7 ms·

Sounds like the lesson learned here from reading your travail is not to invest in an ecosystem that makes it difficult to do a standard operation.

submeta 2y ago
Maybe. But what are the options? Windows? Not really. Linux/Debian/Ubuntu is great, in theory, but it lacks tools: Acorn, Keyboard Maestro, OnniGraffle, Alfred App, MS Office, MS Teams, and a dozen more. Plus Apple silicon. I test LLMs locally.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  This isn't me trying to convince you to use Linux, but the listed reasons (other than LLM testing) aren't real deterrents (and there are plenty that exist for many people, no use pretending not): > Acorn GIMP (or Glimpse, if you want a more modern UI) or Krita can definitely do pretty much anything Acorn can. > Keyboard Maestro GNOME and KDE have been able to do this out of the box from pretty much the beginning. The OSes are still mostly terminal-first (one of the big complaints, actually), and that translates into the DEs and Applications. A keyboard automation is just a sequence of commands. This is probably one of the few areas where Linux almost definitely beats macOS or Windows. > OnniGraffle There's a large swathe of diagramming tools in Linux. > Alfred App Yep, both KDE and Gnome are able to handle this task as well as Alfred. Like automation, this is probably an area Linux will be able to shine above macOS. > MS Office LibreOffice would be the common alternative. > MS Teams They used to have an official client. They now recommend you create a PWA, and there are some unofficial clients that do pretty much that: https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux This seems to be the route they'll be going all around, similar to slack (web + an electron app). > I test LLMs locally. LLMs run fine on Linux, but you will be limited to about 16GB on the VRAM side. Though, you could technically use Asahi + Apple Silicon as the support matured if you want. Most of these are open source applications, with cludgy UIs/warts and all; and aren't really designed by teams with UX masters, so operate oddly and require relearning. But if you were interested in making the move, they're options.
  - eviks 2y ago
    > aren't real deterrents They are, because your listed alternatives are substandard. Just the fact you recommend incompatible LibreOffice as an MS Office alternative is enough, but then comparing KM to system defaults is also a joke. > The OSes are still mostly terminal-first And terminals are universally so bad at shortcuts that many can't even support all the modifiers keys on your keyboard
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mistercheph 2y ago
      What kind of nightmare documents are you encountering that you actually run into MS Office / Libreoffice incompatibility?
      - kimixa 2y ago
        And in turn don't also run into to incompatibility between different versions of MS office? I've had at least as many issues moving complex documents between MS word versions than moving from MS to Libreoffice.
  - j16sdiz 2y ago
    > > Acorn > GIMP (or Glimpse, if you want a more modern UI) or Krita can definitely do pretty much anything Acorn can. You will be surprised to know how some professional treat their tools. Some illustrator love their software just like some mathematician love their chalk. Many woodworker make their own tools to make them feel just right. > > MS Office > LibreOffice would be the common alternative. If you export them as PDF, maybe. If you need to exchange editable file with others, every small layout different hurts. You won't want your tables paginate differently from others.
    - deaddodo 2y ago
      Which is why I specifically stated that the feature set matches and not that they're drop in replacements. Then gave a giant disclaimer about open source software in general at the bottom. I'm not evangelizing, I'm stating that the listed software/workloads are perfectly amenable to Linux if you wanted to make the move/relearn those softwares.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Jnr 2y ago
  And here I am running Linux on M1 Macbook. Graphical interface is superior, native docker support is superior, development experience is superior, backups for sure are superior than Time Machine. For work purposes online office on the web is sufficient. It is not for everyone (like photographers), but for software developers it works very nicely.
  - gvurrdon 2y ago
