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Calling it "more convenience and polish" is a bit of an understatement. My experience with open-source software is that if it breaks or it's missing a feature a

Calling it "more convenience and polish" is a bit of an understatement. My experience with open-source software is that if it breaks or it's missing a feature and you want your needs to be addressed then you will have to hack on it yourself. While this is great for people who enjoy hacking it's not great once you get bored of it. I always enjoyed macOS (at least pre-Catalina) because it's Unix but without the requirement to constantly hack on the OS and userland like you have to do with Linux. That means I have all the development tools I appreciate but I can focus on what I actually want to do instead of fixing system-level bugs. When Catalina came out I stopped updating so I can't speak for how the OS is nowadays.

albert180 3y ago
I've needed 0 Seconds of hacking since using Fedora for 2 years. Linux has evolved in the last 14 Years
- LoganDark 3y ago
  Oh yeah? I tried Silverblue a couple years ago, and the Nvidia driver stopped working after a motherboard swap. I tried Kinoite but KDE Plasma's subpixel antialiasing looks terrible on HiDPI displays. Maybe that's some of the "convenience and polish" that you just have to sacrifice in order to use FOSS, but I could also just use software that's properly polished and not care whether it is FOSS or not. And no, I'm not rebuilding my computer for linux, you would not be the first person to point out that I should replace my Nvidia GPU with an AMD one. I will note though that GNOME is one of the nicest DEs I've ever used, at least back when graphics acceleration worked. Trackpads finally seem to be a first-class citizen, something Apple has already been doing for almost two decades (and, in fact, it's an Apple trackpad that works quite well with it).
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Isognoviastoma 3y ago
    Was nvidia driver foss or proprietary?
    - LoganDark 3y ago
      I think Silverblue comes preconfigured with the proprietary one, but I don't know how to check and also don't think it's possible to change it, since it's an immutable system. It worked fine until that happened and basically made it unusable since I don't have an iGPU. Maybe I'll try some other Fedora, or just go back to X11 on Arch, which worked well enough.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- Etheryte 3y ago
  I can easily trust my older relatives to do fine on macOS, Linux would be either painful or more realistically a no go.
  - paxys 3y ago
    Older relatives aren't the ones complaining about auto updates and having full control of their hardware/software. iOS, macOS, Windows and the rest are in fact built with them in mind. This conversation is naturally about more technically inclined users.
    - Etheryte 3y ago
      I wouldn't really say so, updates break and change things for them all the same as they do for you and me, and just like us, they're unhappy about it. You simply won't usually hear their voices loudly on platforms like HN and the like.
  - kramerger 3y ago
    On the contrary, I let older relatives use Linux so I don't need to support macos and windows constantly breaking. In 5 years I've had 2 family support calls: one to setup a new WiFi on a Chromebook and one for turning the Chromebook on and off.
    - fouric 3y ago
      I've tried to get multiple non-family members set up with Linux and have failed, with constant bugs from Linux, and confusion from the family members. Windows is far more reliable and easier for them to use. This clearly invalidates your point, and supports "Linux would be either painful or more realistically a no go", because it's obviously not enough for some relatives to be able to easily use Linux - most of them need to be able to. The fact that you have more capable-than-normal relatives or more Linux-friendly-than-normal hardware is irrelevant to the fact that most people do not.
      - albert180 3y ago
- throw10920 3y ago
  Every single one of the 6 desktop-class devices that I've used over the past decade have had multiple issues running Linux, some of which I was never able to resolve. This soundly refutes your point, because it's not enough for Linux to run well on one computer - it has to run well on most of them.
  - albert180 3y ago
    I run it on a ThinkPad T470, I guess the Overlap between People Run Linux on a Laptop and it's a ThinkPad is pretty big
Isognoviastoma 3y ago
With proprietary software, how many times a producer did fix breakage or add missing feature for you because you bought a licence (subscription)? How fast was it?
- LoganDark 3y ago
  Nobody's done anything for me specifically, but if it's something multiple people need in their workflows, I've seen plenty of examples of things being added due to community demand. It's not fast, but nobody gave me a "do it yourself and open a pull request" attitude, which is one of my greatest gripes with open-source software.
appplication 3y ago
Was there something specifically negative about Catalina you were avoiding or did you just get tired of OS updates at that point.

