> You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook

You're literally posting in a story about terrible Apple keyboards... The whole point to this subthread is about alternatives with better keyboards!

> You could install Linux on a 500€ laptop but you wouldn't have the keyboard or screen quality of the Macbook, nor would have access to the Apple ecosystem.

I used a 2009 MacBook pro for close to 3 years.

The following are my opinions, they are not valid for everyone but for some of us they are very valid:

Keyboard had ctrl in a different spot than every other keyboard I ever spent significant time with. (Disclaimer: some other laptops come configured this way but I remap it in bios if it is my machine.)

Keyboard lacked home, end, page up and page down keys. Instead it had extra arrow keys that non of the two resident apple fans in my office could tell me the idea behind.

Basic things like selecting a word using the keyboard would take one of three key combos depending on which app. I think sometimes it was ctrl-shift-arrow, sometimes alt-shift-arrow and sometimes fn-shift-arrow. Resident mac fan explained it was because of an ongoing transition between quartz and cocoa or something.

The application menus would appear on one screen only, often far away from the application it belonged to.

So, while I wish more people would use Macs (because 1. Lots of people like it. 2. it forces application developers to think cross platform which benefits me as a Linux user, and 3. It also increases competition) I also wish people would understand that Macs are not the best choice for everyone.

>Basic things like selecting a word using the keyboard would take one of three key combos depending on which app. I think sometimes it was ctrl-shift-arrow, sometimes alt-shift-arrow and sometimes fn-shift-arrow.

Whereas all Linux GUI applications follow a completely consistent set of keyboard bindings...

Yes! Exactly! It's the only environment where I can rely on all text entry working with emacs keybindings, though to be fair I have to poke a setting to get that.

Oh wait, you were being sarcastic. Well, at least you were wrong and learned something I guess.

(No seriously, you're wrong here. Linux desktops solved the uniform keybinding problem in a cross-desktop way like a decade ago. You just don't like it because they're different, not because they're inconsistent.)

All text entry works with emacs keybindings on OS X without having to poke at a setting. Or rather, one setting per toolkit:

https://superuser.com/questions/171925/enable-emacs-like-key...

>You just don't like it because they're different, not because they're inconsistent.

I didn't say anything about not liking Linux keybindings. It's a minor issue for me personally.

Sorry, I took your sarcasm to imply that linux desktop keybindings were inconsistent. If that's not what you mean (I mean, reading it again, I'm really pretty sure that's what you meant), then I apologize.

They are inconsistent between applications/toolkits. I was saying that this is not a big issue for me personally.

You still forget that I mentioned text selection shortcuts. They've been fairly consistent across 20 years of Windows and every major Linux Desktop environment.

Both linux and Windows seems to get basic text selection right, yes.

Of modern desktop os-es, Mac OS X was the only one who has ever consistently surprised me on this.

It might not be a big deal to everyone but for me who

- deal with text day out and day

- and prefer to keep my hands at the keyboard (even when I have a nice trackpad)

small thing like this matters.

Just like details like a good trackpad matters to other people I guess.

The text selection shortcuts are completely consistent on modern OS X, in my experience. At least, I can't find an app where shift+alt+right_arrow doesn't select a word.

I've moved on but between 2009 and 2012 this changed from application to application.

I've also yet to find an instance in macOS where Emacs-style text navigation shortcuts didn't Just Work™ automatically. One of the few things about macOS that I actually like relative to the average Unix/Linux desktop.

they have been for 30 years, NeXTstep and non-NeXTstep MacOS. I think Larry Teslar of Apple (long ago now) was part of that. Also, TextFields in the NeXT and now Apple codebase know various Emacs key bindings by default.

Home, page up and page down is just CMD + left, up or down arrow isn't it?

Selecting a word: double click / tap on it.

> Home, page up and page down is just CMD + left, up or down arrow isn't it?

Back then I think that too depended on the application. I tried everything and googled it.

> Selecting a word: double click / tap on it.

I prefer the keyboard.

>I also wish people would understand that Macs are not the best choice for everyone.

I agree totally. Equally I wish that every Linux user (especially here) stopped hailing the system as a panacea. This whole debate is trite.

I guess you already read that part but for everyone else: yes, lets embrace os diversity.

I'm not against Macs. On fact I say: if possible give Macs to everyone at work who prefers them.

Linux is not perfect. My current Ubuntu has been particularly bad. (But that might be my fault as I got to the current state through unofficial states.)

I even grew an appreciation for Microsoft, partly because they changed a lot and partly because I learned a lot (about ABI stability, large scale software engineering, importance of documentation etc etc)

So lets advertise our OS-es but lets not pretend Mac or Linux is best. Not mentioning Windows here since they haven't annoyed me for a while : )

>Keyboard lacked home, end, page up and page down keys.

Thank you! At my desk at work I plug in an old HP keyboard and map those keys so that they do roughly the equivalent.

> Keyboard lacked home, end

^A, ^E, just like on a terminal or Emacs. ^K deletes to the end of the line.

Learned that.

But it doesn't compose with shift for selection.

I also learned and still use the official workaround for that which is pretty nice often: shift + arrow up/down while on start/end of a line

>But it doesn't compose with shift for selection.

Yes it does. Ctrl+Shift+E selects the text up to the end of the line.

As an interesting note, it doesn't work with MS Office.

Well, that's one problem you wouldn't have on Linux I guess.

On Linux ^A on a terminal (and on Emacs) behaves as God intended it to, but on a GUI it's usually "select all". It's really awful (albeit it kind of compensate for that with the select+middle-click dance).