Non OS X Alternatives to OS X Yosemite

grahamperrin · Dec 27, 2014

PC-BSD, and a question about Pantheon Online Accounts

PC-BSD

2007:

iJawn108 said:
http://www.pcbsd.org/
The most Ubuntuesqe BSD. It was voted the most user friendly OS.

2011:

roadbloc said:
Linux, for something that is released for free, I think distributions such as Ubuntu and PCBSD are totally showing up both OS X and Windows.

KnightWRX said:
Ubuntu, PC-BSD, Solaris 10, take your pick if you don't like Windows.

2014-04-21: Mum Tries Out PC-BSD 10 (2014) YouTube KDE desktop

2014-07-27:

grahamperrin said:
PC-BSD is a very smart idea but for me, there's a showstopper. https://alpha.app.net/grahamperrin/post/35418268

From that July 2014 post on App.net:

" much to love, but none of the browsers worked with what's required by me. https://wiki.freebsd.org/SuspendResume no sleep is a showstopper, but I remain interested in the BSDs."

The problem with web browsers affected Outlook Web App. I assume that there'll be a workaround or fix.

I'll retry PC-BSD probably on a new MacBook Pro in January 2015. Then maybe on other laptops. If the situation with suspend and resume is similar to the situation for FreeBSD, resources such as these should be relevant:

FreeBSD on Laptops
The FreeBSD Laptop Compatibility List - BSDGroup (Internet Archive Wayback Machine)
TuxMobil: FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly and Mobile Computers (Laptops, Notebooks, PDAs, Mobile Phones).

The OS offers a variety of desktops.

In my July tests of 10.0.2 I don't recall paying much attention to the Lumina desktop. Now I'm more interested

[Phoronix] PC-BSD Is Developing Its Own Desktop Environment (2014-04-23)
Official PC-BSD Blog » Quick Lumina Desktop FAQ (2014-04-26)
Official PC-BSD Blog » PC-BSD 10.0.3 Preview: Lumina Desktop (2014-08-26)
bsdtalk: bsdtalk244 - The Lumina Desktop Environment with Ken Moore (2014-08-27)
PC-BSD, The Ubuntu of BSDs Presents: Lumina Desktop Improvements - iWillFolo (2014-08-27)
Any thoughts on the PC-BSD's Lumina Desktop Environment? | The FreeBSD Forums (2014-09-02)

Roadmap

PC-BSD YouTube

elementary OS Linux

SlCKB0Y said:
Pantheon Online Accounts which syncs with all the online services you would expect.

I found the following:

" a more flexible remodelling of GNOME Online Accounts (not to be confused with Ubuntu Online Accounts) "

New Elementary OS Beta Now Available For Testing (2014-08-11)

Also

The GNOME wiki page describes GNOME Online Accounts (GOA) as providing "a centralized service that allows a set of online accounts to be configured ".

I guess, that centralised service is local to the computer (not an online service) true?

2984839 · Dec 28, 2014

grahamperrin said:
...

I have never tried the version with the Lumina desktop, but the KDE version of PC-BSD is horrendously bloated and slow. Power management is poor and since Apple uses Broadcom wireless chipsets, wifi support on a Macbook Pro will be nonexistent without using the NDISwrapper utility, which may or may not be stable. If you want ZFS, using FreeBSD with the desktop of your choice would be a better alternative, though the power and wifi issues will remain. ZFS full disk encryption in FreeBSD and PC-BSD won't currently work with EFI either.

OpenBSD will have better power management out of the box and full disk encryption will work without issues, but will not have any support for the Broadcom wireless. Battery life will be several hours shorter than on OS X. My 13" 2011 would get about 4-4.5 hours with a full charge. That was with running a Buffalo WLI-UC-GNM USB wireless adapter, which is more power hungry than the internal chip. Wireless connections had dropped packets repeatedly due to the very small antenna of the micro USB adapter.

