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I feel that way about Linux generally. I didn't realize how much stuff I wasn't doing just because it rarely worked and often broke things (drag and drop as a g

I feel that way about Linux generally. I didn't realize how much stuff I wasn't doing just because it rarely worked and often broke things (drag and drop as a general interaction, for instance), how much time I was spending keeping things sorta working, and how many little broken things I was just not even noticing because I was so used to them, until I finally (mostly) abandoned it as a desktop OS after ~10 years as a desktop Linux user.

hanklazard 5y ago
That’s a bummer. Have you tried pop!_os? Really stable and usable in my experience on any recent gen Lenovo CX1.
- handrous 5y ago
  Very much not a fan of recent Gnome last time I tried it (some months ago). Performance is so very bad. Dropped frames everywhere (maybe blame Linux for generally having fine-grained performance that isn't exactly bad but is more variable and unpredictable than other platforms) and generally sluggish. Used to like Gnome, but back then it was much lighter than KDE, but now the tables have (much to my surprise) entirely turned. I like the idea of pop!_os but part of the flagship experience is a big ol' Javascript extension on top of Gnome. I can't imagine I'd find that enjoyable. Last time I had a Linux working and I didn't hate the experience was a "so small I could drown it in a tub" install/config of Void with mostly Suckless tools/programs. I find Linux to be most tolerable in those kinds of configs, these days. Doesn't do much, but what it does do actually works and behaves fairly consistently. Start trying to get fancy, and the machine begins to feel haunted in a hurry.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Funnily I just did. My machine has now one entry in grub that doesn't work because pop didn't bother to sign the kernel or prompt me for it and I'm using secure boot.
- tlowrimore 5y ago
  Oh man, I’ve used Pop exclusively for 2 years now. I run it on a Thinkpad X1 Extreme, and I love it. I switched from using Macs (for the better part of 20 years) after the whole 2018 keyboard debacle. I can’t imagine going back. Only downside is the terrible battery life on the X1 Extreme.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Even as an ubuntu fan I can see I have to tweak a little my machine, at least more so than a mac or windows user. It's stable enough for me, and I see that as the price to pay for more freedom and flexibility, but I can understand one wanting to get down to close to zero fiddling and pay premium for OSX to be done with it.
alisonatwork 5y ago
This comment is kinda true of anything. Even with WSL there are a bunch of things that "just work" better on Linux than Windows. Even with Steam there are a bunch of things that "just work" better on Windows than Mac. I think in general finding the right tool is more about finding the thing whose inadequacies are least inconvenient to you personally rather than looking for some mythical tool that works well for everyone, in every case.
- handrous 5y ago
  Windows for games, macOS for anything that might qualify as work. Linux for single-application multimedia appliances, probably on an RPi so the install is just a dd command and the platform's got enough eyes on it that it'll almost certainly Just Work with minimal tinkering. Linux on servers, but eyeing FreeBSD pretty hard.
  - saurik 5y ago
    > macOS for anything that might qualify as work FWIW, a lot of "work" areas are still deep into Microsoft Word, which works a lot better on Windows.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Yeah, that one's heavily dependent on what one does. Software availability rules all, for that choice, and one only really has a choice if some certain minimum level of that is met by more than one OS. If I were developing deep server-side VM tools, or drivings, or what have you, I might find using a Linux or BSD workstation well worth the hassle. Embedded dev, macOS probably isn't a realistic choice, and maybe not even anything other than Windows, depending on hardware vendor support. But when I write or compose documents, I don't need MS Office interop, and it'd probably be my 3rd or 4th choice of "suite" for that kind of thing, behind the Apple's versions (mostly because they have great default templates, are very stable, are fairly easy to use, and are very light on system resources), Abiword/Gnumeric and other pieced-together open source options, and maybe LibreOffice in 3rd place. But, if I had to pass around Office documents, that'd be another story. Probably my main pain-point on Mac, as far as work-stuff goes, are under-developed virtualization tools. They have a hypervisor, but it's a pain to use and there's almost no community around it. No simple way to pick an earlier version of macOS and virtualize it, even. VirtualBox is... OK. Barely. 3rd party commercial options improve the situation a ton, but you get much better tools out-of-the-box on basically every other at-least-semi-viable workstation OS.
hughrr 5y ago
CentOS is good about a year after first release. But all the packages are ancient.
- SemiNormal 5y ago
  That's kind of the point of CentOS (or was). Sacrificing newer packages for stability.

hanklazard 5y ago

That’s a bummer. Have you tried pop!_os? Really stable and usable in my experience on any recent gen Lenovo CX1.

handrous 5y ago
Very much not a fan of recent Gnome last time I tried it (some months ago). Performance is so very bad. Dropped frames everywhere (maybe blame Linux for generally having fine-grained performance that isn't exactly bad but is more variable and unpredictable than other platforms) and generally sluggish. Used to like Gnome, but back then it was much lighter than KDE, but now the tables have (much to my surprise) entirely turned. I like the idea of pop!_os but part of the flagship experience is a big ol' Javascript extension on top of Gnome. I can't imagine I'd find that enjoyable. Last time I had a Linux working and I didn't hate the experience was a "so small I could drown it in a tub" install/config of Void with mostly Suckless tools/programs. I find Linux to be most tolerable in those kinds of configs, these days. Doesn't do much, but what it does do actually works and behaves fairly consistently. Start trying to get fancy, and the machine begins to feel haunted in a hurry.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Funnily I just did. My machine has now one entry in grub that doesn't work because pop didn't bother to sign the kernel or prompt me for it and I'm using secure boot.
tlowrimore 5y ago
Oh man, I’ve used Pop exclusively for 2 years now. I run it on a Thinkpad X1 Extreme, and I love it. I switched from using Macs (for the better part of 20 years) after the whole 2018 keyboard debacle. I can’t imagine going back. Only downside is the terrible battery life on the X1 Extreme.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

Even as an ubuntu fan I can see I have to tweak a little my machine, at least more so than a mac or windows user. It's stable enough for me, and I see that as the price to pay for more freedom and flexibility, but I can understand one wanting to get down to close to zero fiddling and pay premium for OSX to be done with it.

alisonatwork 5y ago

This comment is kinda true of anything. Even with WSL there are a bunch of things that "just work" better on Linux than Windows. Even with Steam there are a bunch of things that "just work" better on Windows than Mac. I think in general finding the right tool is more about finding the thing whose inadequacies are least inconvenient to you personally rather than looking for some mythical tool that works well for everyone, in every case.

handrous 5y ago
Windows for games, macOS for anything that might qualify as work. Linux for single-application multimedia appliances, probably on an RPi so the install is just a dd command and the platform's got enough eyes on it that it'll almost certainly Just Work with minimal tinkering. Linux on servers, but eyeing FreeBSD pretty hard.
- saurik 5y ago
  > macOS for anything that might qualify as work FWIW, a lot of "work" areas are still deep into Microsoft Word, which works a lot better on Windows.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Yeah, that one's heavily dependent on what one does. Software availability rules all, for that choice, and one only really has a choice if some certain minimum level of that is met by more than one OS. If I were developing deep server-side VM tools, or drivings, or what have you, I might find using a Linux or BSD workstation well worth the hassle. Embedded dev, macOS probably isn't a realistic choice, and maybe not even anything other than Windows, depending on hardware vendor support. But when I write or compose documents, I don't need MS Office interop, and it'd probably be my 3rd or 4th choice of "suite" for that kind of thing, behind the Apple's versions (mostly because they have great default templates, are very stable, are fairly easy to use, and are very light on system resources), Abiword/Gnumeric and other pieced-together open source options, and maybe LibreOffice in 3rd place. But, if I had to pass around Office documents, that'd be another story. Probably my main pain-point on Mac, as far as work-stuff goes, are under-developed virtualization tools. They have a hypervisor, but it's a pain to use and there's almost no community around it. No simple way to pick an earlier version of macOS and virtualize it, even. VirtualBox is... OK. Barely. 3rd party commercial options improve the situation a ton, but you get much better tools out-of-the-box on basically every other at-least-semi-viable workstation OS.

hughrr 5y ago

CentOS is good about a year after first release. But all the packages are ancient.

SemiNormal 5y ago
That's kind of the point of CentOS (or was). Sacrificing newer packages for stability.