Ubuntu vs mac os x 2012

That seems like a pretty big difference to me for fairly similar specs. Especially considering that you can upgrade your XPS in the future. I'm on a Macbook Air now, but for my next laptop I'll be deciding between the 2 above or possibly the last model rMBP. Getting a little off topic here, but I've bought several XPS 13s note not 15s for work and have been pretty underwhelmed by the performance. Not sure if it's a thermal management issue or what. Based on the Ars review of the HP Spectre x [0], though, I'd probably add that to your list as well.

I'm eager to try one myself. Granted, the hampered rMBP performance was probably mostly due to that specific model being underpowered for the new retina display. Fnoord on Jan 4, However, in this day and age of networked computing and fast WiFi why would GB not be enough? The resolution of the MBP 15" is also in between p and 4k, a sacrifice, for battery power. The graphics card isn't upgradeable on either machine. And I did look at the XPS. I'm not going to buy a machine which makes a lot of noise, and the XPS has coil whine. Why don't you compare to the rMBP? I tried out the butterfly keyboard of the version in store and I found it far too noisy the travel also isn't a good aspect.

Do you really need the graphics card? Have you looked at eGPU? Having to think about disk space regularly and make sure to remove software I'm not using regularly is something that I've not had to do in a very long time. WayneBro on Jan 4, This is the typical response I get from Apple users whenever I ask how to do something with a Mac that just can't be done. I've been hearing it for 20 years from Mac users: Well, I can't speak to most businesses but every corporate I've worked at in the last few years has been characterised by an SOE that involves strangely spec'd machines eg.

It will also most likely be an i7 that never gets to top out, meanwhile the underwhelming wifi infrastructure not PC specific means boot times due to profile and policy replication are in the order of minutes. Oh, and regardless of how old they are they never get upgraded eg extra RAM, switch to SSD because the bureaucracy disincentivises doing so. WayneBro on Jan 7, That's a bit of a non-sequitur. I understand corporations order the wrong configuration all the time At least they have a configuration to choose from!

If they shopped Apple, they'd get 3 choices: Cheap overpriced crap that they have no control over, overpriced crap that they have no control over and Expensive overpriced crap that they have no control over. But hey, it would be shiny! They'd then just have to build their own infrastructure to manage their fleet of Macs like Google did because nobody else builds stuff like that for Macs since nobody uses them in business.

Corporates are a different fish to SMEs though. Every SME I've seen in the last few years has at least some hardware that's been recycled by upgrading. It's only true if you focus on one or two features or specs and ignore everything else. When people make that claim they usually find something with the same CPU and amount of memory and use it as a comp.

Of course. The OP wrote about the specific "sw dev" group, not the average user. I feel like text is where the retina screens really pay off. I'm not even sure if I could notice the difference looking at photos. With Linux I can control the price of my hardware. I can move my environment, the part I care about, up and down the price spectrum as I care to and where I can afford. I care much more about what I'm doing with the abstract "computer" in front of me than what it physically is. Particularly something as fast-changing and fast-obsoleting as computer hardware.

And obsolescence does matter, as newer softer slowly comes to expect newer hardware. I've got a Surface Book and it's glorious. The issue may not be the current hardware he is on, but rather Apple has put their developer machine future in doubt by releasing lackluster upgrades to their MacBook Pro line and neglecting it's Mac Pro line for a long time. Thus signaling that they may not be the best option for development longevity.

I know it's a decision point of mine, as after the last MacBook Pro release, I decided that my next hardware refresh will most likely be a PC based laptop running one of the BSD's. I was really hoping for a 32 GB ram option. With my need for virtualization and needing to run other machines 16 is getting a little light. I was really disheartened when they went to the soldered ram as it constrains one to the max ram offered via Apple. I just cannot justify buying another 16gb laptop so it's kind of the straw that broke the camels back for me.

It is apparent to most that they are moving away from the needs of the developer in relation to hardware and many of us don't want to be further constrained by those decisions. I have no ill will towards Apple, just stating my reasoning. They made a business decision and I don't factor into that decision as the best course of action. I therefore have to make the best business decision for myself and factor in how I adjust.

It sucks, I like Apple products and will miss OSX but the lack of some hardware capabilities in now outweighing the benefits of the OS. This article is garbage. If he likes Linux, that's fine, but don't pretend that Apple's actions in caused him to travel back in time years ago and switch to Linux That's not what he's saying. He's saying "developers are switching from OSX to Linux, here are some links for the interested, I did it years ago and I'm really satisfied". The article doesn't even mention what his reasons were for switching. I agree.

This article is basically click bate for people that are not fans of apple me. It never answer the question posed by the title. The author has not even switched off of Apple totally The big three for me where: The discontinuation of the 17 inch MacBook Pro The soldered in ram. And the final one was with the last refresh where they held the top of the line model at 16GB of ram. As a note these where probably all sound business decisions they just chip away at my ideal machine.

Which is a large screen machine, with a lot of horse power so that I can simulate an entire network environment locally to eliminate variables as well as use in a disconnected environment. BatFastard on Jan 4, Why would Apple want to drive developers away? You've misunderstood. One is RAM, one is storage. I don't think they want to drive developers away, I think that the removal of the 17 inch MBP from their line was a sound business decision the only market left for them are intense gamer who are on the go i.

