Ask HN: How did you transition from Mac to Linux? - <AUTHOR> I have been a devoted Mac user for years, however apart from needing a Mac to build and release iOS apps, I am increasingly looking for great laptop hardware with great support for Linux, and recommendations on how to jump from the Mac to Linux (preferably Ubuntu). What pitfalls did you face? What apps and support did you miss? <comment><USER2> I was trying to do the opposite transition a couple of years ago (Ubuntu+Unity -> MacOS), and the Mac feels so clunky in comparison - I eventually switched back to Ubuntu, though I might try again soon.

Some of it is just unfamiliarity, some of it is trivia that is hard to get used to (I've been binding alt-shift to some actions for the three decades - and the Mac won't let me do that), and part of it is the Mac crapping all over my directories with DS_Store files and whatever.

Part of it was the inconvenience of having to buy a lot of thing I could earlier "apt-get". I would probably have spent $500 on things, glad to support the ecosystem, but it's from 10 different vendors, each with their own terms- of-service and mail and having to register and stuff. I would gladly buy it through the app-store if they were available there, but none of those I wanted were.

But the biggest thing is, I hardly got anything from the Mac that I didn't already have with Ubuntu; I do science, programming, and a little bit of movie watching / internet browsing - no multimedia production. Ubuntu is just as good, if not better, than MacOS for those things. Never had an issue with sleep/hibernate not working in Linux.

The things I did get from the mac: (And the reason I was trying to switch): Better hardware (especially screen, touchpad), better battery life, lighter weight. But overall, for me, they were not enough for the inconveniences.

<comment><USER3> I use Karabiner for switching alt/cmd and fn/ctrl. I also configure iTerm to switch some keys - apple really annoys me by using a diff layout; so many years of muscle memory aren't immediately applicable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've tried, but here are the issues I've run into. I'm not a Linux hater, but these are simple things there doesn't seem to be a fix for. This is on a new Dell XPS laptop.

\- Headphones constantly crackle when they're plugged in. I've tried updating audio drivers, enabling/disabling various things, editing config files, etc. nothing fixes it. I've gotten used to listening to music with a crackle superimposed on top.

\- Screen randomly flickers

\- The trackpad interface is nothing short of _atrocious_. If you move around it too much it "locks up" the cursor and you can't move anymore, you have to click it several times while dragging until it starts working again. If you brush it with a single atom of your finger as you're typing, the cursor will move around wildly, often selecting most of the text you've typed and overwriting it with your next character. I've also tried updating/changing/etc libinput and it doesn't do anything.

\- In an attempt to fix the above issues, I tried to update to Ubuntu 18.04 (it was on the latest 16.04). `do-release-upgrade` wouldn't recognize there was a new version available (this was a few days ago). I did `do-release- upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer. Now, it just boots to a cursor on a black screen and it never changes. At this point I just decided to start using my Macbook again until I get un-frustrated enough to figure out what to do with the Dell.

<comment><USER5> My personal pet peeve is the confusing paste buffer(s). On macs it is always ⌘+C and ⌘+V. On linux it may be CTRL+INS and Shift+INS, CTRL+C and CTRL+V, mouse-select and middle-button click and so on.

<comment><USER6> Are there different paste buffers depending on how it's activated?

<comment><USER7> This is actually an X11 thing - it predates Linux. Instead of "the clipboard" X has multiple clipboard-like things. In X terminology they are called "selections". There's an arbitrary number of them, but there are only two selections that are used by most apps: the "primary" selection and the "clipboard" selection.

In most apps, the primary selection is populated merely by selecting something, while the clipboard selection is populated by some sort of explicit user action, like ctrl-C or a context menu.

The clipboard selection is pasted with some other explicit action. Usually it's analogous to the way you copy to it, like ctrl-V, or a context menu.

The primary selection is usually "pasted" with middle mouse button. Sometimes there's also a keyboard shortcut, and if there is it's often a modified form of the clipboard-selection's paste shortcut.

Most people get confused by the fact that there is more than one "clipboardy thing". They copy to one, and then paste from the other and winner why their copy didn't work.

The fact that there isn't a consistent action to get to each doesn't help. It _is_ consistent if you stick to apps from the same "family" (eg: Gnome/gtk+ or KDE), except terminals never use ctrl key shortcuts. (Because control characters already mean something in terminals.)

<comment><USER8> The elementary Terminal allows Ctrl+V to paste and I find it very convenient.

<comment><USER7> Interesting. I kind of paused when I wrote "never" because it's of course possible for a terminal to bind control-keys to arbitrary actions, but every terminal I've ever used on *nix (including Mac and Linux) just passes control- keys through by default. It's possible that some of them allow such bindings as an option, but I've never checked because I need to be able to send literal control-C and control-V to applications I run in the terminal. (Control-C is of course "break", and control-V is used in vim a lot.)

This is one of the cases where I think the Mac approach happens to work out better than Linux (or Windows): by using ⌘ instead of control as the default shortcut modifier, there's no ambiguity about whether I'm talking to my terminal (copy, paste, spawn new window, etc.) or trying to send a control character. I don't know why the Linux community defacto-standardized on control keys rather than Super (or even Alt), given the high proportion of Linux users who are also terminal users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Man, I'd avoid anything Dell. Our whole company switched to new Dell laptops running Ubuntu, and it is a complete mess (and I've been running Linux since '96, Debian since '00, and Ubuntu since '05).

There are OS issues, hardware issues, and driver issues. In terms of OS, Ubuntu/Gnome 3 still hasn't quite figured out hiDPI. Wayland isn't quite ready either. But these are relatively minor nits.

The CPU constantly throttles. It has power management issues where the USB isn't providing enough power if the laptop is running off battery. One of the fans in my 3-month old laptop is making funny noises. I'm constantly fighting limited USB bandwidth on the USB-C port, where I have to decide which 4 of my 6 devices to plug in. I get lots of kernel oopses with dropped/hung PCIe transactions.

And that's just my laptop. The other folks in the company are having similar problems. Basic stuff, like the camera doesn't work at all in the latest XPS 13 on Ubuntu 18.04.

It is pretty frustrating dealing with this relative to my Mac laptop experience which is essentially everything just works.

<comment><USER10> Part of the Mac experience has always been that, since Apple have full control of the hardware, everything Just Works. However, Dell seem to be getting there. Developers here get a choice of XPS 13's running Ubuntu, or MacBook Pros, and most choose the XPS. 18.04 gives you a binary choice of 100% or 200% UI scaling for HiDPI, but that seems to be good enough. Oddly, 16.04 Unity gave you a nice incremental slider for UI scaling. Nonetheless, Windows also doesn't handle HiDPI very well, and I think Apple are the only ones who've cracked it. Indeed, most other companies seem to be copying Apple in this regard - I prefer to have 1080 screens and just make use of the raw pixels rather than faff with HiDPI.

No hardware is infallible, and we've had problems with our machines, but Dell customer service has been great - they usually send an engineer out the next day for our company.

Can't deny, though, most people's machines display Ubuntu Experienced An Internal Error as soon as they log in, and we just dismiss the prompt. Doesn't seem to affect usability. Otherwise, the machines run Ubuntu very, very smoothly with all the hardware working. I upgraded one of our older XPS 13's to 18.04 with no problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A Project Sputnik laptop from Dell with Ubuntu pre-loaded is a safe bet. I'd personally opt for an XPS 13" Developer Edition, even if I were going to load another distro like Arch Linux. Project Sputnik's objective is to ensure Linux compatibility, which involves picking components that are compatible out of the box, and submitting upstream patches for those that aren't.

It does help that it's also the laptop that Linus is using: [https://www.cio.com/article/3119876/linux/linus-torvalds- pic...](https://www.cio.com/article/3119876/linux/linus-torvalds-picks-dell- xps-13-as-his-next-laptop.html)

<comment><USER12> Have a Dell XPS 13 (2018) edition, NixOS w/ minimal gnome install works like a charm!

NixOS config: [https://gist.github.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683ddd848f485b...](https://gist.github.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683ddd848f485bf00)

<comment><USER13> Same laptop here. I've noticed the laptop drains battery when its suspended which is pretty annoying because I sometimes go a couple of days without using it. Have you run into that? I haven't had any luck getting suspend to disk to work.

<comment><USER12> It does drain, maybe 2%/hr but I thought that was normal? That's what I expect to get on a Mac. I did have to `echo XHC > /proc/acpi/wakeup` because I would shut the lid, but something on the USB bus kept turning it back on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I split my time 50/50 between macOS and Fedora 28. Fedora is very similar to Ubuntu from an ease of use standpoint, and something I'd happily recommend - especially if you use RHEL/CentOS servers.

Compared to a Mac workflow, you won't have a handful of business apps (like WebEx or Office) but its mostly identical. Both Fedora and Ubuntu are on 6 month release cycles, so you can use your system's package manager (dnf or apt) instead of relying on Homebrew. There's also user collections of packages available from Fedora's COPR or Ubuntu's PPAs.

You'll see better performance with containers, since you don't need to go through a Hyperkit VM and docker will just run natively.

Out of the box, both run the GNOME 3 desktop, which is a bit of a mixed bag. The simplicity and ease of window management with shortcuts is great, and you can install extensions to modify GNOME's behavior. Unfortunately performance isn't exactly smooth, but you can look at other full-blown desktops (KDE, MATE, Cinnamon, Budgie) or fast window managers like Sway or i3.

With regard to hardware support, I went with the Dell XPS 13. It's a great machine and I've had zero issues so far. Fedora even handles firmware updates through the update GUI.

<comment><USER15> I've heard so many good things about fedora and hardware support. If I end up needing to make the switch, this sounds like my best option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I use both Mac(Work) and Thinkpads(Personal) laptops. Thinkpads (T470 and T470p are what i use) are really good wrt linux driver support. I personally use Fedora + Sway as my daily driver. It has excellent driver support(didn't get the nvidia ones though). These laptops have about 32G of ram. Plenty to run kvm vm's for all sorts of dev stuff.

