5 ms·

I'm curious how you arrived at some of these conclusions. - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. - Inadequ

I'm curious how you arrived at some of these conclusions. - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. - Inadequate package manager -> Somewhat nebulous, most package managers on Linux are available on Unix. - Slow and large updates -> I honestly don't pay much attention as I have updates install automatically while I'm sleeping, but what size differences have you noticed? - Slow boot to work -> Never experienced this, boot is less than a minute regularly. - Can't have a minimal desktop -> Beyond hiding all icons and the dock, what more are you looking for? - High memory usage of base system -> Never seen this come close to the main applications I use on a daily basis. What quantified results are you receiving to notice this?

angio 6y ago
Not OP, but I share some of his views. > Inadequate package manager -> Somewhat nebulous, most package managers on Linux are available on Unix. Here he probably compares homebrew with apt/dnf/zypper. Compared to these three, homebrew is quite primitive and prone to be in a bad state. Luckily now you can use nix on MacOS which is a good package manager. > Can't have a minimal desktop -> Beyond hiding all icons and the dock, what more are you looking for? I run a minimal desktop with a tiling window manager (bspwm) and a status bar (polybar in my case), I don't need a window decorator and so I don't have one. I also don't need drop shadows on windows and so I disabled them (while keeping them on popups). AFAIK that is simply impossible to achieve on MacOS.
- zdw 6y ago
  MacPorts is a better long-term experience than Homebrew. It takes the BSD ports approach, where all packages are maintained together in a centralized repository. The Homebrew approach is closer to a bunch of PPA's and other independently maintained stuff of questionable integration status. If all you've tried is Homebrew, then I'm not surprised at the reaction.
mattlondon 6y ago
> - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. Not the author, but perhaps they meant that the UI was sluggish to use? I find OSX great if you have one browser window open, but start to multitask at all and I personally find it a real pig to work with. Open windows are hidden behind a tiny white dot on the task bar, lots of wasted space around the task bar, no snapping or window-splitting, the menus are detached from the windows they are for and you need to focus the window to get the menu to appear, the task switcher thing (expose?) is a horrible jarring swooshy animation that is awfully distracting with things moving around on the screen on their own as you are trying to look at them. I find it so frustrating to use after almost a decade of using macs now - it does not get any better once "used to it". Linux (Cinnamon or Plasma) + Windows 10 are just so much more intuitive for me. I'd 100% bite the hands off of the IT team here if they offered me a Windows 10 machine instead of a mac for my engineering laptop.
- ohsonice 6y ago
  I use bettertouchtool to get window snapping. And you can turn off the animation when switching desktops in settings.
  - markussss 6y ago
    > I use bettertouchtool to get window snapping. This is not a good point at all. Having to rely on third party applications (without any good way to discover them) to provide something that is taken for granted everywhere else is a horrible user experience! It's the same if you want to use an external, non-Apple, completely normal HDMI monitor - use a third party application to make it use the default (for the monitor) refresh rate (60 Hz) and resolution (1920x1080). It's the same if you want to use a completely normal USB computer mouse with a scroll wheel - install a third party application in order to make scroll wheel work like you expect. And pretty much all those third party tools that are required to turn a Mac into a system that is actually working and allowing the user to be productive costs money as well.
    - hollandheese 6y ago
pravus 6y ago
At least as far as the UI is concerned: - No focus-follows-mouse options means I can't layer windows in a way that accelerates my workflows. Having to switch between windows constantly is a giant speed bottleneck for me. - No keybinds for quickly resizing and positioning windows as far as I know. I only use the mouse to quickly position windows and even then just use alt-drag on my Linux desktop. - Animations. Anything that doesn't just instantly do whatever I told it is wasting my time. I don't need pretty or shiny. Of course this is my own personal experience, but I am extremely less productive on Mac and Windows compared to Linux due to these and more.
- s1mon 6y ago
  It's not built into MacOS, but you may find Magnet to solve some of your window management issues, depending on how you like to work. https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/
- dkarl 6y ago
  After eight years of using Macs exclusively for desktop and laptop use, I still can't get used to the counterintuitive focus management. I'm scrolling up and down in an app, start using the keyboard, and the keystrokes go to a different app! Arg! It just does not compute for me that I can be interacting with app A, move my mouse to app B, start interacting with app B, see my interactions have effect in app B, then start typing and find that my keystrokes are going to app A.
deathanatos 6y ago
> - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. I have. Performance generally degrades over time for me. > - Slow and large updates -> I honestly don't pay much attention as I have updates install automatically while I'm sleeping, but what size differences have you noticed? Most OS X updates take the system down for 30+ minutes while you're staring at the black screen w/ white Apple logo. By contrast most Linux systems can update in the background, and a reboot after an update takes no more time than a normal reboot, because it is a normal reboot.
cuddlybacon 6y ago
> I'm curious how you arrived at some of these conclusions. > - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. There seems to be a type a user who perceives any kind of animation as sluggishness. Before I switched to macOS, I used to hang out in #kde. From time to time someone would come in and complain about the sluggish UI. They'd often list specs that were impressive at the time. I'd instruct them on how to globally increase KDE's animation speed. That almost always "fixed the issue". I'm not sure what it is, but for some users animations are indistinguishable from lag.

