This design seems to cement the trend at Apple to position their products as consumer appliances, not platforms useful for development.
The problem is, there's nothing else out there. Everything is going to shit in one way or another. Windows is now a disaster, Linux was always a disaster in terms of user experience and isn't improving.
Mac OS was the last bastion of somewhat good, thoughtful design, user experience and attention to detail and now they've gone to shit too.
Curious: what have you tried? People who use "Linux" as a catch-all in terms of UX usually have only tried a single distribution with a single desktop environment.
It's really hard for me to use non i3wm supporting OSes now, even though I have to use Windows from work, and have used Macs for the better part of the last 2 decades personally and in college.
I get a fair bit of weekly exposure to Windows 10 and well, it's not like heaps of fun, UX wise.
I'm reluctant to drop Apple mainly because I'm so 'tied up' with the rest of the ecosystem, iphone, Apple Music, iCloud etc.. They are not irreplaceable (for sure) but it always feels like moving away will cost way too much effort and be a pain... Well played, Apple.
I had an ubuntu machine that took a while to boot even with an SSD. Later I installed arch linux on the same machine and boom! it would be to the desktop in seconds. It was night and day.
Yup. You've just described a disaster. How many permutations of <hundreds of distros> x <dozens of DMs> must a user try before finding a good UX?
Because there are at least four BSDs, Mac therefore isn't good.
Do you see how ridiculous applying that logic to any operating system is?
Linux isn't a disaster. It's a kernel. There are Linux distributions with great user interfaces and great UX, developed by people who are great at it. There are also distributions that aren't.
I'm sure there are other user-friendly distros that similarly let average users browse the internet, write documents, listen to music and watch movies painlessly.
Hardly. The existence of a distro I don't like doesn't degrade my experience using a distro I do like. You may as well be upset at an ice cream shop for having dozens of flavors when you only like strawberry. Choose the one you like and ignore the ones you don't. It's not rocket science, even children can figure that out.
I would recommend: Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS
if you want: nice experience out of the box
I would recommend: Arch, Gentoo, Debian Net inst, Void
if you want a base system and install things you want on top of it
The fact I can install Steam and play an AAA like Mad Max or Shadow of Mordor mostly seamlessly makes me wonder why people still claim Linux on the desktop is a no-go.
This as true today as saying java is slow. Why not just try? You might get pleasantly surprised.
This is why I don't want anything by Apple.
If you want something more traditional with the start menu or dock or desktop icons, perhaps something like KDE Neon is better place to start. It might feel more familiar. Will be lighter/faster too.
Put each of them on a USB and run them live on your machine for few minutes each and see which one makes more sense to you.
In terms of defaults:
I've heard really good things about Solus, and its use of AppArmor seems really cool. Never touched its package manager, so I won't recommend it, but it might be worth checking out. Its desktop environment is really snappy and has an interesting design philosophy.
Elementary is really cool as a boutique distribution; I don't personally feel any urge to use it seriously (I dislike apt as a package manager), but I always keep its live environment on a flash drive, because it works without any setup on basically anything I throw it at, painlessly, and without error. It's got a cool indie app store full of curated Elementary-centric free software, and overall just feels great. Using it, you'll probably notice a few areas that it clones Mac on, and a few that feel delightfully different.
Clear Linux (Intel's desktop distribution) is pretty popular right now because of how simple it is & how Intel seems to be going to great lengths to optimize it and make it a serious contender, but I don't like its desktop environment (vanilla GNOME 3 as far as I'm aware) all that much.
ChromiumOS is probably the best-designed desktop operating system on the planet right now technically, and I say that as a person who really hates Google. UI-wise it's so-so, but UX-wise it's really something special.
But more interesting are desktop environments in general, since they can be used with any variant of Linux you feel the urge to use. There's an exception there, though, in that Elementary's DE and Deepin's DE tend to not work so well or nicely on platforms that aren't Elementary or Deepin.
