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my mac died recently, and i tried to switch over to 100% linux. I already do all my dev in linux, so I thought it would be easy to switch. Nope. Ended up more h

my mac died recently, and i tried to switch over to 100% linux. I already do all my dev in linux, so I thought it would be easy to switch. Nope. Ended up more headache than anything. I hate what OSX is becoming, and sympathize with the author about feeling distracted by OSX. But OSX still manages to be the best, because everything else isn't there yet, although they are gaining ground. So for me I dev in linux, game in windows, and do everything else in OSX. I hope to either one day switch away from OSX, or to not need to. For now it's in a tolerable state, but every release has lead to more frustration than benefit; iTunes in particular is becoming increasingly less about your music, and more about everything apple. But of course you still need iTunes to sync your phone. I hope, in the future of computing, there will be a cleaner separation between UI changes, features, and bug fixes. I'd like to be able to update OSX and not have anything actually change from my perspective; or at least be able to opt-in or out of such things. At the least, offering app themes so I can make iTunes look like v1.

pmoriarty 11y ago
Users would have a smoother time transitioning to Linux if they first considered things like: - Are you a regular end-user, a developer, a sysadmin? - How comfortable are you with using the shell? - How much unix experience do you have? - What do you typically do with your computer? (Just word processing and surfing the web? Web development? Some specialized application like music making or art? etc..) The answers to all of these questions would influence the decision to go with Linux or not. Naturally, the more technical knowledge and *nix knowledge you have, the more suited Linux would be for you. Also, a lot depends on what Linux distro you choose. If you're a complete novice something like Linux Mint might be well suited for you. How new and Linux-compatible the hardware you're trying to get Linux to work on also plays a role. Which Linux distro did you try, anyway? And what were some of the issues you ran in to?
- meesterdude 11y ago
  Actually, I don't know that those questions would have done anything for me. Certainly useful for more average users, though. My issues were mostly with what I couldn't bring over. Certain apps like Omnigraffle, all my movies, music and photos are in OSX and some (but not all) could be moved over (thanks DRM) and even then, i've got an iphone I sync to, which is possible under linux, but not straightforward from what i read. I still do all my dev in a linux VM and I. LOVE. IT. so much better than doing it in OSX, and i'm isolated from any OSX upgrades that might interfere with my development. But to ditch OSX entirely would require a lot of work, some sacrifice, and I'm not sure it's worth it in the end. At least, not yet. But it was an interesting experience, and I at least know what is keeping me in OSX and what it would take to move. As far as distros; it was mint. ubuntu in general has good font rendering that other distros lack out of the box, and i wanted something that would just work more than something that required configuring everything.
justinclift 11y ago
"...iTunes in particular is becoming increasingly less about your music, and more about everything apple." This. 100 upvotes for this. If iTunes had a "local storage only" version, that doesn't share jack sh*t with Apple, doesn't potentially upload any sensitive info, doesn't try and force their crap onto people... (and the boundaries get moved with every single forced update!), that would be more than welcome. This is a huge pain point / bug bear for me at least. :(

pmoriarty 11y ago

Users would have a smoother time transitioning to Linux if they first considered things like: - Are you a regular end-user, a developer, a sysadmin? - How comfortable are you with using the shell? - How much unix experience do you have? - What do you typically do with your computer? (Just word processing and surfing the web? Web development? Some specialized application like music making or art? etc..) The answers to all of these questions would influence the decision to go with Linux or not. Naturally, the more technical knowledge and *nix knowledge you have, the more suited Linux would be for you. Also, a lot depends on what Linux distro you choose. If you're a complete novice something like Linux Mint might be well suited for you. How new and Linux-compatible the hardware you're trying to get Linux to work on also plays a role. Which Linux distro did you try, anyway? And what were some of the issues you ran in to?

meesterdude 11y ago
Actually, I don't know that those questions would have done anything for me. Certainly useful for more average users, though. My issues were mostly with what I couldn't bring over. Certain apps like Omnigraffle, all my movies, music and photos are in OSX and some (but not all) could be moved over (thanks DRM) and even then, i've got an iphone I sync to, which is possible under linux, but not straightforward from what i read. I still do all my dev in a linux VM and I. LOVE. IT. so much better than doing it in OSX, and i'm isolated from any OSX upgrades that might interfere with my development. But to ditch OSX entirely would require a lot of work, some sacrifice, and I'm not sure it's worth it in the end. At least, not yet. But it was an interesting experience, and I at least know what is keeping me in OSX and what it would take to move. As far as distros; it was mint. ubuntu in general has good font rendering that other distros lack out of the box, and i wanted something that would just work more than something that required configuring everything.

justinclift 11y ago

"...iTunes in particular is becoming increasingly less about your music, and more about everything apple." This. 100 upvotes for this. If iTunes had a "local storage only" version, that doesn't share jack sh*t with Apple, doesn't potentially upload any sensitive info, doesn't try and force their crap onto people... (and the boundaries get moved with every single forced update!), that would be more than welcome. This is a huge pain point / bug bear for me at least. :(