Saying that the macOS desktop is vastly inferior to Linux desktops is absolutely nuts. I've tried to get my relatives on Linux desktops so many times, just for it to go completely wrong a couple of weeks after and having to reinstall Windows. It's just not made for average (or below-average) users, so I don't see how it can be VASTLY inferior to something as easy and polished as macOS.
I don’t need polished and superior, I need to get work done. I want the OS to get out of the way, not slow me down with animations, stage managers and pretty docks. I don’t even need customization, I just need it to stop trying to outdo itself and fall over.
I’d run kde or even gnome on my work MacBook if it let me without a second thought.
PS just installed ios 26 and what is this? If this low contrast blobby window thing makes its way to the laptop I’ll be very, very not impressed.
TUI is GUI with a focus on keyboard control. All the TUI apps people regularly use could be at least as good with a GUI, ssh and DX are the only good reasons for TUIs and ssh does X forwarding, too.
Finder the least flexible file explorer of any OS. There's no location bar. You can't have a dynamically resizing grid of icons, so if you resize your windows, the icons are constantly outside of the horizontal scroll blinds. The view modalities make it difficult to sort and find files. Major system paths (eg. Applications) are locked down and hidden.
The window manager can't be replaced.
Window manager placement hacks exist, but they are not first class. You'll never have first class tiling windows in Mac.
Many of the window manager quirks are forced upon you. You can't change how to cycle and alternate windows. Exposé is flakey...
Option 1: View > Show Location Bar (you can right-click or double-click on any folder to interact)
Option 2: Option-click the folder name in the Finder Window's title bar to immediately jump to other folders
Option 3: If you want to type a location and go there, press Command-Shift-G for Go > Go to Location
> You can't have a dynamically resizing grid of icons, so if you resize your windows, the icons are constantly outside of the horizontal scroll blinds.
Of course you can. Select View > Clean Up By > and choose the option you like best.
> The view modalities make it difficult to sort and find files.
Name a built-in file explorer with semi-spatial (Sidebar off), browser icon mode, hierarchical list mode, gallery, and column view. Bonus points if they have anything remotely like QuickLook.
> The view modalities make it difficult to sort and find files.
What is difficult about Command-1, Command-2, Command-3, Command-4 to switch views? What is hard about Command-J for granular settings?
> Major system paths (eg. Applications) are locked down and hidden.
Applications is visible at the system-wide and user level. Applications folder is listed in the "Go" menu, present in every Finder menubar. Applications is, by default, on the left sidebar of every Finder window. If you want to type, Command-Space brings up any Application at a whim.
Can't find an Application or want to see EVERY app on the system and connected drives? Hold Option while going to Apple > System Information and click the "Applications" listing on the left sidebar.
> Window manager placement hacks exist, but they are not first class.
Moom wants a chat. BetterTouchTool wonders if you've heard of it. Heck, DockDoor is free and excellent, too! They're only second-class in the sense they won't bring down your system when they act up.
> You can't change how to cycle and alternate windows. Exposé is flakey...
This is either a configuration error or not being familiar with how to use it. Exposé works better than any similar system on any other platform I've tried - what do you think is a better example of a systemwide Exposé alternative on another platform? Wait, I don't need one because Mission Control & Exposé are bulletproof.
> Finder the least flexible file explorer of any OS.
Tell me how you getting around your system on linux?
Search is and remains a first class citizen on Mac, and is for the most part on Linux. Spotlight still edges out linux choices. Windows has all the "power tools" to root through folders cause its search is such hot garbage.
> You'll never have first class tiling windows in Mac.
No you have ones that work.
Because the moment that you plug in mismatched or non standard monitors into a modern linux distro all bets are off. To make that work your going to end up with some pretty intense setup where your forced into window management rather than a traditional desktop.
Can you do it... You sure can... But I run an out of the box IDE on a basic Mac with a few tweaks for a reason: because playing games with my tools isnt getting work done. I have an arch, ubuntu and windows desktop and I have a Mac laptop. Is the linux box fun. It sure is. Does running it involve doing a lot of chores, you bet it does.
> Because the moment that you plug in mismatched or non standard monitors into a modern linux distro all bets are off.
I do this daily with different displays and have no problems whatsoever. I've probably used over 30 different displays over USB-C and HDMI on Linux and have had no problems.
They were all different sizes, DPIs, panel types, brands, etc.
Meanwhile, I can't even do fractional scaling when using macOS lol
> I run an out of the box IDE on a basic Mac with a few tweaks for a reason: because playing games with my tools isnt getting work done.
