
Ask HN: Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux? - wamatt
For some time now, I&#x27;ve been growing increasingly weary of the walled gardens I once so enthusiastically embraced. Off the top of my head, some grievances include, forced corporate policies, lack of hardware choice, and closed operating software. For pragmatic reasons, I&#x27;ve stuck it out with OS X for years, but do wonder if it&#x27;s time to consider OSS desktop alternatives again? Will the conveniences be missed? Tim Oreilly was echoing a similar sentiment a year ago. https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plus.google.com&#x2F;+TimOReilly&#x2F;posts&#x2F;g9WdNt6yVgR
Are you in the same boat? It all just seems so daunting starting over...
======
jmduke
I'll say something that's vaguely awful: what's in it for me?

I use Linux at work and it's not _bad_ , but I'm less productive on it with
95% of tasks than I would be with OSX. It looks worse (I recognize this is
subjective.)

A lot of my friends use Linux and tell me that if I spend the right amount of
time tinkering with it -- making it mine -- I'd reap the benefits of a bespoke
OS, just like slipping on a suit that's tailored just for me.

But what's the point? I lose out on apps and aesthetics for hypothetical
yields in productivity -- I don't want to do that.

In terms of your points:

\- forced corporate policies: My employer forces a Linux desktop and either a
Mac/Windows laptop.

\- lack of hardware choice: I will take to my grave the assertion that the
MacBook Air is the best laptop on the market. (Or at least the prettiest.)

\- Closed operating software: This does not bother me.

~~~
gnaffle
I used Linux exclusively for many years but switched to OSX for work some
years ago. I still feel more productive in Linux, but it's because of a few
tricks that I so far haven't found a good replacement for in OSX:

\- Focus follows mouse without auto-raise \- Instant switching between virtual
desktops (not possible to disable the animation in OSX last time I checked) \-
Instantly open a new terminal window with intelligent window placement in the
currently active virtual desktop.

Since these turned out to be a hassle in OSX, I've just gradually stopped
using them, and resorder to a single desktop paradigm with more mouse clicking
for navigation. All in all I feel like I'm working slower in OSX than in
Linux.

However, the major problem with Linux is the looks and a host of small nice
details that OSX just gets right. Instant search in Spotlight including Mail,
I've grown accustomed to the Mail app (Thunderbird search is ridiculous
compared to Mail.app, for instance), Time Machine, and a few other apps like
1Password.

If I could get a virtualization scheme where I could have one desktop with OSX
and 3-4 desktops of Linux, that would be ideal. But I don't think that's
possible with Parallels or VMware, and I'm not sure how well OSX would run
virtualized under Linux.

~~~
PLejeck
The lack of good email clients on Linux is a real shame. I'd love to have
something like Sparrow or Mailbox. 1password is also a sad thing to be
missing.

As for the others, we have locate(1) for searching and rdiff-backup instead of
Time Machine.

As for having desktops like that, if you mean monitors, then there's a great
solution: Synergy. Hook up monitors to both computers and use Synergy to
connect them.

~~~
gnaffle
I meant virtual desktops, mostly because I like to be able to take my laptop
anywhere. I actually used Synergy at one point for my desktop setup (and also
because the OSX mouse acceleration profile was broken for me for quite some
time).

A cool hardware project might be to take a micro Linux ARM board with LVDS
display output, mount it inside the CD bay in my laptop and make an internal
LVDS switch to quickly switch between OSX and the Linux board. That would be
pretty much ideal. :)

~~~
PLejeck
I wonder if it'd be possible to provide a virtual display to a small ARM board
and embed it into a window, so that you'd have the virtualization effects (two
OSes on one machine) without the speed loss

~~~
gnaffle
I think it's possible do to so, I remember seeing this ARM USB/HDMI board,
which apparently can mirror the screen over USB:
[http://www.fxitech.com/technology/any-screen-
ip/](http://www.fxitech.com/technology/any-screen-ip/)

Not sure how well it works, though.

------
CJefferson
Yes, and I am happy.

Life is particularly better for the C and C++ programmer. Valgrind's primary
platform is Linux. For many years Mac owners were stuck with a horribly out of
date and malfunctioning GCC, and even now with clang there are problems (the
clang in xcode 5.0 has some horrible miscompiling bugs which were reported
months before release).

Is everything perfect in Linux? No. But overall I find it an improvement. The
only app I miss is keynote, OpenOffice is a poor substitute.

~~~
thex86
Use Beamer for presentations
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamer_(LaTeX)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamer_\(LaTeX\))]
and never look back!

~~~
rtpg
Do people really find using tex to make presentations worthwhile for things
when it's not for academics? Maybe I'm just not good, but I take a lot less
time to make something that looks nice with Powerpoint, especially when trying
to touch things up (the feedback loop on WYSIWYG software should not be
underestimated)/

~~~
onazareth
Can you actually make something nice with Powerpoint? If so, you should teach
my coworkers. I will stick with LaTeX.

------
hippich
From seeing others dealing with bleeding edge node.js stuff - installing
modules and following tutorials become confusing. Sometimes you get weird
error and only after couple hours googling you find out that it is because on
Mac it is a bit different and you would avoid it if you start with Ubuntu in
first place.

Yes, Ubuntu, since it is most used OSS desktop right now and most tutorials,
docs, etc focus on it from my experience.

