- I'm sorry, but no Linux DE I've ever used beats macOS in terms of stability. The file explorers are also a joke and frequently changing.
- I've never booted to a black screen when upgrading macOS.
- 99% of the work I do never needs anything that has to be virtualized under macOS.
- Macbooks are solid laptops. Every other laptop I've owned hasn't stood the test of time as well as my Mac.
- More [actually good] software supports macOS. It's just a fact.
- macOS is fundamentally the same as it was 10 years ago, just with some relatively minor changes to the design. I'm pretty confident they're not going to move the dock to the top and force a new window toolkit on me that most existing software can't use.
- macOS has hardware that I know it will work with. Finding compatible hardware for Linux can be frustrating and not as complete as is claimed.
- Windows and macOS solved vsync issues long ago. Somehow, even with Wayland, you can still experience horizontal tearing if you have the wrong monitor or graphics card.
---
All the customization doesn't offset the trouble that desktop Linux can bring.
> I'm sorry, but no Linux DE I've ever used beats macOS in terms of stability.
Been running Xfce since 2004 with no stability issues whatsoever.
> Macbooks are solid laptops. Every other laptop I've owned hasn't stood the test of time as well as my Mac.
Oof, I guess you never got a Mac during 2016-2020 or so. They've been gradually declining in build quality. I owned Mac laptops continually from 2005 until 2019, and they've been going downhill pretty much the entire way, especially since 2012 or so.
> More [actually good] software supports macOS. It's just a fact.
That's pretty much the definition of an opinion, not a fact.
> Finding compatible hardware for Linux can be frustrating and not as complete as is claimed.
It really isn't. The problem is that everyone already has a laptop when they decide they want to switch, and then get frustrated when their existing laptop doesn't work well with Linux. These days there are quite a few laptops that work perfectly or near-perfectly with Linux, and they're not hard to find.
> All the customization doesn't offset the trouble that desktop Linux can bring.
That's a fair opinion, but I've found my experience to be the opposite. Every time I go back to macOS, I get frustrated with the inflexibility of it all. I get that it's a pain to feel like you have to customize everything to get something usable for you, but macOS goes too far in the opposite direction for me: Apple just does not give me enough knobs to turn to make me feel comfortable in their environment.
In my experience, with the exception of the keyboard, MacBooks have always had pretty good build quality. I know every single person reading this is screaming THAT'S A PRETTY BIG HONKING EXCEPTION and, yes, absolutely, but the "new" keyboard that replaced the butterfly style one -- which is really not a new keyboard at all, but essentially the external keyboard they've been using for years at this point -- is solid.
As for "More [actually good] software supports macOS," I agree that's the definition of an opinion, but it's one that I tend to share, I admit. I think it depends on what you want to do with your computer, though. I'm frequently using BBEdit (it's what I spend all my time in at my technical writing job, in fact), Acorn, Retrobatch, and Ulysses (what I spend all my time in doing fiction writing these days), and none of those have Linux equivalents that I really consider equivalent. YMMV, obviously, but I've tried many of the semi-equivalents that would be available to me if I went back to Linux, and...I could make them work, but either not as well or with way, way more effort.
And, as for customization, this is a weird one -- I think different people look at "customization" differently. For me, I don't much care about widget and aesthetic customization, but I love love love things like macOS's Services menu, particularly in combination with Automator, and third-party automation apps like Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, and Alfred -- none of which I've found real Linux equivalents to yet. (They may be out there, but if so, they're not making themselves obvious.) I think Apple actually gives you way more knobs to turn than they're usually given credit for, but against stereotype, they're knobs deep under the hood.
Having said that, if I did end up spending a lot of time in Linux again, I'm almost positive I'd go with Xfce once more. I loved it nearly 20 years ago and the times I've checked in since then have just been more positive. :)
i9 macbooks had so poor thermal performance that system was grinding to a halt if you tried to do stuff like run tests on all more than few cores in parallel.
I'd be surprised if you could get genuinely good thermals on an i9 in a laptop. And that's partly on intel - i9s just have bad thermals, especially recently. Besides, if you genuinely need the power to justify using a chip with that kind of TDP, you should be looking into a desktop anyway.
It is worth noting that Apple may have been intentionally neglecting thermals pending the transition to ARM - LTT did a few videos that give evidence to this.
Not to mention the power supplies with many laptops don't even provide enough watts to power the system at max load (including macbooks pros). They just use the battery to provide bursts at full speed. Generally that's good enough for a lot of uses.
Gaming laptops do try and provide enough power and thermals to run full tilt. For work I chose an Alienware m15 because of this, and I wanted fast over thinnest. The m15's offer an i9 and probably could run one near full thermal load. In my case a desktop wouldn't do since I need to move around (doing IoT stuff, so I goto different parts of the lab). But, I do miss the macbook pro build quality. The first m15 died, and the replacement has a dead pixel.
> Every time I go back to macOS, I get frustrated with the inflexibility of it all. I get that it's a pain to feel like you have to customize everything to get something usable for you
It's great if macOS is what you want, or is close enough to it (which it is for many, many people).
I guess people's problem with Linux is that no amount of knob twiddling ever gets Linux's desktop and window manager close enough to what they want.
Personally, I want macOS to be my window manager, and I want Linux to be my dev environment/command line. I can't twiddle either to be close enough to the other, so I run Ubuntu in Parallels on macOS.
Now if macOS gained the equivalent of Windows Subsystem for Linux, I'd be super happy.
I didn't get much of a chance to work with Windows & WSL2, but I felt like it was a really comfortable experience as long as you were fine with WindowsOS as a display manager and Linux for your CLI. There can be some annoyances around software dual installed to Windows and the WSL 'containers', but the CLI experience certainly felt pretty good to me. Used MobaXterm (free, not open) which satisfied the good terminal emulator req.
I personally find windows10 to be one of the most "invasive" desktop experiences that I've ever used. No matter what I do, I can't seem to properly turn off all the bloat and extra notification shipped with it.
I'm sure YMMV but I just have a hard time taking it seriously for anything beyond booting up to play a game. I wouldn't even use it for that if I had a choice and the supported OS landscape was different than it is.
The icing on the cake for me was when I had to edit the registry in order to re-enable the checkbox toggle for booting directly into the desktop. I just wanted to be able to turn on my steam box and be able to boot right into big picture mode on startup but MS had different ideas about what options I should be presented with by default.
These are all just anecdotes. From you, OP, and me...
> Been running Xfce since 2004 with no stability issues whatsoever.
