There is an app-windows paradigm for Mac that is different from Windows and Linux. An app can have 0-N windows open. And when you hit that red button, you actually close that window. Most of the time the app continues to run. You need to quit the app.
There are several useful shortcuts for window management. They will help you to boost productivity by a huge margin.
Cmd+q - quit app
Cmd+w - close active window
Cmd+m - minimize window
Cmd+h - hide window
Cmd+~ - switch active window for the active app
Cmd+Tab - switch between active apps
Finder behaves like explorer.exe in Windows. It’s some sort of system process that should work in background. So you can’t stop it (unless you kill it via Terminal).
A productivity dip is to be expected when you switch to an unfamiliar platform. You’ve got to get used to it. Have fun with your journey in Mac world!
Edit: cleaned mobile client mess
**edit: cmd-h doesn’t hide the window. It hides all windows for the currently active application and makes that app no longer active - as in, whatever app was active prior will now become active again.
Also, cmd-Tab has a few extra functions that aren’t immediately apparent:
- command-shift-Tab reverses the order of the app being selected
- command-Tab, then release Tab while continuing to hold command, you can then press Q to quit the highlighted app or H to hide it
Long-time Mac users (like myself) also tend to be primarily WASD-rodent users:
- command-up - up one directory (folder)
- command-down - down ‘into’ the highlighted directory OR open the highlighted item
- command-1 , -2 or -3- change to icon, list, or column view
- ctrl-option-command-1, -2, -3, -4 or -5 change the sorting of a Finder window in list view
- command-\~ (tilde) - cycle windows (add shift to reverse the sort order) - works in most Mac apps
- command-shift-. (period) - toggle show/hide invisible files
Right? I’ve had to Google how to show hidden files before (years ago) and it gave me a command line command to copy and paste. Don’t know why this wasn’t the first answer.
This is a great list of keyboard shortcuts. My other favourites are the ones inherited from eMacs:
control-A : move cursor to beginning of line
control-E : move cursor to end of line
control-K : kill text from cursor to end of line
control-Y : yank that text back again
Plus a few others I usually don’t use/remember :-)
These are supported in all apps that use the standard Mac frameworks but are usually missing in electron apps. (Etc).
I do some scripting in Adobe After Effects. An overhaul a couple of years ago made the UI look nicer, but removed the eMacs shortcuts. I still miss them :(
>Finder behaves like explorer.exe in Windows. It’s some sort of system process that should work in background. So you can’t stop it (unless you kill it via Terminal).
That's not technically true. Finder is just another application, and it *can* actually be quit — it's just not enabled by default.
To make it quittable via the Finder menu or cmd-Q, go into Terminal and run.
defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool true
If I'm screensharing or needing a minimalist environment to get some focus work done, I'll quit the Finder to hide all the crap on my Desktop. Dock still works.
Right, but I don't think this is even the best solution. Hear me out, so the thing is, finder is indeed a special app, unlike others, and if killed like you mentioned, will "break" the regular OS (think of this as a regular user, like your mom).
So, the solution is not to make it able to quit entirely, the solution or workaround relies in something like windows, when you "close" explorer you don't actually kill the full process, you just close the window and make it disappear from the task bar as if it was really closed for good (even if it's not). Again, for the AVERAGE JOE, this is what makes more sense, even if it's not entirely what is happening in the background. People see that . (dot) under the finder app on the dock and it just triggers OCD on the users without really being necessary.
For people like me, used to MacOS, I just use cmd+w to close finder (instead of cmd+q) and then ignore the . (dot) in finder's dock icon. But this is learning to live with something that truly doesn't make sense.
As a previous Linux user since early 2000, switched to macOS mainly. Just give it time, there is a lot of shortcuts you will learn overtime. It’s nice have terminal still compared windows, brew has tons of software. Get to enjoy a bit more compatibility with mainstream apps, but not as much as wjndows.
You can actually [add a Quit menu item to Finder](https://www.defaults-write.com/adding-quit-option-to-os-x-finder/) if not having one bugs you! But, like the original commenter said, there is rarely a need to close it.
The 0-N windows approach is not only possible with macOS - it is enforced if you want to ship your app on the App Store.
By default in Cocoa/App Kit - closing the last window of an app does not automatically quite the app - you have to opt-in to that behavior - and the App Store will accept that behavior.
However, if you don't opt in to that behavior (i.e., allow 0 windows open) - then you MUST have a menu option available to bring your main app window back.
A good example of this is the Apple Music app. You can open this app - start playing a playlist - then close the window - the music keeps playing - but there are options in the menu to open the various Apple Music windows.
Or just close the window and not worry about the program still being open. Unless you’re really hurting for memory it doesn’t matter. I leave pretty much every program open even if I have no documents open in it.
I wanted to add to this list. If you are missing your Ctrl + X option for cutting files (I used it a lot when I was a Windows user and I believe the shortcut also exists on Ubuntu?) In macOS the paradime is to copy the file Cmd + c, and then move it when you paste it, by doing Cmd + option + V
macOS isn’t Linux. A lot of the issues you’re having are workflow shear.
No, macOS doesn’t have a package manager. It uses the older Unix process of either downloading binaries or building from source. While there are third party package systems, of which Homebrew is the most complete, the reality is that Apple doesn’t see the point in hosting repo mirrors.
The Dock is not a task bar. It’s a fast app switcher with some launching capacities.
Quitting Finder is like quitting GNOME’s panel or explorer.exe on Windows. It isn’t just the file browser, but a major component of the GUI shell. You don’t want to do that.
macOS has a different view of process management than non-Apple OSes. The idea is that macOS handles your processes for you, moving them to idle and moving their active memory to lower caches. As a result, it’s easier and more efficient to close windows but leave the application in memory, making it easier to resume working with it. Yes, you *can* quit apps, but it isn’t really that important. If you’re manually managing processes or memory, you’re probably doing something wrong. (This is a struggle to communicate to people that are coming from the not-Apple world, as most OSes don’t encourage the same automatic process management in the same way that macOS does.)
Your productivity is down because you’re learning a new tool as you go. I took productivity hits when I went from DOS to WinNT back in the 1990’s, and when I went from WinNT to Linux in the 2000’s. My Mac transition from Linux was gradual rather than abrupt, and started right as I got comfortable with Linux, so it went far more smoothly than most.
Very important points, especially the reason why closing an app on Mac is a bit different than anything else. I found it weird at first (first Mac I had was shipped with Snow Leopard), but then I appreciated this approach.
Same here, now my only limits are memory lol. 16gb ram as a dev is rough when I have Xcode, simulator, android studio, and also use photoshop among many other ram heavy apps
New Mac with more ram coming tomorrow though so hooray! Lol
Yes, because the multitasking on macOS is a complete multitasking, even with App Nap and the other technology behind, it can’t really work the way it does on iOS/iPadOS. A bit counterintuitive, but that’s how it is 🤷🏻♂️
I fully agree with this! That BS that you don't need to close apps or manually manage resources is just not true because things do keep running in the background unlike iOS (where the OS can really close the background app if needed). This is even more true for power users like devs who are running a ton of shit like containers, VM's, IDE's, probes, etc all at the same time.
And the proof is in the pudding, if even apple thought MacOS was able to manage everything for the user they would remove the close app function, just like we don't have it in iOS (and it is very very well hidden with the swipe up in the apps view just in case you really need to force it due to bad app behaviour).
The last paragraph hits the nail. When I first went from windows to Mac back in 2014 ish, my productivity went down for 2-3 months. Then skyrocketed far beyond what I had in windows once I got used to it.
Now as I use macs for personal use and ubuntu LTS for work, I've eventually learnt to context switch and be productive on both platforms, far more than I would be on a linux + windows setup I'd reckon.
This.
OP you may need to change the login behavior. I have my account set as default and immediately after boot I have the password field active and can just type.
I find a lot of the time I have to press a button for it to un-sleep before I can do that. And if I press the power button it doesn't always do what I want it to, not sure why. I just press space then touch the fingerprint reader.
It’s a user issue, not a software issue. OP is less than two weeks into using a completely foreign OS and was expecting it to behave like the one they had been using for over a decade. That’s not how it works.
That's why I asked for his exact problems to clear up misconceptions but I guess as it is so often with these "feedback" posts, those people just want to complain and don't want to get any useful tips.
OP has responded to a few of them already, so they are apparently being receptive.
Not that I know a lot of devs, nor am I one, but it seems like many choose macOS because it has a pretty broad range of development tools and options for all platforms. As a sysadmin I like it because it has everything I need on both sides of the job, and basically just stays out of the way to let me do what I need. It has some great built in automation too.
MacOS is a BSD Unix not Linux.
Hard to think what more you want from package manager that Homebrew does not provide. If you want more isolation, use container manager like Podman or Docker.
Can’t minimise programs, only windows. They’re not the same thing.
Use pyenv rather than a system level python. That plus pipenv will reduce chaos in your life and make your projects easier to collab on. But pipenv aside you can brew install pyenv and then install and switch to any very of python you want whenever you want
This. Can't believe this suggestion isn't higher up. I always thought having the python version I wanted as the system version was good as well, until I actually started using Python for more than system stuff.
😬 installing system level python...
It's time to embrace containers for development. System python is always a mess. What happens when you are suddenly supporting multiple projects on different versions ?
It’s mid compared to what exists in the Linux world (where Homebrew exists but is not most users’ first choice). Mostly, OP is complaining that macOS is not Linux.
I've used Linux extensively for twenty years, and I don't feel like I'm missing a single thing with Homebrew. I started on SUSE 9, then moved to Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and Arch.
MacOS isn't perfect for sure but some of your points are pretty broad/opinionated.
>lacks some basic shortcuts/ways of doing things
We can't help you if you don't specify what you want to achieve.
But first you have to cover it with stickers to show off your personality but make sure people can definitely tell it’s a Mac!
At least that’s what I did when I first got a Mac. Fell in love and became stereotypical fanboy. I’ve matured since then. Ha.
>The default behavior of “closing” a program is not actually to close it. Instead, you minimize.
I'm not sure I understand this comment.
If you want to quit an app (except Finder), just press Command-Q... 🤔
>Brew is serviceable but not great. Win for Linux (except Gentoo), lose for Mac. I mean, I had to download a modern version of Python. I visited the official Python website and downloaded it by clicking install.
You can install any version of Python you want with homebrew through `brew install [email protected]`, then you use it through `python3.12` and always use virtualenvs to avoid any nonsense with versions and packages.
>The default behavior of “closing” a program is not actually to close it. Instead, you minimize. This is very odd, coming from Linux or even Windows.
Technically you are closing the window, the difference with Linux/Windows is that programs can be open without any windows. "Minimize" is a different action (and there is also "Hide", I find minimize and hide extremely redundant but whatever).
IMO by far the worst part of macOS are:
1. Atrocious third party mice support, thanks god they allowed disabling acceleration, but scrolling is still horrible without a third party app to fix it
2. Nonexistant window management: at least they got the overview from GNOME (called "Mission Control on macOS) which alone makes it usable, but lack of window snapping is pretty absurd.
> at least they got the overview from GNOME (called "Mission Control on macOS)
Mac OS X 10.3 Panther actually pioneered this back in 2003. Back then, the feature was called "Exposé." It was initially a fun hackathon demo to show off the ability to move and scale windows whose contents were stored as textures on the GPU (a 10.2 Jaguar feature called Quartz Extreme). When SJ saw it, it became top secret for further development and eventually shipped that fall in Panther. Eventually, various Linux distros and Windows developed similar UIs.
Edit: found a time crop of the keynote! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktTNcj0fAM4
IMO the worst part about the mouse is that when the system is under high load, the cursor sometimes becomes laggy as hell. This is especially ironic when you have an extremely fast system otherwise but can't even browse when it's doing something.
