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I love my Macbook Pro -- best laptop I've ever owned. I even love OS X in that, for the most part, everything works without issue. But articles like this make m

I love my Macbook Pro -- best laptop I've ever owned. I even love OS X in that, for the most part, everything works without issue. But articles like this make me wonder why I shouldn't switch back to Ubuntu. TFA mentions the following software that runs just fine on Linux: * Chrome * Dropbox * Google Services * Crashplan * LastPass * Google Calendar * VLC Some software doesn't run under Linux but has perfectly capable replacements: * Adium: Pidgin * TextWrangler/BBEdit: GEdit, Emacs, Vim * Mail.app replacements: GMail's web interface replaced these long ago. * Evernote: Can be used via the limited web interface. Some of them are even commercial replacements for features that most Linux desktops have had forever: * iStat Menus (which I bought) * Witch window switcher * HyperSpaces

imperialWicket 16y ago
GEdit is hardly a replacement for BBEdit. UltraEdit just released for Linux though, and should more than accommodate anyone who wants to switch to Linux and keep a solid GUI text editor.
evlapix 16y ago
I have challenged myself with the same question. After giving Ubuntu another chance, I realized how frustrating its inconsistencies are. For example: "cmd+,". Maybe I haven't been with Ubuntu long enough to see through these slight details, but they make all the difference for me. Another solid advantage is that when you hit a wall on Ubuntu and start googling around for a solution, you typically need to sort through several pages of "What's your configuration". On OS X, there is no such issue. Disclaimer: I'm probably not a power user by HN's definition.
- generalk 16y ago
  I very much agree here! Ubuntu's 90% of the way there, but when you're used to things like Cmd+, for preferences, not having it is frustrating. That said, more and more I'm moving to the cloud for doing things that aren't Emacs or a shell, and I'm thinking that Ubuntu and a tiling wm are all I'd really need to be productive. I've tried in the past but it just never seems to gel for me in terms of usability.
  - podperson 16y ago
    More like 90% of the way to being half as good as Windows. If you actually use expose and drag and drop on a Mac (e.g. try dragging a file to a choose file button in a web browser) you'll quickly realize just how far behind every other OS is. It's not just that the Mac has deep UI advantages over Windows/Linux/etc., but that it's had them for ten years and it's ingrained into the DNA of third party apps.
    - mcrittenden 16y ago
      > More like 90% of the way to being half as good as Windows. That's pretty harsh and rings of fanboy-speak. Have you tried Ubuntu recently? Compiz (which has been around for 5 years) replaces and dare I say improves on expose, and you can drag/drop files into choose file buttons. Yes, I know you said it's the long-lasting/deep integration that makes those features compelling, but I fail to see any examples of that integration that warrants such a negative blanket statement.
      - JonnieCache 16y ago
        What a lot of people don't know is that you can drag and drop a file/folder icon onto any OS X file open dialog. The dialog will then browse to that folder or select that file. And what's more, you can drag the icons from application titlebars and it has the same effect! Try it with icons in file browser trees inside 3rd party OS X apps, AND IT STILL WORKS! Try dropping the icons directly onto textfields that are meant to contain file paths (ones bound to browse buttons) AND IT STILL WORKS! This is what having a consistently applied collection of user interface controls, and the first party devs dogfooding them, does for an OS.
  - leon_ 16y ago
