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I try the major DEs every few years to see if they fit me, most recently trying the newest KDE and GNOME versions in a VM about a month ago. Both have improved

I try the major DEs every few years to see if they fit me, most recently trying the newest KDE and GNOME versions in a VM about a month ago. Both have improved for sure, but they still have a long way to go… GNOME actually came closest but its customizability level is even lower than that of macOS, even factoring in extensions. Both suffer from a laundry list of minor annoyances that snowball into something that's hard to ignore, and in KDE's case the UX design they employ just doesn't jive with me at all. It's all enough that I end up coming back to macOS because despite its problems, it fits me in ways that nothing else even comes close to touching. Sometimes it feels like there will never be a macOS alternative that has what it takes for me to switch without feeling a major sense of loss.

oatmealsnap 6y ago
Same experience. I tried, but Linux just isn’t ready to be used as a general OS right now. I’ve dug through message boards and bug reports, and a lot of the features that MacOS has will never be implemented. I’m taking about features released 13+ years ago on OS X 10.4.
- boogies 6y ago
  > a lot of the features that MacOS has will never be implemented Care to name any? Other times I’ve heard things like this on HN I’ve been able to locate them.
  - mindfulhack 6y ago
    A big one I will sorely miss as I transition to Linux (and it's the only one I can think of right now), is the ability to rename and move around files while they are open! OK here's another, very related: the ability to have apps remember their open files when you quit and re-open them. These are significant productivity boosters, and I will miss them. It's definitely a trade-off, but now Apple has tipped the scales too much in favour of Linux...for me.
    - jhasse 6y ago
      Both of those things work under Linux for me. I guess it depends on the apps?
      - mindfulhack 6y ago
        Can you give examples of which apps you noticed it working for? and what desktop environment/distro? I will most certainly test.
        jhasse 6y ago
        VSCode and Sublime Text remember the files they had opened. And renaming files while they are played back works fine with mpv.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  > Same experience. I tried, but Linux just isn’t ready to be used as a general OS right now. Highly, highly subjective. I use Linux as my main OS and have for many years.
  - freedomben 6y ago
    Agreed. I've used Linux full time on the desktop, laptop, and on the server for over 10 years now and I have a better experience there than mac (which I had to use on my work machine for 6 months due to employer only allowing macs). Of course everything is not perfect, but that wasn't true in mac either. I had to hack and shim so many things to get my system to behave the way I wanted to. There were also horrible bugs like where plugging in an external (Apple branded) monitor would cause the laptop screen to go black forever until I held down the power button.
- nicoffeine 6y ago
  I'd be interested in the features that you were missing as well. I just bought parts for a desktop that's literally 4x cheaper than a similarly specced Mac Pro with the usual caveats (Ryzen instead of Xeon, non ECC, etc.) It will have to be pretty rough for me to consider investing anything beyond a Mac Mini so I can have access to Xcode once my MBP dies.
  - vladvasiliu 6y ago
    In my experience it's mostly "convenience" / "nice to haves" related to "modern things" such as entertainment. Of course, this excludes any specialty software you may need that may be unavailable for Linux, but I suppose that's not your case since you're considering this. For example changing from a low-resolution (non-hidpi) screen to a hidpi one doesn't work that great. You want to watch netflix or prime video in FHD? Not going to happen (although, admittedly, that's not linux's fault but a DRM-related decision). I've noticed that, as usual, all this is highly dependent on what one does with the computer. If it's a laptop often used with a high resolution external screen and for on-line media consumption, the experience can be less than ideal. If it's a working computer used in fixed conditions, the experience can be outright great. My "work" computer is a desktop linux with a UHD screen and I absolutely love working on it. But for random hanging around on the internet, watching a movie or whatever, I'll grab my macbook.
brightball 6y ago
Tried PopOS from System76 recently? It's IMHO the current best user experience of Gnome.
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  I have, in fact I had it installed directly on one of my towers a few months ago to make sure that no weird VM shenanigans were futzing things up. It was one of the smoother GNOME distros, and its installer was far more competent than Ubuntu's (mainly, it didn't screw with the boot partitions of every drive in the system like Ubuntu's installer did). Ultimately though, GNOME itself is flawed in its approach to a few things.
boogies 6y ago
elementary OS’s Pantheon seems to be the closest DE to macOS’s Aqua
kevincox 6y ago
> Both suffer from a laundry list of minor annoyances that snowball into something that's hard to ignore This sounds just like your familiarity. I could have used the exact same sentence to describe how I feel using macOS for work after being used to Linux (GNOME) for 8 years. When you use something for a while you learn to avoid all the bugs and the UX starts to feel natural. Any switch will end up in you running into new bugs and finding the UX odd, no matter if it is to or from macOS, Windows, GNOME, KDE or otherwise. I would say that I run into 10x more bugs on macOS than GNOME. But that probably isn't because there are 10x more bugs. There is likely a comparable number on GNOME but I have learned to subconsciously avoid most of them.
3131s 6y ago
I would suggest looking into MATE or XFCE if you haven't, or even a tiling window manager like i3.
fsflover 6y ago
This is so vague that I want to downvote this comment as irrelevant.
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  Apologies, it's deeper than it seems at first glance. If I were to elaborate, the resulting writeup would be better suited for a blogpost than an HN comment.

