5 ms·

There is nothing FOSS about macOS that I personally find appealing. The future of macOS is strictly into direction of further closing and limiting. SIP is monst

by nbzso 5y ago

There is nothing FOSS about macOS that I personally find appealing. The future of macOS is strictly into direction of further closing and limiting. SIP is monstrosity, Brew is hell under Catalina. There are awesome people who basically hack and find a way to port things, but comparing this with true FOSS OS is naive. Pinch of salt is not needed, the golden days when we had real MacOS are long gone. Someone asked strange question: Does an app being cross-platform diminish its value to the user? Nope. Several times no. Example: Affinity Designer is cross-platform and thank to this my production workflow can live without "active scanning" from some corporate overlord. Too much Apple brainwashing is going around, too much.

fouc 5y ago
What if power users always disabled SIP & didn't use Brew at all, instead used a better package manager like nix (or srcpkg or macports). Still get the benefits of a *nix like environment with the GUI of MacOS
- azalemeth 5y ago
  I don't have any particular hate for brew, but I do use macports as it is arguably closer to the "feel" and stability of something like yum. I've disabled SIP since day one and stick to 10.14. I urge others to disable SIP if they're developers -- each crash report includes its status and as you need it turned off to be able to debug everything, it sends a signal to apple reminding them to not shut the gate on their walled garden.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    What differentiates 10.14 to the later two and soon three OSes? 32 bit I know is a thing but that’s not relevant to this discussion.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    > but I do use macports as it is arguably closer to the "feel" and stability of something like yum. That is 'cos it was developed by the same developers, hired by Apple, who also created the ports system on FreeBSD.
    - luckman212 5y ago
      Never tried MacPorts (longtime brew user) -- sounds like the grass is a little greener there. Any downsides to switching?
      - azalemeth 5y ago
        Honestly, they're both very good, and any discussion of this is going to be almost bordering on opinion and little else. Here are a few potential downsides: - The 'kool kids' tend to use brew -- so sometimes you end up with packages that are not in the ports ecosystem. That said, the total number of ports is, I believe, about 4x larger than brew's formulae. But take that number with a pinch of salt. - Every time you upgrade the OS (e.g. 10.14 to 10.15) you need to effectively reinstall ports. This sounds hard, but it isn't -- it's also well documented [1]. It's because they link against various OS-specific foundations. - Very rarely you run into apt-style "dependency hell". This has only happened to me once or twice in ~15 years of using it, and is easily fixed. The upsides: - All that being said, it's rock stable - The documentation is excellent - It doesn't come with google analytics by default (unlike brew -- which is opt-out, I should say) - Macports retains the entire dependency tree of a package and offers both source and binary builds A more detailed comparison could be found e.g. here: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-package-managers/ https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-pack... [1] https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration
      - webmobdev 5y ago
