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We spent two months living the Mac life, and it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. The hardware impressed us, and some of the features were genuinely great, but clunky UI quirks, frustrating compatibility problems, and unreliable Wi-Fi on a $10,000 Mac Pro reminded us that macOS still has its issues. We break down what worked, what didn’t, and why at least one of us hasn’t switched back.

 

 

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Alex personally switched to the Mac?! A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one 🙂 Glad to have you. I configured my 16" M4 MacBook Pro with 48GB of memory. This machine is literally so unbothered by everything I can throw at it, it's insane. And it even games better in a VM than my 2019 16" Intel MacBook Pro with a dedicated Radeon 5300M in native windows 10. 

 

I don't think the future is Linux, I think it's macOS and Apple Silicon. 

Laptop: 2024 16" MacBook Pro M4 Pro, 512GB, 48GB Unified Memory | Phone: iPhone 16 Pro Max 512GB | Wearables: Apple Watch SE | Car: 2007 Ford Taurus SE | CPU: R7 5700X | Mobo: ASRock B450M Pro4 | RAM: 32GB 3200 | GPU: Sapphire Nitro+ 9070XT | Case: Fractal North | OS: Win 11 | Storage: 1TB Crucial P3 NVME SSD, 1TB PNY CS900, & 4TB WD Blue HDD | PSU: Seasonic Focus GX-850 | Display: LG 27GL83A-B 1440p @ 144Hz, Dell S2719DGF 1440p @144Hz | Cooling: Noctua NH-U12S | Keyboard: G610 Orion Cherry MX Brown | Mouse: G305 | Audio: Audio Technica ATH-M50X & Blue Snowball | Server: 2018 Core i3 Mac mini, 128GB SSD, Intel UHD 630, 16GB DDR4 | Storage: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad (6TB WD Blue HDD, 12TB Seagate Barracuda, 1TB Crucial SSD, 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD)
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About Windows gaming on the MacBook Pro, I have a tip and a “cop-out” solution.

 

Tip

- use CrossOver to run Windows games, not Parallels.

 

”Cop-out” solution

Ok, it’s “cheating” and you need a (remote or on the same local network) Windows PC to be on, but hear me out: Sunshine + Moonlight. It’s that good. Including HDR gaming on that 1600nit display. Sure if, like you said, you’re picky about input lag, it may not be the best solution for certain types of games.

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Ok let's fix that "Internal LTT OBS setup guide being 3000+ words"...

 

I've adapted one of my automation scripts to install AND CONFIGURE OBS with one click! (technically two clicks to run the .cmd file)

 

If anyone on the team sees this, give it a try, it should literally get any PC from "no obs" to "obs installed and fully configured to LTT standards" within seconds, without the posibility of human error!!

AutoOBS.zip

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This was a great video, some of the complaints Linus and Alex brought-up resonate with me, especially the inability to have scrolling different on the trackpad and a mouse. Also, Parallels is amazing and I VM Windows 11 ARM and Ubuntu on there and it’s well worth the license fee.
 

I’ve been a predominantly Windows user for 30 years, and aside from sitting down to game and firing-up my gaming setup, I’m either using the Mac Studio at my desk, or on a MacBook Pro for my portable. My MacBook still plays Minecraft Java just fine, but I never really game on a laptop anyway so not a big deal.

 

I will say, I haven’t had any issues with the Aquantia 10Gb in my Studio, or the WiFi in my M2 MacBook. Chrome in MacOS occasionally seems like it has an issue but the connection doesn’t go down. I think it’s the way DNS requests happen in the browser because it doesn’t seem to stop data transfers like YouTube, but I temporarily cannot open a tab and go somewhere. This problem rights itself quickly.

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28 minutes ago, barmem said:

Obviously mac won between mac and windows laptop. Linux laptop wasn't an option.

Aside from a smaller niche company like System76, does anyone else actually offer out-of-the-box Linux laptops?

 

 

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Hi.

 

I am an unhinged Apple hater who has used MacOS for going on a decade for my job. For security reasons, I am not able to buy third-party utilities to improve the base OS experience.

 

The things that are extremely annoying day-to-day:

1) The M1 laptop (granted, dated by now) does not play nice with refresh rates above 144hz. I have my laptop and a Linux box attached to my KVM, and if I switch from the Linux desktop to the MacBook, the display will show briefly, and then turn off. This happens with every display I have tried above 144hz. The solution? Power off the display before switching, and then power the display back on after switching. 

