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Does anyone make a serious OS for people who need to get real work done on their computer anymore? Some recent frustrations with the big 3 OSs: 1. MacOS: The

Does anyone make a serious OS for people who need to get real work done on their computer anymore? Some recent frustrations with the big 3 OSs: 1. MacOS: The File>Save dialog has a unchangeable 35 character limit for what can be viewed in the file name field. WTF?! It's like these jokers have never worked in a real office where people create documents with dictated naming conventions like [Customer Name]_[Project Name]_[Project subtask]-[Date]. Maybe they think it is a way to force businesses to use Tags? Dear Apple, your OS seems toy like. 2. Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode. I 3. Windows: First data mining telemetry and now you are going to show me ads? Dear MS, you keep trying to be Google or Facebook and all it has done is undermine a once serious OS. (note that this is just a "what pissed me off this week list" and not intended to be a comprehensive criticism)

zamalek 5y ago
There are multiple ways to solve the bootloader issue, but the easiest is putting your Linux drive ahead of your Windows drive in firmware settings, during installation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  What I found was that you could remove the other drive. That won't work on an Intel MacBook though...
- zamalek 5y ago
  Windows will absolutely blast your boot sector/UEFI partition with no concern for other OSes (it won't chain load). Mac avoids this with Bootcamp, which is more similar to firmware than an OS. I'm surprised the parent comment has this issue. They are either using BIOS, or the automatic disk mode (and just complained about the installer doing things automatically on their disk). Avoiding this scenario is UEFI is as simple as creating a exFAT partition and mounting it to /boot. Any calamares-based installer will let you do that.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Shhhhhh let's ignore basic facts and define our experience with an OS as the only valid take on the OS :)
  - claytongulick 5y ago
    > Avoiding this scenario is UEFI is as simple as creating a exFAT partition and mounting it to /boot. Any calamares-based installer will let you do that. I love this comment so much. Linux is my go-to, but the idea that it's "as simple as..." cracks me up.
    - zamalek 5y ago
      You don't have to use tty for it :/
julianlam 5y ago
May I kindly ask what distro you last tried? I ask mainly because I came to a realization not too long ago that I stopped using Windows back when 7 was released. It's been a bumpy road, but my last few installs in the past half-decade were more for fun (spring cleaning) or trying out a new distro, and not because I borked my system running errant commands. Especially if you're not using bleeding edge hardware, almost all things just work. I know you'll bring up the usual refrains of "hey how about that hibernate function in linux?" or "how are your video drivers lately?", and while they're all legitimate points, Windows has got its own fair share of "wtfs" that Windows users are all too quick to gloss over. Maybe I'm being a bit of an old man here (mid-30s), but I remember booting into a fresh XP install and having nothing work properly. No video drivers, no ethernet, no wifi, no sound... it usually led to a full day of installing drivers. You'll probably say Windows is better now, and it probably is. Again, I just haven't used Windows in over a decade. I don't remember the last time I logged into a fresh linux install and didn't have ethernet.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  Linux Mint wiped out the boot loader on my Intel MacBook even though I was installing it on an external drive. I'm much older and agree that some modern Linux distributions are smoother than old-school Windows. I am just pointing out that Linux still requires a lot of unnecessary time suck due to it being in the "hobbyist tweaker" category.
  - smallerfish 5y ago
    On a macbook you're in hobbyist territory unfortunately, with Linux. It doesn't even work on various recent years of macbooks, due to various ways Apple locked things down. Same goes for MS Surface hardware - you _can_ get it working, but there are more hoops to jump through. Try it on less locked down and more open hardware and you'll have more reliable results.
    - t-writescode 5y ago
      On everything but the server, you're a hobbyist with Linux, unfortunately. It's perfectly fine and hobbyists make *amazing* things; but it remains very niche and tinkerer/hobbyist level. For everyone else, there's, Windows, Android, iOS, Chromebooks and Mac... I think in that order, even.
pizza234 5y ago
