
Switching from macOS: Developer Environment - bdcravens
http://blog.elementary.io/post/152671475281/switching-from-macos-developer-environment
======
nebulous1
Elementary doesn't strike me as a particularly good distro for dev. It's not
that I've anything against it, but other than your personal preference in the
DE (and Pantheon isn't without its charms) it doesn't seem to have much that's
going to lift it over any other linux distro. Perhaps I'm missing something.

~~~
forbidden404
I've tried Elementary a couple of times for dev and it isn't suited for that
at all. I understand they've been getting a spike in traffic since the new
macbook pro release, but I don't see how that would be a great choice for
developers, cause most of the similarities with macOS will stop with the
design.

As much as I wanted to enjoy the distro since its DE looks more well-thought
than other DE's around, you're going to get more problems than if you simply
switch to Ubuntu with outdated packages, poor documentation to solve problems
and it's easy to realize it's not made for devs.

I would say Ubuntu or Fedora are better distros for developers to switch from
macOS if they don't want to spend a long time setting things up, or maybe even
Arch Linux if they are experienced with Linux. After a while, I couldn't even
recommend Elementary for friends since I knew the amount of problems that
would come with it.

~~~
fady
\+ I'd like to add that xubuntu DE is xfce and by default with some small
tweaks it looks very much like macOS/os x, but with the added benefit of
ubuntu base behind it. once ubuntu ditched gnome DE i adopted xfce.
[https://goo.gl/zQcuGU](https://goo.gl/zQcuGU)

[https://xubuntu.org/](https://xubuntu.org/)

[https://xubuntu.org/screenshots/](https://xubuntu.org/screenshots/)

~~~
oridecon
for screenshots (of any DE) there's also /r/unixporn

([https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/search?q=xfce&restrict_sr=...](https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/search?q=xfce&restrict_sr=on&sort=top&t=all))

~~~
SiVal
Thank you so much for that link. I didn't know it existed, and it's a lot of
fun looking over all of those different designs.

The thing is, Apple took care of my basic laptop needs very well, but at a
price. I had to put up with all of their little, annoying decisions (a finder
lacking so many obvious file-management features but will NEVER be improved, a
ridiculous emphasis on trivia like "flat design" instead of substantial things
like RAM & SSD, social media nonsense built into everything, features that are
more about Apple's agenda than mine ("this new version gives you more ways
than ever before to buy stuff from Apple!"), a pathetic range of preferences
because "we know better than you, and we've decided for you", and so on.)

But if they won't make the hardware I want and won't allow anyone else to make
it for me (meaning licensing OSX to companies who still care about serious
computer users), then the basics are no longer covered, either. I'm really not
looking forward to having to fight to get basic stuff working right for
myself, but if I give up and conclude that Apple has moved on and I should,
too, then I'm going to go all the way with the others stuff as well. I'm
getting rid of all the "you'll get used to it eventually" compromises I had to
put up with from Apple and doing it the way I want. I'd like to see what other
looks are available (the looks aren't a trivial issue if _I_ get to choose
them, right?) and it doesn't have to look anything like OSX. In fact, I'm sure
I would prefer a design that is very unique to ME over Jony Ive's design that
is best for everyone.

~~~
mrkgnao
> flat design

I do not mean to nitpick - I enjoyed your comment - but isn't that more the
preserve of Windows (post-8)?

~~~
rzzzt
SiVal might be referring to the iterative thinning and weight reduction of the
machines.

~~~
SiVal
No, I'm referring to all the recent hubbub about Ive's declaration that he had
decided that the "skeuomorphic" look was no longer his fashion preference, so
the flat, featureless, cartoonish rectangles for UI elements that he
considered more fashionable would be enforced on all developers wherever it
could be enforced (App Store, Mac App Store).

I don't really care either way, and yes, other makers are doing flat-look
fashion makeovers, too, but this is about Apple as a pro computing platform. I
just wish that if Apple couldn't stay ahead in both fashion and practical
usefulness to people who need serious computers, that they would let the
former languish instead of the latter.

~~~
rzzzt
OK, completely misunderstood you there, then; thanks for the clarification!

