4 ms·

When was the last time you felt excitement for a macOS release? Me? Snow Leopard. When I transitioned to Linux I rediscovered OS excitement. I'm on KDE Plasma

by mikae1 10d ago

When was the last time you felt excitement for a macOS release? Me? Snow Leopard. When I transitioned to Linux I rediscovered OS excitement. I'm on KDE Plasma now and every update has exciting features that serves my interests.

Hamuko 10d ago
Mavericks maybe?
arpinum 10d ago
When Siracusa wrote the last review.
cromka 10d ago
If only KDE actually paid attention to UX and maybe cared about the looks and consistency a bit more. I'm sorry for being blunt but their visual design people's have no taste...
- mikae1 10d ago
  There's little margins and whitespace and this bothered me like hell before making the switch. It's funny, now I kind of like it. A lot is happening too. The latest Plasma had a very high degree of polish IMO. It's far more consistent than Windows 11, but you have to pick Qt/KDE software, not GTK/GNOME for that to be true. I always choose the more KDE native option.
- armadyl 10d ago
  Seriously KDE is so extremely ugly and dated looking compared to macOS, GNOME and even modern Windows. I don’t care about the 30 million configurable options if it looks like a total eyesore. You’d think they’d put some effort into a consistent style / UI framework. People hate on GNOME for its rigidity but it’s the one desktop actually trying somewhat to provide Linux with an environment that the average person (not an HN user) won’t immediately turn their nose up in disgust at.
  - cromka 9d ago
    Absolutely agree. Moving from MacOS, sticking with Gnome was no brainier, even though I do use KDE software as well.
- unethical_ban 10d ago
  Since February I've been running CachyOS or Fedora (multiple machines) 100% at home. I only have a Windows partition on the desktop for a single game. Gaming "just works" on Linux with one AAA exception that needs a tweak to its Steam Proton settings. The UI to me is as polished and functional as MacOS and Windows - besides a few minor things like taskbar shadows or rounded edges, a non-techie wouldn't notice the difference IMO unless they already knew it. I've been running Linux on and off for 20 years, and KDE 6 is the most happy I've been with a user interface, with Unity being second. Everything you can possibly tweak seems to be discoverable in the UI just like Windows or Mac.
  - cromka 9d ago
    KDE UI as polished as macOS? :O I am no Apple apologist but this is plain heresy.
    - unethical_ban 6d ago
      Not 100% as much on UI refinement, but it's as close as it's ever been, and I haven't run into many (any) weird GUI glitches or settings issues. Wifi was still a bit weird on new chipsets but I don't think that's KDE.
- thiht 9d ago
  Agree, KDE seems to have all the right features but every time I give it a try it all feels weird, inconsistent, and dated in ways that are kinda deal breaking if you care at all about esthetics. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that no professional designers contribute to KDE applications.
bix6 10d ago
Like a decade for me now. I don’t read or watch anything anymore. I just buy whatever the new version is when I need it and live with it. I yearn for something truly exciting, groundbreaking, and accessible (price) from Apple. iPod era was so dope.
simlevesque 10d ago
Yesterday I managed to update a 2015 MacBookAir7,2 from El Capitan (last update Sep. 2015) to Sonoma (last update Aug 6th 2026). I was excited when it finally worked. Thanks to the OpenCore Legacy Patcher who show that not supporting old devices is a choice made by Apple.
- rmnclmnt 10d ago
  OCLP is excellent but it's all coming to an end for Intel Macs unfortunately. Even Homebrew just dropped the ball a few days ago (this is the final draw for me, I'll keep a Sequoia partition but my MBP2015 daily drives on NixOS + GNOME)
  - simlevesque 10d ago
    Yes. If anyone reads this in the future: you need to clone the brew repo and use v7.0.2 and install it manually.
deleted 10d ago
[deleted]
int32_64 10d ago
Whatever the last one you had to install with a CD/DVD was.
- xattt 10d ago
  So Snow Leopard, as parent poster had said.
rconti 10d ago
I've been pleasantly surprised with Golden Gate. It's fresh-looking, works well, got rid of a lot of the ugly flat stuff they did over the last few releases (pre-Tahoe), supports more hidpi modes that make my work machine better... But honestly, I don't think the average person should feel excitement for an OS release; boring means it just works and they don't have to learn a bunch of new features and different ways of doing things.
Telaneo 10d ago
