I jest, but this all sounds like a lot more trouble to get the experience you want than most Linux distros would give you. It's not the primary audience of OS X, sure, but it's nice to see how well-served by Linux a sizable slice of users is.
I feel like this is an opportunity to delve into a classic, IRC like "Windows vs Linux vs macOS" debate here, but instead I'll simply state a well known, agreed upon truth in our industry: Linux is an absolute joke on the desktop. Even Torvalds thinks it's a mess.
Build your desktop from scratch if you like. It's your time. It's your life. But please don't mislead people into thinking Linux (on the desktop) comes even remotely close to Windows or macOS in terms of a good user experience out of the box.
So how do I record system audio on macOS in Audacity again?
Remind me how slow homebrew is compared to pacman on Arch? Having to click through the Security thing in System Preferences because Apple wants to protect me from apps I already know I trust, spending two hours trying to compile the new untested Tailscale since the App Store is broken and Tailscale used some API only App Store apps could use, trying to get my Logitech Marble Trackball to scroll when I press a button and roll the wheel so I can use my mouse. God forbid I want to use my mouse and not spend three hours trying to fix it when it took two minutes to copy the config off ArchWiki for X11 and two seconds to paste the command in on GNOME.
I could go on. Just like Linux has problems with user experiencs, macOS has some pretty egregious faults as well. As a developer, Linux is much more user-friendly to me and has a way better user experience. I can make my system do whatever I want without dealing with macOS's restrictions and that's what a good user experience is to me.
I'll never go back, Windows and Mac cannot touch the experience with a ten foot pole. And Mac does not even begin to know what window management is.
I know, it's anecdotal. But claiming that Linux is not viable on the desktop is just plain silly.
Modern desktop Linux is actually a nice user experience, and contrasts with the poor Linux desktop experience before ~2015.
Do you know anyone like this? All such people I know prefer the UX on iPad.
iPad UX is by far some of the worst UX I've ever encountered. Nothing is obvious or straightforward, so many weird gestures and an overloaded single button.
"Out of the box" is the key phrase here. GP said that Linux was good at serving a certain "slice" of users, and it sounded like they were arguing that trying to massage MacOS into something those users would like is probably more trouble than it works. The setup described by this blog post isn't really "out of the box" either, so I don't think it's crazy to suggest that to someone inclined to tinker with their setup to make it absolutely perfect would potentially be better served by Linux.
Too much work for very little gain.
I love macs but I have to spend way more time installing tools and configurations to get it to a level comparable to a similar Linux/GNOME installation
I use Linux and in all likelihood, will continue to for a couple years. But there are these rough corners that simply just work in mac (and windows). With the M1 outpacing intel, it's becoming more tempting to jump ship.
Until you need to install a driver, support a piece of modern hardware, use an nVidia GPU for anything serious, and more.
> to get it to a level comparable to a similar Linux/GNOME installation
They're not comparable systems, so I can't give you a comparison. That's sort of the point.
For f*ck's sake, getting hardware to work on Linux has been easier on Linux than other OSes. Most things are literal plug-and-play, no trash Windows GUIs required. NVIDIA drivers have been exceedingly easy to install on Arch, Ubuntu, and (especially) Pop, and mainstream distros. A few years ago it was a pain, but I haven't had problems in ages. I don't know what you're thinking, but as a daily Linux user today, I have never had "driver issues" with modern hardware. And funnily enough, my niche hardware also tends to work on Linux. My Bluetooth adapter is a random dongle ripped from a VoIP station. I have on Windows, though. Perhaps that's due to the wonderful ArchWiki, no idea.
Also try doing NVIDIA-based ML on Windows. Very hard to set up a dev env. Hard on Linux too, but at least it's supported (last I checked).
No one can possibly have less patience for bullshit and things not working than me. At this point it is exactly why I can only use linux. I have barely thought about the OS the last 5 years.
Linux Desktop, as in the Linux Desktop experience, as in GNOME and its ecosystem, is on par if not superior with boh MacOS and Windows.
I think it really shows you actually haven't.
Linux Mint is seriously easy to set up with its driver manager. I don't see how any issues would arise and thus far I haven't had any issues with setting up any Linux distro except for arch's ethernet at one point. That's around 15 Linux distros which worked just fine
I use KDE on Linux, and when I do a fresh install, it takes me about 5 minutes to set the settings how I like, 0 janky workarounds, 0 external software, and 0 reboots. The adware/bloatware in Windows and the ridiculous feature deficiency in macOS give me put UX so low that KDE doesn't need to be that good - although it is.