2) MacOS has aggressive mouse acceleration which cannot be disabled. There is a system parameter that controls the strength of the acceleration, but the OS resets it constantly. The solution (sans third-party software, which I suspect is doing the same thing)? Run a bash script that continuously reduces the parameter to zero. :') 

3) You cannot alt-tab into a window to, e.g., have a terminal and a browser open side-by-side. When alt-tabbing into a window, it brings EVERY instance of that program to the foreground. 

 

Here is what I like:

1) Laptop display is nice

2) Battery life id pretty awesome 

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5 minutes ago, barmem said:

framework?

They surely do, but that’s sort of the point of my question. Linux has a very small market share especially for factory-supplied-laptops. It may have changed a bit, but last time I checked into it dual graphics on Linux is difficult to get working, which for a long time has kept it from really being a good fit for laptop power users or gamers. The new wave of more-powerful integrated graphics is changing this, so it’s likely not as much of an issue these days.

AMD Ryzen 5900X

T-Force Vulcan Z 3200mhz 2x32GB

EVGA RTX 3060 Ti XC

MSI B450 Gaming Plus

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB

WD 5400RPM 2TB

EVGA G3 750W

Corsair Carbide 300R

Arctic Fans 140mm x4 120mm x 1

 

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8 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

They surely do, but that’s sort of the point of my question. Linux has a very small market share especially for factory-supplied-laptops. It may have changed a bit, but last time I checked into it dual graphics on Linux is difficult to get working, which for a long time has kept it from really being a good fit for laptop power users or gamers. The new wave of more-powerful integrated graphics is changing this, so it’s likely not as much of an issue these days.

does steam deck count?

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5 minutes ago, barmem said:

does steam deck count?

It should if it has actual desktop mode for like productivity software and a browser, they’ve sold a lot of them too.  I’ve never used one so I have zero experience with how the OS functions.

AMD Ryzen 5900X

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EVGA RTX 3060 Ti XC

MSI B450 Gaming Plus

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB

WD 5400RPM 2TB

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Arctic Fans 140mm x4 120mm x 1

 

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26 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

Aside from a smaller niche company like System76, does anyone else actually offer out-of-the-box Linux laptops?

 

 

Tuxedo Computers, Star Labs, Purism, Juno Computers, Slimbook, Dell...

 

But no, generally no big companies.

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I appreciated the natural scrolling rant at 18:16. I use a Mac for work, and the natural scrolling thing is genuinely one of the stupidest, wackiest jank that no other OS has. Fortunately there's a third party app to fix that...

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27 minutes ago, smcoakley said:

Tuxedo Computers, Star Labs, Purism, Juno Computers, Slimbook, Dell...

 

But no, generally no big companies.

Interesting, I knew Dell sold some Linux machines back in the day, but didn’t realize they still offered them.

AMD Ryzen 5900X

T-Force Vulcan Z 3200mhz 2x32GB

EVGA RTX 3060 Ti XC

MSI B450 Gaming Plus

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB

WD 5400RPM 2TB

EVGA G3 750W

Corsair Carbide 300R

Arctic Fans 140mm x4 120mm x 1

 

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I prefer a hybrid approach, I use a Mac Studio and a Windows desktop. Separate monitors, shared Keyboard, separate mouse. I personally wouldn't benefit much from Parrallels, UTM or Crossover. I also do not game on Mac, keyboard/mouse input is seemingly handled differently which causes issue for me(especially remote via parsec/moonlight). I truly do love the MacOS, though I do agree it's a better laptop then a desktop. 

 

I do not feel the same about some of these issues brought up. Airdrop is great, but despite documentation, I must enable Wifi on my Studio to airdrop to my phone. Swapping between multiple instances of the same application (Chrome, Terminal, etc.)

 

10GB NIC + HDMI 2.1 was the reason I chose the Studio, and fortunately, for me, I didn't share Alex's experience and have had 0 issues with networking (though he states it was Mac Pro). I haven't needed 3rd party workarounds to get my setup to work for me either. That could be complacency. Final thoughts, with the changes/addition to WSL, my preference has been slowly shifting towards Windows again. 

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As somebody who used to work in the fruit...most of these style of complaints have been brought up several times.  That being said, there are easy answers in most cases.  You could look up the various command line hackery to do things, such as Alex did to keep the screen awake...or set a hot corner at the bottom of "Desktop & Dock" preferences to never sleep, or to kick on the screen saver, and then set the automatic settings appropriately, rather than having to use terminal like he does.

 

I'll share two of my favorite programs for opening up the world of "this should really be an option" though, which...often it is...Apple just doesn't give you a GUI for it.  So rather than finding various plists and key pairs to edit, just go get TinkerTool and TinkerTool System.

