21 ms·

macOS to FreeBSD migration a.k.a. why I left macOS

292 points by rodrigo975 6y ago

free652 6y ago
And in about 3 months he will switch back. At this point you can just install ChromeOS from Neverware and have better experience. You can install third party apps with flatpaks.
nikivi 6y ago
I never got the hate for Big Sur design. I personally love it. The new sounds are great, less visual clutter. Depth of icons.
- timw4mail 6y ago
  Translucency is visual clutter. Also, there are people who like macOS and do not like iOS.
  - snazz 6y ago
    I haven't found that any of the translucency makes macOS harder to use. Do you have any specific examples of that?
    - timw4mail 6y ago
      The translucent menus don't make them easier to read.
- joshmanders 6y ago
  Same, the only drawback I see is if you make an app full size (not full screen) the app shell rounds corners but the topbar is flat so there's a small gap in the corner.
- qz2 6y ago
  Only problem I have is working out what some of the icons are for, otherwise it's a positive change.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rconti 6y ago
  Yeah, Big Sur is the first OS X change that has felt somewhat better in awhile. It's a stupid simple thing, but man the new default system sounds are nice. The old bell was so triggering and yet i never bothered to change it.
fuball63 6y ago
I'm a huge FreeBSD fan because of what the author is hinting at; it's easier to grok because of it's stricter separation of user space and system space and because it has great documentation. I try to use it for any server project, and ran it as a desktop for a little bit. That being said, the reason I don't go 100% all in on it and use Ubuntu is the upgrade process. The article says they were successful upgrading minor versions, but major version upgrades are a real pain. Last time I did it it was showing me diffs of system scripts and asking me to make calls on what changes to accept; I chose "use latest" for everything, and ended up breaking "sudo" and effectively lost control of my cloud instance. If there's a better way to perform system upgrades, I'd love to hear it, because I think the OS is beautifully minimalistic and closer to Unix philosophy than Ubuntu/OSX.
- tshanmu 6y ago
  May be move to immutable configs using nix? That way provision a latest version and migrate your config and store data separately?
  - fuball63 6y ago
    Yeah, my current process is to assume that the upgrade will fail and spin up a second instance with backups restored. This is for the cloud, where I have less root access (DigitalOcean doesn't give you the root password, and can't change it in recovery). For a box you have full control of, the good news is I can almost always fix it in single user mode.
- IggleSniggle 6y ago
  I’ve thought about BSD before but can never decide between OpenBSD and FreeBSD
  - fuball63 6y ago
    I find that the order of most user friendly to least, in terms of the "big 3" BSD's, is FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. But a lot of people love OpenBSD; personally I like it because it has the boggle command line game.
whynotminot 6y ago
He says better Wifi and Bluetooth are the only things he's missing. That's kind of a big deal, though, right? Your wifi speeds touch literally every part of using the system, from downloading packages to browsing the web to watching YouTube or listening to Spotify. Bluetooth is also significant quality of life, from keyboards and mice to headphones and automatic syncing with devices. I understand his concerns, and it seems like everyone has their "why I left macOS" hot-take cocked and loaded these days, but this sort of sounds like "I left macOS and the only thing I miss are the things that makes a laptop useful in 2020."
- jhardy54 6y ago
  > That's kind of a big deal, though, right? Anecdata: I don't use wifi on my work computer. Ethernet is faster and more reliable, and since my desk/monitors/mouse/keyboard stay in the same place it's easy to drag another wire over there too.
  - outadoc 6y ago
    That's fine for you, but literally the difference between a desktop and a laptop computer... If you're going to run an OS with bad or lack of wireless support, might as well grab a cheap PC tower.
    - orhmeh09 6y ago
      You don’t remember when laptops didn’t come with wireless, I suppose — I think it’s possible that there are other distinguishing features of laptops and desktops.
      - macintux 6y ago
        After over 20 years, I think we can safely characterize WiFi as an integral component of a laptop.
      - whynotminot 6y ago
        He might also not remember the abacus. Things change and that's fine. I think most people today would look at a laptop with bad wifi and wonder what its purpose was.
joshmanders 6y ago
> Windows is still a nightmare, setting up macOS took me 3 days the last time, Linux takes way more if you’re building it from scratch. Setting up FreeBSD took me 3 days, however this meant that I will NOT need to change it again for a very, very, VERY long time. What exactly is involved with "Setting up macOS" to take you 3 days? I just pulled out my old 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro, reformatted the machine and installed Big Sur on it and got it in exact condition needed to continue my work that is on my main driver.... Took me 2 hours tops. I keep all documents in iCloud Documents, so they sync to all my machines, and I install everything through Homebrew, so once I pull that in, I run `brew bundle install` and let it do it's thing...
- qz2 6y ago
  Yep. I just migrated from a mishmash of windows and Linux to macOS and it took less than a day to sort it out including loading 50 gig of photos and videos into Photos app, migrating a couple of medium size spreadsheets to Numbers, getting set up on AWS, migrating credentials over, everything.
  - joshmanders 6y ago
    And with Catalina Apple has made it stupidly easy to install fresh now. You used to have to create a bootable USB, now you can boot into recovery mode, reformat the drive and install any of 3 versions of macOS. The version that come with your machine, the last version of macOS compatible or latest version.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      IME Recovery mode fails as often as it works. At work we wound up just making bootable USB's, as they Just Work(tm).
  - free2OSS 6y ago
    Those aren't really pain points though. How about getting VMs set up with port forwarding? Also what a time to switch to Mac, the constant Apple news didn't scare you? Do you watch a lot of TV?
nix23 6y ago
Congratulation! Did the same but from Linux to FreeBSD (mostly)
- Gualdrapo 6y ago
  I'd be interested in hearing your experience. As a layman workstation user, sometimes I think about not using anymore a Linux kernel but I'd for sure miss the granular control of Portage.
  - nix23 6y ago
    >miss the granular control of Portage Portage was made because of the BSD Port system, you have the same control over your build packages with make.conf instead of USE-Flags >Portage is based on the concept of ports collections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_(software) The most important thing for me was that i always have the newest Software (like a rolling distro) but my System is stable in my case 12.2-RELEASE, thats the biggest difference from Linux you have a Full System (Kernel NFS etc.) and then everything else like firefox etc in form of pkg's (binarys) or ports (builds), so i have everything, i can change my system from RELEASE to STABLE to DEV, and choose my pkg from rolling to quarter (kind of a point release for the pkg's) or build every pkg myself (ports).
fractionalhare 6y ago
Pretty light on specifics. The article has no details showing why FreeBSD is better than macOS for the author's workflow, except that there are a lot of processes running and setup apparently takes longer. > This is where many people will tell me “Okay but not everything works outside the box”, true! but which OS works outside the box these days anyway? Windows is still a nightmare, setting up macOS took me 3 days the last time, Linux takes way more if you’re building it from scratch. Setting up FreeBSD took me 3 days, however this meant that I will NOT need to change it again for a very, very, VERY long time. Why is Windows a nightmare? I use Windows 10 on a PC I built and it's fine. I also use it for dev using the Linux subsystem with WSL2 and Powershell. Why did setting up macOS take 3 days? I don't even think it would take 1 day if I set up a new machine from scratch. Why are you building Linux from scratch for comparison??? It took me two hours to set up Debian by hand yesterday. And then they say FreeBSD also took 3 days of setup (?!), but that's alright because they won't have to change it going forward. Leaving aside my skepticism of that last part, the same probably applies to macOS. EDIT: I think the author actually is better served by FreeBSD given the fact that they were hand-modifying persistent packet-filter rules. That is not a thing I would suggest someone do on a macOS machine. But the head scratcher I have is why they would try to do this on macOS (or Windows) in the first place, and why setup times took so long besides the breaking updates.