DragonflyBSD offers the HAMMER filesystem with a feature set similar to ZFS. Full disk encryption worked fine, but again, power management and wireless were problems. I didn't keep it on there long enough to really play with it.

None of these problems are things you simply can't live with, but you'll want to keep them in mind if picking BSD.

grahamperrin · Dec 28, 2014

MacBook Pro, Broadcom wireless, PC-BSD and KDE

556fmjoe said:
the KDE version of PC-BSD since Apple uses Broadcom wireless chipsets, wifi support on a Macbook Pro will be nonexistent without using the NDISwrapper utility, which may or may not be stable.

I guess, that issue with Broadcom will be not limited to the KDE environment true?

Thanks for everything else in that post much appreciated.

AlecZ · Dec 28, 2014

FreeBSD or Debian (depending on whether you want Linux or pure Unix) with KDE or GNOME2 if you want speed and stability. I like FreeBSD more, but some non-portable software won't support it, frustratingly. LinuxMint if you want a nicer UX almost on the level of Windows 7, though I've found that LinuxMint has become much slower since version 8.

I contemplated going the FreeBSD route because I was sick of annoying Apple updates, but then I realized that OS X has so many little things that make it convenient, saving time for me. All the open source desktop environments look/feel ghetto compared to OS X. If I were you, I'd stick with OS X despite not liking Yosemite because whatever desktop environment you get on FreeBSD or Linux will be a lot worse, but I'd run it on a Hackintosh instead of Apple's stupid glued-together desktops... or if you want a laptop, the retina MacBook Pro is actually a good value. The build quality, keyboard, trackpad, design, etc. are so much better than anything else.

The cheese grater Mac Pros are nice, but they're becoming outdated. Someday, I'll replace my 3,1 with a Hackintosh or a MacBook.

2984839 · Dec 28, 2014

grahamperrin said:
I guess, that issue with Broadcom will be not limited to the KDE environment true?

Thanks for everything else in that post much appreciated.

Correct, the desktop environment you choose has nothing to do with it.

grahamperrin · Dec 28, 2014

Ghetto? Some of the open source desktops are great

AlecZ said:
… All the open source desktop environments look/feel ghetto compared to OS X. …

I don't know about 'ghetto'

… can you give an example of one that fits the description?

I didn't pay much attention to the desktop environments in July but some of them included great features. I love Mavericks (can't tolerate the looks of Yosemite) … some of what I saw in the open source environments wowed me more than anything offered by Apple.

A couple of things that I recently discovered but have not yet tried …

http://youtu.be/4n2dthDSGkc?t=3m5s KDE Plasma 5 desktop settings allow directory contents to be shown for paths other than ~/Desktop
http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Lumina/10.1#Insight_File_Manager PC-BSD Lumina desktop Insight File Manager with ZFS restore functionality

– smart ideas.

I used to have PC-BSD in a VirtualBoxVM … maybe time for me to recreate that …

lowendlinux · Dec 28, 2014

AlecZ said:
FreeBSD or Debian (depending on whether you want Linux or pure Unix) with KDE or GNOME2 if you want speed and stability. I like FreeBSD more, but some non-portable software won't support it, frustratingly. LinuxMint if you want a nicer UX almost on the level of Windows 7, though I've found that LinuxMint has become much slower since version 8.

I contemplated going the FreeBSD route because I was sick of annoying Apple updates, but then I realized that OS X has so many little things that make it convenient, saving time for me. All the open source desktop environments look/feel ghetto compared to OS X. If I were you, I'd stick with OS X despite not liking Yosemite because whatever desktop environment you get on FreeBSD or Linux will be a lot worse, but I'd run it on a Hackintosh instead of Apple's stupid glued-together desktops... or if you want a laptop, the retina MacBook Pro is actually a good value. The build quality, keyboard, trackpad, design, etc. are so much better than anything else.

The cheese grater Mac Pros are nice, but they're becoming outdated. Someday, I'll replace my 3,1 with a Hackintosh or a MacBook.

It depends on what you want out of your DE and how much time and effort you're willing to put in. They can be ghetto or they can be good you choose and that is the beauty of open source.

