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There's a trade-off still in that with Linux, often you have to spend time fixing things that you wouldn't accept to be broken on an OS you paid for, but at lea

There's a trade-off still in that with Linux, often you have to spend time fixing things that you wouldn't accept to be broken on an OS you paid for, but at least you can often fix them. Whereas on MacOS, you're stuck with the decisions Apple made about their window and workspace management, both of which I abhor even after giving MacOS a shot for a year. Neither is right or wrong, but I feel the same surprise of GP. I don't understand how you could say "proper interface" as if there are no flaws.

deong 9y ago
I had the same reaction to MacOS. It's permanently chafing me versus forcing me to fix something myself once. I don't see how that's a preferable option. That said, if I could only use one computer and OS, it would be a Mac simply because it's the best set of compromises. I can play a few games, I can run things like Lightroom and Photoshop that have no compelling (to me) open source alternative, and I can use a serviceable if clunky Unix environment for serious work. But it's worse at any specific thing I want to do. It's just better than any single alternative at doing all of them.
blfr 9y ago
If you deliberately buy a computer to run Linux, as you do with macOS, there really isn't any fixing involved nowadays. It just works. You may need to disable SecureBoot.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Except for that libinput bug which crippled my mouse for a year or so. This on Debian. (I'm not even going to start on SystemDestroyer.) I've been using Linux for > 20 years. It still manages to fuck up really, really badly at times. At an increasing rate. It remains my preferred OS, but the self-inflicted problems are getting quite annoying. https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2016/06/msg00831.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2016/06/msg00831.html
  - ernst_klim 9y ago
    >Except for that libinput bug which crippled my mouse for a year or so. Try to install hackintosh, your silly debian bugs would look like a joke to you after that. Srsly, you are comparing OS, preinstalled on certified hardware, with debian, which works on ppc, x86, raspberry pi and so on.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      The mouse and basic mouse inputs are things which absolutely should not break. Let alone for a bloody year. And yet it did. Someone's failing to mind their knitting. Mind: I've seen some far worse breakage of other elements, and all very frustrating. But this is ... just exceptionally hard to excuse. After keyboard issues (I'm dealing with those on another system -- hardware, mobile, ergo, not just a "well, replace the keyboard then" matter), mouse is very nearly as annoying. Screen/display would be up there as well. Get your basic input, output, and storage right at the very least. As for installing Debian on various kit -- I'm more than slightly familiar with it. Including doing zmodem transfers of UUEncoded DEBs over serial port in order to get PLIP up so that I could get PCMCIA ethernet running. Bootstraping from the Potato root tarball split out over ramdisks having initially booted Tom's Root Boot. Partition the hard drive, then cat the tarball into one piece, and untar. (PLIP is actually surprisingly useful, it turns out.)
      - vacri 9y ago
        > As for installing Debian on various kit -- I'm more than slightly familiar with it. Including doing zmodem transfers of UUEncoded DEBs over serial port in order to get PLIP up so that I could get PCMCIA ethernet running. Bootstraping from the Potato root tarball split out over ramdisks having initially booted Tom's Root Boot. Partition the hard drive, then cat the tarball into one piece, and untar. As a 'young' linux sysadmin (approaching 10-ish years), I felt like I was sitting at granpappy's feet listening to a story just then :)
        dredmorbius 9y ago
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Do you find much broken on Linux distros. My impression with Ubuntu is it only breaks when I mess around with it - which I do a lot. I imagine LTS installs are pretty stable and don't require "tinkering"? FWIW my family all use Win10 and I'm called to fix that pretty often (latest: an update wiped out ability to view any JPEGs by associating TWINUI, on a desktop, with loads of filetypes). I do prefer an OS that doesn't have the bonnet welded shut.

deong 9y ago

I had the same reaction to MacOS. It's permanently chafing me versus forcing me to fix something myself once. I don't see how that's a preferable option. That said, if I could only use one computer and OS, it would be a Mac simply because it's the best set of compromises. I can play a few games, I can run things like Lightroom and Photoshop that have no compelling (to me) open source alternative, and I can use a serviceable if clunky Unix environment for serious work. But it's worse at any specific thing I want to do. It's just better than any single alternative at doing all of them.

blfr 9y ago

If you deliberately buy a computer to run Linux, as you do with macOS, there really isn't any fixing involved nowadays. It just works. You may need to disable SecureBoot.

dredmorbius 9y ago
Except for that libinput bug which crippled my mouse for a year or so. This on Debian. (I'm not even going to start on SystemDestroyer.) I've been using Linux for > 20 years. It still manages to fuck up really, really badly at times. At an increasing rate. It remains my preferred OS, but the self-inflicted problems are getting quite annoying. https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2016/06/msg00831.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2016/06/msg00831.html
- ernst_klim 9y ago
  >Except for that libinput bug which crippled my mouse for a year or so. Try to install hackintosh, your silly debian bugs would look like a joke to you after that. Srsly, you are comparing OS, preinstalled on certified hardware, with debian, which works on ppc, x86, raspberry pi and so on.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    The mouse and basic mouse inputs are things which absolutely should not break. Let alone for a bloody year. And yet it did. Someone's failing to mind their knitting. Mind: I've seen some far worse breakage of other elements, and all very frustrating. But this is ... just exceptionally hard to excuse. After keyboard issues (I'm dealing with those on another system -- hardware, mobile, ergo, not just a "well, replace the keyboard then" matter), mouse is very nearly as annoying. Screen/display would be up there as well. Get your basic input, output, and storage right at the very least. As for installing Debian on various kit -- I'm more than slightly familiar with it. Including doing zmodem transfers of UUEncoded DEBs over serial port in order to get PLIP up so that I could get PCMCIA ethernet running. Bootstraping from the Potato root tarball split out over ramdisks having initially booted Tom's Root Boot. Partition the hard drive, then cat the tarball into one piece, and untar. (PLIP is actually surprisingly useful, it turns out.)
    - vacri 9y ago
      > As for installing Debian on various kit -- I'm more than slightly familiar with it. Including doing zmodem transfers of UUEncoded DEBs over serial port in order to get PLIP up so that I could get PCMCIA ethernet running. Bootstraping from the Potato root tarball split out over ramdisks having initially booted Tom's Root Boot. Partition the hard drive, then cat the tarball into one piece, and untar. As a 'young' linux sysadmin (approaching 10-ish years), I felt like I was sitting at granpappy's feet listening to a story just then :)
      - dredmorbius 9y ago

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

Do you find much broken on Linux distros. My impression with Ubuntu is it only breaks when I mess around with it - which I do a lot. I imagine LTS installs are pretty stable and don't require "tinkering"? FWIW my family all use Win10 and I'm called to fix that pretty often (latest: an update wiped out ability to view any JPEGs by associating TWINUI, on a desktop, with loads of filetypes). I do prefer an OS that doesn't have the bonnet welded shut.