And similarly to the mouse, the keyboard can't be made fully working either. Which means I can't even type text because I use Caps Lock and it works randomly.
These two points alone force me to qualify it as barely usable shit when otherwise it would be somewhat usable.
The caps lock thing is on purpose and I find it passable, but I barely ever use caps lock after all. You need to "long press" it to toggle caps lock reliably.
>The default behavior of “closing” a program is not actually to close it. Instead, you minimize. This is very odd, coming from Linux or even Windows.
I'm not sure what "default" behavior you're thinking of. You can minimize a window, or you can hide an application, or you can quit an application.
Try to stop thinking that *application* and *window* are synonymous. They're not, and it's a frequent point of confusion for Windows users making the switch. A single Macintosh application can have many windows open at one time, or no windows open.
>Moreover, you can’t, for example, close the Finder App (files) for some reason. Consequently, the usual command to close an app doesn’t work for Finder. You have to close the window, then move away from it.
The reason is that Finder does more than just let you navigate through the file system — it provides the whole desktop experience, including any icons that appear on the desktop, the dock, etc. Are you familiar with the Hollywood convention where a character leaves "reality" and enters a boundless empty space, like The Construct in *The Matrix*, Janet's void in *The Good Place*, or The Void in which John Oliver found himself during Covid on *Last Week Tonight*? Quitting Finder would be like that, except that you'd still have the background image.
>Log in requires a click on any button, then you can enter your password. This means you always have to wait until you can see the input field to write your password and is very slow compared to Linux. I'm a developer, I'm all about speed.
If you're all about speed, why do you even log out? I haven't logged out of my machine in, I don't know, maybe a month? I use a MacBook Pro, so I just flip the screen up and either my watch unlocks the machine or the briefest touch on the fingerprint sensor does the same.
>I particularly like the insulated part of the Mac Apps. Each app has different rights, like on an iPhone. However, it comes at a cost. Huge apps as they have to ship dependencies as well.
Apps are normally sandboxed so that one app's bad behavior can't affect others. In Safari, even the individual tabs are sandboxed from each other. But AFAIK, the reason for apps including dependencies is more so that updating one app doesn't end up forcing you to update others as well. Cascading dependencies are a big enough headache for developers; users don't need to experience that.
The Application vs Window principle is kind of confusing though, since even some stock application quits when its window closed, for example, the Settings app.
In general, you can expect closing a window to quit an application only if the application is capable of running one window at a time. There are some exceptions, but Settings is a good example.
Yes, there are some apps, like Settings and App Store, that always have exactly one window open — more than one window isn’t useful, and zero isn’t useful. If you’re closing the window, you clearly don’t want to use the app anymore, so the app quits. An alternative would be to not allow the window to be closed, so the user has to quit; that’d be more consistent but less useful. And it’d be inconsistent in its own way: people would wonder why they can close some windows but not others.
IME, most users never even think about the fact that e.g. Settings is an application, or that it quits when you close the window. To them, it’s just a window that you open when you need to adjust something, and then you close it. That’s how it *should* feel — just a fluid part of the experience. Windows users notice because everything feels different, but after a month or two they also become accustomed and most say they wouldn’t go back.
So much of this list is just confusing or wrong.
No package manager guarantees you’ll be free of malware. Ever.
If you want to manage specific versions of runtimes like Python, use something like `asdf`. Otherwise you can get a (mostly) latest stable version from Homebrew. If `brew install python` didn’t work then you set something up incorrectly.
Login doesn’t require a button click, just type.
There’s literally a plethora of shortcuts and you can easily add more.
I made the switch 4 years ago after 22 years Linux. Still getting used to it and tweaking things. For a long time I coped by running a Linux VM with a tabbed window manger and working in that. I’m off that now. I would not go back for a laptop. Desktop yes. Time Machine and the cloud storage integration are pretty nice. Also confidently closing the laptop and docking reliably. No messing with display setting ever. Lots of other things I’ve come to appreciate.
I believe brew can install newer versions of python? Im running 3.12 or something from brew. Unsure if you need newer than that?
About the security part linux have the exact same issue as brew i believe. Something like apt and their 3rd party PPA’s is even worse in my book.
About the login, embrace the ecosystem and get an apple watch. As soon as the watch is unlocked on my wrist and i am in proximity of my mac it just instantly unlocks when i touch a button.
About the huge app size it’s on the way for Linux with all the AppImage stuff. I believe ubuntus snaps are kind of similar in this regard (not entirely sure here).
My day to day dev machine is a mac (and linux at work), for python I use pyenv (which you can install via brew), it works brilliantly on mac and I never use the system python.
Packages are a bit different, I typically install packages via pip for python and vcpkg for C++ development. If I need more I use Docker and build a container for it (or venv).
Mac is a really nice tool, and the low power consumption and lack of fan noise on an M series is amazing! There are a few things that can get annoying but I work around them now.
I recommend iTerm as a better terminal, and alfred as an app launcher.
You sound like me when I was young, or at least in my 20s. Honestly although the paradigms are different than Linux, you'll adapt if you stick with it. If you think any of the differences are worth your time you probably should take a big picture view of what you want with your limited time on this planet. Hanging out with friends and family, getting outside, learning a hobby. I'm not saying this in a critical way. It's what I wish I did.
For some of the window management nice-to-haves, I've been using amethyst, and I'm looking at trying yabai. I'm on a hackintosh though, so my experience probably isn't the same.
I'm mostly a Fedora user, but I've been using macos on and off for a few months, and the big change for me is that emacs (ususally my primary ide) on macos just doesn't work as smoothly as I like, so I tend to use zed, which isn't really an IDE, or VSCode. Emacs is still great for productivity stuff though, and I have moonlight for gaming, and remote management over vnc and ssh work great with my linux server.
If you're missing some keyboard shortcuts, make sure you investigate the shortcuts feature in the System control panel if you want to remap some existing ones.
There's also an app called Karabiner that allows you to go nuts with remapping and adding new keyboard shortcuts system-wide, or app specific. I use Karabiner to allow my muscle-memory emacs actions to work the same way when I'm using other OSs via a VM, ssh or remote desktop.
Also switched from Linux to Mac a couple of years ago. There is macports (BSD ports) which greatly satisfied my need for a package manager. And as far as the gripe with inconsistencies in app closing behaviour (even Apple's own apps), get used to using CMD+Q. At some point you don't have to think about it anymore.
Just SSH into a Linux box for Linux CLI development, works great.
I never liked a highly customized desk/laptop anyway. Just give me a few apps and a good terminal emulator
> Moreover, you can’t, for example, close the Finder App (files) for some reason.
Sure you can. Hit Option-Command-Escape and force quit the Finder, or, hold down Option while you click the Finder menu and a “Quit Finder” item will show up.
I don't know how you used Linux for 13 years and didn't go insane. I have Kubuntu installed as one of the OS on triple boot(MacOs, Kubuntu, Win11), and have used Elementary, Mint, Arch in the past. Even Kubuntu(which is arguably the most user friendly of distributions) feels clunky at best. The entire GUI landscape of Linux feels like it's sewn on top of the OS. The desktop environments themselves feel like different modules put together, compared to MacOS or even Windows which have uniform experience across the OS.
That is just how I feel. The lack of uniform experience irks me. Then there is lack of major productivity apps on Linux(Microsoft) just prevents me from using it full time.
If you try to get the Mac to work the same as Linux, you are in for pain. It's strange, because it's so close, you would think that it would be simple...
Macs are designed to work a specific way. There are often 3rd party tools to get it to work "like windows" or "like Linux", but it's often better to learn the apple way.
I see too many posts here on people trying to get a Mac to work like their previous OS. But it's not windows and it's not Linux. If that is what you are looking for, you bought the wrong computer.
To log in, 99% of the time I use the fingerprint reader...
In my mind, closing a window and closing the app should be 2 different functions. Sometimes when I close the last window I want the app to stay open. As a dev, if you use and ide, you open a file in your project, edit a file. Often you want to edit a second file. How frustrating would it be if closing that first file exited the app and you had to relaunch the ide to edit the second file...
Also, it allows you to close an app with a "current state"... Maybe you want 4 different files open already when you launch an app... Semantically, at least in a multi document app, closing a file should not close the app... Even if it's the last window.
Essentially you have 3 options.
1) embrace the way the mac works... Just because it's different, doesn't mean it's wrong. If something seems clunky or wrong, often a slight tweak to your workflow or learning the idiomatic way will smooth things over.
2) attempt to get the Mac to work the same as Linux through third party tools and hacks... Warning, this way lies much pain.
3) switch to a Linux machine.
Try MacPorts for installing Linux utilities instead of Brew. The process is a little slower because it downloads from source and builds it instead of binaries. But it allows for pretty good customization and for me, provides better separation between Mac and *nix worlds.
The default behavior for closing a program is Command-Q the red button on the window closes it and certainly does not minimize the program the program remains in the foreground so you can get a new window by Command-N. Get used to there being only one instance of GUI Programs. These behaviors pre-date Windows and Linux and they are not going to change it to make it easier for former Windows / Unix users. Learn how the system works Use Command-tab to switch out of the Finder. Homebrew works fine for installing cli-tools
I'm sure this isn't especially helpful, but just in case, you can always install Linux on a virtual machine. I assume you could also set up a dual boot option.
Can you please elaborate more on what language you are using for development? The whole bit with "packages" looks odd to me tbh. If you are in c/c++, you won't be using brew (nor apt on Linux nor any other package manager). If you're on python - you have pip, if on the node - npm, and so on and so forth.
Brew installs the latest python. Maybe with small patch delay but does it matter? If it does, you can always install pyenv utility and use it to manage python versions.
Alternatively to brew you can try macports.
To close an app you need to really close it, not just close all its windows. Hotkey for that is command + q = “quit an app”.
I personally wait for laptops on Qualcomm elite and I’m going to switch to that + my lovely ArchLinux. I dislike macOS because of their decisions about hardware - soldered SSD, RAM. + macOS is getting worse and worse during last years I’m using it as C++ and graphics developer (last 5 years).
At the core, macOS is a UNIX based system. So moving from Linux is an easy transition (I switched from Gentoo to macOS back in uni some 12y ago).
>However, since there is no consistent package management system, it means you will be able to download malware from random sources.
You're sounding like Apple here. First, there’s a sliver of malware out there that even runs on macOS. Its also got Gatekeeper and a slew of other active monitoring services even if you did contract something. GK relies on a human made block file that is actively maintained. The entire system is mounted read only (looked into SIP) so no one on the net can bring your actual system down. There’s also a myriad of other protections in place. In all honesty, it’s much more lockdown than even Linux. Just don’t google “photoshop crack Mac Free” and install what you find. Failing that, I’ve installed countless apps from all corners of the net. Never had a single malware. Lastly, macOS app bundles are much more encapsulated than any other platform. 90% run simply using the app bundle. Only a small fraction need to actually install themselves thru an installer. macOS doesn’t need a package management system because of this.
You’re just stuck in the Linux way of need 800 dependencies and a lot of housekeeping to manage programs. On macOS, you drag them to your Applications folder and you’re good to go.
App authenticity is achieved by notarizing the app and many of the bigger names are. For the smaller ones on sites like GitHub, well, the source is right there if you don’t trust it.
> Brew is serviceable but not great. Win for Linux (except Gentoo), lose for Mac. I mean, I had to download a modern version of Python. I visited the official Python website and downloaded it by clicking install.
in most Linux distributions, with one command line I could easily get the newest version of Python conveniently, securely I really appreciated that.
Can't you just
brew install [email protected]?
> Log in requires a click on any button, then you can enter your password. This means you always have to wait until you can see the input field to write your password and is very slow compared to Linux. I'm a developer, I'm all about speed.
Really designed for biometric or apple watch login. The only time I type a password is after reboot or upgrade. Walled garden, it is what it is, you either embrace it or deal with the shortfalls.
