16 ms·

I used MacOS for years and loved it. But now have been on linux (on both Mac and a X220) exclusively for a few years and I'm honestly confused as to why a devel

by qume 8y ago

I used MacOS for years and loved it. But now have been on linux (on both Mac and a X220) exclusively for a few years and I'm honestly confused as to why a developer in this community would even think of not running Linux full time. I have seen people here address this before, but it's always like a list someone from Lebanon would write after moving Costa Rica - never really that things are wrong on the other side of the fence, just that it's different. Stick it out a bit and the pain of those differences melt away. If I had to shift to MacOS now it would be far far more painful than the shift from Mac to Linux.

aroman 8y ago
I'd love to switch back to running Linux on my laptop. Here's some things that aren't "but it's just different" that are stopping me (for now): - can't run apps I depend on (e.g., Sketch.app only runs on macOS, and I I have a lot of existing files on it, and there's a lot more support for Sketch than, say, Inkscape. Other examples: Things.app, 1Password... hell, even Spotify barely works on Linux (does hi-dpi work yet?) - hardware quality & support (if my Apple laptop has an issue, I can take it into an Apple store and get it fixed same-day in many cases. also, recent keyboard issues notwithstanding, Mac laptops are generally seen has having best-in-class build quality and durability) - hardware support+power management (much better than it used to be, but depending on which laptop you choose, many people still have issues getting hardware edgecases, like suspending and resuming, adjusting the backlight based on ambient light, applying optimal power management, etc) - touchpad drivers (libinput and wayland are making progress on this front, but the experience is still not on par with Windows Precision and macOS - mobile device integration (unlock my computer with my watch, get phone texts forwarded to my laptop, make and receive calls via my phone, etc) Trust me when I say, I really wish I could move back to Linux. I spent many years helping develop a desktop linux distro. And certainly things have improved substantially since a few years ago — hiDPI support in particular is really excellent these days. But there's still a number of barriers for even technical users. At the end of the day, I want to get work done with my laptop. I don't want to fuss around with configuring and worrying what happens if an update upsets my driver compatibility (yes, I know about btrfs snapshots and kernel image caching). Just my $0.02. Sorry to be a downer.
- victornomad 8y ago
  - Figma works very well as an online replacent for sketch - Spotify works perfectly in linux for long time - Thinkpads have the best support ever. They even came to my home to fix it the same day I used to have Macs but made my way back to Linux (Manjaro) and happiest ever
  - skykooler 8y ago
    Spotify doesn't work "perfectly" in Linux when it comes to high-DPI displays - fonts in some parts of the UI scale correctly while others don't.
  - oneplane 8y ago
    Spotify doesn't work perfectly in Linux, and it's always lagging behind and does weird things. Take for example a locked screen with spotify in the background. When you wake the screen and log in, Spotify often decided to curl up in a corner of the screen because apparently it tried to get the screen size from a locked, sleeping screen, which is 0. Or maybe it was one of the 10 API's between Spotify and the screen data it wanted...
- fulafel 8y ago
  If you have 1-2 rarely used apps that are keeping you, you can run OS X in a VM. Legally, if you're on a Mac. In the hardware dept, people are always bringing up the issue that Linux doesn't work well on all the random laptop hardware. It's true but it's not exactly a disadvantage compared to OS X, which works well on a much smaller set of hardware.
  - missjellyfish 8y ago
    Except I you want to do any pro audio work. That won‘t ever happen in a VM because of the added latency. Even using Photoshop efficiently in a VM is tiresome because at least virtualbox breaks key/mouse combos.
  - e12e 8y ago
    > you can run OS X in a VM. Legally, if you're on a Mac. This is the infuriating part. You can buy an os x license - but only to run on Apple hw. So you can't legally run it on other hw. Not sure if this is really enforceable here (Norway) vs consumers due to somewhat strong consumer protection - but it's probably enforceable against businesses, which is bad enough.
dokem 8y ago
I used Linux as my general desktop through college. I love Linux, really. But when I'm not working and just want to chill at home I don't need the technical overhead. I don't really care about win vs OSX anymore, just give me something that doesn't have any edge cases.
sanderjd 8y ago
I use Linux on a desktop at work, and like it just fine. I don't feel strongly about it, it's a tool, and it works plenty well. If someone installed macOS on it, I think that would be fine too. But laptops are a whole different story. The last time I tried using Linux (and Windows too, actually) on a laptop, I couldn't get through a day without wishing for the touchpad from my (2015 vintage) macbook pro. Most touchpad hardware sucks to begin with, and installing Linux on the MBP itself still sucked due to drivers. My computer is sadly getting long in the tooth and I definitely won't be getting one of the new MacBooks after reading people's experiences with them, so I think I'll have an opportunity to try out a Linux laptop again soon, but I'm more dreading than looking forward to it. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
- vinay427 8y ago
  I dread touchpads in general. Now that I've gotten used to a TrackPoint (specifically the IBM/Lenovo variety), it's far more efficient and comfortable particularly over longer periods of use for me.
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    Yeah maybe I'll try that out. It just seems so different. But maybe different is good.
  - peatmoss 8y ago
    I hate the ergonomics of portable computers in general. I always marvel at people who hunch over a little laptop when they don’t need to. I know some people truly need to do portable computing, but I view a desktop as the ultimate luxury. If I need to suffer a laptop, then the TrackPoint is head and shoulders better than any giant Apple glass slab. For all other use, a $20 Logitech Marble Mouse is supreme bliss.
- bubblethink 8y ago
  >so I think I'll have an opportunity to try out a Linux laptop again soon, but I'm more dreading than looking forward to it. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Current crop of laptops aren't particularly good. They are all plagued by various thermal issues due to the quad-core CPUs in ultrabook form factors. Even thinkpads have suspend resume issues right now. Avoid the thin ones. Avoid nvidia. Save some money, and go with something a bit older.
kitsunesoba 8y ago
No distributions with truly great out of the box defaults, too much time tied up in configuration, too few Linux app developers with a user-oriented mindset and obsession with getting all the details right. Also, just generally death by a thousand cuts with ridiculous numbers of small annoyances. With a Mac I can have it set up to my liking and be working in little more than an hour. Under Linux (and to a lesser extent Windows) it’s a multi day project.
- sandGorgon 8y ago
  That is incorrect. I really urge you to try Fedora 28 today (you can liveboot). I have had Mac users use my laptop for a little while and love the usability. Everything simply works. I use Skype Web and Zoom to do videoconferencing ...and obviously all the Slack-like tools work great. And you have the choice to buy spectacular developer focused hardware like XPS or ThinkPad laptops.
  - kitsunesoba 8y ago
