4 ms·

Don't buy their shit. Period. Wayland already has trackpad support that's nearly identical to macOS. Gnome with a dock is basically the same desktop experien

Don't buy their shit. Period. Wayland already has trackpad support that's nearly identical to macOS. Gnome with a dock is basically the same desktop experience - Pick a distro of your choice. I can honestly say I prefer my linux XPS to my work macbook, by a large margin. Plus - It doesn't spy on me. I actually own it. I can release software through channels that aren't entirely abusive. Basically - The only thing Apple does truly well at this point, in my opinion, is marketing how great Apple is. But it turns out they just aren't all that great. Don't buy their shit.

je42 6y ago
it depends on your hardware, and your requirements i have now Manjaro Linux on a HP Spectre. (Debian installer crashed .... ) - 4K support is pretty bad for a lot of games. usually some tweaking is required to get the text size - to a readable level. - Internal Sound-card doesn't work. - Wifi - had to switch iwd to get stable network. (had lots of packetloss with with wpa-supplicant) - Getting the Geforce and Intel card working was a pain. - Touch screen doesn't support reading pressure levels. - Terminator is misses a bunch of feature that iTerm2 has. - Last manjaro upgrade disabled the Nvidia graphics card, without warning. (had to restore a previous timeshift backup) - external monitor doesn't work yet. - listening to music while lock screen is on doesnt work - fingerprint scanner doesn't work. - have to restart bluetooth swith medium probability because it fails to connect to my airpods. - the UI to unlock your encrypted harddisk at boottime looks also really bad. only text mode. and the text is also not very friendly. almost all issue, i don't have on the same hardware with windows, but since i really want use linux i accepted it that the HW support is crappy.
ainiriand 6y ago
THIS. I have recently switched back to Ubuntu after a long period of time working for a big corp under a Microsoft ecosystem. I feel like my computer is mine back again.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
> Wayland already has trackpad support that's nearly identical to macOS. I never really understood how input-driver responsibilities are divided between the Linux kernel and X/Wayland. If you're talking about Macbook's reputation for a pleasant trackpad experience, are you saying that in Linux the relevant code resides within Wayland but not X?
- kaba0 6y ago
  The relevant code resides in libinput, and it can be used as “input source” for xserver as well.
cafed00d 6y ago
Well of course! How many people who walk into Apple stores are reading hacker news to learn about Wayland, Gnome and XPS running Linux? I can see you’re frustrated and lashing out with “Don’t buy their shit”. Honestly I would be too if I had to read another hn post on apple & their policies. But the biggest gap here isn’t technology. Rather it’s empathy. Empathy for all those people who don’t read hn and would walk into apple stores to buy the best computer they possibly can.
- cutemonster 6y ago
  What could be ways to bridge that gap?
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  20 years ago they all bought Windows machines. Apple didn't change that by suddenly being excellent and having great marketing. Developers changed that by realising that Macs were good dev machines and writing software that ran on Macs. Non-tech people ask their tech-savvy friends for advice on what tech to buy. For years that was "buy Apple; it costs more but they're more reliable, the support is great, and they're way cooler". That's no longer the case. There are manufacturers shipping great Linux laptops, that just work, and it is actually feasible to recommend one to a friend. And running Linux is way cooler these days - every muppet out there has a Macbook ;)
