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I moved to a Mac after a decade of Linux on the desktop. After years of fiddling with drivers, crappy trackpad behaviours and so on, I wanted a computer that go

by mprev 8y ago

I moved to a Mac after a decade of Linux on the desktop. After years of fiddling with drivers, crappy trackpad behaviours and so on, I wanted a computer that got out of my way and just worked. MacOS is far from perfect but it works perfectly with Apple hardware. If I wanted to go back to seeing my operating system as a hobby then Linux would be mostly a better option.

komali2 8y ago
Funny, I'm the opposite. I was tired of jumping through insane hoops for years to get Mac to have good window management, or make keybindings the same in all apps, or have my desktop look the way I wanted, so I switched to Ubuntu 18. I actually scheduled a PTO day for it because I thought it would take like 18 hours to get drivers config'd and all that (my last try was like Ubuntu 14 or something), but it literally worked out of the box, other than needing to mess with getting s2idle to not drain battery (a single line into the GRUB config).
- BillinghamJ 8y ago
  I think that's one of the key things about using Apple products. If you want to have a good time, you need to embrace the way Apple wants you to use the product. And then generally, you'll find that it really does "just work", most of their decisions were right and you can get on with just using the thing. For the more "power users" who prefer to customise things to a fine degree and make particular choices a typical user doesn't want/need, Apple products aren't always the right option.
  - dkonofalski 8y ago
    I run into this all the time with Windows users switching to a Mac. I do a lot of training for new users when it comes to using Macs and the Windows users are always the worst when compared to people learning for the first time because Windows users always want to do it "the Windows way" and so they get frustrated when all their right clicking doesn't pan out. They bought a Mac because they were frustrated by Windows but then they expect their Mac to just be "Windows without the problems". They rarely are open to using the product differently than before and don't even consider that part of what's "better" is that you use it differently and think about it differently. Case in point - I recently had a user who did all kinds of audio editing for foley sound effects and had organized them all into folders himself. When he switched to the Mac, we were using software that has a very iTunes-focused mentality and it imported all the sounds into a library. He could not get over the fact that everything was flat and that he couldn't view his folder structure and was so frustrated because he couldn't find anything. It took me days to get the point across to him that a library system was much more powerful than a strict hierarchy because he could tag sounds with multiple keywords instead of just relying on his memory to remember which folder he had put a particular clip in. It's now been about 6 months and he has converted so many people to the Mac just by showing them how he can search tags for "flute", "wood", and "horror" and get a listing instead of having to remember that it was in his "horror" folder and then inside the "flute" folder with some weirdly numbered filename. It's so nice when the computer just gets out of the way and lets you worry about the work and not about futzing with everything in the background.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      > He could not get over the fact that everything was flat and that he couldn't view his folder structure and was so frustrated because he couldn't find anything. It took me days to get the point across to him that a library system was much more powerful than a strict hierarchy because he could tag sounds with multiple keywords instead of just relying on his memory to remember which folder he had put a particular clip in. Right, so he had his workflow organized in a particular way that worked for him, but rather than allow him to work like that his computer forced him into a workflow management paradigm and then you told him it was better that way and he should just accept it. > It's so nice when the computer just gets out of the way and lets you worry about the work and not about futzing with everything in the background. I agree, I wish they'd actually do that in 2018.
      - vinceguidry 8y ago
        > Right, so he had his workflow organized in a particular way that worked for him, but rather than allow him to work like that his computer forced him into a workflow management paradigm and then you told him it was better that way and he should just accept it. You can't opt out of strong opinionation when it comes to operating systems or applications in general, sadly.
