Comment by input_sh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by input_sh | Hacker News Reader

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That means that I've been actively using it for about 8 years now! Back then it was the only Linux-based OS that was lightweight enough for my old Asus laptop not to overheat.

It's the little things that make me always go back to it:

- If I've made a selection in terminal, Ctrl+C will copy it. If there's no selection, it will kill the process as usual.

- Simple math directly from the launcher without the need to open calculator. Just press meta key, type the calculation, see the result. I wish it did more than that, but I'm using a third-party launcher for that stuff (https://ulauncher.io/, comes with elementary-inspired theme out of the box).

- Fuzzy search in the app launcher! I'm quite annoyed that I have to type "fire" in the launcher in every other OS I've tried to start Firefox (in Win10 even that does not work reliably). In elementary OS, I can do "ffox", "ffx", or anything resembling what I'm looking for, and Firefox will pop up.

Overall the system just gets out of my way and lets me launch apps quickly and navigate between them with breeze, which is precisely what I'm looking for in an OS. There's also a couple of third-party apps specifically designed for it that I absolutely love, most notably Planner (https://planner-todo.web.app/).

Congrats on the awesome decade team! I hope for many more successful ones and can't wait for the v6 to be ready for my laptop!

It’s funny, those features you mention mirror macOS features I love almost exactly (macOS used Cmd + C/V for copy/paste which I personally think works better than other meta key choices).

I mean this in the best way possible: macOS has a very a well through out UI and copying some of its patterns in an intelligent way is a good thing. I look forward to trying Elementary OS.

Agreed. But now we need touchpad hardware and/or drivers at Mac level quality and features.

There have been precisely 3 reasons why I’ve been using a MacBook for my laptop for the past 11 years while being a diehard Linux on the desktop fan:

1. Hardware quality. Metal chassis, amazing screen, an acre of touchpad surface that just works. I know I can’t pull the hard drive or upgrade the RAM. I know I can’t replace the battery, but even with those limitations it is an amazing build.

2. AppleCare. I don’t mind paying for insurance on my laptop (or phone for that matter). In all other products I use I opt for the “if it breaks I’ll either fix it or buy another one) approach but when it comes to my two main devices I don’t want to do that. Peace of mind is nice.

3. Pixelimator and Graphic. These are two amazing pieces of software and as much as I’d love for an open source alternative to come along and eat their lunch, GIMP and Inkscape can’t touch them. I have been using darktable instead of Lightroom but might switch to the latter at some point as it just has much more community support. The only other bonus thing would be iMessage/Messages because a full size keyboard is nicer for texting people than a tiny on screen one, but plenty of alternatives exist.

That’s really it. If I could have these things in an open build, my next machine might not be a MacBook.

I agree on 1. for sure. I bought a HP Envy laptop a couple of years ago and the hardware is terrible. The touchpad is awful compared to a MBP, the thermals are awful (doing anything will start the fans), and worst of all the metal is flimsy and has started to bend around the USB ports and the whole thing generally feels like it is going to fall apart, in around a year of use.

Even though the envy was a fair bit cheaper than a Macbook (Air/Pro) it doesn't really make sense if it falls to pieces after a year. I usually get 5 years out of my Apple laptops and that is with insanely heavy use.

>AppleCare. I don’t mind paying for insurance on my laptop (or phone for that matter)

There are all kinds of third-party companies that will insure your electronic goods, in which case you get the benefit of fixing it or replacing it. Not quite as convenient if you have an Apple store nearby, but just sayin'.

I agree that Apple touchpads can't be beat by anything else I've ever used. But, I eventually got to the point that using an inferior trackpad was trumped by features found in other laptops.

> If I've made a selection in terminal, Ctrl+C will copy it. If there's no selection, it will kill the process as usual

Which is already a prime example of bad user interface design.

I also love that feature. It's not inherently good or bad, just you clearly don't prefer it. I definitely prefer it to work intuitively like this.

I'd say it's a really functional compromise to handling well-established and conflicting keyboard shortcuts.

I turn this feature on in gnome terminal on all my machines (It's built into it by default).

> If I've made a selection in terminal, Ctrl+C will copy it. If there's no selection, it will kill the process as usual.

You can set that up in a bunch of terminal emulators these days. I have it working that way in Konsole.

I can, but I don't have to, it does that out of the box! I've dabbled in other terminal emulators, but could never be bothered to set them up quite as I'd like them to behave.

Have you tried xfce? It's even more lightweight than eos, and has existed for more than 20 years.

I've been testing Xubuntu 21.04 in virtualbox and so far it's solid. Definitely recommend trying it out if people are interested in xfce.

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