
Ask HN: How did you transition from Mac to Linux? - brentjanderson
I have been a devoted Mac user for years, however apart from needing a Mac to build and release iOS apps, I am increasingly looking for great laptop hardware with great support for Linux, and recommendations on how to jump from the Mac to Linux (preferably Ubuntu). What pitfalls did you face? What apps and support did you miss?
======
beagle3
I was trying to do the opposite transition a couple of years ago (Ubuntu+Unity
-> MacOS), and the Mac feels so clunky in comparison - I eventually switched
back to Ubuntu, though I might try again soon.

Some of it is just unfamiliarity, some of it is trivia that is hard to get
used to (I've been binding alt-shift to some actions for the three decades -
and the Mac won't let me do that), and part of it is the Mac crapping all over
my directories with DS_Store files and whatever.

Part of it was the inconvenience of having to buy a lot of thing I could
earlier "apt-get". I would probably have spent $500 on things, glad to support
the ecosystem, but it's from 10 different vendors, each with their own terms-
of-service and mail and having to register and stuff. I would gladly buy it
through the app-store if they were available there, but none of those I wanted
were.

But the biggest thing is, I hardly got anything from the Mac that I didn't
already have with Ubuntu; I do science, programming, and a little bit of movie
watching / internet browsing - no multimedia production. Ubuntu is just as
good, if not better, than MacOS for those things. Never had an issue with
sleep/hibernate not working in Linux.

The things I did get from the mac: (And the reason I was trying to switch):
Better hardware (especially screen, touchpad), better battery life, lighter
weight. But overall, for me, they were not enough for the inconveniences.

~~~
mping
I use Karabiner for switching alt/cmd and fn/ctrl. I also configure iTerm to
switch some keys - apple really annoys me by using a diff layout; so many
years of muscle memory aren't immediately applicable.

------
cdelsolar
I've tried, but here are the issues I've run into. I'm not a Linux hater, but
these are simple things there doesn't seem to be a fix for. This is on a new
Dell XPS laptop.

\- Headphones constantly crackle when they're plugged in. I've tried updating
audio drivers, enabling/disabling various things, editing config files, etc.
nothing fixes it. I've gotten used to listening to music with a crackle
superimposed on top.

\- Screen randomly flickers

\- The trackpad interface is nothing short of _atrocious_. If you move around
it too much it "locks up" the cursor and you can't move anymore, you have to
click it several times while dragging until it starts working again. If you
brush it with a single atom of your finger as you're typing, the cursor will
move around wildly, often selecting most of the text you've typed and
overwriting it with your next character. I've also tried updating/changing/etc
libinput and it doesn't do anything.

\- In an attempt to fix the above issues, I tried to update to Ubuntu 18.04
(it was on the latest 16.04). `do-release-upgrade` wouldn't recognize there
was a new version available (this was a few days ago). I did `do-release-
upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes
of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer.
Now, it just boots to a cursor on a black screen and it never changes. At this
point I just decided to start using my Macbook again until I get un-frustrated
enough to figure out what to do with the Dell.

~~~
scardine
My personal pet peeve is the confusing paste buffer(s). On macs it is always
⌘+C and ⌘+V. On linux it may be CTRL+INS and Shift+INS, CTRL+C and CTRL+V,
mouse-select and middle-button click and so on.

~~~
ndespres
Are there different paste buffers depending on how it's activated?

~~~
xenomachina
This is actually an X11 thing - it predates Linux. Instead of "the clipboard"
X has multiple clipboard-like things. In X terminology they are called
"selections". There's an arbitrary number of them, but there are only two
selections that are used by most apps: the "primary" selection and the
"clipboard" selection.

In most apps, the primary selection is populated merely by selecting
something, while the clipboard selection is populated by some sort of explicit
user action, like ctrl-C or a context menu.

The clipboard selection is pasted with some other explicit action. Usually
it's analogous to the way you copy to it, like ctrl-V, or a context menu.

The primary selection is usually "pasted" with middle mouse button. Sometimes
there's also a keyboard shortcut, and if there is it's often a modified form
of the clipboard-selection's paste shortcut.

Most people get confused by the fact that there is more than one "clipboardy
thing". They copy to one, and then paste from the other and winner why their
copy didn't work.

The fact that there isn't a consistent action to get to each doesn't help. It
_is_ consistent if you stick to apps from the same "family" (eg: Gnome/gtk+ or
KDE), except terminals never use ctrl key shortcuts. (Because control
characters already mean something in terminals.)

~~~
solarkraft
The elementary Terminal allows Ctrl+V to paste and I find it very convenient.

~~~
xenomachina
Interesting. I kind of paused when I wrote "never" because it's of course
possible for a terminal to bind control-keys to arbitrary actions, but every
terminal I've ever used on *nix (including Mac and Linux) just passes control-
keys through by default. It's possible that some of them allow such bindings
as an option, but I've never checked because I need to be able to send literal
control-C and control-V to applications I run in the terminal. (Control-C is
of course "break", and control-V is used in vim a lot.)

This is one of the cases where I think the Mac approach happens to work out
better than Linux (or Windows): by using ⌘ instead of control as the default
shortcut modifier, there's no ambiguity about whether I'm talking to my
terminal (copy, paste, spawn new window, etc.) or trying to send a control
character. I don't know why the Linux community defacto-standardized on
control keys rather than Super (or even Alt), given the high proportion of
Linux users who are also terminal users.

------
jnwatson
Man, I'd avoid anything Dell. Our whole company switched to new Dell laptops
running Ubuntu, and it is a complete mess (and I've been running Linux since
'96, Debian since '00, and Ubuntu since '05).

There are OS issues, hardware issues, and driver issues. In terms of OS,
Ubuntu/Gnome 3 still hasn't quite figured out hiDPI. Wayland isn't quite ready
either. But these are relatively minor nits.

The CPU constantly throttles. It has power management issues where the USB
isn't providing enough power if the laptop is running off battery. One of the
fans in my 3-month old laptop is making funny noises. I'm constantly fighting
limited USB bandwidth on the USB-C port, where I have to decide which 4 of my
6 devices to plug in. I get lots of kernel oopses with dropped/hung PCIe
transactions.

And that's just my laptop. The other folks in the company are having similar
problems. Basic stuff, like the camera doesn't work at all in the latest XPS
13 on Ubuntu 18.04.

It is pretty frustrating dealing with this relative to my Mac laptop
experience which is essentially everything just works.

~~~
gargravarr
Part of the Mac experience has always been that, since Apple have full control
of the hardware, everything Just Works. However, Dell seem to be getting
there. Developers here get a choice of XPS 13's running Ubuntu, or MacBook
Pros, and most choose the XPS. 18.04 gives you a binary choice of 100% or 200%
UI scaling for HiDPI, but that seems to be good enough. Oddly, 16.04 Unity
gave you a nice incremental slider for UI scaling. Nonetheless, Windows also
doesn't handle HiDPI very well, and I think Apple are the only ones who've
cracked it. Indeed, most other companies seem to be copying Apple in this
regard - I prefer to have 1080 screens and just make use of the raw pixels
rather than faff with HiDPI.

No hardware is infallible, and we've had problems with our machines, but Dell
customer service has been great - they usually send an engineer out the next
day for our company.

Can't deny, though, most people's machines display Ubuntu Experienced An
Internal Error as soon as they log in, and we just dismiss the prompt. Doesn't
seem to affect usability. Otherwise, the machines run Ubuntu very, very
smoothly with all the hardware working. I upgraded one of our older XPS 13's
to 18.04 with no problems.

------
wasted_intel
A Project Sputnik laptop from Dell with Ubuntu pre-loaded is a safe bet. I'd
personally opt for an XPS 13" Developer Edition, even if I were going to load
another distro like Arch Linux. Project Sputnik's objective is to ensure Linux
compatibility, which involves picking components that are compatible out of
the box, and submitting upstream patches for those that aren't.

It does help that it's also the laptop that Linus is using:
[https://www.cio.com/article/3119876/linux/linus-torvalds-
pic...](https://www.cio.com/article/3119876/linux/linus-torvalds-picks-dell-
xps-13-as-his-next-laptop.html)

~~~
ortuna
Have a Dell XPS 13 (2018) edition, NixOS w/ minimal gnome install works like a
charm!

