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I come from linux and I feel like I've been given a machine for computer illiterate people who are going to do some office work at Starbucks. Stereotypical, yes

I come from linux and I feel like I've been given a machine for computer illiterate people who are going to do some office work at Starbucks. Stereotypical, yes, but that's how I feel. I need this basic software feature. Yeah? Too bad, the OS won't allow you to do that. Maybe you'll find a paid app that does it. I do pay for software but when you have to pay for basic stuff that should come out of the box, it's a no for me. To cover the basics you need to pay a lot of money. Then there's the weird behaviour. Example. You have 2 Chrome windows on two different monitors. You're focusing one of them and on that same monitor witch to a fullscreen app and then go back. Now it'll raise and focus the Chrome window on the other monitor. In the worst case I just have to manually change the window, on the worst case, I'll use some shortcut on a windows that I'm not supposed to and break something. I wouldn't be the only one breaking/changing something in Jira because of this. The file manager is a joke. Again, something fancy but useless if you need a bit of functionality. At least the OS has a good shell that you can use instead. When I'm told to learn to use it "the Apple way" what I understand is, "shut up and get used to it, you have no saying in how your machine or you should work". If I leave my current job it'll be because of the Macbook.

chrisseaton 4y ago
> When I'm told to learn to use it "the Apple way" what I understand is, "shut up and get used to it, you have no saying in how your machine or you should work". Well yeah that is kind of the philosophy - a single simple way to do things. Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly. Don't confuse it with lack of power - it's a fully certified UNIX unlike most Linux distributions. They do have incredible support for accessibility, so they do accommodate people who genuinely need things to work differently, not just a preference. What they're not keen on is adding knobs and bells and whistles for the sake of it, as it's clutter.
- Darmody 4y ago
  > Well yeah that is kind of the philosophy - a single simple way to do things. Not being able to do something is very different from what you're saying. Not being able to do something, in fact, makes it more complicated because you need workarounds. > Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly Nobody is talking about customization. Missing features does not equal a simple way to do things. > Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly. How? How does that allow them to innovate more quickly? There has been no innovation in their UI for ages. > Don't confuse it with lack of power - it's a fully certified UNIX unlike most Linux distributions. Don't confuse lacking a POSIX certification with the lack of power. The certification is just a badge you pay money for. Nothing else. It can't even run Docker properly.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    I've not really encountered not being able to do something I needed to do with my Mac before that I can recall. You don't give many concrete examples of things you're unable to do, so I can't help you figure them out. The file manager is a joke? Well it lets you manage files not sure what else you need. I'd done my whole career doing PhD-level systems research on my Macs - hasn't held me back from doing anything. > Don't confuse lacking a POSIX certification with the lack of power. Don't confuse POSIX for UNIX! > It can't even run Docker properly. What are you missing with Docker? I use Docker all the time. It's fine what's wrong?
    - throwaway675309 4y ago
      Yeah I've literally got Docker desktop running in the background with multiple containers running seamlessly on my M1 max. I think he's just looking for a place to vent.
      - Darmody 4y ago
