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> The reason, of course, is OS X. Powerbooks are beautifully designed and run FreeBSD. What more do you need to know? This. I have actually lost sleep since th

> The reason, of course, is OS X. Powerbooks are beautifully designed and run FreeBSD. What more do you need to know? This. I have actually lost sleep since the announcement. I keep going over in my mind alternate hardware, but the fact is that macOS (OS X) is the single best operating system for developers today. I am generalizing "developers". For any embedded development, or HDL stuff, OS X will not be a nice experience. But for web or mobile development (which I anticipate is quite larger than development that could not be done in OS X), it's just better. Things work. If the don't, there is a massive support system in place and worst case scenario you can drive <1hr to an Apple store and let them take care of it. Sure, there are edge cases there as well, but compared to the ultrabook you bought from Costco or any distribution of linux, you have much more support available. I do love my macbook pro (glass trackpad, backlit keyboard, good display), but I absolutely must have macOS. At this point my only hope is that a new distribution of Linux evolves that can seriously compete and works flawlessly on off the shelf hardware (such as the Dell XPS), but we're not there yet. Elementary OS looks promising. Perhaps developers would fork Darwin completely and make a macOS competitor. I guess I should have seen the warning signs. The biggest was macOS Sierra that offered me no reason to upgrade. Apple seems to be stuck inside of an "innovation" echo chamber. Innovating for the sake of innovating. Sorry for the wall of text, but if you have any suggestions for me, please share them.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
Honestly Windows 10 isn't so bad. I primary do my development on a Mac as well but have switched on and off with Windows 10 machines. Naturally the build quality of the hardware has a crazy scale for Windows machines but stick with good hardware like the Surface line or at least Microsoft Genuine. With the new Ubuntu capabilities of Windows the terminal isn't so bad. It still leaves a lot to be desired but I think they're well on their way. I wouldn't be surprised if in another year Windows 10 is just as good in nix. At least that's what I'm hoping for. I do feel like MacOS does a better job multi tasking though...
- equalarrow 10y ago
  Yah, I think Windows has gotten a lot better since the Vista days. But, VS - I was trying out porting some iOS Obj-C to run on Windows. Impressive that it actually worked, but VS was like, blech. Granted, Xcode is a piece of crap too - it's so buggy and unstable a lot of the time. But I can at least read or figure out what's going on. VS, tiny fonts, things you can't read, tons of "what's this for?" configuration. After my playing around with it (and I used the first few versions of VC years ago) I was thinking, yah, I don't think I could get into this dev environment again.. :-\
avar 10y ago
Linux works just fine on lots of off the shelf hardware. E.g. I'm running Debian on a Dell E6330 and everything Just Works, same goes for lots of other hardware. The only hassle is that I have to get the WiFi firmware from non-free in Debian, but that's just a Debian-ism.
massysett 10y ago
> At this point my only hope is that a new distribution of Linux evolves that can seriously compete and works flawlessly on off the shelf hardware (such as the Dell XPS) No Linux distributor is ever going to do this on its own. Windows and Mac have good hardware support because the hardware manufacturers make sure the OS works on their hardware. The legions of Linux powered devices show Linux is perfectly capable of running anything; it just needs the support of whoever makes the hardware. What about Dell preloaded with Ubuntu? Dell should be making sure Ubuntu works, and if it doesn't, you can at least call Dell and blame them, just like you call Apple and blame them if OS X doesn't work. http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-laptop?c=us&l=en&s=biz http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...
- randallsquared 10y ago
  > Dell should be making sure Ubuntu works But why? Imagine a sea change such that 30% of new desktop Dell machines are used under Linux by 2020. How would that benefit Dell? They appear to have passed on (or mostly passed on) the savings of not buying a Windows license to their customers in the past. Hardware manufacturers making Linux drivers work flawlessly is to be lauded and hoped for, but the current desktop Linux market isn't high enough for it to be anything other than a pet project or PR exercise: spending the cash to make drivers work perfectly on Linux doesn't seem likely to do much to improve sales or lower costs, costs money, and for many drivers would even help competitors to the extent that they use the same components.
- tajen 10y ago
  Idea: Dell could make an incredible coup by launching their own Linux. Dell is limited by Windows not being Unix-based and not being open-source. Dell is losing thousands of sales by not having a Linux – Apple users don't switch even though everyone wants Dell laptops today. Dell has a very pro image, have sold reliable hardware and as far as I'm aware, their OEM drivers on Windows aren't compete crap (Is it Lenovo who shipped a root CA?). Dell could capture an incredible market by launching a stunning version of Linux, even if the OS doubled the price of their laptops. Heck, Dell could charge for the OS separately. Whether they do it or not, Dell's future heavily relies on Linux' success today. I wish an independent software editor would do it, but if Dell does it, fine enough. We've finally succeed to align the incentives between open-souce and big powers at play.
jhasse 10y ago
