21 ms·

Why are developers switching from Mac OS X to Linux?

• drKarl 10y ago
  > The Apple hardware and operating system have been standards for developers for many years now. I disagree with that statement. You can argue that many developers like to use MacBooks, but from that to saying that it's standard there's a long way... > and sells overpriced hardware Apple has ALWAYS sold overpriced hardware
  • akerro 10y ago
    >Apple has ALWAYS sold overpriced hardware But people realised it now, so they write short blog posts about it now.
  • 72deluxe 10y ago
    I used to think that they sell overpriced hardware but if I look around for a similar device all I see is an expensive Microsoft device. I always thought a good device was going to cost at least £1000.
  • coldtea 10y ago
    >Apple has ALWAYS sold overpriced hardware Apple recently sells obsolete hardware overpriced (e.g. 2-3 years old minis or Mac Pros). Aside from that, they din't historically sell "overpriced" hardware. What they did sell was only/mainly high end hardware (not in raw cpu/gpu performance, in the construction, feature set, etc). Time and again, when websites or people tried to match item per item the respective Apple PC with an equivalent Wintel PC (of the same class, e.g. VAIO back in the day, Dell XPS, etc) AND match the various features, they always ended up in parity or very near parity. And with some features without match at all on the other side (e.g. no magsafe option, lesser trackpad quality, etc). Even in stuff like tablets, anybody who's been there at the time, remembers that competitors to the iPad took more than a year to bring a device with matching specs AND a smaller price out. The responses from various vendors were up to 20% to 30% higher than the iPad asking price.
    • martinald 10y ago
      I don't even agree with this. When the original Core Duo MacBooks came out, they were by far the cheapest dual core laptops about for quite some time. Even discounting the better build quality, trackpads etc that they had.
  • Yaggo 10y ago
    > Apple has ALWAYS sold overpriced hardware Overpriced, compared to what? To competitors, which can't even produce similar product? Overpriced in terms of market demand, while making big profit? If you buy your PC components from Apple, that's your problem. Nobody complains that Bosch automotive industry components are expensive if you buy them from Tesla in the form of Model S. Not to mention that Apple's price always include both hardware and software, because they are bundled, so you don't actually know the price of hardware, because with Mac, you also buy a licence for OS X, essentially.
  • rorykoehler 10y ago
    Each microprocessor is graded in the factory. Apple buys up all the highest graded chips meaning no one else can get any.
    • na85 10y ago
      What a joke. Got a source saying that the i7 I buy from Intel is somehow inferior to the one that ships in an Apple product?
      • rorykoehler 10y ago
        http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/33816/the-manufacturing-and-grading-of-families-of-microprocessors http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/33816/the-man... I can't find the source just now though I do remember reading about apple prebuying all perfect chips of certain classes therefore making then unavailable to the competition. Given their purchasing power I don't find this wholly inconceivable.
        • na85 10y ago
          No source, then. Okie dokie.
          • rorykoehler 10y ago
            That kind of tone is not why I and most others come to Hackernews. Please refrain from it in future. I did come across this article where Cook essentially says buying these components is a company secret.... http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/18/apple_commits_3_9_billion_to_secret_long_term_component_contracts http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/18/apple_commits_3_9_...
    • valarauca1 10y ago
      Each microprocessor is graded in the factory Yes Intel does binning but that is to classify processor classes. Intel runs their E3, i7, i5, and i3 production on the same die. It looks like this: Memory controller went bad and can't handle ECC? Looks like an that E3-1??? vX just became an i7-X???. Virtualization went bad? That i7-X??? just became an i5-X??? Bad 1/2 cores? Well that i5-X??? just became an i3-X??? There is additional binning but that just determines if the processor can have an unlocked multiplier or not.
  • kayoone 10y ago
    > Apple has ALWAYS sold overpriced hardware No, a lot of Apple hardware was/is competitively priced when they launch, they just never lower the price so you have to be smart about the purchase. Macbook Pros compared to similar quality Thinkpads/Elite Books/Dell Latitude/Precision have never been really overpriced for what they offer, it's different for the latest generation though.
• gjvc 10y ago
  Fedora 25 is solid and compatible enough.
• EtienneK 10y ago
  Biggest problem for me is that it's too big of an issue to try and get my (Blizzard) games to work on Linux. Yes, it's possible - and I have done it before - but it's just so much easier with macOS. macOS gives me that good balance between Windows (for play) and Linux (for work).
  • chx 10y ago
    Increasingly the solution is vfio: have a gaming video card in the system and pass it on to a Windows VM exclusively. So Linux runs on Intel IGP which is fairly painless and the game gets a powerful videocard.
    • jjn2009 10y ago
      This works surprisingly well. I have a xeon chip which probably helps but its great to have this flexibility
      • chx 10y ago
        The abundance of cheap older Xeons also help. You can get an Intel board, 128GB DDR3 ECC RAM, two 2670 Xeons (SR0KX stepping which fixes VT-d) for $580 altogether either separately off eBay or in one kit from natex. That's an excellent base for such a development - gaming machine. And now there's even a decent yet cheap SSI EEB chassis, the Phanteks Enthoo Pro for only $100. (Nope, Rosewill cases do not count as decent, sorry.)
• dom0 10y ago
  > The Apple hardware and operating system have been standards for developers for many years now. I think this is yet-another kind of bubble people submerge themselves in.
  • lallysingh 10y ago
    Lots of places are heavy Mac, even when they only develop server side software to run on Linux. The laptops are well behaved, low maintenance, have good UIs, and have good support.
    • gpderetta 10y ago
      I still don't understand why one would use a laptop as their main development environment instead of a proper workstation (more cores, more ram, larger disks).
      • nathan_f77 10y ago
        Laptops are portable and fast enough. There's not much else to say.
      • jslabovitz 10y ago
        My workstation is an 11" Macbook Air, and has been for years. For what I do -- mostly Ruby, some C, some shell -- it's perfect. I fullscreen everything, and switch between apps with cmd-tab. I avoid or have disabled most macOS GUI features. 4 cores is fine. 8GB is fine, though having a couple hundred open tabs in Safari slows things down a tad. If I need to do something requiring more screen space, like an InDesign layout or a SketchUp design, I just cable up an external monitor & keyboard. Simple, straightforward, no stress.
    • dom0 10y ago
      You're missing the point. I'm not saying macs are bad or whatever, I'm saying that "macs are the default hardware for everyone ^W developers" is just skewed overall. Backing that claim up by "but [I feel like] 90 % of conference people have a macbook on their lap" is just backing my claim up, that it's a skewed perception, because conference attendees are a minority of all developers (they have to be - just compare the number of developers to the attendee numbers of big conferences), and you can't just extrapolate (the same goes for "I only see {macbooks, XPSes, thinkpads (pick one)} at $coffeeShop"). Many people don't care about conferences at all, or their employers don't care (and hence these people don't feel like spending hundreds of bucks from their own pockets to attend), some don't want to go on conferences and so on. For/to many developers they are just irrelevant. Obviously not everyone goes to coffee shops, either.
