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Switching from macOS: The Basics

518 pointsby SunShiranuiover 8 years ago

51 comments

veidrover 8 years ago
My own burning hatred towards Apple runs a little hotter than most, and I have been seriously googling (and trying) alternatives since 2012.<p>That was when my $9000 Mac Pro — which had been a great machine, and still was, except for the little detail about not having been updated since 2009 and thus being stuck with USB 2 (!!!) to say nothing of Thunderbolt and any kind of modern accoutrements — started to feel like a personal affront, a sneering <i>fuck you</i> directed at not just me, but everybody remotely like me. (Wow!!! <i>Déjà vu</i> bro!!)<p>Nevertheless, I didn&#x27;t switch then, and all of us complainers won&#x27;t switch now either.<p>Because <i>the fucking OS</i>.<p>I&#x27;ve tried every iteration of Ubuttnu, CentOS, and FreeBSD since. Even OpenWhatever, before the goblins bought it. I have Thinkpads and Dell XPS &quot;Developer Editions&quot; and a drawer full of other crap like that.<p>Executive summary: it&#x27;s all garbage time. It&#x27;s like going back 10+ years. Nothing works right, on any of them. Copy&#x2F;paste, batteries, wireless networking, drag and drop, high-res displays, multilingual input, even like fucking word processing and email and image editors and terminal programs... it&#x27;s all like Mac OS X Jaguar level.<p>We can&#x27;t give Apple the finger, even though we want to (and definitely after last week, we <i>all</i> want to) because there literally isn&#x27;t an OS in the world that can touch Mac OS for general-purpose workstation&#x2F;laptop use. (For niche and limited-purpose, yes, there are options.)<p>Elementary OS is a fucking joke. Every OS mentioned disparagingly above is a better choice for almost any purpose. But those are still horrible.<p>Apple&#x27;s OS advantage is what lets them say &quot;Fuck you peons, here&#x27;s some 3 year old technology and a bag of dongles, that&#x27;ll be $4000.&quot;<p>But we&#x27;re mostly all gonna buy the new shitty MacBook Hipster, or gut it out with our old ones, until a better fucking <i>OS</i> happens. And that won&#x27;t be soon — it&#x27;s not even remotely on the horizon.
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fnlover 8 years ago
I try Ubuntu about once a year, in the hopes of getting rid of OSX. But each time, the reason for going back to Apple ID is <i></i>interoperability<i></i>: Try dragging stuff (images, fotos, links, files, formatted text ...) from one program to another, including the &quot;dreaded&quot; Finder; Works nearly always in OSX. While Ubuntu has come a long way with these things, I think it&#x27;s still an even longer way away from what OSX can do.<p>So while I haven&#x27;t tried Elementary, I&#x27;d be astonished if it&#x27;s any better at interoperability than Ubuntu...
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Void_over 8 years ago
I&#x27;m really hoping this is just a phase. Hoping that Apple will reduce prices of new laptops and we&#x27;ll be back to normal.<p>Right now everybody is using Macs. Walk into the Bay Area coffee shop, you see Macs everywhere. I love that.<p>I build desktop software for Macs (focuslist.co). My apps are prettier than any others. They are easier and faster to use. This is the reason why people pay me $5 while they can get the job done with paper and pen.<p>This is thanks to Mac as a platform. Mac developers don&#x27;t want to just get the job done. They want to get the job done while winning an Apple Design Award. That&#x27;s why Mac apps are the best.<p>Take Mac away and high quality desktop apps will go away. We&#x27;ll have to endure multi-platform Electron stuff. Ugh.
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kybernetykover 8 years ago
So I went to their main page to download an ISO to give it a try in a VM.<p>They hid the download button really well: You have to type in &quot;0&quot; into the &quot;how much you&#x27;d like to pay&quot; field for the &quot;Purchase&quot; button to change to &quot;Download&quot;.<p>I mean I understand that open source projects need funding. But if you want people to try your niche OS at least make it obvious how to download it. Ask for money later after people had to chance to try it out.<p>I only typed in 0 because I know that &quot;trick&quot; from other websites. If I hadn&#x27;t known I would have just left the website and would possibly never return.