Thinkpads specially the T series comes with TLP [1] support. So, the battery life is very good. Apart from that, the keyboard is pretty comfortable, display resolutions are Full HD+. I cannot recommend it enough.

[1] [https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power- ma...](https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power- management.html)

<comment><USER17> I thought I was the only person that had a work-issued Mac, but opted for a ThinkPad for personal use. Just bought a T480, and Linux support has been flawless. I installed Debian stable using the non-free installation option: [https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd- in...](https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including- firmware/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm mostly bugged by the _vastly_ inferior touchpad experience (Apple touchpad > pointy nub > Non-apple touchpad, and that is not up for discussion), and lack of things like Autodesk Fusion360 support for Linux (which I use for hobby CNC/3D printing purposes).

Also, some small UI things are just nicer in macOS, like how well scrolling follows input, making it seem like you're physically moving the content. That illusion is lost on Linux.

Most other things are as nice, if not nicer. I chose Fedora 28 Workstation, rather than Ubuntu, and it's all really quite polished. It's also a hell of a lot snappier, even on the same hardware. I wouldn't recommend using Linux on Apple hardware, though, primarily due to how annoying the gmux (dual GPU multiplexing chip) is to deal with.

I might be buying the XPS 2-in-1 when the 32GB model comes out. AMD > nVidia graphics when it comes to Linux (nVidia are assholes). I would've picked Ryzen, but it seems a bit immature for laptops.

<comment><USER19> > (Apple touchpad > pointy nub > Non-apple touchpad, and that is not up for > discussion)

I think you must have palmed your touchpad while typing out that list and somehow messed up the order. This is what you actually meant: 3 physical button trackpoint with textured nub gifted upon us by the Thinkpad Gods of old >>>> apple stuff > other stuff. There shall be no further debate!

<comment><USER18> No, you are quite mistaken. The order was absolutely perfect.

ThinkNubs are good. Apple Touchpads occasionally look down from their seat at Mount Olympus to be entertained by watching the mortals, such as the ThinkNub, go through their silly struggles of life.

PC touchpads, on the other hand, can only be explained by their creators being evil incarnate. Such malice cannot sprout from nothing.

Thinkpad Touchpads are particularly evil, as the BIOS touchpad disable on some Thinkpads with ThinkNubs _disable the mouse buttons belonging to the ThinkNub_.

As Jesus once said: "Transplant me an Apple Touchpad, completed by the pointer stack from macOS, onto a PC with Linux, and thou shall be permitted into Heaven."

Seriously, though, the Nub is like a joystick, where touchpads, touchscreens and mice are basically absolute positioning devices when implemented _correctly_ (such as on a Mac)—that is, move distance N on the touchpad/touchscreen/mouse, and the cursor will move exactly that distance, as if you had physically grabbed the cursor and moved it. With the nub, the distance becomes a function of time+accel.

<comment><USER19> Oh this thread still exists, yummy.

> With the nub, the distance becomes a function of time+accel.

On the Pinnacle of Godly Perfection pointing device that is the Thinkpad Trackpoint, which was used to create life the universe and everything along with a lot of perl, it is a function of time+accel+pressure!

i.e. the pointer moves faster as you push harder in any direction, like any good analog joystick. Except for the Trackpoint you need only to twitch your index finger the tiniest bits to traverse the whole screen.

Might feel weird at first but you get used to it very quickly. Dragging my finger all over the laptop surface is tiring. Same with Mr Mouse. Yes I keep the sensitivity very high.

<comment><USER18> I see that the mortal ThinkNub has falsely led others' to believe that it holds the status of a deity. Mortals are so easily fooled...

I included pressure in accel. Yeah, like a joystick, you can just use time held to move across the entire screen, but just like a joystick, it makes using the mouse akin to driving a small RC car around on your screen, trying to park it on the button you want to press. And just like with an RC car, you can miss your target.

With tracking pointer devices (touchpad, touchscreen, wacom), with a proper stack (i.e. only touchpad on macs), the mouse becomes your finger, reapplying existing finger dexterity entirely andgiving an extremely intuitive input method. Except for bad touchpad stacks, you don't miss or even need to look.

Yes, the touchpad requires full index finger flex/extension to get from one end to the other, but so does moving from "c" to "t" on a QWERTY layout, so I can't see that as a valid complaint. Unless the touchpad has a bad surface texture (i.e. not Apple-style glass), the same goes for fatigue—you're moving your fingers _way_ more when typing.

The only downside I can think of for touchpads is that, like mice but unlike ThinkNubs, one must move the hand away from the keyboard to use it in most setups. ThinkNubs are neatly placed near the homerow, although they eat part of the keys as a result.

(Mice are a bit in between, as they use shoulder/elbow/wrist to aim, which is far less precise than fingers. They still reuse physical dexterity, but are less precise than finger based tracking inputs. Trackballs and rollers are just weird, though.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I went from GNU/Linux to Mac in 2013 and back to GNU/Linux about a year ago. (Never owned a Macbook, though.)

Laptop-wise, I can recommend the Asus Zenbook. The keyboard backlight does not work on Linux, and Bluetooth is a little flakey, but apart from that it works very well for me (on openSUSE Tumbleweed, at least).

There are two things I miss: At work, we use a VoIP-based PBX which also supports software clients; the client is available on Windows and Mac. So on the Mac, I could work from home and use my headset for telephony, which was very, very convenient. On Linux, I have not been able to get this to work. The other thing is that on macOS, the text input widget understands the basic emacs key navigation shortcuts (Ctrl+A -> Jump to beginning of current line, Ctrl+E -> Jump to end of current line, etc...); all the muscle memory I had build up over years of using emacs finally paid off in a big way, because I could use part of it everywhere.

Apart from those two pain points, I was very happy to get back on the GNU.

<comment><USER21> I second the recommendation to get an Asus Zenbook, with the same cons. The case is solid and durable; specs range from reasonable to outstanding (especially at its price point). I would also look at the IBM Thinkpad, as I've had friends and coworkers praise its Linux interoperability.

<comment><USER22> Seconding the Thinkpad. There's also various repurposed IBM (I want to say mostly T200 and T400) that have GNU/Linux and an open source bios (or boot loader, I apologise if I'm mixing terms) pre-installed.

Price is probably high for the hardware though I think it's goes back into further open-source libre development.

But if it is important to you, you'll actually 'own' your computer.

<comment><USER20> Pre-owned / refurbished ThinkPads can be found surprisingly cheaply on Amazon (and elsewhere, I suppose). If you value reliability over performance, formerly top-shelf ThinkPads provide that at a great price. I got a ~2011 x220 for about €230 a few years ago - works like a charm on Debian, and compared to what that money gets you in current hardware, it's still a kick ass machine - except for the low display resolution...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I made the switch after my Macbook Pro was stolen and I needed something quickly to get back to work. The transition from osx to ubuntu was pretty easy after changing my shortcuts to mimic the ones I was used to in osx. I've been using linux daily on my work machine for 7 months now, and i'm actually a little obsessed with it. I transitioned from Ubuntu to Arch and am using KDE as my desktop environment. Everything can be customized and it's great, I don't think i'll be returning to osx ever again.

I do miss the integration with my iphone though. I used the messages and notes app a lot in osx, so it's kinda annoying to not have that anymore.

Also, i'm using a Thinkpad. Would recommend.

*EDIT I now pretty much use the trackpoint 100% of the time, and don't miss the trackpad gestures at all.

<comment><USER24> kdeconnect integrates with android spectacularly. I'm on OpenSUSE, but my coworker uses it on Slackware.

<comment><USER25> Is it possible to use Android while protecting any semblance of your personal data?

<comment><USER24> Yeah, Android is as secure as you make it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The only thing I miss about my Mac is the hardware. To be more specific: I miss the trackpad. I just picked up a 2018 ThinkPad Carbon X1 (6th Generation) and the machine runs Linux very well. The battery life is around eight or nine hours, the HDR screen is very good, etc. But nothing can come close to the Mac trackpad!

I'm running Arch Linux, for what it's worth. My use of several Macs over the last few years was basically confined to a web browser, Mail.app, and Terminal, where I installed a handful of GNU userland tools from Homebrew and essentially used it as if it was a Linux machine. I never bought into the Apple ecosystem with Photos, iCloud, messaging, etc. My pictures and music are organized in directories and I use open-source applications like darktable and GIMP (pictures) and cantata and mpd (music) so I didn't have any lock-in there.

Caveat: I'm on the systems / devops side, not dev.

<comment><USER27> I made this exact same switch a few months ago! RMBP 15 to Thinkpad X1 Carbon + Arch Linux.

I've loved it but I do miss the trackpad (although I've adjusted my workflow to use physical buttons now + thinkpad's trackpad). I also miss the larger screen (15" was really nice).

Whenever I go back to my RMBP 15 for moving files over, I've noticed the display is still nicer for text. Even with installing some calibrated color profiles, I haven't been able to match the same perfection the RMBP 15 had. Is this something you ran into at all / how did you tweak?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've always been into Unix and bought a PowerBook back in 2003 as a capable Unix laptop which also did support the couple commercial apps I was using at the time (PhotoShop, MS Office, some graphics apps). Competent out-of-the-box support for displays (had up to two externally hooked up with a PCCard graphics card) and power management, Apple innovations (Expose, Spotlight), plus Unix command line and F/OSS apps was adding to a real great experience at the time.

But I don't like Apple's current lineup (no display options/only glossy screens, keyboard sucks IMHO, no port options). More than everything else, I took offense in Apple selling these as "Pro" machines (and at "Pro" prices) when there's really nothing "Pro" about them compared to older PowerBooks with replaceable batteries and RAM, all the ports, etc.