AlecZ · Dec 28, 2014

grahamperrin said:
I don't know about 'ghetto' can you give an example of one that fits the description?

I've tried Unity, KDE, XFCE, Gnome, Gnome2, Gnome3, Cinnamon, and MATE. They're all okay (with the huge exception of Unity), but they all feel old-fashioned and "ghetto" compared to OS X, and I wouldn't want to switch even for the extra speed. Sometimes it's the way the mouse pointer moves, other times the file manager being inconvenient, difficult wifi setup, inconsistent UI, etc. Compared to Windows, they're not that bad, but I think only Cinnamon or one of the other ones LinuxMint uses (I forget which) is on par with Windows 7.

grahamperrin · Dec 31, 2014

Convergence with and without Apple products

MartinAppleGuy said:
… Windows 10 … I could never trust a company that thought that one OS suites all platforms (touch, mouse...). …

In 2012 and early 2014, I loved Apple's stances against convergence of hardware, against convergence of operating systems.

Then, Yosemite.

Now, I welcome open source approaches – KDE Plasma 5, for example – that envisage on-the-fly adaptability of the user interface.

A few links …

Apple won't combine MacBook and iPad, Tim Cook - News - Macworld UK (2012-04-25)

The Merger of Mac OS and iOS - The Real Secret of iOS 7, the iPhone 5s and the A7 Chip (2013-09-23)

… Apple has now taken a clear first step to making the marriage of the Mac OS X and iOS a reality. …

Apple: Stop the iOS-Mac merger | ZDNet (2013-11-11)

Opinion: Is Apple headed toward eventual convergence of OS X and iOS? | 9to5Mac (2013-12-05)

Apple executives on the Mac at 30: 'The Mac keeps going forever.' | Macworld (2014-01-23)

Apple says it will not merge OS X and iOS | News | TechRadar (2014-01-24)

Separated at birth: Why Apple won't merge OS X and iOS | Macworld (2014-02-14)

KDE Plasma 5 Arrives with Fresh New Look, True Convergence (2014-07-15)

… Among the biggest features coming in Plasma 5 is a “converged shell” that, much like Canonical’s vision of a converged experience for Unity, allows Plasma’s UI to adapt to changes in your computing environment – e.g., switching from a tablet experience to a desktop when a keyboard and mouse are plugged in. KDE developers are currently working on both tablet and media centre interfaces as well. …

iOS or OS X? It doesn’t matter: Apple now offers “ubiquitous computing” in a range of prices — Tech News and Analysis (2014-10-16)

Kubuntu 15.04 embraces KDE's Plasma 5 desktop | PCWorld (2014-11-05)

…

Mac OS X Yosemite and Android Lollipop immediately came to mind when I first saw the Breeze theme in action, but that isn’t fair to KDE. Plasma 5.0 and Breeze were announced long before Apple showed off Mac OS X Yosemite and Google demonstrated the flat “Material Design” for Android L. The KDE project clearly had their finger on the pulse here, and they’re keeping up with the big commercial operating systems. Plasma 5 and Breeze definitely feel modern.

There are also some neat effects. When you move a window around, the window becomes partially transparent, which makes positioning the window easy by allowing you to see behind it. It’s like the translucent eye candy found in Windows 7 and Mac OS X Yosemite—but more functional.

… Plasma 5.0 also has updates to better work with high-DPI displays, from Apple’s “Retina” displays to those high-DPI screens popping up on PC laptops and tablets. The interface can scale more intelligently. …

Convergence: Kubuntu edition

Ubuntu’s Unity desktop isn’t the only project chasing a goal of convergence. Plasma 5.0 has a “converged Plasma shell.” This shell lays a base that can adapt to present different experiences on different devices.

These user experiences can be switched between while the Plasma 5.0 shell is running. So, if you plug in a keyboard and mouse, a tablet running Plasma 5.0 in tablet-experience mode could automatically switch to desktop-experience mode. This is sort of like the “Continuum” feature Microsoft is planning for Windows 10, but hasn’t yet released.