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FrankBlackover 8 years ago
Perhaps I am just dense, but the article references, specifically, the &quot;Pro&quot; market. For most pros that I know (and I am among them), our OS choice is often based on our tools, not the other way around. If I need Photoshop, Lightroom, Logic Pro, Visual Studio, etc., switching will be quite a chore. For the average user, this is probably a much more appealing argument.
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kornakiewiczover 8 years ago
I&#x27;m long term Linux user and I played with Elementary sometime ago. While just after installation everything is great and beautiful, it changed shortly when I need to install apps outside the ecosystem. Experience gives you feeling I could compare to using old-java application on Windows 10.
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anondonover 8 years ago
The software is there, but what about the hardware to go with it?<p>The only laptops comparable to Macbook Pro hardware quality and battery life are the Dell XPS series and the Thinkpad X1.<p>I feel there is a serious shortage of good laptops with linux pre-installed that the non-technical user can pickup and start using.
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nsxwolfover 8 years ago
So USB-C is what it takes to get you to switch to Linux?<p>What are you going to do when all other laptop manufacturers follow suit - switch back?<p>Mac users who make this threat sound just like people who threaten to move to Canada every election cycle.
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jjuelover 8 years ago
I am sticking with Mac because it just works. I have had quite a few non-Mac laptops previously. They rarely stay in good working condition for more than a couple of years. I currently have the late 2012 13&quot; retina Pro and it has shown no signs of stopping. The only other one that has the sort of quality I see in a MacBook is Dell&#x27;s XPS. The developer edition has me intrigued, but I really think this new MacBook with a Touchbar is going to be the future. The lack of ESC or function keys has no bearing on my development so that isn&#x27;t an issue for me either.
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hafflaover 8 years ago
I find Apricity OS (Arch Linux) much better suited for developers. In fact at work I switched from Ubuntu to Apricity. Through yaourt (paceman frontend) and AUR (Arch User Repository) it&#x27;s a breeze to install the latest versions of literally everything you need be it Docker, Java or IntelliJ. I think it&#x27;s comparable with brew. Plus Apricity looks so much better than Elementary in my opinion and almost manages to give you that macOS feeling.
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Shivetyaover 8 years ago
So I am clueless here, how does swapping the OS rectify any issues people had with machine pricing or lack of desired new hardware features?<p>I don&#x27;t get the angst. To me the disappointment is wholly related to the action bar&#x2F;etc&#x2F;whatever it is called. Its such a lame approach to adding additional functionality I would have never expected it from Apple. The Windows environment has many machines fully embracing touch screens right where the action is.
natchover 8 years ago
Please don&#x27;t be so gullible, folks! When you see an article marketing a product, and they claim people are looking to switch to their product in droves, take it with a grain of salt!<p>This is purely a promotional article, pretending to be a help article. Look at the unattributed quotes it uses. Pretty sure the part about anybody switching from anything to anything is made up. Sure people switch sometimes. Sure people are complaining about Apple products, what else is new? Way to capitalize on our sincere discussions of platform choices.<p>If HN swallows this kind of marketing-masquerading-as-technical-advice article so easily, we&#x27;re going to see a lot more of this writing pattern in the future. Which means more marketing noise. Please don&#x27;t buy it so readily.
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youdontknowthoover 8 years ago
I love the work that the elementary project is doing. Really great stuff...