NixOS config:
[https://gist.github.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683ddd848f485b...](https://gist.github.com/Ortuna/b6e95d6baefd2a1683ddd848f485bf00)

~~~
cbartowski
Same laptop here. I've noticed the laptop drains battery when its suspended
which is pretty annoying because I sometimes go a couple of days without using
it. Have you run into that? I haven't had any luck getting suspend to disk to
work.

~~~
ortuna
It does drain, maybe 2%/hr but I thought that was normal? That's what I expect
to get on a Mac. I did have to `echo XHC > /proc/acpi/wakeup` because I would
shut the lid, but something on the USB bus kept turning it back on.

------
tapoxi
I split my time 50/50 between macOS and Fedora 28. Fedora is very similar to
Ubuntu from an ease of use standpoint, and something I'd happily recommend -
especially if you use RHEL/CentOS servers.

Compared to a Mac workflow, you won't have a handful of business apps (like
WebEx or Office) but its mostly identical. Both Fedora and Ubuntu are on 6
month release cycles, so you can use your system's package manager (dnf or
apt) instead of relying on Homebrew. There's also user collections of packages
available from Fedora's COPR or Ubuntu's PPAs.

You'll see better performance with containers, since you don't need to go
through a Hyperkit VM and docker will just run natively.

Out of the box, both run the GNOME 3 desktop, which is a bit of a mixed bag.
The simplicity and ease of window management with shortcuts is great, and you
can install extensions to modify GNOME's behavior. Unfortunately performance
isn't exactly smooth, but you can look at other full-blown desktops (KDE,
MATE, Cinnamon, Budgie) or fast window managers like Sway or i3.

With regard to hardware support, I went with the Dell XPS 13. It's a great
machine and I've had zero issues so far. Fedora even handles firmware updates
through the update GUI.

~~~
wilkystyle
I've heard so many good things about fedora and hardware support. If I end up
needing to make the switch, this sounds like my best option.

------
prudhvis
I use both Mac(Work) and Thinkpads(Personal) laptops. Thinkpads (T470 and
T470p are what i use) are really good wrt linux driver support. I personally
use Fedora + Sway as my daily driver. It has excellent driver support(didn't
get the nvidia ones though). These laptops have about 32G of ram. Plenty to
run kvm vm's for all sorts of dev stuff.

Thinkpads specially the T series comes with TLP [1] support. So, the battery
life is very good. Apart from that, the keyboard is pretty comfortable,
display resolutions are Full HD+. I cannot recommend it enough.

[1] [https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-
ma...](https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-
management.html)

~~~
organsnyder
I thought I was the only person that had a work-issued Mac, but opted for a
ThinkPad for personal use. Just bought a T480, and Linux support has been
flawless. I installed Debian stable using the non-free installation option:
[https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-
in...](https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-
firmware/)

------
arghwhat
I'm mostly bugged by the _vastly_ inferior touchpad experience (Apple touchpad
> pointy nub > Non-apple touchpad, and that is not up for discussion), and
lack of things like Autodesk Fusion360 support for Linux (which I use for
hobby CNC/3D printing purposes).

Also, some small UI things are just nicer in macOS, like how well scrolling
follows input, making it seem like you're physically moving the content. That
illusion is lost on Linux.

Most other things are as nice, if not nicer. I chose Fedora 28 Workstation,
rather than Ubuntu, and it's all really quite polished. It's also a hell of a
lot snappier, even on the same hardware. I wouldn't recommend using Linux on
Apple hardware, though, primarily due to how annoying the gmux (dual GPU
multiplexing chip) is to deal with.

I might be buying the XPS 2-in-1 when the 32GB model comes out. AMD > nVidia
graphics when it comes to Linux (nVidia are assholes). I would've picked
Ryzen, but it seems a bit immature for laptops.

~~~
furgooswft13
> (Apple touchpad > pointy nub > Non-apple touchpad, and that is not up for
> discussion)

I think you must have palmed your touchpad while typing out that list and
somehow messed up the order. This is what you actually meant: 3 physical
button trackpoint with textured nub gifted upon us by the Thinkpad Gods of old
>>>> apple stuff > other stuff. There shall be no further debate!

~~~
arghwhat
No, you are quite mistaken. The order was absolutely perfect.

ThinkNubs are good. Apple Touchpads occasionally look down from their seat at
Mount Olympus to be entertained by watching the mortals, such as the ThinkNub,
go through their silly struggles of life.

PC touchpads, on the other hand, can only be explained by their creators being
evil incarnate. Such malice cannot sprout from nothing.

Thinkpad Touchpads are particularly evil, as the BIOS touchpad disable on some
Thinkpads with ThinkNubs _disable the mouse buttons belonging to the
ThinkNub_.

As Jesus once said: "Transplant me an Apple Touchpad, completed by the pointer
stack from macOS, onto a PC with Linux, and thou shall be permitted into
Heaven."

Seriously, though, the Nub is like a joystick, where touchpads, touchscreens
and mice are basically absolute positioning devices when implemented
_correctly_ (such as on a Mac)—that is, move distance N on the
touchpad/touchscreen/mouse, and the cursor will move exactly that distance, as
if you had physically grabbed the cursor and moved it. With the nub, the
distance becomes a function of time+accel.

~~~
furgooswft13
Oh this thread still exists, yummy.

> With the nub, the distance becomes a function of time+accel.

On the Pinnacle of Godly Perfection pointing device that is the Thinkpad
Trackpoint, which was used to create life the universe and everything along
with a lot of perl, it is a function of time+accel+pressure!

i.e. the pointer moves faster as you push harder in any direction, like any
good analog joystick. Except for the Trackpoint you need only to twitch your
index finger the tiniest bits to traverse the whole screen.

Might feel weird at first but you get used to it very quickly. Dragging my
finger all over the laptop surface is tiring. Same with Mr Mouse. Yes I keep
the sensitivity very high.

~~~
arghwhat
I see that the mortal ThinkNub has falsely led others' to believe that it
holds the status of a deity. Mortals are so easily fooled...

I included pressure in accel. Yeah, like a joystick, you can just use time
held to move across the entire screen, but just like a joystick, it makes
using the mouse akin to driving a small RC car around on your screen, trying
to park it on the button you want to press. And just like with an RC car, you
can miss your target.

With tracking pointer devices (touchpad, touchscreen, wacom), with a proper
stack (i.e. only touchpad on macs), the mouse becomes your finger, reapplying
existing finger dexterity entirely andgiving an extremely intuitive input
method. Except for bad touchpad stacks, you don't miss or even need to look.

Yes, the touchpad requires full index finger flex/extension to get from one
end to the other, but so does moving from "c" to "t" on a QWERTY layout, so I
can't see that as a valid complaint. Unless the touchpad has a bad surface
texture (i.e. not Apple-style glass), the same goes for fatigue—you're moving
your fingers _way_ more when typing.

The only downside I can think of for touchpads is that, like mice but unlike
ThinkNubs, one must move the hand away from the keyboard to use it in most
setups. ThinkNubs are neatly placed near the homerow, although they eat part
of the keys as a result.

(Mice are a bit in between, as they use shoulder/elbow/wrist to aim, which is
far less precise than fingers. They still reuse physical dexterity, but are
less precise than finger based tracking inputs. Trackballs and rollers are
just weird, though.)