The MBP has never been seen as a first class game system so they where never really competitive there and developers are a small subset of the computing market and not all of them prefer a large monitor. Soldered in ram was a decision to reduce the overall size of the MBP to make it thinner. Again this probably appeals to the large consumer market. I don't know the reasoning for not moving the line up to at least 32GB of ram but I would assume their cost to produce to market segment came to a higher profit calculation by not doing it, maybe it offset the cost of the touch bar but that is speculation but I assume they had their reasons.

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5. Differences Between Linux vs Mac?
6. Re: Give me one reason why Mac OS X is better than Ubuntu....

I don't think it is an intentional effort to drive developers away, rather calculated attempt to chase the largest market segment. RAM vs. Flash storage.

You're comparing apples and oranges here. Actually Apples vs Apples. That's 16X the iPhone's max GB. TulliusCicero on Jan 4, It used to be that Apple was pretty dominant in creating decent laptop hardware, but these days machines like the XPS 13 and Spectre are very competitive. When we replace my wife's MacBook Air I think we'll probably get a Windows machine, the latest MacBook refresh was pretty disappointing.

Yeah, this stuff is really tiresome. What a bandwagon people have going now. Remember back in when it was cool to be anti-Microsoft on HN? The consensus changed almost overnight, anyone using Apple wasn't a hacker anymore. Either you're on Windows wishing you were using Linux, or you're on macOS wishing you were on Windows wishing you were using Linux. And god forbid you buy any new Apple hardware, you dirty shill. Facebook machine, not a professional, MacBook Pro Air and all that. RUG3Y on Jan 4, I think people like to support the "underdog". Whatever is popular will inevitably have people that rebel against that popularity.

Maybe it's a bit of the hipster attitude.

Why are developers switching from Mac OS X to Linux? | Hacker News

I use a MBP for work, and while the build quality is great, I find the machine itself to be My older one had more ports, some that I used often and still miss. I would never have a new Mac for that very reason. The OS is decent, usable certainly, but I really would rather be using Linux. I don't have any very strong opinions though. I'd be fine with any machine with a unixy OS on it.

I think very strong, hardline opinions on this kind of stuff can sometimes betray immaturity. The world is rarely "black and white". I've not seen a single PC with the Apple build quality. Combine that with Apple Stores providing excellent, best in industry support for a good price: I'd love to go Linux, but someone needs to build a good Linux notebook with Apple grade support for that to happen. I have no time for tinkering or downtime. The near-unanimous criticism is indeed something new, but I seem to remember Apple getting some flack every time they ship anything.

It's usually "This new OS X OS X Part of the problem may be our myopic view of the past, from where it seems as if Apple revolutionised computing on something like a yearly basis. A system that "just works" seems to bore today's "professionals" — even though I'd argue that SSDs and retina displays were two of the last decades' largest improvements in performance and ergonomics, respectively.

FWIW, I've snarkily, unfairly, wrongly thought that for many years now. I'm not defending that, because — as noted — it's snarky, unfair and incorrect. But I really have wondered why people who are liberated enough to not use Windows use macOS instead of going all the way to Linux. If you're willing to break the social norm, why not go all the way and be free?

Some of us just use Linux, and are happy. I love Linux on the server. For desktops, I believe it brings out all the worst qualities of the open source community: Just regarding the aesthetics, most Linux desktops seem to cater to the crowd that buys motherboards with LEDs and puts a window in their case. Because Linux is only free if your time is worthless is still about as true today as ever before. Oh sure, I can use most of my hardware without too many issues. It took me hours to configure my monitor because of some issue with EDID, but I'm willing to count that as an outlier.

The problem is I get Ubuntu working and then I still have to deal with fucking Unity. OSX works out of the box with the hardware, and the OS is just a much more pleasant desktop experience while being a good enough OS to get work done vs windows being more difficult. I solve that by using neither Ubuntu nor Unity: But macOS is only pleasant if impeding your workflow doesn't affect your pleasure. Yes, certainly, trying to use one of the major desktop environments as a replacement for macOS may be worse although I'm personally unconvinced: After having spent, maybe, two weeks total effort customising my environment, I have something which is a much more pleasant computing experience that either macOS or Windows.

My computer gets out of my way when I need it to; it's an extension of my brain; it's a tool, not a toy I'm constantly playing with. Frankly, the desktop metaphor was probably a mistake in the long run, and choosing to ape the desktop metaphor was probably a mistake for free software. We should have focused on the next advance, not tried to reproduce an advance, but this time with fewer resources and more folks pulling in different directions. GUIs are great, but draggable windows really aren't so much. GUI elements are great, but being forced to mouse around for any action really isn't so much.

Curated software can provide a great ride, but it's not so great when you need to get off the rails and explore new territory. I don't want to. I don't want an ugly half baked interface.

Linux vs Mac

This is why I honestly do think "linux is free if your time is worthless" is more than just a snarky comment. That's absurd. I can go into the apple store and buy a mac and just install homebrew. That's a bit like not wanting to use a jackhammer to break up asphalt because it doesn't have velvet handles. A tiling WM is neither ugly, nor half-baked, nor does it require tweaking or require much. That's a bit like saying it's absurd that it took four years to build the Golden Gate Bridge, when after all anyone can build a footbridge for his backyard in a weekend.

The interface you have available to you on your Mac hinders you more than the interface I have available to me on my Linux boxes; the interface you have available to you on your Mac augments you less than the interface I have available to me on my Linux boxes. I invested two weeks, and they have made me an order of magnitude more productive. This is, yet again, a case of the Blub Paradox. Surely you can see that there are less-powerful, more-painful interfaces to use than that of a Mac — is it so difficult to believe that there are more-powerful, less-painful interfaces than a Mac?

