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Comment by mbell | Hacker News Reader

> The Linux desktop has been wildly successful! Hobbyists have been using it since the 1990s. Yahoo! was built using the linux desktop. Much of Facebook was, too. People in web dev and tech support use it as their workstation OS.

While true, look around at younger companies, OS X has taken over a very large segment of the web dev crowd and I don't see any signs of that changing, especially with the almost mandatory nature of using OSX for iOS development.

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This is entirely brand. I went through college where all the cool kids had overpriced shiny aluminum macs and that was the hip thing to own. Having used OSX on laptops in High School and IMacs in college the desktop is awful and I much prefer the diversity of Linux DEs, especially ones like Cinnamon and XFCE.

OSX got its market share off spoiled 20 year old college kids getting their parents to buy them overpriced trendy hardware. I have a 15 year old and 13 year cousin who each have a macbook because its hip.

But besides the hip factor, OSX succeeds because it is the default on Apple products, where Windows succeeds because it is the default on everything else. When average Joe buys a pc, they go to best buy, and every single device has Windows on it, so they use that. They don't know any better and would never fathom installing an OS, and if you show an alternative to them it breaks their minds because it is universe breaking that Windows isn't the computer.

I completely disagree within the confines of developers. I'm not really sure what the comments about consumers have to do with this topic.

I used linux for 5 years as a desktop OS, skipped in between windows occasionally. Just recently switched to a mac. It has nothing to do with being hip. OS X is an OS which runs all the *nix tools I need, has a reasonable well thought out UI and above all it __just works__. Its what I wish linux on a desktop could have been but never was and I doubt ever will be.

If by just works you mean that you have to deal with abominations like MacPorts or Homebrew, then yeah, but personally I cannot deal with all that crap, so Ubuntu is the one that just works for me.

I agree. It really is a pain to build OSS on the Mac, and it's not like you'd ever deploy server software to a Mac.

Not such a pain once you figure it out... And for any of us compiling stuff... seriously, are we pretending we don't all use remote linux slices/machines/whatever all over the place?

My laptops are just workstations to do day-to-day life stuff and a portal into my virtual computer world, where I'm working with remote displays, browser windows, command lines all over, and all that jazz. If it's anything remotely server related that needs to be on all the time, I'm likely not running it on my laptop anyway - it'll be on a linux box somewhere.

Or, if I'm on the move and it's really important to get a project done, a local VM on the little macbook.

How is Homebrew any different from than apt? Both are package managers. Neither OS provides all of the tools a dev needs, so regardless of your OS choice, you will using a package manager to acquire your complete toolset. So, why do you recoil at Homebrew, and not apt?

I recoil at Homebrew because it fails to successfully install relatively mainstream software that it claims to support (mysql, in my case). I do not recoil from apt because it regularly and repeatedly both cleanly installs and removes any software it claims to support.

You are an exception to the rule is my point. For every developer that buys a Mac based on taste, there are at least a dozen kids buying them not for tangible reasons but for the Apple brand, at least where I live and through what I have experienced. Different areas might produce different results, but there was only one other guy in my CS track that used a mac for development, but tons of my out of major peers had them as hip facebook machines.

at least where I live and through what I have experienced

Please just stop now. Take untog's advice and stop making arguments based on your anecdotal experience.

I was seduced by OS X for awhile at work. But getting all the GNU stuff running is not easy or complete. I'm sure if you are writing ios apps it is smooth.

I did like being able to open a shell and kill -9 a hung app.

But in the end it just felt slow.

"the desktop is awful and I much prefer the diversity of Linux DEs [...] OSX got its market share off spoiled 20 year old college kids getting their parents to buy them overpriced trendy hardware."

Sigh. Stop stating your opinion as fact. Personally, I use OSX because it's a *nix OS that actually has a coherent UI, and it's paired with the best hardware available right now. Saying that it's popular because it's trendy is wildly misguided- how do you explain all the developers that use it?

I said the market share came from college kids. I honestly never understand how developers use it, but I can understand smart people find value in it I don't. But don't ignore the fact that the Mac rose to prosperty not through its developer tools but through appealing to a younger generation with access to money a desire to look cool, because they hit that ball out of the park from my experiences, not my opinion.

But don't ignore the fact that the Mac rose to prosperty [..] through appealing to a younger generation with access to money a desire to look cool, because they hit that ball out of the park from my experiences, not my opinion

I'm glad it isn't your opinion, because you'd be wrong again. Mac owners, by age, are actually older on average than PC/Windows users.

http://www.metafacts.com/pages/media/tupan06_announce_061129...

As an embedded systems developer, who works in a company filled with EEs using OSX for their personal machines, I can say that what keeps me buying macs is that

* Like Linux, OSX is posix and has a working shell and scripting environment, and

* Like Windows, it has a pixel-perfect window manager and a tastefully designed UI that doesn't make my eyes bleed.

Saying that it's popular because it's trendy is wildly misguided- how do you explain all the developers that use it?

Trendy, popular, whatever... The original comment is spot on. Products becomes trendy and popular mostly because of great marketing. The reason you prefer OSX (or almost anything else in your life) is because you've been conditioned to. We make decisions based on a complex cocktail of facts and feelings, most of them external to our own thinking and, therefore, susceptible to clever manipulation.

