Ask HN: Continue using Mac or switch to Linux?
14 comments
I'm sorta in the same boat but want to stay in the Apple ecosystem.
I have a mid-2010 iMac (11,2) that just finally bit the dust (wouldn't turn on for hours once being plugged back inand now just won't turn on at all). It's a decent machine that owes me nothing.
I really want to get another 27-inch iMac but I worry about the chip transition currently happening. If I buy an Intel one right now, how long is Apple going to wait before dropping support for it (will Intel still be supported by the time we get to macOS 11.2, for example)?
Does it make sense to wait for WWDC 2021 to see if an Apple Silicon iMac comes out or if the line gets a revamp? Does it make sense to get one now and stick with it or even trade it in for an upgrade in a few years?
I can get by with my 2015 MacBook Pro and 2012 MacBook Air for now, but I would really prefer to have my sweet, simple 27-inch iMac workflow back.
I have a mid-2010 iMac (11,2) that just finally bit the dust (wouldn't turn on for hours once being plugged back inand now just won't turn on at all). It's a decent machine that owes me nothing.
I really want to get another 27-inch iMac but I worry about the chip transition currently happening. If I buy an Intel one right now, how long is Apple going to wait before dropping support for it (will Intel still be supported by the time we get to macOS 11.2, for example)?
Does it make sense to wait for WWDC 2021 to see if an Apple Silicon iMac comes out or if the line gets a revamp? Does it make sense to get one now and stick with it or even trade it in for an upgrade in a few years?
I can get by with my 2015 MacBook Pro and 2012 MacBook Air for now, but I would really prefer to have my sweet, simple 27-inch iMac workflow back.
well, what about a m1 mac mini then and the LG 27" inch 5K screen?
or for now, buy a used iMac?
or for now, buy a used iMac?
I'd love to consider leaving Apple, but there's something that keeps me that I'm not willing to give up: industrial design. I look at the rest of the market and wonder what the hell they've been doing for the past decade...
Why is it all "gamer" hardware that looks like a Michael Bay movie? Maybe there's a carve out for things that look like they belong in a cubicle farm. Cheap plastic, laptops with bad battery life and worse cooling, inferior trackpads, and screens that don't quite hit the mark no matter where you look.
I'm willing to accept that Apple buys the supply chain and makes it harder, fine - but why is there not one single company that makes something premium that I want to have in my office? I'll pay a premium for it, cost literally does not matter - just give me something nice. I could get a good looking desktop from System76, but every other monitor makes me cringe now.
If the market is this much in disarray, I have no idea how they compete against the M1's internals. Ceding the premium market to Apple is the most depressing thing ever.
And none of this is even touching on comparing macOS relative polish to Linux and its various DEs. I think that macOS is tricky with changes, sure - but if you know how the OS works, there's really very little surprise with it.
tl;dr: would the rest of this industry please wake up and actually compete?
Why is it all "gamer" hardware that looks like a Michael Bay movie? Maybe there's a carve out for things that look like they belong in a cubicle farm. Cheap plastic, laptops with bad battery life and worse cooling, inferior trackpads, and screens that don't quite hit the mark no matter where you look.
I'm willing to accept that Apple buys the supply chain and makes it harder, fine - but why is there not one single company that makes something premium that I want to have in my office? I'll pay a premium for it, cost literally does not matter - just give me something nice. I could get a good looking desktop from System76, but every other monitor makes me cringe now.
If the market is this much in disarray, I have no idea how they compete against the M1's internals. Ceding the premium market to Apple is the most depressing thing ever.
And none of this is even touching on comparing macOS relative polish to Linux and its various DEs. I think that macOS is tricky with changes, sure - but if you know how the OS works, there's really very little surprise with it.
tl;dr: would the rest of this industry please wake up and actually compete?
It’s the economics of it all. Industrial design costs a lot of money. Money requires margins. There is little margin to be had in building PCs after Intel/AMD, Nvidia, Realtek, etc all take their cut. And let’s not forget Microsoft getting their pound of flesh for Windows. The modern PC is simply packaging.
The flashy gaming PCs with cheap LED lights and backlit keyboards have allowed the manufacturers to increase their margin enough to stay in business, but not enough to fund the kind of industrial design that Apple puts forward.
The flashy gaming PCs with cheap LED lights and backlit keyboards have allowed the manufacturers to increase their margin enough to stay in business, but not enough to fund the kind of industrial design that Apple puts forward.
I've often wondered the same thing. Seems like Apple is winning because everyone else just gave up, but what that should really mean is that it's ripe for disruption.
I'd love to have a Linux machine that looks good physically, has a polished OS, and "just works". But I've dabbled with various flavors of Linux a lot over the last few years, and I'm just never impressed enough to make the switch fully.
I'd love to have a Linux machine that looks good physically, has a polished OS, and "just works". But I've dabbled with various flavors of Linux a lot over the last few years, and I'm just never impressed enough to make the switch fully.
I've been on Ubuntu as my primary OS for the last decade or so. The only Mac I ever owned was a Mac Mini (mid 2011). The machine was working great until it started getting unbearably slow with every OS update unless I added more RAM. Then finally came Catalina which just refused to work. The hardware was still great but Apple decided they won't support it anymore. I vowed to never buy a Mac again.
Linux distributions have gotten much better at supporting new hardware, I have a home built machine that I wanted to dual boot Ubuntu and Windows but it refused to take the Windows OS installation USB disk. Ubuntu just worked on first try so I gave up on the dual boot idea.
