What a loyal mac user can expect when switching to ubuntu (negatives and positives)

[unagimiyagi]

Positives

UI seems similar to mac, who copied whom?
quick boot up
Less fluff
fully customizable, it just feels more open
free

Negatives

Ergonomics go down the tubes
--Forget using your multitouch trackpad the way you used to use it on your mac. It's not ready for primetime and may never be. To be fair, most shipping laptops using windows have poor multitouch. I am curious as to why literally only Apple computers have good multitouch. Is it b/c they are the only ones that care? Your palms and other standard ways of typing will cause the cursor to jump around, etc.
--Forget using your command keys. In Natty there is no way to remap them so far, so keyboard ergonomics go down the drain as well
--Poorer battery life. Shave at least an hour off of your previous mac time.
--Backing up your drive a la time machine will not work flawlessly. Odd permissions issues and other unexplained showstoppers.
--launcher and unity interface is a step backwards. Searching for apps is just strange an unnatural in Unity.
--Natty at this point is not nearly as stable as mac snow leopard.

I have spent a solid 3 weeks learning and using linux. The command line is great and I can see the appeal of it, but the negatives right now are outweighing the positive. My basic computing experience has become frustrating. I've spent alot of time adjusting my monitor colors, then having it right and only to have to research how to make the profile "stick" 'at boot up. Having a stable boot loader also was an issue (now solved). This goes to show that mac users who are curious about linux will not be drawn to stay with linux based on its user-friendliness and usability; it will be because of some deep-seated loyalty open-source principles. As I see it, a mac user who is not already well-versed in linux will not be satisifed with ubuntu because the user experience is severely limited at present.

[handy]

One of the things that irritates the hell out of many OS X, users, is the inability to customise the size of ALL fonts, combined with the inability to resize the ones that you can actually adjust, to larger than 16 points.

That one is my number one irritation.

When you buy a large (> or = to 24") high res' monitor, & you can't read some of the text because the fonts are too small unless you stick your face in the monitor, that shows a huge flaw in the OS X, design process. This problem has existed ever since OS X, was first released. It costs Apple, customers, one way or another.

Finder is prehistoric, having a huge number of inefficiencies & limitations built in.

Overall, my feeling when using OS X, is that I'm using a superficial interface that has me basically fenced out of the configuration process.

@unagimiyagi: The above is from my personal experience, we have 3 Macs in the house, amongst other machines. I'm typing this from a 24" iMac running Arch/Openbox.

My reply is not in anyway some kind of tit for tat thing. We all have different ways that we like things to be. It is nice to have so many choices.

[DogMatix]

I am curious as to why literally only Apple computers have good multitouch. Is it b/c they are the only ones that care? Your palms and other standard ways of typing will cause the cursor to jump around, etc.

Have you set the disable touchpad whilst typing option in the system settings. It may help the cursor leaping around problem.

[teh603]

--Forget using your multitouch trackpad the way you used to use it on your mac. It's not ready for primetime and may never be. To be fair, most shipping laptops using windows have poor multitouch. I am curious as to why literally only Apple computers have good multitouch. Is it b/c they are the only ones that care? Your palms and other standard ways of typing will cause the cursor to jump around, etc.

I think Apple got a very broad patent on multitouch, from some news articles I've seen about them suing other people for developing the same technology independently in phones and tablet devices.

At least they're actually making a multitouch product and not just trolling the patent, though.

--launcher and unity interface is a step backwards. Searching for apps is just strange an unnatural in Unity.
--Natty at this point is not nearly as stable as mac snow leopard.

I've found that Maverick is a lot more stable than Natty or Lucid

[JohnAtilano]

I completely agree with you, unagimiyagi. OS X is my main system. Ubuntu is for screwing around and learning. Handy has a very valid point about the Finder. Hopefully Lion will fix that. Ubuntu is nowhere near ready for prime time. But if you're a geek (like me) it can be a lot of fun.

[pauljwells]

Maverick is stable and a solid system. I can't talk for Lucid but Natty is definitely 'bleeding edge,' at least on PPC architecture.
That said - I had a niggle with the unity-2d interface, downloaded the source, wrote a patch, chatted with the Canonical dev responsible and got my patch (rewritten by a pro) merged. You CANNOT do that with a commercial product. Also, my work requires Python with Fortran extensions. F2PY just WORKS in Ubuntu. Python on Mac is a horrible mess of 32/64 bit incompatibility, (Don't even try Win!!)
I was a lifelong mac fanboi until Natty but have finally made Ubuntu my primary system and mac/win secondaries. My G5 Powermac runs Natty 90% and osx the other 10%

I guess it all depends on what you want to do. I want to write software so Ubuntu is a no-brainer. If I want to buy a lappy for my wife then only macbook guarantees me the peace and quiet I need for long work trips

[Untitled_No4]

There is of course the other perspective. As a long time Kubuntu user I have recently started using a Mac, and I spend some of my time on Mac OS. While there are definitely things that I think are done better in Mac OS, they are few and far apart, and generally I feel that KDE is more intuitive and generally better than MacOS.

Just a few points:
- Finder: No tabs, no split view, no way to sort your files so folders are on top, no way to show hidden files, very hard to get places Apple doesn't want you to go.
- Time Machine: Although beautiful and simple, it's too simple. No way of backing up other partitions or external drives. No way of excluding files or folders.
- No easy way of mounting network shares or external drive in any place other than /Volumes
- UI is clunky, for instance: windows can only be resized from the bottom right corner.

I was talking about those things with a good friend who's been ever only using Mac. Her reply was "You don't miss things you don't know exist". Then when I used the terminal to set up proper backup for her, she was so amazed by it, she thought I was reprogramming the hardware.

Of course, nothing is perfect. Mac OS has made me find annoyances in Linux, but on the whole I do prefer Linux.

[tapi0n]

Been using mac for about two years now, recently I installed ubuntu on one of my old desktops.

On my mac I used the terminal very much, and this stayed the same in ubuntu. You even get a lot of extras you don't have in the mac terminal. So if you're a terminal user you'll be more then happy.

[jacksin]

woah woah woah. You guys realize that finder isn't the only thing you can use to interact with files right?

There's this thing called "Path Finder" that I use and I have to admit, I'm in love.

Link below.

http://www.cocoatech.com/


I'll take the pleasure of dropping in some stuff straight from the site that talks about the features of Path Finder.

Dual Pane File Browser

View the contents of two folders or volumes side-by-side in one window.

Drop Stack

Freeze drag & drop operations by placing files into a temporary stack.

Tabs & Bookmarks

Use the best features of a web browser in your file browser.

File List Sorting & Filtering

Sort by folders first, or limit a list of files by name or extension

Command Line tools

Path Finder puts a terminal right in your file browser, and provides a graphical interface to some popular UNIX utilities.

For a comprehensive list of changes, check out the Path Finder changelog

[handy]

Path Finder, certainly looks like it improves the Finder situation. Though personally, I don't use OSX enough to buy the software replacement.

I use Worker in Arch, which is also installable on OSX, but the installation for OSX is a clumsy process, requiring other software to be installed, which made it unreliable, so I uninstalled the lot.

I rarely use OSX, just to run Sandvox (website construction), & to occasionally backup my iPod Touch.