        You're saying it like you're the only one running docker. I use it daily too and it sucks. Containers needs rebooting a few times a day or the changes I make in the code won't work. Then there's the massive ram consumption. Emulated crap. Sorry if I hurt you feelings.
        chrisseaton 4y ago
        > Emulated crap. Docker is virtualisation, not emulation.
        Darmody 4y ago
        Yes, which is worse. Slower and more RAM hungry.
        chrisseaton 4y ago
- howinteresting 4y ago
  What does being a "certified UNIX" have to do with power?
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    People talk about macOS as being a toy and say it's not a real UNIX like Linux - but it's actually one of very few real UNIX implementations, which only includes a couple of Linux distributions.
    - howinteresting 4y ago
      Who says it's not a "real UNIX"? More importantly, who cares about that? Something being a "real UNIX" or not matters very little. I certainly think it is a "real UNIX", but I also think it's very much a toy. It doesn't even have a good tiling wm (yabai is janky af).
wombat-man 4y ago
yeah finder is pretty annoying. I don't know how to just get the path of where I'm at a lot of the time.
- swozey 4y ago
  I hate Finder and use Forklift, but if you alt-click (or command/ctrl, I can't tell on my keyboard) the top where it says the file name you'll be shown a tree of the path you're in. It's not the full file path in a text window unfortunately.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  There’s a toggle to enable a path bar in the View menu, along with an option to enable a status bar and a bunch of other things. It pays to explore the menus of apps under macOS — it’s not like under GNOME or Windows where menubars are vestigial and paltry if they exist at all, Mac apps actually put a lot of useful things in them.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
What are your issues with Finder specifically? I use Windows and Linux on a regular basis in addition to macOS and after a few basics (like enabling the path bar and setting the search field to search the current directory), I don’t find it any worse than Windows Explorer, and in fact preferable to something like Nautilus.
throwaway675309 4y ago
Meh I don't think I've ever really needed to rely on finder, when I do most of my file manipulation I just drop down to a bash shell. "To cover the basic" --> I think this is a situation where our personal preferences are being conflated with the basics because I've certainly never really had to pay out any significant amount of money to be able to do all the basic things I need from an OS. I'm a full-time software engineer and the quality control that Apple puts into their new MacBook M1 has easily made it my best and most productive system (before being on Debian, and before that on a windows 10 machine). Unlike a lot of people, I don't really give a crap about spending tons of time "accessorizing" my OS. To me it's merely a means to launch the applications and tools in which I can get work done (photoshop, blender, Clion, bitwig, vs code, etc).
klodolph 4y ago
What kind of functionality do you want from your file manager? I use Linux most of the time, but the file manager on Linux is so bad that I sometimes manage my files from a Mac using SMB or NFS. I've tried a couple different file managers on Linux, and have settled with the default GNOME file manager (formerly Nautilus), but it lags far behind the file managers on both Mac and Windows in terms of both features and basic usability. At least Mac and Windows file managers are reasonably easy to navigate by keyboard. If you have a directory open and want to select a file, you can just start typing the name. Easy, intuitive, and fast. This feature used to work in GNOME, but not any more. It's been abandoned. The Mac also has the column view, and I don't understand why other operating systems haven't adopted it. The GNOME file manager also maintains its own "shadow" set of mount points through GNOME's ill-conceived VFS mechanism. So if you want to mount a file share, you can see it in the browser, but you can't look at the files in a terminal window. It's weird and surprising.