So it boils down to what you do. If you do mostly client-side html/js/css you
probably will be ok with Mac. If you do more server stuff - it might make
sense to switch to Ubuntu to make your life easier. Start with Virtualbox with
Ubuntu in VM to keep your workflow the same in the beginning.

~~~
ryan-allen
Exactly this! If you are deploying to Ubuntu, it is so much easier on you if
you have your dev environment running the same thing.

On OS X I found it not to be too different an experience as well, I would run
Ubuntu server, open terminal, SSH into the local server, and in the browser
just hit the VMs IP, as opposed to open terminal, and hit localhost.

------
bowlofpetunias
I've used Linux for years. I've even used Linux on the first Macs I ever had.
In the end, I found it just cost me too much time, especially if I wanted to
keep it running on the hardware of my choice, which will most likely remain
Apple. And I'm not compromising my hardware choice, as long as other
manufacturers can't be bothered to invest as much in excellent product design.

Also, having so much freedom to choose and configure is not always productive,
and I really don't like the defaults most distro's come with. This is where
the difference between OSX and Linux desktops becomes painfully clear.

I'll consider switching back if OSX becomes too restrictive or the Linux
desktop eco-system (including hardware) dramatically improves.

~~~
kayoone
I agree. Id say the Linux desktop will probably never drastically improve
because of this massive NIH-syndrome. So much development resources go into
maintaining dozens of forks of popular Desktop enviroments (Unity, Gnome3,
Mate, Cinnamon, GnomeShell, KDE, XFCE etc) that its not even funny anymore.
Choice isnt always good.

The sheer flexibility and number of choices for each and every part of the
linux desktop world makes the whole experience chaotic, inconsistent, buggy
and complex to setup and maintain. And as thats the DNA of Linux and Open-
Source, it probably wont change. And while awesome, that DNA makes it nearly
impossible to have a Linux Desktop experience that will ever rival the closed
ones in terms of day-to-day usability.

~~~
anko
> The sheer flexibility and number of choices for each and every part of the
> linux desktop world makes the whole experience chaotic, inconsistent, buggy
> and complex to setup and maintain.

I think that's what vendors like ubuntu _should_ be for. They should focus on
stability and planning.

Instead they just keep doing their own thing for a audience that might very
well not exist.

~~~
kayoone
Exactly. Ubuntu started out to be the mainstream distro that just makes the
linux desktop experience smooth and free of worries, but instead they now
build just another desktop experience on their own. Even for Ubuntu you have
Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint and-i-dont-know-what else...thats just the
wrong approach imo.

~~~
kuebelreiter
That's because people don't figure out that every Linux can run every WM or
desktop environment anyway. So they need a seperate distribution just to
switch from Unity to KDE...

------
siculars
This. +100. I'm growing increasingly uncomfortable with the Apple ecosystem.
iProducts, iCloud, etc. I can't transfer this to that cause I'm not allowed,
click here to accept this, turn on location services so we can track you - on
your laptop. It's getting to be too much.

What's the best laptop for running any Ubuntu flavored desktop?

~~~
mindcrime
Are you wedded to Ubuntu? If not, Fedora is a pretty nice distro as well...

~~~
aclevernickname
Most linux users start on Redhat/Fedora, and quickly leave due to the pain
that is RPM. I left to gentoo. Most others take the debian/ubuntu path.

~~~
mindcrime
That might have been the received wisdom a decade ago, but YUM/RPM work about
as well as apt-get now, and - to be quite honest - I prefer YUM. I like, for
example, that I use the same command to search for packages as to install
them, instead of having to remember that on Ubuntu it's "apt-cache search FOO"
instead. _shrug_ YMMV.

~~~
aclevernickname
perhaps my previous post was too polite. People that never actually _care_ to
learn linux go from Redhat to Ubuntu (or stay right where they are!). People
with an interest in the OS itself move to Gentoo/Funtoo/LFS.

I still use CentOS to this day (Asterisk), it's painful.

------
rob05c
I actually just switched from OS X to Linux about 3 months ago. I grew up with
Windows, and started using Macs in college.

There were 2 big reasons I switched. (1) I wanted to build a desktop; the Mac
Mini is underpowered and the Pro is wicked expensive. (2) Apple's competing in
the courtroom disgusts me. I was a huge Apple fan, but I don't want to give
them any more money.

Windows isn't an option to me. I love text and I love the POSIX shell. I find
DOS abhorrent.

I don't really miss any conveniences. If you really want something pretty and
easy, go with Ubuntu. It mostly just works. The only thing I really had
trouble with was wireless drivers. I started with Ubuntu, and later switched
to Arch with i3 (Tiling WMs are awesome).

Again, If you want something that's almost as pretty and almost as easy to set
up, I highly recommend Ubuntu. Once you get settled in, I also recommend
looking at Arch. Arch is a lot more work and learning to set up, don't start
with it. But it's a better system once you have it configured your way.

It's been some work, learning Arch and fighting with wireless drivers. But I
don't regret it. I'm extremely happy with my Arch+i3 system. It has Chromium,
Steam, Minecraft--everything I need. I do wish Steam had more Linux games, but
with the Steam Box, I think they're on their way.

ps. I _don 't_ recommend dual boot. I did dual and triple boot a few years
back. It was just a big hassle. Get a machine and dive into Ubuntu. Good luck.

------
kayoone
Thought about this alot, probably too much.

The bottom line is that switching to Linux will be a step back in terms of
convenience. It is still true that the closed operating systems are just
easier to use as day-to-day one-size-fits-all machines. In my recent tries
with Xubuntu i had some sound issues, the machine didnt want to sleep
correctly and skype had audio lag issues and didnt show a popup when somebody
was calling. Small stuff, but stuff i dont really want to deal with..

Ironically OSX86 on the same machine (older Intel hardware) works perfectly
fine and i have none of these issues, it probably even works better than
windows.

As i do all my development in VMs (vagrant) the host OS doesnt really matter
and it just needs to get the day-to-day stuff done, but i still wouldnt choose
Linux for that.

Id still like to switch back to Windows as the host, just to have more
freedom. Sadly vagrant/virtualbox shared folder performance is poor which
makes it a bit of a pain to work with.

So i have ultimately thought of a system where Windows 8 is the host and id
just use a Xubuntu VM (with a GUI) where i do all the development in, but
still rely on Windows for skype/office stuff/audio/adobe apps in the
background.

However that locks me out of iOS development, soo dual booting windows/osx86 +
vagrant boxes currently gives me the most flexibility and ability to work on
anything and use all 3 OSes for what they are best at...probably need to
replace the PC with some form of Apple hardware to be legal but overall its
pretty perfect. (In a perfect world Apple would finally adapt the PC keyboard
layout, i just hate the mental overhead required when switching systems)

I dont like Apple much, but i am pretty sure MS would love to do the same
things so it more about choosing the lesser evil because Linux still isnt
there yet. Atleast that my opinion right now.