If you accept that it's at least possible , are you willing to entertain my contention that window management is in fact wasted time? Are you willing to entertain my contention that having all my regularly-used programs a few keystrokes away can be faster than moving my hands off of the keyboard and using the mouse? Are you willing to entertain my contention that a minimalist interface is — or at least can be — less distracting and thus enables one to enter the zone more easily and stay in it longer?

What a wonderful and generous explanation!!! Like you said, those are the ones who have "broken free". Everyone else the "hackers" either use Windows and wish they used Linux or use macOS and wish they used Linux. But they don't actually use Linux, because [reasons]. To be fair to them, I don't use desktop Linux because [reasons]. I used Linux for years. I built a MythTV box and bought a digital TV tuner card for it and, later, a device to get the video from the cable box, along with an IR blaster to change the channels on the cable box.

I built my desktop system for Linux. I have compiled kernels and filed bugreports. I now use OS X. In the end I got tired of desktops with tons of broken stuff. I have XMonad to thank for introducing me to Haskell, which I still use daily. I got tired of reading man pages to do simple stuff like change my clock. The thing that broke me in the end was doing my US income taxes. Our taxes are complicated so it helps to have software to do them. There's nothing for Linux.

So I filled in my taxes on PDF forms. Even that was not easy: So I resorted to Adobe's non-free software. I considered using an online service but I did not want a cloud solution for my private data. That pushed me over and I got a Mac. I had actually tried Macs a few years ago when they were making the white plastic Macbook, but I returned it and stuck with Linux. I found that OS X had come a long way since I had last tried it.

I enjoyed doing little things like downloading a song--things that would be a pain on Linux do I have the right codecs installed? And there's a ton of third-party software available. Some of it costs a few bucks, where something similar on Linux would be free--like a little tool to graphically show what is eating my disk space. But it's worth spending a few bucks to save hours hunting for something on Linux and fixing the breakage. So that's why I don't use Linux. My time and my ability to get things done is more important than nebulous "freedom".

Proprietary software provides an incentive to some companies to produce useful software. So be it. Three days later, I still couldn't get it to display properly. I can't remember which WM it was, I feel like it was the one that shipped with Crunchbang. They are usually separate things. So true. One thing that's totally crazy is Linux on Windows what a world. So you can run Photoshop? Not only that, but I think the hate on the new MBP is rather unjustified. Sure, the battery life has issues but I expect that this will be rectified in the next few months. Fact is, I can't find a single Windows laptop right now with anything close to the high quality feel of a MBP right now.

I love working in Linux so the OS isn't an issue OSX has its own fair share of issues, sure. But fact is, it's productive if you're a developer. Hmm, I've spent a fair bit of time with the MBPs and have owned and used many Mac laptops over the past decade. I wouldn't agree that there are no machines with "anything close" to the feel. HP's top end models are close. Surface Book is extremely close. To be honest, the removal of MagSafe actually drops the overall "quality feel" of the Mac a step below the older Macs for me. As does the removal of certain other features over the years - such as the battery lights, pulsing sleep light, charging indicator light, tiny microphone input flowers replaced with single larger holes, inbuilt IR remote, etc.

I would classify these things as "design quality" - so possibly not the build quality of what is there, but definitely contributed to the machines feeling like they are a cut above what else is out there. The fact that I can't upgrade the Mac at all is basically a deal breaker for me. I thought I could live with it, but after four years of having personal Macs Air that can't be upgraded, and work MBPs, seeing my spend on computer hardware literally double thanks to shorter new machine cycles, higher cost of "upgrades", and reduced resale value, I've had enough. Not only that, but my machine satisfaction drops a lot near the end of a machine's usable life where previously it would be quite linear as I periodically upgraded things , and having to make compromises on storage etc is just too much.

Whether OSX is productive as a developer depends greatly on what your particular environment is. In many cases I've observed that Linux can be more streamlined for everyday development, and the disruption that is OSX software updates has increased to the point where it's just as bad as Linux updates. If you can take advantage of Visual Studio for your dev and use some of the integrated toolchains there, you may even get superior productivity to OSX. Razer makes really nice hardware. Visit a Microsoft store or Fry's electronics to see some in person.

Hands down superior hardware. Good value for the money. It's bad enough that the last OS X system update was 1. Then there's Docker. I took a look into linux recently, as a Mac user for the past 10 years. Ended up buying a Chromebook to mess around with it and it is pretty nice, but desktop linux is still missing so much software that I use regularly in macOS. Also, finding suitable notebook hardware to run linux on is still a nightmare unless you enjoy spending time debugging the device that is supposed to improve your productivity.

All the unique hardware is missing drivers SP4, surface book and things like touch screens and wifi drivers across more "normal" hardware is still finicky. My main gig is iOS dev, so I obviously can't completely swap, but there just isn't any comparable hardware out there that can just run ubuntu out of the box minus some exceptions like that dell developer edition xps. Many articles about people switching from Mac to Linux laptop begin this way: I have a mid 13" retina MBP and it has its fair share of problems, namely: This is very intermittent, and seems to be a problem with our home connection, but other devices don't appear to suffer.

I mainly bring this up because the latter two pretty much match your examples of linux complaints - Apple machines are far from perfect! Regarding the input, if you can demonstrate that with a clean OS install that these lock up happen, it's a very good candidate for hardware replacement, assuming you have AppleCare which would still keep you in warranty till ish.

