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Mac OS (and most Apple software in general of late) is not open source, not all that stable, and contains ads for Apple’s products and services that can’t be di

Mac OS (and most Apple software in general of late) is not open source, not all that stable, and contains ads for Apple’s products and services that can’t be disabled. Those are three reasons why I prefer Linux, all things considered. Though I do own both a Mac and a Linux machine. I disagree that Mac OS is somehow “more standard” (whatever that means). In addition, if you are a web developer, chances are you’re either deploying your software to Linux or to a container platform that’s native to Linux. Having your dev and prod environments match can be helpful.

dangus 2y ago
Ugh, here we go. Not all that stable: honestly an outright lie. Windows is stable. Linux is stable. Mac is stable. They’re all fine. Ads for Apple products: they absolutely can be disabled and never come up after the first time they’re dismissed. By the way, not all Linux is non-commercial and the most popular distributions like Ubuntu and Red Hat are commercial distributions. https://linuxiac.com/ubuntu-once-again-angered-users-by-placing-ads/ https://linuxiac.com/ubuntu-once-again-angered-users-by-plac... I think the parent comment to yours was saying “more standard” in the sense that more software (especially commercial software) knows what to do with a Mac and works well with it. There are a whole bunch of commercial applications that have a Mac and Windows version but no Linux version. macOS is also only one distribution while there are hundreds of flavors of Linux. If you’re on a Mac then someone targeting your platform knows what components you have. People who make accessories consider your existence and test their products with your platform. Finally, most people aren’t web developers. But even if they were, I would argue that making your workstation exactly match the production server environment isn’t going to work that well even if you’re on a Linux desktop and is probably the wrong approach anyway. If I’m using an Arch Linux workstation and my application is running on Amazon EKS backed by Amazon Linux, there’s no possible way to make my container environment perfectly match the production technology.
- angoragoats 2y ago
  Re: stability, we’re probably only going to be sharing personal anecdotes so I won’t argue that point with you, except to say that Mac OS is absolutely less stable for me than Linux. And to directly refute your second point, here are two examples of Apple ads that you can’t disable: 1) if you’re close to the free limit of your iCloud storage, there’s a prominent block trying to upsell you to a paid plan in the iCloud settings. 2) if you press the “play” button on any connected pair of non-Apple headphones when nothing is currently playing, the Apple Music app opens, which, on launch, will attempt to sell you on a subscription if you don’t already have one. There’s no way to disable this ad, or even to tell the OS to open a different app or none at all, short of an open source hack that nukes Music.app entirely until your next reboot. I never said anything against an OS being commercial.
  - dangus 2y ago
    That's why I said that all three OSes are effectively equally stable. Every user of each one is going to have some kind of anecdote about their instance of instability. We all define it in different ways. And to be clear, I am only talking laptop/desktop workstations. I'm aware that server Linux is just about the most stable thing around, but you can't tell me with a straight face that someone on a workstation with an Nvidia graphics card is having a more stable exprience on Linux than a user on Windows with the same hardware. As another example, dist-upgrade has failed many, many Ubuntu users in the past, including myself. iCloud storage warning: This is a message related to an entirely optional service. You only get this message if you are using iCloud storage and filling it up. The alternative is a bunch of confused users wondering why they can't save files anymore. Yes, it's an upsell, but it's exactly what a user in that situation needs to hear. It is a message that all of its competitors like Dropbox, OneDrive, Google, etc will give you because it's a rather important message. There is no iCloud service on Mac that can't be 100% replaced by an alternative. iCloud is not required to use Mac, and an Apple ID is not required to use Mac. You are also not correct about the Apple Music service. In the Music app, go to Music > Settings... > Show: and uncheck "Apple Music" and "iTunes Store" if you don't want to see Apple's paid services within the Music app. In that case, pressing play on your bluetooth headphones will open up Apple Music in its role as the traditional MP3/AAC Jukebox app, no ads for anything. I agree that there should be a way to customize what happens when you press the play button on your third party headphones, but let's also be real: you're pressing the play button without playing anything. Opening the included music application is a reasonably sensible default.
    - angoragoats 2y ago
      I’ll just disagree with you and say hope you have a nice rest of your day!
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
leros 2y ago
I don't care about open source. I just want to be able to run a set of applications that I use to get things done and be productive. All Macs are basically the same so if there is a popular app X that people are using, I know I can simply run X too. On Linux, there are many distros and versions out there that support for apps is not as straightforward. Put another way, I've never had to fiddle around the get an app to work on Mac. I've spent plenty of time fiddling around to get apps working on Linux.
- angoragoats 2y ago
  > I don't care about open source That’s fine, of course! I do, so I was offering that example as a disadvantage (for me) of owning a Mac. > All Macs are basically the same so if there is a popular app X that people are using, I know I can simply run X too. This is 100% not true, as there are often features shipped on the Mac that are not available on certain machines. For example, when Sidecar was first released (the feature that lets you extend your Mac’s display to an iPad), I saw a friend using it, but I could not. I can’t remember now, but either the Mac or the iPad was too old and it wasn’t supported. So all machines are not the same. It’s true that there is sometimes fiddling on Linux, but I prefer my environments 100% free of ads and customized how I like them. Thanks to the distro I use, I typically only need to tweak/experiment to get something right once, and then I never have to worry about that thing again.