I hear this sentiment often, but I think it's missing the main reason why most people prefer Linux, whether that's for work or leisure.
What you call "playing games" to me is actually configuring our tools and environment to function optimally according to our needs and preferences. Yes, we spend an inordinate amount of time doing this, but it ultimately leads to a more comfortable and enjoyable experience, which is well worth it considering we spend most of our day using our machines.
This is not unlike a carpenter who has very specific preferences about their tools, and how they might spend a lot of time organizing and honing them. Sure they can use a pre-built workbench from IKEA, but chances are that they prefer using one they've customized or partly built themselves over the years.
Dealing with jank and the occasional frustration is unavoidable in Linux, but no operating system and machine are perfect. There are always trade-offs. We just prefer the freedom and flexibility over a corporation forcing us to use our computers the way they think we should.
We all have different priorities and preferences, and I'm not saying yours are in any way inferior, but I wanted to clarify the other perspective.
My parents can never understand windows because they keep changing the ux design and my parents can't tell the difference between Microsofts AI ad stuff and the real os. My parents will literally type "email" into the Google search bar and hope to find their email address.
Windows has failed them.
Linux Mint/Cinnamon is closer to windows 95 than windows 11 is. It's cleaner, simpler, better.
Mac osx is annoying compared to cinnamon. I hate the empty space around the dock. I hate how Mac windows don't always consume the same amount of space for some reason so I can see the different rounded corners on different "maximized" windows. I hate Mac osx's full screen mode forcing each fullscreen app onto a different desktop. I prefer cinnamons default window tiling/desktop switching/fullscreening keyboard shortcuts and animations.
Finder's default mode of unaligned randomly placed folder icons is so wild. .DS_Store is so annoying. The lack of a system tray meaning you have to use the dock in order to see if you have a DM in slack. Spotlight opening the "spotlight" app when I type the "spot" of Spotify. Idk I just truly prefer cinnamon.
There's things about Mac osx that are great. The central nature of /Applications and of ~/Library is great. Lots of things are great.
Mac hardware is by far best in class but Mac osx is honestly pretty ugly compared to Cinnamon imo. I'm not biased. I paid through the nose for my MacBook. But I like the esthetics of Cinnamon on my desktop much more than osx.
I just got a work Mac and I have spent around 20 years now on linux before it. I was making a list compared to KDE (not pros/cons just differences) It is still a work in progress since its only a couple of days since im using it.
1. No delete button. I know you can do Fn delete but It is more problematic. And I do use delete often.
2. System keeps important system stuff in Library directory in home. Do not do remove any directories.
4. Os x doesnt quit apps and then expects me to go through all apps in windows switcher.
5. The spaces dont wrap around.
6. Finder is always in your alt +tab? Causes issues with switching.
7. Corners are round. How to Disable it control the roundedness
8. Alt +Tab doesnt automatically restore minimized windows.
9. App store is quite weak compared to archlinux
10. There is no spaces pager (a small bar at top where I can immediately see which desktop im in)
11. It seems that I cannot have windows of same app in multiple spaces.
12. Same app has only one window. Apple mail for example. Cannot copy text from email to settings.
13. How to Disable HTML display in apple mail.
14. Kmail has much better interface for signing
Both for viewing rhe signed emails and for deciding which key to use
15. Opening a new windows from spotlight is not possible
16. Download multiple wallpapers at same time is not possible
17. All operations related to an app should be inside an app. Alt+w for tab and ctrl+tab for switching makes me move two fingers instead of one.
18. Spectacle is so much better than screen shot on MAC os
19. Ramdisk on mac os x
21. Threads view in emails isnot possible in apple mail
22. Application specific power optimization (for good battery life) on OS X
23. Better security and access on OSX for apps.
23. Switching between apps of same windows on OSX does not bring up a visual aid..
24. Long press leads to accents which is very cool but also I didn't use it.
25. Left-clicking in a window to raise it _sometimes_ performs actions in the app (e.g. clicking a button or scrolling the window) and _sometimes_ only raises the window. It seems to depend on the app.
26. No ability to use focus-follows-mouse.
27. Home/End keys send you to the top/bottom of the whole document instead of the start/end of a line. The latter is much more useful to me and I use it all the time. You can change this behavior with a terminal command followed by rebooting, but some programs still do whatever they want.
28. Automatic text replacements change the text you entered into the text that Apple thinks you mean. (Can also be disabled.)
29. Holding down an alphanumeric key brings up an accept/symbol selector, as on iPhone. This isn't compatible with many terminal applications like vim.