I'm stuck trying to figure out what new stuff they could add. Sidecar was neat, but I never need it. I'm very happy on Cinnamon on Linux, which is probably less featured than KDE (haven't daily driven it to confirm), which just confirms I don't actually need or want user-facing new features. I need stability. I think Apple realise this. There are no genuine new OS features to be added, so they just shuffle things around so that things are changing and thus seem fresh and hip. For anyone who cares about stability and doesn't want to relearn everything they shuffle around, this is nothing but a negative, but Apple et al. have no other levers to pull (well, there's the AI lever, but that's also generally not a positive in and of itself). Maybe there are new OS features that could be useful, but creating and integrating them in a way that's actually helpful is just such an ordeal that nobody will do it.
- ekun 10d ago
  A functioning window system would drastically enhance OSX productivity.
  - elAhmo 10d ago
    Someone who does need a window system can use many of the hundreds of tools available, or use something custom. Regular uses don't really care about window management systems.
  - cosmic_cheese 10d ago
    Window management (and indeed, desktop environments in general) are rather subjective I think. As someone who's been using Macs in some capacity since 1996 I'd be upset if macOS suddenly resembled a traditional Windows desktop or tiling WM thing, and the absence of Mac-like desktops on Linux (no, GNOME and elementary/Pantheon are not that) is one of the primary factors keeping me from switching.
    - thefunnyman 10d ago
      Window management got better in Mac os but only recently with the addition of window snapping. You could do it before, but you had to drag from the green stoplight button which was an annoying mouse target vs the entire top bar. Personally I do like the windows approach where there's a bar at the top with a few preselected zones you can use that shows up when dragging a window but the state of things on Mac os now is fine enough that things like that can reasonably be left up to extensions. What exactly do you miss about the Mac desktops when using gnome's? For me the only thing I've noticed is lack of independent desktops per monitor though Windows also suffers that deficiency.
encom 10d ago
>OS excitement Debian+KDE here. It's what I use to get away from OS excitement. I miss the 90's when nobody ever updated anything, and if they did it was on purpose and not something that happened behind your back. For example, the other day Google "updated" the clock/alarm/timer app on Android with pointless and annoying changes. A clock app does not need an update, ever. "But..." No! /usr/share/zoneinfo handles that. Stop it.
- roryirvine 10d ago
  Yeah, Debian makes things agreeably dull. Major version upgrades every couple of years will usually bring a new wallpaper and make a few tweaks to the default apps. Annual Firefox ESR updates will bring a handful of improvements to the browser. And, of course, security and critical bugfixes chug away in the background without making any fuss. Nothing breaks unexpectedly. Behaviour never changes without your knowledge and permission. Bliss.
detourdog 10d ago
Snow Leopard is right up there with System 7.5.3 for me. I’m happy with their current OS trends compared to the flat OS trend of the past decade. They definitely need detail work and I think they default to turning features on that I would prefer off. Many of the new features I don’t use come off as a spastic GUI.
cosmic_cheese 10d ago
Snow Leopard was solid, but when I went back and used it I was surprised by how I missed some little bits of polish that'd been added since. My ideal would probably be Mavericks 10.9.5 with the Leopard/Snow Leopard 2D grid virtual desktop model hacked back in. The linear version of Spaces that's been in place since 10.7 is needlessly simplistic.
elAhmo 10d ago
Well, it is easy to be excited on a system that is lagging on features.
- bayindirh 10d ago
  Using macOS and KDE for almost the same time (~20 years), I still find that I need yet another app on macOS for a standard KDE feature. Interesting observation, that is.
  - nozzlegear 10d ago
    Like what?
    - bayindirh 10d ago
