
The desktop and the developer - ekianjo
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/31714.htm
======
davexunit
I've used OS X at work for the past 2 years and I completely disagree that OS
X is nice for developers. I've had a lot of issues that I wouldn't have had if
I was using a GNU/Linux distro like Debian. Major issues with GCC after
certain updates, outdated GNU software like bash, brew is barely acceptable as
a package manager (can't hold a candle to dpkg/apt), and I have to go to
websites to get the installers for most big programs (Emacs, Firefox, others)
like I'm using Windows anyway. I don't like like the desktop environment,
either. The window manager is subpar and the virtual desktops are lacking
compared to what you get with most GNU/Linux DEs.

I know that a lot of people disagree with me because I see developers with
macbooks all the time, but imo OS X is not a good environment for hackers on a
purely technical level (ignoring the issues of proprietary software).

~~~
Swizec
As someone who's been using OSX full-time for the past two years, and using it
in conjuction with a Linux-based desktop computer for the previous ~5.

Yes.

Linux is insanely better for development. But OSX is just passable enough that
the form-factor of an Apple laptop wins out and I can work. I don't want to go
back to using two computers and OSX is _much_ better at everyday non-developer
stuff than any Linux I've ever used so I make do with bad package managers and
random compilation issues.

Pray god that I never have to wipe my hard drive though. Getting all the
random libraries and whatnot that I've accumulated over the years would be a
pain in the arse. (I've been dragging the same backups forward ever since I
got my first mac)

PS: do start using Oh-My-Zsh. Your life will be better.

~~~
eyko
> Pray god that I never have to wipe my hard drive though. Getting all the
> random libraries and whatnot that I've accumulated over the years would be a
> pain in the arse.

Something there doesn't sound right (and brings up questions about how do you
even manage so many random libraries and whatnot).

Dependency and package management isn't that difficult and when I wipe my
hdd/ssd it usually takes me some 30 minutes to get my generic environment
bootstrapped and up to date (with a mixture of shell scripts and brew install
`my-package-list.txt`). After that, each project takes few minutes to download
all deps/libs with some dependency management tool.

Just the same way I would imagine that you've got your oh-my-zsh config
version controlled (speaking of oh-my-zsh, I'd like to also mention
prezto[0]!)

0: [https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto](https://github.com/sorin-
ionescu/prezto)

~~~
Swizec
It's more about superstition. My laptop works right now ... mostly ... I don't
want to poke at it unless I have a very good reason.

Because something always breaks and then you are in a world of pain as in this
XKCD about setting up dual-booting with BSD
[http://xkcd.com/349/](http://xkcd.com/349/)

~~~
sitkack
I am actually the opposite. I have had brittle setups in the past and I found
myself trying less and less because the past was becoming more precious.

Now I destroy and recreate as often as feasible. Never go more than a 9 months
w/o a rebuild.

------
chroma
Many are baffled that OS X is so popular among developers. Likewise, many OS X
users don't understand why someone would deal with Linux on a laptop. Those
who do this are committing the typical mind fallacy[1]. Not everyone has the
same preferences. One might as well be confused that some people like vanilla
more than chocolate.

I think many commenters in this thread could benefit from taking a step back
and remembering just how unimportant this arguing is. Just use what you like
and don't put-down others for using what they like.

1\.
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/)

~~~
ds9
Thanks for saying that. It's remarkable that so many writers will declare a
subjective preference as if it were an objective fact ("$SOME_UI is so
ugly!").

Although I also agree with "remembering just how unimportant this arguing is",
I'll illustrate by providing a counterexample to the Fine Article's idea that
OSX is "an aesthetically pleasing OS". My idea of an esthetically pleasing UI
is one with text labels instead of icons, relatively direct access to all
information and controls, and a lot less of the shiny accents, animations,
forced mousing, and other decorative, annoying or obstructive junk.

I'd also like a laptop with the keyboard in front and the trackpad behind, but
apparently I'm a freak or something.

~~~
pestaa
Never thought about having they keyboard and trackpad switch places, but it
surely sounds great in theory. (Well, only for those of us keyboard-centric
users, anyway.)

~~~
ANTSANTS
I mentioned this somewhere else in this thread, but before touchpads, most
laptops had either a nub (like the kind that Thinkpads still have today) or no
mouse at all, and the keyboard was almost always on the lower edge. It really
was great for typing.

[http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ibm-
thinkpad-750c.jpg](http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ibm-thinkpad-750c.jpg)

I wonder how feasible it would be to gut one of these things and update its
internals (big fat battery and a small ARM SBC, maybe).

~~~
pestaa
The keyboard resembles mechanical keys in my mind. A bit too thick of a
machine, but otherwise looks more usable than what we have today.

------
gooseyard
I like OSX on a laptop because it's the only portable machine I've ever used
where everything works correctly when I am constantly opening and closing the
lid of the machine. At work I will leave my desk several times per day for
meetings in conference rooms, then I take the machine home and I may open and
close it a dozen more times in the evening.

I've probably had 50 laptops over the last 20 years, and the only one I've had
that approached the number of successful suspend resume cycles with Windows or
Linux were Thinkpads, although even with Windows, there's a whole world of
pathological resume behavior. Sometimes they'll just sit there, sometimes they
never wake up. Sometimes you close it and then reopen it a second time and
then it magically wakes up. The worst cases are when the video comes back but
the sound doesn't, and you're faced with living without the sound for a while
or enduring a reboot. I feel like this is the fundamental thing that a laptop
is supposed to do and it is disheartening to have used these machines this
long and to still have endless problems with it.

That being said, all I use the MBP for is to ssh into my Linux desktop machine
(Debian), where my tools are. Occasionally people suggest to me that the linux
distros are pretty good on the MBP, but I've had such a bad history with Linux
on laptops and I'm getting to be an old fart now and I lack the enthusiasm for
fiddling around with the machine for several weeks to get everything working
right, so OSX is a (albeit outrageously expensive, at the treat of my
employer) compromise :)

~~~
collyw
Am I the only person out there who hasn't got a clue what the point in suspend
/ hibernate are for. Whenever I use them, it seems to take longer to boot than
a complete restart, and half of the times it doesn't boot, and if it does,
there is a good chance something is not working.

