There are a few low-hanging improvements (updates almost never require you to restart). But it's a lot of tiny things that add up, some of which are hard to put into words. If I had to pick one thing that encompassed a lot of them, it would be that when I use Mac I feel like I'm adjusting my work-style to what Apple thinks it should be. In other words, my Linux setup now feels like it's a professional tool, and the Mac I use for work feels like a consumer-grade OS that happens to have work tools bundled on it.
This is hard to put into words. If I'm an artist, my tools are very, very focused and robust. I might have specific pens and brushes that I know the feel of very well. They're not flashy and they don't have advertisements written on them, and they don't change their properties behind my back. Everything about them is designed to help me draw. If I'm a musician, I spend a lot of money to buy an instrument, and I get to know it very well. I have particular brands of reeds that are consistent that I'm likely preparing or sanding myself. I know my instrument so well that I can tell you which notes trend slightly flat or sharp, and after a while adjusting to that becomes instinctive.
So if I'm a professional programmer, I likewise want a computing environment that I understand completely and can service myself, and that is very customized to my own preferences. It's no different from any other professional field -- the point of the computer is to help me get work done, everything else is secondary.
You'll get different answers if you ask someone why Linux makes them productive, because the benefit of Linux is that it adapts to you. For me, personally, the biggest upgrades to my productivity have been:
1. Switching to Linux in general
2. Switching to Emacs/Spacemacs (Emacs works best on Linux)
3. Switching to Arch as my main distro (which is hard to do unless you already know Linux)
4. Most recently, switching to EXWM as a window manager (which is a lot easier to do on Arch)
Each step of this process has been me getting rid of things that distract me from work, and each step has built on the last. Switching to Linux gives me a setup that is much more customizable and stable, switching to Emacs gives me an editor that is very tightly integrated into the host operating system, switching to Arch allows me to have a very minimal setup (its easier to debug because there's less going on), and switching to EXWM allows me to focus the entire setup on work.
On the other hand, I have an old Surface Pro 3 that's running Manjaro/Gnome that I use for drawing. It's a very different setup from my main computer, because I use it for different things. Again, my computer should adapt to my workflow, not the other way around. The Surface setup is actually interesting, because it suffers from driver issues (unreliable Wifi, bad suspend support). And yet I'm still more productive on it than I was on Windows. I think people underestimate how much time and energy can get lost to distractions, surprise updates, stuff like that. Specialized devices are really stinking good for getting stuff done.
But everyone is different. I know people that get frustrated by the initial setup times or needing to dig more into the OS internals, and I get that -- it's reasonable. For me, once I got past that I found Linux to be really stable, because it doesn't change until you tell it to. Linux is the only OS I'll set up for someone who's not tech-savy, because putting in more work up front means I won't need to do as much regular maintenance.
I didn't want to go into details there, but Magit is wildly good. Line-by-line git-blame an entire file with 3 keystrokes, time travel back-and-forth over commits for a single file, quickly preview any file in the repo from any branch/commit using fuzzy-search. This kind of stuff really shines when you're working on a large company repo -- it meant if someone from another department called me up to talk about some obscure feature branch, I could open the relevant files without switching branches or stashing my current changes.
Aside from Magit, I also get a lot of use out of Org-mode (Emacs pure-text notetaking/todo-list client). I'm syncing to Android with Orgzly. Org-mode was the original feature that got me to try out Emacs, and for a while it was the biggest reason I stuck with it, since I'd never used Vim keybindings before. Vim keybindings made me less productive until I learned them, but were balanced by just how good Org-mode was.
I've even grown to appreciate packages like Calc (Emacs calculator). Dang if RPN style input isn't actually faster to use once you get used to it.
I do as well. If you're on Mac, you should still totally look into Emacs, it's great. Heck, if you're on Windows you should still at least think about Emacs.
Emacs overall works slightly better on Linux, because it's primarily optimized for that system. One big area where you'll notice that is if you start embedding X windows into buffers. EXWM is definitely not something I'd try to set up on Mac.
If you're not trying to do stuff like that, then Emacs on Mac is fine. I use a Mac at work and Emacs is a big productivity boost.
