it’s the wrong choice. LTS releases make sense for plenty of desktop use cases: enterprise/education SOEs; kiosks; non-technical users; even developer workstations in some cases.

timthelion 10y ago
Personally, I find that an LTS along with a container system like Docker, snap, flatpak, or subuser is the best way to go. Stability + flexibility.

bostand 10y ago

I really don't get why someone would want to change platform while doing his damnest to keep things exactly as before. Instead of, I don't know... embracing the changes? Maybe try something new?? I mean switching to Linux but using a homebrew port instead of the native package manager? Really?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
a3n 10y ago
The intent was access to better hardware. He believes Apple is falling behind.
- johnpowell 10y ago
  Or getting some hits on their site.
wezm 10y ago
I tried Linuxbrew but didn't stick with it for exactly the reason you point out: > However it turns out Linuxbrew manages it’s own version of all the packages it tracks (makes sense I guess). This end up duplicating many of the packages available or already installed by the system package manager. This works on macOS since there is no system package repository but did not sit well with me on a Linux system.
- bostand 10y ago
  Fair enough. But I am still wondering why linuxbrew exists to begin with. I mean, I understand the point of having snap or flatpack in addition to native distro packages, but linuxbrew?
  - tormeh 10y ago
    Sounds like with Linuxbrew you get actually updated packages, which non-rolling release distros lack.

djhworld 10y ago

Re: Slack Why not just use the web version? Seems to be exactly the same as the app as far as I can tell

rcarmo 10y ago
I have the app installed and it is nicer due to better hotkey support, but on the other hand the Electron shell its built upon takes up far more RAM than a couple of browser tabs. Edit: typos.
wezm 10y ago
Yeah it is basically the website wrapped in an app. Having it as an app makes it easier to launch, switch to (Alt-Tab), it shows up in the task list, can be pinned to one or all workspaces, this kind of thing.
- mverwijs 10y ago
  Chrome profile. Done.
navs 10y ago
Also slack has an irc gateway so you can also use your favorite irc client like irssi.

haddr 10y ago

Honestly, just get Elementary OS, this is the closest you can get to MacOS if you are "get things gone" kind of person. And support the team too! They do a great job!

Ar-Curunir 10y ago
Did you read the article? The author evaluated Elementary OS and found it lacking for a number of reasons.
- haddr 10y ago
  Sure! And did you read my comment? I don't say "people who want to recreate their own desktop from all the software available" but rather "gtd" kind of people, who doesn't mind if their nvidia driver is from 4 months and not from yesterday. As long as everything works who cares? Sure, OP has his points (although the neovim is not the case anymore), but same bugs appear in other distros, unfortunately :(
  - ricardobeat 10y ago
    Sorry, but the parent commenter had a point - it sounds like you did not pay enought attention to the article. > elementary almost completely removes menus. As a heavy keyboard shortcut user this makes discovering shortcuts difficult > the Mac App Store, Homebrew and Arch Linux. With each of these it’s a simple matter to install the latest version of a tool or application. On elementary I ran into a number of cases where software I wished to install did not exist in the Ubuntu repos or were outdated > as time went on I started running into more bugs [...] At this point the system was actively harming my productivity This doesn't seem to fare very well for your 'as long as everything works' view. The difficulty to install popular software is the exact opposite of that. I love Elementary OS and its UI style/guidelines; found it many years ago, but have stayed with OSX since. As the author mentions, basing it on a Ubuntu LTS release comes with consequences and is a questionable decision for a desktop.
lbenes 10y ago

rickette 10y ago

Let's just hope Apple takes the comments on the latest Macbooks serious. So next time we won't be having articles like this anymore.

Shoop 10y ago

Unrelated, but what do people think about enpass? I'm looking for an alternative to 1Password that runs on Linux. Lastpass is another candidate.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago
Pass is pretty good; you synchronize across devices using a git repo, good command line support, and generally easy to use.
- Shoop 10y ago
  Doesn't pass expose metadata?
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    To your git repo, yes. If you have a private server set up, then it's not a problem, but if you're using the big cloud providers, then that's something you have to consider.
wezm 10y ago
I used LastPass for a couple of years and would definitely recommend Enpass over it. You get native apps and can choose how it will sync if at all instead of all your passwords being stored on LastPass's servers.
mnm1 10y ago
I love Enpass. Am using it currently on OS X mostly. My tech-inept family is using it. Compared to Lastpass ... for one it works so it's already infinitely better than Lastpass. A password manager that can't remember a saved password properly ... that's Lastpass. The infuriating thing is that sometimes it shows the right password but fills the wrong one in. Considering such behavior, I'd say Lastpass isn't even a password manager, just some random code that some company seems to continue to shit out. Their support is also on par with that shit, even if you've paid.
fuzzygroup 10y ago

dragonshed 10y ago

Given all the friction and various issues, I still don't see why a hackintosh with well-supported hardware running macOS isn't an option.