I ran Linux (and was a _fierce_ OSS fanatic) from ~2002 to 2012. I've been a mac user since 2012. I moved around, using LXDE, Xfce, Gnome, KDE, no DE at all (openbox...)... I used Ubuntu, Mint, Gentoo, ADIOS, Crunchbang, Fedora...
Linux DEs were solid, but they never felt sufficiently polished. When I first touched a Mac, everything just felt better -- drag and drop worked like a charm, and the visual queues and feedback were amazing. Often we'd realize that some things also worked in Linux, but they just weren't visually advertised as such -- cursors wouldn't change, things wouldn't slightly fade. It looked like a jumbled mess with no coherent design team behind it.
> Oof, I guess you never got a Mac during 2016-2020 or so. They've been gradually declining in build quality. I owned Mac laptops continually from 2005 until 2019, and they've been going downhill pretty much the entire way, especially since 2012 or so.
The quality of apple laptops has indeed been far from stellar in recent years, but I'm pretty happy with my 16' beefed-out Macbook Pro. It is undeniable, though, as you say, that they have been going downhill. Nevertheless, going downhill from where they were still means they're quite close to the highest peak you can find, IMO.
> > More [actually good] software supports macOS. It's just a fact.
>
> That's pretty much the definition of an opinion, not a fact.
Agreed, it is a matter of opinion. For what it's worth, if we exclude games (most of which I can play perfectly fine in a VM in parallels anyway), in my opinion, indeed more actually good software supports macOS. There are very very very few things I miss from my linux days, and I heavily customized everything I had.
> It really isn't. The problem is that everyone already has a laptop when they decide they want to switch, and then get frustrated when their existing laptop doesn't work well with Linux. These days there are quite a few laptops that work perfectly or near-perfectly with Linux, and they're not hard to find.
I completely disagree with the sentiment of this paragraph. While, yes, many laptops work flawlessly, and you may actually be able to google them somewhat quickly, the experience of finding a linux compatible machine that one wants to use and fits their needs is still a perilous road of doubt and uncertainty. This is a consequence of the many different choices one has, because while we can find reports that someone's favourite distro ran on a particular laptop at version X, we might not want that distro, or that particular version, and things instantly go south. Finding linux-compatible hardware and having to "jump into it with our money" is an extremely risky and stressful move -- one which can leave anyone with buyer's remorse pretty quickly if anything fails to work properly. Worse, "failing to work properly" can be as innocuous as "feeling that the laptop is running out of battery too fast" or "is running too hot". While all of these things definitely also happen on a Macbook, it is much easier to simply know that the hardware will be supported, much like we know that most games built for a console are sure to work on that console. If money is not an issue, and if there are no particularly clunky software requirements or vendor-lock-in issues (these are big ifs, I know), then buying a Mac is by far the easiest decision, because it lifts weights off of your mind, and puts them in Apple's hands -- to make sure that things work.
Many of my friends run Linux, some of them as a daily driver. Some of these people are among the smartest I've ever known with computers, and some even make hundreds of thousands of dollars in the IT world, be it in cybersecurity fields or other such areas -- yet, most of them, too, do not really know which laptop to buy when upgrading, ever. They choose Linux _in spite of this_, but they most definitely see this as an annoyance and problem. Linux has to work everywhere and, so, it is only natural that there are pieces of hardware where it doesn't work -- or it works poorly. I would expect nothing less.
> That's a fair opinion, but I've found my experience to be the opposite. Every time I go back to macOS, I get frustrated with the inflexibility of it all. I get that it's a pain to feel like you have to customize everything to get something usable for you, but macOS goes too far in the opposite direction for me: Apple just does not give me enough knobs to turn to make me feel comfortable in their environment.
I can perfectly understand this sentiment. I don't really feel like there are things I can't configure on my mac, but I can recognize that I had more configurability on the Linux side of things. I used to be the guy who had dozens of scripts and wrappers for everything, and the one crazy guy who got pulseaudio to play along with ALSA before it actually worked, all while getting the latest games to run on Wine with custom patches made for them. My computers always looked "slick" to other people, and I used to have this amazing feeling of having tailored it all to myself. Then, at some point in my life, I realized I was spending more time adjusting my configurations than actually doing stuff with them. Ever since circumstances led me to a Mac, I've never looked back. I've migrated data from my first Mac all the way to the latest always through Time Machine, and it feels magical.
I'm a big fan of Linux. I think it's an incredible achievement. I'm not the OSS fanatic sending e-mails to RMS that I used to be, but I still feel the OSS cause deeply. I also think linux on the desktop is much more usable today than it was before (when I used it). It certainly fits the needs of many people. To me, though, the mac strikes a perfect balance for everything I do in my life. It literally just works. Everything just works. I airplay to my TV and it works. I migrate it with time machine across the span of 10 years and it works. I upgrade it and everything (mostly) works. Things don't change _too_ much in between updates. Stability has its ups and downs. Apple's decisions sometimes might leave one a bit infuriated (cough cough 32 bit support), but I've never been this happy with a computer as I am with the mac. In fact, even though I have theoretically less to configure, my mac feels like it's "more configured to me" than my Linux machines, because things just work like I want them to. It's like my mental model of a computer is better represented by the mac. Whenever I touch Linux and have to use it for a couple of days or in a VM, things are always out of place (this also happens a bit with Windows, but Windows feels coherent and I can instantly tell that after a couple of days I'd get used to it). Drag and drop doesn't do what it should. Things don't respond for no reason. Work is being done but no loading icon is present, leading me to do double-clicks and other shenanigans. I'm sure the right combination of tools and software for me is out there in the Linux world -- and the hardware too (I love the macbook trackpads -- they're actually the original reason why I started thinking of moving to the mac) --, but I have more to do with my life than keep tinkering with linux nowadays to make it work with me. I do that with my raspberry pis, as a fun thing.
I have nothing against people running Linux on the desktop. The more, the better -- maybe one day I'll come back. I never thought I'd use a Mac -- I despised them -- and yet, here I am, 10 years later.
This is where I'm at. As much as I like the idea of using Linux on the desktop, Im never fully content once I try it. Even after I've put in all the effort to customize everything to my liking, I'm then faced with the fear that I'm one update away from that setup breaking.
At least I know for the most part that my boring macOS setup is going to keep working. (Unless I need a 32 bit app of course!)