    > I'm thinking that Ubuntu and a tiling wm are all I'd really need to be productive For me that's where the road in the long term is going. At the moment Ububtu is still a little to rough for everyday use (for me at least). But I give it another one or two years and the quirks will be gone. And then it will be: tiling WM + terminal + vim (and a browser). Tiling WMs are just too productivity friendly to pass up on. :]
code_duck 16y ago
Right, why does a Power User replace as much Apple software as possible? Why use a Mac if you're just going to use third party software that's often crossplatform? I use a Linux desktop every day, and if I had to pick just one OS, it would be Linux hands down. However I too have a MacBook Pro which I love. It's true that MacOS has polish that is lacking in Linux - it's hard to match the fruits of Apple's unique position of being able to match their hardware and software so closely. I'm pretty satisfied with my current set up, a Linux desktop paired with a Mac notebook.
- callahad 16y ago
  > Why use a Mac if you're just going to use third party software that's often crossplatform? They're not the only reasons, but the industrial design and battery life of Apple notebooks are quite compelling.
  - sudont 16y ago
    A handful of friends who dev in C# use MBPs with Windows 7 on them. This... can cause issues with pro-mac network admins, one had a minor freak-out when the first thing my buddy did with his 2.5k laptop was to use a 3rd-party bootloader to remove all traces of OS X.
eddieplan9 16y ago
I guess the point of this article is to show that you can uses these alternatives in addition to the system default, but you don't have to. I don't see any item of these better than what it is replacing (CrashPlan vs Time Machine, any one? And Preview is the fastest PDF viewer I have ever used). You cannot say this for many other platforms. Hell, there is not even any built-in KeyChain or Time Machine counterpart in many systems. I took a quick look at the list, and found myself only using a TextEdit replacement (MacVim) and a QuickTime replacement (VLC). Even these two are not really replacements but more like complements. A Mac is the only machine that I can start hacking after installing one application - MacVim. Even easy_install is built in.
- subelsky 16y ago
  That is precisely what I was trying to say. Over time I found myself wanting and liking these replacements, but out of the box these machines work very well. CrashPlan is better because it integrates off-site and local backup and lets you manage backup for a bunch of machines (I'm responsible for backing up family computers).
  - sabat 16y ago
    Time Machine: replaced with CrashPlan Why not use both (as I do)? Local backup is faster; remote backup is ostensibly safer from disaster. Oh, and Time Machine is invaluable if you're upgrading your boot drive or are surrendering your Mac to AppleCare.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      Or you can time machine to a linux machine that does remote backups. That's my strategy.
luigi 16y ago
For me, Ubuntu has no good equivalent for several of the Apple apps: * iTunes (and its iPod sync'ing) * iPhoto * Keynote * GarageBand
- docgnome 16y ago
  What about amarok? ( http://amarok.kde.org/ http://amarok.kde.org/ )I find iTunes to be terribly annoying and slow. I also don't have an iPod so... Do you run rockbox on it? ( http://www.rockbox.org/ http://www.rockbox.org/ ) I've found digikam ( http://www.digikam.org/ http://www.digikam.org/ ) to work pretty well. Never really cared for iPhoto though. Keynote, again never really used it. I hear it's much nicer than the MS equivalent. The wife likes GarageBand and it does seem to be a pretty sweet app. Not really sorta thing so I don't really know of any replacement for it. Audacity is the only thing that comes to mind and it's not exactly the same kinna thing.
  - Xuzz 16y ago
    I hate iTunes, but I've tried and failed to find a usable replacement on Linux. The best I found was Banshee, but the UI's not great and it's quite unstable :(.
    - aerique 16y ago
      My iTunes replacement is a jailbroken iPhone, SSH and dTunes.
    - tilltheis 16y ago
