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As a long-term Linux user, I have been forced on occasion over the last few years to use MacOS. I am at an almost complete loss as to what anyone sees in it. St

As a long-term Linux user, I have been forced on occasion over the last few years to use MacOS. I am at an almost complete loss as to what anyone sees in it. Standard utilities that work seamlessly on Linux are regularly broken, there's a weird security system that requires me to do all sorts of boot-time nonsense just to have control over my own machine... and now, apparently, they're violating the first rule of kernel development by breaking userspace. The hardware is nice, but as a platform, I just don't get it.

jolux 6y ago
Not breaking userspace is the first rule of Linux kernel development, but macOS has never had that policy as far as I know. Apple care much more about being able to move fast and clean up bad interfaces in their software, which is a priority I value. I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but I do know that Apple ultimately expects developers to pay attention to new releases and make sure their software behaves properly with them. As for standard utilities being broken, I’ve never experienced that on macOS. I do know that Macs get their standard utilities from FreeBSD and not coreutils by default.
- albertopv 6y ago
  There are liberally millions of app, Apple can't expect all of them to be always up to date on day one, to even sw like postgres. You can't just change the semantic of an API, it's just wrong. Apple should introduce a new API, deprecate the older one and remove it two or three versions later minimum. They just don't care until people is going to buy their hw.
  - my123 6y ago
    Traditionally, Apple does not guarantee total ABI stability. They push betas instead to allow people to fix the issues, and then support older releases for multiple years. Yes, unmaintained software might or might not stay fully functional on macOS for long, but that's not an Apple priority.
- my123 6y ago
  Of Linux *kernel* to userspace ABI development. The user-space ABIs are widely unstable. Try to run software compiled on Ubuntu 20.04 on 18.04 for example. On macOS, it's just the matter of using -mmacosx-version-min= to make sure that newer functions don't get used. Or for that matter, even in the reverse case, things break.
  - the_why_of_y 6y ago
    Of course that doesn't work. Why would anyone expect it to? Install your baseline distro version in a chroot and set GCC's --sysroot, alternatively use a container, alternatively use a Flatpak SDK, problem solved. The main problem with this is knowing which libraries have stable ABIs and which don't, which is only documented in a convenient way for enterprise distros (RHEL/SLES).
- temac 6y ago
  Making open() returning EINTR possible on regular FS is not really cleaning up bad interfaces. Is there even a precedent on any Unix for that behavior?
  - tom_ 6y ago
    It's part of the documented POSIX interface, so correct code has to handle it: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/open.html https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/o...
    - cesarb 6y ago
      Only if the signal that was caught isn't using SA_RESTART: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/sigaction.html https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/s... ("If set, and a function specified as interruptible is interrupted by this signal, the function shall restart and shall not fail with [EINTR] unless otherwise specified.") Therefore, correct code can also not handle EINTR as long as it uses SA_RESTART for all non-fatal signals. That's probably the most common case (nobody likes EINTR).
carlosrg 6y ago
I find it amusing how some Linux users completely ignore the myriad of problems users can find when using Linux on the desktop, from hardware incompatibilities to a much poorer experience in daily tasks (lack of commercial software like Adobe CS / MS Office, problems with hardware video decoding especially on popular platforms like Netflix, desktop environments like GNOME3 that like to remove features periodically) that they even can't understand why someone would use a different platform.
- BossingAround 6y ago
  The OP isn't talking about Linux users as consumers though, but about Linux developers. So: > lack of commercial software like Adobe CS / MS Office Usually inconsequential for developers > problems with hardware video decoding Same > desktop environments like GNOME3 that like to remove features periodically This is subjective. 1) You can choose not to use Gnome 2) Personally, I've been using Gnome for the past ~6 years and I haven't noticed any significant feature reduction. I'm sure there've been many, I just haven't noticed (hence subjective). > that they even can't understand why someone would use a different platform. I fully understand why people want to use Apple for their consuming needs. I really don't understand why my fellow developers choose to go with Apple as their work machine. I then frequently see they have to fire up VMs/containers to do work that I can do natively. No idea what's the upside for work (dev, coding-heavy). PS: I'm writing this from my personal Apple computer. When I'm up for my hardware refresh at work, I'll 100% go with another Linux-compatible Lenovo/Dell.
  - TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
    > I then frequently see they have to fire up VMs/containers to do work that I can do natively. No idea what's the upside for work (dev, coding-heavy). When you figure it out, let the rest of us know, because this is exactly what I think about every one of the breathless articles about how great WSL is. Speak of the devil... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25965231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25965231
  - arvinsim 6y ago
    > I fully understand why people want to use Apple for their consuming needs. I really don't understand why my fellow developers choose to go with Apple as their work machine. I then frequently see they have to fire up VMs/containers to do work that I can do natively. No idea what's the upside for work (dev, coding-heavy). Once we get a Linux laptop with great and fuss free hardware, then developers will continue buying Macbooks. Great app support might be inconsequential for software development but not for quality of life. Programmers are people too. If a programmer who happens to do music production or art as hobby for example, which do you think he would choose, a Macbook or a Linux laptop?
monadic3 6y ago
There's no option for a UI outside of the pc meme. PCs have always had complete ass for interface standards and keybindings. This is a massive productivity drag unless you devote your life bending to 1980s ux.
littlecranky67 6y ago
As a Linux user, you are basically safe because most likely all the applications you use are open-source and malicious intent in a program would result in your distribution removing it. As a macOS User I'm quite happy with the restrictions and sandbox of macOS, as I also occasionally use Windows and see whats going on there: 3rd Party Applications that you install scanning your harddrive and extracting calendar entries, contacts, heck even your Steam Game List just to upload it to the cloud and sell the data. 10 Years ago those app would be reported as mal-/adware by your Antivirus, but since this has become "the new default" nowadays you cannot trust any application on windows anymore - especially since the largest cooperations that you thought are trustworthy, like i.e. Adobe are in on this. So yes, security on macOS is anoying sometimes ("Do you want to allow App X to access your Downloads folder?") but I can see why allowing software just arbitrary disk/network access nowaday is not a good idea anymore.
- gnfargbl 6y ago
  I see your point on the sandbox, and I agree that Windows is in many ways even worse as a consumer platform. I wasn't aware that things had gotten so bad there. My complaint with MacOS is less about the existence of SIP (though I can't say I enjoy it) and more about things like bash, python and even SSH being regularly broken. (These are all actual problems that I've spent hours solving, not theoretical issues.) I don't understand why technical users voluntarily put up with this.
  - rattray 6y ago
    > bash, python and even SSH being regularly broken Broken how? That's surprising - in my experience, the versions of these utilities on macos are often missing features relative to linux, but the differences are known and documented...
  - jsjohnst 6y ago
    > bash, python and even SSH being regularly broken Reference needed re: SSH, but as to Bash/Python/etc, did you know Apple bundles “old” versions of both? You should not be using the system provided ones imho if you are a developer. Simple solution: brew install bash gnutools python That will very likely solve all your complaints listed, the second of which listed is for those who don’t understand BSD vs GNU/Linux userland CLI options aren’t universal.
king_magic 6y ago
I just ssh into my Linux boxes from macOS. Problem solved (for me, at least).
- BossingAround 6y ago
  So you've overcome the issues macOS threw at you. What's the upside? What does it give you?
  - arcturus17 6y ago
    Photoshop, if that’s your thing?
    - thejellypen 6y ago
      pretty sure you can use photoshop via wine on linux distros
  - jimsmart 6y ago
    Apple's integration / syncing between other Apple devices is quite a nice feature. I regularly take/make phone calls from my desktop or laptop, routed via my phone. Same with SMS. All of my contact details (and photos/etc) are synced with my phone, tablet, desktop and laptop. My logins/passwords are synced between all devices. I can seamlessly switch devices and pick up open browser tabs. Plus I use Apple software that isn't available on other platforms (Logic Pro specifically here). Sure many of these can likely be done on other platforms too, but on macOS these things (and more) are seamless and don't require any other software, nor configuration (beyond setting up one's iCloud login on each device). Don't get me wrong: I'm a developer, and use Linux in local VMs and on local and remote servers. But all of these Apple features targeted at 'normal users' are quite nice, and one quickly gets used to them. But perhaps not everyone's cup of tea.