      From top of my head: File renaming. What Forklift or other dedicated file renamer comes as a standard with both Dolphin and KRename. Latter can drive circles around what's available in macOS, in any form. AudioCD ripping: kio:// protocol has a native ripper. Just drag and drop. Settings are integrated to system settings directly. Which format do you want? Yes. Remote connections: While finder can connect to servers, but FTP read access and SFTP requires external apps. IOW, what Cyberduck provides is already available in Dolphin, again. KDE's standard window management capabilities need Magnet or something more advanced in macOS. Git/SVN/CVS needs external tools in macOS. Dolphin can detect these repositories and let you work on them on the spot. KRunner is arguably more Capable than spotlight in some cases. Needs another fair shake though. If you add your mail accounts and calendars to KDE via KMail or something else, they become available system-wide. macOS is good in that regard, but KDE is betterer. If you use KMail, your mail will sync at the background even though your mail client is not running. You need to buy another application to be able to edit id3 tags of audio files, but KDE has kid3. I even use its macOS version because it's that good. I'll not get into customization capabilities, because they are fundamentally different and worlds apart, but this is due to their philosophy. Keyboard shortcut management are equally powerful in both, AFAICS. macOS used to lag there. K3b is infinitely more capable than macOS optical media authoring tools. These are what I can remember with my tired brain, away from my KDE system for the day. The thing is, both side by side, I mostly prefer KDE because I can work way faster on that one, and it's not I'm hating macOS or anything, and as I said, using both for a very long time. The apps I have given as examples are KDE's default apps and maintained by KDE project themselves. They are part of the default installation.
ValentineC 10d ago
I dread new macOS releases, because it signifies one year less support for my current version (I'm on Sequoia now, having jumped from Ventura) being supported. Every new version wrecks my workflow a little. macOS 28 will partially remove Rosetta 2, which means that I'll need to find replacements for some of the ancient Intel apps that never got updated to Apple Silicon.
- deleted 10d ago
  [deleted]
- Toslink 10d ago
  MacOS 27 also uninstalls Rosetta 2 (if it was previously installed) upon upgrading. [0] "If Rosetta was previously installed, it is not automatically restored after upgrading to macOS 27.0. (163213094)" Most applications now have native Apple Silicon binaries, although a handful still don't. You can check by navigating to the Apple icon > "About This Mac" > "More Info" > "System Report" > Software > Applications. We had some printers with drivers who don't support Apple Silicon, thus they need Rosetta2, those filter files aren't displayed in the above menu, although you can run this script (papercut_rosetta_audit.sh) to audit your Drivers and their x86 dependence. [1]. [0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-27-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-note... [1] https://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/macos-rosetta-transition-end-of-life/#printer-driver-compatibility https://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/macos-rosetta-transition-en...
illwrks 10d ago
100% Snow Leopard, followed closely by Mavericks.
matsemann 10d ago
I've never had so much stuff break than with the macOS updates. I can get some of it, like drivers or programs hooking onto OS features that change. But so much "normal" software just breaks. Or can't even run without the dev recompiling for the new ui kit version or something. While on Windows I can run any random old tool not touched in two decades and it'll work. I dread updating Macs.
drooopy 10d ago
10.5 Leopard because 10.4 Tiger was my first interaction with Mac OS X and it blew me away. I couldn't wait to see what was next and how they could improve upon perfection.
usern20260720 10d ago
At the beginning of the century, I used to live from October to September looking forward to the next OS release to fix the bugs I would encounter. Maybe because I was not aware that it would eventually choke my low tier machine. Now, I dread the day I will upgrade the OS
wink 9d ago
I've had this (first) work mac for 2 years and the upside is that every new version is usually only slightly worse than a new Windows version, which is generally a big step down. For Linux I've been kinda indifferent for 15 years. Maybe it's me.
cactusfrog 7d ago
I wasn’t excited about Tahoe but it was the best release I’ve encountered. They fixed spotlight and window management enough that I no longer need to rely on third party tools to replace those native features (I still use Rectangle for the keyboard shortcuts, but not for window snapping). I also appreciate that it comes with dynamic wallpaper of the lake where I got the worst sunburn of my life.

