I'm curious to this as well. I recently got a desktop computer to supplement my MacBook, and am now using Ubuntu as my more-or-less primary OS. I'm quite enjoying it, but I certainly wouldn't claim that it works better out of the box than MacOS. Perhaps it's because I've used Mac for so long, but I can't think of anything that I find difficult to set up. Ubuntu on the other hand has several issue that I've just sort of ignore - keybindings don't always work, you can't drag to/from the Desktop for some reason, some startup programs don't always run, little things like that.
> I'm curious to this as well. I recently got a desktop computer to supplement my MacBook, and am now using Ubuntu as my more-or-less primary OS.
I have used macOS as my primary OS from 2007 to ~2017 (before that BSD and Linux). I am now mostly back on Linux, though I also have a MacBook Pro that I use every now and then. Primary reasons for switching back to Linux:
* MacBook hardware limitations: too few ports, keyboard problems, expensive upgrades.
* Competitive hardware prices for Linux. I got a NUC8i5, which was somewhere between 300-400 Euro and has the same quad core CPU as my 2000 MacBook Pro. I added a 500GB SSD I had lying around and 16GB RAM. I have more resources for a fraction of the price, and can always bump up the SSD or memory relatively cheaply.
* Nix. There is package/system management before and after Nix. I actually started with Nix on macOS, but being able to manage your whole system declaratively is awesome.
* The subscription disease on macOS. I am fine with buying good applications. Overall I have probably spent thousands of Euros on licenses for macOS software. But I will not use an application with a subscription model. Period. [1] It transfers a huge amount of control from me to the software vendor. Unfortunately, more and more macOS applications are switching to subscriptions.
* Linux is generally faster than macOS.
There are also things that I like about macOS: Apple's strong push for security (including sandboxing of applications, T2, etc.), fewer issues with drivers and random paper cuts, better support for hardware decoding throughout applications, traditionally strong 3rd-party applications (OmniGraffle, Little Snitch, LaunchBar/Alfred, Things, OmniFocus, etc.), integration through AirPlay, handover, et al.
[1] Admittedly, there is one exception: 1Password, we like using it for password sharing and arguably, you are paying for a cloud service.
I think the productivity aspect would only be true in that case, as the things that “just work” are (for me) external libraries, GitHub readmes, sdk examples, etc.
Yes and I agree that is the case. Came from DevOps, so Linux still feels natural. Though I use it for everything now from developing, image/video editing, browsing. Literally, I feel like the only thing I can't do is IOS development.
As a developer and hobbyist photographer and maker, I'm between two worlds. Linux is perfect for development but nothing Adobe or Autodesk runs on it, which is extremely frustrating. I don't even have to reboot to game, but I do need to reboot to edit a photo.
> Linux is perfect for development but nothing Adobe or Autodesk runs on it, which is extremely frustrating.
True for Adobe, technically false for Autodesk if you aren’t in CAD. Maya and MotionBuilder (acquired from Alias in mid 2000s) run on Linux for the film/VFX industry.
Though to be fair, I’m pretty sure they are the only applications in AD’s entire portfolio that run on Linux, and it wasn’t because of them.
Docker has been my biggest gripe lately but admittedly has gotten better.
Update environment. MacOS requires reboots and nags you constantly until you do. Whereas, apt and dnf are simple and can be automated in the background.
Doing anything 'interesting' requires you to reboot and fiddle with the firmware. Where linux sudo works as expected.
Outdated software due to licensing issues. See GPL and bash. Not to mention you will be much closer to a production environment and you will find less bugs developing due to differences in OS.
Lots more but this is a good start. All of these things are small and mostly can be worked around but they add up I'm a big way.
The road on Linux isn't completely rosy and can take more learning if you need to do anything really complicated. Tools are great but not necessarily pretty, etc.
Docker [was] off on macOS through no fault of the OS. Particular software dev teams taking shortcuts is on themselves.
Linux also requires reboots for certain updates (plus you can disable checks for updates entirely and run one only when you want to on macOS, or even use `softwareupdate` for finer-grained control, so if it was "nagging you constantly" that's kind of on you).
`sudo` works "as expected" for everything that doesn't involve conflict with the built-in System Integrity Protection, which is most things (in the past three or so years on macOS I've only run up against it twice). There isn't any "fiddling with firmware" going on. Plus if you want total freedom to delete your entire `/bin` folder or something, again you can disable SIP and move on with your life.
I'm currently running Bash 5 on my MBP, so I don't get your outdated software complaint either. macOS doesn't have any magical power to force you to use the versions of (third-party!) software it ships with.
If these are the first complaints that come to mind it just sounds like you haven't used the OS much and entirely refused to explore it or give it a chance in the time that you did. I mean, not even trying to set your own update preferences?
There are a few low-hanging improvements (updates almost never require you to restart). But it's a lot of tiny things that add up, some of which are hard to put into words. If I had to pick one thing that encompassed a lot of them, it would be that when I use Mac I feel like I'm adjusting my work-style to what Apple thinks it should be. In other words, my Linux setup now feels like it's a professional tool, and the Mac I use for work feels like a consumer-grade OS that happens to have work tools bundled on it.
