
Why are developers switching from Mac OS X to Linux? - BuuQu9hu
http://cialu.net/blog/switch-from-mac-os-x-to-linux.html
======
massysett
Come on, this piece is junk. He says people are switching to Linux because
Apple hardware sucks. These rants are typical but would be much better if
people identified the glorious PC hardware they are using. So I looked for
that here, and it turns out he is still using Apple hardware. He then does not
identify a single OS X flaw or a reason he loaded Linux onto his Apple
hardware.

Maybe what HN needs is a periodic "Apple Sucks, post your rants here" posting,
just like the periodic "who's hiring" posts, because it's clear that "Apple
Sucks" is the only reason for all these posts that completely lack any
interesting content.

~~~
CoolGuySteve
10 years ago, there was no PC hardware that even came close the weight,
dimensions, and build quality of the MacBook Air.

Nowadays, PC "ultrabooks" like the XPS13 and UX305 are similar in size and
build quality but come in a variety of configurations with better battery life
and a choice between low power low res screens and high power high res
screens. And they're significantly cheaper.

Linux works perfectly on the Intel chipsets these computers use as well with
open source drivers from Intel themselves. I haven't had any problems with
Ubuntu, my install is pretty much stock Unity.

I used to work for Apple and still have Apple stock. As a stock holder, I
think they need to make a similar leap with their computers as they did back
with the MacBook Air.

The two things I would most want from them are a 40" curved screen iMac and
and a MacPro replacement that looks something like the Razor Blade Stealth
where a full powered GPU attaches via USB-C. I mention these 2 designs because
they require a lot of tinkering to get working on the PC side and while Apple
doesn't really make anything new, they do polish existing technology extremely
well.

~~~
thebspatrol
The build quality still usually is a narrow miss. Namely, non-apple
manufacturers LOVE to cut corners by using plastic on the bottom or more
fragmented case design. Touchpads are always iffy too.

Does anyone know of any non-apple machines that truly are at parity in build
quality? The new Thinkpad X1 looks nice.

~~~
CoolGuySteve
Try the Asus UX305. No seams, completely aluminum body, no fans, large nice
touchpad, and matte wide gamut IPS display for $600 or so when it's on sale.
It's similar in design to a 13" MacBook Air but a little smaller/lighter and
with a far superior display.

At first I thought the Core M processor would be slow, but it's comparable,
maybe 15% slower than an i5, once it reaches the full thermal throttle.

(And the keyboard isn't backlit but I always thought that feature was kind of
lame anyways.)

~~~
BoorishBears
Traded in my UX305UB (so i7 instead of Core M, 940m instead of integrated, and
4K) for an _2015 i5_ RMBP.

By all accounts a strict downgrade right?

Except by the end of ownership I had grown so tired of Windows and Linux that
I had to Hackintosh it to be bareable. That disabled the 940m (which I didn't
miss anyways) and messed with power management so aim guessing the i7 wasn't
turbo boosting anymore but it was _still_ worth it to get an OS that supported
all my monitors without fuss, had developer mindshare, didn't crash from sleep
and had a bash shell without compatibility layers and VMs.

I posted about it on here in another comment and realized how silly that was
and looked up someone selling a RMBP and asked for a trade the very next day
(I'd have bought a 2016 MBP but I want to see the what next model will bring).
Tellingly enough, the i7 UX305ub has depreciated so much faster than the i5
MBP that I should have owed the guy.

The supposed "exodus" from Macbooks has the strangest timing to me.

6 months ago if you asked what the best hardware for a development machine
was, you'd get some Thinkpad answers, but the mainstream was a 2015 MacBook
Pro.

Suddenly the 2016 comes out and isn't what people want, so everyone acts like
the 2015 ceased to exist...

Now people are recommending laptops that they used to recommend the 2015 RMBP
over as where to head! Is it a need to have the shiniest new MBP? 2015s went
on sale in most retail outlets so the prices are even better now. It's not
like the hardware degraded because there's a new model either.

Or maybe there's less substance to all the commotion than HN comments and
posts would imply?

------
tlocke
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the moral case for using an Open
Source OS over a proprietary one. Just to restate, Open Source software gives
users the freedom to:

* Run the software for whatever purpose they want.

* Inspect the software so they can see what it's doing.

* Change the software however they want.

* Share the software with anyone.

Call me an idealist, but aren't these things important?

~~~
mbrock
I agree in substance, but I find arguments from moral principles mostly
unconvincing, so I prefer to formulate it in different ways.

* Proprietary software makes me dependent on the whims of a business. If the business shuts down, stops updating its products, or changes their products in ways I dislike, I have to discard the investment I've made (time, money, learning, etc).

* Proprietary software makes it complicated to share my work tools with friends and even family.

* Proprietary ecosystems prevent me from learning. On the other hand, I am profoundly grateful for the learning opportunities given to me by the free software community ever since I was a teenager.

* Proprietary tools are hard to integrate with. For example, whenever a new version of Apple's mail program is released, the makers of the GPG plugin have to reverse engineer the changes before they (hopefully) can update their software.

* Proprietary tools often use proprietary formats, which prevents collaboration and contributes to the problem of digital rot.

And so on...

~~~
midnitewarrior
Points 1,2 and 4 also apply to open source.

1\. Open Source makes me dependent on the whims of a particular community. If
the group has infighting or lack of activity, enjoy your abandonware. Yes, you
could resurrect the project yourself, but that is a ridiculous burden for most
situations.

2\. It's often complicated sharing Open Source apps. They often require loads
of tinkering, are poorly documented, and require specialized knowledge. Unless
all of your friends and family are free software enthusiasts too, this isn't
always simple.

4\. Open source tools can also be hard to integrate with. You exchange
licensing being a barrier for integration with lack of resources for designing
good integration schemes. The larger projects can have significant resources
to get around this.

~~~
the_af
I agree with you that the overall point of "it's FOSS, so you can change the
software" is flawed. Most of us don't have the time, knowledge or inclination
to change the software.

However, even though it's flawed it's not _totally_ incorrect. You sometimes
_can_ change something -- maybe look at the internals and write some trivial
patch to solve an immediate problem; maybe change some scripting bit -- and
sometimes if there is infighting in the official community, a fork can happen.
Not saying forks are not messy or even always possible, but the possibility
_is_ there and it happens.

There is a huge difference between "it takes too much time/knowledge to change
this piece of software" and "it's illegal to change it".

~~~
mbrock
It's kind of like democracy. Sure, it's hard to elect a new leader or pass a
new law, but it's possible, and that possibility is very valuable.

It's also kind of like open knowledge, like science and math. Sure, it's hard
to learn algebra or biology, but with hard work you can master it and
contribute.

~~~
the_af
Completely agreed! I'm a fan of FOSS, and for me the balance is definitely
positive. I like that the possibility is there, even if many times it's not
within my skill or patience to fix it myself. Same with science indeed.

Even if I cannot always fix things myself, looking at (and breaking!) free
source code taught me a lot about programming.

------
antihero
Used to develop full-time using Arch Linux with a tiling WM (i3), and the
reasons I switched to using a MacBook when my company offered me one are:

    
    
      * The trackpad is awesome, it's well integrated with the OS and feels fantastic. I've yet to use a PC trackpad that isn't completely awful.  
      * Networking doesn't randomly break. This used to happen A LOT. The most stable solution I could find was just using wpa_supplicant and maintaining a load of config files, which was irritating and time consuming.  
      * There's a pretty unified well tested operating system that is designed for this piece of hardware. And it shows.  
      * The battery lasts for ages, even in this 2.5 year old laptop.  
      * The text rendering is pretty.  
      * The operating system is aesthetically pleasing and it's interface makes sense to me.
    

I'm up for giving Linux a gander again, but honestly I want something that's
as bug free as possible and allows me to get on with coding instead of
tinkering around fixing bullshit.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Using a "generic" laptop whose origin is not exactly easy to track (it bears
the brand of the distributor, not of the maker). I installed ubuntu (LTS) with
the proprietary (yuck) Wifi drivers. So far:

    
    
      * The trackpad works.  I use a mouse anyway.
      * Networking didn't randomly break so far.
      * Don't care about "unified".  Apart from a suspension bug, it works.
      * The battery lasts for 6-7 hours of programming.
      * Text rendering is pretty.
      * Xmonad + LXDE is pleasing and their interface make sense —to me at least.
    

It took a little tinkering around fixing bullshit. The lingering suspension
bug prevents me to log back in if I close the lid when logged out. On the
other hand I can stay the hell away from Apple and their shiny locked down
empire.

