Linux guy tries out a Mac for a weekend for the first time | Hacker News Reader

Linux guy tries out a Mac for a weekend for the first time

badcheese.com

14 pointsscumola32 comments

OSX has definitely won me over. My background is primarily in Linux. About 5 or 6 years of exclusive Linux use on my personal machines. Most of my needs are mostly online or a terminal window so I can adapt to new platforms pretty quickly. I don't really care what OS I use for the most part. Linux lost me on good power management support. I really need to be able to sleep a machine and have it wake-up quickly and properly 99% of the time. OSX is the only OS out there today I've found can do that reliability. The system is back up with networking in the time it takes to open the lid and put your hands on the keyboard. I still run a Linux VM though because macports & fink are not all that fantastic. I still want the safety of a familiar Linux environment from time to time.

"I'm sure that I could hook up an external USB mouse, but I wanted to do things the 'mac' way, so I worked without it."

I keep reading this same sentiment from everyone who tries out a Mac. Please don't bother. The first thing every Mac user does is throw away that useless mouse. I imagine a landfill somewhere filled with nothing but little blobs of white plastic.

I haven't really used Apple mice enough, but, as far as laptops are concerned, I think that the multi-touch trackpad is way better than anything else I have used on laptops.

So, I keep reading the same thing too, but my feeling is that people would need to know the different gestures to really appreciate it.

double-finger click = right-click; double-finger is scroll (on other laptops I had a scroller on the side, but it often worked so-so); plus others to flip pages, rotate pictures, etc.

The 4 finger up or down sweeps for Exposé are the best and most useful for me, just after the double-finger scroll.

If only he clicked while pushing the apple/command key down!

The OP's biggest problem is his unfamiliarity with the OS. I'm sure if he spent some more time with the Mac, he could easily get used to it. If it helps, I'm going to post the solutions to some of his problems here.

About the XCode problem: there is something wrong with Apple's servers. I never had problems downloading XCode, but one of my friends had to retry several times before his XCode download succeeded. His downloads failed in exactly the same way as the OP's. (BTW, OSX also comes with wget.)

Mouse: Contrary to popular belief, you can right click on a stock OSX install. If you have tap-to-click enabled, just tap the trackpad with two fingers. Otherwise, put two fingers on the trackpad and press the button. If you're using an Apple mouse, you can enable right-clicking in the mouse preferences.

Torrent client: I have never heard of or used Tomato Torrent. The most popular torrent client on the Mac is Transmission, and it sports a beautiful UI. BTW, if you're looking for apps, the best place would be http://osx.iusethis.com

Package management: Use MacPorts, which is something like Gentoo's portage. The trouble with MacPorts is that it doesn't use OSX's default packages, so you have two versions of Perl, two versions of Python, etc. The good thing about MacPorts is that it installs everything in /opt/local/, which means you can just rm -rf the directory to get rid of everything.

I don't use MacPorts. I prefer to compile all my packages from source and install them in /opt/.

Under the hood, OS X is a good ol' UNIX distribution. It took me about a week to get used to OS X when I purchased my first Mac last year (this was after 4 years of using Linux a PC).

The only problem with OS X is that once you get used to it, going back to a hardcore Linux distro like Debian is not easy :)

OS X doesn't come with wget, but it does come with curl, which is almost as good.

> The OP's biggest problem is his unfamiliarity with the OS.

Isn't that true for both Linux and Windows?

I personally didn't like Mac OS X, and I've used it for a whole year. MacPorts is not as properly maintained as the Debian repository, many packages having old versions, and manually compiling packages is just silly.

After a while I discovered that I don't depend on any OS X specific software at all. I used Textmate, but it couldn't make me as happy as Emacs is :) I used Firefox instead of Safary, iTunes was making me cry (I'll never purchase an iPod again), and MacPorts was inferior. So the 2K price-tag wasn't justified for a new laptop when my old one broke.

Ubuntu is doing just fine. The only problem I have is the lack of Adobe Photoshop, but I workaround it with Gimp and Inkscape.

I know MacPorts is not very well maintained. That is the reason I prefer to build everything from source. I, too, use MacVim instead of TextMate and Firefox instead of Safari.

I decided to get a Mac for two reasons. One, I like the aesthetics and cannot stand the plastic monstrosities other laptop manufacturers build. Also, OS X looks 10 times better out of the box than my heavily customized Ubuntu desktop (IMO, of course). Secondly, I don't like fighting with my OS. I prefer point-and-click UIs for menial tasks like setting up SSH or an FTP server or even an Apache test environment. Even though I spend most of my time in a shell, wrestling with configuration files is not my piece of cake.

