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I recently switched from a 15" macbook to a lenovo windows 8.1 laptop after 10 years of mac/linux for my daily driver. I live with Windows as the base install

I recently switched from a 15" macbook to a lenovo windows 8.1 laptop after 10 years of mac/linux for my daily driver. I live with Windows as the base install and virtualbox linux (arch + ubuntu). I am so glad to be free of the Mac... My hardware is upgradeable again, the touchscreen is a real innovation, Excel opens instantaneously and when I want Unix, I use the linux vm, I am not tempted to use the strange halfway house that is the mac unix cli/packaging system with ports/homebrew on its back. windows 8.1 is a bifurcated experience, but they tried to do something new... it feels like Apple desktop engineers only really do truly new stuff in desktop hardware (smaller, lighter, glue and solder) ... the software is pretty but way behind Gnome, KDE and Windows... I was the biggest MS hater you could be 10 years ago.... now it is Apple that seems like the bad guy that isn't innovating now...

gygygy 12y ago
lenovo... lol
eddieroger 12y ago
You do know that the "unix cli/packaging system" thing is actual UNIX, right? Like, bona fide, certified UNIX for a while now. Homebrew is just a different package manager than you're used to, but not so different from things like apt or yum once you get to know your way around it.
- bydo 12y ago
  Not to mention that you can use straight ports of Debian apt-get[1], FreeBSD pkg-ng[2], or even Arch pacman[3] on OS X if you so desire. 1: http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/apt http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/apt 2: https://github.com/freebsd/pkg https://github.com/freebsd/pkg 3: https://github.com/kladd/pacman-osx https://github.com/kladd/pacman-osx
- jordigh 12y ago
  I'm sorry, but comparing homebrew to apt or yum just incenses me. Let's begin with the most glaring difference: source distribution vs binary distribution. Installing my GNU Octave takes under a minute with yum or apt but hours or days with homebrew or macports. Let's also proceed with how none of homebrew, macports or fink is native to Mac OS X, but is some tacked-on thing that most Mac OS X users are unfamiliar with (yeah, most Mac OS X users don't even know that a terminal exists or what to do with it). It does not control the entire OS, but only some packages, which are going to be installed in /usr/local or /opt or /opt/local. And woe betide the users, the same Mac OS X users who just learned that their OS has a command line, if they decide to use more than one of these package managers. Conflicting packages strewn all over their filesystem! Great fun trying to figure out which Python distribution is getting run and which Python packages are getting imported. While we're on the topic of Unix unfamiliarity, let's also talk about simplicity. The typical user sees the following when told to install Xcode and run this, run that, set these environment variables, modify their .bashrc: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/03/10/10598846.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/03/10/10598... Now let's move on to "one day is a long time in brewland!" There is no promise of stability or attempt to make sure that all packages work together with each other. There is no stable distribution. If you're lucky, you might be able to check out specific git tags of each package, but this doesn't work for all packages, and you're expected to be updating your entire set of packages pretty much daily if you want to have "support". The instructions that worked yesterday for getting the software you want may not work today, because all of the packages moved under your feet overnight. Let's finally also see what happens when they upgrade from one Mac OS X release to another: breakage everywhere. Some packages may need to be recompiled, some may no longer compile (hello there, LLVM bugs that prevent compilation of GNU Octave), or hours upon hours of copying or moving homebrew or macports trees around during an operating system upgrade. Homebrew and macports are a parody of what Unix package management should look like, and fink doesn't have the maintainership that a GNU/Linux or BSD distro has.
  - Shorel 12y ago
    Then it can be compared to Gentoo. Which is actually another Linux distro. (but I no longer use it)
millstone 12y ago
Can you elaborate on how OS X is way behind Gnome, KDE, and Windows?
- pjmlp 12y ago
  Just used OS X a few times, but memory management seems to be a constant complaint.
  - hutattedonmyarm 12y ago
    Hm, I never had issues with that. Maybe if you use Chrome since that runs pretty terrible on OS X, but otherwise no issues. OS X tries to keep your memory pretty full, since there is no point in having a bunch of memory if you don't use it.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      When used Mac OS X for an iOS project, it was hardly an issue, just something I happen to see sometimes being posted, not sure how serious it really is. Otherwise I spend my time in other systems anyway, so I cannot properly judge it.
      - hutattedonmyarm 12y ago
        Maybe if you only have 4GB it could become an issue, though my dads MBA runs just fine with it
- Sammi 12y ago
  File and window management is what kills OSX for me. Finder is just too simple and restrictive, and simple things like window snapping doesn't even exist in OSX. Don't get me started on the horrid mess that is maximization of windows. I really don't know what will happen when I press that green little button in the corner.
  - err4nt 12y ago