As much as I would recommend switching back to Linux, there are still hair-pulling issues to be aware of:
- Some software like Gimp just look awful on a 4K monitor, the icons look way too small and I haven't figured out how to fix it.
- Fractional scaling is still hit or miss on some desktop environments. I use gdm and sometimes you'll see artifacts on the date/time indicator caused by fractional scaling. Firefox will sometimes display the menu on the far right corner of the screen while I have the window tiled on the left of the screen.
- Nvidia drivers were a nightmare during the transition from CUDA 10 to CUDA 11 on Ubuntu 20.04.
- Upgrading from a system where python defaults to 2.7 (Ubuntu 18.04) to a system with python3 by default (Ubuntu 20.04) broke so many things that I just had to do a fresh install of 20.04.
- If you use a printer or scanner then sometimes things just refuse to work until you do some magic invocations and restart the computer or the printer.
Linux distributions have gotten much better at supporting new hardware, I have a home built machine that I wanted to dual boot Ubuntu and Windows but it refused to take the Windows OS installation USB disk. Ubuntu just worked on first try so I gave up on the dual boot idea.
As much as I would recommend switching back to Linux, there are still hair-pulling issues to be aware of:
- Some software like Gimp just look awful on a 4K monitor, the icons look way too small and I haven't figured out how to fix it.
- Fractional scaling is still hit or miss on some desktop environments. I use gdm and sometimes you'll see artifacts on the date/time indicator caused by fractional scaling. Firefox will sometimes display the menu on the far right corner of the screen while I have the window tiled on the left of the screen.
- Nvidia drivers were a nightmare during the transition from CUDA 10 to CUDA 11 on Ubuntu 20.04.
- Upgrading from a system where python defaults to 2.7 (Ubuntu 18.04) to a system with python3 by default (Ubuntu 20.04) broke so many things that I just had to do a fresh install of 20.04.
- If you use a printer or scanner then sometimes things just refuse to work until you do some magic invocations and restart the computer or the printer.
For reference, I'm a web developer, UI/UX designer and RPA developer.
A few years ago, I tried really hard to leave MS and Apple and go full Linux with all my stuff. It lasted about six months and I finally gave up since there's so much I do with Adobe products and they haven't ported any of their stuff to Linux, I just run into too many problems with trying to replace those.
I literally loved everything about Linux with that one exception. If Linux had comparable Adobe products I'd be there 100% no problem, which is really frustrating. Everything else you can find an open source alternative for most Apple and MS products.
The one thing I do love about Linux is the amount of distros you can choose from. From the absolute minimalistic to brand new distros being built almost daily. If you don't have an Adobe requirement, I'd check out the distro site and take a look around. You should be able to find something to fit what you're doing.
https://distrowatch.com/
A few years ago, I tried really hard to leave MS and Apple and go full Linux with all my stuff. It lasted about six months and I finally gave up since there's so much I do with Adobe products and they haven't ported any of their stuff to Linux, I just run into too many problems with trying to replace those.
I literally loved everything about Linux with that one exception. If Linux had comparable Adobe products I'd be there 100% no problem, which is really frustrating. Everything else you can find an open source alternative for most Apple and MS products.
The one thing I do love about Linux is the amount of distros you can choose from. From the absolute minimalistic to brand new distros being built almost daily. If you don't have an Adobe requirement, I'd check out the distro site and take a look around. You should be able to find something to fit what you're doing.
https://distrowatch.com/
This my favorite question asked. Being a linux user for a while I have been debating either to continue using linux or switch to M1 macbook as the ARM processor has been really tempting due to its performance.
But if you love customizing your environment I would say go for linux and if you want just something that works out of the box go for Mac.
I am really hoping if they support linux on the latest M1 Mac.
But if you love customizing your environment I would say go for linux and if you want just something that works out of the box go for Mac.
I am really hoping if they support linux on the latest M1 Mac.
I went the opposite direction - having had a custom-built Windows/Linux dual boot monster for a long time, I traded it out for a 2019 Macbook Pro a few months back. I've been nothing but happy so far.
For context, I'm a DevOps engineer, a web developer, a tabletop game designer, and a gamer.
For context, I'm a DevOps engineer, a web developer, a tabletop game designer, and a gamer.
Would really depend on what you do isn't it? If you are backend developer, I would say jump with both feet. If you are someone who uses adobe suite etc,
Linux is no substitutee for mac.
On top of my job, I do consulting for couple of places. I have two macs, but for my main gig, I use Linux. It's much easier/comfortable for me to code on Linux and do everything with terminal, write quick scripts and not bother with forced updates.
On top of my job, I do consulting for couple of places. I have two macs, but for my main gig, I use Linux. It's much easier/comfortable for me to code on Linux and do everything with terminal, write quick scripts and not bother with forced updates.
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The day that Linux has Adobe like quality software, I will make the switch.
This is a big thing holding me back. Until I can run Adobe on Linux or there's an alternative, I'm sticking with Mac.
Mac with its new M1 is by far the way to go.
So I had a look at the current Apple product range. And I have to say that I'm a bit conflicted. After the last 5 years of Apple (in my opinion) struggling to produce a laptop relevant for professionals, with the new M1 machines coming, and with every release of OSX having some new element of unpleasant surprise to it, I'm not sure I want to continue buying Macs. Not for software development at least. I'm considering going back to Linux for my main software development workstation - and possibly for a powerful laptop.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Both on whether Macs are a viable option for software development in the future and from people who have made the transition back to Linux for software development. What was your experience like?