~~~
idm
The fact we're still discussing the trackpad, suspend/wake, fonts, networking,
and UI - in 2017 - means the problem still isn't solved on Linux. I gave a
decade over to that quest (1996-2006) and then spent the next decade using
MBPs. With a macbook pro, I have never once wondered about my trackpad,
suspend/wake, fonts, networking, UI, or a host of other things like printers,
scanners, USB, bluetooth, or external displays. That level of compatibility is
a miracle, from the perspective of a daily Linux user.

I have used my laptop for heavy computation, software dev, academic work,
major presentations, video and multimedia, casual browsing, gaming, etc, and
it has NEVER given me trouble due to compatibility. Having spent way too much
of my life thinking about those problems on Linux, you have no idea how
liberating it is to be free of those concerns.

I get OCD about using a specific brand of disposable pen, so you'd better
believe I think about the most important tool in my life: my laptop. The MBP
is too good to accept any alternative. The 2016 was underwhelming, but it's
still the best laptop/OS combination out there. It costs too much for the
market and it's not enough-better to justify the upgrade, but dammit there's
nothing that even compares.

I've been thinking _hard_ about alternatives to the MBP during the past few
months, and my decision is that I can't give all this up and still be a
functioning academic and entrepreneur. I'll pay the $1000 premium and if I
value my time at $25/hour, I'll recover that additional cost within 2 months
compared to Linux maintenance. I wish it weren't so, but the maths don't lie.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> _The fact we 're still discussing the trackpad, suspend/wake, fonts,
> networking, and UI - in 2017 - means the problem still isn't solved on
> Linux._

One reason is, it's not Linux's problem to solve. It's the hardware vendor's.
Those morons still don't ship with proper drivers, firmware, or even _specs_
—possibly because spending a single cent on Linux isn't economically viable or
something.

Last time I checked, suspend and power management does work flawlessly on
Linux… when the hardware is a couple year's old. But it will never work
properly on new hardware unless the vendors make it so themselves.

On the other hand, Wifi hardware vendors now often ship with proprietary
drivers. Proprietary sucks, but it at least works.

> _I 'll pay the $1000 premium and if I value my time at $25/hour, I'll
> recover that additional cost within 2 months compared to Linux maintenance.
> I wish it weren't so, but the maths don't lie._

Let's be generous and assume MacOS requires zero maintenance. 1000/25 means 40
hours (a full work-week), of Linux maintenance.

A full work-week in only 2 months, aren't you being a tiny bit hyperbolic? I
spend a few _minutes_ per month in maintenance.

~~~
idm
Think of it like this: 8 weeks, 5 days per week, 1 hour per day. That's 40
hours.

I spend more than a few minutes a month administering my MBP, so I have no
idea how you get along doing so little for a Linux machine. In fact, I spend
more than a few minutes a month administering my Linux servers...

I honestly think my 1-hour-per-day estimate is in the ballpark and your
experience sounds unlike mine.

~~~
loup-vaillant
Maybe I'm just negligent, but I do have a remote server I spent a full week
configuring (web, and mail, just for me, from ssh). I'm no sysadmin, I expect
a good one would have needed no more than a couple hours. But I haven't
touched it in _months_. It just works. (Or not. Lack of updates may have lead
to vulnerabilities.)

At this point I doubt we mean the same thing by "administration". To me, it
means updating the system, fixing what doesn't work, and installing new
programs. Spending en entire hour per day just for this sounds _insane_.
Perhaps you had other tasks in mind?

Also bear in mind that I'm currently using a "long term support" release of
Ubuntu, on hardware I knew would be well supported (I've read a couple
reviews). It's not Arch on a random laptop.

------
Philipp__
Situation is fairly simple. Linux on desktop has reached some kind of _mature_
phase (as weird as it sounds, compared to previous years, Linux on desktop was
never in better position), where you can get decent performance out of DE and
GUI, without sacrificing comfort of CLI. On the other hand, many developers
felt let down by Apple's last year, and decided to jump to Windows/Linux. And
that is totally fine. I think few factors played crucial role in that, besides
Apple's _weak_ year. For example, people needed change. Many of devs got
bored, and we know we developer are weird kind of people, sometimes little
masochistic, where we constantly tweak and play with our systems.

Remember the times around 2006. when many developers were jumping to Apple
ecosystem, rise of TextMate, Dtrace, the magnificent Snow Leopard came out
year after that...

So I think things move, and that's the good thing. If you are not satisfied or
productive on current platform/setup, then go and search for something that
will fit your needs.

I bought 13" MBP last year (2015. model) and I am really happy with the
machine, to the point where I don't have a single gripe (except macOS
thingys).

~~~
itchynosedev
I think 2015 mbp is the closest a laptop got to being perfect for me. Screen,
battery life, trackpad, finish and performance. All in a beautiful balance.

I used to dislike macos so much that went mbp 2015 > thinkpad > sp4. I
realised how much better macbooks were than their comptetition that I bought
it again only with more storage. I think Surface line will bethe next thing
for me but it was still too buggy for daily use.

~~~
Philipp__
Surface was always tempting for me, but I can't stand Windows in any shape or
form. I really hate it, and I never felt comfortable using it or developing on
it (I never touched Microsoft stack, .NET, Azure and that stuff, so...).

What looks more tempting to me, is new Lenovo Carbon X1 that got announced a
day ago on CES. That could be sweet Linux dev. machine, light, with solid
battery life, thin bezels, nice keyboard, trackpoint...

~~~
91bananas
Is Linux possible on a Surface? It to me looks like the only possible
replacement for an MBP right now, but I too could not handle Windows for a
second.

~~~
Philipp__
I don't have nerves nor time to write drivers... no way in hell I'll buy
Surface device and fiddle with Linux on it. I think you can get much better
laptops for same price, plus I have opportunity to install FreeBSD on them,
where on Durface it isn't possible, or you have to sacrifice certain
functions/components.

------
coldtea
A better question. "Who said they are?".

Some are. Also on the other direction (and to/from Windows). Complaints for
Apple, 32GB RAM option etc aside, I see no much reason to believe the numbers
have changed in any large way.

If for once a US-based developer conference (and its speakers) are not
predominantly Apple laptops, we can check this again.

~~~
Fnoord
Some are switching, some are not. Some arguments are sound, some aren't. Its
all rather vague and anecdotal, without hard numbers. It really depends on the
needs of the developer (or user in general), and if they're willing to make
compromises or allow changes.

The problems:

* Lack of focus on macOS (compared to iOS), and the iOSation of macOS.

* Lack of hardware upgrades on Mac Mini, Mac Pro, Macbook Air. MBP specific: focus on size and weight (and butterfly keyboard with less travel) instead of DDR4 32 GB RAM / stronger battery / latest gen processor (read: MBP becoming MBA). Gimmicks like touchbar, force touch.

* "Bullying." +300 EUR extra tax on MBP. Ridiculous things like having to pay 100 USD to release a Safari extension.

[Please, feel free to make addenda on these.]

A post with some random picture of GNOME 3 with a Terminal is just
cringeworthy though. What does that have to do with developers? I see no
development taking place. Could be a sysadmin's workstation for all we know.

I very much like macOS. Its excellent for development. You have the software
from macOS (which includes some software not available on Linux). You got UNIX
under the hood. All of the software is managed with Homebrew which is
excellent (macOS has come a long way in that regard). Really need Windows? You
got all the options available from Linux (VM, WINE) plus Bootcamp. Microsoft
even provide a VM with Edge themselves. The keybinds and workflow in macOS are
consistent and feel natural (with the addition of Amethyst for window
management, Tmux in iTerm (fullscreen with Powerline, and Vim), and Alfred
instead of Spotlight), and I'm very much used to them. That being said I could
just use a Terminal with Git and SSH and Vim or Sublime Text on Linux or
Windows as well, but I'd lose some of the above advantages. Linux has far less
software, the workflow is clunky, and I'm scared for all the hardware working
well. Windows just isn't UNIX under the hood and you notice that when you work
with open source software just like you notice WINE isn't native on Linux or
macOS.

~~~
rangibaby
Package managers on Linux work better than brew IMO. They are more mature and
better integrated with the OS. It would be nice if brew upgrade installed OS
security patches etc.

Instead there are the unsolicited, constant, and annoying nags from the MAS.

I found it easier to rebind keys in GNOME than Mac OS.

Dual booting OSes has existed longer than Mac OS X.

Are there many truly Mac-only apps these days? Apple's own apps used to be a
draw for me but they got rid of the one I used seriously (Aperture) and change
the others so much it is hard to keep up.