wezm 10y ago
Mainly because, "well-supported hardware", could change at any time. It felt better to me to attempt a clean break.
- adar 10y ago
  For what it's worth, I've been using my Hackintosh on the same hardware since 2011. It'll be 6 years in March. Just upgraded to Sierra 10.12.3 this morning, in fact. On top of that, I've actually had to spend far less time computer janitoring it than I have on the various *NIX installs I've run in those same 6 years. I totally understand not wanting any OS-based surprises while trying to get work done, but as long as your CPU and motherboard are supported, you're generally good to go.
mwcampbell 10y ago
Because it's illegal. Do we have no respect for laws anymore?
- ryanlol 10y ago
  Yeah, no it's not. Apple hasn't launched iCountry yet.
Ezhik 10y ago
It's what I do, ThinkPad T420 running OS X Yosemite. I actually wrote about my experience: https://medium.com/@Ezhik/2fb487efe717 https://medium.com/@Ezhik/2fb487efe717 - but even disregarding obvious concerns like legality, there's still plenty of reasons to want to give Linux a shot properly, which mostly come down to the direction Apple is taking OS X and its hardware in.

erikbye 10y ago

My dev home these days is Arch + i3. This allows me to spend minimal time window-managing, and I tend to find most packages I need either in the official repo or the AUR. My Linux computing experience basically consists of bash, gcc, gdb, qemu, and emacs.

Terretta 10y ago

What's this no 4K at 60hz thing I keep seeing in threads this month? I'm driving two 4K@60hz Dells and the built in screen on an older MBP 15". Granted, it's finicky to get set up right, but it works w/ configurable screens and right cabling.

wezm 10y ago
You probably have a discrete GPU. The 13" 2013 era MacBook Pros like mine with only Intel graphics can't do 60Hz.

simosx 10y ago

> A Long Term Support (LTS) release makes sense for servers but for a desktop I think it’s the wrong choice. For many Ubuntu users, the LTS release is the best choice. The base packages remain stable and supported. The Linux kernel is updated automatically every six months and the next update is scheduled for next week when Ubuntu 16.04.2 will be made available (existing users will get upgraded automatically.) If you want any actual development packages which are not provided by the system packaging, you can (and should) install them with Ubuntu Make (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-make https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-make). Anything Jetbrains, all Eclipse packages, Go, NetBeans, SublimeText, Arduino, Android Studio, Scala, NodeJS, Kotlin, DART, and more. edit: typoes

wezm 10y ago
> The base packages remain stable and supported Problem is they weren't stable. I ran into bugs in the old so called stable packages that were fixed in newer versions.

EdSharkey 10y ago

Wouldn't it be fun if Apple turned this latest underwhelming MacBook Pro release for developers/professionals into something magnificent on the next release? Something like a MacBook Pro, Creator's Edition that attempts to address all the criticisms of the current crop of MacBooks. Sure, those laptops will sell for a double premium and nowhere near the volumes of standard MacBooks, but that's a small price to pay for keeping their developer mindshare.

toyg 10y ago
That's more or less what is rumored to appear later this year: a no-hold-barrels high-end version with latest cpu, 32gb of ram, top graphic card and larger battery. Whether it really happens, though, it's another matter; the rumor might well be Apple trying to do some damage control.
- crispinb 10y ago
  But it will not have a real keyboard, new macbooks having replaced it with a bizarre hybrid (3/4 of a keyboard + a tiny screen aka 'touch bar'). So it will be entirely useless for touch typists, ie. most developers. I like macOS, but my current MB Pro will be my last.

sslalready 10y ago

The two things that have kept me from switching completely from macOS to Linux (currently Fedora) all these years have been a good alternative to Mail.app and Sequel Pro (MySQL client). Are there any good alternatives available on Linux?