• raspasov 10y ago
  Have we reached peak Apple hate yet?
  • lallysingh 10y ago
    No, Apple hasn't been interesting enough to hate that much.
  • wineisfine 10y ago
    I don't think it's hate - at all, it's rather: dissapointment. So far, Apple didn't do anything malicious or evil, they just majorly underperformed to our audience.
    • raspasov 10y ago
      Eh, maybe - I just remember being wrong myself about things like the iPad, for example. There was a ton of "it's just an oversized iPhone" speak everywhere but it turned out to be a pretty successful product (not better than iPhone but still successful by most standards). Right now there's a ton of "dongle catastrophe" speak. Not saying that we should not demand more and better from Apple but I think many of the complaints are not very warranted. For example, I don't know why people are complaining that MacOS has "suffered" compared to iOS. In my opinion, the latest Sierra version is way better than Lion for example.
• 72deluxe 10y ago
  Things missing for me on Linux: Logic Pro X (no Ardour doesn't cut it, sorry. I even subscribed for a while). Xcode (for iPhone/iPad development. KDevelop and Geany or Nemiver, CodeBlocks etc. isn't going to cut it, sorry). Ability to AirPlay to my AppleTV 3rd gen. Does anyone know anything I can easily broadcast to from a video inside a web page? On Safari or Quicktime I just have to click the airplay icon. For reference, I write C++ for my dayjob and for fun (who doesn't??)
  • aphextron 10y ago
    >Does anyone know anything I can easily broadcast to from a video inside a web page Chromecast is really cheap and works like a charm. I can mirror my desktop or web browser tabs.
  • TomMarius 10y ago
    > Ability to AirPlay to my AppleTV 3rd gen. Does anyone know anything I can easily broadcast to from a video inside a web page? On Safari or Quicktime I just have to click the airplay icon. Chromecast would fit your needs, maybe?
  • Filligree 10y ago
    > Xcode (for iPhone/iPad development. KDevelop and Geany or Nemiver, CodeBlocks etc. isn't going to cut it, sorry). For iPhone development I'm sure you need a mac, but if you want an IDE, look no further than IDEA. It's much better than Xcode in general, and does have a C++ plugin. (Of course.) > Ability to AirPlay to my AppleTV 3rd gen. Does anyone know anything I can easily broadcast to from a video inside a web page? On Safari or Quicktime I just have to click the airplay icon. Chromecast.
    • gm-conspiracy 10y ago
      Can Chromecast work on a LAN without internet access?
      • ensignavenger 10y ago
• coldtea 10y ago
  A better question. "Who said they are?". Some are. Also on the other direction (and to/from Windows). Complaints for Apple, 32GB RAM option etc aside, I see no much reason to believe the numbers have changed in any large way. If for once a US-based developer conference (and its speakers) are not predominantly Apple laptops, we can check this again.
  • Fnoord 10y ago
    Some are switching, some are not. Some arguments are sound, some aren't. Its all rather vague and anecdotal, without hard numbers. It really depends on the needs of the developer (or user in general), and if they're willing to make compromises or allow changes. The problems: * Lack of focus on macOS (compared to iOS), and the iOSation of macOS. * Lack of hardware upgrades on Mac Mini, Mac Pro, Macbook Air. MBP specific: focus on size and weight (and butterfly keyboard with less travel) instead of DDR4 32 GB RAM / stronger battery / latest gen processor (read: MBP becoming MBA). Gimmicks like touchbar, force touch. * "Bullying." +300 EUR extra tax on MBP. Ridiculous things like having to pay 100 USD to release a Safari extension. [Please, feel free to make addenda on these.] A post with some random picture of GNOME 3 with a Terminal is just cringeworthy though. What does that have to do with developers? I see no development taking place. Could be a sysadmin's workstation for all we know. I very much like macOS. Its excellent for development. You have the software from macOS (which includes some software not available on Linux). You got UNIX under the hood. All of the software is managed with Homebrew which is excellent (macOS has come a long way in that regard). Really need Windows? You got all the options available from Linux (VM, WINE) plus Bootcamp. Microsoft even provide a VM with Edge themselves. The keybinds and workflow in macOS are consistent and feel natural (with the addition of Amethyst for window management, Tmux in iTerm (fullscreen with Powerline, and Vim), and Alfred instead of Spotlight), and I'm very much used to them. That being said I could just use a Terminal with Git and SSH and Vim or Sublime Text on Linux or Windows as well, but I'd lose some of the above advantages. Linux has far less software, the workflow is clunky, and I'm scared for all the hardware working well. Windows just isn't UNIX under the hood and you notice that when you work with open source software just like you notice WINE isn't native on Linux or macOS.
    • 10y ago
• Philipp__ 10y ago
  Situation is fairly simple. Linux on desktop has reached some kind of mature phase (as weird as it sounds, compared to previous years, Linux on desktop was never in better position), where you can get decent performance out of DE and GUI, without sacrificing comfort of CLI. On the other hand, many developers felt let down by Apple's last year, and decided to jump to Windows/Linux. And that is totally fine. I think few factors played crucial role in that, besides Apple's weak year. For example, people needed change. Many of devs got bored, and we know we developer are weird kind of people, sometimes little masochistic, where we constantly tweak and play with our systems. Remember the times around 2006. when many developers were jumping to Apple ecosystem, rise of TextMate, Dtrace, the magnificent Snow Leopard came out year after that... So I think things move, and that's the good thing. If you are not satisfied or productive on current platform/setup, then go and search for something that will fit your needs. I bought 13" MBP last year (2015. model) and I am really happy with the machine, to the point where I don't have a single gripe (except macOS thingys).
  • itchynosedev 10y ago
    I think 2015 mbp is the closest a laptop got to being perfect for me. Screen, battery life, trackpad, finish and performance. All in a beautiful balance. I used to dislike macos so much that went mbp 2015 > thinkpad > sp4. I realised how much better macbooks were than their comptetition that I bought it again only with more storage. I think Surface line will bethe next thing for me but it was still too buggy for daily use.
    • wastedhours 10y ago
      Agree, bought my 2015 MBP about 6 months ago and it's all but perfect and satisfies all of my needs. When the time comes though, I'm jealously eyeing up a Razer Blade 14, which could dual boot to a Linux distro...
      • mixedCase 10y ago
        Razer laptops have historically ran poorly with Linux. I'd look somewhere else unless things have significantly changed.