Engineering is the art of solving problem within constraints ;) Jokes aside, every O/S essentially needs periodic maintenance, in the form of workarounds, that needs to be applied on every major update. That's just how it works - O/Ss and hardware became too complex to get a handle. I've found that Linux distros require a lot of work upfront, and relatively little every couple of years (assuming a distro with an LTS release schedule). I think Mac is similar, except that the work upfront is considerably less. I'm also familiar with Windows, but I frankly find new developments very offensive, in particular, those on Windows 11, so I ended up sticking with a relatively untweaked Window 10 (used only for specific use cases, thankfully). The only solution in order to have a very stable system, is to choose a platform and stick with it. Given the ease of switch, I do see engineers switching machine and O/S, illuding themselves of finding a more stable experience, and ending up instead with a lot "upfront" work each time, without managing to stabilize the system.
hef19898 5y ago
The last tike I installed an OS myself, before Ubuntu and a new, clean Windows on my laptops, was Windows 2000. Ubuntu was actually easier to get running on the daily driver then a clean, local account only Windows 10 on the back up. No problems with Ubuntu whatsoever, not sure how much of that is due to Ubuntu or Lenovo so.
sergiotapia 5y ago
Been using Linux Mint as primary driver for over a year now. It works flawlessly. I have _zero_ patience for debugging and tweaking my OS. I want to work, not tweak Linux. I used to love tweaking back in Ubuntu 7 Feisty Fawn. Now that I'm in my 30s I don't give a shit. Take this as a glowing endorsement of Linux Mint. Try it. You won't waste time with bullshit.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  I agree that Mint is pretty good. I use it on a few older laptops with decent results, but Mint also wiped out the Boot loader on my Intel MacbookPro :(
- Zachsa999 5y ago
  I love Linux Mint. The only bullshit I had was having to recompile the kernal for my gpu
lnxg33k1 5y ago
I mean, you can do an OS yourself, or you can learn how to use an existing OS, I use Gentoo GNU/Linux and do things manually, never got the boot driver wiped as I do the partitioning myself, and also do the partitioning when I use some more userfriendly distros (on my work laptop because compiling on laptops is not nice so I won't use gentoo there). But yeah I mean you complain a lot, but for OSX and Windows you have no chance of resolving your issues, on linux you just need to be capable and willing to understand and read some documentation and you're good to go, but it seems that in your situation you're the main problem, because unwilling to be restricted by proprietary systems but also unwilling to learn, so it seems like we need to make an OS built on your preference while you just "want to get work done", why should we do that? Be restricted or learn to learn
- andi999 5y ago
  The issue on linux is that the software you need for your business doesnt run on it. This one you cannot fix yourself.
  - immibis 5y ago
    That means Microsoft Office, specifically. Right?
    - andi999 5y ago
      Office yes. Xilinx FPGA Toolchain, CAD, Visual Studio (ok, ok forget the last one)
      - lnxg33k1 5y ago
        Yeah that is fair, there is a lot of people who need certain software which is not available on linux, but I was wondering what can the linux community do? I mean the guy at the parent comment described a problem which was easily solvable, and other people instead decsribed problems on which linux has no control over, if the vendor of the software you need for you business doesn't bother to create a software you need for your business for linux, bring it to the vendor of the software you need for you business, not to linux
matkoniecz 5y ago
> There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on Can you link bug report? Personally I never encountered it (and while I had some corruptions over time I would say that Windows is even worse here and I would not call it to be in hobbyist tweaker mode)
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1229488 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1229... This link talks in detail about the problem and its solutions (all of which were more time suck than I was willing to commit): https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=287353 https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=287353
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Reported in 2013, still unassigned. I guess we should be thankful it hasn't been autoclosed by a stalebot or marked WONTFIX yet.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  I've encountered a couple of times. In my case it screwed up the bootloader of a hackintosh macOS install on a drive the installer gave no indication it was going to do anything to. Thankfully fixing it wasn't too bad, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. No other distro I've installed shares this problem.
dharmab 5y ago
