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Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by PragmaticPulp on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:02AM (#31166437)
NFS mounts are supported in macOS natively

SSH mounts are done with osxfuse

MTP support is also available: https://github.com/ganeshrvel/openmtp

This article feels a bit like the author didn’t look very hard for solutions to a lot of their problems, but instead skipped straight to writing an article to complain about things they didn’t understand.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by leohonexus on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:55AM (#31166870)
OSXFuse is now replaced with sshfs, but it’s now a PITA to install it via Homebrew because macFUSE, a dep for sshfs has turned closed-source and Homebrew would refuse to install sshfs for that reason.

You’d have to install macFUSE binary from their official site first, and load their kernel extension via the GUI, before running the Homebrew command to solve it.

Which begs the question: if I’m already jumping through hoops to get SSH mounts on macOS to work, why not use Linux already?

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by whalesalad on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:19AM (#31167119)
> if I’m already jumping through hoops to get SSH mounts on macOS to work, why not use Linux already?

Jumping through hoops? It's installing a pkg file, takes about a minute and it is a one time operation you will never really need to do again.

Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have changed but you will jump through hoops far more often than on macOS.

- written from my frankenstein arch linux macbook pro

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by leohonexus on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:40AM (#31167340)
It’s easy to say so now that I’ve gotten it to work, but the whole process isn’t documented at all on any website.

I daily drive macOS, Debian, and Windows (for personal & work purposes) - the same can be said for Linux (auto mounting a WebDAV share on boot), but at least:

- Linux’s documentation is much more comprehensive than Apple

- whatever you do on Linux some guy from 2003 would have already done so, whereas going from Catalina to Big Sur would’ve seen some big process changes and deprecations

- Intel vs M1 compatibility concerns galore, the only times I need to worry about that on Linux is when I run VMs and LXCs on Proxmox.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by gattilorenz on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:07AM (#31167647)
>whatever you do on Linux some guy from 2003 would have already done so

Ah, sure, but that was pre-systemd. Or maybe the solution was for XFree86 and now I'm on Wayland... Or an interesting incantation of ifconfig, which might not even be installed by default?

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by warp on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:30AM (#31167232)
> It's installing a pkg file, takes about a minute and it is a one time operation you will never really need to do again.

Typically I have to do it once a year, because the kernel extension seems to break with every new macOS version.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by NoThisIsMe on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:43AM (#31167359)
> Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have changed but you will jump through hoops far more often than on macOS.

> - written from my frankenstein arch linux macbook pro

That depends entirely on what you're doing, what software and hardware you're using.

Any Linux distro on a MacBook (unless it's an old model)? Yeah, lots of hoops.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by LeFantome on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:53AM (#31168209)
I am installing Garuda Linux on a MacBook Pro later today. I have never installed Garuda before. I will let you know how it goes. After a good experience installing Manjaro on an iMac, I am expecting it to go well.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by seba_dos1 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:14AM (#31167711)
Use a properly supported hardware and the amount of hoops to jump through goes down to negligible.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by erinaceousjones on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:29AM (#31167904)
> written from my frankenstein arch linux macbook pro

oh... oh you poor soul :P

I used to use Arch on a high end gaming laptop when I was younger and had time to waste on things like dotfiles and perfecting my vim config and jumping through hoops like Bonus level Sonic.

Now I opt for lovely simple boring functional Dell laptops from my employer and install Fedora on everything.

Out of Windows OSX and Ubuntu/Arch/Fedora/Sabayon (Gentoo variant), Fedora wins the "everything just works" thing by miles on the supported Dell HW and _still_ supports stuff better out of the box with my home desktop.

Yeah yeah I know everyone's experience is different, but...... Out of using all of the operating systems on the daily for 15 years, linux is the one I consistently begrudge the least.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by cpfohl on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:53AM (#31168208)
The main reason I switched over to a windows box (after WSL2 was released) was because I hate dealing with obtuse hardware and driver issues.

