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If you've been on a MacBook since 2011 or 2012, it's definitely time to give modern Linux a try. It has come in enormously long way since then. I am not exagger

If you've been on a MacBook since 2011 or 2012, it's definitely time to give modern Linux a try. It has come in enormously long way since then. I am not exaggerating when I say, I have a better out of the box experience with Fedora. Then I do with Mac OS. Mac OS certainly has a lot of features, and visually has a great deal of Polish, but it also increasingly has a lot of bugs.

vundercind 2y ago
I try every couple years. I tried KDE on Fedora last time (I hate gnome since 3) and could still crash various KDE apps with drag-n-drop operations—I’d trained myself never to use those outside narrow situations on Windows and Linux years ago because they usually broke things or did something stupid, but am now accustomed to them both working and doing something reasonable, so I spot those issues in a hurry when I use other environments now, and no longer accept that as just the way things are. Among other jank and poor stability, that’s just an example. IIRC making caps another control anywhere I was logged in—not just in KDE—was weirdly hard, too. Five or six years ago my Ubuntu tv-attached old desktop forgot how to decrypt the root disk its own installer had encrypted, after an OS upgrade. My Debian server required manual intervention (busting out my rusty Gentoo chroot grub-installing skills) to install its bootloader. The manual version went the same aa usual and had no problems so no clue WTF the installer was trying to do, but it consistently failed, and this was boring, old business-class Lenovo workstation hardware. That was four or five years ago. Basically when I try to go back I’m missing lots of features and it’s less stable than what I’m now accustomed to, so end up wasting a bunch of time and regretting it.
- TheSkyHasEyes 2y ago
  Give XFCE a chance. > That was four or five years ago. Linux moves way faster than commercial OS IMO. Reconsider linux. Commercial OS isn't going to 'get better' for IT literate users. :/
  - vundercind 2y ago
    XFCE was my favorite back in my Gentoo days, after I started using laptop hardware fast enough that it wasn’t noticeably slower than my prior favorite, WindowMaker :-) When I used early Ubuntus on desktop machines (back when Ubuntu wasn’t terrible—before the PulseAudio fiasco and the following series of bad decisions and failed maneuvers against Red Hat) I usually just stuck with the default of Gnome2. That era’s by far the closest I’ve seen Linux get to Just Working. [edit] FWIW I do find Void with a very-light window manager pleasant to use, but I don’t want to have to self-serve every little feature these days, so it’s pleasant but impractical for my actual life. Nothing short of a full DE, so just KDE or Gnome, with a batteries-included distro, stands a chance of matching what I’m used to just being there and happening for me without my having to ask for it. Unfortunately, I strongly dislike both of those DEs for different reasons. :-/
- aunty_helen 2y ago
  Hard in this camp too. The OS tinkering that is as requirement of Linux racks up a massive time investment. When you use your computer for work, that bill gets big quick and sometimes it's an inconvenience you just can't afford. MacOS, for all it's faults, can be tamed with little snitch and a slower update cycle, and then you have a relatively solid system. There's still some things to hate, like when I take my airpods out if I accidentally click one of the buttons Apple Music opens (no one wants to use Apple Music, ever). But, that little frustraition pales in comparison to the build your own experience a poweruser in Linux faces on a weekly basis. This randomly came front of mind last night when I thought, I can't remember the last time something broke on my laptop. It's been literal months since I've had anything weird or unwanted that I've _had_ to deal with. Contrast that to the last time I tried to daily Linux, about 2 years ago when I bought a framework and couldn't even log in due to trackpad issues, sleep / hibernate issues, screen resizing issues, issues issues issues.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    I have plenty of complaints about Apple’s stuff, but my consistent experience when I try to use something else, for the last decade+, is that I’m jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Even goes for things like Shield vs Apple TV. I very much wish they had one or more peers putting them under pressure to do better, but the (tiny—which is likely part of the problem) set of competitors seem to have other priorities than chasing the particular market that Apple does.
  - ActorNightly 2y ago