~~~
PLejeck
Linux is harder to learn and get set up, but it's just spending a bit more
time now to be more productive in the long run. Of course, it's not more
productive for everybody, but it is for some of us.

Plus we have Docker.io instead of Vagrant. Way nicer.

~~~
kayoone
Sadly id still need some form of Windows for game development (Unity3D). Since
Unity3D also runs on OSX, thats another benefit in terms of convenience for me
using OSX.

~~~
PLejeck
I dual boot OS X to be able to use Photoshop. It's slower and feels awkward
coming from Linux, though, so I try to limit my stays.

------
Tsiolkovsky
I switched back to GNU/Linux about 3 years ago when I started noticing and
becoming aware of this ugly trend with Apple. I just couldn't live with myself
anymore if I didn't also act according to my belief in digital freedom and
empowering people. so after some self-questioning I have decided to switch to
GNU/Linux and free software.

~~~
diminoten
So you're willfully less productive because you want to have a cleaner
conscience?

~~~
teddyh
Yes. For some people this is not a _choice_ , as such. It’s like wearing
slightly uglier, slightly less comfortable clothes because they weren’t made
by child slave labor. Is there a true _choice_ what to wear?

~~~
diminoten
Yes, you could wear the clothes that fed that child that day.

Stuff isn't so black/white, I guess I'm trying to say.

~~~
teddyh
If I’m understanding you correctly, you are implying that it’s OK to buy
things produced by child slave labor, because otherwise the slave children
would starve.

This is… an argument I won’t get into. Suffice it to say, I was merely trying
to construct an analogy to demonstrate why, sometimes, using something less
than the “best” product is preferable, and why, for some people, it can’t be
considered a _choice_ to use the less efficient product.

~~~
diminoten
Yes, and I'm trying to dismantle that analogy by demonstrating that such
decisions are made without consideration of the consequences, and that nothing
in this world is so simple that simply using or not using a product makes the
planet a better or worse place.

------
ryan-allen
I switched from OS X to Windows 8, and I virtualise linux using windows as the
host OS.

I hate to say it, but I think Windows 8 is pretty good as a host OS (not
having used Windows much since 2003).

I wouldn't be able to do my job without the virtulisation though, in the end I
got so fed up with trying to install stuff naively on OS X with brew and ports
and from source and whatever I was virtualising on OS X for about 2 years
before I switched over anyway.

~~~
kyriakos
I'm using Windows 8 too and virtualization for server testing. What stops you
from going Linux-only? In mine case its Adobe :)

~~~
ryan-allen
Yep, Adobe is one, but funnily enough iTunes is another. I have spent
thousands on iTunes over the years and with iTunes match I don't have to
download everything either. Though iTunes on Windows is pretty rubbish (it's
slow and looks pretty bad, doesn't do UI scaling properly).

I also want everything to mostly just work, which is why I liked OS X in the
first place (it has a Terminal, and everything mostly works!).

I dual boot Windows 8 on my Macbook Air, I think Apple still do make the best
laptop hardware.

------
neilk
If you mean as a consumer OS, I consider it and then I remember what a
miserable experience it has been the last three times I've done that. In my
experience, there is no Linux distro that has the staff, organization, or
funding to focus on providing a good consumer OS experience. All the
successful Linux distros eventually find there's no money in it, and they
wander off to do enterprisey stuff or try to make tablets or whatever.

As a development OS, I'm already there - most things for me are in virtualized
Linux, but inside the Mac OS.

------
mindcrime
I switched from a combination of OS/2 and Windows 95 / Windows 2000 TO Linux
as my primary desktop OS about 13 years ago, and have never looked back. You
can have my Fedora Linux desktop when you pry it from my cold, dead, fingers.

As for OS X... I'm sure it's nice, but I have no interest in Apple and their
locked down, proprietary, closed off, "walled garden" ecosystem. I'm no _rms_
, but I have little to no use for software that isn't OSS or FLOSS.

I did just switch from using Gnome as my primary desktop environment, back to
KDE - after about 6 or 7 years of Gnome use - and I'm pretty damn happy with
the current iteration of KDE. If you haven't tried it, give it a look, you may
find that it's much better than you anticipated.