> Perhaps developers would fork Darwin completely and make a macOS competitor. Don't you think that it's rather stuff on top of Darwin (e. g. Cocoa and the default apps) and the hardware support that make "things work" on macOS? > Sorry for the wall of text, but if you have any suggestions for me, please share them. What Linux distributions / desktop environments have you tried so far? Setting up dual-boot on a Macbook is rather good supported IIRC.
- catskull 10y ago
  > Don't you think that it's rather stuff on top of Darwin (e. g. Cocoa and the default apps) and the hardware support that make "things work" on macOS? You're right. I have never actually used a BSD OS that is no OS X, but I have a suspicion that a lot of the stability in OS X is due to BSD. > What Linux distributions / desktop environments have you tried so far? Setting up dual-boot on a Macbook is rather good supported IIRC. A few years ago I spent quite a bit of time playing with Ubuntu. I grew up with Windows, but after 8 came out, I had essentially no desire to ever touch Windows again. People claim Windows 10 is not that bad, but not that bad isn't good enough. Linux Mint was pretty nice as well. Elementary OS seems cool. CrunchBang was nice for a super lightweight system.
  - jhasse 10y ago
    > I have never actually used a BSD OS that is no OS X, but I have a suspicion that a lot of the stability in OS X is due to BSD. I'm pretty sure it's due to the drivers, Linux would be fine too with official Hardware support. > A few years ago I spent quite a bit of time playing with Ubuntu. I grew up with Windows, but after 8 came out, I had essentially no desire to ever touch Windows again. People claim Windows 10 is not that bad, but not that bad isn't good enough. Linux Mint was pretty nice as well. Elementary OS seems cool. CrunchBang was nice for a super lightweight system. You might also try Fedora (my current favorite). Korora is a nice way to have it configured out-of-the-box: https://kororaproject.org https://kororaproject.org
hamsolo 10y ago
I've used and enjoyed System76 for quite some time. https://system76.com/ https://system76.com/
- catskull 10y ago
  System76 seems cool, but their hardware is just kind of clunky to me. I would much rather by an old Thinkpad, but even still that doesn't fully solve my OS dilemma.
spamizbad 10y ago
> but the fact is that macOS (OS X) is the single best operating system for developers today For contemporary web and mobile app development: absolutely, no argument. However, if your doing VR development, you're much better off with Windows. If you do lots of systems-level programming or ML with stuff beyond toy data sets there's a non-zero chance that you're better off with Linux. These days, VR and ML are pushing the envelope and Apple isn't building hardware To keep up.
enlightenedfool 10y ago
"but the fact is that macOS (OS X) is the single best operating system for developers today" Please, to each his own. I'm a developer too. To me Windows/linux is better. I won't generalize by adding "for developers". "But for web or mobile development ". Its about the tools.
realusername 10y ago
I must live in a parallel dimension. I never got why people like OSX to develop web apps, it's a different system from the server, lots of tricks are needed to make it work invisibly (either with a VM or a lighter equivalent), there's the Control/Command non-standard placement, the different keyboard layout, Terminal.app which is borderline unusable (almost as bad as cmd.exe), no package manager and the shell commands which all seem (very) outdated. I'm not making any comments on the UI itself because it's subjective but I also find the UI a bit strange and not very intuitive myself. Yeah sure, you can configure all of this and have something which works but why not using a Linux (whatever flavour you prefer?), everything is just there already. Every time I use my colleagues Macs, I just feel completely powerless and I feel that everything is getting in my way to prevent me to do something.
- catskull 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, what system do you use primarily? The reason I ask is I suspect you use something very specific that allows you to be very productive. Also, what kind of work do you generally do?
- qzervaas 10y ago
  Can you elaborate on the unusability of Terminal.app? It's one of my most used apps and I have no issue with it. Also, I didn't know many of these until recently: http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/09/26/mac-terminal-tips/ http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/09/26/mac-terminal-tips/
  - realusername 10y ago
    It looks like this if I remember? http://www.thewwwblog.com/images/apple/traceroute-terminal-app.png http://www.thewwwblog.com/images/apple/traceroute-terminal-a... So the contrast is to bright, there is no tabs either from what I remember, The font itself looks bad, is not anti-aliased and also everything is way too small by default. It looks like some kind of 80's monitor that got somehow transformed into an app. Actually, to find this image I just typed "osx terminal.app" on Google and the first two results where already to replace it with another alternative so I don't think it's really popular.
nictinkers 10y ago
> For any embedded development, or HDL stuff, OS X will not be a nice experience. My day job is embedded electronics and I prefer to use macOS. I recognise this limits some of my choice of tools but also makes tools available that aren't options for my Windows-using colleagues. Comfortable access to Mac-like tools (OmniGraffle, Acorn, various office suites and code editors) and unix-like tools (gnuplot, LaTeX, simulation and scripting languages) makes up for the fact that I have to run a VM for the accounting software (MYOB) and the occasional Windows-only configuration utility or firmware uploader. Thankfully the business uses the cross-platform Eagle for schematic & PCB work. I've been and Apple guy all the way back to the Apple II so to me, it's nicer to use an OS that I grew up with and suffer the occasional trip to a VM.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