Adobe apps are honestly the only reason I am keeping my Mac partition at this
point.

~~~
danieldk
_Package managers on Linux work better than brew IMO._

I used Linux on the desktop for many years (1994 to 2007) and until now on
servers, but I have to disagree respectfully. It's great that on macOS package
management of third-party software is decoupled from the OS. It means that one
can upgrade third-party software (per Homebrew) without upgrading (and
potentially breaking) the whole OS. On Linux, it is normally a choice between
a stable OS and stale software, or fresh software with an unstable OS. Of
course, things like Snap, AppImage, etc. are changing that.

 _I found it easier to rebind keys in GNOME than Mac OS._

More important to me are _consistent_ shortcuts. On macOS virtually every
native application uses the same keyboard shortcuts. With Linux it's all over
the place.

 _Are there many truly Mac-only apps these days?_

Yes. Omni{Graffle,Focus}, Little Snitch, TweetBot, etc. And then there are
many applications that are only available on Windows or macOS, besides Adobe
software, the Affinity apps, Microsoft Office, 1Password, etc.

------
S_A_P
In the 15 or so years Ive been writing code, Ive never had a moment where I
was like, damn, I cant write this code I am tasked to write because my damn
operating system is not adequate. I use Windows, Linux and OSX/MacOS, and I am
pretty agnostic on the whole deal. I have use cases for each, and cant really
understand the religious nature of this discussion.

Cant we call this sort of article what it really is? Im mad because I dont
think apple is thinking of my needs anymore. It could be because Ive changed
or theyve changed, but either way Im going to write an article to to justify
my feelings, even if my arguments dont hold water.

~~~
loup-vaillant
> _I have use cases for each, and cant really understand the religious nature
> of this discussion._

Linux: Free Softwaaare! (My favourite)

MacOS: It Just Wooorks! (And is damn pretty)

Windows: Gaaames! (And a host of other programs)

Another way to look at it is, Linux is Hippie, Windows is Business, and MacOS
is Beauty.

Of course it will get religious: if you deliberately chose one platform, you
likely care about its strongest suit enough to shun the other two. Most free
software advocates will use GNU/Linux, and urge everyone to follow suit.
They're _virtuous_. Most people who need such and such software will use
Windows, because they have work to do, dammit. They're _practical_. Apple
users are… I don't know, _loyal_? Apple does have strong followers.

Me, I still feel a little guilty about my Windows desktop. But… games…

~~~
WayneBro
I am a die-hard Windows user and I don't care about games as much. In my
opinion, Windows is just the best all around OS.

While I do use Mac and Linux wherever third parties require it - I prefer
Windows by far. I also think it's the most practical choice for anybody that
needs a solid general purpose OS. Some other thoughts:

\- I like the Microsoft business plan the best - they don't want to lock me
into hardware like Apple and their stuff isn't infinitely fragmented like
Linux.

\- Windows has the best all around UI and they cater to power users.
Meanwhile, Apple hates power users and Linux thinks that "power user" means
programmer/beta tester.

\- The vast, vast majority of businesses use Windows desktops and not Mac or
Linux. These are my customers.

\- There are very few useful things that I can't do with Windows. Meanwhile, I
can find hundreds of things that Mac and Linux can't do (or can't do
easily/well) that Windows can.

~~~
iLemming
Windows is still not very developer friendly. Devs like to use their command
line tools: bash, zsh, tmux, git, etc. They like their Vim and Emacs configs,
not everyone uses Visual Studio monstrosity. Devs want to be in control,
there's no good alternatives on Windows for things like Karabiner, Hammerspoon
and Alfred. I was just like you. For many years I thought Windows is the best.
Until one day I broke out of my bubble. I feel free, nothing will make me go
back. Unless MSFT decides to make it compatible with Linux.

~~~
WayneBro
Furthermore, I find Windows more developer friendly than any other OS.

The Linux community would have me doing rote memorization of shitty command
line apps from the 1970s to do my programming. No thanks! I'll stick with my
modern GUI!

To do anything for Apple, you have to use their backwards UI and Xcode.

Meanwhile, Microsoft caters hand and foot to developers.

~~~
iLemming
Yeah, I feel sad every time I have to watch those experts, trying to do basic
stuff like navigating to a file or open a file during their presentations.
Using their sophisticated IDEs with nice, "modern UI". It takes them several
seconds and bunch of mouse clicks to perform basic operations.

------
nkozyra
Personal opinion coming ...

To this date I really don't think there's a polished GUI/WM that can compete
with OSX. The app ecosystem is vast but spotty. Even CLI work feels clunkier
in any of the desktop distros. Is it better than 5 years ago? Maybe a bit. I
just think with this huge community there'd be something as attractive and
natural as OSX or Win10.

And that's ignoring the hardware aspect altogether. Yes, you can buy some very
solid machines now, but every review I read about Mac-killer laptop hardware
ends with a bunch of things that just don't work as well as a MBP.

~~~
nottorp
This is why I moved _from_ Linux to OS X. However, dear Apple are getting me
concerned about their future because:

1\. The main innovation in the newest MBPros is... an Emoji keyboard
accessory? Okay, that might actually be useful but:

2\. Worse, said newest laptops have battery issues to which Apple responds by
removing the battery ETA indicator? That was actually useful since I knew how
much battery life I could rely on while doing _the same task_.

3\. Since 2013, they don't have a desktop for _desktop_ (not web) developers
any more.

Minis are too underpowered, iMacs are noisy under load and who knows how long
they will last when kept heated the whole time, the Mac Pro is a video editing
machine and little else.

Right now I'm doing fine with a MBPro and a hackintosh, but if they keep
making dubious decisions about the laptops and not offering a developer's
desktop, I'll have to consider Linux again.

~~~
timemachiner
I may be the only developer on HN that doesn't have this issue or on the
entire internet for that matter, but I have no issues with battery life on my
tMBP 15". I do all day development in eclipse and have music playing in the
background. I think the battery life issues are overblown based on the few
other devs around me that also use the new tMBP but I haven't personally asked
them how long theirs last, just see they keep theirs unplugged for long
periods of time too.

~~~
nottorp
It's not the issue's existence that's my cause for concern, it's Apple's
reaction to it.

They've always had some process that went runaway and ate most of the CPU for
no reason. Just the name of the process changed across hardware and software
versions.

The problem is, now they're removing an useful indicator to swipe the current
problem (and I'm sure a large amount of people do have it) under the rug. It's
this decision that worries me, not that they botched something on this laptop
generation.

~~~
timemachiner
You can still view estimated battery life in Activity Monitor.

~~~
nottorp
Yeah? Well you need to keep Activity Monitor on all the time to check what
process is eating up your CPU for no reason anyway :)

~~~
timemachiner
Haha, yeah that's true!

------
Udo
I'm in the process of doing this, but it's difficult. When I switched from
Linux to OS X as my desktop about a decade ago, I felt at home in a way I
hadn't been since the Amiga. Now the Mac platform is stagnating, and in fact
becoming somewhat of a prison, in both hardware and software.

There's very clearly no future here for me, but I'm switching to Linux sort-of
by default, not because it's better. In many respects, it's worse. There's
always Windows, which would have the benefit of a (comparatively) low-
maintenance system, and I could get working versions of many apps that have
been making my life easier on the Mac for some time, but the system itself
feels alien to me.

I'm certainly not switching to Linux on already existing Macs, because macOS
hasn't become bad enough to do that, not by a long shot. What's driving the
slow changeover right now is hardware. So I got a PC, and I'm running it side-
by-side with a Mac via Synergy, but honestly I spend most of my time on the
Mac side. When I switched to OS X it was immediate and without looking back,
whereas now I'm dragging my heels.

All of this makes me very unhappy. I wish more vendors would just cross-
compile to all three platforms. There should be very few, if any, apps that
absolutely can't exist on multiple platforms. I understand that a big part of
the problem is platform-independent UI, but even that shouldn't be such a huge
deal if you just take care of that from the start - instead of suddenly being
in the situation where your app is so intricately interwoven with your UI
toolkit that it can't be separated anymore.

~~~
tornadoboy55
The biggest issue isn't UI - GTK easily solves that. It's just that when you
officially release something you have to support it. Support costs money. That
isn't feasible for a ~3% market share OS.

~~~
Udo
_> The biggest issue isn't UI - GTK easily solves that._

I laid out above why this doesn't solve anything for products that haven't
been developed with that in mind from the start. These are the majority of
commercial software.

 _> Support costs money. That isn't feasible for a ~3% market share OS._

That's part of the reason why many vendors didn't (and still don't) support OS
X either, whereas those who did turned a tidy profit. It's _certainly_ worth
it if you just charge for it. And there's always the prospect of growing your
market share with an underdeveloped platform.