~~~
Tsiolkovsky
Couldn't agree more about KDE Plasma desktop. I've used most desktops there
are and switched to KDE Plasma about a year ago (I used GNOME2 until then,
don't like GNOME3 and Unity at all) and boy, KDE Plasma is by far the best
desktop I have ever used. Looks great, has awesome usability (once you get
used to it) and it is very flexible so you can adapt it almost perfectly to
the way you work. Realy awesome.

------
kuebelreiter
OSX has a big plus: It's reliability, I've used it for 10 years as primary OS
and it never lost a piece of data or ceased to work when I needed it most (as
the deadline approaches). As long as Apple doesn't switch to AppStore-only and
I have a CLI to compile what I want I will stay on OSX as a primary OS.

Being a Linux user since the 90s I always have Linux Desktop machines around.
Switching to Ubuntu will be a loss in reliability for you coming from OSX. I
used it since Dapper Drake, in the last years every half year upgrade broke
something, especially in Unity and Gnome.

Obviously Ubuntu are more into making strange things on their own then
providing a reliable linux. Ubuntu is the "odd man out" in Linux and you won't
gain anything but upgrade pain two times a year from switching to Ubuntu. It
isn't "real Linux" anymore. So if you're going to switch to Linux, don't use
Ubuntu, instead use Debian Stable or Arch.

If you're on a reliable distribution Linux will work fine.

That is true of course only if your hardware is supported without "just
compile a sweet little kernel module and it works fine". No, don't do this.
Don't rely on such hardware or be prepared to spent the weekends fiddling
around to make your graphics adapter or wifi work.

If it works you will find more or less everything you need for your computing
needs as a developer. But you're going to miss the nice small apps you learned
to love in the OSX indie developer ecosystem. You even won't find a nice
client for Twitter in the Linux Repos (most of them haven't seen an update
since Twitter switched to OAuth and the API and won't work anymore but are
still in the repos), if you're into ADN there isn't anything but an ugly
cross-platform client.

Regarding such small things like clients for social networks you will switch
the OSX culture of "it has to be nice and working or nobody won't use or buy
it" against "somebody made something that works somehow but looks ugly and hey
if you don't like it make it better it's open source".

------
stormbrew
I was a somewhat reluctant Mac user for several years (say, 2006 to early
2012). Reluctant because I've never been a fan of apple products in general,
but at the time Apple provided the best combination of good desktop
environment and unix-like environment that made my life as someone who works
on server software much easier.

There were always many nitpicks I had to deal with and fix every time I
reinstalled or got a new computer, and they piled up and up with every new
version. I switched to xubuntu with a toshiba z830 and my life got easier.
Then I switched to Mint and things got even better.

------
jmspring
No. As much as I hate iTunes, having a homogenous infrastructure at home
between AppleTV, iPhones, iPads, and an old macbook pro acting as a server,
things just work.

Our personal laptops are an Air and a Retina MPB. Moving the wife from Windows
to Mac was enough of a step (she uses excel and other biz apps), Linux would
be a non-starter. Given the i* devices, for me, I couldn't revisit Linux
without incurring management headaches I don't care for.

There is more to "switching" than just is an OSS option available.

I have a number of VMs -- ubuntu and FreeBSD for development. Desktop remains
homogenous.

~~~
aragot
Has anyone tried Google TV and how does it compete within a iEcosystem?
[http://www.google.com/tv/get.html](http://www.google.com/tv/get.html)

------
ohazi
I first experimented with Linux around 2001-2003 (kernel 2.4.x). I tried many
of the popular distributions at the time (RedHat, Mandrake, Slackware, Debian,
SuSE), but concluded that while it was useful as a server if you set it up
carefully, it really wasn't ready for the Desktop. In particular, I had issues
with hardware support (graphics and USB), unreliable filesystems (ext2 after a
crash), browser compatibility, video playback, office suite compatibility, and
anti-aliased text.

I made the switch from Windows XP to Mac OS X around the same time, and for
several years it filled the role of a "usable desktop unix" OS quite well. A
few years later (2005?) I put Ubuntu on some spare hardware I had lying around
and ended up keeping it as a personal server for the next five years or so.

My last Mac laptop (MBP, 2 GHz core duo, Leopard) died around 2010. I had
originally planned to get a new Mac at the end of that summer, but in the
meantime I put the latest Ubuntu on an old Thinkpad my dad had lying around
(T60, 1.83 GHz core duo). It ran circles around my old Mac despite the
slightly slower CPU, and many of the issues I had with Linux the first time
around had been solved. I was impressed enough to skip the Mac upgrade and
continued using the T60 for the next two years.

I was happy enough with Linux by then that I knew I wasn't going back to OS X,
but some personal issues with the Ubuntu upgrade cycle and where Canonical was
headed eventually led me to switch to a rolling release of Debian unstable.
I've since upgraded to a T520, and see myself staying with Linux for the
foreseeable future.

It might be useful to mention that I'm primarily a C/C++/embedded developer. I
spend most of my time with a terminal, a text editor, and a browser. I really
like having proper "out of the box" support for the standard open source
developer tools without having to hack them onto my system with third party OS
X package managers. I don't have to worry about Mac specific quirks, or
old/forked versions when some library doesn't get ported properly or in a
timely manner.

\----

As a side note, for anyone considering a rolling release, I'd probably
recommend Debian testing over unstable. I've used both continuously over the
past year, and while I haven't had any serious showstoppers with unstable,
testing has had a perfect track record as far as distribution stability is
concerned, while unstable has had a few minor kinks (usually just dependency
issues immediately after updates are made available, but there have been
occasional crashes).

------
aaronbrethorst
> Have you considered switching from OS X to Linux?

No.

> forced corporate policies

care to elaborate? I'm not sure what this means. Policies forced by the
company you work for? How does Linux solve this?

> lack of hardware choice

Plus, not a minus. I think the 13" MacBook Air is the best laptop on the
market today. Tight integration between hardware and software is key.

> closed operating software

Don't care, see answer #2.

It's also probably worth mentioning that I make my living through iOS (in part
through my site: [http://www.cocoacontrols.com](http://www.cocoacontrols.com))

