I know this is going to be unpopular with some, but I am seriously considering a Mac and I am annoyed by the idea of it.

I NEED MacOS or Windows for my work. There is one application that does not work in Linux yet and there are no alternatives. It is a critical work application.

With that being said, you can probably guess that Linux is my preferred OS of choice.

I am currently using a Windows desktop for my work, but I do run into situations where I need a laptop. The laptop I am using now is a Thinkpad from 2021 with Fedora. I actually really love this computer. My only real complain is that the webcam is pretty garbage.

So, I think I need a new computer. My choices are Windows laptops which have decent pricing with good specs, or Apple which is extremely expensive for what you get.

I’m really annoyed with Windows’ ads, bloat, and general lack of privacy; specifically Recall. On the other hand, it is hard to justify spending an extra $400 on a Macbook air just to get a 1tb hard drive. My work files alone take up a little more than 200gb.

I guess this is just a rant. I’m not looking for any solutions as what I am really looking is the ability to use Linux for my work which is not an option at the moment.

  • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
    64·
    3 days ago

    I went from Linux to a Mac for work years ago. Install home brew on day one and the experience overall will be much better.

    The terminal on the Mac is surprisingly good. I felt right at home with it very quickly. Xcode comes with cli tooling to build software without a lot of messing with it and finding library dlls (looking at you, windows)

    The window placement philosophy takes some getting used to (see yabai for a viable tiling window solution though) and the key modifiers will frustrate you (though I eventually ended up liking cmd a lot).

    Overall though I feel like Mac gets a lot of hate where it’s not deserved. I still hate their business model, and my personal laptop is Linux for that reason, but the product itself is fine.

    • bokster@lemmy.sdf.org
      10·
      2 days ago

      I agree. Pricing is eyewatering. Business practices shady. But the laptop itself is fine.

      I’ve been a long time Linux user. But in the end gave up. Bought a Mac precisely because it was a pain in the butt, or practically impossible to run certain proprietary software on Linux. In the end, I did not have nor the time nor willpower to fight against it.

      Now, coming to Mac, there are some changes you can expect:

      The good

      1. Battery life is impressive. Of all the laptops, macs would hold charge for me the longest. Even Pros with lots of RAM and high performance CPUs.
      2. Laptop is sturdy. Even after a couple of years of use, the lid still opens and closes as a new one. No squeaks. No loose ends.
      3. CLI is great, iTerm2 is one of the best terminal emulators out there. And it’s free.
      4. Homebrew helps a lot, you can install practically any (CLI) application you find on Linux.

      The bad

      1. UI takes some time getting used to. Some decisions feel weird. In a typical Apple fashion, it’s ‘my way or no way’. Luckily not as closed as iOS (yet). There are some tools which can help, such as BetterTouchTool, Rectangle, and similar.
      2. It’s more difficult to find free software for macOS. Most is commercial and can range from a couple of $10s for a perpetual license to a couple of hundred for a yearly license.
      3. Good luck running Linux on new macs. Ashanti works on M1, but some hardware is still not accessible.
      4. Virtual machines run fine, but you’ll most likely need to shell out for Parallels.

      The ugly

      1. No USB-A. No Ethernet. Dongles are your life now.
      2. Crazily expensive.
      3. Not upgradeable. Need more RAM after a couple of years? Straight to the store for a new laptop. Bigger disk? Believe it or not, straight to the store.
      • bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        2 days ago

        It’s more difficult to find free software for macOS.

        Most Linux software is available for macOS as well.

        The indie developer scene for macOS is quite healthy and there are a lot of gems to be found like Panic, Omni, Kaleidoscope.app, GitTower, and many more.

        Not upgradeable

        Buy as much RAM and storage as you can afford. The high purchase price is offset somewhat by the very good resale value.

        • bokster@lemmy.sdf.org
          1·
          2 days ago

          I’m not saying there’s no free software. But for someone who’s used to apt install everything, the change takes some getting used to. Yeah, you can install Inkscape on a Mac, but frankly it runs much nicer on Linux.

          I ended up with a mix and a lot more paid software than I expected.

    • dinckel@lemmy.world
      5·
      2 days ago

      I use Nix on my M1 Pro machine, and it’s by far my favorite laptop yet. The company and their business practices absolutely do suck though.