What did I miss when going back to Linux (XPS 13, Ubuntu)? Not much really. SketchUp for architectural 3D drawings (though I haven't checked with Wine recently which is an unbelievably capable environment for running Windows apps; back then it did almost work but would crash when attempting to save), general polish (Ubuntu is a bit frugal and ugly vs Mac OS), power management and touch pad as good as Apple's, and a nice shopping and unpacking experience, albeit for a price. Didn't miss iTunes, nor Mac OS's slowness :)

</comment><comment><USER29> Starting off with Ubuntu is a good idea. That's the friendliest distro of linux yet it still provides a fair amount of extensibility so you can start playing around with the really cool things linux offers. There wasn't anything I found myself missing. I suppose the keyboard layout is a little different but that's about it? Again though, the beauty of linux is that you can change just about anything for your preferences. I guess the recommendation is simply to just switch and just start and be patient! Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER30> Install VirtualBox or similar and setup Ubuntu in a VM. Try running that full screen for a while as an easy low-risk way to start kicking the tires.

<comment><USER31> VirtualBox performance on OS X is awful enough and it lights your battery on fire to the point that it'd give most people second thoughts about switching.

<comment><USER32> Is there a more performant alternative to it?

<comment><USER31> Sure. VMWare Fusion, Parallels, xhyve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Honestly, nothing. Now I regret all that time I wasted using Mac. I find Linux is really built for software developers, so if I experience problems, usually someone online will have a one-line terminal solution to fix it.

</comment><comment><USER34> If you need a Linux laptop, I think it's wise to look at the appropriate ThinkPad models first. Of course, if you can get away with desktop-only or workstation your options are a lot more interesting.

<comment><USER35> Note Carbon X1 is not the appropriate one ... which I learned the hard way

<comment><USER36> Agreed, commented about the X1 a couple months ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16715851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16715851)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I run dual-boot macOS and Ubuntu on a ThinkPad.

Ubuntu worked out-of-the-box, and macOS works well after a few tweaks. I also have a third partition to share files between the two halves. Clover bootloader has a friendly way to select which system to use on boot.

I'd like to use Linux full time, but the software I need isn't there.

</comment><comment><USER38> I recently switched by buying a Pixelbook and installing the new full Linux support (dev channel) vcalled Crostini. Love it! Apple's direction and quality don't match with my needs anymore.

</comment><comment><USER39> I am debating on moving over full-time to Linux and picking up a laptop from [https://puri.sm/](https://puri.sm/) the hardware and open drivers are the most annoying thing when finding a laptop for Linux it seems. Almost everyone uses terrible wireless hardware or does not fully support the highest resolution or something strange. I am hoping [https://puri.sm/](https://puri.sm/) has that all figured out.

<comment><USER40> PureOS was not a great experience for me and I'm using Ubuntu (budgie) now.

<comment><USER41> How is the hardware under Ubuntu? I've been eyeing up a Purism laptop as a successor for a Macbook Air that's getting a little long in the tooth.

<comment><USER39> Hardware compatibility for Apple laptops is horrendous! I wish they would just open their drivers to the community at large! I would run *nix on an Apple Laptop no problem.

<comment><USER41> Well on the Macbook Air, I'm running OSX, err macOS. Been running Mac on laptop and linux on desktop for a while now, but the last couple of iterations of both Macbook and macOS have been weak on the basics. Soo, I'm eyeing up the Purism laptops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> My first computer was a 2005 iBook. I used to be a huge apple fan but after a bad experience with a 2012 rMBP I started looking at other options.

I bought a Dell precision laptop at the end of 2016 and installed ubuntu. This wasn't the first Linux machine for me but it was the first I really worked at.

At around the same time I set myself the goal of reducing any and all dependencies on gui apps other than a browser. I quit dayone, various database guis, etc in this period. This was key, I also got better at many cli tools in the process.

I spent a considerable amount of time building a dotfile config that was cross platform / worked with my work mac and other apple computers. This was really painful, it was never 100% consistent but it did all me to prove to myself that it was possible to productively use Linux - something I'd always been skeptical of before, for whatever reason.

I then took on a massive downsizing effort and sold all of my computers, this was also a lot of work. Disassembling custom PC's and selling laptops on eBay took longer than expected.

I was then left with only my work computer. Down from 6 laptops/desktops. My work laptop was a max spec first gen touchbar 13" at the time.

I then got a new job, when asking for my new laptop I bit the bullet and asked for the new Dell XPS 13.

So far I'm getting on fine, native containers is the biggest benefit I've seen personally. I miss photoshop a bit as I haven't invested the effort to run it properly on Linux via wine etc.

</comment><comment><USER43> I got a fast external SSD and put Antegeros (Arch) onto it.

I then used it as my daily driver, dropping back to Mac if I needed something.

I haven't had to use MacOS for a couple of months for anything. Basically have a useless SSD sitting inside my mac now :)

Added benefit is I can plug the SSD straight into my PC at home and have my full work environment up and running. No driver stuff-around either, it all works perfectly.

I would honestly recommend arch/antegeros. Ubuntu and others are over-hyped for their "ease of use".

<comment><USER44> just out of curiosity, what kind of external SSD did you get, and what kind of hardware interface (i.e. usb-c, thunderbolt, etc?)

<comment><USER43> Samsung Portable T5.

USB-C and USB-A ports no USB 3.0 protocol.

It's a "fast" SSD, but it doesn't come close to saturating USB 3.0, and is basically equivalent to an internal (not PCIe/NVMe) SATA based SSD.

If you wanted to future-proof, you could get a thunderbolt 3 enclosure.

Also, fits super comfortably in my pocket (smaller than a phone).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "How"?

Getting geeked up over a switch is probably overdoing it. I mean...you just do it. Install Fedora on it--I mean, you could install Ubuntu, but the movement seems to be away from Ubuntu and for good reasons, in production I wouldn't run something that wasn't CentOS, and Fedora is close enough while removing a _lot_ of the pain points of dealing with Debian derivatives--and start working. It'll suck at first, it'll suck less over time, you'll get there. You'll learn to RTFM if you haven't learned it already, and you'll get there.

As a developer, using either is basically substitutable. I still use a Mac laptop because Linux laptop support varies between okay and awful (and System76 et al make computers that feel like junk, though Dell's support is worth calling out as a positive--my next machine is probably an Alienware 15, largely because of the keyboard and the GPU) but when not on the road I use the Mac mostly for Keynote and Photoshop, not writing code.

Every Unix development tool I use (i.e., I still have Windows partitions around for good reasons), from VS Code on down the line, works on both Linux and OS X without trouble. There's really not much "switching" to be done. If you use novelty stuff like Espresso or whatever it might be a trickier situation, but I feel like most developers aren't in that boat.

Consider Dropbox or similar for syncing dotfiles, though. Sharing those across will reduce your frustration a decent bit. Just make sure to have separate files for Mac and Linux-specific stuff, where applicable, and source them appropriately.

<comment><USER24> CentOS and RedHat use an essentially ancient kernal, with backported fixes. I roll with OpenSUSE on my laptop, tumbleweed will give you the rolling release with cutting edge packages, or Leap will give you an excellent experience with longer support. In my experience, OpenSUSE also has the best hardware support of any Linux distro.

<comment><USER31> They totally do use old kernels, but in practice I have not run into issues (and almost all my consulting clients were in on CentOS before I started working with them, so the die was mostly cast).

I liked OpenSUSE when I used it. Fedora's the path of least resistance for me. I kinda feel like "Not Ubuntu" is a bigger thing, in 2018, than whether you're in on Fedora or OpenSUSE or Arch or whatever; the tide seems to have turned against it as a server operating system in my neck of the woods and I tend to think you should try to stick at least reasonably close to what you're deploying on.

<comment><USER24> True, when I hear Ubuntu I'm more likely to double check you really know what your doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I've never used macOS, but transitioning to Linux would probably pose some similar questions no matter from what OS you are coming from.

So some common tips that you might find useful:

Laptops commonly come with SSDs or even NVMes today. If you have enough RAM, you can avoid enabling swap during installation, that will provide you more useful space on your expensive drive.

Enable periodic fstrim on your drive, to make sure your deleted blocks are reused.

If you are using Samsung NVMe, you might want to use bigger partition offset than just common megabyte alignment. I was recently researching this, and found out, that it can make some performance difference if you use 3 MiB offset instead of 1 MiB. It's a bit of a difficult topic, because Samsung staunchly refuse to answer questions about their NVMe erase block size. In general it's recommended to have partitions aligned to that size for best performance. You can run various testing tools like fio before setting up the system to find the optimal layout.

Prefer AMD for your GPU (Vega is the best today), it will save you a lot pain (i.e. avoid Nvidia and especially Optimus).

Also, as others said in this thread, consider if you need a laptop at all. Desktop would be cheaper for better performance hardware.

<comment><USER46> Wrt swap: you can generally just use a swapfile. It doesn't even have to be very large. Making it a file makes it easier to manage than a partition. No, I don't know why the Debian and Ubuntu installers insist on making a partition for swap still.

<comment><USER47> Ubuntu switched to swap files (not partitions) last year.

<comment><USER45> Good default choice, Debian is still using swap partition in the installer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> My battery started failing on my 2016 Macbook Pro. I took it in and Apple said it would take 5 days to fix. I found a loaner macbook, but didn't want to setup a whole development environment to use for just a week. So I used Google Cloud Platform with an Ubuntu 16.04 desktop with remote access over chrome remote desktop. It was ungodly fast, and just for fun I cranked it up to 8 cores. It's nice to know that if anything ever happens to my physical laptop, I can just power up my cloud instance and keep working without skipping a beat.

Linux was fantastic, except for two things.

1\. Sketch. All the competitors aren't even close to being up-to-par, and it's become an industry standard. 2\. Docker and permissions. I can't believe it was so much harder to deal with docker in Linux than MacOSX. I constantly struggled with docker creating files as root. Even when I explicitly defined the $UID or $USER for docker-compose, I would still see the docker image that ran a Rails instance create files owned by root in `log` and `tmp`.

