Anyone else converted from Windows to Linux to MacOS?

[kratosthegodofwar]

So I used to be a Windows guy until Windows 7 support ended. Now I’ve got a dual boot Debian/Linux Mint desktop and a Macbook running MacOS which is a custom OS from a version of freeBSD. I’m using the Macbook all the time and now don’t need the other machine lol. Anyone in the same position? MacOS is super polished and I don’t think it would crash randomly like Windows. I don’t see a purpose in using Debian day to day if I don’t leave my computer running 24/7 for a month. Debian is too user unfriendly while Linux Mint is too clunky and ugly in my opinion. Debian is super stable but user unfriendly while Linux Mint is user friendly but ugly looking. MacOS blows both out of the water. I can’t even get Debian to let me be root while Linux Mint lets me be root from the installation setup lol. Oh and debian installation is like waiting until new years eve to get halfway through the install process and you have to be there to click next next next next next next. Reminds me of that episode from the simpsons where homer gets that toy bird to peck at his Y button.

[Nayr438]

It most comes down to preference. I don't personally like MacOS or Windows 10.

I personally run a Arch Linux Setup with KDE Plasma and leverage the AUR for everything else. Manjaro is basically the same thing, minus a few extras.

I personally have a strong dislike for Ubuntu and Distros built on Ubuntu, especially Linux Mint for a Desktop Experience. Between the outdated packages and unnecessary bloat I think it makes for a worse user experience, but that's my opinion. For a Server Experience, Debian and Ubuntu are fine.

If you have only experienced Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint. I would recommend giving Manjaro KDE a shot.

[Steo]

I switched to Linux, mainly because I don't like Windows 10 and support has ended for Windows 7. I have never owned a Mac personally, so I can't speak for MacOS. For Windows 10, I dislike many things about it, telemetry is just one thing, I don't like the idea of that at all.

 

I started out by trying Mint and Ubuntu, and at that stage I had many problems, though that's likely due to the fact that I was a Linux noob at the time. I eventually tried Fedora for a short time, then found out how to get Debian working properly by using non-free firmware. I really like Debian, but since I noticed Arch gets updated regularly, I ended up switching to Arch and I love it. I do still dual-boot Debian, but I had to mess about a lot with dependencies to get a later version of Mesa to work.

 

I use KDE Plasma for my environment on Arch, and some AURs for certain things like mesa-git for the GPU. There are even AUR wrappers to make it easier than having to git clone and run makepkg, though that's already relatively simple in my opinion.

 

I personally like how you can learn a lot with Linux, and you get to see what the system is doing at all times if needed. You might have to jump through some hoops when it comes to getting some things up and running depending on your distro, but I actually like that. It's cool to be able to learn some things instead of just double clicking .exe files.

 

Package managers are also amazing, pacman (which Arch uses) is actually a really nice one. Arch is actually much more easy to maintain than I would have expected also, when I first installed it, I seen that many people said that Arch always breaks etc.. It only breaks if you do something wrong, then you can fix it with chroot (assuming you didn't do something drastic, like run sudo rm -rf /*) and learn from your mistakes at the same time.

 

Anyway, as Nayr has said, if you wanted an Arch like experience without going through the manual installation (which has no GUI), Manjaro has a GUI to simplify the process. It's not exactly 1:1 with Arch, but it's very similar, and it also uses pacman and AURs etc.

[jdfthetech]

No

[r00tb33r]

I converted from Linux back to Windows when 7 came out.  Around the time I was graduating from college I was shuffling FPGA IDEs, programming IDEs, virtual machines, serial terminals, JTAG programmers/debuggers, etc.  It all "just worked" brilliantly on Windows 7, and was extremely ergonomic to use for multitasking.  I stood back, looked at it, and thought "this has got to be the greatest productivity workstation desktop ever".  It.  Just.  Worked.

 

We had some older Sun workstations running Solaris for the VLSI course, where we did basically the same thing, just with slightly older versions of the tools.  I was comfortable with *nix systems since I've used Linux for years prior, but man, that was so clunky to use in comparison to Windows 7.