    I had Fedora 26 or 27 installed on a secondary partition on my tower for a while and wasn’t particularly impressed. All of the things mentioned in my original comment applied to some degree... I could make it work and I’d use it over Windows any day but it wouldn’t be my first choice.
  - free652 8y ago
    I am using linux/unix for 25+ years, but the desktop just never works for me. I'd echo its just death by a thousand cuts. The usual suspects: fonts, video drivers, sounds drivers, various USB devices supports, sleep/wake issues. And lack of basic apps, like a good multitabbed SSH/RDP terminal.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      I honestly can't believe what I'm reading here. Is it still 1999 where you live!?
Waterluvian 8y ago
I have a lot of reasons but I'll share the one that always comes first. I have never had a Linux laptop that would both reliably run three monitors and proper power saving when solo on battery. Every response I ever get is always so disappointing too because it's usually people who think your time is worth nothing and they casually want you to spend hours screwing with Bumblebee or whatever. And when I do build up the patience to actually try it ends up breaking something else about my graphics. Sorry this is a sore spot for me. I do robotics so using a Mac for years was painful when I had to run ROS, but everything else about it stayed completely out of my way. Ubuntu is fantastic only when I low-pass my actions, avoiding anything slightly edgy, unusual, out there. Oh my god I had to compile mouse drivers for my Logitech MX to make the wheel stop screwing up. It's a mouse!!! They were invented in the 20th century! My Bluetooth driver just crashes once a week. Silently. My mouse just stops working. I have to power it off fully because a reboot won't do it. I lived in an apartment around 50 or so wifi connections. I would have to toggle wifi on and off over and over the first time connecting because the damn list wouldn't show them all and mine wasn't on the list! I've worked in product and while I still think so much about product is just utter nonsense, some of it isn't, and it's those practical parts that seem lost on so many engineers. Why can't I make my damn software Ubuntu update thing not appear every day? I've tried to kill it with stack overflow answers a few times. Why do I have to pick between chrome having tiny controls and the rest of my UI having massive controls on my 4k monitor? I don't care about what brand it is. If it's cool. If it's open source or free. I just want it to all just quietly work and stay well out of my way. No actually I'm not done yet. Why do I have to tell it every time what kind of headphones I just plugged in? And when I leave sleep it forgets and starts blasting 80s eurodisco in the office even though they're still plugged in? Okay I think I'm done for good this time. Just off the top of my head the things that make me feel like I'm trying to become a master musician by practicing 10 000 hours on a kazoo.
- mike_ivanov 8y ago
  Almost all of these problems are coming from using either Ubuntu or Unity/Gnome. Don't use that stuff. Try Manjaro, Fedora or Mint and try it with KDE, Cinnamon or whatever else. The difference is huge.
dmitrygr 8y ago
One word: HiDpi Details: try a HiDpi display and a non HiDpi display both connected to the same PC. Nothing but MacOS handles this well. Even Win10 struggles with Windows that straddle the boundary or things dragged across it.
- danieldk 8y ago
  HiDPI works well on the latest GNOME with Wayland. I use a 4k display at home with the amdgpu driver and it works great. I have also hooked up a non-4k Dell Ultrasharp display and with Wayland, both displays can use different DPIs. The Qt and Tk (since 8.6) applications also scale nicely with GNOME3. The only glitch is that currently only integer scaling works well.
  - ironjunkie 8y ago
    Did you write up or have a link on how you managed to do this ? I'm currently struggling with a similar configuration. I have a XPS 9570 with integrated 15" 4K screen, and an external screen, non4K. This is literally driving me crazy as each app on Gnome seems to handle scaling slightly differently!
    - danieldk 8y ago
      Not much to write up. This was on Arch, I just installed GNOME (on Nix now, so this is from memory): sudo pacman -S gnome sudo systemctl enable gdm sudo systemctl start gdm GNOME Wayland is the default session. Log in, press the super key top open Settings, go to Display and set scaling to 200% on the 4k screen. After that, everything worked fine. Since I use the non-4k screen vertically, I had to rotate the second screen in the settings. The last time I used Fedora it worked without extra work (besides setting scaling to 200% in the Display settings). Things only started working well with GNOME 2.26 and very well with 2.28. In any case, you have to make sure that you are using Wayland, support for multi-DPI screens on X.org has been terrible for me. Even a single 4k screen is not very consistent in X.org (e.g. the mouse cursor sometimes becomes tiny when moving between windows).
scarface74 8y ago
That whole commercial software thing. Why would I futz around with Linux when I can get a Mac that has an operating system tailor made for it and a true Unix environment when needed? Only on the Mac can I develop for every mainstream desktop and mobile OS.
- soperj 8y ago
  you're literally supporting a company because of bullshit policies that every developer would have an issue with if it was microsoft.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Which “bullshit” policy is that?
    - soperj 8y ago
      >Only on the Mac can I develop for every mainstream desktop and mobile OS.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        How is that a “bullshit policy”?
        vetinari 8y ago
        Because it's by design. It's not that it is difficult to add a aarch64/ios backed to your favourite compiler. Making the artefact provisionable to emulator (which you would get on macOS only anyway, because what's inside is copyrighted and thus non-distributable) or physical device is entirely another game. Apple is locking you in and you reward them for that.
        scarface74 8y ago
        There is no such thing as an “iOS emulator”. The iOS simulator uses an x86 compiled version of your code and links to it an x86 build of the iOS framework. Again there is an existence proof you can deploy code directly from Windows to iOS devices.... https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/11/microsoft-now-lets-ios-developers-deploy-run-and-test-their-apps-directly-from-windows/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/11/microsoft-now-lets-ios-dev... Microsoft tells us that it talked to Apple about this functionality and that it has its rival’s blessing and that the Live Player application complies with all of Apple’s usual rules..
Osiris 8y ago
Graphics drivers. My System76 laptop, pre-installed with customized Ubuntu, needs to be rebooted just to switch between Nvidia and Intel GPU if you want power savings (external monitors are directly wired to Nvidia chip).
- bubblethink 8y ago
  That's an ubuntu 18.04 thing that's being worked on. You can either stick with 16.04, or use this repo https://github.com/matthieugras/Prime-Ubuntu-18.04 https://github.com/matthieugras/Prime-Ubuntu-18.04 until it is properly fixed. More importantly, the first rule of running linux well (which I assume you wanted to since you got system76) is to never buy nvidia.
missjellyfish 8y ago
The answer is simple: neither the Adobe Suite nor Cubase run on Linux, both of which I require for my side gig that keeps me from going crazy. Additionally, Color accuracy and configuration is broken beyond repair in both X and Wayland, especially in a Muli monitor setup.
mediocrejoker 8y ago