ahachete 6y ago
I have been using Linux exclusively as my OS since 1997. Except for a 2-year hiatus some 8 years ago where I got a Mac and used Mac OS. I can 100% relate to your experience. It was painful. There were oddities all over the place. Some software I was used to use was simply unavailable. Package managers... oh I missed apt so much... And it was much slower. Let alone the main compelling factor for Linux for me: that it is open source, and that I can inspect anything, even the kernel, if I need to. Surely, you occasionally need to fix some driver or configuration "CLI-style", but I'm more than used with this. But basically, with Linux I feel I control and own the system. With Mac is pretty much like Windows: they own you, and for the most part you don't know what's going on --except that MacOS is still orders of magnitude better than Windows.
- massysett 6y ago
  I prefer Macports and macOS over Linux package managers because Macports is like a rolling-release package archive without the disadvantages of rolling release on Linux. On Linux, I can use Arch and have the latest of all software - which means I have the disadvantage of having to stay up-to-date on things like dhcpcd and systemd and coreutils. I don't want to have the latest versions of these things or spend time routinely upgrading them piecemeal. Or I can use Debian stable and everything is stable, but if I want something new I have to compile it myself, or hope there's a backport. With macOS and Macports I get a stable base system that Apple keeps up-to-date security-wise with monolithic updates that I don't have to worry about, and Macports has the latest for things like Emacs or even the GNU coreutils.
  - petre 6y ago
    Yup Macports would upgrade everything and break stuff like FFI code. That is exactly why I prefer to use a Linux LTS release like Debian, Ubuntu or even openSuSE Leap with it's 18 month release cycle and uneventful upgrades that you can now even roll back.
  - carlhjerpe 6y ago
    You can use nix on "any" Linux distro with the unstable channel and get the most bleeding edge software from nixs binary cache, or Linuxbrew, flatpak, snap, appimage.
matthewmacleod 6y ago
I've been using Linux regularly for 20+ years at this point, since Debian Slink. I've used it on gigantic servers, workstations, laptops, and embedded devices – it's wonderful. But my day-to-day development machine is a Mac, and has been for a long time. This was originally because I was both a graphic designer and a developer, and needed access to tools like Photoshop and InDesign while still having a UNIX development environment, and the Mac was great at both of these. This basically still applies – I have access to lots of really well-designed native applications that I use all the time, and a full UNIX development environment that I use every day. I really haven't encountered the issues you talk about in a serious way – the most frequent thing is forgetting that I don't have the GNU version of some CLI tools and need to use different flags. Certainly no encounters with a "weird security system". I have a working development environment, running on nice hardware, that gives me access to everything I want – it's hard to find a reason to make a change to this. I do sometimes come back to working with Linux in a desktop capacity – most recently Ubuntu on a NUC when I shipped my MacBook back for repair. It is broadly fine, but it's still just a bit more irritating. Multiple monitor support was buggy, as was high-DPI support and Bluetooth. No doubt a different distribution and/or some tweaking could resolve these issues and leave me with a development environment that was equivalent to what I already have – but I'd still be missing other tools that I like, not to mention all the niceties of the wider ecosystem. Honestly it's more likely to be the hardware that makes me change. I don't have the same complaints as others do about recent product lines, but I'm definitely one of those people in Apple's market gap in the "high-end-non-workstation-non-integrated-desktop" area. I'd fork quite a lot of money for something like a 16-core desktop machine, but probably not the £8k Apple wants for the Mac Pro. We'll see what happens over the next few years though.
- krzyk 6y ago