Every BMW owner buys an "ultimate driving machine" (with an automatic transmission) and most OSX users believe they're enjoying "the best UI/UX" (and obediently squeeze their life into ~500 vertical pixels leaving the rest to the Dock and global menu).

It does not make sense to look for a technical explanation for why "Linux desktop" is not popular. Technology has nothing to do with popularity. Moreover, Linux Desktop is indeed widely popular among people who're pre-conditioned to like things it offers.

Here's an anecdote: I have introduced younger relatives to computers in mid-2000s using only Ubuntu. After years of daily Gnome 2.x use they find both OSX and Windows incredibly "retarded" and hard to use.

Don't kid yourself thinking we're far ahead of Pavlov dogs.

The reason you prefer OSX (or almost anything else in your life) is because you've been conditioned to.

No, it's because I've used the other alternatives and made a rational decision. I tried Ubuntu, it didn't work with the hardware in my laptop, the trackpad was useless and it didn't run a number of programs I require (the Creative Suite, for one). I would happily use Windows, but the hardware Apple creates (in my case, the Air) is largely unparalleled in terms of build quality and weight. So, OSX it is.

These are all measurable, quantifiable things. While I can't disagree that marketing affects people, to suggest that the reason everyone likes something is because of conditioning is a gross generalisation.

This. While it's true many people buy Apple gear because of branding and image, well, that's marketing for you. That's how retail works. As a well seasoned computer guy, I've chosen every single mac I've purchased over the last number of years. There was a time when I wouldn't touch one with a 10 foot pole, and I'm sure a time will come when I won't want a new one.

I've used enough different operating systems in all kinds of configurations over the last 20+ years to decide like a grown-up what I'm going to spend a considerable amount of time using.. not because other people think it's cool, but because it fits my budget and works for me. My recommendation to others is: Try stuff and use what works for you.

This is what Apple does right. Windows and Linux were never a realistic option.

If you needed the form-factor of an Air and Creative Suite there really was no decision. Rational or otherwise. There is certainly no conditioning, playing with Ubuntu was pointless.

The Dock is auto-hideable and can move to the side, and the global menu is 20px tall, leaving 748px even on an old 768px iBook, and fullscreen mode supresses that global menu, which is just a relocation of the in-window menu grapeshot all over all the windows in other OSes. So where is the squeeze?

Most of the people you are lecturing actually use 2 or 3 of Windows/OSX/Linux on a regular basis, and so have informed experience backing their preferences.

I switched to OS X in 2008. Prior to that, I had been using Linux since 1995, and contributed quite a lot to Free Software (Gnome, gtkmm, KDE, Rosegarden). May be I saw one too many Apple add on a billboard. Or may be after trying my mom's macbook, I realized that OS X is pretty cool to use while I just had to google around some poorly written docs to restore my tilt-wheel mouse configuration which a Kubuntu upgrade had broken.

>> The reason you prefer OSX (or almost anything else in your life) is because you've been conditioned to

>> I have introduced younger relatives to computers in mid-2000s using only Ubuntu. After years of daily Gnome 2.x use they find both OSX and Windows incredibly "retarded" and hard to us

You are refuting your own arguments. eg How can your nephews like Linux if they have not had marketing to condition them?

Mac OSX is paired with limited hardware choice which is far from best. With Linux you can build any system you want up to very high end computers. It's unmatched in flexibility.

It is not entirely brand. For me, I only begrudgingly use a Macintosh laptop because it is better for someone who doesn't want to fiddle, now or in future releases of their distribution. At this point given the length of time I've stuck with it I can probably be considered a Linux-on-Workstation die-hard (I have one at work and at home that I use for most Serious Tasks), and I am pretty fed up to have given up on Ubuntu on laptops: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4451792

And the meat of my complaints have nothing to do with UI, but the endless finicky regressions, typically having to do with drivers and hardware integrations.

Anecdote: my friend and co-worker has an allegedly 'good' piece of Lenovo Thinkpad hardware. He still managed to have a problem on a video driver upgrade on 32-bit (he then switched to 64-bit, where things went better -- did I mention Ubuntu's home page still suggests 32-bit Linux?) and hasn't gotten around to convincing it to talk to an external monitor. He has more patience than me -- mostly out of philosophical stubbornness -- although I suppose we both are stubborn in a way since I'm still buying desktops at every location I work frequently in 2012, and regressed to a Macintosh to fill in the gaps when moving about.

It is a disaster.

What computer less expensive than an iBook or Macbook commonly survives 4 years of school, and is less a disaster than Windows pre-7 (which I guess is old now, wow time flies)?

My MBP is 5 years old and still runs OK. (It could use battery #3 and an SSD replacement, though.)

I actually encountered a Toshiba Satellite circa 2002 a few months ago with a Pentium 4 that was running fine and the HD didn't even have any smart sensor malignities. The thing ran slower than dirt, but worked fine.

It has been my experience graphic designers use Apple's OS du jour and hackers are split between Linux and OS X.

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