There are modern environments:
Plasma has hands-down the best UX of any sort of desktop operating system assuming you've got an Android smartphone; you say you're coming from Apple's environment, so imagine the interop between your Mac and your iPhone, but going both ways instead of just Mac -> iPhone. Texting, handling calls, taking advantage of the computing resources of connected devices, using your phone as an extra trackpad, notifications, unlocking your PC, painless file-sharing, pretty much anything you'd like. There are a bunch of distributions that ship with Plasma by default.
Solus's Budgie is kind of neat in that it takes the main benefit of GNOME 3 (ecosystem) with far fewer downsides.
There are also retro environments, if those are your thing. There's a pretty much perfect NeXTSTEP clone (including the programming environment, not just the UI), amiwm is still pretty interesting, there are clones of basically every UNIX UI under the sun, so on.
I'm not the best person to answer your question, because for the most part I don't go out of my way to use new desktop environments and distributions, and nothing above is my first choice. (In terms of window management, I usually stick with 9wm & E just because I have ridiculous ADHD and 9wm forces me to focus while E allows me to tile painlessly if I ever need it. I use three distributions overall, none of which are very popular at the moment, pretty much solely because I'm really picky with package managers & design philosophies.) That's a "me" issue rather than a Linux issue, though.
Yeah, but they're the ones who paid for their machines. So... you're saying they're not allowed to use them how they wish?
> Leaving a backdoor to real admin access for the experts just means laypeople will abuse those backdoors and mess up their machines again
Remembering the last 20 years of computer history, most of the critical fail wasn't caused by "laypeople abusing backdoors" but horrible security holes in popular, widely used software packages: Outlook, Flash, Acrobat Reader, Internet Explorer. Apple/Microsoft are not locking down their OSs to protect users from themselves, but rather from other developers. We, software engineers, seem to have completely failed our users as a profession.
Windows is a unfixable disaster, you can't fix it sorry.
Mac OS is now an unfixable disaster, you also can't fix it sorry.
Linux may be a UX disaster, but you can, uniquely, modify it. You can change your UI. You can attempt to fix the problem, and have a real shot at doing so.
Linux is the only one where you can do something about the problem - which is a strong reason to prefer it.
It sounds like the finding right combination of DE and package management solution plays a big role here. I don't remember much of my experience with Gentoo's package manager in the early 2000's other than finding it generally did its job (if a bit slowly)... Experience with package managers on Mac (brew, macports) hasn't been great so I'm eager to play around with modern ones on Linux. Same goes for the DE actually: stock, out-of-the-box, macOS is essentially unusable for me until I get my customization (scroll, trackpad, KeyboardMaestro) done exactly right, I can't imagine this not being better on Linux, if anything for the ability to switch among the various DE's.
I'm starting to contemplate this (fully untested) strategy: trying out a few distros and installing the one I like best on VMWare Fusion and then try to use it as much as possible, falling back to macOS if I get stuck or I'm short on time but gradually replacing Mac-specific stuff as I find suitable replacements.. TextMate, the masterpiece of Allan Odgaard (author of the article being discussed here) probably going to be the toughest one. If I'm successful, I should eventually be able to let Linux 'out of the box' and run it on real hardware..
PS: amiwm! This is going to be a must. I do miss the Amiga, a fair bit..
The biggest reason I enjoy elementary OS as a distro is that everything lives on GitHub, package releases happen through GitHub Actions, etc. Fixing a bug can be faster than merely filing a radar in the Apple ecosystem.
xbps
apk (terrible interface; wonderful technically)
pacman (wonderful interface; so-so technically; dislike the distro that uses it because of technical choices)
InstallPackage (GoboLinux is kind of cheating, because InstallPackage isn't a "real" package manager, but that's kind of the point)
I love TextMate, too! Something you might find nice is how easy it is to run Mac in a VM on Linux; there are scripts that manage the entire thing for you, and it's pretty painless (and so fast; I was surprised). Useful if you have a few packages you can't find replacements for.