• slitaz 10y ago
  There is choice now for good high-end laptops that come with Ubuntu. The Dell XPS13, the system76 and others.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• Udo 10y ago
  I'm in the process of doing this, but it's difficult. When I switched from Linux to OS X as my desktop about a decade ago, I felt at home in a way I hadn't been since the Amiga. Now the Mac platform is stagnating, and in fact becoming somewhat of a prison, in both hardware and software. There's very clearly no future here for me, but I'm switching to Linux sort-of by default, not because it's better. In many respects, it's worse. There's always Windows, which would have the benefit of a (comparatively) low-maintenance system, and I could get working versions of many apps that have been making my life easier on the Mac for some time, but the system itself feels alien to me. I'm certainly not switching to Linux on already existing Macs, because macOS hasn't become bad enough to do that, not by a long shot. What's driving the slow changeover right now is hardware. So I got a PC, and I'm running it side-by-side with a Mac via Synergy, but honestly I spend most of my time on the Mac side. When I switched to OS X it was immediate and without looking back, whereas now I'm dragging my heels. All of this makes me very unhappy. I wish more vendors would just cross-compile to all three platforms. There should be very few, if any, apps that absolutely can't exist on multiple platforms. I understand that a big part of the problem is platform-independent UI, but even that shouldn't be such a huge deal if you just take care of that from the start - instead of suddenly being in the situation where your app is so intricately interwoven with your UI toolkit that it can't be separated anymore.
  • tornadoboy55 10y ago
    The biggest issue isn't UI - GTK easily solves that. It's just that when you officially release something you have to support it. Support costs money. That isn't feasible for a ~3% market share OS.
    • Udo 10y ago
      > The biggest issue isn't UI - GTK easily solves that. I laid out above why this doesn't solve anything for products that haven't been developed with that in mind from the start. These are the majority of commercial software. > Support costs money. That isn't feasible for a ~3% market share OS. That's part of the reason why many vendors didn't (and still don't) support OS X either, whereas those who did turned a tidy profit. It's certainly worth it if you just charge for it. And there's always the prospect of growing your market share with an underdeveloped platform. Personally I think it's largely psychological. Vendors assume Linux users will likely not pay for professional software. But with more developers switching over that could change.
• k__ 10y ago
  I found it strange that they switched from Linux to OSX in the first place. Where I started programming, every dev had a Linux machine. I remember one gig, where I had to build a site with Mac that had these metal trackpads that give you instant RSI. I thought, Macs, in a dev shop!? Did I enter the wrong door or something? But then a few people around me started using MacBooks, especially in the start-up world it's considered good taste.
  • Insanity 10y ago
    Same here, a lot of people used linux and the machines at university all had a linux option to choose from apart from windows, which was the preferred choice for many courses. I never really considered developping on a mac until I had to do it for my first programming job. The thing is that it felt better than programming on Windows (because you do have a neat terminal), but it still felt inferiour to programming on linux. It felt like being less in control on a mac and I for one did not like the UI of the mac at all. I'm sure the latter is purely subjective and the former is maybe due to me not looking around enough to figure out how to do so on a mac. Still happy to not have to develop on those machines anymore though.
  • kayoone 10y ago
    Personally i came from Windows being a gamer for most of my teenager years so i used Windows to develop initially. But all solutions like using Xampp, over Linux VMs to Vagrant where painful in some way or another so i switched to Macs in 2009 and never looked back (still have a Windows Box for rare gaming). Today i run docker for my local projects but since OSX is Unix it works much better then on Windows. No with Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, this could change though and Windows could become viable again.
    • k__ 10y ago
      I come from windows too. I still use it on my private PC. But I always found Linux (Xubuntu) more pleasant to use for dev purposes
  • lallysingh 10y ago
    For quite a few years, it was tough getting a Linux laptop with working wifi that'd sleep and resume properly. Also, some of us didn't like where gnome went.
• Insanity 10y ago
  > you simply have to look around during workshops and speakings to see 90% of Apple systems Are these perhaps apple events? But seriously, that numbers seems hugely exagerated, at least from the events I have been at. He is probably talking about a specific field for these talks, but this is quite a silly statement imo.
  • kayoone 10y ago
    when i go to startup events/meetups it's not uncommon to see 80% Apple laptops.
    • Insanity 10y ago
      I have not been at events related to startups. Thank you for giving some insights into where they might use that many apple laptops. The events hosted by my former university have a _few_ macs, but mostly I see people running Linux or Windows. And then there are the microsoft-oriented events, but it is safe to say these do not count here :-)
      • therealmarv 10y ago
        Go to USA, maybe some Google conferences (or look at Google employees): You will mostly see only mac people!
      • LanceH 10y ago
        it would be interesting to know the breakdown by OS for people who bought their own.
  • chrisdhal 10y ago
    At my local Groovy users group if people bring laptops the vast majority are Mac. At the last Groovy US conference virtually everybody had Macs (as in a non-Mac laptop stood out). These aren't Apple conferences or even startup meetings, these are real users.
    • 10y ago
• dorian-graph 10y ago
  Betteridge's law of headlines—and this article seems to have no substance either, a couple of sentences and then some links to some other blogs.
• HugoDaniel 10y ago
  If you are a web developer how do you test for safari outside of OSX ?
  • _ZeD_ 10y ago
    I personally just ignore safari altogether. It's a "zero point something percent" of the clients in my works.
    • therealmarv 10y ago
      Seems you are not working on world wide mobile reachable websites where e.g. most of US users are browsing with Safari.
      • GordonS 10y ago
        most US users? Really?
        • favadi 10y ago
          safari on iOS I think, which make sense.
        • therealmarv 10y ago
          taken the fact that many people nowadays surf only on mobile look here for yourself: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-US-monthly-201512-201612 http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-US-monthly-201512-...
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  • onion2k 10y ago
    Use Browserstack (or one of the alternatives). The situation is exactly the same as every other browser you don't have direct access to, whether it's IE10 on Windows 7, Android Browser on a Galaxy S4, or a Windows phone, etc.
• _ZeD_ 10y ago
  better question: why were developers on Mac OS X to begin with? Honestly I think even Windows is a better os from a developer point of view.
  • dindresto 10y ago
    I believe it's the combination of a UNIX-like system and the "It just works" / batteries included mentality. Also the amount of popular commercial applications available for OS X, as compared to Linux.
  • out_of_protocol 10y ago
    As a fellow developer i say: Development on Windows is really REALLY painful. Any *nix is so much better. I chose OSX because it's "okay linux distro" ;) not real linux but close enough on practice
    • alkonaut 10y ago
      > As a fellow developer i say: Development on Windows is really REALLY painful. I think the statement really is "development in a unix/linux style on windows is really painful". If you like doing development with text editors and shells and have any tools that are command-line only then yes - it sucks on windows. Windows development in an IDE is usually just fine, not to mention that it's often exactly the same as running the same IDE on linux.
      • hackits 10y ago
        I found that for my development pipeline that GIT (SSH)/Conemu together worked out really well on windows. Considering that vast majority of the time I'm connected via a shell to a Linux mainframe and or cluster does it really matter what I ssh into as long as its a working console?
