4 ms·

It’s designed this way because we can’t have nice things. It’s been too easy to mess things up by repartitioning the hard drive and installing a different OS.

It’s designed this way because we can’t have nice things. It’s been too easy to mess things up by repartitioning the hard drive and installing a different OS. The M1 is blazing fast; I imagine by the time the pro versions ship with 32 or 64 Gb of RAM and more high performance cores, running Linux in a VM on Apple Silicon Macs should be a solved problem.

josephg 6y ago
In Apple's defence, linux still isn't fit for purpose from an every day user security standpoint. On linux I can't install and run a program without giving it access to my network and write access to all of my data. For the average person, the whole point of a computer is to be able to run software that usually interacts with things (data on disks) and people (over the network). My mum doesn't want to be able to brick her computer by pressing the wrong sequence of keys / buttons in the control panel. And she doesn't want a malicious program to be able to use her credentials to encrypt and ransom all her company's data. Removing features from my mum's computer makes it a better device for her. And sometimes a better device for me - I trust my iphone to safely run 3rd party software more than I trust my linux desktop. Apple's philosophy - while very different from what I want in a computer - is absolutely oriented toward a sensible, well thought out vision of computing. I think us hackers do a disservice by dismissing the use case.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I recently gave my grandfather a Linux machine to use–it's done much better than his Windows computer at least. All he needs to do is click the browser in the dock at the bottom.
  - Koiwai 6y ago
    You're a shitty grandson, why not just configure your DE so that browser launches on startup?
    - tomcam 6y ago
      Downvoters, you may want to imagine a world in which the parent has a... wait for it... sense of humor
  - josephg 6y ago
    Thats fine so long as we're happy to relegate all end user software to be run inside the web browser. But I can't help but mourn what we're losing in the process. I've spent most of my career on the web. But web apps are always (and will probably always be) second class citizens to desktop apps because they're slower, can't integrate as well into the desktop environment, have a one-size-fits-all user interface, they can't really save and load local files and so on. And sure - web software has been strengthening linux because most native software never targets linux anyway. But surely there are other answers?
- alwillis 6y ago
  Agreed. I recently helped a Windows 10 user who didn’t know how to change her wallpaper even though she’s had her PC for years. Not everyone wants to or should be a system administrator in order to browse the web or use a spreadsheet. The vast majority of computer users shouldn’t even attempt some of the things we used to do back in the day…
- LocalH 6y ago
  I don't dismiss the use case, I just bemoan that they are becoming increasingly draconian in enforcing that use case on everyone, even those who would like to gain some of the benefits that Apple does offer, without having to deal with the cruft.

josephg 6y ago

In Apple's defence, linux still isn't fit for purpose from an every day user security standpoint. On linux I can't install and run a program without giving it access to my network and write access to all of my data. For the average person, the whole point of a computer is to be able to run software that usually interacts with things (data on disks) and people (over the network). My mum doesn't want to be able to brick her computer by pressing the wrong sequence of keys / buttons in the control panel. And she doesn't want a malicious program to be able to use her credentials to encrypt and ransom all her company's data. Removing features from my mum's computer makes it a better device for her. And sometimes a better device for me - I trust my iphone to safely run 3rd party software more than I trust my linux desktop. Apple's philosophy - while very different from what I want in a computer - is absolutely oriented toward a sensible, well thought out vision of computing. I think us hackers do a disservice by dismissing the use case.

saagarjha 6y ago
I recently gave my grandfather a Linux machine to use–it's done much better than his Windows computer at least. All he needs to do is click the browser in the dock at the bottom.
- Koiwai 6y ago
  You're a shitty grandson, why not just configure your DE so that browser launches on startup?
  - tomcam 6y ago
    Downvoters, you may want to imagine a world in which the parent has a... wait for it... sense of humor
- josephg 6y ago
  Thats fine so long as we're happy to relegate all end user software to be run inside the web browser. But I can't help but mourn what we're losing in the process. I've spent most of my career on the web. But web apps are always (and will probably always be) second class citizens to desktop apps because they're slower, can't integrate as well into the desktop environment, have a one-size-fits-all user interface, they can't really save and load local files and so on. And sure - web software has been strengthening linux because most native software never targets linux anyway. But surely there are other answers?
alwillis 6y ago
Agreed. I recently helped a Windows 10 user who didn’t know how to change her wallpaper even though she’s had her PC for years. Not everyone wants to or should be a system administrator in order to browse the web or use a spreadsheet. The vast majority of computer users shouldn’t even attempt some of the things we used to do back in the day…
LocalH 6y ago
I don't dismiss the use case, I just bemoan that they are becoming increasingly draconian in enforcing that use case on everyone, even those who would like to gain some of the benefits that Apple does offer, without having to deal with the cruft.