Honestly Windows 10 isn't so bad. I primary do my development on a Mac as well but have switched on and off with Windows 10 machines. Naturally the build quality of the hardware has a crazy scale for Windows machines but stick with good hardware like the Surface line or at least Microsoft Genuine. With the new Ubuntu capabilities of Windows the terminal isn't so bad. It still leaves a lot to be desired but I think they're well on their way. I wouldn't be surprised if in another year Windows 10 is just as good in nix. At least that's what I'm hoping for. I do feel like MacOS does a better job multi tasking though...

equalarrow 10y ago
Yah, I think Windows has gotten a lot better since the Vista days. But, VS - I was trying out porting some iOS Obj-C to run on Windows. Impressive that it actually worked, but VS was like, blech. Granted, Xcode is a piece of crap too - it's so buggy and unstable a lot of the time. But I can at least read or figure out what's going on. VS, tiny fonts, things you can't read, tons of "what's this for?" configuration. After my playing around with it (and I used the first few versions of VC years ago) I was thinking, yah, I don't think I could get into this dev environment again.. :-\

avar 10y ago

Linux works just fine on lots of off the shelf hardware. E.g. I'm running Debian on a Dell E6330 and everything Just Works, same goes for lots of other hardware. The only hassle is that I have to get the WiFi firmware from non-free in Debian, but that's just a Debian-ism.

massysett 10y ago

> At this point my only hope is that a new distribution of Linux evolves that can seriously compete and works flawlessly on off the shelf hardware (such as the Dell XPS) No Linux distributor is ever going to do this on its own. Windows and Mac have good hardware support because the hardware manufacturers make sure the OS works on their hardware. The legions of Linux powered devices show Linux is perfectly capable of running anything; it just needs the support of whoever makes the hardware. What about Dell preloaded with Ubuntu? Dell should be making sure Ubuntu works, and if it doesn't, you can at least call Dell and blame them, just like you call Apple and blame them if OS X doesn't work. http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-laptop?c=us&l=en&s=biz http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...

randallsquared 10y ago
> Dell should be making sure Ubuntu works But why? Imagine a sea change such that 30% of new desktop Dell machines are used under Linux by 2020. How would that benefit Dell? They appear to have passed on (or mostly passed on) the savings of not buying a Windows license to their customers in the past. Hardware manufacturers making Linux drivers work flawlessly is to be lauded and hoped for, but the current desktop Linux market isn't high enough for it to be anything other than a pet project or PR exercise: spending the cash to make drivers work perfectly on Linux doesn't seem likely to do much to improve sales or lower costs, costs money, and for many drivers would even help competitors to the extent that they use the same components.
tajen 10y ago
Idea: Dell could make an incredible coup by launching their own Linux. Dell is limited by Windows not being Unix-based and not being open-source. Dell is losing thousands of sales by not having a Linux – Apple users don't switch even though everyone wants Dell laptops today. Dell has a very pro image, have sold reliable hardware and as far as I'm aware, their OEM drivers on Windows aren't compete crap (Is it Lenovo who shipped a root CA?). Dell could capture an incredible market by launching a stunning version of Linux, even if the OS doubled the price of their laptops. Heck, Dell could charge for the OS separately. Whether they do it or not, Dell's future heavily relies on Linux' success today. I wish an independent software editor would do it, but if Dell does it, fine enough. We've finally succeed to align the incentives between open-souce and big powers at play.

jhasse 10y ago

> Perhaps developers would fork Darwin completely and make a macOS competitor. Don't you think that it's rather stuff on top of Darwin (e. g. Cocoa and the default apps) and the hardware support that make "things work" on macOS? > Sorry for the wall of text, but if you have any suggestions for me, please share them. What Linux distributions / desktop environments have you tried so far? Setting up dual-boot on a Macbook is rather good supported IIRC.