  • hoodoof 10y ago
    I left Windows many years ago because of constant crashes, application freezes, multitasking so bad that I felt the user interface was not under my control, often being unable to shutdown due to some freeze etc etc etc None of these things were problems with OSX. Are things different in the Windows world?
• hoodoof 10y ago
  No one said they are. This article makes the assertion with pure zero facts to back it up.
• kayoone 10y ago
  Long term i don't think many will switch away from OSX, at least i don't see anyone complaining around me and most happily use macs. Sure there will be some, but i don't think it's significant. Those who prefer Linux have always used Linux anyway.
• nkozyra 10y ago
  Personal opinion coming ... To this date I really don't think there's a polished GUI/WM that can compete with OSX. The app ecosystem is vast but spotty. Even CLI work feels clunkier in any of the desktop distros. Is it better than 5 years ago? Maybe a bit. I just think with this huge community there'd be something as attractive and natural as OSX or Win10. And that's ignoring the hardware aspect altogether. Yes, you can buy some very solid machines now, but every review I read about Mac-killer laptop hardware ends with a bunch of things that just don't work as well as a MBP.
  • tkubacki 10y ago
    Always wondered how on earth anyone can be pleased with Finder. Compared to Nautilus it's just crap. Just opinion.
    • bantunes 10y ago
      At least Finder doesn't crash with large sets of copy/paste file orders. It's really frustrating (GNOME 3.22).
      • raverbashing 10y ago
        Oh Gnome components failing at mildly not-common edge cases (note that I don't mean rare, I mean not common)? Color me surprised
    • holydude 10y ago
      in my humble opinion finder is perfect for "your daily needs". For everything else there's a substitute or cmdline/emacs
  • John23832 10y ago
    > To this date I really don't think there's a polished GUI/WM that can compete with OSX. Elementary Os is probably the closest, imo. > And that's ignoring the hardware aspect altogether. Yes, you can buy some very solid machines now, but every review I read about Mac-killer laptop hardware ends with a bunch of things that just don't work as well as a MBP. I think the ideal linux setup would be a slightly older MPB with a good distro running on it. Prob Ubuntu for compatibility.
• djhworld 10y ago
  I'm too entrenched in OSX to move, to put it bluntly. I have bought a lot of software that is OSX only
• tluyben2 10y ago
  I am using both Linux (Ubuntu) and Mac OS X all the time. The annoyance on Linux for me is very minimal; basically only the lack of iOS dev. If I can fix that somehow I would never use anything else. A while ago i installed Qemu with Mac OS X and that kind of worked, but was way too slow. Advantage is that USB ports work. Without that I will have to use both; if I dev for Android/Web/Desktop then I use my Ubuntu laptop; for iOS I open up my MacBook. Hope that will change in the future.
• somecallitblues 10y ago
  Everybody is talking about switching because the MBP is about $1000 more than they expected. But then you go and look at PC laptops and you realise that nothing out there is built like MBP. And there's seriously nothing wrong with 2013 MBP. You have to be doing something really insane to find it slow.
  • wineisfine 10y ago
    The buck stops at not offering a 15" Macbook Pro WITHOUT the touchbar. Heck: they could even charge the same price for with and without -- I wouldn't care. But not even offering the option of having a normal keyboard with function keys... that's just ignorance.
    • mrits 10y ago
      I bought my new MBP right before the revamp. Everyone at work was letting me know I could return it and get the new one. I was so happy I got the last good one just in time. I think this model will realistically get me through the next few years, but after that I'll seriously consider a move back to Linux or Windows.
    • mrits 10y ago
      I bought my new MBP right before the revamp. Everyone at work was letting me know I could return it and get the new one. I was so happy I got the last good one just in time. I think this model will realistically get me through the next few years, but after that I'll seriously consider a move back to Linux or Windows.
• satai 10y ago
  Thge reasons of mine: - better UI. Window management in i3 is much more usefull for me than macOS window management - native Docker (partly solved for macOS now) - control and security - belief, that Apple goes the wrong direction - HW choices - SW I write is deployed on linux anyway
• Bladtman 10y ago
  Are there any of those just-now-or.recently-switching devs in here? It would be interesting to hear their opinion, rather than guesswork.
  • hookshot 10y ago
    This is my first week back on Linux after using OSX for ~4 years. I switched because it's cheaper. I needed more power and building a Linux desktop is way cheaper than buying Mac hardware. So far: KDE is incredibly nice. I'm pretty blown away. Aesthetically I actually like it more than Aqua. The file manager is nice, the terminal is fine, there is a spotlight style search, virtual desktops, pretty much everything I would miss moving from OSX. I miss 1Password the most. Right now I'm using a CLI client (passcards) to access my 1Password vault. I haven't setup notes yet but it seems like there are decent Notational Velocity alternatives. Relearning muscle memory to use CTRL instead of CMD is painful. I'm wasting a lot of time tweaking keyboard shortcuts.
    • tyfon 10y ago
      Try KeePass, it works just about anywhere
    • Bladtman 10y ago
      Interesting. So for you the change was on desktop, not laptops. What changed you mind wrt price? I wasn't under the impression that apple computers have gotten more expensive than they were before?
• titraprutr 10y ago
  The title of this article should rather be: "Why I switched from Mac OS to Linux?"
• tlocke 10y ago
  I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the moral case for using an Open Source OS over a proprietary one. Just to restate, Open Source software gives users the freedom to: * Run the software for whatever purpose they want. * Inspect the software so they can see what it's doing. * Change the software however they want. * Share the software with anyone. Call me an idealist, but aren't these things important?
  • qntty 10y ago
    s/open source/free/g
  • theandrewbailey 10y ago
    What you described is free software, not open source. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html There are things that are open source, but not free, like the Unreal Engine.
    • tlocke 10y ago
      As far as I can make out from looking at the EULA: https://www.unrealengine.com/eula https://www.unrealengine.com/eula the Unreal Engine is not Open Source. Not least because you can't share the source code without restriction. As I understand it, the difference between free and Open Source is a difference in philosophy rather than a difference in licensing. For Free Software people the importance lies in freedom, but for Open Source people the importance is that it's a better way to develop software. For example, a Free Software person would always use free software even if was inferior to a proprietary alternative, because they wouldn't want to give up their freedoms. An Open Source person would use whichever is superior, regardless of licensing. I'm in both camps but I tend to use the term Open Source because Free is confusing because it means both 'no charge' and 'liberty'.
      • dandelion_lover 10y ago
        >> I tend to use the term Open Source because Free is confusing because it means both 'no charge' and 'liberty'. Would you consider to use term "libre software", because "open source" is confusing because it means both "one can read the code" and "one can do certain things with the code"?