------
krylon
I went from GNU/Linux to Mac in 2013 and back to GNU/Linux about a year ago.
(Never owned a Macbook, though.)

Laptop-wise, I can recommend the Asus Zenbook. The keyboard backlight does not
work on Linux, and Bluetooth is a little flakey, but apart from that it works
very well for me (on openSUSE Tumbleweed, at least).

There are two things I miss: At work, we use a VoIP-based PBX which also
supports software clients; the client is available on Windows and Mac. So on
the Mac, I could work from home and use my headset for telephony, which was
very, very convenient. On Linux, I have not been able to get this to work. The
other thing is that on macOS, the text input widget understands the basic
emacs key navigation shortcuts (Ctrl+A -> Jump to beginning of current line,
Ctrl+E -> Jump to end of current line, etc...); all the muscle memory I had
build up over years of using emacs finally paid off in a big way, because I
could use part of it everywhere.

Apart from those two pain points, I was very happy to get back on the GNU.

~~~
estro
I second the recommendation to get an Asus Zenbook, with the same cons. The
case is solid and durable; specs range from reasonable to outstanding
(especially at its price point). I would also look at the IBM Thinkpad, as
I've had friends and coworkers praise its Linux interoperability.

~~~
havemylife
Seconding the Thinkpad. There's also various repurposed IBM (I want to say
mostly T200 and T400) that have GNU/Linux and an open source bios (or boot
loader, I apologise if I'm mixing terms) pre-installed.

Price is probably high for the hardware though I think it's goes back into
further open-source libre development.

But if it is important to you, you'll actually 'own' your computer.

~~~
krylon
Pre-owned / refurbished ThinkPads can be found surprisingly cheaply on Amazon
(and elsewhere, I suppose). If you value reliability over performance,
formerly top-shelf ThinkPads provide that at a great price. I got a ~2011 x220
for about €230 a few years ago - works like a charm on Debian, and compared to
what that money gets you in current hardware, it's still a kick ass machine -
except for the low display resolution...

------
jasonm89
I made the switch after my Macbook Pro was stolen and I needed something
quickly to get back to work. The transition from osx to ubuntu was pretty easy
after changing my shortcuts to mimic the ones I was used to in osx. I've been
using linux daily on my work machine for 7 months now, and i'm actually a
little obsessed with it. I transitioned from Ubuntu to Arch and am using KDE
as my desktop environment. Everything can be customized and it's great, I
don't think i'll be returning to osx ever again.

I do miss the integration with my iphone though. I used the messages and notes
app a lot in osx, so it's kinda annoying to not have that anymore.

Also, i'm using a Thinkpad. Would recommend.

*EDIT I now pretty much use the trackpoint 100% of the time, and don't miss the trackpad gestures at all.

~~~
pnutjam
kdeconnect integrates with android spectacularly. I'm on OpenSUSE, but my
coworker uses it on Slackware.

~~~
peteretep
Is it possible to use Android while protecting any semblance of your personal
data?

~~~
pnutjam
Yeah, Android is as secure as you make it.

------
aorth
The only thing I miss about my Mac is the hardware. To be more specific: I
miss the trackpad. I just picked up a 2018 ThinkPad Carbon X1 (6th Generation)
and the machine runs Linux very well. The battery life is around eight or nine
hours, the HDR screen is very good, etc. But nothing can come close to the Mac
trackpad!

I'm running Arch Linux, for what it's worth. My use of several Macs over the
last few years was basically confined to a web browser, Mail.app, and
Terminal, where I installed a handful of GNU userland tools from Homebrew and
essentially used it as if it was a Linux machine. I never bought into the
Apple ecosystem with Photos, iCloud, messaging, etc. My pictures and music are
organized in directories and I use open-source applications like darktable and
GIMP (pictures) and cantata and mpd (music) so I didn't have any lock-in
there.

Caveat: I'm on the systems / devops side, not dev.

~~~
skadamat
I made this exact same switch a few months ago! RMBP 15 to Thinkpad X1 Carbon
+ Arch Linux.

I've loved it but I do miss the trackpad (although I've adjusted my workflow
to use physical buttons now + thinkpad's trackpad). I also miss the larger
screen (15" was really nice).

Whenever I go back to my RMBP 15 for moving files over, I've noticed the
display is still nicer for text. Even with installing some calibrated color
profiles, I haven't been able to match the same perfection the RMBP 15 had. Is
this something you ran into at all / how did you tweak?

------
tannhaeuser
I've always been into Unix and bought a PowerBook back in 2003 as a capable
Unix laptop which also did support the couple commercial apps I was using at
the time (PhotoShop, MS Office, some graphics apps). Competent out-of-the-box
support for displays (had up to two externally hooked up with a PCCard
graphics card) and power management, Apple innovations (Expose, Spotlight),
plus Unix command line and F/OSS apps was adding to a real great experience at
the time.

But I don't like Apple's current lineup (no display options/only glossy
screens, keyboard sucks IMHO, no port options). More than everything else, I
took offense in Apple selling these as "Pro" machines (and at "Pro" prices)
when there's really nothing "Pro" about them compared to older PowerBooks with
replaceable batteries and RAM, all the ports, etc.

What did I miss when going back to Linux (XPS 13, Ubuntu)? Not much really.
SketchUp for architectural 3D drawings (though I haven't checked with Wine
recently which is an unbelievably capable environment for running Windows
apps; back then it did almost work but would crash when attempting to save),
general polish (Ubuntu is a bit frugal and ugly vs Mac OS), power management
and touch pad as good as Apple's, and a nice shopping and unpacking
experience, albeit for a price. Didn't miss iTunes, nor Mac OS's slowness :)

------
0wl3x
Starting off with Ubuntu is a good idea. That's the friendliest distro of
linux yet it still provides a fair amount of extensibility so you can start
playing around with the really cool things linux offers. There wasn't anything
I found myself missing. I suppose the keyboard layout is a little different
but that's about it? Again though, the beauty of linux is that you can change
just about anything for your preferences. I guess the recommendation is simply
to just switch and just start and be patient! Good luck!

------
brotherjerky
Install VirtualBox or similar and setup Ubuntu in a VM. Try running that full
screen for a while as an easy low-risk way to start kicking the tires.

~~~
eropple
VirtualBox performance on OS X is awful enough and it lights your battery on
fire to the point that it'd give most people second thoughts about switching.

~~~
ufo
Is there a more performant alternative to it?

~~~
eropple
Sure. VMWare Fusion, Parallels, xhyve.

------
isaachier
Honestly, nothing. Now I regret all that time I wasted using Mac. I find Linux
is really built for software developers, so if I experience problems, usually
someone online will have a one-line terminal solution to fix it.

------
wyclif
If you need a Linux laptop, I think it's wise to look at the appropriate
ThinkPad models first. Of course, if you can get away with desktop-only or
workstation your options are a lot more interesting.

~~~
anon1253
Note Carbon X1 is not the appropriate one ... which I learned the hard way

~~~
anothergoogler
Agreed, commented about the X1 a couple months ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16715851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16715851)

------
mattkevan
I run dual-boot macOS and Ubuntu on a ThinkPad.

Ubuntu worked out-of-the-box, and macOS works well after a few tweaks. I also
have a third partition to share files between the two halves. Clover
bootloader has a friendly way to select which system to use on boot.

I'd like to use Linux full time, but the software I need isn't there.

------
williamstein
I recently switched by buying a Pixelbook and installing the new full Linux
support (dev channel) vcalled Crostini. Love it! Apple's direction and quality
don't match with my needs anymore.

------
kernelcurry
I am debating on moving over full-time to Linux and picking up a laptop from
[https://puri.sm/](https://puri.sm/) the hardware and open drivers are the
most annoying thing when finding a laptop for Linux it seems. Almost everyone
uses terrible wireless hardware or does not fully support the highest
resolution or something strange. I am hoping
[https://puri.sm/](https://puri.sm/) has that all figured out.

~~~
rrggrr
PureOS was not a great experience for me and I'm using Ubuntu (budgie) now.