I highly recommend trying out Ubuntu in the cloud to give Linux a trial run, you might be surprised by what you love and hate.

<comment><USER48> Here's the guide I used to setup a cloud desktop on GCP [http://timbot- inc.blogspot.com/2015/11/cloud-workstation-how...](http://timbot- inc.blogspot.com/2015/11/cloud-workstation-howto-chromebook.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Ubuntu is good to start with. Also, you should consider the Elementary distro, they have a focus on stealing Mac users [https://elementary.io/](https://elementary.io/) could be right up your alley. As long as you use Ubuntu or Elementary - any of the more ui friendly & compatibility focused distros you'll avoid a lot of the common problems that frustrate new users. After you're comfortable with that... wander over to [https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/) and take your desktop up another level. I use both Linux and Mac and never find myself wanting a particular app from Mac that I don't have available to me on Linux. I find myself needing things like xcode for builds, but certainly not wanting it. If you're a music producer Logic Pro is the one app you'll miss.

</comment><comment><USER50> FWIW I did the opposite. I had elementaryOS optimized for laptop use running on a thinkpad T430s. I was happy with it for a bit but ended up reverting to a MBP for the following reasons:

\- As others have pointed out, the MPB gestures/touchpad are second to none. The size alone, let alone the responsive and consistent gestures are conducive to my productivity

\- OSX posix support has never let me down. As of today, I have been able to develop anything on a Macbook that I would use linux for. This increases my productivity and battery life

\- On some variations of linux, notably elementary (which I somewhat ironically chose in order to get as close to the OSX experience as possible), alt+tab goes to the next open window as opposed to the one you most recently used, as it does on OSX. This drove me crazy

\- OSX has more support for more apps than linux does

\- You can always run linux in a docker container or a VM if you absolutely need it

Just my two cents for someone who is weighing between Mac/Linux

<comment><USER51> >OSX posix support has never let me down.

OS X is literally missing half of semaphore.h. Actually it's worse than that because the functions aren't technically missing and your code compiles the whole time as you write it but when you run it you find out that nothing works because all the functions do is print "function not implemented".

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> My biggest issue is that X doesn't support per-display DPI. My laptop screen is 4k, but my external monitors are 1920x1200. This works great in macOS, but in linux I either have to have big UI components on the externals, or tiny UI components on the built-in display. Some DEs have UI scaling, but it looks terrible.

</comment><comment><USER53> I did this just this past weekend so great timing.

I switched from a late-2015 Macbook Pro (some say this is the last time a MB Pro was good) to a Thinkpad T480s w/ Fedora 28. My workflow on Mac was fairly simple -- sublime text, npm, git, and a web browser -- so my transition was probably smoother than most (although I now use VS Code instead of Sublime Text and I don't think I'll be going back).

The biggest pain point for me was losing the Apple trackpad. I loved the 3-swipe gesture to switch between workspaces and although I have shortcuts for this on my new xfce desktop environment it just isn't the same. I did, however, fall in love with the Thinkpad trackpoint (nub). I'm having a few minor issues that I still need to work out (like my screen not locking when I close the lid), but overall I'm really happy with my decision so far.

<comment><USER54> Maybe you should look at this[0].

[0]: [https://askubuntu.com/questions/92169/touchpad-gestures- to-c...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/92169/touchpad-gestures-to-change- workspace)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> My 2 year old Dell XPS 13, which I'm typing this on is running Arch & i3-gaps. I've never had a better more productive setup. I had a MacBook Pro (2012) before, wife has a MBP 2015. I used Ubuntu as dev environment for ~10 years before the move to Arch 2 years ago. Nothing wrong with Ubuntu, but I really enjoy Arch's 'crispness'. Either way, you can't go wrong with either. It astounds me that anyone can be productive in other environments, not that I have tried myself, I just can't see the point.

Having said that, I have recently started collecting cheap as chips (AU$120-AU$ 300) Lenovo Thinkpads, X220, X230 etc. It continues to amaze me how excellent a dev env a 7 year old laptop running Arch and i3 is. Buy a bunch of ebay and have a play.

</comment><comment><USER56> Well this is quite apt (no pun intended) as I've just bought a new Linux laptop this week, having used a MBP for years.

I got it off Entroware, who sell laptops with Ubuntu installed. I'm more or less done setting it up and I'm able to use it for the exact same work that I use my MBP for. (It's a backup machine for my c++ dev work). Ended costing maybe half what the MBP cost, with i7 proc, no fancy graphics card.

There hasn't been a lot of things to do, really. I went with Ubuntu MATE, on a recommendation. It seems fine, very easy to customize. I've added a dock that came with it but wasn't configured that behaves just like the MacOS dock, and I removed the panel from the bottom. Also configured the top panel to have my main progs available, and to hide itself until hover.

All the software I need is available in Linux, except for SourceTree. So I just use GitKraken instead. Some things I expected like Python 3 didn't seem to be there, or at least Python 2 was default. I just grabbed Anaconda. Load of other minor things are gotten the same way, either off terminal or from one of the manager apps.

I had to change the font to Garuda from Ubuntu. Something about it didn't seem right, like it was too wide or something. I also had to change some colors. All pretty small stuff.

There's a terminal called Tilda that pulls down on F12, that's quite a useful thing. I had to change colors on the normal terminal to look like Homebrew on the Mac. But I had to do that on the mac too.

Trackpad works pretty much like the MBP, slightly to the left. Not sure why they'd do that, but it's not so far over that I can't use it. Keyboard is fine.

I found it very similar to the MBP. There's not really much difference, things work pretty much as expected. Linux is probably more configurable, at least it would appear there are more internals for you to mess with.

Only noticeable difference as a dev is the screen. MBP retina screen is far better, but that's not so much to do with the OS.

</comment><comment><USER36> My only advice would be to use a desktop (tower) PC and not a laptop. Much easier to get everything working well, and no power management headaches etc.

<comment><USER24> This is good advice, you can use a terminal, forward x sessions, or use something like x2go for a full gui experience.

<comment><USER50> Really stinks when you're remote with limited connectivity though. If you're plugged in all day then it would work, yeah

<comment><USER24> X2go works well over slow lines. I used to run it on a 1mb connection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I took a new job and had the opportunity to pick my computer. After using a personal Mac laptop for a few weeks I wasn't happy with the performance of the tools, so I took a chance and got a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 2018.

I am really happy with it. It's running Ubuntu 18.04, the performance is really good. I have the 2560x1440 screen and I don't use scaling; it's small but I have lots of real estate.

I like how light it is and how well it makes use of its form factor. I like the keyboard, I also like that I don't need to worry about a stray hair causing my E key to stop working.

The only issues I had were some changes that needed to be made to system configuration so that it would sleep properly.

</comment><comment><USER22> It really depends on what you want and what you use your computer for.

There are obviously political and ethical aspects you may be concerned about but I think it's better to just not get into that now.

You mention needing a laptop with hardware supported by Linux. I would recommend first beginning with looking at various laptops sold with Linux. This should take care of any hardware incompatibility others have mentioned (though do your research).

Linux (or GNU-Linux) packages most of it's drivers in the Linux kernal (please correct if I'm mistaken) so that if a piece of hardware is supported it is ready to go after you install the OS.

It should be noted however that graphics cards/units have various levels of support with from what I understand Intel currently having the best open source support with Nvidia haveing pretty decent proprietary drivers. Ati/AMD varries though that shouldn't necessarily preclude you from an AMD processor. Importantly do your research on support for those components.

As far as software is concerned that I haven't the foggiest idea what to recommend. If you just need a web browser, an office suite, and streaming video, then Ubuntu I would say handles all that pretty good. (It's all I've run for the last couple years, and mixed before that).

Most importantly patience, research, and if you can't find an answer always ask. And be open to learning (until you die).

</comment><comment><USER58> I've tried making the jump a few times with a desktop computer. I lost probably two weeks to debugging issues between Ubuntu and my hardware. Finally got everything working, not perfect, but acceptable. Then I replaced my monitor with a 4k monitor and all hell broke loose again. Linux is great, and I plan on trying it again, but make sure your hardware is compatible.

</comment><comment><USER59> Started with Windows, then Linux ever since I got out of school since time for gaming was no longer a thing.

I've got a mac mini when my gaming rig died a couple of years ago, tried to make OS X my main thing but it feels so damn slow in comparison to GNOME, which is surprising because GNOME ain't exactly lightweight these days. Basically opening finder takes anywhere up to a minute where-as nautilus is more or less instant.

Used to find image editing lacking, but Inkscape and GIMP are pretty decent replacements for Illustrator and Photoshop.

The only major pitfall I've ever encountered is NVIDIA Optimus (weird IGP/GPU hybrid thing NVIDIA had going on around when i3/i5 laptops were the new hotness), drivers for it were a bitch to the point where Linus publicly said fuck you to NVIDIA during a Q&A. Other than that driver support has actually been better on Linux than Windows in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER40> I am in the process of transitioning now from OSX to Ubuntu Budgie on a laptop and here are my takeaways so far:

\- Cloud reliance has been key. GSuite and Dropbox have kept me from having to install much on the Budgie system.

\- Budget a half day on StackOverflow, etc. for problems you may have getting Dropbox, Bluetooth and some other items working seamlessly with accessories... although some of this is unique to Budgie.

\- Don't expect much interoperability with iOS products.

\- Key apps I use are available natively, eg. Slack and Atom.

I'm still going back and forth some and find the desktop/UI customization available in Budgie has increased my productivity and decreased strain.

I'm missing hazel, bitbar and geektool applications quite a bit and haven't found a suitable replacement that is as supported and easy to configure as those apps. I can replicate most of the functionality with Python, conky, etc... but I haven't the time to do so.