I am a software engineer, but I work in user space and have zero interest in managing hardware issues. When I plug in a device to a Mac or Windows box it just works 95% of the time or more. I never have to touch textual config files, I never have to adjust DNS settings and routing settings to work with the VPN, when I plug in my headphones it plays audio through them, and my webcam works nicely. I don’t have to use the terminal to get my GPU to kick in at appropriate times.

I have tried to make the switch to Linux so many times, I love the computational model, but I’m too busy to spend my time working out the user experience, and too cheap to use a Mac now that WSL2 gives me a real Unix environment on Windows.

“Cheap, User Friendly, or Dev friendly, pick two” Was my mantra before WSL2 made windows dev friendly too… I’m not a fan boy for Windows, just too lazy to care anymore. I’d be happy to try Fedora…but I have my doubts…

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by lukeschlather on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @11:13AM (#31168475)
> When I plug in a device to a Mac or Windows box it just works 95% of the time or more.

I quit using Macs a long time ago because I find I have to spend way too much time configuring them and adapting to the workflow, but between Windows and Linux I find devices work pretty much the same. If anything Linux has a better success rate, things "just work." On Windows it seems like every single time I plug in a mouse Windows starts "installing drivers." Even though it has the drivers. Usually "installing drivers" seems like it's a nothing but sometimes it actually seems to be downloading things and installing them while the PnP mouse already should work.

Definitely, as a rule plugging things into Windows it can take 10-15 seconds to pick up while Linux works much faster on average.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by cpfohl on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @03:44PM (#31172261)
I think that rings true to my experience. It does _not_ ring true to my experience with audio peripherals in particular or with networking concerns.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by whalesalad on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @11:07AM (#31168396)
Don’t want to jinx it but the process has been painless. Technically I’m using EndeavourOS. Had to install with a USB wireless adapter but after the driver, it’s great. Everything “just works” including suspend/wake with lid, keyboard backlighting, brightness/volume fn keys etc.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by andi999 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @12:32PM (#31169551)
Printing on HP deskjet? What about scanning? Can you share your files on a local network with samba? (painlessly I mean)
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by whalesalad on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @04:14PM (#31172602)
Printing to my laser jet wirelessly works. Accessing remote SMB shares works.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by PaulDavisThe1st on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:35AM (#31167285)
> Have you ever daily driven a linux box? Times have changed but you will jump through hoops far more often than on macOS.

For about 25 years. Hard to agree.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by gentleman11 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:28AM (#31167880)
I’ve used Ubuntu for a few years. The hoops are pretty uncommon and usually involve a 2 minute search for syntax to fix
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by rsync on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @11:42AM (#31168905)
"You’d have to install macFUSE binary from their official site first, and load their kernel extension via the GUI, before running the Homebrew command to solve it."

Agreed - again, from someone who has given a lot of thought to sshfs and mounting ssh/sftp on OSX.

See my reply to a sibling-of-your-parent, upthread: use Mountain Duck.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by scarface74 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:56AM (#31168248)
A Linux user complaining about actually having to do some work to get their set up like they want?
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by djrockstar1 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:09AM (#31166488)
Oversights like these always make me wonder if the author is cunning and Cunningham's Law is at play.

Why look very hard for solutions when you can just claim there are no solutions and wait for someone to disprove you?

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by snapcaster on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:03AM (#31166961)
Have you personally used OSXfuse/sshfs? it really sucks to get working properly and set up. I had it all working on my x86 laptop finally then upgraded to m1 now it's back to being broken again.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by BoxOfRain on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:16AM (#31167100)
I wonder how much Cunningham's Law contributes to flakey search results? I can totally see people using it to game places like Stack Overflow which are far too trigger happy about removing duplicates.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by GlassKingdom on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:11AM (#31166498)
osxfuse is not a reasonable answer. The author says “without unsupported 3rd party tools”.

I have severe problems with osxfuse on M1: janky behaviour and system crashes. This stuff should be native.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by mvanbaak on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:28AM (#31166631)
How many of the functionalities the author misses and doesn't want to install "unsupported 3rd party tools" are NOT 3rd party tools in ubuntu?