How is pen support for your Surface using Manjaro? Is it as good as it is on Windows (which is decent at best). I have a Surface 3 sitting around. I would love to repurpose it for drawing using Linux. I imagine battery life is probably terrible though.
Pen support is great, touch support is adequate, HDPI support is bad. Most of this comes down to individual apps -- Linux devs just don't think about touch or responsive design, and the frameworks they use are buggy or need config options set. Occasionally on Krita I'll get issues where I'll need to hit the tablet home to jump out of the app and back in to reset the touch "mode" that the app thinks I'm in. Kind of annoying.
I would say that it is not nearly as good as the touch support in Windows 8.1, but is comparable or potentially a little better than the touch support in Windows 10. Gnome's touch UI is good, but that's more just a testament to how much worse touch support got in Windows 10.
Krita is not amazing, but is still surprisingly good. When I first started using it, Krita was a massive pain and I missed Clip Studio all the time. It's gotten way, way better, and I now only rarely miss Clip Studio.
I'm honestly not sure what battery life is like. I will regularly use it for about 4-5 hours a day unplugged, but usually I'm at a desk and everything I own is plugged in. I still have Windows 10 on an old partition just to make it easier to calibrate the pen hardware (https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/downloads/W0009338), but I've never taken the time to compare the battery life for both.
It was kind of a pain to get everything set up, but that was years ago, and now that it is set up I just don't think about it any more. I'm very happy with its performance as a drawing tablet; at least for the type of illustration work I personally do. If you're comfortable with Linux, I'd say go for it. If not, you're probably better off with a Wacom tablet that won't force you to fight with Linux drivers.
Thanks. Yeah, I'm not super comfortable with Linux, but agree with your mindset. I want a professional tool that works for me without constantly demanding updates. I also dabble in Clip Studio, primarily for comic inking. I really like it. It was unfortunate to see it go to a subscription model for iOS.
This is hard to put into words. If I'm an artist, my tools are very, very focused and robust. I might have specific pens and brushes that I know the feel of very well. They're not flashy and they don't have advertisements written on them, and they don't change their properties behind my back. Everything about them is designed to help me draw. If I'm a musician, I spend a lot of money to buy an instrument, and I get to know it very well. I have particular brands of reeds that are consistent that I'm likely preparing or sanding myself. I know my instrument so well that I can tell you which notes trend slightly flat or sharp, and after a while adjusting to that becomes instinctive.
So if I'm a professional programmer, I likewise want a computing environment that I understand completely and can service myself, and that is very customized to my own preferences. It's no different from any other professional field -- the point of the computer is to help me get work done, everything else is secondary.
You'll get different answers if you ask someone why Linux makes them productive, because the benefit of Linux is that it adapts to you. For me, personally, the biggest upgrades to my productivity have been:
1. Switching to Linux in general
2. Switching to Emacs/Spacemacs (Emacs works best on Linux)
3. Switching to Arch as my main distro (which is hard to do unless you already know Linux)
4. Most recently, switching to EXWM as a window manager (which is a lot easier to do on Arch)
Each step of this process has been me getting rid of things that distract me from work, and each step has built on the last. Switching to Linux gives me a setup that is much more customizable and stable, switching to Emacs gives me an editor that is very tightly integrated into the host operating system, switching to Arch allows me to have a very minimal setup (its easier to debug because there's less going on), and switching to EXWM allows me to focus the entire setup on work.
On the other hand, I have an old Surface Pro 3 that's running Manjaro/Gnome that I use for drawing. It's a very different setup from my main computer, because I use it for different things. Again, my computer should adapt to my workflow, not the other way around. The Surface setup is actually interesting, because it suffers from driver issues (unreliable Wifi, bad suspend support). And yet I'm still more productive on it than I was on Windows. I think people underestimate how much time and energy can get lost to distractions, surprise updates, stuff like that. Specialized devices are really stinking good for getting stuff done.
But everyone is different. I know people that get frustrated by the initial setup times or needing to dig more into the OS internals, and I get that -- it's reasonable. For me, once I got past that I found Linux to be really stable, because it doesn't change until you tell it to. Linux is the only OS I'll set up for someone who's not tech-savy, because putting in more work up front means I won't need to do as much regular maintenance.