~~~
sieisteinmodel
> Plus, not a minus. I think the 13" MacBook Air is the best laptop on the
> market today. Tight integration between hardware and software is key.

Sorry? How is a restriction a plus? Can you use a Lenovo with OS X? No. Can
you use a Macbook with Linux? Yes.

------
pimeys
I used OS X exclusively for many years from 2003 to 2009. I always thought
that I'm the most productive with macs, until I first started to learn vim and
then had a employer who forced either a Windows or Ubuntu laptop for me. When
I installed Ubuntu to my work laptop I tried this tiling window manager my
friend recomended called Xmonad.

It was hard.

Nowadays I'm a happy Gentoo user and when our television computer, which is an
iMac, breaks, it's going to be my last Mac.

------
anirul
+1 definitly!

I have tried many times but, every time I had to go back to OSX for some
reason. I am a big FreeBSD fan and for me OSX with the port system was the way
to go. Now Apple is more and more getting in the way but FreeBSD not really
running on Apple hardware.

On the Linux (I tried Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora/Gentoo) point of view you can't
really find a distro that is working well enough and have a similar port
system.

I'm kinda stuck with OSX...

------
10098
Unless you're stuck making OSX or iOS applications, I see no reason not to
switch. OSX is like my fourth OS of choice behind linux, windows and chromeOS
(which is still linux). I had to use osx for 1.5 years at work and going back
to using my personal laptop every evening was like changing from a poorly
fitting constrictive suit into a comfy bath robe and putting on your favorite
slippers.

------
uniclaude
Shouldn't this be a poll? Could someone make one?

About the question, I did mostly switch to linux, but there's a few programs
that make this transition difficult (ableton live is good, and not available
on linux). I do benefit from a strong performance improvement, but I would
really like to have a better desktop environment. Moreover, a large part of my
work is much simpler to do because I can use containers instead of a VM.

All in all, I have a better experience on Linux, so I'm doing most of my work
there, but I would welcome a bit of amelioration here and there. I'm
experienced in Linux GUI programming, but this sounds like a good and
interesting challenge, maybe even a startup idea.

To anyone considering the switch: Ubuntu is nice but it is _not_ the only
solution, I personally use Debian and my friends use Arch. We're all quite
happy with our systems, even if the polish of osx is sometimes missed.

------
aragot
Gone from Ubuntu to Mac OSX six months ago: \- No IT support for Ubuntu: I
upgraded to Ubuntu 13.04 at home, then at work. And they had a bug in the
network authentification. Life is sad, when you suddently can't connect to the
network... something that worked well in 12.12. I lost 2 days at work, the IT
support only wanted to support Macs, I worked the following 3 nights to
recover a high-pressure project, yes, Ubuntu failed me. \- On Ubuntu, I was
missing Keynote, and IntelliJ is so annoying (have to remap keyboard
shortcuts, but then you can't work on your colleagues' machines). Fortunately,
we don't use Word or Excel at work. \- Everything my company designs uses the
Mac UX language: icons, UI patterns, if you don't use a Mac, you don't
understand how design decisions make sense. So using a Mac is a way to keep
posted about the fashion.

------
jmgtan
Nope. Actually convinced one of my colleague to drop ubuntu and switch to a
rMBP.

Corporate policies: not really sure what you meant by that.

Lack of hardware choice: am using a rMBP, this is a very beautiful piece of
laptop. I can encode video, start a virtual machine, keep PHPStorm running
smoothly, and compile java code all at the same time without any stuttering or
slowdowns, and it does it in a very stylish manner.

Closed operating system: even when am using linux/ubuntu am not gonna go
around modifying the internals. So I don't mind it one bit, if it means having
a smoother and better experience am all for the walled garden.

My work usually targets either a redhat/centos server or ubuntu server and I
don't have any difficulties with any environment differences between my target
deployment server and my local machine. So no reason to rock the boat so to
speak.

------
Beltiras
I'd be happy to bring all my office desktops to Linux but there are two
insurmountable problems (I am one out of 2 desktops on Linux, out of roughly
40 office computers). We are a newspaper publishing company, Adobe CS suite is
a must. Our accountant uses software only delivered with Remote Desktop and
that stinkymud uses a security variant not offered by the OSS variants of RDP
clients.