• tomelders 10y ago
  So this is finally the year that Linux will take over. Again. I see no evidence that dev's are switching to Linux for their dev machine. And this recent peak in anti-apple sentiment stinks to me of the same mentality that led to Britain leaving the EU and Trump becoming president. It goes along the lines of... "This thing isn't perfect by the definition of perfect that matters to me. So I declare it to be fundamentally and irrevocably broken. It should be thrown away and everyone should do this other ill thought through thing that I like" There's a case to be made for Linux, but if your case is always presented with an "Apple sucks" pre-amble, then I think you're really just a fanboy.
  • echion 10y ago
    Wait, you're tarring op with Brexit and Trump, but op's the fanboy? [edit] To be fair, op/article mention no statistics to support the assertion that "developers are switching from Mac OS X to Linux", so on that basis I think it's fair to say the piece is pretty anecdotal or fluffy. But there are plenty of reasons why people switch from OS X to Linux (see other comments, for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317879 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317234 ).
    • fetbaffe 10y ago
      Current anti-javascript sentiment that is going on? Yes, you guessed it, Trumpism. Oh, you don't like React? Damn Brexiteer! Future is here.
      • Pigo 10y ago
        Pepe and the alt-right promote Android, everyone knows this. We're just smart enough to ignore fake-news and see Apple is still king. This is classic..
    • tomelders 10y ago
      Im talking about the faulty logic and wooly thinking that underpins all of those issues. Its all a symptom of that problem.
• antouank 10y ago
  I'm happy the new MBP sucked. Saved lots of money, and I discovered Arch linux. Spent a couple of days and made a much better personalised OS environment than what OSX dictates to use. Plus, I learned lots in the process.
  • vi4m 10y ago
    Until you try to do first presentation on some conference, when your connected display crashes and you start typing xrandr / fighting Wayland/xorg drivers ... I see it all the time, never happened to Macs.
    • j7ake 10y ago
      Also setting up printer, external monitors, battery saver (if you want to close your lid and not worry about whether that will drain the battery), and updating your packages and realizing something broke right before an important deadline.
    • whyileft 10y ago
      Can we dial back the FUD? I present all the time with my Linux laptop that does not require any dongles to connect to HDMI, VGA and DVI projectors. Oh yeah and airplay works just fine too. Been that way for as long as I can remember. This isn't 1997.
      • GrinningFool 10y ago
        'It works for me' is not an solid basis for the opinion that OP is posting FUD. Clearly the problem exists for some subset of people, or we wouldn't be talking about it. That doesn't meant that most people encounter it - but it's still a problem.
• hydandata 10y ago
  You have to realize that MacOS, Windows, even typical Linux Desktop is not an optimal environment for a professional programmer, or for any other computer based job which involves a lot of writing, reading and maintaining flow state. The reason is that these environments are designed with user-friendliness in mind. Now what does that mean? it means that stuff should be easy to find, simplified enough for somebody who is learning how to interact with the machine, trying to remember what, where and how. As a professional programmer you should not care at all about that. You are not a user, you are a frigging master of the computer universe. You should care about avoiding unnecessary clutter so that you can focus easier, minimizing time from thought to action to avoid breaking the flow, about flexibility so you can adapt the environment to your personal needs and increase productivity. Erik Naggum nailed it long time ago [0]. You can have a tablet and do your non-work related activities there, iOS, Windows, whatever, but when you are working use your workstation! if you don't have one create it. You will be amazed by how much more productive you can be, how much happier you can be. I use StumpWM, Emacs, Conkeror, Ergodox with a custom layout and blank keys, and a trackball. The only thing a "user" can do on my machine is move the pointer and pull out the power cord, but in my hands this thing flies! [0] http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3065048088243385@naggum.no.html http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3065048088243385@naggum.... Edit: Let me be clear, this is my personal journey from Windows to MacOS and finally to a custom setup on Linux and the reasoning behind it. I certainly do not mean to preach. I concede that thinking hard is and always will be the main component of professional work, but perhaps from time to time we should ponder what an environment could be like if it was made for professionals not for users. If we simply keep accepting what is available and let others think for us we will only get more of what Apple does and less of what might be best for us. We are not the majority of Apple users, and probably never will be, it is not in their best interest to put us ahead of them when making various decisions.
  • mbernstein 10y ago
    Your preferences aren't necessarily optimal for others in the same way that macOS, Windows, and Linux may not be optimal for various people. Many assumptions about what a "real" developer is. I don't develop on Windows, but I know a few engineers that use Windows are some of the best, most productive engineers I've met. I went to college with one that's been at a few high profile places and live-streamed and his workflow is pretty amazing. As for me - environment is never the bottleneck for me when it comes to solving hard problems, and those are the problems I care about.
• tzury 10y ago
  Here is my setup (switched from ThinkPads/Ubuntu to MBP 5 years ago). MacBook Pro with Ubuntu Server in VirtualBox. All git repositories, runtime env. is linux. Editing is done with my Editor of choice over SSHFS, editing linux files directly. This is the very best setup I have had for decades (yep, I am that old...). No current Linux distro can beat Apple when it comes to stability and peripherals support. Yet, my actual work is still runs on a native Linux as I like.
  • sevagh 10y ago
    Is it native Linux or VirtualBox?
• massysett 10y ago
  Come on, this piece is junk. He says people are switching to Linux because Apple hardware sucks. These rants are typical but would be much better if people identified the glorious PC hardware they are using. So I looked for that here, and it turns out he is still using Apple hardware. He then does not identify a single OS X flaw or a reason he loaded Linux onto his Apple hardware. Maybe what HN needs is a periodic "Apple Sucks, post your rants here" posting, just like the periodic "who's hiring" posts, because it's clear that "Apple Sucks" is the only reason for all these posts that completely lack any interesting content.
  • TulliusCicero 10y ago
    It used to be that Apple was pretty dominant in creating decent laptop hardware, but these days machines like the XPS 13 and Spectre are very competitive. When we replace my wife's 2012 MacBook Air I think we'll probably get a Windows machine, the latest MacBook refresh was pretty disappointing.
  • nemacol 10y ago
    I agree. This article is basically click bate for people that are not fans of apple (me). It never answer the question posed by the title. The author has not even switched off of Apple totally... but predicts that they will when funds are available.
    • kls 10y ago
      The big three for me where: The discontinuation of the 17 inch MacBook Pro The soldered in ram. And the final one was with the last refresh where they held the top of the line model at 16GB of ram. As a note these where probably all sound business decisions they just chip away at my ideal machine. Which is a large screen machine, with a lot of horse power so that I can simulate an entire network environment locally to eliminate variables as well as use in a disconnected environment.
      • BatFastard 10y ago
        Interesting that the iPhone offers 128GB option, but the top end for laptops is 16GB. Why would Apple want to drive developers away?