  - tpush 6y ago
    > Apple didn't change that by suddenly being excellent and having great marketing. That is actually pretty much precisely the reason.
    - marcus_holmes 6y ago
      My take on it (and I lived through this) is that pre-web everyone ran on Windows. If you were writing software, it needed to run on Windows, so you had to code on a Windows machine. Then the web changed things, and a huge number of devs moved from writing Windows desktop applications to writing web applications for the dotcom boom (I was one). This took about a decade, from around '97ish. It also freed people to use different dev machines because most of the servers were LAMP (or variants thereof), and Macs could run the AMP bit fine. Web designers who had started off in Apple-land being designers on Adobe migrated into being web developers, and that helped spread Macs into the web dev community. Yes, Macs did get better during this same period, and there was a lot of great innovation. But if nothing else had changed then that wouldn't have mattered - if you had to write Windows applications then you couldn't do that on a Mac, no matter how sexy it was. I find the parallel with today's situation (and this discussion) fascinating.
pxeboot 6y ago
> Wayland already has trackpad support that's nearly identical to macOS. While PC trackpads were absolutely terrible for a long time, I actually really like the one used on my X1 Carbon. Inertia scrolling and gesters are not as smooth, but the hardware itself is quite pleasant.
aequitas 6y ago
> Gnome with a dock is basically the same desktop experience - Pick a distro of your choice. No it's not, macOS has a fundamentally different approach to apps and windows. Where you open only 1 app instance that can run multiple document windows. You switch between apps, and can then switch between windows in that app. This can partly be immitated in the window manager, but not all apps will work well with this pattern. Also standardized keyboard shortcuts, spelling check, secrets management and general app behaviour is hit and miss on Linux. Whereas on macOS most apps adhere to the human interface guidelines. This consistency and predictability gives me a greater efficiency on Mac over Linux system. I tried going back to Linux for 1,5 years when my then employer didn't allow me to work on a Mac and no matter how much I tweaked it, I could never get the same enjoyment and productivity compared to macOS.
- monsieurbanana 6y ago
  Nobody asked, yet I'll say it nonetheless: I had the same experience, reversed. Employer gave me a MacBook pro, I tried for a year to get used to it, but no matter how much I tweaked it I couldn't completely get out of the horrible (imo) experience that is Mac os Windows manager. It I want to switch to an open window I'll switch to the freaking opened window, stop trying to hijack what open an app means. Anyways, Mac os isn't bad, but you have to accept to give up a lot of things. It's their way, or nothing.
- rbreaves 6y ago
  It is time intensive to fix the odds & ends that Linux distros often haven’t. Kinda wish the author of the article would have taken a little more time learning about how easy it is to setup new keybinds in Kinto.sh (xkeysnail).
- horsawlarway 6y ago
  I mean... you're talking about exactly the same behavior as Gnome with a dock. I have a single application icon, clicking it once brings up the last window I had open. Clicking it twice displays a preview window for each open window, any of which I can click to fullscreen and focus. It's literally the same as the macOS dock, complete the with the dot indicator for number of open windows. Plus my upper left hotcorner displays all application windows, and I have my upper right set to display each window of the current application. They're preeeetty much identical. I'd know - I use both daily.

