For some time now, I've been growing increasingly weary of the walled gardens I once so enthusiastically embraced. Off the top of my head, some grievances include, forced corporate policies, lack of hardware choice, and closed operating software. For pragmatic reasons, I've stuck it out with OS X for years, but do wonder if it's time to consider OSS desktop alternatives again? Will the conveniences be missed? Tim Oreilly was echoing a similar sentiment a year ago. https://plus.google.com/+TimOReilly/posts/g9WdNt6yVgR
Are you in the same boat? It all just seems so daunting starting over...
Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
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Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#2I switched back to GNU/Linux about 3 years ago when I started noticing and becoming aware of this ugly trend with Apple. I just couldn't live with myself anymore if I didn't also act according to my belief in digital freedom and empowering people. so after some self-questioning I have decided to switch to GNU/Linux and free software.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#3It is a personal choice. I personally don't mind OS X as it allows me to do what I want.
VMWare Fusion + OS X = freedom of development choice. Bootcamp + Windows = games.
The hardware isn't bad either though it is slightly more expensive depending on how you look at it.
For Linux, I find that there aren't many good vendors that provide pre-installed Linux on state-of-the-art hardware especially when it comes to laptops.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#4From seeing others dealing with bleeding edge node.js stuff - installing modules and following tutorials become confusing. Sometimes you get weird error and only after couple hours googling you find out that it is because on Mac it is a bit different and you would avoid it if you start with Ubuntu in first place.
Yes, Ubuntu, since it is most used OSS desktop right now and most tutorials, docs, etc focus on it from my experience.
So it boils down to what you do. If you do mostly client-side html/js/css you probably will be ok with Mac. If you do more server stuff - it might make sense to switch to Ubuntu to make your life easier. Start with Virtualbox with Ubuntu in VM to keep your workflow the same in the beginning.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#5I switched from OS X to Windows 8, and I virtualise linux using windows as the host OS.
I hate to say it, but I think Windows 8 is pretty good as a host OS (not having used Windows much since 2003).
I wouldn't be able to do my job without the virtulisation though, in the end I got so fed up with trying to install stuff naively on OS X with brew and ports and from source and whatever I was virtualising on OS X for about 2 years before I switched over anyway.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#6No. 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 management headaches I don't care for.
There is more to "switching" than just is an OSS option available.
I have a number of VMs -- ubuntu and FreeBSD for development. Desktop remains homogenous.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#7I put together a new desktop machine for the first time in 12 years a few weeks ago and decided to run xubuntu on it.
The most annoying aspect of it is the discrepancies between applications and keyboard shortcuts.
If you're a power user mac who uses keyboard shortcuts a ton then going back to X11 apps can be a little painful.
The other downside I had was on install I had no wireless card and had to download a tarball to a usb stick and recompile my device driver just to connect. I kind of expected things to just work by now, it's a shame there's still these little hiccups but I guess I shouldn't have bought cutting edge?
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#8From seeing others dealing with bleeding edge node.js stuff - installing modules and following tutorials become confusing. Sometimes you get weird error and only after couple hours googling you find out that it is because on Mac it is a bit different and you would avoid it if you start with Ubuntu in first place. Yes, Ubuntu, since it is most used OSS desktop right now and most tutorials, docs, etc focus on it from m…
Exactly this! If you are deploying to Ubuntu, it is so much easier on you if you have your dev environment running the same thing.
On OS X I found it not to be too different an experience as well, I would run Ubuntu server, open terminal, SSH into the local server, and in the browser just hit the VMs IP, as opposed to open terminal, and hit localhost.
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#9+1 definitly!
I have tried many times but, every time I had to go back to OSX for some reason. I am a big FreeBSD fan and for me OSX with the port system was the way to go. Now Apple is more and more getting in the way but FreeBSD not really running on Apple hardware.
On the Linux (I tried Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/Gentoo) point of view you can't really find a distro that is working well enough and have a similar port system.
I'm kinda stuck with OSX...
Re: Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?
#10It is a personal choice. I personally don't mind OS X as it allows me to do what I want. VMWare Fusion + OS X = freedom of development choice. Bootcamp + Windows = games. The hardware isn't bad either though it is slightly more expensive depending on how you look at it. For Linux, I find that there aren't many good vendors that provide pre-installed Linux on state-of-the-art hardware especially when it comes to lapto…
Generally speaking ultrabooks make great linux laptops, pretty much right out of the box. The more of the functionality of the laptop is provided by Intel stuff the better.