 

Like a lot of folks I went through with the Windows 10 upgrade as the fake upgrade deadline approached, for now I'm still putting up with it but I'm looking for a replacement OS.  Somehow I don't feel like it will be Linux again.  It is after all, obsolete, as common as it is still.  Google is looking the dump the Linux kernel too.  I'm quite curious about Haiku.  I have followed ReactOS for over a decade now.  It's a tempting proposition to have a Windows-compatible OS that is designed to work in user's favor, rather than in favor of Microsoft's (failed) direction.  The problem is, Microsoft is moving much quicker than they can keep up, in terms of APIs and frameworks, so they may never get there to become a viable direct replacement to Windows.  I thought many times about joining the development but I still haven't decided for myself if Windows NT is a good OS design.  Does backward and forward compatibility prevail over a more elegant design?  What should my priority be?  It's a difficult topic.  My knowledge of OS design from college allows me to understand designs, but not on philosophy level on the subject.

 

I won't go Apple, ever.  I recently developed a Mac client for a service and I have to say that NextStep might have been great in 1990 but in 2019 Cocoa development with Objective-C felt clunky (because I had to mix in some C++ libraries).  I looked at Swift and didn't like it either.  I don't see Apple to be an option for myself, not to mention I don't find their desktop to be ergonomic for rapid multitasking.

[Steo]

Another thing I like about Linux is how it's free and Open-Source. Almost everything runs it, even Android uses the Linux kernel.

 

As for Windows, I liked XP a lot back in the day, then I thought 7 was a nice OS, but they messed up on 8 and 10 in my opinion. I was only using 10 because I felt like I had no choice with the support for 7 ending, but I'm much happier on Linux. One of the best things for me is how I actually learn new things constantly by using Linux.

[Sir0Tek]

No. I have been on MacOS 9 and X, I then switched over to Linux. I've used quite a few, Ubuntu, Mint/MintDE, Sabayon, Calculate, Aptosid, Archbang, Antergos, Manjaro, MX-Linux - just to name a few. There's a choice, and I love it.

[Spindel]

On my own computer I moved to Linux around 2005, had dual boot in the beginning with a windows install but ended up removing it after a while since I never booted to it. Windows XP made me hate Windows.

 

Around 2008 I moved to an iMac and hve no plan of leaving Macs and mac OS.

 

 

The computer I get from work is a Windows machine since I don’t have the option getting a Mac at work (which I wish I had). 

[inalone]

Out of curiosity, what's user unfriendly about Debian? The only thing I can think of is the finding of the ISO, which is a complete pain I admit - the fact that they still refer to the net installer as "CD" and the more complete installer as "DVD" is completely stupid to me.

[Donut417]

Moved to Ubuntu last year. Absolutly hate Windows 10. So Linux is my only hope. Thinking of buying a MacBook at some point as well. 

[doommood]

On 3/7/2020 at 9:28 AM, kratosthegodofwar said:

So I used to be a Windows guy until Windows 7 support ended.

Are you sure you were a Windows guy? Windows 7 support is ended that is right. Why you have not just upgraded to Windows 10? With the same Windows 7 key.

Quote

Now I’ve got a dual boot Debian/Linux Mint desktop and a Macbook running MacOS which is a custom OS from a version of freeBSD.

Darwin is not FreeBSD. macOS is not FreeBSD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

Quote

I’m using the Macbook all the time and now don’t need the other machine lol. Anyone in the same position?

Yes. I have the most job done using OpenSuse. Since I do not need Adobe CC or other proprietary software to make my day, it just rocks.

Quote

MacOS is super polished and I don’t think it would crash randomly like Windows.