I've had over 10 Apple laptops in the past decade, and wifi is one of the things that has always been rock solid. Whenever buggy wifi showed up, it was usually the cheap wifi router to blame, since buggy wifi would affect all the wifi devices. Which macOS version? Still on Mavericks. Did you try the solutions at [1]? Have you considered upgrading?

The Devastating Allure of Medical Miracles

Be careful you don't get into issues with DNS related to [2] in Now that there's a market for developer laptops, the chances of Linux working fine are much better. Compared to my previous laptop MBP 15" the trackpad sucks but it's small and fast. I don't regret the switch. That really gets me But then again I've see to many friends with Windows notebooks habitually do that as well, and I may be special with an uptime that closely tracks the last OS update.

Could you make a short list of the apps for devs? Many of the recent articles that have been posted about Apple's new Macbook Pro line have been very low-quality compared to the rest of HN. The comments here provide an order of magnitude more value than the articles themselves. They're more or less serving as a "discuss this currently controversial topic" thread; the articles are irrelevant.

While I think they could be easily replaced with a new feature in HN itself, the current solution is working. I'm OK with the article spam. Apple hardware does suck now AND its over priced. I switched a month ago from MBP. I commented elsewhere https: How did such a terrible "article" get upvoted in the first place? BuuQu9hu on Jan 4, Lots of other things suck too, lets not discriminate against particular things that suck. It's the same people who participate in various "challenges" and play Pokemon Go claiming that it's good for your health.

Many people just need some hoaxes to consume their free time. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the moral case for using an Open Source OS over a proprietary one. Just to restate, Open Source software gives users the freedom to: Call me an idealist, but aren't these things important? I agree in substance, but I find arguments from moral principles mostly unconvincing, so I prefer to formulate it in different ways.

If the business shuts down, stops updating its products, or changes their products in ways I dislike, I have to discard the investment I've made time, money, learning, etc. On the other hand, I am profoundly grateful for the learning opportunities given to me by the free software community ever since I was a teenager. For example, whenever a new version of Apple's mail program is released, the makers of the GPG plugin have to reverse engineer the changes before they hopefully can update their software.

And so on Points 1,2 and 4 also apply to open source. Open Source makes me dependent on the whims of a particular community. If the group has infighting or lack of activity, enjoy your abandonware. Yes, you could resurrect the project yourself, but that is a ridiculous burden for most situations. It's often complicated sharing Open Source apps. They often require loads of tinkering, are poorly documented, and require specialized knowledge. Unless all of your friends and family are free software enthusiasts too, this isn't always simple.

Open source tools can also be hard to integrate with. You exchange licensing being a barrier for integration with lack of resources for designing good integration schemes. The larger projects can have significant resources to get around this. I agree with you that the overall point of "it's FOSS, so you can change the software" is flawed. Most of us don't have the time, knowledge or inclination to change the software. However, even though it's flawed it's not totally incorrect. You sometimes can change something -- maybe look at the internals and write some trivial patch to solve an immediate problem; maybe change some scripting bit -- and sometimes if there is infighting in the official community, a fork can happen.

Not saying forks are not messy or even always possible, but the possibility is there and it happens. YCode on Jan 4, And just because you aren't personally inclined to change it doesn't meant you can't benefit from the capability. Quite often I've used a fork of software that continued providing a feature the core distro discarded or added an experimental feature the main line hasn't been able to perfect enough to put into production. And it's common for someone else has to take up the banner to continue producing a library or software the original developer no longer has time or interest in producing.

With commercial software however for the most part you're stuck providing a patch file with some hopefully not too complex instructions on how to hack it in. Fully agreed. It's kind of like democracy. Sure, it's hard to elect a new leader or pass a new law, but it's possible, and that possibility is very valuable. It's also kind of like open knowledge, like science and math.

Sure, it's hard to learn algebra or biology, but with hard work you can master it and contribute. Completely agreed! I'm a fan of FOSS, and for me the balance is definitely positive. I like that the possibility is there, even if many times it's not within my skill or patience to fix it myself. Same with science indeed. Even if I cannot always fix things myself, looking at and breaking! Skunkleton on Jan 4, Yeah, but sometimes the leader I voted for doesn't win, so we should go back to being a monarchy. Well, maybe not any single person, but the chances that a community of people that share your opinion will contain at least one motivated individual willing to fork it are not too bad.

If it's abandonware, then relatively few people are affected. Also, you can always recompile it for your new platform. It's not seamless, but it's much better than an old binary. Most free software is also available on proprietary platforms. Seldom an issue. Some people will say they "cannot" read your. Don't have any counter-argument. You may be right. Those are all the basis of the moral arguments. If you watch Stalman speak on this topic he usually refers to this fact: If the users do not control the program, the program controls the users. If we do not have the right to maintain, update, and distribute our programs on our machines and to run them in any fasion we would like then the programs control us, we don't control them.

What could this mean? Well they could do something malicious which they quite often do , they could allow something malicious to happen out of ignorance of the original programers and we'd have no way to fix these issues think all the window's 0-days , they could even just revoke licenses of software that is in use for critical systems think medical records. A worse side effect then all of these is the one that is most egregious: It prevents younger generations who are starting to learn about computers from understanding how the lower part of the stack works.

That's why, in my opinion, many older people have no problem delving into lower level systems code and many younger people today have a very hard time doing such. Hardware, software, and even documentation is under lockdown and it's an assult on not only our principles but also our youth and self interests. I agree with Stallman too, and he's a great explainer of these issues. Stallman's default assumption that proprietary software is malware rings true to me, too Rhetorically, I think Stallman's ethical strength contributes to the integrity of the Free Software movement, but also tends to alienate people who do not already agree.

