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OS X Is No Longer On My Main System, But I Already Have Regrets

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  • #41
    Originally posted by TemplarGR View Post
    [...]
    Great, I'm happy that you've found what works for you!

    As someone that uses both Linux (KDE with OpenSUSE) and Windows (7), I can easily say that Linux is what works for me. I'm always surprised by the amount of shit that people bare with Windows, and yet at the single little problem Linux is the worst thing ever.

    Let's pick something as simple as having tabs in your file manager. Sounds easy, right? On Windows you need to install some scammy-looking third-party plugins just to have an half-assed experience.
    What to have a thin sidebar on the left? well, good luck with it. You need to put the sidebar on autohide, restart the graphic service, and then remove the autohide. And that last until you reboot (No, I'm not joking).
    What to develop anything on Windows? Good luck with anything that's not .net.

    Windows works (mostly) fine as long as you do everything as Microsoft want you do to it. Even OSX is better in this regard.

    Talking about DPI, Windows is not much better than Linux for this. Sure, Windows 8/8.1 are much better than Windows 7, but desktop applications still don't scale in a great way.

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    • #42
      As someone who is in a similar situation to Michael (OS X primary with various other OSs run from Fusion VMs), I sympathize. Since my job is OLTP oriented, I typically just ssh to my local linux VMs without brining up their desktop. I used to fullscreen my VMs, but have since stopped.

      I just recently test drove F20, U14.04, and M16. M16, in all its polished Windows-95 glory, was the only one that I would give consideration to if OSX stopped existing tomorrow.

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      • #43
        Originally posted by Spittie View Post

        As someone that uses both Linux (KDE with OpenSUSE) and Windows (7), I can easily say that Linux is what works for me. I'm always surprised by the amount of shit that people bare with Windows, and yet at the single little problem Linux is the worst thing ever.
        Could not agree more.

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        • #44
          Originally posted by Del_ View Post
          I am joining the choir, continue fiddling around or use a desktop which caters to hidpi screens. I assume that leaves you with Gnome or KDE these days. The status for KDE was summed up here (not sure how up-to-date the list is):
          https://community.kde.org/KDE/High-dpi_issues
          Here are the KDE plans for Plasma Next: http://notmart.org/blog/2014/03/now-its-polishing-time/

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          • #45
            Originally posted by Spittie View Post
            Great, I'm happy that you've found what works for you!

            As someone that uses both Linux (KDE with OpenSUSE) and Windows (7), I can easily say that Linux is what works for me. I'm always surprised by the amount of shit that people bare with Windows, and yet at the single little problem Linux is the worst thing ever.

            Let's pick something as simple as having tabs in your file manager. Sounds easy, right? On Windows you need to install some scammy-looking third-party plugins just to have an half-assed experience.
            What to have a thin sidebar on the left? well, good luck with it. You need to put the sidebar on autohide, restart the graphic service, and then remove the autohide. And that last until you reboot (No, I'm not joking).
            What to develop anything on Windows? Good luck with anything that's not .net.

            Windows works (mostly) fine as long as you do everything as Microsoft want you do to it. Even OSX is better in this regard.

            Talking about DPI, Windows is not much better than Linux for this. Sure, Windows 8/8.1 are much better than Windows 7, but desktop applications still don't scale in a great way.
            I went ahead and quoted this. Simply because it's so very true. I'm going to add to it, that it's not just a Windows/Linux/Mac thing. I recently 'upgraded' my phone from a Nokia N9 to a Samsung Galaxy Note 3. After about a day, I've decided that once I can get my Sim card back out of the Note 3, I'm just going to use it for testing out Android software and maybe writing some for it, and using my N9 as my main phone. It's just better in every way, except hardware. Which means of course that it's the software that stinks. I'll probably end up putting Sailfish on it, if someone can get that working.

            But on the note of scammy-looking third party software. It's horrible on Android as well as Windows. EVERYTHING is freaking ad supported. Unless you want to fork out the dough, but most of the 'apps' that I use are pretty typically just little free ones that shouldn't need access to all of my information, and shouldn't need to pull advertisements in constantly. Sure there were a few ad-supported bits of software for the N9, but the majority of them were just awesome.

            But the usability of Android drives me NUTS! After having Harmattan MeeGo and it's slick three screen setup, Android is like going back to my Atari ST days, where if you wanted a semi-decent desktop experience, you had to install one of the replacement desktops, which of course ate far more memory, and tended to crash back to the built-in ROM most of the time anyhow.

            That's the same feeling I get whenever I load up Windows 7 or Windows 8 after being in Gnome for so long. Gnome is a simple, elegant UI that stays out of your way for the most part, and lets you work in your applications. I think that the biggest "Gnome-Shell sucks!" complaints is that the shortcuts need to be more obvious. But the very same could be said about Windows 8.x. Hell, I still only know of one way to close applications, and that's by using the trusty Alt+F4.

            Which brings me back again to Android. You have to hold the damned Home button down to bring up a task list? Then scroll up and down to select the task to switch... Or if you swipe apps left or right they will close (TouchWiz from what I've read added the little "close all apps" button, which is nice.) Freaking annoying and out of the way.

            The beautiful N9 on the other hand. You swipe to the left and you have your tasks screen, press and hold on the screen and there are little X buttons on the upper right of the live window boxes. Or you can press the close all. Then just press done. It's also far more intuitive, in my mind, to scroll up and down for the application list. At least I finally found how to change that on TouchWiz. I've tried other launchers/Home screens, and they all seem to be rather buggy. In fact, that's been my impression with most of the software for Android. In fact, at one point I had removed 'Lookout' and then the lock screen and settings would constantly crash.

