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Moving from Macbook to Linux

monadical.com

131–140 of 518 posts

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#131

I got into Linux when I was younger because I thought it was cool, and I had plenty of time to fix it when things broke. It's been my daily driver for ~10 years now. But there's quite a bit too learn. If I were to try and switch from Windows or Mac today I'm not sure I'd succeed before giving up. But I'm grateful every day to have a machine that I have some semblance of control over. I use a rolling release distro. I…

where is the uptime ?

Ha, unfortunately I manage to crash it on a regular basis playing games on a Windows 10 VM with PCI passthrough. "Have you tried downloading a better sound card" has become a running joke on our Discord server when I'm having issues with it.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#132
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That future looks extremely scary. What can we do, now, as developers ? Stop buying, using, and supporting the Apple ecosystem. Vote with your money. The new chips are faster. So what? The laptop you have today works fine, you don't need the latest and greatest hardware.

i code iOS (native) app for a living. I'm already stuck developing for the app store, using xcode to sign and deploy, using a programming language (that i love) swift that only really works on mac OS. My personal situation isn't going to change anytime soon unfortunately. I was about to dump my iphone next time i had to pick one (and keep my current one for testing), however my laptop is my work computer. I think "st…

"What can we do, now, as developers ?" "i code iOS (native) app for a living."

I think you answered yourself. I am not anti-Apple myself and think it's fine being in the Apple world and buying their crap but if you have doubts about Apple's overarching impact on technology in general, you should beging by ending your relationship with that ecosystem as soon as possible.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#133

I got into Linux when I was younger because I thought it was cool, and I had plenty of time to fix it when things broke. It's been my daily driver for ~10 years now. But there's quite a bit too learn. If I were to try and switch from Windows or Mac today I'm not sure I'd succeed before giving up. But I'm grateful every day to have a machine that I have some semblance of control over. I use a rolling release distro. I…

As a developer I used to have a secondary boot for Ubuntu for stuff that's reliant on *NIX tooling, like Ruby (Ruby on Windows is possible, but it's not worth the hassle).

With Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 I'm able to develop the same without having to dual boot and feeling just as native as running Linux on the system, and I can use Windows software like, say, Photoshop. Visual Studio Code integrates automatically, it's like I've got a Linux 'Window' open.

And when I want to switch off I'm back in Windows for a full gaming environment etc.

I'm completely switched over to full-time Windows now. Maybe not a good thing, but it sure is convenient.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux on a desktop is okay, linux on a laptop is bad. I think Linux is cool and grew up playing with different distributions (starting around Fedora Core 4). I spent most of my time on Ubuntu because it worked the best, but also used Yellow Dog Linux (my first laptop was a 12in Apple power pc powerbook g4), Arch, and some others. Things that often gave me issues: - Suspend rarely worked without hacks, even with hacks…

All your problems seem to come from the unsupported hardware. Consider a laptop with preinstalled Linux.

Or a ThinkPad.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#135
Made the switch a month ago from Mac to Pop!_OS on a desktop. Everything installed without a hitch, including wifi, bluetooth, and a usb webcam. Incredibly, just turning on a paired wireless speaker instantly connects and selects it for output. The volume control on my keyboard also worked as expected without any configuration.

Pressing "Super" (I mapped it to Caps Lock) floats all the active windows in my workspace and allows me to start typing for a search, and unlike Spotlight it actually works. "Alt + Tab" and "Alt + ~" cycle through open apps and windows within apps just like on OS X.

No more fussing with homebrew, macports, or Apple weirdness when working with CLI programs. Everything is blazingly fast. The IntelliJ ecosystem works without a hitch. Zoom, Spotify, Slack, even Teamwork Chat have native clients. I have a Win10 VM in case I need it, but I haven't yet.

The only thing I miss is Spark for email (Evolution is pretty good) and Carbon Copy Cloner for bootable backups. I have CloneZilla for that, but would be great to run a bootable diff without that hassle.

Definitely worth the ~$4000 I saved for a comparable iMac Pro or Mac Pro.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#137
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly believe that the argument for switching to Linux has never been stronger. Windows has embedded bloatware, and Apple allows no control over your hardware. There's really no other option if you care about these things. (Full disclosure - I do own a Macbook for photography work, and use Bootcamp for gaming.) Like you, my Linux installs have been incredibly stable for a long time, even with a rolling release dist…

Linux on a desktop is okay, linux on a laptop is bad. I think Linux is cool and grew up playing with different distributions (starting around Fedora Core 4). I spent most of my time on Ubuntu because it worked the best, but also used Yellow Dog Linux (my first laptop was a 12in Apple power pc powerbook g4), Arch, and some others. Things that often gave me issues: - Suspend rarely worked without hacks, even with hacks…

I bought a lenovo to have a linux laptop earlier this year, and I must say I think it is the best laptop experience I've had. It has fantastic battery life, everything works with very minimal configuration, and with my i3 desktop setup exactly how I like it I'm more productive than I was on my macbook.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#138

I did the same thing last year for similar reasons. Unfortunately there are some deal breakers for me and I’ll be going back to Mac. Easily the worst part for me, and it’s the same with Windows: Mouse scrolling, touchpad feel and gesture experience. Line scrolling without inertia feels ridiculous to me. Linux gesture replacements I’ve tried feel like hacky proof of concepts. Integrations like iMessages, Facetime, Air…

> Linux gesture replacements I’ve tried feel like hacky proof of concepts.

Shall I do it? I'm doing it. Shall I? Yes.

It's proofs of concept.

Re: Moving from Macbook to Linux

#139
Plot twist: It looks like they are back on the Mac. [1]

And so it goes. You look at almost all of these "I'm switching from Mac to (Linux|Windows 10)!" blog posts and they're almost always back to the Mac within weeks/months.

I've attempted to go back to Linux plenty of times, and while the kernel and userspace is top notch, every GUI I've tried just pales in comparison to even the trainwreck that is the current macOS experience.

1. https://docs.monadical.com/uploads/upload_8293c5cdcc3cf0dc6a...

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