Apple has billions to invest in hardware and software and integration of the two. Linux, excluding RedHat, has little or no financial backing and doesn’t make hardware so it’s not surprising the Linux desktop experience is weak. In fact it’s so bad that many Linux users jump into window managers and never look back. I use Debian and macOS every day, the former for learning how things work because I’m often fixing things that break; and the latter for work because the UI is in every way superior to Windows.
Seems like your mistake was switching from Arch + XFCE which you liked and was working well for a long time.
It sounds a bit like Linux systems weren’t just tools for you but also a hobby. This is absolutely relatable. As many things in life, hobbies come and go. I guess future will tell you whether you moved on or whether you just take a break.
For me, Linux is a hobby, too. I enjoy it very much. However, it’s also a necessity since the alternatives are off the table for me (except BSD). I set up myself a working system to work on in any case. The hobby part is dealt with stuff based on this system (like scripting) or if it’s another distro or a big intervention into the system, I do that in VMs. When the hobby pauses, my system is still in great shape. Works for me; might or might not work for others.
tl;dr
I set up a functional system with only established bells and whistles and compartmentalize everything I tinker with.
I just can’t understand people’s focus on aesthetics when it comes to complaining about desktop environments.
Enjoy your Applelife dude.
Well, well, well, then windows is a beast of an os. Consistent things, i downloaded jetbrains etc and everything worked out of box as it is, no tinkering, good commercial softwares, Billy G has been saying this since past 30 years but it was just based people who opposed it.
Yes, you are right.
By the end, what really matters is freedom. I did the reverse way a long time ago from proprietary to FLOSS. Many of the topics mentioned are “not as good as Apple’s env” and doesn’ t fit perfect for your perspective but works perfectly and mature enough for the ones with the understanding/principle/lifestyle where freedom is valued first.
He has a point with how the user experience is on Mac compared to that on Linux. Touchpad support on Mac is so far ahead, I don’t think I might see anything as good on Linux in the next 10 years.
GNOME truly has some minor bugs that haven’t been worked on in years and I suspect they gonna stay the same for the years to come.
Laptop battery life is also an issue.
He has some valid points that need to be addressed. I’m even ready to pay money if someone was set tom embark on a quest to eradicate some of the GNOME bugs or improve the Touchpad experience.
If you’re still popping in VMs I recommend trying Pop_OS and Elementary OS, especially elementary, they unify it more. Not trying to sway you as I’ve also considered switching to a MacBook for productivity
GNOME transitioned to use 3.0 and that was it.
MATE
In a way, I feel like macOS is the most stable and polished Linux distribution that doesn’t get in my way.
As usual, people who use the word “stable” have no idea what it actually means
It’s nowhere close to macOS when it comes to the desktop
False, macOS is a piece of scat
Most commercial software doesn’t support Linux
Not a problem of Linux. Most don’t support macOS either
Most open source applications are copies of one another.
False
Wayland still feels like a work in progress (and it is)
Don’t use it then
Flatpak? Snaps? Binaries? AppImage?
Whatever you like
Despite a gazillion dictionaries, there is no dictionary that we can actually use to look up words like in macOS and iOS
Apple Silicon beats the pants off Intel/AMD
This has nothing to do with Linux
This has been an interesting story you share there. I’ve experienced a lot of the same things you did and I eventually quit desktop Linux as well, but in another direction.
I’ve been using Linux since the mid / late 90’s in addition to Windows and then for almost a decade exclusively. I had started on SuSE but hated KDE (1.x at the time). Ubuntu with its live CDs was what won me over to dual-booting at first and eventually that other partition that I never booted into anyways.
I just *loved* GNOME 2! Then GNOME 3 happened and no matter how hard I tried, it just wasn’t for me (same thing with Canonical’s Unity). I switched to Xfce and it was fine. Used Mate later as well. Wanted to learn more about Linux and also started distro hopping: Debian, Gentoo, then Arch. I was happy with the latter for quite some time as it took me a while to understand that the project had just killed what Arch stood for when they adapted systemd (back in the day, Arch was known for two things: 1. being rolling-release 2. being configurable via a central configuration file rc.conf).
For fun and to learn I created my own Arch-based distro with an alternative init system, different C library, toolchain and so on. Then I wanted to try out the BSDs. It was a wild ride with several steps, but in the end I switched to that camp completely. Today all my personal machines as well as my laptops and workstations at work run FreeBSD. And interestingly I’ve seen a notable number of people coming from macOS into the BSD communities lately because they feel the platform is degenerating. For you the opposite seems to be the case at least at this time with macOS feeling like an “upgrade” from Linux. Makes sense to me as while I think the bazaar model is good for trying out new stuff and thus pretty innovating, I’ve come to appreciate the cathedral (careful design instead of chaos, complete OS instead of “kernel + some packages”, etc.).