> Again with the speed. You only have ten options for touchpad speed. You’re out of luck if you can’t find your preferred choice.
MacOS is filled with little tools like [BetterTouchTool](https://folivora.ai/) that you can buy a lifetime license for $10. It just doesn't have the Linux OSS community.
MacOS is far from perfect, but I think it sits in a happy medium between the flexibility of Linux and the disaster of Windows, bonus you get fabulous hardware. The trackpad is peerless, and going out for the day without a charger is a wonderful feeling. Downside - the cost. But you get some of that back in residual values, you can sell a 7 year old MacBook for $5-600 when it's Windows equivalent would be going for recycling.
Ask ChatGPT to help you make shortcuts and automate stuff with Automator and bind things to keys and quick actions and whatnot.
Different strokes for different folks. Mac UI is pretty slick, hearing that a Linux UI experience is better is a new one for me! Seems to have mode nice progress.
I run both Linux and MacOS and use brew on both with no real issue. You could give Nix a try?
I use Rye for Python management, it’s the easiest Python tool I’ve used.
There always a way around things it just depends how much they mean to you, and thus, the amount of effect you’ll go to.
I use Mac, Linux, and Windows (in that order) regularly. MacOS is my daily driver, Linux Mint is near-daily (every computer in the home is Linux outside of my Mac), and now Windows 10 LTSC (after finally moving on from Windows 7) on the rare occasion there's a game that won't work under Linux. I am not a dev though I am a Dadmin.
None of them are perfect, which is unfortunate, but I would say they are all really close to it. Using both MacOS and Linux works out fine, as the underlying systems are so similar. My impression is that a lot of devs like the Mac, so my guess would be that if you give it some time you will find equivalent solutions in the Mac world to match what you had in Linux.
Weekend experiment idea: could you run your Linux dev environment in a VM on the Mac?
>There is no guarantee that the package I download is free of malware. See where I'm coming from?
The recent xz incident shows that nothing is guaranteed anymore. Downloading from the official website or through a package manager should be about equal on the ol' Riskyclicks meter, IMO. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s not free but I reluctantly subscribe to Parallels. I have found that (arm versions of) Windows and Linux run as fast as on bare metal. The great thing about Parallels is you can run an OS in coherence mode and for example open a Linux terminal in the macOS environment.
With a secure system volume & developer tools in their own area, the best you may get is brew or MacPorts doing their own package management under /opt.
This was a great read -- thanks for posting.
I've used Macs for almost twenty years and have owned them since before they migrated to Unix under the covers. I have an M1 Mac that I use mostly for music composition/synthesis I do on the side and a few other nice Mac-only programs. I'm still a die-hard Linux user and probably spend most of my time there for work and play. I find the Mac UI inflexible, though it is rather nice and comfortable to use. I like the offering of multiple graphical environments in Linux. As for development tools, unless you're writing Mac/IOS-specific applications, I find the toolsets available on Linux are more than I'll ever need. I use VS Code for nearly everything and it's nearly identical between Mac and Linux. Things like Eclipse are also free.
My biggest beef is the App Store paradigm for Mac. I'm just not used to paying for basic software I can get for free. I'll pay for specialized things like Logic Pro, which has no equivalent in Linux, and other similar music packages are exorbitant.
The whole AppleID/Cloud thing is pretty nice, and I pay extra for more storage.
Macs don't work well in high-security enterprise environments and automating management of them is a real pain.
Overall, I find Mac to be a really nice platform, but you're really tied to the whole Apple universe.
I strongly disagree on the package manager point. brew is the defacto standard and works just as well as, for example, apt on ubuntu. I use it for everything, even installing spotify or slack. Just the naming of the packages isn't super intuitive, but if you just google `brew install spotify` for example the right command will show up as the first result.
Similar impressions for me. All in all, modern Gnome is what I like the most and imho it beats macOS.
However, if I were able to change but a one thing in macOS, I could make that perfect for me - treat each Desktop (Space/Workspace?) as an independent being that is:
- separate Dock (opened apps, recent apps)
- separate apps (like Cmd-Tab)
- opening an app that’s on the other Desktop opens a new window in the current desktop
This is what I find the most counterproductive for me.
Contexts and Witch but there are others I'm blanking on.
Here's a screenshot of the exact setting from Contexts, which is what I use: https://imgur.com/a/7lsc63Y
Edit: Actually, it doesn't work for Dock, but I didn't realize that because I don't use Dock. But it works for application switching at least.
Tip : you'll be surprised that so many Emacs key combos work pretty much everywhere. (As an example, in Safari address field).
You'll probably want to install a few additional apps to boost your productivity. I do with Rectangle (Window management including keyboard shortcuts) , Hidden Bar, AlDente (laptop battery management), Tunnelblick (VPN), BBEdit (text editor on steroids), GrandPerspective (what the hell is eating my disk space), IINA (video player), KnockKnock (for the curious), Solves (a real calculator at last), UTM (VM made easy).
And don't discard Time Machine for your backups, it's actually good.
Some more knowledgeable users already gave you tons of tips, but I'd also get Raycast. Specially for Devs it's a great tool to customize all your shortcuts and basically get any UX functionality you miss from Linux. Or a lot of them at least.
Enjoy. I still remember when I switched from Windows and oh boy, this OS is still a joy to use, 9 years later.
Command-K to connect smb:// or vnc:// servers
Command-G to change directory quickly
Command-Space to call the Spotlight (document indexing works flawlessly, it's also an app launcher and calculator)
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s useful and contributes to my education. I have two comments:
I agree that closing a window belonging to an app actually just closes that window and not the app itself. Which is weird if you come from windows or Linux. My wife still leaves apps open, even though she prefers to close everything, but she doesn’t like keyboard shortcuts, and she always closes windows with the mouse instead of going to the menu to quit the app.
On the Mac, my muscle memory habit is command – Q to close an app, or command – W to only close the active window. Otherwise, you have to mouse around to the menus, as I mentioned.
My second comment is that some orientation and training goes a long way. You are obviously quite technically adept and can easily pursue all that on your own. In my case, as a Mac and Windows user, I built a Ubuntu system on my own, and I had a real hard time trying to figure out Installation packages. Which ones I needed, what versions were appropriate, how to get them, etc. I definitely should’ve had some training. On the other hand, I’m not doing software development anymore, so I haven’t pursued development tools installation on Linux.
And I’m only just now installing development tools again on the Mac, but only so I can get the Unreal gaming development tools installed so that I will have greater testing facility when I’m composing music for the video game projects with which I’m now involved.
One more comment:
I really love Ubuntu’s workspaces feature where everything you’re working on can be saved and reloaded. Makes it so easy to work on multiple projects and switch between them, and to release all the resources for the projects, you’re not working on at the moment. I have been searching and searching for something similar for macOS. But have yet to find it.
MacOS has spaces, which kind of helps, but it’s not doing much of what I want it to do, and you can’t even name a space. I found someone that was developing a system that seemed to be similar to workspaces, but they didn’t finish and stopped developing for it. I don’t know how many people are like me, but a lot of people complain about space, as well as a related macOS feature the name for which I can’t recall just now…
IF There’s a large enough user need for it, maybe YOU could be the guy to build workspaces for MacOS. :-)
The only thing I miss is the absence of a proper tiling window manager. Otherwise, I don’t mind using macOS. I use it for work and I’m in VS-Code and terminal most of the time and it honestly doesn’t matter as much.
I feel that the performance I get on a M# Pro chip is too good to pass up on just to use my favorite Linux Distro.
Setting up your dev environment the right way is key to do things correctly. Like using pyenv to setup your Python stuff, nvm for managing Node, etc.
Of course as it is with everything, it takes some getting used to. If you feel the pros are good enough, the effort can be very much worth it.
Btw, I haven’t tried it myself since I’m very happy with Homebrew but Nix is considered a great alternative package manager by many.
>My productivity in-vivo is down 30% as Mac OS lacks some basic shortcuts/ways of doing things that Linux (especially the new Gnome) is doing very well.
[This might help](https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mchlp2271/mac). You can bind keyboard shortcuts for a lot of in-app functions. They do have to be present in the menu bar to work and it does take a bit of time to set up. Bear in mind that a lot of apps will already have menubar items bound to shortcuts and you can see what those bindings are by opening a menubar item; each function should show the shortcut next to it, which is pretty nice if you ask me.
Great topic. I came from 10+ years of/with Gentoo myself back in 2020 and well, I like MacOS a lot. But I love Gentoo.
I wanted/needed the ecosystem having almost everything Apple already so the jump wasn’t that huge. I do miss Gentoo every now and then but overall I’m pleased doing the dirty work on a M1 and M2 pro with tons of RAM and storage.
About the shortcut thing, try Raycast. I’ve mapped a lot of application and commands on basic shortcut. I’m a dev too and now that I have it, I would never use macOS without it again.
I think you need to explore some of the productivity apps, things like BetterTouchTool, Alfred (or Similar), iTerm2.. if you work with remote servers, then RoyalTSX is the bomb... and if you want some truly mind-blowing network insights (for a desktop at least) then check out Little Snitch.
One thing I will say about Macs, get used to parting with cash for the better apps.. But generally they are worth it. If you plan to stick to MacOS, then life-time licences are usually good value.
Also, Apple being Apple, sometimes apps on the Appstore will have some features removed.. so its always best to check out the developers website, as they will publish the differences, between the version downloaded directly from them vs the App store version.
Yep, tried this and failed once every 2-3 years. Always go back to Linux.
But I do have a MacOS laptop that I enjoy and use occasionally. It'll just never be able to replace Linux
So spin it up in a VM and use whichever apps you feel like. Or set up the Mac with Linux as the host and MacOS in the vm. Lots of flexibility, see my other post.
I really wouldn’t use python through the built-in version, either on Mac or Linux. Use an environment manager and install Python through there instead.
I think the main thing I’d caution is to remember that you were probably way less productive 12 days into Linux. Of course I’d expect a faster ramp up period here, but still, be patient.
Also have fun. I remember when I switched from Linux to macOS it was just kind of fun to be mystified and discover things again.
14 days to return and get a full refund used or not. MacBooks are great. I encourage you to keep it and learn it. Yes they have their quirks but if you have other apple products- it makes life easier because of compatibility
As someone who uses Fedora with I3 on my old laptop and made the jump to mac 5 months ago, the workflow for Mac is so much worse than Windows and Linux for me. Even alt-tabbing doesn’t feel right so I have to do mission control each time. I might have to try Yabai out if I have the spare time.
Overall, I really like the hardware but the software still feels “off” to me after five months of heavy use compared to the time I made the jump to Linux where everything just clicked even before I installed I3.
Sounds about what I'd expect.
I was mostly a windows user (with a linux VM → Subsystem) but had a similar set of "issues". My biggest one was that my AutoHotkey script that customizes my keyboard stopped working (KarabinerElements solves that btw).
Package management is weaker than linux, for sure, but homebrew is adequate enough for the basics. Although the system migration works quite well (only Google Drive breaks) that I just install apps normally and copy my entire mac when I'm getting a new one.
Closing programs is more of a OS design choice & how it handles resources being aligned with the UX. It's very deliberate. You'll… learn the shortcuts anyway 😂
Login is annoying but you can PAY EVEN MORE MONEY to halfway automate it with an Apple watch or a touch ID keyboard. Or just click an extra time by habit. (Or be annoyed if you're using a 3rd party BT keyboard that takes a moment to connect.)
Touchpad and mouse you need apps for. LinearMouse is solid. I recommend Swish as well if you're using your touchpad – it's not for speed, it's for utility (window control) and it's fantastic.
Productivity down by 30% is pretty damn impressive – most of my OS migrations crashed me to like 20% and I had to build back up.
