4 ms·

What are some of those things? (Curious question, haven't thought of switching yet but could try if it's worth it.)

trilila 7y ago
Well clearly autocorrect doesn't work well on linux
aquova 7y ago
I'm curious to this as well. I recently got a desktop computer to supplement my MacBook, and am now using Ubuntu as my more-or-less primary OS. I'm quite enjoying it, but I certainly wouldn't claim that it works better out of the box than MacOS. Perhaps it's because I've used Mac for so long, but I can't think of anything that I find difficult to set up. Ubuntu on the other hand has several issue that I've just sort of ignore - keybindings don't always work, you can't drag to/from the Desktop for some reason, some startup programs don't always run, little things like that.
- eof 7y ago
  Are you a developer? I think the productivity aspect would only be true in that case, as the things that “just work” are (for me) external libraries, GitHub readmes, sdk examples, etc.
  - mrozel 7y ago
    Yes and I agree that is the case. Came from DevOps, so Linux still feels natural. Though I use it for everything now from developing, image/video editing, browsing. Literally, I feel like the only thing I can't do is IOS development.
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      As a developer and hobbyist photographer and maker, I'm between two worlds. Linux is perfect for development but nothing Adobe or Autodesk runs on it, which is extremely frustrating. I don't even have to reboot to game, but I do need to reboot to edit a photo.
      - mroche 7y ago
        > Linux is perfect for development but nothing Adobe or Autodesk runs on it, which is extremely frustrating. True for Adobe, technically false for Autodesk if you aren’t in CAD. Maya and MotionBuilder (acquired from Alias in mid 2000s) run on Linux for the film/VFX industry. Though to be fair, I’m pretty sure they are the only applications in AD’s entire portfolio that run on Linux, and it wasn’t because of them.
        StavrosK 7y ago
        I am in CAD, alas. Fusion 360 barely runs on Windows.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Being a developer does not equate with UNIX. Plenty of us are developers in other platforms.
- danieldk 7y ago
  > I'm curious to this as well. I recently got a desktop computer to supplement my MacBook, and am now using Ubuntu as my more-or-less primary OS. I have used macOS as my primary OS from 2007 to ~2017 (before that BSD and Linux). I am now mostly back on Linux, though I also have a MacBook Pro that I use every now and then. Primary reasons for switching back to Linux: * MacBook hardware limitations: too few ports, keyboard problems, expensive upgrades. * Competitive hardware prices for Linux. I got a NUC8i5, which was somewhere between 300-400 Euro and has the same quad core CPU as my 2000 MacBook Pro. I added a 500GB SSD I had lying around and 16GB RAM. I have more resources for a fraction of the price, and can always bump up the SSD or memory relatively cheaply. * Nix. There is package/system management before and after Nix. I actually started with Nix on macOS, but being able to manage your whole system declaratively is awesome. * The subscription disease on macOS. I am fine with buying good applications. Overall I have probably spent thousands of Euros on licenses for macOS software. But I will not use an application with a subscription model. Period. [1] It transfers a huge amount of control from me to the software vendor. Unfortunately, more and more macOS applications are switching to subscriptions. * Linux is generally faster than macOS. There are also things that I like about macOS: Apple's strong push for security (including sandboxing of applications, T2, etc.), fewer issues with drivers and random paper cuts, better support for hardware decoding throughout applications, traditionally strong 3rd-party applications (OmniGraffle, Little Snitch, LaunchBar/Alfred, Things, OmniFocus, etc.), integration through AirPlay, handover, et al. [1] Admittedly, there is one exception: 1Password, we like using it for password sharing and arguably, you are paying for a cloud service.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mrozel 7y ago
Docker has been my biggest gripe lately but admittedly has gotten better. Update environment. MacOS requires reboots and nags you constantly until you do. Whereas, apt and dnf are simple and can be automated in the background. Doing anything 'interesting' requires you to reboot and fiddle with the firmware. Where linux sudo works as expected. Outdated software due to licensing issues. See GPL and bash. Not to mention you will be much closer to a production environment and you will find less bugs developing due to differences in OS. Lots more but this is a good start. All of these things are small and mostly can be worked around but they add up I'm a big way. The road on Linux isn't completely rosy and can take more learning if you need to do anything really complicated. Tools are great but not necessarily pretty, etc.
- gattilorenz 7y ago