~~~
digikata
How is the hardware under Ubuntu? I've been eyeing up a Purism laptop as a
successor for a Macbook Air that's getting a little long in the tooth.

~~~
kernelcurry
Hardware compatibility for Apple laptops is horrendous! I wish they would just
open their drivers to the community at large! I would run *nix on an Apple
Laptop no problem.

~~~
digikata
Well on the Macbook Air, I'm running OSX, err macOS. Been running Mac on
laptop and linux on desktop for a while now, but the last couple of iterations
of both Macbook and macOS have been weak on the basics. Soo, I'm eyeing up the
Purism laptops.

------
charlieegan3
My first computer was a 2005 iBook. I used to be a huge apple fan but after a
bad experience with a 2012 rMBP I started looking at other options.

I bought a Dell precision laptop at the end of 2016 and installed ubuntu. This
wasn't the first Linux machine for me but it was the first I really worked at.

At around the same time I set myself the goal of reducing any and all
dependencies on gui apps other than a browser. I quit dayone, various database
guis, etc in this period. This was key, I also got better at many cli tools in
the process.

I spent a considerable amount of time building a dotfile config that was cross
platform / worked with my work mac and other apple computers. This was really
painful, it was never 100% consistent but it did all me to prove to myself
that it was possible to productively use Linux - something I'd always been
skeptical of before, for whatever reason.

I then took on a massive downsizing effort and sold all of my computers, this
was also a lot of work. Disassembling custom PC's and selling laptops on eBay
took longer than expected.

I was then left with only my work computer. Down from 6 laptops/desktops. My
work laptop was a max spec first gen touchbar 13" at the time.

I then got a new job, when asking for my new laptop I bit the bullet and asked
for the new Dell XPS 13.

So far I'm getting on fine, native containers is the biggest benefit I've seen
personally. I miss photoshop a bit as I haven't invested the effort to run it
properly on Linux via wine etc.

------
Sholmesy
I got a fast external SSD and put Antegeros (Arch) onto it.

I then used it as my daily driver, dropping back to Mac if I needed something.

I haven't had to use MacOS for a couple of months for anything. Basically have
a useless SSD sitting inside my mac now :)

Added benefit is I can plug the SSD straight into my PC at home and have my
full work environment up and running. No driver stuff-around either, it all
works perfectly.

I would honestly recommend arch/antegeros. Ubuntu and others are over-hyped
for their "ease of use".

~~~
karmajunkie
just out of curiosity, what kind of external SSD did you get, and what kind of
hardware interface (i.e. usb-c, thunderbolt, etc?)

~~~
Sholmesy
Samsung Portable T5.

USB-C and USB-A ports no USB 3.0 protocol.

It's a "fast" SSD, but it doesn't come close to saturating USB 3.0, and is
basically equivalent to an internal (not PCIe/NVMe) SATA based SSD.

If you wanted to future-proof, you could get a thunderbolt 3 enclosure.

Also, fits super comfortably in my pocket (smaller than a phone).

------
eropple
"How"?

Getting geeked up over a switch is probably overdoing it. I mean...you just do
it. Install Fedora on it--I mean, you could install Ubuntu, but the movement
seems to be away from Ubuntu and for good reasons, in production I wouldn't
run something that wasn't CentOS, and Fedora is close enough while removing a
_lot_ of the pain points of dealing with Debian derivatives--and start
working. It'll suck at first, it'll suck less over time, you'll get there.
You'll learn to RTFM if you haven't learned it already, and you'll get there.

As a developer, using either is basically substitutable. I still use a Mac
laptop because Linux laptop support varies between okay and awful (and
System76 et al make computers that feel like junk, though Dell's support is
worth calling out as a positive--my next machine is probably an Alienware 15,
largely because of the keyboard and the GPU) but when not on the road I use
the Mac mostly for Keynote and Photoshop, not writing code.

Every Unix development tool I use (i.e., I still have Windows partitions
around for good reasons), from VS Code on down the line, works on both Linux
and OS X without trouble. There's really not much "switching" to be done. If
you use novelty stuff like Espresso or whatever it might be a trickier
situation, but I feel like most developers aren't in that boat.

Consider Dropbox or similar for syncing dotfiles, though. Sharing those across
will reduce your frustration a decent bit. Just make sure to have separate
files for Mac and Linux-specific stuff, where applicable, and source them
appropriately.

~~~
pnutjam
CentOS and RedHat use an essentially ancient kernal, with backported fixes. I
roll with OpenSUSE on my laptop, tumbleweed will give you the rolling release
with cutting edge packages, or Leap will give you an excellent experience with
longer support. In my experience, OpenSUSE also has the best hardware support
of any Linux distro.

~~~
eropple
They totally do use old kernels, but in practice I have not run into issues
(and almost all my consulting clients were in on CentOS before I started
working with them, so the die was mostly cast).

I liked OpenSUSE when I used it. Fedora's the path of least resistance for me.
I kinda feel like "Not Ubuntu" is a bigger thing, in 2018, than whether you're
in on Fedora or OpenSUSE or Arch or whatever; the tide seems to have turned
against it as a server operating system in my neck of the woods and I tend to
think you should try to stick at least reasonably close to what you're
deploying on.

~~~
pnutjam
True, when I hear Ubuntu I'm more likely to double check you really know what
your doing.

------
shmerl
I've never used macOS, but transitioning to Linux would probably pose some
similar questions no matter from what OS you are coming from.

So some common tips that you might find useful:

Laptops commonly come with SSDs or even NVMes today. If you have enough RAM,
you can avoid enabling swap during installation, that will provide you more
useful space on your expensive drive.

Enable periodic fstrim on your drive, to make sure your deleted blocks are
reused.

If you are using Samsung NVMe, you might want to use bigger partition offset
than just common megabyte alignment. I was recently researching this, and
found out, that it can make some performance difference if you use 3 MiB
offset instead of 1 MiB. It's a bit of a difficult topic, because Samsung
staunchly refuse to answer questions about their NVMe erase block size. In
general it's recommended to have partitions aligned to that size for best
performance. You can run various testing tools like fio before setting up the
system to find the optimal layout.

Prefer AMD for your GPU (Vega is the best today), it will save you a lot pain
(i.e. avoid Nvidia and especially Optimus).

Also, as others said in this thread, consider if you need a laptop at all.
Desktop would be cheaper for better performance hardware.

~~~
striking
Wrt swap: you can generally just use a swapfile. It doesn't even have to be
very large. Making it a file makes it easier to manage than a partition. No, I
don't know why the Debian and Ubuntu installers insist on making a partition
for swap still.

~~~
jcastro
Ubuntu switched to swap files (not partitions) last year.

~~~
shmerl
Good default choice, Debian is still using swap partition in the installer.

------
vajrapani666
My battery started failing on my 2016 Macbook Pro. I took it in and Apple said
it would take 5 days to fix. I found a loaner macbook, but didn't want to
setup a whole development environment to use for just a week. So I used Google
Cloud Platform with an Ubuntu 16.04 desktop with remote access over chrome
remote desktop. It was ungodly fast, and just for fun I cranked it up to 8
cores. It's nice to know that if anything ever happens to my physical laptop,
I can just power up my cloud instance and keep working without skipping a
beat.

Linux was fantastic, except for two things.

1\. Sketch. All the competitors aren't even close to being up-to-par, and it's
become an industry standard. 2\. Docker and permissions. I can't believe it
was so much harder to deal with docker in Linux than MacOSX. I constantly
struggled with docker creating files as root. Even when I explicitly defined
the $UID or $USER for docker-compose, I would still see the docker image that
ran a Rails instance create files owned by root in `log` and `tmp`.

