Comment by inferiorhuman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by inferiorhuman | Hacker News Reader

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Why wait?

Because I don't want Linux. MacOS largely still just works and Linux is moving away from its strengths as quickly as possible. I don't want systemd. I don't want pulse audio. I don't want Wayland. Linux's strength, for me, has been that it's unixy. If I'm moving to a non-unixy setup, like Linux is becoming, I want it to be as polished and well supported as possible. Linux, simply put, is none of those.

And, quite frankly, I don't want a Thinkpad (and I can't stand that eraser tip pointing thing). I bought a 2015 rMBP late last year and cross shopped offerings from Dell, Lenovo, and one of those Linux laptop companies whose name is escaping me right now. The Mac won out and didn't command a premium over comparably specced alternatives.

I'll spare the ranting about the Gnome 3, new GIMP UI and systemd in general (but these are both major issues for me and symptomatic of a culture I don't want to buy into). I recently tried to set up a Pi Zero with an Audioquest DragonFly DAC. The DAC just works in FreeBSD and MacOS with no hassle. I was able to tweak ALSA to get sound out of it, but shairport-sync can't set the volume (which works just fine on FreeBSD). WiFi was a struggle as well. I forgot what an archaic mess of procfs tunables and bizarre config files Linux on the desktop can be, and I don't want to spend my days debugging my desktop system.

One of my coworkers at megacorp got the officially sanctioned Linux laptop (some Dell thing). Like a good end user he installed updates as they became available. Turns out megacorp bought the Windows version of the laptop and installed Linux on it. Well, my coworker installed some firmware updates that promptly re-enabled secure boot borking his system. He lost a day trying to figure out what happened (Dell wouldn't support Linux on it and corporate IT was entirely indifferent). I don't want to dodge a minefield masquerading as a support matrix.

It seems like it's been the year of the Linux on the desktop for most of my adult life.

Edit: Downvotes don't win over users.

I think that is a strange argument to make for preferring macs over Linux. Many of the things you mentioned are inspired by osx counterparts (for example, launchd was the main inspiration for systemd)

I think that is a strange argument to make for preferring macs over Linux. Many of the things you mentioned are inspired by osx counterparts (for example, launchd was the main inspiration for systemd)

How is it a strange argument? Apple did a good job developing its daemons, and did so for a brand new operating system. Pottering did an abysmal job imitating Apple and is doing a worse job at maintaining his software (e.g. Pottering refusing to open CVEs for known vulnerabilities), and has worked tirelessly to replace working solutions.

If I want non-unix, I go with MacOS. If I want unix-ish, Linux doesn't fit the bill. Much like how I chafe at the GIMP developers chasing non-existent "pro" users with unwieldy UI changes, Linux on the desktop seems to be chasing change for change's sake.

You can avoid using systemd[1]. If you don't like the churn of desktop environments, may I suggest Xfce ? It is usable and does not overhaul things that often.

I personally prefer systemd and moved from Ubuntu to ArchLinux a long time ago in order to use it. But I agree with you, the constant overhaul of UI is a problem which is why I have stuck to Xfce for a long time. I however, do not use GIMP, but there may be other options out there.

By the way MacOS is Unix, it is a POSIX compliant OS. Also, you can run Linux on your Mac.

[1] http://without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Linux_distribution...

Right, I can do a lot of things with Linux with enough effort. But for a desktop OS I want things to just work. Pretty much any major distro that's supposed to just work is going to be systemd at this point.

And, sure, MacOS is unix-ish but Apple is ripping more and more of the old NextStep and BSDish things in favor of their own stuff with each version. As long as it just works I'm pretty happy. There are, however, lots of little quirks and gaps with their POSIX layer which is why I'd hesitate to call it a proper UNIX.

Also, you can run Linux on your Mac.

Which would be great if I wanted Linux. I don't. MacOS is working just fine for me.

macOS is certified UNIX under the Single Unix Specification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification#macO...