albert180 3y ago

I've needed 0 Seconds of hacking since using Fedora for 2 years. Linux has evolved in the last 14 Years

LoganDark 3y ago
Oh yeah? I tried Silverblue a couple years ago, and the Nvidia driver stopped working after a motherboard swap. I tried Kinoite but KDE Plasma's subpixel antialiasing looks terrible on HiDPI displays. Maybe that's some of the "convenience and polish" that you just have to sacrifice in order to use FOSS, but I could also just use software that's properly polished and not care whether it is FOSS or not. And no, I'm not rebuilding my computer for linux, you would not be the first person to point out that I should replace my Nvidia GPU with an AMD one. I will note though that GNOME is one of the nicest DEs I've ever used, at least back when graphics acceleration worked. Trackpads finally seem to be a first-class citizen, something Apple has already been doing for almost two decades (and, in fact, it's an Apple trackpad that works quite well with it).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Isognoviastoma 3y ago
  Was nvidia driver foss or proprietary?
  - LoganDark 3y ago
    I think Silverblue comes preconfigured with the proprietary one, but I don't know how to check and also don't think it's possible to change it, since it's an immutable system. It worked fine until that happened and basically made it unusable since I don't have an iGPU. Maybe I'll try some other Fedora, or just go back to X11 on Arch, which worked well enough.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Etheryte 3y ago
I can easily trust my older relatives to do fine on macOS, Linux would be either painful or more realistically a no go.
- paxys 3y ago
  Older relatives aren't the ones complaining about auto updates and having full control of their hardware/software. iOS, macOS, Windows and the rest are in fact built with them in mind. This conversation is naturally about more technically inclined users.
  - Etheryte 3y ago
    I wouldn't really say so, updates break and change things for them all the same as they do for you and me, and just like us, they're unhappy about it. You simply won't usually hear their voices loudly on platforms like HN and the like.
- kramerger 3y ago
  On the contrary, I let older relatives use Linux so I don't need to support macos and windows constantly breaking. In 5 years I've had 2 family support calls: one to setup a new WiFi on a Chromebook and one for turning the Chromebook on and off.
  - fouric 3y ago
    I've tried to get multiple non-family members set up with Linux and have failed, with constant bugs from Linux, and confusion from the family members. Windows is far more reliable and easier for them to use. This clearly invalidates your point, and supports "Linux would be either painful or more realistically a no go", because it's obviously not enough for some relatives to be able to easily use Linux - most of them need to be able to. The fact that you have more capable-than-normal relatives or more Linux-friendly-than-normal hardware is irrelevant to the fact that most people do not.
    - albert180 3y ago
throw10920 3y ago
Every single one of the 6 desktop-class devices that I've used over the past decade have had multiple issues running Linux, some of which I was never able to resolve. This soundly refutes your point, because it's not enough for Linux to run well on one computer - it has to run well on most of them.
- albert180 3y ago
  I run it on a ThinkPad T470, I guess the Overlap between People Run Linux on a Laptop and it's a ThinkPad is pretty big

Isognoviastoma 3y ago

With proprietary software, how many times a producer did fix breakage or add missing feature for you because you bought a licence (subscription)? How fast was it?

LoganDark 3y ago
Nobody's done anything for me specifically, but if it's something multiple people need in their workflows, I've seen plenty of examples of things being added due to community demand. It's not fast, but nobody gave me a "do it yourself and open a pull request" attitude, which is one of my greatest gripes with open-source software.

appplication 3y ago

Was there something specifically negative about Catalina you were avoiding or did you just get tired of OS updates at that point.