------
jkrems
Wonder why they didn't go with Cmd+C/Cmd+V for copy&paste. As a developer,
that's one of the reasons I really enjoy working on macOS. There's no chance
to confuse Ctrl+C and Cmd+C - both of which are shortcuts I use frequently.

P.S.: Not to mention that I appreciate using my thumb for the primary meta key
instead of my little finger.

~~~
jtreminio
In another thread on keyboards I was criticized for identifying this as an
important reason for not switching to Windows.

That and Karabiner is simply too good and has no real Windows alternative.

~~~
aq3cn
Try AHK (Auto Hot Key). It is much more powerful than Karabiner.

[https://autohotkey.com/docs/misc/Remap.htm](https://autohotkey.com/docs/misc/Remap.htm)

You know keyboard remapping can be done natively just using tweaking your
Windows registry.

[http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-caps-
lo...](http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-caps-lock-key-in-
windows-vista/)

[http://www.ghacks.net/2010/06/06/the-ultimate-guide-to-
keybo...](http://www.ghacks.net/2010/06/06/the-ultimate-guide-to-keyboard-
remapping/)

Also if you want a program with gui read the following article.

[http://lifehacker.com/5883003/the-best-key-remapper-for-
wind...](http://lifehacker.com/5883003/the-best-key-remapper-for-windows)

~~~
Flow
I tried to tweak my work Windows-laptop to have the sane cmd+q, cmd+w and
cmd+h shortcuts.

Windows feels like a mess. Sometimes it's alt+f4, sometimes it's ctrl+f4. I
gave up.

~~~
blahi
No, it's always ctrl+f4 for closing the current window and alt+f4 to close the
whole application.

------
nmalaguti
One of the major benefits of macOS has been that everyone who uses it has a
consistent experience. Some people will use more specialized applications or
tools, but the base has been very consistent.

Homebrew has made things even easier and has been adopted as the one right way
to install things in a lot of projects and companies. And the fact that it is
a rolling release package manager means you can always get the latest and
greatest or use homebrew/versions to stick with an LTS version.

I have always found installs of the same Linux distro by different people to
be almost incompatible, let alone installs of different distros. Different
hardware, different desktop environments, different applications and
configurations. On the one hand everyone can have a tailor made experience,
but it makes it hard to debug or come up with common configurations and
instructions.

Elementary is making some simple and familiar choices that make it easier for
everyone to start at the same place. It looks and feels good, but is different
enough that I can't just switch without feeling all the rough edges.

If developers are serious about migrating to a linux distro and PC hardware, I
think a hybrid rolling release for devtools and versioned releases of the base
system might be needed to capture a lot of the success of macOS. I'm not even
sure if that's really possible.

~~~
nickbauman
Homebrew barely works. I dread messing with it. It's not Homebrew's fault:
with Macs the stars have to align to get things to work much of the time. I
find that the origin OS for most of my libraries (Linux/Debian) is much more
reliable than a Mac. I had some issues switching away from a mac at first, but
I got over them.

~~~
wyager
> Homebrew barely works. I dread messing with it.

One of us must be smoking something. I've never had a more reliable/friendly
package manager (among apt-get, pacman, macports, pkg_add, yum).

~~~
aptwebapps
Maybe the experience depends on what packages you install?

~~~
natch
Wild guess: people who keep Xcode and its associated command line tools up to
date have smooth experiences. Those who don't, do not.

~~~
vetinari
Unless you made the mistake of upgrading to Xcode 8 while staying with El
Capitan and then wondering, why nothing works.

~~~
natch
What specifically doesn't work?

It's working for me but I would love to have an example of breakage to take to
my IT as another reason they should allow the company machines to be updated.

------
meesterdude
Why are they even making a code editor? Seems like effort that could go
towards more fruitful endeavors.

~~~
Shank
Agreed. I run Sublime on macOS and Windows, and it runs on Linux, so I see
zero reason to migrate to another editor. Surely they're all using something
other than their editor for developing it, right?

Weird use of resources.

