Surprising to myself, I have been a Linux user for over 12 years…
Through the many years I have bounced between and tried Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch, Parrot OS, Linux Mint, Manjaro. I have tried Gnome, Cinnamon, XFCE, KDE, Mate, Deepin. And more. I have 3 computers, all using a Linux distro right now.
I love the idea of Linux - free, free as in freedom, free of telemetry. And well, I thought I would never entertain the idea of switching, here I am today, strongly considering Mac OS.
Lately, I have become extremely frustrated and tired of dealing with little bugs, crashes, versions, and dependencies. Not to mention notable UI issues. It is starting to hamper my productivity when working.
Right now I am using Ubuntu and I cannot drag and drop into VS Code from Nautilus, I can’t drag and drop from the default archive manager, I am experiencing screen tearing issues, one piece of software I use crashes often but not Debian and vice versa, I have to manually reset screen brightness when it dims after timeout, etc. I have experienced issues of similar nature across all distros I have used and I am becoming burnt out.
I think part of the issue is that there is a huge variety of Linux distros, different combinations of kernels, desktop environments, window managers, package managers, file managers, network managers, etc… Not to mention devices. There is too many variables, and too many projects to maintain.
Sorry for the rant, I have seen many similar posts, but I have been using Linux for over 12 years, powering through, ignoring and working around these issues and I am pretty fed up.
While I am conflicted, I am thinking Mac OS looks like a good middle ground.
Any suggestions? What has been the most stable distro and compatible for you?
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I’m actually having the opposite experience (for the most part). All the little papercuts of yesteryear are almost completely gone, and it’s only looking better on the horizon. Of course your mileage may vary depending on use case and hardware…
Some things of the top of my head:
- Flatpak replacing 3rd party PPAs. Brand new software without dependency hell or breaking system packages? Yes please
- Snaps and AppImages too
- XDG Portals standards, making snaps and flatpaks play nice with confinement
- Audio and Bluetooth? It “just works” now
- Pipewire
- Even gaming works really well now, with Proton, DXVK etc
- AMD and Intel drivers baked in to the kernel
- Wayland finally being production ready for many use-cases, and being adopted as the default, fixing so many of the ancient X11 issues (screen tearing, multiple displays with different scaling, refresh rate, fractional scaling) ( cries in Nvidia )
- Nvidia finally changing their mind so Wayland on Nvidia can be a thing (I can’t wait 😊)
- KDE Connect / gsConnect phone integration
- Screensharing on Wayland even on legacy X11 apps becoming a thing through the new screensharing Portal
The only problem I’ve had recently is Ubuntu’s forced snapification, and snap being very rough around the edges for Desktop apps (ahem drag’drop)
This kinda proves that the selection of software plays a notable role. You’re going to have a bad experience with buggy and old software.
This has been/is my experience over the last 5-10+ years. When I think about how far we’ve come since the early to mid 2000s… Man. My mind boggles. I still run Ubuntu on my server, for simplicity sake, but have become a fan of tumbleweed for my personal machine.
I’m a long time Gnome user myself, and man has Wayland come a long ways. I can’t even imagine going back to X11. The last time I booted into a session to check if it would “fix” somet, I was immediately blown away by just how choppy and awful it is. Once you get used to Wayland X11 is just… Bad.
Yeah, i tried booting into X11 after using wayland for a while to compare them and i couldn’t bear the tearing, i guess this is alo the case with things like refresh rates
I use Linux, MacOS and Windows more or less parallel. Each has its quirks and benefits, but I would say Windows is the worst. MacOS looks very clean at forst glance, but has some weird things that appear randomly and seem to get worse with every update. On Linux it depends a lot on how you set up your system, my Fedora with mostly flatpaks works really well, but there are UI inconsistencies all over the place and maybe you need to look for a workaroubd from time to time.
+1 all my servers run Linux or FreeBSD, I use macOS as desktop (most of the stuff is neat and out of the box and it uses less resources) and I use Windows while working with my customers and some of their servers. I would definitely not choose Linux for desktop (I tried and gave up), but it is great for the servers.
