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by bstar77 1019 days ago
I have a Mac and a Linux box for work. I have been using my Macbook for some AI work I'm doing, but my workflow has been a mess. I had 4 desktops going, 2 projects opened w/debugging, many browser tabs opened to various docs, MS Teams, Outlook, etc. I don't even run Apple music anymore because it makes my laptop too hot.

On my mac the desktops constantly change position for unknown reasons. Managing windows is a huge pain on each desktop because it's very easy to obscure them... there is also a ton of wasted space with so much gui noise. CMD tabbing through apps is tedious and inflexible.

I posted some screenshots of my Linux setup in a different comment. My Linux workflow is night and day. All of my projects are streamlined on their own workspace, I can jump between tasks with no mental effort, everything is at my fingertips, I make less mistakes (working in the wrong terminal or editor), everything is done with vi bindings, etc. I have custom shortcuts set for things I need and I have multiple browsers that I can overlay on any workspace if I need to.

I can't quantify my productivity increase, but I know it's there. I also know I'm much happier when I'm working now because I'm much more organized and focused. I'm also not dealing with a Laptop (Macbook) that sounds like a rocket about to take off. My Linux box operates under 1% CPU load all the time. My point is not to say my setup is better (I'm not an evangelist on these things), but that I found a huge productivity boost for my needs with a minimal setup. I was very skeptical when I started out and it was a combination of being out of my comfort zone and being incredulous to a radically different way of using a computer.

1 comments

I know this isn’t the point of your post, but in case it helps your experience in MacOS:

1. You can change the setting so that workspaces do not change their position/order. See: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/214348/how-to-prev...

2. The third party app “alt-tab” provides an alt tab experience that is much better than the native one, and is likely more similar to the behavior you expect from Linux. See: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app

I also personally like to use Rectangle for window positioning using keyboard shortcuts, tried the various auto tiling solutions like yabai and amethyst in the past but I think the flexibility of Rectangle is worth having to remember and use a few keyboard shortcuts.

I think it’s unfortunate that so many third party apps are required, but with a bit of babysitting MacOS can be pretty decent to work with.

Thanks, I will give them a look. I have yabai installed, but I really need this machine to be stable and secure and yabai is neither.