jasonszhao 10y ago
I just stumbled upon N1, although I haven't tried it: https://github.com/nylas/nylas-mail https://github.com/nylas/nylas-mail
- wezm 10y ago
  I does indeed look good (to me) and they have hired a designer that I greatly respect to work on it (https://dribbble.com/sdw https://dribbble.com/sdw) but it's an Electron app (goodbye memory) and requires you to hand over your email account details to Nylas: https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/217518207-Why-does-Nylas-Pro-sync-email-via-the-cloud- https://support.nylas.com/hc/en-us/articles/217518207-Why-do...
  - grinich 10y ago
    Hey-- I work at Nylas. We're transitioning away from cloud sync for almost all functionality. More info here: https://blog.nylas.com/nylas-mail-is-now-free-8350d6a1044d https://blog.nylas.com/nylas-mail-is-now-free-8350d6a1044d
    - sslalready 10y ago
      It would be nice if the client was usable without having to register with you guys. Is that something you're looking into? PS. SSL Labs gives your site an F grade due to CVE-2016-2107.
      - grinich 10y ago
        Looking into both-- thanks for the heads up. Edit: Fixed now. We should have an "A+" rating. :)

throw2016 10y ago

I have a Windows system and a 13 Macbook retina laptop and by far prefer the Unity desktop for speed and polish. Unity is unbelievably sleek and fast and everything mostly just works. Those of us who have struggled with Linux desktops since the early 2000s will know what a massive leap this is. Now if you can get this experience pre-bundled by hardware vendors then those who are not locked in to other platforms by platform specific apps can definitely use this productively. But if they have to install the OS and fiddle with drivers then it becomes a completely different ball game like it would be if they had to install Windows or OSX from scratch.

matt4077 10y ago

Elementary OS is a shallow, ugly, uninspired and lazy attempt to make money. It's trying really hard to imitate Apple – they even have these "Human Interface Guidelines" somewhere that read like some sort of Apple parody. In reality it's a fake, thin veneer of a user interface bolted onto a generic Linux distribution. Apple software may have their own faults. I think most of the whining is just boredom, but iTunes for example is definitely not the pinnacle of UI. But the beauty of macOS has always been in getting some things exactly right with the competence and attention of a master craftsman/woman. I'd name text rendering as an example, or sleep. Elementary OS is made by people who think wearing a turtleneck makes them Steve Jobs, but they just don't get that you also have to throw a prototype or two at your CXOs from time to time :) I don't think Linux on the desktop will benefit from such cloning. Just look at Open Office: a UI that perpetually felt four years out of date that probably took five times as many hours of work as the google docs that actually made Office unnecessary.

Longhanks 10y ago
The drama around their statement "choosing $0 is basically cheating" was the point where I lost interest in the project. (https://funnelfiasco.com/blog/2015/02/13/elementary-misses-the-point/ https://funnelfiasco.com/blog/2015/02/13/elementary-misses-t...)
Ezhik 10y ago
I honestly haven't paid attention to elementaryOS drama, but I don't want to give them shit if they are at least trying, even if not entirely successfully. I admire open source, but open source software suffers very strongly from "programmer design". It's a difficult process to get these things right, and I wouldn't expect some distribution to pop up overnight that does things on the same level of refinement as OS X. These things take time, and we need to encourage projects that do try.
- Shorel 10y ago
  Removing the window menu in all applications is not trying. Really, there is something as 'being too minimalist'. To the point of being almost useless. When I tried to use the default video player of EOS, there was no option in sight to add a subtitles file. I can understand not being able to fine tune the font used for subtitles. But removing the feature altogether?