je42 6y ago

it depends on your hardware, and your requirements i have now Manjaro Linux on a HP Spectre. (Debian installer crashed .... ) - 4K support is pretty bad for a lot of games. usually some tweaking is required to get the text size - to a readable level. - Internal Sound-card doesn't work. - Wifi - had to switch iwd to get stable network. (had lots of packetloss with with wpa-supplicant) - Getting the Geforce and Intel card working was a pain. - Touch screen doesn't support reading pressure levels. - Terminator is misses a bunch of feature that iTerm2 has. - Last manjaro upgrade disabled the Nvidia graphics card, without warning. (had to restore a previous timeshift backup) - external monitor doesn't work yet. - listening to music while lock screen is on doesnt work - fingerprint scanner doesn't work. - have to restart bluetooth swith medium probability because it fails to connect to my airpods. - the UI to unlock your encrypted harddisk at boottime looks also really bad. only text mode. and the text is also not very friendly. almost all issue, i don't have on the same hardware with windows, but since i really want use linux i accepted it that the HW support is crappy.

ainiriand 6y ago

THIS. I have recently switched back to Ubuntu after a long period of time working for a big corp under a Microsoft ecosystem. I feel like my computer is mine back again.

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

> Wayland already has trackpad support that's nearly identical to macOS. I never really understood how input-driver responsibilities are divided between the Linux kernel and X/Wayland. If you're talking about Macbook's reputation for a pleasant trackpad experience, are you saying that in Linux the relevant code resides within Wayland but not X?

kaba0 6y ago
The relevant code resides in libinput, and it can be used as “input source” for xserver as well.

cafed00d 6y ago

Well of course! How many people who walk into Apple stores are reading hacker news to learn about Wayland, Gnome and XPS running Linux? I can see you’re frustrated and lashing out with “Don’t buy their shit”. Honestly I would be too if I had to read another hn post on apple & their policies. But the biggest gap here isn’t technology. Rather it’s empathy. Empathy for all those people who don’t read hn and would walk into apple stores to buy the best computer they possibly can.

cutemonster 6y ago
What could be ways to bridge that gap?
marcus_holmes 6y ago
20 years ago they all bought Windows machines. Apple didn't change that by suddenly being excellent and having great marketing. Developers changed that by realising that Macs were good dev machines and writing software that ran on Macs. Non-tech people ask their tech-savvy friends for advice on what tech to buy. For years that was "buy Apple; it costs more but they're more reliable, the support is great, and they're way cooler". That's no longer the case. There are manufacturers shipping great Linux laptops, that just work, and it is actually feasible to recommend one to a friend. And running Linux is way cooler these days - every muppet out there has a Macbook ;)
- tpush 6y ago
  > Apple didn't change that by suddenly being excellent and having great marketing. That is actually pretty much precisely the reason.
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    My take on it (and I lived through this) is that pre-web everyone ran on Windows. If you were writing software, it needed to run on Windows, so you had to code on a Windows machine. Then the web changed things, and a huge number of devs moved from writing Windows desktop applications to writing web applications for the dotcom boom (I was one). This took about a decade, from around '97ish. It also freed people to use different dev machines because most of the servers were LAMP (or variants thereof), and Macs could run the AMP bit fine. Web designers who had started off in Apple-land being designers on Adobe migrated into being web developers, and that helped spread Macs into the web dev community. Yes, Macs did get better during this same period, and there was a lot of great innovation. But if nothing else had changed then that wouldn't have mattered - if you had to write Windows applications then you couldn't do that on a Mac, no matter how sexy it was. I find the parallel with today's situation (and this discussion) fascinating.

pxeboot 6y ago

> Wayland already has trackpad support that's nearly identical to macOS. While PC trackpads were absolutely terrible for a long time, I actually really like the one used on my X1 Carbon. Inertia scrolling and gesters are not as smooth, but the hardware itself is quite pleasant.

aequitas 6y ago

> Gnome with a dock is basically the same desktop experience - Pick a distro of your choice. No it's not, macOS has a fundamentally different approach to apps and windows. Where you open only 1 app instance that can run multiple document windows. You switch between apps, and can then switch between windows in that app. This can partly be immitated in the window manager, but not all apps will work well with this pattern. Also standardized keyboard shortcuts, spelling check, secrets management and general app behaviour is hit and miss on Linux. Whereas on macOS most apps adhere to the human interface guidelines. This consistency and predictability gives me a greater efficiency on Mac over Linux system. I tried going back to Linux for 1,5 years when my then employer didn't allow me to work on a Mac and no matter how much I tweaked it, I could never get the same enjoyment and productivity compared to macOS.

monsieurbanana 6y ago
Nobody asked, yet I'll say it nonetheless: I had the same experience, reversed. Employer gave me a MacBook pro, I tried for a year to get used to it, but no matter how much I tweaked it I couldn't completely get out of the horrible (imo) experience that is Mac os Windows manager. It I want to switch to an open window I'll switch to the freaking opened window, stop trying to hijack what open an app means. Anyways, Mac os isn't bad, but you have to accept to give up a lot of things. It's their way, or nothing.
rbreaves 6y ago
It is time intensive to fix the odds & ends that Linux distros often haven’t. Kinda wish the author of the article would have taken a little more time learning about how easy it is to setup new keybinds in Kinto.sh (xkeysnail).
horsawlarway 6y ago
I mean... you're talking about exactly the same behavior as Gnome with a dock. I have a single application icon, clicking it once brings up the last window I had open. Clicking it twice displays a preview window for each open window, any of which I can click to fullscreen and focus. It's literally the same as the macOS dock, complete the with the dot indicator for number of open windows. Plus my upper left hotcorner displays all application windows, and I have my upper right set to display each window of the current application. They're preeeetty much identical. I'd know - I use both daily.