4 ms·

I've noticed periodical load on my system for months now, maybe a year. I'm not okay with it. Cements my decision that my next workstation will be Linux. macOS

I've noticed periodical load on my system for months now, maybe a year. I'm not okay with it. Cements my decision that my next workstation will be Linux. macOS is getting way too non-user-controllable.

yreg 4y ago
You can turn off system integrity protection if you want to…
- pdimitar 4y ago
  That's a different thing though. I don't want Zoom and Chrome pwning my system. I just want less intrusive antivirus software. Or at least have the decency to show up on the menu bar's status icons list with a spinning icon or whatever. Apparently that's too much to ask. No, I have to find out why my compilation is currently going 2x slower by checking the CPU load and seeing yet another XWhateverService taking up 200% CPU and 50% SSD capacity.
olyjohn 4y ago
Try using MacOS in an enterprise. They locked the fucking power settings on me, even though I use my own power at home. So it goes to sleep after 10 minutes with no mouse movement, drops the VPN and all my SSH sessions, and then forgets my monitor layout. Computers work pretty damn well most of the time, but as soon as enterprise IT gets their hands on it, they clog it up with poorly written, well marketed security software. We have shit like privilege managers running so that we can install "whitelisted" apps. Still have MS endpoint protection, which is a total piece of shit. All the MDM shit that runs in the background, some password sync manager, a goddamn locally installed proxy that hijacks all your web traffic. JAMF always in there fucking crashing and doing who knows what. And we migrated our laptops when our company was bought out. And so the entire security suite was completely different. All the old security software was removed, but left cruft, and extensions and shit all over the computer. All our computers run like total dogshit until an OS reload. All this bullshit that makes our productivity crawl to a halt, just so that they can check some boxes on a security audit.
- grosswait 4y ago
  Organizations are being denied cyber liability coverage for not having EDR across the board. Without the data to prove what didn’t happen, most regs require assuming the worst, possibly resulting in hefty fines. Unfortunately the current cyber landscape does not favor the worker.
- pdimitar 4y ago
  My sympathies! Sounds like a nightmare story indeed and I might refuse a company's offer on the basis of having to go through this alone... Although can't deny that for the most of us US salaries are pretty damn appealing. Truthfully, if I was director of IT and security, I'd likely just source all laptops in my department and preinstall everything needed and then ship the machine to the new employee, giving them passwords through a secure channel e.g. Signal / encrypted Telegram chats / PGP'd mail etc. I've worked once on a corporate Linux laptop and it was a nightmare. The machine in particular wasn't very good and was easily overheating and its fans were always spinning, and of course the VPN worker crashed every 3-4h or so -- which still wasn't a big deal for a 8h working day, mind you, but you did have to always be prepared for the next thing you're doing to fail with a mysterious network failure. Again, sympathies. It sounds like a shit show. Another thing I'd consider would just be to ship everyone the same 8GB RAM laptops that all remote into cloud instances. Machine stolen? Tokens / passwords / keys expire every hour anyway even if the IT is asleep at the wheel for that one hour, so who cares.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  I feel your annoyance about it going to sleep, but you should be able to run the built-in 'caffeinate' command in the terminal to prevent sleep -- you don't need to install Amphetamine. If for some reason that didn't work, you can also find a long YouTube video to play on mute -- videos disable sleep as well.
- em500 4y ago
  Right. I always thought that a non-trivial part of the bad rep of Windows comes from the fact that lots of people were forced to use it at work with tons of enterprise junkware that was barely distinguisable from unremove malware. My home Windows machines on much weaker hardware always ran a lot better than machines at work. And in the past few years it feels like my corporate JAMF managed MacBook is heading in the same direction.
saagarjha 4y ago
What is it?
- pdimitar 4y ago
  Sorry, what is what?
  - saagarjha 4y ago
    The load. Where is it coming from?
    - pdimitar 4y ago
      Various XProtect or XService (or something similar) processes. I looked them up about a year ago, they check out to be Apple services. Problem is they fire up at the most random of times and sometimes really get in the way of my work. Granted it's never more than 30-60 seconds but I am growing weary of having to fight my system or choose to just give up and wait.
tannhaeuser 4y ago
It's the other way around for me. Had been happy with Linux until gnome 3, then just when commercial apps were there, usability went downhill, and kde just sucks in another way. I know about SIP and other crap, but using Linux desktops just ceased to be fun and gets in the way a lot, so I'm looking forward to buy a MacBook again after many years.
- pdimitar 4y ago
  Well admittedly my main reason for wanting to switch is not the kind-of-intrusive virus scanner. I want to experiment with a lot of tech and 99% of it is only accessible in Linux. I want to try more things than just what I'm paid to do today so that kind of finalized the decision. As for desktop Linux, I know it's a challenge. But I'll make it work. I feel it's a worth investment.