- dionian 6y ago
  This says a lot: > Most importantly, it’s Free and Open Source. "Most importantly" ?
  - m463 6y ago
    If you've experienced computer use for any length of time, that is the root of everything. like for instance: > Every time Apple pushed an updated, my pf.conf and automount configs got broken on macOS. They either got deleted or they moved somewhere. Well, the last 2 times it just got deleted. I mean, wtf? With open source, there is at least discussion and education about something like this.
    - 6y ago
13415 6y ago
I've got to wonder: I've used FreeBSD and OpenBSD in the distant past and I can't see a good reason for using a Unix for a desktop system. I know it works, but many Linux distros provide a much less painful experience, especially if you're coming from MacOS.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Depends on the distro. I get frustrated with Ubuntu all the time because sometimes I want the latest package now not in several months. FreeBSD updates packages fast when they change. I use Manjarno on one machine and it works well this way though.
- timbit42 6y ago
  The author stated in the article he stayed away from Linux because most of them run systemd and since his servers run BSD he figured his desktop might as well too.
- jeromenerf 6y ago
  > I can't see a good reason for using a Unix for a desktop system People needs and preferences vary. I can’t see a good reason to expect the contrary :)
danpalmer 6y ago
> Most importantly, it’s Free and Open Source. This is it. If you are ideologically opposed to using macOS, then it's never going to satisfy you. This is fine! Figure out what matters to you, and select for that.
AntiImperialist 6y ago
I've recently moved away from Linux (to Windows) because of bad hardware support (with Ubuntu, bluetooth audio was PITA, graphics was buggy... and the whole lot of things I know and expect from 20 years of using Linux on the Desktop for most of the time). I started using Windows only because I was putting off installing Linux on the laptop... and I wanted give WSL a shot. With WSL 2.0 and Docker Desktop working so well with it, I don't miss Ubuntu at all. When I did boot Ubuntu from a live disk to try something out, I found it felt much faster than my Windows install... but I still don't see myself switching back anytime soon.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
hakcermani 6y ago
I am getting to that point too - except for iOS / MacOS development will use a MB Air. After Catalina upgrade my scanner was disallowed by MacOS. "HPScanner.app will damage your computer" .. Report malware to Apple ... so I said let me try my old MBP running Ubuntu .. boom DocumentScanner could recognize the scanner and off I went !
melq 6y ago
>man, I did not realize that macOS is that complicated. Why is there a "studentd" running? I don't even use Classrooms :/ I find myself running in to the same thing whenever I am poking around my running processes. There are tons of daemons running as root that are not easy to identify. eg: "What the hell is eoshostd?", and googling isn't super helpful because Apple doesn't seem to have public docs for this stuff.
sabellito 6y ago
I've moved to Ubuntu this week as my new dell xps arrived. The last drop was macOS opening Apple Music every time I put my bluetooth phones in, with no way to disable it even when removing the system integrity thing. Apart from re-learning some of the hotkeys, everything* just works. Font rendering is sharp, Gnome feels snappy enough for the kind of work I do. It feels good to be treated like an adult by my work-tool. * had to install a driver to get the fingerprint scanner to work
- nullwarp 6y ago
  The apple music thing is sooooo annoying. I only use my mac for zoom and so every time I open it there's apple music again.
- fghorow 6y ago
  PSA for MacOS denizens: Are you annoyed enough at iTunes popping up every time the in-line button on your headset is clicked to actually want to do something about it? Me too. (Finally.) In the "works for me"™ category, from a terminal window: sudo chmod a-x /System/Library/CoreServices/rcd.app/Contents/MacOS/rcd (When the sudo command asks you for a password, use the normal password for your logged-in acct.) You are welcome.
busterarm 6y ago
To the author, get one of Creative's Bluetooth USB Audio devices. You'll have flawless Bluetooth audio and no OS support (past USB devices) needed. I use them on my Thinkpads in OpenBSD because the BT chips don't have great support still. Will never go back.
draw_down 6y ago
Yes, these do sound like reasons why you'd want to use some free *nix instead of mac. I'm not sure these have really been changing though, when has FreeBSD's documentation not exceeded that of the Mac? Personally, if I touch the trackpad and it doesn't do what I expect, that would be enough to disqualify a system from daily use. I use the gestures constantly, it's the main way of interacting with the system for me. So I need a system which does this correctly (in my view). Which limits my options to, well, one. Getting riled up about documentation is just really really far from the set of things I care about day-to-day.
bromonkey 6y ago
"Linux has systemd" and that's why the author didn't select it supposedly. I hear this line of thought from people that use FreeBSD often, although I suspect if you ask many of those people why systemd is so horrible you won't actually hear a legitimate (and still relevant) reason from them. I suggest anyone that thinks systemd is terrible and doesn't spend lots of time in Linux to watch this presentation by Benno Rice. https://youtu.be/o_AIw9bGogo https://youtu.be/o_AIw9bGogo
- nix23 6y ago
  >I hear this line of thought from people that use FreeBSD often That's BS and you know it.
- ysleepy 6y ago
  Ever used systemd-timesyncd or the systemd-dhcp thing, oh and systemd-resolved ? All these inferior implementations are barely configurable and lack features for use-cases outside of desktop users. The init system is nice, but why the hell does it re-implement svchost.exe
  - d21d3q 6y ago
    I did. I've been maintaining python+ncurses tool for configuring system: network, ntp, etc. If you don't have dhcp server running on your network, then ifup will block until it resolves address (ui freeze). If not, then you have to kill it and also dhcp reolver. After switching to systemd-networkd it just works in background. All configuration is done with .ini style files so that no need to use special parser for /etc/network/interfaces. Disclaimer: I jumped on linux few years ago when systemd already had some momentum, so that I wasn't used to either init or systemd. I found the later easier to pick up.
  - chmln 6y ago
    All of these are optional, just disable and use an alternative? I use resolved and timesyncd however and they work amazing for my basic needs on the laptop.
  - 1_player 6y ago
jrochkind1 6y ago
I am sympathetic, use whatever works for you and I'm happy when open source works for people, but: > but which OS works outside the box these days anyway? Windows is still a nightmare, setting up macOS took me 3 days the last time, Linux takes way more if you’re building it from scratch. Setting up FreeBSD took me 3 days, however this meant that I will NOT need to change it again for a very, very, VERY long time. (I think he means "out of the box", ie, without spending lots of time configuring or fighting with it to get it set up.) I think Mac OS works for most people without spending 3 days to set it up. For OP, he spent the same amount of time setting up FreeBSD as he did MacOS... I'm not confident this is typical. > Every time Apple pushed an updated, my pf.conf and automount configs got broken on macOS. They either got deleted or they moved somewhere. Well, the last 2 times it just got deleted. Aha. OK, I don't even know what this is... but ok, I can believe if you are using features are more unixy they will work better on FreeBSD with less tinkering. Which doesn't mean they work "out of the box", especially for non-technical users. Just that, sure, they aren't any better and are sometimes worse on MacOS. > Unix is outdated and Apple does not care about it. I think this is probably accurate, Apple is no longer interested in maintaining the OS (and installed/supported packages) as an up to date unix competitive with other unixes. > Doing forensics is almost impossible What do "forensics" mean here?
major505 6y ago
Honestly, I don't get all the hate systemD receives. It works well enough, creating launchers for services is super easy, and in all this years It never gave my a headache.
- tuatoru 6y ago
  And I like "systemd-analyze critical-chain" and journalctl's colorized output. Let's give it another ten years' trial...
