Hard disagree, I’m a huge fan of the way spaces work on Mac. Windows is a nightmare, and linux is good but takes a lot of time to tune and maintain. I honestly haven’t ever noticed the hidden files issue because I use a terminal for launching anything that would need them, though it does sound annoying if you do.
Where MacOS shines is being able to customize the important parts of your workflow, while ignoring the basic parts because those all “just work” in a standard way. The biggest win is all of the a11y APIs they’ve added for apps, they really let you get in there and change almost anything. I use Karabiner to layer on custom keymappings, capslock is an extra modifier that turns my home row into arrows/delete, hold down command is jump by subword, and many more optimizations. And that is system-wide, it works the same in every single app. I basically have Emacs style macros universally across the entire operating system, every app, and it’s awesome (oh, and I don’t need an external keyboard for it, so I can work on the train and have the same keymaps).
You might not like the base OS’s UX, but it does “just work” for what it is, and that lets you focus on layering on so much more.
Half the people in this thread just have learned helplessness. They think that just because the OS doesn’t support what they want in the very first few seconds of using it that it doesn’t support it at all, yet those same people will spend hours fixing driver issues in Linux no problem. With karabiner-elements, hammerspoon, UnnaturalScrollWheels, and AltTab, you literally get everything you have on Linux and windows and you don’t get any of the jank from the other systems.
Mac is still terrible for gaming, and you don’t want to be running servers on it, so I actually use all three systems daily, but people consistently complain about Mac like it isn’t a Linux system.
For me an os needs to do basic stuff by default, not by adding a billion 3rd party apps that inevitably break the next os update because they were using undocumented apis
Clipboard history, window snapping, showing a separate icon for every instance of a window (same app in 3 windows makes 3 icons on the taskbar), preview what that window is by hovering that.
Sure, you can do that with (mostly paid) third party apps, but I don’t like wasting 3 days on setting an operating system in an usable state
For me an os needs to do basic stuff by default, not by adding a billion 3rd party apps that inevitably break the next os update because they were using undocumented apis
So you make up a strawman
Sure, you can do that with (mostly paid) third party apps, but I don’t like wasting 3 days on setting an operating system in an usable state
And then add another strawman onto it, in order to make your argument make any sense. None of the programs I listed are paid, they’re all open source, and it’s just as normal as doing any of the apt installs you have to do on Linux.
Setting up my Mac is literally as simple as running dot from my dotfiles, which sets up every Mac setting, including things like making hidden files visible by default, hiding the Mac Dock by default, and more. On the other hand dealing with windows setup is a pain in the ass.
Absolutely agreed that macs suck for gaming, but honestly Windows is super annoying too. It was getting better, but with all the spamware in the OS now it gets kind of annoying just to get games booted. Gamepass is cool, but it is very toxic for modding or anything because they like, lock down the new install locations to an insane degree, I couldn’t even copy a save file into there when I was trying to recover some save game state. And it’s yet another install locations for games/apps 🙃 like, why are there like 3+ locations for Program Files???
I’m honestly thinking about trying to run SteamOS on my desktop cause I really just need a launcher. I wanna get booted up any ready to play in like, under 30 seconds, and my Steam Deck is great for that.
Hard disagree, I’m a huge fan of the way spaces work on Mac. Windows is a nightmare, and linux is good but takes a lot of time to tune and maintain. I honestly haven’t ever noticed the hidden files issue because I use a terminal for launching anything that would need them, though it does sound annoying if you do.
Where MacOS shines is being able to customize the important parts of your workflow, while ignoring the basic parts because those all “just work” in a standard way. The biggest win is all of the a11y APIs they’ve added for apps, they really let you get in there and change almost anything. I use Karabiner to layer on custom keymappings, capslock is an extra modifier that turns my home row into arrows/delete, hold down command is jump by subword, and many more optimizations. And that is system-wide, it works the same in every single app. I basically have Emacs style macros universally across the entire operating system, every app, and it’s awesome (oh, and I don’t need an external keyboard for it, so I can work on the train and have the same keymaps).
You might not like the base OS’s UX, but it does “just work” for what it is, and that lets you focus on layering on so much more.
Half the people in this thread just have learned helplessness. They think that just because the OS doesn’t support what they want in the very first few seconds of using it that it doesn’t support it at all, yet those same people will spend hours fixing driver issues in Linux no problem. With karabiner-elements, hammerspoon, UnnaturalScrollWheels, and AltTab, you literally get everything you have on Linux and windows and you don’t get any of the jank from the other systems.
Mac is still terrible for gaming, and you don’t want to be running servers on it, so I actually use all three systems daily, but people consistently complain about Mac like it isn’t a Linux system.
For me an os needs to do basic stuff by default, not by adding a billion 3rd party apps that inevitably break the next os update because they were using undocumented apis
Clipboard history, window snapping, showing a separate icon for every instance of a window (same app in 3 windows makes 3 icons on the taskbar), preview what that window is by hovering that.
Sure, you can do that with (mostly paid) third party apps, but I don’t like wasting 3 days on setting an operating system in an usable state
So you make up a strawman
And then add another strawman onto it, in order to make your argument make any sense. None of the programs I listed are paid, they’re all open source, and it’s just as normal as doing any of the apt installs you have to do on Linux.
Setting up my Mac is literally as simple as running
dotfrom my dotfiles, which sets up every Mac setting, including things like making hidden files visible by default, hiding the Mac Dock by default, and more. On the other hand dealing with windows setup is a pain in the ass.Absolutely agreed that macs suck for gaming, but honestly Windows is super annoying too. It was getting better, but with all the spamware in the OS now it gets kind of annoying just to get games booted. Gamepass is cool, but it is very toxic for modding or anything because they like, lock down the new install locations to an insane degree, I couldn’t even copy a save file into there when I was trying to recover some save game state. And it’s yet another install locations for games/apps 🙃 like, why are there like 3+ locations for Program Files???
I’m honestly thinking about trying to run SteamOS on my desktop cause I really just need a launcher. I wanna get booted up any ready to play in like, under 30 seconds, and my Steam Deck is great for that.
I’m also looking to switch to Bazzite or SteamOS as soon as they make it available for non-steam decks