This is hard to put into words. If I'm an artist, my tools are very, very focused and robust. I might have specific pens and brushes that I know the feel of very well. They're not flashy and they don't have advertisements written on them, and they don't change their properties behind my back. Everything about them is designed to help me draw. If I'm a musician, I spend a lot of money to buy an instrument, and I get to know it very well. I have particular brands of reeds that are consistent that I'm likely preparing or sanding myself. I know my instrument so well that I can tell you which notes trend slightly flat or sharp, and after a while adjusting to that becomes instinctive.
So if I'm a professional programmer, I likewise want a computing environment that I understand completely and can service myself, and that is very customized to my own preferences. It's no different from any other professional field -- the point of the computer is to help me get work done, everything else is secondary.
You'll get different answers if you ask someone why Linux makes them productive, because the benefit of Linux is that it adapts to you. For me, personally, the biggest upgrades to my productivity have been:
1. Switching to Linux in general
2. Switching to Emacs/Spacemacs (Emacs works best on Linux)
3. Switching to Arch as my main distro (which is hard to do unless you already know Linux)
4. Most recently, switching to EXWM as a window manager (which is a lot easier to do on Arch)
Each step of this process has been me getting rid of things that distract me from work, and each step has built on the last. Switching to Linux gives me a setup that is much more customizable and stable, switching to Emacs gives me an editor that is very tightly integrated into the host operating system, switching to Arch allows me to have a very minimal setup (its easier to debug because there's less going on), and switching to EXWM allows me to focus the entire setup on work.
On the other hand, I have an old Surface Pro 3 that's running Manjaro/Gnome that I use for drawing. It's a very different setup from my main computer, because I use it for different things. Again, my computer should adapt to my workflow, not the other way around. The Surface setup is actually interesting, because it suffers from driver issues (unreliable Wifi, bad suspend support). And yet I'm still more productive on it than I was on Windows. I think people underestimate how much time and energy can get lost to distractions, surprise updates, stuff like that. Specialized devices are really stinking good for getting stuff done.
But everyone is different. I know people that get frustrated by the initial setup times or needing to dig more into the OS internals, and I get that -- it's reasonable. For me, once I got past that I found Linux to be really stable, because it doesn't change until you tell it to. Linux is the only OS I'll set up for someone who's not tech-savy, because putting in more work up front means I won't need to do as much regular maintenance.
I didn't want to go into details there, but Magit is wildly good. Line-by-line git-blame an entire file with 3 keystrokes, time travel back-and-forth over commits for a single file, quickly preview any file in the repo from any branch/commit using fuzzy-search. This kind of stuff really shines when you're working on a large company repo -- it meant if someone from another department called me up to talk about some obscure feature branch, I could open the relevant files without switching branches or stashing my current changes.
Aside from Magit, I also get a lot of use out of Org-mode (Emacs pure-text notetaking/todo-list client). I'm syncing to Android with Orgzly. Org-mode was the original feature that got me to try out Emacs, and for a while it was the biggest reason I stuck with it, since I'd never used Vim keybindings before. Vim keybindings made me less productive until I learned them, but were balanced by just how good Org-mode was.
I've even grown to appreciate packages like Calc (Emacs calculator). Dang if RPN style input isn't actually faster to use once you get used to it.
I do as well. If you're on Mac, you should still totally look into Emacs, it's great. Heck, if you're on Windows you should still at least think about Emacs.
Emacs overall works slightly better on Linux, because it's primarily optimized for that system. One big area where you'll notice that is if you start embedding X windows into buffers. EXWM is definitely not something I'd try to set up on Mac.
If you're not trying to do stuff like that, then Emacs on Mac is fine. I use a Mac at work and Emacs is a big productivity boost.
How is pen support for your Surface using Manjaro? Is it as good as it is on Windows (which is decent at best). I have a Surface 3 sitting around. I would love to repurpose it for drawing using Linux. I imagine battery life is probably terrible though.
Pen support is great, touch support is adequate, HDPI support is bad. Most of this comes down to individual apps -- Linux devs just don't think about touch or responsive design, and the frameworks they use are buggy or need config options set. Occasionally on Krita I'll get issues where I'll need to hit the tablet home to jump out of the app and back in to reset the touch "mode" that the app thinks I'm in. Kind of annoying.
I would say that it is not nearly as good as the touch support in Windows 8.1, but is comparable or potentially a little better than the touch support in Windows 10. Gnome's touch UI is good, but that's more just a testament to how much worse touch support got in Windows 10.
Krita is not amazing, but is still surprisingly good. When I first started using it, Krita was a massive pain and I missed Clip Studio all the time. It's gotten way, way better, and I now only rarely miss Clip Studio.
I'm honestly not sure what battery life is like. I will regularly use it for about 4-5 hours a day unplugged, but usually I'm at a desk and everything I own is plugged in. I still have Windows 10 on an old partition just to make it easier to calibrate the pen hardware (https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/downloads/W0009338), but I've never taken the time to compare the battery life for both.
It was kind of a pain to get everything set up, but that was years ago, and now that it is set up I just don't think about it any more. I'm very happy with its performance as a drawing tablet; at least for the type of illustration work I personally do. If you're comfortable with Linux, I'd say go for it. If not, you're probably better off with a Wacom tablet that won't force you to fight with Linux drivers.
Thanks. Yeah, I'm not super comfortable with Linux, but agree with your mindset. I want a professional tool that works for me without constantly demanding updates. I also dabble in Clip Studio, primarily for comic inking. I really like it. It was unfortunate to see it go to a subscription model for iOS.