To be fair, KDE doesn’t have this working yet either. Plasma 5.0 just features a desktop experience for the Plasma shell. Tablet and media-center experiences are also on the roadmap, but haven’t been created yet. …

grahamperrin · Jan 24, 2015

Desktop environments

gwhuntoon said:
… customize the OS look and feel to our own particular taste and style?

deluxeshredder said:
Desktop Linux has just that, and it's a shocking mess.

"It"?

You can't treat all desktop environments as one. Some of them are in a gallery in Wikipedia, others – such as Plasma 5 – are not.

lowendlinux · Jan 24, 2015

Linux with it's various DE's is simply tbe best modern OS. Open Source is where all the innovation is my current hotness is my hackintosh and it's been fun for the last couple weeks but OS X will be off my computer before spring it's just to rigid.

grahamperrin · Mar 30, 2015

More on Plasma

I found some more information about KDE Plasma, https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma

" can adapt to many types of devices. Currently there are three varieties of Plasma: The Plasma Desktop environment which is the focus of the majority of our pages, the Plasma Netbook environment, and Plasma Active "

and from the Plasma/Netbooks page,

" To enable the Netbook interface, go to System settings, choose Workspace Behavior, choose Workspace and under Workspace Type choose Netbook. "

grahamperrin · Apr 4, 2015

PC-BSD, 'last mile integration' and a prediction for 2020

The Wolf's Den: A Prediction: 2020 the year of (PC-)BSD on the desktop (2015-02-15)

" perhaps even to the point where it threatens Linux Desktop share.

This is of course a bold claim, however before you automatically dismiss me, consider this: where was LLVM/CLang 5 years ago?

Edit:
For those who didn't quite catch it, I'm not talking about infrastructural changes like systemd, Wayland, Plasma 5, etc. There has indeed been a lot of change along those lines. What I'm talking about is the Last Mile Integration, where we are only considering what does Ubuntu provide over Fedora provide over openSUSE provide over InsertYourFavoriteDistroHere, This is to say things like system-settings-* vs YaST, zypper vs apt vs yum vs pkgng, etc, and it is these things that will make the difference."

http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/15/02/16/2355236/pc-bsd-set-for-serious-growth includes some interesting discussion of Luke Wolf's post.

lowendlinux · Apr 4, 2015

grahamperrin said:
The Wolf's Den: A Prediction: 2020 the year of (PC-)BSD on the desktop (2015-02-15)

" perhaps even to the point where it threatens Linux Desktop share.

This is of course a bold claim, however before you automatically dismiss me, consider this: where was LLVM/CLang 5 years ago?

Edit:
For those who didn't quite catch it, I'm not talking about infrastructural changes like systemd, Wayland, Plasma 5, etc. There has indeed been a lot of change along those lines. What I'm talking about is the Last Mile Integration, where we are only considering what does Ubuntu provide over Fedora provide over openSUSE provide over InsertYourFavoriteDistroHere, This is to say things like system-settings-* vs YaST, zypper vs apt vs yum vs pkgng, etc, and it is these things that will make the difference."

http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/15/02/16/2355236/pc-bsd-set-for-serious-growth includes some interesting discussion of Luke Wolf's post.

I disagree simply because the HW support for BSD is still pretty slim and they don't have the community and corporate support. The tide would probably turn if there was a requirement to use GPL 3 for thing released on Linux. BSD will never go away but I don't see a resurgence either.

MyopicPaideia · Apr 4, 2015

I realise this is now getting off topic, but wanted to comment on the responsive UI concept, which I hope to be the future of computing.

I hope the direction we are moving in is a smartphone or tablet sized device that is as powerful as today's Macbook Pros, and basically connects any available thin client when you want.

Used on its own it probably has a touch interface and optimised UI. Sit down at your desk and connect to your 27" screen with BT keyboard and trackpad/mouse it defaults to a pointer optimised UI. Apps do the same. Similar to the way the OS responds to different screens sizes and resolutions, so too are apps designed responsively.

