Dopus for linux

Off-Topic
82

The reason is they wanted the thin case, and the result is that only the USB C connectors fit.

MacBook Pro is thick enough to accommodate the HDMI connector, and to accommodate a sound system with "Hi-Fi" rating.
But "Hi-Fi" with the noise of a fan? Ridiculous!
This is far from "audiophile", see also Audiophiles take passive cooling to a whole new level.

I would gladly take a device which combines the larger case of the MacBook Pro 16 with the fanlessness of the MacBook Air 15 for true Hi-Fi sound.
So far I prefer the latter.

In a perfect world there would be just two MacBook models: MacBook Junior and MacBook Senior.
MacBook Junior is exactly the MacBook Air 15, and MacBook Senior is the fanless version of MacBook Pro 16.

Regards
Guido

83

A few years ago, I would have agreed. But now I like Linux better. I certainly don't hate it.

84

Then I'll be stuck inside Apple's walled, expensive garden.

85

Yes, it depends on what you need. Also, it is hard to hate Linux, because it doesn't exist. And it is a problem. I have recently discovered that even Wayland doesn't exist either. It is just a standard. Thus, how can you even criticize it? One group of people created the standard, another implemented it. One group says, "It is their fault, our standard is perfect," and another says, "What do you want from us? Did you see this standard? It is impossible to make it work".
You have a problem with copying and pasting between apps, ok, but it is Ubuntu, on KDE it works. You install KDE, and something else doesn't work. Not Linux's fault. You should have used Gnome. Or actually, this bug was fixed, but in a new release, you should use Arch Linux. Anything becomes your fault basically, there is no Linux you can address your hatred to. It is like 10 people in a trench coat.

2 Likes
86

Interesting idea, "there is no Linux".. I like that. o)
I think I have the same approach, just with a slight angle.

If things don't work on Debian or are not available for this distro, I treat them as "does not exist" for Linux or at least as "early experimental" stage. This means I have to wait 10+ years until that specific software or feature will arrive in the Debian-Land or it will never arrive at all, because things don't match their philosophy or political view. It's an exhausting eco-system, but Windows is sucking energy from my body as well recently, what a bad experience the Win11 desktop is, really horrible.

I still stick to Windows because of the tech under the hood, which still works fine and on a whole different level than anything "Linux".. and because of the available software of course (like DO). I started to think differently though, I try to avoid writing software or scripts anymore, which would not run on Linux at all, keep as many options open for the long run. If the next Windows gets even worse, using Linux for "everything" on a daily basis might be less painful than running Windows 12, who knows.. o)

1 Like
87

Well, Linux does exist, but in a multitude of distros (something like 200 of them). It can get complicated. A lot of the issue is with a lot of the distros, not wanting to be helpful to noobs. I wouldn't dare try to work with some obscure Arch distro, that doesn't even have a GUI. One is expected to have a certain amount of basic knowledge already, or they will be dismissive and unhelpful. Mint isn't like that. The two times I had issues were just things that were done differently than on Windows. I posted my issues on the support forums, and had detailed answers within 24 hours. One message even gave me a script that was useful (it gives me the filename and location of the current background image, I have a Windows version of that, too). The other message walked me thru the sudo command. As I pointed out on the forum, I would have no issues with introducing my grandmother to Mint, it's that easy. If you are just doing websurfing and email, it's perfectly fine. Both Firefox and Thunderbird have Linux versions, that work just like their Windows counterparts.

88

One really doesn't need to use sudo that much. You can generally find what you need through one of the software repositories. It's not like on Windows, where you have to go to a developer's website to download and install. You can still do that with Linux, though, if the version in the repository is well behind schedule. If you don't care about that, you should never even have to interact with sudo.
Updates are better on Linux. I have an icon that pops up in the tray, that tells me if any updates are available. A bit simpler than on Windows, and any software you have installed will usually be updated this way too, as well as the system itself. Just click on install, Mint will ask for your root password (it's stricter than Windows UAC, and you generally don't want to sign in as a root user after boot), and the updates download and install. Unlike Windows, Mint gets kernel upgrades every few weeks. Nice for when you have newer hardware that doesn't work yet. It generally won't be long before it does. Not that I've ever had hardware that didn't work with Windows straight out of the box, however.

