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Comment by ratsimihah | Hacker News Reader

What does Linux give you that macOS doesn’t?

I use both a Mac and an Arch Linux running i3/awesomewm, and to me macOS is like any Linux distro with a user-friendly desktop environment.

I guess it doesn’t have an « official » package manager, but homebrew has most packages anyway?

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Package management is core to the OS, not bolted on. I can change the desktop environment as I please, and potentially run different environments for different purposes, if I so choose. For any piece of software on the system, I can have a part in its development process, if I choose to. I like a non-GUI-centric system. I'm not limited to Apple's drivers, or Apple hardware in general (it's pretty and sleek, but I find some of the design choices grating).

I feel like Apple provides a computer and OS that are user-friendly to the general population. But it also seems like the whole culture is "No, don't do it that we. We've provided this method as the One True Way."

How is package management via apt any different than using homebrew? They're both equally "bolted on".

try 'brew install gnome-desktop' maybe?

Wait this works? Gnome shell? The full gnome experience?

Nope :-/

        $ brew install gnome-desktop
        Updating Homebrew...
        ==> Auto-updated Homebrew!
        Updated 3 taps (caskroom/cask, caskroom/versions, homebrew/core).
        ==> Renamed Formulae
        php70 -> php@7.0

        Error: No available formula with the name "gnome-desktop" 
        ==> Searching for a previously deleted formula (in the last month)...
        Error: No previously deleted formula found.
        ==> Searching for similarly named formulae...
        ==> Searching local taps...
        Error: No similarly named formulae found.
        ==> Searching taps...
        ==> Searching taps on GitHub...
        Error: No formulae found in taps.

I only realized later that it wouldn't really work anyway guessing from all the missing dependencies.

Apt is the update mechanism for the system. OS updates, application updates, etc. It's a core piece of software on a Debian-related system. Brew behaves more like an alternate software repository...it's not like you're using it to fetch your kernel updates in macOS.

Why does the method of updating the core OS matter? Unless you're a system admin, and have to do it a lot. If not, that's hopefully something you don't spend a significant amount of time on each day.

Most of my concerns with regards to the OS I use has to do with the stuff I do 10s or 100s of times a day.

> Why does the method of updating the core OS matter?

Because it's part of the answer to the question "How is package management via apt any different than using homebrew?", and (I think) supports my assertion that Apt is more of a piece of core OS functionality than Brew is.

So, it's more of a philosophical hang-up than a practical one.

I love apt, but I have no philosophical stake in the game. Both allow me to install things from command line. In that respect, they are functionally identical to me.

Then once a quarter or half-year, I need to do an OS upgrade, and then I use two different systems depending on platform (I use both regularly). Let's say one takes 15 minutes and uses apt, and the other takes 45 minutes and uses App Store.

Then I amortize that over the preceding three months, and in both cases the attention required, confusion created, and effort expended approaches zero rapidly, regardless of system.

Like I said, if you're a system admin, then sure.

> Why does the method of updating the core OS matter

Because updating Arch is about 100x faster than updating a Mac to a new version. The loading bar looks nearly complete and then "About 17 minutes remaining."

I’m not sure Arch Linux is the best thing to compare it to. It might update quickly but it might not boot up next time, either.

That's a popular myth, but nothing more. I've been running a single Arch install for close to 4 years now, no problem.

Uniform platform support for multiple architectures. I have Linux desktops on i686, x86_64, arm and aarch64. Same desktop environment, same programs, same easily mirrorable configuration, same firewall system, wireguard, same or fairly equivalent package management between systems.

I work on container-tech and the absence of namespaces and cgroups in the macOS kernel is a continuous source of frustration for my team since you need to work through a VM abstraction for Macs.

What you're talking about is way over my head, but I do understand Linux might be more appropriate for more low-level stuffs and hardcode users like you at the kernel level. I'm happy doing React on my Mac :)

> What does Linux give you that macOS doesn’t?

perf, case sensitive file systems, non stupid alt-tab behaviour, strace, pstack, gdb (these don't seem to work without sacrificing animals), gnome-shell (better than finder by a long way, imo).