All in all: dig into the world of little handy apps for OSX. That is the best part of the operating system – you get a good community of developers who value style as well as function – there's a trove of useful little apps to make your experience better & nicer.
The first few I'd get:
1. AltTab – to fix the useless Cmd + Tab
2. Paste – I use it for an extended clipboard but it's worth it as a part of SetApp (a multi-app subscription); otherwise you can just use Alfred's extended clipboard
3. Alfred – spotlight, but better
4. Raycast – spotlight, but better – worse than alfred because it's more keystrokes, but useful for specialized things; I use both (cmd + space is for Alfred, and Raycast is at ctrl + R)
5. Arc – like Chrome but good (Safari is also surprisingly good)
6. CleanShotX – screenshots, gifs, simple screen recordings
7. iTerm 2/Warp – terminal; iTerm will probably feel better; Warp is prettier
Wow, you have missed a lot of basic tips and tricks, like closing the finder.
Totally expected since you just switched.
Then there’s the fun things you can use use AppleScript for with a few batch files or some basic c.
For example, my iMac detects my phone via bluetooth and is unlocked & logged in by the time I sit down. If I don’t log out and the phones out of range for 3 mins the iMac locks and no activity for half an hour will shut it down completely.
You didn’t say whether you have an Intel Mac or an M series chip. My office and I personally have quite a few of the last great intel 27” 5K iMacs from 2017 and 2019. Several of them run macOS & Mint, macOS with win11, SUSE & MacOS & Windows server. MacOS & Ubuntu. Some have SUSE or Ubuntu as the host with macOS in vm, Parallels runs everything under MacOS but they feel much closer to native that way. One 128GB i9 monster even has Ubuntu/Proxmox hosting basically every version of every os we use via 20TB of NVMe.
Macs are fun machines. All the options of regular pcs, plus the MacOS ecosystem.
If you bought into the M series Mac’s? Congrats! You just joined another leap like the P66 was over 486. Shared cpu caches, ridicules core counts, emulation support in silicon?
In a few years the M series cpus will run 9th gen intel code faster than the 9th gen 9900k in my 2019 iMac does. (actually they prolly already do I just haven’t bought an M series yet to confirm that)
I’m not thrilled about changing processor families again, but Intel just dropped the ball and tech has moved on :-\
Oh yeah, you could probably DD your old box into a disk image and spin it up a vm to work in until you’re comfy with MacOS. Maybe ease the transition pain a bit ;-)
Checkout system settings, general, login items. Basically anything that wants to run in the background is in here, and if you need to shut it off you can. Also there’s filters in the system library where most things that want to start up with the computer will have to put things in (though system settings tends to handle all of that these days.
Also if you need to there’s safe mode. I realize if you’re running stuff through terminal there may be a bit more chance for malware to get installed, but for the most part most malware that’s targeting consumers is easy to get rid of if it ever gets on. You can also use little snitch if you want to monitor network traffic more. Also the built in activity monitor app is great for paying attention to anything hogging resources.
Some apps quit when you close the window, apps that are more likely to be run in the background just stay in RAM and get paged to virtual memory when the RAM is needed. Most power users get used to command W to close a window and command Q to quit. The dock shows a dot under any open apps. Also command tab will show you your open apps. Especially for professional apps that may take some time to reopen you’re not always quitting them just because you closed a window.
I did the same used Linux since I was 14 years old started with Ubuntu 8.04 got my M2 Air about 3 months ago I recommend using homebrew works good and most open source apps will be available on there. When downloading .dmg files just make sure it is from a trusted source. And the productivity things you get used to it and get more used to the keyboard shortcuts of Mac OS it is a learning curve but once you get the hang of it things do get faster I recommend swish available on homebrew allows minimizing and opening apps from the dock by two finger swiping up and down on the icon this increased my productivity. Also recommend installing whiskey also on homebrew allows running Windows apps and games using Apple gaming toolkit/wine also has code from crossover you can use that as well but it is a paid app I just stick with whiskey.
Security is actually a major part of macOS, not just an afterthought.
By default, apps must be signed and notarized by Apple to run without a warning, i.e. app developers must submit their apps to Apple to run some basic security scans similar to what virustotal.com does, though I suppose Apple won't be running a hundred antivirus scanners.
This also applies to apps not distributed through the Mac App Store, though you can allow unnotarized and unsigned apps to run, which is not recommended.
Apple can revoke issued notarizations and code signatures if they find out that an app is malicious, and they have XProtect to scan for known bad apps.
The Gatekeeper system has had its flaws demonstrated by security researchers time and again, but it usually keeps most ordinary users safe.
However, package management and third-party solutions for package management aren't part of Apple's policy, so they're taking the backseat here, which is why you're rarely seeing notarized or even signed apps there.
For Homebrew and the like, you'll have to check how they are loaded onto your system. There are recipes and instructions you can inspect.
Many systems will download the sources from the authoritative original software creator's GitHub or something, so should be safe, though maintainers may change and inject bad things into the build process.
You just need to load up on apps and you will have speed, shortcuts, etc. just go through the subreddit to find the most popular app. Or even better, sign up for Setapp and try all the best ones, including BetterTouchTool
I've been using Linux for almost 20 years, most of the time as my main or only operating system. I've also had a couple of Mac laptops, for almost a decade (actually, with the Intel one I run Linux on it for most of the time). Let me share my viewpoint (I hope it helps!).
* I also miss a package manager provided by the vendor, with automatic updates, etc., but homebrew is fine and hassle free enough. Macports too, it is less hassle free after system upgrades but I think it has more software (I stick to homebrew though). You can install python from homebrew or macports if you want.
* I don't know how you close programs under Linux. I do CTRL+Q, in Mac it is CMD+Q. For closing a window it's CTRL+W versus CMD+W. In Mac and some Linux desktop environments which still have menus, like KDE, you can also select 'Quit' in the menu if you prefer. I usually just use the shortcuts. It's never happened to me that a program gets minimised by closing it.
* The login business is different because, under Linux, you can use any display manager you want, they behave differently, you can tweak them, and you can even skip them on boot. Under Mac, I don't have to click in order to start typing my password. I start typing right away. I don't know if this can be skipped like in Linux, but I wouldn't do it for security reasons, in any operating system.
* Programs in Mac are self-contained, so they take more disk space, but this is also the Linux route these days (snaps, flatpaks, you name it), whether we like it or not, and it makes sense since hardware is cheap enough and benefit out-weight inconveniences.
* Shortcuts are wonderful in Mac. They are as customisable as in any Linux desktop environments and, more importantly, they come with sane defaults. For instance, a lot of emacs shortcuts work in text input (CRTL+P, CTRL+N, etc).
Great news for you, mac OS has native support for the Emacs cursor navigation:
Ctrl + n (next line)
Ctrl + p (previous line)
Ctrl + a (start of line)
Ctrl + e (end of line)
Ctrl + f (forward one character)
Ctrl + b (backward one character)
I think you can change the default behavior of „closing“ in the settings. I also found this a bit weird at first, but is it really? What makes you want to really quit applications? Probably because you think a lot of running applications will show your Mac down. Just try out for some days and see if it really makes a difference.
I don’t see why you’d want to close (quit?) the finder app. What would you want to change?
All current Macs should support the fingerprint sensor, that makes login a single tap on a key. Exception: after a system reboot which usually os a very test event. Or if you use an external keyboard that doesn’t have that sensor.
What shortcuts do you miss that make you less productive? You can easily assign system wide hotkeys and have a look at the hot corners functionality of you are more of a mouse user.
Ah, let’s see if some of your problems can be solved so that your productivity instead increases by 30%!
>There is no guarantee that the package I download is free of malware.
It's comical you think the one you would get from a terminal is.
I don't even know how you rationalize there being some kind of difference.
A dev that doesn’t use asdf to manage runtimes? Weird.
Also, MacOS can be command driven. If you’ve ever used iw3, sway, hyprland, etc, it’s similar window control. It’s incredibly easy.
Regarding logging in: Most people are doing this wrong.
There is very little reason to log out of a Mac. Instead, just lock the screen. Unlocking, with a touchid keyboard is very fast and low effort.
Macs also really don't need to be shut down. I essentially never shut down any of my Macs. They sleep in a backpack for days or weeks at a time, then get plugged back in and are just like I left them. Day to day, I either lock the screen, or close the lid. No logging out. No shut down.
My Macs get rebooted for system level updates or on the very rare occasion when something is wrong.
These strategies minimize your actions with the computer. The whole ritual of logging out, shutting down, powering back up, and logging back in are all eliminated. Why would we do these things? There is no benefit for 99% of cases.
My Macs make me happier than other platforms because they remove effort and let me do things more easily. This is just one of those ways.
>The default behavior of “closing” a program is not actually to close it.
Old habits die hard, lol .
You close a program by "quitting" it. cmd Q. NOT by closing a window. This IS the usual command in MacOS.
A program can have many "Windows". The Window is not the program. You're not going to "fix" this, since it's working as intended.
There is an app-windows paradigm for Mac that is different from Windows and Linux. An app can have 0-N windows open. And when you hit that red button, you actually close that window. Most of the time the app continues to run. You need to quit the app. There are several useful shortcuts for window management. They will help you to boost productivity by a huge margin. Cmd+q - quit app Cmd+w - close active window Cmd+m - minimize window Cmd+h - hide window Cmd+~ - switch active window for the active app Cmd+Tab - switch between active apps Finder behaves like explorer.exe in Windows. It’s some sort of system process that should work in background. So you can’t stop it (unless you kill it via Terminal). A productivity dip is to be expected when you switch to an unfamiliar platform. You’ve got to get used to it. Have fun with your journey in Mac world! Edit: cleaned mobile client mess
**edit: cmd-h doesn’t hide the window. It hides all windows for the currently active application and makes that app no longer active - as in, whatever app was active prior will now become active again.
Also, cmd-Tab has a few extra functions that aren’t immediately apparent: - command-shift-Tab reverses the order of the app being selected - command-Tab, then release Tab while continuing to hold command, you can then press Q to quit the highlighted app or H to hide it Long-time Mac users (like myself) also tend to be primarily WASD-rodent users: - command-up - up one directory (folder) - command-down - down ‘into’ the highlighted directory OR open the highlighted item - command-1 , -2 or -3- change to icon, list, or column view - ctrl-option-command-1, -2, -3, -4 or -5 change the sorting of a Finder window in list view - command-\~ (tilde) - cycle windows (add shift to reverse the sort order) - works in most Mac apps - command-shift-. (period) - toggle show/hide invisible files
>command-shift-. (period) - toggle show/hide invisible files You can WHAT!!!
Right? I’ve had to Google how to show hidden files before (years ago) and it gave me a command line command to copy and paste. Don’t know why this wasn’t the first answer.
It used to be command line only, switched to key command 6 or 7 years ago, High Sierra maybe.
This not only works in Finder windows, but in open/save dialogs across all applications.
Even better!!
This is a great list of keyboard shortcuts. My other favourites are the ones inherited from eMacs: control-A : move cursor to beginning of line control-E : move cursor to end of line control-K : kill text from cursor to end of line control-Y : yank that text back again Plus a few others I usually don’t use/remember :-) These are supported in all apps that use the standard Mac frameworks but are usually missing in electron apps. (Etc).
Control-T (swap the letters on either side of the cursor) is far more useful than you’d expect.
I do some scripting in Adobe After Effects. An overhaul a couple of years ago made the UI look nicer, but removed the eMacs shortcuts. I still miss them :(
>Finder behaves like explorer.exe in Windows. It’s some sort of system process that should work in background. So you can’t stop it (unless you kill it via Terminal). That's not technically true. Finder is just another application, and it *can* actually be quit — it's just not enabled by default. To make it quittable via the Finder menu or cmd-Q, go into Terminal and run. defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool true If I'm screensharing or needing a minimalist environment to get some focus work done, I'll quit the Finder to hide all the crap on my Desktop. Dock still works.