      I really liked quodlibet (http://code.google.com/p/quodlibet/ http://code.google.com/p/quodlibet/) back in the days I only used linux. Don't know if you like the UI though.
    - auxbuss 16y ago
      I've been on that long journey. I used quod libet for a while, but never much liked it. Now, I use clementine http://www.clementine-player.org/ http://www.clementine-player.org/ Best on Linux, imo.
larrik 16y ago
I think Ubuntu is great, and making iPhone apps under OS X isn't changing my mind. Renaming a file on OS X requires you to single-click the file name, wait a second, and then change the file name. If you have to rename a bunch of files, that's a ton slower than Ubuntu or Windows. (If anyone is going to suggest dropping to the command line, I'd answer that's not a very OS X solution) OS X uses THREE keyboard modifiers? REALLY? And they aren't even named? I have to actually look at my keyboard and think about what it what. Nevermind if I'm using a Windows keyboard on a Mac Mini or something... Right clicking is inconsistent, and the context menus rarely have what I want (like, oh, renaming a file?). This is probably why they have 3 keyboard modifier buttons. Safari is not nearly as good as Chrome is. Multiple desktops is trivial on Ubuntu. In fact, it's preinstalled that way. (There's lots more stuff that irritates me, but I'm actually on Ubuntu right now, and it has allowed me to forget such nonsense) I'm not saying Ubuntu doesn't have issues, but given that Ubuntu is free (in both senses) and runs on hardware I can select piece by piece and get a much better machine for a fraction of the cost... I seriously doubt I will ever have more than a single development Mac.
- jason42 16y ago
  > Renaming a file on OS X requires you to single-click the file name, wait a second, and then change the file name There's at least one other way to do it - single-click on the file, press enter, then type the new name.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    and that's great because, unlike windows, it just changes the file name. Not the extension unless you actually move to the extension yourself.
- stepherm 16y ago
  You can edit a file name by tapping return.
- Hovertruck 16y ago
  Not really an answer to your points, but FWIW to rename a file in Finder all you have to do is press enter.
neutronicus 16y ago
That's because the memories of the random, intense aggravation associated with owning a Linux laptop are starting to fade. External hardware generally works when plugging it into my mac, unlike the incredibly irritating experience of trying to get a webcam to work with my Linux laptop. My mac never updates its kernel without updating its nvidia drivers, forcing me to reboot and select an older kernel in grub. My mac never suddenly disables my ability to log into GNOME, forcing me to log an as root if I want a GUI. If I want to output from my mac to a TV, I can do this without editing Xorg.conf (or whatever the fuck it was called), occasionally fucking up and having to reboot in text mode and restore it. Sound works. Always. My macbook pro also seems better at power management than my old laptop, which was itself better at power management when it ran windows.
- cosgroveb 16y ago
  Sounds like you haven't tried Ubuntu in a few years. I switched permanently a year or so ago after trying several times to make the switch over the last decade or so. It works almost completely without issue on three different systems of mine with very different hardware.
  - neutronicus 16y ago
    It was Fedora and, yeah, it's been 2 years. I don't think I'll own a laptop made by anyone other than Apple for some time. Desktops, I'll probably use Linux.
  - leon_ 16y ago