  > Certainly no encounters with a "weird security system" You didn't use mac during the notarization system outage? I coulndn't even use my keyboard and mouse (the one on macbook, NOT bluetooth one) for 2-5 minutes after lid was opened. Never had such issue with Linux, yeah, bluetooth ones might stop working but wired keyboard (or laptop open) works always. Yesterday out of the blue my wifes AirPods Pro stopped working with macbook AND iPhone at the same time - they rejected connection (or actually on mac it looked like they are connected but the sound was coming out of speakers not the pods) and the same situation with iPhone. I had to reset AirPods to make it work. And don't get me started on the completly stupid difference between ctrl+c and cmd+c. One (the standard for everything except macos) is used in terminal and the other in every other app. For me macbook would be great for one thing: installing Linux on it, if it only had the ctrl key in the correct place (that is at the left corner of the keyboard not next to Fn).
cwhiz 6y ago
> The hardware is nice, but as a platform, I just don't get it. To me, that’s backward. The hardware is okay, the platform is amazing. Nothing even comes close to the full ecosystem. Phone, tablet, headphones, watch, computer. Occasionally, quite rarely in reality, something goes wrong. However, I don’t use bleeding edge versions of macOS and so I can’t even tell you the last time I actually experienced one of these problems that everyone on HN gets in an uproar about.
joseph_grobbles 6y ago
They didn't break userspace. Your opinions as a "long-term Linux user" are effectively useless.
arcturus17 6y ago
I’m a full stack dev and I occasionally need to use a bunch of graphical and design apps. Occasionally enough that Linux isn’t practical, anyway. On the data programming side of things I don’t see much issue with it either, though. The issue on this article would’ve definitely bit me as I run like a dozen Postgres instances but I haven’t updated to BigSur - I’m never in a rush to do so. The only thing I miss from my Linux days is the package manager, maybe? Brew is third-party and doesn’t feel as tight as some of the Linux counterparts.
robbyt 6y ago
I manage literally 100k+ Linux nodes for my day job. I don't want to manage any more than I need to, so my workstation is a Mac.
- carlhjerpe 6y ago
  How are you managing them? Which distro are they running? Is there any difference between managing 1k and 100k operating systems?
mfer 6y ago
I have a linux Desktop, Windows, and Mac. I was recently trying to work out how I could do my media handling on the Linux Desktop (KDE). It didn't just work. I tried numerous apps and all of them failed to meet my expectations. My non-development tasks... those things in life I use a computer for... are just harder on Linux desktops or have a poor experience. MacOS, on the other hand, has a great experience for most of these everyday life kinds of activities. Even for many business activities it's better. Here I refer to the non-development parts of business. If all you do is systems level coding than Linux is great. But, that's not the case for most folks.
- petre 6y ago
  After 6 years of using a Mac at work for development with OSS tools I switched to a SFF PC with Ubuntu with Gnome and never looked back. Everything is so smooth. Apt get this apt get that and I have working software. No need to homebrew development tools, install Xcode using an Apple account, withhold upgrades and fight evey iteration of the OS.
- ubercow13 6y ago
  What activities do you mean by media handling?
simonh 6y ago
MacOS is a perfectly fine Unix, but a terrible Linux. If what you actually want is Linux, MacOS will always come up short.
bb123 6y ago
Perhaps by “anyone” you mean developers? I can think of innumerable reasons why regular mom and dad users use MacOS over Linux.
- gnfargbl 6y ago
  I do, and I should have said so. I forget that macOS actually has a large consumer following, because I usually encounter it with startups who have chosen it as their standard fit for developers.
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madhadron 6y ago
The hardware is nice, and until a couple years ago there was nothing available in the PC world that matched it, but it's the best mainstream GUI experience on the market today. I use macOS, Windows, and Linux every day. Windows and Linux's GUIs lack little affordances like a document icon on a window that you can drag and drop. Plus there is nothing equivalent to OmniFocus outside of macOS, and that is one of the tools I depend on most heavily.
- ubercow13 6y ago
  On the other hand macOS and Windows are missing little affordances like the selection buffer, middle click paste, focus follows mouse..
gogopuppygogo 6y ago
Support for Microsoft Office, Adobe CC, and historically a POSIX environment were an enticing combo. Recently it’s gone off the rails and become miserable to hack around in.
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN on generic flamewar tangents. Platform flamewars, like programming language flamewars, quickly suck up all the oxygen in a thread, but they're fundamentally repetitive and boring. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- gnfargbl 6y ago
  They are, and I apologize for starting one. It wasn't my intent. For what it is worth, I found quite a few of the replies enlightening as to why others choose to use the platform. But: I take your point that it derailed the conversation.
  - dang 6y ago
    Appreciated!

jolux 6y ago

Not breaking userspace is the first rule of Linux kernel development, but macOS has never had that policy as far as I know. Apple care much more about being able to move fast and clean up bad interfaces in their software, which is a priority I value. I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but I do know that Apple ultimately expects developers to pay attention to new releases and make sure their software behaves properly with them. As for standard utilities being broken, I’ve never experienced that on macOS. I do know that Macs get their standard utilities from FreeBSD and not coreutils by default.

albertopv 6y ago
There are liberally millions of app, Apple can't expect all of them to be always up to date on day one, to even sw like postgres. You can't just change the semantic of an API, it's just wrong. Apple should introduce a new API, deprecate the older one and remove it two or three versions later minimum. They just don't care until people is going to buy their hw.
- my123 6y ago
  Traditionally, Apple does not guarantee total ABI stability. They push betas instead to allow people to fix the issues, and then support older releases for multiple years. Yes, unmaintained software might or might not stay fully functional on macOS for long, but that's not an Apple priority.
my123 6y ago
Of Linux *kernel* to userspace ABI development. The user-space ABIs are widely unstable. Try to run software compiled on Ubuntu 20.04 on 18.04 for example. On macOS, it's just the matter of using -mmacosx-version-min= to make sure that newer functions don't get used. Or for that matter, even in the reverse case, things break.
- the_why_of_y 6y ago
  Of course that doesn't work. Why would anyone expect it to? Install your baseline distro version in a chroot and set GCC's --sysroot, alternatively use a container, alternatively use a Flatpak SDK, problem solved. The main problem with this is knowing which libraries have stable ABIs and which don't, which is only documented in a convenient way for enterprise distros (RHEL/SLES).
temac 6y ago
Making open() returning EINTR possible on regular FS is not really cleaning up bad interfaces. Is there even a precedent on any Unix for that behavior?
- tom_ 6y ago
  It's part of the documented POSIX interface, so correct code has to handle it: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/open.html https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/o...
  - cesarb 6y ago
    Only if the signal that was caught isn't using SA_RESTART: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/sigaction.html https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/s... ("If set, and a function specified as interruptible is interrupted by this signal, the function shall restart and shall not fail with [EINTR] unless otherwise specified.") Therefore, correct code can also not handle EINTR as long as it uses SA_RESTART for all non-fatal signals. That's probably the most common case (nobody likes EINTR).

carlosrg 6y ago

I find it amusing how some Linux users completely ignore the myriad of problems users can find when using Linux on the desktop, from hardware incompatibilities to a much poorer experience in daily tasks (lack of commercial software like Adobe CS / MS Office, problems with hardware video decoding especially on popular platforms like Netflix, desktop environments like GNOME3 that like to remove features periodically) that they even can't understand why someone would use a different platform.

BossingAround 6y ago
The OP isn't talking about Linux users as consumers though, but about Linux developers. So: > lack of commercial software like Adobe CS / MS Office Usually inconsequential for developers > problems with hardware video decoding Same > desktop environments like GNOME3 that like to remove features periodically This is subjective. 1) You can choose not to use Gnome 2) Personally, I've been using Gnome for the past ~6 years and I haven't noticed any significant feature reduction. I'm sure there've been many, I just haven't noticed (hence subjective). > that they even can't understand why someone would use a different platform. I fully understand why people want to use Apple for their consuming needs. I really don't understand why my fellow developers choose to go with Apple as their work machine. I then frequently see they have to fire up VMs/containers to do work that I can do natively. No idea what's the upside for work (dev, coding-heavy). PS: I'm writing this from my personal Apple computer. When I'm up for my hardware refresh at work, I'll 100% go with another Linux-compatible Lenovo/Dell.
- TheRealDunkirk 6y ago
  > I then frequently see they have to fire up VMs/containers to do work that I can do natively. No idea what's the upside for work (dev, coding-heavy). When you figure it out, let the rest of us know, because this is exactly what I think about every one of the breathless articles about how great WSL is. Speak of the devil... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25965231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25965231
- arvinsim 6y ago
  > I fully understand why people want to use Apple for their consuming needs. I really don't understand why my fellow developers choose to go with Apple as their work machine. I then frequently see they have to fire up VMs/containers to do work that I can do natively. No idea what's the upside for work (dev, coding-heavy). Once we get a Linux laptop with great and fuss free hardware, then developers will continue buying Macbooks. Great app support might be inconsequential for software development but not for quality of life. Programmers are people too. If a programmer who happens to do music production or art as hobby for example, which do you think he would choose, a Macbook or a Linux laptop?