</comment><comment><USER60> I tried to do this, with 3 different distributions, lucked out and went back to my Mac. Things I found frustrating: Bluetooth sometimes stopped working, keyboard was lagging, weird Desktop animations. I was able to find workarounds for most of the problems - but wasted 20 hours.

One problem I really just couldn't get my muscle memory to work around is that in all the Desktops Terminals have different shortcuts (Ctrl+Shift+C/V) than all the Desktop apps (Ctrl+C/V). I was hoping I could find a Desktop preconfigured to use the Super (aka Windows) Key similar to macOS' cmd-key: i.e. every Super+X shortcut goes to the GUI layer (for example for Copy & Paste). This leaves room for Ctrl-X shortcuts send Control-Keys to terminal apps. Anyone having a suggestion to improve that?

<comment><USER32> Rebinding ctrl-C to super-C everywhere sounds like a big hassle. And I wouldn't be surprised if not every app lets you rebind this sort of thing.

One thing that can be relatively easily done is to remap the super key to act as an additional ctrl key or to swap the ctrl and super keys. But that wouldn't solve the "terminal consistency" issue.

Some terminals allow you to change their keybindings to use ctrl-C and ctrl-V for copy-paste. However, if you do this you need to also remap the key you use to send a SIGINT to the current running process.

[https://askubuntu.com/questions/53688](https://askubuntu.com/questions/53688)

All that said, most people I know just get used to using ctrl+shift for terminal shortcuts eventually.

BTW, in Linux you can also use the middle mouse click to paste. Select some text and then click the middle mouse button to paste the current selection. This works the same on regular apps and the terminal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I got a Dell Precision 5520 back in February or March. This is basically an XPS 15" Developer edition, if such a thing existed; it came with Ubuntu and so far I have not faced any insurmountable technical difficulties.

I find I spend less time screwing around on the laptop in general, and the time I do spend, is somewhat more productive, so I'm very pleased with the result. I like the modern Ubuntu.

What do I miss? The touchpad. iTerm. Mail.app. One clipboard. That's about it, and not that strongly.

A pitfall you'll want to avoid: use the xinput driver, not synaptics, which is way, way too sensitive. I think this issue is resolved in Ubuntu 18.04 anyway though, so you may not even run into it.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm curious about experiences here since I had been a Linux user before being a Mac user. Also interested specifically in anyone running Linux on a Macbook. I love Apple hardware, not sure I could go back to PC style laptops for Linux.

<comment><USER34> Because of the inadequacies and failure rate of the new "butterfly" MBP keyboard, a great option for you would be to install on a 2015 or earlier model.

<comment><USER62> This is very true - luckily I am currently on pre-butterfly, so this laptop might be a perfect testbed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I'm currently doing the same. The 2 I have my eye on are Lenovo X1 Carbon and T480s. Reason for change: frustration with Apple's loss of quality in both software and hardware AND malicious practices. Just watch couple videos from Louis Rossmann and you'll get the idea.

What I'm doing to smoothen the transition is that I started doing my personal coding in VM (VMWare Fusion), full-screening ElementaryOS. That is to get everything set up and more into muscle-memory. Client work will still be done on MBP.

Then I'll switch my desktop over to Linux (hackintosh). After that laptop.

</comment><comment><USER64> I stopped using Mac about 5 years ago cold-turkey. I have been working with Linux for years so it was nothing really new to me, but using it as my "main desktop" had some initial issues. I just basically made a list of everything I missed on Mac and found a way to accomplish it on Linux. I was able to achieve my entire wish lish and even simplified a bit. I don't need finder since I prefer to naviagate via the Terminal for example. That doesn't work for everyone, but if they spend time looking, there will be FOSS waiting to help you out.

</comment><comment><USER65> I mean, I've simply used linux for over a decade unless I can't (some things need windows... still).

Seriously though, for my job of data wrangling/programming/small hardware design projects... linux does it all and the tooling is entirely FOSS which means I can and do scratch my own itches.

I tried using Mac a few times now, and it just drives me insane. There's a hodge podge of things to try and work around it being a Mac like homebrew, but in the end its still an awkward to use Mac.

</comment><comment><USER66> In many ways you're already most of the way there. By and large the biggest issues with switching to Linux for the average user is the plethora of random applications that only support Windows or Mac. Most of that software is stuff that already only supports Windows so it's not like you're using any of that as is.

The fastest way to learn how to use Linux as opposed to macOS or Windows is to dive right in and start using it at least on your personal computer.

</comment><comment><USER67> I dual boot between latest Ubuntu and OSX on my 2013 MacBook Retina. The hardware is 100% supported by Ubuntu and getting various things to work (webcam) is well documented.

Honestly there isn't much difference between them if you are spending most of your time in a text editor anyway. I mostly keep MacOS around for Adobe. There are great alternatives to Photoshop, Lightroom, and Illustrator and I use them when I can. It's really other people that are the problem :-)

</comment><comment><USER68> I tried to switch to Ubuntu in mid-2015, using a VM for Adobe CS, but it was awkward, particularly with the CS working files not being easily shareable btw the VM and linux. Gave up after about 3 weeks and went back to my Mac. It will stay this way until CS or something similarly capable comes to linux (and if you're about to say "GIMP!", let me just stop you right there).

</comment><comment> VICTOR-K I built a Hackintosh that worked until a mac update brought it down. Went to Linux and this lead to much frustration but I learned a lot from trying diferent variations of Linux. Use linux Mint on two laptops. (one a mac pro that apple no longer surports) and the pc. My only problem with Linux is less suport of 32bit. Apple shows no support for older macs but linux always comes thru.

</comment><comment><USER69> Once you use the same applications, it's going to be much easier. So if you're not in rush, consider setting up trial Firefox/Chromium, Pidgin/anything, Thunderbird etc on your Mac and then copy the profiles. A lot depends on the programs you use, unless you're one of the guys that do everything in the browser - then it won't be a lot of difference.

</comment><comment><USER70> I regularly switch between macOS and Linus on a Macbook, and the biggest things that are missing in terms of apps are:

\- Alfred and all its integrations

\- Dash for progamming documentation. Yes, I know Zeal etc. exist, but none of them come even close in terms of usability

\- Karabiner-Elements for keyboard remapping. Might be less of problem on non- apple hardware where the modifier keys have a saner layout.

</comment><comment><USER71> Still mainly a Mac user that has tried to explore making the switch, but here is a blog post that is a great read on the topic. [http://bitcannon.net/post/a-year-away-from-mac- os/](http://bitcannon.net/post/a-year-away-from-mac-os/)

</comment><comment><USER72> I did. Against my will about 10 months ago. I had used ubuntu as my primary os in high school and arch in freshman / sophomore of college, so I wasn't new. But had used macbook pros for the next 7 years: when I transitioned to mac and never looked back. But then the day after quitting my job to start a startup with 0 money, I got my mac stolen. So in a way, I was financially forced.

I went with arch again on some cheap second hand laptop, because I remembered the install to be a good compromise between understanding the various parts of the system i was about to use, fun, and without too much voodoo. I remembered it to be more stable than my ubuntus. Maybe because I had less apps.

When I got my arch again, time to chose my UI. I tried dwn because I was now free from a window environment and wanted to give tiling a try. I loved it but missed something elegant. So i gave KDE a try because I was on KDE back in the days of ubuntu and arch. And I remembered KDE on arch to work much better than on ubuntu but that's another story. But with KDE, too many of the apps were old school creating incoherencies between apps UIs, I missed the elegancy of my mac. So, I gave a try to good ol' GNOME, but with the 3rd version although I had only heard bad things about it until then. It was perfect for what I needed.

Gnome takes the good parts of macos and leaves the rest. If feels polished and the apps seem well integrated with each other. I can configure the shortcuts the way I need them. My setup is now a Spacemacs instance for everything dev / sys admin related and the rest of gnome for emails, blender, etc. And honestly, I like the gnome UI, it's smooth, stable, easy. I get no crashes and no lag. The Apple fanboy becomes a GNU fanboy.

So far the only thing I miss is being stuck with evolution as my mail / calendar client because I rely on sending and accepting invites and gnome mail and gnome calendar don't have that feature yet. Evolution is gnome 2 UI and is incoherent with my gnome 3 apps, poor me :( Time for me to contribute !

But then, then you also get the fun part. A package manager, on Arch (or Manjaro being the Ubuntu of arch as I understand it) you have pacman and yaourt. I've never had to compile anything by hand, if it's not on pacman its on yaourt. Need Blender / Gimp / Krita for whatever reason ? done. Libre Office, Anything ? 4 word command and done. The most obscure add on for whatever app ? its on AUR. And I assume it's the same for everything else. Event the app starter shell thing is a great replacement for spotlight.

Finally, my emacs now works perfectly. My OS X version had some random bugs occasionally making it unusable. So I can finally have my tiled environment for anything related (missed you dwm workflow) and the 'elegancy' or GNOME 3 for everything else just an alt tab away.

So all an all, the Apple fanboy I had become doesn't need Apple anymore. Actually, if I were given the latest macbook pro, I'd miss my arch. It just sucks because, I miss Apple hardware, say what you want but it's hella durable.

I could go on and on, but this message is already way too long, and I don't want to spoil all the fun.

Hope I helped :)

P.S. Gnome 3 haters, come on, for a noob like me or my grandma, it's amazing, I'm shocked. It took me 30 minutes to setup my shortcuts the systray and a few other things. and the shell works really well, it's a good replacement to spotlight.

<comment><USER23> It's recommended to stop using yaourt, it's not safe! I use yay, it's pretty awesome. Check here: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_helpers](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_helpers)

<comment><USER72> <3

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Is there still no support for installing Linux via Boot Camp? If not, why would Apple not support this? They get their pound of flesh when they sell the hardware... is that not enough?

<comment><USER74> Users who found that Linux did everything they want might buy something else next time. That's not to say Apple are making some evil decision to prevent this, but it's not likely to be high priority for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I would be also interested. One particular productivity tool I use all the time is Alfred, especially it's clipboard history feature. Do you have any recommendations?