by mikae1 10d ago

Hamuko 10d ago

Mavericks maybe?

arpinum 10d ago

When Siracusa wrote the last review.

cromka 10d ago

If only KDE actually paid attention to UX and maybe cared about the looks and consistency a bit more. I'm sorry for being blunt but their visual design people's have no taste...

mikae1 10d ago
There's little margins and whitespace and this bothered me like hell before making the switch. It's funny, now I kind of like it. A lot is happening too. The latest Plasma had a very high degree of polish IMO. It's far more consistent than Windows 11, but you have to pick Qt/KDE software, not GTK/GNOME for that to be true. I always choose the more KDE native option.
armadyl 10d ago
Seriously KDE is so extremely ugly and dated looking compared to macOS, GNOME and even modern Windows. I don’t care about the 30 million configurable options if it looks like a total eyesore. You’d think they’d put some effort into a consistent style / UI framework. People hate on GNOME for its rigidity but it’s the one desktop actually trying somewhat to provide Linux with an environment that the average person (not an HN user) won’t immediately turn their nose up in disgust at.
- cromka 9d ago
  Absolutely agree. Moving from MacOS, sticking with Gnome was no brainier, even though I do use KDE software as well.
unethical_ban 10d ago
Since February I've been running CachyOS or Fedora (multiple machines) 100% at home. I only have a Windows partition on the desktop for a single game. Gaming "just works" on Linux with one AAA exception that needs a tweak to its Steam Proton settings. The UI to me is as polished and functional as MacOS and Windows - besides a few minor things like taskbar shadows or rounded edges, a non-techie wouldn't notice the difference IMO unless they already knew it. I've been running Linux on and off for 20 years, and KDE 6 is the most happy I've been with a user interface, with Unity being second. Everything you can possibly tweak seems to be discoverable in the UI just like Windows or Mac.
- cromka 9d ago
  KDE UI as polished as macOS? :O I am no Apple apologist but this is plain heresy.
  - unethical_ban 6d ago
    Not 100% as much on UI refinement, but it's as close as it's ever been, and I haven't run into many (any) weird GUI glitches or settings issues. Wifi was still a bit weird on new chipsets but I don't think that's KDE.
thiht 9d ago
Agree, KDE seems to have all the right features but every time I give it a try it all feels weird, inconsistent, and dated in ways that are kinda deal breaking if you care at all about esthetics. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that no professional designers contribute to KDE applications.

bix6 10d ago

Like a decade for me now. I don’t read or watch anything anymore. I just buy whatever the new version is when I need it and live with it. I yearn for something truly exciting, groundbreaking, and accessible (price) from Apple. iPod era was so dope.

simlevesque 10d ago

Yesterday I managed to update a 2015 MacBookAir7,2 from El Capitan (last update Sep. 2015) to Sonoma (last update Aug 6th 2026). I was excited when it finally worked. Thanks to the OpenCore Legacy Patcher who show that not supporting old devices is a choice made by Apple.

rmnclmnt 10d ago
OCLP is excellent but it's all coming to an end for Intel Macs unfortunately. Even Homebrew just dropped the ball a few days ago (this is the final draw for me, I'll keep a Sequoia partition but my MBP2015 daily drives on NixOS + GNOME)
- simlevesque 10d ago
  Yes. If anyone reads this in the future: you need to clone the brew repo and use v7.0.2 and install it manually.

deleted 10d ago

[deleted]

int32_64 10d ago

Whatever the last one you had to install with a CD/DVD was.

xattt 10d ago
So Snow Leopard, as parent poster had said.

rconti 10d ago

I've been pleasantly surprised with Golden Gate. It's fresh-looking, works well, got rid of a lot of the ugly flat stuff they did over the last few releases (pre-Tahoe), supports more hidpi modes that make my work machine better... But honestly, I don't think the average person should feel excitement for an OS release; boring means it just works and they don't have to learn a bunch of new features and different ways of doing things.