Personally I think it's largely psychological. Vendors assume Linux users will
likely not pay for professional software. But with more developers switching
over that could change.

~~~
tornadoboy55
The difference is that OS X is largely used by wealthier people (that can
afford the entry fee into Apple's walled garden). OS X is also a stable
target. Supporting all major Linux distros would already mean distributing
your app in 4+ (!) package formats. Oh, and every distro has different
libraries and bugs. Then there's the problem of Linux users, who are
compromised largely of tinkerers and FOSS zealots. Believe me man, I would be
stoked if I could use 1Password, Alfred, Amphetamine, Karabiner, etc. on Linux
but it simply isn't happening for a few more years. Ingredients needed:

1 package format (so Flatpak needs to win because most other distros will
never accept Snappy packages)

1 UI kit (GTK has this bagged)

1 core set of libraries

and most of all consistency. Even from LTS to LTS there shouldn't change too
much. I'm pretty sure someone that's used to OS9 could pick up Sierra and be
reasonably productive. Try teaching an average person Gnome 1.0 on Debian 2.1
and then drop him in Gnome 3.2 on Debian 8.6..... yeah

~~~
cbcoutinho
As far as package format goes, I think it depends on the complexity of your
app. Electron is making development of rather simple apps pretty straight-
forward - I'm using at least 2 apps daily that are developed using Electron,
and I can access them on both Linux and Windows.

I'm not a really heavy application user, but I am curious about the
limitations of centralizing packaging using something like Flatpak or
Electron. If you try to build a program like Photoshop or Solidworks, do you
run into some of the bottlenecks of those services?

~~~
tornadoboy55
Electron is a webbrowser-as-a-backend on which JS+HTML5 apps run. Photoshop is
written in C++, or at least large parts of it. Plus its millions of lines of
code. Adobe (or any company really) will never go to the effort (think ten-
thousands of man hours) of completely rewriting Photoshop (let alone their
entire Creative Suite) just so its on Electron and Linux geeks can run it.
Plus, its JS- it will run like hog-shit compared to C++.

And even if you hypothetically did get it somewhat performant - we need to get
rid of feeling the need to run everything on Electron. Atom runs on Electron.
GitKraken runs on Electron. So does WhatsApp. I don't want to spawn 5 Electron
instances just to run some apps. Its just horribly inefficient. WhatsApp on OS
X, a chat client, uses 500Mb memory(!). Safari with 5 tabs open uses 550Mb.
Telegram, which basically does the same as WhatsApp uses 125Mb, because its
written natively.

What would be best is a unified repo that solely contains Flatpaks. Flatpaks
contain all the libraries the application needs to work, so no more issues
supporting 20 different distros. However, that will never happen: 2/3+ of
Linux users are on Ubuntu and Canonical will always want control (and they
want to force their own standard- Snappy packages), and the other 1/3 does not
want to bend to Canonical and their weird contributor license.

I've already voiced it elsewhere but (mainline) Linux could be as solid as OS
X, if only there was more consistency. If almost all distros were purely
Wayland+Gnome+Flatpak (and mostly on the same versions) then most companies
would feel comfortable targeting that instead of the constant moving multi-
target that Linux is now.

------
hydandata
You have to realize that MacOS, Windows, even typical Linux Desktop is not an
optimal environment for a professional programmer, or for any other computer
based job which involves a lot of writing, reading and maintaining flow state.

The reason is that these environments are designed with user-friendliness in
mind. Now what does that mean? it means that stuff should be easy to find,
simplified enough for somebody who is learning how to interact with the
machine, trying to remember what, where and how. As a professional programmer
you should not care at all about that. You are not a user, you are a frigging
master of the computer universe.

You should care about avoiding unnecessary clutter so that you can focus
easier, minimizing time from thought to action to avoid breaking the flow,
about flexibility so you can adapt the environment to your personal needs and
increase productivity. Erik Naggum nailed it long time ago [0].

You can have a tablet and do your non-work related activities there, iOS,
Windows, whatever, but when you are working use your _workstation_! if you
don't have one create it. You will be amazed by how much more productive you
can be, how much happier you can be.

I use StumpWM, Emacs, Conkeror, Ergodox with a custom layout and blank keys,
and a trackball. The only thing a "user" can do on my machine is move the
pointer and pull out the power cord, but in my hands this thing flies!

[0]
[http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3065048088243385@naggum....](http://www.xach.com/naggum/articles/3065048088243385@naggum.no.html)

Edit: Let me be clear, this is my personal journey from Windows to MacOS and
finally to a custom setup on Linux and the reasoning behind it. I certainly do
not mean to preach.

I concede that thinking hard is and always will be the main component of
professional work, but perhaps from time to time we should ponder what an
environment could be like if it was made for _professionals_ not for users. If
we simply keep accepting what is available and let others think for us we will
only get more of what Apple does and less of what might be best for us. We are
not the majority of Apple users, and probably never will be, it is not in
their best interest to put us ahead of them when making various decisions.

~~~
alkonaut
I launch my IDE, and that is a customisable interface created specifically for
developers. In my code/debug cycle it launches the desktop app I'm developing,
(which is a user interface created specifically for another type of
professional).

I agree that ergonimics is important, especially in terms of hardware. For
developers, hardware is screens and keyboards, and pointing devices. As for
operating systems, window managers etc., I couldn't care less. I basically
don't _use_ the OS while developing. I launch one app and that's it.

I'd go so far as to say that if my IDE would run on only one OS, then my
professional machine would simply run that OS. And I'd be fine with it. If I'm
using XCode today but Visual Studio tomorrow, I'd be happy to switch. The IDE
matters, the hardware matters, but the OS not so much.

~~~
hydandata
> I'd go so far as to say that if my IDE would run on only one OS, then my
> professional machine would simply run that OS

My workstation _is_ my IDE. Or as close to it as I can make it.

> As for operating systems, window managers etc., I couldn't care less

And we should not have to. So I personally go out of the way to rid my
workstation of stuff that is _not_ what I care about.

~~~
alkonaut
> My workstation is my IDE. Or as close to it as I can make it.

This is a point I have been making too: everyone has a "DE". Whether you
integrate it yourself by tiling a text editor and a shell or two, or if emacs
or Xcode does it for you doesn't matter.

What matters is that when you are _in_ your development environment - it's
free of distractions and promotes your workflow.

When I launch an IDE, the IDE is now my window manager. I never need to leave
it. Just like your OS is your development environment, the equivalent is that
my IDE is my "OS" for doing work. And by the analogy that you don't want
unrelated crap in your OS - an IDE is often created _only_ as a tool for
professional development.

So that's why I don't care if my OS looks cluttered behind my IDE, or if it
comes with 100 apps I don't need.

It's exactly as if your development OS was a VM running inside any other OS.
When you are developing, you would not care what the host OS was.

------
k__
I found it strange that they switched from Linux to OSX in the first place.

Where I started programming, every dev had a Linux machine.

I remember one gig, where I had to build a site with Mac that had these metal
trackpads that give you instant RSI.

I thought, Macs, in a dev shop!? Did I enter the wrong door or something?

But then a few people around me started using MacBooks, especially in the
start-up world it's considered good taste.

~~~
kayoone
Personally i came from Windows being a gamer for most of my teenager years so
i used Windows to develop initially. But all solutions like using Xampp, over
Linux VMs to Vagrant where painful in some way or another so i switched to
Macs in 2009 and never looked back (still have a Windows Box for rare gaming).
Today i run docker for my local projects but since OSX is Unix it works much
better then on Windows.

No with Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, this could change though and Windows could
become viable again.

~~~
k__
I come from windows too. I still use it on my private PC. But I always found
Linux (Xubuntu) more pleasant to use for dev purposes

------
antouank
I'm happy the new MBP sucked.

Saved lots of money, and I discovered Arch linux. Spent a couple of days and
made a much better personalised OS environment than what OSX dictates to use.
Plus, I learned lots in the process.

~~~
vi4m
Until you try to do first presentation on some conference, when your connected
display crashes and you start typing xrandr / fighting Wayland/xorg drivers
... I see it all the time, never happened to Macs.