I switched from Linux to Mac about a year ago and something that is underrated in MacOS is the _consistency_ of the UI. Not just the visual appearance, but for example keyboard shortcuts are relatively universal; Cmd + , is the shortcut for Preferences/Settings in Safari, Chrome, iTerm, Slack, NewsReader etc. I don't know if that would even be possible on the leading Linux DEs. I love the customizability of linux, but I've decided that a good user experience goes beyond the appearance, and what's required is putting serious thought into user workflows. Those sorts of usability studies don't seem to be a priority for most FOSS projects. There are things about Linux that I miss on Mac, but overall I prefer a system that's consistent to one that ticks every single box.
- as1mov 8y ago
  > Not just the visual appearance, but for example keyboard shortcuts are relatively universal; Cmd + , is the shortcut for Preferences/Settings in Safari, Chrome, iTerm, Slack, NewsReader etc. I don't know if that would even be possible on the leading Linux DEs. Kinda funny, but the inverse is true for me. I am forced to use a Macbook at work and shortcuts are a frustrating thing. Do I have to use Cmd + <x> or Ctrl+ <x>? Considering both Windows and Linux follow almost the same shortcuts, Mac is the odd one out here.
  - EatYourGreens 8y ago
    > Kinda funny, but the inverse is true for me. I am forced to use a Macbook at work and shortcuts are a frustrating thing. Do I have to use Cmd + <x> or Ctrl+ <x>? No reason to be confused. You need to use Cmd + <x>, because off the top of my head Ctrl is involved only into text editing shortcuts (what GTK+ calls "emacs theme") and some obscure stuff.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - as1mov 8y ago
      Switching between CMD/Ctrl is really weird for someone who has used Win/Linux all their life, where most of the major shortcuts use Ctrl. To be fair I wouldn't really count this as a negative, this is probably very far down in my list of gripes I have against Apple devices. It's just that it's equally pointless when a Mac user complains about shortcuts in Win/Linux. Even in this thread, you can see most of the complaints boil down to "It doesn't work like the way it does in <Insert the system you are used to>"
sircastor 8y ago
Every couple of years Apple does something that makes me think "maybe it's time to try to do Linux". I'm competent with Linux. I use it daily at work and can manage the cat majority of the time. I have however, on occasion dealt with a catastrophic failure, after some normal suggested upgrade. Catastrophic as in I can't recover from it, or the best suggestion is to roll the kernel back, which is a very foreign concept. Still, I might try the next time I'm up for getting a new laptop. I'm not pleased with the way Apple is going with their laptops, and I'm not interested in Windows.
- ne01 8y ago
  In what distro did you experience the upgrade problems?
- roryisok 8y ago
  > and I'm not interested in Windows That seems to be the general consensus around here. If you're a dev, you either run MacOS or Linux. As a dev who runs Windows and MacOS I don't really get this. Windows 10 is excellent for dev work. I understand there are privacy issues that make people not want to use MS products but from a purely functional perspective it's a great User experience.
  - hocuspocus 8y ago
    I use Windows 10 exclusively at home and it's indeed pretty good but there are unfortunately a few things that would stop me at work: * There's now a major upgrade every six months and Microsoft still hasn't figured out how to make the process reliable. * Chocolatey is good but the available packages are sometimes lacking. Linux distros have always been miles ahead in this regard, and nowadays with snap I can even find third party software that wasn't packaged before.
    - roryisok 8y ago
      Actually I find choco to be miles better than apt-get. With apt-get I often have to add repos before I can install some app (usually something which fixes some basic part of Linux). This, for me, negates the whole point of having a package manager. What good is it if I have to tell it where to look?
jpincheira 8y ago
I've used Linux since 2004 but because I needed to do design, I had to switch to macOS sadly. For developers, it really makes no sense to stay on macOS.
beagle3 8y ago
> If I had to shift to MacOS now it would be far far more painful than the shift from Mac to Linux. Wholeheartedly agree. I've been slowly moving from Linux (mostly Ubuntu 14.04) to High Sierra, and there are a few things that make absolutely no sense about OSX: - There's a difference, in almost every piece of software, between closing the last window and quitting. In a browser, just pressing the "close" button would lose all your tabs, whereas "quit" will preserve them. That makes no sense to someone coming from Linux or Windows; I'm sure OSX users have gotten used to this difference, but ... it's clunky. - OSX puts one small dot next to an icon of the app that's open. Unity puts one dot for every open window the app has (but no more than 3 even if you more than 3), _and_ a marker that tells you which app has focus (and whether it is on the current workspace or on different one); also middle click on the icon universally opens a new windows. I never realized how convenient and informative this is, until I lost this feature with OSX. - OSX litters all the (local) directories you visit with finder preview files. It does it for remote ones to, but at least that can be turned off - not so for local. There used to be 3rd party kexts to stop that, but not anymore. Gnome/unity keeps the previews in one directory; Windows is almost as bad as MACOS (except it can be turned off universally). - Having used locally integrated menus for the past ~30 years or so, I find OSX' global menus uncomfortable. I've spent a while with Unity's global menus to try them out, and after two months of use gave up and went back to local menus. OSX doesn't give you that choice. (And yes, I know of Apple's studies that resulted in the global menu - I suspect the originals are no longer relevant -- due to higher resolution screens, larger number of open apps on average, and familiarity with window systems; Does anybody know if these studies were repeated any time in the last 5 years?) - "apt install" (and many of its GUI frontends) are years ahead of Mac OS app installations, whether app store or DMG, both in ease of use and in breadth covered; "brew" comes close, but no cigar yet; Haven't tried Nix, Fink or MacPorts yet. - A kernel update that requires restart is uncommon on either system; less than once a month. Yet, on the Mac it's 5-30 minutes of downtime to apply, depending on the update; on Linux I have my desktop back in less than 30 seconds. - keyboard shortcuts. "End" goes to end of document, "Home" goes to beginning; Low frequency of use (for anyone I know). Beggining/end of line: Option+Left, Option+Right; high frequency of use. It's a "different strokes" thing, for sure, but even though the Mac is consistent, it is very weird compared to (everything else going back 50 years), and not optimized. Yes, OSX looks more polished, and even small utility apps are really gorgeous. But so far it feels that functionality wise for a non-artist engineer like me, OSX is trailing.
edhelas 8y ago
Can we also mention those "hacky-package-manager" that are brew and macport? Things are installed all over the place, hard to have consistent version across different machines. I think that a developer OS MUST have a proper package manager.
- jagger27 8y ago
  I wonder whose decision it was back in the very early days of Mac OS X to not include a package manager—not even when Xcode first came out or with the Mac App Store. I'm imaging now some grey bearded dev at Apple getting immediately shot down for suggesting they build the Mac App Store on an open package manager foundation.
- stiGGG 8y ago
  IMHO there is no better package manager then homebrew on linux. It’s so flexible and so much less in your way. The only thing that suck, is that often something breaks when apple does a major release. So in this point i agree, I would love if Apple would directly ship it. But it’s understandable why they don’t, I guess.