~~~
losvedir
No, there are probably other Linux / Windows users who are similarly confused.
:-p

Among Mac users, your comment is hard to understand, though. We don't have
"suspend" or "hibernate" so we don't think about that. Want to relocate? You
close the lid, no thought about it. Get to the new place? Open the lid, and
your mac is operational instantaneously - literally as soon as the lid is
fully open. Of course, the laptop was in power-save mode while you were
relocating, but you don't think of that.

~~~
saurik
If the Mac laptop starts running out of power while asleep it will in fact
hibernate; when it comes back it will display a progress bar as it reloads the
contents of memory from disk. (Being able to explicitly tell the system "I
know I won't be using you for the rest of the day, please just hibernate so
you have tons of battery when I turn you back on next" is something I miss
from Windows.)

------
jrajav
Missing a killer feature here, at least for me: High-DPI support. No
environment on Linux deals with high-DPI adequately yet. Between that and the
other big one mentioned in the article, multitouch trackpad support, there is
simply no way I can compromise. There isn't really anything else tying me down
to OS X, but those two are huge. They're the only major changes I've seen in
my workflow and desktop experience in the past ten years aside from general
performance.

~~~
Touche
Gnome 3 is pretty close for HiDPI. So all of the default applications look
great. It's still a bit of an issue that Chrome and Firefox are almost
unusable so I've been using Epiphany and liking that.

~~~
aeflash
Chrome has a ways to go before it fully supports HiDPI in linux, but in
Firefox, all I did was set layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to 1.5 or 2.0 in
about:config and everything scaled perfectly, UI and all.

In Chrome you can set the default zoom for pages, but you will have tiny tabs.

------
Haul4ss
I think there are additional reasons MacBooks are more popular.

Certainly you can't ignore the bandwagon effect. All the cool kids have
MacBooks. I'm not saying that's why everyone owns one, but you can't discount
it as a reason.

Also, the hardware is really nice. I know I'm making Stallman cringe when I
say it, but Apple makes products that are enjoyable to use. And if you're
going to use the Apple hardware, OS X is the path of least resistance.

Lastly, and the author does touch on this, OS X is nice because it can be used
"both ways" \- it has a pretty GUI, and it has keyboard shortcuts,
programmability, and "Unixness" built in. I haven't come across a Linux/BSD
desktop environment that I can use in my hacker's way, and my wife can use in
her point-and-click way.

~~~
harel
I think today you'll be cooler not using a mac... Herd mentality causes the
non mac user to be the new 'individual free thinking anarchist'

~~~
pyre
Is everyone that is 'cool' an 'individual free-thinking anarchist' nowadays?

~~~
harel
Modified Simpsons quote

------
tragic
It's interesting to see the disparity between the comments here and on the
post. Nearly everyone below the line on the post is a Linux refugee that's
pitched up on a Mac. Here, not so much.

For my part, I have always had a deeply-rooted and entirely irrational hatred
of Apple products. OK, the retina screens are nice. Trackpads are usable - but
I hate trackpads anyway and always carry a proper mouse around, so no win
there. (What happened to those little joystick-type thingies that used to
stick out of laptop keyboards, anyway? I liked them.)

But I'm just about old enough to have mostly owned and used desktop PCs. And
those desktop PCs have all been custom builds. I'm typing this on a slightly
ramshackle Lenovo laptop, which is obviously not a custom build - but I can
take the back off it and fool around if I so choose. I've never used
particularly outre specialist components or anything; but in some
fundamentally irrational way, having, _in principle_ , an absolute say so on
what's inside my computer is important to me. Apple's entire business model is
antithetical to that. And while I see plenty of satisfied Apple customers
among my friends and family, I also see them forking out endless money to
Apple support for trivial fixes because of it.

(And I won't be buying Lenovo again, because I do not expect my BIOS to be
password protected, and not be provided with the password. :-) )

~~~
AceJohnny2
> (And I won't be buying Lenovo again, because I do not expect my BIOS to be
> password protected, and not be provided with the password. :-) )

Are you referring to UEFI? If so, what do you mean about not being provided
the password? Doesn't it either provide an interface to put your own keys or
at least switch to legacy mode?

~~~
tragic
I mean: I try to get into the BIOS, and I'm asked to enter a password, which
I've not been given. Never had this problem with any other computer company.

I thought it might just be the dodgy vendor I got it from, but my girlfriend
ordered a Twist from the official Lenovo site, and has the same issue. Which,
because she's in the brave new Win8 SecureBoot era, stops her from installing
an OS she hates less than Win8.

Unless either of us are prepared to spend hours on tech support being passed
around, anyways.

Shame, as the machines are nice. You can't beat a good keyboard... I'm all for
being secure, but I would like it if my computer didn't presumptively consider
_me_ to be an attack vector.

~~~
tim333
That's kind of weird that Lenovo would do that with the BIOS password thing.
I've owned a few Lenovos and it would put me off getting another one.

------
fit2rule
If there were a Linux laptop with the same physical characteristics as my
rMBP, I'd swap in a heartbeat.

For me, its all about unibody. Screen quality. Trackpad touch and feel.
Keyboard comfort. The rMBP fits the bill for all of these things - I'm _NOT_
content with OSX as an operating system, however, this is just something I put
up with (and since I run my Linux dev environment in a VM, big deal anyway).
I'm certainly _not_ a typical Mac user - I spend 99% of the time in the
terminal.

I've looked at the Google Pixel series, and some of those look like they come
pretty close - except I have no desire to use a Google operating system, of
course .. and they're just not available locally, like the rMBP's are. But if
there were a manufacturer who puts together a machine that has the physical
characteristics of the rMBP, I'd happily abandon Apple hardware in an instant.

~~~
Snoooze
Yes, this article really fails to mention the superior build quality of the
MPB, which I think is one of the biggest reasons they are popular

~~~
Jhsto
I really did look around at OEM laptops when I was deciding what to buy. I
wanted a laptop which would run Unix, but besides of Dell I could not find
any. I was afraid that Chromebook would not have provided the hardware I
wanted and I did not to pay extra for Windows license, which I'd never use
anyway. After that, I think there were still Lenovo Yoga 2, Samsung Series 9
and rMBP on my list. However, after reading articles about the laptops, I
found that Lenovo had bad battery life and buying Series 9 or rMBP would
basically pay me the same. At this point Apple's aesthetic product won my
choice, given that Series 9 could have problems with Linux drivers and it
still had the unused Windows license shipped with it.

So now I have Windows/Ubuntu on dualboot on PC and a Mac laptop. I feel like
the Mac is basically the Unix I wanted, without the crappy window manager of
Ubuntu. However, the single thing I've loved so far has not been a hardware or
aesthetic manner, but rather how Mac opens windows as it boots up from where I
left. I never even knew that was possible, but I feel like it has increased my
productivity a lot.

