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I've been using MacOSX as my primary desktop since the days of Rhapsody. But I always had Linux virtual machines running on occasions. A dwindling number of machines at home were running Linux, most notably a couple of Raspberry Pi and a Synology Diskstation. And when I installed Linux, I usually went for Ubuntu, which did a good job polishing the user experience. The build ring for Tao3D includes a number of virtual machines running several major distros for testing purpose, but it's been quite inactive for a while, and repairing it is on my short-term to-do list.
Working for Red Hat, I thought I had to use Fedora as my primary desktop. And the experience has been a bit underwhelming so far, unfortunately. In just three days, I managed to render a Mac Book Pro unbootable in OSX, had several different issues with skippy or laggy mouse cursors and even non-responsive keyboards, had a driver crash attempting to access my home Wi-Fi, found out the hard way that NFS performance is just horrible, and had to use Google for trivial things way too often.
I complained several times on this blog about what I perceived as a degradation of OSX software quality since 10.6, but this experience with Linux puts all this in some serious perspective.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by t-3 on Friday December 23 2016, @09:29PM
There are a few distros that have GUIs, programs, and all the necessary drivers to work well on Apple hardware out of the box. They're all relatively usable, but standard UI and standard configurations just won't compare to an OS that is designed specifically for that hardware. Honestly, I just don't understand why people look to linux for an easy replacement for consumer OSs. If you're not going to put in the effort to make your system work the way you want it to work, don't use linux, there's no point. If you want a "just works", idiot-proof OS, stick with OSX or windows.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:40AM
If you're not going to put in the effort to make your system work the way you want it to work, don't use linux, there's no point.
That's a little thin, and a lot elitist.
There are many distos that are easily better out of the box than Windows or OSX as far a completeness and usability and stability.
This idea that you have to take control of everything and make changes (mostly ill thought out hacks) to make it truly yours is about as valid the idea that stunning wall paper somehow makes window or some dog-distro into something wonderful.
The first problem is confusing a Linux with the Desktop Environment. Just about any Linux is the same as any other Linux.
What sets them apart is the DE, which is all you see. The truth about those is you can install 2 or 5 DEs on the same installed distro and they all can get along.
The number and size of the packages on the DVD doesn't matter to anything other than disk space (which is dirt cheap these days). Starting with something thin like Slackware and building it yourself doesn't make it special or better. It just means you run linux to run linux, and you don't really have anything to do with your computer besides the act of running linux. Trimming a few unneeded packages out of the install doesn't make you a hero.
Its easy to find any number of distros that will install complete and competent systems ready to do any office work, engineering tasks, or serve as a development platform. Fucking around tweaking and tuning to "put in the effort" is largely a waste of time. Just change the wall paper and get on with your job.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Saturday December 24 2016, @05:01AM
Did you read the summary? I know that there are distros that are usable out of the box, but if you want to use them on strange hardware, you shouldn't expect them to work perfectly from the gate. If you want an Apple computer to run linux well, you're either gonna have to use one of the few distros (ubuntu, mint, elementary IIRC) that include the proprietary drivers in their install, and be prepared to get your hands a little dirty making stuff work right or be willing to put up with some stuff not working as well as in OSX. Just because 9/10 distros can be used out of the box doesn't mean they work BETTER out of the box. For most people, running linux on an Apple box is counterproductive, because a standard amd64 install of *nix doesn't have the same functionality or ease of use as OSX. With a little bit of work, you can have a better system, but saying that a standard linux is more useable than OSX on Apple hardware is ignoring reality.