pimeys 8y ago
I hear you. I did the switch from MacOS to Linux about ten years ago and currently, if an employer forces me out from Linux it's time to look for a new job. What would be painful for me is to lose my i3 environment with the perfectly tuned keyboard setup, all configuration stored in a version control, including the system software through the declarative NixOS configuration. Basically getting a new laptop for me is to boot from NixOS USB stick with my configuration, run the installer and boot to the familiar i3 desktop I've been using for years. All the software including the right configuration will be there. Nothing will change through a whimsy update that introduces some new UI feature that will break my workflow. I also really like the ThinkPad hardware, especially the perfect keyboards.
flohofwoe 8y ago
For me it's mainly the touchpad interaction and UI performance. I never got satisfactory results for both when setting up a laptop with Linux (the Windows/Linux dual-boot laptop I'm using has even slightly more powerful hardware than the MBP). I need to switch between all 3 desktop OSes all the time though and wouldn't mind switching to Linux as the main OS, but all in all MacOS is the most enjoyable.
csomar 8y ago
It really depends on what you do and what you use your machine for. If you are using Vim to develop C Cli Applications; and you use your iPad for facebook/messaging/etc... then Linux will work for you. If you use your Mac to manage emails, calendar, skype, chrome, etc... then you are better of with a Mac and OS X.
- hughw 8y ago
  It takes two is what I've found. I build software on a System76 laptop running 18.04. That's pretty much a perfect dev environment with the advantage of physical function keys -- kind of essential if you spend lots of time remoting using byobu. I keep a MacBook for Keynote, business docs, conferencing, and to carry to customer sites for presentations. When I developed on a Mac, it used to be nice to have an integrated environment. I really liked having the iPhone/iPad/Mac ecosystem available even right on my working dev laptop. But dropping function keys, along with longer update cycles, indicates my workflow isn't Apple's priority. I've found the transition really easy, and I now think of Apple devices as appliances, not computers I can program, which is what Apple wants me to think anyway.
jdboyd 8y ago
It is hard to develop for iOS and tvOS solely from Linux.
bitwize 8y ago
Because even developers want computers that Just Work. Because Macs are, hands down, the best modern desktop experience.
- isostatic 8y ago
  > Because even developers want computers that Just Work Which is why I've used Linux for nearly 20 years. It Just Works. YMMV, Plural of Annecdote is not data, etc. I'm just happy that nowadays it's a genuine choice.
  - ofrzeta 8y ago
    Why is the plural of anecdote not data? Everyone I know who is using Linux has some problems, with either WiFi, updates breaking things, ever changing interfaces (Iproute2, Networkmanager, systemd-networkd). I am saying this as someone with 25 years of Linux experience.
crispinb 8y ago
> I'm honestly confused as to why a developer in this community would even think of not running Linux full time Well I'm a developer (if not 'in this community'). I don't run Linux on the desktop because when I have I've just found it too much trouble in so many ways. It took up too much of my time. Working full-time as a developer already consumes as much of my life as I'm willing to spend confined to a screen and keyboard. I know a dozen folk will chime in with the automatic responses informing me that it takes no more time to run than macOS or Windows. But in my experience that's just not true, and, frankly, the OS I use isn't of much concern to me. It wouldn't get anywhere near my "1000 things I'm most concerned about in life" list.
- eggie 8y ago
  I've watched many of my and coworkers spending huge amounts of time (many hours a month) fiddling with the complexities of managing software packages on OSX systems. Everything was so frighteningly manual and impossible to reproduce. They easily individually used 50x as much time doing that as I spent fiddling with my Linux installation. Those are levels of effort that definitely matter to me enough that I put importance in the OS I use.
  - ofrzeta 8y ago
    As both a Linux and macOS user, on both the desktop (I even dual boot Linux and macOS on the Mac Mini) and the laptop, I find Homebrew satisfies my needs for third party software package installation.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    There goes the automatic response. I really don't care what your coworkers do, because I'm not amassing evidence for a general proposition (if I were interested enough in that I'd go an do a Phd on it). I have used OSX/macOS for several years. It has used close to zero of my limited time to maintain. That's what I want from an OS.
brightball 8y ago
To each their own. I switched from Mac to Linux last year and did some experimenting. Now I’m using Ubuntu 18.04 after committing time to both Fedora and Mint. I had good experiences with all of them but this latest Ubuntu with Gnome 3 has been great. I’d also have a hard time going back to OSX now. At the same time, it’s not for everybody. This was something I wanted to do for me and I was determined to see it through. If somebody had pushed me into it I probably would have spent more time focusing on deficiencies.
- abledon 8y ago
  Did you switch hardware too, or end up running ubuntu on a macbook pro?
  - brightball 8y ago
    I committed and bought a Dell Developer Edition laptop. I wanted support in case I had a problem and I wanted to know all of the hardware was built to work smoothly with Linux without having to research each item. I was torn between Dell and System76 but ended up settling on Dell because of previous great hardware experiences with them. I’d held on to my 17” MBP until last January when it was clear they were sticking with their current direction on laptops.
chewz 8y ago
My solution is connecting the best of three worlds. I am running ChromeOS on Macbook Pro 13 so I am having Mac's touchpad, Pro keyboard, Retina screen and Mac's durability. It get's little hotter with ChromeOS but battery life is generally as good as under macOS. Graphical enviroment is ChromeOS which is basically just Chrome and extensions. Yes - HBOGo, Spotify, Inbox, Photos could be used as apps but they are still working in a browser. And with crouton I have Debian stretch CLI which is just that - Debian - solid, stable and there is solution to most problems. This setup is amazingly portable. I make regular backups with crouton and keep USB stick with ChromeOS installer on my keychain. Now I am spending summer vacation and I have left my Mac at home. So I have just installed ChromeOS on 10-year old Acer laptop, Google downloaded all documents and extensions in 15 minutes and I have installed crouton and recreated Debian from backup. In 15 minutes I had been up and running in my home environment. Of course - touchpad on Acer sucks compared to Mac, laptop gets hot and screen estate is 1/4 of Mac's Retina but every single setting in environment is 1:1 with my Macbook. I have never been heavy user of macOS native apps and I have slowly moved from Apple/iCloud walled garden to Google (Photos, Drive etc.) so jumping ships had been painless for me. My memories of macOS is of never fixed annoying glitches, heavy 'obligatory' updates and tons of unnecessary files cluttering my drive.
- PascalW 8y ago
  How do you install ChromeOS on any old laptop? Last I looked into that it wasn't really possible.
  - chewz 8y ago
    It's really easy using one of Neverware builds (but you won't have dual boot, they have removed that option) https://www.neverware.com/freedownload https://www.neverware.com/freedownload
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
swerveonem 8y ago
Driver for laptop hardware, battery life are the two most important reasons.

