4 ms·

It's not just the interface, though. Note how "installing" stuff is just dragging files to the right locations. You could make fully bootable backups of your m

by rvense 8y ago

It's not just the interface, though. Note how "installing" stuff is just dragging files to the right locations. You could make fully bootable backups of your main drive just by copying everything from the root to a new drive. None of this re-installation rubbish or ownership getting messed up or what have you. It even worked across architectures, a Mac System 7.5 installation will boot on both 68k machines and supported PowerPC systems, just swap the drive over and you're going.

tambourine_man 8y ago
Even better: you could create a RAM disk, copy system file and reboot from it at lighting speed. What I miss the most is the true spacial Finder. Copy a file to a floppy disk, add a custom icon and place it at a precise location on a window. Go to a different Mac and insert the drive. All those attributes are honored. Every single time no matter what. Such a simple and powerful model.
- classichasclass 8y ago
  And one window, one folder. That was a powerful yet subtle way of enforcing consistency.
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    Exactly
- Zelizz 8y ago
  Don't they still have that? Isn't that what the .DS_Store folders are for? I feel like I used to do that with USB drives to use on school computers.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    Yep, I can absolutely confirm this still works. (And honestly, while I see the advantages, I'd rather we not have this feature so we can also not have .DS_Store files. .DS_Store files suck.)
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      The files are an implementation detail that could be handled by metadata on a modern 1990's filesystem.
    - tambourine_man 8y ago
      Not reliably and consistently. And it's not a bug, it's a design decision. There used to be a one to one mapping of folders to windows. The moment you decide 2 windows can show the content of the same folder simultaneously (which has its advantages), you run in these issues. Which is the canonical view that should be preserved? And yes, we had all that without . DS_Store files.
      - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
        > There used to be a one to one mapping of folders to windows. The moment you decide 2 windows can show the content of the same folder simultaneously (which has its advantages), you run in these issues. Which is the canonical view that should be preserved? I'd posit most of us rarely open the same folder in two different windows, which means the icons should behave as expected in all but an uncommon edge case. It has worked in my experience, at least. But separately, just as a though experiment: when an icon is moved in one window, the placement ought to update in both windows, in real time. Probably wouldn't have been feasible when macOS X was new, but perfectly doable today given modern computing power.
Elv13 8y ago
Fun fact: You can copy/paste a whole linux system as long as `-a` is passed to copy. Also, if you like copy/pasted Linux apps, there is the `AppImage` project that provides such a format and its tooling is rapidly improving. It is a self-contained alternative to Snap and Flatpak which only handle the file container and leaves security/sandboxing and distribution to other projects. But yes, the classic Mac was the first computer I ever used and I also have a sweet spot for it. I still own some recent Mac, but don't really like the increasing lack of flexibility and non-iOS development environment macOS has and do all my development on Linux. Classic macOS was the ultimate flexible OS, you could monkey-patch everything (which is also called a virus, but... POWER!). Disclaimer: I am one of the authors of AwesomeWM, a Lua window manager framework for Linux.
- toast0 8y ago
  > Fun fact: You can copy/paste a whole linux system as long as `-a` is passed to copy. But it won't boot.
  - m45t3r 8y ago
    > But it won't boot. If you have the proper bootloader in place it will boot. This is less the fault of Linux and more that x86 platform have to boot multiple OSes. A Raspberry Pi for example will happily boot from a .tar.xz archive.
  - Elv13 8y ago
    With either the proper EFI files in the partition or grub already installed in the EFI/MBR: yes, it will boot.
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
Installing modern macOS X apps usually work this way as well. Unfortunately, Apple has obscured their own simplicity somewhat with Launchpad. (Also partly why Snow Leopard is the GOAT)
linguae 8y ago
I concur. Not only is it not just about the interface, but it's about the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines and the ecosystem of applications that conform to it. It would be nice to use a desktop environment that's inspired by the classic Mac interface (I particularly have a soft spot for the Platinum theme), but without an ecosystem of applications that conform to the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines, then all we have is yet another window manager. It's the ecosystem of applications, like Microsoft Word 5.1, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe PageMaker, ClarisWorks, and others, combined with the Mac interface, that made the Mac so special.