dangus 2y ago

Ugh, here we go. Not all that stable: honestly an outright lie. Windows is stable. Linux is stable. Mac is stable. They’re all fine. Ads for Apple products: they absolutely can be disabled and never come up after the first time they’re dismissed. By the way, not all Linux is non-commercial and the most popular distributions like Ubuntu and Red Hat are commercial distributions. https://linuxiac.com/ubuntu-once-again-angered-users-by-placing-ads/ https://linuxiac.com/ubuntu-once-again-angered-users-by-plac... I think the parent comment to yours was saying “more standard” in the sense that more software (especially commercial software) knows what to do with a Mac and works well with it. There are a whole bunch of commercial applications that have a Mac and Windows version but no Linux version. macOS is also only one distribution while there are hundreds of flavors of Linux. If you’re on a Mac then someone targeting your platform knows what components you have. People who make accessories consider your existence and test their products with your platform. Finally, most people aren’t web developers. But even if they were, I would argue that making your workstation exactly match the production server environment isn’t going to work that well even if you’re on a Linux desktop and is probably the wrong approach anyway. If I’m using an Arch Linux workstation and my application is running on Amazon EKS backed by Amazon Linux, there’s no possible way to make my container environment perfectly match the production technology.

angoragoats 2y ago
Re: stability, we’re probably only going to be sharing personal anecdotes so I won’t argue that point with you, except to say that Mac OS is absolutely less stable for me than Linux. And to directly refute your second point, here are two examples of Apple ads that you can’t disable: 1) if you’re close to the free limit of your iCloud storage, there’s a prominent block trying to upsell you to a paid plan in the iCloud settings. 2) if you press the “play” button on any connected pair of non-Apple headphones when nothing is currently playing, the Apple Music app opens, which, on launch, will attempt to sell you on a subscription if you don’t already have one. There’s no way to disable this ad, or even to tell the OS to open a different app or none at all, short of an open source hack that nukes Music.app entirely until your next reboot. I never said anything against an OS being commercial.
- dangus 2y ago
  That's why I said that all three OSes are effectively equally stable. Every user of each one is going to have some kind of anecdote about their instance of instability. We all define it in different ways. And to be clear, I am only talking laptop/desktop workstations. I'm aware that server Linux is just about the most stable thing around, but you can't tell me with a straight face that someone on a workstation with an Nvidia graphics card is having a more stable exprience on Linux than a user on Windows with the same hardware. As another example, dist-upgrade has failed many, many Ubuntu users in the past, including myself. iCloud storage warning: This is a message related to an entirely optional service. You only get this message if you are using iCloud storage and filling it up. The alternative is a bunch of confused users wondering why they can't save files anymore. Yes, it's an upsell, but it's exactly what a user in that situation needs to hear. It is a message that all of its competitors like Dropbox, OneDrive, Google, etc will give you because it's a rather important message. There is no iCloud service on Mac that can't be 100% replaced by an alternative. iCloud is not required to use Mac, and an Apple ID is not required to use Mac. You are also not correct about the Apple Music service. In the Music app, go to Music > Settings... > Show: and uncheck "Apple Music" and "iTunes Store" if you don't want to see Apple's paid services within the Music app. In that case, pressing play on your bluetooth headphones will open up Apple Music in its role as the traditional MP3/AAC Jukebox app, no ads for anything. I agree that there should be a way to customize what happens when you press the play button on your third party headphones, but let's also be real: you're pressing the play button without playing anything. Opening the included music application is a reasonably sensible default.
  - angoragoats 2y ago
    I’ll just disagree with you and say hope you have a nice rest of your day!
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

leros 2y ago

I don't care about open source. I just want to be able to run a set of applications that I use to get things done and be productive. All Macs are basically the same so if there is a popular app X that people are using, I know I can simply run X too. On Linux, there are many distros and versions out there that support for apps is not as straightforward. Put another way, I've never had to fiddle around the get an app to work on Mac. I've spent plenty of time fiddling around to get apps working on Linux.

angoragoats 2y ago
> I don't care about open source That’s fine, of course! I do, so I was offering that example as a disadvantage (for me) of owning a Mac. > All Macs are basically the same so if there is a popular app X that people are using, I know I can simply run X too. This is 100% not true, as there are often features shipped on the Mac that are not available on certain machines. For example, when Sidecar was first released (the feature that lets you extend your Mac’s display to an iPad), I saw a friend using it, but I could not. I can’t remember now, but either the Mac or the iPad was too old and it wasn’t supported. So all machines are not the same. It’s true that there is sometimes fiddling on Linux, but I prefer my environments 100% free of ads and customized how I like them. Thanks to the distro I use, I typically only need to tweak/experiment to get something right once, and then I never have to worry about that thing again.