started using a Mac as my personal machine recently after exclusively using linux for 20 years and one of the most surprising things has been that the options for creative software (making vector graphics, fonts, etc) on Mac really are much better in many cases
feels like one of those things that everyone knows but I never really internalized
(do not lecture me about the options available on Linux, I promise I know)
also i should say that using a mac has been hard for me, after using linux for 20 years there are a lot of things from Linux that I really miss (like package management, strace & friends, native container support).
I really understood how my linux system worked and I miss that.
it makes a lot of other things harder and I still haven’t found solutions i’m happy with for many of them. The tradeoff is worth it for now though
(again, not looking for advice.)
@b0rk I love my Mac, been using it forever. But if something doesn’t work in s piece of Apple software it can be inscrutable to find out why and Apple has slowly been making it worse in the name of “you don’t need to know”.
But I still love it. Enjoy your journey.
@b0rk I commiserate. I've had to install a couple of extensions to get window management working in a way that doesn't actively feel like I'm developing with a hand behind my back.
... credit where it's due: the accessibility layer Apple added at some point does make this feasible. I remember a decade back where I had the same problem, and the windowing layer was so locked down that your only option to workaround those issues was AppleScript-based approaches that had atrocious performance.
(... on the flip-side of the coin, my Linux laptop seems actively hostile to being tamed regarding how it sleeps in the presence of a power connection. I have made a couple runs up the hill of getting it configured properly and have not yet succeeded.)
@witt two things
1. i wanted to be able to use creative software that doesn’t exist on linux
2. my linux computer’s power management was really bad and I was so tired of opening it and finding it dead. Didn’t have the energy at the time to debug it.
@b0rk @witt power efficiency is one thing that I do miss after moving from an M1 MBP, but doing research before buying a Linux laptop paid off. I got a Thinkpad and everything just worked from day one.
The battery life is a bit worse, touch pad is not in the same league, but that's really it. For this small price I get all the benefits you mentioned, plus, finally, no need to maintain separate macos dotfiles :D
@b0rk I love linux and would never consider anything else for running software for other people to use. But I live on Mac for software that *I* want to use.
Understood that you don't want advice, but if at some point you do, Fedi is a really good place to ask for it. Also FWIW I have some protips-from-a-longtime-user pieces on my blog.
@b0rk i recently got a mac too, mostly to cross compile and test, idk if you’ve got an m-series, but i’ve been super happy dual booting asahi and jumping between depending on my current tasks
(sorry i know this is advice-y)
@mandarvaze @b0rk i’m not the best one to answer— i’m doing some fairly unoptimized stuff.
i’m running server minimal with my sway config just dropped on top.
they’ve got a full desktop flavor that’d probably be better to baseline. i’m constantly running expensive tabs and i need to look into sleeping the screen. these are all self inflicted wounds and still i’m not upset by the battery life— i just know i’m personally not doing asahi justice with my putzery.
@b0rk it's a shame about the containers. i keep seeing vague signs that that situation over there is improving, but there doesn't seem to be anything straightforward or mainstream yet. 🤷
I find it ironic. I think the popularity of desktop docker in front line development had a giant push from the fact that mac OS is a very unforgiving environment for local backend work. And of course, "modern" containers arguably originated in FreeBSD, around the same period OS X gestated.
@b0rk macOS with Macports or Homebrew is all around a delightful experience for me as a CLI nerd. I get all the pretty tools when I need them, and all the utilities I actually use are right there.
On macOS I miss the total flexibility of Linux or the broad assumed compatibility of Windows, and every once in a while Apple gets an idea that breaks everything for months (transition to x86, transition to Apple Silicon). But overall it's good.
@b0rk Strong +1 , I've used Mac for >5 years for work machines now and I found it confusing too.
I'd gotten familiar enough with Linux (pre-systemd) to have a really good intuition about what caused different problems and how to fix them. It feels much harder to build that intuition on my macOS work machines.
@b0rk it feels like macOS updates are scarier or less stable too.
I have one bad update on Linux in my years using it as my work machine or server OS, covering decades of total compute time. I have used macOS for ≈6 years total in my working life and I've seen maybe 2 or 3 updates that break things.
@b0rk I hate that it’s required but I love your prompts at the bottom of your posts. It makes me feel like maybe this kind of thing should be a feature of mastodon.
Like the same way when someone goes to open an issue in a github repo and they get an issue template, maybe when someone posts give them the option of specifying a message only people who click the “reply” button see.
@b0rk As someone who’s used Mac for the last decade or so, and would like to move to linux (I have a few linux devices but they're not my main PCs) I really find that the quality and choice of software on macOS is a lot better.
I understand that some of it can be the difference between the effort that goes into free vs paid-for software... but it just seems that even the free stuff on macOS is usually really good.
Perhaps the lack of consistent UI design guidelines on linux is holding it back?
@b0rk Another thing one will discover as soon as he/she begins using a Mac every day is that we have an opposable thumb, not an opposable little finger.
CMD is where it has to be 😉
@b0rk I would love recommendations. I'm having the trouble that the apps that I loved on Linux aren't great on Mac, and I haven't found good replacements.
Although Logic Pro is awesome for how cheap it is.
@danlyke Hah. I use both of those routinely on my Mac 😂
Acorn and Pixelmator are names I hear often as being highly regarded for image editing. Not sure about Inkscape, although… the Affinity stuff is at least buy-once, I believe.
@zellyn yeah, I use 'em, I just find 'em clunky relative to on a Linux machine (though recent versions of Inkscape have gotten better).
I realized, I'd also *love* to have Claws Mail on the Mac.
And if I could figure out how to make Logic Pro do the noise reduction stuff that Audacity does so easily, I'd be *super* happy, because Logic Pro is, alone, reason to have a Mac.
@ivolimmen Wild hypothesis: They who pay premium for the box will also pay for your software.
_Gotta_ do Windows.
And they who brave the Linux desktop may be least inclined to pay for your 90/10 take if there's a free 80/20 tool.
@b0rk It's a free/open source vs commercial thing plus a home market effect, but I feel your pain.
Linux, in my experience, has slightly better CLI experience, Mac on the other hand has better GUI options. With exceptions, of course.
@b0rk Gotta admit that it's pretty impressive that this was true 20 years ago, and still stands today.
(And yes, I mean both for the fact that Mac does it well and that Linux does... not)
I've been a unix geek for, um, a number of years, but my get-stuff-done laptop kit has always been OSX.
It's likely confirmation bias, but when I pay attention at hackercamps, I feel like I'm very much not alone in that.
Julia Evans
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