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Ah, if only people knew that #2 and #7 happen all the time with Windows. Anyway, why I wish I liked OSX so I could quit Linux: laptop support. I have a Think

by dkarl 18y ago

Ah, if only people knew that #2 and #7 happen all the time with Windows. Anyway, why I wish I liked OSX so I could quit Linux: laptop support. I have a ThinkPad T60, and every now and then I google for ThinkPad T60 Linux and scan through the adventure stories. Occasionally someone declares "success" and claims to be happily using Linux on their ThinkPad (with kernel patches and lots of tweaks and configuration,) but if you read the details, there's always something that doesn't work, usually suspend. Either the feature doesn't work at all, or it requires manual intervention every time you use it, or it causes instability. After being disappointed yet again, I try to wait at least a few months before I google again. Anyway, that's why I wish I liked OSX: because I still run Windows on all my laptops and don't see any way out except to buy a laptop with commercial Linux support from Dell (Ubuntu) or Lenovo (SUSE, gack -- I use Debian/Ubuntu everywhere else and don't feel like relearning RPM) or Emperor Linux (expensive, woof.) I don't like the idea of being dependent on support, though. Whatever Novell does to get ThinkPads working under SUSE, they must not be releasing it to the community, since people still have trouble. Same thing with Emperor Linux. I don't know if Dell is any better.

whughes 18y ago
Just curious, why don't you like OS X?
- dkarl 18y ago
  Mainly there's nothing amazing about it that makes it seem worthwhile to get past my initial dislike of the interface. The minimize/maximize/close buttons aren't where I expect them to be, the applications feel strangely constrained, and I hate the menu bar being at the top of the screen. The Dock icons seem represent a whole bunch of different things (launchers, folders, open documents, running applications) and it's hard to tell the difference based on appearance. Also, the Dock takes up a lot of screen space, but I don't like hiding it. I think I'm trained to expect a whole lot of information on the screen, and the Mac aesthetic prefers the opposite, at least in the default configuration. It might help if there were more evident ways of customizing the interface. I learned how to customize the hell out of my KDE 3 taskbar just by clicking around. To give OS X a fair shot, I would probably have to buy a book or follow some how-to articles on the web on turning OS X into a more productive environment (like Tog's "Make Your Mac a Monster Machine.") That seems to reflect poorly on the interface's explorability. Anyway, according to the prevailing attitude, if I haven't fallen head-over-heels in love with OSX by now, I'm just not a Mac person. Therefore, my faith in a big payoff, a more pleasant and fluid way of doing things, is gone.

by dkarl 18y ago

whughes 18y ago

Just curious, why don't you like OS X?

dkarl 18y ago
Mainly there's nothing amazing about it that makes it seem worthwhile to get past my initial dislike of the interface. The minimize/maximize/close buttons aren't where I expect them to be, the applications feel strangely constrained, and I hate the menu bar being at the top of the screen. The Dock icons seem represent a whole bunch of different things (launchers, folders, open documents, running applications) and it's hard to tell the difference based on appearance. Also, the Dock takes up a lot of screen space, but I don't like hiding it. I think I'm trained to expect a whole lot of information on the screen, and the Mac aesthetic prefers the opposite, at least in the default configuration. It might help if there were more evident ways of customizing the interface. I learned how to customize the hell out of my KDE 3 taskbar just by clicking around. To give OS X a fair shot, I would probably have to buy a book or follow some how-to articles on the web on turning OS X into a more productive environment (like Tog's "Make Your Mac a Monster Machine.") That seems to reflect poorly on the interface's explorability. Anyway, according to the prevailing attitude, if I haven't fallen head-over-heels in love with OSX by now, I'm just not a Mac person. Therefore, my faith in a big payoff, a more pleasant and fluid way of doing things, is gone.