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You can see the differences between linux and macOS when you consider your environment as a desktop workstation rather than a simple dev machine. I've switched

by apeacox 10y ago

You can see the differences between linux and macOS when you consider your environment as a desktop workstation rather than a simple dev machine. I've switched from linux to macOS after 13+ years because, IMHO, the linux desktop overall experience sucks for everyday use.

jameskegel 10y ago
That's interesting; what challenges did you run into most often?
- Yaggo 10y ago
  (I'm not your parent poster.) I made similar switch from Linux workstation to Mac workstation about 10 years ago. The biggest challenge with Linux workstation were hardware related issues: accelerated graphics / suspend-to-disk / battery life, etc. Too much endless tweaking. Mac offered "ready-to-use" solution with familiar unix tools & DE with virtual desktops. I guess the driver situation is now somewhat better but I'm now too accustomed to Macs & Apple ecosystem. No other laptop manufacturer can really compete with Apple in objective quality. No Linux DE feels "smooth" or polished enough after using macOS for long time, at least for me. In the end, almost all open source / "unix-like" software runs fine on Mac. Still it's difficult decision between supporting "the ideogically right choice" and enjoying admirable industrial design.
- apeacox 10y ago
  1) overall integration between desktop apps 1b) desktop apps availability/quality 2) drivers and support 3) With mac, I open my laptop and I can use it like a toaster, without thinking how to fix this or that issue after a software update bonus) iphone/appletv/ipad smooth integration PS (especially for downvoters): I've used linux since 1999, I have a sysadmin background, I used to build my desktop/servers from scratch or by using gentoo (that is almost the same), I wrote kernel modules. So I'm not afraid to tinker with a linux system down to the kernel details. Again I switched to macOS because I was tired of all those little issues that made my daily work a crappy experience (eg: why my Bluetooth device doesn't work today?)
  - Latty 10y ago
    It's funny, because I tried going the other way when I picked up a Retina Macbook Pro (because the screen was amazing), which I dropped about 3 years back after chafing on OS X a lot and deciding to switch back as I transitioned to a desktop machine again. Homebrew felt really clunky (broken/missing/out of date packages, manual intervention needed, etc...) and so dev tools were a pain. The OS X experience also didn't offer me room to change things to suit my needs, and the OS X apps all felt really lacking. I didn't find a file manager that could touch Dolphin, for example. I also found that any decent OS X tool was going to cost me £20, mostly for really small applications that did specific things, so I'd want tons of them. By contrast, I never had to search hard for the Linux tooling, and it was always FOSS. More specifically when comparing to Arch Linux, OS X suffered from the same magic problem as Ubuntu, Windows and anything else where the system is set up for you. The back end was all magic, so when something went wrong, I had no idea why or where to fix it. When you use it like a toaster, it's also pretty impenetrable. (Fine when your problem is common, less so when it isn't). It's probably a difference between how we use our devices (I never needed to try and use bluetooth, for example). OS X is still, after three years, the only OS that does multi-monitor with different densities well though, I'll give it that. Hoping that will get sorted soon in my Linux environment.
johnbellone 10y ago
I agree completely. I have been using a Ubuntu desktop as my primary workstation for the better part of three years, after fifteen minutes of using a MacBook attached to a 27" screen made me want to switch.

by apeacox 10y ago

jameskegel 10y ago

That's interesting; what challenges did you run into most often?

Yaggo 10y ago
(I'm not your parent poster.) I made similar switch from Linux workstation to Mac workstation about 10 years ago. The biggest challenge with Linux workstation were hardware related issues: accelerated graphics / suspend-to-disk / battery life, etc. Too much endless tweaking. Mac offered "ready-to-use" solution with familiar unix tools & DE with virtual desktops. I guess the driver situation is now somewhat better but I'm now too accustomed to Macs & Apple ecosystem. No other laptop manufacturer can really compete with Apple in objective quality. No Linux DE feels "smooth" or polished enough after using macOS for long time, at least for me. In the end, almost all open source / "unix-like" software runs fine on Mac. Still it's difficult decision between supporting "the ideogically right choice" and enjoying admirable industrial design.
apeacox 10y ago
1) overall integration between desktop apps 1b) desktop apps availability/quality 2) drivers and support 3) With mac, I open my laptop and I can use it like a toaster, without thinking how to fix this or that issue after a software update bonus) iphone/appletv/ipad smooth integration PS (especially for downvoters): I've used linux since 1999, I have a sysadmin background, I used to build my desktop/servers from scratch or by using gentoo (that is almost the same), I wrote kernel modules. So I'm not afraid to tinker with a linux system down to the kernel details. Again I switched to macOS because I was tired of all those little issues that made my daily work a crappy experience (eg: why my Bluetooth device doesn't work today?)
- Latty 10y ago
  It's funny, because I tried going the other way when I picked up a Retina Macbook Pro (because the screen was amazing), which I dropped about 3 years back after chafing on OS X a lot and deciding to switch back as I transitioned to a desktop machine again. Homebrew felt really clunky (broken/missing/out of date packages, manual intervention needed, etc...) and so dev tools were a pain. The OS X experience also didn't offer me room to change things to suit my needs, and the OS X apps all felt really lacking. I didn't find a file manager that could touch Dolphin, for example. I also found that any decent OS X tool was going to cost me £20, mostly for really small applications that did specific things, so I'd want tons of them. By contrast, I never had to search hard for the Linux tooling, and it was always FOSS. More specifically when comparing to Arch Linux, OS X suffered from the same magic problem as Ubuntu, Windows and anything else where the system is set up for you. The back end was all magic, so when something went wrong, I had no idea why or where to fix it. When you use it like a toaster, it's also pretty impenetrable. (Fine when your problem is common, less so when it isn't). It's probably a difference between how we use our devices (I never needed to try and use bluetooth, for example). OS X is still, after three years, the only OS that does multi-monitor with different densities well though, I'll give it that. Hoping that will get sorted soon in my Linux environment.

johnbellone 10y ago

I agree completely. I have been using a Ubuntu desktop as my primary workstation for the better part of three years, after fifteen minutes of using a MacBook attached to a 27" screen made me want to switch.