        dkonofalski 8y ago
        Nor should you. An OS where every person gets to customize every aspect to their own liking is mostly a recipe for disaster from a support experience standpoint unless you really know what you're doing. Take Linux for example. You can customize a ton to get your workflow exactly right if you really know exactly what you're doing. If you don't, though (and I'd argue that most people don't), it's a nightmare. One wrong step can take down the entire workflow completely.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        8y ago
  - pkaye 8y ago
    Except for the multiple times in the past that Apple would update something and my laptop wifi would get flaky for months on end till the fixed it again. Yup "just works."
    - vthriller 8y ago
      Re: wifi, I can also remember constant complaints and whining from NOC folks nearby a couple of years ago because they were regularly fiddling with Cisco AP devices configuration just because of all those iDevices that employees bought.
  - eanzenberg 8y ago
    I like the euphemism "power user" to refer to people who like to spend their free-time on meta-work.
    - BillinghamJ 8y ago
      Yeah that's my thinking. Personally I'd rather just get on with my actual work and avoid having to mess around with changing how my computer works.
  - scotty79 8y ago
    Apple products are not the right fit for anyone who couldn't do with chromebook. Except perhaps people that just go straight to console after booting up.
- mmphosis 8y ago
  And, I'm the opposite. window management: Turn off all the window edge snapping. Put up with single pixel borders, windows not saving their monitor, size and position. Put up with the single tab at the top of the window eating up screen space. Put up with a few other minor annoyances due to bugs in Xfce. make keybindings the same in all apps: alias x='/usr/bin/setxkbmap -option ctrl:swap_lalt_lctl' Use autokey to rebind the keys in the terminal, so that Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V work as Copy and Paste. Rebind most of the Alt keys to Ctrl keys in the terminal. Uninstall a lot of other crap I don't need or want. I should switch to another leaner distro (ie. no systemd), but it has taken a lot of effort to get to a system that works well for my needs despite all my preferences from using Mac OS X for so long. I don't think I could use a more recent version of what is now macos.
gnufied 8y ago
Umm - how is that relevant? OP is still running Mac.
- dljsjr 8y ago
  Because keeping a Hackintosh up and running is a hobby. It requires maintenance. macOS point release comes out? Better hit the forums/subreddits and start looking for driver compatibility/kexts/other hacks etc. Hackintoshes are crazy fragile. I had a Hackintosh during the Snow Leopard years and when Lion came out I just gave up. Parent comment was simply saying that macOS on Apple hardware doesn't require maintenance, and if the poster was interested in an OS that did then Linux would be better than macOS on a Hackintosh.
  - mbell 8y ago
    > Because keeping a Hackintosh up and running is a hobby. It requires maintenance. macOS point release comes out? Better hit the forums/subreddits and start looking for driver compatibility/kexts/other hacks etc. Hackintoshes are crazy fragile. I had a Hackintosh during the Snow Leopard years and when Lion came out I just gave up. They aren't particularly fragile anymore, it's been quite awhile since an update broke something major. Even the upgrade to High Sierra which switched to APFS went off without a hitch on my machine. The only thing I have to check on before upgrading is if nvidia's drivers are supported.
    - knuththetruth 8y ago
      Is there a community site that outlines recommended builds? I haven’t looked at Hackintosh stuff since the Snow Leopard days, but am reconsidering now that all my macs are getting up there in age (and none of Apple’s new offerings are appealing).
      - dljsjr 8y ago
        https://www.tonymacx86.com https://www.tonymacx86.com used to be the go-to but like I said in my original comment I haven't Hackintosh'd since Snow Leopard so that may well be not the case anymore.
organsnyder 8y ago
I've been running Linux for about 20 years. My previous two employers furnished me with Macs, so I got used to MacOS over five years of usage. But I still found Linux easier to use: MacOS doesn't "just work" nearly as much as advertised, in my experience (especially for dev workflows). My new company is a Windows shop, and I'm actually finding it surprisingly pleasant—to the point that I'm seriously considering using Windows 10 full-time for personal use as well. I don't come to this decision lightly: I'd been anti-"M$" for a number of years, to the point of writing a paper in high school advocating for them to be broken up (back around year 2000). Looking at the trajectory of recent OS releases from my experience: - Linux: Still tends to lag behind a bit in hardware compatibility (as is expected), but quite pleasant to use—especially when staying on the stable/LTS releases. - MacOS: Not sure if I can identify the last release that actually made my life easier. - Windows: I see a fair amount of real innovation, and they seem committed to reducing paper cuts.
