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Earlier this year I built a new desktop and installed my normal Linux distro and the screen wouldn’t work after login. I worked on it for a day, still couldn’t get any desktop except a terminal.Tried a different distro, it booted but no matter what resolution or refresh rate, the display showed severe artifacts when scrolling. Tried to fix it for a few days, gave up.

I am not a Linux novice, I have been using every major OS for decades at this point, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t install Windows, decrapify it, and everything just worked. You can say I should have done more research on hardware compatibility or whatever, but I didn’t have to for Windows.

And I like how you complain most devs never give Linux a fair shot on decent hardware right after describing that you MacOS experience is a hackintosh. That makes a lot of sense.

> And I like how you complain most devs never give Linux a fair shot on decent hardware right after describing that you MacOS experience is a hackintosh.

I'm not saying that I was expecting to run a Hackintosh and suddenly get the advantages of Apple hardware. I am doing a pure software-to-software comparison.

There was no application in the MacOS desktop that made me feel like I was missing out on something. Of all the tools that I am used to use - emacs + developer tools, email clients, messaging clients, media players, media managers, browsers, the occasional office productivity - none of the MacOS counterparts had any significant advantage over what I have in a Linux desktop.

> I am doing a pure software-to-software comparison.

I would argue this is impossible at this point. Most of the benefits of the entire Apple ecosystem are about integration - Macbook Pros are the fastest machines with the best battery life because of the great hardware but also the software integration.

> There was no application in the MacOS desktop that made me feel like I was missing out on something. Of all the tools that I am used to use - emacs + developer tools, email clients, messaging clients, media players, media managers, browsers, the occasional office productivity - none of the MacOS counterparts had any significant advantage over what I have in a Linux desktop.

This isn't really comparing OSes is it? You're comparing software that runs on the OS. Every tool I have on my linux machines I have an equivalent tool for on Mac, or I use the same tool, but the Macbook with MacOS is a workhorse that I can trust to "just work."

I don't think desktop Linux is bad, not by any means, and there are reasons I still go to it first on my personal machines until something forces me to make a different decision, but I also get tired of Linux users telling all of us that our experiences are old and all of these issues are fixed when they're just not, even if that isn't Linux' or the distro's fault.

If you are willing to give the advantage to MacOS due to the integration with the hardware, then you should only judge Linux when provided on hardware from Linux-centric vendors like system76, Tuxedo, Starlite and Framework.

I understand the point you are trying to make, but I disagree with it. MacOS doesn’t claim to work on other hardware, Linux does.

If System76 said PopOS only works on their hardware, it would be fair to only evaluate it on their hardware. When SteamOS only claimed to work on Steam Decks, the only good evaluation way to evaluate it was on Steam Decks.

> MacOS doesn’t claim to work on other hardware, Linux does.

It's the inverse. You claim that Apple "just works" for you and that Linux doesn't. I am saying that if you want to lend credibility to your argument, you need to use hardware that has a certifying vendor behind it.

> MacOS doesn’t claim to work on other hardware, Linux does.

Who exactly is "Linux", and what specifically is the claim? It looks to me like you don't want to lose the argument on these grounds, but maybe you could still have a nice laptop with Linux on it that just works.

> Who exactly is "Linux", and what specifically is the claim?

Linux distributions have a set of claims for what hardware they work with, usually as minimum system requirements. Since they are the minimum system requirements the expectation should, within reason, exist that the OS will work if you meet or exceed those requirements.

I say "within reason" because no OS can promise that, minimum is not a forward looking statement and the newest hardware is often the hardest to support.

> It looks to me like you don't want to lose the argument on these grounds

Agreed, because I didn't make any claims that this direction of argument negates. Linux has a harder task supporting a broader array of hardware, that doesn't mean that every argument should compare it to MacOS only on golden/chosen hardware.

If you build a distribution that only claims it works on specific hardware, like SteamOS did, then I agree that's a valid comparison.

> but maybe you could still have a nice laptop with Linux on it that just works.

I'm sure I could, I never claimed you couldn't.

> MacOS doesn’t claim to work on other hardware, Linux does.

"Linux" isn't even an operating system. There is no entity in the world who claims "bring any Linux distro at all to any random assortment of hardware you happen to already own, it'll be great and we'll commercially support it!".

I didn’t make a single one of these claims.

I can easily tell you a story of the same with the two OSs reversed. It's no longer 2016, pretty much every hardware worth their salt has good, or better Linux support, with the possible exception of some random RGB led not being controllable out of the box (though usually it's not out of the box either on windows). Like outside of desktop, Linux is the most prevalent operating system and it's not even close.

This wasn’t 2016, it was this year, and we are talking about desktop OSes (given the comparison to MacOS). If I wanted to run it as a server without a desktop environment, it would have been fine.