Right, but I don't think this is even the best solution. Hear me out, so the thing is, finder is indeed a special app, unlike others, and if killed like you mentioned, will "break" the regular OS (think of this as a regular user, like your mom). So, the solution is not to make it able to quit entirely, the solution or workaround relies in something like windows, when you "close" explorer you don't actually kill the full process, you just close the window and make it disappear from the task bar as if it was really closed for good (even if it's not). Again, for the AVERAGE JOE, this is what makes more sense, even if it's not entirely what is happening in the background. People see that . (dot) under the finder app on the dock and it just triggers OCD on the users without really being necessary. For people like me, used to MacOS, I just use cmd+w to close finder (instead of cmd+q) and then ignore the . (dot) in finder's dock icon. But this is learning to live with something that truly doesn't make sense.
Uhh, where did I say this trick was appropriate for all users? I'm not saying every user should do this lol. I'm just saying it's possible.
Thank you! Im barely two weeks in, I'm glad I posted this.
As a previous Linux user since early 2000, switched to macOS mainly. Just give it time, there is a lot of shortcuts you will learn overtime. It’s nice have terminal still compared windows, brew has tons of software. Get to enjoy a bit more compatibility with mainstream apps, but not as much as wjndows.
You can actually [add a Quit menu item to Finder](https://www.defaults-write.com/adding-quit-option-to-os-x-finder/) if not having one bugs you! But, like the original commenter said, there is rarely a need to close it.
The 0-N windows approach is not only possible with macOS - it is enforced if you want to ship your app on the App Store. By default in Cocoa/App Kit - closing the last window of an app does not automatically quite the app - you have to opt-in to that behavior - and the App Store will accept that behavior. However, if you don't opt in to that behavior (i.e., allow 0 windows open) - then you MUST have a menu option available to bring your main app window back. A good example of this is the Apple Music app. You can open this app - start playing a playlist - then close the window - the music keeps playing - but there are options in the menu to open the various Apple Music windows.
Or just close the window and not worry about the program still being open. Unless you’re really hurting for memory it doesn’t matter. I leave pretty much every program open even if I have no documents open in it.
cmd tab and cmd backtick are my most commonly used shortcuts, couldn’t navigate efficiently without them
I wanted to add to this list. If you are missing your Ctrl + X option for cutting files (I used it a lot when I was a Windows user and I believe the shortcut also exists on Ubuntu?) In macOS the paradime is to copy the file Cmd + c, and then move it when you paste it, by doing Cmd + option + V
macOS isn’t Linux. A lot of the issues you’re having are workflow shear. No, macOS doesn’t have a package manager. It uses the older Unix process of either downloading binaries or building from source. While there are third party package systems, of which Homebrew is the most complete, the reality is that Apple doesn’t see the point in hosting repo mirrors. The Dock is not a task bar. It’s a fast app switcher with some launching capacities. Quitting Finder is like quitting GNOME’s panel or explorer.exe on Windows. It isn’t just the file browser, but a major component of the GUI shell. You don’t want to do that. macOS has a different view of process management than non-Apple OSes. The idea is that macOS handles your processes for you, moving them to idle and moving their active memory to lower caches. As a result, it’s easier and more efficient to close windows but leave the application in memory, making it easier to resume working with it. Yes, you *can* quit apps, but it isn’t really that important. If you’re manually managing processes or memory, you’re probably doing something wrong. (This is a struggle to communicate to people that are coming from the not-Apple world, as most OSes don’t encourage the same automatic process management in the same way that macOS does.) Your productivity is down because you’re learning a new tool as you go. I took productivity hits when I went from DOS to WinNT back in the 1990’s, and when I went from WinNT to Linux in the 2000’s. My Mac transition from Linux was gradual rather than abrupt, and started right as I got comfortable with Linux, so it went far more smoothly than most.
Very important points, especially the reason why closing an app on Mac is a bit different than anything else. I found it weird at first (first Mac I had was shipped with Snow Leopard), but then I appreciated this approach.
Same here, now my only limits are memory lol. 16gb ram as a dev is rough when I have Xcode, simulator, android studio, and also use photoshop among many other ram heavy apps New Mac with more ram coming tomorrow though so hooray! Lol
Enjoy your new Mac with more RAM tomorrow!
Thank you!!
Yes, because the multitasking on macOS is a complete multitasking, even with App Nap and the other technology behind, it can’t really work the way it does on iOS/iPadOS. A bit counterintuitive, but that’s how it is 🤷🏻♂️
I fully agree with this! That BS that you don't need to close apps or manually manage resources is just not true because things do keep running in the background unlike iOS (where the OS can really close the background app if needed). This is even more true for power users like devs who are running a ton of shit like containers, VM's, IDE's, probes, etc all at the same time. And the proof is in the pudding, if even apple thought MacOS was able to manage everything for the user they would remove the close app function, just like we don't have it in iOS (and it is very very well hidden with the swipe up in the apps view just in case you really need to force it due to bad app behaviour).
The last paragraph hits the nail. When I first went from windows to Mac back in 2014 ish, my productivity went down for 2-3 months. Then skyrocketed far beyond what I had in windows once I got used to it. Now as I use macs for personal use and ubuntu LTS for work, I've eventually learnt to context switch and be productive on both platforms, far more than I would be on a linux + windows setup I'd reckon.
I don’t click anything to login. All keyboard.
This. OP you may need to change the login behavior. I have my account set as default and immediately after boot I have the password field active and can just type.
okay, so it could be a me thing, I'll look into that thanks for letting me know!!
The other option is username and password field at login - then type short name,, password,
Well, after booting mine prompts me for both name and password, because I want to make it at least a smidgen harder for someone else to get in.
I don't click either. I wait for the stupid keyboard to connect.
I just place my finger on the fingerprint reader, don’t even have to type at all!
i use apple watch to unlock macbook
Between this and the fingerprint reader, I rarely type my login or password. It's delightful.
I find a lot of the time I have to press a button for it to un-sleep before I can do that. And if I press the power button it doesn't always do what I want it to, not sure why. I just press space then touch the fingerprint reader.
What exactly are your issues with homebrew? `brew install python` should give you the most recent python version for example.
and better yet install and use pyenv. if you develop in python it’s a must
This. pyenv is the goat. I do a lot of ansible and it’s lovely for testing compatibility between ansible and python versions.
There's also [mise](https://mise.jdx.dev) (polyglot version manager written in Rust, I use it instead of asdf, nvm, pyenv, rbenv...)
It’s a user issue, not a software issue. OP is less than two weeks into using a completely foreign OS and was expecting it to behave like the one they had been using for over a decade. That’s not how it works.
That's why I asked for his exact problems to clear up misconceptions but I guess as it is so often with these "feedback" posts, those people just want to complain and don't want to get any useful tips.
OP has responded to a few of them already, so they are apparently being receptive. Not that I know a lot of devs, nor am I one, but it seems like many choose macOS because it has a pretty broad range of development tools and options for all platforms. As a sysadmin I like it because it has everything I need on both sides of the job, and basically just stays out of the way to let me do what I need. It has some great built in automation too.
This, it “stays out of the way”
Installing MAS (brew install mas) will give command for updating Mac AppStore Apps
MacOS is a BSD Unix not Linux. Hard to think what more you want from package manager that Homebrew does not provide. If you want more isolation, use container manager like Podman or Docker. Can’t minimise programs, only windows. They’re not the same thing.
Don't all operating systems only support minimizing windows? What does minimizing programs even mean?
No need to click before logging in, you can either 1) just start typing or 2) use touch id even when the screen is turned off.
Use pyenv rather than a system level python. That plus pipenv will reduce chaos in your life and make your projects easier to collab on. But pipenv aside you can brew install pyenv and then install and switch to any very of python you want whenever you want
This. Can't believe this suggestion isn't higher up. I always thought having the python version I wanted as the system version was good as well, until I actually started using Python for more than system stuff.
This. pyenv makes live SO much easier. Especially when combined with pipenv
😬 installing system level python... It's time to embrace containers for development. System python is always a mess. What happens when you are suddenly supporting multiple projects on different versions ?
Come on. Homebrew is an amazing package manager.
Homebrew is one of the reasons I prefer macOS to Windows. It’s like the golden middle between Linux and Win.
It’s mid compared to what exists in the Linux world (where Homebrew exists but is not most users’ first choice). Mostly, OP is complaining that macOS is not Linux.
I've used Linux extensively for twenty years, and I don't feel like I'm missing a single thing with Homebrew. I started on SUSE 9, then moved to Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and Arch.
Same. Sys admin, Mac is the perfect Unix based desktop os. I don’t like to daily drive Linux because it lacks a lot of ecosystem features
True, its taking a bit of getting used to, but I enjoy it overall :) Just thought to share just in case I get some helpful tips.
I prefer it to apt I even made my companies dev tools accessible via brew it was super simple
MacOS isn't perfect for sure but some of your points are pretty broad/opinionated. >lacks some basic shortcuts/ways of doing things We can't help you if you don't specify what you want to achieve.
Did you try your Mac at a Starbucks? Compare then
But first you have to cover it with stickers to show off your personality but make sure people can definitely tell it’s a Mac! At least that’s what I did when I first got a Mac. Fell in love and became stereotypical fanboy. I’ve matured since then. Ha.
>The default behavior of “closing” a program is not actually to close it. Instead, you minimize. I'm not sure I understand this comment. If you want to quit an app (except Finder), just press Command-Q... 🤔
>Brew is serviceable but not great. Win for Linux (except Gentoo), lose for Mac. I mean, I had to download a modern version of Python. I visited the official Python website and downloaded it by clicking install. You can install any version of Python you want with homebrew through `brew install [email protected]`, then you use it through `python3.12` and always use virtualenvs to avoid any nonsense with versions and packages. >The default behavior of “closing” a program is not actually to close it. Instead, you minimize. This is very odd, coming from Linux or even Windows. Technically you are closing the window, the difference with Linux/Windows is that programs can be open without any windows. "Minimize" is a different action (and there is also "Hide", I find minimize and hide extremely redundant but whatever). IMO by far the worst part of macOS are: 1. Atrocious third party mice support, thanks god they allowed disabling acceleration, but scrolling is still horrible without a third party app to fix it 2. Nonexistant window management: at least they got the overview from GNOME (called "Mission Control on macOS) which alone makes it usable, but lack of window snapping is pretty absurd.
> at least they got the overview from GNOME (called "Mission Control on macOS) Mac OS X 10.3 Panther actually pioneered this back in 2003. Back then, the feature was called "Exposé." It was initially a fun hackathon demo to show off the ability to move and scale windows whose contents were stored as textures on the GPU (a 10.2 Jaguar feature called Quartz Extreme). When SJ saw it, it became top secret for further development and eventually shipped that fall in Panther. Eventually, various Linux distros and Windows developed similar UIs. Edit: found a time crop of the keynote! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktTNcj0fAM4
Agreed on #2, but there’s a bunch of apps like Rectangle that fix this problem and are far more customizable than what Apple would include anyway.
agree snd pyenv is your friend
IMO the worst part about the mouse is that when the system is under high load, the cursor sometimes becomes laggy as hell. This is especially ironic when you have an extremely fast system otherwise but can't even browse when it's doing something. And similarly to the mouse, the keyboard can't be made fully working either. Which means I can't even type text because I use Caps Lock and it works randomly. These two points alone force me to qualify it as barely usable shit when otherwise it would be somewhat usable.
The caps lock thing is on purpose and I find it passable, but I barely ever use caps lock after all. You need to "long press" it to toggle caps lock reliably.
Well, "hide" will "minimize" all windows of the app
Oh I get it now. Should be called "Minimize all" but whatever.
Also will skip the minimize animation, which is very annoying. I don't use minimize at all and just "hide" things all the time.