- beagle3 8y ago
  > I see a fair amount of real innovation, and they seem committed to reducing paper cuts. If you care about privacy and control, Win10 introduces many, many paper cuts.
krylon 8y ago
It's funny, but after four years on macOS, I returned to GNU/Linux about 16 months ago, and I have not looked back since. Okay, there are a few things I miss, but all in all, there was more I missed on macOS than I now miss on GNU/Linux. And I do not consider spending a weekend (or longer) to get my sound chip working fun any more. I am too old for that stuff. Maybe I just have a lucky hand picking hardware, but except for the nVidia driver, hardware has just worked(tm) for me. Don't get me wrong, if you are happy on macOS, by all means, enjoy it. But the old cliche that getting hardware to work on GNU/Linux is not true these days. But I do agree, macOS without the tight integration between hardware and OS seems pointless.
- bauerd 8y ago
  Don't you miss the trackpad? It's what keeps me from switching on the hardware side
  - krylon 8y ago
    I never owned a MacBook. My main desktop used to be a 2012 Mac Mini, with a standard PC keyboard and mouse.
  - peatmoss 8y ago
    I really like the Thinkpad’s trackpoint if I must use a portable. If I can use a full,ergonomic desktop, the Logitech Marble Mouse is fantastic and cheap.
- crispinb 8y ago
  > But the old cliche that getting hardware to work on GNU/Linux is not true these days That's only true if you make a point of buying hardware you already know there's linux drivers for. I work with a few headless linux boxes, but not a GUI. Every year or two I try a distribution or two on whatever hardware I have, hit a problem, sigh after reading through numberless blog/SO/reddit posts contradicting each other on what's possible, and abandon the attempt. I have a 2018 Dell XPS 15. From what I've read, there's only an 'experimental' (ugh) driver for the fingerprint scanner. To switch between integrated/GPU graphics, you have to log in and out (or you don't - depending on who you read). Not sure about the touchscreen, but I can't summon the motivation to find out. So much depends on fiddling, experimenting, and reading. I'd rather go for a run, and put up with Windows (which I loathe, but loathing seems to be a precondition of computer use in 2018).
8bitsrule 8y ago
Sorry to hear you've had such bad luck with Linux. I started a few years back with about ten Linux distros on two (previously Win) laptops. (Before that, ran an iMac until its screen failed and Apple wouldn't replace it.) The first few months with Linux were fun as I played around and discovered what I could and couldn't do to wreck an install. Zero hardware-related problems. And then I put multi distros on this generic i-5 box. And left them alone. Zero cares for years. All hardware covered. Xubuntu 18.04 boots from my SSD in under 5 seconds. I suppose you might have given up at just the time all those problems were going away. Stick with one of the Ubuntu flavors, or Linux Mint, or MX17, and the likelihood, these days, is that there'll be few problems. Unless, of course, Linux won't run some needed software.
mseidl 8y ago
I've never used macos full time. But I'm a developer that's worked with Linux in a professional environment(full time) 12+ years, full time at home(15 years) and dual booted windows/Linux for 23. Linux works really well for me. I do have a windows vm I have for some music instruments software that doesn't work in wine. I'd much rather run a macos vm instead. Windows is so annoying to use. Every time I use it makes me appreciate Linux that much more. But anyways, Linux has largely been smooth sailing for me.
scotty79 8y ago
It works horribly with any other hardware. Try to connect to Synology NAS from you Mac. It will subtly fail you in many curious ways in following weeks, months years. You'll go back and forth between smb, afs and nfs protocols and discover many fun bugs and missing functionality in implementations of each one. You'll remember your Linux days fondly. Also mac gui thing is bit more stable than linux windows managers but after a time it will manifest bugs that you will only be able to get rid of by fresh install of the whole system. Also don't be surprised when you copy folder onto the folder of same name. If source folder has less files then target one, the files missing in source will get deleted from target. On Mac sometimes copy means delete.

