[eightysixfour]

Earlier this year I built a new desktop and installed my normal Linux distro and the screen wouldn’t work after login. I worked on it for a day, still couldn’t get any desktop except a terminal.Tried a different distro, it booted but no matter what resolution or refresh rate, the display showed severe artifacts when scrolling. Tried to fix it for a few days, gave up.

I am not a Linux novice, I have been using every major OS for decades at this point, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t install Windows, decrapify it, and everything just worked. You can say I should have done more research on hardware compatibility or whatever, but I didn’t have to for Windows.

And I like how you complain most devs never give Linux a fair shot on decent hardware right after describing that you MacOS experience is a hackintosh. That makes a lot of sense.

[rglullis]

> And I like how you complain most devs never give Linux a fair shot on decent hardware right after describing that you MacOS experience is a hackintosh.

I'm not saying that I was expecting to run a Hackintosh and suddenly get the advantages of Apple hardware. I am doing a pure software-to-software comparison.

There was no application in the MacOS desktop that made me feel like I was missing out on something. Of all the tools that I am used to use - emacs + developer tools, email clients, messaging clients, media players, media managers, browsers, the occasional office productivity - none of the MacOS counterparts had any significant advantage over what I have in a Linux desktop.

[eightysixfour]

> I am doing a pure software-to-software comparison.

I would argue this is impossible at this point. Most of the benefits of the entire Apple ecosystem are about integration - Macbook Pros are the fastest machines with the best battery life because of the great hardware but also the software integration.

> There was no application in the MacOS desktop that made me feel like I was missing out on something. Of all the tools that I am used to use - emacs + developer tools, email clients, messaging clients, media players, media managers, browsers, the occasional office productivity - none of the MacOS counterparts had any significant advantage over what I have in a Linux desktop.

This isn't really comparing OSes is it? You're comparing software that runs on the OS. Every tool I have on my linux machines I have an equivalent tool for on Mac, or I use the same tool, but the Macbook with MacOS is a workhorse that I can trust to "just work."

I don't think desktop Linux is bad, not by any means, and there are reasons I still go to it first on my personal machines until something forces me to make a different decision, but I also get tired of Linux users telling all of us that our experiences are old and all of these issues are fixed when they're just not, even if that isn't Linux' or the distro's fault.

[rglullis]

If you are willing to give the advantage to MacOS due to the integration with the hardware, then you should only judge Linux when provided on hardware from Linux-centric vendors like system76, Tuxedo, Starlite and Framework.

[eightysixfour]

I understand the point you are trying to make, but I disagree with it. MacOS doesn’t claim to work on other hardware, Linux does.

If System76 said PopOS only works on their hardware, it would be fair to only evaluate it on their hardware. When SteamOS only claimed to work on Steam Decks, the only good evaluation way to evaluate it was on Steam Decks.

[jeremyjh]

> MacOS doesn’t claim to work on other hardware, Linux does.

Who exactly is "Linux", and what specifically is the claim? It looks to me like you don't want to lose the argument on these grounds, but maybe you could still have a nice laptop with Linux on it that just works.

[eightysixfour]

> Who exactly is "Linux", and what specifically is the claim?

Linux distributions have a set of claims for what hardware they work with, usually as minimum system requirements. Since they are the minimum system requirements the expectation should, within reason, exist that the OS will work if you meet or exceed those requirements.

I say "within reason" because no OS can promise that, minimum is not a forward looking statement and the newest hardware is often the hardest to support.

> It looks to me like you don't want to lose the argument on these grounds

Agreed, because I didn't make any claims that this direction of argument negates. Linux has a harder task supporting a broader array of hardware, that doesn't mean that every argument should compare it to MacOS only on golden/chosen hardware.

If you build a distribution that only claims it works on specific hardware, like SteamOS did, then I agree that's a valid comparison.

> but maybe you could still have a nice laptop with Linux on it that just works.

I'm sure I could, I never claimed you couldn't.

[rglullis]

> MacOS doesn’t claim to work on other hardware, Linux does.

It's the inverse. You claim that Apple "just works" for you and that Linux doesn't. I am saying that if you want to lend credibility to your argument, you need to use hardware that has a certifying vendor behind it.

[pxc]

> MacOS doesn’t claim to work on other hardware, Linux does.

"Linux" isn't even an operating system. There is no entity in the world who claims "bring any Linux distro at all to any random assortment of hardware you happen to already own, it'll be great and we'll commercially support it!".