  > Doing anything 'interesting' requires you to reboot and fiddle with the firmware. Where linux sudo works as expected. If you mean SIP, can't you just disable it for good? Then you should be in a situation similar to Linux.
- filleduchaos 7y ago
  This seems rather uncharitable. Docker [was] off on macOS through no fault of the OS. Particular software dev teams taking shortcuts is on themselves. Linux also requires reboots for certain updates (plus you can disable checks for updates entirely and run one only when you want to on macOS, or even use `softwareupdate` for finer-grained control, so if it was "nagging you constantly" that's kind of on you). `sudo` works "as expected" for everything that doesn't involve conflict with the built-in System Integrity Protection, which is most things (in the past three or so years on macOS I've only run up against it twice). There isn't any "fiddling with firmware" going on. Plus if you want total freedom to delete your entire `/bin` folder or something, again you can disable SIP and move on with your life. I'm currently running Bash 5 on my MBP, so I don't get your outdated software complaint either. macOS doesn't have any magical power to force you to use the versions of (third-party!) software it ships with. If these are the first complaints that come to mind it just sounds like you haven't used the OS much and entirely refused to explore it or give it a chance in the time that you did. I mean, not even trying to set your own update preferences?
danShumway 7y ago
There are a few low-hanging improvements (updates almost never require you to restart). But it's a lot of tiny things that add up, some of which are hard to put into words. If I had to pick one thing that encompassed a lot of them, it would be that when I use Mac I feel like I'm adjusting my work-style to what Apple thinks it should be. In other words, my Linux setup now feels like it's a professional tool, and the Mac I use for work feels like a consumer-grade OS that happens to have work tools bundled on it. This is hard to put into words. If I'm an artist, my tools are very, very focused and robust. I might have specific pens and brushes that I know the feel of very well. They're not flashy and they don't have advertisements written on them, and they don't change their properties behind my back. Everything about them is designed to help me draw. If I'm a musician, I spend a lot of money to buy an instrument, and I get to know it very well. I have particular brands of reeds that are consistent that I'm likely preparing or sanding myself. I know my instrument so well that I can tell you which notes trend slightly flat or sharp, and after a while adjusting to that becomes instinctive. So if I'm a professional programmer, I likewise want a computing environment that I understand completely and can service myself, and that is very customized to my own preferences. It's no different from any other professional field -- the point of the computer is to help me get work done, everything else is secondary. You'll get different answers if you ask someone why Linux makes them productive, because the benefit of Linux is that it adapts to you. For me, personally, the biggest upgrades to my productivity have been: 1. Switching to Linux in general 2. Switching to Emacs/Spacemacs (Emacs works best on Linux) 3. Switching to Arch as my main distro (which is hard to do unless you already know Linux) 4. Most recently, switching to EXWM as a window manager (which is a lot easier to do on Arch) Each step of this process has been me getting rid of things that distract me from work, and each step has built on the last. Switching to Linux gives me a setup that is much more customizable and stable, switching to Emacs gives me an editor that is very tightly integrated into the host operating system, switching to Arch allows me to have a very minimal setup (its easier to debug because there's less going on), and switching to EXWM allows me to focus the entire setup on work. On the other hand, I have an old Surface Pro 3 that's running Manjaro/Gnome that I use for drawing. It's a very different setup from my main computer, because I use it for different things. Again, my computer should adapt to my workflow, not the other way around. The Surface setup is actually interesting, because it suffers from driver issues (unreliable Wifi, bad suspend support). And yet I'm still more productive on it than I was on Windows. I think people underestimate how much time and energy can get lost to distractions, surprise updates, stuff like that. Specialized devices are really stinking good for getting stuff done. But everyone is different. I know people that get frustrated by the initial setup times or needing to dig more into the OS internals, and I get that -- it's reasonable. For me, once I got past that I found Linux to be really stable, because it doesn't change until you tell it to. Linux is the only OS I'll set up for someone who's not tech-savy, because putting in more work up front means I won't need to do as much regular maintenance.