1. Give me a laptop that you can ASSURE ME runs linux amazingly well and in which I can instantly feel has the polish of mac hardware. I'm talking battery life, the amazing feeling of the butterfly keyboard, the trackpad (and respective software to enable it), the solidity of the device and overall ergonomics. Give me "Retina" HiDPI displays! This is definitely one of the top reasons holding me back: I don't want to purchase something and regret later because hardware support only "seemed to work, but actually really didn't".
2. Show me an operating system where things visibly work in an integrated fashion. I can drag and drop most things to most places. Progress bars exist and mostly make sense. All that jazz.
3. Make HiDPI work. I sometimes use a mix of heterogeneous displays, up to 4 at the same time. Some of these are widecreen, others are not. Some of these are HiDPI, some of them aren't. Some are connected via Airplay! The mac works amazingly well with all of them. Whenever I plug Linux onto these displays, something goes wrong. Things don't scale right. Everything feels slightly off. It's a nightmare!
4. Give me a VM solution with the incredible polish of Parallels Desktop. Perhaps these already exist, as I'll admit I don't tinker with VMs on linux often. Parallels Desktop changed my perception of what a VM can be, due to its amazing integration between the host and the guest. Applications usually just work, even in what they call "coherence" mode. Sure, linux guests sometimes misbehave, but Windows works like magic. I can drag and drop files between windows in the host and guest operating systems. I share clipboards. Windows from one OS appear in my taskbar as if they were native. I can very quickly enable passthrough on one device so it's in the guest instead of the host. I can easily setup different kinds of networks. This is INCREDIBLE technology that makes my life immensely easier either for work reasons (e.g. that weird chinese QR Code reader that only has software for windows, and therefore I set it up through passthrough) or just to chill and play some games -- actual, 3D accelerated games that run great, often better than their native versions on the mac (which is rather sad, sure).
5. Lastly, I am definitely very invested in the Apple ecosystem at the moment, and quite locked into it. I have over 5000 photos in the iCloud photos. I own an iPhone, Apple Watch, and Airpods Pro that I use daily (I own other versions of these accessories). I love the integration between all of these things. The way Airpods magically switch from one device to the other. The way that I copy paste from one device to the other (something which I use extremely often). I am definitely in severe vendor lock-in, and if I were to switch to Linux, I would have to deal with missing out on some of these things -- the Linux experience would need to be better than that of the mac, not just equally good (or "cheaper"). I don't really have many gripes with the mac -- as a developer, project manager, casual user, browser of the web, occasional writer, casual gamer, etc.
I guess, then, that Linux would have to blow me away with its integration and some kind of surprising set of features which I haven't seen yet. If it doesn't do that, then I have no reason to jump. I'm happily tied to the Apple ecosystem, and have no big complaints about anything other than the obvious fact that quality has been clearly going down -- but is still far, far, far ahead of my Linux experiences.
> - I've never booted to a black screen when upgrading macOS.
My wife got bit by the Big Sur bug, 2 weeks ago, were the installer doesn’t check if there’s enough disk space available before starting the upgrade.
Reached out Apple whom, had I not been next to her, wanted her to create a new volume on her disk and reinstall
Stopped her. Jumped in. Asked what the plan was and it was to format.
The initial question was if there was a way to recover the data.
I stopped the conversation and started searching.
Was working until midnight because everything I found basically said that you’re f’ed and lost all your data.
I was able to recover it.
.
- Yes, she didn’t have a backup. But the installer also should do the minimum of checking if it can run.
- I have no idea how old the installer is, but if Apple can remove Zoom due to a security issue with a web server, they can do it with a bad installer of theirs (or at least blacklist it).
- Before giving steps that are destructive, they should have prefaced with it or at least warn that they’re SOL and need to reinstall and restore from a backup.
.
It works the majority of the time, but honestly, this left a REALLY bad taste for me. If it wasn’t because we are basically in the ecosystem and that it usually works, I’d be looking around to others.
> > - I've never booted to a black screen when upgrading macOS.
> My wife got bit by the Big Sur bug, 2 weeks ago, were the installer doesn’t check if there’s enough disk space available before starting the upgrade.
It can get even worse than that. The Big Sur update "bricked" my MBP, along with many others, because a firmware update broke a part. Apple wanted $500 to replace the mainboard, I fixed it by replacing the broken "i/o board" with a $5 part from ebay and like 30 minutes of work.
Given that this is the only Apple computer I've ever owned, it's understandable that unlike the grandparent I don't have the highest opinion of Apple's work. Ironically, nothing like this has ever happened on Linux to me.
Being a mac users and “supporter” for decades because of my wife I think it is so much better to have mac or even windows for general users. Or even for us IT guys. Just work and move on the problem you deal with.
The problem is when the chip is down most of the case you are on your own. Not linux fault eg I have a small computer (touch based windows mini Pc) want to use it and from time to time the wireless adapter disappear ... I just go out to get a planet computer version 3 simply because their version 1 has linux support. I beg they have tested sort of their linux dual boot.
Support. The hard part. And then the windows issue ... good luck to use linux not on VM, Docker ... and my lisp slimv work with some twist (macvim not vim-not).
While we are both technical, the reason we've stayed is because we don't have to usually worry about things. Hardware support is 100% the key for us. We have a UNIX environment can just install the GNU tools and it behaves, in the most important aspects for us, as Linux. This is the first time we've been bitten by something like this in 10 years (Mid '11 MBA was our first device after wifi stopped working on her linux laptop and I didn't have time to figure it out).
It left a bad taste with me because they didn't communicate and support almost fucked it all up. A page with support would have been great and just, 'well, we don't support this or can't help you with this, but here's a support document you can read and try to understand the issue'. I also know they can definitely remove things from devices[0], so I don't know why this wasn't done for this installer.
I’ve been setting up a NAS, storage and other things to try and prevent this again. Letting the old sysadmin side come out. I have a trip so trying to do that before then.
I have the export from the terminal session to do the write up.
I’ll try and see if I can at least start it tomorrow.
My daughter is a university student in the US and had something like this happen. I was on the phone with her when she took it to an Apple store and they told her they would wipe the machine. She has some stuff on there she really didn't want to lose (we've had a lot of talks about backing things up since then) and so I had her buy a new machine (she really needed one). And she's holding onto the old one until I get to the US to visit her this summer. I would be very, very interested in any information you can share about what you did. I have ideas of where to start but anything that could possibly help would be greatly appreciated.
> I'm sorry, but no Linux DE I've ever used beats macOS in terms of stability. The file explorers are also a joke and frequently changing.
Dolphin on KDE hasn’t changed in 10 years and is far more functional than Finder. Frankly I think Finder is an appalling file manager so I’m surprised to hear anyone advocate it.
