Comment by trbutler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by trbutler | Hacker News Reader

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> I keep hearing this, over and over again. But I plug in my Magic Trackpad to my GNOME desktop and it works fine.

Yes, Linux will -- in many cases -- work as well with accessories as any computer will in ways we'd largely have expected 20 years ago. The integrative cases I noted are something different. For example, the Continuity support between Mac and iPad/iPhone/Apple Watch. If you don't use those things, it isn't a huge deal, but if you do, it's not appetizing to give them up.

> We'd need a new Linux if you Mac pundits ended up writing all the rules for us.

The good news is Linux is free/open source. So, someone could do exactly what I'm advocating for in the article and not detract from the Linux experience from people who don't want that. In fact, it'd probably benefit all Linux users, because it would increase support from software developers, etc.

> The integrative cases I noted are something different. For example, the Continuity support between Mac and iPad/iPhone/Apple Watch.

I own a Mac, and I've owned an iPhone too. There isn't a single good Continuity feature that I used that isn't covered by KDE Connect. The few missing features aren't a big enough convenience to really matter, Linux users are never going to come together to replace Find My or Apple Music.

> So, someone could do exactly what I'm advocating for in the article and not detract from the Linux experience

Then by all means, they should. I read these articles on a regular basis and nothing seems to change besides the argument. People are always discontent with Linux, they always express a solemn hope for commercial operating systems, then they go back to using the desktop system they hate. This feels like exactly the sort of tribalism that emerged from the competition of the early 2000s.

> Then by all means, they should.

That was definitely the point -- well, two points. (1) there isn't any Apple Silicon-level Linux hardware right now, (2) Apple would benefit from more competition. In this particular case, it's the inverse of the usual Linux desktop argument, because the argument is the Linux desktop is pretty good, it needs hardware to match it, rather than "Linux needs to totally (or greatly) change."

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