You mention Apple Music elsewhere, which you might be interested to know has an Android client and a web client, and you can probably get a native client on Linux, though I'm not immediately aware of one.
- multi-language support requires a lot of work to get to the same point as macos.
In particular I use third party shortcut mappers to get language switching on left and right command keys (mimicking the JIS keyboards, but with an english international layout). That looks like something I’d have to give up on code myself.
- printer support is not at the same level.
Using a xerox printer, some options that appear by default on macos where not there on ubuntu. I’m sure there must be drivers somewhere, or I could hunt down more settings. But then my work office two other printers. It would be a PITA to hunt down drivers every time I want to use another printer.
- Hi DPI support is still flagged as experimental, and there’s a bunch of hoops to jump through to get a good setting in multi-monitor mode. Sure it’s doable, but still arcane.
- sleep/wake was weird. It would work most of the time, but randomly kept awake after closing the lid, or not waking up when opening. Not critical, but still not good (I’d ahte to have the battery depleted while traveling)
Overall if I had no choice that would be a fine environment. But as it is now, with all its quirks, I feel macos is still a smoother environment.
That would be excellent! I like the idea of swapping host and guest with this VM strategy, sort of evolutionary platform switching.
https://github.com/foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM
Really, really fast, and fairly painless.
Linux sucks, but I use it becuase it sucks less than windows, for programming at least.
Have yet to see a distro do multi monitor hi dipi that results in readable fonts out of the box..
This gets updated yearly - https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.t...
Nonsense, 'Linux' can be what you make it. You can have it as sleek as something straight out of the fruit factory or as spartan as a VT100 and anything in between. If you're new to the game the pre-packaged 'consumer' distributions might be a good starting point but for those with a bit of nix savvy - of which I assume there to be many on this board - those bells and whistles probably just get in the way.
If my 8yo daughter and my 82yo mother can use Linux - the latter through a remote X2go session from her kitchen table in the Netherlands to my server under the stairs in Sweden - I'd say people around here can be assumed to be able to handle it. The nice thing about 'Linux' is that you can change out those parts which you find disagreeable for whatever reason for those you like better, this in contrast to that last bastion of somewhat good, thoughtful design, user experience and attention to detail* which by your own statement has been changed into excrement. Just take out the shitty bits and replace them with something better... oh, no, not possible...
That is why the parent poster is right in this sense, things in 'Linux' land might not be perfect - and can never be 'perfect' since one person's perfection is another's nightmare - but at least you get to do something about it.
Portability is also a fair issue to raise, but it's simply not a problem for me. When I say Linux "on the desktop", I literally mean it: to me a laptop is simply a slightly more portable desktop computer. I sometimes take my work laptop to/from the office, and the battery lasts long enough for that. I'm not worried about longer trips, since I don't use laptops for that. Again, if you do care about this (which is completely fair), I'm aware many Linux distros still have issues with battery life. You certainly can't compete with a Macbook Pro, that's for sure!
I do note that my experience with printers is opposite to yours. Like I said, when trying to connect to an HP wireless printer, Ubuntu autodetected and self-downloaded the necessary drivers; however, it took a lot of patience to get it to work with a Macbook Pro. Today, that I have it configured for my Ubuntu laptop and my wife's Macbook Pro, the Mac will sometimes fail to print (the print job simply stuck in limbo) while my laptop prints reliably. Who knows?
And like I said in another comment, I game (or used to, anyway) a lot with Ubuntu, and many games are even AAA (though they tend to arrive later than on Windows).
So I really have a hard time believing Linux is not "ready for the desktop". It is, and has been for many years now.
edit: one last thing. You mentioned HDPi modes, multimonitor, multilanguage... none of those are for average users. My mom would be comfortable browsing the net, reading mail and watching movies on Ubuntu. She doesn't even know what HDPi is, nor does she want external monitors. (Spoiler: she still uses Windows because she can't learn anything else at this point... I've thought of tricking her by themeing Ubuntu to look like Windows, but that would just be mean).