> MacBooks are solid laptops. Every other laptop I've owned hasn't stood the test of time as well as my Mac.
5 years ago I would have agreed with you but MBPs these days are really built more like expensive consumer devices rather than workstations that expect to see heavy usage.
Ultimately I think the real reason people use Macs is just personal preference and there isn’t any tangible, provable benefits of one over the other. Despite our engineering minds thinking every decision can be distilled down to fact and reason.
At this point the #1 is that I believe directly paying relatively small developers money for software produces by far the most user friendly (in many senses) desktop software. On the mac, that model is still thriving. Everywhere else you have maybe a handful of great options. Apart from that you get some Electron SaaS, some ancient professional software and some messy open source options. If you‘re lucky maybe some mac ports like Tower or Paw.
I don't think that feasable from a security standpoint. Ideally, software would be open-source and authored under the supervision of a handful of trusted parties.
The metaphorical "chain of trust" is strongest when it's composed of a few strong links, and when its cracks are visible.
What you're suggesting is that we should use a model with many small links and invisible cracks.
I‘m talking about desktop software for personal computers, not infrastructure software or services or anything. I trust the software developer and I trust apple. There’s a signature/certificate chain between those two. It’s fine.
Of course that‘s not acceptable for some people and for some use cases but it is for me.
I wouldn’t say I work with files a lot, but when I do, Finder seems to work ‘fine’. What do you find ‘appalling’ about it? If I’m missing the option to make my life much easier by using an alternative I’d like to at least try something else out.
You know those completely useless files (.DS_Store, ._foo.bar, etc.) that you see whenever you expand an archive or clone a repository from a developer who uses a Mac? Finder drops those turds.
You can’t input paths for starters. That means you can’t open dot files or navigate dot directories. Of which there are a great many in FOSS. The answer is to open up a terminal and run ‘open .blah’, which is just an appalling work around to a simple problem. Even Windows handles this use case better and that’s saying something.
Great, another non-discoverable key combination I need to memorise. You can guarantee I’d have forgotten that by the time I next need to use it.
GUIs are meant to be simple for discovering features. I really dislike how Apple hides away all the useful features. It doesn’t need to be this way and it makes working with macOS a real pain in the arse.
> A package manager with up to date packages (granted there are Linuxbrew and things like Snap now for Linux.)
On what planet is is homebrew better than Linux package managers? I agree with many of the other items in these lists, but this makes literally no sense to me. Homebrew is probably one of the worst things about doing dev on a mac.
Homebrew is more transparent and approachable, I can easily customize what is being installed, it's versioning, and control it's dependencies better than apt.
Apt, more often than not, acts as a gatekeeper for the latest version of whatever software packages I'm trying to install. I end up just having to adding various libraries and repos to my sources list to get the version I need, or go to an outside dependency manager like gvm, sdkman, etc which is basically homebrew anyway.
Homebrew is for devs that need to get shit done, apt is for computer scientists that love the tool more than solving problems with a tool. For the record, I'm on both linux and mac and there's plenty of upside and downside to both.
> Apt, more often than not, acts as a gatekeeper for the latest version
It's a distro policy issue, not a package manager issue. There are rolling distros using apt - for example https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUnstable which is updated every 6 hours.
The same way rpm is just a packaging format - you can have both the stable (fosilised) CentOS and the fresh Fedora / CentOS-Stream using it.
You're extrapolating from Debian's packaging concept to other distros, though your argument does not apply to most of the rolling distros out there.
On a rolling distro (e.g. using pacman, or say yast2 and others for sake of argument) you typically ship the header files included with the libraries, so that you don't need multiple versions of the same library installed. On Debian/Ubuntu, however, it will always end up with that mess of dozens of versions of the same library because all PPAs are somewhat outdated and used different versions of specific libraries once they were published.
That's the problem isn't it? Whichever problem you point at in Linux, the answer is invariably the same: "you're holding it wr^W^W^^W you're using the wrong distro, the wrong package manager, the wrong DE, the wrong version of any of those things".
And, invariably, for any problem the one true combination is different.
This case already started with discussion about brew. Brew is a choice you make if you don't like other distribution platforms on a Mac. But guess what - some people complain about brew not keeping software stable, but rather chasing new versions!
This is not a Linux issue - wherever you have different options and use cases you'll find different recommendations depending on what people are trying to achieve.
And that's why forks suck and everyone should use a spork. Having options that cater to different usecases is confusing. You don't really need to take big bites anyway.
- Hey, your fork is broken, and made out of plastic.
- You should use the oak box set of Forkuntu 12.4, no problems with forks there.
- Yes, but it lacks any spoons
- For spoons there's always Spoontoo.
- But... I want both spoons and forks...
- For that you can always tweak a few dozen unrelated work orders, menus and item descriptions in Sporkian. But that will only work witn Sporkian unstable, and needs a special tablecloth.
Well, if you would report a bug for Office 2003, the maintainers at Microsoft would react the exact same way. That is if you persist on calling through the corporate structure until you actually are able to contact one.
Either that or well, they'll simply ignore the noise of a user that doesnt give a damn about updating anything - so the user would not receive any potential patch anyways.
If you decide on choosing a specific distro, you should know what you're choosing. If what you are complaining is too much choice, then maybe MSDOS 1.x is the best operating system for you?
The beauty of Linux is customization. If you don't agree with that, then stay on MacOS. No harm done.
But if what you're complaining about is that you lack the skills to understand and investigate - without having paid anyone anything - then honestly, I think you are an ungrateful user that nobody should help out because it's a waste of (everybody's) _free_ time.
Be nice and maintainers will be nice, too. Be cooperative and they'll be cooperative as well.
> I can easily customize what is being installed, it's versioning, and control it's dependencies better than apt
In terms of customizability, is Homebrew any different from Apt? As far as I'm aware, Nix and Guix is the only system package manager that allows me to have full control over versioning and inter-package dependencies. Other package managers only let me install packages as provided by the packagers.
Homebrew's very up to date, without that cutting-edge quality risking system stability (since that's totally separate) and has an incredible number of supported packages, including tons of closed-source stuff, out of the box. No hunting down PPAs or obscure unofficial back-port packages or anything. The only Linux package managers I've seen even approach it (not match, but approach) are from bleeding-edge distros like Arch or Gentoo, but those come at a harsh stability cost since they also manage the rest of your system, including all the shared libs (ugh) and system-level packages (I gather that's the case on Arch, it sure was on Gentoo when I used it for many years, mostly because I loved Portage and OpenRC)
It's not bad, but it's not the best either. Not even close.
