Mac OS Catalina issues?

[bjorng]

@hlx

Everything seems to work but installing erlang with asdf fails for me.

see: https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-erlang/issues/116

The build issue can be worked around by targeting the previous version of macOS like this:

export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.14

We will continue to investigate the problem.

[jdumont]

@dimitarvp

I am not arguing that Linux can be less hassle-free than macOS. But, you know, homebrew and Retina screens.

I’d actually just say Retina screens. After a lot of time playing with various package managers across different distros I can comfortably say that I’ve had more issues with Homebrew than all the others combined. I even opted for Macports on a recent fresh install, and apart from undoing a few years of Homebrew muscle memory, it’s been a great swap.

@dimitarvp

Can’t you use similar screens on Linux?

No idea.

Hi-DPI scaling is pretty hit and miss between distros. Last I tried, Ubuntu and the like were pretty good but stray from that and I seem to remember getting sucked into a Wayland vs. X debate.

@sasajuric

Out of curiosity, why do you upgrade so early? I typically wait for at least three months,

I used to be on every new release, but the past few years I’ve dragged my heels as long as I realistically can. There’s rarely new features to justify the update and I’ve come to expect an afternoon/whole-day spent wrangling issues with my local environments. That said, I do 90% of my work on remote servers now, so I guess I could just YOLO it.

@OvermindDL1

…come to the Linux-side… ^.^

At the moment you have a strong case! macOS seems to do less and less right for power users. Windows 10 is getting better but still a jarring experience and comes preinstalled with a load of crap. Linux is probably the best of the bunch. All I think it would take would be some support for gaming and commercial software (and there is hope here) and Linux could easily come to take a large segment of users away from macOS and Windows over the next few years.

[bjorng]

After further investigation of the crash during the build I have pushed this pull request:

Fix failure to build OTP on macOS Catalina (10.15)

[AstonJ]

@sasajuric

Out of curiosity, why do you upgrade so early? I typically wait for at least three months, until initial possible issues are ironed out, and the knowledge base is accumulated.

I used to do that Saša and I only ever did clean installs, however over the years, with clean installs becoming more of a pain (mainly for copying your Mail items over) and with upgrades never giving me any problems I felt more confident in upgrades

Also last time I asked Has anyone upgraded to MacOS Mojave? Did it break anything in your dev environment? - #2 by chrismccord @chrismccord replied first, saying he’d done it with no problems so that further boosted my confidence - I thought if Chris is upgrading so quickly maybe I’m worrying needlessly

@sasajuric

Also, I was never particularly compelled to upgrade to the newest version, since in my impression the changes were mostly not important for my flow…

I’m usually tempted by features, admittedly not usually dev related - for instance being able to receive text messages/phones calls on my Mac was pretty cool in the last major update.

Also for Catalina, I like some of their efforts on security (even though I know it may be a pain for dev for a while). I actually ended up migrating my data on to another Mac, then upgrading that, and I was pleasantly surprised by this:

I’ve always hated the idea that programs can access all your files - so who knows what they are uploading in the background? Maybe I am being paranoid but being able to block access to your files like this is a step in the right direction imo. I’d like to see it go further, with perhaps being able to fine-tune folders an app can access along with logs of files apps have accessed and whether they may have uploaded them anywhere.

[AstonJ]

@bjorng

After further investigation of the crash during the build I have pushed this pull request:

github.com/erlang/otp

Fix failure to build OTP on macOS Catalina (10.15)

by bjorng on 02:10PM - 10 Oct 19 UTC

1 commits changed 1 files with 12 additions and 0 deletions .

Thanks Björn!

[dimitarvp]

@jdumont

Hi-DPI scaling is pretty hit and miss between distros. Last I tried, Ubuntu and the like were pretty good but stray from that and I seem to remember getting sucked into a Wayland vs. X debate.

Well, exactly. I really don’t have the time or patience for “hit or miss” anymore. As I shared with people in other threads, I want to spend less time on my machines and achieve more. Even if Linux ends up being easier to install and use everyday than macOS you’d still have to ask how secure the app isolation is (hint: there’s none, unless you sink into a huge rabbit hole to try and enforce it) and if they have Retina screens, and if their WiFi / Bluetooth / Sleep work correctly, etc.

The mere thought of going through that makes me want to scream.

To be fair to all sides though, Macs aren’t exactly 100% painless experience indeed. Lately I got a small heart attack because my iMac Pro didn’t want to reboot (it was taking ages). Turns out if you plugged in a very slow and old USB pen drive, the OS for some reason inspects it so thoroughly on reboot that the whole boot process is slowed down as a result. Pretty dumb…

As for Catalina though, so far zero issues per se. Everything has been quite smooth. I hope that any pending dev-specific issues get resolved soon as well.

[OvermindDL1]

@dimitarvp

I am not arguing that Linux can be less hassle-free than macOS. But, you know, homebrew and Retina screens.

Good thing that linux has MUCH better things than homebrew, and retina screens work fine too. ^.^

@dimitarvp

No idea. At some point I’ll do a research on it because I’ll be investing in a very strong home lab (1-3 years from now) which will start with a single rack server and it’s likely going to have like 512GB RAM and 200+ TB disk space.

Why wouldn’t you be able to?! KDE has pretty fantastic scaling (especially on wayland)!

