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This is so alien to me. I've got linux on half a dozen machines around the house, and all I do to install is decide whether to use ubuntu or debian, then run t

• le-mark 4y ago
  > This is so alien to me. Indeed, it’s FUD as if sent by bots from Balmers time, that are still running, inexplicably.
• carlosjobim 4y ago
  Re-reading my comment and considering the general tone of the thread, it seems I was making a rhetorical question or suggestion, but I'm genuinely interested in knowing from people with experience if a hackintosh could be a better alternative to Linux. Looking online it seems to be a horrendous process, but there is also a helpful and competent community, great guides, and very detailed hardware suggestions. If I have to waste a couple of days to turn a new machine into a hackintosh and then have it work as normal, that would be a cheaper price to pay than learning programming - which is more or less required to use Linux as a power user. Not even considering all pro software available on Mac that is not available on Linux. As for the basic OS functionality I couldn't get functioning in Linux Ubuntu when I had to use it for some weeks last year: 1. Installing software: In the Ubuntu App Store, most software just gave an error without details trying to install. You can't download files and open to install like in other systems. You have to mess with installing different repos and then use commands in terminal. But apt-get Firefox doesn't work, it has to be apt-get install Firefox. Or Yum if you're on another distro. 2. Dual displays with different DPI: I had to make some kind of xrander script with a 0.99999999 instead of 1 hack and run it on every boot to make this work. 3. E-Mail: I couldn't find a client that was good enough for my professional needs and had to resolve to using Fastmail in the browser. The same with Calendar apps; all the Linux options were very basic and not good enough for pro use. 4. Keyboard shortcuts are not shared by all apps like in other OSes, very hard to configure. In macOS there's Better Touch Tool that does absolutely everything. I won't bring up hardware problems, since that can be blamed on the device manufacturer equally as on Linux, but these things above are already deal breakers to me. I tried other distros, but they were worse than Ubuntu to get to work. Linux is great for server admins and programmers I believe, and I'm sure it's much better than Windows for a grandparent to browse and just use web apps. But there exists many power users and professionals who need a useful computer and are not able to recompile the OS or nano/vim in huge config files to make their system work. I'm one of them, and desktop Linux is not an option in its current state. MacOS is not perfect, maybe not even great, but it has all basic OS functionality out of the box. If anything is bothering me or I need special functionality there is always well-polished software available to easily install to solve any problem. Sometimes free, and sometimes for a cheap price. Among many programmers and Linux enthusiasts it seems to be a crime against humanity to pay for software, something I never understood. If I can pay $10 to buy an app that fixes my problem, why would I waste my time recompiling and tinkering, dredging through dense Linux forums? Add to this all the incredible productivity software that can be bought in MacOS for a cheap price. So that makes me wonder if Hackintosh is not a better option for power users who are not programmers?
  • Nursie 4y ago
    > In the Ubuntu App Store, most software just gave an error without details trying to install. That does sound like an issue. I don't think it's a common one though. I can't say I've had that problem with any of my Ubuntu installs. When was this? > You can't download files and open to install like in other systems. You absolutely can, but you shouldn't, we have repositories that handle those, publish updates etc, and everything is of known provenance. Download-and-double-click is a pretty broken model that encourages people to install compromised crap from god knows where and get their systems owned. > apt-get Firefox doesn't work, it has to be apt-get install Firefox Seriously, your complaint is that, in multi-function tool apt-get, you have to type "apt-get install firefox" instead of just "apt-get firefox". This is not a reasonable complaint. You claim to be a "power user", but an extra word (which distinguishes between install, update and remove tasks for apt) is too much trouble? That doesn't sound very power-usery to me. > Dual displays with different DPI Yeah fair enough, this has been a problem area. Nvidia-settings will often do the job or you end up with a script. Wayland allegedly fixes this, but isn't suitable for nvidia users. IMHO once you have your xrandr script though, you end up with a system that's better than either MS or Apple can manage, which displays things more consistently across your screens. > E-Mail: I couldn't find a client that was good enough for my professional needs Who even uses an email client any more? Everything's web based. Are there mail clients that provide more functionality than Thunderbird? > Keyboard shortcuts are not shared by all apps It's true, however they are consistent enough these days, especially within an ecosystem like gnome or kde, I barely notice. > need a useful computer and are not able to recompile the OS > why would I waste my time recompiling and tinkering Yeah at this point I'm going with the other responder, there's quite a lot of FUD leaking into your post here. The idea that you have to recompile your OS or anything else to get a functional system is around 15 years out of date now and straight out of microsoft's old FUD playbook. > dredging through dense Linux forums? Just last week my windows 11 install (I keep it around for gaming) complained that it couldn’t activate a safety feature, memory consistency checking or something, due to outdated drivers. It listed drivers for hardware I no longer owned as being a problem. I ended up on a multi-hour trip down the google rabbit hole to try to fix that because there were no updates to those drivers and the official microsoft line is people should never uninstall any drivers, so they don't provide an interface to do it. Eventually I found some command-line tool, after dredging through a dense windows forum, that MS don't want normal users to know about. So IMHO, windows is not suitable for the desktop user. > So that makes me wonder if Hackintosh is not a better option for power users who are not programmers? The idea that you can run a Hackintosh without messing around even more than a linux install, and without risking total system breakage on every update, is kinda funny. This is why I felt the need to respond to you - setting up a hackintosh starts as an exercise in finding compatible hardware (because you can't just throw anything at it). Nvidia won't work. AMD cards will work, but you may end up having to do all sorts of odd stuff like device id spoofing (https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/y6yzue/drivers_on_6750_xt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/y6yzue/drivers_...) AFAICT this is the current state of the art guide to setting up a hackintosh - https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/installation/installation-process.html https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/installati... Note how far you have to get before you even proceed to installation! I love Macs, and have run hackintoshes in the past, but in general it's not an exercise for someone who's afraid to type the word 'install' in their apt command line to install firefox.