catskull 10y ago
> Don't you think that it's rather stuff on top of Darwin (e. g. Cocoa and the default apps) and the hardware support that make "things work" on macOS? You're right. I have never actually used a BSD OS that is no OS X, but I have a suspicion that a lot of the stability in OS X is due to BSD. > What Linux distributions / desktop environments have you tried so far? Setting up dual-boot on a Macbook is rather good supported IIRC. A few years ago I spent quite a bit of time playing with Ubuntu. I grew up with Windows, but after 8 came out, I had essentially no desire to ever touch Windows again. People claim Windows 10 is not that bad, but not that bad isn't good enough. Linux Mint was pretty nice as well. Elementary OS seems cool. CrunchBang was nice for a super lightweight system.
- jhasse 10y ago
  > I have never actually used a BSD OS that is no OS X, but I have a suspicion that a lot of the stability in OS X is due to BSD. I'm pretty sure it's due to the drivers, Linux would be fine too with official Hardware support. > A few years ago I spent quite a bit of time playing with Ubuntu. I grew up with Windows, but after 8 came out, I had essentially no desire to ever touch Windows again. People claim Windows 10 is not that bad, but not that bad isn't good enough. Linux Mint was pretty nice as well. Elementary OS seems cool. CrunchBang was nice for a super lightweight system. You might also try Fedora (my current favorite). Korora is a nice way to have it configured out-of-the-box: https://kororaproject.org https://kororaproject.org

hamsolo 10y ago

I've used and enjoyed System76 for quite some time. https://system76.com/ https://system76.com/

catskull 10y ago
System76 seems cool, but their hardware is just kind of clunky to me. I would much rather by an old Thinkpad, but even still that doesn't fully solve my OS dilemma.

spamizbad 10y ago

> but the fact is that macOS (OS X) is the single best operating system for developers today For contemporary web and mobile app development: absolutely, no argument. However, if your doing VR development, you're much better off with Windows. If you do lots of systems-level programming or ML with stuff beyond toy data sets there's a non-zero chance that you're better off with Linux. These days, VR and ML are pushing the envelope and Apple isn't building hardware To keep up.

enlightenedfool 10y ago

"but the fact is that macOS (OS X) is the single best operating system for developers today" Please, to each his own. I'm a developer too. To me Windows/linux is better. I won't generalize by adding "for developers". "But for web or mobile development ". Its about the tools.

realusername 10y ago

I must live in a parallel dimension. I never got why people like OSX to develop web apps, it's a different system from the server, lots of tricks are needed to make it work invisibly (either with a VM or a lighter equivalent), there's the Control/Command non-standard placement, the different keyboard layout, Terminal.app which is borderline unusable (almost as bad as cmd.exe), no package manager and the shell commands which all seem (very) outdated. I'm not making any comments on the UI itself because it's subjective but I also find the UI a bit strange and not very intuitive myself. Yeah sure, you can configure all of this and have something which works but why not using a Linux (whatever flavour you prefer?), everything is just there already. Every time I use my colleagues Macs, I just feel completely powerless and I feel that everything is getting in my way to prevent me to do something.

catskull 10y ago
Out of curiosity, what system do you use primarily? The reason I ask is I suspect you use something very specific that allows you to be very productive. Also, what kind of work do you generally do?
qzervaas 10y ago
Can you elaborate on the unusability of Terminal.app? It's one of my most used apps and I have no issue with it. Also, I didn't know many of these until recently: http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/09/26/mac-terminal-tips/ http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/09/26/mac-terminal-tips/
- realusername 10y ago
  It looks like this if I remember? http://www.thewwwblog.com/images/apple/traceroute-terminal-app.png http://www.thewwwblog.com/images/apple/traceroute-terminal-a... So the contrast is to bright, there is no tabs either from what I remember, The font itself looks bad, is not anti-aliased and also everything is way too small by default. It looks like some kind of 80's monitor that got somehow transformed into an app. Actually, to find this image I just typed "osx terminal.app" on Google and the first two results where already to replace it with another alternative so I don't think it's really popular.

nictinkers 10y ago

> For any embedded development, or HDL stuff, OS X will not be a nice experience. My day job is embedded electronics and I prefer to use macOS. I recognise this limits some of my choice of tools but also makes tools available that aren't options for my Windows-using colleagues. Comfortable access to Mac-like tools (OmniGraffle, Acorn, various office suites and code editors) and unix-like tools (gnuplot, LaTeX, simulation and scripting languages) makes up for the fact that I have to run a VM for the accounting software (MYOB) and the occasional Windows-only configuration utility or firmware uploader. Thankfully the business uses the cross-platform Eagle for schematic & PCB work. I've been and Apple guy all the way back to the Apple II so to me, it's nicer to use an OS that I grew up with and suffer the occasional trip to a VM.