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Good! I switched to Debian Linux on my Retina MBP about 4 months ago fulltime and after a few weeks of twiddling and fiddling it's super fun, fast and nice. I'm

by mntmn 12y ago

Good! I switched to Debian Linux on my Retina MBP about 4 months ago fulltime and after a few weeks of twiddling and fiddling it's super fun, fast and nice. I'm really enjoying it. I normalized all the keyboard shortcuts using several methods, the most important one is to switch Cmd and Ctrl keys. I documented that here: http://mntmn.com/Hipster%20Linux#keyboard-cmd-ctrl-copypaste-normalization http://mntmn.com/Hipster%20Linux#keyboard-cmd-ctrl-copypaste... I use Terminator for Terminal and set up Ctrl-C und Ctrl-V for copy and paste shortcuts. Terminator will smartly handle Ctrl-C as a signal when there is no selection. I use XFCE with a custom HiDPI theme and app switcher works with Cmd-Tab. I bound Cmd-Space to Application Finder which gives me a Spotlight-like launching experience. For fulltext search I can recommend recoll. I use Ergoemacs which gives me CUA-like shortcuts in Emacs, too. Feel free to drop me an email (lukas at mnt dot mn) if you need more tips. Almost everything can be made to work.

mntmn 12y ago
Also, a list of superb tools: - Inkscape instead of Illustrator - GIMP instead of Photoshop (just install Photoshop keyboard shortcuts and use single window mode and it's much less "alien") - Iceweasel/Firefox instead of Chrome (super fast, works well with HiDPI and the dev tools are really on par now) - Steam (obvious) - pavucontrol as audio mixer - ncdu to track down disk space usage - sxiv to view images - zathura to view PDFs In general I do a lot more stuff via the commandline now than before and a selection of custom scripts in ~/bin is growing. For example I have a script "serve" that will copy a file via scp to my webserver and return the URL that I can then share, and I have cronjobs that fetch my bank account balances and synchronize my mail via offlineimap etc. And the thing I like most is that I know exactly what the running processes/services are doing; there are no adware/crapware/updaters; memory usage is minimal (about ~150 MB for a clean desktop); the system never swaps (8GB RAM).
- wishiknew 12y ago
  Opera's whole UI is hidpi enabled, unlike with FF and Chrome. You might want to give it a try.
  - zumtar 12y ago
    That's a great suggestion. I've been through everything trying to get a decent HiDPI experience, I'm running Opera beta and it all just works perfectly. I'm running Debian Testing/Jessie and I've found that the Cinnamon Desktop Environment is the best for me, I've tried them all (trying to get the best results for HiDPI) and it is the one I'm most happy with.
  - Nanzikambe 12y ago
    > unlike with FF and Chrome Both of these work fine in hidpi, see: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI
rohansingh 12y ago
Did you do anything for trackpad gestures? My last attempt using Linux on a MBP (~3 years ago) was abandoned because I couldn't get over not being able to do three-finger swipes, etc.
- mntmn 12y ago
  No, I'm not a big fan of gestures, for me keyboard control is more important. Smooth 2-finger scrolling works, though.
- lsaferite 12y ago
  I bought an MBP just to run Linux on it a few years back. The WiFi wouldn't work and the gesture support sucked. I love Linux SO much more than OSX or Win so it was a huge disappointment. The WiFi issues have been solved, but the gesture support on OSX is still amazingly superior.
smoyer 12y ago
I'm running Linux Mint 17 XFCE with newer kernel and can confirm that everything works well. Switching to a >3.16.x kernel provides the Thunderbolt support I needed for my Cinema display ... everything else just works[1]. [1] With usual caveat that pulseaudio is horrible. With wired headphones it only crashes about once a week ... with bluetooth headphones it's at least once a day. It doesn't appear to like the device "coming and going".
zumtar 12y ago
> I use XFCE with a custom HiDPI theme Your documentation is great, thank you, I'm trying your XFCE4 theme right now (I've been using Cinnamon until now). Could you possibly clarify these steps as written on your website for me? [1] Activate in xfce4-settings-manager > Appearance > mntmn [2] Activate in xfce4-settings-manager > Style > mntmn I've launched xfce4-settings-manager and can set the "Appearance" in [1] to be mntmn but can't find where to set [2] (sorry xfce4 noob).
Scarbutt 12y ago
Do you use an external monitor with your MBP? If so, how well does it work? Also your docs don't mention how much battery life you get ;)

by mntmn 12y ago

mntmn 12y ago

Also, a list of superb tools: - Inkscape instead of Illustrator - GIMP instead of Photoshop (just install Photoshop keyboard shortcuts and use single window mode and it's much less "alien") - Iceweasel/Firefox instead of Chrome (super fast, works well with HiDPI and the dev tools are really on par now) - Steam (obvious) - pavucontrol as audio mixer - ncdu to track down disk space usage - sxiv to view images - zathura to view PDFs In general I do a lot more stuff via the commandline now than before and a selection of custom scripts in ~/bin is growing. For example I have a script "serve" that will copy a file via scp to my webserver and return the URL that I can then share, and I have cronjobs that fetch my bank account balances and synchronize my mail via offlineimap etc. And the thing I like most is that I know exactly what the running processes/services are doing; there are no adware/crapware/updaters; memory usage is minimal (about ~150 MB for a clean desktop); the system never swaps (8GB RAM).

wishiknew 12y ago
Opera's whole UI is hidpi enabled, unlike with FF and Chrome. You might want to give it a try.
- zumtar 12y ago
  That's a great suggestion. I've been through everything trying to get a decent HiDPI experience, I'm running Opera beta and it all just works perfectly. I'm running Debian Testing/Jessie and I've found that the Cinnamon Desktop Environment is the best for me, I've tried them all (trying to get the best results for HiDPI) and it is the one I'm most happy with.
- Nanzikambe 12y ago
  > unlike with FF and Chrome Both of these work fine in hidpi, see: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI

rohansingh 12y ago

Did you do anything for trackpad gestures? My last attempt using Linux on a MBP (~3 years ago) was abandoned because I couldn't get over not being able to do three-finger swipes, etc.

mntmn 12y ago
No, I'm not a big fan of gestures, for me keyboard control is more important. Smooth 2-finger scrolling works, though.
lsaferite 12y ago
I bought an MBP just to run Linux on it a few years back. The WiFi wouldn't work and the gesture support sucked. I love Linux SO much more than OSX or Win so it was a huge disappointment. The WiFi issues have been solved, but the gesture support on OSX is still amazingly superior.

smoyer 12y ago

I'm running Linux Mint 17 XFCE with newer kernel and can confirm that everything works well. Switching to a >3.16.x kernel provides the Thunderbolt support I needed for my Cinema display ... everything else just works[1]. [1] With usual caveat that pulseaudio is horrible. With wired headphones it only crashes about once a week ... with bluetooth headphones it's at least once a day. It doesn't appear to like the device "coming and going".

zumtar 12y ago

> I use XFCE with a custom HiDPI theme Your documentation is great, thank you, I'm trying your XFCE4 theme right now (I've been using Cinnamon until now). Could you possibly clarify these steps as written on your website for me? [1] Activate in xfce4-settings-manager > Appearance > mntmn [2] Activate in xfce4-settings-manager > Style > mntmn I've launched xfce4-settings-manager and can set the "Appearance" in [1] to be mntmn but can't find where to set [2] (sorry xfce4 noob).

Scarbutt 12y ago

Do you use an external monitor with your MBP? If so, how well does it work? Also your docs don't mention how much battery life you get ;)