> including tons of closed-source stuff
Homebrew doesn't ship any proprietary formulae at all. They have a clear policy against it:
> We don’t like binary formulae
> Our policy is that formulae in the core tap (homebrew/core) must be open-source with an Debian Free Software Guidelines license and either built from source or produce cross-platform binaries (e.g. Java, Mono). Binary-only formulae should go to homebrew/cask.
> Additionally, homebrew/core formulae must also not depend on casks or any other proprietary software.
> This includes automatic installation of casks at runtime.
> Homebrew doesn't ship any proprietary formulae at all. They have a clear policy against it:
And yet, I can install Sublime Text, Slack, and others through it out of the box. I just checked a couple more, Figma's there. Microsoft Office. Steam.
You used to have to run a one-liner to enable casks (just one, not one for every damn vendor like with apt) but not anymore.
Can't edit anymore, but just wanted to say: on review that post came off as snarkier than I intended it. I just mean that, whatever the policy on including closed-source in the primary Brew repo, casks are enabled by default and don't even require a different command or any set-up anymore. From a user's perspective they're 100% as available as other packages, as soon as you install homebrew. I think the only major difference is that they don't auto-update when you do a "brew upgrade"—you have to specify the cask package you want to upgrade. Which is a good policy since a lot of those programs have their own built-in updaters anyway.
Some of this is a matter of taste, clearly. I strongly prefer having my system packages being rock solid; I can always fetch updated software for the very few cases where I want that.
However, my aversion to homebrew goes beyond taste: my experience with homebrew is rife with breakages. To be fair we were trying to use it in a CI system, which will very quickly reveal a buggy system. By contrast, apt/dnf are rock solid when used in CI.
An actual example: we tried providing our own recipe to install a particular version of libicu. This triggered an upgrade of some dependency; that triggered an upgrade of libicu to a different version than 68. The command exited with a successful status. A real package manager would have detected the package conflict and reported it, giving you resolution options, or errored out in a non-interactive terminal.
Why were we trying to pin versions in the first place? You guessed it, package breakages.
Yeah, I don't manage dev dependencies for projects in home-brew, just software for which I am a mere user. I probably wouldn't use apt and friends for those, either—not directly on my workstation anyway, maybe in some pinned-OS-version VM—unless my workstation happened to be identical to my deploy target and was guaranteed to stay that way. For a macOS build for C or C++ or anything along those lines, I'd probably vendor dependencies.
Agree as a Mac user. I miss pacman from Arch. Now -that- is a nice package manager. It took the best (simple) parts from Gentoo and combined them with the better parts of apt/rpm/zypp etc.
I always found pacman a little weird to use, but I think that was more a function of its UI -- its commands and options just weren't easily memorable for me, and I had to look them up almost every time. Its actual functionality was great, though.
On the planet that runs arbitrary community maintained Ruby scripts to install packages, and the planet where doing brew update requires a full days work + max CPU usage.
> It's nice you can customize almost everything on Linux, but most of the time I feel I must customize everything to get to a basic standard.
The last time I had to customize everything was like 10 years ago, and now I just copy my $HOME from machine to machine when I get a new one and everything just works and looks like it did on my previous machine.
"- Multi- and highres monitor support out of the box with proper scaling and readable fonts"
Unless you want to use two TypeC->DP connected monitors using MST. For "reasons" ($$$), Apple arbitrarily decided to not support MST over TypeC connectors (thunder bolt good, TypeC bad!!). And since this is MacOS, its impossible to ever have that support unless it was blessed upon us by the overlords. I don't like being held hostage by a company, and Apple is great at setting their way or the highway (some may like that, but not I).
When I got my new job and they forced MacOS on me: Ok, now I need a usable home setup. Lets try to get this running without running to buy $4k in new monitors.. days searching and a few wasted purchases later, everything worked fine just to discover that Apple refuses TypeC MST for no specific reason. So by all means, you can keep it. I'll hold my nose because I like my company, but their choice to mandate this hardware was awful.
> Multi- and highres monitor support out of the box with proper scaling and readable fonts
What's funny, is this is the complete opposite experience that I had in every single way. Multi-monitors absolutely suck on macos unless you drop $1000 on mac monitors
Try running two external monitors with differing resolutions, in my experience, it will be stable about 1 time out of 20. The rest will have artifacting, refusal to recognize the monitor, or other weird behaviour.
Or try running a monitor that isn't at least 4k, the most recent macos removed text aliasing so text rendering on 1080/1440p monitors looks like something out of the 1980's.
Linux though? I've never once had an issue with external monitors using Ubuntu
Edit: Sitting here on my work mac, almost forgot about my favorite one! When running multiple monitor resolutions, mouse movement hitches and lags for seemingly no reason! Only a disconnect and reconnect of the external monitors fixes it!
Meanwhile I use both a 1080p display and a 1440p display (Both Dell displays) with zero issues on macOS Big Sur.
I get no odd behavior, both monitors are always detected nor do I see artifacting or anything other issue. There was some minor pink lines on the boot up screen that have since been fixed in the latest release. (M1 Mac mini)
I can't really say I noticed a difference personally since they removed text aliasing on 1440p or lower, however it's a single toggle to turn back on.
I get zero mouse lag with differing resolutions and I use both a Magic Mouse 2 and a Magic Touchpad 2.
> Multi- and highres monitor support out of the box with proper scaling and readable fonts
My M1 mini has all kinds of issues with 2 4k monitors attached. Sometimes waking up from sleep, the monitor plugged into TB scales to default setting (200%?) instead my config (125%). And don't get me started on Ultra Wide support.
> Macbooks are solid laptops. Every other laptop I've owned hasn't stood the test of time as well as my Mac.
If you are American.
In the UK, I find the keyboard layout bewildering. It is not ANSI and it isn't ISO. It's some other thing, with keys that don't exist in any other English speaking keyboard. They even hide # behind a special alt key combo.
Other things about it are good, but there are some design decisions which are just plain wrong.
[Edit] I received downvotes, so as someone who uses a UK Macbook Pro I just have to reference this because they layout pisses me off.
In the UK ISO layout, the `~#` key is normally where the `|\` key is on the Apple keyboard, and the backtick which is down by the Z is to the left of the 1. We get range and paragraph next to the 1, which is horrible.