Check Louis Rossmann's youtube channel. Apple is not that good neither another brand is. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w

Quote

I don’t see a purpose in using Debian day to day if I don’t leave my computer running 24/7 for a month. Debian is too user unfriendly while Linux Mint is too clunky and ugly in my opinion. Debian is super stable but user unfriendly while Linux Mint is user friendly but ugly looking. MacOS blows both out of the water. I can’t even get Debian to let me be root while Linux Mint lets me be root from the installation setup lol. Oh and debian installation is like waiting until new years eve to get halfway through the install process and you have to be there to click next next next next next next. Reminds me of that episode from the simpsons where homer gets that toy bird to peck at his Y button.

Heh, are you doing your job or just stuck on Linux Appearance playing with themes? Do not assume this as sort of rude but what was the project you had to use Windows, now it is Linux and OS X?
Check how KDE Plasma might be configured just like OS X https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/a9eeuw/plasma_i_have_mastered_the_moves/

The best Linux GUI installer has OpenSuse as it allows you to set up so uncommon config that neither Ubuntu, Debian, Mint, or Manjaro would not allow. In particular, set up UEFI partitioning, have 3 of 5 partitions encrypted. Not just the user folder lol.

I hope I help a bit.

[Steo]

On 3/17/2020 at 8:07 PM, inalone said:

Out of curiosity, what's user unfriendly about Debian? The only thing I can think of is the finding of the ISO, which is a complete pain I admit - the fact that they still refer to the net installer as "CD" and the more complete installer as "DVD" is completely stupid to me.

I don't think it's really that it's user unfriendly, as even the installation is pretty simple. I think it's just that Ubuntu/Mint etc. simplify some things even further. Debian would have older dependencies by default, and obtaining certain required up to date ones manually would probably have some people break the installation or just really mess up certain dependencies.

 

People also use PPAs a lot on Ubuntu/Mint, but I think if one of those was required on Debian it could also break it, since dependencies would conflict. Saying that though, nothing says a user can't still mess up their dependencies on Ubuntu or Mint if they make a mistake.

 

Also, Debian did confuse me like this at first when I was trying to get the ISO, but I ended up with the net installer too.

[Nayr438]

22 hours ago, Steo said:

I don't think it's really that it's user unfriendly, as even the installation is pretty simple. I think it's just that Ubuntu/Mint etc. simplify some things even further. Debian would have older dependencies by default, and obtaining certain required up to date ones manually would probably have some people break the installation or just really mess up certain dependencies.

 

People also use PPAs a lot on Ubuntu/Mint, but I think if one of those was required on Debian it could also break it, since dependencies would conflict. Saying that though, nothing says a user can't still mess up their dependencies on Ubuntu or Mint if they make a mistake.

 

Also, Debian did confuse me like this at first when I was trying to get the ISO, but I ended up with the net installer too.

Everything said here could also apply to Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Ubuntu runs outdated software, even the new version in testing is still way outdated. There was a time when this was fine, everyone based everything around Ubuntu. At the rate Linux is moving, I have however seen a lot of things start to target newer packages / dependencies that Ubuntu doesn't have and pulling in some of them will break other things. In Ubuntu's defense however, they target more of the server and workstation space. Not so much the everyday consumer anymore like they used to. Distro's that are based on Ubuntu sadly have to suffer the consequence. Such as Mint and PopOS. Granted I believe PopOS solves some of this by having their own repos for some things, or at least that is what I have heard.

I like Ubuntu, in the server space. But if your on semi recent hardware or want the most out of your software, your better of going for something that follows a more rolling release model.

At the end of the day though, it is all still preference.

[Steo]

Yeah even the 5700XT isn't easy to get working on Debian, though I haven't tried it on Ubuntu/Mint. I wasn't sure how outdated the dependencies would be on Ubuntu these days, but there are many things that make it more user friendly than Debian. I know there's a graphics PPA for example that always keeps the drivers up to date, making it easy to get newer hardware to work. Stuff like libc needed to be updated on Debian to allow installing the mesa dependencies on Debian, but I think the PPA would do this automatically too.

 

This is mainly why I switched to Arch though, one thing was to see if I could get it working, and to learn things, but another was that I realised the dependencies are always kept up to date.