As it stands I plan to migrate as fast away from Windows as possible. This
means all new machines are either Ubuntu or OsX. Layout and Graphics machines
OsX, others Ubuntu. At least Microsoft is getting kicked to the curb, but
Jobs's ghost will be around till Adobe realizes their mistake and offers a
native suite for Linux.

------
karlherler
Yes, and I am right now.

I've been using OS X pretty much as my primary OS for 6 years. Lately, because
I've been working on a lot of systems programming, I've felt that it's too
much of a hassle of constantly running everything on a virtual machine
(although vagrant makes it a very nice process) so I switched to
elementaryos[1].

It took a lot of tweaking but I'm generally happy with the switch, I still use
sublime text as my general editing workhorse and other than some window
management tool that I haven't found a easy replacement for I'm all good. It
sure made the day to day work easier.

[1] [http://elementaryos.org/](http://elementaryos.org/)

------
sitharus
Yes, but it's too much work. Using MacOS, iPhone, Apple TV and a Time Capsule
everything integrates pretty well. I get automated network backups, I can
mirror video to my TV and I can keep my browser tabs accessible between
devices.

This has required very little setup on my part.

I'd love to not be dependant on Apple, but I trust them more than Google, and
there's nothing else that works as seamlessly.

Edit:

Also the hardware. I've yet to find another company that values build quality
as much as Apple. They're trying, any I hope someone else does, but I haven't
found a laptop similar spec to my rMBP that feels as nice and has the same
battery life. I can go 6 hours using Windows 8 in a VM for development.

------
_jb
I've been toying with the idea, yeah. Then I got my MacBook Pro stolen and
used an old laptop replacement with Ubuntu while I was in the process of
replacing it.

Long story short, there are a few things that I couldn't get over within a
week: \- CTRL-C rather than CMD-C is now a weird contorsion for my hand. \-
CTRL-C and CTRL-V can't be used for copying and pasting in the terminal. I
understand why, but really couldn't get over it. \- I think the UI is not
polished enough to my likings. It's good, but still lacking. Visual
differences and missing proper exposé are at the top of this list. \- iPhone
integration (disclaimer: I didn't try that hard.)

So I went back to OS X.

~~~
abrowne
This bothered me too, so I

    
    
        1. Rebound control to the command key
        2. Changed the terminal shortcuts to control-c, etc. (from control-shift-).
        3. Set the terminal to use control-j instead of control-c for sigint:
           $ stty intr ^j
    

(I'm slowly transitioning from OS X to Linux.)

------
garyadamshannon
I put together a new desktop machine for the first time in 12 years a few
weeks ago and decided to run xubuntu on it.

The most annoying aspect of it is the discrepancies between applications and
keyboard shortcuts.

If you're a power user mac who uses keyboard shortcuts a ton then going back
to X11 apps can be a little painful.

The other downside I had was on install I had no wireless card and had to
download a tarball to a usb stick and recompile my device driver just to
connect. I kind of expected things to just work by now, it's a shame there's
still these little hiccups but I guess I shouldn't have bought cutting edge?

------
khanio
I made the switch, and I am pretty much in content. My affair with Linux
started in 1991 and in 2000, I made a switch to OSX, primarily for the
hardware and for good 12 years, my MacBook Pro served me well. Last year, I
wanted to buy a new machine, considering the fact the new Retina MacBook Pro's
RAM couldn't be upgraded (as much of it is hard wired), I decided to go with
ThinkPad W530 with Linux on it. The reason to switch was also because of
nature of my work, most of which involved testing distributed architectures.
Since my switch to Ubuntu, I feel more at home these days.

------
aclevernickname
I've been converting MacOS users to Kubuntu/KXStudio for the last year and a
half. Since Lion, MacOS is now less user-friendly than kubuntu overall, and
their system is usually more responsive after the update.

------
tsomctl
I love Linux. The year was 2005, I was 14. I had dialup, and I wanted to try
out this Linux thing. I bought a 20 disc set of cds for Debian, and installed
it on my computer. I had to install it several times before I figured out to
press the space bar to select to install a graphical environment. I also got a
free disc in the mail for another thing called Ubuntu. Installed that too.
Rather ugly brown. I spent hours trying to get it to talk to my modem to
connect to the internet. I never could get the gui to work, I had to run it
through the cli. I once decided to compile my own kernel because I could.
There was a thrill in seeing it boot. I also finally figured out how to get
opengl working with my radeon. Messing with esoteric xorg settings. Eventually
I completely stopped booting into Windows XP. (Actually I spilled soy sauce on
my video card. It would never work in Windows again, only Linux.)

I tried a number of distros over the years. Gentoo is excellent, if you're an
asocial computer nerd that enjoys compiling programs. I also did Linux From
Scratch. Huge amount of fun. Learned a lot. I still remember the thrill of
seeing Gnome finally start up. I set up a tiling window manager (can't even
remember what it was). Most sparse desktop ever. Always had xine running on
the left most desktop (started from the command line of course.)

The development environment was excellent, (except for the lack of IDE). Huge
number of libraries. Easily write a c program that could access the internet,
parse video files, etc. And all of these libraries were easily installed.
Valgrind was excellent, too.

The last distro I extensively used was Fedora. Finally, though, I had enough.
I grew tired of constantly having to fiddle with little shit. The final straw
was I was just doing a generic update, and wifi stopped working. I couldn't
figure it out, so I just wiped the drive and installed windows 7. It's nice to
have things work, mostly. I miss the environment. Cygwin/mingw don't quite
make it up, and powershell is a heaping sack of shit. I tried Linux Mint about
a year ago. It was atrocious. I don't remember all of the details, but it was
the little details that didn't work. The multimedia keys didn't work, this was
a known bug that had been around for a while. The start menu was annoying to
use, Windows 7 was actually better in this regard. I don't need to say
anything about Gnome 3.

I just bought a Macbook on Friday. I'm actually pretty excited, this will be
my first modern Mac. I'm hoping that I'll get the awesome development
environment of Linux/Unix and the polished interface of a commercial operating
system. I once very strongly believed in support the FSF, but I want a
computer that works. I don't have the time anymore to tinker with esoteric
xorg settings.