</comment><comment><USER76> I migrated from Mac to Linux about 5 years ago.

I had used the Mac privately and professionally for a living since around 1987, as a typesetter, graphic artist and software developer. My harddisk contained all private and business data and had never seen a fresh install since the first version of MacOS X - I was successfully updating the OS ever since. Shortkeys were of course in my muscle DNA and I new every file in the Library-folders by name. Hard to imagine to leave that experience for good. But I got so concerned about Apple's way into entertainment electronics, that I was commited to leave in time.

Hardware-wise I switched from the MacBook Pro 17" first to a Lenovo Thinkpad W520, and four years later to my current Tuxedo XUX707. Both computers I liked a lot, but the Tuxedo I really love. It is a beast with 32GB RAM, 4TB HD, 256 GB SSD, desktop i7 7700, 4K monitor and a dedicated Nvidia 1060. It is heavy and loud, more a gamer PC than a laptop, but performance and reliability are incredible. I have two external monitors connected to it.

I prepared the transition for about a year. First I tried a couple of Linux distros (on a second partition of my gaming PC) and after a while I decided for Ubuntu. I made sure to execute at least one major distro update of my final selection of Linux candidates to make sure they ran flawlessly. My favorite was Linux Mint, but it failed on one of the upgrades and so I ended up with Ubuntu. Unity was never an issue for me.

Then I investigated how to transfer my mails (some ten thousands), but I had used Thunderbird already on the Mac and so there was no trouble at all. Next I transferred my data to the Ubuntu test machine and played a while to find, how well I could continue with my daily chores. Turned out to work quite well. At that time I was not much into graphic design any more, but much into software development. I found comparable software for everything except Adobe InDesign (Scribus just won't do). I replaced Lightroom with Darktable, Photoshop with Gimp (do not like Gimp a lot, but it works for my needs) and later Krita, Illustrator with Inkscape and Microsoft office with LibreOffice (and later Softmaker).

Not all of the replacements had the same quality as on the Mac, but they were ok, at least no showstoppers for my commitment to switch. In many domains, especially development, text processing and the like, I was overwhelmed how many good (and many free) solutions were available in the Linux world. It was sort of enlightenment. Of course, there was a lot of new stuff to get used to: application installation via package managers, shortkeys and the like.

After about 3 months of "playing" with the prepared test system I decided to switch and I knew that I would have to switch hard. I was very afraid to end up living in two systems. So I decided for a D-Day, did a last synch of data and put the Mac in the shelf. Yes, the first month was hard, but as I was commited to never return, I just went through and it worked. Today, I could not imagine to ever return to the Mac.

I never had crackling sound, blinking screens or anything like this. My Linux computer can connect and handle much more hardware than any Mac I ever had. It is very possible (and likely), that certain computers will not work well with Linux - this is something you have to make sure with a test installation before you switch, but it is for sure not a generic issue. I switched to Tuxedo because they offer Linux-tested hardware (and they build the computer as you want it). The worst hardware issue I ever ran into was lacking support for keyboard lights.

There are occassional issues with the proprietary nvidia-drivers, though, that can really drive someone mad. I know how to handle this by now, but this was the only real annoyance I ever encountered.

One word of warning, though: I have always been a developer since my childhood and I was pretty experienced on the commandline long before I switched to Linux. This might give me an attitude and advance that other Mac users might be missing and that might make a transition more difficult. While the standard Ubuntu system will be sufficient for most users out of the box, there might arise the need to fix or enhance or adjust things and while this felt very natural for me with my background, it might be a big hurdle for others.

My setup today is: I live completely on the Linux laptop. I still have a Mac on the desk for compiling iOS apps and casual use of Adobe InDesign. I use the "Das Keyboard" keyboard with unlabelled switches and the synergy keyboard sharing software, so I can use the Linux computer and the Mac as one computer. I have the keyboard-layouts and shortkeys of both operating systems in my muscle DNA now and in addition a good deal of the Emacs-shortcuts ;-)

</comment><comment><USER77> Had to turn in my MBP at the old job. Got an Asus Zenbook UX430U at the new one. Works great with Ubuntu

</comment><comment><USER78> In 2013 I went from a Sony VAIO with Ubuntu and lot of swearing over drivers and external monitors, to the bliss of a retina MBP.

It took me exactly 20 full minutes to make its acquaintance and start working again.

That is my transition story.

[EDIT for context: I started using Linux in 1998 with Debian and no out-of- the-box support for my Intel740, so I know a thing or two about Linux and drivers]

</comment><comment><USER79> I have an Aero 15x and Arch runs on it flawlessly. Everything works.

</comment><comment><USER80> tl;dr; Think about your daily workflows and what apps you use most often. How many of them are Mac-only and can you find an acceptable replacement in Linux (90% yes)? It's really easy to get started with Ubuntu and be productive from day 1.

I've used Linux as my primary system since late 90's. I switched to a Mac for a few years twice and back to Linux. My motivation for the (latest) switch is the complete lack of quality hardware and the cost of buying a Mac (not to mention Apple's complete abandoning of the desktop). For details, look at all the discussions on HN about the latest MacBook Pro.

I would echo what several people have stated here, about getting a Developer edition from Dell preloaded with Ubuntu. Those Precision laptops are not the same as the XPS's, though they look alike. The hardware is just different enough to make it easier to run on Linux.

The way it worked for me is: I took stock of the apps I spent 90% of my day using on a Mac, which are: gVim, Terminal, Chrome, Firefox, Slack, Spotify, Keybase, Dropbox and a few system monitoring things.

All of that runs great on Ubuntu out of the box and with an hour's worth of Googling, you'll have your laptop configured exactly as you want. The only real issue for me was dealing with the touchpad; all that took was installing a different driver and I was done.

I do install the latest kernel when it comes out, but that's cause I like pain and is completely unnecessary.

It's been a year since I made the switch and the only thing I miss from my Mac is Sketch. There is Gimp and Inkscape, but it's not the same.

My workflows are the same, if not better. Running the same OS as the EC2 instances I'm running keeps a lot of dumb mistakes from deployments.

Being able to spin up a bunch of Vagrant boxes or Docker images and not have the UI come to a halt is fantastic.

Easiest option, install a Vagrant box with Ubuntu desktop on it and use it for a day. You'll see if you like it very quickly.

</comment><comment><USER10> I decided to install Linux Mint (which is heavily Ubuntu-based) directly on my old A1260 MacBook Pro in 2015 - I ran into some interesting quirks with the GPU (had to force it into BIOS mode) but other than that, I ran the machine for a year purely on Linux. After setting the machine up how I liked it (I really like the Cinnamon UI, even though it's much more Windows-like), I moved the same configs to my other machines. I have a ThinkPad X220 also running Mint with an extra battery for traveling, and a seldom-used desktop PC.

The aging MBP finally wore out in 2016 and no longer powers on (but after 5 years of daily use, I'm quite impressed with it). I bought a custom-built Clevo gaming laptop from Scan's 3XS division, since it gave me a lot of say over the hardware - I chose Intel and nVidia where possible to ensure compatibility. I intended from the start for the laptop to run Mint, and it has done so impressively - it has a 1TB SATA SSD for the OS (which I have dual-booting Windows for games) and a second 256GB NVMe SSD dedicated to my Steam library. I like that the machine has enough RAM (16GB) that I can casually jump into a Steam game whenever I feel like it without closing what I've currently got open, and that the RAM and SSDs are upgradable. It's also covered in ports either side, including ethernet and 4 USB3.0 ports. And it cost me less than half that of an entry-level MBP.

I found Linux is mostly there, but there are some things that Apple still does much better. The touchpad is the most obvious - even using a utility like Fusuma, multi-touch is still only fluent on a Mac, and the Synaptics pad on the Clevo often takes several swipes to register. The keyboard is also nowhere near as nice - I have to press the keys very hard, and often use it with an external. The UI, however, is extremely usable and familiar, so much so that I've converted family members using it. The hardware support is excellent - all the hardware, Wifi, USB ports etc. worked out of the box - and the performance is superb. I spec'd a good i7 chip for future-proofing and it's still extremely fast, and the Geforce graphics handle 3D gaming with ease.

One major hardware problem I had was that the screen cable wore out after only a year of use, and although it was replaced under warranty, it seemed like a very silly thing to wear out so soon. For comparison, the only hardware problems I experienced on the MBP were a detached Bluetooth antenna (probably from when the previous owner upgraded the HDD) which just clipped back on, and the webcam cable failed, but I was able to buy a spare and replace it myself. I also kept the machine very clean and was surprised at how little dust there was inside it. The bottom panel of the Clevo comes off easily enough, but the fan vents seem much more inviting to let dust into the chassis. Battery life is also abysmal - with the machine set on the nVidia GPU, it lasts less than an hour, and less than 2 days in sleep mode. I didn't buy it to use on battery, however, as I regularly travel between fixed locations so I have mains power.

The longevity of the MBP did surprise me - I used it daily for 5 years with no problems, and went from Snow Leopard (which is my all-time favourite OS) up to Mavericks. The build quality was very, very good, and with the exception of Lenovo ThinkPads, I can't think of another machine I could expect that much useful life out of. However, Macs are no longer upgradeable and are very difficult to repair - current machines have the RAM soldered to the board, and if the SSDs are replaceable, they're proprietary Apple ones. I made it a goal with the replacement to have it upgradeable - the CPU will address up to 64GB RAM so I would be able to quadruple the factory value when 32GB DIMMs hit the market (they seem to be close), and the SSDs are standard. I added the second one 6 months after I bought it. That said, the case does not feel anywhere near as solid and rugged as the MBP's metal chassis - I took the MBP around the world with me, but the Clevo feels a lot more fragile, so I take the ThinkPad instead now. I looked at the T-series ThinkPads but none of them had offboard GPUs when I was shopping.

Don't forget, with Linux, you can easily try before you buy - download an ISO, write it to a USB stick and boot your current Mac from it, then check out the OS from the live environment. Try a number of different Ubuntu variants, e.g. Gnome, MATE, Kubuntu, Xubuntu etc., see which GUI you get on best with. For hardware, I would definitely recommend ThinkPads.</comment>


Tell HN: new evil invasive service: Google Authorship - <AUTHOR>

There is a new invasive service called "Google Authorship."  I have seen it take photos from Google+ marked as friends only, combine them with crawled data and then put together a publicly shared dossier that claims the person in question has started a Google Authorship account when they have not.  There seem to be some controls you can try to get at after Google tells your friends you started an authorship account, but by then it is too late.  It is something that tells other people you started an account (so you think that would be opt-in) and it is not even really opt-out (despite  claims, at best you can change annotations, but you can't seem to actually opt-out). <comment><USER2> It sounds like you need to do more investigation of what you are reporting here. It's not easy to tell if you are observing genuine Google behavior that you dislike, or spoofed Google behavior that neither you nor Google would like. I have just signed up for Google Authorship, after being advised by other people who write all over the Internet and who get plagiarized often that signing up is a good idea. I have a Google+ profile, which is the usual way to implement signing up for Google Authorship.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't click on the email (risky). I did find Google search results labeled with Google authorship that I had not signed up for. So that is pretty much enough investigation. The "sign people up without telling them scam" is an old one (just saddened Google is stooping to it) and Google isn't an open source project that needs my donated time in building a bug report for them to ignore.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Still can't tell if the email that informed us was actually from Google or a phishing attack. The service does exist (was able to find it independent of the email) and is making false claims.</comment>


Confronting the next taboo: Single - <AUTHOR> http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/05/12/confrontingTheNextTabooSin.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "Here's what I do have a problem with -- the government being in the marriage business, and the government giving tax benefits to people who are married.

I don't sign the petitions that call for amendments allowing gay marriage. It can be awkward because people assume this is because I'm against gay people. It's not so. I'm against the government having a stake in the relationships between people, or lack thereof."

Then one should campaign _for_ the _removal_ of govt. from the marriage business? Otherwise the above is just a convenient excuse.

<comment><USER2> The government surely has an interest in the development of future generations. Watch e.g. Japan in this century for what happens when a national government totally screws up that sort of thing.</comment></comment>


Google reportedly offered $30B to acquire Snapchat - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/google-buy-snap/ <comment><USER2> This is Hooli's offer for Piperchat.</comment>


Clint and Scott Eastwood: No Holds Barred in Their First Interview Together - <AUTHOR> http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a46893/double-trouble-clint-and-scott-eastwood/ <comment><USER2> His remarks on "the pussy generation" ring true.

"Get offa my lawn!"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I initially just saw some pull-quotes from the interview, and I wasn't sure whether this was a real thing, or an Onion satire.

Clint Eastwood, the Man with Zero Fucks to give.</comment>


VCs who miss the point of open source shouldn't fund it - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3032120/open-source-tools/vcs-who-miss-the-point-of-open-source-shouldnt-fund-it.html <comment><USER2> I want to say that the important part of the article is how a startup can incorporate open source while still having characteristics that attract investment. That seemed to be what the authors were getting at. But it's hard to take someone's conclusions and suggestions seriously when they make basic due diligence errors.

</comment><comment><USER3> Man, talk about getting your facts wrong :( Suffice it to say, the original article on TechCrunch made me slightly angry, and thus far they have yet to correct it.

Thanks for shining some light on the truth.</comment>


Ken Burns's American Canon - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/04/ken-burns-american-canon <comment><USER2> > Burns's future plans —of varying uncertainty— include [...] multipart films > about [...] the African-American experience from the Emancipation > Proclamation to the Great Migration.

No need to wait on Burns, check out Henry Louis Gates's version [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to- cro...](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was late to discover Ken Burn's Civil War, as I only started watching the series a month ago. It is a profoundly educative series and I would recommend it to anyone. The episodes are lengthy - which they should be, because there is just so much material. I also finally understood where Ken Burns panning (in e.g. iMovie) has its name from.

<comment><USER4> I remember watching that on my local PBS station when I was a kid, which must have been the late 80s or early 90s. I found it fascinating and I made sure to watch every episode. It made a big impression on me and may have been at least partially responsible for kindling my interest in history.

It was until I was older did I realize that it was a big step in the evolution of documentaries or that the panning technique he used was really innovative.

I'm considering watching it again on Netflix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really love Ken Burns's film style, the pictures, sounds and voice overs.

<comment><USER6> He premieres a series every year at Dartmouth. There is a scene in _Baseball: The 10th Inning_ when he cuts to a closeup of Dave Roberts on base in the 2004 ALC series between the Red Sox and the Yankees. Instantly the whole crowd jumped to its feed and began cheering wildly, something I have never experienced in movie theater, before or after. Ken knows how to get an audience emotionally involved.</comment></comment>


Robots Will Steal Our Jobs, but They'll Give Us New Ones - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/08/robots-will-steal-jobs-theyll-give-us-new-ones/ <comment><USER2> The phrase "Yes, the revolution is coming" needs context - the revolution started decades ago. When I was in elementary school, back in the 1980s, we had a homework assignment to ask our parents or other adult "will robots take away your job?"

My Dad's answer was that he repaired the machines, and there will always need to be people for that job. His answer is almost identical the quote from the article "And now, humans are needed to maintain and repair all those robotic forklifts" from this essay.

I find it odd that we have drastically reduced the number of people in entire job categories - typist/stenographers, inter-office mail clerk, telephone exchange operator, automobile plant workers, gas pump attendants, bowling pin setters, elevator operators, etc. - without having huge increases in the number of unemployed people.

Then again, I look to the history of my own field of chemical information, where queries that in the 1970s took four people and several hundred dollars to process are now doable for a penny, and wonder where that money went.

Macroeconomics is weird.</comment>


F.B.I. Recommends No Charges Against Hillary Clinton for Use of Personal Email - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi-email-comey.html <comment><USER2> This story is getting flagged off the front page over and over. Clearly there's a segment that doesn't want to see this news or discussion of it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12037042](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12037042)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12037308](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12037308)

<comment><USER3> It may be because there are multiple posts. The first may have been flagged by people who didn't want to see the story, the later posts may have been flagged by both those who didn't want to see the story and those who didn't want duplicates of the same news (I'm in the latter bucket).

<comment><USER4> All of the threads were flagged fairly soon after they were initially posted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They can read your email and listen to your phone calls without a warrant.

They can feel you up and go through all your luggage on any domestic flight.

But they can't prosecute criminal treatment of classified documents.

America is dead. The rule of law is done. It's now a slow descent to totalitarianism.

<comment><USER6> The definition of "criminal treatment" is precisely the point here. Merely calling it criminal doesn't make it so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My only wish is that the "no reasonable prosecutor" test would be applied to criminal cases against normal people, and not just the powerful and the privileged.

</comment><comment><USER8> The FBI says their only reason for not recommending indictment is a lack of precedent. They described multiple felonies. In my lifetime ive never seen such a blatant display of a corrupt U.S. government (i was born after the JFK murder).

<comment><USER9> Did you forget the entirety of the Reagan and Bush Jr administrations?

<comment><USER10> They were just as corrupt in their own right, but past corruption does not justify current or future corruption.

<comment><USER9> You said it was the most blatant display. Ignoring two major presidencies that were blatantly corrupt. Hell the Bush Jr. admin ran a private email server and deleted 5 million~ emails about the Iraq War.

<comment><USER8> but much of their crimes were kept on the down-low. Clinton's has been major news for over a year. Thus, blatant.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Last of the Old-School Tech Reviewers - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-last-of-the-old-school-tech-reviewers/?mbid=synd_digg <comment><USER2> I think there's a fundamental difference in how technology is sold nowadays versus how it was sold a decade ago.

Technology used to be sold as a solution to a problem. Want to record TV? Buy a VCR. Tech specs are important because you want to find the best solution to the problem.

Nowadays, for better or for worse, technology is sold as an "experience." A modern phone doesn't really do much a phone from 5 years ago can't do, so phones are sold based on how they look and the smoothness of operation. Will anyone really notice 2gb of RAM vs 3gb of RAM? Because of this, modern reviewers will emphasize first impressions and general "feeling" of the device.

<comment><USER3> The main difference I see between 80s tech and today, besides the obvious increase in specifications, is the emphasis on an extremely simplified user experience. Before Microsoft and later Apple started emphasising ease of use in the mid-nineties, tech was niche and obtuse. Things were possible, but not easy to use. There were a lot of good ideas coming out but none of them were ever refined enough that Grandma and Grandpa can just pick it up and use it. 80s tech was often a solution in search of a problem, with the generous assumption that every consumer was patient enough to sit down and learn its intricacies.

An example of this I've seen was the pay-TV service Tele1st. In 1984, this was billed as a way to rent first-run movies to consumers without having to go to the video store, by recording them onto tape overnight from an encrypted broadcast. Sounds simple, right? Only, the encryption was a PITA to set up: you needed to wire this big-ass box into your phone line and VCR, and prior to every broadcast of Tele1st, you would have to adjust a knob on the bottom of the unit so that the contrast matched a test pattern shown before the first movie. If you didn't do this, the encryption would fail. See for yourself: [https://youtu.be/jR8YQu1HT8Y](https://youtu.be/jR8YQu1HT8Y)

Another example was the generous assumption that we would all be BASIC programmers. BASIC was pushed as the next essential household skill, like operating the TV or running the washer. V-tech toys came with reading, spelling, math, and BASIC. But in the end, all Grandma and Grandpa want is something that works when you press the button. They don't have the time or patience to figure out BASIC for a recipe keeper, that's what the modern-day App Store is for.

