Comment by kombine
16 hours ago
I have the same sentiment. I am forced to use a MacBook in my new job while waiting for them to procure a laptop that I can put Linux on. I can say that Linux with KDE Plasma desktop is in almost every way superior to Mac OS. Much better UX, configurability and core applications. And even little things are more polished and thought through compared to what a trillion dollar company was able to produce. It's really beyond me how people use Apple products, and it's the absolute majority of them in my field.
“Better” is largely subjective. For some (including myself), a Windows-like paradigm like KDE uses is not desirable, and UI papercuts like the many that KDE has are highly visible.
I use KDE because it lets me emulate a macOS-like paradigm better than Gnome or other options can.
Tried it for a while, it was death by a thousand papercuts.
I wanted the Konsole theme to stay in sync with system light/dark theme. I ended up writing a pair of .desktop files and a helper program to talk to DBus.
I want to use my computer, not configure it.
I don't keep the record of every thing that I don't like about MacOS, but here's some:
- cannot keep natural scrolling for trackpad whilst having the expected scrolling behaviour for the mouse
- needs an external app for fractional display scaling
- screenshot tool is objectively inferior to that in Plasma, eg. not clear how to annotate a screenshot or copy it to clipboard
- Dolphin file browser is has cleaner and simpler UI, is more configurable and has a built-in terminal which is super handy.
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> - screenshot tool is objectively inferior to that in Plasma, eg. not clear how to annotate a screenshot or copy it to clipboard
I'm not sure what to make of this. When you take a screenshot (i.e. via cmd-shift-3 or cmd-shift-4), right there in the window that pops up are the annotation tools and a button to copy to clipboard?
macOS has markup tools for screenshots (or any image) built right into Quicklook and Preview. It’s not as rich as something like SnagIt, but it’s good enough for adding some text, arrows, shapes, redactions, etc.
Can’t comment on the others but I copy screenshots to the clipboard multiple times a day in macOS and have done for years. Very frequently I send them via Screen Sharing to another Mac and paste there, something I value hugely.
Dolphin is one of the things about KDE that bothers me, due to the way its windows are laid out and how they use margins/spacing. It just feels “wrong” in a way that even most other Linux file managers (including more full featured ones that still have a menubar) don’t.
> needs an external app for fractional display scaling
Huh? I go to Settings -> Displays -> Advanced -> Show resolutions as list -> Show all resolutions -> you can literally pick *whatever* your screen will advertise?
*Maybe* that's one or two clicks too many? Arguably you don't want non-technical users to accidentally set up blurry text.
There are objective criteria that macOS definitely fails at. Various government agencies here in the states can't use macs even if they wanted to due to lack of #a11y support or the ability to load their own root cert stores.
I agree with you that for MOST people, MOST of the complaints boil down to "I just don't like the Mac UX," but there are organizations that cannot tolerate the risk of forcing employees to use equipment that doesn't follow even the basics of section 508 or DoD guidance.
That is a quite strange reason, as Mac and iOS have by far the most investment in accessibility of any system. The amount of accessibility features both systems have is bewildering.
Every company using Macs I’ve ever worked for has MDM and their own root certs, that’s basic device management. Are you thinking of something else?
What accessibility is it missing?
You can import new roots via Keychain, correct?
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Lucky, here Linux lives on servers, or desktop VMs.
Except for the trackpad, alas.
Just curious... did your employer agree to getting you a Lennucks Bocks 'cause you asked nice or were they frightened of running afoul of one of the many #a11y or security evaluation frameworks?