5 ms·

Is there someone here who migrated from Mac OS to Pop!_OS? If yes, what was your experience and what did you miss?

neor 7y ago
I switched recently and I love it. Clean interface, and some good tweaks on top of Ubuntu. Main reason for switching was better docker support/performance. Don’t really miss anything. Some say Pop is the best for HiDPI screens, but personally I’ve disabled the entire HiDPI Daemon, with a triple monitor setup it was really buggy and slow so I decided to just take the shortcut and change the resolution of my laptop screen to make it readable.
bmoyles 7y ago
I switched from a Mac to a Thinkpad running Pop a bit over a year ago. I miss the Mac trackpad and gestures. I miss the trackpad size and the surface itself. Wiring up libinput-gestures helps some things but you still don't get things like pinch to zoom in Chrome, for example, and the overall experience is not nearly as polished. I miss Mac OS HiDPI support as well. Fractional scaling helps a bit, but switching from HiDPI to LoDPI and vice-versa (docking/undocking) can leave some apps scaled incorrectly, make a mess of your desktop, and I haven't been able to get a mixed configuration working where only my laptop monitor is scaled while my external display is not. I end up running this 1440p laptop screen at 1600x900 or 1920x1080 instead just to forgo the headache. The VPN clients we use at work were much more pleasant to use on macOS. We have the option of using one of two different OpenVPN solutions as alternatives, and they're fine, but again, the polish isn't there (little things like automatically reconnecting to the VPN without my intervention would be nice). I can't really think of anything else I'm really missing these days, though. Things I explicitly DON'T miss: Docker on Mac is a poor experience compared to natively running on Linux... Having a real Linux userspace by default is SO much more pleasant than dealing with Homebrew (which is great if you absolutely need it but I'm happier not having to deal with it at all anymore). I don't miss the Mac keyboard and touchbar. I don't miss troubleshooting things on macOS... it is incredibly opaque in comparison. Overall, I don't think I'll be switching back any time soon, but would love to see more attention to the overall fit and finish as far as the desktop experience goes.
- sriacha 7y ago
  Any tips for improving the general trackpad experience with lip-input? Recently started running arch on an X1 carbon and wondering what I can do to make the trackpad better.
  - vips7L 7y ago
    You could try: https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures
  - skrap 7y ago
    It's much improved by 19.10 on my machine, which IIRC went from libinput 1.12 to 1.14. The thumb detection (which was wrong just often enough to be torture) in Pop 19.04 is pretty solid in 19.10. But then again I don't use anything fancy beyond one- or two-finger gestures. If you want all the fancy gestures, I can't really say much about that.
bruncun 7y ago
Snappier UI and more stability. Has what I need for web dev. Starbucks wifi did not work out the box but summoning the correct incantation was easy enough. Never completely migrated over (music, photos, keychain) because of laziness. Miss using voice commands on one device and having it sync data with the rest of my devices (Apple TV, Mac, and iPhone). Ideally, I would replace all my devices so I could regain this functionality. Recently came back to Mac OS for work. After about a month, I'm finding myself using my System76 Lemur more and more. Feel free to ask any questions.
- jammygit 7y ago
  How is the keyboard, trackpad, and battery life?
  - bruncun 7y ago
    Keyboard seems reliable. The keys are softer than those of an old Macbook, but have slightly more travel and resistance than those of a magic keyboard. The clickity clackity feel is satisfying. Haven't thought of or used the touchpad much. Limited gestures, adequate size. I don't use it much. Battery life feels comparable to that of the 2012-2015 Macbook Pros I've used. Can code, browse, and listen to music for maybe 4 hours a charge, and it recharges quickly.
mushufasa 7y ago
I'm actually currently using both at the same time on different laptops. The biggest thing I miss -- font rendering. Font rendering is all messed up in linux. It's painful to read pdfs, emails, browse the web. I've tried all sorts of configuration options and it's still broken. Really, it grates me. Things just look off. On Pop! (old thinkpad), typing gives me joy, and I live in the terminal / use vimium browser bindings / snap windows around. I prefer this machine for editing code / hacking. On Mac, swiping around is frictionless. I use hot corners, gestures, and have trackpad sensitivity at the highest. No need for vim outside of editing code, and I default to GUI workflows. The screen is much better, and prefer watching videos. My VPN setup and all that jazz is just as easy on either machine.
- bruncun 7y ago
  > On Pop! (old thinkpad), typing gives me joy, and I live in the terminal / use vimium browser bindings / snap windows around. I prefer this machine for editing code / hacking. Same. It's extremely satisfying for keyboard-centric workflow.
- cooperadymas 7y ago
  Yep. Pop OS fixed the graphics driver mess on Linux and seemingly spurred Ubuntu to finally take action. I'm hoping they tackle font rendering next.
skrap 7y ago
I moved from Mac to Pop (on a Dell XPS 9750 w/ 4k screen) about 3 months ago. Honestly the OS has been pretty much fine. When I installed it was on Pop 19.04, and I had to manually update to kernel 5.3 in order to get some hardware support, but now that kernel is included in Pop 19.10. I find the contacts/calendars/mail programs to be overall less functional than Mac OS. Not terrible, but it is taking some time to learn the sharp edges to avoid. Geary is their default mail client, but it doesn't support a unified inbox, and I have a lot of email accounts, so I bounced between a bunch of other clients before finally settling on Evolution. Evolution feels like a bad Windows business suite from the late 90s, but the fact is that it has the functionality I need, and I think I can learn to avoid its oddities. Besides that, everything about it is very familiar to a mac convert. You can see clear areas where strong inspiration was taken from the Mac. It's honestly breathtakingly good, and it's free. I haven't looked back. Overall, I'd say you should pick up a System 76 Laptop and give it a go. If the Darter Pro had been around when I was switching, I'd certainly have bought that.

