Hacker News Reader

Comment by pschastain | Hacker News Reader

Funny. Coming from macOS to Linux Mint, I find I can make many of the same or similar arguments but against Linux.

The UI is inconsistent, esp. wrt the menu bar. Keyboard shortcuts are inconsistent across different apps. macOS remembers window positions, GNOME doesn't. macOS can use different backgrounds for different monitors, GNOME can't. The GNOME Panel is a poor substitute for the macOS Dock (which itself is severely limited) i.e. doesn't offer any visual cue that an app is launching. I could go on.

OSes are a tool. Use what works best for you.

View on HN

I thought Mint came with Cinnamon. (Wow that was a funny sentence :D)

> macOS can use different backgrounds for different monitors, GNOME can't

That'd be the least of my problems. Also, on xfce you can set different backgrounds for different monitors.

That's the thing GP is missing in his Linux criticism.

Whatever you don't like you can just change. You can change to a different DE, change WM/themes/icons/dotfiles whatever you want, you can change. You are not constrained by a perscribed UX philosophy.

To me personally that is very liberating.

I tried KDE and had different but equally frustrating issues. People say you can "just fix it yourself" with Linux but that's not always feasible or worth a person's time.

But whatever frustations you have, irrespective of what you feel is the time commitment, you can actually fix in Linux. With Windows/Mac you are stuck with those frustrations as 'prescribed' by however did the UX.

We're talking "out of the box" here, and while I'm not a fan of a lot of the UI changes in macOS it still "just works". Linux doesn't i.e. the wifi on my laptop dies after sleep & the only "fix" is a reboot. I've tried everything the internet can suggest, to no avail. You say you can "actually fix it in Linux", but this isn't true; sometimes the "fix" requires a level of technical knowledge that ordinary users don't have.

I agree that Mac is much better out of the box. And nearly everything "just works".

I like Macs, though my personal machine is currently the latest Fedora Beta running on a ThinkPad. It's too early to tell if there are issues, but first impressions are looking good.

Over the years I have discovered that — especially with laptops — some machines work better than others with Linux.

For instance, some Dell machines and nearly all ThinkPads work pretty well with Linux without any of the usual issues (sleep/suspend/bluetooth/wifi problems). However, that's not the case with all manufacturers. For an anecdotal example, I had to resort to witchcraft to get Debian to run on my non-technical friend's ASUS laptop.

> sometimes the "fix" requires a level of technical knowledge that ordinary users don't have

True statement.

Not sure if these are similar arguments. These are relatively minor cosmetic issues. Window management and package management on the other hand are essential parts of the operating system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com