Same! I use all 3, and Mac is my primary platform, I have a more powerful x86-based Fedora computer I use for gaming, and as a Visual Studio Code remote SSH machine and I have to sometimes boot into Windows for incompatible software/games.
Agree that Windows is the worst, and that Apple seems to be having macOS die by a thousand cuts (experienced many bugs, but they do tend to be fixed quickly with or without me reporting them, bigger issue is them removing options that were available via plists).
Fedora, however, seems to have a bright future, but there are still too many bugs/inconsistencies for me to use it on a daily basis.
Right now I am using Ubuntu and I cannot drag and drop into VS Code from Nautilus, I can’t drag and drop from the default archive manager,
anything from Snap or Flatpak in there?
If you can afford it, or even give Mac a test run, it might be worth it for your mental health. Health trumps everything and if your are honestly burnt out and you feel like it could be linked to your operating system, it is worth trying a change.
Macs are incredibly bad if you try to use any sort of cross-platform software. You usually have three different ways to install them, all half-broken. Every update some basic OS functionality they rely on is broken by Apple and takes ages to fix since very few of these projects have developers on a Mac.
Good to know. I’ve never used a Mac.
Weird. I can drag and drop just fine. Are you using VScode from a snap or the DEB straight from https://code.visualstudio.com/
If it is frome the Software store then it is a SNAP and the application is now allowed to work that way. Perhaps the SNAP can see your Documents folder, but not your Downloads folder as an example. While annoying this is a security feature of SNAPS.
Yup Im like you, been using Linux since I was a kid basically. Probably for 20 years now I guess.
For me, its just screen sharing that is a major annoyance. This is something that is so annoying when it doesnt work, and quite embarrassing as well.
I have had periods when my Linux machine has been the most stable in the team. Mac users had constant problems with bluetooth issues and other bugs.
Currenly im the one having the most issues though, and my collegues with macs dont have any major issues.
So yep, its frustrating. But i really love linux and when I have used mac, I stopped being interested in open source and technology. I dont want to become that guy who just waits for the next Apple conference for exciting news. I enjoy new Gnome and KDE releases and reading about Linux features very, very much.
But yes, its not without its annoyances to run Linux.
I will never stop using Linux, special place in my heart. But for my primary work machine and daily driver, I need something that is just going to work.
This year it will be 20 years since I switched to Linux. I also have tried many different distros and finally landed with Arch/Manjaro. From what I’ve seen, to me, Mac OS seems as “locked in plastic” as Windows and Ubuntu. Last time I checked, running Linux on a newer Macintosh is a hard route with a lot of hoops to jump.
But in the end this is just a tool. There is no point in using screwdriver if hammer works better for your use-case.
I’ve been a Ubuntu user for 12 years. Got bored. Turned my hp laptop into a Hackintosh. Got hooked on macOS and all the convenience the Apple ecosystem has to offer (copy on iPhone, paste on macOS; AirPods automatically switching to whatever device started to play audio; drag&drop works everywhere in exactly the way you’d expect; etc. etc.) Also with brew.sh you can install some commandline tools and use the Terminal almost the same as with Linux. Python and bash scripts work, there’s FUSE available, etc.
And the best: it all “just works”. There’s the odd issue after a major macOS update, but nothing critical.
Sounds like this is the way I’m going to go. I’ll try the hackintosh route to test the waters before shelling out on a Mac if I decide so.
If you need a starting point: Here’s my config from back then.
I felt the same after using Arch for 2 years. I switched to Fedora now and It’s pretty stable. Drag and drop with VSCode is generally broken, not an issue with your system
Always choose what’s right for your work. You can still keep your Linux distro for the less relevant tasks and skip to macOS for the main productivity job. It’s not a matter of religion
MacOS is a good middleground and everything blends it smoothly.
But tbh Ubuntu has gone south lately and GNOME has always had troubles with apps interoperability.
I find it easier to use Plasma because I can actually drag and drop to another app. But it’s not perfect either.
Anyways, be it MacOS, Linux or windows the choice is yours. You should switch to something that feels good to you. Plus, on macOS you still have a decent terminal, zsh, etc.
Be free.