I guess all this boils down to the fact that I love OS X :)

<SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION>As for iTunes, me and a friend are working on a replacement. It's going to take us a couple of months to arrive at something usable, but we're getting there. Link: http://github.com/goonj/goonj/ </SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION>

> Secondly, I don't like fighting with my OS.

I hear your pain. That's why I purchased one in the first place.

"Package management: Use MacPorts, which is something like Gentoo's portage."

I don't use OS X, but believe that Gentoo Prefix is portage, running on other systems, like OS X.

The interesting part is that the author is apparently the last living user of CVS.

I don't know that that's true. There are a lot of open-source projects that still use CVS because they always have, and it works for them.

For power users, it really is nice to have somebody just point to the few non-default options and say "here, just check that box". For instance, the two-finger-right-click is elegant and simple, but not on by default. (keyboard -> shortcuts -> check the box at the bottom "all controls") Same for making it more linux-like (macports for wget, and prce is the most reliable imo).

I forgot that the two-finger-right-click was not on by default… But as I wrote in another comment, it makes a big difference.

I'm an Operating system agnostic, although I've got a pretty strong bias toward the BSD Family. At home, I've got WinXP Home, Solaris, AIX, OpenBSD and Ubuntu Linux all up and running right now. I have a MacBook that I tote to and from work, currently dual-booting OS X Leopard and Ubuntu Jaunty. I've dealt with Macs quite a bit: this MacBook replaced a very old G3PowerBook (OS X 10.2) in 2006. I have several 68k macs as well, but they've been shelved for ages. My wife has Windows 7 (MSDN RTM release) and Vista dual-booting on her laptop, and Ubuntu/Win2K on one of her old gaming rigs that's past its prime.

At any rate, there are many things Linux could take from OS X. In just a few years, Apple built a very solid GUI with configuration tools that completely eliminate the need for a command-line interface in all but the most catastrophic of situations. Given how powerful the OS X CLI is, I'm surprised to find that a lot of Mac users never use it, and some don't even know about it at all. "Terminal" is just another one of those tools for the Genuis Bar technicians, like NetInfo Manager and Apple System Profiler, right? Still, people who are generally good with computers (take my dad, for example) are forced to learn about a whole new world of syntax and configuration files when using any Linux distro -- no matter how "friendly" people say it is.

I like having a rich background of operating systems, but I can easily see why people coming from a non-Apple background get befuddled when faced with a Mac. The learning curve is pretty easy, but it definitely takes more than a single weekend to figure out The Apple Way to do things. Of course, the reverse is also true: the Gnome, KDE and Windows interfaces aren't intrinsically intuitive for those who've never used them before, either.

Of all the OSes that I use regularly, I'd have to say OS X wins by merit of being mainstream enough that one doesn't often need to struggle in order to get things done. I like The Apple Way better than I like The Microsoft Way, but it's all personal preference.

While I don't mind the occasional need to hunt down dependencies and compile code, or edit a config by hand, it's preposterous to believe that anything requiring such tasks will ever be taken seriously among normal computer users. Linux is getting there, but it's been an insanely slow process compared to the competition.

After using a very Spartan FVWM setup for 12 years, I was finally seduced/bludgeoned into doing GNOME + Compiz after installing Ubuntu on my girlfriend's laptop (although, I'm running it with Debian).

My initial impressions of all these tools and things that "just work" is that this is rather adequately close to the highest virtues of the Mac experience proclaimed by its acolytes - minus, perhaps, the nice hardware traits like the magnetic power clip - for 1/4th the price.

That's my impression, anyway. Either I just made a good point, or I've proved myself stupefyingly retarded and shown to the world that I know absolutely not the first thing about Macs.

I suspect you're right, but I've come to understand that the OS itself is a small part of the equation. While you could find just about any software equivalents on Linux <=> Mac, some non-free software is markedly better than any free version. The hardware really is good; and when it isn't, AppleCare has saved me much frustration. If Mac didn't exist, I'd be on Linux for sure; but the entire ecosystem around Mac software has lent itself to some really quality work. Often that saves time and energy. Aesthetics are part of it, but there are indeed other factors entering into my equation more than just raw hardware+software cost.

Certainly, I have no trouble believing that - especially with commercial software in the domain that has traditionally been Mac's strength, such as video and graphics stuff.

What I am really curious about are the motivations for using Macs by highly technical developers who are not otherwise into that kind of stuff. This means people whose use of a machine consists, at least 90% of the time, of basic things like a web browser, command-line terminal and/or SSH, an IM client, an MP3 player, maybe an IDE, and so on. It seems to me that if they wanted pretty aesthetics they could do a contemporary Linux desktop environment and reap the benefits, but they insist that their productivity is greatly enhanced by Mac's basic UI features and the sort of environmental/ecosystem integration to which you allude. I personally cannot see how, although I'm a huge fan of the magnetic power clip as much as the next guy -- power sockets that go bad due to the cable being jerked around at weird angles are my #1 problem with laptops, period.