I've got a mac. I don't install programs except for things through brew. It's basically shitty linux with outlook.

perf, strace, and pstack can be replaced with dtrace on MacOS.

You can have a case-sensitive position. (Separate from root so it doesn't break some apps)

Do you need to add dtrace to the key chain each time it's updated or do they just not update it like most of their command line software?

What do you mean "add dtrace to the key chain"? I've never done anything related to keychain while using dtrace.

gdb needs to be added to the keychain as a signed program in order to attach to programs. But brew is a rolling release so I might need to add this frequently. It's painful.

DTrace is built-in software.

I took some time to try dtrace out. Sadly it's broken unless one turns off SIP:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/193368/what-is-the...

Only when tracing the operating system, not your program. But yes, that is still a shame. You don't need to turn off SIP globally, you can just enable DTrace while keeping the rest of SIP on.

Thanks for the tip!

I was trying to work with some students with Swift and the Mac character encoding ending up causing no end of problems.

> the Mac character encoding

You mean UTF-8?

Alt-tab behavior is more of a preference thing.

>It's basically shitty linux with outlook.

Linux is shitty Linux. Except on the server. (IMO, of course).

I can accept that alt-tab is a preference if you want to use alt-tab and alt-`. It's heresy to prefer alt-`, but whatever -the vim-spaces-only(but automated code formatters are best and I dont care what they use)-alt-tabbers will eventually win out.

But on multiple desktops if you alt-tab to the previous application again, it only brings up the application windows in the current screen instead of bringing you to the last window you used (on another screen). Wrong! Broken! Sad!

Also, on mac alt-tab raises ALL the application windows. So if you have shed loads of terminal windows or loads of browser windows open, then alt-tab brings them all to the front. This is definitely broken since it stops common workflows like copying between windows; or finding some text that you want to type into a terminal and then alt tabbing to the terminal only to have the screen covered in terminal windows. SAD.

Mac is low energy (That's the reason I think I have it for a laptop).

I find separate inter-app cycling (cmd-tab) and intra-app cycling (cmd-`) much superior, faster, giving you better control.

However, agreed that on a Mac with multiple "spaces" it's completely broken.

Compared to a optimized Arch, or even a non overloaded windows 10 mac never appeared to me very energy friendly.

..with outlook?

Sorry man, but you’re doing it wrong.

And the Mac file system is case sensitive.

> What does Linux give you that macOS doesn’t?

Stable, long term, OS support. I'm running CentOS 7 x64 now, as I got completely sick and tired of Apple's "new OS release every year" bullshit.

You can run things like the Adobe Suite without any ridiculous overhead. Where Xcode is important you've also got that.

For a lot of people that don't care the differences are largely subjective and the difference between Ubuntu, for example, and macOS are largely academic and aesthetic.

With academic, I'm not sure if you also include 'philosophic'. Personally, I'd rather develop on mac than on windows but I'm the happiest on Linux.

A large factor in this is that I like to contribute to FOSS and find that 'ideology' to be a match with my beliefs regarding software.

For work I prefer the macOS environment partially for the software, but mostly because the machines are standardized and interchangeable. If one machine dies I can swap it for another without any fuss. Restore from Time Machine and get on with life, something that takes about an hour or so.

This is really not the case with Windows or Linux. These require a lot of tinkering and tuning. A recent swap from one Windows 7 machine to a Windows 10 one took days, the migration procedure is basically garbage.

I've never had much luck with desktop Linux even though I use it all the time on servers but those get rebuilt with a new OS when they're out of date. Upgrading them is just too much of a fuss.

If you've got a workflow for keeping desktop Linux up to date and rolling over from one machine to another as you upgrade hardware, that's worth sharing.

> Upgrading them is just too much of a fuss.

Switching to a rolling distro will eliminate the upgrade pain. Keeping dd backups is also relatively easy.

And unless you're on a custom kernel, you can just roll over to a new machine with your image and the appropriate kernel modules would get loaded for the new hardware at boot.

> What does Linux give you that macOS doesn’t?

For one, you largely don't pay strategy tax, which is under discussion in the very title of this submission.

freedom.

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