Comment by AnonHP | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AnonHP | Hacker News Reader

It used to be a long running joke as well as practical wisdom on the Windows side to always wait for SP1 (Service Pack 1) for better stability and never to install the X.0 version.

For all the “doubling down on Mac” that Apple’s senior employees harp about in interviews, macOS itself has been focusing more on eye candy and iOS parity than on stability. For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no longer available, even though the user experience isn’t as great with older hardware and support for external peripherals like the Trackpad. For machines that can run the latest macOS, I upgrade every two whole releases on macOS (and that after it’s way beyond a X.0 release) since security updates are made available to past releases for a few years.

Right now I’m on the latest Mojave release, and skipped Catalina completely. I’ll consider Big Sur a few minor releases after 11.0 is released. This also makes some practical sense because Apple works on features with a multi-year plan but releases them partially done in a “brand new version” (you’ll notice this pattern if you look at it).

I’m thankful to all the brave souls who venture sooner (intentionally or because they bought new hardware that will refuse to run an older OS) and pave the way for me to avoid potholes and land mines.

My days of tinkering with the computer and “yak shaving” are long over. Even though my comment may sound hostile to macOS, there’s no other OS I’d rather start using my personal computer with unless I really, really have to.

Yes, QC of macOS releases is inadequate. I can’t say it’s really new though, even Tiger and Leopard had their issues on day 0 (it was also way worse in the 7.5.x era).

On the other hand, it is entirely possible to stay on a given version for the entire life of its successor. It is also possible to wait for the next x.5 version to upgrade, notwithstanding the incredibly annoying notification about a new major version being available (I don’t know how they can get away with that).

macOS 10.15.6, which is a minor .6 version, should not cause a lot of concern, had a nasty bug with virtualization, breaking virtualbox/docker/..., it was well known within a week or two after the release. So it's not always good to wait for a .x version, it's sometimes more to wait for a few weeks after the release of any version.

> On the other hand, it is entirely possible to stay on a given version for the entire life of its successor.

Or the successor of its successor:

Apple doesn't make any guarantees about it, but typically the _three_ most recent macOS versions receive security updates. Right now: 10.13, 10.14, and 10.15 (plus of course the 10.16 betas).

The real problem for many developers is that Xcode typically requires a fairly recent macOS version. Compiling for iOS is the one thing that developers absolutely _need_ a Mac for, so it's unfortunate that Xcode also forces you to be an early adopter on top of that.

OSes (MacOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS) and Xcode get released in lockstep. The SDKs for each year’s OS releases will work only on that year’s Xcode, which runs on no earlier than the previous year’s MacOS. I’ve been able to transplant the SDK for iOS 13 (which requires MacOS 10.14) so that I can develop on MacOS 10.13 (the latest my MacBook Pro will run), but that’s about to run out. I may end up with a cheap dev-only Mac Mini.

Yes, I’ve had some issues with n-2th version support for some software. Although these days, support for older OSes from third-party developers is better than it used to be, I think.

Just in case you ever consider it for some reason, under no circumstances should you upgrade to Catalina. Worst OS I’ve used since I left windows nearly 20 years ago.

Could you elaborate on the issues you’ve been having? Been using Catalina since the beta and haven’t really had any major problems..

Early (cca 10.15.0 - 15.10.2) there was a problem mounting SMB share once it has been unmounted. Having to reboot just to get it mounted is not a fun.

Scanning with Samsung MFPs in color into PDFs is still broken, but this one is since 10.14 actually. 10.15 just made it worse, because the Samsung scanning app that could be used instead of Image Capture is 32-bit, so the workaround doesn't work anymore.

I'm not the original commenter but I've had this issue where the laptop reboots instead of sleeping properly. Keeps happening, not sure why, and many others have had it too on forums.

Oh wow, this has been happening to my Mac as well. I am thinking of going back to a previous version.

I found that, paradoxically, putting a laptop explicitly to sleep (apple menu/sleep) before leaving the office helps ~80% of the time (i.e. in the morning it will not reset with kernel panic).

Had the same issue. Fixed once I uninstalled VirtualBox and the KEXT extention. Vbox was no longer needed because I switched to Docker.

The main issues seem to be around performance (random pauses), audio problems, suspend/resume. It's not just anecdotal (as someone else suggested), but also from observing the large number of people reporting the same problems on various support forums.

Most of my problems have been on older machines, so perhaps their QA has tanked.