Most truly serious professionals I know are either using macOS with Homebrew or Arch Linux. They’ve accepted they need to take managing their OS into their own hands because anyone else will bungle the job. They spend a few weeks to learn their OS’ internals in depth and then rarely lose significant time troubleshooting issues in the future.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Ah I knew that there would be an Arch user somewhere around here. Meanwhile I've used Ubuntu for over a decade with virtually zero issues and during that decade Arch users both newb and old have continued to declare there is only one true OS and that I'm doing it wrong while I tell them "I'm glad you enjoy your OS"
  - klohto 5y ago
    Seems like you’ve switched the positions :)
- rejectfinite 5y ago
  Most truly serious professionals I know are using Windows 10 or 11 on a work provided Lenovo/HP or Dell laptop.
  - lloydatkinson 5y ago
    Agreed, seem like a very pretentious comment from OP that doesn't seem related to the real world.
  - jamaicahest 5y ago
    Indeed. As a professional freelance consultant, I use the laptop provided by the customer. Guess what? They're always running Windows.
- fortran77 5y ago
  I can learn MacOS or Arch "internals in depth" -- even the proprietary stuff in MacOS -- in "a few weeks?" I'm glad I use an OS where I don't have to know the internals.
bobbylarrybobby 5y ago
If the worst thing about macOS is that there's a text field you have to scroll to see all of its contents, I'd say the OS is pretty serious.
- newaccount74 5y ago
  For some reason padding has been growing over the last few releases of macOS, and font sizes too, which means that things with long titles are now truncated everywhere ... I remember when we Mac users made fun of DOS with their 8 char file names (HFS supported 32). Now we can have even longer filenames, but macOS only shows them truncated...
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  I beg you to create a bunch of files with >35 char names and then try to work with them. I bet you'll be looking at all that wasted blank space before and after the text box and wanting to scream WTF at the dev team that lets this obnoxious user experience stand.
elorant 5y ago
Sure they do. You can get a long term Windows version which receives only critical updates. Or you can get one of the multitudes of Linux distros.
- blibble 5y ago
  LTSC is almost impossible to buy legitimately for individuals
  - usednet 5y ago
    Just download an iso online and use a KMS activator server. Takes 5 minutes and Microsoft is a 2 trillion dollar company.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      Sure, assuming you're morally ok with this form of piracy, but parent did say legitimately and this is blatantly illegitimate.
  - mhio 5y ago
    Tell me about it. I tried to source LTSC with an MS partner for a while, you basically need a volume licensing setup to get anywhere. It was hinted you could get away with 1 LTSC license and 4 cheap CALS to fill in the volume requirement but then I questioned why I was jumping through Microsofts arbitrary licensing hoops just to run a less horrible version of the OS. For years I've been customising Windows installs towards that state with hacky scripts and PE environments. It's the near perfect distribution of windows for me, kept just tantalisingly out of reach.
rejectfinite 5y ago
Most enterprises are using AD domain or Azure AD joined Windows 10 or 11 PCs. With an IT admin that tries to turn off as much that crap as possible. + Office 365 for email, Teams, Office apps etc. Linux on the desktop is not really doable. Why? GPO/Intune polices. Interoperability with other companies/customers. Same for Mac. JAMF or Intune MDM would need to be added.
015a 5y ago
To be realistic: Windows and MacOS are both great for getting "real work done". I've never had an issue with this "35 character file save prompt" limit, and I cannot imagine it would be a dealbreaker even if I did. Telemetry is irrelevant to getting "real work" done, assuming its implemented in a way which doesn't impact performance, and I've never had an issue on Windows. What you're talking about is privacy concerns, which are very, very legitimate; and have nothing to do with "real work". Some things are more productive in Mac, others are more productive in Windows. I'll die on this hill: Microsoft Paint is a top 5 productivity application for me. If I need to quickly take an image, layer a second image on top of it, resize, and add some text; there's nothing more productive than Paint for that. The result looks like shit, but its productive. The ability to hit Win+Shift+S, screenshot a part of the screen, then immediately paste it somewhere? Huge. MacOS has nothing like this; it has all the same basic tools, but they don't tie together to enable the same velocity; even the screen clipping tool takes like 5 seconds for the image to leave the screen corner and hit the filesystem. Notepad is another example; I open notepad and can immediately start typing. On MacOS, I can open Notes, CMD+N to get a new note, it defaults to formatting for the title but at least that works; or you can do TextEdit, and