I highly recommend trying out Ubuntu in the cloud to give Linux a trial run,
you might be surprised by what you love and hate.

~~~
vajrapani666
Here's the guide I used to setup a cloud desktop on GCP [http://timbot-
inc.blogspot.com/2015/11/cloud-workstation-how...](http://timbot-
inc.blogspot.com/2015/11/cloud-workstation-howto-chromebook.html)

------
lunulata
Ubuntu is good to start with. Also, you should consider the Elementary distro,
they have a focus on stealing Mac users
[https://elementary.io/](https://elementary.io/) could be right up your alley.
As long as you use Ubuntu or Elementary - any of the more ui friendly &
compatibility focused distros you'll avoid a lot of the common problems that
frustrate new users. After you're comfortable with that... wander over to
[https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/) and
take your desktop up another level. I use both Linux and Mac and never find
myself wanting a particular app from Mac that I don't have available to me on
Linux. I find myself needing things like xcode for builds, but certainly not
wanting it. If you're a music producer Logic Pro is the one app you'll miss.

------
SamLevin88
FWIW I did the opposite. I had elementaryOS optimized for laptop use running
on a thinkpad T430s. I was happy with it for a bit but ended up reverting to a
MBP for the following reasons:

\- As others have pointed out, the MPB gestures/touchpad are second to none.
The size alone, let alone the responsive and consistent gestures are conducive
to my productivity

\- OSX posix support has never let me down. As of today, I have been able to
develop anything on a Macbook that I would use linux for. This increases my
productivity and battery life

\- On some variations of linux, notably elementary (which I somewhat
ironically chose in order to get as close to the OSX experience as possible),
alt+tab goes to the next open window as opposed to the one you most recently
used, as it does on OSX. This drove me crazy

\- OSX has more support for more apps than linux does

\- You can always run linux in a docker container or a VM if you absolutely
need it

Just my two cents for someone who is weighing between Mac/Linux

~~~
platinumrad
>OSX posix support has never let me down.

OS X is literally missing half of semaphore.h. Actually it's worse than that
because the functions aren't technically missing and your code compiles the
whole time as you write it but when you run it you find out that nothing works
because all the functions do is print "function not implemented".

------
joombaga
My biggest issue is that X doesn't support per-display DPI. My laptop screen
is 4k, but my external monitors are 1920x1200. This works great in macOS, but
in linux I either have to have big UI components on the externals, or tiny UI
components on the built-in display. Some DEs have UI scaling, but it looks
terrible.

------
needz
I did this just this past weekend so great timing.

I switched from a late-2015 Macbook Pro (some say this is the last time a MB
Pro was good) to a Thinkpad T480s w/ Fedora 28. My workflow on Mac was fairly
simple -- sublime text, npm, git, and a web browser -- so my transition was
probably smoother than most (although I now use VS Code instead of Sublime
Text and I don't think I'll be going back).

The biggest pain point for me was losing the Apple trackpad. I loved the
3-swipe gesture to switch between workspaces and although I have shortcuts for
this on my new xfce desktop environment it just isn't the same. I did,
however, fall in love with the Thinkpad trackpoint (nub). I'm having a few
minor issues that I still need to work out (like my screen not locking when I
close the lid), but overall I'm really happy with my decision so far.

~~~
zouhair
Maybe you should look at this[0].

[0]: [https://askubuntu.com/questions/92169/touchpad-gestures-
to-c...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/92169/touchpad-gestures-to-change-
workspace)

------
ageofwant
My 2 year old Dell XPS 13, which I'm typing this on is running Arch & i3-gaps.
I've never had a better more productive setup. I had a MacBook Pro (2012)
before, wife has a MBP 2015. I used Ubuntu as dev environment for ~10 years
before the move to Arch 2 years ago. Nothing wrong with Ubuntu, but I really
enjoy Arch's 'crispness'. Either way, you can't go wrong with either. It
astounds me that anyone can be productive in other environments, not that I
have tried myself, I just can't see the point.

Having said that, I have recently started collecting cheap as chips
(AU$120-AU$ 300) Lenovo Thinkpads, X220, X230 etc. It continues to amaze me
how excellent a dev env a 7 year old laptop running Arch and i3 is. Buy a
bunch of ebay and have a play.

------
lordnacho
Well this is quite apt (no pun intended) as I've just bought a new Linux
laptop this week, having used a MBP for years.

I got it off Entroware, who sell laptops with Ubuntu installed. I'm more or
less done setting it up and I'm able to use it for the exact same work that I
use my MBP for. (It's a backup machine for my c++ dev work). Ended costing
maybe half what the MBP cost, with i7 proc, no fancy graphics card.

There hasn't been a lot of things to do, really. I went with Ubuntu MATE, on a
recommendation. It seems fine, very easy to customize. I've added a dock that
came with it but wasn't configured that behaves just like the MacOS dock, and
I removed the panel from the bottom. Also configured the top panel to have my
main progs available, and to hide itself until hover.

All the software I need is available in Linux, except for SourceTree. So I
just use GitKraken instead. Some things I expected like Python 3 didn't seem
to be there, or at least Python 2 was default. I just grabbed Anaconda. Load
of other minor things are gotten the same way, either off terminal or from one
of the manager apps.

I had to change the font to Garuda from Ubuntu. Something about it didn't seem
right, like it was too wide or something. I also had to change some colors.
All pretty small stuff.

There's a terminal called Tilda that pulls down on F12, that's quite a useful
thing. I had to change colors on the normal terminal to look like Homebrew on
the Mac. But I had to do that on the mac too.

Trackpad works pretty much like the MBP, slightly to the left. Not sure why
they'd do that, but it's not so far over that I can't use it. Keyboard is
fine.

I found it very similar to the MBP. There's not really much difference, things
work pretty much as expected. Linux is probably more configurable, at least it
would appear there are more internals for you to mess with.

Only noticeable difference as a dev is the screen. MBP retina screen is far
better, but that's not so much to do with the OS.

------
anothergoogler
My only advice would be to use a desktop (tower) PC and not a laptop. Much
easier to get everything working well, and no power management headaches etc.

~~~
pnutjam
This is good advice, you can use a terminal, forward x sessions, or use
something like x2go for a full gui experience.

~~~
SamLevin88
Really stinks when you're remote with limited connectivity though. If you're
plugged in all day then it would work, yeah

~~~
pnutjam
X2go works well over slow lines. I used to run it on a 1mb connection.

------
maximilianburke
I took a new job and had the opportunity to pick my computer. After using a
personal Mac laptop for a few weeks I wasn’t happy with the performance of the
tools, so I took a chance and got a Thinkpad X1 Carbon 2018.

I am really happy with it. It’s running Ubuntu 18.04, the performance is
really good. I have the 2560x1440 screen and I don’t use scaling; it’s small
but I have lots of real estate.

I like how light it is and how well it makes use of its form factor. I like
the keyboard, I also like that I don’t need to worry about a stray hair
causing my E key to stop working.

The only issues I had were some changes that needed to be made to system
configuration so that it would sleep properly.

------
havemylife
It really depends on what you want and what you use your computer for.

There are obviously political and ethical aspects you may be concerned about
but I think it's better to just not get into that now.

You mention needing a laptop with hardware supported by Linux. I would
recommend first beginning with looking at various laptops sold with Linux.
This should take care of any hardware incompatibility others have mentioned
(though do your research).

Linux (or GNU-Linux) packages most of it's drivers in the Linux kernal (please
correct if I'm mistaken) so that if a piece of hardware is supported it is
ready to go after you install the OS.

It should be noted however that graphics cards/units have various levels of
support with from what I understand Intel currently having the best open
source support with Nvidia haveing pretty decent proprietary drivers. Ati/AMD
varries though that shouldn't necessarily preclude you from an AMD processor.
Importantly do your research on support for those components.