No, I mean, those are very reasonable things to be upset about, I definitely get it, and it shouldn’t be like that no matter the machine. If it’s ok’ed to run the version, it should run without a hitch.

It was pure curiosity on my part, because I haven’t really experienced any major bugs or problems.

I installed Catalina on one machine, kept the other on Mojave. I can't tell the difference between the two unless I'm looking hard, and both are equally reliable for me.

I had a lot of problems with Mojave and Catalina solved some of them. Catalina has been fine for me since the teething problems (and also it takes a week after install to make your way through all the permissions dialogs)

I'm on the Big Sur beta and even this late in the game it's really rough. You're better off upgrading to Catalina and sticking to that than making the jump to Big Sur after it comes out.

I'm really surprised at that - I've been running Big Sur as my main OS on my personal laptop since dev beta 2 and it's been pretty solid. A few small rough edges but it largely just works for me.

In the current beta I still have issues like the `bird` process being perpetually stuck at burning half a core, Spotlight no longer finding anything local (only web results) after a few days (until a reboot), my USB randomly stopping working (until I reboot), nearly daily timeout kernel panics undocking from my USB-C dock, and more stuff that doesn't come to mind right now

What are some major Big Sur pitfalls at the moment? Once it's officially released I planned on upgrading my dev machine.

But if feedback is not that great I will wait until the second point release at least...

Every OS has bugs, I can't see more show-stopper bugs in Catalina than any of the previous ones. Especially none that would stop me from working or being productive.

I run a Windows 10 machine (latest public release) and a macOS machine (latest Catalina release) and Windows 10 pisses me off infinitely more... it already starts with BS like 2 or 3 Setting menus. Why are they not consolidated after like 7 years...

Using Catalina without any issues at all. That said, the upgrade from Mojave was nothing significant on first sight.

I am likely missing some things that did improve - I don't have the change log on my mind right now - but nothing that jumps in your face right away.

Reasons being? Because I didn't have a single issue with Catalina.

People consider their anecdotal experiences as universal (I offer mine as a single counter example to the parent's experience), when it could be all kinds of weird factors in their case (a faulty hardware run, some incompatible peripherals, user errors attributed to the OS, application errors attributed to the OS and so on).

Yeah i also do love all the recent updates, i am very happy with macOS.

To not make it sound like it's all roses, some issues I had (mostly with hardware though):

1) I hated the butterfly keyboard (but fortunately they have changed that now, even if it took them 3 years, unfortunately I'm stuck with a buttefly model myself)

2) I hate the touch strip - at least the restored the Escape button, but I have no use for it and it just sits there (had higher hopes when it was introduced).

3) I'd like more than 1 port in the MacBook (not that I have one, but I read rumours that they plan to release a new MacBook with AS that I'm interested in)

4) What is the genious that designed the mouse that doesn't work while it charges?

5) I know about "price differentiation" but having the black mouse/keyboards more expensive is a dick move.

That said, 2 things I do:

1) At least every 2 OS releases I do a clean new macOS install. No particular concrete reason, but it might help my case having a "cleaner" system.

2) I've never cared/used Time Machine. I use CCC on my own. So I never have the TM related issues some people seem to have.

Way slower (2-3x in compile tasks), always doing some crap. Every time I open any app, sometimes a 5 - 10 second pause while It does some internet shchenanigans, more frequent crashes, many more minor gripes.

I have a 2013 trash can, Catalina kernel panics non stop every 2 hours. Googling around and I found so many others with issues. I got the fan app and cranked the fans full blast thinking it was over heating, I even tore the system down and replaced the thermal paste and cleaned it down, and all I did was drop the idle temp by 1 degree, but still constant kernel panics.

I downgraded to Mojave as I wanted 32bit back, and as a last try before I just gut it for CPU and RAM, and it’ll run for weeks at a time, with me moving, and updates the only thing that had me reboot or shut down.

There is no QA at Apple, they clearly never tested Catalina on a 2013 Mac Pro.

> For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no longer available

What's the best way to use Linux on an old MacBook air? Should I be running it in a VM? Is there a way to dula boot? The laptop is quite old, it has 4GB of RAM. So I'm worried nothing will run well on it. Macos definitely feels sluggish on it now.

Just install it and use it.

I’m not a fan of VMs for older machines since they tend to perform poorly. And 4GB RAM wouldn’t be adequate for that. I’d suggest dual booting with a separate partition for Linux. You can also choose distros that have a lower hardware requirement and perform better on older machines (my first choice is Xubuntu, but there are others too).