What do you mean by 'there goes your install'? There are multiple ways you could run bleeding-edge software before it's packaged for Arch. See for example every 'xxx-git' package in the AUR. Or Flatpak.
The last few years I've run Linux VMs on a Macbook, but I'm transitioning to a Linux desktop probably running a macOS VM, which you mentioned in another comment - didn't know there was a practical solution.
It sounds like distros like Elementary and PopOS might suit me as a gentle transition from Macs.
For the printers, you are right in that it’s far from being a solved problem on macos. I had an EPSON all in one before, and it was also a pain to get everything working. If I remember correctly the generic driver could print, but we didn’t get “advanced” options without going through the EPSON pkg installer and all the garbage coming with it. I’d totally imagine the linux driver being done cleaner than that.
For the record I’ve worked with a decent number of devs using linux workstations, so I totally vouch for your use case. I’d just temper the niche nature of multi-language support; that’s an everyday need for basically all Asia. Granted my use of shortcuts is niche (I wouldn’t need them if I had enough keys), but looking at maintenance projects annual reports there seem to be a sizeable amount of quality of life fixes still on the way.
I'm honestly pretty baffled as to what keeps this meme alive, as KDE and GNOME are both very popular and provide simple, intuitive interfaces for the typical user. Plasma is only complex if you're the type that really wants to customize, but there its complexity is (mostly) necessary for its wide range of possible configuration. People have this idea that desktop Linux users are all a bunch of dorks playing around with Arch and tiling window managers all day and then posting their anime wallpaper setups on /r/unixporn, but that hasn't actually been true for a long time.
Rolling updates for me have not been problematic.
I've had a few updates that gave an error message, and they were easily fixed in one minute after searching the arch website.
I think one was a key expired - I had to manually update it and redo the update process.
The other I can recall was a package that had become obsolete/conflicting and a question had to be answered.
In general rolling updates are a tiny blip every few months.
In comparison, the several debian based distributions I've run have been a "lost weekend" type of upgrade for major updates.
Somehow, when you ask a person about PC or a Mac, the answer is: Windows or MacOS, and then the discussion is about their quirks, or advantages, or deficiencies.
You ask about Linux, and this is what you get:
> Linux isn't a disaster. It's a kernel. There are Linux distributions with great user interfaces and great UX
So, once again: which one of the hundreds of permutations of <distro> x <DM> has a great UX?
The (hopelessly unscientific) test plan was:
Challenge 1 - write live system ISO to USB drive and boot it on my 2015 MacBook Air (which, though old, still counts as exotic, I guess.)
Challenge 2 - make sure display, network, trackpad and keyboard (+ intl. layout) work correctly. Be able to SFTP to my Mac
Challenge 3 - with little to no docs reading (how is the package manager invoked from CLI?), use the terminal to set up the right environment for a couple of relatively portable hobby projects I've been recently working on (on Mac), compile and test them. This includes, among other things, installing clang or g++, SDL2, Wine (to run an ancient ARM assembler) and finding a usable GBA emulator.
Limitations:
A: 8GB RAM. More ambitious stuff (KVM macOS, VisualStudio Code) will have to wait for an actual install.
B: Deliberately avoiding exposure to the docs is silly but I thought
such an approach would give me an indication as to whether
there exists a distro that uhm, "thinks like me".
Results:
Challenge 1: unremarkable. All worked right off the bat except for Void, which made it as far as showing the mouse pointer but then froze.
Challenge 2: well, boring ;) All distros were pretty much ready to use and required minimal tweaking. With the tweaking part ranging from effortless (Mint) to minor headscratching (Neon). Not sure whether /etc/X11/XF86Config still exists but I did not miss editing it today.
