How about the non-modifiable hidden system partition? Inability to create directories under /
That alone has stopped me moving my Macs to the latest OS after testing.
That alone has stopped me moving my Macs to the latest OS after testing.
Why not? It's his system, he should be able to do whatever he likes. On most Linux I can rm -rf / all day long and nobody cares. What's the problem with creating root level directories?
> On most Linux I can rm -rf / all day long and nobody cares.
So let me turn this around: Why do you think a system that doesn't make it difficult to completely destroy it with one command is a bad idea? "It's my system, I should be able to do whatever I like" is an answer, to be sure.
(N.B.: in fact, "rm -rf /" won't work without "--no-preserve-root" in most Linux distributions, AFAIK, and I presume sudo.)
This does not seem very charitable.
It is fine if the system warns you about doing potentially dangerous operations (which --no-preserve-root amounts to) but it must not prevent you from ignoring that warning.
The decision on which bits of the system I can destroy should be mine, not theirs. That's the issue. At the moment, I am getting pushed out of my machine, bit by bit. Every binary I run is getting report to Apple etc.
It is also possible to destroy the system by dropping your MacBook from a very great height. Should it be padded to cope with this eventuality?
Why would Apple want to restrict access to certain memory locations?
It was a habit on macOS since /Developer used to be where xcode lived until they moved it to /Applications.
It also makes it easy to look in the /DeveloperLibs directory and see if I've got all libraries I need on this machine (I have different development machines under different OSes).
Removing ability to create directories under the root seems draconian for no good reason, other than the iOS-ification of my machine. Not Apple's machine - my machine.
I don't understand why people would ask "why would you want to do that?" because everybody used to defend the ability to only resize windows from the bottom right corner under macOS until a few versions ago, when it became obvious that resizing a window from any edge was a good idea and always had been. But people oddly defended it for decades before that.
What if they now remove the ability to change your desktop wallpaper? Would we all say "but why would you want to change your wallpaper?"? We seem to accept the gradual lock-down of our own machines. Apple users (and I am one) seem to be the most defensive of the company's behaviours and it doesn't make sense - we just have to accept it.
If Microsoft removed the ability to create a directory under C:\, what would the result be? Would we be asking "but why would you want to create a directory under C:\?"? I think not. It'd be the apocalypse.
The second, is that I am able to create root folders, I just have to remount as rw before creating it and after that I can mount any data folder to `/foo`. I'm not entirely clear why not having `/` as rw by default is such an issue, but you are cetainly not prevented from doing it if you wanted to.
There are certainly many decisions Apple makes that I don't like and I am always keeping my eye on Linux in case I really feel the need to pull the rip cord. But for me, this is just not a hill of sufficient size to die on. "Apple now mounts the system partition as read-only" just doesn't feel like a slippery slope that leads inexorably to... well, I'm not really sure where people imagine it's going. "This is something I used to be able to do and now I can't and soon that means I won't be able to open a shell!" I mean, maybe, but... probably not. If I had to choose whether "Macs in five years will only be able to install programs from the Mac App Store" or "iPads in five years will be able to install programs from places other than the iOS App Store" is more likely, I'd honestly go with the latter.
> I don't understand why people would ask "why would you want to do that?"
I guess I don't understand why asking the question is controversial; I'm not trying to lead anyone into a rhetorical trap that forces them to admit only axe murderers would ever use this functionality. :) It's simply that in what I'm pretty sure is over a quarter-century of Unix use on my part I don't recall ever putting anything in the root directory of any of my systems except by mistake.
As for "defending the ability to only resize windows from the bottom right corner until a few versions ago," your memory of this is different from mine, I suppose. I recall a lot of Mac users thinking that Apple's one-corner-only approach was a bad leftover from the pre-OS X days that needed to change!
It would get rid of shitty Mac application documentation that rather than installing itself in correct locations, has troubleshooting steps like:
> Just chown your entire `/` to your current user and `chmod +w *`...
Until Atomic installations become the norm like SilverBlue its probably a good step.
Finder hides all of /etc and /bin and /usr for the "protection" of normal users, just like the default view for Windows Explorer under C:\Windows\System. But you can still change the contents on Windows, or see the directories in Terminal on macOS.
Should they hide those directories when you use Terminal too? After all, /etc is important. Your reasoning would also stand up there - perhaps whatever files you were attempting to modify under /etc wasn't actually that important.
When does the "you cannot easily modify files on your own machine" stop?
Would you also accept the inability to change your wallpaper with such glee? Perhaps the wallpaper you wanted wasn't actually that important.
There have been examples of (un)installer scripts removing substantial parts of your system, steam for example. Linux in this case https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/3671, but not generally unthinkable on MacOS. It's generally good if the system puts up barriers to prevent such occurrences.
You're entirely welcome to disable these protections, but MacOS is designed to protect Joe User who may have substantially less knowledge and who has no general need to mess around in /etc
It's like banning knives because there's been a few stabbings. It removes the general utility due to misuse by a few.
...it's...the root of your entire system? Are you really asking me why `rm -rf /` is a meme, or are you just being contrarian?
> Finder hides all of /etc and /bin and /usr for the "protection" of normal users
And you can change Finder's preferences to show those folders, like any actual macOS user that's qualified to be making changes to those folders should know. If you lack both the curiosity and the ability to look up how to enable that option, then you frankly have no business modifying them yourself. If whatever you wanted to copy or edit there wasn't important enough for you to take ten seconds to look up how to do it and then follow through with the instructions, then why on earth would you be complaining about it to anybody?
I can also do rm -rf ~/Documents or rm -rf /Applications or rm -rf /Library which has a similar devastating effect to my life/machine - should we block that too?
I can also fling a hammer into the screen and break the screen - should we put extra thick glass on the screen? I guess I have no business using a MacBook if it is possible to break the screen.
I can also pour liquid into the keyboard - should the keyboards be waterproof? I guess I am not qualified to use a Macbook and have no business using one if I spill a drink.
Using the keyboard is dangerous too because someone can type dangerous commands. Let's stop people using it. Only those with sufficient "curiosity" and those "qualified" should use it, right? How do I get "qualified"?
I am saying that as it is my machine, I get to decide which parts are dangerous. But I no longer can because someone the other side of the world has decided that I am cannot create a directory under /.
I do not ever modify /etc using Finder. Should I only be allowed to edit files under there using Finder or is Terminal permitted?
I guess if we follow this "lock down" and "only those qualified" route that you encourage, we'll soon see permission prompts to do anything anyway.
> synthetic.conf describes virtual symbolic links and empty directories to be created at the root mount point.