• ohstopitu 10y ago
  I used to depend on OS X for Sketch and iOS dev, but with the release of Figma, that has changed quite a bit. I do hope that Figma would release an Linux app to use system fonts and allow for upload of slack files that use weird fonts for example. Apart from that (and iOS development), Linux is a perfect dev environment (ofc we still need a few more apps like a good gui git client - I use Fork on mac and I love it), but Gitkranen can be a situable alternative till a good client comes along. Seriously though, if someone is willing to offer XCode over the web, or even a cheap dedicated vm (most VMs i've seen are insanely expensive for what they provide), that'd be great Figma - https://www.figma.com https://www.figma.com Fork - https://git-fork.com/ https://git-fork.com/
• ssijak 10y ago
  Simple stuff that should work 100% of the time without bugs and without me needing to intervene work on osx like they should. On linux there is always some little problem that bugs you from time to time, or some inconsistency, or some app that does not work, etc etc. Nothing that I can not sort out (I mainly use Arch linux when I use it on the desktop, on servers Ubuntu and Centos), but at a point in time, I started valuing my time much more so I switched to OSX for developer machine.
• pps 10y ago
  I'm using both OS X and Linux Mint every day since 2012 (and before that Windows & Ubuntu I don't even know how long). There is no way for me to switch completely to Linux, it is just not enough, I'm working WAY faster in OS X, and the experience is so much more pleasurable.
• S_A_P 10y ago
  In the 15 or so years Ive been writing code, Ive never had a moment where I was like, damn, I cant write this code I am tasked to write because my damn operating system is not adequate. I use Windows, Linux and OSX/MacOS, and I am pretty agnostic on the whole deal. I have use cases for each, and cant really understand the religious nature of this discussion. Cant we call this sort of article what it really is? Im mad because I dont think apple is thinking of my needs anymore. It could be because Ive changed or theyve changed, but either way Im going to write an article to to justify my feelings, even if my arguments dont hold water.
  • loup-vaillant 10y ago
    > I have use cases for each, and cant really understand the religious nature of this discussion. Linux: Free Softwaaare! (My favourite) MacOS: It Just Wooorks! (And is damn pretty) Windows: Gaaames! (And a host of other programs) Another way to look at it is, Linux is Hippie, Windows is Business, and MacOS is Beauty. Of course it will get religious: if you deliberately chose one platform, you likely care about its strongest suit enough to shun the other two. Most free software advocates will use GNU/Linux, and urge everyone to follow suit. They're virtuous. Most people who need such and such software will use Windows, because they have work to do, dammit. They're practical. Apple users are… I don't know, loyal? Apple does have strong followers. Me, I still feel a little guilty about my Windows desktop. But… games…
    • WayneBro 10y ago
      I am a die-hard Windows user and I don't care about games as much. In my opinion, Windows is just the best all around OS. While I do use Mac and Linux wherever third parties require it - I prefer Windows by far. I also think it's the most practical choice for anybody that needs a solid general purpose OS. Some other thoughts: - I like the Microsoft business plan the best - they don't want to lock me into hardware like Apple and their stuff isn't infinitely fragmented like Linux. - Windows has the best all around UI and they cater to power users. Meanwhile, Apple hates power users and Linux thinks that "power user" means programmer/beta tester. - The vast, vast majority of businesses use Windows desktops and not Mac or Linux. These are my customers. - There are very few useful things that I can't do with Windows. Meanwhile, I can find hundreds of things that Mac and Linux can't do (or can't do easily/well) that Windows can.
• jhoechtl 10y ago
  Mac is overpriced and hyperbole. All the innovation happens in Linux these days. Except for overpaid fanboys which can brag around how cool they are, Macs make no sense from a developer perspective.
• johndoe4589 10y ago
  Are they? Are you kidding me? Putting all controversies aside, OS X is a much better finished product. Which is also why the latest elementaryOS posts on Medium are kind of cringy. One moment the author says how Apple users are disatisfied that Apple may be abandoning powerful desktops, next moment he emphasizes how you can install Linux on any laptop.. starting with your Macbook. LOL? As if replacing the OS on the same hardware is going to solve the disatisfaction of a power user? And installing a much more broken, inconsistent collection of constantly broken packages? WHich you need to updated CONSTANTLY. If you don't like Windows updates, man, Linux is even worse. Every friggin day there are updates, they are all somehow VERY important, and they are all potential bombs that will fuck up your config or break some apps you installed. Fuck, I'm running a LTS version and I still get updtes everyday, probably for completely insignificant fixes. I think I may end up installing Linux again on a partition because my Ubuntu VM is too sluggish for front end dev (especially CSS animations/transitions) but I would never expect that to be a better solution that straight up OS X.
• bsaunder 10y ago
  I am such a developer. Just moved from an older MPB to a (soon-to-be) Linux (Ubuntu) laptop. Always preferred Linux as my primary OS, but liked Apple hardware and OSX when I didn't feel like fiddling with things. For me it was a complex calculation (in no particular order): -Increasing annoyance by subtle changes to various native mac apps. -Migration of OSX towards more of a Windows, hiding details from the user. -Wanting a machine with NVidia GTX 1070 to explore 3D and ML. -Apple's migration towards a fully soldered machine. -Removal of ports and DVD drive. -The Apple premium is too out of whack. I settled for an Acer Predator 17": https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-model/NH.Q17AA.001 https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-model/NH.Q17A... Essentially: -i7 CPU -NVidia GTX 1070 GPU -16B RAM (now 32GB, with $100 of RAM) -1TB HD -256GB SSD -1920x1080 display -CD/DVD burner -11 ports for stuff It was on sale at MicroCenter for an unbeatable price. The downsides: - its a beast (almost 10 pounds, and 18" - not sure it will fit under an airline seat, needed to buy a larger backpack). - its a "gamer" laptop... with all the tacky red lights and styling deemed necessary by marketing. - the display isn't as nice, but more than sufficient for my needs I've booted from the Ubuntu Live disk and seems to get up and running with minimal issues, not sure how long the road is to get this fully functional with Linux. I strongly considered a System76 laptop, but was ultimately persuaded by the value of this hardware. Ideally I'd like to just by a laptop with a preinstalled and supported hypervisor where I could trivially install any OS image I'd like (preferably in a way that would let me seamlessly run in either a cloud (AWS) or my local device). If I can slog though it, my ultimate plan is to get things running on here with a minimal arch linux as the hypervisor. Not looking forward to dealing with all the driver pain.
  • Fnoord 10y ago
    Agreed with most of the disadvantages. Your processor is also quicker / more power efficient. 16 GB DDR4 will impact the battery life negatively, while 1920x1080 display will impact it positively. Both have their price. The weight of your laptop is more than 2 times the weight of the 15" MBP 2015, approx 1,5 times the weight of a 15" MBP 2010, and roughly 2,5 times the weight of a 15" MBP 2016 (there is no 17" MBP anymore.) DVD drive or burner I won't miss. I would've removed it from my old MBP 2010, but I am afraid it will cause instability. Its also a bit tricky to remove. 1 TB HDD is also IMO pointless. I just use networking if I need to access data. WiFi is quick enough. A major advantage of your beast is the graphics card. If I'd find that important (I don't) I'd consider a eGPU. Regarding bad battery life, if a device uses USB-C I can see power banks being useful in that regard. Good luck, hope to read from you how it works out for you.