    I don't get why people still spread the lie that you have to tinker with Linux. Like right now, I can give you a laptop with a clean Linux Mint install, and you never have to touch the terminal for anything system config to do work. Seriously, its not that hard to say that you prefer MacOS because you like the feel of it. It does a lot of handholding for you, unlike Linux, which makes it way less likely for you to mess something up. You don't have to go the extra lengths to justify it lol.
    - mh- 2y ago
- nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
  This ^ I always have at least one Linux machine around that I use primarily, but it's never been reliable. Either Debian or Ubuntu, I always, without fail, have issue with sleep/wake/hibernate and will never bet it'll wake properly when they sleep. My current Ubuntu desktop with AMD cpu doesn't sleep and has to be manually hibernated. My HP Dev One laptop with PopOS will fail to wake roughly 1/10 times, requiring a hard reset. Other times it'll fail to sleep and overheat in my backpack. Occasionally, it'll stop recognizing USB peripherals, or the trackpad/keyboard will stop responding to inputs. I prefer Linux on nearly every front, but having a totally unreliable computing environment makes it a deal-breaker for me. > "Have you tried $THING" No I really have grown tired of waking a machine to a blank screen and having to ssh into it to kill gnome or any of the other crap. My Macs very occasionally freeze on wake too--but that's exceedingly rare compared to the myriad issues with Linux usability.
RunSet 2y ago
I have an M2 Macbook Pro mostly gathering dust and waiting until Debian supports it rather than dip so much as a toe into Apple's crass software ecosystem. For now it is a file server, albeit I had to purchase an dongle just to make it run with the lid closed because Apple deemed that an unlikely use case.
KronisLV 2y ago
> and visually has a great deal of Polish It's great that they translated the UI in that language! Jokes aside, I use a mix of Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux Mint (have had a few DEB and RPM distros on the desktop too) and macOS. I have to say, that all of them are serviceable. Windows is sometimes quite annoying to deal with, but has a lot of software for it (the likes of PowerToys, MobaXTerm, WinSCP, System Informer, Handbrake, 7-Zip, HWiNFO64, MiniTool Partition Wizard, MPC-HC, Rufus, ShareX, XSplit VCam, VSeeFace and others). You can do most of the same things in alternative software in other OSes, but there's a huge variety to be found, same as with running most of the games out there natively. The UI feels hit or miss and worse in Windows 11 than in 10 in some regards (no vertical taskbar, for example, need fixes for the context menu etc.), but the OS feels usable. Linux Mint and other Linux distros are pretty much ideal for software development, hands down. Most tools work, the resource usage is great, there's a huge knowledgebase on how to do things out there, it's quite customizable and can be used on servers, desktop computers or even an old low spec laptop alike. I personally settled on Cinnamon, but XFCE was very usable and someone might prefer GNOME or KDE (there were even attempts at reviving the old Unity desktop from Ubuntu, that one might have gotten hate when it was the main option, but actually had its nice bits too). Gaming is hit or miss with Proton (many games will run but definitely not all, also forget about playing anything with invasive anti-cheat solutions), sometimes you also won't be able to get some productivity software running, if it's developed only with Windows in mind, Wine isn't a silver bullet but it's nice that it exists. My M1 MacBook as an overall computer feels like it has great build quality despite the overpriced hardware. I'm mentioning that, because it's very well integrated with the hardware and I haven't had any weirdness due to that yet, like the touchpad on a laptop stopping working after a fresh Fedora install, or needing to compile Wi-Fi drivers from a GitHub repo for it to work at all, or Windows looking at the RAM available in a laptop and deciding that it wants most of it for itself and to slow everything down to a crawl. In macOS, the desktop also feels polished, is reasonably customizable, though sometimes is a bit jarring compared to both Windows and Linux distros, as are the things surrounding it (everything from the keyboard layout, to how managing open programs works, also connecting to an external 1080p monitor is a miserable experience because it doesn't fit within their own hardware ecosystem either). Development is doable, unless you go for the 8 GB version because you need the OS for a project and can't afford anything more, gaming feels way more limited than on Linux distros, but nothing feels particularly broken either. Neither is ideal, neither is horrible. They're all somewhere in the middle, doing more or less well when it comes to particular aspects.