~~~
whyileft
Can we dial back the FUD? I present all the time with my Linux laptop that
does not require any dongles to connect to HDMI, VGA and DVI projectors. Oh
yeah and airplay works just fine too. Been that way for as long as I can
remember. This isn't 1997.

~~~
GrinningFool
'It works for me' is not an solid basis for the opinion that OP is posting
FUD. Clearly the problem exists for some subset of people, or we wouldn't be
talking about it. That doesn't meant that most people encounter it - but it's
still a problem.

------
satai
Thge reasons of mine:

\- better UI. Window management in i3 is much more usefull for me than macOS
window management

\- native Docker (partly solved for macOS now)

\- control and security

\- belief, that Apple goes the wrong direction

\- HW choices

\- SW I write is deployed on linux anyway

------
somecallitblues
Everybody is talking about switching because the MBP is about $1000 more than
they expected. But then you go and look at PC laptops and you realise that
nothing out there is built like MBP. And there's seriously nothing wrong with
2013 MBP. You have to be doing something really insane to find it slow.

~~~
wineisfine
The buck stops at not offering a 15" Macbook Pro WITHOUT the touchbar. Heck:
they could even charge the same price for with and without -- I wouldn't care.

But not even offering the option of having a normal keyboard with function
keys... that's just ignorance.

~~~
mrits
I bought my new MBP right before the revamp. Everyone at work was letting me
know I could return it and get the new one. I was so happy I got the last good
one just in time. I think this model will realistically get me through the
next few years, but after that I'll seriously consider a move back to Linux or
Windows.

------
drKarl
> The Apple hardware and operating system have been standards for developers
> for many years now.

I disagree with that statement. You can argue that many developers like to use
MacBooks, but from that to saying that it's standard there's a long way...

> and sells overpriced hardware

Apple has ALWAYS sold overpriced hardware

~~~
rorykoehler
Each microprocessor is graded in the factory. Apple buys up all the highest
graded chips meaning no one else can get any.

~~~
na85
What a joke.

Got a source saying that the i7 I buy from Intel is somehow inferior to the
one that ships in an Apple product?

~~~
rorykoehler
[http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/33816/the-
man...](http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/33816/the-
manufacturing-and-grading-of-families-of-microprocessors)

I can't find the source just now though I do remember reading about apple
prebuying all perfect chips of certain classes therefore making then
unavailable to the competition. Given their purchasing power I don't find this
wholly inconceivable.

~~~
na85
No source, then.

Okie dokie.

~~~
rorykoehler
That kind of tone is not why I and most others come to Hackernews. Please
refrain from it in future.

I did come across this article where Cook essentially says buying these
components is a company secret....
[http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/18/apple_commits_3_9_...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/18/apple_commits_3_9_billion_to_secret_long_term_component_contracts)

------
rswail
Aside from the current Apple anti-fanboi'isms, I switched _from_ Linux on
desk/laptop to OSX two years ago. I had used Linux as my desktop and my laptop
OS since around 1997 in various incarnations. Stuck with Fedora 12 for any
number of years, primarily because of the fear that an upgrade would kill my
desktop's flash, wifi, networking, X config etc etc. Yes I should have
upgraded more often, but I had better things to do. My laptop was up to date
with Fedora, but I still had to dick around to get it to work with external
displays, current versions of flash/java (for browser crap I had to use), the
stupidities of GNOME3 etc etc. I've been using computers since 1976, I'm sick
of mucking around with them just to make something work when I'm trying to do
work.

Around 2 years ago, I started developing for iOS/Android and had no choice in
using a Mac desktop (Mini i7). At first I hated it, but then, everything just
works. When it came time to upgrade my laptop, early last year, buying a
Retina MBP was an easy decision.

As for upgrading it, I'll wait a generation, this round of upgrades was
inhibited by Intel's lack of progress on Kaby Lake and Apple's fetish for
changing connectors. By the time I upgrade (probably 2 years from now),
USB-C/3.1G2/TB3 will be fairly ubiquitous. Docks will be available, good 5K
monitors with USB-C to power the laptop.

The current crap about only getting 16GB and not being worth the money is just
that. Don't buy one. Get a 2015 MBP if that floats your boat. It has
effectively the same performance without the "limitation" of USB-C.

Have I dicked around with OSX? Yes, I run Karabiner, firefox, magicprefs etc.
Reading these comments I found Alfred. But when I install these apps, they
install, they work as advertised. Macports has everything I need to get a GNU
like env, including latest versions of bash etc. It does it cleanly in /opt
and doesn't screw around where Apple wants to lock things down (/usr etc).

My MBP sits on my desk closed attached to dual monitors that just work. When I
take it on the road, it works when I plug it in to a projector at a meeting.
It's a workhorse. I can muck around for fun on a linux VM or on AWS.

------
tluyben2
I am using both Linux (Ubuntu) and Mac OS X all the time. The annoyance on
Linux for me is very minimal; basically only the lack of iOS dev. If I can fix
that somehow I would never use anything else. A while ago i installed Qemu
with Mac OS X and that kind of worked, but was way too slow. Advantage is that
USB ports work. Without that I will have to use both; if I dev for
Android/Web/Desktop then I use my Ubuntu laptop; for iOS I open up my MacBook.
Hope that will change in the future.

------
EtienneK
Biggest problem for me is that it's too big of an issue to try and get my
(Blizzard) games to work on Linux. Yes, it's possible - and I have done it
before - but it's just so much easier with macOS.

macOS gives me that good balance between Windows (for play) and Linux (for
work).

~~~
chx
Increasingly the solution is vfio: have a gaming video card in the system and
pass it on to a Windows VM exclusively. So Linux runs on Intel IGP which is
fairly painless and the game gets a powerful videocard.

~~~
jjn2009
This works surprisingly well. I have a xeon chip which probably helps but its
great to have this flexibility

~~~
chx
The abundance of cheap older Xeons also help. You can get an Intel board,
128GB DDR3 ECC RAM, two 2670 Xeons (SR0KX stepping which fixes VT-d) for $580
altogether either separately off eBay or in one kit from natex. That's an
excellent base for such a development - gaming machine. And now there's even a
decent yet cheap SSI EEB chassis, the Phanteks Enthoo Pro for only $100.
(Nope, Rosewill cases do not count as decent, sorry.)

------
ssijak
Simple stuff that should work 100% of the time without bugs and without me
needing to intervene work on osx like they should. On linux there is always
some little problem that bugs you from time to time, or some inconsistency, or
some app that does not work, etc etc. Nothing that I can not sort out (I
mainly use Arch linux when I use it on the desktop, on servers Ubuntu and
Centos), but at a point in time, I started valuing my time much more so I
switched to OSX for developer machine.

------
johndoe4589
Are they? Are you kidding me? Putting all controversies aside, OS X is a much
better finished product.

Which is also why the latest elementaryOS posts on Medium are kind of cringy.
One moment the author says how Apple users are disatisfied that Apple may be
abandoning powerful desktops, next moment he emphasizes how you can install
Linux on any laptop.. starting with your Macbook. LOL? As if replacing the OS
on the same hardware is going to solve the disatisfaction of a power user? And
installing a much more broken, inconsistent collection of constantly broken
packages? WHich you need to updated CONSTANTLY. If you don't like Windows
updates, man, Linux is even worse. Every friggin day there are updates, they
are all somehow VERY important, and they are all potential bombs that will
fuck up your config or break some apps you installed. Fuck, I'm running a
_LTS_ version and I still get updtes everyday, probably for completely
insignificant fixes.

I think I may end up installing Linux again on a partition because my Ubuntu
VM is too sluggish for front end dev (especially CSS animations/transitions)
but I would never expect that to be a better solution that straight up OS X.

------
dom0
> The Apple hardware and operating system have been standards for developers
> for many years now.

I think this is yet-another kind of bubble people submerge themselves in.

~~~
lallysingh
Lots of places are heavy Mac, even when they only develop server side software
to run on Linux. The laptops are well behaved, low maintenance, have good UIs,
and have good support.

~~~
gpderetta
I still don't understand why one would use a laptop as their main development
environment instead of a proper workstation (more cores, more ram, larger
disks).

~~~
jslabovitz
My workstation is an 11" Macbook Air, and has been for years. For what I do --
mostly Ruby, some C, some shell -- it's perfect. I fullscreen everything, and
switch between apps with cmd-tab. I avoid or have disabled most macOS GUI
features. 4 cores is fine. 8GB is fine, though having a couple hundred open
tabs in Safari slows things down a tad. If I need to do something requiring
more screen space, like an InDesign layout or a SketchUp design, I just cable
up an external monitor & keyboard. Simple, straightforward, no stress.

------
ohstopitu
I used to depend on OS X for Sketch and iOS dev, but with the release of
Figma, that has changed quite a bit.

I do hope that Figma would release an Linux app to use system fonts and allow
for upload of slack files that use weird fonts for example.