by rvense 8y ago

tambourine_man 8y ago

Even better: you could create a RAM disk, copy system file and reboot from it at lighting speed. What I miss the most is the true spacial Finder. Copy a file to a floppy disk, add a custom icon and place it at a precise location on a window. Go to a different Mac and insert the drive. All those attributes are honored. Every single time no matter what. Such a simple and powerful model.

classichasclass 8y ago
And one window, one folder. That was a powerful yet subtle way of enforcing consistency.
- tambourine_man 8y ago
  Exactly
Zelizz 8y ago
Don't they still have that? Isn't that what the .DS_Store folders are for? I feel like I used to do that with USB drives to use on school computers.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  Yep, I can absolutely confirm this still works. (And honestly, while I see the advantages, I'd rather we not have this feature so we can also not have .DS_Store files. .DS_Store files suck.)
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    The files are an implementation detail that could be handled by metadata on a modern 1990's filesystem.
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    Not reliably and consistently. And it's not a bug, it's a design decision. There used to be a one to one mapping of folders to windows. The moment you decide 2 windows can show the content of the same folder simultaneously (which has its advantages), you run in these issues. Which is the canonical view that should be preserved? And yes, we had all that without . DS_Store files.
    - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
      > There used to be a one to one mapping of folders to windows. The moment you decide 2 windows can show the content of the same folder simultaneously (which has its advantages), you run in these issues. Which is the canonical view that should be preserved? I'd posit most of us rarely open the same folder in two different windows, which means the icons should behave as expected in all but an uncommon edge case. It has worked in my experience, at least. But separately, just as a though experiment: when an icon is moved in one window, the placement ought to update in both windows, in real time. Probably wouldn't have been feasible when macOS X was new, but perfectly doable today given modern computing power.

Elv13 8y ago

Fun fact: You can copy/paste a whole linux system as long as `-a` is passed to copy. Also, if you like copy/pasted Linux apps, there is the `AppImage` project that provides such a format and its tooling is rapidly improving. It is a self-contained alternative to Snap and Flatpak which only handle the file container and leaves security/sandboxing and distribution to other projects. But yes, the classic Mac was the first computer I ever used and I also have a sweet spot for it. I still own some recent Mac, but don't really like the increasing lack of flexibility and non-iOS development environment macOS has and do all my development on Linux. Classic macOS was the ultimate flexible OS, you could monkey-patch everything (which is also called a virus, but... POWER!). Disclaimer: I am one of the authors of AwesomeWM, a Lua window manager framework for Linux.

toast0 8y ago
> Fun fact: You can copy/paste a whole linux system as long as `-a` is passed to copy. But it won't boot.
- m45t3r 8y ago
  > But it won't boot. If you have the proper bootloader in place it will boot. This is less the fault of Linux and more that x86 platform have to boot multiple OSes. A Raspberry Pi for example will happily boot from a .tar.xz archive.
- Elv13 8y ago
  With either the proper EFI files in the partition or grub already installed in the EFI/MBR: yes, it will boot.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

Installing modern macOS X apps usually work this way as well. Unfortunately, Apple has obscured their own simplicity somewhat with Launchpad. (Also partly why Snow Leopard is the GOAT)

linguae 8y ago

I concur. Not only is it not just about the interface, but it's about the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines and the ecosystem of applications that conform to it. It would be nice to use a desktop environment that's inspired by the classic Mac interface (I particularly have a soft spot for the Platinum theme), but without an ecosystem of applications that conform to the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines, then all we have is yet another window manager. It's the ecosystem of applications, like Microsoft Word 5.1, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe PageMaker, ClarisWorks, and others, combined with the Mac interface, that made the Mac so special.