by mprev 8y ago

komali2 8y ago

Funny, I'm the opposite. I was tired of jumping through insane hoops for years to get Mac to have good window management, or make keybindings the same in all apps, or have my desktop look the way I wanted, so I switched to Ubuntu 18. I actually scheduled a PTO day for it because I thought it would take like 18 hours to get drivers config'd and all that (my last try was like Ubuntu 14 or something), but it literally worked out of the box, other than needing to mess with getting s2idle to not drain battery (a single line into the GRUB config).

BillinghamJ 8y ago
I think that's one of the key things about using Apple products. If you want to have a good time, you need to embrace the way Apple wants you to use the product. And then generally, you'll find that it really does "just work", most of their decisions were right and you can get on with just using the thing. For the more "power users" who prefer to customise things to a fine degree and make particular choices a typical user doesn't want/need, Apple products aren't always the right option.
- dkonofalski 8y ago
  I run into this all the time with Windows users switching to a Mac. I do a lot of training for new users when it comes to using Macs and the Windows users are always the worst when compared to people learning for the first time because Windows users always want to do it "the Windows way" and so they get frustrated when all their right clicking doesn't pan out. They bought a Mac because they were frustrated by Windows but then they expect their Mac to just be "Windows without the problems". They rarely are open to using the product differently than before and don't even consider that part of what's "better" is that you use it differently and think about it differently. Case in point - I recently had a user who did all kinds of audio editing for foley sound effects and had organized them all into folders himself. When he switched to the Mac, we were using software that has a very iTunes-focused mentality and it imported all the sounds into a library. He could not get over the fact that everything was flat and that he couldn't view his folder structure and was so frustrated because he couldn't find anything. It took me days to get the point across to him that a library system was much more powerful than a strict hierarchy because he could tag sounds with multiple keywords instead of just relying on his memory to remember which folder he had put a particular clip in. It's now been about 6 months and he has converted so many people to the Mac just by showing them how he can search tags for "flute", "wood", and "horror" and get a listing instead of having to remember that it was in his "horror" folder and then inside the "flute" folder with some weirdly numbered filename. It's so nice when the computer just gets out of the way and lets you worry about the work and not about futzing with everything in the background.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    > He could not get over the fact that everything was flat and that he couldn't view his folder structure and was so frustrated because he couldn't find anything. It took me days to get the point across to him that a library system was much more powerful than a strict hierarchy because he could tag sounds with multiple keywords instead of just relying on his memory to remember which folder he had put a particular clip in. Right, so he had his workflow organized in a particular way that worked for him, but rather than allow him to work like that his computer forced him into a workflow management paradigm and then you told him it was better that way and he should just accept it. > It's so nice when the computer just gets out of the way and lets you worry about the work and not about futzing with everything in the background. I agree, I wish they'd actually do that in 2018.
    - vinceguidry 8y ago
      > Right, so he had his workflow organized in a particular way that worked for him, but rather than allow him to work like that his computer forced him into a workflow management paradigm and then you told him it was better that way and he should just accept it. You can't opt out of strong opinionation when it comes to operating systems or applications in general, sadly.
      - dkonofalski 8y ago
        Nor should you. An OS where every person gets to customize every aspect to their own liking is mostly a recipe for disaster from a support experience standpoint unless you really know what you're doing. Take Linux for example. You can customize a ton to get your workflow exactly right if you really know exactly what you're doing. If you don't, though (and I'd argue that most people don't), it's a nightmare. One wrong step can take down the entire workflow completely.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        8y ago
- pkaye 8y ago
  Except for the multiple times in the past that Apple would update something and my laptop wifi would get flaky for months on end till the fixed it again. Yup "just works."
  - vthriller 8y ago
    Re: wifi, I can also remember constant complaints and whining from NOC folks nearby a couple of years ago because they were regularly fiddling with Cisco AP devices configuration just because of all those iDevices that employees bought.
- eanzenberg 8y ago
  I like the euphemism "power user" to refer to people who like to spend their free-time on meta-work.
  - BillinghamJ 8y ago
    Yeah that's my thinking. Personally I'd rather just get on with my actual work and avoid having to mess around with changing how my computer works.
- scotty79 8y ago
  Apple products are not the right fit for anyone who couldn't do with chromebook. Except perhaps people that just go straight to console after booting up.
mmphosis 8y ago
And, I'm the opposite. window management: Turn off all the window edge snapping. Put up with single pixel borders, windows not saving their monitor, size and position. Put up with the single tab at the top of the window eating up screen space. Put up with a few other minor annoyances due to bugs in Xfce. make keybindings the same in all apps: alias x='/usr/bin/setxkbmap -option ctrl:swap_lalt_lctl' Use autokey to rebind the keys in the terminal, so that Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V work as Copy and Paste. Rebind most of the Alt keys to Ctrl keys in the terminal. Uninstall a lot of other crap I don't need or want. I should switch to another leaner distro (ie. no systemd), but it has taken a lot of effort to get to a system that works well for my needs despite all my preferences from using Mac OS X for so long. I don't think I could use a more recent version of what is now macos.