As I see it, this is a common dilemma for good causes. For example, I think animal rights rhetoric tends to alienate people who don't already strongly agree that animals have rights. I'm influenced in my thinking by reading things like Alisdair MacIntyre's book "After Virtue", especially the second chapter, which begins: I do not mean by this just that such debates go on and on -- although they do -- but also that they apparently can find no terminus. There seems to be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture.

I see free software as way to actualize solidarity, and yet I'm skeptical about the possibility of convincing people that proprietary software is "wrong" or "evil". TheOtherHobbes on Jan 4, The fact is that there is no system - absolutely none - which doesn't define how users interact with it, and set limits on what users can and cannot do with it. FOSS doesn't solve this problem. At best it allows a tiny subset of technologically expert users some limited opportunities to make incremental changes and adaptations.

But it also creates some unfortunate side effects, including a perpetual ferment of hobby-quality unprofessional tinkerer code that doesn't have to deal with end user feedback because "Issue closed because I don't understand your problem and don't care about it anyway.

It's certainly good to have around, but the suggestion that it's The Only Way Forward is more dogmatic than fact-based - not least because there's nothing in FOSS that selects for quality of user experience over quantity of development effort.

Linux Mint vs Mac OS

I'm thankful for what the movement has brought us. That said, growing up I've come to realize that one's time is valuable, life is too short and at the end of the day you have to pick your fights. Even as hackers, there are times when we find ourselves with the "end user" hat on. As most people I'm slightly worried about Apple's hardware vision lately, but the state of desktop Linux simply isn't good enough to warrant a switch back for demanding users yet. Linux is an operating system.

It is an Open source operating system built around the Linux kernel. Mac is an operating system having graphical user interface. Many Linux distributions use the word Linux in their name. Since , new releases have been offered on an annual basis. Mac Operating system is simple but powerful. Graphical user interface Mac Provides easiness to use to users. The hardware upgrade is difficult on Mac computers.

Distributes Companies of Linux provide support for this. But if I wanted to buy a new laptop with a US keyboard from Lenovo or Dell today, their web sites don't provide the option. Apple do. I'm sure it might be possible to order one over the phone, but why should I have to? TazeTSchnitzel on Jan 10, I wonder if it reflects how they manufacture them. Do they print the keycap labels on demand? I think the problem here is that Apple doesn't really have to have a huge product range because they are pretty much focused on the premium price range.

On the other hand, manufacturers like Asus, Lenovo and Dell have everything from the economy to premium range which makes the content organization a natural headache. And it looks like nobody has figured out a good way to fix everything up. But Dell has a pretty nice web site despite having a huge range of products. Yes and no. UI looks wise it is ok, but UX wise it is a nightmare. When I try to find a product I often can't find it. Or I can only find it if I pretend to be in the US. Or mostly it is out of stock. And all this time direct links works so the products exists, I just cant find them consistently.

He bought his first macbook pro in the end instead a one just after the touchbar launched. Yes their SKU stock is massive compared to Apple, so navigation will be trickier, but why do they need to make it so hard by hiding products etc. I believe that is solely the reason some listing websites came up just to search for products. Plus in most cases, you really aren't suited for the whole range. I have been using Asus Zenbook for the last 3 laptops; I just go straight to Amazon or Ebay to buy them, the experience there is quite better besides I want a US keyboard instead of Spanish.

The other manufacturers also haven't figured out how to organize their models. It's not even a matrix -- with models varying by CPU and RAM and disk and such, you'd expect that at least they'd arrange them visually in some kind of table. It must be a nightmare for non-technical people.

They're all like this, and it becomes hilariously complicated when the manufacturer has, like Lenovo, dozens and dozens of models, and it's impossible to understand what the difference is between them and which ones are targeting which uses. You have to ask why they're so unfocused, too. Is it an intentional tactic? Asus seems to be one of the few to understand this aside from Apple ; their Zenbook site is pretty friendly and focused. Though they still insist on nonsense model names like "UXUA". It's not just PCs, of course.

It's all consumer electronics: TVs, sound systems, what have you. I've never been a product manager but IMO it probably goes something like this: The competition has entered this space and there is clearly a market there. Apple, OTOH, does whatever they want, targeting limited segments in order to keep everything simple. They lose out on lots of opportunity by restricting themselves to just parts of the market.

But they also have a money tree, so it doesn't really matter. As a technical consumer I much prefer these very-distinct names that change with each new release. When I read a review, it's very likely that I'm reading the right review. When I'm buying used, it's very likely that I'm getting the right product. I can appreciate the elegance of a simple product name, though. Typically they're concealing the true model info under some other header, but it's usually harder to identify. You're probably right. But it doesn't explain why Apple is so good at this and so few other companies aren't.

They must realize the confusion they're creating among consumers. Nice brand names like MacBook doesn't preclude having precise model IDs, though. The MacBook range mostly has unique model names and Apple publishes a full list [1] , for example. As a counter-argument, an example from TVs: The same TV models are sold all over the world with different identifiers. They'll do things like tack on an "E" for European models. But it makes it really hard to find reviews, because the same Samsung model sold in the US as UN40J might be UN40JE in Europe, and you don't necessarily know how to translate between the two identifiers though they often have a system about what the letters and digits mean so you can decode them, kind of.

