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Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

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41–50 of 531 posts

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#41

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.

Windows is the reason I don't use Photoshop but, instead, use Gimp for all my needs.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#42
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 flag…

I haven't seen you mention it anywhere, so did you try a BIOS / firmware update? I've had similar bugs on multiple Thinkpads before and they were universally cured by an update.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#43
post #11

It'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.

Do check the reviews, though. For a while, system76 had a terrible reputation for quality, and none of them compare to my t420 even today, as far as I can tell.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#44
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Very specific Chromebooks fit the bill as well. One that works particularly well is the Acer C720.

Edit: wanted to clarify that this C720 is my current personal portable. My other is a custom built desktop also running Ubuntu.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#45
It's interesting to hear about OSX crashing. I didn't think that was common. I've been a linux user for the longest time, and have always had to tweak something to get it running the way that I wanted to. That doesn't bother me since I like to do that kind of stuff. That and the fact that I've never had any problems with linux crashing, especially compared to Windows, has kept me on linux. But I know a lot of people who left linux for OSX because they didn't like to tweak things and just wanted to get things done.

A friend recently switched from a mac laptop at work to a windows laptop which surprised me. While she has always been a windows user, I was surprised that OSX didn't convert her to the platform. I also noticed that as more and more people start using macs, I hear more and more grumbling about them.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#47
Oddly enough, I switched from Ubuntu Linux to OS X because of upgrade pains of my own -- regressions in the Intel display drivers on my older hardware, suffering performance as a result of Unity, and cloud services making changes to messaging protocols in ways that constantly broke Pidgin/libpurple/Empathy.

At one point, I had a workflow consisting of a Chromebook + Chrome + GMail + Secure Shell[0] + Linux VPS running Ubuntu Linux. It worked pretty well so long as I could rely on there being a fast, low-latency, stable internet connection (say, at a university). Then I moved to the Bay Area. ;)

[0] Chrome Extension which purportedly contains OpenSSH compiled for Portable Native Client so that it can run inside Chrome. Convenient, but YMMV for the paranoid.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#48
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 flag…

I haven't seen you mention it anywhere, so did you try a BIOS / firmware update? I've had similar bugs on multiple Thinkpads before and they were universally cured by an update.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've updated the BIOS multiple times. It didn't fix anything.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#49
post #40

I did this once. Biggest waste of time, ever. Went from NetBSD to OS X in 2002, then to Linux in 2008, then back to OS X in 2011. I spend almost all of my time in cross-platform apps, but the little inconveniences of Linux on a laptop just weren't worth the trouble back in 2011, and I'd be surprised if anything has changed since then. OS X at its ugliest and least stable wipes the floor with Linux at its best, imo.

I disagree.

While I wholly agree I'm curious to see your reasoning

Edit: wholly agree with OSX not wiping the floor with Linux

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#50
I can recommend trying a chromebook. You get a "linux" (crouton) laptop with excellent battery life and you don't have to spend hours upon hours of wrestling with custom wifi firmware, etc. The only drawback is that disk space is extremely limited, and there is still no real "mid-range" version (they all seem to have shitty non-IPS screens except Toshiba's latest). Also if you press space bar and then enter upon booting it'll wipe your chroot! :-) And if you need virtualization or custom kernels, also probably not a good fit.
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