[renownedmedia]

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.conf, ./configure && make && make install'd an obscure library (then (mostly) uninstalled it), and installed Python 2 alongside Python 3 without rebooting for two months. Good luck rebooting at that point ;)

With great power comes a great desire to shoot ourselves in the foot.

[willismichael]

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.conf, installed a kernel that didn't come from a standard repo, or had trouble rebooting due to a change I made to the system.

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.

[colemickens]

Not only that, I don't even run X as my root display server. Sure, XWayland is around, but only because of Chromium apps (`google-chrome-unstable`, `visual-studio-code-nightly-bin`, `slack-desktop`, `riot-web`).

And the best part is, Wayland (Ozone) support is already in Chromium, it's just not really enabled right now.

[naibafo]

sadly I have yet to come across a functioning tiling window manager for wayland.

[colemickens]

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.

[naibafo]

Thanks, I will keep an eye on sway. :)

[hobarrera]

My life has been great these last years, and mostly due to this:

https://xkcd.com/963/

[pawadu]

What distros are you people using? Mine doesn't even come with xorg.conf anymore.

(with that said, cant wait for Wayland to finally happen)

I have a news for you people: some distros

[hobarrera]

Neither does mine. That's why life has been great for years!

[sscarduzio]

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: fortunately, integrating Virtualenv for python and Docker for all the rest in your workflow solves many of those crazy lib dependencies causing instability.

About the xorg.conf and instable kernels, I'm VERY SURPRISED there's not a Linux kernel fork, heck even a branch that is pre-optimised and stabilised for those 4 or 5 most common Linux laptops.

And if it's unreasonable to delegate this effort to the kernel devs, how about Ubuntu starts to maintain an XPS13-2015/X1Carbon2016 variant of the kernel deb package?