30. The dock has a tendency to move automatically to another display when there is a maximized window on that display. (I know how to move the dock by going bottom of the display and moving the mouse down, this isn't that.)
31. The camera notch can hide icons and you have no way to get to them without either connecting and external display or a workaround like https://github.com/dwarvesf/hidden.
I feel your pain here; I remember my transition from Debian to MacOS. I’ve used DOS, Windows, Linux, and MacOS — each full-time for more than a decade. The switching pain is real, and some things still feel wrong to me after I got to love them on a prior OS.
E.g., in Windows apps, menu items are keyboard-addressable by default. This is brilliant for accessibility, and for accustomed power users. MacOS has no _by default_ equivalent.
E.g., managing virtual desktops in Linux are exactly as flexible and powerful as you want them to be. MacOS does it One Way (more or less), and you’d better like it.
I still love MacOS the most. Some of the things you list are real misses (#1). Some of them, I believe, are things you haven’t found yet (#11, #15, #16). Some are MacOS-specific metaphors which I’ve come to love compared with the alternatives (#4). Some I don’t understand but would be happy to discuss with you (#17).
> E.g., in Windows apps, menu items are keyboard-addressable by default. This is brilliant for accessibility, and for accustomed power users. MacOS has no _by default_ equivalent.
Cmd-Shift-? (really, Cmd-?)
You can begin using arrow keys from there, or start typing to search the menu items of the foreground app
You can also assign arbitrary hotkeys to any application's menu items in the OS system preferences
Yeah, I know about this; it’s not the same. In Windows apps following the standard (which all good ones do) _every menu item_ is keyboard addressable. Something several submenus in is trivially accessible by muscle memory: ALT-I-R-C to resize an image without constraints, e.g.
MacOS allows easy navigation of the menu, but does not guarantee that each item is hotkey-addressable.
4 - in macOS apps != windows (some apps don't respect this)
8 - minimize in macOS is more like "get this window out of the way without closing it", and it is related to 4)
15 - because of 4
23 - wat
Personally, once I got used to cmd+tab and cmd+` for window management, I can't go back, but it needs a different mental model than the one on Windows/Linux.
MacOS is just missing way to many core features. It feels more like a demo than actual software to be used day to day for a variety of computing work. I know the technical under the hood are all solid but the software the user interacts with is bad, all the default apps are barebones with bad defaults and no settings to fix it. My final point is: finder.
When I put non techy people on mac they end up having a good experience because they learn quickly there is no reason to touch anything except the web browser. I also want to highlight Macs are high end hardware in a premium package compared to Linux where people usually try it on a really old low/mid range device.
If they're like 95% of computer users, they use them to check their email, their FB/IG/etc and browse the web. A Chromebook would suit their needs, but in my experience, so would a modern Linux installation + a browser.
The biggest friction in my experience is UI differences, but that is solved by just mimicking Windows/macOS UI in KDE. Put buttons and components where they expect to find them and it seems to just work, in my experience.
You can also just tell them to get an M2 MacBook Air for $800. You'll have to do near zero troubleshooting, it'll last them the better part of a decade, they get unmatched battery life and hardware reliability, and if they do run into issues they'll have top-of-its-class support from Apple.
I know Linux guys don't mind putting up with the Linux experience but if your family is trusting you as "the techie," you'd be doing them a huge favor by not making them put up with that stuff.
> You can also just tell them to get an M2 MacBook Air for $800
Yes, you will find that most material problems can be solved by buying more stuff. If they wanted to buy a new laptop, they would have done that.
> You'll have to do near zero troubleshooting
That's the case now.
Meanwhile, with the Macs they use, I have to explain that there's a difference between Intel and ARM Macs, that no, their software won't work in MACOS_VERSION because Apple deprecated some API, and no, you can't upgrade to MACOS_VERSION+1 to use something that works, no the hardware they've been using for years won't work because the driver for it is no longer compatible with their Mac/macOS version, the simple thing they want to do actually requires $30 paid software to do, I can't help you when Apple sold you a small hard drive at a premium and macOS takes up half of it, etc.
> I know Linux guys don't mind putting up with the Linux experience but if your family is trusting you as "the techie," you'd be doing them a huge favor by not making them put up with that stuff
Yeah, having a fast computer that just works must be tough lol
> I have to explain that there's a difference between Intel and ARM Macs
No you don't? Why not tell your grandma about PowerPC and Motorola 68000 Macs too while you're giving her pointless information about CPUs Apple used in the past.
We're half a decade into the Apple Silicon transition. Intel Macs are not relevant to anyone except people who purchased a Mac within a couple years before the M1.