The thing that makes me concerned about the build of this 2019 i7 Macbook Pro is that is is always extremely hot. I'm only running one 4k screen off it but it is regularly running with fans on. I've had Macs in the past, and they haven't been quite as noisy as this. I'm sure its mostly due to crappy Intel hardware which is why they are being dumped, but this is a Mac and I can only judge them on what they sell.
I'm baffled how a developer ever assumes that whatever's on the keyboard is hardcoded and can never be changed.
Yes, for some reason (tradition, history) Macs prefer typewriter layouts on their keyboards. But... have you ever even tried looking into System Preferences - Keyboard - Input Sources and changing the layout to "US (PC)"?
I have no idea why you would assume that I don't know how to change a keyboard layout.
I have my keyboard set to UK ISO so the keys don't match what is printed. I don't understand why you don't see that a company that sells laptops with proprietary keyboard layouts is bad.
Ah yes, unlike every other company that ships opensource keyboards right?
As a person who has had laptops and keyboards with layouts in Russian, Turkish, Romanian and Swedish, and who uses US layout almost exclusively, I honestly have zero idea what your problem is.
I have no idea really what you are talking about, but in the UK we have a standard layout. And no matter who I buy from they are all identical except for Lenovo Function key which is swapped with Control, but otherwise identical.
Except Apple who's keyboard is drastically different to literally everyone else's.
Why do they bother with such a poor layout if they are supposed to be such consumer centric?
We do put the £ where Americans put #, but we don't remove it from the keyboard.
2 differences? Read your link.
Back tick is in the wrong place, hash as already discussed is in the wrong place, forward slash is in the wrong place, double quote is in the wrong place, @ is in the wrong place.
> We do put the £ where Americans put #, but we don't remove it from the keyboard.
Apple doesn't remove it either.
> 2 differences? Read your link.
Windows:
- the extra key is added next to the Enter key to accommodate # (number sign) and ~ (tilde)
- The £ (pound sign) takes the place vacated by the number sign on the 3 key
- @ and " are swapped (to ⇧ Shift+' and ⇧ Shift+2, respectively)
- (the list goes on for another 4 or 5 items)
Apple (emphasis mine):
- The # symbol is replaced by the £ symbol (as on PC keyboards); the # is available by pressing ⌥ Option+3
- The " and @ keys are swapped.
- More recent Apple British keyboards move the backquote/~ key to the left of the Z key and replace it with a section sign (§) and a plus-minus sign (±), respectively.
And that's it.
Well. It's three differences compared to US layout, two of them are basically exactly the same as PC versions.
> Back tick is in the wrong place, hash as already discussed is in the wrong place, forward slash is in the wrong place, double quote is in the wrong place, @ is in the wrong place.
Apart from back tick the rest are consistent with PC layout.
Funny. @#$~^&*{} are all alt (Option) combos on my Mac, my language has actual letters on those keys (ěščřžýáíé). Some devs I know switch to US layout for programming and some don't. I never do, I'm used to the alt combos and I don't like retraining my muscle memory.
The keyboard layout is absolutely non standard in the UK but it's absolutely standard apple in the UK.
Appreciate that may be off if you're trying to adopt but I'm so used to this layout after many, many years. I'm using a 2007 iMac keyboard and it matches exactly to my 2019 16".
For example, the alt 3 for hash is so naturally embedded I reach for it when using windows machines. I have to do weird rebinds on my windows setup to match the layout because it's so embedded. I think macs have had the same keyboard layout for 15 years or so at this point.
It's not about training, it's about being a mac user for over 15 years.
If they suddenly changed the keyboard layout I and many other long time users would be absolutely infuriated. This is just the correct keyboard layout for me.
There are many ways macOS improves over Linux desktops, but file explorers is not one of the arguments I would have made. Finder is practically unusable.
Honest question, what's wrong with Finder? I use ForkLift for the heavy lifting (lol), but it works just fine for "navigate to file, open/move/delete file, sort by size/date, tag files, find files".
Finder still can't handle SFTP connections. In 2021. I feel like I'm going insane, or I've missed some sort of critical update, but no, it's just sitting there.
It's incredibly useful basic functionality that both Finder and explorer inexplicably lack. This alone makes Linux desktops far more friendly even for novice users who want to do something beyond sharing gifs on web forums.
Novice users use flash drives or emails, they don't set up ssh servers. In fact, I've never seen a non-power user set up an ssh server except maybe if you count a consumer NAS (which usually show up as networked drives).
To that point, I'd be willing to bet money that any user that even has access to an ssh server they'd want to use either has the technical know how to set up those tools themselves, or has an IT person who can do so for them.
- It's slow
- Middle-click don't open the folder in a new tab
- It doesn't natively handle SFTP mounting
- The visual fixed arrangement of icons can be weird
Saving a file as /tmp/blah saves it as :tmp:blah the current directory, then you curse and have to press cmd shift g to pick a folder, paste the filename with path, remove the file name bit, then finally get to save your file.
Care to explain? I'm not saying Finder is great, but I find it perfectly usable and I've never noticed it drop features willy nilly (as was the case with Nautilus back in the day).
I have to use TotalFinder to be able to cut and paste files which I find very strange after all the years of experience on other OSes. I also resent not being able to conduct basic file management in file selection dialogs. Other missing features I have to hack around with scripts or add-ons: Copy terminal-friendly path, open current folder in terminal, create a blank text file here. Probably more.
you can move (cut + paste) in finder, it is hidden for some reason. instead of cmd + v, you need cmd + option + v and the file you copied will be pasted just like it was "cut".
I don't particularly like it, but I've not seen it crash or glitch out with the frequency that Linux file managers have ever since I've used them (a couple decades across a dozen or so desktop and laptop systems; mostly Nautilus, Dolphin [wasn't Konqueror also the file manager for a while, or am I mis-remembering?] and IIRC Thunar)
True that. Finder is only slightly better than nautilus, but it gets beaten up by Dolphin badly. It would win outright for me with the "Press F4 for an integrated shell" feature alone.
They are referring to the shell being integrated into Finder similar to the integrated terminal in Visual Studio Code or IntelliJ IDEs not launching a separate Terminal.app window.
You're probably joking sarcastically, but in case you aren't, you can click both sides of the track pad or three finger tap (if supported) to preform a middle click.
FYI, you can open a folder as a new tab (or window) using cmd+click in Finder. Myself, I still struggle trying to ctrl-click folders open in Dolphin instead of middle click.
> - I've never booted to a black screen when upgrading macOS.
Haven't had anything close to this happen to me in Linux in like 15 years. I've had to reimage my macbook thrice in 5 years. I really don't get it, my linux laptop is pretty wild (touchscreen, hidpi, tablet mode) and everything is supported out of the box, and I'm not even using a friendly distro.