 

There is a focus-follows-mouse option (also not selectable in GUI settings), if you're used to that style instead of click to focus and activate.  A mix that many may find more flexible though is AutoRaise.

 

As a complete aside.  SOME places still react to "power users" as they used to be called, and show different/additional things in menus or buttons (for example in Display settings) if you hold down the option key when you go to the menu or screen.  Frustrating for somebody like me, or likely @LinusTech or Alex, but it does keep the options minimal for most people, which is generally good for those that wouldn't call themselves techies.  Sometimes when you think "this should be here", you can find it by just trying with option held down (another good pair of examples for this are the bluetooth and wifi menulings, which will show you a lot more info and some diagnostic options if option is held down).

 

If you don't want to figure out mapping key combos and motions to a mouse, which obviously can't do things like multi-finger gestures, consider just getting the "Magic Trackpad", which lets you do all the usual track pad stuff on the desktop when you don't keep the laptop open to use the built in one.

 

Edit: Also, MagSafe is AWESOME and great for saving laptop pulls off of tables or similar at conferences/airports/meeting rooms that only have wall plugs, etc...  However, something that isn't generally thrust in front of everybody is that the USB-C ports on the MacBook Pro are ALSO full USB-C PD to the same wattage as MagSafe, which is just USB-C PD with a magnetic connector.  So it is simple to just use the standard at a desk or similar if you don't need MagSafe.  I personally leave the MagSafe cable in my backpack which I use anywhere I travel, and use a single USB-C breakout as the only cable I plug in at my desk.

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That was indeed a good conclusive video. 

 

I could not immediately find any unfair criticisms as those were mostly limited to the need for third-party customization software due distinct lack of a few basic UI/functionality options in vanilla macOS. Or that Linus found stuff unintuitive (like Screenshotting)

 

The twist in the end was the absolute highlight. 

This is exactly what what the "just works" means. 

No hassle with drivers, connectivity etc 

 

(but only to the extent of supported hardware/software - unsupported hardware (like uncommon displays) you’re on your own, although most of the time it’s possible to get it working with some tweaks)

Basically: It just works as long you stay in our garden. (Which doesn’t mean the garden is walled or only first-party stuff works great)

 

Is especially liked the statement ~„we use the applications, not OS“. 

Which is very much true, although for some people the OS-specific apps or traits really make a difference, resulting in a hindrance or catalyst of the app-usage.

Especially Mac-Software like Finder, Quicklook, Raycast, Spotlight come to mind catalyzing my personal workflow (often this is subjective)

 

Although I missed the perspective of customizing macOS and exploring the OS in the process - certain features, settings or first/third party apps Alex and Linus found neat. 

I had hoped for a SnazzyLabs Colab adding a MacOS productivity-nerd perspective👀👀.

 

Maybe another day…

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Does anybody know which docking station Linus used at his desk to connect it to his "monitor" and peripherals? I don't think this was mentioned in the video, but would be very helpful because there are soo many docking stations to chose from.

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1 hour ago, antitoxic said:

Does anybody know which docking station Linus used at his desk to connect it to his "monitor" and peripherals? I don't think this was mentioned in the video, but would be very helpful because there are soo many docking stations to chose from.

I don't exactly know what dock Linus used in the video, but previously - especially on ShortCircuit - he has always recommended CalDigit, so I recommend you take a look at their options, although they are rather expensive.

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Great video,

 

I ended up buying a MacBook Air M3 with 24GB of memory after being a lifelong windows user and specifically a Windows laptop user for over 10 years and I think this video sums up a lot of my thoughts.

 

Also Parallels is super great! 

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16 hours ago, atxcyclist said:

Aside from a smaller niche company like System76, does anyone else actually offer out-of-the-box Linux laptops?

 

 

 

There are lots of ebay sellers that have used Latitudes and Thinkpads for cheap with Linux already installed. I personally would still reinstall the OS for security reasons, but I do like to get the machines with Linux already installed purely so that I know that somebody has checked Linux functionality on that particular model.

 

Buying brand new laptops doesn't make sense for the vast majority of people IMO.

I'm having more fun than you 😠

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Some of the critiques are nitpicky, but this is generally on the mark.

 

I have a MacBook Pro and have used multiple recent Windows laptops, and the Mac draws me back for multiple reasons. It's fast whether or not it's plugged in. It's quiet most of the time. The display, input, and speakers are great. And most importantly, there's a harmony to it that's hard to find in the Windows space. Everything feels like it's meant to work together (which it is); it's consistently good, not just in ideal circumstances; it's not constantly nagging you, promoting things, or exhibiting janky behavior (like stutters or glitches).