you're presented with a "create a new document" dialog; no thanks. Little moments which add up. But where does MacOS pull ahead? If I need to edit a video? Windows has nothing for me; maybe DaVinci, but its hyper-pro level tooling. iMovie is great, and years ago I splurged on the buy-once-and-done FCPX subscription: its fantastic. Photo editing beyond what Paint can do? No, I'm not paying $200/month for Photoshop; maybe you can try GIMP, but I'm using my $20 og Pixelmator purchase from a decade ago, it works great (ugh I guess I should support them and buy the new one). All the UNIX tooling of course. Need some light CAD? I love Shapr3D; and I'm super happy to see its coming to Windows soon, but traditionally its been an Apple-only thing. In short: MacOS owns Prosumer-tier software; Pro-Pro tier stuff tends to be on Windows+Mac (like, Adobe), but there's a ton of cool software right below that which is Mac-only. Linux is the one OS where I have broad issues getting work done. If I'm developing a website or a web app? Sure, it works as good as anything else (better than Windows to be fair). But go beyond that and there are dragons. A juxtoposition of trying to make mediocre web apps or libre software work for workloads which should be native. CAD? No Fusion360, no Shapr3D... Tinkercad I guess? Vectary, kinda ok. LibreCAD, I'm sure was productive in 1997. Spreadsheet guru? Calc & Google Sheets have come a long way, but they're still in another realm compared to Excel; but I'm a big personal fan of Numbers, as it doesn't try to be Excel and instead serves a slightly different kind of user.
moltke 5y ago
Linux with eg OpenBSD CWM with xterms.
esjeon 5y ago
> 2. Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode. Then stop using Ubuntu. But, to be fair, the whole Ubuntu/Debian installation scene is quite a facepalm. The installer is overly complicated and completely undocumented. Also, they didn't really account for any serious customization.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  >But, to be fair, the whole Ubuntu/Debian installation scene is quite a facepalm. Compared to what? Arch?
Thorentis 5y ago
Linux Mint. Sure, you will have some quirks with any Linux distro if you install on a Macbook (blame Apple), but it is by far the easiest to use, most well supported "productivity" distro I have ever used.
bsder 5y ago
> 2. Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode. Maybe that's true, but ... I had a very similar thing happen on Windows 10. I set up a new SSD in order to install a new version of Windows with the idea that I would switch out the old SSD to an external drive. No big deal. So, I installed Windows on the new drive. Set everything up. Life looked good. I removed the old SSD. And the system wouldn't boot. WTF?!?! Turns out that if there is already a Windows bootloader then the Windows installer will put your boot information on it even if you tell it otherwise. You can't force an install and bootloader onto a new drive if it detects an existing install anywhere. I had to remove the old drive, remformat the new drive, and completely reinstall so Windows would install the boot partition and boot loader properly. I was "rather cross" to quote my UK brethren.
Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
One issue I have with macOS is their dialog navigation. Whenever I get the dialog like saving change dialog in Preview when using Command + Q combo, I cannot use my arrow keys to move to the lower/next button in the dialog. I have to use my mice like a peasant! It is not an issue in Linux and Windows, just curious why Apple can't add that?
- donbrae 5y ago
  You need to enable it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204434 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204434 > ‘Use your keyboard like a mouse’.
tlamponi 5y ago
> Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode. I Never saw that happen on any Linux installation (mostly using Debian, with one Arch Linux instance to avoid getting to accustomed to the Debian Way, though). What I often saw once I still dual-booted Windows 7 and (IIRC) OpenSUSE ~11-14 years ago was that Windows destroyed the Linux bootloader entry, while on Linux GRUB + os-detect automatically setup one for Linux and Windows, so I always had to install Windows first and then Linux as else stuff was broken due to Windows not caring about existing user data at all. Same story with USB pen drives, once I used a FAT formatted one on Linux and then plugged it into Windows it always had "format drive" selected by default, mounting was a slightly hidden menu entry (so it could read it just fine, it rather was a bad UX pattern)
throwawayninja 5y ago
Yes, the 3 "real OS"es are: Gentoo (high skill cap, high payoff), Arch (medium skill cap, high payoff), and Void (arch minus systemd plus a nicer package manager). Everything else is opinionated / dumbed down enough to be in the same quality bucket as windows, I usually think of Canonical and Microsoft as the same company these days.

