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> And modern macOS has no Nvidia drivers at all. Why would it, there is no modern Mac (excluding Mac Pro) with nvidia GPU and soon, not even an AMD GPU once th
by mikhailt 4y ago
> And modern macOS has no Nvidia drivers at all.
Why would it, there is no modern Mac (excluding Mac Pro) with nvidia GPU and soon, not even an AMD GPU once they stop selling all Intel based Macs.
macOS is not an OS you can install on any other hardware. So, how does that apply to the reason why companies and developers are continuing to use macOS in the first place?
If the companies and developers need nVidia support, they wouldn't buy the Macs in the first place, they would've bought the devices and use the OS that supports it.
We're not talking about which OS is better or whatever, we're talking about why there is momentum and why many developers/users are still using macOS despite the obvious better solutions out there like Linux + System76/ThinkPad/XPS/etc.
> Would Linux be a better OS if they simply removed the choice for the user to use Nvidia if they want like Apple does?
They mostly already do (or did). Many distros refuse to let users install the closed-source nvidia's drivers from the installers or included in the image because it's not open source. I'm not disagreeing with them but the fact is that I am only able to use Linux due to Pop_OS that had nvidia drivers built into their image. I even got a few other people to Pop simply because of their hardware using Nvidia GPU. I couldn't use Debian/Fedora 2-3 years ago because of this.
Many distros seem to be opening up to allowing non-free drivers into their image and installers; Fedora is getting better at this. Debian 12 sounds like it is going to open up to this as well.
Users would have an easier time working with Linux if many distros include support for installing nVidia drivers out of the box.
If I bought a ThinkPad with nVidia GPU and Linux didn't even boot on it because the nVidia GPU is too new or there's no open source drivers, I'm still going to say it is Linux and I'm not bothering with it anymore, I'll just install Windows and move on because it just works and does what I want it to do.
> It has loads of weirdly missing basic features like the ability to adjust the sound of a monitor's speakers when connected by HDMI or DP. Updates are the absolute slowest of any OS regardless of whether it's a whole new version or a security update. And if your SSD kicks the bucket the whole machine is a brick.
1. I don't use monitor's speakers, they're horrible but I can understand why that'd piss people off. Definitely agree that macOS should support adjusting the monitor's settings and audio out of the box instead of forcing people to use a third party tool.
2. Meh, all updates are slow. Fedora updates are just as slow if you install updates via their software app instead of dnf, which requires a reboot for any updates. Debian upgrade took just as long on my older laptop, so I'm going to say this is not a con on macOS because it applies to various OSes.
3. SSD has nothing to do with macOS tho, this is a hardware lockdown by Apple, yes it is horrible but it does nothing to slow down or pause companies and developers from continuing to use Macs. This is fairly easy to work around by using Time Machine to back up your data and swap out the logic board at Apple or get a new Mac. Also, Macs don't really break this easily, by the time it may break, companies and developers are already buying the next models.
- goosedragons 4y agoThey still sell the Mac Pro. It costs $6000+ and it's whole raison d'etre is to basically be a box that has PCI-e slots. And a big part of that is GPU upgrades. Isn't that why folks were so excited for the 2019 Mac Pro? You blame some random Libre Linux distro (which is philosophically against you doing what you're doing!) for not booting on a random laptop with an Nvidia card but who do you blame for a Mac Pro not booting with a GeForce card installed? I just think it's an insane unfair double standard. Yeah, the machine bricking when the SSD is a big problem. Waiting a week for parts or a replacement is ridiculous and you can't even boot off an external backup while you wait. That's awful. Especially if you have any BTO config because a wait is guaranteed. macOS updates are insanely slow. I have timed several at 40+ minutes even for just a point update. In that amount of time I can completely reinstall Ubuntu and get set back up. I have never had a Linux or Windows update take that long even on slower worse hardware. Maybe I could get one that slow if I paired an ancient Atom processor with a 4200RPM HDD or something, not a relatively recent i7 with a fast SSD.
- seba_dos1 4y ago> Debian 12 sounds like it is going to open up to this as well. Thankfully, no. It's only going to include non-free firmware by default.