Gone from Ubuntu to Mac OSX six months ago:
- No IT support for Ubuntu: I upgraded to Ubuntu 13.04 at home, then at work. And they had a bug in the network authentification. Life is sad, when you suddently can't connect to the network... something that worked well in 12.12. I lost 2 days at work, the IT support only wanted to support Macs, I worked the following 3 nights to recover a high-pressure project, yes, Ubuntu failed me.
- On Ubuntu, I was missing Keynote, and IntelliJ is so annoying (have to remap keyboard shortcuts, but then you can't work on your colleagues' machines). Fortunately, we don't use Word or Excel at work.
- Everything my company designs uses the Mac UX language: icons, UI patterns, if you don't use a Mac, you don't understand how design decisions make sense. So using a Mac is a way to keep posted about the fashion.
Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
61–70 of 126 posts
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#62This. +100. I'm growing increasingly uncomfortable with the Apple ecosystem. iProducts, iCloud, etc. I can't transfer this to that cause I'm not allowed, click here to accept this, turn on location services so we can track you - on your laptop. It's getting to be too much. What's the best laptop for running any Ubuntu flavored desktop?
I'm using the Asus Zenbook UX32VD and everything works pretty flawlessly. Even suspend.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#63I've used Linux for years. I've even used Linux on the first Macs I ever had. In the end, I found it just cost me too much time, especially if I wanted to keep it running on the hardware of my choice, which will most likely remain Apple. And I'm not compromising my hardware choice, as long as other manufacturers can't be bothered to invest as much in excellent product design.
Also, having so much freedom to choose and configure is not always productive, and I really don't like the defaults most distro's come with. This is where the difference between OSX and Linux desktops becomes painfully clear.
I'll consider switching back if OSX becomes too restrictive or the Linux desktop eco-system (including hardware) dramatically improves.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#64I love Linux. The year was 2005, I was 14. I had dialup, and I wanted to try out this Linux thing. I bought a 20 disc set of cds for Debian, and installed it on my computer. I had to install it several times before I figured out to press the space bar to select to install a graphical environment. I also got a free disc in the mail for another thing called Ubuntu. Installed that too. Rather ugly brown. I spent hours trying to get it to talk to my modem to connect to the internet. I never could get the gui to work, I had to run it through the cli. I once decided to compile my own kernel because I could. There was a thrill in seeing it boot. I also finally figured out how to get opengl working with my radeon. Messing with esoteric xorg settings. Eventually I completely stopped booting into Windows XP. (Actually I spilled soy sauce on my video card. It would never work in Windows again, only Linux.)
I tried a number of distros over the years. Gentoo is excellent, if you're an asocial computer nerd that enjoys compiling programs. I also did Linux From Scratch. Huge amount of fun. Learned a lot. I still remember the thrill of seeing Gnome finally start up. I set up a tiling window manager (can't even remember what it was). Most sparse desktop ever. Always had xine running on the left most desktop (started from the command line of course.)
The development environment was excellent, (except for the lack of IDE). Huge number of libraries. Easily write a c program that could access the internet, parse video files, etc. And all of these libraries were easily installed. Valgrind was excellent, too.
The last distro I extensively used was Fedora. Finally, though, I had enough. I grew tired of constantly having to fiddle with little shit. The final straw was I was just doing a generic update, and wifi stopped working. I couldn't figure it out, so I just wiped the drive and installed windows 7. It's nice to have things work, mostly. I miss the environment. Cygwin/mingw don't quite make it up, and powershell is a heaping sack of shit. I tried Linux Mint about a year ago. It was atrocious. I don't remember all of the details, but it was the little details that didn't work. The multimedia keys didn't work, this was a known bug that had been around for a while. The start menu was annoying to use, Windows 7 was actually better in this regard. I don't need to say anything about Gnome 3.