I can answer your question quite simply, and it's not about aesthetics or the magsafe power connector. The aesthetics are just icing on the cake. Very, very beautiful icing, but icing nonetheless.

I have better things to do with my life than dick around with xorg.conf for one more minute. I don't care whether the open source 'nv' or the closed source 'nvidia' module works better for my particular video setup, or what other voodoo incantations I need to do to get dual-monitor support working with or without compositing.

When I disconnect my laptop from my external display, I want to know that my window manager isn't going to strand my windows off on an unaccessible part of the desktop.

I want to know that when I put my laptop to sleep, that I'll be able to wake it up again. Quickly. Reliably. I don't need to think about ACPI or CPU power states, or why the kernel module for my wireless card won't work after waking up.

Linux works great for all my servers. I'm very happy with it, and I don't mind doing all the configuration work, because it makes a great platform for that purpose.

On the desktop, Linux is a non-starter. To quote Pulp Fiction -- "It ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport."

Yeah, I understand that. But I don't have any of the problems you're describing above, with my Debian + GNOME setup. I know others aren't so fortunate, though, so it depends on what hardware you're running it on. And to be fair, the system definitely did take a little more low-level initial configuration, like compiling the binary nVidia drivers manually.

I've run Linux as my primary OS since 1996 or so. I think Linux, OSX, and even Vista are all stable/featureful/simple enough that I could survive using any of them. I've used OSX a fair bit and never really found anything about it that would make switching worthwhile. If anything it's been playing catchup with my Linux desktop as far as the things I consider important in an OS (Spaces was only released in like 2006-2007 I believe)

Linux: Free. Stable. Simple (for me). Tons of free/open software. Ultimate flexibility. Super scriptable.

OSX: No killer feature. Less flexibility. Higher cost. More polished. Less keyboard friendly.

Vista: Great for games.

I'm about to move in the opposite direction. I've had Apple laptops for the past seven years, and I've had nothing but trouble with them, despite really careful treatment.

OS X is nice, but since I deploy on linux it's easier to just have the same platform on both. Besides Textmate and Dictionary I don't use any os x specific programs anyway.

Seems like Linux is still behind in terms of getting the most battery life out of laptops, though.

btw - does anyone have a good light-weight, long battery life laptop recommendations that will run Linux (most likely Ubuntu) well?

You might consider the Lenovo netbooks - also virtuous for their sturdy construction. Although they may be a little underpowered for your tastes, depending on what you're doing, my friend has 6-7 hours of battery life on his.

I tried it with wget on linux and it downloaded great the first time

One of the best things about OS X (for a geek like me, at least): you can get wget and a multitude of other Unix software for it. Also, curl is included by default, I believe.

As far as package managers go, there's MacPorts and Fink. I've been using MacPorts mostly these days.

For torrent clients, uTorrent or Transmission are good.

I've been thinking about getting a Mac for the hardware/battery lifetime. As a long-time Linux user, I like the fact that it has the Unix toolchain, and with rootless X I can probably continue avoiding paying for software. But I really don't like the idea of that global menubar. Every time I use OS X I get into a situation where the topmost window is not the active application and things get weird. But I said the same thing about VI and I got addicted. Does anyone who initially disliked the OS X menubar have any opinions about it after a while of usage?

> Every time I use OS X I get into a situation where the topmost window is not the active application...

Unless you mean a situation where the active application has no windows (and thus can't have a topmost window), I've never seen this happen in standard usage.

This actually appears to be a bug my girlfriend runs into with Spaces and Office 2004 and Snow Leopard. But yeah, I've never seen it anywhere else.

(word window on top, spaces out, spaces in, word window draws below the top, but in every other way thinks it's on top. An expose fixes)

The price comparison never made much sense to me. It's 1 - 1.5K difference in price. For most people who use the computer to make a living, that is nothing when evaluated through the lifetime of the computer.

If you can save 1-1.5k in purchase price than over the life of the computer you've saved 1-1.5k, especially if you can't perceive or don't feel any difference in quality. For most people that's a significant chunk of change.

Right, if there's no difference, that's obvious. I'm mostly referring to those who say something to the effect of "Mac's are better, but I can't pay the 1.5K difference".

If you aim to be the best at your field, it's imperative you're using the best tools - or at least the best you can afford. If you're using your computer to make a living, you can afford it.

This is really helpful to me. I've been considering a mac laptop for a while.

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