12 ms·

Things that suck: fractional scaling doesn't work anywhere properly, most of the desktop apps have terrible user experiences, absolutely show stopping bugs, sus

Things that suck: fractional scaling doesn't work anywhere properly, most of the desktop apps have terrible user experiences, absolutely show stopping bugs, suspend/resume on the whole platform is Russian roulette, inconsistencies everywhere, vast differences on rendering between toolkits, sound over BT is terrible and everything is half finished. It feels like an artist's attic rather than a competent platform. If you spend most of your time in a terminal or IDE you don't see the pain. I want it to work. I want to use it. But it's just bad quality. In context, by the time I've worked around the issues, I earn enough to just buy a Mac and use that. And everything works fine there!

talldayo 2y ago
It's funny, I'm the same way for Macs. Why would I buy a computer that launches Apple Music by default when I plug in my headphones? Why does my taskbar ship with services I'll never use pinned to the bottom? Why does Safari send me little reminder notifications that it's still installed? It all feels so gaudy and anti-productive that I end up spending more time setting up Macs then I do setting up Linux. When I have to go use a Mac it's like getting assigned to a Siberian labor camp. Nowadays desktop Linux is pretty good, to the point that Valve uses it as the backbone for their gaming handheld. Fractional scaling is upstreamed in Qt and GTK, Pipewire is the default for Bluetooth now alongside 320kbps codecs (including AAC), and GNOME and KDE are both now stable enough on Wayland to daily-drive. I think your complaints would have been valid 10 years ago, but the hodge-podge x11 desktops are in the rearview mirror for most users.
- phoronixrly 2y ago
  Why the hell would I need a mac laptop for work for which I would need to spend not sure how many hours setting up a development environment while the OS actively fights me? With literally a retrofitted (pun intended) homebrew packaging system that slings binaries compiled by randos on the internet... Oh Apple software and hardware is so secure... Bruh, your entire dev env unless you're developing in xcode is literally a supply chain attack waiting to happen. And at the same time it is hard to make work and breaks randomly with OS updates or bottle updates or just after a restart with no apparent reason. Please... Fractional scaling is (allegedly) not working... Big deal, even if it was true (it's not https://i.imgur.com/wm84JxU.png https://i.imgur.com/wm84JxU.png)...
- nopeNopeNooope 2y ago
  None of your comebacks are things that are show stoppers. Apple music loads when you plug in headphones? Is that the same as your laptop doesn't suspend and resume at all? The taskbar has things you don't like in it? Is that the same as "the UI for most apps are show stopper broken"? If I fix the icons in my dock, they stay fixed. If I fix something in Linux, someone is going to come along and break it next time I patch something. See the difference? I like the mac as an access device for power tools BECAUSE the kind of folks who like messing with computers aren't messing with mine. And most of what you mention in the last paragraph needs to be prefaced with "if you don't mind burning 4x more battery on doing it without acceleration", and "if you don't mind it looking like a small child chose your fonts". It's not enough for it to be kinda usable if you squint, it needs to use the hardware I paid for, it needs to suspend and resume and boot securely, it needs to look good, display in the colors I want on the display hardware I choose, and let me remap the keyboard without using 10 apps to cover all the weird edge cases. That's table stakes.
  - hatsix 2y ago
    How about "I can't control the volume through the Mac if my audio goes to a digital output, like HDMI". My monitor has audio out, which I plug into speakers... both have their own volume, but I'd rather use keyboard controls, but I can't, OSX disables volume control completely. Also, you can't have a window span monitors. It only appears on the monitor that has >50%. Links opened from non browsers open in the window physically closest to the opening app (ish). If you run chrome with multiple profiles, you can't just expect the most recently used window to open the link, you must position the window with the profile you want to use overlapping the other browser, often requiring me to drag a window fully to the other monitor (because windows can't span monitors). OSX is the worst window manager ever created. There are states you can get into with your mouse that you can't reverse without a obscure key combo. Window snapping took how long, and it's still the worst. you can't make a window be as big as it can be without making it full screen. It's just the worst. I've been told I can fix all of these things... if I buy 10 different $10 apps.