~~~
tajen
SublimeText is not open-source. But there are probably other good editors on
Ubuntu – Why not reusing them.

~~~
rovr138
Does it have to be? The people this seems to be aimed at are not people
looking for open source. They're looking for a replacement for OS X because of
issues with the new hardware.

I, for example, develop on OSX or Linux using open source frameworks using
jetbrain products like PhpStorm, Pycharm, Datagrip...

~~~
aptwebapps
I think for most people invested in OS enough to work on a distro (or whatever
you call Elementary) it does, yes.

~~~
uabstraction
A free software enthusiast might not reach for Sublime as their first choice,
but if its what you're used to, and you paid for it, and you like it, I don't
see any reason to abandon it other than trying to be a hipster. Surely you've
got enough things to figure out during the transition where learning a new
editor is just an extra unneccessary step.

~~~
aptwebapps
I wasn't saying that people who use Sublime won't continue to do so if they
switch to a free OS, I was saying that it's not at all surprising that people
invested enough in free software to put the OS together would choose a free
editor.

~~~
ajmurmann
I think those people are a minority overall and the fact that we keep
investing effort to make those vocal few happy is what keeps Linux on the
desktop from reaching a larger audience. Normal people don't care if they can
get the source code or not. They might care if it's free in beer, but
certainly not that they can look at code they won't understand.

~~~
aptwebapps
I'm not sure you're seeing the distinction I'm making. I distinguishing
between the users of a Linux distro or desktop environment and it's creators
and maintainers. The latter are heavily invested in free software or they
wouldn't be doing it.

When you say "we keep investing effort" which group are you talking about and
what effort? And characterizing the maintainers as a "vocal few" seems so
entitled as to suggest a misunderstanding. Want Sublime to be the default
editor for a Linux distro? You're probably going to have to start your own.

~~~
ajmurmann
I don't think I am misunderstanding you. I think the question is what do the
Linux maintainers want to achieve. Do they want to build the ideal OS for
themselves or do they want to bring Linux to the masses? If they want to make
the ideal system for themselves then they obviously should keep doing what
they are doing. If the primary goal is to bring Linux to the masses than
closed source will have to be embraced more.

I personally don't care much for myself right now, since the OS X laptop +
Linux on the server is still working great for me.

------
unhammer
> Similarly, you can just Ctrl+V to paste in the terminal instead of having to
> work around with extra modifier keys.

– that's a bit dangerous; Ctrl-V is normally used to "escape"/make literal the
following keypress, or do block select in vim.

The notification-on-long-running-process looks very handy though (I've been
using
[https://gist.github.com/unhammer/01c65597b5e6509b9eea](https://gist.github.com/unhammer/01c65597b5e6509b9eea)
, but of course clicking it doesn't put me back in the right tmux window). And
the "energy-sucking apps" indication mentioned in
[http://blog.elementary.io/post/152626170946/switching-
from-m...](http://blog.elementary.io/post/152626170946/switching-from-macos-
the-basics) looks _very_ handy. (I've been considering creating wrapper for
Firefox that Ctrl-Z's it when it's minimized …)

Is anyone running the Elementary DE (or parts of it) on Ubuntu? Does it work
OK, or do you have to run the whole OS for it to be worth it?

~~~
Longhanks
That's one thing I love about macOS. The GUI app keyboard shortcuts all work
with the command key and don't intervene with the ctrl key. You can always be
sure control-v will paste text in terminal and CTRL-C will send SIGINT.

------
lukaszkups
I don't get all the hate of elementaryOS distro here on HN as a dev machine.
I've worked before on osx, ubuntu, xubuntu and fedora. Comparing to other
linux distributions, it is just another linux-like system and works as a dev
machine similar to any other distribution, but IMHO looks nicer. Please,
provide me information what makes elementaryOS worse than e.g. Ubuntu as a dev
machine? (I'm a webdev working with cordova/phonegap, RoR, Django and Node.js
every day and eOS works like a charm for me)

~~~
srean
I have not used elementaryOS so I have no opinion about it, but if its raison
d'etre or main differentiator is 'looks' I can imagine why many devs wont be
going gaga over it. I care, but I care less about looks than I care about
default installed dev tooling, or how well organized its package bundles are.
(I believe its packages and package management is pretty similar or exactly
the same as Ubuntu). I am less impressed with fancy, memory hogging, terminals
with transparency and what not, give me rxvt (not bloated like xterm, but has
enough of the functionality) and tmux (well screen will do fine too) I am
happy.

For example I like Debian testing more than Ubuntu as I find Debian's package
groups better. I couldn't care less about unity. Or atleast I care less than I
care about the ease of fiddling with non-mainstream languages. I can trust a
whole lot of them being available in Debian testing in the right groups. It
might just be familiarity.