Apart from that (and iOS development), Linux is a perfect dev environment (ofc
we still need a few more apps like a good gui git client - I use Fork on mac
and I love it), but Gitkranen can be a situable alternative till a good client
comes along.

Seriously though, if someone is willing to offer XCode over the web, or even a
cheap dedicated vm (most VMs i've seen are insanely expensive for what they
provide), that'd be great

Figma - [https://www.figma.com](https://www.figma.com) Fork - [https://git-
fork.com/](https://git-fork.com/)

------
slitaz
There is choice now for good high-end laptops that come with Ubuntu. The Dell
XPS13, the system76 and others.

------
ciconia
I think in the current climate _choosing_ macOS over other alternatives has
become a much less alluring option. On the contrary, in many ways the choice
of OS has become a much less of a big of a deal than it was. Many development
platforms and frameworks today have a good cross-OS story (notable exception:
Apple's developer tools). In that respect OS's have become much more of a
commodity product. As long as they can host your developer tools and
frameworks, they can do the job.

Even Windows today offers a pretty good experience for developers, and it's
remarkable that Microsoft is actually working hard to make Windows a good
alternative to MacOS _and_ Linux.

------
rbanffy
People worry too much about the flavor of Unix they are using.

I didn't switch - I have - and use - both Linux (a Dell laptop, an Acer
"netbook", a Lenovo "server") and macOS (an rMBP, a Mini) and, quite frankly,
there is no real difference. The rMBP is an awesome laptop - light, fast,
great screen, but the Dell feels faster and the Acer is lighter (and much,
much cheaper). The trackpad on the Acer and Dell annoy me. I don't trust HFS
(been bitten by silent corruption more than once)

Like I said before, people worry way too much about the program they use to
run their terminals and text editors. If it has a Unix-like environment, even
Windows (I prefer Cygwin) works.

------
tomelders
So this is finally the year that Linux will take over. Again.

I see no evidence that dev's are switching to Linux for their dev machine.

And this recent peak in anti-apple sentiment stinks to me of the same
mentality that led to Britain leaving the EU and Trump becoming president. It
goes along the lines of...

"This thing isn't perfect by the definition of perfect that matters to me. So
I declare it to be fundamentally and irrevocably broken. It should be thrown
away and everyone should do this other ill thought through thing that I like"

There's a case to be made for Linux, but if your case is always presented with
an "Apple sucks" pre-amble, then I think you're really just a fanboy.

~~~
echion
Wait, you're tarring op with Brexit and Trump, but op's the fanboy?

[edit] To be fair, op/article mention no statistics to support the assertion
that "developers are switching from Mac OS X to Linux", so on that basis I
think it's fair to say the piece is pretty anecdotal or fluffy. But there are
plenty of reasons why people switch from OS X to Linux (see other comments,
for example
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317879)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317234](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317234)
).

~~~
fetbaffe
Current anti-javascript sentiment that is going on? Yes, you guessed it,
Trumpism.

Oh, you don't like React? Damn Brexiteer!

Future is here.

~~~
Pigo
Pepe and the alt-right promote Android, everyone knows this. We're just smart
enough to ignore fake-news and see Apple is still king.

This is classic..

------
bsaunder
I am such a developer. Just moved from an older MPB to a (soon-to-be) Linux
(Ubuntu) laptop. Always preferred Linux as my primary OS, but liked Apple
hardware and OSX when I didn't feel like fiddling with things. For me it was a
complex calculation (in no particular order):

    
    
      -Increasing annoyance by subtle changes to various native mac apps.
    
      -Migration of OSX towards more of a Windows, hiding details from the user.
    
      -Wanting a machine with NVidia GTX 1070 to explore 3D and ML.
    
      -Apple's migration towards a fully soldered machine.
    
      -Removal of ports and DVD drive.
    
      -The Apple premium is too out of whack.
    

I settled for an Acer Predator 17":
[https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-
model/NH.Q17A...](https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/predator-
model/NH.Q17AA.001)

Essentially:

    
    
      -i7 CPU
    
      -NVidia GTX 1070 GPU
    
      -16B RAM (now 32GB, with $100 of RAM)
    
      -1TB HD
    
      -256GB SSD
    
      -1920x1080 display
    
      -CD/DVD burner
    
      -11 ports for stuff
    

It was on sale at MicroCenter for an unbeatable price.

The downsides:

    
    
      - its a beast (almost 10 pounds, and 18" - not sure it will fit under an airline seat, needed to buy a larger backpack).
    
      - its a "gamer" laptop... with all the tacky red lights and styling deemed necessary by marketing.
    
      - the display isn't as nice, but more than sufficient for my needs
    

I've booted from the Ubuntu Live disk and seems to get up and running with
minimal issues, not sure how long the road is to get this fully functional
with Linux. I strongly considered a System76 laptop, but was ultimately
persuaded by the value of this hardware.

Ideally I'd like to just by a laptop with a preinstalled and supported
hypervisor where I could trivially install any OS image I'd like (preferably
in a way that would let me seamlessly run in either a cloud (AWS) or my local
device). If I can slog though it, my ultimate plan is to get things running on
here with a minimal arch linux as the hypervisor. Not looking forward to
dealing with all the driver pain.

~~~
Fnoord
Agreed with most of the disadvantages.

Your processor is also quicker / more power efficient.

16 GB DDR4 will impact the battery life negatively, while 1920x1080 display
will impact it positively. Both have their price.

The weight of your laptop is more than 2 times the weight of the 15" MBP 2015,
approx 1,5 times the weight of a 15" MBP 2010, and roughly 2,5 times the
weight of a 15" MBP 2016 (there is no 17" MBP anymore.)

DVD drive or burner I won't miss. I would've removed it from my old MBP 2010,
but I am afraid it will cause instability. Its also a bit tricky to remove.

1 TB HDD is also IMO pointless. I just use networking if I need to access
data. WiFi is quick enough.

A major advantage of your beast is the graphics card. If I'd find that
important (I don't) I'd consider a eGPU.

Regarding bad battery life, if a device uses USB-C I can see power banks being
useful in that regard.

Good luck, hope to read from you how it works out for you.

------
titraprutr
The title of this article should rather be: "Why I switched from Mac OS to
Linux?"

------
abalashov
I've been using Linux on the desktop since age 11, so about twenty years. I
guess I missed the whole Apple excitement?

~~~
3131s
Since age 17 for me, so about 11 years. I would use Linux even if I thought it
were less capable than MacOS / Windows. I don't think that though -- Linux is
awesome and somehow I have spent very little time dealing with the problems
that others in this thread claim are so common.

~~~
abalashov
Yeah, I don't know, maybe I'm just lucky, but I haven't had to spend much time
getting hardware to work in recent years. Certainly not on Ubuntu. It really
does Just Work.

I run Arch nowadays and that is certainly not as turn-key as Ubuntu, but
there's just too much "magic" in Ubuntu and I was tired of it. But Apple folks
should like that sort of thing...

------
pps
I'm using both OS X and Linux Mint every day since 2012 (and before that
Windows & Ubuntu I don't even know how long). There is no way for me to switch
completely to Linux, it is just not enough, I'm working WAY faster in OS X,
and the experience is so much more pleasurable.

------
Insanity
> you simply have to look around during workshops and speakings to see 90% of
> Apple systems

Are these perhaps apple events?

But seriously, that numbers seems hugely exagerated, at least from the events
I have been at. He is probably talking about a specific field for these talks,
but this is quite a silly statement imo.

~~~
kayoone
when i go to startup events/meetups it's not uncommon to see 80% Apple
laptops.

~~~
Insanity
I have not been at events related to startups. Thank you for giving some
insights into where they might use that many apple laptops.

The events hosted by my former university have a _few_ macs, but mostly I see
people running Linux or Windows.

And then there are the microsoft-oriented events, but it is safe to say these
do not count here :-)

~~~
therealmarv
Go to USA, maybe some Google conferences (or look at Google employees): You
will mostly see only mac people!

------
kayoone
Long term i don't think many will switch away from OSX, at least i don't see
anyone complaining around me and most happily use macs. Sure there will be
some, but i don't think it's significant. Those who prefer Linux have always
used Linux anyway.

------
raspasov
Have we reached peak Apple hate yet?