- Steltek 6y ago
  There was misunderstanding of the technical details early on. I think poor communication and empathy exacerbated those early difficulties (= the kernel cmdline debug fiasco). Now that it's a little more stable, I'm pretty happy with it and I especially appreciate having 'systemctl --user' to manage user services, which didn't really exist before (ssh/gpg-agent, etc).
  - major505 6y ago
    I see... well to be honest, the change to systemd was a big one, so some problems are to be espected. I took a while to flock to ubuntu, so, problably when I first starting using it, it was alread stable. And yes. It suports good tools for diagnostics like journalctl.
unnouinceput 6y ago
Quote: "This is where many people will tell me “Okay but not everything works outside the box”, true! but which OS works outside the box these days anyway? Windows is still a nightmare,..." Well, Windows pretty much works out of the box. I mean it's the main main selling point. This and backward compatibility. Which informs me the article's author instead of getting the information first hand relied on rumors. That's a shame. IMO better say it right out "I hate Windows and I boycott Microsoft" rather than spelling lies.
- sbuk 6y ago
  I disagree. If you install Windows as a system builder or on a system from a manufacturer without their specific build, it definitely doesn't work out of the box. There is a lot of driver discovery and installation that needs to be done. That's not say that this hasn't improved over the years. If you ever built NT/2000, you'd know what an utter nightmare it could be. It also is highly dependant on you own definition of "working out of the box" is...
  - unnouinceput 6y ago
    "If you ever built NT/2000..." Are we talking ancient history here or current version? Because OP was not satisfied with latest versions of MacOS, hence his migration. I build my own computers, I deal with friends/relatives computers too and latest Win10 versions are definitely working out of the box. Sure, it has crap telemetry but it can be turned off. I use a nice utility called WPD, in 20 seconds I am done taking Windows crappy ads and telemetry off with it. "dependant on you own definition of "working out of the box" is..." My definition of working out of the box is that I put Win disc installer, it will installs then once I am pass initial questions it will do its thing on its own and at the end I am at a nice desktop where I can do anything. And Win has recognized all of computer's internals and it's a usable PC. Rest is optimization for specific tastes, like getting Firefox and having uBlock Origins to have a smoother web surfing experience. What's your definition?
    - sbuk 6y ago
      Quote in context; "That's not say that this hasn't improved over the years. If you ever built NT/2000, you'd know what an utter nightmare it could be." I acknowledge that things have improved, but speaking as someone that deployed PC's to be used as CAD workstations in large batches at a time, Windows 10 was a marginal improvement over Windows 7. Yes, they were imaged, but building and testing that image, even with Microsoft's tools, is not a trivial task.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
These GBCW posts are becoming more visible, but not more common. As a Mac user (and developer), I've been reading these for decades. These are written by people moving both to and from Apple. They also have similar ones about Linux distros, Windows, Android vs. iOS, and probably Pi vs. Arduino.
- rconti 6y ago
  I just find them so tiring. I'm sure it says more about me getting old than anything about the content authors, but I've just had enough decades of it. It's the same reason I could never get into Reddit. I don't need the same OS / atheism / whatever flamewars from 1995. If you're older than me, you probably thought it was old and busted in 1995 already, and if you're younger, maybe that time was 2000 or 2005 or 2010 or whatever. But, sooner or later, it happens to all of us.
smrxx 6y ago
What's he talking about when he says `date(1) is outdated`? I see nothing about deprecation in the man page.
antranigv 6y ago
Hi there! author of the post here! I will answer most of the questions below :) 1) 3 days to setup macOS? Yes, it took me at least 3 days, keep in mind that a setup is not just installing software, it's also dotfiles, shell environment, automout (I use NFS a lot), PGP/GPG-alike keychains, the OS keychain, Firewall (pf in my case), privacy settings, company-related software, etc. So yes, it takes time, which I am okay with. My problem with macOS is the fact that updating/upgrading the system crashes a lot of configuration. 2) Why FreeBSD? Because I love it :) my company's product is based on FreeBSD, my servers are FreeBSD, my operating system of choice for teaching is FreeBSD. The handbook is there, all man pages are well written, pkg is easy to use, it's a whole system. Also: ZFS and DTrace makes your life easier. Sure, I can have ZFS on Linux and eBPF, but why learn a new technology when DTrace is rock-solid. FreeBSD is not "just" an OS, it's a complete self-hosted development ecosystem. 3) WiFi? Yes, WiFi is not the best, but not everyone needs 100Mbps connection. I have a wired connection at home to use when streaming movies to my PS4 (also a FreeBSD-based system), but other than that, it's fine. I will still donate every year so the devs improve it. Apologies for the bad English, it's not my native language. Thanks for posting and reading!
- sneak 6y ago
  I admire people who write and publish in non-native languages, I don't have the guts to publish in my bad German. It's clear you're non-native, but it's not "bad English". :) Thanks for sharing it with us! I like hearing about the range of experiences that highly technical people have with macOS. I'm still trying to use it as my daily driver, even though it takes a few days of setup (compared to the old days of building a preconfigured image), because my alternate option (Linux, for me) also takes a similar amount of time. You're right about Windows being a trash fire. PS: "outside of the box" is the end of the idiom referring to "thinking outside of the box" (thinking differently about a problem). I think the one you meant to use in your article was "out of the box", which means the first experience with a product when it's opened or unwrapped (think: "taken out of the box"). I hadn't even noticed how similar these two are until today.
- btian 6y ago
  Hi, curious about battery life on your laptop. My impression is that many devs run Windows or Mac for their good power management.
jez 6y ago
Increasingly these days I'm thinking: the M1 MacBook Air holds up very well, but I also want to use Linux: why not both? My biggest problem with Linux / BSD is the GUIs. I don't know why but whenever I use a Linux desktop, the mouse either moves too fast or too slow and there's no sweet spot. The GUI keyboards shortcuts are all messed up: I love the "⌘" (super) key because then ⌘C is copy everywhere, and ^C is an interrupt in the terminal. I have ⌘← , ⌥← , ⌘⌫ , ⌥⌫ , ⇧⌘← , ⇧⌥← ingrained in my memory (for moving, deleting, and selecting by line or by word). I have fussed with remapping keys but there's always that one app that won't cooperate. So why not both: shift down from a single the top of the line 16" MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air, and then pair it with a desktop running Linux that I SSH into over LAN. - LAN internet speeds are fast enough that I don't notice any latency. - I'll have convenient access to both Linux and macOS, for testing. - I can spec up the Linux desktop as much as I want. It could even have a Threadripper. - The MacBook Air will have better battery life than any Linux or BSD laptop. - I can use Tailscale[1] to set up a no-fuss VPN, so that I can still SSH to it even when I'm not on LAN. - All the GUIs will still be macOS, so things like mouse speed and keyboard shortcuts will all be familiar. It might even net out to be around the same price. My 16" MacBook Pro was like $3,000. An M1 MacBook Air would be $1,500 (with some storage and memory), and the remaining $1,500 is more than enough to build a beefy desktop. [1] https://tailscale.com/ https://tailscale.com/
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  I used to do this until I just gave in and installed Linux as my daily driver. The separation between the machine I was using and the Linux install I was interacting with was too great, and was more frustrating than anything. Also using modern Linux features locally was a big draw, as cgroups and native Docker are great. Also, try adaptive acceleration with your touchpad or mouse.
whalesalad 6y ago
These posts are always about getting setup - but never about day to day workloads. What does this person do w/ their machine?
debo_ 6y ago