I don’t understand all the folks who crawl out of the woodworks as Acolytes of the Holy Linux Empire every time this topic comes up. Linux is a good desktop OS these days, it is my default, but I don’t have any problems acknowledging its issues and moving to another OS if it can’t meet my needs or if I have hardware/software that it has issues with.

This conversation started because someone said "I wish we could get a LInux system running on an Apple hardware, that would be the best of both worlds", and then the first response is to make a defense of MacOS, implying that MacOS would be the superior choice even if the Linux integration with Apple hardware was leveled.

What I am refuting is basically the idea that MacOS provides a better "experience" than a modern LInux Desktop installed on any reasonably conventional hardware.

I don't refute that are limitations on Linux. I am not saying that it will run everywhere flawlessly. But I am saying that the average college student, the average "web developer" and the average "elderly folk with basic computing needs" can have a good desktop experience without being forced to pay the Apple tax.

I have installed different Linux distros in 4-5 devices in the last year, including a laptop with an Nvidia GPU and a random NUC off Aliexpress. In all cases everything worked out of the box after a fresh installation--and as far as I remember the situation was the same ~10 years ago, when I first started using it. There are hiccups here and there, but nothing I cannot live with. I do tech support for my girlfriend'd mac, and there are just as many small issues there.

All this wall of texts to say that, respectfully, when you write >Earlier this year I built a new desktop and installed my normal Linux distro and the screen wouldn’t work after login the issue might simply be that you are doing something very wrong and/or not following the proper instructions for whatever distro you are using.

> I have installed different Linux distros in 4-5 devices in the last year, including a laptop with an Nvidia GPU and a random NUC off Aliexpress. In all cases everything worked out of the box after a fresh installation

How interesting! This mirrors my experience with some of my devices, and not with some of my others.

> All this wall of texts to say that, respectfully, when you write >Earlier this year I built a new desktop and installed my normal Linux distro and the screen wouldn’t work after login the issue might simply be that you are doing something very wrong and/or not following the proper instructions for whatever distro you are using.

Ahh yes, the complicated instructions of writing the ISO to a thumb drive, running the installer, and trying to login after the installation is complete.

My sin was using a current gen nvidia GPU (a 5080) and a 4K monitor with high refresh rates. This unprecedented combo fails to make the transition from SDDM to Plasma Wayland with the latest (at the time) nvidia drivers baked into the distros I tried. Fortunately, I wasn't alone in this issue based on the forum posts across a couple of distros, so I can be confident that at least some others failed to hold it right as well.

Yes, using an Nvidia GPU is absolutely failing to hold it right. Nvidia has shit support on Linux and they do it intentionally, everybody knows that.

You can blame Linux all you want but there's nothing anybody can do except Nvidia. The whole thing is locked down, no distro or developer on Earth can save Nvidia users.

I can only speak from personal experience.

But I've had multiple Lenovo laptops not work with Ubuntun or nixOS in multiple situations.

Any new yoga variants just always had trouble.

E.g. my yoga slim 7i had a keyboard issue in Ubuntu such that for the first minute, I can't use my keyboard. Had to change boot configbto use "dumb keyboard" or something

The yoga also had speaker issues in nixos as the drivers haven't been mainlined yet. It was onenof those 6 speaker (2 tweeter) setups. I had to download a random driver and chuck it in my nix config to get the subwoofers working.

I gave up after mic issues in multiple zoom calls or gmeet calls.

You can say it's all skills issue, but Mac worked first try.

Laptops notoriously have rare hardware with poor or non-existent drivers. For laptops, you do need to do research with Linux to make sure things outside of the CPU/GPU work.

And, of course macs work first try. Apple makes both the hardware and software, if it didn't work it would be extremely impressive. The fact it's working is expected, not exceptional or noteworthy.

I can only speak from personal experience. But I've had multiple Lenovo laptops not work with Ubuntun or nixOS in multiple situations.

Any new yoga variants just always had trouble.

E.g. my yoga slim 7i had a keyboard issue in Ubuntu such that for the first minute, I can't use my keyboard. Had to change boot configbto use "dumb keyboard" or something

The yoga also had speaker issues in nixos as the drivers haven't been mainlined yet. It was onenof those 6 speaker (2 tweeter) setups. I had to download a random driver and chuck it in my nix config to get the subwoofers working.

I gave up after mic issues in multiple zoom calls or gmeet calls.

You can say it's all skills issue, but Mac worked first try.

Not giving Linux a fair shot is not something I'd categorise myself doing given how much I riced my dell xps back in the day.

>This is the kind of dated argument that really makes me dismiss most of the critics. I was running xubuntu as my main desktop since 2010 at least, switched to Debian + nix + XFCE in 2022 and switched to full-on nixOS in 2024. I never had issues with audio then and had to go out of my way to "break" audio on NixOS when I wanted to try pipewire instead of pulse.

Did you ever do any DAW ? Did you have to use is jackd ?

