4 ms·

> 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

> 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. Yeah, this stuff is really tiresome. What a bandwagon people have going now.

freehunter 10y ago
Remember back in 2015 when it was cool to be anti-Microsoft on HN? Somewhere in 2016, maybe after WWDC, suddenly the Surface was in and Apple was out. The consensus changed almost overnight, anyone using Apple wasn't a hacker anymore. Either you're on Windows wishing you were using Linux, or you're on macOS wishing you were on Windows wishing you were using Linux. And god forbid you buy any new Apple hardware, you dirty shill. Facebook machine, not a professional, MacBook Pro Air and all that.
- RUG3Y 10y ago
  I think people like to support the "underdog". Whatever is popular will inevitably have people that rebel against that popularity. Maybe it's a bit of the hipster attitude. I use a MBP for work, and while the build quality is great, I find the machine itself to be...meh. My older one had more ports, some that I used often and still miss. I would never have a new Mac for that very reason. The OS is decent, usable certainly, but I really would rather be using Linux. I don't have any very strong opinions though. I'd be fine with any machine with a unixy OS on it. I think very strong, hardline opinions on this kind of stuff can sometimes betray immaturity. The world is rarely "black and white".
  - linkmotif 10y ago
    Yeah. Amen. I've not seen a single PC with the Apple build quality. Combine that with Apple Stores providing excellent, best in industry support for a good price: I'd love to go Linux, but someone needs to build a good Linux notebook with Apple grade support for that to happen. I have no time for tinkering or downtime.
- zeveb 10y ago
  > The consensus changed almost overnight, anyone using Apple wasn't a hacker anymore. FWIW, I've (snarkily, unfairly, wrongly) thought that for many years now. I'm not defending that, because — as noted — it's snarky, unfair and incorrect. But I really have wondered why people who are liberated enough to not use Windows use macOS instead of going all the way to Linux. If you're willing to break the social norm, why not go all the way and be free? > Either you're on Windows wishing you were using Linux, or you're on macOS wishing you were on Windows wishing you were using Linux. Some of us just use Linux, and are happy.
  - freehunter 10y ago
    >Some of us just use Linux, and are happy. Like you said, those are the ones who have "broken free". Everyone else (the "hackers") either use Windows and wish they used Linux or use macOS and wish they used Linux. But they don't actually use Linux, because [reasons]. To be fair to them, I don't use desktop Linux because [reasons].
  - massysett 10y ago
    > But I really have wondered why people who are liberated enough to not use Windows use macOS instead of going all the way to Linux. I used Linux for years. I built a MythTV box and bought a digital TV tuner card for it and, later, a device to get the video from the cable box, along with an IR blaster to change the channels on the cable box. I have owned five laptops on which I used Linux exclusively (1 Dell Latitude, 1 HP EliteBook, and 3 Thinkpads). I built my desktop system for Linux. I have used Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, Arch, Gentoo, and SUSE as my daily drivers, and have tried other systems like Mandriva and Fedora. I have compiled kernels and filed bugreports. I now use OS X. In the end I got tired of desktops with tons of broken stuff. The transition away from GNOME 2 and KDE 3 was rough, with years of no usable major desktops at all. So I switched to barebones window managers like i3, FVWM, and Xmonad. (I have XMonad to thank for introducing me to Haskell, which I still use daily.) I got tired of reading man pages to do simple stuff like change my clock. The thing that broke me in the end was doing my US income taxes. Our taxes are complicated so it helps to have software to do them. There's nothing for Linux. So I filled in my taxes on PDF forms. Even that was not easy: not all Linux PDF readers have the ability to do forms, and figuring out which ones do requires forum searching or trial-and-error. So I resorted to Adobe's non-free software. Even then, doing a US tax return on fillable PDFs is awful. I considered using an online service but I did not want a cloud solution for my private data. That pushed me over and I got a Mac. I had actually tried Macs a few years ago when they were making the white plastic Macbook, but I returned it and stuck with Linux. I found that OS X had come a long way since I had last tried it. I enjoyed doing little things like downloading a song--things that would be a pain on Linux (do I have the right codecs installed? the right package?) And there's a ton of third-party software available. Some of it costs a few bucks, where something similar on Linux would be free--like a little tool to graphically show what is eating my disk space. But it's worth spending a few bucks to save hours hunting for something on Linux and fixing the breakage. So that's why I don't use Linux. My time and my ability to get things done is more important than nebulous "freedom". Proprietary software provides an incentive to some companies to produce useful software. So be it.
- matt4077 10y ago
  The near-unanimous criticism is indeed something new, but I seem to remember Apple getting some flack every time they ship anything. It's usually "This new OS X 10.x is just catering to the unwashed masses. OS X 10.x-2 was a beautiful system for professionals". Part of the problem may be our myopic view of the past, from where it seems as if Apple revolutionised computing on something like a yearly basis. A system that "just works" seems to bore today's "professionals" – even though I'd argue that SSDs and retina displays were two of the last decades' largest improvements in performance and ergonomics, respectively.
- linkmotif 10y ago
  > Either you're on Windows wishing you were using Linux, or you're on macOS wishing you were on Windows wishing you were using Linux Hahaha so good. So true. One thing that's totally crazy is Linux on Windows what a world. Why? So you can run Photoshop?

freehunter 10y ago

Remember back in 2015 when it was cool to be anti-Microsoft on HN? Somewhere in 2016, maybe after WWDC, suddenly the Surface was in and Apple was out. The consensus changed almost overnight, anyone using Apple wasn't a hacker anymore. Either you're on Windows wishing you were using Linux, or you're on macOS wishing you were on Windows wishing you were using Linux. And god forbid you buy any new Apple hardware, you dirty shill. Facebook machine, not a professional, MacBook Pro Air and all that.