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Nope, none of them are showstoppers at all. They're papercuts, and you're welcome to endure them if you think it feels so nice. I moved on from MacOS 5 years ago (after the Catalina announcement) and don't miss a thing. I also pay substantially less money for the same software with no built-in advertising at all. My news app doesn't link out to Taboola, my music app doesn't ask me to subscribe or buy albums, my Docker doesn't rely on a VM. You have to drag me back kicking and screaming to Windows or MacOS, because they're both bad operating systems nowadays. Neither one of them is a better choice than the other, you're either stuck with Pinky or dealing with The Brain. I choose neither.
- aranelsurion 2y ago
  It's been a few years since the last time I daily drove a Linux desktop. What is the least trouble, yet "power tool" distro and setup people use nowadays? Or: what do you use?
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Fedora is a good choice. It's recent, stable and just about as simple as running Windows or MacOS. They also offer Silverblue, which is a more experimental Fedora-based distro that has more modern quality-of-life changes. I'd recommend normal Fedora for the average Windows expat, and Silverblue for the developers that want to make their system messy without messing things up. I use NixOS, these days. It shares a lot of similarities with Silverblue, except it relies on the Nix package manager instead of the RPM one. It's not "the least trouble" by a long-shot, but it has a lot of great built-in tooling that makes developing multiple projects with different packages a breeze. Where other people might use a VM or Docker to isolate build dependencies, us Nix users write specifications for an environment and get a special shell with all our dependencies pre-linked. I digress, but it's a neat project in it's own right that even supports MacOS if it sounds like something you'd want. I've used it in-prod and have nothing but good things to say about it.
- latchkey 2y ago
  > Why would I buy a computer that launches Apple Music by default when I plug in my headphones? Agreed, but there is a decent enough workaround. https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes
viraptor 2y ago
> fractional scaling doesn't work anywhere properly Sure it does. Some apps require a workaround (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI) but most of the time you can set it in the DE and forget about it. If you're in Wayland you get the same output rescaling option as MacOS. (Which still requires some workarounds for apps - you'll see a few problems on a 1080p screen regardless of the system) > suspend/resume on the whole platform is Russian roulette It's better than windows these days and you can actually disable periodic auto resume unlike on MacOS. > sound over BT is terrible This has been solved since pipewire. Linux effectively has the best, most customisable and lowest latency audio system today. It's definitely better than MacOS which will force you into mono low quality if any app queries the microphone. > And everything works fine there! It's ok if you prefer it, but the list of issues on a MacOS is long and often ignored upstream. It's not even close to "everything". (I've got a trivially reproducible system crash bug report open for over a year now)
- jitl 2y ago
  I use Linux Bluetooth most days of the week, and I regularly get an issue where after resuming from sleep, all the audio has a stutter and crackle. I can’t give Linux a pass on audio until I can use a stock system from some well known distribution without needing to debug the audio and/or Bluetooth subsystems. Maybe pipewire does finally solve this. I don’t know if my distro uses it or not by default.
- deafpolygon 2y ago
  I wonder how much of this is Stockholm Syndrome.
  - viraptor 2y ago
    Of this comment? None, I'm using all 3 main OSes and have lots of complaints all around.
- latchkey 2y ago
  I had to purchase and install an extension [0] that requires a lot of security lockdown navigation [1], just to get a proper EQ and be able to adjust where the sound goes. [0] https://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/ https://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/ [1] https://rogueamoeba.com/support/knowledgebase/?showArticle=ACE-StepByStep&product=Airfoil+for+Mac https://rogueamoeba.com/support/knowledgebase/?showArticle=A...

