I have used it in the last decade, quite a bit. I try it on the desktop every couple of years. My home server is Debian (too lazy to switch it to FreeBSD when it’s working Ok, I rarely modify it, and the way I use it I never have to mess with Systemd anyway), and nearly all the software I write at work targets Linux one way or another.

Also it’s on my Steamdeck, so I get a good dose of the usual jank any time I have to use the desktop mode for anything.

I try every couple years. I tried KDE on Fedora last time (I hate gnome since 3) and could still crash various KDE apps with drag-n-drop operations—I’d trained myself never to use those outside narrow situations on Windows and Linux years ago because they usually broke things or did something stupid, but am now accustomed to them both working and doing something reasonable, so I spot those issues in a hurry when I use other environments now, and no longer accept that as just the way things are. Among other jank and poor stability, that’s just an example.

IIRC making caps another control anywhere I was logged in—not just in KDE—was weirdly hard, too.

Five or six years ago my Ubuntu tv-attached old desktop forgot how to decrypt the root disk its own installer had encrypted, after an OS upgrade.

My Debian server required manual intervention (busting out my rusty Gentoo chroot grub-installing skills) to install its bootloader. The manual version went the same aa usual and had no problems so no clue WTF the installer was trying to do, but it consistently failed, and this was boring, old business-class Lenovo workstation hardware. That was four or five years ago.

Basically when I try to go back I’m missing lots of features and it’s less stable than what I’m now accustomed to, so end up wasting a bunch of time and regretting it.

Hard disagree. Every Linux-running personal computer that I use or have used is a terrible experience. Something is always broken, the whole system needs to be hard rebooted at least a few times a week, parts of the OS will randomly stop working each day, the list goes on and on. macOS is not perfect by any means, but at least I can actually get work done on it.

> and visually has a great deal of Polish

It's great that they translated the UI in that language!

Jokes aside, I use a mix of Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux Mint (have had a few DEB and RPM distros on the desktop too) and macOS. I have to say, that all of them are serviceable.

Windows is sometimes quite annoying to deal with, but has a lot of software for it (the likes of PowerToys, MobaXTerm, WinSCP, System Informer, Handbrake, 7-Zip, HWiNFO64, MiniTool Partition Wizard, MPC-HC, Rufus, ShareX, XSplit VCam, VSeeFace and others). You can do most of the same things in alternative software in other OSes, but there's a huge variety to be found, same as with running most of the games out there natively. The UI feels hit or miss and worse in Windows 11 than in 10 in some regards (no vertical taskbar, for example, need fixes for the context menu etc.), but the OS feels usable.

Linux Mint and other Linux distros are pretty much ideal for software development, hands down. Most tools work, the resource usage is great, there's a huge knowledgebase on how to do things out there, it's quite customizable and can be used on servers, desktop computers or even an old low spec laptop alike. I personally settled on Cinnamon, but XFCE was very usable and someone might prefer GNOME or KDE (there were even attempts at reviving the old Unity desktop from Ubuntu, that one might have gotten hate when it was the main option, but actually had its nice bits too). Gaming is hit or miss with Proton (many games will run but definitely not all, also forget about playing anything with invasive anti-cheat solutions), sometimes you also won't be able to get some productivity software running, if it's developed only with Windows in mind, Wine isn't a silver bullet but it's nice that it exists.

My M1 MacBook as an overall computer feels like it has great build quality despite the overpriced hardware. I'm mentioning that, because it's very well integrated with the hardware and I haven't had any weirdness due to that yet, like the touchpad on a laptop stopping working after a fresh Fedora install, or needing to compile Wi-Fi drivers from a GitHub repo for it to work at all, or Windows looking at the RAM available in a laptop and deciding that it wants most of it for itself and to slow everything down to a crawl. In macOS, the desktop also feels polished, is reasonably customizable, though sometimes is a bit jarring compared to both Windows and Linux distros, as are the things surrounding it (everything from the keyboard layout, to how managing open programs works, also connecting to an external 1080p monitor is a miserable experience because it doesn't fit within their own hardware ecosystem either). Development is doable, unless you go for the 8 GB version because you need the OS for a project and can't afford anything more, gaming feels way more limited than on Linux distros, but nothing feels particularly broken either.

Neither is ideal, neither is horrible. They're all somewhere in the middle, doing more or less well when it comes to particular aspects.

I very much doubt that. I tried installing Fedora on my new laptop, and the defaults are horrible. It doesn't even support two-finger gestures on the login screen, so you have to right click in a different way before logging in.