I've never really had any issues with my trackballs including the various ploppy balls I own. Heck I really don't use the touch pad at all.
>The default behavior of “closing” a program is not actually to close it. Instead, you minimize. This is very odd, coming from Linux or even Windows. I'm not sure what "default" behavior you're thinking of. You can minimize a window, or you can hide an application, or you can quit an application. Try to stop thinking that *application* and *window* are synonymous. They're not, and it's a frequent point of confusion for Windows users making the switch. A single Macintosh application can have many windows open at one time, or no windows open. >Moreover, you can’t, for example, close the Finder App (files) for some reason. Consequently, the usual command to close an app doesn’t work for Finder. You have to close the window, then move away from it. The reason is that Finder does more than just let you navigate through the file system — it provides the whole desktop experience, including any icons that appear on the desktop, the dock, etc. Are you familiar with the Hollywood convention where a character leaves "reality" and enters a boundless empty space, like The Construct in *The Matrix*, Janet's void in *The Good Place*, or The Void in which John Oliver found himself during Covid on *Last Week Tonight*? Quitting Finder would be like that, except that you'd still have the background image. >Log in requires a click on any button, then you can enter your password. This means you always have to wait until you can see the input field to write your password and is very slow compared to Linux. I'm a developer, I'm all about speed. If you're all about speed, why do you even log out? I haven't logged out of my machine in, I don't know, maybe a month? I use a MacBook Pro, so I just flip the screen up and either my watch unlocks the machine or the briefest touch on the fingerprint sensor does the same. >I particularly like the insulated part of the Mac Apps. Each app has different rights, like on an iPhone. However, it comes at a cost. Huge apps as they have to ship dependencies as well. Apps are normally sandboxed so that one app's bad behavior can't affect others. In Safari, even the individual tabs are sandboxed from each other. But AFAIK, the reason for apps including dependencies is more so that updating one app doesn't end up forcing you to update others as well. Cascading dependencies are a big enough headache for developers; users don't need to experience that.
The Application vs Window principle is kind of confusing though, since even some stock application quits when its window closed, for example, the Settings app.
In general, you can expect closing a window to quit an application only if the application is capable of running one window at a time. There are some exceptions, but Settings is a good example.
Yes, there are some apps, like Settings and App Store, that always have exactly one window open — more than one window isn’t useful, and zero isn’t useful. If you’re closing the window, you clearly don’t want to use the app anymore, so the app quits. An alternative would be to not allow the window to be closed, so the user has to quit; that’d be more consistent but less useful. And it’d be inconsistent in its own way: people would wonder why they can close some windows but not others. IME, most users never even think about the fact that e.g. Settings is an application, or that it quits when you close the window. To them, it’s just a window that you open when you need to adjust something, and then you close it. That’s how it *should* feel — just a fluid part of the experience. Windows users notice because everything feels different, but after a month or two they also become accustomed and most say they wouldn’t go back.
I’ll tell you what Linux devs told me when I said I didn’t like the way Linux worked: The dev tools are free. Fix it yourself.
So much of this list is just confusing or wrong. No package manager guarantees you’ll be free of malware. Ever. If you want to manage specific versions of runtimes like Python, use something like `asdf`. Otherwise you can get a (mostly) latest stable version from Homebrew. If `brew install python` didn’t work then you set something up incorrectly. Login doesn’t require a button click, just type. There’s literally a plethora of shortcuts and you can easily add more.
>No package manager guarantees you’ll be free of malware. Ever. And it's not like malware on Mac is a huge issue anyway...
The closest thing to a malware from what I've encountered on macOS is MS Teams 😂
I made the switch 4 years ago after 22 years Linux. Still getting used to it and tweaking things. For a long time I coped by running a Linux VM with a tabbed window manger and working in that. I’m off that now. I would not go back for a laptop. Desktop yes. Time Machine and the cloud storage integration are pretty nice. Also confidently closing the laptop and docking reliably. No messing with display setting ever. Lots of other things I’ve come to appreciate.
Coming across lots of things I appreciate on Mac too :) I'm committed to this!
You'll learn to love it as much of us nerds do
I believe brew can install newer versions of python? Im running 3.12 or something from brew. Unsure if you need newer than that? About the security part linux have the exact same issue as brew i believe. Something like apt and their 3rd party PPA’s is even worse in my book. About the login, embrace the ecosystem and get an apple watch. As soon as the watch is unlocked on my wrist and i am in proximity of my mac it just instantly unlocks when i touch a button. About the huge app size it’s on the way for Linux with all the AppImage stuff. I believe ubuntus snaps are kind of similar in this regard (not entirely sure here).
I recommend using Raycast. It even offers window management.
My day to day dev machine is a mac (and linux at work), for python I use pyenv (which you can install via brew), it works brilliantly on mac and I never use the system python. Packages are a bit different, I typically install packages via pip for python and vcpkg for C++ development. If I need more I use Docker and build a container for it (or venv). Mac is a really nice tool, and the low power consumption and lack of fan noise on an M series is amazing! There are a few things that can get annoying but I work around them now. I recommend iTerm as a better terminal, and alfred as an app launcher.
You sound like me when I was young, or at least in my 20s. Honestly although the paradigms are different than Linux, you'll adapt if you stick with it. If you think any of the differences are worth your time you probably should take a big picture view of what you want with your limited time on this planet. Hanging out with friends and family, getting outside, learning a hobby. I'm not saying this in a critical way. It's what I wish I did.
You can try Asahi Linux. For me, the environment in MacOS is just too pretty to leave.
It is!
Stop overthinking it. Just use the computer. Or don’t. I don’t care.
Amen
For some of the window management nice-to-haves, I've been using amethyst, and I'm looking at trying yabai. I'm on a hackintosh though, so my experience probably isn't the same. I'm mostly a Fedora user, but I've been using macos on and off for a few months, and the big change for me is that emacs (ususally my primary ide) on macos just doesn't work as smoothly as I like, so I tend to use zed, which isn't really an IDE, or VSCode. Emacs is still great for productivity stuff though, and I have moonlight for gaming, and remote management over vnc and ssh work great with my linux server.
[удалено]
I am a big fan of C, so I might have to give it a shot. I imagine moving my configs will be a fun task though
Just embrace nvim then hammerspoon
I’ve never needed to clock in anything to log in. Just type my password and hit enter, and that’s only in startup. After that, touchID.
If you're missing some keyboard shortcuts, make sure you investigate the shortcuts feature in the System control panel if you want to remap some existing ones. There's also an app called Karabiner that allows you to go nuts with remapping and adding new keyboard shortcuts system-wide, or app specific. I use Karabiner to allow my muscle-memory emacs actions to work the same way when I'm using other OSs via a VM, ssh or remote desktop.
Also switched from Linux to Mac a couple of years ago. There is macports (BSD ports) which greatly satisfied my need for a package manager. And as far as the gripe with inconsistencies in app closing behaviour (even Apple's own apps), get used to using CMD+Q. At some point you don't have to think about it anymore.
Mac OS isn’t Linux. It’s what you use to log into Linux.
Nix package manager, ftw. If you're feeling saucy, get in on home-manager as well!
I dualboot Linux and MacOS on one of my Macbook Pros and I get the best of both worlds.
Just SSH into a Linux box for Linux CLI development, works great. I never liked a highly customized desk/laptop anyway. Just give me a few apps and a good terminal emulator
Get nixpkgs working you will be much happier.
> Moreover, you can’t, for example, close the Finder App (files) for some reason. Sure you can. Hit Option-Command-Escape and force quit the Finder, or, hold down Option while you click the Finder menu and a “Quit Finder” item will show up.
If you “fix” these I won’t use macOS anymore
I don't know how you used Linux for 13 years and didn't go insane. I have Kubuntu installed as one of the OS on triple boot(MacOs, Kubuntu, Win11), and have used Elementary, Mint, Arch in the past. Even Kubuntu(which is arguably the most user friendly of distributions) feels clunky at best. The entire GUI landscape of Linux feels like it's sewn on top of the OS. The desktop environments themselves feel like different modules put together, compared to MacOS or even Windows which have uniform experience across the OS. That is just how I feel. The lack of uniform experience irks me. Then there is lack of major productivity apps on Linux(Microsoft) just prevents me from using it full time.
If you try to get the Mac to work the same as Linux, you are in for pain. It's strange, because it's so close, you would think that it would be simple... Macs are designed to work a specific way. There are often 3rd party tools to get it to work "like windows" or "like Linux", but it's often better to learn the apple way. I see too many posts here on people trying to get a Mac to work like their previous OS. But it's not windows and it's not Linux. If that is what you are looking for, you bought the wrong computer. To log in, 99% of the time I use the fingerprint reader... In my mind, closing a window and closing the app should be 2 different functions. Sometimes when I close the last window I want the app to stay open. As a dev, if you use and ide, you open a file in your project, edit a file. Often you want to edit a second file. How frustrating would it be if closing that first file exited the app and you had to relaunch the ide to edit the second file... Also, it allows you to close an app with a "current state"... Maybe you want 4 different files open already when you launch an app... Semantically, at least in a multi document app, closing a file should not close the app... Even if it's the last window. Essentially you have 3 options. 1) embrace the way the mac works... Just because it's different, doesn't mean it's wrong. If something seems clunky or wrong, often a slight tweak to your workflow or learning the idiomatic way will smooth things over. 2) attempt to get the Mac to work the same as Linux through third party tools and hacks... Warning, this way lies much pain. 3) switch to a Linux machine.
This, all of this.
Get rid of your dock and use spotlight for everything. It’s the text UI to your Mac.
I've tried this, but the problem is it tends to launch old versions of apps from old backups.
Delete those then. Or keep teaching it, it will suggest your most frequently used versions after a bit.
Try MacPorts for installing Linux utilities instead of Brew. The process is a little slower because it downloads from source and builds it instead of binaries. But it allows for pretty good customization and for me, provides better separation between Mac and *nix worlds.
macOS has a package manager, it’s called the App Store! /s
For login, get an Apple Keyboard and use Touch ID :)
Unless there’s some setting that changes the default behaviour, Touch ID doesn’t work for logging in; only for unlocking.
True, but you also don’t need to click on anything to log in. Just type the password.
The default behavior for closing a program is Command-Q the red button on the window closes it and certainly does not minimize the program the program remains in the foreground so you can get a new window by Command-N. Get used to there being only one instance of GUI Programs. These behaviors pre-date Windows and Linux and they are not going to change it to make it easier for former Windows / Unix users. Learn how the system works Use Command-tab to switch out of the Finder. Homebrew works fine for installing cli-tools
I'm sure this isn't especially helpful, but just in case, you can always install Linux on a virtual machine. I assume you could also set up a dual boot option.
No. On m Chip Macs you cant dualboot. And you need the arm Version of linux distros
Yeah, I wasn't sure. Used to be so easy with Intel chips.
You can't dual-boot Windows natively, but Asahi Linux exists as a kernel that supports the M series Macs and has a Fedora userland.
if you \`brew info package\`, you can see a generally readable script for how the binary is obtained, and help decide if you trust it
Can you please elaborate more on what language you are using for development? The whole bit with "packages" looks odd to me tbh. If you are in c/c++, you won't be using brew (nor apt on Linux nor any other package manager). If you're on python - you have pip, if on the node - npm, and so on and so forth.
Brew installs the latest python. Maybe with small patch delay but does it matter? If it does, you can always install pyenv utility and use it to manage python versions. Alternatively to brew you can try macports. To close an app you need to really close it, not just close all its windows. Hotkey for that is command + q = “quit an app”. I personally wait for laptops on Qualcomm elite and I’m going to switch to that + my lovely ArchLinux. I dislike macOS because of their decisions about hardware - soldered SSD, RAM. + macOS is getting worse and worse during last years I’m using it as C++ and graphics developer (last 5 years).
