I absolutely cannot figure out what to do in order to fix an Apple computer when it’s bugging out. Is it a part? The OS? Something external? How am I supposed to diagnose this fucker with so little information? Windows is rapidly heading down the same road. Linux will remain the final bastion of those who fix their electronics themselves

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79 points

I absolutely cannot figure out what to do in order to fix an Apple computer when it’s bugging out

Buy a new one, duh

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6 points
*

Or do the same basic troubleshooting you would for any other computer. It sounds like the person you’re replying to doesn’t know how to do that. They should learn. It’s not that hard.

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-5 points

Debugging a Mac is just as simple as debugging a Linux OS… because it is Linux.

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10 points

I can’t tell if you’re making a joke or just confidentially incorrect

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27 points

macOS is Unix. Everything can be logged and reported through the terminal if you want more debugging information. There are also power tools you can download that give you better GUI-based control over a myriad of things.

Though it’s worse now than it was ten years ago. Apple’s software has been suffering under Tim Cook and it’s probably not going to get better until he’s gone.

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23 points

Indeed I think the “Yes/No” are the wrong way around on the Apple part of the flow.

Also, why else do you think they call them geniuses. Only geniuses could possibly fix your smooth metal rectangle.

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2 points
*

“After smoking a bowl in the break room thorough investigation, we have determined that you need to buy a new one.”

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15 points

If only it had a whole slew of logs, like any other OS, that I could easily Google the locations of… Nah, vomiting ignorance on Lemmy is easier.

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5 points

support.apple.com

If shit gets real real, developer.apple.com.

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0 points

Mac is Linux? You debug it the exact same way, except unlike Linux, you don’t have to worry about 50 different distros, so it’s a lot easier to find solutions. Debugging a hardware issue is just as hard as any other platform… what are you even trying?

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4 points
*

The one thing I’d agree is that it tends to be harder to fix hardware issues. Well, on the new one’s you just don’t because it’s soldered, but a friend’s late 2015 27 inch imac has a borked SSD, and to replace it, we’d need to take off the glued on screen.

Softwarewise, I prefer the issue-finding experience to the windows one, though.

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108 points
*

The reason MacOS is seen as a working computer is because if anything breaks about it, it isn’t considered a computer anymore by Apple, it is considered e-waste.

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20 points
*

I guess I don’t get this attitude about macs. I switched to mac when I was traveling a lot in 2007 and saw how portable they could be compared to other laptops. It’s almost 2025 and I just bought my third one last year. My kids are still using my 13 year old MBA for homework, and the hardware is absolutely solid.

Edit: Lol, downvote reality. My favorite pastime.

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7 points

they dont like when you point out that as obnoxious as apple can be, they put out good products

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4 points

They put out the best commodity hw on the market IMO. The rest is subjective, and everyone is entitled to their preferences.

Also no mention that macos actually flows from the last Berkeley release of BSD and still has significant interoperability/portability with other variants. Oh well.

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5 points

Did you have anything break on them? Because that was my point.

Repairing Macs costs a fortune, because Apple rather you buy something new than repair them.

I still have a Windows 98 machine that fully functions. It is just slow.

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2 points

Yeah, you take it back in and they fix it. Or you fix it yourself. Just like any other computer. If your issue is something hardware related, Apple will still fix it, it just costs a lot because you’re paying for it in every part of the engineering. You can also go to third party repair shops and have them fix it for cheaper.

I gave a friend a powermac g5 that I had gotten for free as a teen, gave it to them 10 years ago, and it still works too, it’s just slow. That means nothing.

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2 points
*

You don’t get this attitude about Macs? Are you willfully blind?

Plug a 1080p monitor into a Windows or Linux machine and notice how text is crisp and readable, because they use sub-pixel text rendering, a technique in use for decades to make text readable on lower resolution monitors.

Now plug that monitor into a MacOS computer and notice the text looks like trash because Apple ripped out their sub-pixel text rendering system to force users to buy their fancy high res monitors.

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4 points

I don’t actually own a 1080p monitor (nor an apple one), and that’s a pretty specific reason to hate macs of high resolution is your desire. I’m sure there are no similar issues with other platforms that someone could find as a reason to [presumably] turn their PCs into ewaste- which is the actual topic of this thread.

