7 ms·

Not that I have anything against MacBooks, but was installing some Linux distro (or a BSD) not an option?

by krylon 9y ago

Kurtz79 9y ago
Of course it is, but even with all advances in terms of UI in Linux distros, many people still prefer the MacOS/Windows GUI and ecosystems, or just like Apple hardware more. Macs historically have always been a decent compromise for having decent GUI/Linux-like terminal/nice hardware. It's kind of a different environment now, with PC manufacturers coming up with well designed laptops and Windows offering more Linux integration.
scardine 9y ago
Personally the most annoying thing is the little UI inconsistencies like clipboard handling. In a mac it is always Command-C/Command-V - in X sometimes it is Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Ins/Shit+Ins, mouse-select/mouse-middle-click and so on. Many applications have incompatible clipboards.
- 0ld 9y ago
  Well, Terminal.app also has mouse-select/mouse-middle-click, which is a separate clipbard (from Cm-C/Cm-V) as well
  - scardine 9y ago
    I did not know this one but always rated the builtin terminal app very low. ITerm2 seems to be a better mac citizen.
- ufo 9y ago
  The reason for the confusion is that there are two separate clipboards: one for Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V and one for mouse-select/mouse-middle-click. To use the first clipboard on terminal emulators you need to use Ctrl-Shift-C/Ctrl-Shift-V instead because the Ctrl-* shortcuts have legacy meanings in the terminal. I don't remember ever needing to use Insert for copy pasting (although you can use it if you want). I don't know what examples you had in mind when you mentioned applications having incompatible keyboards. The only one I know that does that is Vim (which by default uses the internal clipboard when you use its cut, copy and paste commands) but Vim is definitely not your average Linux application...
colechristensen 9y ago
Because the Linux desktop sucks. (that's the word of the day) If I had a Linux laptop, an extraordinary amount of my time would be spent trying to make it work. Wireless breaks, sound breaks, upgrades break everything. I would have to spend a serious amount of time and research finding a laptop that had good Linux support... regardless I would still probably have to spend hours trying to get the sound or the wireless or sleep or some feature or another to work properly. OS X just gets out of the way. I have never had to put any work into making the graphics card work or making sound work or making the network work or fixing boot... you get the picture. If I'm using Linux on a laptop to do any sort of work, a sizable portion of the work becomes keeping Linux working on the laptop and I don't want that.
- y4mi 9y ago
  linux desktop does not suck. Linux on unsupported laptops (which is most of them) sucks big time, but not linux desktop itself. It works great on standard desktop computers (towers) you should make that distinction, because otherwise you'll just start a flame war.
  - dx034 9y ago
    I tend to disagree. Yes it works but I find it unpleasent to use. None of the available desktops is pleasant to use, especially fonts and symbols often look much worse than Windows or MacOS. As much as I like Linux on servers, I don't see any reason to use it with a graphic interface.
    - chrisper 9y ago
      When was the last time you used Linux on a Desktop?
      - arca_vorago 9y ago
        Almost every time I hear this complaint it was years ago and with one distro. There is so much more than Ubuntu out there people (Ubuntu sucks IMHO). One thing I've learned is distrohopping is a must if your hardware is an edge case... that said, since moving to Manjaro, I haven't had to use anything else.
inDigiNeous 9y ago
If you want to get some work done, and not just fiddle around with getting wifi, sleep, graphics working, then installing Linux is not an option. Linux could be the new Mac os X if all the Linux distributions chose to focus on one platform and way to do things, but nobody in the Linux world is going to do this. Also, Mac has unified hardware, so they pretty much can optimize so that stuff Just Works.
- ForHackernews 9y ago
  You can buy a laptop that ships with Linux, and then you get the same works-out-of-the-box experience as a Mac. The Dell XPS 13 is a good choice if you want something from a major manufacturer, but there are loads of smaller companies, too.
  - inDigiNeous 9y ago
    Thanks for the tip. Might consider that in the future. Probably not though, as mac OS is such a better OS. But the hacker in me still kinda likes the idea of Linux, used to run it as my main OS for long time before Mac Os X.
- ptaipale 9y ago
  I haven't had any trouble with Linux desktop on mainstream laptops for the past 15 or so years. The days of hand tweaking your Xfree86 configuration files and refresh rates are gone. Of course there are things that are not working so nicely, and are not meant to. For instance, running RHEL (which is a server OS) on a laptop (which typically has new optimized hardware which is not meant to be server) and then expecting graphics and WiFi work on a kernel that is much older than your hardware and thus has no drivers. Perhaps you might expect some trouble also when running Windows Server 2012 on a new laptop? I don't know, I haven't tried, but wouldn't be surprised.
  - WalterGR 9y ago
    I haven't had any trouble with Linux desktop on mainstream laptops for the past 15 or so years. How do you define "mainstream laptop"? Or is it a laptop that can run desktop Linux without problems?
systoll 9y ago
That resolves that issue, but has its own downsides. There’s a lot of things I like about macOS [eg: better power management], but the main reason I switched was because it was a Unix I could put Photoshop and InDesign onto.
- krylon 9y ago
  Well, if you need certain applications that are not available on Linux, all the hardware support in the world does not help you. That argument trumps pretty much everything else. If my boss came into my office today and told me to switch all of our desktop computers to Linux, as much as I would enjoy that, I would have to tell him that it cannot be done, because we use a lot of software that just is not available for Linux. (And a fair amount of it is not even available for macOS.)