My printer played nice with Mint. All I had to do was point the Printers app to my printer, and away it went.

You probably know all this already, but some other readers might not.

89

I have been experimenting with Bottles, another Linux app similar to Crossover. I haven't tried DOpus in it yet, but I got iTunes working nicely (although the store doesn't work yet, I think just a matter of installing Apple's root certificates). No noticable speed difference, from the one on "real" Windows. It has a small memory leak, judging from System Monitor, but it would take a month before it crashed my system. Such a crash is not very spectacular on Mint. It just renders your keyboard unusable (a wireless one, at least), and your mouse (also wireless) so slow as to be unusable, necessitating a hard reset.

90

I don't agree, I run "sudo.." all the time on Linux, just like I have UAC disabled on Windows, because I do "admin" stuff all the time (it seems). Maybe I do something wrong.. but, idk, that's how it is.

You need sudo when mounting disks and messing with BTRFS sub volumes and other things. No way you get away without any "sudo" on Linux, you can't even update without "sudo" or restart the smb-daemon after changing the config. You cannot even reboot without "sudo". You might not even have the "reboot" command, because it's not in the "users" path on some distros. So you always scratch your head, how is there no "reboot"? The moment you enter "sudo reboot" it works though, but just typing "reboot" will give you "unknown command". They do it on purpose to drive you mad. o)

Yes, but no thank you! This is full "smartphone" mode on the desktop. I don't want it. If you care for functionality and working software, you don't let things "auto update", not for applications at least. Updates bring in new features and new bugs, sometimes they come with less features or a different / changed / redesigned UI. Happened too often, I freak out whenever that happens.

I updated a music / media player recently on my Android phone, I felt like it because it was a nice player I had good experience with and it lacked some tiny feature bits.. After it updated, it was 10x slower, the GUI bloated and it was not able to play my music without "hicks" and "pops" when switching from one song to the next. It was unusable. I removed it from the phone, because I am not able to get that old version back very easily. Unfortunately, these things happening constantly for me..

My work computer updated to Win11 recently without any warning upfront. The taskbar was broken (by design), the explorer and context menus as well, mstsc.exe delays the login window now for 1-2 minutes and so on. Thank god I was prepared for that Win11 "to arrive", I already had "WindHawk" pre-configured to get at least that taskbar to work again as I am used to.

I also need applications to be portable and some of them in multiple versions and instances, this is not covered by the generic Linux package management. It's similar to how you can't have two different versions of Firefox on your Android phone. This might be ok for normal, non-tech people, but that's not something a tech-savvy person or a developer wants to deal with.

Imagine you need to test software with Firefox v120 and v140 and whatever version your customer is using, no way you can use the Linux package management to make this "version dance" happen. You have to choose containers / appimages and other abstractions layers on Linux, which all work around the lousy Linux package and version management. And FlatPaks download an "extra" Linux for you, so your Linux is able to run Linux applications. It's nothing but hilarious.. o)

Yes, in the beginning of my Linux journey I was naive and thought I could just run anything as "root", to make my life easy, just like I do "full admin" on Windows all the time. But Linux is the "Nanny OS".. you can't run a lot of things as root, it will not let you. UserID-0 is not allowed to run this and that, many things are not meant to be run as "root". So, ok.. so you login as "user" again and try to run different things, but then "the same" thing happens. You can't run this and that as "user", you have to be "root" or use the "sudo" crap (which only works for things on the terminal by the way, for GUI based tools, you need weird polkit rules and pkexec, which manages DISPLAY and XAUTHORITY variables for you). Many applications on Linux don't "auto elevate" on demand either. So you edit that "system config" and want to save it, but you can't. You have to restart the application in "sudo" mode to get it saved or access specific directories. I could scream all day long when using Linux.. o) I always need to take some breaks (several days) in between to let my nerves heal.. o)

Linux is hardcore clunky in many aspects.. but it's good that it's there. I would prefer to run AmigaOS as an alternative to Windows though. AmigaOS had some fresh concepts, Linux is a clone of UNIX, which is another 10-20 years older than AmigaOS. Back in the 70ies, some 10 years of operating system development was a night and day difference, not like today, where basically nothing seems to enhance / change anymore (to the better at least.. o).