Challange 3: more interesting:
Neon: all worked as expected except some trial and error required to get Wine working: wine32 was required but it wasn't getting installed by default, apparently. (Not a whole lot easier on Mac anyway, with separate downloads & installs for Wine and XQuartz)
Ubuntu: I failed as apt refused to acknowledge the existence of the packages I needed. This is weird as I believe Neon relies on the same package database. Though undoubtedly my fault, not reading the manual, it is perhaps a bit interesting that I could not readily find my way around the problem.
Fedora: everything worked except for Wine, as the live system ran out memory (disk space) on installing it. Not a big deal, everything else worked very well. Aside: I'm an avid runner and "DNF" is not the most likeable of names for a program I have to use very frequently! j/k..
Mint: everything worked at take one.
I know this isn't even scratching the surface of the surface but I think for now I'm going to go ahead and play more with Mint and Fedora after installing them on MB Air hardware or MB Pro VMware.... with a mind of getting back to KDE/Neon eventually.
I haven't used Ubuntu much lately but I remember always having to add community repository to get some package I needed. (Also one of the reason I love Arch, a lot of packages there updated more quickly than most distro + the AUR for everything not present in official repo)
I use Debian, I like Debian. When I run Wireshark I don't see unknown requests destined to debian.com. That is the definition of simplicity for me. And yes, it doesn't always work out of the box, you have to install some drivers, change configurations but it's getting better and easier. Yet, I'm a software developer so I understand and like that stuff.
> Linux was always a disaster in terms of user experience and isn't improving.
No, you can't define it as a disaster, it's not. If you're an end-user that understands nothing of computers maybe you can but otherwise it's not a disaster. It's just harder and getting easier by day.
Because they and few others are exceptions? Can you play the latest CoD? GTA V? Assasin's Creed maybe?
> GTA V?
I honestly don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if I could using WINE. A huge library of Windows AAA games work on WINE.
> Assasin's Creed
I don't know, but Mad Max and Shadow of Mordor are pretty much the same kind of game as Assassin's Creed, following the same kind of gameplay and using the same kind and complexity of 3D graphics/engine.
In any case, these are not exceptions. I forgot to mention the XCOM remake, Alien: Isolation (this is interesting because it has tons of graphics effects, including chroma aberration -- it looks awesome on Linux), SOMA, Victor Vran, Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II, L4D2, and many others. There are tons of Linux games on GOG and Steam, many of them AAA games. If you count indie games or 2D platformers there are literally thousands of them, but I guess that's not what you're after.
The settings UIs in Mint are easily way better than in Windows and Mac.
My point is that you can't run most AAA games actually, and many of those you can - will give you enough problems (like frame drop or some graphical features unavailable).
And I really don't understand what's the point of being able to run some games. I want to play the games I'm interested in, not the ones that 'are playable'.
>I don't know, but Mad Max and Shadow of Mordor are pretty much the same kind of game as Assassin's Creed, following the same kind of gameplay and using the same kind and complexity of 3D graphics/engine.
No sure what's your point here. You can't replace one with another just because they have similar mechanics.
Steam\GoG has many games that run on linux and macos (by the way), but most of them are indie platformers or things like that. People don't play random games just to kill some time (well, some do), they play TITLES.
> I forgot to mention
more exceptions. They will stop being exceptions when you will be able to run 80% of titles without any issues and not sooner than that.
Gaming is not important to be, I'm a PS4 guy ever since macos switch, just pointing out that games are still has little to do with linux unless we are talking about rare AAA titles and indie scene
> And I really don't understand what's the point of being able to run some games. I want to play the games I'm interested in, not the ones that 'are playable'.
With this definition neither Windows nor the PS4 are valid gaming platforms, since not every game can be played on them.
> They will stop being exceptions when you will be able to run 80% of titles without any issues and not sooner than that.
So now it's 80% when before it was "a few exceptions"? Sorry, I'm uninterested in discussing your arbitrary definitions with you. Nice try moving the goalpost.
PS: re: "without any issues", back when I used Windows for gaming, there was always some issue. The graphics card, drivers, config issues. I guess Windows is not a gaming platform either then?