> no, their software won't work in MACOS_VERSION because Apple deprecated some API, and no, you can't upgrade to MACOS_VERSION+1 to use something that works, no the hardware they've been using for years won't work because the driver for it is no longer compatible with their Mac/macOS version, the simple thing they want to do actually requires $30 paid software to do, I can't help you when Apple sold you a small hard drive at a premium and macOS takes up half of it, etc.
I... can't even imagine what scenario you could possibly be running into any of this so I don't know how to argue against it.
I was already speaking on the scenario you brought up where this is someone that is gonna be living 95% in their browser. I don't know what weird proprietary software non-techie users are needing that's apparently not compatible with new Macs. Anything beyond web browsing - e.g. word processing, light photo editing, dealing with PDFs, etc - can be done with very high-quality, free software baked right into macOS.
You describe using a Mac like the black and white "before" footage from an infomercial showing that previously the only way to cut a tomato is smushing it with the side of a dull knife. If a Mac is too difficult for someone, Linux is not the solution.
> No you don't? Why not tell your grandma about PowerPC and Motorola 68000 Macs too while you're giving her pointless information about CPUs Apple used in the past.
Yes, I do, when Apple advertises new features in macOS and for whatever reason, they just don't work on their Macs. Why? Because some of their machines are Intel-based and Apple chose not to implement certain features they expect on their Intel hardware.
Similarly, I have to do the same for software. While fat binaries are common, sometimes they end up with ARM binaries that just won't work. Similarly, the ability to run their iOS apps doesn't exist on Intel Macs and they don't know why.
> I... can't even imagine what scenario you could possibly be running into any of this so I don't know how to argue against it.
My family member spent thousands of dollars on software licenses for their business. For years, they could use that software on their Macs, until they couldn't. I'm talking about things like Office and tax software.
Similarly, try using an old macOS version that older Macs get stuck on. You eventually cannot even get a working safe browser anywhere, because the APIs Firefox and Chrome depend on change between macOS versions due to API churn, eventually deprecating old macOS versions altogether when it comes to new releases. Eventually, the entire Mac app ecosystem does this and the only solution is to either upgrade your macOS version through hacks or buy a new Mac with an updated macOS version and then experience that again in a few years.
Then there are driver issues. I have family members that have perfectly good music production hardware that drivers no longer work for. For some of it, it looks like 3rd party companies developed paid drivers for new macOS versions. Same thing with touch screens, had to go down the paid driver route for those, too. That's just not a problem on Linux.
> You describe using a Mac like the black and white "before" footage from an infomercial showing that previously the only way to cut a tomato is smushing it with the side of a dull knife
I mean, that's one way to interpret being honest about my experience as tech support for my family's Macs and other computers over the years. The Intel -> Arm transition + Apple's propensity for API and OS churn affects their users who aren't buying new hardware every time a new version comes out.
> If a Mac is too difficult for someone, Linux is not the solution.
I'd stand by the statement that if a Chromebook would suit a user's needs, so would Linux. Both require a curated experience and there should be no expectation of users setting it up themselves. You can make computers running Linux into solid email/Facebook/Zoom/office/web/etc machines a la ChromeOS, and in my experience, that keeps people happy.
Obviously, Linux is not a universal solution, Macs or other software/hardware might be the right solution. I wouldn't subject musicians in my family to Linux, but it has kept my older family members online and safe.
I'm a huge Linux fan but "it just works" is not a phrase I'd use in the same paragraph as Linux. Try explaining to your grandma that she needs to open a terminal and run "sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade"
Why would grandma do that when there's been an update manager service GUI for two decades?
Either set it to do upgrades in the background automatically or tell her to hit "Install updates" when she sees a notification about it. Ideally you'd click the checkmark that enables the former.
The great thing about Debian and Ubuntu LTS releases is that they're rock solid and nothing changes for like a decade or however long they're kept on life support.
It seems that you haven't used it in a long time then. You don't need to go the terminal to update the system. Mostly you get a message that there are updates for the system. You click it, click update all and your done.
Yeah, and my fisher price car is a lot easier for my 3 year old to drive than my car.
Sometimes powerful tools need sophisticated users that have time to invest in learning to use the tool. "Inferior" might depend on who is trying to accomplish what, but it's hard to argue that if you're trying to do or build the most sophisticated and cutting edge things that computers are capable of doing, you probably don't want to be using macOS or window.
That doesn't mean that it doesn't work marvelously when you have 0 time to invest in learning to use your computer, and all you want is to access web applications and manage a few files on a screen bigger than your smartphone and with a physical keyboard.