You might find a review for Samsung UN40J and hope that it's close enough. I guess the difference is that Apple doesn't list each and every configuration option as a different product, but only shows them when it's relevant: While Lenovo, Dell and Co. Or don't and just opt for the default base model. This process covers 27 different product variants in a step by step checkout workflow that is easy to grasp and understand by the customer. That's because Apple is not afraid to shut down a product that still makes money, and offer less choice to customers.

Typically when they released the iPod nano, they decided to stop the iPod mini even though some customer would have still chosen it. Apple's ability to have discipline and know when to say no, sticking to the specific markets they know they can make large margins in is what created and feeds the money tree. Why make 40 lines in every variation at razor thin profits, when you can make one line at huge margins? Not sticking to that model is what's getting apple in trouble, even if every tech comment whines about how apple has done everything wrong since forever. Apple is in a somewhat strange position.

Obviously not true in all cases i. I love Apple to death but had to resort to a very custom desktop for some ML work. But its right often enough to make additional models a losing proposition for Apple: MR4D on Jan 10, You're probably spot on. Their job is to take this noise because that's what this is and distill it down to something structured and logical. No wonder Apple makes so much money. It's all consumer electronics I recently bought an induction hob, and it's exactly the same.

Bosch for example have a series 4, 6 and 8 and within that, models with various configurations. At first I assumed series 8 was the best or newest, but there are low and high end models in all of the series. I looked through the manufacturers specs, and even in terms of features I couldn't see anything different between the series, only between induvidual models. Maybe the series refers to what day the 'design team' came up with it?

I tried to look at some reviews online to see what people said was the best - I live in Northern Europe and haven't yet picked up the language so looked at reviews on UK and German sites. Except the models available there aren't available here, and vice versa. At the end of the day they are all pretty much the same they all cook stuff , so I just went to the shop and picked one that wasn't too cheap or too expensive and looked the prettiest Wife Approved TM.

This is so frustrating!

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Even worse when you're trying to dig through a maze of URL's to find drivers, half the link will go to the US site which will then get redirected to the regional one where the file doesn't exist. Had to do it once for a network drive with "export restrictions" it took hours to find their awful, half working driver. IME Dell are one of the better ones.

This is a really good point. I'm a lenovo guy and I've bought from their official site a couple times. It takes forever to render and the customizer is clunky. Just give me a basic webpage with checkboxes and a price that gets auto updated. Completely agree. Many pains in the ass from ordering my 4th generation X1 Carbon off Lenovo's site, even while tracking the absurdly lengthy shipment. My past Mac purchases were pleasures, by comparison. Yeah try ordering anything from Lenovo on your iPad I mean, how much effort can it take to clean it up?

Ubuntu It's been ready for over ten years. I switched in the early '00s. Many switched, and I must have saved myself months of fixing Windows machines. After half an hour cursing while I found and fixed the problem, I realised I couldn't remember the last time computer problems had impacted my productivity - it has certainly been several years. I obviously have no idea how Windows runs now, but my recollection is that it wasted several hours a month. I would argue that your asterisk means Linux is nowhere near ready for wide use on the desktop. Non-technical users can wreak all sorts of havoc with an OS setup, and it needs to be somewhat hardened to that my personal favorite story is having to fix a friend's Windows install that somehow associated.

Whitestrake on Jan 11, Agreed, I think it's less about being able to get it right, and more about being unable to get it wrong because users can and will get it wrong in every way possible. Linux is able to get it right in almost every way imaginable, but I can't think of any distro that's as resilient to the user as Windows. Almost all the bloat, crap, and bad decisions seem aimed ostensibly at making it difficult or impossible for the user to ruin their system, and obviously they still are far from impervious.

Seen that happening many times. I agree. Photoshop , Windows OS is even frustrating for them - just because it ends up installing tons of malware through clicking pop-ups while they are web surfing. They have no idea how to get rid of those toolbars and they don't know they can try google for help. Linux is a safe neighbourhood, a peace of mind and ready at least for these users - and I guess there are millions of them.

Yeah; switched my 50 year old mom to Linux three years ago. People still acting like every distro is Gentoo. To be fair to Gentoo which has it's share of problems[0] for sure Also, it supports more platforms and features. For Linux all around, the bar has steadily raised. The complexity of a modern system is staggering, Gentoo is the only platform I know that goes the extra mile to allow you to modify everything without sinking in a swamp of maintenance.

Yes, there's a convenience cost - but there's a long term cost to not bothering that other platforms extract from you over time. Its rolling release nature can make it feel overwhelming if you don't surf the bleeding edge. Switched my 68 yeard old mom to Linux five year ago. I feel old now.

Running Linux since , everyone in my family uses it. I saw Linux for first time in SuSE 5 , running it since , so yes, you are old, thus I'm still young. I haven't missed any piece of software much, but I would like to express my hate towards Adobe and Autodesk, who don't care about Linux at all. What keeps many people on Windows are games. Valve, through Steam, has made monetization of Linux games more viable. So now there are many titles available on Linux compared to years ago. There's still a gap, but I hope that Vulkan gets traction and becomes the de-facto standard rather than DirectX.

DirectX was pushed through a lot of FUD controversy during the evil years of Microsoft they claimed that in future Windows versions OpenGL was going to be put behind a compatibility layer with a performance hit, and developers freaked out and moved to DirectX. Then it didn't happen. As much as I hate to say it, opengl still has issues in comparison to DirectX.

Just getting an opengl context is comparatively quite difficult and that still doesn't give you input or audio. Yes, but the performance of OpenGL drivers for complex scenes has improved drastically in the past few years. Also, perhaps through growing consumer exposure to mobile, it feels like the graphical and input complexity! JetSpiegel on Jan 10, SDL does, though.