zamalek 5y ago

There are multiple ways to solve the bootloader issue, but the easiest is putting your Linux drive ahead of your Windows drive in firmware settings, during installation.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wintermutestwin 5y ago
What I found was that you could remove the other drive. That won't work on an Intel MacBook though...
zamalek 5y ago
Windows will absolutely blast your boot sector/UEFI partition with no concern for other OSes (it won't chain load). Mac avoids this with Bootcamp, which is more similar to firmware than an OS. I'm surprised the parent comment has this issue. They are either using BIOS, or the automatic disk mode (and just complained about the installer doing things automatically on their disk). Avoiding this scenario is UEFI is as simple as creating a exFAT partition and mounting it to /boot. Any calamares-based installer will let you do that.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Shhhhhh let's ignore basic facts and define our experience with an OS as the only valid take on the OS :)
- claytongulick 5y ago
  > Avoiding this scenario is UEFI is as simple as creating a exFAT partition and mounting it to /boot. Any calamares-based installer will let you do that. I love this comment so much. Linux is my go-to, but the idea that it's "as simple as..." cracks me up.
  - zamalek 5y ago
    You don't have to use tty for it :/

julianlam 5y ago

May I kindly ask what distro you last tried? I ask mainly because I came to a realization not too long ago that I stopped using Windows back when 7 was released. It's been a bumpy road, but my last few installs in the past half-decade were more for fun (spring cleaning) or trying out a new distro, and not because I borked my system running errant commands. Especially if you're not using bleeding edge hardware, almost all things just work. I know you'll bring up the usual refrains of "hey how about that hibernate function in linux?" or "how are your video drivers lately?", and while they're all legitimate points, Windows has got its own fair share of "wtfs" that Windows users are all too quick to gloss over. Maybe I'm being a bit of an old man here (mid-30s), but I remember booting into a fresh XP install and having nothing work properly. No video drivers, no ethernet, no wifi, no sound... it usually led to a full day of installing drivers. You'll probably say Windows is better now, and it probably is. Again, I just haven't used Windows in over a decade. I don't remember the last time I logged into a fresh linux install and didn't have ethernet.

wintermutestwin 5y ago
Linux Mint wiped out the boot loader on my Intel MacBook even though I was installing it on an external drive. I'm much older and agree that some modern Linux distributions are smoother than old-school Windows. I am just pointing out that Linux still requires a lot of unnecessary time suck due to it being in the "hobbyist tweaker" category.
- smallerfish 5y ago
  On a macbook you're in hobbyist territory unfortunately, with Linux. It doesn't even work on various recent years of macbooks, due to various ways Apple locked things down. Same goes for MS Surface hardware - you _can_ get it working, but there are more hoops to jump through. Try it on less locked down and more open hardware and you'll have more reliable results.
  - t-writescode 5y ago
    On everything but the server, you're a hobbyist with Linux, unfortunately. It's perfectly fine and hobbyists make *amazing* things; but it remains very niche and tinkerer/hobbyist level. For everyone else, there's, Windows, Android, iOS, Chromebooks and Mac... I think in that order, even.

pizza234 5y ago

Engineering is the art of solving problem within constraints ;) Jokes aside, every O/S essentially needs periodic maintenance, in the form of workarounds, that needs to be applied on every major update. That's just how it works - O/Ss and hardware became too complex to get a handle. I've found that Linux distros require a lot of work upfront, and relatively little every couple of years (assuming a distro with an LTS release schedule). I think Mac is similar, except that the work upfront is considerably less. I'm also familiar with Windows, but I frankly find new developments very offensive, in particular, those on Windows 11, so I ended up sticking with a relatively untweaked Window 10 (used only for specific use cases, thankfully). The only solution in order to have a very stable system, is to choose a platform and stick with it. Given the ease of switch, I do see engineers switching machine and O/S, illuding themselves of finding a more stable experience, and ending up instead with a lot "upfront" work each time, without managing to stabilize the system.