People's habits have nothing to do with "superior" or "inferior" qualities of a certain OS. No matter how good or bad, the habits have a strong resistance force against any change. That's not necessarily bad, but let's not make it part of judging OSes qualities.
I do all my software development in remote clusters/supercomputers. I’d consider myself a power user. My laptop is for running a terminal, vscode, a browser and the various applications my company requires, e.g. Teams, Slack. So I want reliability, low configuration and maintenance overhead on my part and good battery life. Linux can’t compete on these fronts.
All those pros you list have nothing to do with the desktop environment. Maybe low configuration but you can have that on Linux too.
I totally agree that the hardware and the underlying Unix is decent. Audio on Mac is also way less of a hassle. I am not saying that a power user wouldn't have good reason to chose a Mac, just that the desktop is for me the weakest part of it compared to Linux.
It’s more subjective of a thing than many would like to admit. As someone who’s been working as a dev for a decade and writing code outside of work for twice that, one of the things keeping me away from Linux is that there simply isn’t a true Mac analogue DE.
It's funny how polarizing this is. Seemingly based on whatever system you grew up on, or are most accustomed to.
I find Mac's window management to be something of a joke, and can't imagine why anyone would want to replicate it. I do see the value of the global menu but everything else feels wholly unintuitive to me.
I can't stand that cmd+tab takes you to the last app, not the last window, and raises all that apps other windows as well. I literally never want that.
The way Mac window management works, ironically, is that you manage windows as little as possible. You don't even go as far as to maximize or tile most of them. Instead, windows are sized to fit their content and sit where they may, overlapping each other and allowing the most relevant portions of each to peek through, like the digital analogue of a desk with a pile of odd-sized papers. Windows are foregrounded by either clicking a bit that's peeking out or triggering Exposé and choosing a thumbnail.
It's a very different mindset than that of a Windows-like desktop or tiling window manager.
Most people on desktops / laptops interact with these services via a web browser, which has very limited permissions on the system. Not sure how you could control that tightly on a fully open iOS.
It does, doesn't it? Even if you stretch "web app" to mean "PWA" iOS supports them. And it definitely supports the literal definition of "web app" (i.e. loading a website in a browser that runs JS or whatever to perform its "app" functionality).
On iOS, I can trust that pretty much everyone in my family won't download something silly that then creates a security hole in their devices. Not sure how you could guarantee that if you could load code post-review. What would be the point of the review, then? Wouldn't the App Store be littered with trojan horses in waiting?
I found a fascinating arrangement of a funky Ligeti work. I had listened to it on the piano, but the sound of the theremin mixed with the programmed analogue synths really elevates the piece for me.
More annoying than that is the email monopoly operators deciding any non-monopoly email is spam, effectively driving businesses into their corporate packages. As a business, you have no guarantee that if you run your email server or have a hosting company run it, you'll actually be reaching customers.
I've been self-hosting for about 15 years now, and the only deliverability problems I've had in the past were with ISPs. I have no problem sending to Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and so on, or any business who hosts their own E-mail. Very occasionally, I get bounces from people who still get their E-mail through their ISP, like from AT&T or something. But I just go through the ISP's opaque process and deliverability goes back to normal.
Same here, 10 years self hosting. I've heard this claim a lot but I've never actually seen it, or seen evidence of it.
The worst I've ever had was gmail refusing to accept a ~50MB zip file as an attachment. And you know what? I'm not even mad about that one, that's totally fair.
And worse, your customers blame you instead of the provider, forcing the switch even more. "I don't have any problems with other emails, it must be your fault."
Is this not the logical result of fighting spammers? It’s easier to trust messages coming from mega corp when you know mega corp has invested in mechanisms that ensure their systems aren’t being used to send spam. I certainly don’t like the negative impact on people who choose to self host, but I also don’t see it as an intentional effort to shut out legitimate emails.
It's always good to have an alternative reason beyond "we want to crush the competition", especially if one of these pesky anti-trust lawsuits comes around.
It's very easily possible for both to be true, there is a "fight spam" reason and there is also a "monopoly" reason, and of course unless you very stupid you never mention the second.
I get that each person will decide if it's worth it or not, but $29/month isn't really anything in the big picture of what you are paying the people who will be using it.
Might be nice if there was a free tier for small non-profits, volunteer orgs, student orgs, etc. but a lot of things might be nice.
It's our goal to make this as affordable as possible for all types of organisation. If you're part of a non-profit or volunteer organisation, get in touch.