by qume 8y ago

aroman 8y ago

I'd love to switch back to running Linux on my laptop. Here's some things that aren't "but it's just different" that are stopping me (for now): - can't run apps I depend on (e.g., Sketch.app only runs on macOS, and I I have a lot of existing files on it, and there's a lot more support for Sketch than, say, Inkscape. Other examples: Things.app, 1Password... hell, even Spotify barely works on Linux (does hi-dpi work yet?) - hardware quality & support (if my Apple laptop has an issue, I can take it into an Apple store and get it fixed same-day in many cases. also, recent keyboard issues notwithstanding, Mac laptops are generally seen has having best-in-class build quality and durability) - hardware support+power management (much better than it used to be, but depending on which laptop you choose, many people still have issues getting hardware edgecases, like suspending and resuming, adjusting the backlight based on ambient light, applying optimal power management, etc) - touchpad drivers (libinput and wayland are making progress on this front, but the experience is still not on par with Windows Precision and macOS - mobile device integration (unlock my computer with my watch, get phone texts forwarded to my laptop, make and receive calls via my phone, etc) Trust me when I say, I really wish I could move back to Linux. I spent many years helping develop a desktop linux distro. And certainly things have improved substantially since a few years ago — hiDPI support in particular is really excellent these days. But there's still a number of barriers for even technical users. At the end of the day, I want to get work done with my laptop. I don't want to fuss around with configuring and worrying what happens if an update upsets my driver compatibility (yes, I know about btrfs snapshots and kernel image caching). Just my $0.02. Sorry to be a downer.

victornomad 8y ago
- Figma works very well as an online replacent for sketch - Spotify works perfectly in linux for long time - Thinkpads have the best support ever. They even came to my home to fix it the same day I used to have Macs but made my way back to Linux (Manjaro) and happiest ever
- skykooler 8y ago
  Spotify doesn't work "perfectly" in Linux when it comes to high-DPI displays - fonts in some parts of the UI scale correctly while others don't.
- oneplane 8y ago
  Spotify doesn't work perfectly in Linux, and it's always lagging behind and does weird things. Take for example a locked screen with spotify in the background. When you wake the screen and log in, Spotify often decided to curl up in a corner of the screen because apparently it tried to get the screen size from a locked, sleeping screen, which is 0. Or maybe it was one of the 10 API's between Spotify and the screen data it wanted...
fulafel 8y ago
If you have 1-2 rarely used apps that are keeping you, you can run OS X in a VM. Legally, if you're on a Mac. In the hardware dept, people are always bringing up the issue that Linux doesn't work well on all the random laptop hardware. It's true but it's not exactly a disadvantage compared to OS X, which works well on a much smaller set of hardware.
- missjellyfish 8y ago
  Except I you want to do any pro audio work. That won‘t ever happen in a VM because of the added latency. Even using Photoshop efficiently in a VM is tiresome because at least virtualbox breaks key/mouse combos.
- e12e 8y ago
  > you can run OS X in a VM. Legally, if you're on a Mac. This is the infuriating part. You can buy an os x license - but only to run on Apple hw. So you can't legally run it on other hw. Not sure if this is really enforceable here (Norway) vs consumers due to somewhat strong consumer protection - but it's probably enforceable against businesses, which is bad enough.

dokem 8y ago

I used Linux as my general desktop through college. I love Linux, really. But when I'm not working and just want to chill at home I don't need the technical overhead. I don't really care about win vs OSX anymore, just give me something that doesn't have any edge cases.

sanderjd 8y ago

I use Linux on a desktop at work, and like it just fine. I don't feel strongly about it, it's a tool, and it works plenty well. If someone installed macOS on it, I think that would be fine too. But laptops are a whole different story. The last time I tried using Linux (and Windows too, actually) on a laptop, I couldn't get through a day without wishing for the touchpad from my (2015 vintage) macbook pro. Most touchpad hardware sucks to begin with, and installing Linux on the MBP itself still sucked due to drivers. My computer is sadly getting long in the tooth and I definitely won't be getting one of the new MacBooks after reading people's experiences with them, so I think I'll have an opportunity to try out a Linux laptop again soon, but I'm more dreading than looking forward to it. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

vinay427 8y ago
I dread touchpads in general. Now that I've gotten used to a TrackPoint (specifically the IBM/Lenovo variety), it's far more efficient and comfortable particularly over longer periods of use for me.
- sanderjd 8y ago
  Yeah maybe I'll try that out. It just seems so different. But maybe different is good.
- peatmoss 8y ago
  I hate the ergonomics of portable computers in general. I always marvel at people who hunch over a little laptop when they don’t need to. I know some people truly need to do portable computing, but I view a desktop as the ultimate luxury. If I need to suffer a laptop, then the TrackPoint is head and shoulders better than any giant Apple glass slab. For all other use, a $20 Logitech Marble Mouse is supreme bliss.
bubblethink 8y ago
>so I think I'll have an opportunity to try out a Linux laptop again soon, but I'm more dreading than looking forward to it. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Current crop of laptops aren't particularly good. They are all plagued by various thermal issues due to the quad-core CPUs in ultrabook form factors. Even thinkpads have suspend resume issues right now. Avoid the thin ones. Avoid nvidia. Save some money, and go with something a bit older.

kitsunesoba 8y ago

No distributions with truly great out of the box defaults, too much time tied up in configuration, too few Linux app developers with a user-oriented mindset and obsession with getting all the details right. Also, just generally death by a thousand cuts with ridiculous numbers of small annoyances. With a Mac I can have it set up to my liking and be working in little more than an hour. Under Linux (and to a lesser extent Windows) it’s a multi day project.

sandGorgon 8y ago
That is incorrect. I really urge you to try Fedora 28 today (you can liveboot). I have had Mac users use my laptop for a little while and love the usability. Everything simply works. I use Skype Web and Zoom to do videoconferencing ...and obviously all the Slack-like tools work great. And you have the choice to buy spectacular developer focused hardware like XPS or ThinkPad laptops.
- kitsunesoba 8y ago
  I had Fedora 26 or 27 installed on a secondary partition on my tower for a while and wasn’t particularly impressed. All of the things mentioned in my original comment applied to some degree... I could make it work and I’d use it over Windows any day but it wouldn’t be my first choice.
- free652 8y ago
  I am using linux/unix for 25+ years, but the desktop just never works for me. I'd echo its just death by a thousand cuts. The usual suspects: fonts, video drivers, sounds drivers, various USB devices supports, sleep/wake issues. And lack of basic apps, like a good multitabbed SSH/RDP terminal.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    I honestly can't believe what I'm reading here. Is it still 1999 where you live!?

