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I did this once. Biggest waste of time, ever. Went from NetBSD to OS X in 2002, then to Linux in 2008, then back to OS X in 2011. I spend almost all of my tim

I did this once. Biggest waste of time, ever. Went from NetBSD to OS X in 2002, then to Linux in 2008, then back to OS X in 2011. I spend almost all of my time in cross-platform apps, but the little inconveniences of Linux on a laptop just weren't worth the trouble back in 2011, and I'd be surprised if anything has changed since then. OS X at its ugliest and least stable wipes the floor with Linux at its best, imo.

agrover 12y ago
I disagree.
- mattkrea 12y ago
  While I wholly agree I'm curious to see your reasoning Edit: wholly agree with OSX not wiping the floor with Linux
  - balladeer 12y ago
    Please notice original parent commenter @brandonmenc didn't provide any reasoning either. (S)he just proclaimed "OSX can wipe the floor with Linux" and left it at that as a declaration.
    - brandonmenc 12y ago
      > little inconveniences of Linux on a laptop just weren't worth the trouble Specifically: sleep/restore, display brightness control, sound, battery life, wifi, fonts, endless desktop tweaking. ymmv, but this stuff has just never been optimal out of the box. When I say "wipe the floor," I mean in regards to time wasted (measurable) and appearance (subjective).
      - mattkrea 12y ago
        Ugh I can definitely agree that font rendering has never been better than on OSX. On another note I would just like to mention 2 years is a long time in Linux and you might want to give it another go.
        _broody 12y ago
        I definitely like Ubuntu's font rendering engine better than either Windows or OSX's. The one used by other Distros though (FreeType) is like a way inferior version of MS ClearType. One thing that definitely kills the Linux experience for most people is that they buy a new laptop model and then complain about Linux not supporting their hardware. In fact, the latest Linux kernel image will generally be pretty awesome about hardware support, but most Linux distros ship with an older kernel version.
      - balladeer 12y ago
        I am not an Apple fan and when I say it I say it in its strongest sense. But I love my Macboook Air (and find almost anything else sold by them priced ridiculously high). I have been using OSX for last 3.5 years and I moved to OSX from Windows and Ubuntu and it was good till they one decides "let's blur OSX and iOS" and trust me it's been a clear and sharp downhill slope from then. As per the list you have made, I didn't find any difficulty with anything but fonts and that was ten years ago. Some of my friends still use Ubuntu and when I say this I am not saying with any malaise or Apple-hate (which I honestly do not posses) but I must confess, today's Ubuntu's font rendering is a lot better than OSX's. Not to mention it just works out of the box now, everything! And if you are the tweaker type, no doubt you have got the endless possibilities. But as you mentioned and rightly so, ymmv.
vacri 12y ago
At my last workplace, the OSX laptops were all 2-3+ years old... and were all incredibly slow. I was always surprised that people could get any work done on them. One woman had an OSX laptop that would boot up with the entire 4GB of memory in use, with no applications or agents loaded except maybe spotify. All the shiny UI in the world doesn't make you more productive when you have to wait for a mouse click to register. The linux machines were whiteboxes of the same age, and while there was a curl or two in setting them up, were still just as speedy and usable when aged as they were when new.
- hisyam 12y ago
  I have a Macbook Pro with 4GB RAM & normal HDD and I don't recommend upgrading past Mountain Lion, since Mavericks uses at least 3GB after booting up. I'm guessing Apple engineers are provided with Mac Pro with blazing speeds so they don't understand the pain of using the latest OSX with 4GB RAM & normal HDD. As for Spotify, it consumes a lot of memory. You'd better off with iTunes.

agrover 12y ago

I disagree.

mattkrea 12y ago
While I wholly agree I'm curious to see your reasoning Edit: wholly agree with OSX not wiping the floor with Linux
- balladeer 12y ago
  Please notice original parent commenter @brandonmenc didn't provide any reasoning either. (S)he just proclaimed "OSX can wipe the floor with Linux" and left it at that as a declaration.
  - brandonmenc 12y ago
    > little inconveniences of Linux on a laptop just weren't worth the trouble Specifically: sleep/restore, display brightness control, sound, battery life, wifi, fonts, endless desktop tweaking. ymmv, but this stuff has just never been optimal out of the box. When I say "wipe the floor," I mean in regards to time wasted (measurable) and appearance (subjective).
    - mattkrea 12y ago
      Ugh I can definitely agree that font rendering has never been better than on OSX. On another note I would just like to mention 2 years is a long time in Linux and you might want to give it another go.
      - _broody 12y ago
        I definitely like Ubuntu's font rendering engine better than either Windows or OSX's. The one used by other Distros though (FreeType) is like a way inferior version of MS ClearType. One thing that definitely kills the Linux experience for most people is that they buy a new laptop model and then complain about Linux not supporting their hardware. In fact, the latest Linux kernel image will generally be pretty awesome about hardware support, but most Linux distros ship with an older kernel version.
    - balladeer 12y ago
      I am not an Apple fan and when I say it I say it in its strongest sense. But I love my Macboook Air (and find almost anything else sold by them priced ridiculously high). I have been using OSX for last 3.5 years and I moved to OSX from Windows and Ubuntu and it was good till they one decides "let's blur OSX and iOS" and trust me it's been a clear and sharp downhill slope from then. As per the list you have made, I didn't find any difficulty with anything but fonts and that was ten years ago. Some of my friends still use Ubuntu and when I say this I am not saying with any malaise or Apple-hate (which I honestly do not posses) but I must confess, today's Ubuntu's font rendering is a lot better than OSX's. Not to mention it just works out of the box now, everything! And if you are the tweaker type, no doubt you have got the endless possibilities. But as you mentioned and rightly so, ymmv.

vacri 12y ago

At my last workplace, the OSX laptops were all 2-3+ years old... and were all incredibly slow. I was always surprised that people could get any work done on them. One woman had an OSX laptop that would boot up with the entire 4GB of memory in use, with no applications or agents loaded except maybe spotify. All the shiny UI in the world doesn't make you more productive when you have to wait for a mouse click to register. The linux machines were whiteboxes of the same age, and while there was a curl or two in setting them up, were still just as speedy and usable when aged as they were when new.

hisyam 12y ago
I have a Macbook Pro with 4GB RAM & normal HDD and I don't recommend upgrading past Mountain Lion, since Mavericks uses at least 3GB after booting up. I'm guessing Apple engineers are provided with Mac Pro with blazing speeds so they don't understand the pain of using the latest OSX with 4GB RAM & normal HDD. As for Spotify, it consumes a lot of memory. You'd better off with iTunes.