herpdyderp 2y ago
Hard disagree. Every Linux-running personal computer that I use or have used is a terrible experience. Something is always broken, the whole system needs to be hard rebooted at least a few times a week, parts of the OS will randomly stop working each day, the list goes on and on. macOS is not perfect by any means, but at least I can actually get work done on it.
- Volundr 2y ago
  As a counter anecdote, I run Arch on everything except the MacBook I was issued for work. They've all been running perfectly for years, I can't remember the last time I had an issue that wasn't ZFS failing to compile for a new kernel, and I opted into that problem. Meanwhile my work Mac every so often decides my external monitor just doesn't exist anymore and I have to reboot with it unplugged, then again with it plugged in to get it back.
- exe34 2y ago
  > Something is always broken, the whole system needs to be hard rebooted at least a few times a week I remember this sort of thing about 15 years ago, but in the last 8 years of nixos, I've maybe hard rebooted twice. I've also only ever rebooted after an upgrade. otherwise I go months with just sleep/wake. I wonder if you have some interesting hardware...
- stiltzkin 2y ago
  [dead]
- zdragnar 2y ago
  Funny, I have the exact opposite experience. My Linux laptops just work. My last three Mac laptops were a pain to use.
- ActorNightly 2y ago
  In early 2010s this was sometimes the case. In modern days, you can daily drive linux without issues. If you were having issues, it was most likely you were doing something wrong, or you were using a company configured laptop that the IT department didn't set up right.
backtoyoujim 2y ago
can it send txt messages to a phone ?
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  Probably; look at https://kdeconnect.kde.org/ https://kdeconnect.kde.org/ (note that in spite of the branding, you can run it on a non-KDE desktop if desired)
tsimionescu 2y ago
I very much doubt that. I tried installing Fedora on my new laptop, and the defaults are horrible. It doesn't even support two-finger gestures on the login screen, so you have to right click in a different way before logging in. At least it's not as bad as Ubuntu, which allowed me with a simple warning to install Nvidia drivers without a full system update, which broke the system so badly it couldn't even boot anymore, o an otherwise newly installed setup. And Debian is horrible too, it doesn't even have a task bar of any kind (you are forced to Alt tab to switch apps, or even see which other apps are running), unless you go hunting for some extensions someone made. All of these can be made to work decently, but calling it a good out of the box experience is laughable.
- itsoktocry 2y ago
  >It doesn't even support two-finger gestures on the login screen, so you have to right click in a different way before logging in. A default setting you don't like and have to adjust? How horrible. >At least it's not as bad as Ubuntu, which allowed me with a simple warning to install Nvidia drivers without a full system update So...user error? >And Debian is horrible too, it doesn't even have a task bar of any kind (you are forced to Alt tab to switch apps, or even see which other apps are running) Now I get it, this is satire for someone complaining about the Linux experience. Good one!
  - tsimionescu 2y ago
    > A default setting you don't like and have to adjust? How horrible. No, even after adjusting the settings, they only apply after you log in. So every time you hit the login screen, you get the default settings again until you log in. > So...user error? Yes, of course. And it's well known that the penalty for user error is supposed to be complete failure to boot, especially for people new to a system. > Now I get it, this is satire for someone complaining about the Linux experience. Good one! Maybe throw in some constructive ideas rather than empty grandstanding? Is it supposed to be a good thing to not have a list of running apps? Is it normal to have to install extensions to your desktop environment to make it work for common worlflows? I am not complaining about defaults here, there is just no option in Gnome to get a basic bit of UI working like all other desktop environments have worked for 30 years, including Mac, Windows, KDE, XFCE, and past Gnomes. You have to discover and install 3rd party software to get basic UI. This would be like someone launching a new browser that doesn't support tabs out of the box, and people saying "oh, don't complain, there's an extension someone else made that adds tab support". And note that I'm specifically criticizing the out of the box experience, not the state you can get your system to: I was specifically responding to a claim that the out of the box experience is "great".