Waterluvian 8y ago

I have a lot of reasons but I'll share the one that always comes first. I have never had a Linux laptop that would both reliably run three monitors and proper power saving when solo on battery. Every response I ever get is always so disappointing too because it's usually people who think your time is worth nothing and they casually want you to spend hours screwing with Bumblebee or whatever. And when I do build up the patience to actually try it ends up breaking something else about my graphics. Sorry this is a sore spot for me. I do robotics so using a Mac for years was painful when I had to run ROS, but everything else about it stayed completely out of my way. Ubuntu is fantastic only when I low-pass my actions, avoiding anything slightly edgy, unusual, out there. Oh my god I had to compile mouse drivers for my Logitech MX to make the wheel stop screwing up. It's a mouse!!! They were invented in the 20th century! My Bluetooth driver just crashes once a week. Silently. My mouse just stops working. I have to power it off fully because a reboot won't do it. I lived in an apartment around 50 or so wifi connections. I would have to toggle wifi on and off over and over the first time connecting because the damn list wouldn't show them all and mine wasn't on the list! I've worked in product and while I still think so much about product is just utter nonsense, some of it isn't, and it's those practical parts that seem lost on so many engineers. Why can't I make my damn software Ubuntu update thing not appear every day? I've tried to kill it with stack overflow answers a few times. Why do I have to pick between chrome having tiny controls and the rest of my UI having massive controls on my 4k monitor? I don't care about what brand it is. If it's cool. If it's open source or free. I just want it to all just quietly work and stay well out of my way. No actually I'm not done yet. Why do I have to tell it every time what kind of headphones I just plugged in? And when I leave sleep it forgets and starts blasting 80s eurodisco in the office even though they're still plugged in? Okay I think I'm done for good this time. Just off the top of my head the things that make me feel like I'm trying to become a master musician by practicing 10 000 hours on a kazoo.

mike_ivanov 8y ago
Almost all of these problems are coming from using either Ubuntu or Unity/Gnome. Don't use that stuff. Try Manjaro, Fedora or Mint and try it with KDE, Cinnamon or whatever else. The difference is huge.

dmitrygr 8y ago

One word: HiDpi Details: try a HiDpi display and a non HiDpi display both connected to the same PC. Nothing but MacOS handles this well. Even Win10 struggles with Windows that straddle the boundary or things dragged across it.

danieldk 8y ago
HiDPI works well on the latest GNOME with Wayland. I use a 4k display at home with the amdgpu driver and it works great. I have also hooked up a non-4k Dell Ultrasharp display and with Wayland, both displays can use different DPIs. The Qt and Tk (since 8.6) applications also scale nicely with GNOME3. The only glitch is that currently only integer scaling works well.
- ironjunkie 8y ago
  Did you write up or have a link on how you managed to do this ? I'm currently struggling with a similar configuration. I have a XPS 9570 with integrated 15" 4K screen, and an external screen, non4K. This is literally driving me crazy as each app on Gnome seems to handle scaling slightly differently!
  - danieldk 8y ago
    Not much to write up. This was on Arch, I just installed GNOME (on Nix now, so this is from memory): sudo pacman -S gnome sudo systemctl enable gdm sudo systemctl start gdm GNOME Wayland is the default session. Log in, press the super key top open Settings, go to Display and set scaling to 200% on the 4k screen. After that, everything worked fine. Since I use the non-4k screen vertically, I had to rotate the second screen in the settings. The last time I used Fedora it worked without extra work (besides setting scaling to 200% in the Display settings). Things only started working well with GNOME 2.26 and very well with 2.28. In any case, you have to make sure that you are using Wayland, support for multi-DPI screens on X.org has been terrible for me. Even a single 4k screen is not very consistent in X.org (e.g. the mouse cursor sometimes becomes tiny when moving between windows).

scarface74 8y ago

That whole commercial software thing. Why would I futz around with Linux when I can get a Mac that has an operating system tailor made for it and a true Unix environment when needed? Only on the Mac can I develop for every mainstream desktop and mobile OS.

soperj 8y ago
you're literally supporting a company because of bullshit policies that every developer would have an issue with if it was microsoft.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Which “bullshit” policy is that?
  - soperj 8y ago
    >Only on the Mac can I develop for every mainstream desktop and mobile OS.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      How is that a “bullshit policy”?
      - vetinari 8y ago
        Because it's by design. It's not that it is difficult to add a aarch64/ios backed to your favourite compiler. Making the artefact provisionable to emulator (which you would get on macOS only anyway, because what's inside is copyrighted and thus non-distributable) or physical device is entirely another game. Apple is locking you in and you reward them for that.
        scarface74 8y ago
        There is no such thing as an “iOS emulator”. The iOS simulator uses an x86 compiled version of your code and links to it an x86 build of the iOS framework. Again there is an existence proof you can deploy code directly from Windows to iOS devices.... https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/11/microsoft-now-lets-ios-developers-deploy-run-and-test-their-apps-directly-from-windows/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/11/microsoft-now-lets-ios-dev... Microsoft tells us that it talked to Apple about this functionality and that it has its rival’s blessing and that the Live Player application complies with all of Apple’s usual rules..

Osiris 8y ago

Graphics drivers. My System76 laptop, pre-installed with customized Ubuntu, needs to be rebooted just to switch between Nvidia and Intel GPU if you want power savings (external monitors are directly wired to Nvidia chip).

bubblethink 8y ago
That's an ubuntu 18.04 thing that's being worked on. You can either stick with 16.04, or use this repo https://github.com/matthieugras/Prime-Ubuntu-18.04 https://github.com/matthieugras/Prime-Ubuntu-18.04 until it is properly fixed. More importantly, the first rule of running linux well (which I assume you wanted to since you got system76) is to never buy nvidia.

missjellyfish 8y ago

The answer is simple: neither the Adobe Suite nor Cubase run on Linux, both of which I require for my side gig that keeps me from going crazy. Additionally, Color accuracy and configuration is broken beyond repair in both X and Wayland, especially in a Muli monitor setup.

mediocrejoker 8y ago

I switched from Linux to Mac about a year ago and something that is underrated in MacOS is the _consistency_ of the UI. Not just the visual appearance, but for example keyboard shortcuts are relatively universal; Cmd + , is the shortcut for Preferences/Settings in Safari, Chrome, iTerm, Slack, NewsReader etc. I don't know if that would even be possible on the leading Linux DEs. I love the customizability of linux, but I've decided that a good user experience goes beyond the appearance, and what's required is putting serious thought into user workflows. Those sorts of usability studies don't seem to be a priority for most FOSS projects. There are things about Linux that I miss on Mac, but overall I prefer a system that's consistent to one that ticks every single box.