RUG3Y 10y ago
I think people like to support the "underdog". Whatever is popular will inevitably have people that rebel against that popularity. Maybe it's a bit of the hipster attitude. I use a MBP for work, and while the build quality is great, I find the machine itself to be...meh. My older one had more ports, some that I used often and still miss. I would never have a new Mac for that very reason. The OS is decent, usable certainly, but I really would rather be using Linux. I don't have any very strong opinions though. I'd be fine with any machine with a unixy OS on it. I think very strong, hardline opinions on this kind of stuff can sometimes betray immaturity. The world is rarely "black and white".
- linkmotif 10y ago
  Yeah. Amen. I've not seen a single PC with the Apple build quality. Combine that with Apple Stores providing excellent, best in industry support for a good price: I'd love to go Linux, but someone needs to build a good Linux notebook with Apple grade support for that to happen. I have no time for tinkering or downtime.
zeveb 10y ago
> The consensus changed almost overnight, anyone using Apple wasn't a hacker anymore. FWIW, I've (snarkily, unfairly, wrongly) thought that for many years now. I'm not defending that, because — as noted — it's snarky, unfair and incorrect. But I really have wondered why people who are liberated enough to not use Windows use macOS instead of going all the way to Linux. If you're willing to break the social norm, why not go all the way and be free? > Either you're on Windows wishing you were using Linux, or you're on macOS wishing you were on Windows wishing you were using Linux. Some of us just use Linux, and are happy.
- freehunter 10y ago
  >Some of us just use Linux, and are happy. Like you said, those are the ones who have "broken free". Everyone else (the "hackers") either use Windows and wish they used Linux or use macOS and wish they used Linux. But they don't actually use Linux, because [reasons]. To be fair to them, I don't use desktop Linux because [reasons].
- massysett 10y ago
  > But I really have wondered why people who are liberated enough to not use Windows use macOS instead of going all the way to Linux. I used Linux for years. I built a MythTV box and bought a digital TV tuner card for it and, later, a device to get the video from the cable box, along with an IR blaster to change the channels on the cable box. I have owned five laptops on which I used Linux exclusively (1 Dell Latitude, 1 HP EliteBook, and 3 Thinkpads). I built my desktop system for Linux. I have used Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, Arch, Gentoo, and SUSE as my daily drivers, and have tried other systems like Mandriva and Fedora. I have compiled kernels and filed bugreports. I now use OS X. In the end I got tired of desktops with tons of broken stuff. The transition away from GNOME 2 and KDE 3 was rough, with years of no usable major desktops at all. So I switched to barebones window managers like i3, FVWM, and Xmonad. (I have XMonad to thank for introducing me to Haskell, which I still use daily.) I got tired of reading man pages to do simple stuff like change my clock. The thing that broke me in the end was doing my US income taxes. Our taxes are complicated so it helps to have software to do them. There's nothing for Linux. So I filled in my taxes on PDF forms. Even that was not easy: not all Linux PDF readers have the ability to do forms, and figuring out which ones do requires forum searching or trial-and-error. So I resorted to Adobe's non-free software. Even then, doing a US tax return on fillable PDFs is awful. I considered using an online service but I did not want a cloud solution for my private data. That pushed me over and I got a Mac. I had actually tried Macs a few years ago when they were making the white plastic Macbook, but I returned it and stuck with Linux. I found that OS X had come a long way since I had last tried it. I enjoyed doing little things like downloading a song--things that would be a pain on Linux (do I have the right codecs installed? the right package?) And there's a ton of third-party software available. Some of it costs a few bucks, where something similar on Linux would be free--like a little tool to graphically show what is eating my disk space. But it's worth spending a few bucks to save hours hunting for something on Linux and fixing the breakage. So that's why I don't use Linux. My time and my ability to get things done is more important than nebulous "freedom". Proprietary software provides an incentive to some companies to produce useful software. So be it.
matt4077 10y ago
The near-unanimous criticism is indeed something new, but I seem to remember Apple getting some flack every time they ship anything. It's usually "This new OS X 10.x is just catering to the unwashed masses. OS X 10.x-2 was a beautiful system for professionals". Part of the problem may be our myopic view of the past, from where it seems as if Apple revolutionised computing on something like a yearly basis. A system that "just works" seems to bore today's "professionals" – even though I'd argue that SSDs and retina displays were two of the last decades' largest improvements in performance and ergonomics, respectively.
linkmotif 10y ago
> Either you're on Windows wishing you were using Linux, or you're on macOS wishing you were on Windows wishing you were using Linux Hahaha so good. So true. One thing that's totally crazy is Linux on Windows what a world. Why? So you can run Photoshop?