Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by michaelmrose 2996 days ago
If you define not working like OSX I guess its terrible seems pretty functional to me.

Personally I prefer i3wm and keyboard driven workflow and find the way mac handles multi monitor loathsome. This doesn't mean that it is objectively bad it means I find it unsuitable as a matter of taste.

The fact that he had hardware issues hardly means linux is terrible in fact its a fairly nonsensical way to qualify an entire OS.

You could I'm sure find someone who bought a singular mac and had issues with it in a workplace full of linux users and try the equally nonsensical if opposite conclusion.

1 comments

Yes Mac multi-monitor support is a weakness.

As I said, the point wasn't that one person had hardware issues. Its that I constantly see people buy Linux laptops and have hardware/software issues as the two are quite related on Linux due to bad driver support and inconsistent hardware configurations. I relayed an anecdote that summarizes many of the problems I've seen. This one involved an extremely senior engineer with successful exits who was beside himself trying to make a brand new Linux laptop work.

Here is another anecdote, no hardware involved. Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04 upgrade was busted and several friends couldn't boot at all after upgrading via the GUI option. Sure that could happen on a Mac but its way, way less common.

Upgrading existing OS install to new versions is a known issue. On a non rolling release distro you are better off keeping /home separate and doing a fresh install for major releases.

This takes about 30 minutes every few years with Ubuntu lts for example. You don't lose or even have to move your files.