~~~
ebalit
Its main differentiator is "user experience" not "looks". This DE is great to
use. Of course screenshots only show that it looks good. You need to
experience it to really understand where it shines.

------
nickbauman
I bought a System 76 laptop a couple of years ago. It completely smokes my 2x
more expensive MBP (which has faster processors) in important tasks like
running test harnesses and compiling projects. The body, keyboard and trackpad
all have this cheap, "dollar-store" quality that initially drove me nuts but I
got used to it after a couple of days.

~~~
xor1
I keep hearing that System 76 laptops are just rebranded Clevos, but I haven't
personally looked into it yet.

~~~
nickbauman
They look _similar_ I say that much.

------
rerx
I've been running only Linux for years. Here's what I miss and why I still
regularly contemplate just getting a Mac:

\- a modern full featured client for email, with an efficient and pretty UI,
with good shortcut support (at least as good as the Fastmail and Gmail web
interfaces)

\- a fast and full featured PDF viewer that supports annotations properly --
anything based on Poppler unfortunately does not cut it

\- friendly software to create pretty presentations -- Keynote still seems to
be king

Development tools are the least of my worries.

~~~
geoelectric
Let me know if you find that email client on Mac. The best one I've found has
been Mailplane, which is literally a native frame and some OS integration
features surrounding a Gmail page. There are prettier native ones but the
ongoing support has always been hit or miss, and few are even as powerful as
Gmail.

~~~
rerx
Hmm, I actually mostly stopped using Gmail, so I would not miss labels too
much.

How about Postbox? I tried the latest Windows version under wine, only to
learn that there is no calendar anymore (let alone caldav support) and the
contacts do not sync at all. On the Mac they seem to integrate with system
contacts and I could probably live with the system calendar.

~~~
geoelectric
Postbox is basically Thunderbird with system integrations, last I looked. I
tend to find Gmail easier (and more pleasant) to use than Thunderbird, but I
also haven't checked out Postbox for awhile to see how it's progressed.

It's sure to be more powerful, as is the Mailmate client mentioned earlier.
I'm just not sure how "Maclike" the UIs will be.

------
JustSomeNobody
Wow, they are really pushing hard in the wake of all the "controversy" with
the new MBPs.

~~~
cyberferret
It makes sense though, from a marketing angle. A lot of people will want that
'Mac' experience and now they can get it without having to commit fully to the
whole ecosystem.

If they can convince a bunch of technically minded people to at least try it
out and be seen in coffee shops etc on a non Apple device looking quite
'Apple' like, then that legitimises their OS and might spur everyday consumers
to jump on board.

~~~
tbarbugli
I don't mean to be offesive here, but did look at how their laptops look like?

~~~
cyberferret
This is exactly my point though... People are being put off the new MacBook
range, but if another hardware manufacturer can pull off a shiny, good looking
notebook, and it has Elementary running on it - Voila! Instant Apple-like
coolness for a fraction of the price.

~~~
tbarbugli
So you are saying if I show up in a coffee place with a bulky black laptop
running a cheap imitation of OSX people will think this is cool?

Elementary will never be cool, in fact you will be "bullied" by both cool kids
with expensive (good looking!) OSX MBP and geeks running some obscure Linux
distro on a Thinkpad.

~~~
jon-wood
> Elementary will never be cool, in fact you will be "bullied" by both cool
> kids with expensive (good looking!) OSX MBP and geeks running some obscure
> Linux distro on a Thinkpad.

Are you in some sort of bizarre TV show cross between Silicon Valley and Mean
Girls? Out here in the real world no one cares what computer you're using so
long as you can get the job done.