Well clearly autocorrect doesn't work well on linux

I'm curious to this as well. I recently got a desktop computer to supplement my MacBook, and am now using Ubuntu as my more-or-less primary OS. I'm quite enjoying it, but I certainly wouldn't claim that it works better out of the box than MacOS. Perhaps it's because I've used Mac for so long, but I can't think of anything that I find difficult to set up. Ubuntu on the other hand has several issue that I've just sort of ignore - keybindings don't always work, you can't drag to/from the Desktop for some reason, some startup programs don't always run, little things like that.

eof 7y ago
Are you a developer? I think the productivity aspect would only be true in that case, as the things that “just work” are (for me) external libraries, GitHub readmes, sdk examples, etc.
- mrozel 7y ago
  Yes and I agree that is the case. Came from DevOps, so Linux still feels natural. Though I use it for everything now from developing, image/video editing, browsing. Literally, I feel like the only thing I can't do is IOS development.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    As a developer and hobbyist photographer and maker, I'm between two worlds. Linux is perfect for development but nothing Adobe or Autodesk runs on it, which is extremely frustrating. I don't even have to reboot to game, but I do need to reboot to edit a photo.
    - mroche 7y ago
      > Linux is perfect for development but nothing Adobe or Autodesk runs on it, which is extremely frustrating. True for Adobe, technically false for Autodesk if you aren’t in CAD. Maya and MotionBuilder (acquired from Alias in mid 2000s) run on Linux for the film/VFX industry. Though to be fair, I’m pretty sure they are the only applications in AD’s entire portfolio that run on Linux, and it wasn’t because of them.
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        I am in CAD, alas. Fusion 360 barely runs on Windows.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Being a developer does not equate with UNIX. Plenty of us are developers in other platforms.
danieldk 7y ago
> I'm curious to this as well. I recently got a desktop computer to supplement my MacBook, and am now using Ubuntu as my more-or-less primary OS. I have used macOS as my primary OS from 2007 to ~2017 (before that BSD and Linux). I am now mostly back on Linux, though I also have a MacBook Pro that I use every now and then. Primary reasons for switching back to Linux: * MacBook hardware limitations: too few ports, keyboard problems, expensive upgrades. * Competitive hardware prices for Linux. I got a NUC8i5, which was somewhere between 300-400 Euro and has the same quad core CPU as my 2000 MacBook Pro. I added a 500GB SSD I had lying around and 16GB RAM. I have more resources for a fraction of the price, and can always bump up the SSD or memory relatively cheaply. * Nix. There is package/system management before and after Nix. I actually started with Nix on macOS, but being able to manage your whole system declaratively is awesome. * The subscription disease on macOS. I am fine with buying good applications. Overall I have probably spent thousands of Euros on licenses for macOS software. But I will not use an application with a subscription model. Period. [1] It transfers a huge amount of control from me to the software vendor. Unfortunately, more and more macOS applications are switching to subscriptions. * Linux is generally faster than macOS. There are also things that I like about macOS: Apple's strong push for security (including sandboxing of applications, T2, etc.), fewer issues with drivers and random paper cuts, better support for hardware decoding throughout applications, traditionally strong 3rd-party applications (OmniGraffle, Little Snitch, LaunchBar/Alfred, Things, OmniFocus, etc.), integration through AirPlay, handover, et al. [1] Admittedly, there is one exception: 1Password, we like using it for password sharing and arguably, you are paying for a cloud service.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mrozel 7y ago

Docker has been my biggest gripe lately but admittedly has gotten better. Update environment. MacOS requires reboots and nags you constantly until you do. Whereas, apt and dnf are simple and can be automated in the background. Doing anything 'interesting' requires you to reboot and fiddle with the firmware. Where linux sudo works as expected. Outdated software due to licensing issues. See GPL and bash. Not to mention you will be much closer to a production environment and you will find less bugs developing due to differences in OS. Lots more but this is a good start. All of these things are small and mostly can be worked around but they add up I'm a big way. The road on Linux isn't completely rosy and can take more learning if you need to do anything really complicated. Tools are great but not necessarily pretty, etc.