oatmealsnap 6y ago

Same experience. I tried, but Linux just isn’t ready to be used as a general OS right now. I’ve dug through message boards and bug reports, and a lot of the features that MacOS has will never be implemented. I’m taking about features released 13+ years ago on OS X 10.4.

boogies 6y ago
> a lot of the features that MacOS has will never be implemented Care to name any? Other times I’ve heard things like this on HN I’ve been able to locate them.
- mindfulhack 6y ago
  A big one I will sorely miss as I transition to Linux (and it's the only one I can think of right now), is the ability to rename and move around files while they are open! OK here's another, very related: the ability to have apps remember their open files when you quit and re-open them. These are significant productivity boosters, and I will miss them. It's definitely a trade-off, but now Apple has tipped the scales too much in favour of Linux...for me.
  - jhasse 6y ago
    Both of those things work under Linux for me. I guess it depends on the apps?
    - mindfulhack 6y ago
      Can you give examples of which apps you noticed it working for? and what desktop environment/distro? I will most certainly test.
      - jhasse 6y ago
        VSCode and Sublime Text remember the files they had opened. And renaming files while they are played back works fine with mpv.
ryukafalz 6y ago
> Same experience. I tried, but Linux just isn’t ready to be used as a general OS right now. Highly, highly subjective. I use Linux as my main OS and have for many years.
- freedomben 6y ago
  Agreed. I've used Linux full time on the desktop, laptop, and on the server for over 10 years now and I have a better experience there than mac (which I had to use on my work machine for 6 months due to employer only allowing macs). Of course everything is not perfect, but that wasn't true in mac either. I had to hack and shim so many things to get my system to behave the way I wanted to. There were also horrible bugs like where plugging in an external (Apple branded) monitor would cause the laptop screen to go black forever until I held down the power button.
nicoffeine 6y ago
I'd be interested in the features that you were missing as well. I just bought parts for a desktop that's literally 4x cheaper than a similarly specced Mac Pro with the usual caveats (Ryzen instead of Xeon, non ECC, etc.) It will have to be pretty rough for me to consider investing anything beyond a Mac Mini so I can have access to Xcode once my MBP dies.
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  In my experience it's mostly "convenience" / "nice to haves" related to "modern things" such as entertainment. Of course, this excludes any specialty software you may need that may be unavailable for Linux, but I suppose that's not your case since you're considering this. For example changing from a low-resolution (non-hidpi) screen to a hidpi one doesn't work that great. You want to watch netflix or prime video in FHD? Not going to happen (although, admittedly, that's not linux's fault but a DRM-related decision). I've noticed that, as usual, all this is highly dependent on what one does with the computer. If it's a laptop often used with a high resolution external screen and for on-line media consumption, the experience can be less than ideal. If it's a working computer used in fixed conditions, the experience can be outright great. My "work" computer is a desktop linux with a UHD screen and I absolutely love working on it. But for random hanging around on the internet, watching a movie or whatever, I'll grab my macbook.

brightball 6y ago

Tried PopOS from System76 recently? It's IMHO the current best user experience of Gnome.

kitsunesoba 6y ago
I have, in fact I had it installed directly on one of my towers a few months ago to make sure that no weird VM shenanigans were futzing things up. It was one of the smoother GNOME distros, and its installer was far more competent than Ubuntu's (mainly, it didn't screw with the boot partitions of every drive in the system like Ubuntu's installer did). Ultimately though, GNOME itself is flawed in its approach to a few things.

boogies 6y ago

elementary OS’s Pantheon seems to be the closest DE to macOS’s Aqua

kevincox 6y ago

> Both suffer from a laundry list of minor annoyances that snowball into something that's hard to ignore This sounds just like your familiarity. I could have used the exact same sentence to describe how I feel using macOS for work after being used to Linux (GNOME) for 8 years. When you use something for a while you learn to avoid all the bugs and the UX starts to feel natural. Any switch will end up in you running into new bugs and finding the UX odd, no matter if it is to or from macOS, Windows, GNOME, KDE or otherwise. I would say that I run into 10x more bugs on macOS than GNOME. But that probably isn't because there are 10x more bugs. There is likely a comparable number on GNOME but I have learned to subconsciously avoid most of them.

3131s 6y ago

I would suggest looking into MATE or XFCE if you haven't, or even a tiling window manager like i3.

fsflover 6y ago

This is so vague that I want to downvote this comment as irrelevant.

kitsunesoba 6y ago
Apologies, it's deeper than it seems at first glance. If I were to elaborate, the resulting writeup would be better suited for a blogpost than an HN comment.