Hyperbolic much?

From another thread on this topic:

Even Microsoft themselves are moving away from it. They just left it on Windows as is for those who use old, standard-res LCD. Their subpixel antialiasing (ClearType) has been disabled by default on Microsoft Office (and many of their productivity products) for years.

The reason why they are moving away from subpixel antialiasing is because, the sole reason for it exist is for the shortcoming of standard LCD, where it has a big “pixel” that consist of row of RGB “subpixel”. Say if you want to draw a line of 1.5px, obviously you can’t divide that pixel in half. What people did was by using some of the “subpixel” to made up that 0.5px (e.g. it’ll only light up the blue subpixel if the 0.5px is to the left, or conversely the red subpixel if it’s tho the right). Here is an example. By using subpixel rendering on standard LCD, you can “fool” the user by adding that extra colour on the side, which when viewed on standard LCD, it will look smooth rather than those jagged colour.

Now, obviously this “illusion” will only work on display with big pixel consist of (in order) red, green, and blue subpixel. Now, since many people are moving away toward high resolution display (Apple’s main reason) and there are many other display type with different subpixel arrangements (Microsoft’s main reason, and also Apple’s with their OLED products), there is no reason to use subpixel rendering anymore (in fact, using it on any display other than LCD will look worse).

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1 point

Font rendering on Linux is still hit and miss. Recently had to troubleshoot an issue where only the titles of Wikipedia articles in Flatpak Firefox on OpenSUSE looked like ass, with other text, or all text in other browsers and another distro rendering OK.

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* iWaste

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8 points

I tried to find a good study of laptop lifespan by brand. The best thing I could find was a consumer reports survey from 2023.

https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/laptops-chromebooks/laptopreliability-a7029273631/

They rated Apple as the #1 laptop for reliability. I don’t think that is “iWaste.”

This lines up with what I’ve seen, but even as a career IT person my personal sample size ain’t that great.

I dislike that current Apple products aren’t very repairable, but appreciate that they are very recyclable and durable.

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2 points

Still using my 2011 15” MacBook Pro!

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6 points

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This was a problem when they were selling Apple IIs

MUGs came into being because Apple provided zero support and overcharged for proprietary hardware. So the only recourse was to find a hobbyist, and they were glad to help.

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0 points
Deleted by creator
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74 points
  • Do you like to throw money at your problems and more money when you’re told: 🍎

  • Do you have a nonconsensual submissive kink with a love for sadistic roughly forced updates destroying what you were working on and ads shoved deep up your home directory: 🪟

  • Do you like free stuff and can RTFM: 🐧

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why RTFM when you can

  1. Be the manual (own distro)
  2. forum (Linux mint fr fr epic gaming free robux baby gronk rizzed up livvy dunne sigma) i use this

sorry for the brainrot

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41 points

Well if your definition of “working” is “can run all the important programs and game” then anything thats not windows or linux wont work.

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16 points

Honestly. I got a work mac and now I can’t run notepad++. I’m stuck with an ide I hate.

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14 points
*

Use TextEdit for .txt and .rtf, and get Sublime Text, VS Codium, or any of the other bazillion IDEs out there until you find one you can tolerate. Helix does that for me. (:

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6 points

Thanks for the suggestions. I cannot fucking stand vscode or vscodium

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7 points

If you’re willing to take the plunge and spend more time in the terminal you could give neovim a try.

To turn it into an IDE contender you can use LazyVim to automatically setup a bunch of quality of life improvements.

It’s a bit of a commitment to learn but it is super rewarding when you get it.

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2 points

kickstart is another great starting point for tinkerers

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36 points

Working computer - >Mac

Should have been:

Do you have more money than brains?->Mac

Or

Fuck this, I’m doing this for shit and giggles. ->Mac

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27 points

Is my employer paying for it? ➔ 🍎

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12 points

The best thing about quitting was returning that damned Mac… Hated every second of using it, horrid UX.

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4 points

MacOS fails at the main job of OS: managing multiple running applications / windows. I do not understand how they get praise.

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1 point

Guess I’m dumb dev then 😞

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