vundercind 2y ago

I try every couple years. I tried KDE on Fedora last time (I hate gnome since 3) and could still crash various KDE apps with drag-n-drop operations—I’d trained myself never to use those outside narrow situations on Windows and Linux years ago because they usually broke things or did something stupid, but am now accustomed to them both working and doing something reasonable, so I spot those issues in a hurry when I use other environments now, and no longer accept that as just the way things are. Among other jank and poor stability, that’s just an example. IIRC making caps another control anywhere I was logged in—not just in KDE—was weirdly hard, too. Five or six years ago my Ubuntu tv-attached old desktop forgot how to decrypt the root disk its own installer had encrypted, after an OS upgrade. My Debian server required manual intervention (busting out my rusty Gentoo chroot grub-installing skills) to install its bootloader. The manual version went the same aa usual and had no problems so no clue WTF the installer was trying to do, but it consistently failed, and this was boring, old business-class Lenovo workstation hardware. That was four or five years ago. Basically when I try to go back I’m missing lots of features and it’s less stable than what I’m now accustomed to, so end up wasting a bunch of time and regretting it.

TheSkyHasEyes 2y ago
Give XFCE a chance. > That was four or five years ago. Linux moves way faster than commercial OS IMO. Reconsider linux. Commercial OS isn't going to 'get better' for IT literate users. :/
- vundercind 2y ago
  XFCE was my favorite back in my Gentoo days, after I started using laptop hardware fast enough that it wasn’t noticeably slower than my prior favorite, WindowMaker :-) When I used early Ubuntus on desktop machines (back when Ubuntu wasn’t terrible—before the PulseAudio fiasco and the following series of bad decisions and failed maneuvers against Red Hat) I usually just stuck with the default of Gnome2. That era’s by far the closest I’ve seen Linux get to Just Working. [edit] FWIW I do find Void with a very-light window manager pleasant to use, but I don’t want to have to self-serve every little feature these days, so it’s pleasant but impractical for my actual life. Nothing short of a full DE, so just KDE or Gnome, with a batteries-included distro, stands a chance of matching what I’m used to just being there and happening for me without my having to ask for it. Unfortunately, I strongly dislike both of those DEs for different reasons. :-/
aunty_helen 2y ago
Hard in this camp too. The OS tinkering that is as requirement of Linux racks up a massive time investment. When you use your computer for work, that bill gets big quick and sometimes it's an inconvenience you just can't afford. MacOS, for all it's faults, can be tamed with little snitch and a slower update cycle, and then you have a relatively solid system. There's still some things to hate, like when I take my airpods out if I accidentally click one of the buttons Apple Music opens (no one wants to use Apple Music, ever). But, that little frustraition pales in comparison to the build your own experience a poweruser in Linux faces on a weekly basis. This randomly came front of mind last night when I thought, I can't remember the last time something broke on my laptop. It's been literal months since I've had anything weird or unwanted that I've _had_ to deal with. Contrast that to the last time I tried to daily Linux, about 2 years ago when I bought a framework and couldn't even log in due to trackpad issues, sleep / hibernate issues, screen resizing issues, issues issues issues.
- vundercind 2y ago
  I have plenty of complaints about Apple’s stuff, but my consistent experience when I try to use something else, for the last decade+, is that I’m jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Even goes for things like Shield vs Apple TV. I very much wish they had one or more peers putting them under pressure to do better, but the (tiny—which is likely part of the problem) set of competitors seem to have other priorities than chasing the particular market that Apple does.
- ActorNightly 2y ago
  I don't get why people still spread the lie that you have to tinker with Linux. Like right now, I can give you a laptop with a clean Linux Mint install, and you never have to touch the terminal for anything system config to do work. Seriously, its not that hard to say that you prefer MacOS because you like the feel of it. It does a lot of handholding for you, unlike Linux, which makes it way less likely for you to mess something up. You don't have to go the extra lengths to justify it lol.
  - mh- 2y ago
nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
This ^ I always have at least one Linux machine around that I use primarily, but it's never been reliable. Either Debian or Ubuntu, I always, without fail, have issue with sleep/wake/hibernate and will never bet it'll wake properly when they sleep. My current Ubuntu desktop with AMD cpu doesn't sleep and has to be manually hibernated. My HP Dev One laptop with PopOS will fail to wake roughly 1/10 times, requiring a hard reset. Other times it'll fail to sleep and overheat in my backpack. Occasionally, it'll stop recognizing USB peripherals, or the trackpad/keyboard will stop responding to inputs. I prefer Linux on nearly every front, but having a totally unreliable computing environment makes it a deal-breaker for me. > "Have you tried $THING" No I really have grown tired of waking a machine to a blank screen and having to ssh into it to kill gnome or any of the other crap. My Macs very occasionally freeze on wake too--but that's exceedingly rare compared to the myriad issues with Linux usability.