------
cyberferret
I installed Elementary in a VirtualBox on my old Windows 7 Thinkpad, and am
loving it. Seriously considering installing my Ruby (Padrino) development
environment within it to fully test, with a view to completely scrapping Win7
from the laptop and running pure Elementary in the future.

------
tananaev
The only reason I have to use macOS for development is Xcode which I need to
make iOS mobile apps. I used to use macOS in a VM with Linux as a host system,
but it's just too slow and laggy even on good hardware.

~~~
bhldr
This is not particularly interesting. You can't leave the Mac ecosystem
because of vendor lock-in. To me this would make me want to change my tech
stack. If you don't care, you are just not the target audience for the
article.

You're just as uninsteresting as people not switching to Mac from Windows in
2010 because it doesn't play games.

~~~
kevincox
The problem is that you legally can't drop MacOS unless you want to drop iOS
which is pretty difficult to do when it is the second most popular platform
right now.

I don't recall if the restriction is compiling on Apple hardware or under
macOS but while people had iOS compilers running for a while I think they have
fallen out of date.

~~~
GordonS
Do you _have_ to compile locally though? Or could you use a cloud based system
for compilation?

------
vijucat
I guess Elementary had to copy the Cmd+spacebar shortcut to mimic the Mac OS
experience (Spotlight), but on that count, Windows' just-press-Win-and-start-
typing experience is much better. It's just one key less, but opening up a
program is used ALL the time, and eliminating that key press makes a huge
difference, IMHO. Not sure when they introduced it in Windows, but that was a
good one.

~~~
astrodust
Mashing two buttons that are literally side by side vs. pressing one button is
not really a huge usability boost.

Having a key like Option which allows you to easily type accented characters
and other things quickly _is_ a big deal.

~~~
givehimagun
As someone who works on both a Windows + Mac environment day to day...I find
myself accidentally hitting the option key expecting the spotlight a lot.

I don't know if others feel this, but moving between IntelliJ on MacOS to
Windows and back is a nightmare. I stick to the defaults as much as I can and
it's still memorization hell.

------
pmlnr
elementary again within 2 days? Come on.

Anyway, Geany beats Scratch.

~~~
na85
Yep. Let's stick to the Javascript Framework Of The Day posts, toy program
languages, masturbating about Docker, and "12 reasons why you should XYZ".

~~~
pmlnr
My main problem is that despite the "polished" feel neither elementary nor
it's apps are as good as their marketing. Geany beats Scratch with closed
eyes, Quod Libet or Banshee can actually handle large music collections
without crashing, and the terminal should work as a terminal and not as MS
Word ( I'm looking at ctrl+c ).

~~~
na85
True, few in the Linux and BSD community are willing to put in the time to
make things as polished as they could be.

However, you can always install your editor of choice. Geany is in the apt
repos.

------
jasoncchild
i was reading this and wondering why there would be so much emphasis on stuff
like apt...then realized that there are indeed developers who've only ever
used OS X (and perhaps windows). i guess i assumed everyone ended up with
Linux as a daily driver at some point, if even for a short time

~~~
stephenr
I haven't read the page, but I would guess they're trying to highlight how a
_real_ package manager works, compared to the cool-kids toy tool Homebrew.

Given that there are Mac using developers, who somehow think Homebrew is a
_good_ tool, and then want Homebrew for Linux so they can use it there,
because they have no fucking idea what a _real_ package manager is like, I
don't blame them for wanting to highlight how powerful Apt is.

~~~
nicky0
I'm a die-hard Mac developer but recently tinkered with a Raspberry Pi for a
toy project. Have to say apt on Debian is really very good.

------
EugeneOZ
Does fonts rendering look smooth on hidpi screens?

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
Check out the infinality project.
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Infinality](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Infinality)

~~~
symlinkk
Don't use this. It'll install and patch a bunch of stuff that won't get
updated and will eventually break your system.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
That's an odd statement to make. I have used Infinality for years and just
about every time I run `pacman -Syudd` I get a massive amount of Infinality
updates. I have literally _never_ had a problem with Infinality. If you're a
high DPI monitor user, using Linux without it is misery.