Make sure you still retain the macOS partition and installation (after resizing it down). There are tools like reFind [1] that can help you manage dual booting better (do read the extensive documentation and refer to it when needed).

It goes without saying that you should have a full disk backup with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! before you venture into these.

The experience on Linux may not be great out of the box (depending on your exact hardware). So I’d also suggest budgeting some time to iron out kinks and make it better.

[1]: https://rodsbooks.com/refind/

This is the way to go. But if you like a polished OS i would recommend Mint Cinnamon edition. Installed the Xfce version on my mothers ancient (T61 i think) Thinkpad, and the idiosyncracies were quiet annoying. Replaced it with the Cinnamon version which ran just fine.

On my Macbook Pro, I found Linux used more energy running directly, than running inside a VM (tested with VMware Fusion).

So I'm happy running Linux in a VM.

This might be due to the dual GPUs (on higher end MBPs), I didn't check further after the initial battery test.

It's nicer anyway, because of the ability to run MacOS and Linux at the same time, and four-finger swipe between their desktops. That way I get the nicer GUI of MacOS, consistently good touchpad (including in Linux), and Linux for my command line dev needs, and can use utilities for either that aren't available on the other.

On an old Macbook Air, Linux might us less energy running directly rather than VM. To be sure you'd have to try both.

4GB of RAM is tight for current software, even Linux, and a VM will make it tighter. Firefox is using more than 4GB for me right now, and Safari is also using more than 4GB. So you will need to avoid using Firefox the way I do, regardless of OS :-)

You might need to stick with older versions of whatever you decide to use. I would pick one of the Linux distros that is explicitly for old machines and small memory usage.

Look into tuning TLP with a GUI if you plan on running Linux on your laptop and power usage is an issue.

> 4GB of RAM is tight for current software, even Linux, and a VM will make it tighter. Firefox is using more than 4GB for me right now, and Safari is also using more than 4GB. So you will need to avoid using Firefox the way I do, regardless of OS :-)

You can use cgroups to limit the amount of memory an application can use. I use it to limit Firefox's memory usage on a machine with much more memory than that.

MacBookPro have a driver bug that makes the dGPU run at max power (20W) whenever it is on (which is always forced whenever an external monitor is connected). So that's not why Linux uses more energy. More likely Mac is better at turning down idle services like in Safari

Linux will run really well on a machine with 4GB of memory. Check out Plasma Desktop, you can mimic macOS with it pretty well[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23607850

Linux runs alright on old (pre-2016) MacBooks (Air/Pro). This is in contrast to the MacBooks in the era when they started introducing the touch bar, secure enclave, and APFS. A word of caution: don't multi-boot together with macOS with Linux on your internal drive (Linux on an external drive is fine if double booting).

For good, stable GUI install ChromeOS and then for CLI crostini or crosh/crouton do decent job as they are really just debian.. Neverware builds should work out of the box for MacAir.

I am using this for more then 3 years on Macs now and never considered going back to MacOS disaster.

Will you consider going back after Google makes it so that you cannot use Ublock Origin or similar level of adblocking in Chrome or is there some way to install a different browser on ChromeOS I don't know about?

Not going back to MacOS. I really lost heart for Apple software.

Perhaps BSD or some Linux? I can also drop Macbooks as their build quality tanked after 2015 and sooner or later I should get a new hardware.

Personaly I am not a Google hater. They do a lot wrong and stupid things but I am still seeing Google as net positive. Perhaps thats naive.

You can try OpenBSD or NetBSD, but the biggest problem on all platforms is probably the browser with 4GB.

My office gives (almost) everyone a 2017 Macbook Air with dual core i5-5350U with 8Gb Ram and 128Gb ssd's. I installed Fedora last year October and been using it ever since.

Volume keys, brightness keys, touchpad & keyboard backlit all works perfect. Only problem is the kernel doesn't support the specific wifi module (broadcom) out of the box, so I installed Fedora via usb-lan dongle (netinstall), which the company also provides anyway. After installation you can install the broadcom modules yourself and it just work. Strange enough the bluetooth works out of the box.

I didn't dualboot or mess with any of that, just wiped the ssd clean and made partitions with the lvm automatic option in the Fedora installer.

Next time I will definitely install Fedora + Xfce instead of Gnome, since I'm using this combination on a another low spec machine and it's great. So maybe give the xfce spin a try.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com