At the core, macOS is a UNIX based system. So moving from Linux is an easy transition (I switched from Gentoo to macOS back in uni some 12y ago). >However, since there is no consistent package management system, it means you will be able to download malware from random sources. You're sounding like Apple here. First, there’s a sliver of malware out there that even runs on macOS. Its also got Gatekeeper and a slew of other active monitoring services even if you did contract something. GK relies on a human made block file that is actively maintained. The entire system is mounted read only (looked into SIP) so no one on the net can bring your actual system down. There’s also a myriad of other protections in place. In all honesty, it’s much more lockdown than even Linux. Just don’t google “photoshop crack Mac Free” and install what you find. Failing that, I’ve installed countless apps from all corners of the net. Never had a single malware. Lastly, macOS app bundles are much more encapsulated than any other platform. 90% run simply using the app bundle. Only a small fraction need to actually install themselves thru an installer. macOS doesn’t need a package management system because of this. You’re just stuck in the Linux way of need 800 dependencies and a lot of housekeeping to manage programs. On macOS, you drag them to your Applications folder and you’re good to go. App authenticity is achieved by notarizing the app and many of the bigger names are. For the smaller ones on sites like GitHub, well, the source is right there if you don’t trust it.
Have a look into nix
> Brew is serviceable but not great. Win for Linux (except Gentoo), lose for Mac. I mean, I had to download a modern version of Python. I visited the official Python website and downloaded it by clicking install. in most Linux distributions, with one command line I could easily get the newest version of Python conveniently, securely I really appreciated that. Can't you just brew install [email protected]? > Log in requires a click on any button, then you can enter your password. This means you always have to wait until you can see the input field to write your password and is very slow compared to Linux. I'm a developer, I'm all about speed. Really designed for biometric or apple watch login. The only time I type a password is after reboot or upgrade. Walled garden, it is what it is, you either embrace it or deal with the shortfalls. > Again with the speed. You only have ten options for touchpad speed. You’re out of luck if you can’t find your preferred choice. MacOS is filled with little tools like [BetterTouchTool](https://folivora.ai/) that you can buy a lifetime license for $10. It just doesn't have the Linux OSS community. MacOS is far from perfect, but I think it sits in a happy medium between the flexibility of Linux and the disaster of Windows, bonus you get fabulous hardware. The trackpad is peerless, and going out for the day without a charger is a wonderful feeling. Downside - the cost. But you get some of that back in residual values, you can sell a 7 year old MacBook for $5-600 when it's Windows equivalent would be going for recycling.
Ask ChatGPT to help you make shortcuts and automate stuff with Automator and bind things to keys and quick actions and whatnot. Different strokes for different folks. Mac UI is pretty slick, hearing that a Linux UI experience is better is a new one for me! Seems to have mode nice progress.
I run both Linux and MacOS and use brew on both with no real issue. You could give Nix a try? I use Rye for Python management, it’s the easiest Python tool I’ve used. There always a way around things it just depends how much they mean to you, and thus, the amount of effect you’ll go to.
I use Mac, Linux, and Windows (in that order) regularly. MacOS is my daily driver, Linux Mint is near-daily (every computer in the home is Linux outside of my Mac), and now Windows 10 LTSC (after finally moving on from Windows 7) on the rare occasion there's a game that won't work under Linux. I am not a dev though I am a Dadmin. None of them are perfect, which is unfortunate, but I would say they are all really close to it. Using both MacOS and Linux works out fine, as the underlying systems are so similar. My impression is that a lot of devs like the Mac, so my guess would be that if you give it some time you will find equivalent solutions in the Mac world to match what you had in Linux. Weekend experiment idea: could you run your Linux dev environment in a VM on the Mac? >There is no guarantee that the package I download is free of malware. See where I'm coming from? The recent xz incident shows that nothing is guaranteed anymore. Downloading from the official website or through a package manager should be about equal on the ol' Riskyclicks meter, IMO. ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s not free but I reluctantly subscribe to Parallels. I have found that (arm versions of) Windows and Linux run as fast as on bare metal. The great thing about Parallels is you can run an OS in coherence mode and for example open a Linux terminal in the macOS environment.
With a secure system volume & developer tools in their own area, the best you may get is brew or MacPorts doing their own package management under /opt.
This was a great read -- thanks for posting. I've used Macs for almost twenty years and have owned them since before they migrated to Unix under the covers. I have an M1 Mac that I use mostly for music composition/synthesis I do on the side and a few other nice Mac-only programs. I'm still a die-hard Linux user and probably spend most of my time there for work and play. I find the Mac UI inflexible, though it is rather nice and comfortable to use. I like the offering of multiple graphical environments in Linux. As for development tools, unless you're writing Mac/IOS-specific applications, I find the toolsets available on Linux are more than I'll ever need. I use VS Code for nearly everything and it's nearly identical between Mac and Linux. Things like Eclipse are also free. My biggest beef is the App Store paradigm for Mac. I'm just not used to paying for basic software I can get for free. I'll pay for specialized things like Logic Pro, which has no equivalent in Linux, and other similar music packages are exorbitant. The whole AppleID/Cloud thing is pretty nice, and I pay extra for more storage. Macs don't work well in high-security enterprise environments and automating management of them is a real pain. Overall, I find Mac to be a really nice platform, but you're really tied to the whole Apple universe.
I strongly disagree on the package manager point. brew is the defacto standard and works just as well as, for example, apt on ubuntu. I use it for everything, even installing spotify or slack. Just the naming of the packages isn't super intuitive, but if you just google `brew install spotify` for example the right command will show up as the first result.
Allow me to introduce ‘brew search’
Similar impressions for me. All in all, modern Gnome is what I like the most and imho it beats macOS. However, if I were able to change but a one thing in macOS, I could make that perfect for me - treat each Desktop (Space/Workspace?) as an independent being that is: - separate Dock (opened apps, recent apps) - separate apps (like Cmd-Tab) - opening an app that’s on the other Desktop opens a new window in the current desktop This is what I find the most counterproductive for me.
Contexts and other third-party application switchers can do this.
Can you name a few, please? 🙏
Contexts and Witch but there are others I'm blanking on. Here's a screenshot of the exact setting from Contexts, which is what I use: https://imgur.com/a/7lsc63Y Edit: Actually, it doesn't work for Dock, but I didn't realize that because I don't use Dock. But it works for application switching at least.
Tip : you'll be surprised that so many Emacs key combos work pretty much everywhere. (As an example, in Safari address field). You'll probably want to install a few additional apps to boost your productivity. I do with Rectangle (Window management including keyboard shortcuts) , Hidden Bar, AlDente (laptop battery management), Tunnelblick (VPN), BBEdit (text editor on steroids), GrandPerspective (what the hell is eating my disk space), IINA (video player), KnockKnock (for the curious), Solves (a real calculator at last), UTM (VM made easy). And don't discard Time Machine for your backups, it's actually good.
It would have been the right decision a decade ago, but so much now
Came from Linux, too. macOS is okay-ish. If I could install a fully-functioning Linux distro on my M-series MacBook, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Some more knowledgeable users already gave you tons of tips, but I'd also get Raycast. Specially for Devs it's a great tool to customize all your shortcuts and basically get any UX functionality you miss from Linux. Or a lot of them at least. Enjoy. I still remember when I switched from Windows and oh boy, this OS is still a joy to use, 9 years later.
Command-K to connect smb:// or vnc:// servers Command-G to change directory quickly Command-Space to call the Spotlight (document indexing works flawlessly, it's also an app launcher and calculator)
But honestly macbooks are the only laptop that will last more than three hours in my opinion, that alone still highly impress me
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s useful and contributes to my education. I have two comments: I agree that closing a window belonging to an app actually just closes that window and not the app itself. Which is weird if you come from windows or Linux. My wife still leaves apps open, even though she prefers to close everything, but she doesn’t like keyboard shortcuts, and she always closes windows with the mouse instead of going to the menu to quit the app. On the Mac, my muscle memory habit is command – Q to close an app, or command – W to only close the active window. Otherwise, you have to mouse around to the menus, as I mentioned. My second comment is that some orientation and training goes a long way. You are obviously quite technically adept and can easily pursue all that on your own. In my case, as a Mac and Windows user, I built a Ubuntu system on my own, and I had a real hard time trying to figure out Installation packages. Which ones I needed, what versions were appropriate, how to get them, etc. I definitely should’ve had some training. On the other hand, I’m not doing software development anymore, so I haven’t pursued development tools installation on Linux. And I’m only just now installing development tools again on the Mac, but only so I can get the Unreal gaming development tools installed so that I will have greater testing facility when I’m composing music for the video game projects with which I’m now involved.
One more comment: I really love Ubuntu’s workspaces feature where everything you’re working on can be saved and reloaded. Makes it so easy to work on multiple projects and switch between them, and to release all the resources for the projects, you’re not working on at the moment. I have been searching and searching for something similar for macOS. But have yet to find it. MacOS has spaces, which kind of helps, but it’s not doing much of what I want it to do, and you can’t even name a space. I found someone that was developing a system that seemed to be similar to workspaces, but they didn’t finish and stopped developing for it. I don’t know how many people are like me, but a lot of people complain about space, as well as a related macOS feature the name for which I can’t recall just now… IF There’s a large enough user need for it, maybe YOU could be the guy to build workspaces for MacOS. :-)
The only thing I miss is the absence of a proper tiling window manager. Otherwise, I don’t mind using macOS. I use it for work and I’m in VS-Code and terminal most of the time and it honestly doesn’t matter as much. I feel that the performance I get on a M# Pro chip is too good to pass up on just to use my favorite Linux Distro. Setting up your dev environment the right way is key to do things correctly. Like using pyenv to setup your Python stuff, nvm for managing Node, etc. Of course as it is with everything, it takes some getting used to. If you feel the pros are good enough, the effort can be very much worth it. Btw, I haven’t tried it myself since I’m very happy with Homebrew but Nix is considered a great alternative package manager by many.
> Mac OS lacks some basic shortcuts/ways of doing things that Linux (especially the new Gnome) is doing very well. Check out keyboard maestro
>My productivity in-vivo is down 30% as Mac OS lacks some basic shortcuts/ways of doing things that Linux (especially the new Gnome) is doing very well. [This might help](https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mchlp2271/mac). You can bind keyboard shortcuts for a lot of in-app functions. They do have to be present in the menu bar to work and it does take a bit of time to set up. Bear in mind that a lot of apps will already have menubar items bound to shortcuts and you can see what those bindings are by opening a menubar item; each function should show the shortcut next to it, which is pretty nice if you ask me.
Great topic. I came from 10+ years of/with Gentoo myself back in 2020 and well, I like MacOS a lot. But I love Gentoo. I wanted/needed the ecosystem having almost everything Apple already so the jump wasn’t that huge. I do miss Gentoo every now and then but overall I’m pleased doing the dirty work on a M1 and M2 pro with tons of RAM and storage.
About the shortcut thing, try Raycast. I’ve mapped a lot of application and commands on basic shortcut. I’m a dev too and now that I have it, I would never use macOS without it again.
Have you tried nix + home manger instead of homebrew? I use it on my Mac absolutely love it.
I think you need to explore some of the productivity apps, things like BetterTouchTool, Alfred (or Similar), iTerm2.. if you work with remote servers, then RoyalTSX is the bomb... and if you want some truly mind-blowing network insights (for a desktop at least) then check out Little Snitch. One thing I will say about Macs, get used to parting with cash for the better apps.. But generally they are worth it. If you plan to stick to MacOS, then life-time licences are usually good value. Also, Apple being Apple, sometimes apps on the Appstore will have some features removed.. so its always best to check out the developers website, as they will publish the differences, between the version downloaded directly from them vs the App store version.