            So yeah, just because something becomes mainstream, and people get used to all the weird random issues with them, then accept them as "that's how things are supposed to work" and then the underdog ones end up making better overall user experiences, they are shit because "well, I don't know how to use that, and little things are breaking! Waaaah! I'll go back to Windows because when I whine about Linux, they tell me just to go back to Windows anyhow!" Truth usually is, these type of people are almost impossible to help, because they go in with "well it sucks didn't work like I am used to." so there is no way to convince them otherwise. My mother is that way. I set up a dual-boot on her laptop, and she hardly goes into Linux because "well, I don't know how to work it." I have showed her how, but she's old and forgetful, so it doesn't really stick.

            I agree with others, Michael should probably dump (X)Ubuntu and just go with Debian, and then from there decide on a shinier DE. Though I will say it's funny he says that Ubuntu has worse fan/battery performance on that laptop. On my HP Touchsmart (granted it's pretty old now in computer years) Windows 8.1 almost constantly leaves the fan on, and Linux the fan is silent unless I'm doing something CPU intensive. Android-x86 is somewhere in between. Surprisingly enough, Android on the tablet is a lot nicer than it is on my Note3. If only I could get the touchscreen to work, been looking into that, but everything else works, including screen rotation.

            Ah, that was a long rant, that's what happens when you become unemployed. Cheers!

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            • #46
              Originally posted by raineee View Post
              Glad to have that cleared up.

              Lucky for us, not everyone is self-centered and have half-baked stand in FOSS as you are.

              Go buy the newest Mac and make everyone happy.
              C'mon, sit on uncle Job's lap.
              10/10.

              @Michael: WHAT THE HELL?
              You are supposed to KNOW something about computers. About different operating systems and whatnot.
              And it turns out, you have absolutely NO idea of them whatsoever.
              Windows have no Hi-DPI support, thus the lack of high-res panels in that area.
              Linux? Pfah. The new Gnome which got a clock and a shut down button (just a joke, it's how gnome evolves!), got Hi-DPI.
              Of course the different toolkits will look like... ass. But you can have Linux.

              Other than that...
              Had to reinstall my PC recently and had the chance to install a Linux. Hell, I have way too much free time I guess.
              So.
              - Download OpenSUSE 13.1 DVD.
              -- ImageWriter.exe dies/cannot write to flash drive.
              - Download OpenSUSE 13.1 KDE
              -- Finally got a USB with an image.

              - Install it.
              - Partitioner sure is retarded (if you press back at the wrong time, you lose everything you set up there.)
              - Finally installed it.
              - System boots, of course my AMD GPU tries to launch my computer into the orbit with it's 100% spinning fans.
              - Trying to update, no internet.
              - No default internet. On a release version. On a major distro. .... No comment.
              -- dhcpcd.
              - Of course, ethernet names are now retarded. Sure is good when you mess up something that worked for decades.
              -- ipaddr, dhcpcd. got working net. 2014, and Linux desktop, here we go!
              - Update.
              - Reboot when asked. ( Linux doesn't need reboots... :^) )

              - Trying to bookmark a page in Firefox, get a full lock up. (yay.)
              - Second time I was able to kill xdm and restart it.
              - Install fglrx since the open-sauce driver is terrible. Follow instructions...
              - Installs. And it still fails.
              - Nothing works after reboot, spend 30 minutes fixing it.
              - Finally decide I should just read or clean up, delete Linux.

              ... all my regrets.

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              • #47
                at the end of the day, usability and having the best experience is more important to my needs than obliging to a software philosophy when it results in a lessened experience.
                Linux and Win8 summed up in a nutshell.

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                • #48
                  I am AMAZED about the amount of ignorance on this forum on all OSes and desktop environments. Linux doesn't suck at desktop usage - the problem is people don't step out of their comfort zones, and they don't realize there isn't any 1-size-fits-all. I use LXDE on an ARM platform, XFCE on my laptop, KDE on my desktop, and if I had a tablet I'd happily put GNOME 3 on it. You will find that my arrangements have had a lot of thought and tweaking put into them to maximize their usage while being the most efficient environment for the hardware platform I put them on.

                  I'm not here to be bragging about myself, my point in this is to say that anyone who THINKS that linux is bad at being a desktop OS, anyone who THINKS that 1 DE is (in a user perspective) worse than another, is detrimentally arrogant. If you really want a comfortable user interface, go use Windows - nobody is stopping you. But just because YOU can't spend a few minutes tweaking an interface to behave the way you want it to, it doesn't give you the right to claim the whole thing is bad. If you're unable to tweak it to your desires, you're using it for the wrong reasons!!!


                  Anyway, Michael, you can always install Mac on your new laptop, if you're willing to spend the time to do so. I've got retail versions of Mac (with only a modified kernel) to install on AMD systems, I'd imagine an intel-based laptop would be much easier.
                  Last edited by schmidtbag; 12 March 2014, 10:06 AM.

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                  • #49
                    Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
                    Anyway, Michael, you can always install Mac on your new laptop, if you're willing to spend the time to do so. I've got retail versions of Mac (with only a modified kernel) to install on AMD systems, I'd imagine an intel-based laptop would be much easier.
                    I do not know if I agree with this. Even with the super-duper recommended hardware on hackintosh-enthusiast sites, I have not found that it matches the experience of owning an actual/real Mac. OSX, for all of its shortcomings, is more than just a global menu and cairodock. I wish that there were a linux distro that matched (and exceeded) the experience for casual productivity and home use, as it would save me a fortune 4 years from now.

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                    • #50
                      The arch wiki has an interesting entry of HiDPI https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/HiDPI

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