Stuff like streaming games from my desktop in a non native resolution is a no-go with Wayland. I can't do HDMI 4k/120 with HDR/VRR like I can on windows (I know it's HDMI fault, but that doesn't change the fact it doesn't work).

Oh and I've given up on using Linux for productivity a year ago - one can take only so many full browser crashes for simple stuff like desktop sharing, camera/mic stopping mid call.

I'm running linux on my desktop with about as vanilla hardware as you can imagine - the amount of compromises/stuff that just doesn't work is quite annoying.

It's just nowhere near the level of reliability of MacOS - that's why I use my air for productivity and I SSH into the workstation to do actual work in VMs (with all the recent supply chain compromises no way in hell I'm ever doing dev work outside of a sandbox environment).

I've never used a device that claims first party linux support so maybe it's better.

But honestly I'm not a fan of linux desktop in general - flatpack is nice in theory but comes with so many "gotchas" and installing stuff otherwise is just "here you have all the privileges of my user". MacOS sandboxing/security scoping feels way better for desktop use.

Dealing with real-time on Linux is an issue, yes. It has gotten better with pipewire but still far from MacOS.

Everything else I have it on pretty much "just works". I am not a big gamer, but Steam works. Bluetooth works. Wi-Fi works. It detects my printer and scanner better than my wife's windows laptop. No browser crashes.

NixOS is well supported on the Framework and on my workstation. The worst type of inconveniences I have nowadays would be things like what I had some weeks ago: Zoom wouldn't find an already-running process and would get stuck in a loop, solved it by running "nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade".

Compare that with the complaints that you hear from Apple users and the constant reporting on declining quality on MacOS and iOS, and you see why I take issue with statements like "most linux users want the MacOS experience, except with more customization".

MacOS has solved laptop suspend since the 2000s. Windows and Linux still struggle with this, especially due to the switch from S3- to S0ix-style sleep.

Modern Apple laptops seem less special now but you also have to look at them through the lens of their introduction.

A similar thing is true for Sonos. They don't seem all that special now, but you have to realize they have been offering multi-room synced audio with a good UX since 2006. That's before the iPhone even was released.

> MacOS has solved laptop suspend since the 2000s.

On Apple hardware. Call me when you put MacOS on any random laptop and get suspend to work.

Hard to agree with those critics when the OS is doing the right thing, but the hardware won't play ball. The reason there's so much code in the Linux kernel is for various shenanigans that hardware vendors came up with. Yesterday I was looking at how HDMI audio is being implemented. From the specs, it looks quite nice with support for PCM and rates supported sent via EDID, but there's like 5 implementations for that one, 3 of them handling hacks by the GPU vendors.

Yeah, it's not that hard if the hardware is high quality and of small number of known types.

Windows and Linux is judged by whether it works on any hardware, including the so-cheap-it-should-not-have-been-produced-ever machines, that will obviously just plain suck. No amount of software can save shitty hardware.

I feel like Linux proselytizers are always talking about how Linux will revive or improve low-powered hardware, and that’s one of the reasons it’s so great. Then when it’s still a poor experience, the same Linux users say things like this, that no software can save bad hardware. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Also, Linux expressly aims to run on a wide array of hardware, and macOS doesn’t. So Linux should be judged across a large range of hardware and macOS shouldn’t, in the same way a Jeep should be judged on its off-roading abilities and a Civic shouldn’t.

But then what is left to compare the two?

A supersonic airplane is not better than a bicycle, nor the reverse is true. They are just.. different and only marginally related.

Also, "revive" a device is more of a niche thing. What's more generally in line with linux's philosophy is it scaling down to embedded-like hardware, but also scaling up to supercomputers. Neither end is "a bad experience", and none of the other mainstream desktop OSs can even hold a candle next to it.

> But then what is left to compare the two?

Countless other things about the way they work and how they handle what you want to do with them? We're not comparing radically different things, I was intentional about my comparison of Jeep vs Civic: they're the same basic tool, with different applications and contexts where they shine. This isn't an airplane and a bicycle.

Not really - a Jeep and a Civic is pretty similar in use case still. The Mac would be more like a tram that can only go on rails vs perhaps a bus. If we want to make some useless comparison.

They are both personal computers? If anything it’s a Civic versus an Accord.

Windows had working suspend to disk with Windows XP then they messed it up trying to get a more tablet like experience.

:/

the last time i tried changing the audio sample rate for an external dac on a silver blue based immutable distro it would reset every time i rebooted so no this is not an outdated argument. linux still has serious issues with the basics

Idk, I tried Linux last year and couldn’t get my USB wifi to work, even bought a new one that claimed to support Linux, and even tried an entirely new distro (went from Arch to Mint) and still had major problems. Windows handled it just fine.

That combined with a lack of good creative software on Linux kind of kills it for me. I’d rather use it than Windows, but MacOS seems like the best option currently.