hef19898 5y ago

The last tike I installed an OS myself, before Ubuntu and a new, clean Windows on my laptops, was Windows 2000. Ubuntu was actually easier to get running on the daily driver then a clean, local account only Windows 10 on the back up. No problems with Ubuntu whatsoever, not sure how much of that is due to Ubuntu or Lenovo so.

sergiotapia 5y ago

Been using Linux Mint as primary driver for over a year now. It works flawlessly. I have _zero_ patience for debugging and tweaking my OS. I want to work, not tweak Linux. I used to love tweaking back in Ubuntu 7 Feisty Fawn. Now that I'm in my 30s I don't give a shit. Take this as a glowing endorsement of Linux Mint. Try it. You won't waste time with bullshit.

wintermutestwin 5y ago
I agree that Mint is pretty good. I use it on a few older laptops with decent results, but Mint also wiped out the Boot loader on my Intel MacbookPro :(
Zachsa999 5y ago
I love Linux Mint. The only bullshit I had was having to recompile the kernal for my gpu

lnxg33k1 5y ago

I mean, you can do an OS yourself, or you can learn how to use an existing OS, I use Gentoo GNU/Linux and do things manually, never got the boot driver wiped as I do the partitioning myself, and also do the partitioning when I use some more userfriendly distros (on my work laptop because compiling on laptops is not nice so I won't use gentoo there). But yeah I mean you complain a lot, but for OSX and Windows you have no chance of resolving your issues, on linux you just need to be capable and willing to understand and read some documentation and you're good to go, but it seems that in your situation you're the main problem, because unwilling to be restricted by proprietary systems but also unwilling to learn, so it seems like we need to make an OS built on your preference while you just "want to get work done", why should we do that? Be restricted or learn to learn

andi999 5y ago
The issue on linux is that the software you need for your business doesnt run on it. This one you cannot fix yourself.
- immibis 5y ago
  That means Microsoft Office, specifically. Right?
  - andi999 5y ago
    Office yes. Xilinx FPGA Toolchain, CAD, Visual Studio (ok, ok forget the last one)
    - lnxg33k1 5y ago
      Yeah that is fair, there is a lot of people who need certain software which is not available on linux, but I was wondering what can the linux community do? I mean the guy at the parent comment described a problem which was easily solvable, and other people instead decsribed problems on which linux has no control over, if the vendor of the software you need for you business doesn't bother to create a software you need for your business for linux, bring it to the vendor of the software you need for you business, not to linux

matkoniecz 5y ago

> There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on Can you link bug report? Personally I never encountered it (and while I had some corruptions over time I would say that Windows is even worse here and I would not call it to be in hobbyist tweaker mode)

wintermutestwin 5y ago
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1229488 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1229... This link talks in detail about the problem and its solutions (all of which were more time suck than I was willing to commit): https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=287353 https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=287353
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  Reported in 2013, still unassigned. I guess we should be thankful it hasn't been autoclosed by a stalebot or marked WONTFIX yet.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
I've encountered a couple of times. In my case it screwed up the bootloader of a hackintosh macOS install on a drive the installer gave no indication it was going to do anything to. Thankfully fixing it wasn't too bad, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. No other distro I've installed shares this problem.

dharmab 5y ago

Most truly serious professionals I know are either using macOS with Homebrew or Arch Linux. They’ve accepted they need to take managing their OS into their own hands because anyone else will bungle the job. They spend a few weeks to learn their OS’ internals in depth and then rarely lose significant time troubleshooting issues in the future.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
Ah I knew that there would be an Arch user somewhere around here. Meanwhile I've used Ubuntu for over a decade with virtually zero issues and during that decade Arch users both newb and old have continued to declare there is only one true OS and that I'm doing it wrong while I tell them "I'm glad you enjoy your OS"
- klohto 5y ago
  Seems like you’ve switched the positions :)
rejectfinite 5y ago
Most truly serious professionals I know are using Windows 10 or 11 on a work provided Lenovo/HP or Dell laptop.
- lloydatkinson 5y ago
  Agreed, seem like a very pretentious comment from OP that doesn't seem related to the real world.
- jamaicahest 5y ago
  Indeed. As a professional freelance consultant, I use the laptop provided by the customer. Guess what? They're always running Windows.
fortran77 5y ago
I can learn MacOS or Arch "internals in depth" -- even the proprietary stuff in MacOS -- in "a few weeks?" I'm glad I use an OS where I don't have to know the internals.