Telaneo 10d ago

I'm stuck trying to figure out what new stuff they could add. Sidecar was neat, but I never need it. I'm very happy on Cinnamon on Linux, which is probably less featured than KDE (haven't daily driven it to confirm), which just confirms I don't actually need or want user-facing new features. I need stability. I think Apple realise this. There are no genuine new OS features to be added, so they just shuffle things around so that things are changing and thus seem fresh and hip. For anyone who cares about stability and doesn't want to relearn everything they shuffle around, this is nothing but a negative, but Apple et al. have no other levers to pull (well, there's the AI lever, but that's also generally not a positive in and of itself). Maybe there are new OS features that could be useful, but creating and integrating them in a way that's actually helpful is just such an ordeal that nobody will do it.

ekun 10d ago
A functioning window system would drastically enhance OSX productivity.
- elAhmo 10d ago
  Someone who does need a window system can use many of the hundreds of tools available, or use something custom. Regular uses don't really care about window management systems.
- cosmic_cheese 10d ago
  Window management (and indeed, desktop environments in general) are rather subjective I think. As someone who's been using Macs in some capacity since 1996 I'd be upset if macOS suddenly resembled a traditional Windows desktop or tiling WM thing, and the absence of Mac-like desktops on Linux (no, GNOME and elementary/Pantheon are not that) is one of the primary factors keeping me from switching.
  - thefunnyman 10d ago
    Window management got better in Mac os but only recently with the addition of window snapping. You could do it before, but you had to drag from the green stoplight button which was an annoying mouse target vs the entire top bar. Personally I do like the windows approach where there's a bar at the top with a few preselected zones you can use that shows up when dragging a window but the state of things on Mac os now is fine enough that things like that can reasonably be left up to extensions. What exactly do you miss about the Mac desktops when using gnome's? For me the only thing I've noticed is lack of independent desktops per monitor though Windows also suffers that deficiency.

encom 10d ago

>OS excitement Debian+KDE here. It's what I use to get away from OS excitement. I miss the 90's when nobody ever updated anything, and if they did it was on purpose and not something that happened behind your back. For example, the other day Google "updated" the clock/alarm/timer app on Android with pointless and annoying changes. A clock app does not need an update, ever. "But..." No! /usr/share/zoneinfo handles that. Stop it.

roryirvine 10d ago
Yeah, Debian makes things agreeably dull. Major version upgrades every couple of years will usually bring a new wallpaper and make a few tweaks to the default apps. Annual Firefox ESR updates will bring a handful of improvements to the browser. And, of course, security and critical bugfixes chug away in the background without making any fuss. Nothing breaks unexpectedly. Behaviour never changes without your knowledge and permission. Bliss.

detourdog 10d ago

Snow Leopard is right up there with System 7.5.3 for me. I’m happy with their current OS trends compared to the flat OS trend of the past decade. They definitely need detail work and I think they default to turning features on that I would prefer off. Many of the new features I don’t use come off as a spastic GUI.

cosmic_cheese 10d ago

Snow Leopard was solid, but when I went back and used it I was surprised by how I missed some little bits of polish that'd been added since. My ideal would probably be Mavericks 10.9.5 with the Leopard/Snow Leopard 2D grid virtual desktop model hacked back in. The linear version of Spaces that's been in place since 10.7 is needlessly simplistic.

elAhmo 10d ago

Well, it is easy to be excited on a system that is lagging on features.

