What is your personal preference based on experience? I Assume because Mac is Unix and Linux is Unix based, it would be more suited, but I have no personal experience with the layout. I am willing to try something new if i hear enough merits for it, and I also find the windows layout somewhat inadequate(The grass is greener on the other side /s)

I dailydrive Gnome, I am not a programmer, but i am a power user

(On a tangent: Why is gnome so restrictive, it feels like its missing a ton of UI features that are trivial without a boatload of 3rd party extensions that break every update; why doesn’t Win+Shift+number launch a new instance, every other DE does, why doesn’t it?; I don’t use KDE because I just don’t like it, I feel Gnome could be way more if it just natively integrated the extensions ).

aesthetically the windows key annoys me and i hate putting stickers on keyboards; I like how the mac layout looks(My very minimal experience with an in store mac-book has cautioned me away from the fisher-price OS so i don’t know if it is intuitive to use)

  •  0xCAFe   ( @0xCAFE@feddit.de ) 
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    159 months ago

    My recommendation? No. Don’t.

    I’m an ex Windows user, current Linux and Mac user. Keyboard shortcuts on Linux are much closer to Windows conventions compared to macOS. I wouldn’t recommend using a Mac keyboard with Linux. I’d only recommend it if you want to use both Linux and macOS with the same keyboard (you will be happier in this case, because using macOS with a Windows keyboard sucks, vice versa).

    If you don’t like the Windows key design, get a keyboard with a custom one.

  • I’ve dabbled with Linux on Mac hardware a couple of times and I’ve got to say that Linux DEs generally hew closer to Windows conventions than Mac ones and I found using the Mac keyboard with Linux to be a dreadful experience without the fact that the chiclet keyboards are the worst shit I’ve ever put my fingers on.

    I very quickly snagged a standard mechanical qwerty 104 key with brown switches and cursed every moment that I had to use that abominable keyboard built into the stupid MacBook. Apple seems determined to do things different for the sake of different as much as they possibly can and trying to adapt all their nonsense to the Win/Lin way of doing things made my life worse in numerous ways (most DEs have great remapping for keys and such, but it gets messy fast if you’ve got apps from different paradigms.)

    I’d very much recommend against going out of your way to get a Mac keyboard for using Linux unless you enjoy fighting against things. But hey, if that’s your kink, then a Mac keyboard with Linux would be my recommended way to go.

  • Why would anyone do this to themselves. Even Mac people buy custom keyboards themselves for a reason!

    That said, I use the Mac “cmd” symbol instead of the “Windows” symbol for my super key (a la Elementary) on my cheap but lovely Keychron K2 Pro. It just looks better 😁!

    • The stupid 150$ apple bt keyboard has to be kept plugged in because the bt is trash. Drops characters when on bt, then just drops connection. Even when plugged in has a slow response vs any of the logitech ones I have.

      Overall apple keyboards are junk

  •  N0x0n   ( @N0x0n@lemmy.ml ) 
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    9 months ago

    Hummm… personal preference, but when I SSH into a linux server with my Mac… I totally hate the keyboard shortcuts… They are driving me crazy.

    Windows keyboard shortcuts, feel more “native” and easier to use.

    Can’t explain it, but while I used both, I totally hate the mac keyboard shortcut keys.

    Doing something like CMD + Option + bsp that reflects to alt + bsp on windows… :/

  • My very minimal experience with an in store mac-book has cautioned me away from the fisher-price OS

    Saying it’s a Fisher-Price OS is like saying Linux is Fisher-Price because people have anime themes.

    It’s Unix under the hood. It’s just as much a “real” operating system as any desktop Linux distro. It just looks nice.

  •  gregorum   ( @gregorum@lemm.ee ) 
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    9 months ago

    If you are used to Mac keyboard, layout, go right ahead. You can get a number of really nice third-party keyboards with that layout. Linux will natively adapt to it, and you’ll be fine. There may be one or two apps that don’t natively switch, but they will be far and few between. Personally, I don’t know of any of that I happen to use.

    As someone who uses Macs and Linux systems, I prefer this, so I don’t have to keep switching between different keyboard layouts.

  • If you want to crazy with the keyboard, consider switching to Dvorak instead! It’s an investment of course, but you get used to it surprisingly quick and the typing experience is a lot better. As for the function button you can always just remap them to your preference, I don’t see the point in making a fuzz. Most distros are also made with a PC keyboard in mind, not that I know if that matters.

    As for GNOME vs KDE, it’s up to personal preference. I enjoy my GNOME setup a lot, running just a couple extensions to get it just the way I like it. I enjoy that there are very few options and distractions around that I am not interested in. And I of course understand that other people prefer KDE. It’s great that there are two dominant DEs with such completely different design philosophies.

  • No need for an Apple keyboard unless you’re looking for extra function keys, a regular keyboard will work fine, and if’n for some reason you need the Mac layout, it’s available, I’ve always used the English (Macintosh) layout so I can get easy access to keys I like to use or sometimes need.

  •  nyan   ( @nyan@lemmy.cafe ) 
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    9 months ago

    I ended up with a 103-key Unicomp New Model M (essentially the same layout as a 101-key, but with one Windows key and one context menu key stuffed into what would have been the small blank spaces in the bottom row between ctrl and alt—I really wanted a full-length spacebar). Linux is most often installed onto ex-Windows PCs, so it’s hardly surprising that it expects the Windows keyboard layout.

    (I believe the current generation of Gnome devs is big on minimalism, AKA omitting or removing features. I can understand the appeal from a code maintenance point of view, but it’s never been a DE that I liked.)

    You can buy keyboards with replaceable keycaps. You can also buy keycaps with Tux logos on them for at least some of those keyboards. You can decide for yourself whether your aesthetic dislike of the Windows logo is worth the rather higher price of such a keyboard.

  • No. I have used both with Linux but I prefer my Logitech keyboards to the Mac keyboard, better full travel mechanical switches, lighted keyboard, separate number and arrow pads, macro keys, all around hands down better than the Mac keyboard.

  • I’m typing on a mac keyboard on Debian. USB one with the numpad. It’s fantastic if you’re into that.

    The last time I tried to pair the magic mouse 2 though, no joy. I’d be wary of the bluetooth keyboard.

  • You can go full crazy like I did, use a Windows keyboard with macOS mappings.

    I was used to mac when I switched to using Linux on my desktop, which has a Windows keyboard, for work. I didn’t want to re-learn my bindings. And I touch-type anyway, so the keycaps don’t confuse me. It mostly works great except for the # key, for that I have to press altgr+3