chrisseaton 4y ago

> When I'm told to learn to use it "the Apple way" what I understand is, "shut up and get used to it, you have no saying in how your machine or you should work". Well yeah that is kind of the philosophy - a single simple way to do things. Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly. Don't confuse it with lack of power - it's a fully certified UNIX unlike most Linux distributions. They do have incredible support for accessibility, so they do accommodate people who genuinely need things to work differently, not just a preference. What they're not keen on is adding knobs and bells and whistles for the sake of it, as it's clutter.

Darmody 4y ago
> Well yeah that is kind of the philosophy - a single simple way to do things. Not being able to do something is very different from what you're saying. Not being able to do something, in fact, makes it more complicated because you need workarounds. > Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly Nobody is talking about customization. Missing features does not equal a simple way to do things. > Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly. How? How does that allow them to innovate more quickly? There has been no innovation in their UI for ages. > Don't confuse it with lack of power - it's a fully certified UNIX unlike most Linux distributions. Don't confuse lacking a POSIX certification with the lack of power. The certification is just a badge you pay money for. Nothing else. It can't even run Docker properly.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  I've not really encountered not being able to do something I needed to do with my Mac before that I can recall. You don't give many concrete examples of things you're unable to do, so I can't help you figure them out. The file manager is a joke? Well it lets you manage files not sure what else you need. I'd done my whole career doing PhD-level systems research on my Macs - hasn't held me back from doing anything. > Don't confuse lacking a POSIX certification with the lack of power. Don't confuse POSIX for UNIX! > It can't even run Docker properly. What are you missing with Docker? I use Docker all the time. It's fine what's wrong?
  - throwaway675309 4y ago
    Yeah I've literally got Docker desktop running in the background with multiple containers running seamlessly on my M1 max. I think he's just looking for a place to vent.
    - Darmody 4y ago
      You're saying it like you're the only one running docker. I use it daily too and it sucks. Containers needs rebooting a few times a day or the changes I make in the code won't work. Then there's the massive ram consumption. Emulated crap. Sorry if I hurt you feelings.
      - chrisseaton 4y ago
        > Emulated crap. Docker is virtualisation, not emulation.
        Darmody 4y ago
        Yes, which is worse. Slower and more RAM hungry.
        chrisseaton 4y ago
howinteresting 4y ago
What does being a "certified UNIX" have to do with power?
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  People talk about macOS as being a toy and say it's not a real UNIX like Linux - but it's actually one of very few real UNIX implementations, which only includes a couple of Linux distributions.
  - howinteresting 4y ago
    Who says it's not a "real UNIX"? More importantly, who cares about that? Something being a "real UNIX" or not matters very little. I certainly think it is a "real UNIX", but I also think it's very much a toy. It doesn't even have a good tiling wm (yabai is janky af).

wombat-man 4y ago

yeah finder is pretty annoying. I don't know how to just get the path of where I'm at a lot of the time.

swozey 4y ago
I hate Finder and use Forklift, but if you alt-click (or command/ctrl, I can't tell on my keyboard) the top where it says the file name you'll be shown a tree of the path you're in. It's not the full file path in a text window unfortunately.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
There’s a toggle to enable a path bar in the View menu, along with an option to enable a status bar and a bunch of other things. It pays to explore the menus of apps under macOS — it’s not like under GNOME or Windows where menubars are vestigial and paltry if they exist at all, Mac apps actually put a lot of useful things in them.

kitsunesoba 4y ago

What are your issues with Finder specifically? I use Windows and Linux on a regular basis in addition to macOS and after a few basics (like enabling the path bar and setting the search field to search the current directory), I don’t find it any worse than Windows Explorer, and in fact preferable to something like Nautilus.

throwaway675309 4y ago

Meh I don't think I've ever really needed to rely on finder, when I do most of my file manipulation I just drop down to a bash shell. "To cover the basic" --> I think this is a situation where our personal preferences are being conflated with the basics because I've certainly never really had to pay out any significant amount of money to be able to do all the basic things I need from an OS. I'm a full-time software engineer and the quality control that Apple puts into their new MacBook M1 has easily made it my best and most productive system (before being on Debian, and before that on a windows 10 machine). Unlike a lot of people, I don't really give a crap about spending tons of time "accessorizing" my OS. To me it's merely a means to launch the applications and tools in which I can get work done (photoshop, blender, Clion, bitwig, vs code, etc).

klodolph 4y ago

What kind of functionality do you want from your file manager? I use Linux most of the time, but the file manager on Linux is so bad that I sometimes manage my files from a Mac using SMB or NFS. I've tried a couple different file managers on Linux, and have settled with the default GNOME file manager (formerly Nautilus), but it lags far behind the file managers on both Mac and Windows in terms of both features and basic usability. At least Mac and Windows file managers are reasonably easy to navigate by keyboard. If you have a directory open and want to select a file, you can just start typing the name. Easy, intuitive, and fast. This feature used to work in GNOME, but not any more. It's been abandoned. The Mac also has the column view, and I don't understand why other operating systems haven't adopted it. The GNOME file manager also maintains its own "shadow" set of mount points through GNOME's ill-conceived VFS mechanism. So if you want to mount a file share, you can see it in the browser, but you can't look at the files in a terminal window. It's weird and surprising.