bayindirh 10d ago
Using macOS and KDE for almost the same time (~20 years), I still find that I need yet another app on macOS for a standard KDE feature. Interesting observation, that is.
- nozzlegear 10d ago
  Like what?
  - bayindirh 10d ago
    From top of my head: File renaming. What Forklift or other dedicated file renamer comes as a standard with both Dolphin and KRename. Latter can drive circles around what's available in macOS, in any form. AudioCD ripping: kio:// protocol has a native ripper. Just drag and drop. Settings are integrated to system settings directly. Which format do you want? Yes. Remote connections: While finder can connect to servers, but FTP read access and SFTP requires external apps. IOW, what Cyberduck provides is already available in Dolphin, again. KDE's standard window management capabilities need Magnet or something more advanced in macOS. Git/SVN/CVS needs external tools in macOS. Dolphin can detect these repositories and let you work on them on the spot. KRunner is arguably more Capable than spotlight in some cases. Needs another fair shake though. If you add your mail accounts and calendars to KDE via KMail or something else, they become available system-wide. macOS is good in that regard, but KDE is betterer. If you use KMail, your mail will sync at the background even though your mail client is not running. You need to buy another application to be able to edit id3 tags of audio files, but KDE has kid3. I even use its macOS version because it's that good. I'll not get into customization capabilities, because they are fundamentally different and worlds apart, but this is due to their philosophy. Keyboard shortcut management are equally powerful in both, AFAICS. macOS used to lag there. K3b is infinitely more capable than macOS optical media authoring tools. These are what I can remember with my tired brain, away from my KDE system for the day. The thing is, both side by side, I mostly prefer KDE because I can work way faster on that one, and it's not I'm hating macOS or anything, and as I said, using both for a very long time. The apps I have given as examples are KDE's default apps and maintained by KDE project themselves. They are part of the default installation.

ValentineC 10d ago

I dread new macOS releases, because it signifies one year less support for my current version (I'm on Sequoia now, having jumped from Ventura) being supported. Every new version wrecks my workflow a little. macOS 28 will partially remove Rosetta 2, which means that I'll need to find replacements for some of the ancient Intel apps that never got updated to Apple Silicon.

deleted 10d ago
[deleted]
Toslink 10d ago
MacOS 27 also uninstalls Rosetta 2 (if it was previously installed) upon upgrading. [0] "If Rosetta was previously installed, it is not automatically restored after upgrading to macOS 27.0. (163213094)" Most applications now have native Apple Silicon binaries, although a handful still don't. You can check by navigating to the Apple icon > "About This Mac" > "More Info" > "System Report" > Software > Applications. We had some printers with drivers who don't support Apple Silicon, thus they need Rosetta2, those filter files aren't displayed in the above menu, although you can run this script (papercut_rosetta_audit.sh) to audit your Drivers and their x86 dependence. [1]. [0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-27-release-notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-note... [1] https://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/macos-rosetta-transition-end-of-life/#printer-driver-compatibility https://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/macos-rosetta-transition-en...

illwrks 10d ago

100% Snow Leopard, followed closely by Mavericks.

matsemann 10d ago

I've never had so much stuff break than with the macOS updates. I can get some of it, like drivers or programs hooking onto OS features that change. But so much "normal" software just breaks. Or can't even run without the dev recompiling for the new ui kit version or something. While on Windows I can run any random old tool not touched in two decades and it'll work. I dread updating Macs.

drooopy 10d ago

10.5 Leopard because 10.4 Tiger was my first interaction with Mac OS X and it blew me away. I couldn't wait to see what was next and how they could improve upon perfection.

usern20260720 10d ago

At the beginning of the century, I used to live from October to September looking forward to the next OS release to fix the bugs I would encounter. Maybe because I was not aware that it would eventually choke my low tier machine. Now, I dread the day I will upgrade the OS

wink 9d ago

I've had this (first) work mac for 2 years and the upside is that every new version is usually only slightly worse than a new Windows version, which is generally a big step down. For Linux I've been kinda indifferent for 15 years. Maybe it's me.

cactusfrog 7d ago

I wasn’t excited about Tahoe but it was the best release I’ve encountered. They fixed spotlight and window management enough that I no longer need to rely on third party tools to replace those native features (I still use Rectangle for the keyboard shortcuts, but not for window snapping). I also appreciate that it comes with dynamic wallpaper of the lake where I got the worst sunburn of my life.