Not that I have anything against MacBooks, but was installing some Linux distro (or a BSD) not an option?

by krylon 9y ago

Not that I have anything against MacBooks, but was installing some Linux distro (or a BSD) not an option?

Of course it is, but even with all advances in terms of UI in Linux distros, many people still prefer the MacOS/Windows GUI and ecosystems, or just like Apple hardware more. Macs historically have always been a decent compromise for having decent GUI/Linux-like terminal/nice hardware. It's kind of a different environment now, with PC manufacturers coming up with well designed laptops and Windows offering more Linux integration.

scardine 9y ago

Personally the most annoying thing is the little UI inconsistencies like clipboard handling. In a mac it is always Command-C/Command-V - in X sometimes it is Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Ins/Shit+Ins, mouse-select/mouse-middle-click and so on. Many applications have incompatible clipboards.

0ld 9y ago
Well, Terminal.app also has mouse-select/mouse-middle-click, which is a separate clipbard (from Cm-C/Cm-V) as well
- scardine 9y ago
  I did not know this one but always rated the builtin terminal app very low. ITerm2 seems to be a better mac citizen.
ufo 9y ago
The reason for the confusion is that there are two separate clipboards: one for Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V and one for mouse-select/mouse-middle-click. To use the first clipboard on terminal emulators you need to use Ctrl-Shift-C/Ctrl-Shift-V instead because the Ctrl-* shortcuts have legacy meanings in the terminal. I don't remember ever needing to use Insert for copy pasting (although you can use it if you want). I don't know what examples you had in mind when you mentioned applications having incompatible keyboards. The only one I know that does that is Vim (which by default uses the internal clipboard when you use its cut, copy and paste commands) but Vim is definitely not your average Linux application...

colechristensen 9y ago

Because the Linux desktop sucks. (that's the word of the day) If I had a Linux laptop, an extraordinary amount of my time would be spent trying to make it work. Wireless breaks, sound breaks, upgrades break everything. I would have to spend a serious amount of time and research finding a laptop that had good Linux support... regardless I would still probably have to spend hours trying to get the sound or the wireless or sleep or some feature or another to work properly. OS X just gets out of the way. I have never had to put any work into making the graphics card work or making sound work or making the network work or fixing boot... you get the picture. If I'm using Linux on a laptop to do any sort of work, a sizable portion of the work becomes keeping Linux working on the laptop and I don't want that.

y4mi 9y ago
linux desktop does not suck. Linux on unsupported laptops (which is most of them) sucks big time, but not linux desktop itself. It works great on standard desktop computers (towers) you should make that distinction, because otherwise you'll just start a flame war.
- dx034 9y ago
  I tend to disagree. Yes it works but I find it unpleasent to use. None of the available desktops is pleasant to use, especially fonts and symbols often look much worse than Windows or MacOS. As much as I like Linux on servers, I don't see any reason to use it with a graphic interface.
  - chrisper 9y ago
    When was the last time you used Linux on a Desktop?
    - arca_vorago 9y ago
      Almost every time I hear this complaint it was years ago and with one distro. There is so much more than Ubuntu out there people (Ubuntu sucks IMHO). One thing I've learned is distrohopping is a must if your hardware is an edge case... that said, since moving to Manjaro, I haven't had to use anything else.

inDigiNeous 9y ago

If you want to get some work done, and not just fiddle around with getting wifi, sleep, graphics working, then installing Linux is not an option. Linux could be the new Mac os X if all the Linux distributions chose to focus on one platform and way to do things, but nobody in the Linux world is going to do this. Also, Mac has unified hardware, so they pretty much can optimize so that stuff Just Works.

ForHackernews 9y ago
You can buy a laptop that ships with Linux, and then you get the same works-out-of-the-box experience as a Mac. The Dell XPS 13 is a good choice if you want something from a major manufacturer, but there are loads of smaller companies, too.
- inDigiNeous 9y ago
  Thanks for the tip. Might consider that in the future. Probably not though, as mac OS is such a better OS. But the hacker in me still kinda likes the idea of Linux, used to run it as my main OS for long time before Mac Os X.
ptaipale 9y ago
I haven't had any trouble with Linux desktop on mainstream laptops for the past 15 or so years. The days of hand tweaking your Xfree86 configuration files and refresh rates are gone. Of course there are things that are not working so nicely, and are not meant to. For instance, running RHEL (which is a server OS) on a laptop (which typically has new optimized hardware which is not meant to be server) and then expecting graphics and WiFi work on a kernel that is much older than your hardware and thus has no drivers. Perhaps you might expect some trouble also when running Windows Server 2012 on a new laptop? I don't know, I haven't tried, but wouldn't be surprised.
- WalterGR 9y ago
  I haven't had any trouble with Linux desktop on mainstream laptops for the past 15 or so years. How do you define "mainstream laptop"? Or is it a laptop that can run desktop Linux without problems?

systoll 9y ago

That resolves that issue, but has its own downsides. There’s a lot of things I like about macOS [eg: better power management], but the main reason I switched was because it was a Unix I could put Photoshop and InDesign onto.

krylon 9y ago
Well, if you need certain applications that are not available on Linux, all the hardware support in the world does not help you. That argument trumps pretty much everything else. If my boss came into my office today and told me to switch all of our desktop computers to Linux, as much as I would enjoy that, I would have to tell him that it cannot be done, because we use a lot of software that just is not available for Linux. (And a fair amount of it is not even available for macOS.)