[lampe3]

To be honest I stopped caring what OS I'm running as long as it is not windows.

I have a terminal open 99% of the time and I almost never open finder or Gnome Files.

pacman or brew? really I don't care. Both install what I want with one command.

VS Code is basically the same on every system.

Gnome/KDE/MacOS all of them have there pros and cons.

Right now what wins for me is the apple silicon. I can develop stuff without a fan running for 8 hours.

Once Framework laptops come with a ARM Laptop were I can run gnome I can consider to switch again.

[sofixa]

> pacman or brew? really I don't care. Both install what I want with one command.

As long as you don't care about the fact that brew is slow as hell, or can't actually handle versions and dependencies properly (installed `gpg` the other day, it updated Python and SQLite and 50 other packages to the latest version, regardless of major or minor), yeah, it's a package manager. Kind of. It still boggles my mind Apple haven't replaced it with a better, official version.

[nerdponx]

MacPorts is going strong. Homebrew has more packages, but packaging for MacPorts is not any more difficult than packaging for Brew.

[thiht]

It's a desktop, not a server, you should only ever install latest packages instead of relying on fixed versions. If you need a specific version, install a version manager. I use brew with everything latest, except for node which I manage with nvm and it works great.

Brew is actually my favorite package manager for this reason.

[sofixa]

Yes, you should only install latest versions. That's not an excuse however for Brew to upgrade everything to the latest version any time you install an unrelated package. Even desktop software, especially for software developers, which are supposedly a big part of Apple's MacBook "Pro" customers, has dependencies and breaking changes in major updates.

[yamtaddle]

Linux user since 2000 or so. Mandrake, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, and Gentoo, all heavily, with a little use of some other distros (Void, Arch, probably some others I'm forgetting about).

All around, Brew's my favorite package manager I've used. And yes, I started with Macports, so I've used that too.

[Steltek]

Why? Objectively, it has huge flaws compared to Linux package managers (permissions, sudo, capricious renaming of binaries).

[yamtaddle]

Been using it since 2012 or 2013 across a half-dozen devices and I'm not sure what you mean by any of that.

[Steltek]

You can 'rm /usr/local/bin/*' without sudo. Or replace /usr/local/Homebrew/bin/brew with something malicious. That's laughable and I don't know how it gets a pass from everyone.

[yamtaddle]

> You can 'rm /usr/local/bin/*' without sudo.

... so? I can also rm most or all of my home directory without sudo, and that's far bigger problem. If this happened it would be a minor annoyance at worst. Also, this is 775 on my system, and most of the contents are 755, so it's not even true except for one of my users.

> Or replace /usr/local/Homebrew/bin/brew with something malicious.

If I go out of my way to make that globally writable, sure. I just checked mine, though, and it's not.

Unless you mean that a program running under my user could replace that file with something malicious without my knowing about it, but there are a bunch of other ways it could accomplish similar things if a malicious program is running under my account, so yeah, I'm gonna give it a pass on that. About the only thing it makes a little easier is putting malicious code in the hands of other users on the system if the compromised account has write access to that file, but hell, if the same thing happened on a Linux system the malware would probably have my sudo password and a ton of other even-more-important info before long anyway, so it's not like that's any better.

[pxc]

> [Homebrew gives your user ownership of /usr/local.] That's laughable and I don't know how it gets a pass from everyone.

A big part of it is that Mac users don't generally think of or treat macOS as a multiuser operating system. It's a single-user Unix, baby!! (:

But even without that choice, malicious aliases for brew, or PATH changes and a malicious ~/.local/bin/brew would be possible.

[raverbashing]

I unfortunately have to agree with brew criticism

It would be good if it was a bit smarter like the linux ones.

[lampe3]

I try to not install specific version but always the latest.

Also to not install something that needs sudo.

On windows I used Scoop. I installed fonts through scoop and to update them I first needed to uninstall them and then install them again.

But sure in the end nothing is better then pacman with aur.