as1mov 8y ago
> Not just the visual appearance, but for example keyboard shortcuts are relatively universal; Cmd + , is the shortcut for Preferences/Settings in Safari, Chrome, iTerm, Slack, NewsReader etc. I don't know if that would even be possible on the leading Linux DEs. Kinda funny, but the inverse is true for me. I am forced to use a Macbook at work and shortcuts are a frustrating thing. Do I have to use Cmd + <x> or Ctrl+ <x>? Considering both Windows and Linux follow almost the same shortcuts, Mac is the odd one out here.
- EatYourGreens 8y ago
  > Kinda funny, but the inverse is true for me. I am forced to use a Macbook at work and shortcuts are a frustrating thing. Do I have to use Cmd + <x> or Ctrl+ <x>? No reason to be confused. You need to use Cmd + <x>, because off the top of my head Ctrl is involved only into text editing shortcuts (what GTK+ calls "emacs theme") and some obscure stuff.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - as1mov 8y ago
    Switching between CMD/Ctrl is really weird for someone who has used Win/Linux all their life, where most of the major shortcuts use Ctrl. To be fair I wouldn't really count this as a negative, this is probably very far down in my list of gripes I have against Apple devices. It's just that it's equally pointless when a Mac user complains about shortcuts in Win/Linux. Even in this thread, you can see most of the complaints boil down to "It doesn't work like the way it does in <Insert the system you are used to>"

sircastor 8y ago

Every couple of years Apple does something that makes me think "maybe it's time to try to do Linux". I'm competent with Linux. I use it daily at work and can manage the cat majority of the time. I have however, on occasion dealt with a catastrophic failure, after some normal suggested upgrade. Catastrophic as in I can't recover from it, or the best suggestion is to roll the kernel back, which is a very foreign concept. Still, I might try the next time I'm up for getting a new laptop. I'm not pleased with the way Apple is going with their laptops, and I'm not interested in Windows.

ne01 8y ago
In what distro did you experience the upgrade problems?
roryisok 8y ago
> and I'm not interested in Windows That seems to be the general consensus around here. If you're a dev, you either run MacOS or Linux. As a dev who runs Windows and MacOS I don't really get this. Windows 10 is excellent for dev work. I understand there are privacy issues that make people not want to use MS products but from a purely functional perspective it's a great User experience.
- hocuspocus 8y ago
  I use Windows 10 exclusively at home and it's indeed pretty good but there are unfortunately a few things that would stop me at work: * There's now a major upgrade every six months and Microsoft still hasn't figured out how to make the process reliable. * Chocolatey is good but the available packages are sometimes lacking. Linux distros have always been miles ahead in this regard, and nowadays with snap I can even find third party software that wasn't packaged before.
  - roryisok 8y ago
    Actually I find choco to be miles better than apt-get. With apt-get I often have to add repos before I can install some app (usually something which fixes some basic part of Linux). This, for me, negates the whole point of having a package manager. What good is it if I have to tell it where to look?

jpincheira 8y ago

I've used Linux since 2004 but because I needed to do design, I had to switch to macOS sadly. For developers, it really makes no sense to stay on macOS.

beagle3 8y ago

> If I had to shift to MacOS now it would be far far more painful than the shift from Mac to Linux. Wholeheartedly agree. I've been slowly moving from Linux (mostly Ubuntu 14.04) to High Sierra, and there are a few things that make absolutely no sense about OSX: - There's a difference, in almost every piece of software, between closing the last window and quitting. In a browser, just pressing the "close" button would lose all your tabs, whereas "quit" will preserve them. That makes no sense to someone coming from Linux or Windows; I'm sure OSX users have gotten used to this difference, but ... it's clunky. - OSX puts one small dot next to an icon of the app that's open. Unity puts one dot for every open window the app has (but no more than 3 even if you more than 3), _and_ a marker that tells you which app has focus (and whether it is on the current workspace or on different one); also middle click on the icon universally opens a new windows. I never realized how convenient and informative this is, until I lost this feature with OSX. - OSX litters all the (local) directories you visit with finder preview files. It does it for remote ones to, but at least that can be turned off - not so for local. There used to be 3rd party kexts to stop that, but not anymore. Gnome/unity keeps the previews in one directory; Windows is almost as bad as MACOS (except it can be turned off universally). - Having used locally integrated menus for the past ~30 years or so, I find OSX' global menus uncomfortable. I've spent a while with Unity's global menus to try them out, and after two months of use gave up and went back to local menus. OSX doesn't give you that choice. (And yes, I know of Apple's studies that resulted in the global menu - I suspect the originals are no longer relevant -- due to higher resolution screens, larger number of open apps on average, and familiarity with window systems; Does anybody know if these studies were repeated any time in the last 5 years?) - "apt install" (and many of its GUI frontends) are years ahead of Mac OS app installations, whether app store or DMG, both in ease of use and in breadth covered; "brew" comes close, but no cigar yet; Haven't tried Nix, Fink or MacPorts yet. - A kernel update that requires restart is uncommon on either system; less than once a month. Yet, on the Mac it's 5-30 minutes of downtime to apply, depending on the update; on Linux I have my desktop back in less than 30 seconds. - keyboard shortcuts. "End" goes to end of document, "Home" goes to beginning; Low frequency of use (for anyone I know). Beggining/end of line: Option+Left, Option+Right; high frequency of use. It's a "different strokes" thing, for sure, but even though the Mac is consistent, it is very weird compared to (everything else going back 50 years), and not optimized. Yes, OSX looks more polished, and even small utility apps are really gorgeous. But so far it feels that functionality wise for a non-artist engineer like me, OSX is trailing.

edhelas 8y ago

Can we also mention those "hacky-package-manager" that are brew and macport? Things are installed all over the place, hard to have consistent version across different machines. I think that a developer OS MUST have a proper package manager.

jagger27 8y ago
I wonder whose decision it was back in the very early days of Mac OS X to not include a package manager—not even when Xcode first came out or with the Mac App Store. I'm imaging now some grey bearded dev at Apple getting immediately shot down for suggesting they build the Mac App Store on an open package manager foundation.
stiGGG 8y ago
IMHO there is no better package manager then homebrew on linux. It’s so flexible and so much less in your way. The only thing that suck, is that often something breaks when apple does a major release. So in this point i agree, I would love if Apple would directly ship it. But it’s understandable why they don’t, I guess.