I've been using a work laptop as my 'primary' machine for years, and it was a Mac. I was using Macs pretty much since 2005 for life and work. As more of my life moved into the browser, I was curious to try a Linux desktop again; I hadn't done so since KDE on debian in 2004. I've been on Linux Mint since the summer, and I have been really astonished at how easily everything just works. For me, it's a combination of things: 90% of what I do is in the browser; all the software development tools I use are cross-platform; and the Cinnamon desktop environment is really just good enough for anything I find myself doing. I didn't expect it to go this well, but it did.
wapxmas 6y ago
Nowadays it is not only ability to interact with hardware you have to take into account, choosing an OS, but also usability of an OS.
kebman 6y ago
I've installed Ubuntu, Mint and Debian in many different ways, but never did it take three days, though I did end up tweaking a bunch of stuff in the following days. I mean, I guess, if you take that time into account, then the "installation time" becomes a bit longer, but... not really. Or are you building them for very spesific (or odd) hardware? Personally I'd never dream of setting up any serious production environment on a Mac or Windows PC though, outside those spesifically geared towards it like .NET. But then, if you use the latter, it kinda narrows down your options though. I mean, isn't that just common sense these days?
mberning 6y ago
The argument of "you have to put a non-trivial amount of time into setting any OS up, so you might as well use X" is so disingenuous. It's easy to forget the day to day conveniences when you are using windows or osx every day for a few years. If you could accurately sum up the time spent fiddling with your nix desktop OS over the lifetime of the install, the "area under the curve" so to speak, windows and osx are going to absolutely blow any nix distro out of the water. It is parasitic and insidious how many things don't "just work". You will invariably end up wasting much of your life getting software, printers, scanners, webcams, monitors, or whatever to work the way you want with your nix distro. And even when it does "work" it's not going to be as good as a real desktop OS. I ran freeBSD on my Toshiba Satellite 1905-s301 for 4 years before getting a MBP and I have zero temptation to go back.
ianai 6y ago
As the Unix subsystems age, I suspect Apple may sooner or later move entirely away from the Unix base entirely.
- devenblake 6y ago
  Why?
pelasaco 6y ago
> Most importantly, it’s Free and Open Source. Being professional open source developer since 2010 and Linux user since 1995, I can just answer with: Nope, most important is to get things done. I love to use Linux as Desktop, but sometimes it's just impossible to use it, and not every thing is bad. The printing experience for instance on Linux/BSD is pretty bad.
sloshnmosh 6y ago
Windows 10 is rubbish. It reminds me of one of those cheap Android phones that come free with the activation of a mobile subscription. Ads running on your desktop, a UI that looks like cartoon graphics and an App Store full of questionable apps. How anyone can deal with that OS on a daily basis is beyond me.
- TheOperator 6y ago
  I haven't seriously used the start menu since Vista only ever using it when the only copy of a file is saved to %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. I just hit win+keyword and hit enter to navigate around. I've only ever used the App Store for upgrading from Win10 S to Win 10 and I rarely even notice the ads are there. I don't have any issue with the things you raised because they're just not serious issues. I'm more concerned with other problems like forced updates & workstation windows getting cranky without reboots & the batshit Frankenstein of new+old control panels in win10 & the fact that most computers in the world use unix-like operating systems.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
I'm doing exactly the same thing right now. But with a desktop.. macOS is so pissing me off, half the file system is being locked down, Apple makes exceptions for their own stuff (like the recent thing where they disable network filtering for their apps). Every app has to be sent to Apple for notarisation, and much more. I got into macOS because it was a great POSIX system with great desktop apps and a consistent UI. But Apple is making it into an iPad with keyboard now. The UI is getting more and more bulky, apps are being dumbed down (and promoting even dumber iOS ports) etc. The NeXT underpinnings are neglected. The benefit is gone. I chose FreeBSD over Linux because most mainstream distros are doing the same thing. Ubuntu is pushing snap too much, redhat is pushing systemd into everything. I don't want this commercial control again, even though it's not as bad as on Windows. Windows 10 has similar crap like Apple, forced updates, telemetry etc. Also I like FreeBSD's consistent environment and excellent documentation among many other things.
yuribro 6y ago
I find it interesting how definitions of words drift away from their original meaning. > is becoming less Unix-y every year And the examples given are: no package manager, outdates packages, not open free software Doesn't this exactly describe the original UNIX OSs? Solaris, IRIX, HP-UX and so on? It sounds to me like a self fulfilling prophecy - he models his expectations on a modern Linux or BSD distribution, and of course at the end they will match what he wants.
mlacks 6y ago
>Linux has systemd, not my favorite thing out there, Windows is privacy nightmare. Two questions; I'm not that educated in this field: 1. Is Windows LTSC not an option for people like this? 2. I'm running it on my laptop and am seeing better performance with telemetry turned of, but am unsure if its still a "privacy nightmare". what tools can I use verify that my OS is not calling home?
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  Last time I looked, you need to jump through some hoops to use a legitimate LTSC install for long-term for personal use. There's still a lot of cruft in the LTSC version, too.
thetrooper 6y ago
i dont think freebsd as a desktop (or server for that matter) is usable beyond hobby projects. luckily HN doesn't have many experienced techies so this post wont get downvoted by much and some poor soul out there will install this relic thinking its better than macos.
gfiorav 6y ago
For me, these are the three things a Linux distro needs to nail nowadays: - HDPI - Battery - Touchpad OUT OF THE BOX. Like other OSes. The other thing that sounds weird from this article is "Windows and Mac are hard to setup". This guy must be very very specific.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  I have an HDPI display, and Plasma Desktop has support for fractional scaling out of the box.
  - gfiorav 6y ago
    Yes, but it's not configured automatically and things mess up when you switch from you monitor to your laptop. Also, gtk3 apps look blurry when upscaled sometimes.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      I just booted off of a Ubuntu live image, and it scales correctly.
      - gfiorav 6y ago
        Not fractional though. If the correct scaling is 200%, or 300%, then yes, it works. If it's 140% you're out of luck for automatic. Also, when you unplug the monitor, the windows are messed up. On top of that, a lot of GTK3 apps look blurry with fractional scaling (icluding Chrome).
heavyset_go 6y ago
> It’s been 1 month and 1 day since I last touched my MacBook Pro, so, what do I miss? > - Better BT support > - Faster WiFi Come over to Linux, we have 802.11ac+ and good Bluetooth support. If you're missing macOS graphics, Plasma Desktop with Latte Dock can make for a pretty and fast macOS clone.
aledthemathguy 6y ago
noob question: why does OP care about background running services? Do these incur a performance penalty on "modern" hardware? honestly curious about this. Thx
pjmlp 6y ago
Aka, "I left macOS because I only cared about BSD UNIX and nothing else that actually adds value to Apple hardware".
f6v 6y ago
Well, it’s nice to have a hobby. Configuring the OS just isn’t mine.
jakecopp 6y ago
> And the hardware is, well, not the best out there After the new MBP this sentence seems dated.
znpy 6y ago
Uh it's 2020 and people are still switching to freebsd because of systemd... That's dumb.
parski 6y ago
Don't know why Big Sur's UI wouldn't be suitable for power users.
alexeiz 6y ago
So he doesn't like Linux just because of systemd? In my opinion, that's pretty ignorant. If you look beyond all the drama of systemd vs no-systemd, systemd is actually very useful, powerful and conceptually simple service manager. Yes, it's a "monolith" and "not Unix-y", but from a user perspective it doesn't matter. All that matters is that it's simple to use and reliable. Having been accustomed to systems with systemd, I often struggle to manage Linux systems without it as efficiently. And I don't even have a deep knowledge of systemd, just the basics of service management commands and the structure of unit files.