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88e282102ae2e5bover 8 years ago
I would highly recommend Xubuntu instead. Aesthetically I don&#x27;t think there&#x27;s a better Linux distro, and it&#x27;s almost to the point quality-wise where I&#x27;d recommend it to my parents.
noir_lordover 8 years ago
Playing with it in VirtualBox.<p>First impressions, it&#x27;s very very pretty, the design out the box is nice though it&#x27;s completely the antithesis of how I work (3 screens, panel on each, window buttons only for windows on that screen).<p>The level of integration is nice, it feels cohesive.<p>That said XFCE4 with some tweaking is pretty much perfect for me, it exactly works the way I want things to work.
throwsincenotpcover 8 years ago
They need to watch out because apparently the Gnome foundation wants to ditch Vala for Rust to cut cost and &quot;attract more developers&quot; :<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;siliconislandblog.wordpress.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;31&#x2F;thoughts-on-dx-gnome-and-rust&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;siliconislandblog.wordpress.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;31&#x2F;thoughts-...</a><p>&gt; and support a preferred programming language (Vala)<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;launchpad.net&#x2F;elementary" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;launchpad.net&#x2F;elementary</a>
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blowskiover 8 years ago
How does this compare to Ubuntu Desktop? Why would I use one over the other? I ask as somebody who used to use Ubuntu a few years ago, and wants to switch back to Linux in the next few months.
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my123over 8 years ago
Elementary is quite nice on HiDPI until you use apps which need other graphics toolkits...
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buckbovaover 8 years ago
I currently use xfce[1] with docky[2] and it feels pretty good. Probably not as polished but I know it&#x27;s stable.<p>There were other distros in the past trying to copy macOS, pear os[3] was one of them.<p>I remember Lindows[4] trying to market itself as a windows replacement. I can&#x27;t believe they got sued and actually lost[5]! Xandros[6] was also in this space. They probably went BK.<p>Every year is the year of Linux for the desktop but it&#x27;s really not possible to capture this market. It&#x27;ll have to come from someone like google. Why couldn&#x27;t chrome os have been a legit linux distro instead of trying for a niche netbook market with a locked down OS?<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xfce.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xfce.org&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.go-docky.com&#x2F;index.php?title=Welcome_to_the_Docky_wiki" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.go-docky.com&#x2F;index.php?title=Welcome_to_the_Dock...</a><p>[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;distrowatch.com&#x2F;table.php?distribution=pear" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;distrowatch.com&#x2F;table.php?distribution=pear</a><p>[4] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;distrowatch.com&#x2F;table.php?distribution=linspire" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;distrowatch.com&#x2F;table.php?distribution=linspire</a><p>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com,_Inc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com...</a>.<p>[6] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;distrowatch.com&#x2F;table.php?distribution=xandros" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;distrowatch.com&#x2F;table.php?distribution=xandros</a>
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simonhorlickover 8 years ago
It&#x27;s great timing for elementary. I&#x27;m having a lot of software problems with the Mac, and since I develop exclusively for Linux it seems like it&#x27;d be a lot easier if I could build and run everything on my target platform.
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matzipanover 8 years ago
I think one needs to also highlight the differences.<p>mac OS is built by one major player and they have a clear direction of where they want to take this. Linux, in general, is built by communities of people who may or may not have diverging opinions, priorities and interests. While this gives you a lot diversity, it can be quite problematic.<p>The financial aspect is also important. elementary LLC itself, has only 2 full-time employees, while Apple is sitting on a pile of cash. Yes, elementary builds on a solid open-source base [1] built by thousands of developers world-wide, some volunteers, some employees, but it&#x27;s still a significant difference.<p>Having a smaller scale, it means elementary can be more agile in its changes. This also means that there is smaller testing base, which means there will be more bugs. The nice part is that, when you find a bug, you can help fix it [2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;elementary.io&#x2F;open-source" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;elementary.io&#x2F;open-source</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;elementary.io&#x2F;get-involved" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;elementary.io&#x2F;get-involved</a>
driverdanover 8 years ago
Every few years I investigate switching back to a Linux laptop. Every time I find there are <i>still</i> issues. Last time it was poor GPU support (no fast switching) and buggy sleep.<p>What issues still exist with using Linux on laptops?