Yep, I'm well aware. But as I said the little quirks and whatnot make MacOS feel less unixy. Obviously they're not deal breakers for me, but things like telnet, ftp, and OpenSSL disappearing make it seem like Apple is moving away from SUS (more than it is?). The delta between MacOS and everything else seems to grow with each release. It's probably worth noting that no vendor has tried to get Linux SUS certified and most distributions aren't even LSB compliant.

In fairness, the command-line world of the BSDs of the 1980s is long gone in some respects, and this is not just some Apple/NeXT idiosyncrasy.

OpenBSD's ftp command has become a generic multiple-protocol file transfer tool, different to the ftp commands of the other BSDs. (FreeBSD puts this functionality into a tool named fetch, instead.)

The r- commands were eliminated from FreeBSD some time ago, with much the same happening to them as happened with telnet on MacOS. They are no longer in the operating system, but are applications that one can install from packages/ports.

BSD re-vamped its command-line interface to ps in 1990. It has been getopt-based, and documented as such, for 29 years and 7 days.

rc.local was labelled obsolete in FreeBSD in 1995, and deleted from base in 1998.

And so on.

Citations needed for the personal attacks. For reference, my bug reports to systemd and the ones filed by my coworkers have been handled quickly and professionally.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14722573

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/28/black_hat_pwnie_awa...

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/5144

Hence, I doubt the security community requests what is asked for in this issue. And I am pretty sure it's not our job as developers to file CVEs for any bug – regardless how small – we encounter. CVEs are after all not our currency, but the security community's...

"Refusing" is a bit strong here.

I agree this was a bug, but hardly a remote code exploit. The thread is very level headed and someone else filed the CVE. In the OSS community I run in this is normal, in fact I'd say it's very common for the primary developer to have a differing opinion about severity. But security doesn't depend on one bug ticket or one maintainer. There are many entities and teams at play that check and balance.

"Refusing" is a bit strong here.

How so? In your own words:

someone else filed the CVE.

Having someone else override Poettering does not mean "Pottering did not refuse". It simply means saner heads prevailed.

You don't win a pwnie for high quality code, and the vulns they listed (as well as ones discovered subsequent to the award) all smack of low quality code. As the lead of a core piece of technology I expect more than childish whinging about how "CVEs aren't our currency". You like Pottering, great. I don't, and more to the point I don't like the results of his influence on Linux. When posed the question "why not switch to Linux now?" systemd is high on the list of reasons.

I don't "like" Pottering because I don't know the person in the slightest. I have found systemd to be useful software and interactions on the issue queue have been reasonable.

I was a happy Upstart user before Upstart threw in the towel too.

I can't reply at your depth, but Apple and Google also appear to have won a "pwnie", whatever that is. I think think they still do respectable work in spite of it.

Also, thanks for the citation. I still strongly feel you've shown something that doesn't warrant a personal attack. As someone who gladly uses systemd while having no particular attachment to it, I find the aggressive and personal attacks confusing.

That says nothing at all about its design or architecture or quality or usability. Windows 1.0 was inspired by the Macintosh.

No. According to Lennart Poettering, the inspiration for systemd was upstart.

No, he looked at upstart and found it severely lacking. launchd was much more the inspiration.

In Lennart Poettering's very own words, written on xyr own WWW site back in 2010, xe stated that xe "took a lot of inspiration" from Upstart.

Read http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html, specifically the criticism on Upstart.

Systemd having taken such a different path to solving the startup and service problem, I don't think you can really say that Upstart inspired systemd, perhaps only Upstart's failings.

And yet it is that very page where Lennart Poettering says exactly what I quoted. You have an argument with Lennart Poettering, and are trying to argue that xe did not take inspiration from what xe said that xe did.

> Edit: Downvotes don't win over users.

HN policy is to not gripe or discuss reasons for being downvoted.

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