Hacker News Reader

Comment by publlus_enigma | Hacker News Reader

The reason this amazing project exists is the same reason my current Mac will be my last Mac.

I wish the team every success.

I got my first ever Mac relatively recently and I'm shocked by how annoying MacOS is. Maybe the mistake was expecting a proper operating system that puts the user in charge and not something more similar to iOS. Also Mac forums are full of dumb users and aren't much help. Average problem solving experience: There is no solution because Apple doesn't allow it, the workaround doesn't really do what you want and the other users question why you have to do the thing you want to do anyway. "Why not just let Apple wake up your hibernating Macbook at 3:00 AM and drain the battery bro, they know what they're doing"

Sadly the hardware is amazing and so much more efficient compared to Intel/AMD x86. We need M-series chips for Linux.

My favorite is missing support for face unlock, missing "energy options" (stay on when I close lid, something Windows XP had for 25 years now), and draining the battery empty when you shut the MacBook down while plugged in.

Yeah, vanilla MacOS is super focused on the set of "all windows of a given Application" as the useful "unit of work". Whereas in real work, you actually handle individual windows of a set of applications (e.g. firefox window for docs, vscode for code, finder window for project files) as the single unit you are working on.

MacOS is, in my experience, incredibly clunky due to this mismatch. You can fix some (e.g. use AltTab for sane alttabbing), but not others (how can i prevent the next application window popping up when minimizing one)

It is indeed very strange and annoying. And I don't remember it being so bad ten years ago (although I had to use witcher for alt-tabbing - which actually worked well, unlike AltTab now). Since Linux, and both OG Mac Os, I am used to having multiple Desktops, in total multiple windows of the same applications (browsers, pdf reader, office, file browser). Mac Os is completely hostile towards doing multiple tasks at the same time, and compartmentalizing them into desktops -- you keep getting thrown around to random windows on random desktops (example if you close a window), it's super difficult to find your windows, it's just crazy. You're afraid of ever moving away from a window.

I think this paradim is also what's makes the Mac OS feel snappy. If basically having multiple windows for one software open is "holding it wrong", the OS is pushing you into one application, one window paradigm. As long as you do that, everything is pretty quick. But don't dare open two browser windows, or even worse, two windows of a word processor. The performance will degrade (and you'll keep searching for your windows...)

I don't know, while I miss the super+right click drag to resize window and super+left click drag to move window from KDE on my work machine, I also kinda miss the smoothness of macOS's handling of many windows and desktops utilizing the trackpad on my gaming desktop. The swipe up and down/ctrl+arrow up and down to juggle windows within the desktop, and then left/right to move between desktops even makes their at first awkward handling of fullscreening apps feel right and efficient. What I really miss in KDE though is multiple virtual desktops per display I can switch independently per display. Actually makes me enjoy using multiple monitors slightly slightly more on macOS. What I sadly can't see happening is a merging of KDE, macOS, and the superior i3, as there would be too few few safe shortcut combinations available for programs to rely on.

vanilla MacOS is super focused on the set of "all windows of a given Application" as the useful "unit of work". Whereas in real work, you actually handle individual windows of a set of applications (e.g. firefox window for docs, vscode for code, finder window for project files) as the single unit you are working on.

Thank you for articulating this so well.

When I bought a new M1 MacBook Air for my kid, I hadn’t used OSX in years, and was excited to try a super-polished Unix. Holy heck I couldn’t believe how work hostile it was. I want apps tiled so I can quickly jump betwee - not to go to the top of the screen to get bottom tile’s menu.

And the state of finder (other than preview) is something out of Redhat 5.1.

And the response is always “you’re holding it wrong.”

Can you give some examples of a goal you can’t accomplish?

I am not who you asked, but lately it has been really frustrating for me that macOS locks portions of the filesystem when the screen is locked, which breaks rsync backups because they cannot read those files. I have been unable to find a way around this.

That being said, the security design that creates this problem is quite impressive, and I think much more tight than most people realize is happening on stock macOS. I just wish that I could unlock my whole home directory from the CLI somehow when I do my non-time-machine backup.

Ah, that’s interesting- I wasn’t aware and I can see why it would be annoying

Could you cite a few issues that you've run across, please?

I have used Macs since the late 80s, there have always been teething problems, duds and effups, but nothing that wasn't addressed by independent Mac devs. How can Apple make everyone happy?

But these days? With codex/claude/et al, you can make your Mac sing to whatever tune you prefer. I feel a bit bad for indies, but they still have not-prosumer market to make their living. I now just make my own apps to replace what I've bought in the past.

Cheers

Do you mean 'will be my last MacOS?'

No. Whilst Apple's hardware is among the best in the world, I simply can't support their direction with respect to increasingly closed hardware.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com