~~~
dkhenry
When I was shopping for a new labtop I initially settled on the Series 9, but
when the 2013 rMBP's came out they really trumped the Series 9 in the hardware
department so I returned the Series 9 and got a rMBP. The good thing is that
the Series 9 was just as good build quality, and had excellent battery life.
Also it was priced well and I think its part of the reason the 2013 crop of
Macbooks had to come down in price the way they did.

I think shortly we will see the monopoly that Apple has on high end well
designed laptops will come to an end.

~~~
MatthiasP
I was in a similar situation a year ago and decided to go with the Series 9
with Full HD screen instead of a MBPr.

The weight advantage of the Series 9 and the screen are nice, but battery
life, keyboard and trackpad are way behind Apple's quality. My next laptop
will come from Apple and i don't see any competitor coming close any time
soon. Samsung will drop out of the laptop market in 2015 alltogether btw.

------
p4bl0
I'm not sure what to think of this blog post. Do anyone really recognize
himself or herself in the described developers?

It's not even about Mac OS X vs GNU/Linux, I'm not using any desktop
environment on my computers (no Gnome, KDE, XFCE, …), my graphical environment
is composed of a minimal windows manager and a small taskbar. I don't need
anything else. I just checked and I don't even have a graphical file browser
installed on my laptop which I've been using it for several years now. I spend
my time in terminals, Emacs, and my web browser.

I know that this is not the case of every person who's working with computers,
but I also know quite a few people in my surroundings who use the same kind of
environment (and to my knowledge we're all pretty pleased with our hardware),
so I'm convinced that I'm not an exception either.

~~~
Theodores
What is that 'minimal windows manager' and what is the benefit of it over
Unity (which to me is a few icons down the left and a few icons +
notifications in the top right)?

~~~
symmetricsaurus
I cannot speak for gp but I use tiling window managers when I use Linux.
Usually they do not work so well with desktop environments, or it to much
effort to get them to work properly.

The big advantage of tiling vms is that you always use the whole screen area
without having to only use maximized windows. You can easily split the screen
into several areas where you can put windows. Another advantage is that they
are usually keyboard driven so that it is possible to launch, close and
arrange windows without using the mouse.

The one I like best is wmii, which has a brilliant column system combined with
tags instead of workspaces(i. e. a window can have several tags instead of
only one workspace). Nowadays I use i3 since it is a bit more modern but so
far I find that the usability is not quite as good.

~~~
dllthomas
_" Another advantage is that they are usually keyboard driven so that it is
possible to launch, close and arrange windows without using the mouse."_

It's strictly possible to do this in most non-tiling window managers. The key
difference is that arranging windows with the keyboard is not just possible
but significantly more practical.

------
harel
I just don't get how OSX is so popular with a developers. It is essentially a
"user's" OS. Not a developer one. Its geared towards, and hides a lot from,
the common user. Setting up OSX with all the dev stack is usually a painful
experience requiring a few workarounds (I see this with colleagues of mine who
wanted a Mac over a Thinkpad with Linux). The keyboard as well is anythign but
developer friendly. Where are those damn Page Up/Down keys? Yes the hardware
itself looks nice, albeit a bit outdated to my liking, and you pay a silly
premium for it. It breaks more often than it should, and those shiny screens
just don't fit code (to my matte liking eyes anyway). But hey, its trendy and
hip so why not.

~~~
danieldk
_I just don 't get how OSX is so popular with a developers. It is essentially
a "user's" OS._

I have been a Linux user from 1994 to 2007 (mostly Slackware, some Debian and
CentOS later), Mac from 2007. I switched to OS X, because: (1) I don't want to
mess with hardware and drivers anymore; (2) I don't want to update my whole
operating system to update applications; (3) in my work environment people do
use Microsoft Office et al.,; (4) the hardware is nice; and (5) I have nothing
against Windows, but it is not a UNIX, so not for me.

If some of the advantages go away, I'd be happy to switch back to Linux.

~~~
sonofsam
| (2) I don't want to update my whole operating system to update applications;

This is huge. IMO, this is the purpose of an operating system. I want to
install applications, I do not want to waste time installing new versions of
my operating system.

The main focus of Linux distributions should be to make as many applications
as possible available to the user and make them easily available.

That being said, Docker has changed this a bit for me, but most Linux
distributions still fall flat on their faces when it comes to installing non-
packaged applications. Sometimes I find myself having to download applications
from websites, manually configure them or even compile software myself.

Basically, the file system hierarchy should had been versioned from the start:

    
    
      /
        programs
           vim
              7.1
              7.2
              7.3
    

Instead, you have a single 'vim' binary that gets overwritten if you try to
install another version of vim (unless someone renamed the binary for you).

The FHS is a disaster that every distribution tries to implement differently:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard)

~~~
krakensden
Gobolinux implements exactly this.

It's never really taken off.

------
glogla
> But even if we fixed all those things, why would somebody migrate?

I would. Desktop Linux has many great features, like actual tiling WM, SOTA
filesystems, cheap virtualization for development, or that all software is
managed the same way, instead of the mess that is OS X and Windows where some
software is managed using brew, some using packages, some take care of updates
by itself, some doesn't, etc.

------
MattyRad
I have been using Ubuntu as my sole desktop for the past 5 years (except when
I play games on Windows), and have just landed a job that requires I use a
Mac. It has been incredibly painful trying to do what is normally trivial in
Linux.

But to be fair, I realize that I'm the hardcore Linux user who still goes out
of his way tweak every little detail with Compiz and ensure that my keyboard
shortcuts are all explicitly created. If others are given the choice between
Mac, Windows, and Linux, Mac is the most consistent experience with both
hardware and software, and I can regrettably understand their choice. I don't
mean to go on a rant about Macs, I just want to mention that I've recently
been forced to do subject the author's article.

~~~
cgore
I'm in a similar situation. My new job is an all-mac shop, which is funny
because we are mostly writing software for Linux boxes out in the Internet. I
didn't mind though, because they bought me about $5,200 worth of mac equipment
to keep. I've been using BSD and then later Linux since 1999, and that was
about the last time I used a mac, OS 7. I was expecting to somewhat dislike
it, but they do Clojure and I wanted to go that way. I really have enjoyed the
change though, and even bought an iPhone.