monadic3 6y ago

There's no option for a UI outside of the pc meme. PCs have always had complete ass for interface standards and keybindings. This is a massive productivity drag unless you devote your life bending to 1980s ux.

littlecranky67 6y ago

As a Linux user, you are basically safe because most likely all the applications you use are open-source and malicious intent in a program would result in your distribution removing it. As a macOS User I'm quite happy with the restrictions and sandbox of macOS, as I also occasionally use Windows and see whats going on there: 3rd Party Applications that you install scanning your harddrive and extracting calendar entries, contacts, heck even your Steam Game List just to upload it to the cloud and sell the data. 10 Years ago those app would be reported as mal-/adware by your Antivirus, but since this has become "the new default" nowadays you cannot trust any application on windows anymore - especially since the largest cooperations that you thought are trustworthy, like i.e. Adobe are in on this. So yes, security on macOS is anoying sometimes ("Do you want to allow App X to access your Downloads folder?") but I can see why allowing software just arbitrary disk/network access nowaday is not a good idea anymore.

gnfargbl 6y ago
I see your point on the sandbox, and I agree that Windows is in many ways even worse as a consumer platform. I wasn't aware that things had gotten so bad there. My complaint with MacOS is less about the existence of SIP (though I can't say I enjoy it) and more about things like bash, python and even SSH being regularly broken. (These are all actual problems that I've spent hours solving, not theoretical issues.) I don't understand why technical users voluntarily put up with this.
- rattray 6y ago
  > bash, python and even SSH being regularly broken Broken how? That's surprising - in my experience, the versions of these utilities on macos are often missing features relative to linux, but the differences are known and documented...
- jsjohnst 6y ago
  > bash, python and even SSH being regularly broken Reference needed re: SSH, but as to Bash/Python/etc, did you know Apple bundles “old” versions of both? You should not be using the system provided ones imho if you are a developer. Simple solution: brew install bash gnutools python That will very likely solve all your complaints listed, the second of which listed is for those who don’t understand BSD vs GNU/Linux userland CLI options aren’t universal.

king_magic 6y ago

I just ssh into my Linux boxes from macOS. Problem solved (for me, at least).

BossingAround 6y ago
So you've overcome the issues macOS threw at you. What's the upside? What does it give you?
- arcturus17 6y ago
  Photoshop, if that’s your thing?
  - thejellypen 6y ago
    pretty sure you can use photoshop via wine on linux distros
- jimsmart 6y ago
  Apple's integration / syncing between other Apple devices is quite a nice feature. I regularly take/make phone calls from my desktop or laptop, routed via my phone. Same with SMS. All of my contact details (and photos/etc) are synced with my phone, tablet, desktop and laptop. My logins/passwords are synced between all devices. I can seamlessly switch devices and pick up open browser tabs. Plus I use Apple software that isn't available on other platforms (Logic Pro specifically here). Sure many of these can likely be done on other platforms too, but on macOS these things (and more) are seamless and don't require any other software, nor configuration (beyond setting up one's iCloud login on each device). Don't get me wrong: I'm a developer, and use Linux in local VMs and on local and remote servers. But all of these Apple features targeted at 'normal users' are quite nice, and one quickly gets used to them. But perhaps not everyone's cup of tea.