• antihero 10y ago
  Used to develop full-time using Arch Linux with a tiling WM (i3), and the reasons I switched to using a MacBook when my company offered me one are: * The trackpad is awesome, it's well integrated with the OS and feels fantastic. I've yet to use a PC trackpad that isn't completely awful. * Networking doesn't randomly break. This used to happen A LOT. The most stable solution I could find was just using wpa_supplicant and maintaining a load of config files, which was irritating and time consuming. * There's a pretty unified well tested operating system that is designed for this piece of hardware. And it shows. * The battery lasts for ages, even in this 2.5 year old laptop. * The text rendering is pretty. * The operating system is aesthetically pleasing and it's interface makes sense to me. I'm up for giving Linux a gander again, but honestly I want something that's as bug free as possible and allows me to get on with coding instead of tinkering around fixing bullshit.
  • falcojr 10y ago
    You'd probably have a lot better luck with Ubuntu or something that isn't rolling. Rolling and bleeding edge distros like Arch have a tendency to break more often when updating.
  • loup-vaillant 10y ago
    Using a "generic" laptop whose origin is not exactly easy to track (it bears the brand of the distributor, not of the maker). I installed ubuntu (LTS) with the proprietary (yuck) Wifi drivers. So far: * The trackpad works. I use a mouse anyway. * Networking didn't randomly break so far. * Don't care about "unified". Apart from a suspension bug, it works. * The battery lasts for 6-7 hours of programming. * Text rendering is pretty. * Xmonad + LXDE is pleasing and their interface make sense —to me at least. It took a little tinkering around fixing bullshit. The lingering suspension bug prevents me to log back in if I close the lid when logged out. On the other hand I can stay the hell away from Apple and their shiny locked down empire.
    • idm 10y ago
      The fact we're still discussing the trackpad, suspend/wake, fonts, networking, and UI - in 2017 - means the problem still isn't solved on Linux. I gave a decade over to that quest (1996-2006) and then spent the next decade using MBPs. With a macbook pro, I have never once wondered about my trackpad, suspend/wake, fonts, networking, UI, or a host of other things like printers, scanners, USB, bluetooth, or external displays. That level of compatibility is a miracle, from the perspective of a daily Linux user. I have used my laptop for heavy computation, software dev, academic work, major presentations, video and multimedia, casual browsing, gaming, etc, and it has NEVER given me trouble due to compatibility. Having spent way too much of my life thinking about those problems on Linux, you have no idea how liberating it is to be free of those concerns. I get OCD about using a specific brand of disposable pen, so you'd better believe I think about the most important tool in my life: my laptop. The MBP is too good to accept any alternative. The 2016 was underwhelming, but it's still the best laptop/OS combination out there. It costs too much for the market and it's not enough-better to justify the upgrade, but dammit there's nothing that even compares. I've been thinking hard about alternatives to the MBP during the past few months, and my decision is that I can't give all this up and still be a functioning academic and entrepreneur. I'll pay the $1000 premium and if I value my time at $25/hour, I'll recover that additional cost within 2 months compared to Linux maintenance. I wish it weren't so, but the maths don't lie.
• abalashov 10y ago
  I've been using Linux on the desktop since age 11, so about twenty years. I guess I missed the whole Apple excitement?
  • 3131s 10y ago
    Since age 17 for me, so about 11 years. I would use Linux even if I thought it were less capable than MacOS / Windows. I don't think that though -- Linux is awesome and somehow I have spent very little time dealing with the problems that others in this thread claim are so common.
    • abalashov 10y ago
      Yeah, I don't know, maybe I'm just lucky, but I haven't had to spend much time getting hardware to work in recent years. Certainly not on Ubuntu. It really does Just Work. I run Arch nowadays and that is certainly not as turn-key as Ubuntu, but there's just too much "magic" in Ubuntu and I was tired of it. But Apple folks should like that sort of thing...
• cxromos 10y ago
  The only thing that makes me wonder is how this piece got 168 points (at the moment of writing this). I hope YC is not going to catch populism (mediocracy) that being a 'trend'.
• SirJohnFalstaff 10y ago
  I am surprised that nobody mentinoted poor quality of LLDB and especially its integration with Python for scripting. Along with absence of tiling window manager these will be my only complaints when using Mac as development environment.
• rswail 10y ago
  Aside from the current Apple anti-fanboi'isms, I switched from Linux on desk/laptop to OSX two years ago. I had used Linux as my desktop and my laptop OS since around 1997 in various incarnations. Stuck with Fedora 12 for any number of years, primarily because of the fear that an upgrade would kill my desktop's flash, wifi, networking, X config etc etc. Yes I should have upgraded more often, but I had better things to do. My laptop was up to date with Fedora, but I still had to dick around to get it to work with external displays, current versions of flash/java (for browser crap I had to use), the stupidities of GNOME3 etc etc. I've been using computers since 1976, I'm sick of mucking around with them just to make something work when I'm trying to do work. Around 2 years ago, I started developing for iOS/Android and had no choice in using a Mac desktop (Mini i7). At first I hated it, but then, everything just works. When it came time to upgrade my laptop, early last year, buying a Retina MBP was an easy decision. As for upgrading it, I'll wait a generation, this round of upgrades was inhibited by Intel's lack of progress on Kaby Lake and Apple's fetish for changing connectors. By the time I upgrade (probably 2 years from now), USB-C/3.1G2/TB3 will be fairly ubiquitous. Docks will be available, good 5K monitors with USB-C to power the laptop. The current crap about only getting 16GB and not being worth the money is just that. Don't buy one. Get a 2015 MBP if that floats your boat. It has effectively the same performance without the "limitation" of USB-C. Have I dicked around with OSX? Yes, I run Karabiner, firefox, magicprefs etc. Reading these comments I found Alfred. But when I install these apps, they install, they work as advertised. Macports has everything I need to get a GNU like env, including latest versions of bash etc. It does it cleanly in /opt and doesn't screw around where Apple wants to lock things down (/usr etc). My MBP sits on my desk closed attached to dual monitors that just work. When I take it on the road, it works when I plug it in to a projector at a meeting. It's a workhorse. I can muck around for fun on a linux VM or on AWS.
• greenspot 10y ago
  I code and I like huge, crisp screens. Minimum two or better three. One for the code, one for testing and one for API docs. If those monitors are hi-dpi, even better (or rather a must in 2016). With the new MBP 15 I can drive... 2x 5k 27" screen + the internal one. No other notebook can do this. Most struggle already with 2x 4K monitors.