As far as software is concerned that I haven't the foggiest idea what to
recommend. If you just need a web browser, an office suite, and streaming
video, then Ubuntu I would say handles all that pretty good. (It's all I've
run for the last couple years, and mixed before that).

Most importantly patience, research, and if you can't find an answer always
ask. And be open to learning (until you die).

------
diweirich
I've tried making the jump a few times with a desktop computer. I lost
probably two weeks to debugging issues between Ubuntu and my hardware. Finally
got everything working, not perfect, but acceptable. Then I replaced my
monitor with a 4k monitor and all hell broke loose again. Linux is great, and
I plan on trying it again, but make sure your hardware is compatible.

------
aceofcaves
Started with Windows, then Linux ever since I got out of school since time for
gaming was no longer a thing.

I've got a mac mini when my gaming rig died a couple of years ago, tried to
make OS X my main thing but it feels so damn slow in comparison to GNOME,
which is surprising because GNOME ain't exactly lightweight these days.
Basically opening finder takes anywhere up to a minute where-as nautilus is
more or less instant.

Used to find image editing lacking, but Inkscape and GIMP are pretty decent
replacements for Illustrator and Photoshop.

The only major pitfall I've ever encountered is NVIDIA Optimus (weird IGP/GPU
hybrid thing NVIDIA had going on around when i3/i5 laptops were the new
hotness), drivers for it were a bitch to the point where Linus publicly said
fuck you to NVIDIA during a Q&A. Other than that driver support has actually
been better on Linux than Windows in my experience.

------
rrggrr
I am in the process of transitioning now from OSX to Ubuntu Budgie on a laptop
and here are my takeaways so far:

\- Cloud reliance has been key. GSuite and Dropbox have kept me from having to
install much on the Budgie system.

\- Budget a half day on StackOverflow, etc. for problems you may have getting
Dropbox, Bluetooth and some other items working seamlessly with accessories...
although some of this is unique to Budgie.

\- Don't expect much interoperability with iOS products.

\- Key apps I use are available natively, eg. Slack and Atom.

I'm still going back and forth some and find the desktop/UI customization
available in Budgie has increased my productivity and decreased strain.

I'm missing hazel, bitbar and geektool applications quite a bit and haven't
found a suitable replacement that is as supported and easy to configure as
those apps. I can replicate most of the functionality with Python, conky,
etc... but I haven't the time to do so.

------
radiospiel
I tried to do this, with 3 different distributions, lucked out and went back
to my Mac. Things I found frustrating: Bluetooth sometimes stopped working,
keyboard was lagging, weird Desktop animations. I was able to find workarounds
for most of the problems - but wasted 20 hours.

One problem I really just couldn't get my muscle memory to work around is that
in all the Desktops Terminals have different shortcuts (Ctrl+Shift+C/V) than
all the Desktop apps (Ctrl+C/V). I was hoping I could find a Desktop
preconfigured to use the Super (aka Windows) Key similar to macOS' cmd-key:
i.e. every Super+X shortcut goes to the GUI layer (for example for Copy &
Paste). This leaves room for Ctrl-X shortcuts send Control-Keys to terminal
apps. Anyone having a suggestion to improve that?

~~~
ufo
Rebinding ctrl-C to super-C everywhere sounds like a big hassle. And I
wouldn't be surprised if not every app lets you rebind this sort of thing.

One thing that can be relatively easily done is to remap the super key to act
as an additional ctrl key or to swap the ctrl and super keys. But that
wouldn't solve the "terminal consistency" issue.

Some terminals allow you to change their keybindings to use ctrl-C and ctrl-V
for copy-paste. However, if you do this you need to also remap the key you use
to send a SIGINT to the current running process.

[https://askubuntu.com/questions/53688](https://askubuntu.com/questions/53688)

All that said, most people I know just get used to using ctrl+shift for
terminal shortcuts eventually.

BTW, in Linux you can also use the middle mouse click to paste. Select some
text and then click the middle mouse button to paste the current selection.
This works the same on regular apps and the terminal.

------
fusiongyro
I got a Dell Precision 5520 back in February or March. This is basically an
XPS 15" Developer edition, if such a thing existed; it came with Ubuntu and so
far I have not faced any insurmountable technical difficulties.

I find I spend less time screwing around on the laptop in general, and the
time I do spend, is somewhat more productive, so I'm very pleased with the
result. I like the modern Ubuntu.

What do I miss? The touchpad. iTerm. Mail.app. One clipboard. That's about it,
and not that strongly.

A pitfall you'll want to avoid: use the xinput driver, not synaptics, which is
way, way too sensitive. I think this issue is resolved in Ubuntu 18.04 anyway
though, so you may not even run into it.

------
rhacker
I'm curious about experiences here since I had been a Linux user before being
a Mac user. Also interested specifically in anyone running Linux on a Macbook.
I love Apple hardware, not sure I could go back to PC style laptops for Linux.