Ubuntu linux is a distribution, and only a very very small set of tools and functionalities is "Ubuntu", all the others are simply packaged up 3rd party tools

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by jraph on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:34AM (#31166667)
These 3rd party tools are tested and supported by the distribution though.

It's a big strength of Linux distributions. There is one central, easily reachable place where you can report and track bugs for pretty much everything you do on the computer.

Obviously there are no guarantees that things will be fixed (fast) if you don't pay some sort of support but that's fair enough and still, the maintainers usually want the stuff they package to work reasonably well (they wouldn't spend their time packaging it otherwise) so one can expect a minimum level of functionality for most things unless explicitly stated otherwise.

The supported area for Windows and macOS from Microsoft and Apple is small in comparison to BSD and GNU/Linux distributions and good luck reaching them anyway.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by dotancohen on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:44AM (#31166761)
And no less importantly, on a Linux distro these 3rd party tools are installed with native package management tools from a (minimally) vetted source. No need to go out and search the wild web for forum posts of suggestions of which tools to risk your install on.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by skepticalwaves on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:02AM (#31166954)
Let's not endorse launchpad bug reporting too strongly, I have bugs going on 5 years and 3 major releases.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by jraph on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:05AM (#31166981)
Have you paid someone / some support to fix them?

It's reasonable to have unfixed bugs for years if they are not really blocking many people (and even if they did, but that would be too bad). Maintainers are focusing on other things that need to be done (or not, anyway nobody is supposed to fix bugs for free if they don't want to).

In this case, launchpad works as intended, as a place were you can track the (non) progression of your bugs.

Me too, probably, by the way (in other projects). My bugs reports are more like FYIs to the community.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by mvanbaak on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:26AM (#31167194)
If the problem is in the software provided by a package, most of the time you can report them in the bugtracker of the distribution, but it wont be fixed/supported by the distribution since the bug is upstream.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by gunapologist99 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:06AM (#31167637)
Mac OSX is also a distribution, containing (formerly mostly GNU and now mostly BSD) third-party utilities. However, the surface area that Mac OSX tries to cover in terms of real UNIX utilities is getting smaller and smaller.

It's almost ;) as if Apple doesn't care if real UNIX people prefer their laptops anymore.

Apple has moved on, to a bigger and far less demanding market: "real" people who have never heard of the artist formerly known as UNIX.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by seba_dos1 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:18AM (#31167756)
> How many of the functionalities the author misses and doesn't want to install "unsupported 3rd party tools" are NOT 3rd party tools in ubuntu?

I don't think any are. From a quick glance, everything should be included in Ubuntu's officially supported "main" section.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by vladvasiliu on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:42AM (#31166745)
Are SSH mounts natively supported on Linux ?

In my case I use sshfs, which also uses FUSE and is a "3rd party tool". Is that more reasonable than osxfuse? (Honest question, I'm unfamiliar with the latter)

edit:

sshfs is "unsupported": "However, at present SSHFS does not have any active, regular contributors, and there are a number of known issues (see the bugtracker)."

https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs#development-status

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by Macha on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:06AM (#31166996)
gvfs-sftp counts as native to me if you're using a gnome desktop. The author is using a fullfat gnome distro like Ubuntu, so it's probably even preinstalled.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by vladvasiliu on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @09:13AM (#31167064)
I wasn't familiar with that (I don't use gnome). After a quick lookup, it seems it doesn't even use FUSE - but it does have a "fuse bridge" for interoperability with other apps.

Apparently this supports a bunch of other "virtual filesystems", like Google Drive, as well.

Since it's part of Gnome, I guess it's fair to compare this with MacOS and consider it "woking out of the box".

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by prmoustache on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:48AM (#31168152)
It is, I have been doing diff of files from different remote machines using meld and gnome gvfs mounting for years. It works out of the box and is really mature.