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sschuellerover 8 years ago
The only reason I am still using a Mac is because I need to be able to compile iPhone apps and unlike android I can only do this in OSX. All my other tools are already available in Linux or even Windows.
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bborudover 8 years ago
It wasn&#x27;t the UI that got me using macs. In fact the UI was a pain in the neck since it couldn&#x27;t do what my Linux window managers could do. And I kinda liked how I had my WM set up.<p>It was the fact that software I needed was available on Mac and I didn&#x27;t want to use Windows.
aoeuhtnsover 8 years ago
Going by the comments here, I am surprised by how few people seem to use Linux on their laptop! Maybe selection bias due to the thread topic?<p>Of course, not everything will work, but for me, they often fall into the nice-to-have category of features, not a must-have. Maybe my preferences are not shared widely.<p>Been using Debian unstable and Xmonad for a long time, and it&#x27;s hard to try and use anything else now. Most dev tools work natively ... no funky VMs to emulate, except Windows for Edge browser testing ... all works really well.
vladimir-yover 8 years ago
I think for those who are not able to install and configure Linux manually from scratch not using a graphical installer would be better to use Windows 10 (not a bad OS), with no irony. Since such kind of articles and &quot;simplified&quot; systems like that &quot;elementary OS&quot; do hide Linux complexity. One day user will face a really serious OS issues and will stuck with that not knowing what to do (for example not bootable system after the update, it&#x27;s not so likely, but might happen with Linux).
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vondurover 8 years ago
Elementary is one of the least stable Linux distros that are out there. I have a friend who&#x27;s been running Debian forever using Afterstep as the WM, and it&#x27;s rock solid. Granted, he does most of his work in the terminal using emacs. I&#x27;ve never had good luck with linux on the laptop, but I&#x27;ve had good luck using it on the desktop, so long as I stuck with Intel chipsets and Nvidia GPU&#x27;s. The lack of apps is going to be an issue for most people though.
gotofritzover 8 years ago
I bought a MBP a few months ago because I was travelling to the UK and the low pound made it a no brainer (I saved 350€) but part of me was annoying at missing out on the latest version that was about to be released.<p>It looks like I dodged a bullet; in 4-5 years, when I&#x27;ll need an upgrade, all these issues will be solved, USB-C will either have become standard or gone firewire&#x27;s way, the pointless emoji board will be quietly shelved, more RAM will be possible, etc
aibottleover 8 years ago
Do people realize they can run Linux on their Macbooks? Who needs elementary, just install Debian.
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Beowolveover 8 years ago
I appreciate them capitalizing on people looking to switch. I think they could have done a better job of describing how to switch instead of talking about what people love. I think it would have been better for them to talk about some main sticking points, like how to get out of the ecosystem (say iTunes or Photos). Either way, nice to see the competition stepping up and capitalizing on the situation.
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vonklausover 8 years ago
interesting project, would like to check it out. I recently upgraded from MacOS to Yosemite and have been quite happy. That said it would be nice to see other options.
throw2016over 8 years ago
I regularly use Windows, OSX and Linux and I think Ubuntu Unity in 16.04 is by far the most polished Linux desktop and for people switching to Linux that would be the best first experience.<p>In many ways I even prefer Unity. OSX is becoming a bit stagnant and bloated of late. The Unity UI is fast, the effects are polished and not gimmicky, the launcher and search across apps and file is near instantaneous, driver detection and configuration is streamlined and everything looks well put together.<p>Most Linux users have put up with some pretty awful apps, UIs and configs over the evolution of Linux and I am glad how far Ubuntu has come.<p>Elementary is decent but at the moment both Gnome and Unity have moved ahead and offer a more consistent and professional user experience for first timers.
pmlnrover 8 years ago
eOS again, within a few days. I see they are pushing their marketing well.<p>I&#x27;m just going to link conversation from a couple of days before: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12830761" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12830761</a>
bitslayerover 8 years ago
One thing I have wondered about is keyboard shortcuts. Does Elementary follow the Mac conventions?
