Photoshop remains the reason I haven't used Linux as my primary OS for a couple years now. I held out for a long time, but it's just a singularly useful piece of software with no reasonable equivalents.
Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
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Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#22I appreciate the points made, but without comparisons on a point-by-point basis, I'm still left wondering what the specific linux runes are to replace OS X - even for this one user.
More damning than the lack of personal connection, though, was the complete lack of transparency and general decline in software quality, as I perceived it.
It seems that these frustrations against OS X is a mismatch to this user's minimalist requirements: a mail client, iTerm, and a web browser. The OS X ecosystem caters a wide net of users ranging from the pink keyboards of middle school girls to the coffee-infused palms of college students.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#23It's important to notice that he's switching to a desktop running linux. Running linux on laptops is still a gamble. Sometimes things work great. Sometimes you spend months trying to fix basic stuff like screen brightness[1][2] on hardware certified by Ubuntu.[3] I think there's a market for a linux distro that targets a limited set of premium hardware. I'd gladly pay money for an OS that worked out of the box on any…
Purely anecdotal but I dual boot windows/linux(ubuntu) regularly on four separate ultrabooks(from three different manufacturers) with few complaints. (beyond the dearth of updates(that I appreciate anyway)).
Everything worked out of the box. 100%.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#24FYI this was not posted by 'the Woz', but rather by the unrelated Geoff Wozniak. I imagine many others may have clicked through owing to the domain.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#25It's important to notice that he's switching to a desktop running linux. Running linux on laptops is still a gamble. Sometimes things work great. Sometimes you spend months trying to fix basic stuff like screen brightness[1][2] on hardware certified by Ubuntu.[3] I think there's a market for a linux distro that targets a limited set of premium hardware. I'd gladly pay money for an OS that worked out of the box on any…
Thinkpads work great.
... unfortunately the state of Linux on laptops makes the all-too-common case of _repurposing_ a laptop incredibly painful. :/
... unless you think ahead and only buy (and recommend) Thinkpads.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#26It's important to notice that he's switching to a desktop running linux. Running linux on laptops is still a gamble. Sometimes things work great. Sometimes you spend months trying to fix basic stuff like screen brightness[1][2] on hardware certified by Ubuntu.[3] I think there's a market for a linux distro that targets a limited set of premium hardware. I'd gladly pay money for an OS that worked out of the box on any…
Thinkpads work great.
Did you not see my links to where a ThinkPad, certified by Ubuntu, has broken screen brightness? I own an X140e and it has been a nightmare. I've had it for a year and I still can't get bluetooth to work[1]. I've also tried a Carbon X1 and it leaves much to be desired.
Like I said, it's a gamble. Sometimes the hardware and drivers and phase of the moon is right and everything works. Sometimes no amount of kernel flags and customized modules will fix it. I (along with many others) am willing to pay to not have to worry about potential problems.
1. I ranted a little about it near the end of a recent blog post: http://geoff.greer.fm/2015/01/03/ten-years-of-progress-in-la...
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#27I've been using OS X since 10.2, though I keep a Windows box around for games. I also feel that OS X has become less stable and performant in recent years, and every now and then I spin up a Linux distro on a spare hard disk just to try it out.
These experiments rarely last very long, and almost always end because the video/graphics support is just so terrible. I have yet to find a reliable way to play videos without horrible screen tearing.
But I don't know what alternative there is. Windows' experiments with Metro was a disaster. PC-BSD has some really nice features (I love ZFS and use it on my fileserver) but has the same issues with hardware support, especially graphics hardware support.
I fear for the future.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#28It's important to notice that he's switching to a desktop running linux. Running linux on laptops is still a gamble. Sometimes things work great. Sometimes you spend months trying to fix basic stuff like screen brightness[1][2] on hardware certified by Ubuntu.[3] I think there's a market for a linux distro that targets a limited set of premium hardware. I'd gladly pay money for an OS that worked out of the box on any…
Don't know a 'paid Linux OS' but system76.com makes PCs specifically for Linux, which is effectively a limited set of premium hardware.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#29I've been considering this for a while -- especially after the Yosemite upgrade, in which my machine has been randomly hanging [0], and in which my machine gets noticeably slower (cmd-tab takes a quarter to a half a second to actually finish switching and repainting windows) over the course of a few days of uptime. OS X software quality is very clearly not a priority at Apple, which is a shame, because this machine is still the best hardware I've ever had the pleasure of using. I don't know what my next machine will be, but if things go at the current pace, I imagine it won't be running OS X.
My previous Linux machine was a Sony VAIO SZ, running Ubuntu 8.04; it did basically everything that I needed, and my only complaint that I'd have if downgrading to it today would be the reduction in battery life. Is there a great set of laptop hardware to run Linux on these days? What do people use when they just want a candy-reduced window system?
[0] MacBook Pro Retina 15", Mid 2012; periodically, usually while I am scrolling through a web page, the machine becomes unresponsive (sound stops, cursor stops), and a minute or two later, the machine powers off. Sometimes it reboots on its own; afterwards, there's no kernel panic log. As far as I can tell, something goes wrong, and after a few minutes, the SMC's watchdog timer gives up, and shoots the machine in the head.
Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak
#30It's important to notice that he's switching to a desktop running linux. Running linux on laptops is still a gamble. Sometimes things work great. Sometimes you spend months trying to fix basic stuff like screen brightness[1][2] on hardware certified by Ubuntu.[3] I think there's a market for a linux distro that targets a limited set of premium hardware. I'd gladly pay money for an OS that worked out of the box on any…
There's the Dell Sputnik series.[1] They are pricey but specifically designed to run Ubuntu.