fingerprinter 10y ago

For anyone thinking of switching, here are some thoughts. First, you'll hear all about arch. It's lovely, it really is. But, if you like the "just work" nature of OSX back in the day, look at Ubuntu proper or Ubuntu-gnome (if you don't like Unity). I'm sure people will chime in here with others that they have thoughts on here, though in my experience, Ubuntu is the best at this game and it's not even close. Yes, it has problems too (let's not start the nitpicking thing, I'm making a general statement), but it is by far the best stable linux desktop. Fedora is acceptable, particularly of late, but it /still/ is behind Ubuntu. Second, with Ubuntu/Debian, stick with whatever is in the archive or PPA. Everything else isn't worth the pain. Perhaps Snaps can improve this problem, though I'm sceptical. Linuxbrew and other such things will not be worth the problems they bring. Third, use a stable UI. Don't go with Pantheon, Mate, Cinnamon, Elementary or something else like that. Again, it's not worth the pain. I personally don't like KDE though it would qualify as "stable" along with Unity, Gnome-Shell and XFCE. I prefer Gnome-shell and Unity so that is what I use. Lastly, things will be worse in some ways from OSX, and much better in others. If the advise looks pretty straight forward, it is. Stick with the known working, well supported projects as your base, tinker in customisation to suite, and don't go with lesser known/supported projects if you only really care about something "just working".

macco 10y ago
If Arch is not for you, you can always try Manjaro. It is more stable, but still you get the power of Pacman.
grandalf 10y ago
I end up choosing Ubuntu for the reasons you mention, and recently found that I get a lot of crashes of unity, seemingly due to the nvidia prprietary drivers running at 4K. I'd guess the crashes aren't this common for all users or else they would not be considered stable. My take on unity is that the main problem is simply bugs, not design defects of philosophical issues.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >I'd guess the crashes aren't this common for all users or else they would not be considered stable. You'd be surprised.

hota_mazi 10y ago

> For now Windows is off the table. It's a pity there's so much antagonism against Windows from MacOS/Linux users. I've been using both MacOS and Windows on a daily basis for the past ten years (and a lot of Linux before that) and to me, Windows has become the best OS for developers. First of all, let's get this out of the way: Bash works just fine. Install a distribution and a console with bash and you'll get everything (dotfiles, ssh, etc...) working under an hour. Another important point is that Windows is the most keyboard friendly OS out of the three. As a developer, I use my mouse as little as possible so it's vital that I have access to all functions and all menus from the mouse. MacOS is terrible in that area (how come I still can't pop up the File menu from the keyboard in 2017?). Windows also has some of the best file managers of all. My preference is for xPlorer2 because, again, I can manipulate files at the speed of light with just the keyboard, but there are plenty of alternatives. Anyway, keep an open mind if you're looking for another OS and make sure you include Windows 10 in your trials, or you might be missing out on something that will make you at least as productive as you used to be with your current OS.

swang 10y ago
I am both a MacOS and Windows user, I have trouble completely recommending Windows 10 to anyone solely on the basis of Microsoft's invasive telemetry services. That and the catastrophically anti-consumer upgrade paths they forced on people. I am still running Win 7, and still have a MBP with MacOS installed. At this time I'm not buying another Mac laptop/desktop(LOL) but if I do get a new laptop that is Win only I'm going to install Win 7 over Win 10. Windows Explorer to me is way more intuitive that MacOS Finder, which I find to be more difficult to use.
- Longhanks 10y ago
  You'll probably have trouble installing Windows 7, it's not even supported on Kaby Lake processors anymore and the security patches are going to stop in 2020.
warmfuzzykitten 10y ago
Keyboard lovers unite! It's amusing to see GUI-resistance all these years later, after Microsoft has worked so very hard to make Windows work and look just like MacOS. Well, like it would look if it had been designed by people with no taste.

lobster_johnson 10y ago

As a Mac user, whenever I run Linux, I get depressed about how bad the font rendering is. It's getting better, though it sometimes requires installing a special non-free version of Freetype and setting some global config that I can never remember. I always lose track of which distros get it right without requiring any tweaks. However: While the glyph rendering in the article's screenshots looks quite, the kerning is just awful. For example, here [1], upper left quadrant: "Ap plications", "A ppC enter", "C alendar". Anyone know why it's so bad? Is it a configuration flag? [1] http://bitcannon.net/images/2017/4k-elementary.png http://bitcannon.net/images/2017/4k-elementary.png

wezm 10y ago
Interesting. I see it now and I was expecting this to be an issue with switching but I haven't really noticed it. Here are the same words rendered by macOS (9pt Open Sans): http://bitcannon.net/images/2017/open-sans-on-macos.png http://bitcannon.net/images/2017/open-sans-on-macos.png I think it's showing similar spacing.
- lobster_johnson 10y ago
  Here's macOS, comparing Helvetica and Open Sans: http://i.imgur.com/6uGxKbQ.png http://i.imgur.com/6uGxKbQ.png While Open Sans is clearly not perfect, it's not as bad as the Linux screenshot.
  - wezm 10y ago
    Yeah definitely looks like it's Open Sans when viewed like that.
Hydraulix989 10y ago
Looks kerning related
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
notamy 10y ago