    Yesterday evening I installed Ububtu (32bit because recommended grml) on my Macbook Pro 5,5. Booted it up, spent 2 hours getting everything set up (sound, keyboard backlight, power management, the touchpad - o m g the touchpad was the most frustrating, xmodmap tweaking for the keyboard). Then I realized ubuntu would only recognize 3GB of my 8GB of RAM. (Yeah, it's a 32bit kernel but wtf? My 32bit OS X kernel recognizes all the RAM and 8gb isn't that uncommon nowadays.) So I googled and found there was the option to install the PAE kernel (alternative would be to reinstall the 64bit ubuntu). So I fired up the packet manager, installed the PAE meta package, rebooted and nothing worked. My NVidia and Broadcom wireless drivers were not updated. X wouldn't start up. So after fiddling with the X config files I got X to run again (by removing the nvidia stuff). Only to discover that my wifi card wouldn't work. I tried to reinstall the drivers but the jockey driver tool quitted with some obscure error message like "error, there was an error. see error logs." ... the error logs had something like "couldn't install wifi driver". (NVidia drivers wouldn't install because I wasn't connected to the internet but the error message stated that clearly.) I went to bed and haven't tried again to get it running. I guess I will install the 64bit version when I got time to play around. (But I have a strange feeling that there will be problems with flash.) Maybe a little rant to defuse my inflammatory comment: I was really impressed by Ubuntu. I remember the times when I couldn't get copy and paste working between Netscape Navigator and a text editor. I remember when it was almost certain that I wouldn't get sound with my exotic non-soundblaster card. I remember when I had to fiddle hours with X-Setup to get a graphical environment. Linux has come a long way. I certainly didn't expect Ubuntu to support something like keyboard backlight or the extended function keys of my Apple Notebook. But it did. The Desktop environment is really thought through and usable. I love that chat integration with the Desktop. I love that the 32bit version had installed binary blob drivers so I could just enter my wifi password and was online. Nevertheless I chose the "dumb user easy linux" and went the recommended road. And that's why there's a bitter taste to it that something like updating the graphics drivers to a new kernel was not done for me, the dumb user, automatically. But it's nice to see that there's an alternative to OS X for my Macbook if Apple should ever decide to completely fuck up OS X or to deprecate my hardware too soon.
jimmyjazz14 16y ago
I've tried to switch from Gnome to OS X several times over the years (we use mostly OS X in my office). I have always ended back up on Ubuntu (or Arch). Gnome just feels more intuitive, everything pretty much does what I would expect it to do. Also integrated package managers are a pretty killer feature that all Linux distros come with these days. Recently on my work machine I switched to XMonad and my productivity has seriously gone up thanks to it.
- leon_ 16y ago
  Could you elaborate more on your choice of XMonad? Was it just the first best tiling WM you chose or have you done some research? I'm currently looking for "my" tiling WM and am overwhelmed by the amount of available tiling WMs. Awesome-WM vs XMonad?
pavel_lishin 16y ago
" * TextWrangler/BBEdit: GEdit, Emacs, Vim" Yes, but you're ignoring a pretty steep learning curve for the last two.
- generalk 16y ago
  Sure, but I figure there are two classes of folks that need a text editor (not a WYSIWYG editor): 1) People who occasionally want to open/save plain text files: Gedit works just fine. 2) Programmers, who should know one of Emacs or Vim out of hand. I totally get that some folks like using TextMate all day, and that GEdit has some great programmers' features now, but if you know emacs/vim, you'll never be on a machine where you can't get an editor you know.
  - pavel_lishin 16y ago
    The 2nd point is why I really want to start learning one of the two. I just can't figure out which one I want. I figure that vim is available on more machines than emacs is, but with emacs I get the bonus of learning a dialect of LISP, too - at least, if I want to customize anything - instead of some arbitrary vim scripting language.
octopus 16y ago
Evernote can be installed natively on Mac now.