    May I ask what distro you're using, and when there's any good documentation around for the installation procedure?
    - Jnr 2y ago
      I'm an Arch guy, but for the M1 I am using the official Asahi Linux distro which is based on Fedora. Documentation and information about compatibility can be found on their site: https://asahilinux.org/ https://asahilinux.org/ I previously used the Arch based Asahi distro when it was official, but Arch on ARM is a 3rd party project and it was not very well maintained and lacked some packages, so they switched. Fedora could also be considered more stable and better supported. But there are Ubuntu, Debian versions for Asahi if you prefer those.
  - commandersaki 2y ago
    I question the native docker support is superior. On a mac I can run linux/amd64 docker containers at near native speed with Rosetta 2 for Linux, this is something that you just cannot do (at the moment) on Linux running on Apple Silicon.
- everdrive 2y ago
  Platforms that lack MS Teams are doing the user a favor.
  - maleldil 2y ago
    I don't think the end user is the one making the choice to use MS Teams.
LeoPanthera 2y ago
Are we reading different comments? Because the only reason he had problems is because he didn't do anything standard. He futzed with his backups instead of letting the OS take care of it, and that's the only reason he had any trouble. If you let Time Machine doing it's thing, restoring from a backup is fast and painless. (Though it's been years since I had to restore a Mac for any reason. It makes me wonder what he was doing.)
- submeta 2y ago
  I had only 600-700 gb of data on my Mac. Installed OneDrive, did not know that I had configured my NAS to do 800gb of cloud backups to OneDrive. And Time Machine downloaded that data into its backup. Although I had configured OneDrive not to download that folder to my Mac. So time Machine screwed up in the first place.
  - hmottestad 2y ago
    Sounds like an edge case that Microsoft didn’t think of when they developed OneDrive on Mac. You should contact them and let them know that they should exclude OneDrive from Time Machine backups automatically unless it’s configured to download everything. You can very easily exclude folders from Time Machine backups yourself.
    - submeta 2y ago
      My point was about being able to boot from ssd. Not about whom to blame re Time Machine backup.
      - hmottestad 2y ago
        Ahh, I didn't see that you were the original commenter.
- eviks 2y ago
  The reason is the opposite - he was doing the standard thing of using the substandard Time Machine for backups, which has been poorly engineered not to allow restoring without pre-pruning > If you let Time Machine doing it's thing Then you can corrupt your whole backup, and then fully restoring becomes impossible instead of long and painless, but possible > It makes me wonder what he was doing He was doing the restore recently, not many years ago
hmottestad 2y ago
Sounds a bit too simplistic. Apple is about the only company that allows you to run any decently sized LLMs on a laptop. They also have all day battery life, amazing single-threaded performance and great multicore performance. And they didn’t stop there, they also threw in a truly fantastic display and speakers that are so far ahead of any competitors that I wonder what kind of magic they have that no other laptop brand is able to put better speakers in their laptops.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Apple is about the only company that allows you to run any decently sized LLMs on a laptop Comments like these make me wonder if people even use different computers anymore or if they just say stuff and hope that it's right.
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago
    Without a concrete counter example you risk looking like you’re denying the claim with no elaboration and hoping you’re right. :P
  - rolisz 2y ago
    Please, do tell me where else can I run 32b models locally without quantization
    - cma 2y ago
      64GB of system RAM and partial offload to a laptop 3090 or 4090 will run 32b unquantized.
      - hmottestad 2y ago
        What kind of performance are you seeing? The tests that I have seen are not usable for anything because they are so slow.
      - rolisz 2y ago
        Will I get an answer back anytime soon? On a MBP pro it's conversational speed.
eek2121 2y ago
You act like other ecosystems are better. They aren’t.