angio 6y ago

Not OP, but I share some of his views. > Inadequate package manager -> Somewhat nebulous, most package managers on Linux are available on Unix. Here he probably compares homebrew with apt/dnf/zypper. Compared to these three, homebrew is quite primitive and prone to be in a bad state. Luckily now you can use nix on MacOS which is a good package manager. > Can't have a minimal desktop -> Beyond hiding all icons and the dock, what more are you looking for? I run a minimal desktop with a tiling window manager (bspwm) and a status bar (polybar in my case), I don't need a window decorator and so I don't have one. I also don't need drop shadows on windows and so I disabled them (while keeping them on popups). AFAIK that is simply impossible to achieve on MacOS.

zdw 6y ago
MacPorts is a better long-term experience than Homebrew. It takes the BSD ports approach, where all packages are maintained together in a centralized repository. The Homebrew approach is closer to a bunch of PPA's and other independently maintained stuff of questionable integration status. If all you've tried is Homebrew, then I'm not surprised at the reaction.

mattlondon 6y ago

> - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. Not the author, but perhaps they meant that the UI was sluggish to use? I find OSX great if you have one browser window open, but start to multitask at all and I personally find it a real pig to work with. Open windows are hidden behind a tiny white dot on the task bar, lots of wasted space around the task bar, no snapping or window-splitting, the menus are detached from the windows they are for and you need to focus the window to get the menu to appear, the task switcher thing (expose?) is a horrible jarring swooshy animation that is awfully distracting with things moving around on the screen on their own as you are trying to look at them. I find it so frustrating to use after almost a decade of using macs now - it does not get any better once "used to it". Linux (Cinnamon or Plasma) + Windows 10 are just so much more intuitive for me. I'd 100% bite the hands off of the IT team here if they offered me a Windows 10 machine instead of a mac for my engineering laptop.

ohsonice 6y ago
I use bettertouchtool to get window snapping. And you can turn off the animation when switching desktops in settings.
- markussss 6y ago
  > I use bettertouchtool to get window snapping. This is not a good point at all. Having to rely on third party applications (without any good way to discover them) to provide something that is taken for granted everywhere else is a horrible user experience! It's the same if you want to use an external, non-Apple, completely normal HDMI monitor - use a third party application to make it use the default (for the monitor) refresh rate (60 Hz) and resolution (1920x1080). It's the same if you want to use a completely normal USB computer mouse with a scroll wheel - install a third party application in order to make scroll wheel work like you expect. And pretty much all those third party tools that are required to turn a Mac into a system that is actually working and allowing the user to be productive costs money as well.
  - hollandheese 6y ago

pravus 6y ago

At least as far as the UI is concerned: - No focus-follows-mouse options means I can't layer windows in a way that accelerates my workflows. Having to switch between windows constantly is a giant speed bottleneck for me. - No keybinds for quickly resizing and positioning windows as far as I know. I only use the mouse to quickly position windows and even then just use alt-drag on my Linux desktop. - Animations. Anything that doesn't just instantly do whatever I told it is wasting my time. I don't need pretty or shiny. Of course this is my own personal experience, but I am extremely less productive on Mac and Windows compared to Linux due to these and more.

s1mon 6y ago
It's not built into MacOS, but you may find Magnet to solve some of your window management issues, depending on how you like to work. https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/ https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/
dkarl 6y ago
After eight years of using Macs exclusively for desktop and laptop use, I still can't get used to the counterintuitive focus management. I'm scrolling up and down in an app, start using the keyboard, and the keystrokes go to a different app! Arg! It just does not compute for me that I can be interacting with app A, move my mouse to app B, start interacting with app B, see my interactions have effect in app B, then start typing and find that my keystrokes are going to app A.

deathanatos 6y ago

> - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. I have. Performance generally degrades over time for me. > - Slow and large updates -> I honestly don't pay much attention as I have updates install automatically while I'm sleeping, but what size differences have you noticed? Most OS X updates take the system down for 30+ minutes while you're staring at the black screen w/ white Apple logo. By contrast most Linux systems can update in the background, and a reboot after an update takes no more time than a normal reboot, because it is a normal reboot.

cuddlybacon 6y ago

> I'm curious how you arrived at some of these conclusions. > - Sluggish UI -> I've never experienced this in the last three years of using my 2017 MBP. There seems to be a type a user who perceives any kind of animation as sluggishness. Before I switched to macOS, I used to hang out in #kde. From time to time someone would come in and complain about the sluggish UI. They'd often list specs that were impressive at the time. I'd instruct them on how to globally increase KDE's animation speed. That almost always "fixed the issue". I'm not sure what it is, but for some users animations are indistinguishable from lag.