imperialWicket 16y ago

GEdit is hardly a replacement for BBEdit. UltraEdit just released for Linux though, and should more than accommodate anyone who wants to switch to Linux and keep a solid GUI text editor.

evlapix 16y ago

I have challenged myself with the same question. After giving Ubuntu another chance, I realized how frustrating its inconsistencies are. For example: "cmd+,". Maybe I haven't been with Ubuntu long enough to see through these slight details, but they make all the difference for me. Another solid advantage is that when you hit a wall on Ubuntu and start googling around for a solution, you typically need to sort through several pages of "What's your configuration". On OS X, there is no such issue. Disclaimer: I'm probably not a power user by HN's definition.

generalk 16y ago
I very much agree here! Ubuntu's 90% of the way there, but when you're used to things like Cmd+, for preferences, not having it is frustrating. That said, more and more I'm moving to the cloud for doing things that aren't Emacs or a shell, and I'm thinking that Ubuntu and a tiling wm are all I'd really need to be productive. I've tried in the past but it just never seems to gel for me in terms of usability.
- podperson 16y ago
  More like 90% of the way to being half as good as Windows. If you actually use expose and drag and drop on a Mac (e.g. try dragging a file to a choose file button in a web browser) you'll quickly realize just how far behind every other OS is. It's not just that the Mac has deep UI advantages over Windows/Linux/etc., but that it's had them for ten years and it's ingrained into the DNA of third party apps.
  - mcrittenden 16y ago
    > More like 90% of the way to being half as good as Windows. That's pretty harsh and rings of fanboy-speak. Have you tried Ubuntu recently? Compiz (which has been around for 5 years) replaces and dare I say improves on expose, and you can drag/drop files into choose file buttons. Yes, I know you said it's the long-lasting/deep integration that makes those features compelling, but I fail to see any examples of that integration that warrants such a negative blanket statement.
    - JonnieCache 16y ago
      What a lot of people don't know is that you can drag and drop a file/folder icon onto any OS X file open dialog. The dialog will then browse to that folder or select that file. And what's more, you can drag the icons from application titlebars and it has the same effect! Try it with icons in file browser trees inside 3rd party OS X apps, AND IT STILL WORKS! Try dropping the icons directly onto textfields that are meant to contain file paths (ones bound to browse buttons) AND IT STILL WORKS! This is what having a consistently applied collection of user interface controls, and the first party devs dogfooding them, does for an OS.
- leon_ 16y ago
  > I'm thinking that Ubuntu and a tiling wm are all I'd really need to be productive For me that's where the road in the long term is going. At the moment Ububtu is still a little to rough for everyday use (for me at least). But I give it another one or two years and the quirks will be gone. And then it will be: tiling WM + terminal + vim (and a browser). Tiling WMs are just too productivity friendly to pass up on. :]

code_duck 16y ago

Right, why does a Power User replace as much Apple software as possible? Why use a Mac if you're just going to use third party software that's often crossplatform? I use a Linux desktop every day, and if I had to pick just one OS, it would be Linux hands down. However I too have a MacBook Pro which I love. It's true that MacOS has polish that is lacking in Linux - it's hard to match the fruits of Apple's unique position of being able to match their hardware and software so closely. I'm pretty satisfied with my current set up, a Linux desktop paired with a Mac notebook.

callahad 16y ago
> Why use a Mac if you're just going to use third party software that's often crossplatform? They're not the only reasons, but the industrial design and battery life of Apple notebooks are quite compelling.
- sudont 16y ago
  A handful of friends who dev in C# use MBPs with Windows 7 on them. This... can cause issues with pro-mac network admins, one had a minor freak-out when the first thing my buddy did with his 2.5k laptop was to use a 3rd-party bootloader to remove all traces of OS X.

eddieplan9 16y ago

I guess the point of this article is to show that you can uses these alternatives in addition to the system default, but you don't have to. I don't see any item of these better than what it is replacing (CrashPlan vs Time Machine, any one? And Preview is the fastest PDF viewer I have ever used). You cannot say this for many other platforms. Hell, there is not even any built-in KeyChain or Time Machine counterpart in many systems. I took a quick look at the list, and found myself only using a TextEdit replacement (MacVim) and a QuickTime replacement (VLC). Even these two are not really replacements but more like complements. A Mac is the only machine that I can start hacking after installing one application - MacVim. Even easy_install is built in.

subelsky 16y ago
That is precisely what I was trying to say. Over time I found myself wanting and liking these replacements, but out of the box these machines work very well. CrashPlan is better because it integrates off-site and local backup and lets you manage backup for a bunch of machines (I'm responsible for backing up family computers).
- sabat 16y ago
  Time Machine: replaced with CrashPlan Why not use both (as I do)? Local backup is faster; remote backup is ostensibly safer from disaster. Oh, and Time Machine is invaluable if you're upgrading your boot drive or are surrendering your Mac to AppleCare.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Or you can time machine to a linux machine that does remote backups. That's my strategy.

