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Comment by auslegung | Hacker News Reader

> macOS is my favorite OS, but the shit I put up with...

Idk, the several Linux distros I’ve used recently, and Windows, have a much longer list of “shit _I_ put up with”

The thing you get with Linux is "more _predictable_ shit to deal with", not "less shit to deal with", no large capable desktop OS is perfect and never will be.

Anxiety from what Apple's agenda will do to your computer next update? anxiety from if a 1hr windows update is awaiting you when you turn your pc on? ... Linux awaits.

Linux awaits and then when it comes it borks WLAN driver, because canonical decided to replace a perfectly working one with WIP FOSS alternative, forcing users to switch to cable LAN until it reached feature parity.

Linux awaits and then when it comes it borks AMD driver, because AMD decided not to support older cards on the new FOSS driver, and the old perfectly working driver is not compatible with modern kernels, driver ABI be dammed.

Linux awaits and then when it comes it breaks hard disk encryption forcing a full install, and feeling lucky that I actually backup /home regurlarly.

Linux awaits and then when it comes half of the stuff doesn't work in Wayland.

Eventually I rather just deal with macOS, Windows, Android and leave Linux just for the kernel itself.

I haven't had to deal with any of that, but I've had Windows straight up refuse to boot multiple times and the only fix I found was to reinstall. I've now had to advise multiple people who couldn't turn on their WiFi in Windows (the switch just did nothing). I also couldn't fix that without a reinstall (not for a lack of trying). My family iMac refuses to import photos from an iPhone into Photos, failing the transfer silently. I have no idea how I'd even go about fixing that besides calling Apple and forcing them to fix it.

No man gets to deal with all of the possible computer problems, thankfully. But in my experience, most Linux problems have been fixable and I managed to fix them, while more closed OSs have left me stumped many times. I no longer believe that a computer can work without problems, so my priority is making sure that when problems appear, I can diagnose them and fix them easily.

Windows sometimes has these artificial problems, purely for market share play. Hell, I'm still a bit angry at them because of what they did to RE-DOS with Win 3.1 Beta. I was working in a small computer shop and we were blindly recommending MS-DOS as we were sure RE-DOS had compatibility problems. The tracking, and the constant nagging, silly software signing shenanigans...

So I agree, Linux problems are usually much more fixable.

You can see debug logging about photo import in Console.app. When I do it, it takes forever but eventually works.

Thanks, I already tried that. It does give an (easily missed) error from the underlying library there, but it's just some number that some other people are also complaining about on support forums.

If you have any other insights, I'd be happy to hear them. We have a workaround, but It'd be nice to get imports working again.

Well, that's why I use nixos where I can just easily rollback select programs or even my entire system if some upgrade goes wrong.

To each their own I guess, but in 20+ years of using Linux I've never had any of those issues. Maybe it's because I'm cheap an I run it on older laptops.

As for Windows... really no issues there other than forced errors of whatever absurd company policies are in place that cause software I don't want or need being forced on my machine.

Hell no. I work with RHEL every day, and while I'm by no means an expert, I would say I'm reasonably proficient with Linux.

Every time I've tried using Linux on the desktop, it's worked just fine until I tried to update something. Sooner or later, there's some broken patch or some incompatible thing here or there that breaks my window manager and throws me to the command line, ruins my network settings, overwrites my boot config or some other maddening mess. Linux works brilliantly, AS LONG AS YOU NEVER TOUCH ANYTHING

That's true in most Linux distros, I've been there, even with the most robust ones (like Debian). But then I found Manjaro, with a semi-rolling update system, that is a perfect balance between recent version updates and rock-solid stability.

I've been using Linux as my primary OS since 2008

Today my mouse and keyboard were acting as if they weren't plugged in. Just no power, no reason, no change. Reboot fixed it for now

The thing that's changed recently is that I had to update the kernel to support my audio interface.. which was also a pain in the tits

The only relevant search results are StackOverflow spam talking about a version 10 years old

Linux awaits

Well, you're using the wrong distributions then. Use something stodgy but solid like stable Debian or a recent but not bleeding edge version of Mint and you should not have all too many things on your shit list. It won't be empty - printing will still trip you up every now and then, just like it does everywhere else to give an example - but it will mostly ' just work' unless you're trying to install it on truly exotic (as in "released this week") hardware. The overall facepalm experience will be comparable to that on Mac OS, better than that on Windows. Add to that the fact that it is free in every sense of the word as well as the glaring and welcome absence of draconic "features" like the one discussed in this thread and those Linux distributions will start to look very tempting.