RunSet 2y ago

I have an M2 Macbook Pro mostly gathering dust and waiting until Debian supports it rather than dip so much as a toe into Apple's crass software ecosystem. For now it is a file server, albeit I had to purchase an dongle just to make it run with the lid closed because Apple deemed that an unlikely use case.

KronisLV 2y ago

> and visually has a great deal of Polish It's great that they translated the UI in that language! Jokes aside, I use a mix of Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux Mint (have had a few DEB and RPM distros on the desktop too) and macOS. I have to say, that all of them are serviceable. Windows is sometimes quite annoying to deal with, but has a lot of software for it (the likes of PowerToys, MobaXTerm, WinSCP, System Informer, Handbrake, 7-Zip, HWiNFO64, MiniTool Partition Wizard, MPC-HC, Rufus, ShareX, XSplit VCam, VSeeFace and others). You can do most of the same things in alternative software in other OSes, but there's a huge variety to be found, same as with running most of the games out there natively. The UI feels hit or miss and worse in Windows 11 than in 10 in some regards (no vertical taskbar, for example, need fixes for the context menu etc.), but the OS feels usable. Linux Mint and other Linux distros are pretty much ideal for software development, hands down. Most tools work, the resource usage is great, there's a huge knowledgebase on how to do things out there, it's quite customizable and can be used on servers, desktop computers or even an old low spec laptop alike. I personally settled on Cinnamon, but XFCE was very usable and someone might prefer GNOME or KDE (there were even attempts at reviving the old Unity desktop from Ubuntu, that one might have gotten hate when it was the main option, but actually had its nice bits too). Gaming is hit or miss with Proton (many games will run but definitely not all, also forget about playing anything with invasive anti-cheat solutions), sometimes you also won't be able to get some productivity software running, if it's developed only with Windows in mind, Wine isn't a silver bullet but it's nice that it exists. My M1 MacBook as an overall computer feels like it has great build quality despite the overpriced hardware. I'm mentioning that, because it's very well integrated with the hardware and I haven't had any weirdness due to that yet, like the touchpad on a laptop stopping working after a fresh Fedora install, or needing to compile Wi-Fi drivers from a GitHub repo for it to work at all, or Windows looking at the RAM available in a laptop and deciding that it wants most of it for itself and to slow everything down to a crawl. In macOS, the desktop also feels polished, is reasonably customizable, though sometimes is a bit jarring compared to both Windows and Linux distros, as are the things surrounding it (everything from the keyboard layout, to how managing open programs works, also connecting to an external 1080p monitor is a miserable experience because it doesn't fit within their own hardware ecosystem either). Development is doable, unless you go for the 8 GB version because you need the OS for a project and can't afford anything more, gaming feels way more limited than on Linux distros, but nothing feels particularly broken either. Neither is ideal, neither is horrible. They're all somewhere in the middle, doing more or less well when it comes to particular aspects.

herpdyderp 2y ago

Hard disagree. Every Linux-running personal computer that I use or have used is a terrible experience. Something is always broken, the whole system needs to be hard rebooted at least a few times a week, parts of the OS will randomly stop working each day, the list goes on and on. macOS is not perfect by any means, but at least I can actually get work done on it.

