I think you gotta actually try to use it as your main OS to hit some of the snags. It can browse the web just fine, but I couldn't get sshfs working. There were strange global keyboard shortcuts, rarely actually used, breaking common shortcuts like ctrl + left/right arrow (fixable, but not super trivially). Homebrew is better than nothing but pretty jank in practice. Repeatedly I'd see graphical stuff installed from there was declared broken and I was pressured to delete it, or I'd have to reapprove some security thing after an update and add it back to the dock. Just lots of friction everywhere. I couldn't seem to consistently keep windows the same size and in the same spots, but they were almost right which made it more maddening. It was like they'd slide around slightly after a reboot or changing monitors. Speaking of monitors, low DPI fonts on macOS look inexcusably horrible. The same monitors I've used for years displaying similar stuff just looked absolutely awful on macOS compared to GNU/Linux. I never was able to fix this. I suspect in their pushing of hidpi and their own hardware they've mangled and abandoned classic resolutions and fonts. This one can barely even be discussed online because everyone's drank the hidpi koolaid and will call you poor or perverse or something. There was also a horribly annoying issue when trying to use a MBP like a desktop. If left inactive too long, I couldn't seem to wake and unlock it with my external keyboard and mouse connected to a dock. I had to open the laptop lid, log in there, re-allow my input devices, then close the lid. I also had to repeatedly go through that wizard that tries to identify your keyboard layout by having you press the key beside each shift key, as if it'd never seen my keyboard before. I have used this same keyboard on GNU/Linux and Windows, there's no equivalent to that needed, I don't really get it.
It's all bad enough that I have a very expensive machine collecting dust until Asahi supports multi-monitors fully. It was a good reminder of how important software and familiarity is, and how much you stand to lose by just chasing after better specs at all costs. I really just wanted my exact usual setup with a spec bump (which I eventually got when I upgraded from my T440p to a T14 Gen 5).
As for positives of macOS... I like the unix-y bits, what's left of them. If I have to retrieve pictures off an old Mac for someone's funeral board, the find command I know and love is there, and a familiar shell as well. I just can't live in macOS full time. It's not good enough for me.
Are you sure? Port may be in the name, but it seemed like people were using it like Proton, random users trying it with various games. Not sure if this is still happening. There was also Whisky, but that's been abandoned. "Wine Supercharged... with the power of Apple's Game Porting Toolkit."
It seemed like you could just play games with it, but that Apple didn't want you using it that way.
I use a docked ThinkPad with the lid closed and two external monitors. Here are my config bits.
set $laptop eDP-1
set $landscape 'Hewlett Packard HP ZR24w CNT037144C'
set $portrait 'Hewlett Packard HP ZR24w CNT03512JN'
bindswitch --reload --locked lid:on output $laptop disable
bindswitch --reload --locked lid:off output $laptop enable
### Output configuration
output $laptop bg $HOME/pictures/wallpaper/1529004448340.jpg fill
output $landscape bg $HOME/pictures/wallpaper/1529004448340.jpg fill
output $portrait bg $HOME/pictures/wallpaper/portrait/DYabJ0FV4AACG69.jpg fill
# pos args are x coords and y coords, transform is degrees of rotation counter-clockwise
# set $portrait as left monitor and rotate it counterclockwise
output $portrait pos 0 1200 transform 270
Pano is also the name of the scrobbler I started using recently. My old one quit working (API changes?) and I found Pano Scrobbler on F-Droid. Weird to see the collision so soon after discovering the other.
>haven't found a controller to match the speed and precision needed to aim and fire at a game opponent.
Gyro aim is a must, and if you wanna be the best you can be, I would also suggest learning Flick Stick, which in addition to using gyro, remaps the right stick to immediately turn to the direction you tilt it in, allowing instant 180s (at the cost of no longer aiming vertically at all). Steam Input allows you to set this up for any game. You need to initially dial it in by adjusting how many pixels a 360 degree turn moves until you can do two 360s and be aiming in the same spot. You can do this by temporarily binding a button to do a 360 degree rotation and then finding something in the game to stare at. You can find videos of people doing this on Steam Deck.
As for the controller, I'd currently recommend the 8BitDo Pro 2 or Pro 3, but if you can wait, the new Steam Controller should be even better.
I don't wanna come off as defending any of this, but even 20 years ago I'd bring my own snacks or eat nothing at the movies, the stuff they sell was always considered overpriced. So I'd definitely skip the sodas and popcorn.
That being said, I don't go to theaters anymore either. I'd rather watch stuff from the comfort of my home, at any hour of the day. If I have to wait a few months for web/BD releases, no big deal. I have plenty to watch in the meantime.
> realized that it had been broken for almost two weeks. I'd used that computer every day and hadn't needed to use a mouse even once.
I had a similar experience on a smaller scale a few weeks ago. I keep an extra keyboard of my preferred model (Pinky4) in a backpack to take on the go with me, but I only have one pointing device I really like (Ploopy Classic Trackball), so I pack up my one and only as needed. I'd gotten home, started using my computer, and an hour or two passed before I reached for the trackball and noticed it wasn't there. It was still in my backpack. I've got Sway keybinds to jump between my most-used programs instantly, and use a lot of terminal stuff as well. I can definitely imagine if I were on a low-end machine I'd go even longer without noticing.
Really? That's surprising. I guess if you mostly used it on servers or if you used default GNOME/KDE you might not run into it. It was the go-to screenshot tool for anyone using openbox, i3, most small WMs. A more universal tool than whatever DE-specific thing GNOME would use. You run it from the CLI, but commonly you'd bind a key to run your one-liner(s) of choice. Commonly used to do crop-style screenshots similar to what macOS binds to cmd-shift-4. Tons of people I know were using it for years. It was somewhat overtaken by maim in later years, and then on Wayland replaced by slurp/grim, but I still call screenshots "scrots" a lot of the time.
(n)vim can also do this, if you've set up an ssh alias in your ssh config for your multi-hop destination you just list it where the hostname would go. e.g.
nvim scp://remotemachine/.config/emacs/init.el
For the same reason you can use sshfs, sftp, and rsync with multi-hop. Gotta love openssh!
It's all bad enough that I have a very expensive machine collecting dust until Asahi supports multi-monitors fully. It was a good reminder of how important software and familiarity is, and how much you stand to lose by just chasing after better specs at all costs. I really just wanted my exact usual setup with a spec bump (which I eventually got when I upgraded from my T440p to a T14 Gen 5).
As for positives of macOS... I like the unix-y bits, what's left of them. If I have to retrieve pictures off an old Mac for someone's funeral board, the find command I know and love is there, and a familiar shell as well. I just can't live in macOS full time. It's not good enough for me.
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