~~~
BruceIV
A thousand times this. I never got so far into Linux, but I did run a Linux
desktop as my primary system from about 2006-2010, and switched back to
Windows because I got sick of fighting with it. I still run Linux on my work
boxes because it's a much better environment for the development work I want
to do, but I hate dealing with the maintenance. This is anecdotal, but here
are a few issues I've run into within the last year:

1) This week Ubuntu updated something in the graphics system which FUBAR'd
multi-monitor support for both myself and my supervisor (we have quite
different hardware setups).

2) Support for suspend/resume is flaky, and has been for years - I'd never
know whether either would work after a distro upgrade, so I always cold-boot
Linux.

3) Broken network drivers on the install disk for Debian Testing around the
end of last summer - I forget the workaround (if there was one), but I had
trouble installing it on two different (very vanilla) systems.

If I did more dev work at home (and had $1000 to burn) I'd probably buy a Mac,
but as is my Linux VM on Windows setup works fine.

------
laurenstill
I spent most of my professional career in windows (healthcare, IE6, etc) but
personally switch to ubuntu a couple years ago as I got into development. I do
find myself reaching for my work MBP when I have to do video/photo editing
stuff, but otherwise, I don't see a huge difference in productivity. Switched
a couple of offices to OSS for admin, and that went surprisingly well.

My cell/tablet are android, so there was no real incentive to move to Mac from
a house-compatibility standpoint.

------
xipher
The only thing keeping me from it is a couple of app's that I use regularly,
and am not willing to give it up. With the decline in Apple's quality both in
their OS/Flagship products as well as their hardware (my MBPr has had more
problems than any Apple laptop before it).

I'm pretty sure this will be my last purchase from Apple, and i'll be moving
to a new laptop running some flavour of linux as soon as a suitable
replacement laptop comes on the market.

------
rajacombinator
yes I've thought about it because

1) I've felt that the last few OS X iterations have been steps in the wrong
direction, bloating the OS with crap "features" that are useless and add
overhead. It's slower, more pinwheels, crashes, etc.

2) A lot of dev and computational tools run natively on Linux and you have to
deal with 2nd best ports on Mac.

3) The absurdly high cost of Macs. For instance I'm about to upgrade my mbp
when they finally update them next week and I expect it will run about $2700.

for #1, I'm hoping that 10.9 is an improvement since it seems to have a
performance focus. i think all Mac users are dreading that Apple will slap iOS
on our laptops. if they do, #1 will become a bigger factor.

#2 usually is not a huge problem. of course, when it is, it's enormously
frustrating.

for #3, when I've looked, the cost of getting a similarly spec'ed non Mac is
still around $2000 so the savings aren't that huge.

ultimately, the reasons for switching do not outweigh my perceived costs of
switching. i don't want to tinker with my OS or evaluate which of the many
Linux options is best. and for my typical consumer laptop use, the Apple
ecosystem is just convenient. (syncs w my phone, etc.)

------
kyriakos
I guess today unless you are coding something very hardware/OS specific, e.g.
Games what OS you use its just a matter of personal preference. You can do the
same in Linux/Windows/OSX, stability and security is no longer the main worry
as all the ecosystems matured and from usability perspective its a matter of
what you got used to and your willingness to make an effort on something
different.

------
tmikaeld
One large reason keeps me from switching to Linux.

Software maintenance, features and updates.

Without financial backing, the apps for linux will never be as good as on
either OS X or Windows.

I donate a lot, but my money can only reach so far - it seems as too few
donate, though i'm sure many donate their time and that is also a way of
donating - but still, the fact is that someone has to pay to keep software
developed and updated.

------
mukundmr
It is a personal choice. I personally don't mind OS X as it allows me to do
what I want.

VMWare Fusion + OS X = freedom of development choice. Bootcamp + Windows =
games.

The hardware isn't bad either though it is slightly more expensive depending
on how you look at it.

