Comment by eosrei | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eosrei | Hacker News Reader

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Preface: I am a full-time Linux user, who has used both Mac and Windows extensively. My systems run Ubuntu with MATE, but I'd accept Mint/Cinnamon or GNOME too.

Snow Leopard was nine years ago to be fair. The UI/UX of Linux has come a long way since then, but the UI/UX could be optimized further. What is wrong with it?

To cover the common issues first: WiFi - Was an issue, but hasn't been on my machines at least six years. Sleep - Was an issue, but hasn't been on my machines at least four years. I've had this machine up to 60 day uptime, so 50+ sleeps, only restarting for the kernel update for example. HiDPI - Still an issue, but the apologist says "It was new tech! Just like the other two." Progress is being made, but it will be a while until seamless.

Due to my familiarity (with all three OSs) my UI/UX views may be incorrect for new users. I don't want a flame war. I want to know what else needs to be done in Ubuntu 18.04 GNOME and/or Mint/MATE. I'll file issues, create bug reports, and perhaps fix some things myself. It's easier to see this forest from another forest.

Edit: Further down the comments I found "Bluetooth" I'm going to look into it.

My biggest gripe with MacOS by far is that I can't hibernate. There is only this "sleep" mode that makes whatever it wants, with the promise that it will Just Work. I frequently find my laptop with an empty battery because who knows what. And a laptop that does not power up when you expect is the second worst kind of laptop (at least you don't lose the data, which would be the worst case).

When searching for solutions, internet delivers hypertechnical answers that are reminiscent of when I was dealing with a Linux laptop (pmset -g assertions browsing). To me, apple as a "Unix that Just Works" is a failure.

The hardware is high quality, but the brand-and-software premium price has stopped being a good deal for me.

Tweaking prefs could help, make sure 'App Nap' is off, and see what the pmset hibernatemode is set to, it sounds like you want mode '1'.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/51725/do-macbooks-...

I gotta ask, because I've used MBPs for the last 10 years, and I'm surrounding by dozens of people using the same: but what is your setup? Are you on High Sierra?

Sleep used to be a problem for me and a lot of others... back in 2012. I would consistently have issues with my MBP "waking up" when unplugging it from the wall but not opening it; occasionally I would close my MBP and coincidentally hear the fans going full blast 30 minutes later. Definitely untrustworthy 5/6 years ago

But sleep is generally a solved problem, so I have to think you're on a pre-Retina machine or running an older OS, or you've got some kexts doing bad things.

Unfortunately that's not the case; I've got a 2015 MacBook upgraded to High Sierra.

> The UI/UX of Linux has come a long way since then, but the UI/UX could be optimized further. What is wrong with it?

Only details. Inconsistent layout, spacing, fonts and icons, animations that don't help and introduce artificial weight and sluggishness. It seems like there isn't much time spend with prototyping, maybe because the prototyping tools didn't exist on Linux (now you can use Figma and others in the browser), and most devs won't switch to Macs for Linux UI design out of pride.

Transitions and stuff like that are tricky, if your UI framework can't handle non linear transitions, better ignore them completely, linearity doesn't work out and will always feel slower and of lesser quality as rendering as fast as possible, or perfectly dialed in non linearity.

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