I desperately wish this were still true, but I can't even see myself keeping my M1 Macbook Air as a Linux laptop. Too many compromises, too little power. Not to mention, it's a fragile little sucker too. I somehow managed to scratch the bezel on the second day of owning it...
Most of your above list would be taken care just by sticking to Ubuntu on Thinkpads using gnome-session-flashback. Its basically a polished version of the same DE I have been using since 2004 and love... rock solid (not of the boot or HW issues you mentioned, etc). I spend like no time ever messing with it and its been that way since 2014, 2016?
These sorts of lists always just sound like someone laundry list of personal preferences which have no bearing on what I would pick. Is is just a narcissistic tendency to think that one person's personal preferences are that generalize-able? Or is it more just the general love people have of talking about themselves?
> - macOS is fundamentally the same as it was 10 years ago, just with some relatively minor changes to the design. I'm pretty confident they're not going to move the dock to the top and force a new window toolkit on me that most existing software can't use.
I don't know anything about macOS but that is an interesting point. I actually use Linux because of its stability. It is a deeply conservative operating system that tries its hardest to never break existing software. I recently booted up an old Netbook running Linux that is surely much more than a decade old now and hasn't seen any update and I still felt right at home.
Sure the Linux ecosystem has seen a bit of changes but most of them are opt in and can be avoided. If you were on Ubuntu you got experimented on quite a bit but thank god nobody is forced to use Ubuntu.
In contrast I am not even able to use a modern Windows system productively these days. The last version I used was Windows XP and it does not seem to have improved for the better UI wise to say the least.
Not that I'll say Linux filesystem managers are any real good (last one I liked I think was replaced by nautilus), but Finder is no great piece of software. It actively opposes me finding hidden folders and files. It intermingles folders and files, with (AFAIK) no way to to change it. It won't show to-the-byte files sizes (AFAIK). Cut and paste and moving files is annoying. It constantly forgets I want details and not other views. It won't show zip contents without exploding it.
There are a dozen other things I recall shaking my head at but don't remember the specifics. File extension hiding, program association issues, split view crashes, integrations constantly broken between releases.
> It intermingles folders and files, with (AFAIK) no way to to change it.
“Keep folders on top” is a Finder preference as of Big Sur.
> file extension hiding
Also a Finder preference
> program association issues
That’s nothing to do with the Finder, but rather with how macOS discovers app-bundle file association claims through Spotlight. It applies equally to files opened through CLI open(1).
(Hint: if you downloaded the app from a website/through Homebrew, try opening the app itself once. It’s probably quarantined. Spotlight ignores quarantined things until you vouch for them. This is also why you won’t find the app in a search until you open it.)
> All the customization doesn't offset the trouble that desktop Linux can bring.
To be fair, those that desire that typically don't use file explorers.
I personally find them a hastle when they must be used, such as some websites for file upload have no easy way around using a file picker, perhaps they are much more convenient on MacOS, but I generally find it more convenient to use a shell command and simply provide the file to upload by way of an argument to the command. Modern shells also typically have advanced history search functionality to quickly enter a file path that one has already used in the past for something.
One of the interesting things I have encountered with Linux vs Mac users is that Mac users tend to blame faults much more on tools than on the system, while Linux users blame things more on the system and often try to workaround it or fix it.
To give an example, I've tried to convert colleagues to use meet.jit.si instead of zoom. On macs to share your screen you apparently have restart safari and give it some permission (I think you even need to do it every time? ). The people who were using macs were quick to dismiss jit.si because of this, even though it's completely an apple problem.
You don’t need to do it every time; you only need do it once per application. It’s a privacy feature that prevents an application being able to record your screen (or use your camera/microphone) without your explicit knowledge and permission.
And frankly Zoom just works, and works well. What advantage would using a random site with an unheard of record possibly give you?
> I've ever used beats macOS in terms of stability
laughs in elinks as I read PDFs in fbi
Scoffing aside, MacOS has all kinds of crazy edge cases. Linux is pretty good considering free -- but it also actively encourages you to get to the command line. I view this as a net positive.
> Macbooks are solid laptops. Every other laptop I've owned hasn't stood the test of time as well as my Mac.
If we go with anecdotes, in the last 2 decades, I used a mix of laptops from bargain bin to thinkpads. I used macs only the last 3 years (2 different mbp models) and those are the only ones that ever needed servicing.
1. Key caps falling off (replace the top),
2. Weird memory corruption on boot (out of warranty, get a new model),
3. Charging issues (replace the inside),
4. (kind of mac issue due to lack of ports) Their usbc-hdmi dongle started failing. (not serviced, get a new one)
1. Mac has shit for a window manager. When I focus and get in the flow, Mac's window manager becomes a massive showstopper for me. My productivity lives and dies by my window manager customizations and shortcuts. Mac's is just a joke when it comes to controling 20+ windows. I sometimes have 100+ editor, terminal, and browser windows. Linux has many window managers up to the task (i3, xmonad, openbox, and countless more). Mac has the default one which you CAN'T change. There are Window Manager "Apps" which use the default window manager's APIs to tell it to, say, move this window to this area. As a result, I haven't found a usable third-party window manager on Mac that can operate at a fraction of the speed of the simplest window managers on linux.
2. Mac's official builtin package manager is a joke. The community's effort to fix it (Homebrew) is halfway between the debian maintainers community and the nodejs community, closer to the latter. I wouldn't say Homebrew is a joke, but it's not really comparable (and fair to compare) to the many human-years that has been poured into QA and patches the Debian community does. Also, you can touch all aspects of the system with apt/dpkg, unlike the like of ports or Homebrew. For people who want more control there is also Arch, and many other distros to pick.
3. Laptop build quality: IMHO Mac doesn't really have a contender here. Every year I try to hard-force myself to buy a non-mac laptop and fail. There is really no one serious enough (or, to be fair, with the same order-of-magnitude of cash and operations and hardware expertise) to pull of the same build quality. An anecdote (but very generalizable): A while back my non-mac (yet, a very well-known brand) laptop's fan died. I got a fan and replaced it. My wife's mac laptop's fan also died about the same time. I replace that one, too. At one point I had both laptop's open on my desk beside each other. I never want to buy a laptop with _visibly_ poor engineering ever again. Guess you have to compare the internals of a few laptops to get my point.