------
sz4kerto
I had been using Linux for years before finally buying a rMBP -- and it took
another four months to install Windows 8.1 on it. Any OS has it's problems,
and the question is how easy it is to overcome them. Windows does not have a
nice console interface, but everything else is fast and frictionless, there
are practically no driver problems, etc. I can more ore less work around the
lack of proper console (learning PowerShell helped a lot). On Linux, I had the
fantastic, tweakable, console-centric world but I cannot make the GPU drivers
to have better power management or implement proper audio-over-HDMI. Also, I
cannot make my own Google Drive or OneDrive client.

So it's very sad, really. :(

~~~
iaskwhy
As a Windows user that needs to hack around every now and then, I can't
recommend enough having something like cmder (or just Conemu) plus Vagrant
(and a Ubuntu VM, for example) or a playground on a cheap VPS like
DigitalOcean. You get to use Windows and Linux at the same time without any
major cons.

~~~
kijin
I also use Windows + Linux VM. Virtually all development happens in the VM.

Since I don't need to run anything other than a bunch of terminals in the VM,
I can use a lightweight DE that is lightening-fast and very light on
resources. A few more tweaks, and you can make LXTerminal feel almost like a
native Windows program.

Add a few Windows gizmos to that, like Dexpot for multiple desktops and crazy
keyboard shortcuts. Now you've got a top-notch DE that no FOSS offering can
rival so far (at least in my opinion).

------
yitchelle
Sometimes, the choice of OS comes down to the availability of tools to do your
work. I work in an embedded environment with esoteric compilers and debuggers.
Trying to get the vendors to support them in an OS other than Windows in
impossible. So I am living in Windows land for my daily work. I use OSX at
home, and I cannot really say if my productivity level would go up if the
embedded tools were available under OSX.

Having said that, I have migrated to Win7 (on a Lenovo T430 with a SSD)
towards the end of last year. For a office workhorse, this setup is one of
most productive setup I have used in years!

------
pconner
At the beginning of the article, the author is too quick to dismiss the
aesthetic and functional merits of a modern Linux installation. My < $300
chromebook can currently run two variations of Linux, both with aesthetically
pleasing desktops and a comfortable trackpad with great multitouch support.
This also didn't require much (if any) messing around with settings to
achieve.

~~~
frik
A HTML5 based graphical shell based on ChromiumOS/FirefoxOS could be _the
solution_ for Linux _desktop_.

KDE 1-3 and Gnome 1 were a good desktop environment. I don't get why some devs
prefer to rewrite good things. KDE 4 and Gnome 3 hurt the Linux desktop and
users are searching for alternatives
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4#Reception](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4#Reception)
,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_2#GNOME_3](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_2#GNOME_3)
)

~~~
cmiles74
I don't agree that the later KDE and Gnome releases where steps backwards, in
fact I think they've made solid progress towards matching OSX and Windows in
terms of ease-of-use. On the other hand, this could be exactly the problem. It
does seem that the more the Linux environments pursue the same goals as OSX
and Windows, the stronger the backlash.

~~~
collyw
Windows 8 was a huge step backwards in usability. I had to use it for a couple
of weeks before I figured out how to get Linux on a new laptop secure boot. I
am using XFCE these days, because it behaves the way I am used to. No need to
learn a whole new set of gestures or click combinations to do what I already
know.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
Windows 8 is a huge step forward in my opinion. It's faster and more stable
than 7, the touch drivers work great (I use desktop apps all the time on my
Surface Pro and Dell Venue Pro 8) and it's paved the way for running Windows
on non-Intel chips as well as for converging the desktop and mobile which is
something that I want.

Right now I don't care about the Metro interface at all - 99% of the time, I
only see it when I use the Start screen, which is fantastic and works much,
much better than the old Start menu despite the loss of recent-document jump
lists per app. But, I can see a huge potential in Metro.

------
jiggy2011
There is still plenty of software missing from Linux that you would want for
the average web developer workflow. For example whilst there are graphical Git
clients available, there's nothing as polished as SourceTree or Tower
available. Same thing with database GUIs.

Also anybody who works with designers is probably going to have to interact
with .PSD files at some point and GIMP isn't always an adequate tool.

~~~
stcredzero
_For example whilst there are graphical Git clients available, there 's
nothing as polished as SourceTree or Tower available._

What's wrong with GitX-dev (rowanj fork)?

~~~
jiggy2011
That seems to be OS X only.

------
tomp
For me, Macbook (1) is light, (2) has a trackpad more useful than a mouse, (3)
lasts for hours, and (4) is reasonably performant (retina display, quad-core,
8GB ram, SSD). I use a terminal, a packet manager, and a browser, so the only
thing I demand from an OS is (5) multiple desktops, (6) multitouch, and (7)
getting out of my way (no need to tweak settings, compatible with USB/WiFi).

If I knew I could get a similar hardware with an open-source OS, I would
switch in an instant. Last time I looked into Google laptops, they had drives
too small to be useful for development without internet connectivity.

~~~
mrweasel
It's really hard to find laptops of similar quality to the MacBook (Pro/Air).
Of cause you could install an alternative OS on the hardware, but you'd get
worse performance.

I really like Mac OS X, it does what I need and looks okay. Pretty much all
the tools I use are available cross platform. If I where to replace it, it
would be with one of the BSDs. I don't like Linux as much as I once did, I
think it has become rather messy.

------
fideloper
"The problem goes deeper"

Virtual machines are now more easy to use than ever. Your host OS matters less
and less.

Furthermore, Linux flavored OSes don't support the "secondary" applications we
require that Macintoshes do - Microsoft Word/Excel, Photoshop...and working
sound card drivers.

~~~
cmiles74
Kind of on the same riff as the article, it seems like tighter integration
between virtual machines and the desktop environment could be another place
where the Linux desktop could enjoy an advantage. This is an area that we're
unlikely to see Microsoft or Apple touch, as it's so developer-centric.

It's not hard to imagine what something like this might look like. QubesOS[0]
is doing interesting things in this space, although their concentration is
clearly on security and security researchers rather than developers (and
definitely not the average end-user).

[0]: [http://qubes-os.org/trac](http://qubes-os.org/trac)

~~~
amatheus
What kind of integration? At Desktop level VMWare Fusion is very integrated
into OS X.