~~~
wineisfine
I don't think it's hate - at all, it's rather: dissapointment. So far, Apple
didn't do anything malicious or evil, they just majorly underperformed to our
audience.

~~~
raspasov
Eh, maybe - I just remember being wrong myself about things like the iPad, for
example. There was a ton of "it's just an oversized iPhone" speak everywhere
but it turned out to be a pretty successful product (not better than iPhone
but still successful by most standards). Right now there's a ton of "dongle
catastrophe" speak.

Not saying that we should not demand more and better from Apple but I think
many of the complaints are not very warranted.

For example, I don't know why people are complaining that MacOS has "suffered"
compared to iOS. In my opinion, the latest Sierra version is way better than
Lion for example.

------
franciscop
I was considering buying a MacBook Air few years back to install Linux.
However, I decided in the end to go for the Zenbook Prime at the time for
slightly better characteristics in all departments EXCEPT in battery life. It
was a great decision. Now I'm on the Asus UX305CA which is great in all
departments including battery life EXCEPT it doesn't have a backlit keyboard.
It is like every time Asus fixes a thing they screw a new thing.

Now that Apple is catching up, unless Asus/others release a good ultrabook by
the end of this year my next computer might just be a Mac. The future is going
to be made of USB Type-C so I want my next computer to bet heavy on those,
including charging.

------
_ZeD_
better question: why were developers on Mac OS X to begin with? Honestly I
think even Windows is a better os from a developer point of view.

~~~
out_of_protocol
As a fellow developer i say: Development on Windows is really REALLY painful.
Any *nix is so much better. I chose OSX because it's "okay linux distro" ;)
not real linux but close enough on practice

~~~
alkonaut
> As a fellow developer i say: Development on Windows is really REALLY
> painful.

I think the statement really is "development in a unix/linux _style_ on
windows is really painful". If you like doing development with text editors
and shells and have any tools that are command-line only then yes - it sucks
on windows.

Windows development in an IDE is usually just fine, not to mention that it's
often exactly the same as running the same IDE on linux.

~~~
hackits
I found that for my development pipeline that GIT (SSH)/Conemu together worked
out really well on windows. Considering that vast majority of the time I'm
connected via a shell to a Linux mainframe and or cluster does it really
matter what I ssh into as long as its a working console?

------
konart
Might as well right why they are switching from Linux to OS X, Windows or
something else.

I've been using Ubuntu up until 10.10 (if I'm not mistaken) and then Arch (for
about 4 years). In the last two years I've gone from Android+Linux to full
Apple.

The reasons were:

1) At the time there was no notebook that could compare with MBPr (late 2013
in my case). Yes, you could have find some with the same hardware and even
same size\weight, but I haven't hold a single one of them that wouldn't creak.
Macbooks are build to be with you all them time. Other companies build them to
be compact alternative to your desktop. From what I've seen - nothing really
changed since then.

2) Free\opensouce\etc shit. Don't get me wrong - free is good, opensource is
awesome, freedom is what all people need. But not the price it comes to your
sometimes. Sometime free can be more expensive, opensource can be more
binding. One of the reasons to live linux was the number of forks of all the
libs and utils in the system. Every now and then some team splits or somebody
decides his new chrome and shiny fork is something people need and voila! you
have a zoo of this shit. Because the very next day some projects will split
because they can't come to agreement about what lib to be using now.

This is not a bliss, this is madness. When it comes to my user experience - I
don't care what lib does mpv uses and can use, or... whatever. I only care if
it does the job as well as before and I don't what all of the said forks in my
system, this is a mess.

3) As soon as I got my MBPr I realised I want to try the so called BIG A
ECOSYSTEM and bought an iPhone 6 on my birthday (my bd was on the same day the
phone came to my country).

I was amazed by the level of comfort. Everything works out of the box, the god
damn design is always consistent[1], no need to dive into python (or something
else) to seamlessly use your phone with your computer. Yes, this comes at a
price - without jailbreaking you are tied to your apps, services etc. You
can't just upload your music to your phone via usb and some other things, but
there are solutions. ONE TIME SOLUTIONS, LINUX!, not one week prior the next
update ones.

~~~
oliwarner
I'm a little bit bemused by your description in #2 as the open source
ecosystem as a zoo.

It is what you make of it. If _you_ pick brand new shiny things from unproven
teams at war with their sourcecode's origin community, you're going to see
some churn. You moved from the relative stability of Ubuntu to the _constant_
churn of Arch, which suggests you've missed the point of cadence
distributions. Newer is often not automagically better.

We've been using and developing with and deploying on Ubuntu for years now.
It's not the zoo you describe — though you are _free_ to make it one with poor
choices.

~~~
konart
Well, I was prepared to see something like this, unfortunatelly I didn't
really had time or desire to write a more detailed response.

No, that's not what _I_ made of it, but _them_

I went from Ubuntu to Arch becase they desided they are now the coolers kids
in the town and started to introduce shit like Unity and other things. Be the
time 10.10 came out - I had to rebuild 1/3 of the system to make it as nice
(in my opinion) as it should be and as it was up until they decided to fuck it
up (again - just my opinion).

Anyway - Arch was the best thing I could find among all other distros. Modular
approach, KISS, very easy to install and maintain.

The problem (both with Ubuntu and Arch, mind you) comes not with what you
described as "new shiny things from unproven teams" or "Newer is often not
automagically better.".

Here is an example for you. At some point Jim was using program A for audio
editing and program B for video editing. A used some libA library and B uses
libraries libA and libB (among many others). At some point something happened
inside the team of libA and now we have libAa and libAb. They have some
differences (obviously). Now the teams of A and B have to decided what library
to use. Fighting among them leads to new arguments about functionality and
other this and two new forks appear.

So now we have programs Aa, Ab, Ba and Bb. Now Jim, as a use of their previous
versions had to chose what to use from this moment onwards and sometimes, it
happens so that he needs all the functionality that B had, but not it is torn
between Ba and Bb. So by the end of the day he has two forks of B installed,
one fork of A, two libraries that do the same thing and he is praying nothings
starts to get in conflict with the others.

And this happens all the time.

>We've been using and developing with and deploying on Ubuntu for years now.

This makes it sound like you are talking about something that works as a
server for services or software you deploy. I'm talking about using linux at
home as working\media machine, not as a server. The latter has no such
problems (not to this extent at least)

~~~
oliwarner
I don't think you have the correct measure of me.

I use Linux everywhere. I'm a user. A developer. An Ubuntu member. An
advocate. I help people for free (Oli on Ask Ubuntu and #Ubuntu) and I also
professionally deploy desktops and servers and kiosks and single-purpose
boxes, and write software at all levels (kernel to user interface).

I sympathise with desktop nomads but _all_ desktop environments (closed and
open) are opinionated. You didn't like Ubuntu's. Neither did I; I moved to
Kubuntu. Literally a single meta-package swap, no rebuilding necessary.

I find it curious that you're allowed an opinion about desktops but the
developers who write your software aren't about the software they use.

Moreover, in a maintained ecosystem (eg Ubuntu) end users don't really have to
worry about build deps. Yeah the confusion between (eg) libav and ffmpeg can
really draw on but mostly things just work. apt install this and that and it
doesn't matter if that's Aa or Ab. As long as A installs the user is happy.
It's the maintainer's problem to keep that going.

Even on Arch —where you are exposed to more of this— the community is usually
pretty decent at fixing builds.

Now as a developer (and maintainer) _I_ get pissed off when my libraries
change their deps but that really has nothing to do with my operating system,
or even the concept of open source. It is what it is and it's built into my
workflow.

~~~
konart
I don't even try to measure you (not in any bad way at least :) )

>I find it curious that you're allowed an opinion about desktops but the
developers who write your software aren't about the software they use.

Well, first of all, I am a developer, just as they are and by any sane logic -
they are allowed to have an opinion as much as I am.

What you are describing (from my point of view at least) - is something
similar to Garbage Collector. Yeah, garbage is not okay, but we have GC to
deal with it. My point is - I don't like garbage in my room at all. Even with
GC doing it's job - sometimes 'things' do happen.

And yes - you are right about the community part. This is one of the best
things about linux, actually. Chances are as high as they can be that problem
will be reported, documented (in some way) and fixed rather quickly. You can't
compare Arch's forum (which did me more help even while I was pretty new to
Ubuntu, ironically) to Apple's forums and most of the 'have you tried to reset
your Mac's SMC & PRAM?" posts on the web.

>to do with my operating system, or even the concept of open source

But it's still part of it, face it. The fact that it is built into your
workflow does not change this fact.

