macbook-experience.md

The Bad

• Network IP address resolution acts outside of (and sometimes out of sync with) the DNS protocol. E.g., ping works but host -a shows a failure to resolve the name.
• Keyboard mapping a silent laughing stock. Why does every application require own keyboard mapping.
  • Pressing PageUp/PageDown on the PC USB keyboard moves the viewport (the scrollbar) but not the keyboard input cursor.
  • Often times, the shortcuts such as Command-LeftArrow (the Back action in Firefox) work only when the keyboard focus is moved away from input fields by clicking non-interactive parts of the window or by pressing Tab.
• Closing windows sometimes results in a round rainbow mouse pointer taking half a minute.
• Closing all windows keeps the application running against my Windows and Linux experience.
  • Command+N starts a new chat room in Skype when I see a Firefox browser in front of me (Just because Skype had no windows but was running in the foreground)
• Heavy.
• One Thunderbolt(?) port died.
• FreeBSD sed has no case-insensitive search, no RegEx plus and requires a fancy work-around when using labels -n -e "b start" -e ":q" -e "q" -e ":start" -e "s/FOO/BAR/p; tq".
• FreeBSD date has no ISO format option.
• FreeBSD find has no -printf.
• FreeBSD awk...
• FreeBSD this, FreeBSD that: brew install TOOL, then use gTOOL (e.g., gfind) as a GNU one.
• Bash 3 fails to fail with set -e; (( 0 )).
• The FreeBSD "POSIX" cp expands the source directory when copying it: cp -a DIR1/ DIR2/ copies files from DIR1 into DIR2 when I expected it to create a copy of DIR1 in DIR2 (i.e., DIR2/DIR1).

The Good

• Fast. Was it the NTFS file system that did not cache disk access?
• A dangerous yet sometimes useful option to keep the laptop running on battery using caffeinate and pmset sleep 0, disablesleep 1.
• Nice window manager with animated window hiding and moving to a separate desktop.