292 points by rodrigo975 6y ago

And in about 3 months he will switch back. At this point you can just install ChromeOS from Neverware and have better experience. You can install third party apps with flatpaks.

nikivi 6y ago

I never got the hate for Big Sur design. I personally love it. The new sounds are great, less visual clutter. Depth of icons.

timw4mail 6y ago
Translucency is visual clutter. Also, there are people who like macOS and do not like iOS.
- snazz 6y ago
  I haven't found that any of the translucency makes macOS harder to use. Do you have any specific examples of that?
  - timw4mail 6y ago
    The translucent menus don't make them easier to read.
joshmanders 6y ago
Same, the only drawback I see is if you make an app full size (not full screen) the app shell rounds corners but the topbar is flat so there's a small gap in the corner.
qz2 6y ago
Only problem I have is working out what some of the icons are for, otherwise it's a positive change.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rconti 6y ago
Yeah, Big Sur is the first OS X change that has felt somewhat better in awhile. It's a stupid simple thing, but man the new default system sounds are nice. The old bell was so triggering and yet i never bothered to change it.

fuball63 6y ago

I'm a huge FreeBSD fan because of what the author is hinting at; it's easier to grok because of it's stricter separation of user space and system space and because it has great documentation. I try to use it for any server project, and ran it as a desktop for a little bit. That being said, the reason I don't go 100% all in on it and use Ubuntu is the upgrade process. The article says they were successful upgrading minor versions, but major version upgrades are a real pain. Last time I did it it was showing me diffs of system scripts and asking me to make calls on what changes to accept; I chose "use latest" for everything, and ended up breaking "sudo" and effectively lost control of my cloud instance. If there's a better way to perform system upgrades, I'd love to hear it, because I think the OS is beautifully minimalistic and closer to Unix philosophy than Ubuntu/OSX.

tshanmu 6y ago
May be move to immutable configs using nix? That way provision a latest version and migrate your config and store data separately?
- fuball63 6y ago
  Yeah, my current process is to assume that the upgrade will fail and spin up a second instance with backups restored. This is for the cloud, where I have less root access (DigitalOcean doesn't give you the root password, and can't change it in recovery). For a box you have full control of, the good news is I can almost always fix it in single user mode.
IggleSniggle 6y ago
I’ve thought about BSD before but can never decide between OpenBSD and FreeBSD
- fuball63 6y ago
  I find that the order of most user friendly to least, in terms of the "big 3" BSD's, is FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD. But a lot of people love OpenBSD; personally I like it because it has the boggle command line game.

whynotminot 6y ago

He says better Wifi and Bluetooth are the only things he's missing. That's kind of a big deal, though, right? Your wifi speeds touch literally every part of using the system, from downloading packages to browsing the web to watching YouTube or listening to Spotify. Bluetooth is also significant quality of life, from keyboards and mice to headphones and automatic syncing with devices. I understand his concerns, and it seems like everyone has their "why I left macOS" hot-take cocked and loaded these days, but this sort of sounds like "I left macOS and the only thing I miss are the things that makes a laptop useful in 2020."

jhardy54 6y ago
> That's kind of a big deal, though, right? Anecdata: I don't use wifi on my work computer. Ethernet is faster and more reliable, and since my desk/monitors/mouse/keyboard stay in the same place it's easy to drag another wire over there too.
- outadoc 6y ago
  That's fine for you, but literally the difference between a desktop and a laptop computer... If you're going to run an OS with bad or lack of wireless support, might as well grab a cheap PC tower.
  - orhmeh09 6y ago
    You don’t remember when laptops didn’t come with wireless, I suppose — I think it’s possible that there are other distinguishing features of laptops and desktops.
    - macintux 6y ago
      After over 20 years, I think we can safely characterize WiFi as an integral component of a laptop.
    - whynotminot 6y ago
      He might also not remember the abacus. Things change and that's fine. I think most people today would look at a laptop with bad wifi and wonder what its purpose was.

joshmanders 6y ago

> Windows is still a nightmare, setting up macOS took me 3 days the last time, Linux takes way more if you’re building it from scratch. Setting up FreeBSD took me 3 days, however this meant that I will NOT need to change it again for a very, very, VERY long time. What exactly is involved with "Setting up macOS" to take you 3 days? I just pulled out my old 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro, reformatted the machine and installed Big Sur on it and got it in exact condition needed to continue my work that is on my main driver.... Took me 2 hours tops. I keep all documents in iCloud Documents, so they sync to all my machines, and I install everything through Homebrew, so once I pull that in, I run `brew bundle install` and let it do it's thing...

qz2 6y ago
Yep. I just migrated from a mishmash of windows and Linux to macOS and it took less than a day to sort it out including loading 50 gig of photos and videos into Photos app, migrating a couple of medium size spreadsheets to Numbers, getting set up on AWS, migrating credentials over, everything.
- joshmanders 6y ago
  And with Catalina Apple has made it stupidly easy to install fresh now. You used to have to create a bootable USB, now you can boot into recovery mode, reformat the drive and install any of 3 versions of macOS. The version that come with your machine, the last version of macOS compatible or latest version.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    IME Recovery mode fails as often as it works. At work we wound up just making bootable USB's, as they Just Work(tm).
- free2OSS 6y ago
  Those aren't really pain points though. How about getting VMs set up with port forwarding? Also what a time to switch to Mac, the constant Apple news didn't scare you? Do you watch a lot of TV?

nix23 6y ago

Congratulation! Did the same but from Linux to FreeBSD (mostly)

Gualdrapo 6y ago
I'd be interested in hearing your experience. As a layman workstation user, sometimes I think about not using anymore a Linux kernel but I'd for sure miss the granular control of Portage.
- nix23 6y ago
  >miss the granular control of Portage Portage was made because of the BSD Port system, you have the same control over your build packages with make.conf instead of USE-Flags >Portage is based on the concept of ports collections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_(software) The most important thing for me was that i always have the newest Software (like a rolling distro) but my System is stable in my case 12.2-RELEASE, thats the biggest difference from Linux you have a Full System (Kernel NFS etc.) and then everything else like firefox etc in form of pkg's (binarys) or ports (builds), so i have everything, i can change my system from RELEASE to STABLE to DEV, and choose my pkg from rolling to quarter (kind of a point release for the pkg's) or build every pkg myself (ports).

fractionalhare 6y ago

Pretty light on specifics. The article has no details showing why FreeBSD is better than macOS for the author's workflow, except that there are a lot of processes running and setup apparently takes longer. > This is where many people will tell me “Okay but not everything works outside the box”, true! but which OS works outside the box these days anyway? Windows is still a nightmare, setting up macOS took me 3 days the last time, Linux takes way more if you’re building it from scratch. Setting up FreeBSD took me 3 days, however this meant that I will NOT need to change it again for a very, very, VERY long time. Why is Windows a nightmare? I use Windows 10 on a PC I built and it's fine. I also use it for dev using the Linux subsystem with WSL2 and Powershell. Why did setting up macOS take 3 days? I don't even think it would take 1 day if I set up a new machine from scratch. Why are you building Linux from scratch for comparison??? It took me two hours to set up Debian by hand yesterday. And then they say FreeBSD also took 3 days of setup (?!), but that's alright because they won't have to change it going forward. Leaving aside my skepticism of that last part, the same probably applies to macOS. EDIT: I think the author actually is better served by FreeBSD given the fact that they were hand-modifying persistent packet-filter rules. That is not a thing I would suggest someone do on a macOS machine. But the head scratcher I have is why they would try to do this on macOS (or Windows) in the first place, and why setup times took so long besides the breaking updates.