Debian has abysmal hardware support( well gpus mostly). They need to do something about their kernels, my RX5700XT is miles ahead with the current kernel compared to whatever debian 10 ships.

Debian's default position is to only ship "free software" (OSS, libre, etc).

It is my understanding that a lot of modern GPUs that are cutting edge ship with non-oss binary blobs, which goes against Debian's core principals.

Unfortunately, it means that Debian has poor support for hardware vendors that mandate these binary blobs.

Neither AMD graphics nor Intel integrated graphics require a blob. nVidia is the only one of the big three that requires a blob for full performance.

AMD graphics require a firmware blob for all modern cards [0]. It used to be that the firmware was only needed for 3D acceleration and you could run X/text mode without the blob just fine, but that hasn't been true for years (I think since HD6000 series in 2010).

[0] https://packages.debian.org/buster/firmware-amd-graphics

My gpu works fine on newer kernels. It's not about blobs, debian is just slow.

Debian stable is meant for servers, use unstable (it's quite stable!) or stable-backports if you want a recent kernel.

Can you really think of a single thing worse than this?

Computer failing to turn on as a buggy, mandatory update has replaced broken or replaced a driver with a non-functional one.

Fair enough, but that's not a typical experience on either Windows or Linux in this decade - if that's happened to you, then I think you've just been incredibly unlucky.

It happens with forced win10 updates.

Albeit rarely, and with the diversity of commodity hardware out there, I would say that Microsoft has done pretty well with updates.

(P.S. I despise Windows from a technical standpoint though)

It shouldn't be their business.

> with the diversity of commodity hardware out there, I would say that Microsoft has done pretty well with updates

This is a good point actually - with their walled garden approach, Apple has a much easier job with drivers than Windows or Linux have.

Of course, the end user may not care a jot, but it's an interesting point from a technical perspective.

It happened to me pretty much every other forced windows update, from broken graphics drivers to non functional start menu.

I just replaced that pos with a mac mini....

I use centos 7 for my daily driver, it'll get 8 on it next hardware upgrade. Touch wood not a single problem with that for years now, and amd5000/nv3000 are looking very tasty.

Nope, there have been a few issues with BSOD that have impacted quite a lot of people. The latest one was with nvidia drivers being old that caused BSOD after update.

In a previous company the IT dept had to revert a forced by MS update manually on each machine by “hacking” and deleting and replacing files as it was causing BSOD.

Disagree with Linux. I make an LVM snapshot before making any attempts to upgrade the graphics driver. It's a disaster. And don't say proprietary code, that's beside the point. Windows runs drivers in a way that one that crashes can be restarted without bringing down the kernel or the whole system.

FYI I've had the issue you describe half a dozen times with CentOS but literally never with Arch Linux (on both machines with similar nVidia cards, using the proprietary driver). In general I'm pretty impressed with Arch's package quality, I seldom encounter any issue and when I do it's patched very quickly.

Very true. I have used Ubuntu and Fedora for a while, but when I switched to Arch, I never go back. Arch is described as bleeding edge, but another way to put it is it always has latest software, which is what a dev machine should be. My experience with installing Nvidia driver in ubuntu is nightmare. Tried official repo then failed, and tried different ppa and then failed again and again. At last, I found that I have an older kernel version and I need to compiled a latest kernel which is not in official ubuntu repo. I gave up at this point because I don't want to compile kernel every time I need to upgrade. With Arch, you always get the latest kernel and you won't usually missing feature from using an old LTS kernel.

I tried Arch Linux in a dual boot scenario on this System76 laptop and I don't recall why I switched back... I think it's because I tried to upgrade the graphics driver and got into state where I couldn't get X to run at all.

A co-worker keeps telling me to try Manjaro. I'm just not sure if I want to spend a weekend reinstalling all the stuff I use.

My windows box has crashed over a dozen times in the past few years because of GPU driver issues with nvidia and amd

On the other hand I was gifted a 2015 MacBook Pro 15 and I can't run away screaming fast enough from it. I know people rave about the touch pad, but when I use it I find apps get minimized, or don't launch or some other weird gesture causing behavior. I guarantee that this is classic PEBKAC. The other day a family member with a MacBook Pro asked me to assist them with Safari which on launch wouldn't appear. I was able to get it to appear by using the Finder or something which allowed me to pin/size Safari to one side of the screen, but on appearing the window simply displayed a single pixel frame with a black interior. I liked the process, launched it again but it did the same thing. I told them they would have more success with Google than me. I have never had those experiences with Windows. Yes I've had other lame experiences, but I can always solve them, it at least find a solution online. Again probably PEBCAK so no fan boy retorts please. In the end all programs and operating systems suck.