I’m new to daily driving Linux. I’ve dabbled with Linux for years, but never used it that much until I installed it on a new m.2 drive on my main PC. Been using Arch for a little over 1 month now.
I can understand your tired of tinkering, I came from windows where I was tired of fighting the OS to do what I want. So in that regard I use the same “energy” but instead of fighting windows I’m learning and getting better and building and customizing my Linux install exactly how I like it.
As for other suggestions I don’t mind macOS, but their hardware screams planned obsolescence. they charge obscene amounts for a few gigabytes extra of SSD. I checked just now and they charge 259euro in my country to go from 256GB to 512GB. And I bought 2TB Samsung 980 pro NVME m.2 drive for 120euro a month ago.
Windows is probably the worst OS, but you can install software that rips out all the built in spyware. And you get keys around the web for cheap. This way you can keep your PC, and the next time you get a new PC you can buy one you are reasonably certain will work well on Linux.
Yeah the telemetry in M$ Windows is what is stopping me. I have no need for Windows, I don’t play many games. I do agree with the Apple hardware argument, I am thinking of doing a hackintosh to test the waters.
It’s called F R A G M E N T A T I O N. Wasted thousands of hours despite having weaker manpower…
macOS is still Unix, so you’ll find yourself somewhat at home in the terminal.
Honestly, if you’re distro hopping a lot, find one that supports your hardware well out of the box with a desktop environment that suits you and works and stick with it. Futzing around with everything can definitely make it more frustrating.
I’ll echo others’ comments and say that operating systems are tools. Find the one that works for the job. If I’m doing audio production, macOS wins for me. If I’m gaming, I have a Windows install. If I’m doing anything else, Linux is my preferred environment. Don’t overthink it, go with what works for what you need!
macOS is still Unix
It’s UNIX based, sure. But it’s still not fully POSIX compliant.
When did it stop being POSIX compliant? I remember Apple advertising their POSIX certification back in the day but didn’t know they stepped away from that.
I’m not sure, but it’s missing a number of API functions like
clock_nanosleep.I think it’s UNIX 3 certified, but that’s ancient.
Firstly, I think if you want to try switching to macOS, do, it might suite you better. You could always switch back to Linux if you change your mind, but be aware linux typically runs worse on apple hardware. I would say I’ve read and heard people have plenty of problems on macOS too, so the grass might not be as green as it first appears. MacOS does have one thing going for it, which is integration between hardware and software, apple make both. You can get a similar effect by picking specific hardware in linux, it’s less important, linux runs well on most hardware, but if you for example pick a thinkpad, you’ll probably have a better experience on the whole as lots of linux kernel developers use them.
It could be worth trying to ask in a community forum or IRC about each bug specifically and try to fix them, or you could switch distributions and see if a different distribution runs better for you, although Ubuntu is pretty well used and I think I’ve heard they tend to ship recent kernels.
I don’t think the variety is effecting this too much, generally someone working on some tiling window manager isn’t impacting a user who’s using a vanilla-ish ubuntu install, it only really impacts the folk using it and if you’re using Ubuntu you’re using a well defined, well tested set of software. Yes maybe the variety of package management might be effecting you if you’re using some esoteric package management system, but ubuntu uses apt and to an increasing degree snap, so I suspect that isn’t playing a big role in your problems.
I am using a Thinkpad with Ubuntu LTS. From the few bugs I did research, they’re reported but seem pretty stale.
I’ve been using various Linux distros since Ubuntu 8.10 came out, when I was back in high school.
Ever since I got my iPad mini though, my computer usage has honestly kind of dropped off. I have a ThinkPad X13s, and I’m waiting on it to get better Linux support (since is has a Snapdragon ARM processor). Until then, it’s currently running Windows 11, and it’s fine. Not the greatest thing in the world, but it works for the things I need it to do, and that’s what’s important to me as I get older.
Once it gets better Linux kernel support, I may install a Linux distro, but at the end of the day 90% of what I do on my personal machines is just browsing the web and content consumption. I’m a Windows SysAdmin at work and tinker plenty. When I make it home, I end up just chilling and reading or watching something interesting.