[eightysixfour]

I didn’t make a single one of these claims.

[random_human_]

I have installed different Linux distros in 4-5 devices in the last year, including a laptop with an Nvidia GPU and a random NUC off Aliexpress. In all cases everything worked out of the box after a fresh installation--and as far as I remember the situation was the same ~10 years ago, when I first started using it. There are hiccups here and there, but nothing I cannot live with. I do tech support for my girlfriend'd mac, and there are just as many small issues there.

All this wall of texts to say that, respectfully, when you write >Earlier this year I built a new desktop and installed my normal Linux distro and the screen wouldn’t work after login the issue might simply be that you are doing something very wrong and/or not following the proper instructions for whatever distro you are using.

[mapleleaf1921]

I can only speak from personal experience.

But I've had multiple Lenovo laptops not work with Ubuntun or nixOS in multiple situations.

Any new yoga variants just always had trouble.

E.g. my yoga slim 7i had a keyboard issue in Ubuntu such that for the first minute, I can't use my keyboard. Had to change boot configbto use "dumb keyboard" or something

The yoga also had speaker issues in nixos as the drivers haven't been mainlined yet. It was onenof those 6 speaker (2 tweeter) setups. I had to download a random driver and chuck it in my nix config to get the subwoofers working.

I gave up after mic issues in multiple zoom calls or gmeet calls.

You can say it's all skills issue, but Mac worked first try.

[array_key_first]

Laptops notoriously have rare hardware with poor or non-existent drivers. For laptops, you do need to do research with Linux to make sure things outside of the CPU/GPU work.

And, of course macs work first try. Apple makes both the hardware and software, if it didn't work it would be extremely impressive. The fact it's working is expected, not exceptional or noteworthy.

[eightysixfour]

> I have installed different Linux distros in 4-5 devices in the last year, including a laptop with an Nvidia GPU and a random NUC off Aliexpress. In all cases everything worked out of the box after a fresh installation

How interesting! This mirrors my experience with some of my devices, and not with some of my others.

> All this wall of texts to say that, respectfully, when you write >Earlier this year I built a new desktop and installed my normal Linux distro and the screen wouldn’t work after login the issue might simply be that you are doing something very wrong and/or not following the proper instructions for whatever distro you are using.

Ahh yes, the complicated instructions of writing the ISO to a thumb drive, running the installer, and trying to login after the installation is complete.

My sin was using a current gen nvidia GPU (a 5080) and a 4K monitor with high refresh rates. This unprecedented combo fails to make the transition from SDDM to Plasma Wayland with the latest (at the time) nvidia drivers baked into the distros I tried. Fortunately, I wasn't alone in this issue based on the forum posts across a couple of distros, so I can be confident that at least some others failed to hold it right as well.

[array_key_first]

Yes, using an Nvidia GPU is absolutely failing to hold it right. Nvidia has shit support on Linux and they do it intentionally, everybody knows that.

You can blame Linux all you want but there's nothing anybody can do except Nvidia. The whole thing is locked down, no distro or developer on Earth can save Nvidia users.

[gf000]

I can easily tell you a story of the same with the two OSs reversed. It's no longer 2016, pretty much every hardware worth their salt has good, or better Linux support, with the possible exception of some random RGB led not being controllable out of the box (though usually it's not out of the box either on windows). Like outside of desktop, Linux is the most prevalent operating system and it's not even close.

[eightysixfour]

This wasn’t 2016, it was this year, and we are talking about desktop OSes (given the comparison to MacOS). If I wanted to run it as a server without a desktop environment, it would have been fine.

I don’t understand all the folks who crawl out of the woodworks as Acolytes of the Holy Linux Empire every time this topic comes up. Linux is a good desktop OS these days, it is my default, but I don’t have any problems acknowledging its issues and moving to another OS if it can’t meet my needs or if I have hardware/software that it has issues with.

[rglullis]

This conversation started because someone said "I wish we could get a LInux system running on an Apple hardware, that would be the best of both worlds", and then the first response is to make a defense of MacOS, implying that MacOS would be the superior choice even if the Linux integration with Apple hardware was leveled.

What I am refuting is basically the idea that MacOS provides a better "experience" than a modern LInux Desktop installed on any reasonably conventional hardware.

I don't refute that are limitations on Linux. I am not saying that it will run everywhere flawlessly. But I am saying that the average college student, the average "web developer" and the average "elderly folk with basic computing needs" can have a good desktop experience without being forced to pay the Apple tax.