Why not start with an open system like Linux or OpenBSD?
Probably because they were traumatized by how much extra work that was (and for a sub-par desktop experience overall), last time they went down that rabbit hole.
> Probably because they were traumatized by how much extra work that was (and for a sub-par desktop experience overall), last time they went down that rabbit hole.
I’m in that camp. I ran Slackware on a Compaq laptop in the early 2000’s and it was more work than I would have liked — though I did have more free time then as a student.
I swapped to macOS and have been using that since for work and personal productivity projects, though I do use windows to play games. When my MacBook went on the fritz, I was forced to become acquainted with WSL. And I find it to be pretty usable for my use cases.
My MacBook is a bit aged at this point and probably needs replacement before too long. But now instead of comparing OSes (Linux or windows with WSL vs macOS), I need to think about hardware: battery life, build quality, and performance; my needs in these categories may still favor Apple in the laptop and small form factors.
If you mean the default experience, no. Gnome, Xfce, KDE, LXQt, Lumina, DWM, etc are all in ports and packages and fairly straightforward to get set up.
I’m in that camp. I ran Slackware on a Compaq laptop in the early 2000’s and it was more work than I would have liked — though I did have more free time then as a student.
I swapped to macOS and have been using that since for work and personal productivity projects, though I do use windows to play games. When my MacBook went on the fritz, I was forced to become acquainted with WSL. And I find it to be pretty usable for my use cases.
My MacBook is a bit aged at this point and probably needs replacement before too long. But now instead of comparing OSes (Linux or windows with WSL vs macOS), I need to think about hardware: battery life, build quality, and performance; my needs in these categories may still favor Apple in the laptop and small form factors.