submeta 2y ago

Maybe. But what are the options? Windows? Not really. Linux/Debian/Ubuntu is great, in theory, but it lacks tools: Acorn, Keyboard Maestro, OnniGraffle, Alfred App, MS Office, MS Teams, and a dozen more. Plus Apple silicon. I test LLMs locally.

deaddodo 2y ago
This isn't me trying to convince you to use Linux, but the listed reasons (other than LLM testing) aren't real deterrents (and there are plenty that exist for many people, no use pretending not): > Acorn GIMP (or Glimpse, if you want a more modern UI) or Krita can definitely do pretty much anything Acorn can. > Keyboard Maestro GNOME and KDE have been able to do this out of the box from pretty much the beginning. The OSes are still mostly terminal-first (one of the big complaints, actually), and that translates into the DEs and Applications. A keyboard automation is just a sequence of commands. This is probably one of the few areas where Linux almost definitely beats macOS or Windows. > OnniGraffle There's a large swathe of diagramming tools in Linux. > Alfred App Yep, both KDE and Gnome are able to handle this task as well as Alfred. Like automation, this is probably an area Linux will be able to shine above macOS. > MS Office LibreOffice would be the common alternative. > MS Teams They used to have an official client. They now recommend you create a PWA, and there are some unofficial clients that do pretty much that: https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux https://github.com/IsmaelMartinez/teams-for-linux This seems to be the route they'll be going all around, similar to slack (web + an electron app). > I test LLMs locally. LLMs run fine on Linux, but you will be limited to about 16GB on the VRAM side. Though, you could technically use Asahi + Apple Silicon as the support matured if you want. Most of these are open source applications, with cludgy UIs/warts and all; and aren't really designed by teams with UX masters, so operate oddly and require relearning. But if you were interested in making the move, they're options.
- eviks 2y ago
  > aren't real deterrents They are, because your listed alternatives are substandard. Just the fact you recommend incompatible LibreOffice as an MS Office alternative is enough, but then comparing KM to system defaults is also a joke. > The OSes are still mostly terminal-first And terminals are universally so bad at shortcuts that many can't even support all the modifiers keys on your keyboard
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mistercheph 2y ago
    What kind of nightmare documents are you encountering that you actually run into MS Office / Libreoffice incompatibility?
    - kimixa 2y ago
      And in turn don't also run into to incompatibility between different versions of MS office? I've had at least as many issues moving complex documents between MS word versions than moving from MS to Libreoffice.
- j16sdiz 2y ago
  > > Acorn > GIMP (or Glimpse, if you want a more modern UI) or Krita can definitely do pretty much anything Acorn can. You will be surprised to know how some professional treat their tools. Some illustrator love their software just like some mathematician love their chalk. Many woodworker make their own tools to make them feel just right. > > MS Office > LibreOffice would be the common alternative. If you export them as PDF, maybe. If you need to exchange editable file with others, every small layout different hurts. You won't want your tables paginate differently from others.
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    Which is why I specifically stated that the feature set matches and not that they're drop in replacements. Then gave a giant disclaimer about open source software in general at the bottom. I'm not evangelizing, I'm stating that the listed software/workloads are perfectly amenable to Linux if you wanted to make the move/relearn those softwares.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Jnr 2y ago
And here I am running Linux on M1 Macbook. Graphical interface is superior, native docker support is superior, development experience is superior, backups for sure are superior than Time Machine. For work purposes online office on the web is sufficient. It is not for everyone (like photographers), but for software developers it works very nicely.
- gvurrdon 2y ago
  May I ask what distro you're using, and when there's any good documentation around for the installation procedure?
  - Jnr 2y ago
    I'm an Arch guy, but for the M1 I am using the official Asahi Linux distro which is based on Fedora. Documentation and information about compatibility can be found on their site: https://asahilinux.org/ https://asahilinux.org/ I previously used the Arch based Asahi distro when it was official, but Arch on ARM is a 3rd party project and it was not very well maintained and lacked some packages, so they switched. Fedora could also be considered more stable and better supported. But there are Ubuntu, Debian versions for Asahi if you prefer those.
- commandersaki 2y ago
  I question the native docker support is superior. On a mac I can run linux/amd64 docker containers at near native speed with Rosetta 2 for Linux, this is something that you just cannot do (at the moment) on Linux running on Apple Silicon.
everdrive 2y ago
Platforms that lack MS Teams are doing the user a favor.
- maleldil 2y ago
  I don't think the end user is the one making the choice to use MS Teams.

LeoPanthera 2y ago

Are we reading different comments? Because the only reason he had problems is because he didn't do anything standard. He futzed with his backups instead of letting the OS take care of it, and that's the only reason he had any trouble. If you let Time Machine doing it's thing, restoring from a backup is fast and painless. (Though it's been years since I had to restore a Mac for any reason. It makes me wonder what he was doing.)

submeta 2y ago
I had only 600-700 gb of data on my Mac. Installed OneDrive, did not know that I had configured my NAS to do 800gb of cloud backups to OneDrive. And Time Machine downloaded that data into its backup. Although I had configured OneDrive not to download that folder to my Mac. So time Machine screwed up in the first place.
- hmottestad 2y ago
  Sounds like an edge case that Microsoft didn’t think of when they developed OneDrive on Mac. You should contact them and let them know that they should exclude OneDrive from Time Machine backups automatically unless it’s configured to download everything. You can very easily exclude folders from Time Machine backups yourself.
  - submeta 2y ago
    My point was about being able to boot from ssd. Not about whom to blame re Time Machine backup.
    - hmottestad 2y ago
      Ahh, I didn't see that you were the original commenter.
eviks 2y ago
The reason is the opposite - he was doing the standard thing of using the substandard Time Machine for backups, which has been poorly engineered not to allow restoring without pre-pruning > If you let Time Machine doing it's thing Then you can corrupt your whole backup, and then fully restoring becomes impossible instead of long and painless, but possible > It makes me wonder what he was doing He was doing the restore recently, not many years ago

hmottestad 2y ago

Sounds a bit too simplistic. Apple is about the only company that allows you to run any decently sized LLMs on a laptop. They also have all day battery life, amazing single-threaded performance and great multicore performance. And they didn’t stop there, they also threw in a truly fantastic display and speakers that are so far ahead of any competitors that I wonder what kind of magic they have that no other laptop brand is able to put better speakers in their laptops.

talldayo 2y ago
> Apple is about the only company that allows you to run any decently sized LLMs on a laptop Comments like these make me wonder if people even use different computers anymore or if they just say stuff and hope that it's right.
- hombre_fatal 2y ago
  Without a concrete counter example you risk looking like you’re denying the claim with no elaboration and hoping you’re right. :P
- rolisz 2y ago
  Please, do tell me where else can I run 32b models locally without quantization
  - cma 2y ago
    64GB of system RAM and partial offload to a laptop 3090 or 4090 will run 32b unquantized.
    - hmottestad 2y ago
      What kind of performance are you seeing? The tests that I have seen are not usable for anything because they are so slow.
    - rolisz 2y ago
      Will I get an answer back anytime soon? On a MBP pro it's conversational speed.

eek2121 2y ago

You act like other ecosystems are better. They aren’t.