I'm not advocating for moving from open to proprietary, I'm just saying, that
some people would rather prefer a system, that offers closed code, that just
works. Apple did this and you still have the same opportunity to build and
used open source on their system. I had apt-get and pacman, now I have brew.
But I don't have to worry about some configs in my system I'd rather not know
about at all.

~~~
oliwarner
> I'm just saying, that some people would rather prefer a system, that offers
> closed code, that just works. Apple did this

Again, I don't see why that only applies to open source. I've implemented both
open source and proprietary software that have changed how they work after
upgrades. Both have also provided long-term support on older versions to work
the old way.

When I say I build this into my workflow, the basis for this is understanding
how the software I depend on is maintained. Things like Ubuntu, Django, Nginx,
Postgres all have long and predictable lives if you opt into that. I can
deploy something on 16.04 today an still deploy it on 16.04 in 2021. The
infrastructure will have received security updates, but the APIs remain
static. My software will continue to work as it always did.

That's also how you'd aim to do it with proprietary software but you can still
make bad decisions. If you insist on staying on the very latest everything
(instead of opting for long term support versions) you will have to test and
upgrade your application a lot more frequently.

Just to round on Apple here, they're not perfect at this either. They make no
commitment to how long their software will be supported and on average
versions of OS X are supported around ⅔ the time Ubuntu LTS versions are.
Ubuntu (or RHEL) are far better bases if you require a predictable and long-
lasting product.

------
beagle3
I'm trying to move from Linux to OS X (after using Linux exclusively for the
last 12 years, win/lin before that), and I keep hitting things which feel
wrong, like dropping .DS_store files on every directory visited, the 30-minute
please-wait-while-we-upgrade-your-kernel which seems to happen more often than
once a month.

And I have not yet since anything that wowwed me. Linux for me "just works"
and has done so for a decade. Am I missing something? Is there are a MacOS
secret tweak utility that would get rid of these annoyances? asepsis stopped
working on Sierra.

------
72deluxe
Things missing for me on Linux:

Logic Pro X (no Ardour doesn't cut it, sorry. I even subscribed for a while).

Xcode (for iPhone/iPad development. KDevelop and Geany or Nemiver, CodeBlocks
etc. isn't going to cut it, sorry).

Ability to AirPlay to my AppleTV 3rd gen. Does anyone know anything I can
easily broadcast to from a video inside a web page? On Safari or Quicktime I
just have to click the airplay icon.

For reference, I write C++ for my dayjob and for fun (who doesn't??)

~~~
Filligree
> Xcode (for iPhone/iPad development. KDevelop and Geany or Nemiver,
> CodeBlocks etc. isn't going to cut it, sorry).

For iPhone development I'm sure you need a mac, but if you want an IDE, look
no further than IDEA. It's much better than Xcode in general, and does have a
C++ plugin. (Of course.)

> Ability to AirPlay to my AppleTV 3rd gen. Does anyone know anything I can
> easily broadcast to from a video inside a web page? On Safari or Quicktime I
> just have to click the airplay icon.

Chromecast.

~~~
chippy
> For iPhone development I'm sure you need a mac

I'm wondering, can one use a VM?

~~~
nathan_f77
Yes, it is technically possible. Search for "hackintosh".

However, there's no way to do it legally. It violates the Apple EULA. If you
ever get in trouble and take it to court, Apple will probably win:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psystar_Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psystar_Corporation)

------
tzury
Here is my setup (switched from ThinkPads/Ubuntu to MBP 5 years ago).

MacBook Pro with Ubuntu Server in VirtualBox.

All git repositories, runtime env. is linux.

Editing is done with my Editor of choice over SSHFS, editing linux files
directly.

This is the very best setup I have had for decades (yep, I am that old...).

No current Linux distro can beat Apple when it comes to stability and
peripherals support. Yet, my actual work is still runs on a native Linux as I
like.

~~~
sevagh
Is it native Linux or VirtualBox?

------
rumcajz
Somehow tangential, but OSX is pain to develop for. I am running Linux on my
laptop. If I want to test my project on OSX I would have to buy an Apple box.
So, in the end, I am left with Travis CI, which I am using in 60's way, like a
timesharing system (change code, submit, wait till it compiles, check errors,
iterate). All in all, it not much better than targetting Windows.

------
markplindsay
I am ready to do this whenever a viable alternative for Sketch becomes
available for Linux.

I already run a Ubuntu VM full-time for development. Only using VirtualBox for
Microsoft's IE VMs would be great. I suppose I could also run Illustrator in
Windows, but 2 out of 3 of the designers I work with regularly have embraced
Sketch, so I might be out of luck with that plan anyway.

------
a_lifters_life
I used to be a complete apple fan boy...until my $2,500 MacBook pro completely
bit the dust (less than 4 years old). Instead, I built a $500 Ubuntu
rig(desktop), and bought a $200 chromebook and put Ubuntu on it. Needless to
say, a month or two ago this happened, and I'll NEVER spend $xxxx again on a
MacBook again.

------
Zigurd
I recently switched in the opposite direction because I have a greater need of
using Xcode than I have of compiling Android. I'll probably install and
configure Ubuntu from scratch now that I don't have continuing need of stable
toolchains on it. But, for now, I'm liking MacOS better.

------
greenspot
I code and I like huge, crisp screens. Minimum two or better three. One for
the code, one for testing and one for API docs. If those monitors are hi-dpi,
even better (or rather a must in 2016).

With the new MBP 15 I can drive...

2x 5k 27" screen + the internal one.

 _No other notebook can do this._ Most struggle already with 2x 4K monitors.

------
gjvc
Fedora 25 is solid and compatible enough.

------
SirJohnFalstaff
I am surprised that nobody mentinoted poor quality of LLDB and especially its
integration with Python for scripting.

Along with absence of tiling window manager these will be my only complaints
when using Mac as development environment.

------
phreack
I would love switching away from the royal pain that is OSX and the
increasingly worse MacBooks, but alas, I work in iOS development and making a
hackintosh is too much of a gray area and fragile. I hate that lock in.

------
hoodoof
No one said they are.

This article makes the assertion with pure zero facts to back it up.

------
cxromos
The only thing that makes me wonder is how this piece got 168 points (at the
moment of writing this). I hope YC is not going to catch populism (mediocracy)
that being a 'trend'.

------
shams93
I see more young developers on Chromebooks and that's not because they hate
Apple it's because the la tech marketplace hates to pay them enough to afford
a MacBook pro

------
Bladtman
Are there any of those just-now-or.recently-switching devs in here? It would
be interesting to hear their opinion, rather than guesswork.

~~~
hookshot
This is my first week back on Linux after using OSX for ~4 years. I switched
because it's cheaper. I needed more power and building a Linux desktop is way
cheaper than buying Mac hardware.

So far: KDE is incredibly nice. I'm pretty blown away. Aesthetically I
actually like it more than Aqua. The file manager is nice, the terminal is
fine, there is a spotlight style search, virtual desktops, pretty much
everything I would miss moving from OSX.

I miss 1Password the most. Right now I'm using a CLI client (passcards) to
access my 1Password vault. I haven't setup notes yet but it seems like there
are decent Notational Velocity alternatives. Relearning muscle memory to use
CTRL instead of CMD is painful. I'm wasting a lot of time tweaking keyboard
shortcuts.

~~~
Bladtman
Interesting. So for you the change was on desktop, not laptops. What changed
you mind wrt price? I wasn't under the impression that apple computers have
gotten more expensive than they were before?

------
djhworld
I'm too entrenched in OSX to move, to put it bluntly. I have bought a lot of
software that is OSX only

------
HugoDaniel
If you are a web developer how do you test for safari outside of OSX ?

~~~
_ZeD_
I personally just ignore safari altogether. It's a "zero point something
percent" of the clients in my works.

~~~
therealmarv
Seems you are not working on world wide mobile reachable websites where e.g.
most of US users are browsing with Safari.

~~~
GordonS
_most_ US users? Really?

~~~
therealmarv
taken the fact that many people nowadays surf only on mobile look here for
yourself: [http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-US-
monthly-201512-...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-US-
monthly-201512-201612)

------
davout
Try "brew install valgrind", you'll understand.

------
diimdeep
Alan Kay: 'People who are really serious about software should make their own
hardware.' This is why no one not even close to macOS and Macbook synergy.

------
dorian-graph
Betteridge's law of headlines—and this article seems to have no substance
either, a couple of sentences and then some links to some other blogs.

------
k0dede
Typical Hacker news BullSHIT. Start with a 'WHY', lets make a discussion about
nonsense

------
st3v3r
Isn't the new MBP one of the best selling laptops of recent? And I'm honestly
not seeing anything in the little blurb of an article that states concretely
that this is happening in significant numbers.

------
jhoechtl
Mac is overpriced and hyperbole. All the innovation happens in Linux these
days. Except for overpaid fanboys which can brag around how cool they are,
Macs make no sense from a developer perspective.

