KDE applications run everywhere. KDE Frameworks are useful across many different operating systems – FreeBSD and OpenBSD and all those Linuxen and Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS. That also means doing regular builds and testing (CI) for those operating systems. Linux and FreeBSD CI happens on servers run by KDE e.V. I’m not sure where the Windows CI happens. I do know where MacOS CI happens, because it is in my utility closet at home.

MacOS CI is perhaps most important for Krita, and I picked up the machine – an M1 Mac Mini – from Halla this week to give it a more stable home with a UPS and all. But that means setting up a MacOS machine in the utility closet.

Oh, man, the MacOS experience.

For me personally, coming from an almost-exclusively-KDE, 85% FreeBSD 10% Linux 5% Windows background, “MacOS blows goats” is about as positive as I can phrase it.

So far during setup:

  • Your monitor displeases us. I was already told that the machine wouldn’t start well without a monitor (unlike the rest of the world). My spare monitor, the one for quick setups of arbitrary bits of hardware, was incompatible. Only thing I can come up with is that a 10-year-old 720p TV is judged insufficient.
  • Your keyboard displeases us. Similarly, my spare Dell USB keyboard was problematic. Plugging it in pops up a keyboard configuration dialog (unlike the rest of the world) and in that dialog, pressing the wrong button will disable the keyboard entirely.
  • Your mouse is vaguely acceptable. The Trust wireless mouse is accepted immediately, and except for the scroll wheel which matches touchpad directions (unlike the rest of the world), I can click on things.

Yay, then I can click around to turn on the SSH server and other bits. It will take a couple of days before the machine is fully up-and-running. Partly that’s because every UI interaction I undertake is slllooooowwww because of all the head-scratching, wtf-ing, and hair-pulling. Once I can hand it off the KDE Sysadmin and can close the door of the closet, I will be much happier – and KDE’s CI, too.