gygygy 12y ago

lenovo... lol

eddieroger 12y ago

You do know that the "unix cli/packaging system" thing is actual UNIX, right? Like, bona fide, certified UNIX for a while now. Homebrew is just a different package manager than you're used to, but not so different from things like apt or yum once you get to know your way around it.

bydo 12y ago
Not to mention that you can use straight ports of Debian apt-get[1], FreeBSD pkg-ng[2], or even Arch pacman[3] on OS X if you so desire. 1: http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/apt http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/apt 2: https://github.com/freebsd/pkg https://github.com/freebsd/pkg 3: https://github.com/kladd/pacman-osx https://github.com/kladd/pacman-osx
jordigh 12y ago
I'm sorry, but comparing homebrew to apt or yum just incenses me. Let's begin with the most glaring difference: source distribution vs binary distribution. Installing my GNU Octave takes under a minute with yum or apt but hours or days with homebrew or macports. Let's also proceed with how none of homebrew, macports or fink is native to Mac OS X, but is some tacked-on thing that most Mac OS X users are unfamiliar with (yeah, most Mac OS X users don't even know that a terminal exists or what to do with it). It does not control the entire OS, but only some packages, which are going to be installed in /usr/local or /opt or /opt/local. And woe betide the users, the same Mac OS X users who just learned that their OS has a command line, if they decide to use more than one of these package managers. Conflicting packages strewn all over their filesystem! Great fun trying to figure out which Python distribution is getting run and which Python packages are getting imported. While we're on the topic of Unix unfamiliarity, let's also talk about simplicity. The typical user sees the following when told to install Xcode and run this, run that, set these environment variables, modify their .bashrc: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/03/10/10598846.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/03/10/10598... Now let's move on to "one day is a long time in brewland!" There is no promise of stability or attempt to make sure that all packages work together with each other. There is no stable distribution. If you're lucky, you might be able to check out specific git tags of each package, but this doesn't work for all packages, and you're expected to be updating your entire set of packages pretty much daily if you want to have "support". The instructions that worked yesterday for getting the software you want may not work today, because all of the packages moved under your feet overnight. Let's finally also see what happens when they upgrade from one Mac OS X release to another: breakage everywhere. Some packages may need to be recompiled, some may no longer compile (hello there, LLVM bugs that prevent compilation of GNU Octave), or hours upon hours of copying or moving homebrew or macports trees around during an operating system upgrade. Homebrew and macports are a parody of what Unix package management should look like, and fink doesn't have the maintainership that a GNU/Linux or BSD distro has.
- Shorel 12y ago
  Then it can be compared to Gentoo. Which is actually another Linux distro. (but I no longer use it)

millstone 12y ago

Can you elaborate on how OS X is way behind Gnome, KDE, and Windows?

pjmlp 12y ago
Just used OS X a few times, but memory management seems to be a constant complaint.
- hutattedonmyarm 12y ago
  Hm, I never had issues with that. Maybe if you use Chrome since that runs pretty terrible on OS X, but otherwise no issues. OS X tries to keep your memory pretty full, since there is no point in having a bunch of memory if you don't use it.
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    When used Mac OS X for an iOS project, it was hardly an issue, just something I happen to see sometimes being posted, not sure how serious it really is. Otherwise I spend my time in other systems anyway, so I cannot properly judge it.
    - hutattedonmyarm 12y ago
      Maybe if you only have 4GB it could become an issue, though my dads MBA runs just fine with it
Sammi 12y ago
File and window management is what kills OSX for me. Finder is just too simple and restrictive, and simple things like window snapping doesn't even exist in OSX. Don't get me started on the horrid mess that is maximization of windows. I really don't know what will happen when I press that green little button in the corner.
- err4nt 12y ago