No separate binaries needed or any of that, just a responsive universal design language for the UI's...

lowendlinux · Apr 4, 2015

MyopicPaideia said:
I realise this is now getting off topic, but wanted to comment on the responsive UI concept, which I hope to be the future of computing.

I hope the direction we are moving in is a smartphone or tablet sized device that is as powerful as today's Macbook Pros, and basically connects any available thin client when you want.

Used on its own it probably has a touch interface and optimised UI. Sit down at your desk and connect to your 27" screen with BT keyboard and trackpad/mouse it defaults to a pointer optimised UI. Apps do the same. Similar to the way the OS responds to different screens sizes and resolutions, so too are apps designed responsively.

No separate binaries needed or any of that, just a responsive universal design language for the UI's...

Canonical has been ta lking about thi s for years. Convergence in the real way one device that does everything

grahamperrin · Apr 4, 2015

BSD, kernel mode-setting (KMS), shims, PC-BSD 10.1.2

BSDs

lowendlinux said:
HW support for BSD is still pretty slim

A few days after the blog post, in the Phoronix forum under 'PC-BSD Releases Lumina Desktop 0.8.2', Luke Wolf posted these four points:

OpenBSD is developing a set of systemd compatible dbus interfaces and these will be shared amongst the BSDs
with John Hubbard's pushing they're likely to develop their own service manager equivalent to launchd or systemd (if they don't just adopt launchd)
Xorg has finally been ported off of hald and onto devd and the desktops are in progress of being ported
The various BSDs are all developing a kms linux-shim which means that instead of porting KMS drivers wholesale they just have to keep up with the KMS API, which means that in the near future (okay maybe a year or so) the graphics stack won't be a problem

To anyone with knowledge of development of the shim, a question: is that "year or so" realistic?

(A longer wait wouldn't bother me.)

Back to the blog post:

" two things: PC-BSD, and the KMS linux-shim.

First off what is this KMS shim? It's an adapter between a BSD kernel and the linux Kernel Mode Setting drivers, this is important because instead of having to port the Intel and AMD drivers over to how a BSD thinks they should be written, they will be able to just take the drivers as they are, thus reducing maintenance burden and allowing BSDs to have up to date graphics drivers (as opposed to the current state of being at ~ Linux 3.8 equivalence). As someone who uses all-AMD hardware this is kind of important, but this will more or less permanently solve the graphics hardware compatibility issue. "

I had never heard of KMS or the shim before that post. Today I found a few things that may be useful to other newbies:

Direct Rendering Manager KMS driver (Kernel mode setting) Wikipedia
Kernel mode-setting freedesktop.org
Kernel mode setting ArchWiki
Kernel Modesetting amongst 'Prominent features (the cool stuff)' under Linux 2.6.29 Linux Kernel Newbies
A brief overview of DRM/KMS and its status in NetBSD (PDF, 2015-03-13) under 'DRM portability', "NetBSD: shims to make most Linux code run unmodified and updates less painful.".

PC-BSD

Official PC-BSD Blog » A look at the upcoming features for 10.1.2 (2015-03-04)

all things considered, I'm seriously impressed by what's prioritised. Some of that is way ahead of Apple.

Baseline Mac OS X Support by landonf · Pull Request #1113 · freebsd/pkg

https://github.com/freebsd/pkg/pull/1113

Intriguing. Does that relate to building FreeBSD on OS X?

lowendlinux · Apr 4, 2015

grahamperrin said:
BSDs

A few days after the blog post, in the Phoronix forum under 'PC-BSD Releases Lumina Desktop 0.8.2', Luke Wolf posted these four points:

OpenBSD is developing a set of systemd compatible dbus interfaces and these will be shared amongst the BSDs

with John Hubbard's pushing they're likely to develop their own service manager equivalent to launchd or systemd (if they don't just adopt launchd)

Xorg has finally been ported off of hald and onto devd and the desktops are in progress of being ported

The various BSDs are all developing a kms linux-shim which means that instead of porting KMS drivers wholesale they just have to keep up with the KMS API, which means that in the near future (okay maybe a year or so) the graphics stack won't be a problem

To anyone with knowledge of development of the shim, a question: is that "year or so" realistic?