bobbylarrybobby 5y ago

If the worst thing about macOS is that there's a text field you have to scroll to see all of its contents, I'd say the OS is pretty serious.

newaccount74 5y ago
For some reason padding has been growing over the last few releases of macOS, and font sizes too, which means that things with long titles are now truncated everywhere ... I remember when we Mac users made fun of DOS with their 8 char file names (HFS supported 32). Now we can have even longer filenames, but macOS only shows them truncated...
wintermutestwin 5y ago
I beg you to create a bunch of files with >35 char names and then try to work with them. I bet you'll be looking at all that wasted blank space before and after the text box and wanting to scream WTF at the dev team that lets this obnoxious user experience stand.

elorant 5y ago

Sure they do. You can get a long term Windows version which receives only critical updates. Or you can get one of the multitudes of Linux distros.

blibble 5y ago
LTSC is almost impossible to buy legitimately for individuals
- usednet 5y ago
  Just download an iso online and use a KMS activator server. Takes 5 minutes and Microsoft is a 2 trillion dollar company.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    Sure, assuming you're morally ok with this form of piracy, but parent did say legitimately and this is blatantly illegitimate.
- mhio 5y ago
  Tell me about it. I tried to source LTSC with an MS partner for a while, you basically need a volume licensing setup to get anywhere. It was hinted you could get away with 1 LTSC license and 4 cheap CALS to fill in the volume requirement but then I questioned why I was jumping through Microsofts arbitrary licensing hoops just to run a less horrible version of the OS. For years I've been customising Windows installs towards that state with hacky scripts and PE environments. It's the near perfect distribution of windows for me, kept just tantalisingly out of reach.

rejectfinite 5y ago

Most enterprises are using AD domain or Azure AD joined Windows 10 or 11 PCs. With an IT admin that tries to turn off as much that crap as possible. + Office 365 for email, Teams, Office apps etc. Linux on the desktop is not really doable. Why? GPO/Intune polices. Interoperability with other companies/customers. Same for Mac. JAMF or Intune MDM would need to be added.

015a 5y ago

To be realistic: Windows and MacOS are both great for getting "real work done". I've never had an issue with this "35 character file save prompt" limit, and I cannot imagine it would be a dealbreaker even if I did. Telemetry is irrelevant to getting "real work" done, assuming its implemented in a way which doesn't impact performance, and I've never had an issue on Windows. What you're talking about is privacy concerns, which are very, very legitimate; and have nothing to do with "real work". Some things are more productive in Mac, others are more productive in Windows. I'll die on this hill: Microsoft Paint is a top 5 productivity application for me. If I need to quickly take an image, layer a second image on top of it, resize, and add some text; there's nothing more productive than Paint for that. The result looks like shit, but its productive. The ability to hit Win+Shift+S, screenshot a part of the screen, then immediately paste it somewhere? Huge. MacOS has nothing like this; it has all the same basic tools, but they don't tie together to enable the same velocity; even the screen clipping tool takes like 5 seconds for the image to leave the screen corner and hit the filesystem. Notepad is another example; I open notepad and can immediately start typing. On MacOS, I can open Notes, CMD+N to get a new note, it defaults to formatting for the title but at least that works; or you can do TextEdit, and you're presented with a "create a new document" dialog; no thanks. Little moments which add up. But where does MacOS pull ahead? If I need to edit a video? Windows has nothing for me; maybe DaVinci, but its hyper-pro level tooling. iMovie is great, and years ago I splurged on the buy-once-and-done FCPX subscription: its fantastic. Photo editing beyond what Paint can do? No, I'm not paying $200/month for Photoshop; maybe you can try GIMP, but I'm using my $20 og Pixelmator purchase from a decade ago, it works great (ugh I guess I should support them and buy the new one). All the UNIX tooling of course. Need some light CAD? I love Shapr3D; and I'm super happy to see its coming to Windows soon, but traditionally its been an Apple-only thing. In short: MacOS owns Prosumer-tier software; Pro-Pro tier stuff tends to be on Windows+Mac (like, Adobe), but there's a ton of cool software right below that which is Mac-only. Linux is the one OS where I have broad issues getting work done. If I'm developing a website or a web app? Sure, it works as good as anything else (better than Windows to be fair). But go beyond that and there are dragons. A juxtoposition of trying to make mediocre web apps or libre software work for workloads which should be native. CAD? No Fusion360, no Shapr3D... Tinkercad I guess? Vectary, kinda ok. LibreCAD, I'm sure was productive in 1997. Spreadsheet guru? Calc & Google Sheets have come a long way, but they're still in another realm compared to Excel; but I'm a big personal fan of Numbers, as it doesn't try to be Excel and instead serves a slightly different kind of user.

