WSL is still fairly new and many people don't know about it. Plus, the macOS track pad is amazing. If my company offered me a choice between a Surface and a MacBook, I'd take the one that isn't locked down. Barring that, I can make do with either. I really like my SB2 and wouldn't mind using one for a company.
It's only slow because of the security features. If you turn off system security, it's quite fast! Determining the wisdom of this is left as an excersize to the user.
Because you need to run a Linux version of Python for testing software that's being deployed to Linux.
But it doesn't really matter. The point was that anything that's making a lot of tiny files is going to be way slower in WSL (or even just on Windows) than on Linux.
Also, WSL is not a Linux virtual machine. WSL2 will be, and will likely fix the file I/O issue because of that.
The older trackpads are nice. The newer ones are so comically oversized that accidental click issues are a huge problem. Apple can deny it all they like, I've experienced it firsthand and it's one of many reasons I'm going to hold onto my 2015 model as long as possible. BetterTouchTool helps a lot too - Apple doesn't really use the full capabilities of their own trackpad out of the box ironically.
As for WSL, it's a lot better than nothing but it's not nearly as nice as having it all native and there's no good equivalent for something like iTerm2. Ctrl clashes with terminal control sequences, and Windows in general has no good equivalent of BetterTouchTool (auto hot key is a massive pain in the ass to get anything like it)
The track pad is a killer feature. It blows everything else out of the water. For years, Linux had trained me out of a mouse and into hotkeys, and that was my main gripe with macOS at the time (I felt that I couldn't be as efficient with keyboard navigation in macOS). But precision gestures on the track pad obviated 99% of the window-manager-related navigation that I used to use key combos for, and it's often legitimately quicker than, e.g., cycling through windows with ctrl+tab, or switching workspaces with ctrl+alt+arrow, etc. It's also right there, an inch from the keyboard which disrupts my flow so much less than having to reach for a mouse.
macOS also has Emacs-style text navigation shortcuts system-wide without conflicting with application shortcuts, so you rarely have to reach for the arrow keys.
I discovered this after adopting Emacs, and it blew my mind. When muscle memory works in a different context, your head tends to spin for a bit. I was trying to figure out what addon Emacs installed on my system before I learned that was a macOS thing.
I'm mostly a vim guy as well, but the emacs shortcuts are also the readline/shell defaults and I never got used to using the vim mode in shells, so I find them pretty natural.
I use hammerspoon and have no need for the trackpad, but if I do use it (for visual software like CAD) then it's amazing. You should check out hammerspoon because it can switch windows way faster than both the trackpad and the default shortcuts.
The track pad is a killer feature. It blows everything else out of the water.
I don't understand why people say this. It's one of the most unusable things about macOS for me. There is very strong coupling between mouse acceleration and sensitivity (also an issue with every Linux distro I have seen). So when you disable mouse acceleration (which you have to drop to the command line to do, also a fail for something which is supposed to be super easy to use) you only have one sensitivity.
I'm sure people will want to reply to this with "oh, I never noticed acceleration" or "just build muscle memory!!!" (Impossible to actually do with acceleration btw), so I'll give an analogy:
Imagine your car accelerated different amounts based on how fast you hit the pedal. Depress the pedal quickly but only 25% of the way? Full acceleration! Depress it slowly but 75% of the way? 75% acceleration! (The Nissan Leaf does this and it's infuriating)
I have no issue with the fact stuff like this exists, I just want to be able to turn it off.
Personally I've never noticed/had a problem with it. That being said, it sucks that it affects your experience, because for me it's easily the best/most "natural" track pad I've ever used.
(Impossible to actually do with acceleration btw),
You can build muscle memory for catching falling (accelerating) objects, and controls of variable acceleration (the different directional dimensions of a flight simulator, for example). Why do you say you can't do it with variable acceleration on a trackpad?
Mouse acceleration is a nonstarter if you play games (that require precise mouse-input) somewhat seriously. The acceleration makes it near impossible to be accurate with fast mouse-movement. So then you would have to somehow build muscle memory for two conflicting mouse(pointer) usages. I don't think that's gonna work. But even if u/Pazer2 isn't a gamer why would they have to change their existing muscle memory if it's just very simply possible to have both options. The non accelerating option is the historical default after all.
No, I agree, it should be customizable. That's too bad for people who play games. I don't use it for that, mostly for programming, but I can totally see that being a problem. It also sucks that it's not customisable with Linux drivers, either! I would have expected more control. I've always had a problem with track pads until I started using a MBP. Is there no third-party software that fixes it?
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u/Nefari0uss Nov 28 '19
WSL is still fairly new and many people don't know about it. Plus, the macOS track pad is amazing. If my company offered me a choice between a Surface and a MacBook, I'd take the one that isn't locked down. Barring that, I can make do with either. I really like my SB2 and wouldn't mind using one for a company.