luigi 16y ago

For me, Ubuntu has no good equivalent for several of the Apple apps: * iTunes (and its iPod sync'ing) * iPhoto * Keynote * GarageBand

docgnome 16y ago
What about amarok? ( http://amarok.kde.org/ http://amarok.kde.org/ )I find iTunes to be terribly annoying and slow. I also don't have an iPod so... Do you run rockbox on it? ( http://www.rockbox.org/ http://www.rockbox.org/ ) I've found digikam ( http://www.digikam.org/ http://www.digikam.org/ ) to work pretty well. Never really cared for iPhoto though. Keynote, again never really used it. I hear it's much nicer than the MS equivalent. The wife likes GarageBand and it does seem to be a pretty sweet app. Not really sorta thing so I don't really know of any replacement for it. Audacity is the only thing that comes to mind and it's not exactly the same kinna thing.
- Xuzz 16y ago
  I hate iTunes, but I've tried and failed to find a usable replacement on Linux. The best I found was Banshee, but the UI's not great and it's quite unstable :(.
  - aerique 16y ago
    My iTunes replacement is a jailbroken iPhone, SSH and dTunes.
  - tilltheis 16y ago
    I really liked quodlibet (http://code.google.com/p/quodlibet/ http://code.google.com/p/quodlibet/) back in the days I only used linux. Don't know if you like the UI though.
  - auxbuss 16y ago
    I've been on that long journey. I used quod libet for a while, but never much liked it. Now, I use clementine http://www.clementine-player.org/ http://www.clementine-player.org/ Best on Linux, imo.

larrik 16y ago

I think Ubuntu is great, and making iPhone apps under OS X isn't changing my mind. Renaming a file on OS X requires you to single-click the file name, wait a second, and then change the file name. If you have to rename a bunch of files, that's a ton slower than Ubuntu or Windows. (If anyone is going to suggest dropping to the command line, I'd answer that's not a very OS X solution) OS X uses THREE keyboard modifiers? REALLY? And they aren't even named? I have to actually look at my keyboard and think about what it what. Nevermind if I'm using a Windows keyboard on a Mac Mini or something... Right clicking is inconsistent, and the context menus rarely have what I want (like, oh, renaming a file?). This is probably why they have 3 keyboard modifier buttons. Safari is not nearly as good as Chrome is. Multiple desktops is trivial on Ubuntu. In fact, it's preinstalled that way. (There's lots more stuff that irritates me, but I'm actually on Ubuntu right now, and it has allowed me to forget such nonsense) I'm not saying Ubuntu doesn't have issues, but given that Ubuntu is free (in both senses) and runs on hardware I can select piece by piece and get a much better machine for a fraction of the cost... I seriously doubt I will ever have more than a single development Mac.

jason42 16y ago
> Renaming a file on OS X requires you to single-click the file name, wait a second, and then change the file name There's at least one other way to do it - single-click on the file, press enter, then type the new name.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  and that's great because, unlike windows, it just changes the file name. Not the extension unless you actually move to the extension yourself.
stepherm 16y ago
You can edit a file name by tapping return.
Hovertruck 16y ago
Not really an answer to your points, but FWIW to rename a file in Finder all you have to do is press enter.

neutronicus 16y ago

That's because the memories of the random, intense aggravation associated with owning a Linux laptop are starting to fade. External hardware generally works when plugging it into my mac, unlike the incredibly irritating experience of trying to get a webcam to work with my Linux laptop. My mac never updates its kernel without updating its nvidia drivers, forcing me to reboot and select an older kernel in grub. My mac never suddenly disables my ability to log into GNOME, forcing me to log an as root if I want a GUI. If I want to output from my mac to a TV, I can do this without editing Xorg.conf (or whatever the fuck it was called), occasionally fucking up and having to reboot in text mode and restore it. Sound works. Always. My macbook pro also seems better at power management than my old laptop, which was itself better at power management when it ran windows.