neor 7y ago

I switched recently and I love it. Clean interface, and some good tweaks on top of Ubuntu. Main reason for switching was better docker support/performance. Don’t really miss anything. Some say Pop is the best for HiDPI screens, but personally I’ve disabled the entire HiDPI Daemon, with a triple monitor setup it was really buggy and slow so I decided to just take the shortcut and change the resolution of my laptop screen to make it readable.

bmoyles 7y ago

I switched from a Mac to a Thinkpad running Pop a bit over a year ago. I miss the Mac trackpad and gestures. I miss the trackpad size and the surface itself. Wiring up libinput-gestures helps some things but you still don't get things like pinch to zoom in Chrome, for example, and the overall experience is not nearly as polished. I miss Mac OS HiDPI support as well. Fractional scaling helps a bit, but switching from HiDPI to LoDPI and vice-versa (docking/undocking) can leave some apps scaled incorrectly, make a mess of your desktop, and I haven't been able to get a mixed configuration working where only my laptop monitor is scaled while my external display is not. I end up running this 1440p laptop screen at 1600x900 or 1920x1080 instead just to forgo the headache. The VPN clients we use at work were much more pleasant to use on macOS. We have the option of using one of two different OpenVPN solutions as alternatives, and they're fine, but again, the polish isn't there (little things like automatically reconnecting to the VPN without my intervention would be nice). I can't really think of anything else I'm really missing these days, though. Things I explicitly DON'T miss: Docker on Mac is a poor experience compared to natively running on Linux... Having a real Linux userspace by default is SO much more pleasant than dealing with Homebrew (which is great if you absolutely need it but I'm happier not having to deal with it at all anymore). I don't miss the Mac keyboard and touchbar. I don't miss troubleshooting things on macOS... it is incredibly opaque in comparison. Overall, I don't think I'll be switching back any time soon, but would love to see more attention to the overall fit and finish as far as the desktop experience goes.

sriacha 7y ago
Any tips for improving the general trackpad experience with lip-input? Recently started running arch on an X1 carbon and wondering what I can do to make the trackpad better.
- vips7L 7y ago
  You could try: https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures https://github.com/bulletmark/libinput-gestures
- skrap 7y ago
  It's much improved by 19.10 on my machine, which IIRC went from libinput 1.12 to 1.14. The thumb detection (which was wrong just often enough to be torture) in Pop 19.04 is pretty solid in 19.10. But then again I don't use anything fancy beyond one- or two-finger gestures. If you want all the fancy gestures, I can't really say much about that.

bruncun 7y ago

Snappier UI and more stability. Has what I need for web dev. Starbucks wifi did not work out the box but summoning the correct incantation was easy enough. Never completely migrated over (music, photos, keychain) because of laziness. Miss using voice commands on one device and having it sync data with the rest of my devices (Apple TV, Mac, and iPhone). Ideally, I would replace all my devices so I could regain this functionality. Recently came back to Mac OS for work. After about a month, I'm finding myself using my System76 Lemur more and more. Feel free to ask any questions.

jammygit 7y ago
How is the keyboard, trackpad, and battery life?
- bruncun 7y ago
  Keyboard seems reliable. The keys are softer than those of an old Macbook, but have slightly more travel and resistance than those of a magic keyboard. The clickity clackity feel is satisfying. Haven't thought of or used the touchpad much. Limited gestures, adequate size. I don't use it much. Battery life feels comparable to that of the 2012-2015 Macbook Pros I've used. Can code, browse, and listen to music for maybe 4 hours a charge, and it recharges quickly.

mushufasa 7y ago

I'm actually currently using both at the same time on different laptops. The biggest thing I miss -- font rendering. Font rendering is all messed up in linux. It's painful to read pdfs, emails, browse the web. I've tried all sorts of configuration options and it's still broken. Really, it grates me. Things just look off. On Pop! (old thinkpad), typing gives me joy, and I live in the terminal / use vimium browser bindings / snap windows around. I prefer this machine for editing code / hacking. On Mac, swiping around is frictionless. I use hot corners, gestures, and have trackpad sensitivity at the highest. No need for vim outside of editing code, and I default to GUI workflows. The screen is much better, and prefer watching videos. My VPN setup and all that jazz is just as easy on either machine.

bruncun 7y ago
> On Pop! (old thinkpad), typing gives me joy, and I live in the terminal / use vimium browser bindings / snap windows around. I prefer this machine for editing code / hacking. Same. It's extremely satisfying for keyboard-centric workflow.
cooperadymas 7y ago
Yep. Pop OS fixed the graphics driver mess on Linux and seemingly spurred Ubuntu to finally take action. I'm hoping they tackle font rendering next.

skrap 7y ago

I moved from Mac to Pop (on a Dell XPS 9750 w/ 4k screen) about 3 months ago. Honestly the OS has been pretty much fine. When I installed it was on Pop 19.04, and I had to manually update to kernel 5.3 in order to get some hardware support, but now that kernel is included in Pop 19.10. I find the contacts/calendars/mail programs to be overall less functional than Mac OS. Not terrible, but it is taking some time to learn the sharp edges to avoid. Geary is their default mail client, but it doesn't support a unified inbox, and I have a lot of email accounts, so I bounced between a bunch of other clients before finally settling on Evolution. Evolution feels like a bad Windows business suite from the late 90s, but the fact is that it has the functionality I need, and I think I can learn to avoid its oddities. Besides that, everything about it is very familiar to a mac convert. You can see clear areas where strong inspiration was taken from the Mac. It's honestly breathtakingly good, and it's free. I haven't looked back. Overall, I'd say you should pick up a System 76 Laptop and give it a go. If the Darter Pro had been around when I was switching, I'd certainly have bought that.