~~~
wyclif
Because of the inadequacies and failure rate of the new "butterfly" MBP
keyboard, a great option for you would be to install on a 2015 or earlier
model.

~~~
rhacker
This is very true - luckily I am currently on pre-butterfly, so this laptop
might be a perfect testbed.

------
madis
I'm currently doing the same. The 2 I have my eye on are Lenovo X1 Carbon and
T480s. Reason for change: frustration with Apple's loss of quality in both
software and hardware AND malicious practices. Just watch couple videos from
Louis Rossmann and you'll get the idea.

What I'm doing to smoothen the transition is that I started doing my personal
coding in VM (VMWare Fusion), full-screening ElementaryOS. That is to get
everything set up and more into muscle-memory. Client work will still be done
on MBP.

Then I'll switch my desktop over to Linux (hackintosh). After that laptop.

------
r053bud
I stopped using Mac about 5 years ago cold-turkey. I have been working with
Linux for years so it was nothing really new to me, but using it as my "main
desktop" had some initial issues. I just basically made a list of everything I
missed on Mac and found a way to accomplish it on Linux. I was able to achieve
my entire wish lish and even simplified a bit. I don't need finder since I
prefer to naviagate via the Terminal for example. That doesn't work for
everyone, but if they spend time looking, there will be FOSS waiting to help
you out.

------
bfrog
I mean, I've simply used linux for over a decade unless I can't (some things
need windows... still).

Seriously though, for my job of data wrangling/programming/small hardware
design projects... linux does it all and the tooling is entirely FOSS which
means I can and do scratch my own itches.

I tried using Mac a few times now, and it just drives me insane. There's a
hodge podge of things to try and work around it being a Mac like homebrew, but
in the end its still an awkward to use Mac.

------
MertsA
In many ways you're already most of the way there. By and large the biggest
issues with switching to Linux for the average user is the plethora of random
applications that only support Windows or Mac. Most of that software is stuff
that already only supports Windows so it's not like you're using any of that
as is.

The fastest way to learn how to use Linux as opposed to macOS or Windows is to
dive right in and start using it at least on your personal computer.

------
rangibaby
I dual boot between latest Ubuntu and OSX on my 2013 MacBook Retina. The
hardware is 100% supported by Ubuntu and getting various things to work
(webcam) is well documented.

Honestly there isn’t much difference between them if you are spending most of
your time in a text editor anyway. I mostly keep MacOS around for Adobe. There
are great alternatives to Photoshop, Lightroom, and Illustrator and I use them
when I can. It’s really other people that are the problem :-)

------
jeffmcmahan
I tried to switch to Ubuntu in mid-2015, using a VM for Adobe CS, but it was
awkward, particularly with the CS working files not being easily shareable btw
the VM and linux. Gave up after about 3 weeks and went back to my Mac. It will
stay this way until CS or something similarly capable comes to linux (and if
you're about to say "GIMP!", let me just stop you right there).

------
VICTOR-K
I built a Hackintosh that worked until a mac update brought it down. Went to
Linux and this lead to much frustration but I learned a lot from trying
diferent variations of Linux. Use linux Mint on two laptops. (one a mac pro
that apple no longer surports) and the pc. My only problem with Linux is less
suport of 32bit. Apple shows no support for older macs but linux always comes
thru.

------
d33
Once you use the same applications, it's going to be much easier. So if you're
not in rush, consider setting up trial Firefox/Chromium, Pidgin/anything,
Thunderbird etc on your Mac and then copy the profiles. A lot depends on the
programs you use, unless you're one of the guys that do everything in the
browser - then it won't be a lot of difference.

------
hobofan
I regularly switch between macOS and Linus on a Macbook, and the biggest
things that are missing in terms of apps are:

\- Alfred and all its integrations

\- Dash for progamming documentation. Yes, I know Zeal etc. exist, but none of
them come even close in terms of usability

\- Karabiner-Elements for keyboard remapping. Might be less of problem on non-
apple hardware where the modifier keys have a saner layout.

------
ben40
Still mainly a Mac user that has tried to explore making the switch, but here
is a blog post that is a great read on the topic.
[http://bitcannon.net/post/a-year-away-from-mac-
os/](http://bitcannon.net/post/a-year-away-from-mac-os/)

------
globuous
I did. Against my will about 10 months ago. I had used ubuntu as my primary os
in high school and arch in freshman / sophomore of college, so I wasn't new.
But had used macbook pros for the next 7 years: when I transitioned to mac and
never looked back. But then the day after quitting my job to start a startup
with 0 money, I got my mac stolen. So in a way, I was financially forced.

I went with arch again on some cheap second hand laptop, because I remembered
the install to be a good compromise between understanding the various parts of
the system i was about to use, fun, and without too much voodoo. I remembered
it to be more stable than my ubuntus. Maybe because I had less apps.

When I got my arch again, time to chose my UI. I tried dwn because I was now
free from a window environment and wanted to give tiling a try. I loved it but
missed something elegant. So i gave KDE a try because I was on KDE back in the
days of ubuntu and arch. And I remembered KDE on arch to work much better than
on ubuntu but that's another story. But with KDE, too many of the apps were
old school creating incoherencies between apps UIs, I missed the elegancy of
my mac. So, I gave a try to good ol' GNOME, but with the 3rd version although
I had only heard bad things about it until then. It was perfect for what I
needed.

Gnome takes the good parts of macos and leaves the rest. If feels polished and
the apps seem well integrated with each other. I can configure the shortcuts
the way I need them. My setup is now a Spacemacs instance for everything dev /
sys admin related and the rest of gnome for emails, blender, etc. And
honestly, I like the gnome UI, it's smooth, stable, easy. I get no crashes and
no lag. The Apple fanboy becomes a GNU fanboy.

So far the only thing I miss is being stuck with evolution as my mail /
calendar client because I rely on sending and accepting invites and gnome mail
and gnome calendar don't have that feature yet. Evolution is gnome 2 UI and is
incoherent with my gnome 3 apps, poor me :( Time for me to contribute !

But then, then you also get the fun part. A package manager, on Arch (or
Manjaro being the Ubuntu of arch as I understand it) you have pacman and
yaourt. I've never had to compile anything by hand, if it's not on pacman its
on yaourt. Need Blender / Gimp / Krita for whatever reason ? done. Libre
Office, Anything ? 4 word command and done. The most obscure add on for
whatever app ? its on AUR. And I assume it's the same for everything else.
Event the app starter shell thing is a great replacement for spotlight.

Finally, my emacs now works perfectly. My OS X version had some random bugs
occasionally making it unusable. So I can finally have my tiled environment
for anything related (missed you dwm workflow) and the 'elegancy' or GNOME 3
for everything else just an alt tab away.

So all an all, the Apple fanboy I had become doesn't need Apple anymore.
Actually, if I were given the latest macbook pro, I'd miss my arch. It just
sucks because, I miss Apple hardware, say what you want but it's hella
durable.

I could go on and on, but this message is already way too long, and I don't
want to spoil all the fun.

Hope I helped :)

P.S. Gnome 3 haters, come on, for a noob like me or my grandma, it's amazing,
I'm shocked. It took me 30 minutes to setup my shortcuts the systray and a few
other things. and the shell works really well, it's a good replacement to
spotlight.

~~~
jasonm89
It's recommended to stop using yaourt, it's not safe! I use yay, it's pretty
awesome. Check here:
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_helpers](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_helpers)

~~~
globuous
<3

------
mikece
Is there still no support for installing Linux via Boot Camp? If not, why
would Apple not support this? They get their pound of flesh when they sell the
hardware... is that not enough?

~~~
takluyver
Users who found that Linux did everything they want might buy something else
next time. That's not to say Apple are making some evil decision to prevent
this, but it's not likely to be high priority for them.

------
macrosak
I would be also interested. One particular productivity tool I use all the
time is Alfred, especially it's clipboard history feature. Do you have any
recommendations?

------
AlphaGeekZulu
I migrated from Mac to Linux about 5 years ago.

I had used the Mac privately and professionally for a living since around
1987, as a typesetter, graphic artist and software developer. My harddisk
contained all private and business data and had never seen a fresh install
since the first version of MacOS X - I was successfully updating the OS ever
since. Shortkeys were of course in my muscle DNA and I new every file in the
Library-folders by name. Hard to imagine to leave that experience for good.
But I got so concerned about Apple's way into entertainment electronics, that
I was commited to leave in time.

Hardware-wise I switched from the MacBook Pro 17" first to a Lenovo Thinkpad
W520, and four years later to my current Tuxedo XUX707. Both computers I liked
a lot, but the Tuxedo I really love. It is a beast with 32GB RAM, 4TB HD, 256
GB SSD, desktop i7 7700, 4K monitor and a dedicated Nvidia 1060. It is heavy
and loud, more a gamer PC than a laptop, but performance and reliability are
incredible. I have two external monitors connected to it.

I prepared the transition for about a year. First I tried a couple of Linux
distros (on a second partition of my gaming PC) and after a while I decided
for Ubuntu. I made sure to execute at least one major distro update of my
final selection of Linux candidates to make sure they ran flawlessly. My
favorite was Linux Mint, but it failed on one of the upgrades and so I ended
up with Ubuntu. Unity was never an issue for me.

Then I investigated how to transfer my mails (some ten thousands), but I had
used Thunderbird already on the Mac and so there was no trouble at all. Next I
transferred my data to the Ubuntu test machine and played a while to find, how
well I could continue with my daily chores. Turned out to work quite well. At
that time I was not much into graphic design any more, but much into software
development. I found comparable software for everything except Adobe InDesign
(Scribus just won't do). I replaced Lightroom with Darktable, Photoshop with
Gimp (do not like Gimp a lot, but it works for my needs) and later Krita,
Illustrator with Inkscape and Microsoft office with LibreOffice (and later
Softmaker).

Not all of the replacements had the same quality as on the Mac, but they were
ok, at least no showstoppers for my commitment to switch. In many domains,
especially development, text processing and the like, I was overwhelmed how
many good (and many free) solutions were available in the Linux world. It was
sort of enlightenment. Of course, there was a lot of new stuff to get used to:
application installation via package managers, shortkeys and the like.

After about 3 months of "playing" with the prepared test system I decided to
switch and I knew that I would have to switch hard. I was very afraid to end
up living in two systems. So I decided for a D-Day, did a last synch of data
and put the Mac in the shelf. Yes, the first month was hard, but as I was
commited to never return, I just went through and it worked. Today, I could
not imagine to ever return to the Mac.