1 Like
91

Most of the time, I don't use sudo, or the CLI at all. Just click a button, just as on Windows. And as far as not being able to run things as root, I've never seen it. At most, I might have to put in my password, but it has never blocked me from doing anything. Perhaps the issue is the distro you were using? I don't get one not being able to run something as root. That is sometimes a requirement, just like if you were on Windows as a standard user, with UAC on. But I have never been prevented from running anything as root.

Your use case is different than mine, so you have different requirements than I do. I don't have any of the issues you described.

Also, if you don't want to update a piece of software, you are not forced into doing so. Just deselect it in the updates available list when the Update Manager runs.

I am using Linux Mint, BTW. If one is only using it for email and the web, they will rarely ever have to use sudo. I only have because I got deeper into things. Even then, I was just following someone else's instructions. What distro were you using? That might explain many of the issues you have had.

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I don't have "issues", this is just what you get, when you are using Linux.. o) It's Debian here, it cannot get more straight and "baseline" I guess, it's nothing special.

Yes, we have a different usage-profile of a system, That's fine, we just need to be a bit cautious when recommending this and that for "everybody".

Just login as root and see for yourself which applications won't run anymore. I can't remember single application names, I ditched the "login as root" concept completely because of that. It's more limiting than running as regular user and doing the "sudo foo" constantly.

Happy Weekend! o)

93

What you are saying about sudo. I feel like this is actually a matter of taste and a tradeoff. I wouldn't use this as a criticism of Linux.
For 95% of the users, it is actually a good policy, and app updates are the best strategy too.
You are an expert user. Let's be honest, no one needs 2 versions of Firefox on their machine. You can always use a virtual machine for your testing.
I would say it is actually Windows that did it really wrong: it doesn't have a package manager, and every app has to implement its own poorly made update mechanism, which sometimes causes real security issues, even.
With browsers, for example, you must have auto-update. The same applies to other critical OS subsystems. There was a bug in the TCP IP stack in Windows. You can't wait for months untill user decides to update their OS. Otherwise, your PC is safe until the first zero-day exploit.
And it is real. Even security experts get hacked because of some stupid mistake that could be prevented by a nanny OS.

94

every app has to implement its own poorly made update mechanism, which sometimes causes real security issues, even.

Actually, some apps literally ran format C:\ as an admin while updating and destroyed hundreds of thousands of machines.

95

Try it, I bet Windows won't let you format the system drive! o) This is a fairy tail I assume! o)

Everyone should run multiple browsers to separate their activities! o) I do. I don't do the finance transactions in the regular one e.g., and I read my emails (and websites + tabs that open from there) in another one.

People managed to install software for 30+ years on Windows just fine, it worked so good, they ended up as the market leader. Not sure what Microsoft did wrong?! o) Windows also has multiple package managers these days, which can be used from the terminal as well.

I think, the Linux security (and major parts of the system) is not designed to be run by regular users with control over the hardware below their desk. It's a UNIX clone, which is a server operating system, which gives you a weird path for the USB thumb drive you connect and it wants you to "sudo" to power down the system. It shows everywhere.

Anyhow.. I'm not against Linux, but to me it seems to be stuck in the last century. It does not even have a H-file-attribute, to make files hidden or mark them as "system file". You can only choose to rename your file to make it disappear, which obviously breaks any existing reference to it. I don't know who came up with concepts like this? Do you? Let's do an investigation.. o)

1 Like
96

Try it, I bet Windows won't let you format the system drive! o) This is a fairy tail I assume! o)

You can't do that. But you can try to call rmdir C:\. It will fail. But the problem is that if you start removing every folder from C:\users\username recursively. You will eventually get to C:\ and fail, but at this point, it is too late.
That was a bug in the update service of one of the apps.
I think it is wrong that every app has to have its own update mechanism. It is something OS should provide.