csomar 10y ago

> I had a custom PC built for work. It has a fast Intel CPU (4Ghz i7-6700K), plenty of RAM and fast SSD storage If I got this right, he built a desktop PC? How is he then comparing his custom-built PC to the Macbook Pro, which is a laptop. Maybe he should have saved the pain of finding the replacement and bought the Mac Pro?

wezm 10y ago
Step one was the PC. For about 6 months I sshed to the PC from my MacBook and used iTerm's tmux integration to do development on that machine. This is phase 2 using that machine without the MacBook. Eventually I'd like to get a non-Apple laptop (if the experiment sticks), but one step at a time.

ENTP 10y ago

Installed ElementaryOS for a friend who essentially just needed a browser. He absolutely loves it and i'd consider it should i find the need to switch.

tehwalrus 10y ago

A note on the unicode code points, I have found I can use the same keyboard layout on Mac and Linux (including right alt magic like # on the British layout) by using the "Mac" layout in the initial configuration. Works a charm of you are a flip flopper (which I am).

battlebot 10y ago

A lot of us are on this journey. Apple blew it. They lost me as a customer when I had to hurriedly replace my 2012 mac mini with a 2014 model and came to find out the RAM is soldered to the board making my 16GB DIMMS worthless. No forgiveness for cheapening their product and their brand.

jdalgetty 10y ago

I feel like this thread keeps repeating that there is no good alternative.

AlexAffe 10y ago

Windows is a proprietary, closed source OS. It is not a valid choice imo.

ktta 10y ago
The author actually was using Mac OS X before this, and it being proprietary wasn't a problem.
- flukus 10y ago
  Proprietary hardware+software was the problem, proprietary software isn't much better.

AlexAffe 10y ago

I use the same setup of tools at work as at home on 2 different systems. OSX at work and Linux Mint at home. Love mint, it's fast, lean and simple (and has basically everything debian has)

bitL 10y ago
I wish they finally fixed the freezing bug in Cinnamon; every time I switch to a user while logged in as another user Cinnamon goes down hard (Intel systems, Core M and i5). And 1/3 of suspend/resume attempts end up that way. I use Mint for >4 years but this is starting to kill me :( HiDPI is fantastic on Cinnamon, 4k is a joy.

Rotareti 10y ago

I'm very satisfied with Linux Mint 18 and Cinnamon. Everything ran out of the box on my Thinkpad; It comes with nice looking fonts that render well; The Mint-y theme is quite beautiful (IMHO); It's a Debian/Ubuntu derivative, so you get very good support and a lot of packages; High-dpi scaling works very nicely, especially since version 18. If you need a replacement for Alfred, you should have a look at Albert [0]. I use Albert in Linux Mint as a replacement for the Main menu. [0] https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert

tambourine_man 10y ago

I'd love to switch to Linux but about 50% of my income depends on Photoshop. If there was a way run it fast and reliably I'd switch in a heartbeat. Basically no crashing, hardware accelerated (GPU) display/filters and a color profiled workflow. Booting to Windows to generate the profiles would be acceptable. Last I checked, however, neither virtualization (even with GPU passthrough) nor Wine where quite there. Besides, with the tight release schedule that the Creative Cloud imposes, I don't think it ever will.

ktta 10y ago

For people looking for good apps on linux, I'd recommend Franz[1]. It basically replaces all of your chat/messenger apps, including support for facebook messenger and Whats app. It runs in the background really well. [1]:http://meetfranz.com/ http://meetfranz.com/

pascalxus 10y ago

It's a shame that the new mac labtops are so bad, especially now that they've had that huge breakthrough in disk speed, in recent years.