gnufied 8y ago

Umm - how is that relevant? OP is still running Mac.

dljsjr 8y ago
Because keeping a Hackintosh up and running is a hobby. It requires maintenance. macOS point release comes out? Better hit the forums/subreddits and start looking for driver compatibility/kexts/other hacks etc. Hackintoshes are crazy fragile. I had a Hackintosh during the Snow Leopard years and when Lion came out I just gave up. Parent comment was simply saying that macOS on Apple hardware doesn't require maintenance, and if the poster was interested in an OS that did then Linux would be better than macOS on a Hackintosh.
- mbell 8y ago
  > Because keeping a Hackintosh up and running is a hobby. It requires maintenance. macOS point release comes out? Better hit the forums/subreddits and start looking for driver compatibility/kexts/other hacks etc. Hackintoshes are crazy fragile. I had a Hackintosh during the Snow Leopard years and when Lion came out I just gave up. They aren't particularly fragile anymore, it's been quite awhile since an update broke something major. Even the upgrade to High Sierra which switched to APFS went off without a hitch on my machine. The only thing I have to check on before upgrading is if nvidia's drivers are supported.
  - knuththetruth 8y ago
    Is there a community site that outlines recommended builds? I haven’t looked at Hackintosh stuff since the Snow Leopard days, but am reconsidering now that all my macs are getting up there in age (and none of Apple’s new offerings are appealing).
    - dljsjr 8y ago
      https://www.tonymacx86.com https://www.tonymacx86.com used to be the go-to but like I said in my original comment I haven't Hackintosh'd since Snow Leopard so that may well be not the case anymore.

organsnyder 8y ago

I've been running Linux for about 20 years. My previous two employers furnished me with Macs, so I got used to MacOS over five years of usage. But I still found Linux easier to use: MacOS doesn't "just work" nearly as much as advertised, in my experience (especially for dev workflows). My new company is a Windows shop, and I'm actually finding it surprisingly pleasant—to the point that I'm seriously considering using Windows 10 full-time for personal use as well. I don't come to this decision lightly: I'd been anti-"M$" for a number of years, to the point of writing a paper in high school advocating for them to be broken up (back around year 2000). Looking at the trajectory of recent OS releases from my experience: - Linux: Still tends to lag behind a bit in hardware compatibility (as is expected), but quite pleasant to use—especially when staying on the stable/LTS releases. - MacOS: Not sure if I can identify the last release that actually made my life easier. - Windows: I see a fair amount of real innovation, and they seem committed to reducing paper cuts.

beagle3 8y ago
> I see a fair amount of real innovation, and they seem committed to reducing paper cuts. If you care about privacy and control, Win10 introduces many, many paper cuts.

krylon 8y ago

It's funny, but after four years on macOS, I returned to GNU/Linux about 16 months ago, and I have not looked back since. Okay, there are a few things I miss, but all in all, there was more I missed on macOS than I now miss on GNU/Linux. And I do not consider spending a weekend (or longer) to get my sound chip working fun any more. I am too old for that stuff. Maybe I just have a lucky hand picking hardware, but except for the nVidia driver, hardware has just worked(tm) for me. Don't get me wrong, if you are happy on macOS, by all means, enjoy it. But the old cliche that getting hardware to work on GNU/Linux is not true these days. But I do agree, macOS without the tight integration between hardware and OS seems pointless.

bauerd 8y ago
Don't you miss the trackpad? It's what keeps me from switching on the hardware side
- krylon 8y ago
  I never owned a MacBook. My main desktop used to be a 2012 Mac Mini, with a standard PC keyboard and mouse.
- peatmoss 8y ago
  I really like the Thinkpad’s trackpoint if I must use a portable. If I can use a full,ergonomic desktop, the Logitech Marble Mouse is fantastic and cheap.
crispinb 8y ago
> But the old cliche that getting hardware to work on GNU/Linux is not true these days That's only true if you make a point of buying hardware you already know there's linux drivers for. I work with a few headless linux boxes, but not a GUI. Every year or two I try a distribution or two on whatever hardware I have, hit a problem, sigh after reading through numberless blog/SO/reddit posts contradicting each other on what's possible, and abandon the attempt. I have a 2018 Dell XPS 15. From what I've read, there's only an 'experimental' (ugh) driver for the fingerprint scanner. To switch between integrated/GPU graphics, you have to log in and out (or you don't - depending on who you read). Not sure about the touchscreen, but I can't summon the motivation to find out. So much depends on fiddling, experimenting, and reading. I'd rather go for a run, and put up with Windows (which I loathe, but loathing seems to be a precondition of computer use in 2018).

8bitsrule 8y ago

Sorry to hear you've had such bad luck with Linux. I started a few years back with about ten Linux distros on two (previously Win) laptops. (Before that, ran an iMac until its screen failed and Apple wouldn't replace it.) The first few months with Linux were fun as I played around and discovered what I could and couldn't do to wreck an install. Zero hardware-related problems. And then I put multi distros on this generic i-5 box. And left them alone. Zero cares for years. All hardware covered. Xubuntu 18.04 boots from my SSD in under 5 seconds. I suppose you might have given up at just the time all those problems were going away. Stick with one of the Ubuntu flavors, or Linux Mint, or MX17, and the likelihood, these days, is that there'll be few problems. Unless, of course, Linux won't run some needed software.

mseidl 8y ago

I've never used macos full time. But I'm a developer that's worked with Linux in a professional environment(full time) 12+ years, full time at home(15 years) and dual booted windows/Linux for 23. Linux works really well for me. I do have a windows vm I have for some music instruments software that doesn't work in wine. I'd much rather run a macos vm instead. Windows is so annoying to use. Every time I use it makes me appreciate Linux that much more. But anyways, Linux has largely been smooth sailing for me.

scotty79 8y ago

It works horribly with any other hardware. Try to connect to Synology NAS from you Mac. It will subtly fail you in many curious ways in following weeks, months years. You'll go back and forth between smb, afs and nfs protocols and discover many fun bugs and missing functionality in implementations of each one. You'll remember your Linux days fondly. Also mac gui thing is bit more stable than linux windows managers but after a time it will manifest bugs that you will only be able to get rid of by fresh install of the whole system. Also don't be surprised when you copy folder onto the folder of same name. If source folder has less files then target one, the files missing in source will get deleted from target. On Mac sometimes copy means delete.