------
keypusher
> If the desktop had built-in awareness of the issue tracker

And that's where this lost my vote. I don't want my desktop to have built in
awareness of my issue tracker. My desktop should have no concept of what an
issue tracker even is. Simple tools that compose well to offer complex
functionality in the Unix philosophy. Not monolithic design which tries to
anticipate and integrate with my development workflow, because it will
inevitably get my workflow wrong. I like having these tools as standalone
applications, because that means it is very easy to switch from Jira to
Redmine, or from Git to Mercurial, or from vim to IntelliJ. I want my desktop
to know about serving, resizing, and refreshing windows. I want my web browser
to know about rendering html. I do not want my display manager to crash
because we upgraded the bugzilla version on our server.

I do have problems with OSX, but they are primarily the result of not having
any decent package management system, and is a discussion for another day.

------
pcunite
I use Windows 7 to write for Linux. The real story here is that even
developers don't want to write code in Linux for Linux.

~~~
famblycat
I'm on Windows 7 and use a Linux VM, where I actually do all the development.
I love the command line, but still haven't found a Linux GUI I'm as
comfortable in as Windows. Ubuntu was getting close there for a while, but
then they went to Unity, which I tried to like, but ended up pretty much
loathing.

~~~
adarshr
I think you must try Cinnamon
[[http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/](http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/)]

~~~
collyw
Cinnamon is a nice mix of pretty, and practical, and not needing to relearn
everything. but it has a habit of chewing up lots of CPU for no apparent
reason and more recently my work machine would half freeze (the mouse would
move, but nothing else would work). Moved to XFCE, and it is great. Not as
pretty, but works in a traditional way (windows 98 XP sort of style). Its fast
and stable.

In my opinion it shows that most "innovation" in desktops over the last few
years have actually been a step backwards.

------
hrktb
The macbook is almost dismissed as an ersatz of linux desktop. I don't think
it's a fair assessment. I had a linux desktop, I worked a lot on windows as
well, I was glad to be able to switch to OSX because it's the best balance
between a very polished OS with strong applications (MS Office, Photoshop
etc.) and a decent command line and unix compatibility.

Customability is enough when it comes to the dev environment: the default
installed tools are not optimal, but installing a second, third set of tools
with brew for instance is a no brainer, and keeping an linux VM handy solves
most other needs. Having an optimize windown manager doesn't feel so crucial
when adding physical screens solves most of the switching issues.

I really think OSX is the best logical choice to develop for the web or
iPhone/android.

------
wangweij
I've used Mac for 8 years (since the 1st gen Intel MacBook) but now I really
want to run away. My current Mac is a server-level 2013 i7 Mac Mini with 8G
RAM. It's not uncommon for me to run Mail, SubLime Text, IntelliJ IDEA and one
or two VirtualBox guests on it, and then CPU goes high, the whole machine
slows down, and fan produces loud noises. On the other hand, my ThinkPad
running Windows 8.1 with a similar hardware spec can handle them smoothly. I
agree Mac is more developer friendly than Windows, but doing daily developing
work with cygwin/SubLime Text/IntelliJ IDEA is almost identical on both
platforms. I admit I'll try installing Linux if I make the decision to switch
to the ThinkPad as my main desktop.

~~~
elwesties
Why not get a new MBP if you want a work horse notebook. Yes im sure you can
give me reasons but you should at least compare apples with apples.

~~~
wangweij
The Mini is a 2.3GHz Intel Core i7 with 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3. A new MBP could
have more RAM but only the highest 15' model has a matching CPU.

Edit: I work from home so mobility is not really crucial.

------
jasonkostempski
Linux desktop is great, most devs probably want the option to do iOS and
Windows work if needed. I think OSX is ok but a Mac is the only option if you
want to cover it all. The track pad is nice as far as track pads go but all
track pads become painful after extended use.

~~~
baldfat
If someone wants to work on iOS and Android you either buy one laptop (OSX) or
you have to buy a mac mini. Wish there were another solution.

~~~
markmark
It's against the license but OSX runs fine in a VM under windows.

------
pjmlp
Ever since I moved away from C++ into JVM/.NET land, my work laptops have
always been Windows based, regardless of the server environment.

For .NET projects, Windows dependecy is a clear one.

For JVM projects, thanks to the JVM portability, the operating system only
matters in terms of whole infrastructure, but not really for the application
itself.

So we are able to use all our GUI based tools, take the build artifacts and
deploy it anywhere.

Thanks to the new BYOD policy, some guys moved to Mac OS X. But no one has
GNU/Linux on their desktops, except on Virtual Box and VMWare instances.

We are all old enough to remember the days when GNU/Linux did not exist and
quite comfortable in UNIX environments, however we don't feel like tweaking
stuff any longer.

------
rdl
Plenty of people moved _from_ Linux and BSD _to_ OSX for a wide variety of
reasons, especially for laptops. I'd consider a non-mac workstation for
serious desktop use, and OSX for servers is essentially insane (I actually
have one mini in colo though, in addition to linux and freebsd servers). I've
been using Unix OSes since ~1990, and a laptop since mid 1990s running Linux
and FreeBSD.

90% of what I do is in terminal and in a web browser. Sublime Text gets a lot
of the rest. But I still want Photoshop/Lightroom, Keynote, etc.

I generally use local VMs (I find VMware Fusion to be better than e.g.
VirtualBox), but also use MacPorts. I wish I could get 32-64GB in a Mac
laptop, though.

~~~
jyu
I too yearn for the 32-64GB Mac laptop. Usually I'm in front of an iMac,
spinning up AWS instances for parallelizable and time insensitive tasks. What
kind of setup do you typically use?

~~~
rdl
I just use a 16GB Mac laptop and have a 48GB non-mac workstation at home, and
bigger RAM stuff in colo. What I really want is an office with 10GE on nLayer
to the colo or something.

------
tim333
Just as an aside after reading this I went to debug an android app.
Instructions for connecting your phone:

OSX: "If you're developing on Mac OS X, it just works. Skip this step."

Ubuntu: the instructions run on for 59 lines including things like 'Use this
format to add each vendor to the file: SUBSYSTEM=="usb",
ATTR{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666", GROUP="plugdev" '

I guess if you use an non Ubuntu linux you kind of figure it out on your own.
I quite like the OSX way.
([http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html](http://developer.android.com/tools/device.html))

------
jaegerpicker
Two big reasons I think Mac OSX is so popular with devs: 1.) There are better
graphical tools/apps available for OSX then any other OS. Kaldeoscope, Tower,
SourceTree(also for windows), Atom(coming soon to other platforms), iTunes,
many more games available for down time, evernote client, tweetbot, sequel
pro, pattern, and imessage are just some of the better apps that are aren't
available or have poor alternates on other OSes. 2.) A rMBP is the best
machine available if you want to develop mobile apps. It's one machine that
allows you to build an app for any mobile device out there.