talldayo 2y ago

It's funny, I'm the same way for Macs. Why would I buy a computer that launches Apple Music by default when I plug in my headphones? Why does my taskbar ship with services I'll never use pinned to the bottom? Why does Safari send me little reminder notifications that it's still installed? It all feels so gaudy and anti-productive that I end up spending more time setting up Macs then I do setting up Linux. When I have to go use a Mac it's like getting assigned to a Siberian labor camp. Nowadays desktop Linux is pretty good, to the point that Valve uses it as the backbone for their gaming handheld. Fractional scaling is upstreamed in Qt and GTK, Pipewire is the default for Bluetooth now alongside 320kbps codecs (including AAC), and GNOME and KDE are both now stable enough on Wayland to daily-drive. I think your complaints would have been valid 10 years ago, but the hodge-podge x11 desktops are in the rearview mirror for most users.

phoronixrly 2y ago
Why the hell would I need a mac laptop for work for which I would need to spend not sure how many hours setting up a development environment while the OS actively fights me? With literally a retrofitted (pun intended) homebrew packaging system that slings binaries compiled by randos on the internet... Oh Apple software and hardware is so secure... Bruh, your entire dev env unless you're developing in xcode is literally a supply chain attack waiting to happen. And at the same time it is hard to make work and breaks randomly with OS updates or bottle updates or just after a restart with no apparent reason. Please... Fractional scaling is (allegedly) not working... Big deal, even if it was true (it's not https://i.imgur.com/wm84JxU.png https://i.imgur.com/wm84JxU.png)...
nopeNopeNooope 2y ago
None of your comebacks are things that are show stoppers. Apple music loads when you plug in headphones? Is that the same as your laptop doesn't suspend and resume at all? The taskbar has things you don't like in it? Is that the same as "the UI for most apps are show stopper broken"? If I fix the icons in my dock, they stay fixed. If I fix something in Linux, someone is going to come along and break it next time I patch something. See the difference? I like the mac as an access device for power tools BECAUSE the kind of folks who like messing with computers aren't messing with mine. And most of what you mention in the last paragraph needs to be prefaced with "if you don't mind burning 4x more battery on doing it without acceleration", and "if you don't mind it looking like a small child chose your fonts". It's not enough for it to be kinda usable if you squint, it needs to use the hardware I paid for, it needs to suspend and resume and boot securely, it needs to look good, display in the colors I want on the display hardware I choose, and let me remap the keyboard without using 10 apps to cover all the weird edge cases. That's table stakes.
- hatsix 2y ago
  How about "I can't control the volume through the Mac if my audio goes to a digital output, like HDMI". My monitor has audio out, which I plug into speakers... both have their own volume, but I'd rather use keyboard controls, but I can't, OSX disables volume control completely. Also, you can't have a window span monitors. It only appears on the monitor that has >50%. Links opened from non browsers open in the window physically closest to the opening app (ish). If you run chrome with multiple profiles, you can't just expect the most recently used window to open the link, you must position the window with the profile you want to use overlapping the other browser, often requiring me to drag a window fully to the other monitor (because windows can't span monitors). OSX is the worst window manager ever created. There are states you can get into with your mouse that you can't reverse without a obscure key combo. Window snapping took how long, and it's still the worst. you can't make a window be as big as it can be without making it full screen. It's just the worst. I've been told I can fix all of these things... if I buy 10 different $10 apps.
- talldayo 2y ago
  Nope, none of them are showstoppers at all. They're papercuts, and you're welcome to endure them if you think it feels so nice. I moved on from MacOS 5 years ago (after the Catalina announcement) and don't miss a thing. I also pay substantially less money for the same software with no built-in advertising at all. My news app doesn't link out to Taboola, my music app doesn't ask me to subscribe or buy albums, my Docker doesn't rely on a VM. You have to drag me back kicking and screaming to Windows or MacOS, because they're both bad operating systems nowadays. Neither one of them is a better choice than the other, you're either stuck with Pinky or dealing with The Brain. I choose neither.
aranelsurion 2y ago
It's been a few years since the last time I daily drove a Linux desktop. What is the least trouble, yet "power tool" distro and setup people use nowadays? Or: what do you use?
- talldayo 2y ago
  Fedora is a good choice. It's recent, stable and just about as simple as running Windows or MacOS. They also offer Silverblue, which is a more experimental Fedora-based distro that has more modern quality-of-life changes. I'd recommend normal Fedora for the average Windows expat, and Silverblue for the developers that want to make their system messy without messing things up. I use NixOS, these days. It shares a lot of similarities with Silverblue, except it relies on the Nix package manager instead of the RPM one. It's not "the least trouble" by a long-shot, but it has a lot of great built-in tooling that makes developing multiple projects with different packages a breeze. Where other people might use a VM or Docker to isolate build dependencies, us Nix users write specifications for an environment and get a special shell with all our dependencies pre-linked. I digress, but it's a neat project in it's own right that even supports MacOS if it sounds like something you'd want. I've used it in-prod and have nothing but good things to say about it.
latchkey 2y ago
> Why would I buy a computer that launches Apple Music by default when I plug in my headphones? Agreed, but there is a decent enough workaround. https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes

viraptor 2y ago

> fractional scaling doesn't work anywhere properly Sure it does. Some apps require a workaround (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI) but most of the time you can set it in the DE and forget about it. If you're in Wayland you get the same output rescaling option as MacOS. (Which still requires some workarounds for apps - you'll see a few problems on a 1080p screen regardless of the system) > suspend/resume on the whole platform is Russian roulette It's better than windows these days and you can actually disable periodic auto resume unlike on MacOS. > sound over BT is terrible This has been solved since pipewire. Linux effectively has the best, most customisable and lowest latency audio system today. It's definitely better than MacOS which will force you into mono low quality if any app queries the microphone. > And everything works fine there! It's ok if you prefer it, but the list of issues on a MacOS is long and often ignored upstream. It's not even close to "everything". (I've got a trivially reproducible system crash bug report open for over a year now)

jitl 2y ago
I use Linux Bluetooth most days of the week, and I regularly get an issue where after resuming from sleep, all the audio has a stutter and crackle. I can’t give Linux a pass on audio until I can use a stock system from some well known distribution without needing to debug the audio and/or Bluetooth subsystems. Maybe pipewire does finally solve this. I don’t know if my distro uses it or not by default.
deafpolygon 2y ago
I wonder how much of this is Stockholm Syndrome.
- viraptor 2y ago
  Of this comment? None, I'm using all 3 main OSes and have lots of complaints all around.
latchkey 2y ago
I had to purchase and install an extension [0] that requires a lot of security lockdown navigation [1], just to get a proper EQ and be able to adjust where the sound goes. [0] https://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/ https://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/ [1] https://rogueamoeba.com/support/knowledgebase/?showArticle=ACE-StepByStep&product=Airfoil+for+Mac https://rogueamoeba.com/support/knowledgebase/?showArticle=A...