4. Software compatibility: I think this is a very fragmented area, to be fair to all OSes. A lot of vendors only produce on Windows. Some are Win+Mac. Some are Win+Mac+Linux+ChromeOS+Android+iOS. Also a very (yet very significant in some sectors) are Win+Linux, or Linux-only. So, one has to check the availability of the critical software they need. My gut feeling, lacking any better measurement, is that Mac has far more compatible Apps than Linux, especially Apps for the general public (not taylored to a high-tech profession).
5. Appeal: Mac has clearly undergone far better UI/UX design and QA processes than all existing linux DEs. This is very visible to some people (if not to most people), and does change the personal choice of people.
6. Stability and similar problems with Linux: I use both Mac and Linux everyday, and for me Linux and Mac has been about the same in terms of stability (with linux maybe a bit more stable). This is obviously hardware dependent, and linux runs on a vast number of hardwares, so it's not easy (or reasonable) to compare all Mac and all Linux instances. Or at least I don't care about such a comparison. Only the Linux configurations that make sense (well supported, without undocumented hardware blobs, etc.) matter (to me at least).
Overall, I prefer my Linux machines (not just because of software freedoms, but also because Mac is unusable for me when I work on large/serious software projects), but I simply can't live with current batch of Linux laptops either. Maybe in a few years some decent ones show up (purism could get somewhere, or system76, etc). Or maybe Apple finally works to scale up their window managers and package managers to make them suitable for special-cases and make it a bit less frustrating for some of us.
> I sometimes have 100+ editor, terminal, and browser windows. Linux has many window managers up to the task (i3, xmonad, openbox, and countless more). Mac has the default one which you CAN'T change.
This is so much my issue. I love i3wm, it's been a revolution for how I work. I never really understood the "desktop" concept with overlapping windows very much, and i3 works at an abstraction that is very close to how I imagine my desktop. I keep stacks of windows open in an arrangement that might be bizarre to anyone except me, but when I look at it it's 90% how I want it to be, a place no other WM/DM has ever gotten.
But I also don't want to deal with linux any more. Please don't sealion me with "but linux works fine for me!" here, but using linux feels like death by a thousand frustrations. Most recently I had to alias pulseaudio -k to pk because pulseaudio got out of whack so often I got used to killing it. That, plus I can't live with Ctrl-based shortucts anymore: I get serious pinky and wrist fatigue from a full day's work on linux. I can't be bothered to work around an entire missing staircase, so I switched back to macOS, where even if the WM isn't as good I can live with it.
(Incidentally, have you heard of yabai[1] / amethyst[2]? They're tiling WMs for macOS. I've been thinking of trying both out for a while now but I can't spare the time.)
I keep checking Amethyst every couple of years. Still not remotely comparable to i3 or other linux window managers. For one, it's extremely slow. I think it is about two orders of magnitude slower to say, move to another desktop/Space, than most (all I used, really) Xserver window managers.
The "Caveat" on the yabai's README page has been enough to deter me away (or rather, make it strictly impossible for me to try it). And it's not even yabai's fault that Apple has made the window manager (WindowServer) mandatory.
Ah, the SIP requirement for yabai isn’t that important IMO. They detail it in their wiki [1]. Incidentally, I tried it out since making the comment, and even without SIP disabled I’ve got it close to where I want it to be. It’s still not as great as my custom i3 setup was, but a few more weekends might get it to a much more comfortable place.
This is a great, high effort post, and it matches my experience pretty well. Couple of comments:
> Laptop build quality
You're absolutely right here. When I had to take apart a MBP last year it was way easier than I expected from their reputation for being non-serviceable. I certainly wish parts weren't soldered on to the board, but that's an understandable tradeoff, maybe. I think my biggest point of criticism is the battery bags: pretty every older Macbook seemingly has had them expand somewhat, while I still have no issues with my Dell battery (in a solid plastic case that's externally swapable). The choice of Torx screws for the internals is fantastic as well. I'll never order a Mac for myself, but I am ordering Torx screws and the first thing I'll do with the next laptop I buy is going to be replacing all the internal Phillips screws with Torx for long term serviceability.
The externals are really important too: you're pretty much guaranteed to get a high quality screen with a Mac for example.
> Appeal: Mac has clearly undergone far better UI/UX design
Also agree strongly with this, although it's still messy and the inability to configure many things the way you can in Linux is a pretty unfortunate tradeoff. Tiny UX issues still bite: the global menu bar makes multitasking a pain because macOS desktops have a single application global context - you have to switch which application you're working on before you can do anything with it. Likewise, while you can usually maximize windows in macOS, practically speaking it's assumed you'll never actually do this. For example, the dock will change widths depending on how many apps are open, so "maximizing" is not really meaningful (the window size does not change when this happens).
> Software compatibility
This one's kind of messy, as you say. If you use mostly open source applications, there are a ton of them which are Linux-first or Linux-only. macOS has a weird problem where the norm is to sell every desktop application on a slick React website at about the $40 price point. Obviously, it's mostly closed source too. Though as a Linux user, if you need Photoshop, you've pretty much got to dual boot. That alone is an enormous negative in the compatibility bracket.
>o Linux DE I've ever used beats macOS in terms of stability.
Maybe this is because I exclusevely use naked WMs with Xterms but OSX is horribly unstable. The GUI is fantastic though in every way you would expect a good gui to be that Windows and kde/gnome disapoint you.
>macOS is fundamentally the same as it was 10 years ago
It's way more service focused and a lot less performant. Opening apps sometimes pops up a "verifying authenticity" dialog with a progress bar for example.
>Windows and macOS solved vsync issues long ago.
If the tearing really does bother you then yes you should use OSX.
- I'm sorry, but no Linux DE I've ever used beats macOS in terms of stability. The file explorers are also a joke and frequently changing.
- I've never booted to a black screen when upgrading macOS.
- 99% of the work I do never needs anything that has to be virtualized under macOS.
- Macbooks are solid laptops. Every other laptop I've owned hasn't stood the test of time as well as my Mac.
- More [actually good] software supports macOS. It's just a fact.
- macOS is fundamentally the same as it was 10 years ago, just with some relatively minor changes to the design. I'm pretty confident they're not going to move the dock to the top and force a new window toolkit on me that most existing software can't use.
- macOS has hardware that I know it will work with. Finding compatible hardware for Linux can be frustrating and not as complete as is claimed.
- Windows and macOS solved vsync issues long ago. Somehow, even with Wayland, you can still experience horizontal tearing if you have the wrong monitor or graphics card.
---
All the customization doesn't offset the trouble that desktop Linux can bring.