        You'll have to use sudo more. :) The advantages are however umpteen: MacPorts has excellent support for older macOS versions. It is built with C and TCL and is compact and blazing fast, compared to HomeBrew which is a bunch of Ruby scripts. MacPorts has the highest number of packages available for macOS, and all other Package Managers trail behind it (last I remember, it had like 5 times more packages than HB). HomeBrew packages sometimes have dependency on the installed OS packages. This is good for saving space. MacPorts however maintains and installs all dependencies separate from the OS. So there is no danger of corrupting OS installed packages or vice versa. Another advantage is you never know whether Apple has customised some packages for their own use, and if it will behave differently. MacPorts doesn't do any kind of data collection. HomeBrew has Google Analytics integrated within it (it can, and has to, be turned off). MacPorts adheres to the unix philosophy better than HomeBrew, both in terms of security and where packages are stored in the OS. Here's a good FAQ to peruse - https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ
- nbzso 5y ago
  As an ex Apple user I am amazed at extensibility and configuration options in KDE/Plasma. With minimal effort I have professional environment with enough animation an GUI is responsive and blisteringly fast. There is no denying that macOS is polished GUI-wise, but as UX for professional work is nothing special. I used Pathfinder for years (shorturl.at/lrxER) to suppress Finder lack of functions. Another example: In Finder you cannot compress a file and add a password protection. In Dolphin this is integrated and you have a choice of file compression and type of password protection. Apple is changing visual language of macOS to give impression of advancements and iOS like appearance. In reality the advancements are related to more deep integration to the ecosystem and further closing of the platform. For people, who are asking what professional GUI must look like, I always give the interface of Soundtrack Pro as an example. This was the pinnacle of MacOS GUI and UX design, clean, with clear separation of controllers and professional color scheme with balanced contrast. Warning: Some skeumorphism ahead: shorturl.at/IJMP9
hvocode 5y ago
I'm not sure it's a question of FOSS OS vs non-FOSS OS. Working with MacOS has always felt similar to working with other non-Linuxes -- it's different. When OSX first came along with Rhapsody, while it was a form of UNIX it was definitely painful - stuff rarely built out of box, and there was lots of breakage. It surprises me when people talk about how wonderful OSX used to be that they forget how absolutely painful it was for the first few years of its existence. There was a brief period between 2005 and 2013 when stuff worked reliably (the "golden age" you refer to) - and it wasn't a matter of OSX becoming more open. It was just popular, so OSX was a first class citizen in most configure scripts and the OS didn't really put up any barriers to using it like a Linux with respect to the Linux security/permissions model. The added restrictions of recent times (e.g. SIP, the move to a non-GNU build toolchain, hard read-only restrictions on the OS region of the filesystem, etc) aren't so much a FOSS issue as them just adopting conventions that aren't present on the Linuxes. The breakage of packages and porting efforts feel very similar to when we used to have to worry about how a package would work on HP-UX, Irix, Solaris, and the various systems that were all similar but not quite identical. That was never a function of FOSS or not - it was just a function of not being all the same. I find it very frustrating that people try to treat OSX as a Linux - it's not, and it never will be. If you want to support macOS, then support macOS - don't try to bash Linux-isms onto it since they will always feel like a hack since it isn't and never will be a Linux. If that's important to you, there's an easy solution - use Linux. I do that - I have my MacBook that I use as a Mac, and for the stuff that's simply too awkward to use natively there, I just ssh to my Linux workstation and carry on.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