But hey, that’s the beauty of Open Source: Choice, choice and again choice. With one possible take of course being retreating to a proprietary system. Why the heck not if it is the better tool for you? Thanks for caring enough about FOSS, though, to comment here. Because if we want to not lose people like you in the future, there’s still a lot of work to be done.
I’m here before people come here and start saying you’re a troll. Can’t blame you, Mac OS X is great.
If it wasn’t only avaliable on apple devices(Officialy, i know Hackintosh exists but still), you would see crowds of people switching from Windows in a hearbeat.
Skill issue. That’s why Apple OS’s exist, for people like you.
- What you say about linux for servers is true, but saying it is weak completely ignores the fact for gaming Linux is in fact better than Mac. Most Windows apps can be run on Linux nowadays. It is true it has many patches all put together, but so does MacOS. So does Windows. No single person has worked on it for the lifetime of the software.
- I think the scaling problem you are facing is because of your DE. I use Plasma. It actually tries and make other libraries look good and doesn’t just ignore it like Gnome and GTK counterparts. Linux graphics since Valve started working on things are in fact almost on par with MacOS. If you are using AMD/Intel multi-monitor scaling works flawlessly under Wayland. Personally I use Nvidia and I have the money to just buy monitors that are the same resolution so I don’t care, but if this was a concern I would use AMD/Intel. It is cheaper and supports everything very well.
- This is highly dependent on the hardware. If I told you to stick to a specific set of hardware like you need to do with MacOS then you could have the same level of support. This is entirely your fault.
- Many applications that work on Windows don’t work on MacOS and the story goes on and on. Everyone knows this, but we have alternatives. I think you will need to be more specific here on exactly what you are trying to do.
- Many projects people do to learn. Many are forks and one offs to meet specific needs. This isn’t wasted energy. This is good examples of the eco-sytems health. Apple and Microsoft have side projects.
- Yes Wayland is a work in progress and X works perfectly well to play games right now. HDR is coming to Wayland and Nvidia support is improving a lot. I can play games are perfectly good FPS and many times better then Windows.
- Not gonna argue with this one. In many instances it can be bad, but if it is optimized for the device it can be good. It is highly dependent on the hardware and support for that hardware. I think the Steam Deck is an example of it being pretty good. Obviously when hardware manufacturers are targeting Windows support for custom hardware isn’t always the best on Linux. The fact Linux can even work on all these platforms just shows how much better it can be then MacOS. You can build a hackintosh but it is literally a legal grey area.
- PDF editing is insanely easy nowadays and while adobe does add new features sometimes the format is relatively well understood and can be modified and edited in javascript in a web app nowadays so you will need to be more specific on what you are trying to do.
- What do you mean about dictionaries? I never had an issue with this so I can’t speak to it.
- If you are using a distro they have repo packages and you can use Flatpak. Discover completely makes this something you don’t even need to worry about so not sure why this bothers you.
- Linux has a ton of backup software. Even a file system that assists in making back ups even easier.
- Apple silicon doesn’t beat AMD or Intel. First off “Apple Silicon” is ARM. We have used ARM in lots of PCs for awhile. You can even buy one now running Manjaro. But beside that point ARM in some instances is more optimized for certain things and AMD and Intel are optimized for things.
Overall I am not saying Linux doesn’t need to improve, but I think you are just dealing with distro hopper fatigue.
I don’t distro hop. I try something and just stick with it unless something drastic happens that makes me want to switch.
I used Ubuntu for like 15 years until they started making changes too often that caused things to constantly break. I found Manjaro(Arch based) and have been using Plasma ever since. This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea so use what you think works, but the simple fact is using the latest and greatest with a slight 2 week hold period has proven a good model for a desktop operating system for me. Plasma is highly customizable and has the polish and seems to have greater support for gaming which means graphics for various reasons.
If you want to drink the Apple kool-aid then go ahead, but if you adopt the same philosophy Apple has with Mac then you would need to restrict your options to very specific hardware and very specific operating systems and if you did that then you could have a good experience. If you don’t do that then it isn’t an apples to apples comparison.
Purchase Crossover and support Wine. It also makes installing software easier that is intended to run on Windows.
So I say, buy an expensive supported latpop/desktop with 100% supported hardware.
That would need to be AMD and you would basically have the entire experience you are after.
So you’ve ditched Linux for Apple.
…
Yes we know Linux Desktop environments are less refined than proprietary OS for many reasons and that’s not new.
What else?
FreeBSD looks very well formed from the engineering point of view. But unfortunately it lost the battle for mass market and it is not much possible to repair that situation. Ports collection was the best back in 2000s, but today the concept is slightly outdated for end users. Release support periods aren’t that competitive to RHEL/Ubuntu.