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I have used a Thinkpad T470s for 3 years at my current employer with Fedora and it worked quite well (including standby, multi-monitor support etc). However, I

I have used a Thinkpad T470s for 3 years at my current employer with Fedora and it worked quite well (including standby, multi-monitor support etc). However, I have just switched to a Mac, and I can only say I've been missing it. The consistency of the key combination, the polish of the desktop applications. It's little things but they do add up. When I first switched to the Linux machine, I first noticed every single papercut (e.g. warning messages that felt like errors). Then I grew more and more "tolerant" of these things. All in all, the experience was fine; but I never really loved it. Not to mention, if you pick a Mac you often care about the aesthetics of the chassis and display; my Thinkpad with its low-light matte display (with very poor performance in natural lighting conditions) and its brick-like appearance (someone love them, I honestly don't), it always struck me as pretty meh.

rashkov 6y ago
In defense of the Thinkpad matte screen, in my experience it’s fantastic to use outdoors in direct sunlight compared to a glass covered screen. Even with a much higher overall brightness, the glare just killed any visibility on my 2017 dell xps. As for the many many paper cuts of Linux, it’s a sacrifice I’ve accepted in exchange for having control over my desktop experience. It doesn’t change out from under me over the many years that I’ve used Linux. With windows and Mac I always felt like I was one software update away from them changing something out from under me. The system administration and shell skills that I’ve picked up are an investment that keeps accruing over my entire software development career, and make me a more capable developer for being able to jump into infrastructure and devops concerns around the software that I write. I expect this knowledge will last me for decades more. The daily experience of using Linux is generally one of being more exposed to the internals of the system. You’re only ever a thin layer above the kernel and its system calls. If the inner workings of an operating system are a mystery that you’d like to explore, then you will uncover those mysteries in the course of running Linux as your every day experience. The error messages and log files are obscure but they’re always available. If you have a problem and you have the patience and persistence to dive into it, then the next layer of abstraction is available for you to explore. You live your virtual life in a workshop, with powerful tools scattered about. A few times a year you discover a new one and it becomes part of you.
city41 6y ago
I've had the opposite experience. I used to be a huge Apple fan, and all hardware I owned was Apple. I have since completely moved away from them due to how buggy everything is now. I use Ubuntu MATE on a Thinkpad and it works beautifully. I honestly have zero issues with it and absolutely love it. I've been using MATE for about 3 years now.
rufus_foreman 6y ago
>> if you pick a Mac you often care about the aesthetics of the chassis and display I added a partition to one of my MacBooks and installed Linux on it, best of both worlds. It was surprisingly easy.

rashkov 6y ago

In defense of the Thinkpad matte screen, in my experience it’s fantastic to use outdoors in direct sunlight compared to a glass covered screen. Even with a much higher overall brightness, the glare just killed any visibility on my 2017 dell xps. As for the many many paper cuts of Linux, it’s a sacrifice I’ve accepted in exchange for having control over my desktop experience. It doesn’t change out from under me over the many years that I’ve used Linux. With windows and Mac I always felt like I was one software update away from them changing something out from under me. The system administration and shell skills that I’ve picked up are an investment that keeps accruing over my entire software development career, and make me a more capable developer for being able to jump into infrastructure and devops concerns around the software that I write. I expect this knowledge will last me for decades more. The daily experience of using Linux is generally one of being more exposed to the internals of the system. You’re only ever a thin layer above the kernel and its system calls. If the inner workings of an operating system are a mystery that you’d like to explore, then you will uncover those mysteries in the course of running Linux as your every day experience. The error messages and log files are obscure but they’re always available. If you have a problem and you have the patience and persistence to dive into it, then the next layer of abstraction is available for you to explore. You live your virtual life in a workshop, with powerful tools scattered about. A few times a year you discover a new one and it becomes part of you.

city41 6y ago

I've had the opposite experience. I used to be a huge Apple fan, and all hardware I owned was Apple. I have since completely moved away from them due to how buggy everything is now. I use Ubuntu MATE on a Thinkpad and it works beautifully. I honestly have zero issues with it and absolutely love it. I've been using MATE for about 3 years now.

rufus_foreman 6y ago

>> if you pick a Mac you often care about the aesthetics of the chassis and display I added a partition to one of my MacBooks and installed Linux on it, best of both worlds. It was surprisingly easy.