by nbzso 5y ago

fouc 5y ago

What if power users always disabled SIP & didn't use Brew at all, instead used a better package manager like nix (or srcpkg or macports). Still get the benefits of a *nix like environment with the GUI of MacOS

azalemeth 5y ago
I don't have any particular hate for brew, but I do use macports as it is arguably closer to the "feel" and stability of something like yum. I've disabled SIP since day one and stick to 10.14. I urge others to disable SIP if they're developers -- each crash report includes its status and as you need it turned off to be able to debug everything, it sends a signal to apple reminding them to not shut the gate on their walled garden.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  What differentiates 10.14 to the later two and soon three OSes? 32 bit I know is a thing but that’s not relevant to this discussion.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  > but I do use macports as it is arguably closer to the "feel" and stability of something like yum. That is 'cos it was developed by the same developers, hired by Apple, who also created the ports system on FreeBSD.
  - luckman212 5y ago
    Never tried MacPorts (longtime brew user) -- sounds like the grass is a little greener there. Any downsides to switching?
    - azalemeth 5y ago
      Honestly, they're both very good, and any discussion of this is going to be almost bordering on opinion and little else. Here are a few potential downsides: - The 'kool kids' tend to use brew -- so sometimes you end up with packages that are not in the ports ecosystem. That said, the total number of ports is, I believe, about 4x larger than brew's formulae. But take that number with a pinch of salt. - Every time you upgrade the OS (e.g. 10.14 to 10.15) you need to effectively reinstall ports. This sounds hard, but it isn't -- it's also well documented [1]. It's because they link against various OS-specific foundations. - Very rarely you run into apt-style "dependency hell". This has only happened to me once or twice in ~15 years of using it, and is easily fixed. The upsides: - All that being said, it's rock stable - The documentation is excellent - It doesn't come with google analytics by default (unlike brew -- which is opt-out, I should say) - Macports retains the entire dependency tree of a package and offers both source and binary builds A more detailed comparison could be found e.g. here: https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-package-managers/ https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-pack... [1] https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration https://trac.macports.org/wiki/Migration
    - webmobdev 5y ago
      You'll have to use sudo more. :) The advantages are however umpteen: MacPorts has excellent support for older macOS versions. It is built with C and TCL and is compact and blazing fast, compared to HomeBrew which is a bunch of Ruby scripts. MacPorts has the highest number of packages available for macOS, and all other Package Managers trail behind it (last I remember, it had like 5 times more packages than HB). HomeBrew packages sometimes have dependency on the installed OS packages. This is good for saving space. MacPorts however maintains and installs all dependencies separate from the OS. So there is no danger of corrupting OS installed packages or vice versa. Another advantage is you never know whether Apple has customised some packages for their own use, and if it will behave differently. MacPorts doesn't do any kind of data collection. HomeBrew has Google Analytics integrated within it (it can, and has to, be turned off). MacPorts adheres to the unix philosophy better than HomeBrew, both in terms of security and where packages are stored in the OS. Here's a good FAQ to peruse - https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ https://trac.macports.org/wiki/FAQ
nbzso 5y ago
As an ex Apple user I am amazed at extensibility and configuration options in KDE/Plasma. With minimal effort I have professional environment with enough animation an GUI is responsive and blisteringly fast. There is no denying that macOS is polished GUI-wise, but as UX for professional work is nothing special. I used Pathfinder for years (shorturl.at/lrxER) to suppress Finder lack of functions. Another example: In Finder you cannot compress a file and add a password protection. In Dolphin this is integrated and you have a choice of file compression and type of password protection. Apple is changing visual language of macOS to give impression of advancements and iOS like appearance. In reality the advancements are related to more deep integration to the ecosystem and further closing of the platform. For people, who are asking what professional GUI must look like, I always give the interface of Soundtrack Pro as an example. This was the pinnacle of MacOS GUI and UX design, clean, with clear separation of controllers and professional color scheme with balanced contrast. Warning: Some skeumorphism ahead: shorturl.at/IJMP9

hvocode 5y ago

I'm not sure it's a question of FOSS OS vs non-FOSS OS. Working with MacOS has always felt similar to working with other non-Linuxes -- it's different. When OSX first came along with Rhapsody, while it was a form of UNIX it was definitely painful - stuff rarely built out of box, and there was lots of breakage. It surprises me when people talk about how wonderful OSX used to be that they forget how absolutely painful it was for the first few years of its existence. There was a brief period between 2005 and 2013 when stuff worked reliably (the "golden age" you refer to) - and it wasn't a matter of OSX becoming more open. It was just popular, so OSX was a first class citizen in most configure scripts and the OS didn't really put up any barriers to using it like a Linux with respect to the Linux security/permissions model. The added restrictions of recent times (e.g. SIP, the move to a non-GNU build toolchain, hard read-only restrictions on the OS region of the filesystem, etc) aren't so much a FOSS issue as them just adopting conventions that aren't present on the Linuxes. The breakage of packages and porting efforts feel very similar to when we used to have to worry about how a package would work on HP-UX, Irix, Solaris, and the various systems that were all similar but not quite identical. That was never a function of FOSS or not - it was just a function of not being all the same. I find it very frustrating that people try to treat OSX as a Linux - it's not, and it never will be. If you want to support macOS, then support macOS - don't try to bash Linux-isms onto it since they will always feel like a hack since it isn't and never will be a Linux. If that's important to you, there's an easy solution - use Linux. I do that - I have my MacBook that I use as a Mac, and for the stuff that's simply too awkward to use natively there, I just ssh to my Linux workstation and carry on.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]