Surprising to myself, I have been a Linux user for over 12 years…

Through the many years I have bounced between and tried Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch, Parrot OS, Linux Mint, Manjaro. I have tried Gnome, Cinnamon, XFCE, KDE, Mate, Deepin. And more. I have 3 computers, all using a Linux distro right now.

I love the idea of Linux - free, free as in freedom, free of telemetry. And well, I thought I would never entertain the idea of switching, here I am today, strongly considering Mac OS.

Lately, I have become extremely frustrated and tired of dealing with little bugs, crashes, versions, and dependencies. Not to mention notable UI issues. It is starting to hamper my productivity when working.

Right now I am using Ubuntu and I cannot drag and drop into VS Code from Nautilus, I can’t drag and drop from the default archive manager, I am experiencing screen tearing issues, one piece of software I use crashes often but not Debian and vice versa, I have to manually reset screen brightness when it dims after timeout, etc. I have experienced issues of similar nature across all distros I have used and I am becoming burnt out.

I think part of the issue is that there is a huge variety of Linux distros, different combinations of kernels, desktop environments, window managers, package managers, file managers, network managers, etc… Not to mention devices. There is too many variables, and too many projects to maintain.

Sorry for the rant, I have seen many similar posts, but I have been using Linux for over 12 years, powering through, ignoring and working around these issues and I am pretty fed up.

While I am conflicted, I am thinking Mac OS looks like a good middle ground.

Any suggestions? What has been the most stable distro and compatible for you?

  • @[email protected]English
    3•2 years ago

    I use Mac OS for work and Debian for my personal stuffs. Both have pro and cons.

    On Debian. bugs happens, but not that much. But you are right, some stuffs are not simple as it should be, like configuring my wide screen display need to enter some CLI commands.

    On the other hand, for Mac OS, everything work out of the box until you have a special need. I have those in mind:

    • you need to install homebrew as package manager. Debian/Ubuntu have apt which basically works for (almost) everything out of the box
    • can’t play my FLAC files using iTunes, so I need to buy a paid software or do some research. On Linux, Rhythmbox works pretty well out of the box. I currently use mpv using CLI, I didn’t find a better alternative
    • the AZERTY keyboard layout doesn’t work well with “not apple” keyboard. I needed to install an extra software to do this
    • some pieces of software don’t work as good as Linux (Inkscape, Libreoffice, etc…)
    • Docker is not as good as it is for Linux
    • OpenVPN is not integrated as the Desktop as Gnome do
    • @Ehrin_CBEnglish
      3•2 years ago

      VLC will play whatever you throw at it… can’t believe you didn’t use it. Also homebrew isn’t a requirement, it’s a nice to have, sure. But macOS works just fine without it.

    • @ykmsEnglish
      1•2 years ago

      Yeah there’s also the nix package manager, ig it’s better then homebrew but I don’t have a mac