For Linux, I find that there aren't many good vendors that provide pre-
installed Linux on state-of-the-art hardware especially when it comes to
laptops.

~~~
stormbrew
Generally speaking ultrabooks make great linux laptops, pretty much right out
of the box. The more of the functionality of the laptop is provided by Intel
stuff the better.

------
shapeshed
If you run Linux in a VM on VirtualBox on OSX you get the best of both worlds.
If you are curious it is a great way to experiment.

The other point to make is that if you use terminal POSIX compliant tools
(vim, mutt, tmux) and favour web applications over native ones you can create
a highly portable environment so the choice of underlying OS becomes a
subjective question of taste.

------
frou_dh
If I used nothing but CLI programs, I would happily switch to Linux or
FreeBSD. But with GUI a consideration then, after becoming accustomed to the
fit and finish of OS X and the quality 3rd party apps it attracts, it's too
depressing to spend time in stuff that's at best amateur.

Becoming a fancy-pants appreciator of particular attributes is its own kind of
lock-in...

------
regecks
The desktop experience is pretty close to being "there", but the lack of
iTunes or any viable alternative (for syncing) is a bit of a show-stopper if
you own an Apple device ...

Apparently this is due to Apple making it technically difficult for third-
party applications to replace iTunes

------
john2x
I would if there was hardware that's as good as the Macbook Air. I know that
it can run Ubuntu, but I'm not sure how well the trackpad and battery perform.
And with the upcoming Mavericks, that bar is going to get a lot higher.

------
dagw
Several times. Then I look at the hardware options available to me, what they
cost, how much work I need to get everything working and compare it all to my
MBA. After having done that I decide to stick with OS X for a bit longer.

------
nrser
i would love to. i came from linux to OSX. and for exactly those reasons i
can't leave:

\- Photoshop (nope, Gimp won't do, sorry)

\- Word (nope, OpenOffice etc. won't do... had it fuck up the section headings
on a legal doc the other day. no bueno.)

\- music software (Ableton, Maschine, etc.)

i'm also addicted to the trackpad. some Apple hardware guys told me it's all
software, but i don't remember any Windows or linux laptop ever coming
close... i'm amazed how bad they are every time i need to jump on one for a
minute.

------
dimkar
I was considering moving to Linux myself till I found out that gotomeeting or
gotowebinar doesn't function on one, and I use it too often to not consider it
a key feature.

------
asiekierka
I switched a few months ago from Linux to OS X. The OSS desktop is not yet
ready, but I believe that it can be ready in a matter of two, three years.

~~~
CrankyPants
It's been two to three years away for about ten to fifteen years now.

You're right, but just don't expect it to be there in two to three years.

------
PLejeck
I see everybody with the view that OSX is so much more productive, but I'll
give a different view, as an OS X user turned Linux user. I switched entirely
about 6 months ago, and it just sort of happened once Linux was set up to my
liking.

Positives:

* Tiling WMs - I have always found myself working primarily in fullscreen applications like in OSX, but it's nice to have a small status bar at the top still and splitscreen capabilities. My WM of choice, AwesomeWM, provides this, and does it really well.

* Docker.io - Docker is infinitely better than Vagrant. It starts faster, it's thinner, and it's easier to interact with. And it only runs on Linux (at least for now, but it'd be hard to add OSX support probably, due to the use of cgroups and other Linux APIs)

* Better Package Management - Yes, OS X has homebrew, and it's great, but it has to compile from source, which takes a while and spins up your fans usually. It's just troublesome. And on Linux, if we want to compile, we can usually use distcc to distribute that load to a cluster. I do, and I know many others do as well.

* Choice of Workflow - OS X has a wonderful workflow, but it's not perfect. Sometimes it's nice to be able to pick the workflow that is almost exactly perfect for you, and tweak it until it's ideal. That's what I did, and it's been a huge boon for my productivity.

* Homogeneity with Deployment - this is a lesser positive, but it's still nice in many cases. Most of the good distros will teach you at least basic sysadmin skills over a shot period of time, through immersion. This means you can spend less money on sysadmins and do it yourself as long as possible, assuming you deploy on bare EC2

Negatives:

* More downtime - this is an issue with distros like Arch and Gentoo, and it does get to be a problem from time to time. I mean, it's hard to work when X11 won't start or a driver is broken (I'm looking at you, Broadcom)

* Learning curve - Linux really is as hard as it seems to learn, I'm not gonna lie. It's not perfect.

* You look like an "Engineer" not a "Hacker" \- Lots of people will view the fact that you spent time customizing your work environment as you playing around with your OS. It's not really that way (unless you're a Gentoo user) but it gives that view to some people.

* Lack of support for multitouch trackpads - I'm sure this is less of an issue for other people, but it really was a dealbreaker early on for me. It killed all the ways I interacted with OS X. It was terrible for a while, then I got over it.

Honestly, I dual booted Arch and OS X for about 8 months before I ended up
tipping over to Arch. It took me setting up a shared partition and AwesomeWM
before I could convince myself to use it daily. But it's the best decision
I've ever made, because I find myself being infinitely more productive with my
new workflow. I'm done with OSX entirely, I only use it for Photoshop now.

~~~
presty
> * You look like an "Engineer" not a "Hacker" \- Lots of people will view the
> fact that you spent time customizing your work environment as you playing
> around with your OS. It's not really that way (unless you're a Gentoo user)
> but it gives that view to some people.

Uh? Where is this coming from (Hacker/Engineer)? If anything, it's the other
way around.

------
vaidhy
I want to shift, but I like the macbook pro hardware so much better. Running
Linux on macbook pro just kills the battery :(

------
presty
Made the switch in 2011, when I needed a new laptop

note: I was already using arch on my desktop for a few years, though.

------
rimantas
The only think I am growing increaslingly weary of are those moaning about the
walled gardens, "rms told so", and some perverted understanding of freedom.
The answer is no. Actually I switched from Windows/Linux to OS X. I love linux
on the servers, I don't hate Windows, but I don't like preachers, especially
misinformed ones. It would be interesting to know, what share of oss is
actually written on OS X compared to Linux…

------
wissler
Switching? I use all three major OS's. Linux is best for software development,
Windows is best for games, OSX is best for laptops. It sucks but that's the
state of things.