I’m personally quite a big fan of the trackpad and gestures but I understand that they take some getting used to. If they are causing you frustration then you can turn them off under system preferences > trackpad in the “scroll and zoom” and “more gestures” sections. I’d recommend keeping most of the scroll ones and disabling most of the others, then one by one turning on any of the ones you think would be most useful as you get more used to them.

As for the Safari issue, I have no idea off the top of my head.

I have to say I also don't understand all the fanfare for the MBP trackpad. I have a 13" 2016 MBP, and I actively dislike the trackpad. You need to use far too much pressure to "click" (even when the resistance at the lowest setting), and there is something "off" about the mouse pointer tracking - I can't figure out what it is, like if it feels too smooth, too jerky, I don't know, but it feels wrong somehow.

Oh, I do like the gesture support, though even Windows 10 supports gestures nowadays.

I think you can enable tap to click

I believe you must have been using Windows 7 without updates for the decade, because with windows 10 every[1] update[2] borks the system so much that Microsoft had to pull updates. And last but not the least, a big guide to fix problems caused by a forced, mandatory windows update[3]

[1] https://www.techradar.com/in/news/microsoft-kills-off-window...

[2] https://www.techradar.com/news/dont-install-this-windows-10-...

[3] https://www.techradar.com/in/how-to/windows-10-may-2020-upda...

Meanwhile on Linux, I cannot upgrade to the new kernel that contains a lot of support and fixes for my new shiny AMD Ryzen chip because it completely breaks the Nvidia driver, refusing even to boot.

Apple may suck, but it still sucks less than the alternatives

> Meanwhile on Linux, I cannot upgrade to the new kernel that contains a lot of support and fixes for my new shiny AMD Ryzen chip because it completely breaks the Nvidia driver, refusing even to boot.

Well that's the problem with Linux distros for the desktop in general. A user upgrading a newer version of a single system component risks breaking the whole desktop: systemd, libdrm, x11, whatever and something else doesn't work. I'm even excluding drivers here but again it's clear what happens when a user finds that out for themselves on Linux. If they even have the time and energy to do all that digging and googling of cryptic errors.

To save yourself the time and frustration, Just keep using Windows 10 with WSL2. I don't have any reason to dual boot to a Linux desktop any more due to this.

And I believe you must not have been using Windows, and are relying too much of news of incidents affecting small numbers of people.

It is - quite clearly - a gross exaggeration that "every update borks the system".

Aside from MacOS, I use Windows 10, and have done for several years. I have the Microsoft Action Pack, which means I get multiple Windows 10 Enterprise licenses - and no forced updates.

If by this decade you mean 2010 - 2020, I have enough Linux examples.

I presume you mean desktop Linux - I admit haven't tried a desktop edition Linux in this decade, so I might me off there.

Desktop Linux on an Asus laptop officially sold with Ubuntu on it.

Happened to me with a stock install of ubuntu after an update about 9 months ago.

- Eternal maze of control panel that's now split into two.

- Lack of little useful apps in the $10 range. Windows seems either freeware or costly bloatware.

macOS' problem is fixable but OS being worse isn't something you can wait to get fixed quickly.

Why wouldn't Windows update deleting the user's files be worse?

That might have happened for a small number of users, but it was an isolated incident, not a "feature" pushed to every Windows user.

That has happened for the last three years in a row.

When there's filesystem corruption on boot, Ubuntu throws you into an (initramfs) shell and tells you to fsck manually.

Is it better than a message to take it to service center?

Depends on what technical level you have, how much time you have, and what's on your storage device.

My Lenovo Windows laptop came installed with malware that MITMed all my https connections and also allowed anyone else to MITM all my https connections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_inci...

That's terrible, but it's not the fault of the OS vendor; presumably such a malware could be distributed with any OS.

Ironically, it couldn't be with macOS, which this whole thread is about avoiding.

It certainly could if Apple wanted to do the same thing that Lenovo did.

Would MacOS actually have prevented it? Would Superfish just have simply signed the binary? Sure it wouldn't have started up when the Apple servers are down, but that's a very small percent of the time.

Perhaps the issue is, it didn't used to be like this.

Linux doesn't force you to sign your binaries or lock you out of devices you own.

> Windows, have a much longer list of “shit _I_ put up with”

Yikes. This is painfully true. Maybe Apple knows they have a ton of breathing room here.

I’ll jump through a few more hoops to continue using the machines they make. Then again all I do is edit text.

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