I just bought a Macbook on Friday. I'm actually pretty excited, this will be my first modern Mac. I'm hoping that I'll get the awesome development environment of Linux/Unix and the polished interface of a commercial operating system. I once very strongly believed in support the FSF, but I want a computer that works. I don't have the time anymore to tinker with esoteric xorg settings.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#65I'll say something that's vaguely awful: what's in it for me? I use Linux at work and it's not bad , but I'm less productive on it with 95% of tasks than I would be with OSX. It looks worse (I recognize this is subjective.) A lot of my friends use Linux and tell me that if I spend the right amount of time tinkering with it -- making it mine -- I'd reap the benefits of a bespoke OS, just like slipping on a suit that's…
I used Linux exclusively for many years but switched to OSX for work some years ago. I still feel more productive in Linux, but it's because of a few tricks that I so far haven't found a good replacement for in OSX:
- Focus follows mouse without auto-raise - Instant switching between virtual desktops (not possible to disable the animation in OSX last time I checked) - Instantly open a new terminal window with intelligent window placement in the currently active virtual desktop.
Since these turned out to be a hassle in OSX, I've just gradually stopped using them, and resorder to a single desktop paradigm with more mouse clicking for navigation. All in all I feel like I'm working slower in OSX than in Linux.
However, the major problem with Linux is the looks and a host of small nice details that OSX just gets right. Instant search in Spotlight including Mail, I've grown accustomed to the Mail app (Thunderbird search is ridiculous compared to Mail.app, for instance), Time Machine, and a few other apps like 1Password.
If I could get a virtualization scheme where I could have one desktop with OSX and 3-4 desktops of Linux, that would be ideal. But I don't think that's possible with Parallels or VMware, and I'm not sure how well OSX would run virtualized under Linux.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#66i would love to. i came from linux to OSX. and for exactly those reasons i can't leave:
- Photoshop (nope, Gimp won't do, sorry)
- Word (nope, OpenOffice etc. won't do... had it fuck up the section headings on a legal doc the other day. no bueno.)
- music software (Ableton, Maschine, etc.)
i'm also addicted to the trackpad. some Apple hardware guys told me it's all software, but i don't remember any Windows or linux laptop ever coming close... i'm amazed how bad they are every time i need to jump on one for a minute.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#67I've been toying with the idea, yeah. Then I got my MacBook Pro stolen and used an old laptop replacement with Ubuntu while I was in the process of replacing it.
Long story short, there are a few things that I couldn't get over within a week: - CTRL-C rather than CMD-C is now a weird contorsion for my hand. - CTRL-C and CTRL-V can't be used for copying and pasting in the terminal. I understand why, but really couldn't get over it. - I think the UI is not polished enough to my likings. It's good, but still lacking. Visual differences and missing proper exposé are at the top of this list. - iPhone integration (disclaimer: I didn't try that hard.)
So I went back to OS X.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#68Thought about this alot, probably too much. The bottom line is that switching to Linux will be a step back in terms of convenience. It is still true that the closed operating systems are just easier to use as day-to-day one-size-fits-all machines. In my recent tries with Xubuntu i had some sound issues, the machine didnt want to sleep correctly and skype had audio lag issues and didnt show a popup when somebody was c…
Linux is harder to learn and get set up, but it's just spending a bit more time now to be more productive in the long run. Of course, it's not more productive for everybody, but it is for some of us. Plus we have Docker.io instead of Vagrant. Way nicer.
Sadly id still need some form of Windows for game development (Unity3D). Since Unity3D also runs on OSX, thats another benefit in terms of convenience for me using OSX.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#69No. As much as I hate iTunes, having a homogenous infrastructure at home between AppleTV, iPhones, iPads, and an old macbook pro acting as a server, things just work. Our personal laptops are an Air and a Retina MPB. Moving the wife from Windows to Mac was enough of a step (she uses excel and other biz apps), Linux would be a non-starter. Given the i* devices, for me, I couldn't revisit Linux without incurring manage…
Has anyone tried Google TV and how does it compete within a iEcosystem? http://www.google.com/tv/get.html
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#70I see everybody with the view that OSX is so much more productive, but I'll give a different view, as an OS X user turned Linux user. I switched entirely about 6 months ago, and it just sort of happened once Linux was set up to my liking. Positives: * Tiling WMs - I have always found myself working primarily in fullscreen applications like in OSX, but it's nice to have a small status bar at the top still and splitscr…
> * You look like an "Engineer" not a "Hacker" - Lots of people will view the fact that you spent time customizing your work environment as you playing around with your OS. It's not really that way (unless you're a Gentoo user) but it gives that view to some people.
Uh? Where is this coming from (Hacker/Engineer)? If anything, it's the other way around.