I agree that desktop on linux is ready, with the main trade-off being: Btw, I also started with Ubuntu but I'm finding Arch a much better and up to date distro. Arch is definitely the way most Linux users go once they get in a comfort zone with their existing distro Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc Antergos makes it easier than ever to jump into Arch, too. The two biggest issues I've ever had with linux are printer support and modem support. Time solved both issues before developers did, no one uses dial up and I no longer print anything at home.

Even printers and scanners are fine as long as you pick the hardware based on Linux driver availability. No vendor-specific software needed; just open up Simple Scan and… scan. What is it that you like about Arch? Maybe I should give it a shot, although with Ubuntu you know you'll have both the solutions and the software available somewhere. Almost everything is most up to date, in ubuntu you get versions that can be years old. And no, that doesn't really mean it breaks things. I have antergos for a couple of months now.

And ubuntu comes a bit bloated out of the box. I'm also impressed from the support in the packages. For example, you need a new fancy editor? Atom, VS Code? Maybe need the latest of node. It has them. It's much more complete than I thought. No need to look for. And last, I won't have to change anything in months when a new version comes out.

There are no scheduled releases from what I understand. You can always be up to date. Personally, I don't see any single reason to install ubuntu again. Hmm, that's interesting, thanks. I currently have provisioning scripts for Ubuntu that will set up any machine just the way I want it from scratch with one command, so moving all that state is not trivial, but Arch sounds very interesting.

I'll give it a try, thank you! No problem. Yeah, setting up the environment is a hassle. Happy to help if I can. Thank you for your offer! I'm sure it'll be straightforward, it's just work that has to be done: Accacin on Jan 10, I don't want to sound rude, but Arch and Antergos aren't exactly the same. I think if you intall Arch you'll set yourself up with a much better understanding of your system for when something goes wrong.

JetSetWilly on Jan 10, They are essentially the same, it is the same repos. In fact once you have installed antergos you can remove the antergos repo and you essentially have an arch system. Many arch users often say "you must go through our annoying installation process to understand linux better! Antergos is great. From what I've read, it's a "light installer on top of it". For now it works pretty well for what I need.

And coming from OSX and ubuntu it's a good step I guess. I'll try just arch on a VM to see what the differences are. For personal use its the most up to date and because its rolling release i never have to actually upgrade or wait for releases. Also newer kernels for newer hardware. Doesn't that break things too often? I always run across at least one breaking change on each new Ubuntu version, and I'd imagine this happens much more often with a rollling release OS, is that not the case? Also, how is packaging? With Ubuntu, someone always has a PPA for everything. However, in the one year I have been using Arch as my main distro, I had only two small breakages.

The first was a recent upgrade of openvpn, which required you to move some folder from one place to the other. The second happened this weekend. I had been using the infinality-font-bundle, which provides a patched fonts set that is beautifully rendered. However it seems that the developer hadn't been keeping up with the new versions of fontconfig and the had been some new options added, and after an update gdk-bixbuf2 needed one of them to function. So not something very dramatic. The package manager is pacman and the standard repos already have a lot of software.

And then there is the AUR, where everybody can upload build-scripts for stuff that is not in the official repositories. Most of the time they work great, there hasn't been any software at all that I had to download from a browser. Not based on arch, but in places where I've worked that have adopted continuous deployment models, there are a lot less breaking changes and those breaks are usually smaller and more manageable. What I'd like is a stable base system with cutting edge apps, but I don't know if any distro offers this. Keats on Jan 10, Arch has AUR http: I'm away and not on my main machine at the moment, but I've heard of problems for people who have installed Infinality fonts in the last few days..

So I'm looking forward to fixing tht when I get home. I've been running a full system upgrade now in https: As long as that keeps working infinitely more often than an Ubunto upgrade I'll keep doing it. Nobody was more surprised than me, but rolling distros or at least Arch are fantastic. I switched in the early to mid 00's and it was ready then, nothing fundamental has really changed. Currently I'm switching to it again because the game situation has improved.

Opinion follows: I don't think so. My three day old vanilla Ubuntu desktop install completely froze up on me the other day. I wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary - browsing Reddit with Firefox. It was a mostly default Ubuntu install nvidia and broadcom drivers and otherwise completely up to date. I was frustrated enough I haven't bothered to troubleshoot it yet, but my best guess is somehow I ran it out of the 16 gigs of memory in my desktop, and the default install either didn't create a sufficient swap file, or it was not very proactive in swapping.

If I can freeze a basic install by browsing Reddit with the default web browser, there's something fundamentally broken. I would agree if you could show causation, but this is only correlation. I could tell you how many hundreds, maybe thousands of hours I do exactly what you've described with NO freezing, but so could a lot of others. I'm sure others yet can tell you of freezing. None of this is perfect. But one anecdata does not a readiness state nor lack of it make. Is it a brand new machine?

My PC, which runs Windows, does the same thing. I've determined that it's actually an issue with the power supply. It has nothing to do with the operating system. I guess what I'm saying is, do some troubleshooting first before you blame it on Ubuntu. Nvidia drivers are always a worthy culprit. The only time ubuntu has crapped on me was due to a failing hard drive. Check your hardware. I've been switching back and forth between OS X and Linux for the past several years.

I'm currently at a year and a half into a Linux streak and really enjoying recent advancements. My Dell XPS 13 typically gets 10 hours of battery life. Linux itself is quite stable. Simply install a recent distro and off you go. If you're using a heavy Window Manager you'll get all the convenient configuration applets you need.