      That said, there is certainly a middle ground for software there. I hate windows as much as the next guy, but macOS is at least Unix-adjacent, so it’s not a complete pain

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      31·
      2 days ago

      BTW, I’m not OP, but just interested, about the general feel of the UI and solutions - how much of the 3d\blur\other effects can be turned off? Same with choosing a purely monochrome color scheme. These cause nausea for me every time I even look at MacOS screenshots.

      And another question, about window management and solutions to that and the desktop and dock and launcher, - how simplified can that be? In addition to nausea, have anxiety from most things there, and every time touching a Mac wasn’t pleasant. Can one have a keyboard-controlled environment without rounded corners, without animations, without scrolled screens with icons to launch something? And how well can one hide the functionality of virtual desktop overview or whatever that is, to just forget it was there?

      Suppose my ideal of tranquility would be a DOS prompt, gray on black. How close can one get to that?

      Hypothetically.

      • ClassifiedPancake@discuss.tchncs.de
        3·
        2 days ago

        You can reduce animations and transparency, enhance contrast (though not every application supports it) and turn everything grayscale but you can’t change the overall style and layout of the OS.

      • bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        2 days ago

        You can turn off a lot of the transparency and other effects in System Preferences under accessibility. Setting the traffic light window buttons to greyscale is done in appearance I think.

        I always enable “reduce transparency” and “always show scroll bars” for a saner default. There’s a bunch of other settings there that are sensible as well

        Keyboard navigation for windows and menus is turned off by default. So turn it on for a more efficient experience.

      • MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca
        3·
        2 days ago

        To get a DOS prompt, you either install MS-DOS on a VM, or on a vintage PC.

        Or just make the Mac boot directly into the command line as Single User. CMD+S on startup.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
          12·
          2 days ago

          I don’t mean that. I mean using a PC normally, but with a level of UI appearance adequacy approaching that of a DOS prompt.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
              13·
              2 days ago

              No, I meant reduce distractions in the UI. Using all the same applications with native look. And reduce epilepsy-inducing elements in that native look.

              I meant normal use.

              • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
                3·
                2 days ago

                You can customize the colors & themes. I go with dark mode with dark tones & there is no multicolor things like you’re complaining about

                The terminal is pretty vanilla, you can customize it but it looks like any terminal by default

                You can’t turn off blur AFAIK, but it’s never been distracting to me. It’s probably where you get the idea of multicolor things though – some apps (and by some I mean apple default apps) have a very slight transparency with a strong blur, so if the windows/background behind said app is colorful, it will be somewhat visible through that app

                Edit: You can turn off transparency in accessibility settings

                When I say “can’t be turned off” I mean “can’t be turned off officially”, but as all things with macos there will be some paid & OSS solutions to tweak the behavior of the OS to your needs.

                I like my mac pretty vanilla yet I do use some of those behavior-tweaking apps such as

                • Copyclip
                  • clipboard history, free, can be installed outside the app store if you want
                • MiddleTouch
                  • paid, allows the use of the fn key + click to perform a scroll click (some apps are barely useable by me without this behavior)
                • Scroll Reverser
                  • allows setting different scroll behaviors between mouse & trackpad (default setting has inverted vertical scroll, OK for touchpads, terrible for mouse – it has no split settings)
                • noTunes
                  • prevent the opening of Apple Music app on ▶️ key press (annoying behavior when pausing & starting music play)

                You should also install Brew, the unofficial macos package manager, to install command line utilities and other packages

    • datavoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      If you have a MacBook, Swish is by far my most recommended application. Makes window management actually enjoyable. Also I think I used Better Touch Tool to set up custom 3 and 4 finger swipe actions / clicks.

    • Leaflet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      Unfortunately Homebrew isn’t good for casks, aka GUI apps. It can install them initially, but after that most casks need to be updated from inside the app itself. You can force Homebrew to update casks, but it’s not recommended and could break the app. I did that with Chromium (which doesn’t have an auto updater) and it messed up the keyring for some reason.

      • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        Well, that sucks that you’ve had problems, but it doesn’t match up with my experience of using homebrew over the last decade. I can’t think of a time outside that one time they changed the install paths where homebrew has caused an issue.