I never had crackling sound, blinking screens or anything like this. My Linux
computer can connect and handle much more hardware than any Mac I ever had. It
is very possible (and likely), that certain computers will not work well with
Linux - this is something you have to make sure with a test installation
before you switch, but it is for sure not a generic issue. I switched to
Tuxedo because they offer Linux-tested hardware (and they build the computer
as you want it). The worst hardware issue I ever ran into was lacking support
for keyboard lights.

There are occassional issues with the proprietary nvidia-drivers, though, that
can really drive someone mad. I know how to handle this by now, but this was
the only real annoyance I ever encountered.

One word of warning, though: I have always been a developer since my childhood
and I was pretty experienced on the commandline long before I switched to
Linux. This might give me an attitude and advance that other Mac users might
be missing and that might make a transition more difficult. While the standard
Ubuntu system will be sufficient for most users out of the box, there might
arise the need to fix or enhance or adjust things and while this felt very
natural for me with my background, it might be a big hurdle for others.

My setup today is: I live completely on the Linux laptop. I still have a Mac
on the desk for compiling iOS apps and casual use of Adobe InDesign. I use the
"Das Keyboard" keyboard with unlabelled switches and the synergy keyboard
sharing software, so I can use the Linux computer and the Mac as one computer.
I have the keyboard-layouts and shortkeys of both operating systems in my
muscle DNA now and in addition a good deal of the Emacs-shortcuts ;-)

------
elchief
Had to turn in my MBP at the old job. Got an Asus Zenbook UX430U at the new
one. Works great with Ubuntu

------
trumbitta2
In 2013 I went from a Sony VAIO with Ubuntu and lot of swearing over drivers
and external monitors, to the bliss of a retina MBP.

It took me exactly 20 full minutes to make its acquaintance and start working
again.

That is my transition story.

[EDIT for context: I started using Linux in 1998 with Debian and no out-of-
the-box support for my Intel740, so I know a thing or two about Linux and
drivers]

------
OhSoHumble
I have an Aero 15x and Arch runs on it flawlessly. Everything works.

------
mmanulis
tl;dr; Think about your daily workflows and what apps you use most often. How
many of them are Mac-only and can you find an acceptable replacement in Linux
(90% yes)? It's really easy to get started with Ubuntu and be productive from
day 1.

I've used Linux as my primary system since late 90's. I switched to a Mac for
a few years twice and back to Linux. My motivation for the (latest) switch is
the complete lack of quality hardware and the cost of buying a Mac (not to
mention Apple's complete abandoning of the desktop). For details, look at all
the discussions on HN about the latest MacBook Pro.

I would echo what several people have stated here, about getting a Developer
edition from Dell preloaded with Ubuntu. Those Precision laptops are not the
same as the XPS's, though they look alike. The hardware is just different
enough to make it easier to run on Linux.

The way it worked for me is: I took stock of the apps I spent 90% of my day
using on a Mac, which are: gVim, Terminal, Chrome, Firefox, Slack, Spotify,
Keybase, Dropbox and a few system monitoring things.

All of that runs great on Ubuntu out of the box and with an hour's worth of
Googling, you'll have your laptop configured exactly as you want. The only
real issue for me was dealing with the touchpad; all that took was installing
a different driver and I was done.

I do install the latest kernel when it comes out, but that's cause I like pain
and is completely unnecessary.

It's been a year since I made the switch and the only thing I miss from my Mac
is Sketch. There is Gimp and Inkscape, but it's not the same.

My workflows are the same, if not better. Running the same OS as the EC2
instances I'm running keeps a lot of dumb mistakes from deployments.

Being able to spin up a bunch of Vagrant boxes or Docker images and not have
the UI come to a halt is fantastic.

Easiest option, install a Vagrant box with Ubuntu desktop on it and use it for
a day. You'll see if you like it very quickly.

------
gargravarr
I decided to install Linux Mint (which is heavily Ubuntu-based) directly on my
old A1260 MacBook Pro in 2015 - I ran into some interesting quirks with the
GPU (had to force it into BIOS mode) but other than that, I ran the machine
for a year purely on Linux. After setting the machine up how I liked it (I
really like the Cinnamon UI, even though it's much more Windows-like), I moved
the same configs to my other machines. I have a ThinkPad X220 also running
Mint with an extra battery for traveling, and a seldom-used desktop PC.

The aging MBP finally wore out in 2016 and no longer powers on (but after 5
years of daily use, I'm quite impressed with it). I bought a custom-built
Clevo gaming laptop from Scan's 3XS division, since it gave me a lot of say
over the hardware - I chose Intel and nVidia where possible to ensure
compatibility. I intended from the start for the laptop to run Mint, and it
has done so impressively - it has a 1TB SATA SSD for the OS (which I have
dual-booting Windows for games) and a second 256GB NVMe SSD dedicated to my
Steam library. I like that the machine has enough RAM (16GB) that I can
casually jump into a Steam game whenever I feel like it without closing what
I've currently got open, and that the RAM and SSDs are upgradable. It's also
covered in ports either side, including ethernet and 4 USB3.0 ports. And it
cost me less than half that of an entry-level MBP.

I found Linux is mostly there, but there are some things that Apple still does
much better. The touchpad is the most obvious - even using a utility like
Fusuma, multi-touch is still only fluent on a Mac, and the Synaptics pad on
the Clevo often takes several swipes to register. The keyboard is also nowhere
near as nice - I have to press the keys very hard, and often use it with an
external. The UI, however, is extremely usable and familiar, so much so that
I've converted family members using it. The hardware support is excellent -
all the hardware, Wifi, USB ports etc. worked out of the box - and the
performance is superb. I spec'd a good i7 chip for future-proofing and it's
still extremely fast, and the Geforce graphics handle 3D gaming with ease.

One major hardware problem I had was that the screen cable wore out after only
a year of use, and although it was replaced under warranty, it seemed like a
very silly thing to wear out so soon. For comparison, the only hardware
problems I experienced on the MBP were a detached Bluetooth antenna (probably
from when the previous owner upgraded the HDD) which just clipped back on, and
the webcam cable failed, but I was able to buy a spare and replace it myself.
I also kept the machine very clean and was surprised at how little dust there
was inside it. The bottom panel of the Clevo comes off easily enough, but the
fan vents seem much more inviting to let dust into the chassis. Battery life
is also abysmal - with the machine set on the nVidia GPU, it lasts less than
an hour, and less than 2 days in sleep mode. I didn't buy it to use on
battery, however, as I regularly travel between fixed locations so I have
mains power.

The longevity of the MBP did surprise me - I used it daily for 5 years with no
problems, and went from Snow Leopard (which is my all-time favourite OS) up to
Mavericks. The build quality was very, very good, and with the exception of
Lenovo ThinkPads, I can't think of another machine I could expect that much
useful life out of. However, Macs are no longer upgradeable and are very
difficult to repair - current machines have the RAM soldered to the board, and
if the SSDs are replaceable, they're proprietary Apple ones. I made it a goal
with the replacement to have it upgradeable - the CPU will address up to 64GB
RAM so I would be able to quadruple the factory value when 32GB DIMMs hit the
market (they seem to be close), and the SSDs are standard. I added the second
one 6 months after I bought it. That said, the case does not feel anywhere
near as solid and rugged as the MBP's metal chassis - I took the MBP around
the world with me, but the Clevo feels a lot more fragile, so I take the
ThinkPad instead now. I looked at the T-series ThinkPads but none of them had
offboard GPUs when I was shopping.

Don't forget, with Linux, you can easily try before you buy - download an ISO,
write it to a USB stick and boot your current Mac from it, then check out the
OS from the live environment. Try a number of different Ubuntu variants, e.g.
Gnome, MATE, Kubuntu, Xubuntu etc., see which GUI you get on best with. For
hardware, I would definitely recommend ThinkPads.