ahachete 6y ago

I have been using Linux exclusively as my OS since 1997. Except for a 2-year hiatus some 8 years ago where I got a Mac and used Mac OS. I can 100% relate to your experience. It was painful. There were oddities all over the place. Some software I was used to use was simply unavailable. Package managers... oh I missed apt so much... And it was much slower. Let alone the main compelling factor for Linux for me: that it is open source, and that I can inspect anything, even the kernel, if I need to. Surely, you occasionally need to fix some driver or configuration "CLI-style", but I'm more than used with this. But basically, with Linux I feel I control and own the system. With Mac is pretty much like Windows: they own you, and for the most part you don't know what's going on --except that MacOS is still orders of magnitude better than Windows.

massysett 6y ago
I prefer Macports and macOS over Linux package managers because Macports is like a rolling-release package archive without the disadvantages of rolling release on Linux. On Linux, I can use Arch and have the latest of all software - which means I have the disadvantage of having to stay up-to-date on things like dhcpcd and systemd and coreutils. I don't want to have the latest versions of these things or spend time routinely upgrading them piecemeal. Or I can use Debian stable and everything is stable, but if I want something new I have to compile it myself, or hope there's a backport. With macOS and Macports I get a stable base system that Apple keeps up-to-date security-wise with monolithic updates that I don't have to worry about, and Macports has the latest for things like Emacs or even the GNU coreutils.
- petre 6y ago
  Yup Macports would upgrade everything and break stuff like FFI code. That is exactly why I prefer to use a Linux LTS release like Debian, Ubuntu or even openSuSE Leap with it's 18 month release cycle and uneventful upgrades that you can now even roll back.
- carlhjerpe 6y ago
  You can use nix on "any" Linux distro with the unstable channel and get the most bleeding edge software from nixs binary cache, or Linuxbrew, flatpak, snap, appimage.

matthewmacleod 6y ago

I've been using Linux regularly for 20+ years at this point, since Debian Slink. I've used it on gigantic servers, workstations, laptops, and embedded devices – it's wonderful. But my day-to-day development machine is a Mac, and has been for a long time. This was originally because I was both a graphic designer and a developer, and needed access to tools like Photoshop and InDesign while still having a UNIX development environment, and the Mac was great at both of these. This basically still applies – I have access to lots of really well-designed native applications that I use all the time, and a full UNIX development environment that I use every day. I really haven't encountered the issues you talk about in a serious way – the most frequent thing is forgetting that I don't have the GNU version of some CLI tools and need to use different flags. Certainly no encounters with a "weird security system". I have a working development environment, running on nice hardware, that gives me access to everything I want – it's hard to find a reason to make a change to this. I do sometimes come back to working with Linux in a desktop capacity – most recently Ubuntu on a NUC when I shipped my MacBook back for repair. It is broadly fine, but it's still just a bit more irritating. Multiple monitor support was buggy, as was high-DPI support and Bluetooth. No doubt a different distribution and/or some tweaking could resolve these issues and leave me with a development environment that was equivalent to what I already have – but I'd still be missing other tools that I like, not to mention all the niceties of the wider ecosystem. Honestly it's more likely to be the hardware that makes me change. I don't have the same complaints as others do about recent product lines, but I'm definitely one of those people in Apple's market gap in the "high-end-non-workstation-non-integrated-desktop" area. I'd fork quite a lot of money for something like a 16-core desktop machine, but probably not the £8k Apple wants for the Mac Pro. We'll see what happens over the next few years though.

krzyk 6y ago
> Certainly no encounters with a "weird security system" You didn't use mac during the notarization system outage? I coulndn't even use my keyboard and mouse (the one on macbook, NOT bluetooth one) for 2-5 minutes after lid was opened. Never had such issue with Linux, yeah, bluetooth ones might stop working but wired keyboard (or laptop open) works always. Yesterday out of the blue my wifes AirPods Pro stopped working with macbook AND iPhone at the same time - they rejected connection (or actually on mac it looked like they are connected but the sound was coming out of speakers not the pods) and the same situation with iPhone. I had to reset AirPods to make it work. And don't get me started on the completly stupid difference between ctrl+c and cmd+c. One (the standard for everything except macos) is used in terminal and the other in every other app. For me macbook would be great for one thing: installing Linux on it, if it only had the ctrl key in the correct place (that is at the left corner of the keyboard not next to Fn).