~~~
symlinkk
You get updates because you installed it from the AUR, which isn't officially
supported by the Arch devs

------
joeevans1000
This may be a good transitional and familiar OS for people now having to
migrate away from Apple now that it isn't taking developers and professionals
seriously. Some may find this meets all their needs.

------
achikin
As a mac user I wonder why do I need to use sudo to install packages?

~~~
Pulce
As a mac use you are switching from 10.11 to 0.4... good luck.

~~~
achikin
My plan is to turn my old laptop into a spare Elementary-based workstation and
see how it goes. In current situation it does not make much sense because
comparable non-Apple notebooks are not sufficiently cheaper and I consider
macOS the best offer at the desktop OS market today, but I don't like the
direction MacBooks are going so I want some backup solution for my daily
needs.

~~~
tracker1
I didn't like the hurdles I needed to install non-store software at whatever
point that was (mountain lion?).

I've never been a big fan of spotlight, and finder just seems all the more
cumbersome to use. To be honest, I find most Windows software slightly more
comfortable to use, but prefer the unixy environment I get from bash in linux
or osx over even the bash that comes with git (which is nice enough, mostly).

I really like the Windows taskbar more than other launchers I've seen, though
I like the windows7 style start menu more. I don't mind the Ubuntu Unity start
menu, as I can use that mostly the same as on windows.

~~~
achikin
I find Finder more comfortable than Windows Explorer. It did look cumbersome
at first, but it turned to be much more useable than Explorer. On Windows I've
used Total Commander, so when I've switched to mac I've installed ForkLift,
but I found out quickly that Finder is good enough for my needs. I use
Spotlight to launch programs and nothing more and it's good for that. And yes
- unix environment is the key selling point for me alongside with the sane UI
and a great choice of cli software, ported from the other unix-like systems.

------
shorodei
An year ago I started dualbooting Elementary as my daily *nix OS. All was
well, until one day, with no hardware change or OS update, the touchpad
stopped working. I'm back to VMs now.

If I wasn't dualbooting I might have spent more than a day to figure out what
happened - but I was too lazy and scrapped dualbooting.

~~~
brudgers
My understanding is that there was a kernel change that borked touchpads this
year on many distros and that the change was related to the Synaptics driver
seeing little love over the past several years. [1] It looks like the folks
who care (like Alps) have been patching over corner cases off and on and as
recently as last month.

[1]: Linux kernel 4.6 switched from RMI4 to RMI6.
[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=linux-4....](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=linux-4.6-input-
updates)

------
yulaow
As someone suggested also in the previous post about elementary, take a look
at Apricity Os (arch-based)

[ [https://apricityos.com/download](https://apricityos.com/download) ]

------
erokar
My gripe with Elementary OS is that it's too much like MacOS. It's dervied and
feels boring and stale in the same way that MacOS does. If you're switching,
do it with a bang, not a whimper.

~~~
cyberferret
Opposite feelings here. I like Elementary because it looks and feels polished
and finished. Most Linux distros to me seem like a veritable tower of Babel,
with many almost every corner you peek in to seemingly designed and built by a
different teams with absolutely no prior consultation with anyone else working
on the project.

~~~
OJFord
Do you mean "distros" though? I would agree with you about DEs, but I would
concur with parent commenter on the "bang not whimper", and suggest that that
bang be i3wm.

~~~
cyberferret
Clarification: Yes, I meant the choice of DE with each distro, not the
underlying Linux kernel per se.

------
jordic
I'm quite happy with my desktop less i3 + tmux for shells. (Ubuntu) I switched
from Mac three years ago tired of iTunes and the rest of bloatware.

------
cocktailpeanuts
I'm an iOS developer. Everything is irrelevant.

------
rco8786
This whole thing reads like an Apple product release. Not sure if that's good
or bad considering the intent.

------
gchokov
Not switching anytime soon. No reason.

------
mirekrusin
elementaryOS is ok'ish but before you dive into it you should know that
there's no way of upgrading system, you're going to have to do fresh install
once new version is available.

------
oblio
Man, I didn't expect this surge in ElementaryOS articles :)