[SpaghettiCthulu]

Slow as hell doesn't even begin to describe it. Running `brew update` regularly hangs (no output, even with maximum verbosity) on something for more than 2 minutes before moving on.

[criddell]

Even Windows is the right choice for lots of people. For example, if you want to play some new game, chances are it will work best on a Windows machine with a monster GPU.

I agree with you though - all of the modern OS’s are mostly good enough and have been for quite a while. It feels like a solved problem.

The person who wrote the comment on Reddit may love KDE, but that doesn’t really matter if they need to run XCode. Application requirements drive OS choices and the OS may dictate the hardware.

[lampe3]

I still have a razer blade for gaming but i mostly use my nintendo switch these days. Mostly playing "DorfRomantik" and "Mini Motorways"

As a side project I work on a flutter mobile app.

So one of the best features of MacOS is how easy you can simulate an Iphone compared to android. I wanted to setup a Pixel 6 with google play services and I for the love of god could not figure out how to do that. So I needed to go with the Pixel 4.

[easygenes]

You might want to look at the Lenovo X13s Snapdragon [1]. People have, with some unofficial engagement from Lenovo's Linux technical lead, gotten Linux running on it [2][3]. It is basically a laptop version of the Microsoft ARM Developer Kit, and was released early this year.

  1: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadx/thinkpad-x13s-(13-inch-snapdragon)/
  2: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/vh1xse/setup_linux_on_x13s_snapdragon_thinkpad_megathread/
  3: https://youtu.be/YWRbNogRBTw&t=1755

[lampe3]

Yes I looked at that but the software support is not there yet.

Also for the price the performance you get is questionable at best even compared to a m1.

I'm also a burned child by the build quality in the last years by lenovo. My t480s was at best good. But not as good as a macbook or a asus zenbook

[easygenes]

Yeah, the performance of the 8cx Gen3 is more compelling in a $600 box than a $1200 laptop, agreed. Would also like to see something with full, official Linux support that's at least M1 class.

[lampe3]

I would like to see something that is as fast as the M1 (Right now I'm on an M1 Max).

I also hope that Frame.work will release some day a good laptop with an good ARM chip.

But I think this is like 3 years away.

[TheNorthman]

How does the 8cx Gen 3 compare to the M2/M1 Pro/M1 Max? (this is a rhetorical question)

[easygenes]

Not rhetorical answer: It's about 2/3 as fast as M1.

[drunkenmagician]

+1 to this … I’m so over endless discussions individual philosophical and aesthetic preferences in o/s and window managers. As long as I can be productive and not have to ‘fix’ things constantly

[noveltyaccount]

I used MacOS full time for a month or two (coming from Windows), and more recently Ubuntu for about a month. My preference is Windows with WSL, but for the most part it's all just a trade-off of which quirks you prefer. Most of my work is in VS Code or a web browser. I prefer window management on Windows (snap, and I really don't like the full screen view on Mac) and think Explorer is better than Finder. But again...get used to one set of quirks vs another. It's totally* fungible. My next machine will probably be a Mac for the silicon, unless AMD's 5nm Zen4 really shines next year.

*Except for Outlook on Mac, what a useless turd compared to Outlook on Windows.

[nl]

I almost agree with this, except that the shared clipboard between my phone and computer on iOS/MacOS is so useful I'll often switch to my MacBook from my Linux desktop because of it.

Once you've got used to it you just can't go back.

[rc00]

What you're looking for is KDE Connect or GSConnect. The pairing mechanisms are also extremely more flexible than what MacOS allows. The iOS client just launched this year.

[nl]

It seems possible that might work, although without image support at least 50% of my use-case is gone:

> Clipboard

> "Share the clipboard between devices."

> With this, you can simply copy text from your computer and it will be immediately available to paste on your phone, and vice-versa. This does not work with images though.

Also I'm hesitant to even try it. I use PopOS and I've never managed to get a plugin to work properly, and the crazy "you need to install a browser plugin that can read all your data to use plugins" puts me off a lot.