cosgroveb 16y ago
Sounds like you haven't tried Ubuntu in a few years. I switched permanently a year or so ago after trying several times to make the switch over the last decade or so. It works almost completely without issue on three different systems of mine with very different hardware.
- neutronicus 16y ago
  It was Fedora and, yeah, it's been 2 years. I don't think I'll own a laptop made by anyone other than Apple for some time. Desktops, I'll probably use Linux.
- leon_ 16y ago
  Yesterday evening I installed Ububtu (32bit because recommended grml) on my Macbook Pro 5,5. Booted it up, spent 2 hours getting everything set up (sound, keyboard backlight, power management, the touchpad - o m g the touchpad was the most frustrating, xmodmap tweaking for the keyboard). Then I realized ubuntu would only recognize 3GB of my 8GB of RAM. (Yeah, it's a 32bit kernel but wtf? My 32bit OS X kernel recognizes all the RAM and 8gb isn't that uncommon nowadays.) So I googled and found there was the option to install the PAE kernel (alternative would be to reinstall the 64bit ubuntu). So I fired up the packet manager, installed the PAE meta package, rebooted and nothing worked. My NVidia and Broadcom wireless drivers were not updated. X wouldn't start up. So after fiddling with the X config files I got X to run again (by removing the nvidia stuff). Only to discover that my wifi card wouldn't work. I tried to reinstall the drivers but the jockey driver tool quitted with some obscure error message like "error, there was an error. see error logs." ... the error logs had something like "couldn't install wifi driver". (NVidia drivers wouldn't install because I wasn't connected to the internet but the error message stated that clearly.) I went to bed and haven't tried again to get it running. I guess I will install the 64bit version when I got time to play around. (But I have a strange feeling that there will be problems with flash.) Maybe a little rant to defuse my inflammatory comment: I was really impressed by Ubuntu. I remember the times when I couldn't get copy and paste working between Netscape Navigator and a text editor. I remember when it was almost certain that I wouldn't get sound with my exotic non-soundblaster card. I remember when I had to fiddle hours with X-Setup to get a graphical environment. Linux has come a long way. I certainly didn't expect Ubuntu to support something like keyboard backlight or the extended function keys of my Apple Notebook. But it did. The Desktop environment is really thought through and usable. I love that chat integration with the Desktop. I love that the 32bit version had installed binary blob drivers so I could just enter my wifi password and was online. Nevertheless I chose the "dumb user easy linux" and went the recommended road. And that's why there's a bitter taste to it that something like updating the graphics drivers to a new kernel was not done for me, the dumb user, automatically. But it's nice to see that there's an alternative to OS X for my Macbook if Apple should ever decide to completely fuck up OS X or to deprecate my hardware too soon.

jimmyjazz14 16y ago

I've tried to switch from Gnome to OS X several times over the years (we use mostly OS X in my office). I have always ended back up on Ubuntu (or Arch). Gnome just feels more intuitive, everything pretty much does what I would expect it to do. Also integrated package managers are a pretty killer feature that all Linux distros come with these days. Recently on my work machine I switched to XMonad and my productivity has seriously gone up thanks to it.

leon_ 16y ago
Could you elaborate more on your choice of XMonad? Was it just the first best tiling WM you chose or have you done some research? I'm currently looking for "my" tiling WM and am overwhelmed by the amount of available tiling WMs. Awesome-WM vs XMonad?

pavel_lishin 16y ago

" * TextWrangler/BBEdit: GEdit, Emacs, Vim" Yes, but you're ignoring a pretty steep learning curve for the last two.

generalk 16y ago
Sure, but I figure there are two classes of folks that need a text editor (not a WYSIWYG editor): 1) People who occasionally want to open/save plain text files: Gedit works just fine. 2) Programmers, who should know one of Emacs or Vim out of hand. I totally get that some folks like using TextMate all day, and that GEdit has some great programmers' features now, but if you know emacs/vim, you'll never be on a machine where you can't get an editor you know.
- pavel_lishin 16y ago
  The 2nd point is why I really want to start learning one of the two. I just can't figure out which one I want. I figure that vim is available on more machines than emacs is, but with emacs I get the bonus of learning a dialect of LISP, too - at least, if I want to customize anything - instead of some arbitrary vim scripting language.

octopus 16y ago

Evernote can be installed natively on Mac now.