The real issue, IMO, is the desire to tinker. OS X is a bit limiting in what you can do with it. I haven't seen anyone with custom window decorations in OS X in a long time. Short of running a software update we aren't capable of tweaking kernel versions and system utilities. If we stick to the same limitations in Linux it's going to be near impossible to break. Once the Linux tinkering sets in you'll find that you've installed a bleeding edge kernel, changed some repository sources, modified Xorg. Good luck rebooting at that point ; With great power comes a great desire to shoot ourselves in the foot.

Oh come on, I've been a Linux enthusiast for over a decade now and it's been years since I've even touched xorg. Linux has gotten significantly less painful over the years, and it's not just that I'm more familiar with it now. Installing a mainstream distro these days is easier than the last time I installed Windows granted, that was XP. I finally caved and started using a Mac for work. I was afraid that I would like it so much that I would just have to buy one for home, but I actually find Linux is still pleasant to use, I still think I prefer it over Mac OS. Not only that, I don't even run X as my root display server.

And the best part is, Wayland Ozone support is already in Chromium, it's just not really enabled right now. Sway written in C, I contributed the libinput config , Way-Cooler written in Rust, if of any interest and Orbment all ride on top of 'wlc'. They're all at least somewhat functional. I think there's a few others but I haven't tried any of them. Thanks, I will keep an eye on sway. My life has been great these last years, and mostly due to this: What distros are you people using?

Mine doesn't even come with xorg. Neither does mine. That's why life has been great for years! Sadly, I second this. But even tweaking the themes or the trackpad sensitivity is a huge time sink that waits for me to bite the bait in a weakness moment. About the Python 2 alongside Python 3 et similia: About the xorg. Different answer from different people. For me I've always been optimistic. Linux as desktop offers choices and freedom. I've been running Linux as my main desktop since Fedora Core 1 you can count. Overall the kernel and desktop environments window managers are getting better especially KDE.

Of course, there has been learning curves and all sort of frustration, many weird problems to attack but never a real showstopper AS LONG AS you had the time and passion to research learn and fix them at least it is how I have built up my Linux skills tree. It's about freedom and choice, also the habit that has formed over the years. I do use a MacBook Pro 15" for work on the move, portability, battery life is better than running Linux on it - plus the wireless driver hassle - no worth it - as long as iTerm2 and homebrew is in place - don't care , but the pretty much all grunt work is done on my workstations 2 optiplex in office and home.

It may not work for all but you'll have to give it a try to know.



I had been running Ubuntu 8. I have been using Linux as my main OS for many years now However, I actually agree with a lot of the below, the alternative programs on Linux aren't up to scratch with tools people build their livelihood on Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch etc. But the opposite is true also, I find development painful on OSX, I get pissed when starting with a new company and they assume I want a Mac. My stack is LAMP, it's what the servers run, its what I want to run on my local development machine as well.

For those of you looking for a nice little Linux laptop check out System76's Lemur. System76 does little things such as commit driver fixes to the kernel and flash a custom bios and firmware to make the hardware run better with Linux. If you want to good hardware support on Linux you can't go wrong with buying laptop from them. I just wish they or a comparable competitor opened up shop in Europe.

Ordering from the US is doable, but the hit-or-miss import tax sucks, and for warranty the distance and economic zone mismatch mean delays and high shipping costs. That said, they make great laptops. I love my four year old Gazelle. For all your OS X coming to Linux, a word of personal advice. Use a distro with KDE, Kubuntu is great for beginners and install ubuntu-make https: Why KDE?

KDE has a traditional Desktop experience, that can be tweaked in every way. It is much more polished and all the other Linux desktops and it uses Qt5 as it's base - so the team doesn't need to develop the widget toolkit and can focus on the desktop. I was a long time Unity and then Gnome user, so I know what I am talking about.

I switched to KDE this summer and never looked back. The choice of desktop environment is quite a personal matter. I would recommend Gnome 3, which is especially polished on Fedora. KDE was fine, but Gnome 3 has been polished a lot in the last view years. So I switched back to Gnome 3 and never looked back: Nowadays, it seems Fedora leads the way, but Kubuntu is a great choice nonetheless.

BTW I'm using Kubuntu Is there a common high-level scripting tool for Gnome, like AppleScript? For me it's all about the APIs. When I want to do something like: I expect similar APIs in the file browser, text editor, photo library, contacts, calendar, and web browser apps too.

A common API is what makes an ecosystem to me. TD-Linux on Jan 10, If you want to browse it you can run a program like D-Feet and choose "session bus". It's not tied to a particular language though, rather you need bindings to it. In addition, it's somewhat more complex than AppleScript, and the APIs that most apps provide are rarely documented. It does have the concept of standard interfaces, so many apps will often implement identical APIs.

Those that required very specific things - obviously not. Hell I'm a developer and switched to Chromebooks since I only need a browser and ssh. Everyone should always be out there looking at other stuff - chances are you can discover something new or even better than what you thought possible. I bought Dell's first Ubuntu laptop offering back in '07 or '08, and am still thankful I did to this day, even though the machine has long since retired. Back then the MacBook Pro was a very solid offering, and a Linux laptop was almost a joke.

But I still have Youtube video tutorials I recorded from that laptop, it was a great machine and your point is as true now as it was then. Try it out, don't just sit there ignorantly whinging, is my version. In my humble opinion, OSX: Productivity, Linux: Development, Windows: