Mac/Linux Thread

[puggsoy]

I would honestly use Linux if 1) I had my own PC and 2) Windows wasn't the only platform 99.9% existing programs can run on. To be honest the only program I regularly use that doesn't have a Linux port is FlashDevelop, but every now and again I use one or other obscure .exe or small tool that'll only run on Windows.
Once I get my own PC I might dual-boot it though

[Phaze]

HA! you still have staff.png and those DBZ micspams, those are gold.

Of course I do! Why would I get rid of those?

Granted, I do need to sort them into appropriate folders, but still.

Win7 is really nice.

...

Linux love

That it is! I think it's probably gonna be my last Windows OS, too.

As for Lunix, I actually do have an Ubuntu dual boot... but I don't boot into it too often. The main reasons being touchpad driver weirdness (not quite the same as Win7, i.e lacking working edge-scrolling, very important), having difficulty getting comfortable with a DE (to which LXDE is closest but it has annoying quirks - gonna try Cinnamon) along with some niggling program issues like vidya availability.
Thankfully Steam is starting this Linux movement which will hopefully see many more games on the OS!

Overall, I'm hopeful that if I don't adopt Lunix fully with this aging laptop, I'll almost certainly be using it a lot (hopefully entirely) on my hypothetical future Desktop. I just need to find/make a good DE and not need to deal with touchpads.

I really love the underlying services and file system structure of UNIX-based OSes. To this effect I have an old Desktop running Ubuntu Server that is a joy to administrate via SSH from my Windows Laptop (shame about CMD window width...). I use it to run game servers and a simple web server for providing HTTP access to files I don't want to or can't put on file hosters ¦D
It's just the awkwardness of the Linux desktop that has prevented total adoption here... and to think I hated Linux some 5 years ago.

I would honestly use Linux if 1) I had my own PC and 2) Windows wasn't the only platform 99.9% existing programs can run on. To be honest the only program I regularly use that doesn't have a Linux port is FlashDevelop, but every now and again I use one or other obscure .exe or small tool that'll only run on Windows.
Once I get my own PC I might dual-boot it though

Thankfully WINE is making this issue... well, less of an issue! We'll probably never see 100% compatibility but outside of the more obscure programs, we'll hopefully see equivalent programs or better WINE compatibility on Linux in the future as more users adopt it.

Or maybe some people will actually port their programs over, who knows

[puggsoy]

Thankfully WINE is making this issue... well, less of an issue! We'll probably never see 100% compatibility but outside of the more obscure programs, we'll hopefully see equivalent programs or better WINE compatibility on Linux in the future as more users adopt it.

Or maybe some people will actually port their programs over, who knows

Yeah, I think eventually FlashDevelop will become ported for Linux, being open-source I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, although it does increase the chances for the future. I think there are other AS3 IDEs that support Linux that I haven't tried but I'm just really comfortable with FD. Apparently there's a special mod to install in on Linux to run almost natively in Wine (i.e. not emulating Windows) so that might be an option.

As for the obscure programs, some of them will never get ported over since it's stuff like a small .exe that I found in a .zip on a Russian website that extracts .wjh files from a .ukz (fictional example). Stuff that one guy whipped up and posted on a forum for another guy who asked for it. One example is a program I use to extract Bastion .pkg files, in fact there wasn't even an .exe and I had to actually install Visual C#, download the source code and compile it myself. For stuff like that I really need Windows (and this happens surprisingly often).

Anyway doesn't really matter, I don't really have much of a choice currently anyway. But yeah I forgot about WINE so thanks for the reminder.

[Lilly]

That it is! I think it's probably gonna be my last Windows OS, too.

As for Lunix, I actually do have an Ubuntu dual boot... but I don't boot into it too often. The main reasons being touchpad driver weirdness (not quite the same as Win7, i.e lacking working edge-scrolling, very important), having difficulty getting comfortable with a DE (to which LXDE is closest but it has annoying quirks - gonna try Cinnamon) along with some niggling program issues like vidya availability.
Thankfully Steam is starting this Linux movement which will hopefully see many more games on the OS!

Overall, I'm hopeful that if I don't adopt Lunix fully with this aging laptop, I'll almost certainly be using it a lot (hopefully entirely) on my hypothetical future Desktop. I just need to find/make a good DE and not need to deal with touchpads.

I really love the underlying services and file system structure of UNIX-based OSes. To this effect I have an old Desktop running Ubuntu Server that is a joy to administrate via SSH from my Windows Laptop (shame about CMD window width...). I use it to run game servers and a simple web server for providing HTTP access to files I don't want to or can't put on file hosters ¦D
It's just the awkwardness of the Linux desktop that has prevented total adoption here... and to think I hated Linux some 5 years ago.

w00t! It's great to see another Linux user on here. =P

Yeah, touchpads are a bit finicky on Linux, but with the way I keep mine configured it's hardly a problem for me. (No click on touch, disabled wheel scrolling, disabled lock mouse while typing, etc.) And I use a USB mouse anyway, since touchpads are sloppily inaccurate and threaten to give me a nasty case of carpel tunnel anyway, especially while working on digital art.

As for an DE, I've gone fully to XFCE, and Linux Mint is using it just the same as well. XFCE wasn't really that mature five years ago, but now it's better than Gnome 2 ever was, IMO, so it's really nice and easily configurable, just the way I like; feels like good ol' Ubuntu again. KDE looks really nice too as a traditional desktop, so I may try that again sometime soon as well. If you want a desktop that makes sense, I'd try XFCE or KDE, IMO.

As far as Unity goes, it's actually not that bad once you configure it the way you like with third party apps, and it looks very polished. (Like my panel is hidden unless the mouse is kept pushed towards the left edge of the screen. It's so genius and simple that I'm shocked Microsoft hasn't thought of it yet.) It's like the Ubuntu devs fixed everything that was wrong with Gnome 3. My only beef with it is the resource usage. GIMP runs slower than I'd like, and any game attempting to go fullscreen at a different resolution flips out for five seconds until its loaded. So yeah, it's not quite as light as XFCE yet. XD

Thankfully WINE is making this issue... well, less of an issue! We'll probably never see 100% compatibility but outside of the more obscure programs, we'll hopefully see equivalent programs or better WINE compatibility on Linux in the future as more users adopt it.

Or maybe some people will actually port their programs over, who knows

I'll chime in WINE as well. It runs all of my obscure apps that I like, as well as older ones that I still need from time to time. Photoshop CS2, Microsoft GIF Animator, Game Maker 5.3a, IMGBurn, and some of my favorite games run without a hitch under WINE. Heck, if I had an Nvidea chipset instead of an Intel one, I could enjoy all my favorite old shooters like Halo CE or the first Call of Duty better and faster than I could on Windows!

I've been using WINE since before it reached its first stable release, and it has matured a lot since then. It may always be a step behind the latest Windows tech for sure, but it's still great at making me too lazy to boot into Windowz anymore.

[Phaze]

Yeah, I think eventually FlashDevelop will become ported for Linux, being open-source I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet

...

As for the obscure programs, some of them will never get ported over

Well I suppose you could always spearhead the porting effort if your need grows great enough

Yeah I'm very familiar with those obscure programs that are nevertheless essential for certain niche functions. Thankfully I'm usually not dependent on any of those. Could always keep a copy of Win7 on a computer/partition or even in a virtual machine you only use for such things!

touchpads

DE

Unity

WINE

Well I use a USB mouse too, but the thing is that I prefer to use the touchpad for convenience's sake since I don't actually use my Laptop on a desk

Yeah I've used KDE in the past, similar stuff. The biggest thing I hated is how it basically hijacked my install and didn't clean itself up properly after I removed it.

Unity DOES look great... but it's not something I like as such. It's just awkward for me to use and there are performance concerns I suppose (but those aren't the decider).

Yeah, WINE is pretty awesome. Some things I had trouble with though were WLM 8.5 (even after tweaking) and Skype 5.5 (which wouldn't even render the login screen )

[Lilly]

Heh, sometimes I'm not a desk with my laptop either, but I find my ways of using the mouse! (Like sliding it around on the side of the chair I'm not sitting in. Yes I'm that desperate to use my mouse!) I just don't "get" touchpads; embedded trackballs in older laptops make a lot more sense to me. =P Whatever happened to those? They were so cool.

I can imagine KDE left a few things behind after installing, and yeah, it's annoying the way it, and occassionally Xubuntu packages, replace the splash screen on the start up. If I wanted it that way I would have installed that flavor of Ubuntu in the first place. =P

And ouch, Unity's performance was an issue in my case. My laptop's fan would go nuts sometimes whenever Xorg's CPU usage spiked, even while doing something as simple as switching desktops. It also cut into the frame rate of my favorite games and GIMP too, so that was a huge deal breaker. I should probably try 2D Unity for performance sake, but I don't know if that would make things any easier on my hardware.

Yeah, WINE is pretty awesome. Some things I had trouble with though were WLM 8.5 (even after tweaking) and Skype 5.5 (which wouldn't even render the login screen )

Skype does have Linux-native packages in the Ubuntu Software Center, encase you didn't know. =P I use it all the time and it's great, even for video chat. ^^

[Phaze]

Skype does have Linux-native packages in the Ubuntu Software Center, encase you didn't know. =P I use it all the time and it's great, even for video chat. ^^

I'm aware of it, but I have specific requirements... like a client that isn't hideous.

[Lilly]

I'm actually curious as to why you would find it hideous. The interface is much less bloated in the Linux port, IMO, and still offers the same level of functionality, if not more, (Like for instance, it's nice being able to see my contact's timezone below the their name.) while still conforming with your desktop theme. Although I first tried Skype on Linux, so that probably explains why I find the Windows' version a bit stange with its UI arrangement. =P

Although I can understand a desire for something more familiar, but with WINE's more recent audio problems with Pulse, it wouldn't be worth getting Skype to run through WINE anyway, if you couldn't video chat without the sound of Skrillex crinkling his doritos bag drowning out anything intelligable.

I don't understand why the guys packaging WINE for newer Ubuntu releases don't compile it with the Pulse patch, it's downright annoying not being able to enjoy non-native games on Linux, for instance.

[Garamonde]

I split these posts from the Post your Desktop thread as the whole discussion about Linux/Mac was derailing.
keep in mind that you can still post an image of your desktops there, but please continue the actual talking about it here~

[Lilly]

Sorry for derailing the desktop discussion a bit, Mighty, (I can be a real chatterbox sometimes. ) but thanks for creating this topic; much appreciated.

[Garamonde]

it's what we mods are here for. c: