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I have used all 3 major OS (Windows, Mac & Linux) for at least a decade each, and I review my current choice every few months. I have regained a lot of sanity

by nextos 7y ago

I have used all 3 major OS (Windows, Mac & Linux) for at least a decade each, and I review my current choice every few months. I have regained a lot of sanity by realizing computing happens within platforms, and regarding the OS as just plumbing. My platforms of choice are the web (for hypertext), elisp text applications (for interactive development, task management, email), and Unix. I only need a browser (Firefox), a text editor (Emacs) and a terminal. I prefer to use a tiling window manager (StumpWM), but it's not a big deal to use the WM provided by my current OS. These 3 platforms (web, elisp and Unix) will be long-lived. Whereas native Windows, Mac and Linux applications tend to have much shorter lifecycles. Furthermore, they don't tend to talk well to each other. They are little silos. Also, since the lifecycles are so short, by the time I work out all inconveniences and learn all tricks, the platform is beyond its prime time. This has already happened to me several times. I was really happy with Gnome 2 circa 2005, but the whole ecosystem collapsed with the transition to Gnome 3. Same thing, to some extent, in OS X Tiger-Snow Leopard. A really nice ecosystem of indie applications that has slowly lost a lot of momentum to iOS. That said, I prefer to use Linux because it's so component-ized I can always replace frustrating things, and nothing gets pushed into me by a corporation. Plus code is open, and some userland things like Nix are so unique. And first-class centralized package management is great.

tracker1 7y ago
I'm kind of with you... next desktop will move from hackintosh to linux proper. I've used enough linux in remote shells, vms and via docker. I really like OSX and the Windows taskbar, but it's at a point where the hardware decisions of Apple leave me unsupportive of their hardware, and similarly their OS. Likely to use Pop_OS! (weird spelling, hope they change it), as I do like Ubuntu/Debian, but want a faster pace on parts of it. I'll probably continue to work more against containers rather than on the desktop itself. But at least I'll get real volume mounts.
- Zardoz84 7y ago
  use KDE and enable global menu. You would feel more similar to OSX
dpkonofa 7y ago
I mostly agree with you except that I fall back to macOS because, in addition to development, I do a lot of media production and hardware support for Linux still just isn't there. I have a VM running Ubuntu for a lot of things but I always just find myself falling back to macOS with the terminal and being satisfied with that 99% of the time. That being said, I still have my gaming machine as a Windows rig and, every time there's a Windows Update, it reinforces my decision to leave Windows for day-to-day use. The last straw was when a Windows update caused me to lose video for nearly a week unless I ran in Safe Mode or without the AMD/Nvidia drivers (yes, I tried 2 different video cards). Turns out that the update changed something with HDCP that prevented video out from working because, and I shit you not, my HDMI cable was too old. It worked 100% ok until that update and, despite no hardware issues, was killed by a software update. Never again.

by nextos 7y ago

tracker1 7y ago

I'm kind of with you... next desktop will move from hackintosh to linux proper. I've used enough linux in remote shells, vms and via docker. I really like OSX and the Windows taskbar, but it's at a point where the hardware decisions of Apple leave me unsupportive of their hardware, and similarly their OS. Likely to use Pop_OS! (weird spelling, hope they change it), as I do like Ubuntu/Debian, but want a faster pace on parts of it. I'll probably continue to work more against containers rather than on the desktop itself. But at least I'll get real volume mounts.

Zardoz84 7y ago
use KDE and enable global menu. You would feel more similar to OSX

dpkonofa 7y ago

I mostly agree with you except that I fall back to macOS because, in addition to development, I do a lot of media production and hardware support for Linux still just isn't there. I have a VM running Ubuntu for a lot of things but I always just find myself falling back to macOS with the terminal and being satisfied with that 99% of the time. That being said, I still have my gaming machine as a Windows rig and, every time there's a Windows Update, it reinforces my decision to leave Windows for day-to-day use. The last straw was when a Windows update caused me to lose video for nearly a week unless I ran in Safe Mode or without the AMD/Nvidia drivers (yes, I tried 2 different video cards). Turns out that the update changed something with HDCP that prevented video out from working because, and I shit you not, my HDMI cable was too old. It worked 100% ok until that update and, despite no hardware issues, was killed by a software update. Never again.