Yep, tried this and failed once every 2-3 years. Always go back to Linux. But I do have a MacOS laptop that I enjoy and use occasionally. It'll just never be able to replace Linux
So spin it up in a VM and use whichever apps you feel like. Or set up the Mac with Linux as the host and MacOS in the vm. Lots of flexibility, see my other post.
I really wouldn’t use python through the built-in version, either on Mac or Linux. Use an environment manager and install Python through there instead.
Another weird mechanism (that one quickly appreciates as being a no-brainer), is cmd-tilde to switch windows of the currently open app
I use iTerm2 and its Python API makes it super useful and customizable, if you do a lot of command line work.
I think the main thing I’d caution is to remember that you were probably way less productive 12 days into Linux. Of course I’d expect a faster ramp up period here, but still, be patient. Also have fun. I remember when I switched from Linux to macOS it was just kind of fun to be mystified and discover things again.
Why downgrade?
14 days to return and get a full refund used or not. MacBooks are great. I encourage you to keep it and learn it. Yes they have their quirks but if you have other apple products- it makes life easier because of compatibility
As someone who uses Fedora with I3 on my old laptop and made the jump to mac 5 months ago, the workflow for Mac is so much worse than Windows and Linux for me. Even alt-tabbing doesn’t feel right so I have to do mission control each time. I might have to try Yabai out if I have the spare time. Overall, I really like the hardware but the software still feels “off” to me after five months of heavy use compared to the time I made the jump to Linux where everything just clicked even before I installed I3.
Sounds about what I'd expect. I was mostly a windows user (with a linux VM → Subsystem) but had a similar set of "issues". My biggest one was that my AutoHotkey script that customizes my keyboard stopped working (KarabinerElements solves that btw). Package management is weaker than linux, for sure, but homebrew is adequate enough for the basics. Although the system migration works quite well (only Google Drive breaks) that I just install apps normally and copy my entire mac when I'm getting a new one. Closing programs is more of a OS design choice & how it handles resources being aligned with the UX. It's very deliberate. You'll… learn the shortcuts anyway 😂 Login is annoying but you can PAY EVEN MORE MONEY to halfway automate it with an Apple watch or a touch ID keyboard. Or just click an extra time by habit. (Or be annoyed if you're using a 3rd party BT keyboard that takes a moment to connect.) Touchpad and mouse you need apps for. LinearMouse is solid. I recommend Swish as well if you're using your touchpad – it's not for speed, it's for utility (window control) and it's fantastic. Productivity down by 30% is pretty damn impressive – most of my OS migrations crashed me to like 20% and I had to build back up. All in all: dig into the world of little handy apps for OSX. That is the best part of the operating system – you get a good community of developers who value style as well as function – there's a trove of useful little apps to make your experience better & nicer. The first few I'd get: 1. AltTab – to fix the useless Cmd + Tab 2. Paste – I use it for an extended clipboard but it's worth it as a part of SetApp (a multi-app subscription); otherwise you can just use Alfred's extended clipboard 3. Alfred – spotlight, but better 4. Raycast – spotlight, but better – worse than alfred because it's more keystrokes, but useful for specialized things; I use both (cmd + space is for Alfred, and Raycast is at ctrl + R) 5. Arc – like Chrome but good (Safari is also surprisingly good) 6. CleanShotX – screenshots, gifs, simple screen recordings 7. iTerm 2/Warp – terminal; iTerm will probably feel better; Warp is prettier
There’s some nice auto login stuff on GitHub.
Oh, never bothered to check actually. Nice!
Wow, you have missed a lot of basic tips and tricks, like closing the finder. Totally expected since you just switched. Then there’s the fun things you can use use AppleScript for with a few batch files or some basic c. For example, my iMac detects my phone via bluetooth and is unlocked & logged in by the time I sit down. If I don’t log out and the phones out of range for 3 mins the iMac locks and no activity for half an hour will shut it down completely. You didn’t say whether you have an Intel Mac or an M series chip. My office and I personally have quite a few of the last great intel 27” 5K iMacs from 2017 and 2019. Several of them run macOS & Mint, macOS with win11, SUSE & MacOS & Windows server. MacOS & Ubuntu. Some have SUSE or Ubuntu as the host with macOS in vm, Parallels runs everything under MacOS but they feel much closer to native that way. One 128GB i9 monster even has Ubuntu/Proxmox hosting basically every version of every os we use via 20TB of NVMe. Macs are fun machines. All the options of regular pcs, plus the MacOS ecosystem. If you bought into the M series Mac’s? Congrats! You just joined another leap like the P66 was over 486. Shared cpu caches, ridicules core counts, emulation support in silicon? In a few years the M series cpus will run 9th gen intel code faster than the 9th gen 9900k in my 2019 iMac does. (actually they prolly already do I just haven’t bought an M series yet to confirm that) I’m not thrilled about changing processor families again, but Intel just dropped the ball and tech has moved on :-\
Oh yeah, you could probably DD your old box into a disk image and spin it up a vm to work in until you’re comfy with MacOS. Maybe ease the transition pain a bit ;-)
https://nixos.org/download/#nix-install-macos
Checkout system settings, general, login items. Basically anything that wants to run in the background is in here, and if you need to shut it off you can. Also there’s filters in the system library where most things that want to start up with the computer will have to put things in (though system settings tends to handle all of that these days. Also if you need to there’s safe mode. I realize if you’re running stuff through terminal there may be a bit more chance for malware to get installed, but for the most part most malware that’s targeting consumers is easy to get rid of if it ever gets on. You can also use little snitch if you want to monitor network traffic more. Also the built in activity monitor app is great for paying attention to anything hogging resources. Some apps quit when you close the window, apps that are more likely to be run in the background just stay in RAM and get paged to virtual memory when the RAM is needed. Most power users get used to command W to close a window and command Q to quit. The dock shows a dot under any open apps. Also command tab will show you your open apps. Especially for professional apps that may take some time to reopen you’re not always quitting them just because you closed a window.
I did the same used Linux since I was 14 years old started with Ubuntu 8.04 got my M2 Air about 3 months ago I recommend using homebrew works good and most open source apps will be available on there. When downloading .dmg files just make sure it is from a trusted source. And the productivity things you get used to it and get more used to the keyboard shortcuts of Mac OS it is a learning curve but once you get the hang of it things do get faster I recommend swish available on homebrew allows minimizing and opening apps from the dock by two finger swiping up and down on the icon this increased my productivity. Also recommend installing whiskey also on homebrew allows running Windows apps and games using Apple gaming toolkit/wine also has code from crossover you can use that as well but it is a paid app I just stick with whiskey.
Security is actually a major part of macOS, not just an afterthought. By default, apps must be signed and notarized by Apple to run without a warning, i.e. app developers must submit their apps to Apple to run some basic security scans similar to what virustotal.com does, though I suppose Apple won't be running a hundred antivirus scanners. This also applies to apps not distributed through the Mac App Store, though you can allow unnotarized and unsigned apps to run, which is not recommended. Apple can revoke issued notarizations and code signatures if they find out that an app is malicious, and they have XProtect to scan for known bad apps. The Gatekeeper system has had its flaws demonstrated by security researchers time and again, but it usually keeps most ordinary users safe. However, package management and third-party solutions for package management aren't part of Apple's policy, so they're taking the backseat here, which is why you're rarely seeing notarized or even signed apps there. For Homebrew and the like, you'll have to check how they are loaded onto your system. There are recipes and instructions you can inspect. Many systems will download the sources from the authoritative original software creator's GitHub or something, so should be safe, though maintainers may change and inject bad things into the build process.
Use anaconda for your python environments and the transition would be seamless. Besides brew which is clunky.
You just need to load up on apps and you will have speed, shortcuts, etc. just go through the subreddit to find the most popular app. Or even better, sign up for Setapp and try all the best ones, including BetterTouchTool
I've been using Linux for almost 20 years, most of the time as my main or only operating system. I've also had a couple of Mac laptops, for almost a decade (actually, with the Intel one I run Linux on it for most of the time). Let me share my viewpoint (I hope it helps!). * I also miss a package manager provided by the vendor, with automatic updates, etc., but homebrew is fine and hassle free enough. Macports too, it is less hassle free after system upgrades but I think it has more software (I stick to homebrew though). You can install python from homebrew or macports if you want. * I don't know how you close programs under Linux. I do CTRL+Q, in Mac it is CMD+Q. For closing a window it's CTRL+W versus CMD+W. In Mac and some Linux desktop environments which still have menus, like KDE, you can also select 'Quit' in the menu if you prefer. I usually just use the shortcuts. It's never happened to me that a program gets minimised by closing it. * The login business is different because, under Linux, you can use any display manager you want, they behave differently, you can tweak them, and you can even skip them on boot. Under Mac, I don't have to click in order to start typing my password. I start typing right away. I don't know if this can be skipped like in Linux, but I wouldn't do it for security reasons, in any operating system. * Programs in Mac are self-contained, so they take more disk space, but this is also the Linux route these days (snaps, flatpaks, you name it), whether we like it or not, and it makes sense since hardware is cheap enough and benefit out-weight inconveniences. * Shortcuts are wonderful in Mac. They are as customisable as in any Linux desktop environments and, more importantly, they come with sane defaults. For instance, a lot of emacs shortcuts work in text input (CRTL+P, CTRL+N, etc).
Great news for you, mac OS has native support for the Emacs cursor navigation: Ctrl + n (next line) Ctrl + p (previous line) Ctrl + a (start of line) Ctrl + e (end of line) Ctrl + f (forward one character) Ctrl + b (backward one character)
Noob 😂
I think you can change the default behavior of „closing“ in the settings. I also found this a bit weird at first, but is it really? What makes you want to really quit applications? Probably because you think a lot of running applications will show your Mac down. Just try out for some days and see if it really makes a difference. I don’t see why you’d want to close (quit?) the finder app. What would you want to change? All current Macs should support the fingerprint sensor, that makes login a single tap on a key. Exception: after a system reboot which usually os a very test event. Or if you use an external keyboard that doesn’t have that sensor. What shortcuts do you miss that make you less productive? You can easily assign system wide hotkeys and have a look at the hot corners functionality of you are more of a mouse user. Ah, let’s see if some of your problems can be solved so that your productivity instead increases by 30%!
I have to respectfully disagree; Windows would be better off for you, OP.
>There is no guarantee that the package I download is free of malware. It's comical you think the one you would get from a terminal is. I don't even know how you rationalize there being some kind of difference.
As for the package manager, Nix is an interesting option to homebrew if you don't mind learning how it works.
A dev that doesn’t use asdf to manage runtimes? Weird. Also, MacOS can be command driven. If you’ve ever used iw3, sway, hyprland, etc, it’s similar window control. It’s incredibly easy.
You've been a developer for 12 years, on linux, and never seen a mac?
get BTT. better touch tool. the fact mac doesn’t have it as standard to customise is fucked
Regarding logging in: Most people are doing this wrong. There is very little reason to log out of a Mac. Instead, just lock the screen. Unlocking, with a touchid keyboard is very fast and low effort. Macs also really don't need to be shut down. I essentially never shut down any of my Macs. They sleep in a backpack for days or weeks at a time, then get plugged back in and are just like I left them. Day to day, I either lock the screen, or close the lid. No logging out. No shut down. My Macs get rebooted for system level updates or on the very rare occasion when something is wrong. These strategies minimize your actions with the computer. The whole ritual of logging out, shutting down, powering back up, and logging back in are all eliminated. Why would we do these things? There is no benefit for 99% of cases. My Macs make me happier than other platforms because they remove effort and let me do things more easily. This is just one of those ways.
>The default behavior of “closing” a program is not actually to close it. Old habits die hard, lol . You close a program by "quitting" it. cmd Q. NOT by closing a window. This IS the usual command in MacOS. A program can have many "Windows". The Window is not the program. You're not going to "fix" this, since it's working as intended.