Volundr 2y ago
As a counter anecdote, I run Arch on everything except the MacBook I was issued for work. They've all been running perfectly for years, I can't remember the last time I had an issue that wasn't ZFS failing to compile for a new kernel, and I opted into that problem. Meanwhile my work Mac every so often decides my external monitor just doesn't exist anymore and I have to reboot with it unplugged, then again with it plugged in to get it back.
exe34 2y ago
> Something is always broken, the whole system needs to be hard rebooted at least a few times a week I remember this sort of thing about 15 years ago, but in the last 8 years of nixos, I've maybe hard rebooted twice. I've also only ever rebooted after an upgrade. otherwise I go months with just sleep/wake. I wonder if you have some interesting hardware...
stiltzkin 2y ago
[dead]
zdragnar 2y ago
Funny, I have the exact opposite experience. My Linux laptops just work. My last three Mac laptops were a pain to use.
ActorNightly 2y ago
In early 2010s this was sometimes the case. In modern days, you can daily drive linux without issues. If you were having issues, it was most likely you were doing something wrong, or you were using a company configured laptop that the IT department didn't set up right.

backtoyoujim 2y ago

can it send txt messages to a phone ?

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
Probably; look at https://kdeconnect.kde.org/ https://kdeconnect.kde.org/ (note that in spite of the branding, you can run it on a non-KDE desktop if desired)

tsimionescu 2y ago

I very much doubt that. I tried installing Fedora on my new laptop, and the defaults are horrible. It doesn't even support two-finger gestures on the login screen, so you have to right click in a different way before logging in. At least it's not as bad as Ubuntu, which allowed me with a simple warning to install Nvidia drivers without a full system update, which broke the system so badly it couldn't even boot anymore, o an otherwise newly installed setup. And Debian is horrible too, it doesn't even have a task bar of any kind (you are forced to Alt tab to switch apps, or even see which other apps are running), unless you go hunting for some extensions someone made. All of these can be made to work decently, but calling it a good out of the box experience is laughable.

itsoktocry 2y ago
>It doesn't even support two-finger gestures on the login screen, so you have to right click in a different way before logging in. A default setting you don't like and have to adjust? How horrible. >At least it's not as bad as Ubuntu, which allowed me with a simple warning to install Nvidia drivers without a full system update So...user error? >And Debian is horrible too, it doesn't even have a task bar of any kind (you are forced to Alt tab to switch apps, or even see which other apps are running) Now I get it, this is satire for someone complaining about the Linux experience. Good one!
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  > A default setting you don't like and have to adjust? How horrible. No, even after adjusting the settings, they only apply after you log in. So every time you hit the login screen, you get the default settings again until you log in. > So...user error? Yes, of course. And it's well known that the penalty for user error is supposed to be complete failure to boot, especially for people new to a system. > Now I get it, this is satire for someone complaining about the Linux experience. Good one! Maybe throw in some constructive ideas rather than empty grandstanding? Is it supposed to be a good thing to not have a list of running apps? Is it normal to have to install extensions to your desktop environment to make it work for common worlflows? I am not complaining about defaults here, there is just no option in Gnome to get a basic bit of UI working like all other desktop environments have worked for 30 years, including Mac, Windows, KDE, XFCE, and past Gnomes. You have to discover and install 3rd party software to get basic UI. This would be like someone launching a new browser that doesn't support tabs out of the box, and people saying "oh, don't complain, there's an extension someone else made that adds tab support". And note that I'm specifically criticizing the out of the box experience, not the state you can get your system to: I was specifically responding to a claim that the out of the box experience is "great".