A minimalist-ish Linux distro for a lot of people, especially those who mostly are on the web (hypothetical Grandma etc.) will 100% save you a TON of headaches over Windows, and fare quite well against Mac OS as well.
It's much easier to diagnose + make changes to remedy the problem on Linux (if you know your way around).
Hell, even if you don't: the majority of the system (barring systemd) is fairly transparent, and you can readily find documentation/articles/blogs to better help you understand the problem -- and even fix it. Contrast this to Windows: I have no fucking clue how all the moving pieces come together. I just know that I can fuss about deep in settings/group policy/on the command line and roll the dice to see if any improvements are found.
Granted, most of the time it is the same for Linux, but it's much easier to simply SSH in, muck about, and so on, than it is to use TeamViewer (or go through the logistics headache of actually getting in front of the machine in question).
PS: real case from a few months ago on Fedora.
PPS: oh, and guess what advice I got from the "helpful" widely advertised Linux community? "You have picked a bad distro and DE combo" (c) and "You have incorrect hw env for these distro and DE, why didn't you pick ubuntu/mate?" (c)
Ha! At one time I cursed those who threw this at me; now I know better, and throw it at others!
All joking aside, I really dislike Fedora and Gnome. It does have a lot of problems.
But, onto your problem: I would start at looking at the xserver logs, and ask about any recently changed settings/configs/options or updates/rollbacks. The logs are usually fairly good at telling you if something is !!!WRONG!!!.
Those are usually the most likely culprits, if the DE was working fine until all of a sudden it didn't anymore.
If it's a fresh install and right-off-the-bat it's buggy, then it's probably a HW issue (or the distro is terribad).
I would try xforwarding, and other built-in remote desktop options, to see if I could tinker around and get real-time feedback on how the display was looking.
On the other hand, if it's Wayland: I must yield, bow my head, wish you well, and withdraw from such an exercise.
For me Linux will probably never be "home ready" and will stay on servers and embeds where it is perfect and amazing.
Dude, I do this. I literally onboard a good amount of friends and family to Linux. Also occasionally help out Mac people as well. Even now, I hear from the Apple people more.
I don't know why you want this to not be true, but, sorry, it just is. Once set up, Linux is MUCH MORE SOLID, much more "set it and forget it" than Windows or Macs. I'd agree that, say, 5 years ago, the set-up was harder. But that's no longer even an issue. I install Xubuntu on the thing, tell them their password, tell them to go ahead and click yes when it's update time and I just don't hear from them all that much ever again.
Another switch in 2019 (Unity->KDE) I can't tell if it got even easier, because I was not as much of a noob anymore than 2 years ago, naturally.
If anything the most likely person to have issues and break Linux is the kind of person Linus is: an experienced Windows power user.
The vast majority of people use their PCs like (overly complex) tools while having an at-best superficial understanding of concepts like what files and folders are. By the moment someone realizes something like a folder being nothing more than a file with a list of other files (instead of something handwavy magical that groups files together), they're already above the 0.1% of the PC using population.
as far as I can tell in the industry linux workstations are common.
Isn't it just installing packages?
And there are so many Linux distros now, that you can probably find a "box" with whatever WM or DE you want installed by default.
Though, it seems silly to do it that way. Installing whatever packages you want is so easy regardless of which ones install by default.
Congrats on seizing the moment and living your life to its full potential.
Sit back down.
(I’m very comfortable where I am, thank you for your concern)
In Windows there are no monitor issues and it's super easy to set up my PlayStation 3 controller for games (that are also nicely supported). Overall there's just less configuration in Windows.
Instead I run Linux in VMware, which comes with its own perks: By creating a virtual machine per project, everything is neatly grouped in its own workspace, and by suspending instead of shutting down when done, I can get back to where I left off as easy as loading it's previous state from disk, with everything open - unsaved documents, applications, browser tabs, etc. I get the best of both worlds this way.
Occasionally I see comments on HN and I’m inspired to try again. It still sucks every time. Basic stuff like bad trackpad support, laptop failing to suspend, software scaling/resolution issues, missing drives on install, etc. etc. - you can hack it to work, but it’s not close. With M1 performance the difference is even more extreme than it’s ever been.
Use what you want of course, but I’m not sure why people pretend it’s something it’s not. Though OS arguments are mostly religious arguments.