People managed to install software for 30+ years on Windows just fine, it worked so good, they ended up as the market leader.

True, but it doesn't mean that every design decision that Windows made was good.
And it is not really fine. People constantly download fake versions of famous apps and get hacked. It's not such a big deal now because Google actively fights malicious actors, and Windows has a built-in antivirus.
A lot of sites that distribute SW were adding malware to installers.
No, it is a bad design decision. It is just that we didn't know any better, and now we've kind of gotten used to it.

You are an expert user. A regular user doesn't care about SW updates and several browsers. They just want their PC to work and not be hacked.
If your browser is even one day out of date, you are playing with fire.

I don't know who came up with concepts like this? Do you? Let's do an investigation.. o)

Linux chooses different trade-offs. I wouldn't say the lack of system and hidden-file flags is such a big deal. Linux has many more fundamental problems as a Desktop OS than that.
I still think that centralized package management is a good thing. That is why, by the way, Microsoft made their package manager winget as you mentioned. Because it is a good idea, and Microsoft is really late to the party with this change.

97

Honestly, if you look at the advertisements in OS development and modern security threat vectors, Windows is also 20 years behind the trends. I think if you want to see what a modern OS for average users looks like, you need to look at iOS. This is the OS that you can safely use while being a non-expert, and you can trust that you won't be hacked. It is not only about the OS itself. You must design HW specifically as well to enable some of the security mechanisms.

98

Just mix all the features together and let's be done with the arguing! o)

The fact that 40 years of desktop and OS development did not lead to a system which gives you full flexibility and all features which mankind ever came up with for an operating system is a fail to me.

If I want to install applications into a single folder, I should be able to do this on Linux. If I want the close buttons of windows to be on the left side, I should be able to set this up on Windows.

Software is not like a car, where the physics are a limiting factor and you really need to decide. Do you want high load capacity or high speed? You won't get both, but in software.. you could! o)

There also is NuGet and Choco package managers for Windows for 15+ years, I used them once or twice, but the Linux variants work very differently as far as I can tell, you can't tell a Linux package manager where to put the packages e.g..

1 Like
99

There also is NuGet and Choco package managers for Windows for 15+ years, I used them once or twice, but the Linux variants work very differently as far as I can tell, you can't tell a Linux package manager where to put the packages e.g..

They were never defaults. If you are an app developer, you have to ignore them because no one uses them. You will have to come up with your own update mechanism. Also, it doesn't support automatic updates if a critical vulnerability is found. Linux has the same issue with its package managers.
Basically, Windows never actually solved the problem of SW distribution. Linux didn't do it fully either.

The fact that 40 years of desktop and OS development did not lead to a system which gives you full flexibility and all features which mankind ever came up with for an operating system is a fail to me.

With the cars, it is the same. Electronics increasingly restrict how you can use your car. ABS, traction control, and emergency brake system. You can't drive without a seat belt.
In the end, it is good because most people are very bad drivers, and 100% of people are bad drivers at least 1 day per month or year when they happen to drive while being super tired or sick.

We need to put ourselves into the shoes of an average user and their use cases.

100

"I don't have "issues", this is just what you get, when you are using Linux.. o) It's Debian here, it cannot get more straight and "baseline" I guess, it's nothing special."

If it isn't working the way you would like it, then, by definition, you have issues with it. Maybe not for someone else, of course.
"Yes, we have a different usage-profile of a system, That's fine, we just need to be a bit cautious when recommending this and that for "everybody"."

Hence why I asked if it was the distro you are using. With the hint that you might be better off with a different one. And why I mentioned different usage profiles.

"Just login as root and see for yourself which applications won't run anymore. I can't remember single application names, I ditched the "login as root" concept completely because of that. It's more limiting than running as regular user and doing the "sudo foo" constantly."

I have done that before, and had absolutely no issues with anything no longer working.

Have a good weekend.

101

Agreed about Windows not doing it right. And the issues with poorly made installers. However, I've found that I need to do manual updates of my browser, because of faulty updates. Sort of like happens with Windows periodically.