yreg 4y ago

You can turn off system integrity protection if you want to…

pdimitar 4y ago
That's a different thing though. I don't want Zoom and Chrome pwning my system. I just want less intrusive antivirus software. Or at least have the decency to show up on the menu bar's status icons list with a spinning icon or whatever. Apparently that's too much to ask. No, I have to find out why my compilation is currently going 2x slower by checking the CPU load and seeing yet another XWhateverService taking up 200% CPU and 50% SSD capacity.

olyjohn 4y ago

Try using MacOS in an enterprise. They locked the fucking power settings on me, even though I use my own power at home. So it goes to sleep after 10 minutes with no mouse movement, drops the VPN and all my SSH sessions, and then forgets my monitor layout. Computers work pretty damn well most of the time, but as soon as enterprise IT gets their hands on it, they clog it up with poorly written, well marketed security software. We have shit like privilege managers running so that we can install "whitelisted" apps. Still have MS endpoint protection, which is a total piece of shit. All the MDM shit that runs in the background, some password sync manager, a goddamn locally installed proxy that hijacks all your web traffic. JAMF always in there fucking crashing and doing who knows what. And we migrated our laptops when our company was bought out. And so the entire security suite was completely different. All the old security software was removed, but left cruft, and extensions and shit all over the computer. All our computers run like total dogshit until an OS reload. All this bullshit that makes our productivity crawl to a halt, just so that they can check some boxes on a security audit.

grosswait 4y ago
Organizations are being denied cyber liability coverage for not having EDR across the board. Without the data to prove what didn’t happen, most regs require assuming the worst, possibly resulting in hefty fines. Unfortunately the current cyber landscape does not favor the worker.
pdimitar 4y ago
My sympathies! Sounds like a nightmare story indeed and I might refuse a company's offer on the basis of having to go through this alone... Although can't deny that for the most of us US salaries are pretty damn appealing. Truthfully, if I was director of IT and security, I'd likely just source all laptops in my department and preinstall everything needed and then ship the machine to the new employee, giving them passwords through a secure channel e.g. Signal / encrypted Telegram chats / PGP'd mail etc. I've worked once on a corporate Linux laptop and it was a nightmare. The machine in particular wasn't very good and was easily overheating and its fans were always spinning, and of course the VPN worker crashed every 3-4h or so -- which still wasn't a big deal for a 8h working day, mind you, but you did have to always be prepared for the next thing you're doing to fail with a mysterious network failure. Again, sympathies. It sounds like a shit show. Another thing I'd consider would just be to ship everyone the same 8GB RAM laptops that all remote into cloud instances. Machine stolen? Tokens / passwords / keys expire every hour anyway even if the IT is asleep at the wheel for that one hour, so who cares.
crazygringo 4y ago
I feel your annoyance about it going to sleep, but you should be able to run the built-in 'caffeinate' command in the terminal to prevent sleep -- you don't need to install Amphetamine. If for some reason that didn't work, you can also find a long YouTube video to play on mute -- videos disable sleep as well.
em500 4y ago
Right. I always thought that a non-trivial part of the bad rep of Windows comes from the fact that lots of people were forced to use it at work with tons of enterprise junkware that was barely distinguisable from unremove malware. My home Windows machines on much weaker hardware always ran a lot better than machines at work. And in the past few years it feels like my corporate JAMF managed MacBook is heading in the same direction.

saagarjha 4y ago

What is it?

pdimitar 4y ago
Sorry, what is what?
- saagarjha 4y ago
  The load. Where is it coming from?
  - pdimitar 4y ago
    Various XProtect or XService (or something similar) processes. I looked them up about a year ago, they check out to be Apple services. Problem is they fire up at the most random of times and sometimes really get in the way of my work. Granted it's never more than 30-60 seconds but I am growing weary of having to fight my system or choose to just give up and wait.

tannhaeuser 4y ago

It's the other way around for me. Had been happy with Linux until gnome 3, then just when commercial apps were there, usability went downhill, and kde just sucks in another way. I know about SIP and other crap, but using Linux desktops just ceased to be fun and gets in the way a lot, so I'm looking forward to buy a MacBook again after many years.

pdimitar 4y ago
Well admittedly my main reason for wanting to switch is not the kind-of-intrusive virus scanner. I want to experiment with a lot of tech and 99% of it is only accessible in Linux. I want to try more things than just what I'm paid to do today so that kind of finalized the decision. As for desktop Linux, I know it's a challenge. But I'll make it work. I feel it's a worth investment.