At least it's not as bad as Ubuntu, which allowed me with a simple warning to install Nvidia drivers without a full system update, which broke the system so badly it couldn't even boot anymore, o an otherwise newly installed setup.

And Debian is horrible too, it doesn't even have a task bar of any kind (you are forced to Alt tab to switch apps, or even see which other apps are running), unless you go hunting for some extensions someone made.

All of these can be made to work decently, but calling it a good out of the box experience is laughable.

can it send txt messages to a phone ?

I have an M2 Macbook Pro mostly gathering dust and waiting until Debian supports it rather than dip so much as a toe into Apple's crass software ecosystem. For now it is a file server, albeit I had to purchase an dongle just to make it run with the lid closed because Apple deemed that an unlikely use case.

“ Every other company “

What's incompetent about Linux? Have you tried to buy preinstalled?

it’s very cohesive and stable by comparison to Windows. It’s beautifully designed compared to KDE. It’s most similar to gnome.

if you’re the kinda guy who sees it as user hostile, I’d wager it’s because you refuse to learn the macOS/gnome paradigm and demand things to be how they were on your windows pc 30 years ago.

what os/dwm do u use

I personally think that the development experience on Mac is better. I have complained about the poor development environment you mentioned before, but I successfully solved it with some new tools. On Mac, you can use Servbay or mamp to solve this problem. Servbay:https://servbay.com

>and no other OS can predictably wake the laptop when opening the lid and not wake it when it's closed

You can do it in Linux with scripts. I had it on my old laptop when I had Manjaro on it. Basically disable any action on script close, then write a custom service that listens for an event and puts the computer to sleep. Only thing is you have to press the power button to wake it, but it worked well.

In general, I have been using work issues Macs, and I tend to agree - they are pure shit. I wouldn't even call them good hardware. People seem to forget how mac thought it was a good idea to make the esc button a virtual one on the touchbar. I had 3 work replacements, first one fried chip due to an "incompatible" usbc hub, the other 2 started swelling batteries. In every single case, I ended up losing a small amount of work I haven't backed up (like a shell script), since you can't replace the hard drives.

Currently on the latest iteration of MBP 14 inch, the hardware seems good so far. Battery life claims are overrated - with slack, bunch of browser tabs and VSCode I get max 4 hours, but to be fair, this is the lightest laptop that Ive had that can do that (I used to have a much larger Thinkpad that could do CAD for 4 hours on battery)

My choice is also bad. Zero of them are good. All constantly have stupid quality problems or fail to operate as well as they should.

It’s a choice between hamburgers that are 30-50% shit, and one that’s 10% shit. Every single one has way too much shit in it. All of them deserve loud, angry complaints about the amount of shit they contain. But if I must eat a hamburger…

And your response is code for "I'm unfamiliar with the concept of oligopolies, and believe that every consumption choice should be based on logic alone." Come on.

It may not be worth it: the ridiculous upfront prices to get enough RAM and SSD space, and the lack of upgradeability of those two components, significantly undermine the value proposition of the Mac platform.

But the laptops at least are definitely better quality. The touchpad, charger, screen, keyboard, case, speakers, etc. are all well above the Windows competition in terms of both build quality and durability. The commoditization of every component in a PC laptop has really sapped the life of that platform. No, actually, I don't want another shitty Synaptics touchpad with ancient features and buggy drivers. I really would like every key on my keyboard to still work consistently 2 years after I bought the computer. And no 1080p is not good enough (but hey at least we finally got away from 1366x768!).

Some of the PC makers do seem to have caught on and you can get something comparably specced and competitively priced if you look hard and carefully. But it will still have some deficiencies compared to the MacBook that you can't shop your way around.

"Better" is a relative term. Better in what, for which purpose?

There is currently no fanless laptop that can run linux (at least macos is not windows, so good enough for me, I do have some standards) that can even remotely be compared to a macbook air. Or in general to meet the quitness of higher end macbooks except under heavy load, or the performance you get on the go. I am just tired of having a "jet engine" making constant noise in my room. We have been waiting for qualcomm snapdragons to catch up, maybe after a few more iterations they will stop being a disappointment, and then I may switch to a snapdragon (or amd or intel or whoever manages to get there) laptop with linux.

This does not even include other aspects that macbooks are superior to whatever I have used in the past, eg their touchpads or speakers, which I discovered just when I switched.

I still use a MacBook from 2015. That's hella longevity compared to other laptops I've owned. And the only thing better than Apple trackpads is the Thinkpad "nub".

Too bad about the craptastic keyboards from 2016-2020 though.

Or KDE Plasma… they’ve been making amazing things with look and feel in the last couple of releases. Either way, that much customisation and user control on an iPad… practically unheard of.