[rich_sasha]

Well, that's one way to look at it: you need to carefully pick your distro, make sure it's compatible with your hardware, and so on.

My way is rather: I don't want to even pollute my brain cache with that. I want a Computer with an Operating System that Just Work. Because for me tinkering with the setup of my desktop is not fun, the fun bit is what I do with a properly working computer. I'll pay a premium to Apple for that (though, mind you, MBP is competitively priced with similarly-performant laptops), and I'd pay that same premium to a laptop+Linux provider.

Except... my confidence in the latter working well is lower. Because apart from fixing broken graphics drivers, I've also had to, in my days, debug:

- package managers that somehow got themselves into a bad state

- fight with linkers when trying to build fairly benign stuff on my desktop

- don't even mention printing

and many other things I don't even remember anymore.

[prmoustache]

>- don't even mention printing

Sounds strange because both Linux and MacOS share the same Cups software for printing. AFAIK Cups main developpers are employed by Apple.

I haven't run into any hiccups these last 15 years. Everytime I was in the market for a printer I just verified it was supported well on openprinting.org. On my current printer I just needed to install one rpm.

Compare that to all the crappy software that was installed on my gf windows 10 laptop, involving a reboot, annoying popups telling you about ink level on every print and an app loading up at startup to stay in systray.

I like to mention that I used for 18 years a scanner on linux and bsd perfectly while it was out of support in Mac and windows since 2001. It wasn't even a device that would have used very old connectors impossible to find on modern hardware. It was using USB! In that particular case I don't think that Mac really accounts for what you'd call a "Just Work" experience.

[jeroenhd]

I've had more luck printing from Linux than any other operating system, funnily enough. It just seems to work, no 3GB of driver software or manual browsing for INF files required. The UI is a bit clunky when you want to configure advanced settings but it's no worse than your average HP driver in my opinion.

My experiments with macOS actually had the same problems you list, though I haven't tried printing more than once. MacOS comes with ancient Unix tools and you end up downloading half a Linux install over Brew when you try to compile stuff, and now you have added an external package manager you need to deal with to as system that doesn't really support one.

Mg experience with package managers is that if you ignore the warnings (adding --force to overrule errors, adding external repositories that replace system libraries or aren't maintained, mess with config files to override same defaults, mix package managers (apt+global pip = hell)) you won't see them break themselves. I've broken Windows installs by messing with my system in similar ways, though there never seems to be a solution when this happens other than a reinstall. Trouble mostly comes from outdated, misguided guides found on Google that'll ignore any best practices for your opersting system and set things up Their Way, turning your install into a ticking time bomb when the writers have long had to reinstall their operating system without ever updating their guides.

All operating systems I've tried are bad in their own way. Windows worked great until 8 came out. MacOS works well enough if you don't mind Apple's control/decisions/limitations and accept the risk of buying a faulty device that the company will deny all the way up to class lawsuit settlements. Linux works well if you're lucky with your hardware. The BSDs work well if you don't plan on doing all that many things the OS isn't equipped to do out of the box and if you don't have any weird hardware.

[prmoustache]

>Well, that's one way to look at it: you need to carefully pick your distro, make sure it's compatible with your hardware, and so on. > >My way is rather: I don't want to even pollute my brain cache with that. I

That is exactly what you did by choosing Apple.

If you go on the redhat website and choose certified system you can pick your hardware from any vendor the same way you choose your Apple machine on the Apple store.