One of the strongest lessons Steve Jobs taught the tech world, is that the ease-of-use makes the difference between the IBM Simon and the culture- changing impact of the iPhone.

<comment><USER4> This is also the way most technology goes. You used to be able to fix any part of a car. Now engines are sealed and hard to repair and cars have automatic transmissions. Consumer electronics takes this path as well. This is why voice assistants have been so popular. They provide an arguably worse experience than using a computer to do similar tasks, but the ease of use of their interface is attractive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not as old school as Braithwaite but I used to do the same types of reviews for more modern equipment. I remember being half blind after measuring the lightning levels for 8 hours on plasma TV's, losing my mind after finishing a 40 laptop test and sleeping beneath my desk in the magazine's office.

We used to do detailed tests with dozens of measurable points, making objective features 90% of the final grade with huge spreadsheets counting every specific feature of a laptop, TV, phone, MP3 player, later tablet or netbook.

Back then I knew every review in my magazine was made with precision and care, I knew they could be trusted and reading two thick pages about a device made sense.

Today it rarely does.

</comment><comment><USER6> This seems kind of weird to say, but I wonder how much of the demise of the "old school tech reviewers" is the massive quality improvement in many/most categories coupled with a massive decrease in price as well.

A "good" 1991 TV was a 27" that cost about $1400 (in 2017 dollars)

Today $1,400 will get you a 65" 4k Curved TV that weighs less, consumes less energy and (to someone from 1991) would have what appears to have a sci-fi level of image quality. The fact that it also has apparently nearly everything on demand for the price of a single movie rental is likely also astonishing.

I just feel like it's hard to walk into a BestBuy and get what you could call a "bad" TV for $500.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd say Anandtech is the closest we come to this level of detail today, and we just have to hope they'll keep going long term.

<comment><USER8> Notebookcheck are a German outlet that do high quality reviews of laptops.

Things like using a thermal camera to show hot spots, measuring display response rates, display calibrations, noise levels plus the standard performance tests.

Tft Central is another one for monitor reviews though they only review the most popular since I think they're understaffed.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, Notebookcheck were the first equivalent that came to mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember when CNET was trustworthy, and not a giant, malware ridden advertisement...

<comment><USER11> CNET was always the 'PC World' magazine level of reviews for the masses. Lacking in detail/substance</comment></comment>


What's Better: Saving the World or Building Another Facebook app? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/13/what%e2%80%99s-better-saving-the-world-or-building-another-facebook-app/ <comment><USER3> _Yet we have the greatest minds and the deepest pool of investment capital in the world focused on building Facebook and Twitter apps._

While it certainly may appear that way if one's only source of exposure to the world is Techcrunch, all venture capital in the Valley (a fraction of the ~$30 billion per year in the entire US) is, ahem, literally less than rounding error next to world investment capital.

I mean, fixed income securities in the United States have face value of about $30 trillion. That's one asset class. (The biggest one, granted.)

Ditto the brainpower thing, although that is less instantly measurable.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just a side note, my friend Andy McKay did a gig in Kenya building a Django/SMS system that helped fight malnutrition.

<http://djangozen.com/blog/11-days-in-kenya>

<http://blip.tv/file/3041374>

</comment><comment><USER5> I think a big reason people are more focused on Facebook Apps (and consumer web apps in general) to the exclusion of more pressing world problems is because those problems are _hard_.

I think it's well understood that one of the driving forces behind the boom in internet software entrepreneurship is that the barriers to entry are extremely low- historically low compared to other developing fields.

For most of the readership of this board, "barrier to entry" does not just mean financial resources but also domain knowledge. I would find it enormously rewarding to work on many of the "grand challenges" listed here, but I lack the basic science background to do so. Maybe if I had been a physicist or a bioengineer and picked up hacking on the side. I may be able to find a scientist to collaborate with, but I would still be a little out of my depth, and they certainly don't hang out at the same startup gatherings.

Or am I being too defeatist? Does anyone have success picking up biotech or solar cell design or neuroscience on your own, like some people pick up programming or sales on their own? What resources would help you do so?

<comment><USER6> I think two, maybe three are within reach of a programmer - secure cyberspace, personal learning, & scientific discovery.

Anyway some problems might have relatively easy solutions. I'm reminded of the mosquito-laser article on slashdot yesterday [http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/02/12/176220/Directed-E...](http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/02/12/176220/Directed- Energy-Weapon-Downs-Mosquitos)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've learned two things today:

1\. Don't read techcrunch comments (if article insinuates humanitarianism)

2\. Don't read wallstreet journal comments (if talking about the President)

</comment><comment><USER8> Funny that they expect a contest partially judged by a gaming organization, which is also arguably one of the shadiest money makers on the web, to produce anything of social value.

Not only are the people making the decisions not concerned about the planet and human welfare, but they are actually making lives _worse_ off. It'd be like arguing for a little common courtesy in the pits of _hell_.

</comment><comment><USER9> I believe that Gridspy is helping at least partially with 2. Make solar energy economical.

It helps like this: Gridspy can measure the power usage of a building, helping you to specify a system that will satisfy that particular building's energy footprint and timing. Choices such as size of the battery bank, size of the battery array and capacity of the inverter bank depend on how power is used.

The Array itself needs to generate enough power over the course of a week or so to power the building for that week. Knowing exactly how much power is used helps you to specify the correct size so you don't spend too much on panels.

The Batteries need to be large enough to handle any difference between the power used when the sun is poor and the solar array's yield at that time. Knowing exactly when during the day power is used helps to specify how many batteries to install.

Finally, the peak power usage of the building determines how large the bank of inverters should be. Inverters convert battery power to usable mains - <USER2> there are not enough inverters, you will need to fall back on other power sources (generators / the grid) when you need lots of power for HVAC or lighting.

Gridspy can help you choose the right amount to spend on each of these different subsystems since it monitors your power usage at high resolution. Once the system is installed, Gridspy can monitor the solar yeild, the battery levels and the current demand to show you how well your solar installation is performing. This helps to prove that the investment in solar power was financially sound.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a place where people can post their ideas for software applications? I'm constantly thinking up things that I don't have the time, skills, or knowledge to implement. Reading the techcrunch piece I just thought of this one...

Crop tester; An application that lets farmers and agricultural scientists share techniques to increase crop yields. Inputting crop type, soil, climate information, the farmer could get ideas to test on a small portion of the crop. Feeding the results back into the system would help create a massive, public database.

Maybe the ideas is good, maybe it sucks. But it would be nice to have a site where ideas could get posted, then voted up or down.

<comment><USER11> Your prayers have been answered - <http://wappr.com/>, surprisingly it was posted on HN _just before_ you asked this question - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1123173>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _This brings me to the point of this post. What if we challenged these students and Silicon Valley to build businesses that do good for the planet and make a healthy profit doing so?_

What if the writer stopped writing utter drivel on TechCrunch and instead got out and volunteered to make the world a better place? If you're going to preach high and mighty, you should be coming from a place of height and mightiness.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's a bit of a false dichotomy. While I'm not completely familiar with the setting, a "hack-a-thon" seems to be a place where cool solutions are applied to cool problems. Using computers and the internet. Quick and fun, forgotten next year.

"Saving the world" has a completely different set of challenges to be addressed. The SMS idea is a very good idea, and using one of the very few vectors in third world countries that aren't bogged down by systemic issues.

I'm not at all sure that a "save-the-world-a-thon" focusing on SMS solutions in the third world wouldn't have very interesting outcomes. Maybe TechCrunch can't see the forest for their eagerness to call the youth of today shallow?

<comment><USER14> > It's a bit of a false dichotomy.

Exactly. It is just as valid to ask "What's better: Saving the world or writing for another tech blog?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The one thing to take away from the article. The next time you decide to build an app, do something that benefits the world. Note: Social Networking does not benefit the world.

<comment><USER4> Social networking is an enormous benefit to the world.

Social networking _companies_ , on the other hand...

<comment><USER16> Your definition of benefit is different to mine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am surprised this thread didn't grow larger.. Or perhaps I shouldn't be..

As someone who only came to the valley recently, I agree with the majority of observations in the article. I wrote a short article with my comments here: [http://dvitanov.posterous.com/innovation-and-the- interdiscip...](http://dvitanov.posterous.com/innovation-and-the- interdisciplinary-challeng)

</comment><comment><USER18> The author seems to think that saving the world is a technology problem.

It isn't.

Technology can make it easier to save the world, but technology is neither necessary nor sufficient for saving the world.

<comment><USER19> Would you mind backing up that assertion? I would argue that technological advances are a large part of what makes the west's standard of living greater. Just look at the huge leaps in GDP made by the Four Asian Tigers, China, India, etc, for examples of how technological inflows have increased standards of living.

As an example, inventing a cheaper, scalable, and distributed (unhindered by corrupt central governments) way to sanitize water in the third world seems like a pretty good technological challenge to me.

<comment><USER18> > I would argue that technological advances are a large part of what makes the > west's standard of living greater.

While that's true, it doesn't contradict my assertion.

> As an example, inventing a cheaper, scalable, and distributed (unhindered by > corrupt central governments)

The parenthetical comment concedes my point.

The West has provided enough resources to solve those problems a couple of times, yet they're not solved. Why would solving them more efficiently make any difference next time?

Yes, I realize that you're putting a lot of weight on distributed, but the relevant people mastered retail theft and corruption - that's how they got into a position to do wholesale.

And yes, it's a fantastic technological challenge. My point is that solving it won't solve the problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The two needn't be mutually exclusive. The masses and networks of Facebook could be leveraged for public good.</comment>


Image opacity manipulation and dynamic watermark generation - <AUTHOR> http://cloudinary.com/blog/image_opacity_manipulation_and_dynamic_watermark_generation

<comment><AUTHOR> This blog post shows how you can use cloud-based image transformations to easily manipulate the opacity of images and how to use this technique to add watermarks to images. Sample code in Ruby, PHP, Python and Node.js is included.</comment>