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bluedinoover 8 years ago
Are there any distributions where the display scaling works at least as good as Windows 10? I don&#x27;t expect it to be as perfect as the Mac but the current Ubuntu is a mess when you change the scaling factor.
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aq3cnover 8 years ago
Is there a place where I can directly ask experts or experienced users about alternative apps of my need. I have been making my mind about complete switch but few of the most used apps from Mac holds me back. I wish someone can suggest me a decent alternative to those apps. I must also add that I will lose several licenses of purchased apps in the process but I am willing to make that sacrifice. I wish I could find a reliable way to keep running those apps in VM.
Jtsummersover 8 years ago
What&#x27;s the gain of Elementary over other Linux distros? Is it really that much better than the start of the art anywhere else?<p>Do the apps integrate, in some meaningful way, more easily with each other than with, say, a stock Gnome install on top of Red Hat?<p>Is it as novel as Etoile? Or is it just a skin + conforming apps?
r3blover 8 years ago
The thing I&#x27;ve used the most while I used elementary is the option to direct perform actions of the apps. I find it so easy to just press the keyboard shortcut and do something like &quot;2+2&quot; and get &quot;4&quot; as a result. I absolutely loved that!
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yaloginover 8 years ago
What exactly is the reason to switch to another OS? I thought the complaints were about hardware. How the hell is elementary OS going to make the hardware better? Also can someone tell me the main complaint about the hardware, is it the USB-C and the sd card?
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tambourine_manover 8 years ago
Unfortunately, no Photoshop, no go
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NuSkoolerover 8 years ago
I&#x27;ve been using Elementary OS for a few years now. THIS is the Linux desktop for me &amp; easily replaces Windows and&#x2F;or OS X with the exception of serious gaming where you&#x27;re likely be be running Windows no matter what.
Exumaover 8 years ago
Honestly, this looks abysmal. This is like 1&#x2F;1000th of the complexity and flexibility of macOS. What are you actually so upset about that warrants building a new, hideous, kiddy-version of mac OS?
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bluepillover 8 years ago
Why do macOS users seem to want to migrate to elementary?<p>I mean why elementary as your choice for a Linux distro?
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nyxtomover 8 years ago
Still need to get better facetimehd support.
throwanemover 8 years ago
No Spotlight?
vshover 8 years ago
Vultures ;-)
jordacheover 8 years ago
I would rather use BeOS
wjd2030over 8 years ago
Otherwise known as the &quot;Here are the reasons Apple will probably sue us&quot; blog.
KKKKkkkk1over 8 years ago
The elephant in the room is that Elementary is infringing on Apple&#x27;s copyright by imitating macOS design. Linux has great desktop environments (Unity, KDE, Gnome). Elementary&#x27;s claim to fame is that it has good design (wink). If stealing others&#x27; GPL-licensed code is wrong, then so is this.
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xaduhaover 8 years ago
Check Solus instead<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;solus-project.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;solus-project.com&#x2F;</a>
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aorthover 8 years ago
Yes, the Elementary team has been doing great work for years. Sad that it&#x27;s all parallel to the efforts of the larger GNOME Desktop project. I don&#x27;t know how much code gets shared between the two, but I cringe to think that Elementary is dragging along a suitcase full of patches! Some of their apps are forks, while others are written from scratch to fit their design (UI&#x2F;UX&#x2F;simplicity) goals. I think their decision to use what amounts to a random, third-party web browser (Midori) as the default is laughable (this day and age, would any security-conscious person NOT recommend Chrome?).<p>Nonetheless, bravo to the Elementary team for taking the time to even write up this blog post (which is apparently the first in a series).<p>Edit: replies pointed out that Epiphany is the default web browser. Point still stands that Chrome implements the most security mitigations out of ALL browsers on the market.
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