(A longer wait wouldn't bother me.)

Back to the blog post:

" two things: PC-BSD, and the KMS linux-shim.

First off what is this KMS shim? It's an adapter between a BSD kernel and the linux Kernel Mode Setting drivers, this is important because instead of having to port the Intel and AMD drivers over to how a BSD thinks they should be written, they will be able to just take the drivers as they are, thus reducing maintenance burden and allowing BSDs to have up to date graphics drivers (as opposed to the current state of being at ~ Linux 3.8 equivalence). As someone who uses all-AMD hardware this is kind of important, but this will more or less permanently solve the graphics hardware compatibility issue. "

I had never heard of KMS or the shim before that post. Today I found a few things that may be useful to other newbies:

Direct Rendering Manager KMS driver (Kernel mode setting) Wikipedia

Kernel mode-setting freedesktop.org

Kernel mode setting ArchWiki

Kernel Modesetting amongst 'Prominent features (the cool stuff)' under Linux 2.6.29 Linux Kernel Newbies

A brief overview of DRM/KMS and its status in NetBSD (PDF, 2015-03-13) under 'DRM portability', "NetBSD: shims to make most Linux code run unmodified and updates less painful.".

PC-BSD

Official PC-BSD Blog » A look at the upcoming features for 10.1.2 (2015-03-04)

all things considered, I'm seriously impressed by what's prioritised. Some of that is way ahead of Apple.

Baseline Mac OS X Support by landonf · Pull Request #1113 · freebsd/pkg

https://github.com/freebsd/pkg/pull/1113

Intriguing. Does that relate to building FreeBSD on OS X?

A year is reasonable to create a working shim. Phoronix just posted the AMD is going to be bringing catalyst to BSD next year so maybe they'll pull it off.

Partron22 · Apr 16, 2015

Bought a Raspberry Pi 2 to use as a media streamer, friendly Arduino interface, and general knockabout device.
It uses Raspian, a stripped down Debian port. I thought it'd be nice to have full Debian, with the Gnome shell on one of my Macs to serve as a testbed/interface.
Once I figured out that Linux is not that fond of Yosemite, and vice versa and that things go better with a dedicated Linux drive, rather than just a partition, I was surprised at how quick and civilized the Debian experience was. It recognizes and can read all my Mac disks, Mac'll do the same with FUSE, as long Linux has its own drive. Access to shell is a breeze, and there's not a tenth the weird restrictions Apple puts on getting down near the metal.
Last time I looked into Linux, 2010?, things looked rather grim. Now it's starting to get to the point where I might consider switching, if I didn't have 4 other Macs and a bunch of Mac related devices in the house, as well as non-techy people who depend on them. Haven't tryed yet, but the Android development experience has simply got to be better under Wheezy/Studio than it is under Yosemite.

grahamperrin · May 24, 2015

Right now I have Yosemite, themed with Systenine in Flavours2 Sneak Peek (182), booted from a USB on a 17" 2009 MacBook Pro. Yosemite for test purposes only.

Behind and above that notebook, also for test purposes I have Gnome in PC-BSD (not Linux) on a 15.4" 2009 Ergo Vista 631. Thunderbird, and so on.

PC-BSD wins. It'll not suspend on that particular notebook but I'll easily find something compatible when the time comes to switch.

Whilst I love the cleanliness of Web, I have an affinity with some extensions (to Safari) and bookmarklets, so on PC-BSD I might prefer Firefox.

(The most recent Firefox Aurora is nice on Mavericks, but I don't expect Aurora on PC-BSD.)

grahamperrin · May 25, 2015

This long weekend (today is a public holiday) I spent probably more time with PC-BSD than with OS X. Long enough for me to get a good idea of things in/on OS X that I might miss following a switch away from Apple's software.

