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> As a developer, why do you want to fight your operating system to get basic things done? This kind of thing easily goes both ways, and shows you're consideri

by DCKing 5y ago

> As a developer, why do you want to fight your operating system to get basic things done? This kind of thing easily goes both ways, and shows you're considering things only from a narrow angle. Which is understandable by the way - but please do consider other views :) There are lots of "basic things" that Linux doesn't get done, depending on your definition of basic thing. It's entirely reasonable for developers to consider things like "accurate and versatile trackpad movement" [1], "renders things consistently on HiDPI screens", "natively runs mainstream image editing or word processing apps", "can stream Disney+ above 720p", "has font rendering at least on par with Windows Vista", "has a Little Snitch type application that's both usable and actively maintained" or "there's stronger accountability in the development of apps I use because it's not largely developed by volunteers or people who assume I should solve my own problems". All of these "basic" things are a fight on Linux, most are a fight you can't even win, and this isn't even a comprehensive list. A lot of these have a good explanation as to why they're a fight, but you can't blame people for wanting to avoid that fight. I too run desktop Linux on machines because it offers a lot of flexibility while tinkering with things and a greater sense of control. But failing to see why Linux is not the objective pinnacle of desktop computing - even objective pinnacle of desktop computing for developers - is just really for a lack of trying. Desktop Linux is really awesome but damn it does it still have long ways to go. [1]: Up until recently, and maybe up until this day, the best trackpad experience on Linux is running desktop Linux in a VM on a macOS host.

bscphil 5y ago
> "accurate and versatile trackpad movement" I think you should leave this one out, because it's at best subjective. I've had a much better experience with trackpads on Linux than I have had on any Mac I've used, thanks to the synaptics driver. Far more customizable as well. Additionally, until pretty recently you'd be stuck with the nasty hinge-based touch pad on Mac laptops which required quite a bit of force to push, and tap-to-click was very much an afterthought.
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  > Additionally, until pretty recently you'd be stuck with the nasty hinge-based touch pad on Mac laptops I don’t remember that being the case for at least half a decade, while my 2019 Thinkpad still has such an awful trackpad. I would agree that trackpads are good enough on Linux, but not great like on a MacBook. Things like gesture support are unquestionably better on macOS.
  - bscphil 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm referring to the MBP I still have to use sometimes, which is mid-2014. The point being that it's not like Apple has a long history of consistently great trackpads. Certainly PC trackpads are inconsistent, which is unfortunate. Ideally you should try the trackpad on a laptop in person before you buy it (although if it feels great, and cursor movement sucks under Windows, might be safe to assume that's fixable in Linux). Interestingly, while I do appreciate some of the gestures on Macs (I don't use many of them), I'd trade that for having physical left/right buttons. I can even play casual games on my Dell laptop without plugging in an external mouse because the experience left/right clicking is so much more reliable.
michaelmrose 5y ago
The situation with steaming services only supporting a lower resolution on certain platforms reminds me of skype only supporting a certain resolution if you didn't buy a logitech camera or only supporting a lower maximum number of people in a video call if you weren't using an intel CPU. It's a scam with no technical justifications that would magically disappear if there were enough users demanding it. Most users may need the ability to read word files but proportionally few need word. Photoshop is far less useful yet. Out of 4.7B internet users 22M are using photoshop. 1 out of 213 internet users need photoshop now. Bloom is an app that costs you $50 once if gimp doesn't suit. Instead of paying by the month you pay if you want the updated version. Nobody on earth needs little snitch. It's literally a fix for one of two things. Applications you don't actually trust that want to phone home and people keeping their cracked applications from realizing they are cracked. The actual solution is not to run applications you don't trust. Don't pirate software and don't install untrustworthy garbage. This is literally the reason why there isn't a good solution for this on Linux. There isn't an actual use case. It's a solution in search of a problem. Incidentally KDE has good hidpi support out of the box but a few applications need particular configuration. Takes about 10 minutes to read an article and configure stuff. Add 3 more minutes if you need to configure this yourself by setting environmental variables. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI Works well even on mixed DPI even on plain old X11. I can't speak for trackpads because I regard them as pretty crappy I'd prefer a small blutooth mouse even on the go. I've only tested the Mac trackpad in a show room I didn't find it particularly better or worse.

by DCKing 5y ago

bscphil 5y ago

> "accurate and versatile trackpad movement" I think you should leave this one out, because it's at best subjective. I've had a much better experience with trackpads on Linux than I have had on any Mac I've used, thanks to the synaptics driver. Far more customizable as well. Additionally, until pretty recently you'd be stuck with the nasty hinge-based touch pad on Mac laptops which required quite a bit of force to push, and tap-to-click was very much an afterthought.

read_if_gay_ 5y ago
> Additionally, until pretty recently you'd be stuck with the nasty hinge-based touch pad on Mac laptops I don’t remember that being the case for at least half a decade, while my 2019 Thinkpad still has such an awful trackpad. I would agree that trackpads are good enough on Linux, but not great like on a MacBook. Things like gesture support are unquestionably better on macOS.
- bscphil 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm referring to the MBP I still have to use sometimes, which is mid-2014. The point being that it's not like Apple has a long history of consistently great trackpads. Certainly PC trackpads are inconsistent, which is unfortunate. Ideally you should try the trackpad on a laptop in person before you buy it (although if it feels great, and cursor movement sucks under Windows, might be safe to assume that's fixable in Linux). Interestingly, while I do appreciate some of the gestures on Macs (I don't use many of them), I'd trade that for having physical left/right buttons. I can even play casual games on my Dell laptop without plugging in an external mouse because the experience left/right clicking is so much more reliable.

michaelmrose 5y ago

The situation with steaming services only supporting a lower resolution on certain platforms reminds me of skype only supporting a certain resolution if you didn't buy a logitech camera or only supporting a lower maximum number of people in a video call if you weren't using an intel CPU. It's a scam with no technical justifications that would magically disappear if there were enough users demanding it. Most users may need the ability to read word files but proportionally few need word. Photoshop is far less useful yet. Out of 4.7B internet users 22M are using photoshop. 1 out of 213 internet users need photoshop now. Bloom is an app that costs you $50 once if gimp doesn't suit. Instead of paying by the month you pay if you want the updated version. Nobody on earth needs little snitch. It's literally a fix for one of two things. Applications you don't actually trust that want to phone home and people keeping their cracked applications from realizing they are cracked. The actual solution is not to run applications you don't trust. Don't pirate software and don't install untrustworthy garbage. This is literally the reason why there isn't a good solution for this on Linux. There isn't an actual use case. It's a solution in search of a problem. Incidentally KDE has good hidpi support out of the box but a few applications need particular configuration. Takes about 10 minutes to read an article and configure stuff. Add 3 more minutes if you need to configure this yourself by setting environmental variables. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI Works well even on mixed DPI even on plain old X11. I can't speak for trackpads because I regard them as pretty crappy I'd prefer a small blutooth mouse even on the go. I've only tested the Mac trackpad in a show room I didn't find it particularly better or worse.