dionian 6y ago
This says a lot: > Most importantly, it’s Free and Open Source. "Most importantly" ?
- m463 6y ago
  If you've experienced computer use for any length of time, that is the root of everything. like for instance: > Every time Apple pushed an updated, my pf.conf and automount configs got broken on macOS. They either got deleted or they moved somewhere. Well, the last 2 times it just got deleted. I mean, wtf? With open source, there is at least discussion and education about something like this.
  - 6y ago

13415 6y ago

I've got to wonder: I've used FreeBSD and OpenBSD in the distant past and I can't see a good reason for using a Unix for a desktop system. I know it works, but many Linux distros provide a much less painful experience, especially if you're coming from MacOS.

bluGill 6y ago
Depends on the distro. I get frustrated with Ubuntu all the time because sometimes I want the latest package now not in several months. FreeBSD updates packages fast when they change. I use Manjarno on one machine and it works well this way though.
timbit42 6y ago
The author stated in the article he stayed away from Linux because most of them run systemd and since his servers run BSD he figured his desktop might as well too.
jeromenerf 6y ago
> I can't see a good reason for using a Unix for a desktop system People needs and preferences vary. I can’t see a good reason to expect the contrary :)

danpalmer 6y ago

> Most importantly, it’s Free and Open Source. This is it. If you are ideologically opposed to using macOS, then it's never going to satisfy you. This is fine! Figure out what matters to you, and select for that.

AntiImperialist 6y ago

I've recently moved away from Linux (to Windows) because of bad hardware support (with Ubuntu, bluetooth audio was PITA, graphics was buggy... and the whole lot of things I know and expect from 20 years of using Linux on the Desktop for most of the time). I started using Windows only because I was putting off installing Linux on the laptop... and I wanted give WSL a shot. With WSL 2.0 and Docker Desktop working so well with it, I don't miss Ubuntu at all. When I did boot Ubuntu from a live disk to try something out, I found it felt much faster than my Windows install... but I still don't see myself switching back anytime soon.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

hakcermani 6y ago

I am getting to that point too - except for iOS / MacOS development will use a MB Air. After Catalina upgrade my scanner was disallowed by MacOS. "HPScanner.app will damage your computer" .. Report malware to Apple ... so I said let me try my old MBP running Ubuntu .. boom DocumentScanner could recognize the scanner and off I went !

melq 6y ago

>man, I did not realize that macOS is that complicated. Why is there a "studentd" running? I don't even use Classrooms :/ I find myself running in to the same thing whenever I am poking around my running processes. There are tons of daemons running as root that are not easy to identify. eg: "What the hell is eoshostd?", and googling isn't super helpful because Apple doesn't seem to have public docs for this stuff.

sabellito 6y ago

I've moved to Ubuntu this week as my new dell xps arrived. The last drop was macOS opening Apple Music every time I put my bluetooth phones in, with no way to disable it even when removing the system integrity thing. Apart from re-learning some of the hotkeys, everything* just works. Font rendering is sharp, Gnome feels snappy enough for the kind of work I do. It feels good to be treated like an adult by my work-tool. * had to install a driver to get the fingerprint scanner to work

nullwarp 6y ago
The apple music thing is sooooo annoying. I only use my mac for zoom and so every time I open it there's apple music again.
fghorow 6y ago
PSA for MacOS denizens: Are you annoyed enough at iTunes popping up every time the in-line button on your headset is clicked to actually want to do something about it? Me too. (Finally.) In the "works for me"™ category, from a terminal window: sudo chmod a-x /System/Library/CoreServices/rcd.app/Contents/MacOS/rcd (When the sudo command asks you for a password, use the normal password for your logged-in acct.) You are welcome.

busterarm 6y ago

To the author, get one of Creative's Bluetooth USB Audio devices. You'll have flawless Bluetooth audio and no OS support (past USB devices) needed. I use them on my Thinkpads in OpenBSD because the BT chips don't have great support still. Will never go back.

draw_down 6y ago

Yes, these do sound like reasons why you'd want to use some free *nix instead of mac. I'm not sure these have really been changing though, when has FreeBSD's documentation not exceeded that of the Mac? Personally, if I touch the trackpad and it doesn't do what I expect, that would be enough to disqualify a system from daily use. I use the gestures constantly, it's the main way of interacting with the system for me. So I need a system which does this correctly (in my view). Which limits my options to, well, one. Getting riled up about documentation is just really really far from the set of things I care about day-to-day.

bromonkey 6y ago

"Linux has systemd" and that's why the author didn't select it supposedly. I hear this line of thought from people that use FreeBSD often, although I suspect if you ask many of those people why systemd is so horrible you won't actually hear a legitimate (and still relevant) reason from them. I suggest anyone that thinks systemd is terrible and doesn't spend lots of time in Linux to watch this presentation by Benno Rice. https://youtu.be/o_AIw9bGogo https://youtu.be/o_AIw9bGogo

nix23 6y ago
>I hear this line of thought from people that use FreeBSD often That's BS and you know it.
ysleepy 6y ago
Ever used systemd-timesyncd or the systemd-dhcp thing, oh and systemd-resolved ? All these inferior implementations are barely configurable and lack features for use-cases outside of desktop users. The init system is nice, but why the hell does it re-implement svchost.exe
- d21d3q 6y ago
  I did. I've been maintaining python+ncurses tool for configuring system: network, ntp, etc. If you don't have dhcp server running on your network, then ifup will block until it resolves address (ui freeze). If not, then you have to kill it and also dhcp reolver. After switching to systemd-networkd it just works in background. All configuration is done with .ini style files so that no need to use special parser for /etc/network/interfaces. Disclaimer: I jumped on linux few years ago when systemd already had some momentum, so that I wasn't used to either init or systemd. I found the later easier to pick up.
- chmln 6y ago
  All of these are optional, just disable and use an alternative? I use resolved and timesyncd however and they work amazing for my basic needs on the laptop.
- 1_player 6y ago

jrochkind1 6y ago

I am sympathetic, use whatever works for you and I'm happy when open source works for people, but: > but which OS works outside the box these days anyway? Windows is still a nightmare, setting up macOS took me 3 days the last time, Linux takes way more if you’re building it from scratch. Setting up FreeBSD took me 3 days, however this meant that I will NOT need to change it again for a very, very, VERY long time. (I think he means "out of the box", ie, without spending lots of time configuring or fighting with it to get it set up.) I think Mac OS works for most people without spending 3 days to set it up. For OP, he spent the same amount of time setting up FreeBSD as he did MacOS... I'm not confident this is typical. > Every time Apple pushed an updated, my pf.conf and automount configs got broken on macOS. They either got deleted or they moved somewhere. Well, the last 2 times it just got deleted. Aha. OK, I don't even know what this is... but ok, I can believe if you are using features are more unixy they will work better on FreeBSD with less tinkering. Which doesn't mean they work "out of the box", especially for non-technical users. Just that, sure, they aren't any better and are sometimes worse on MacOS. > Unix is outdated and Apple does not care about it. I think this is probably accurate, Apple is no longer interested in maintaining the OS (and installed/supported packages) as an up to date unix competitive with other unixes. > Doing forensics is almost impossible What do "forensics" mean here?

major505 6y ago

Honestly, I don't get all the hate systemD receives. It works well enough, creating launchers for services is super easy, and in all this years It never gave my a headache.