~~~
ClashTheBunny
I really think that this is the answer. There is no other way to create iOS
apps today. You must own an Apple branded computer to do so and for that
reason there are always going to be a high percentage of people with a MacBook
of some sort just to do the compile.

I can spin up a VM of Linux on anything, but I can't legally do the same with
OS X without having the hardware.

------
dbbolton
>what's easily the best trackpad hardware/driver combination on the market.

I've had a very positive experience with Synaptics on Linux. 99% of the more
"advanced" features that people are likely to care about (two-finger scroll,
two- and three-finger tap, vertical/horizontal scroll margins, corner hot
buttons, etc.) are fully supported and easily configured with a simple file,
and there is even a GUI to do it for you.

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Adva...](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Touchpad_Synaptics#Advanced_configuration)

>Linux's poorer multitouch handling is enough on its own to disrupt their
workflow.

I never do any serious work on a multitouch device, so I can't speak to this.
It's something I would never even think to worry about because it wouldn't
affect my workflow.

>A combination of improved desktop polish and spending effort on optimising
developer workflows

I'm not sold on this. "Polish" is completely subjective, but I think modern
Linux desktops are quite polished. Take Mint Cinnamon, Netrunner, and
Elementary for example. We've certainly come a long way since the era Gnome 2
and KDE 3. I imagine that's what a lot of non-Linux techies think of when they
hear "Linux desktop".

As far as "developer workflow", I really don't think the author made a strong
case as to how Apple wins in this category. Seems about as subjective as
polish.

What I'd like to know is which platform more developers would use if prestige
and peer pressure were completely removed from the equation.

------
programminggeek
It's not just the developer. It's most people who end up using Linux. It's not
as good of a UX or UI. The hardware you can even get it on out of the box
isn't amazing.

Most importantly, there is a weird anti-Ubuntu sentiment around their efforts
to build a better user experience that is making even less likely that
developers are going to rally around Linux anytime soon.

------
josephlord
There are benefits in the develop and test on one platform (test again and)
deploy on another. That way you naturally create portable software.

Also the difference between the developer's desktop and the deployment machine
may be significant even if both are Linux there might be differences between
the libraries and utilities so using a Mac doesn't necessarily make it harder.

Use what you are comfortable with. Having used a Linux desktop for a while
I've switched to OS X for the moment, I spend less time setting it up and
trying alternative DE's. I also develop for iOS so I need it for the moment. I
am glad Linux is there if OS X development direction doesn't suit me in future
and I have Linux on my home server which is what I would use if I wanted a
current GCC.

~~~
octopus
You can run GCC 4.9.0 side by side Clang just fine on OS X.

------
vojant
I use OS X since 2 years but only for Skype, Spotify, Browser etc because apps
looks much nicer on OS X than Linux. My whole dev environment is on linux
based virtual machine. This way I have nice looking laptop but my dev
environment is really close to production environment.

~~~
tirant
Precisely, Skype, Spotify and the browser (Chrome/Firefox) look practically
the same on all operating systems.

~~~
vojant
Skype looks ugly under Ubuntu and there is no new version of Spotify on
ubuntu.

------
davidbanham
I moved from Linux to OSX a few years ago. The only reason was that I needed
better access to Office in order to deal with my investors and CFO.

That's less of an issue these days, but the thing that keeps me on OSX now is
the hardware. The new Lenovo units do look lovely, though.

------
thibauts
I have pretty much the same opinion as the OP. Linux is in dire need of a DE
that is at least on par with its internals. What strikes me is that what's
good about linux structure essentially pre-dates it. I wonder if the open-
source community is up to the task of making a breakthrough in this space. I'd
love to see a large scale DE project take shape around, maybe, a metaphor or a
concept that puts linux in reach for casual users while still pleasing
developers alike. I'm pretty sure high profiles in the UX and dev communities
would happily embark on the project and give off some of their time.

------
crimsonalucard
I'm not ashamed to admit it. I use OSX over linux because it's prettier.

------
drb311
This line stood out for me:

"They use an Apple because they don't want to use different hardware for work
and pleasure."

I'm not a coder, and I don't find the idea of a single machine for work and
pleasure particularly appealing. Is there something about software developers
that means they like to blur the line between home and work?

Most of the developers I know enjoy coding, and have side projects that
involve coding. So code is a skill they use both for work and pleasure.

Is this true for most developers? What other developer behaviours and choices
come from that overlap between what they do for work, and what they enjoy
doing?

~~~
jiggy2011
Good computers for development are relatively expensive but once you're used
to one you don't want to go home and use a crappy computer. You probably don't
want to buy 2 either.

~~~
recursive
I specifically like to use crappy computers at home. I don't like thinking
about computers, and that way, if something goes wrong (which admittedly isn't
often) I can go to the computer store and solve all my problems for minimal
concern and cost.

------
pbourke
> A desktop environment that made it easier to perform generic development
> would be a unique selling point.

The power of modern hardware and lightweight VM-centric workflows (vagrant)
has made it so that we can enjoy the Mac hardware and interface while working
in a lightweight, no-compromises Linux environment.

With my MBP I can spin up a cluster of machines for a project, edit locally
(via shared folders) in vim, emacs or IntelliJ, deploy/test on the VMs and
turn them off again when I'm done. No need to even mess with much in Homebrew
- the tools are all installed on the VMs using Linux package managers.

------
PaulHoule
I've been involved with Linux since 1993 and it is a great server os but I am
skeptical of the linux desktop since over time there has not beeen a
trajectory of improvement but rather things have gotten worse.

~~~
pjmlp
Same here. I was even a strong Linux advocate at my University and did
subscribe to Linux Format for around 10 years.

Somehow, the GNU/Linux desktop seems to always miss something in these 20
years of GNU/Linux, whereas Mac OS X and Windows are closer to the whole Amiga
experience to GUI focused guys like myself.

------
reitanqild
I see a lot of people like me in this thread: We like Apple and Mac but
certain aspects are less than ideal in our setting.

For me I have found elementary os (linux based) to be a good step closer to
perfect for me. ("Normal" alt-tab, menus follows windows (if they exist at
all), etc.) All while being fast on less than stellar hardware and pleasing to
my eyes.

(For people who love Mac: Don't even try. I can almost assure you'll find some
color nuance, alignment issue etc. I'm serious: You guys see stuff like this,
I can't even see all the colors.)

------
tom_jones
I think the answer is the total guileification of the (extended) GNU operating
system. We need to facilitate cross-talk between bits of the operating system,
and there would be no more natural way to do this in GNU than to make all
commands understand literal Scheme lists of arguments, and give back literal
Scheme lists of data (including the response to '(help), which would make the
entire system introspective!), so that inter-operation between sub-systems
becomes natural.

~~~
davexunit
As a Guile hacker, I also think that more programs should be extensibile via
Guile. However, I don't think programs need to "understand" sexps in the way
you're describing. Programs can continue to work as they have, taking in
textual input and outputting textual output. What you get with Guile is the
ability to use the program's API via the REPL so you can interact with and
extend that program, much like Emacs.

------
curtis17
Adobe are in the position to do for Linux what Apple did for BSD/Darwin.

Adobe OS. Take the Linux kernel, systemd and command line tools. Put a great
gui on top. With Creative Suite and Open Office. Steam for games. Be
prescriptive with the hardware re drivers. No crapware/bloatware (though Adobe
have been guilty of this). Give developers the ability to make money with
apps/content via purchase, subscription or ads.

~~~
DCKing
In what way would Adobe profit from creating such a Linux distribution of
their own? They probably can't even rationalize porting creative suite to the
Linux desktop, let alone develop a partial OS around it. They're making a
crapload of money on operating systems they don't own and their customers have
no incentive in switching from.

~~~
curtis17
Licences and a cut from app/content sales. The problem with the Linux desktop
is the 'everything is free' mentality.

------
dorfsmay
I have to use a Mac for work and the fact that it cannot do focus-follow-mouse
makes it extremely painful for me. Add to that the lack of track-point
(although that can be solved by adding a keyboard, but not so convenient when
travelling) and that makes it, as far as I am concerned, the most useless
laptop ever produced.

Even MS Windows let's you switch to focus-follow-mouse and use a piece of
hardware with a track point.

------
hbhakhra
I see why HN keeps the flamewar rules the way they do. This is a good example
of where # comments > # points pushes the post down in ranking.

------
tim333
As a newbie/student developer I found the main benefit of switching to mac is
that it is what everyone else uses so you follow the tutorial / instructions
and it just works. I had dual boot Unbuntu / win 7 previously which seldom
just worked. Also I wanted to upload my Phonegap app for iOS and Apple won't
let you without using a mac pretty much, darn them.

------
kayoone
I strongly believe a lot of the mac trend came from Rails, Textmate and
37signals promoting that dev platform with their work. Add the iOS goldrush to
that and you have your reason for OSX as a dominant dev platform. Especially
in the startup space, a lot of people changed back then but with tools like
vagrant and vms in general, the choice isn't as clear today imo.

------
swalsh
I use a macbook air at home for some development. I hate OS X for development
(C++) its, a real pain. Ubuntu is a lot more friendly I feel.

But who makes a high quality ubuntu laptop? Just dell, and they lost me as a
customer years ago. In terms of hardware, there absolutely is no other option
for me. Which sucks, I want a good quality laptop, and i'm willing to pay for
it.

------
meira
I used linux for many years but changed to OSX when I start to go to Rails
conferences. It was the de-facto standard OS and every good tool as developed
"mac-first". Textmate is a good example.

Time goes and when was needed to buy another computer, I couldn't find any
good reason to buy another mac. And a great reason to not use: it's not free
(as in speech).

------
Bahamut
Can't say I like iTunes at all, but my main reasons for liking Apple laptops
are that it's Unix-based, light, and has good battery life. If Windows laptops
were comparable and tossing Linux on them was painless, I'd consider it, but I
haven't seen a laptop vendor come close.

------
nswanberg
Is the author suggesting using Macs is a new trend? Or is the main point that
a new desktop focused on using cloud hosted services would become popular?

Nine years ago Paul Graham wrote about hackers returning to the Mac
([http://paulgraham.com/mac.html](http://paulgraham.com/mac.html)), where he
concluded that his dad, who had not taken Paul's suggestion to buy Sun stock
10 years prior, should buy Apple stock (it turned out to be a good bet but for
slightly different reasons).

A developer-targeted desktop environment that is better optimized for most
developer's workflow, and that has native integration to Github and the like
sounds nice, but considering the effort needed to coordinate an effort,
wouldn't it be better to advocate a cloud-based IDE and use a Chromebook or
iPad?

Separately, it's interesting how little argument there is about which OS is
better in this thread. It could be the sort of people that comment here, or
it's an indication about how much people care about and identify with an OS
nowadays.

~~~
antsar
Anecdotally, "which OS is better" arguments seem to be dominated by fanboyism
rather than substantive functional differences.

------
wil421
I enjoy doing web development on my MBP it has everything I need Microsoft
wise for work email and Lync. Terminal is great to work in and connecting to a
remote server is a much better experience than in windows. Plus you have most
of the unix commands you a already familiar with. I can easily create a new vm
of whatever I need anytime I need to.

[http://modern.ie](http://modern.ie) actually has some VMs you can use to test
IE 7,8,9 etc on OSX, or even linux and windows. That pretty much sealed the
deal as far as windows dependencies. Although I am still stuck with a
corporate VDI for some work items.

