Why the "/troll"? You're 100% right non-ironically: the problem being that on Linux the need to consult forum posts to fix these kind of issues is way more frequent than in macOS.
I can't say I've heard of that happening to people on Linux at all other than maybe early days of Xorg. Damage (reversible or otherwise) to hardware is extraordinarily rare on Linux, I can only think of it happening during the very early days of EFI and only under very specific conditions.
There was that LG CD-ROM drive which treated a CD-RW command (which it should ignore or reject since it's not a CD-RW drive) as a firmware upload command. When a newer Linux kernel started using that command, these drives got bricked (source: https://lwn.net/Articles/55537/ and https://web.archive.org/web/20041204072839/http://www.mandra...).
https://www.phoronix.com/news/UEFI-rm-root-directory
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/filesystems/efivarfs....
Most users will just take their machine in to the Apple Store when this kind of thing happens, rather than try to fix it themselves.
You're right that it's not ideal, but it certainly makes it a lot _less_ inconvenient than being completely stuck forever (as most non-highly-technical people would be if they had to follow instructions on forums to fix Linux).
This is similar to macOS, Windows, or even FreeBSD releases. I haven’t seen any Linux distribution that has such comprehensively coordinated releases. Between systemd and the Linux kernel, I’m not sure it would be possible.
Many distros have good documentation, but, in my experience, far too often the bulk of it is in out of date wikis or forums. Perhaps this is out of date thinking and I’ve missed the train in the past 10 years.
As a counterpoint, OpenWRT has been good, but their main “product”, imho, is LuCI. Lower level issues often require vendor specific forums.
If we want to compare apples to apples, then we compare:
Mac with macOS updates installed regularly, and only those provided by Apple. Non-Apple apps get dropped in /Applications like they should be. If there's an installer that asks for root access, you might get boned.
Linux preinstalled with OS updates installed regularly, and only those provided by the vendor. Apps that don't come with the OS's package manager should be installed somewhere under $HOME, and never installed systemwide as root.
Sure, if you have a Mac and disable SIP (or whatever it's called nowadays) and start mucking around with files in /System or whatever, because you want to install some mod that does something cool, you might have a bad time. Same as if you decide that screwing around in /lib on a Linux machine is a good idea.
But if we actually compare these two apples, I suspect the Linux one would have fewer problems.
No, worse, with more device incompatibilities, manual fiddling, arcane settings, and so on to make things work.
>Sure, if you have a Mac and disable SIP (or whatever it's called nowadays) and start mucking around with files in /System or whatever, because you want to install some mod that does something cool, you might have a bad time.
Sure, but I'm not talking about that. With Linux you often have a bad time trying to make basic, but not distro configured, functionality to work.
Did you read what I wrote above? "if you buy preinstalled"
If you install Linux on an ordinary "Windows-certified" computer, you will have problems. If you install an alternative OS on a Macbook, you will have exactly the same problems.
And did you understand my point? Buying preinstalled isn't a cure-all, only ensures that the bundled hardware drivers are compatible and configured. That's a pretty low bar.
It doesn't cover doing stuff with third party devices (which on the Mac 99% of the time it works every time).
Not to mention even the bundled-hardware doesn't always work even if you buy pre-installed (like the laptop not sleeping properly for example).
I agree that this is not tolerable. However my devices from Purism have a reliable sleep and other functionality out of the box.
> third party devices
Check Linux compatibility before buying and they will work reliably. Works for me.