Only thing app that wasn't working well with gvfs was libreoffice. I don't know if it is still the case but it refused to handle a file gvfs mounted on my NAS regardless of the protocol (ssh, smb, nfs).

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by usrn on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:46AM (#31166787)
Everything on Linux that isn't part of the "Linux-utils" package is a third party tool. (I guess GNU packages are "second party.")
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by Ar-Curunir on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:34AM (#31166671)
sshfs is a third party tool on Ubuntu (what does first party even mean in the context of Linux?)
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by vimsee on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:05AM (#31167624)
> NFS mounts are supported in macOS natively

..and MacOS lets you mount an nfs share ootb as a user. On linux you need an fstab entry for that though that is really not an issue at all.

How you ask? You do this with the mac specific command: mount_nfs Here is how I use it to mount shares from my NAS. $ mount_nfs -o nolocks,nfsvers=3 /home/nas/myshares/nfs /Users/bob/nas/nfs

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by MikeKusold on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:11AM (#31167680)
You don't need an fstab entry on linux. You can just use the `mount` command.

mount -t nfs ...

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by abruzzi on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @11:29AM (#31168711)
or, if you're in the gui -- command-k, then type nfs://server/share
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by native_samples on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:07AM (#31166477)
For MTP he says: "On a Mac I need to install some shonky 3rd party software which rarely works."

This seems like a reasonable complaint.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by throwawayffffas on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @12:46PM (#31169753)
I think you are misreading the author, their point is all this works by default on Ubuntu and not on Mac with the exception of NFS.

It's not that there are no solutions, it's that the author and as a matter of fact I too resent that we have to look for solutions.

From my point of view when I plug my phone in my linux box it just works but when I plug it in my Mac nothing happens, thus MacOs is an inferior operating system. As in it fails to operate in the manner I would like it to.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by AshamedCaptain on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @10:03AM (#31167608)
osxfuse/macfuse requires a kernel extension which is a _lot_ of troubles on newer macOS and apple is likely to forbid completely any day.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by sgjohnson on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @11:11AM (#31168453)
> apple is likely to forbid completely any day.

You can always disable SIP and load unsigned kernel extensions, if they refuse to sign.

If you’re a power user, you’ve probably already disabled SIP.

A couple of releases ago files like /etc/hosts and /etc/sudoers were protected by SIP. That’s not the case anymore, though.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by AshamedCaptain on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @08:04PM (#31174707)
It's like claiming you can always install unsigned drivers on Windows if you disable secure boot. Sure _I_ can do it. No one else can/will.
Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by sgjohnson on Wednesday April 27, 2022 @04:40AM (#31177699)
Yes, which is a great feature.

And if you’re deliberately installing unsigned drivers, the assumption should be that you (should) know what you’re doing. So disabling Secure Boot/SIP as a prerequisite for that is fine.

Or are you suggesting that everyone should be able to install unsigned drivers with 2 clicks? Because I’m not convinced that it’s a good idea.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by AshamedCaptain on Wednesday April 27, 2022 @06:49AM (#31178408)
> Or are you suggesting that everyone should be able to install unsigned drivers with 2 clicks?

Actually I am ("signing" with one CA only is mostly security theater and market control), but that's besides the point. The point being that macfuse will quickly become even more of a pain to install and use, making it more useless and not recommendable to end users.

Please don't go around another time and now claim "but you can disable SIP!" while at the same time claiming "but end users should not disable SIP!". We are effectively an end user here. If you "need to know what you are doing" to install macfuse then no one is going to install it.

It's exactly the same as with Secure Boot. No one wants the Scary Boot Prompts. No one wants the Scary Desktop Watermark. Your users will blame your product and avoid it.

If you could just whitelist one extra signature, then maybe there'd be something to discuss. But you can't.

Re:Things I can’t do on macOS which I can do on Ubuntu (2020) by ubercow13 on Tuesday April 26, 2022 @11:39AM (#31168869)
macos also natively supports mounting sftp through Finder as long as password auth is available