• franciscop 10y ago
  I was considering buying a MacBook Air few years back to install Linux. However, I decided in the end to go for the Zenbook Prime at the time for slightly better characteristics in all departments EXCEPT in battery life. It was a great decision. Now I'm on the Asus UX305CA which is great in all departments including battery life EXCEPT it doesn't have a backlit keyboard. It is like every time Asus fixes a thing they screw a new thing. Now that Apple is catching up, unless Asus/others release a good ultrabook by the end of this year my next computer might just be a Mac. The future is going to be made of USB Type-C so I want my next computer to bet heavy on those, including charging.
• ciconia 10y ago
  I think in the current climate choosing macOS over other alternatives has become a much less alluring option. On the contrary, in many ways the choice of OS has become a much less of a big of a deal than it was. Many development platforms and frameworks today have a good cross-OS story (notable exception: Apple's developer tools). In that respect OS's have become much more of a commodity product. As long as they can host your developer tools and frameworks, they can do the job. Even Windows today offers a pretty good experience for developers, and it's remarkable that Microsoft is actually working hard to make Windows a good alternative to MacOS and Linux.
• diimdeep 10y ago
  Alan Kay: 'People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.' This is why no one not even close to macOS and Macbook synergy.
• konart 10y ago
  Might as well right why they are switching from Linux to OS X, Windows or something else. I've been using Ubuntu up until 10.10 (if I'm not mistaken) and then Arch (for about 4 years). In the last two years I've gone from Android+Linux to full Apple. The reasons were: 1) At the time there was no notebook that could compare with MBPr (late 2013 in my case). Yes, you could have find some with the same hardware and even same size\weight, but I haven't hold a single one of them that wouldn't creak. Macbooks are build to be with you all them time. Other companies build them to be compact alternative to your desktop. From what I've seen - nothing really changed since then. 2) Free\opensouce\etc shit. Don't get me wrong - free is good, opensource is awesome, freedom is what all people need. But not the price it comes to your sometimes. Sometime free can be more expensive, opensource can be more binding. One of the reasons to live linux was the number of forks of all the libs and utils in the system. Every now and then some team splits or somebody decides his new chrome and shiny fork is something people need and voila! you have a zoo of this shit. Because the very next day some projects will split because they can't come to agreement about what lib to be using now. This is not a bliss, this is madness. When it comes to my user experience - I don't care what lib does mpv uses and can use, or... whatever. I only care if it does the job as well as before and I don't what all of the said forks in my system, this is a mess. 3) As soon as I got my MBPr I realised I want to try the so called BIG A ECOSYSTEM and bought an iPhone 6 on my birthday (my bd was on the same day the phone came to my country). I was amazed by the level of comfort. Everything works out of the box, the god damn design is always consistent[1], no need to dive into python (or something else) to seamlessly use your phone with your computer. Yes, this comes at a price - without jailbreaking you are tied to your apps, services etc. You can't just upload your music to your phone via usb and some other things, but there are solutions. ONE TIME SOLUTIONS, LINUX!, not one week prior the next update ones.
  • oliwarner 10y ago
    I'm a little bit bemused by your description in #2 as the open source ecosystem as a zoo. It is what you make of it. If you pick brand new shiny things from unproven teams at war with their sourcecode's origin community, you're going to see some churn. You moved from the relative stability of Ubuntu to the constant churn of Arch, which suggests you've missed the point of cadence distributions. Newer is often not automagically better. We've been using and developing with and deploying on Ubuntu for years now. It's not the zoo you describe — though you are free to make it one with poor choices.
• shams93 10y ago
  I see more young developers on Chromebooks and that's not because they hate Apple it's because the la tech marketplace hates to pay them enough to afford a MacBook pro
• phreack 10y ago
  I would love switching away from the royal pain that is OSX and the increasingly worse MacBooks, but alas, I work in iOS development and making a hackintosh is too much of a gray area and fragile. I hate that lock in.
• davout 10y ago
  Try "brew install valgrind", you'll understand.
• k0dede 10y ago
  Typical Hacker news BullSHIT. Start with a 'WHY', lets make a discussion about nonsense
• Zigurd 10y ago
  I recently switched in the opposite direction because I have a greater need of using Xcode than I have of compiling Android. I'll probably install and configure Ubuntu from scratch now that I don't have continuing need of stable toolchains on it. But, for now, I'm liking MacOS better.
• st3v3r 10y ago
  Isn't the new MBP one of the best selling laptops of recent? And I'm honestly not seeing anything in the little blurb of an article that states concretely that this is happening in significant numbers.
• rumcajz 10y ago
  Somehow tangential, but OSX is pain to develop for. I am running Linux on my laptop. If I want to test my project on OSX I would have to buy an Apple box. So, in the end, I am left with Travis CI, which I am using in 60's way, like a timesharing system (change code, submit, wait till it compiles, check errors, iterate). All in all, it not much better than targetting Windows.
• rbanffy 10y ago
  People worry too much about the flavor of Unix they are using. I didn't switch - I have - and use - both Linux (a Dell laptop, an Acer "netbook", a Lenovo "server") and macOS (an rMBP, a Mini) and, quite frankly, there is no real difference. The rMBP is an awesome laptop - light, fast, great screen, but the Dell feels faster and the Acer is lighter (and much, much cheaper). The trackpad on the Acer and Dell annoy me. I don't trust HFS (been bitten by silent corruption more than once) Like I said before, people worry way too much about the program they use to run their terminals and text editors. If it has a Unix-like environment, even Windows (I prefer Cygwin) works.
• markplindsay 10y ago
  I am ready to do this whenever a viable alternative for Sketch becomes available for Linux. I already run a Ubuntu VM full-time for development. Only using VirtualBox for Microsoft's IE VMs would be great. I suppose I could also run Illustrator in Windows, but 2 out of 3 of the designers I work with regularly have embraced Sketch, so I might be out of luck with that plan anyway.
• deavmi 10y ago
  Cause apt-get my friend. That's my reason. Homebrew, ha no.
• a_lifters_life 10y ago
  I used to be a complete apple fan boy...until my $2,500 MacBook pro completely bit the dust (less than 4 years old). Instead, I built a $500 Ubuntu rig(desktop), and bought a $200 chromebook and put Ubuntu on it. Needless to say, a month or two ago this happened, and I'll NEVER spend $xxxx again on a MacBook again.
• beagle3 10y ago
  I'm trying to move from Linux to OS X (after using Linux exclusively for the last 12 years, win/lin before that), and I keep hitting things which feel wrong, like dropping .DS_store files on every directory visited, the 30-minute please-wait-while-we-upgrade-your-kernel which seems to happen more often than once a month. And I have not yet since anything that wowwed me. Linux for me "just works" and has done so for a decade. Am I missing something? Is there are a MacOS secret tweak utility that would get rid of these annoyances? asepsis stopped working on Sierra.