------
frik
Something like TortoiseGit (for Linux) ?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TortoiseGit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TortoiseGit)

~~~
hiacc
[http://rabbitvcs.org/](http://rabbitvcs.org/)

------
Paul12345534
You couldn't pay me enough to give up Visual Studio

------
Ologn
My desktop has been Linux since I installed Slackware off of downloaded 3.5
inch disks in the early/mid 1990s.

He is correct about the availability of the development environment - back
then the home user had to use Linux (or BSD) to get a Unix-type environment.
Since MacOS has a NeXTSTEP core, this is no longer necessary.

I go to a lot of Android meetings and presentations, sometimes hosted by
Google. Most of the people are using Macs, I'm kind of the odd man out with my
System76 laptop running Ubuntu. It may be a generational thing, I'm in my
40's, many of the people there are in their 20's.

What is the most popular Linux OS for desktops/laptops/netbooks? I don't trust
self-reported statistics, so my best source is the sixth (according to Alexa)
most popular site on the Internet(
[http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOpera...](http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm)
). It's logs show that Ubuntu is the #1 Linux desktop, and Fedora is the #2
Linux desktop. Fedora only has about a 17% advantage over Linux desktop #3,
SUSE, but Ubuntu has a huge lead over Fedora and all the other Linux desktop
distros combined. There are over 100 Ubuntu desktop installs for every Fedora
install.

So on some level, you're stuck with Ubuntu if you want a user-friendly Linux
distro. When Ubuntu came out, they were very innovative in some areas,
especially ease of use. I don't know how many times in the past prior to
Ubuntu that I've had to manually set my X-Windows configurations so as to get
X working, this is now gone. Only seven years back, Red Hat wasn't even using
package handlers like yum in an official sense. Ubuntu helped push things
forward in an area that had been ignored for a long time.

On the other hand, as I said, you're kind of stuck with Ubuntu. Canonical is
not that friendly with its upstreams, it makes forks which are probably
unnecessary and then doesn't even really maintain them well. Ubuntu's bug
reporting system has gone way downhill - reported bugs tend to just sit in the
launchpad queue until some Canonical administrator closes it after a few
months due to lack of interest - "upgrade to the new version". Ubuntu's latest
version not only has the "close window" button on the top left (as opposed to
the more common top right) of the screen, they now modified the code so as
that you can not change it to the right. So in a way it's becoming more like
MacOS with an inability to tweak the system.

Also - Ubuntu comes out with a new version every six months. I just upgraded
to 14.04, the April 2014 release. The python library to deal with RDF in
python is rdflib. On Ubuntu 14.04 the package is python-rdflib. They use
rdflib version 2.4.2, which was released in May 2009. We're now up to rdflib
4.1.2, and Ubuntu is shipping with this version of the library which is five
years old. This goes back to the theme of Ubuntu being disconnected from its
upstreams. I have been doing spreadsheets in Gnumeric and those have broken in
several places with my recent system upgrade, one bug of which I reported
which is still sitting in the queue.

A few months ago I got fed up with Ubuntu and installed Debian on one of my
disk partitions thinking I might switch over. Debian did not recognize my
network card, nor did it recognize my wireless network card. This is the kind
of problem I had with Linux 20 years ago - it is often why I would choose
FreeBSD for a machine install over Linux back then.

I understand how this is open source and I can do work to fix my own problems
in a variety of ways. I do this though, and have done this - from sending bug
reports, to sending patches and updated packages based off those packages.
When distros have good relationships with their upstreams, and a decent bug
tracking system, this process works well. Nowadays, Ubuntu overwhelmingly
dominates the Linux distro market but many of its processes are broken in
terms of an open source ecosystem. They seem to be more focused on an
integrated desktop/mobile user environment than anything else at the moment.
Yet in many ways they're the only game in town since they seem to at least be
able to recognize network and wifi cards without difficulty.

~~~
streptomycin
_my best source is the sixth (according to Alexa) most popular site on the
Internet_

Probably not. For security reasons, hardly any distros put their names in
browser user agent strings these days. Ubuntu might be the only one still
doing it. For the other distros, what you're seeing in the stats is mostly old
versions from before that shift (IIRC like 2-3 years ago?).

This is why the #1 Linux distro (twice as popular as Ubuntu) is "Linux Other".
Ubuntu is definitely not 100x as popular as any other distro.

------
_RPM
Can anyone recommend how to build a Ubuntu laptop?

------
puppetmaster3
Consider system76.com

------
dredmorbius
Why I don't use a Mac desktop (laptop):

• Keyboard: standard PC layout, remappable ctrl/capslock _with_ the capslock
indicator indicating capslock, not n%2 physical key operations,
pageup/pagedown, home/end, arrow keys, delete _and_ backspace.

• Trackpoint. I hate trackpads.

• Three-button mouse.

• Choice of window manager, for:

• Focus-follows mouse.

• Mappable window manager hotkeys. I've got a set of features I've programmed
into my window manager over the past 17 years (ironically: based on Aqua's
antecedant, WindowMaker). They fit my workflow. Among them: alt-shift-t pops
up a terminal window, alt-shift maximizes a window vertically (what the
keybindings are matters far less than _that I can map these functions_.
Resizing windows on OS X is a goddamned fucking mouse-up-your-ass-but-only-
the-lower-right-corner pain. Every. Fucking. Time.

• Pinnable window menus. For when I need to track down a specific window
(xlsclients | wc -l => 118 -- no, Expose doesn't cut it).

• An integrated package system with an unparalleled set of packages: grep -h
'^Package:' __Packages | sort -u | wc -l = > 50493\. Yes, 50,493 packages. OS
X has fink, and darwinports, and a mash of other tools, but fails to deliver a
single integrated package management system, and the offerings I've found are
sparse and tend to be poorly supported.

• Customizeability, in general. Not tweaking for its own sake, but simply
getting things to work how I want them to.

• /proc and /sys. Believe it or not, having filesystem-based access to system
internals is seriously fucking amazing.

• No "undocumented" features. Which isn't to say that there are system
features which lack documentation, but there are not features _for which
documentation is being intentionally withheld*, as is the case for Macs.

• My hardware won't age out while it's still remotely usable. I've got 22 year
old systems I can still boot and update. They are barely useful (network
infrastructure), but they work.

Mark Pilgrim had a great "switching to Ubuntu" piece that got pulled when he
deleted his website(s). Cory Doctorow points to it and mentions some
highlights here: [http://boingboing.net/2006/06/29/mark-pilgrims-
list-o.html](http://boingboing.net/2006/06/29/mark-pilgrims-list-o.html)

Where I've seen Mac used extensively, a few elements seem to dictate its
choice:

• For user not highly versed in Linux configuration, Macs do tend to be an
easier to get-up-and-running system. Though honestly for desktop rollouts of
the past 5-10 years, it's a very close race.

• There's often a use of Mac-specific applications. OS lock-in through
application space is OS lock-in. It worked for Microsoft for a quarter
century.

• It's often good enough. Not perfect, but Apple does very well at delivering
a "sane-by-default" system. Mind, Ubuntu and Debian are getting damned good at
this as well, as is Google via Android.

But to say that Mac is a foregone conclusion is hardly the case (as many here
note).

------
cinitriqs
a rather nice musical tool, lol, loving it

~~~
p4bl0
I think you posted your comment into the wrong thread (it should be in 808cube
I guess).

~~~
cinitriqs
excuse me for that ;) good thing people downvoted it

