Can Cheap MiniPC with FreeBSD 14 Outperform MacBook Pro M1 Pro? | Hacker News Reader

Can Cheap MiniPC with FreeBSD 14 Outperform MacBook Pro M1 Pro?

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10 pointsprmoustache6 comments

I feel like this is every nerd's experience when installing Linux/FreeBSD. I went through this cycle multiple times in high school.

* Oh wow, it's so snapy

* Look at all these cool effects I can get, it's just like macOS!

* Hmm, none of my software works here or the alternatives are far less appealing

* Guess I'll go back to Windows/Mac

And if I had ever been able to get all the software I used running I question if it would have been faster than my original windows/mac install.

All that to say this seems very subjective and not even close to real comparison.

Don't get me wrong, I love linux, I've built almost my entire career on linux machines, I just don't prefer them for my desktop environment. As for FreeBSD... Well I really wish it would work better for things like NFS among other things.

Or, you know, you can just dual-boot. Or virtualise Windows / macOS. (And if you aren't using Apple device, you can even upgrade the hardware!)

Honestly I never went back to Windows so there are alternative experiences.

The thing that is crucial is if you think about software application or outcomes. If you are thinking about outcome, you can easily adapt to different applications to achieve the same outcome. If you think software application, you will never be happy not using photoshop/MS Office/ Whatever your favorite app is.

I am quite suprised about his justifications for going back to MacOs. While I understand Ableton Live is not supported on anything else but Windows and Mac, I understand Figma and Zoom are both web applications and work well on Firefox. I haven't tried on FreeBSD but at least this is the case on Linux.

I find it very annoying that my M2 Air __always__ has something or other using at least 10-20% CPU for some system service. I even disabled spotlight and it’s still going on.

All of the cruft can be disabled on macOS, if you know where to start; that said, FreeBSD remains an interesting option for scenarios where a headless PC is all one needs.

Kinda interesting. (But, yeah, obviously an apples/oranges comparison.)

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