At https://forums.pcbsd.org/search.php?action=finduserthreads&uid=23973 the only thing that bothers me is not (yet) finding an EWS or MAPI client that will work with the Microsoft Exchange server that I must use.

I do like GNOME. Whether that'll be my desktop environment of choice when I switch, I can't say.

lowendlinux · May 25, 2015

good luck on the switch

cube · May 25, 2015

Linux is out for me now because of the move to systemd. I don't care if there are distributions that don't use it.

When I get out of OS X, I will move to BSD.

iamasmith · May 25, 2015

ZVH said:
As of today the adoption rate of Yosemite is nearly equal to that of Mavericks, which means it will likely surpass Mavericks. Whether those of us who can't stand Yosemite like it or not, this is the new direction, which for me, means its time to start thinking about getting the life boat out and jumping ship.

Like many Mac users I came from a Linux/Unix environment. After the Mac captivated me, I stopped paying attention to stuff like Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc. However, the time to start paying attention to them is now back.

So with that said, what are the latest/greatest versions of alternatives to Macs? One nice thing will be not having to pay through the teeth for Apple hardware.

Not really sure why you are asking this, it this more about tinkering? OSX lets you do a lot if you dig under the covers.

I used to run OpenBSD for everything at home and actually spend time getting new pieces of hardware to work.

I run the Mac as part of a whole Apple ecosystem and it does 'just work'. I have plenty of time tinkering at work since I own the platform architecture of a FreeBSD appliance and a set of services I developed (distributed in memory grid etc.).

I just find it's better to be able to use the Apple ecosystem for other stuff that I want to do rather than having to tinker with it

KALLT · May 25, 2015

Partron22 said:
Bought a Raspberry Pi 2 to use as a media streamer, friendly Arduino interface, and general knockabout device.
It uses Raspian, a stripped down Debian port. I thought it'd be nice to have full Debian, with the Gnome shell on one of my Macs to serve as a testbed/interface.
Once I figured out that Linux is not that fond of Yosemite, and vice versa and that things go better with a dedicated Linux drive, rather than just a partition, I was surprised at how quick and civilized the Debian experience was. It recognizes and can read all my Mac disks, Mac'll do the same with FUSE, as long Linux has its own drive. Access to shell is a breeze, and there's not a tenth the weird restrictions Apple puts on getting down near the metal.
Last time I looked into Linux, 2010?, things looked rather grim. Now it's starting to get to the point where I might consider switching, if I didn't have 4 other Macs and a bunch of Mac related devices in the house, as well as non-techy people who depend on them. Haven't tryed yet, but the Android development experience has simply got to be better under Wheezy/Studio than it is under Yosemite.

I have been using Debian on an old laptop for a while now and I have been surprisingly happy with it after my disappointing experiences with Ubuntu, Linux Mint and elementary OS. Linux desktop environments have come a long way and they don’t need to look ‘ghetto’ anymore. I’m using GNOME 3 myself and like it a lot. There are many parallels with OS X in terms of UI design, so you don’t even need to get elementary OS if you’re seeking that experience. It even features Mission Control, the Dock, Quick Look, Spotlight and notifications out of the box, albeit not always as powerful. And the dark mode with dark-grey window frames looks fantastic.

The only thing I seriously miss is the super smooth scrolling, with inertia and rubber-banding. This is something only Apple seems to have mastered so far. Scrolling on Linux is still choppy and static.

Non OS X Alternatives to OS X Yosemite

macrumors 601

Cancelled

macrumors 601

macrumors 65816

Cancelled

macrumors 601

macrumors 603

macrumors 65816

macrumors 601

macrumors 601

macrumors 603

macrumors 601

macrumors 601

macrumors 603

macrumors 68020

macrumors 603

macrumors 601

macrumors 603

macrumors 68030

macrumors 601

macrumors 601

macrumors 603

Suspended

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 603

Our Staff