[yibers]

Wouls you care to elaborate a bit as to why you would care if the OS you are running os Windows?

[irusensei]

Not him but I share the same opinion. I've recently tried Windows 10 and 11 and the thing is trying to make you sign in to a Microsoft.com service from the moment you finish installing it. Dark patterns everywhere during the setup and in order to create a local account you must do weird stuff like inserting invalid Microsoft.com accountname or disconnecting the computer from the network during setup. Are you sure you want to have the """limited""" Windows experience?

Third party software also doesn't help. I shit you not I had to install some Asus software that legit started sending me offers through the main OS notification widget.

Using Windows is like walking through a very crowded Chinese market with lots of nagging merchants trying to pull you in plus AI enhanced security cameras everywhere. SIR HAVE YOU TRIED THE NEW EDGE BROWSER? WHY ARENT YOU USING EDGE?

It's an ad platform that can run program nowdays. I might start calling it BonziBuddyOS.

Now if you compare it with the clean default desktop macOS popular Linux distributions offer out of the box it makes a lot of sense for someone to avoid Windows.

[kennend3]

> Not him but I share the same opinion. I've recently tried Windows 10 and 11 and the thing is trying to make you sign in to a Microsoft.com service from the moment you finish installing it.

I'm sorry, but doesnt MacOS do this too? You can skip it in both MacOS and Windows but MacOS will prompt you later to create an account.

MacOS also wants you into its "iCloud" service badly....

[irusensei]

There is a button to skip and use a local account. Windows wont't allow you to skip cloud account unless you put something invalid on the account field (like user cancel pass cancel) or run setup unplugged from the network.

[easygenes]

I agree, but will add that you can avoid most of the consumer-focused adware junk by just installing Windows Server 2022. E.G., it is compulsory that the first account is a local account named "Administrator". Overall, it is a very minimal default install, with the focus being on reducing the attack surface.

[irusensei]

According to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/pricing a license costs 500 dollars. Linux is free as in beer and MacOS is a free complementary feature if you have the proper hardware.

[_chu1]

Windows is free. I refuse to believe you actually pay or have paid for it before. Mac is free sure, only with the purchase of a $100000k MacBook.

[easygenes]

Yeah, if cost is a matter, then Linux always wins. Just saying if you really need Windows, there's an option that's not adware still. It is also the same as the consumer editions in that the only limitation if you don't activate is the watermark and inability to customize the desktop.

[irusensei]

Correct me here but Server and Enterprise/LTS have a proper evaluation period (180 day?) that upon expiration shutdowns the machine after 1 hour of use.

[vladvasiliu]

The problem with that, aside from the licensing questions already raised by siblings, is that some things don't work on it, although they do work on regular win 10 / 11.

One such example is the Fortinet VPN client. It refuses to connect when running on Win 2019 and 2022 for some reason.

[AbrahamParangi]

Every time I use Windows I have the distinct impression that the creators hate me. Every dark pattern imaginable is built into the OS now. You have to have a Microsoft account to sign into the computer, changing your browser is a huge pain - and they nag you constantly, everywhere to change it back - there are ads and clickbait in the start menu!

[lampe3]

I still use Windows for gaming because you have to even the support under linux/macos got way better.

For development I tried WSL and WSL2 both have problems.

Last time I installed WSL2 with ubuntu on it I could not figure out how to connect ubuntu to the internet because of some strange DNS setup in WSL.

Windows Terminal is a good way forward but CMD is not as good as bash or zsh.

Scoop/WinGet/ect are nice but way way way behind brew or pacman.

I could install npm/node/git/etc directly on windows but its just so much more painful to setup and keep it running

Windows and its legacy/new/newNew/window11 ui is just to messy for me.

[nix23]

>I have a terminal open 99% of the time and I almost never open finder or Gnome Files.

Haha, true i once made a bet that i can survive a week with 9front/Plan9 at work..well it worked since 9Front has SSH and i was always on servers. ;)