pimeys 8y ago

I hear you. I did the switch from MacOS to Linux about ten years ago and currently, if an employer forces me out from Linux it's time to look for a new job. What would be painful for me is to lose my i3 environment with the perfectly tuned keyboard setup, all configuration stored in a version control, including the system software through the declarative NixOS configuration. Basically getting a new laptop for me is to boot from NixOS USB stick with my configuration, run the installer and boot to the familiar i3 desktop I've been using for years. All the software including the right configuration will be there. Nothing will change through a whimsy update that introduces some new UI feature that will break my workflow. I also really like the ThinkPad hardware, especially the perfect keyboards.

flohofwoe 8y ago

For me it's mainly the touchpad interaction and UI performance. I never got satisfactory results for both when setting up a laptop with Linux (the Windows/Linux dual-boot laptop I'm using has even slightly more powerful hardware than the MBP). I need to switch between all 3 desktop OSes all the time though and wouldn't mind switching to Linux as the main OS, but all in all MacOS is the most enjoyable.

csomar 8y ago

It really depends on what you do and what you use your machine for. If you are using Vim to develop C Cli Applications; and you use your iPad for facebook/messaging/etc... then Linux will work for you. If you use your Mac to manage emails, calendar, skype, chrome, etc... then you are better of with a Mac and OS X.

hughw 8y ago
It takes two is what I've found. I build software on a System76 laptop running 18.04. That's pretty much a perfect dev environment with the advantage of physical function keys -- kind of essential if you spend lots of time remoting using byobu. I keep a MacBook for Keynote, business docs, conferencing, and to carry to customer sites for presentations. When I developed on a Mac, it used to be nice to have an integrated environment. I really liked having the iPhone/iPad/Mac ecosystem available even right on my working dev laptop. But dropping function keys, along with longer update cycles, indicates my workflow isn't Apple's priority. I've found the transition really easy, and I now think of Apple devices as appliances, not computers I can program, which is what Apple wants me to think anyway.

jdboyd 8y ago

It is hard to develop for iOS and tvOS solely from Linux.

bitwize 8y ago

Because even developers want computers that Just Work. Because Macs are, hands down, the best modern desktop experience.

isostatic 8y ago
> Because even developers want computers that Just Work Which is why I've used Linux for nearly 20 years. It Just Works. YMMV, Plural of Annecdote is not data, etc. I'm just happy that nowadays it's a genuine choice.
- ofrzeta 8y ago
  Why is the plural of anecdote not data? Everyone I know who is using Linux has some problems, with either WiFi, updates breaking things, ever changing interfaces (Iproute2, Networkmanager, systemd-networkd). I am saying this as someone with 25 years of Linux experience.

crispinb 8y ago

> I'm honestly confused as to why a developer in this community would even think of not running Linux full time Well I'm a developer (if not 'in this community'). I don't run Linux on the desktop because when I have I've just found it too much trouble in so many ways. It took up too much of my time. Working full-time as a developer already consumes as much of my life as I'm willing to spend confined to a screen and keyboard. I know a dozen folk will chime in with the automatic responses informing me that it takes no more time to run than macOS or Windows. But in my experience that's just not true, and, frankly, the OS I use isn't of much concern to me. It wouldn't get anywhere near my "1000 things I'm most concerned about in life" list.

eggie 8y ago
I've watched many of my and coworkers spending huge amounts of time (many hours a month) fiddling with the complexities of managing software packages on OSX systems. Everything was so frighteningly manual and impossible to reproduce. They easily individually used 50x as much time doing that as I spent fiddling with my Linux installation. Those are levels of effort that definitely matter to me enough that I put importance in the OS I use.
- ofrzeta 8y ago
  As both a Linux and macOS user, on both the desktop (I even dual boot Linux and macOS on the Mac Mini) and the laptop, I find Homebrew satisfies my needs for third party software package installation.
- crispinb 8y ago
  There goes the automatic response. I really don't care what your coworkers do, because I'm not amassing evidence for a general proposition (if I were interested enough in that I'd go an do a Phd on it). I have used OSX/macOS for several years. It has used close to zero of my limited time to maintain. That's what I want from an OS.

brightball 8y ago

To each their own. I switched from Mac to Linux last year and did some experimenting. Now I’m using Ubuntu 18.04 after committing time to both Fedora and Mint. I had good experiences with all of them but this latest Ubuntu with Gnome 3 has been great. I’d also have a hard time going back to OSX now. At the same time, it’s not for everybody. This was something I wanted to do for me and I was determined to see it through. If somebody had pushed me into it I probably would have spent more time focusing on deficiencies.

abledon 8y ago
Did you switch hardware too, or end up running ubuntu on a macbook pro?
- brightball 8y ago
  I committed and bought a Dell Developer Edition laptop. I wanted support in case I had a problem and I wanted to know all of the hardware was built to work smoothly with Linux without having to research each item. I was torn between Dell and System76 but ended up settling on Dell because of previous great hardware experiences with them. I’d held on to my 17” MBP until last January when it was clear they were sticking with their current direction on laptops.

chewz 8y ago

My solution is connecting the best of three worlds. I am running ChromeOS on Macbook Pro 13 so I am having Mac's touchpad, Pro keyboard, Retina screen and Mac's durability. It get's little hotter with ChromeOS but battery life is generally as good as under macOS. Graphical enviroment is ChromeOS which is basically just Chrome and extensions. Yes - HBOGo, Spotify, Inbox, Photos could be used as apps but they are still working in a browser. And with crouton I have Debian stretch CLI which is just that - Debian - solid, stable and there is solution to most problems. This setup is amazingly portable. I make regular backups with crouton and keep USB stick with ChromeOS installer on my keychain. Now I am spending summer vacation and I have left my Mac at home. So I have just installed ChromeOS on 10-year old Acer laptop, Google downloaded all documents and extensions in 15 minutes and I have installed crouton and recreated Debian from backup. In 15 minutes I had been up and running in my home environment. Of course - touchpad on Acer sucks compared to Mac, laptop gets hot and screen estate is 1/4 of Mac's Retina but every single setting in environment is 1:1 with my Macbook. I have never been heavy user of macOS native apps and I have slowly moved from Apple/iCloud walled garden to Google (Photos, Drive etc.) so jumping ships had been painless for me. My memories of macOS is of never fixed annoying glitches, heavy 'obligatory' updates and tons of unnecessary files cluttering my drive.

PascalW 8y ago
How do you install ChromeOS on any old laptop? Last I looked into that it wasn't really possible.
- chewz 8y ago
  It's really easy using one of Neverware builds (but you won't have dual boot, they have removed that option) https://www.neverware.com/freedownload https://www.neverware.com/freedownload

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

swerveonem 8y ago

Driver for laptop hardware, battery life are the two most important reasons.