tuatoru 6y ago
And I like "systemd-analyze critical-chain" and journalctl's colorized output. Let's give it another ten years' trial...
Steltek 6y ago
There was misunderstanding of the technical details early on. I think poor communication and empathy exacerbated those early difficulties (= the kernel cmdline debug fiasco). Now that it's a little more stable, I'm pretty happy with it and I especially appreciate having 'systemctl --user' to manage user services, which didn't really exist before (ssh/gpg-agent, etc).
- major505 6y ago
  I see... well to be honest, the change to systemd was a big one, so some problems are to be espected. I took a while to flock to ubuntu, so, problably when I first starting using it, it was alread stable. And yes. It suports good tools for diagnostics like journalctl.

unnouinceput 6y ago

Quote: "This is where many people will tell me “Okay but not everything works outside the box”, true! but which OS works outside the box these days anyway? Windows is still a nightmare,..." Well, Windows pretty much works out of the box. I mean it's the main main selling point. This and backward compatibility. Which informs me the article's author instead of getting the information first hand relied on rumors. That's a shame. IMO better say it right out "I hate Windows and I boycott Microsoft" rather than spelling lies.

sbuk 6y ago
I disagree. If you install Windows as a system builder or on a system from a manufacturer without their specific build, it definitely doesn't work out of the box. There is a lot of driver discovery and installation that needs to be done. That's not say that this hasn't improved over the years. If you ever built NT/2000, you'd know what an utter nightmare it could be. It also is highly dependant on you own definition of "working out of the box" is...
- unnouinceput 6y ago
  "If you ever built NT/2000..." Are we talking ancient history here or current version? Because OP was not satisfied with latest versions of MacOS, hence his migration. I build my own computers, I deal with friends/relatives computers too and latest Win10 versions are definitely working out of the box. Sure, it has crap telemetry but it can be turned off. I use a nice utility called WPD, in 20 seconds I am done taking Windows crappy ads and telemetry off with it. "dependant on you own definition of "working out of the box" is..." My definition of working out of the box is that I put Win disc installer, it will installs then once I am pass initial questions it will do its thing on its own and at the end I am at a nice desktop where I can do anything. And Win has recognized all of computer's internals and it's a usable PC. Rest is optimization for specific tastes, like getting Firefox and having uBlock Origins to have a smoother web surfing experience. What's your definition?
  - sbuk 6y ago
    Quote in context; "That's not say that this hasn't improved over the years. If you ever built NT/2000, you'd know what an utter nightmare it could be." I acknowledge that things have improved, but speaking as someone that deployed PC's to be used as CAD workstations in large batches at a time, Windows 10 was a marginal improvement over Windows 7. Yes, they were imaged, but building and testing that image, even with Microsoft's tools, is not a trivial task.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

These GBCW posts are becoming more visible, but not more common. As a Mac user (and developer), I've been reading these for decades. These are written by people moving both to and from Apple. They also have similar ones about Linux distros, Windows, Android vs. iOS, and probably Pi vs. Arduino.

rconti 6y ago
I just find them so tiring. I'm sure it says more about me getting old than anything about the content authors, but I've just had enough decades of it. It's the same reason I could never get into Reddit. I don't need the same OS / atheism / whatever flamewars from 1995. If you're older than me, you probably thought it was old and busted in 1995 already, and if you're younger, maybe that time was 2000 or 2005 or 2010 or whatever. But, sooner or later, it happens to all of us.

smrxx 6y ago

What's he talking about when he says `date(1) is outdated`? I see nothing about deprecation in the man page.

antranigv 6y ago

Hi there! author of the post here! I will answer most of the questions below :) 1) 3 days to setup macOS? Yes, it took me at least 3 days, keep in mind that a setup is not just installing software, it's also dotfiles, shell environment, automout (I use NFS a lot), PGP/GPG-alike keychains, the OS keychain, Firewall (pf in my case), privacy settings, company-related software, etc. So yes, it takes time, which I am okay with. My problem with macOS is the fact that updating/upgrading the system crashes a lot of configuration. 2) Why FreeBSD? Because I love it :) my company's product is based on FreeBSD, my servers are FreeBSD, my operating system of choice for teaching is FreeBSD. The handbook is there, all man pages are well written, pkg is easy to use, it's a whole system. Also: ZFS and DTrace makes your life easier. Sure, I can have ZFS on Linux and eBPF, but why learn a new technology when DTrace is rock-solid. FreeBSD is not "just" an OS, it's a complete self-hosted development ecosystem. 3) WiFi? Yes, WiFi is not the best, but not everyone needs 100Mbps connection. I have a wired connection at home to use when streaming movies to my PS4 (also a FreeBSD-based system), but other than that, it's fine. I will still donate every year so the devs improve it. Apologies for the bad English, it's not my native language. Thanks for posting and reading!

sneak 6y ago
I admire people who write and publish in non-native languages, I don't have the guts to publish in my bad German. It's clear you're non-native, but it's not "bad English". :) Thanks for sharing it with us! I like hearing about the range of experiences that highly technical people have with macOS. I'm still trying to use it as my daily driver, even though it takes a few days of setup (compared to the old days of building a preconfigured image), because my alternate option (Linux, for me) also takes a similar amount of time. You're right about Windows being a trash fire. PS: "outside of the box" is the end of the idiom referring to "thinking outside of the box" (thinking differently about a problem). I think the one you meant to use in your article was "out of the box", which means the first experience with a product when it's opened or unwrapped (think: "taken out of the box"). I hadn't even noticed how similar these two are until today.
btian 6y ago
Hi, curious about battery life on your laptop. My impression is that many devs run Windows or Mac for their good power management.

jez 6y ago

Increasingly these days I'm thinking: the M1 MacBook Air holds up very well, but I also want to use Linux: why not both? My biggest problem with Linux / BSD is the GUIs. I don't know why but whenever I use a Linux desktop, the mouse either moves too fast or too slow and there's no sweet spot. The GUI keyboards shortcuts are all messed up: I love the "⌘" (super) key because then ⌘C is copy everywhere, and ^C is an interrupt in the terminal. I have ⌘← , ⌥← , ⌘⌫ , ⌥⌫ , ⇧⌘← , ⇧⌥← ingrained in my memory (for moving, deleting, and selecting by line or by word). I have fussed with remapping keys but there's always that one app that won't cooperate. So why not both: shift down from a single the top of the line 16" MacBook Pro to a MacBook Air, and then pair it with a desktop running Linux that I SSH into over LAN. - LAN internet speeds are fast enough that I don't notice any latency. - I'll have convenient access to both Linux and macOS, for testing. - I can spec up the Linux desktop as much as I want. It could even have a Threadripper. - The MacBook Air will have better battery life than any Linux or BSD laptop. - I can use Tailscale[1] to set up a no-fuss VPN, so that I can still SSH to it even when I'm not on LAN. - All the GUIs will still be macOS, so things like mouse speed and keyboard shortcuts will all be familiar. It might even net out to be around the same price. My 16" MacBook Pro was like $3,000. An M1 MacBook Air would be $1,500 (with some storage and memory), and the remaining $1,500 is more than enough to build a beefy desktop. [1] https://tailscale.com/ https://tailscale.com/

heavyset_go 6y ago
I used to do this until I just gave in and installed Linux as my daily driver. The separation between the machine I was using and the Linux install I was interacting with was too great, and was more frustrating than anything. Also using modern Linux features locally was a big draw, as cgroups and native Docker are great. Also, try adaptive acceleration with your touchpad or mouse.

whalesalad 6y ago

These posts are always about getting setup - but never about day to day workloads. What does this person do w/ their machine?

