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Comment by prmoustache | Hacker News Reader

> We are trading usability & quality for freedom & privacy.

Are we? Not sure what usability and quality improvement there are in an OS where you have to fight against its vendor's decision.

Most critics against Linux I read come from people who never took the time to choose perfectly supported hardware in the first place but just buy whatever bleeding edge stuff is available running on windows, then hope it will works. It is like criticizing Apple/macOS because it doesn't work well on an hackintosh really and is completely dishonest. I don't criticize windows because it doesn't work on the latest Macbook M8 ultra studio pro nor do I criticize iOS because it doesn't work on my Samsung Note tab 6 or macOS 27 because it doesn't work on a Microsoft Surface.

I haven't had any update nor hardware support issue in the last 15 years because I have chosen hardware based on Linux support compatibility before purchasing them.

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I don't even get the "quality hardware" argument. The only hardware I interact with is my high quality mechanical keyboard, trackball, and color calibrated monitor. All are vastly superior to any Apple hardware that I would interact with.

It's mostly about laptops. Most people use laptops. Apple laptops are good and all the other ones are bad.

> Apple laptops are good and all the other ones are bad.

Bad or not as good?

For many people not as good can be good enough.

For instance I am mostly working from home, and will never spend more than 6 hours straight without a pause nor do I work "on the road" so I never cared about having a +11h of battery life. I understand it can be very valuable in some circonstances but it has never been a thing for me and for many people using their laptop mostly at home. I wouldn't trade having a forced siri install or the shitty keyboard that used to come with macbook a few years ago for more battery life than I actually need.

I didn't really interpret this discussion as being about laptops - as opposed to being around Apple hardware and software in general.

It's obviously not about the desktop setting.

> I haven't had any update nor hardware support issue in the last 15 years because I have chosen hardware based on Linux support compatibility before purchasing them.

You're unique! Also I hear what you're saying about the vast choice of laptops available with amazing Linux compatibility

> You're unique!

I don't think so. Critics are usually more vocals than people who have no issues.

My grandmother used linux for years without issue in the late 90's, my ex inherited a computer from me 16 years ago and was still using Linux last I checked 7 years ago, having migrated from slackware to ubuntu on her own without being a particularly tech savy person. She had no wish to get back on windows as it just worked without getting in the way. My current wife migrated to linux without realizing it when the hard drive on her laptop died, she only figured it out when she realized icons of her office suite were different. Using an immutable distro has been painless for her so far in 3 years, same for my daughters, as update are done in the background and system boot simply to new image when started up. I am not even doing any maintenance, just checking once every few full moons that the auto update is still working (which is the case).

> Also I hear what you're saying about the vast choice of laptops available with amazing Linux compatibility

The irony is not lost when I consider this vast choice it is at least bigger than the choice of laptops[1] running macOS at any given time.

[1] currently 8 according to Apple's own comparison table separating model into line, then screen size and cpu.

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