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It's these small, stupid things that actually were the reason why I couldn't hack it on a Macbook.

You just get stuck in your ways when everything is set up _just right_, and the little things that Macs do that Linux didn't, and vice versa, just drove me up the wall, even though it was small and stupid.



I think I understand what you’re saying.

I’m a big trackpad guy. The only one in my office. I love my gestures on macOS, and use all kinds of them to do my work.

Recently yet another computer was added to my desk by IT for a new project. This one is an HP laptop with Ubuntu.

I’m sure Ubuntu is a great thing and I’ll love it when I get used to it. But the HP’s keyboard and trackpad are terrible, and using the machine completely disrupts my usual workflow. I miss my gestures. I miss being able to define actions way out to F19. I miss knowing that a swipe will always be a swipe, and not a scroll.

We get set in our ways, especially when those ways are very productive and make sense to us. Having to switch to a different set of muscle memories is problematic.


> when everything is set up _just right_

That's why I'm still using Enlightenment DR16 as my window manager, with the same theme/config I've been slowly customizing for ~20 years. Every time I try a different windows manager (including any enlightenment >= E17) it feels like an incomplete toy, not the feature-rich tool I'm familiar with.


I did try to switch from e16 to e17 multiple times (on Gentoo), but I always had to rollback; I never found a bugfree version of e17.

(sometimes in 2018 I had to switch away from e16 (got taken out from Gentoo's main package repo) and I ended up using XFCE. It's a pity that e17 never really worked, at least for me => I wonder if they'll ever publish a really stable version)


I’ve actually become so used to the Mac over the years that I prefer it. I like having a clear separation between Ctrl and Cmd, and the only thing I install for a different “feel” is Moom (for tiling windows with the same hotkeys I use on Linux or Windows).

But, again, I’m a vim+tmux guy, so the only real annoyance is the lack of a real Esc key.


I'm using Capslock as (additional) Esc key.


I've had success with this situation in the past by working in a vm or docker container.


Yup. It’s the reason I’ll never buy a laptop with that stupid touchbar.




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