lucumr

Since today I’m a proud owner of an Apple Macbook Pro. Well. Proud and annoyed at the same time. I was aware that switching over to a Macbook would take me some time but It’s a whole lot harder than imagined. The hardest part is that the keyboard layout is totally different. And even if some of the keys work the same (normal letters) you still have the problem that all keyboard shortcuts are different. One the one hand because you have to use the apple sign where you would expect the control key if you’re used to linux.

The keyboard is definitively the worst part of the Macbook Pro. It’s missing a delete key and the alt gr key which you usually find on German keyboards. The Alt Gr key replaces the normal second alt key so that you can enter some of the symbols you use in programming languages (square brackets, or even the simple at sign). On German keyboards the “[” sign is on alt gr + 7. On a german macbook pro it’s on alt + 5 and not even displayed on the keyboard. While this is probably not a problem on OS X it will become a problem as soon as you try to install ubuntu on that machine.

But the keyboard is not the only annoyance. The mouse isn’t much better. I’m used to have acceleration on touchpads, but not on normal mouses. But on OS X there is no way to make the mouse movement linear, at least not a non hackish way.

Also the way windows are managed is totally new to me. I would expect that the maximize button maximizes the window. But it just makes it a bit bigger, as big as the window manager thinks it shoud be?

So far I don’t think I will install ubuntu right now, i have to much problems getting into OS X. And the problems i would have with a German mac keyboard on a linux machine are too much right now :-(

BTW: I’m back from Italy

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 at 12:35 am and tagged as caveat, announcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.