News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Home and hotel – Switching from macOS to Ubuntu on a Dell XPS 13 laptop. Parent comment

Re:Home and hotel – Switching from macOS to Ubuntu on a Dell... by jorvi on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @07:31PM (#16066881)
That’s true for 4 desktops, but what once you start having 8? Or 10? Having a row instead of a grid keeps things simple, both in terms of gestures, shortcuts and mentally. For me, I like functional simplicity like that, especially when I know Apple put a lot of thought (and probably some UI focus groups) on it.

As far as Apple not giving you the simple switch.. that’s just how Apple is. Again, I like it, because it means any Mac or iPhone I pick up I can instantly work on.. with Linux, the shortcuts differ even between Ubuntu and Fedora! That unified ‘foundation’ gives developers a solid base they can bolt stuff onto. For example, Spectacle. Its a sort-of window manager that would never work if it had to keep dozens of key configurations in mind.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Home and hotel – Switching from macOS to Ubuntu on a Dell... by StavrosK on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @07:36PM (#16066908)
Certainly, but I think that's an unfair comparison. You're comparing the single available thing in OS X to the multitude of options available in Linux. If you want consistency, always use the defaults, and they'll always be consistent. That's what Apple forces you to do.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Home and hotel – Switching from macOS to Ubuntu on a Dell... by jorvi on Wednesday January 03, 2018 @09:30PM (#16067502)
Wouldn't that cut both ways? If its unfair to laud macOS for its consistency i.e. forced defaults, you likewise cannot laud Linux for its multitude of options i.e. tweakability.

On a sidenote, you needn't have switch to Linux. Command-Tab-Plus[1] has the feature you want ('Isolate applications in Spaces').

[1]http://commandtab.noteifyapp.com

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Home and hotel – Switching from macOS to Ubuntu on a Dell... by StavrosK on Thursday January 04, 2018 @06:23AM (#16069494)
No, "forced defaults" is a trivial definition for consistency, as then everyone could be lauded for being consistent simply by removing all the options. Consistency is presenting a familiar interface despite having options. It's like how you can't have courage when there's nothing to fear.

Thanks for the command-tab-plus shoutout, I later found Witch (IIRC) that did the same, but it was a bunch of annoyances that drove me to switch (no "Cut" in the Finder, homebrew didn't exist, the Spaces thing, etc). I do miss Photoshop and Lightroom, but I have a second Windows partition I use for those.

[ Parent | on HN ]