gattilorenz 7y ago
> Doing anything 'interesting' requires you to reboot and fiddle with the firmware. Where linux sudo works as expected. If you mean SIP, can't you just disable it for good? Then you should be in a situation similar to Linux.
filleduchaos 7y ago
This seems rather uncharitable. Docker [was] off on macOS through no fault of the OS. Particular software dev teams taking shortcuts is on themselves. Linux also requires reboots for certain updates (plus you can disable checks for updates entirely and run one only when you want to on macOS, or even use `softwareupdate` for finer-grained control, so if it was "nagging you constantly" that's kind of on you). `sudo` works "as expected" for everything that doesn't involve conflict with the built-in System Integrity Protection, which is most things (in the past three or so years on macOS I've only run up against it twice). There isn't any "fiddling with firmware" going on. Plus if you want total freedom to delete your entire `/bin` folder or something, again you can disable SIP and move on with your life. I'm currently running Bash 5 on my MBP, so I don't get your outdated software complaint either. macOS doesn't have any magical power to force you to use the versions of (third-party!) software it ships with. If these are the first complaints that come to mind it just sounds like you haven't used the OS much and entirely refused to explore it or give it a chance in the time that you did. I mean, not even trying to set your own update preferences?

danShumway 7y ago

There are a few low-hanging improvements (updates almost never require you to restart). But it's a lot of tiny things that add up, some of which are hard to put into words. If I had to pick one thing that encompassed a lot of them, it would be that when I use Mac I feel like I'm adjusting my work-style to what Apple thinks it should be. In other words, my Linux setup now feels like it's a professional tool, and the Mac I use for work feels like a consumer-grade OS that happens to have work tools bundled on it. This is hard to put into words. If I'm an artist, my tools are very, very focused and robust. I might have specific pens and brushes that I know the feel of very well. They're not flashy and they don't have advertisements written on them, and they don't change their properties behind my back. Everything about them is designed to help me draw. If I'm a musician, I spend a lot of money to buy an instrument, and I get to know it very well. I have particular brands of reeds that are consistent that I'm likely preparing or sanding myself. I know my instrument so well that I can tell you which notes trend slightly flat or sharp, and after a while adjusting to that becomes instinctive. So if I'm a professional programmer, I likewise want a computing environment that I understand completely and can service myself, and that is very customized to my own preferences. It's no different from any other professional field -- the point of the computer is to help me get work done, everything else is secondary. You'll get different answers if you ask someone why Linux makes them productive, because the benefit of Linux is that it adapts to you. For me, personally, the biggest upgrades to my productivity have been: 1. Switching to Linux in general 2. Switching to Emacs/Spacemacs (Emacs works best on Linux) 3. Switching to Arch as my main distro (which is hard to do unless you already know Linux) 4. Most recently, switching to EXWM as a window manager (which is a lot easier to do on Arch) Each step of this process has been me getting rid of things that distract me from work, and each step has built on the last. Switching to Linux gives me a setup that is much more customizable and stable, switching to Emacs gives me an editor that is very tightly integrated into the host operating system, switching to Arch allows me to have a very minimal setup (its easier to debug because there's less going on), and switching to EXWM allows me to focus the entire setup on work. On the other hand, I have an old Surface Pro 3 that's running Manjaro/Gnome that I use for drawing. It's a very different setup from my main computer, because I use it for different things. Again, my computer should adapt to my workflow, not the other way around. The Surface setup is actually interesting, because it suffers from driver issues (unreliable Wifi, bad suspend support). And yet I'm still more productive on it than I was on Windows. I think people underestimate how much time and energy can get lost to distractions, surprise updates, stuff like that. Specialized devices are really stinking good for getting stuff done. But everyone is different. I know people that get frustrated by the initial setup times or needing to dig more into the OS internals, and I get that -- it's reasonable. For me, once I got past that I found Linux to be really stable, because it doesn't change until you tell it to. Linux is the only OS I'll set up for someone who's not tech-savy, because putting in more work up front means I won't need to do as much regular maintenance.