@jdumont

Hi-DPI scaling is pretty hit and miss between distros. Last I tried, Ubuntu and the like were pretty good but stray from that and I seem to remember getting sucked into a Wayland vs. X debate.

Yeah X has some issues, gnome does scaling just outright wrong in many cases. KDE on wayland (is default) is the closest to doing everything right if you want upscaling like that. Of course if you run some crappy gnome program or so though… ^.^;

@bjorng

After further investigation of the crash during the build I have pushed this pull request:

Ah cool, weird, but at least an easy enough fix. ^.^

@AstonJ

I’ve always hated the idea that programs can access all your files - so who knows what they are uploading in the background? Maybe I am being paranoid but being able to block access to your files like this is a step in the right direction imo. I’d like to see it go further, with perhaps being able to fine-tune folders an app can access along with logs of files apps have accessed and whether they may have uploaded them anywhere.

SELinux or Apparmor, touch of pain to learn initially but you get EXTREMELY fine-grained control of access of everything in every way, like it’s way extensive!

Or just run programs in containers bound to only specific areas they can ccess. ^.^

@dimitarvp

Even if Linux ends up being easier to install and use everyday than macOS you’d still have to ask how secure the app isolation is (hint: there’s none, unless you sink into a huge rabbit hole to try and enforce it) and if they have Retina screens, and if their WiFi / Bluetooth / Sleep work correctly, etc.

App isolation is extensive, I run most things in containers. The sheer quantity of ways and abilities to lock down apps on linux is just beyond extensive though, can be overwhelming. At the very least though an app can’t do anything that the user it’s launched as themselves couldn’t do, and you can make new locked down users with ease too if you don’t want to get into any of the fancy stuff.

No issues with HiDPI, I’m not sure why one would think there would be? And wifi/bluetooth/sleep all work fine on the few systems I had at home, no weird setup or anything, it was just install and it worked. The things you mention were issues like a decade ago, but that’s a really long time ago in computer years. ^.^

[chrismccord]

I can confirm I have upgraded with all clear on elixir/erlang/postgres/node side. The only thing I had to do post install was:

$ xcode-select --install

[AstonJ]

Thanks Chris… after your post (yes I am easily led ) I thought I’d try it again and it worked fine this time

I started off with 25GB free, and now have 20GB free.

Only thing I’ve noticed so far is terminal saying this:

The default interactive shell is now zsh.
To update your account to use zsh, please run chsh -s /bin/zsh.
For more details, please visit Use zsh as the default shell on your Mac - Apple Support.

[dimitarvp]

You guys keep saying and insisting everything is fine with Linux but I still disagree. We should stop arguing on that, there’s plenty of posts out there that show struggles of daily Linux usage. I ain’t making this stuff out of thin air.

For someone like me, even if there’s a golden path (Linux-safe hardware), the whole thing still seems too risky. I regularly stumble upon people on HN and Reddit – without actively seeking them – who complain about a range of issues when working with Linux.

I ain’t saying macOS is flawless. I got a little disappointed lately by it myself, by the way. But it’s simply better for my use-case and my ever-diminishing desire to tinker with my machines beyond an initial setup once in a blue moon.

I am pretty sure that very active and intelligent guys like yourself severely underestimate the effort to make Linuxes equal to Win10 or macOS in useability because to you it’s a pleasure to tinker with Linux. You likely aren’t even noticing that you tinker. For many though, that’s not the case. Brick one of my machines now and I guarantee it that I will likely just not use it for a month before I muster any care to bring it back in shape.

We’re coming from the same place and are going to the same place – but we are having different needs and walk different roads towards our goal. Let’s just leave it at that and stop arguing because it’s definitely a philosophical dispute and not a technical one.

(@AstonJ feel free to rip those several comments in another off-topic thread. Sorry that we hijacked part of the thread, yet again. I’ll do my best to not allow myself in one of those discussions again anytime soon.)

[dimitarvp]

Oh well, many of us use zsh for a long time anyway.

[AstonJ]

I’ve been meaning to try zsh for a while… so just run that command on the other Mac and now my .bash_profile shortcuts are not working Any ideas why?

[dimitarvp]

Copy them over to ~/.zshrc.

[OvermindDL1]

No reason not to dual-boot or at least run in a VM or hypervisor or so.

[dimitarvp]

Yeah, I’ll definitely do that. It’s inevitable for a programmer.

[mindriot]

The latest update lists out: “Improves installation reliability of macOS Catalina on Macs with low disk space” as its first point.

[dimitarvp]

Just installed Erlang 22.1.4 through asdf and recompiled several projects through it. No issues so far.

[mrleeio]

Hi Team,

Just wondering if anyone has had success building Erlang v19 on OS X 10.15 yet.

I’ve tried various configuration options and overrides but no success so far.

[tme_317]

Just installed today now that they have the 10.15.1 update out and some of the earlier bugs are fixed… smooth sailing compiling everything w/Erlang 22.1.5 and Elixir 1.9.4 (asdf).

Tested on a VM that wine64 successfully runs my Windows 64-bit CLI executable (even though they said it wouldn’t work yet)… which was only critical thing. Some old 32-bit games no longer run but I don’t have time to play games anymore anyway!

[AstonJ]

I’m stuck on 10.5 now - I downloaded the update but it took up so much space that there’s no longer enough room. It needs 18gb free

I’ll have to free up some space or do a clean install again.