That's how it is by default but doesn't approximately everyone, when they first plug a non-Mac external keyboard into their Mac, immediately go to System Settings -> Keyboard -> Modifier keys and switch Command with Option?
Otherwise it would be really confusing when you switch from your external keyboard to the laptop keyboard.
I recently got a Linux desktop after being Mac-only for a long time and using Linux only as a deploy target, and holy shit: the modifier key situation on PCs is so bad.
Control specifically is just a terrible modifier key for common things like edit commands. First, it sits near your pinky instead of your thumb, making chording it with Z, X, C, V, etc., really difficult.
But then... who decided that ctrl-c should be used for both copy and abort??? That's diabolical levels of messed up. In a terminal app ctrl-c aborts, so you need to use shift-ctrl-c to copy, and now you have two shortcuts for the same operation you need to remember based on context, except that in a web-based terminal in Chrome shift-ctrl-c opens "Inspect Element Mode" and now you have no way to copy!
Am I the only one who finds this astoundingly frustrating?
As a sibling comment notes, Caps Lock as Control helps a lot but it's still not as nice as Command-based shortcuts, both in hand positioning and in terms of shortcut overlap.
I entirely agree. At $NEWJOB, I had a Linux laptop for a bit while a Mac was on backorder.
Not being able to cut/paste easily because every tool used the Control key for something different, especially in the terminal, was infuriating.
Having the command key handle these kinds of GUI-focused interactions, and Control for most of the terminal-centric and text manipulation (Ctrl-A/E for beginning/end of line, from Emacs) makes the system great to work with.
I didn't mind anything else about my foray into Linux as a desktop OS. If we could get a Linux GUI distro that all it did was match the Mac command key paradigm, I think it would make a lot of people happy.
Of (home,end,pgup,pgdown,delete,backspace) the mac has just backspace. And they have just a single control key and such. Clearly the mac keyboard is designed by people that have no idea how to type. There's no "standard windows keyboard" anymore, but even the worst is still worlds better than whatever apple puts out.
That's me! readline everywhere by default is fantastic and should be immediately copied by every Linux DE!
The "Start" or Windows key is the same as the "Command" key
"Alt" is the same key as "Option"
This is how every keyboard I've ever used has worked. This is usually how they work when you plug a PC keyboard into a Mac or vice-versa.
Otherwise it would be really confusing when you switch from your external keyboard to the laptop keyboard.
Control specifically is just a terrible modifier key for common things like edit commands. First, it sits near your pinky instead of your thumb, making chording it with Z, X, C, V, etc., really difficult.
But then... who decided that ctrl-c should be used for both copy and abort??? That's diabolical levels of messed up. In a terminal app ctrl-c aborts, so you need to use shift-ctrl-c to copy, and now you have two shortcuts for the same operation you need to remember based on context, except that in a web-based terminal in Chrome shift-ctrl-c opens "Inspect Element Mode" and now you have no way to copy!
Am I the only one who finds this astoundingly frustrating?
As a sibling comment notes, Caps Lock as Control helps a lot but it's still not as nice as Command-based shortcuts, both in hand positioning and in terms of shortcut overlap.
Not being able to cut/paste easily because every tool used the Control key for something different, especially in the terminal, was infuriating.
Having the command key handle these kinds of GUI-focused interactions, and Control for most of the terminal-centric and text manipulation (Ctrl-A/E for beginning/end of line, from Emacs) makes the system great to work with.
I didn't mind anything else about my foray into Linux as a desktop OS. If we could get a Linux GUI distro that all it did was match the Mac command key paradigm, I think it would make a lot of people happy.
Ctrl-C doing different things come from different os/software lineages