cwhiz 6y ago

> The hardware is nice, but as a platform, I just don't get it. To me, that’s backward. The hardware is okay, the platform is amazing. Nothing even comes close to the full ecosystem. Phone, tablet, headphones, watch, computer. Occasionally, quite rarely in reality, something goes wrong. However, I don’t use bleeding edge versions of macOS and so I can’t even tell you the last time I actually experienced one of these problems that everyone on HN gets in an uproar about.

joseph_grobbles 6y ago

They didn't break userspace. Your opinions as a "long-term Linux user" are effectively useless.

arcturus17 6y ago

I’m a full stack dev and I occasionally need to use a bunch of graphical and design apps. Occasionally enough that Linux isn’t practical, anyway. On the data programming side of things I don’t see much issue with it either, though. The issue on this article would’ve definitely bit me as I run like a dozen Postgres instances but I haven’t updated to BigSur - I’m never in a rush to do so. The only thing I miss from my Linux days is the package manager, maybe? Brew is third-party and doesn’t feel as tight as some of the Linux counterparts.

robbyt 6y ago

I manage literally 100k+ Linux nodes for my day job. I don't want to manage any more than I need to, so my workstation is a Mac.

carlhjerpe 6y ago
How are you managing them? Which distro are they running? Is there any difference between managing 1k and 100k operating systems?

mfer 6y ago

I have a linux Desktop, Windows, and Mac. I was recently trying to work out how I could do my media handling on the Linux Desktop (KDE). It didn't just work. I tried numerous apps and all of them failed to meet my expectations. My non-development tasks... those things in life I use a computer for... are just harder on Linux desktops or have a poor experience. MacOS, on the other hand, has a great experience for most of these everyday life kinds of activities. Even for many business activities it's better. Here I refer to the non-development parts of business. If all you do is systems level coding than Linux is great. But, that's not the case for most folks.

petre 6y ago
After 6 years of using a Mac at work for development with OSS tools I switched to a SFF PC with Ubuntu with Gnome and never looked back. Everything is so smooth. Apt get this apt get that and I have working software. No need to homebrew development tools, install Xcode using an Apple account, withhold upgrades and fight evey iteration of the OS.
ubercow13 6y ago
What activities do you mean by media handling?

simonh 6y ago

MacOS is a perfectly fine Unix, but a terrible Linux. If what you actually want is Linux, MacOS will always come up short.

bb123 6y ago

Perhaps by “anyone” you mean developers? I can think of innumerable reasons why regular mom and dad users use MacOS over Linux.

gnfargbl 6y ago
I do, and I should have said so. I forget that macOS actually has a large consumer following, because I usually encounter it with startups who have chosen it as their standard fit for developers.

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madhadron 6y ago

The hardware is nice, and until a couple years ago there was nothing available in the PC world that matched it, but it's the best mainstream GUI experience on the market today. I use macOS, Windows, and Linux every day. Windows and Linux's GUIs lack little affordances like a document icon on a window that you can drag and drop. Plus there is nothing equivalent to OmniFocus outside of macOS, and that is one of the tools I depend on most heavily.

ubercow13 6y ago
On the other hand macOS and Windows are missing little affordances like the selection buffer, middle click paste, focus follows mouse..

gogopuppygogo 6y ago

Support for Microsoft Office, Adobe CC, and historically a POSIX environment were an enticing combo. Recently it’s gone off the rails and become miserable to hack around in.

dang 6y ago

Please don't take HN on generic flamewar tangents. Platform flamewars, like programming language flamewars, quickly suck up all the oxygen in a thread, but they're fundamentally repetitive and boring. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gnfargbl 6y ago
They are, and I apologize for starting one. It wasn't my intent. For what it is worth, I found quite a few of the replies enlightening as to why others choose to use the platform. But: I take your point that it derailed the conversation.
- dang 6y ago
  Appreciated!