debo_ 6y ago

I've been using a work laptop as my 'primary' machine for years, and it was a Mac. I was using Macs pretty much since 2005 for life and work. As more of my life moved into the browser, I was curious to try a Linux desktop again; I hadn't done so since KDE on debian in 2004. I've been on Linux Mint since the summer, and I have been really astonished at how easily everything just works. For me, it's a combination of things: 90% of what I do is in the browser; all the software development tools I use are cross-platform; and the Cinnamon desktop environment is really just good enough for anything I find myself doing. I didn't expect it to go this well, but it did.

wapxmas 6y ago

Nowadays it is not only ability to interact with hardware you have to take into account, choosing an OS, but also usability of an OS.

kebman 6y ago

I've installed Ubuntu, Mint and Debian in many different ways, but never did it take three days, though I did end up tweaking a bunch of stuff in the following days. I mean, I guess, if you take that time into account, then the "installation time" becomes a bit longer, but... not really. Or are you building them for very spesific (or odd) hardware? Personally I'd never dream of setting up any serious production environment on a Mac or Windows PC though, outside those spesifically geared towards it like .NET. But then, if you use the latter, it kinda narrows down your options though. I mean, isn't that just common sense these days?

mberning 6y ago

The argument of "you have to put a non-trivial amount of time into setting any OS up, so you might as well use X" is so disingenuous. It's easy to forget the day to day conveniences when you are using windows or osx every day for a few years. If you could accurately sum up the time spent fiddling with your nix desktop OS over the lifetime of the install, the "area under the curve" so to speak, windows and osx are going to absolutely blow any nix distro out of the water. It is parasitic and insidious how many things don't "just work". You will invariably end up wasting much of your life getting software, printers, scanners, webcams, monitors, or whatever to work the way you want with your nix distro. And even when it does "work" it's not going to be as good as a real desktop OS. I ran freeBSD on my Toshiba Satellite 1905-s301 for 4 years before getting a MBP and I have zero temptation to go back.

ianai 6y ago

As the Unix subsystems age, I suspect Apple may sooner or later move entirely away from the Unix base entirely.

devenblake 6y ago
Why?

pelasaco 6y ago

> Most importantly, it’s Free and Open Source. Being professional open source developer since 2010 and Linux user since 1995, I can just answer with: Nope, most important is to get things done. I love to use Linux as Desktop, but sometimes it's just impossible to use it, and not every thing is bad. The printing experience for instance on Linux/BSD is pretty bad.

sloshnmosh 6y ago

Windows 10 is rubbish. It reminds me of one of those cheap Android phones that come free with the activation of a mobile subscription. Ads running on your desktop, a UI that looks like cartoon graphics and an App Store full of questionable apps. How anyone can deal with that OS on a daily basis is beyond me.

TheOperator 6y ago
I haven't seriously used the start menu since Vista only ever using it when the only copy of a file is saved to %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. I just hit win+keyword and hit enter to navigate around. I've only ever used the App Store for upgrading from Win10 S to Win 10 and I rarely even notice the ads are there. I don't have any issue with the things you raised because they're just not serious issues. I'm more concerned with other problems like forced updates & workstation windows getting cranky without reboots & the batshit Frankenstein of new+old control panels in win10 & the fact that most computers in the world use unix-like operating systems.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

I'm doing exactly the same thing right now. But with a desktop.. macOS is so pissing me off, half the file system is being locked down, Apple makes exceptions for their own stuff (like the recent thing where they disable network filtering for their apps). Every app has to be sent to Apple for notarisation, and much more. I got into macOS because it was a great POSIX system with great desktop apps and a consistent UI. But Apple is making it into an iPad with keyboard now. The UI is getting more and more bulky, apps are being dumbed down (and promoting even dumber iOS ports) etc. The NeXT underpinnings are neglected. The benefit is gone. I chose FreeBSD over Linux because most mainstream distros are doing the same thing. Ubuntu is pushing snap too much, redhat is pushing systemd into everything. I don't want this commercial control again, even though it's not as bad as on Windows. Windows 10 has similar crap like Apple, forced updates, telemetry etc. Also I like FreeBSD's consistent environment and excellent documentation among many other things.

yuribro 6y ago

I find it interesting how definitions of words drift away from their original meaning. > is becoming less Unix-y every year And the examples given are: no package manager, outdates packages, not open free software Doesn't this exactly describe the original UNIX OSs? Solaris, IRIX, HP-UX and so on? It sounds to me like a self fulfilling prophecy - he models his expectations on a modern Linux or BSD distribution, and of course at the end they will match what he wants.

mlacks 6y ago

>Linux has systemd, not my favorite thing out there, Windows is privacy nightmare. Two questions; I'm not that educated in this field: 1. Is Windows LTSC not an option for people like this? 2. I'm running it on my laptop and am seeing better performance with telemetry turned of, but am unsure if its still a "privacy nightmare". what tools can I use verify that my OS is not calling home?

heavyset_go 6y ago
Last time I looked, you need to jump through some hoops to use a legitimate LTSC install for long-term for personal use. There's still a lot of cruft in the LTSC version, too.

thetrooper 6y ago

i dont think freebsd as a desktop (or server for that matter) is usable beyond hobby projects. luckily HN doesn't have many experienced techies so this post wont get downvoted by much and some poor soul out there will install this relic thinking its better than macos.

gfiorav 6y ago

For me, these are the three things a Linux distro needs to nail nowadays: - HDPI - Battery - Touchpad OUT OF THE BOX. Like other OSes. The other thing that sounds weird from this article is "Windows and Mac are hard to setup". This guy must be very very specific.

heavyset_go 6y ago
I have an HDPI display, and Plasma Desktop has support for fractional scaling out of the box.
- gfiorav 6y ago
  Yes, but it's not configured automatically and things mess up when you switch from you monitor to your laptop. Also, gtk3 apps look blurry when upscaled sometimes.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    I just booted off of a Ubuntu live image, and it scales correctly.
    - gfiorav 6y ago
      Not fractional though. If the correct scaling is 200%, or 300%, then yes, it works. If it's 140% you're out of luck for automatic. Also, when you unplug the monitor, the windows are messed up. On top of that, a lot of GTK3 apps look blurry with fractional scaling (icluding Chrome).

heavyset_go 6y ago

> It’s been 1 month and 1 day since I last touched my MacBook Pro, so, what do I miss? > - Better BT support > - Faster WiFi Come over to Linux, we have 802.11ac+ and good Bluetooth support. If you're missing macOS graphics, Plasma Desktop with Latte Dock can make for a pretty and fast macOS clone.

aledthemathguy 6y ago

noob question: why does OP care about background running services? Do these incur a performance penalty on "modern" hardware? honestly curious about this. Thx

pjmlp 6y ago

Aka, "I left macOS because I only cared about BSD UNIX and nothing else that actually adds value to Apple hardware".

f6v 6y ago

Well, it’s nice to have a hobby. Configuring the OS just isn’t mine.

jakecopp 6y ago

> And the hardware is, well, not the best out there After the new MBP this sentence seems dated.

znpy 6y ago

Uh it's 2020 and people are still switching to freebsd because of systemd... That's dumb.

parski 6y ago

Don't know why Big Sur's UI wouldn't be suitable for power users.

alexeiz 6y ago

So he doesn't like Linux just because of systemd? In my opinion, that's pretty ignorant. If you look beyond all the drama of systemd vs no-systemd, systemd is actually very useful, powerful and conceptually simple service manager. Yes, it's a "monolith" and "not Unix-y", but from a user perspective it doesn't matter. All that matters is that it's simple to use and reliable. Having been accustomed to systems with systemd, I often struggle to manage Linux systems without it as efficiently. And I don't even have a deep knowledge of systemd, just the basics of service management commands and the structure of unit files.