crispinb 10y ago

The article mainly serves to remind me of why I switched from linux to mac a few years back. All that configuring stuff just isn't how I want to spend my time now. I can't think of the last time I spent any 'sysadmin' time with my macbook (other than clearing space off my undersized SSD). I won't repeat the obvious over-used marketing phrase, but it's been pretty much true in my experience. The trouble is with Apple falling so far behind on hardware, and enforcing the developer-hostile 'touch bar' faux keyboard to the few new machines they do bother to introduce, it's hard to see what happens next. For the first time in my computer-using adult life, there just isn't anywhere good to go when my current machine needs replacing. Linux demands more of my time than I'm willing to give it. Windows is adware. MacOS runs on hardware I don't want (Hackintosh? Might as well just go linux).

rocky1138 10y ago

sudo apt-get install neovim

bluedino 10y ago

Exactly the reasons I can't stay switched. Too much drinking around. When I was younger I loved fiddling with Linux but I'd rather do other things with my time so I use a Mac. Millions of people get their work done with Linux every day and it works great and people love it - but it's not the Mac feeling or way. You have to learn to like Linux for what it is, even if it's not perfect. You might miss a few features but it's easily ran on a variety of hardware these days and for the most part works great. The T450S I have Ubuntu on is the best it's ever been in my 15+ years of running Linux on laptops. Heck it wasn't even that bad back then with my Dell C600 and RedHat 7

alfalfasprout 10y ago
Exactly. I love Linux on servers. Easy to work with, easy to develop for, etc. But OSX is just much better for day to day task. Everything more or less "just works". Plus with modern C++ I can usually easily develop locally and deploy to Linux (with some CI to make sure compatibility remains).

tim-- 10y ago

> Things did not go as smoothly with Slack. [...] This feels like something that is harder than it needs to be in elementary. Especially since it is a simple double click on a stock Ubuntu installation. > After all, most parts of the elementary desktop environment (pantheon) are in the Arch User Repository (AUR). So, Mr. Author, let me get this right: in Ubuntu it was really easy to install Slack. Just a double click of a package. Then you thought that Arch Linux was better then Elementry because you couldn't double click a dpkg file, so you installed the Elementary stuff through the AUR. A website that would require you to use the command line before you could get Slack even installed? Ubuntu does have old versions of drivers and applications. As Elementry is based on Ubuntu, it is to be expected that you would recieve older driers inside Elementary.

balladeer 10y ago

As some are pointing out the perils or maybe horrors of not having what OSX offers - the ease, the "just works" thingy. To be honest so does Windows and a lot of Linux distributions now. What is one point here, and most important for me at least, is that Apple Air line probably going off the air. The price point (value for money) of it was what convinced me to buy my first Apple product (4+ years ago; and last so far except a keyboard as I couldn't find a decent third party one in India). The cost of a machine that I don't need and don't like much either is isn't justifiable just to remain in a particular ecosystem I became comfortable with. My battery is dying and the machine itself is showing signs of age. I know I won't like it but when the time comes I will be looking for alternatives too if I can't get OSX in an affordable way.

ssamuli 10y ago

Only reason I use OS X instead of Linux are the commercial apps. Not because of how Mac OS X looks. I like to pay for apps when/if they are better than their free/opensource counterparts, but very often those are not available on Linux. Wouldn't it be great if there was a commercial multiplatform apps marketplace, similar to Steam but more productivity focused? The marketplace could even provide developers with an SDK to enable them to easily create packaging, networking and UIs without having to use OS specific libraries. Basically anything that usually has to be done for each platform separately. Similar to how Unity3D helps with multiplatform game development. Something like this could push developers to release commercial software on Linux, too, because it would be basically just another build from the same source. And who knows some day Adobe and other big players might release their products like Photoshop, Lightroom etc on it.

wwarner 10y ago

You can use lesspass.com as an open source alternative to 1pass or enpass. Would love to hear how it measures up. I use keypass in a rather manual way myself.

dcdevito 10y ago

It's just so much work getting Linux to work on the desktop. The hatred and bios against Windows 10 is baffling. It's fast, stable, secure and reliable. I've been running it for 6 months and never had an issue. I run Linux VMs via VMware and they work great, especially in Unity mode (v7). And now with WSL it's becoming increasingly easier to keep using Windows. The "forced" reboots/updates is simply 2 config changes away from getting out of your way (takes 10 seconds) and the recommended apps takes 30 secs to uninstall. Seriously it isn't rocket science, it makes me laugh seeing developers (who are technical in nature) complain and struggle configuring the OS, all the while they'll gladly spend hours/days/weeks configuring Linux. For what? "Freedom"? Please.