moltke 5y ago

Linux with eg OpenBSD CWM with xterms.

esjeon 5y ago

wintermutestwin 5y ago
>But, to be fair, the whole Ubuntu/Debian installation scene is quite a facepalm. Compared to what? Arch?

Thorentis 5y ago

Linux Mint. Sure, you will have some quirks with any Linux distro if you install on a Macbook (blame Apple), but it is by far the easiest to use, most well supported "productivity" distro I have ever used.

bsder 5y ago

> 2. Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode. Maybe that's true, but ... I had a very similar thing happen on Windows 10. I set up a new SSD in order to install a new version of Windows with the idea that I would switch out the old SSD to an external drive. No big deal. So, I installed Windows on the new drive. Set everything up. Life looked good. I removed the old SSD. And the system wouldn't boot. WTF?!?! Turns out that if there is already a Windows bootloader then the Windows installer will put your boot information on it even if you tell it otherwise. You can't force an install and bootloader onto a new drive if it detects an existing install anywhere. I had to remove the old drive, remformat the new drive, and completely reinstall so Windows would install the boot partition and boot loader properly. I was "rather cross" to quote my UK brethren.

Isthatablackgsd 5y ago

One issue I have with macOS is their dialog navigation. Whenever I get the dialog like saving change dialog in Preview when using Command + Q combo, I cannot use my arrow keys to move to the lower/next button in the dialog. I have to use my mice like a peasant! It is not an issue in Linux and Windows, just curious why Apple can't add that?

donbrae 5y ago
You need to enable it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204434 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204434 > ‘Use your keyboard like a mouse’.

tlamponi 5y ago

> Linux: There is an age old Ubuntu bug (which bleeds into many Ubuntu based Distributions) where the installer wipes out the bootloader of a drive that you aren't even installing the OS on. Dear open source community: your desktop OSs are still hobbyist tweaker mode. I Never saw that happen on any Linux installation (mostly using Debian, with one Arch Linux instance to avoid getting to accustomed to the Debian Way, though). What I often saw once I still dual-booted Windows 7 and (IIRC) OpenSUSE ~11-14 years ago was that Windows destroyed the Linux bootloader entry, while on Linux GRUB + os-detect automatically setup one for Linux and Windows, so I always had to install Windows first and then Linux as else stuff was broken due to Windows not caring about existing user data at all. Same story with USB pen drives, once I used a FAT formatted one on Linux and then plugged it into Windows it always had "format drive" selected by default, mounting was a slightly hidden menu entry (so it could read it just fine, it rather was a bad UX pattern)

throwawayninja 5y ago

Yes, the 3 "real OS"es are: Gentoo (high skill cap, high payoff), Arch (medium skill cap, high payoff), and Void (arch minus systemd plus a nicer package manager). Everything else is opinionated / dumbed down enough to be in the same quality bucket as windows, I usually think of Canonical and Microsoft as the same company these days.