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First up, I want to say I love the video series and I really appreciate what you're doing. (Is that enough to appease the masses before I counter it, taking notes from the video ;P)  Second up I want to say, your assessment is completely accurate and fair, and it pains me / kills me to no end that no one has distinguished an advanced / power user from a beginner to the eco system.  All of your critiques are fair and I don't want to jump on the "Mac" band wagon, and I do feel the need to say I've recently on my gaming system decided to say screw Microsoft and got linux all the way with Bazzite.  I work in the industry and I echo several of your feelings about Apple and the eco system.  To say Microsoft is any better is disingenuous.  I do really appreciate calling this out about the os doesn't matter.  You can't have a video explaining about installing power toys and several other programs to make life easier on windows, and then have issue with the programs you have to install to make life easier on a mac.   That said, I did chuckle at the reverse scroll because it is dumb and I don't understand Apple at times...

 

So to the core, a beginning user is not a power user.  I think on any os we can all agree to this.  Telling a brand new linux user to open a shell will make them cry.  Explaining powershell to a newer windows user will also wreck everything they have going.  Explaining the hand holding on mac os is just as bad.  The reality is, as computers become more advanced, and more people realize we need to use them, the level to entry is increasingly being lowered by developers.  Right or wrong, it's a way to draw in usage.  Make it easy, and understandable, and I have to admit, while the idea of a touch screen sounds amazing, I get mad every time someone touches my display and leaves fingerprints that I have to stare at while explain something. 

 

Now on to useful things that aren't a bitch, there are so many power user things built in to every os, mac os is no different.  The fact you're not using spotlight kills my soul.  Command key + space opens up a search bar type interface that you can type anything into.  You can type math equations or file searching and even programs.  It makes windows search look stupid and 10 years behind in comparison.  I rarely will touch a mouse.  To that point, you bitch about the magic mouse, which no one will ever support.  It's garbage and apple doubling down is just silly.  They do on the other hand also have a magic track pad, which supports every gesture you love on the air / macbook.  My coworker and I both have one in a configuration where a laptop is docked and sits next to the keyboard.  It's so good I leave it off to the side for gestures or other things (don't judge me till you try it interwebs. It's good.)  That said, OSX I personally feel was built around keyboard shortcuts.  I think this all back to the heritage of the mac, right or wrong, and is the direction they choose to go after.  I personally have the trackpad off to the side, and I have my gestures to swap between or do things, but in large, the keyboard is faster to get me to where i need to be.  You talk about in this video about screenshots, and it's all valid criticism, however, there's a dedicated program you could open to have more advanced options "screenshot".  It'll open a menu at the bottom of the screen and give you more options.  It's still garbage and don't print screen defaulting to all windows all displays on it's hotkeys is still horrible (windows is better, but linux/kde beats both windows and macos.  Sorry i'm too lazy to keep fixing capitalization and it's late 😛).  It's too damn easy to filp the shortcuts and make cmd + shift + 4/5 just send it to the clipboard via the settings app.

That said, I never need to use quicktime or screenshot to take pics and deal with it.  The complaint that putting things into other programs that aren't native is again 100% fair, but there's a hot key to NOT take screenshot and put it down in the corner, (see above).  I swapped these personally to always take the screenshot to my clipboard, don't show the markup window / save to desktop and this is all available via settings.  (Side note, I get the bitch on "accessibility" settings containing entries that don't make sense or buried settings, but is that because windows 3.11 through X made the "accessibility" menu only about people with disabilities?  While osx uses the word to the definition?  Food for thought.)

 

The damn gap on placement of windows with snapping has still annoyed me till this day, and you taught me about a new setting.  THANK YOU!  Find that damn intern / pm / developer that thought it was a good idea to have boarders / click to desktop and hang them by their pinkie toes!  I NEVER want to click on my desktop to see all the garbage / shitty screenshots that I took and use them.  That's a graphic designer that's lazy. (I'm calling you out, you should feel bad and are bad.  Organize your files without your desktop or you'll just end up with 25 folders saying "clean me" or "to organize" or "I don't care anymore what's in here" when you should probably just hit the delete key.)

 

Ok I'm really not adding more on power usage, as I'm trying to bridge the generic user, to the advanced, and honestly it's harder than I thought.  To explain using finder's search (which is different than spotlight and half as good) is just rubbish with me trying to justify it.  Apple has some great core apps, Pages makes Word look like kindergartner, but let's face it, Excel is still king (if you disagree, are you really going to tell me the table layout and charts are better in Numbers?  Where you dropped as a child?  Insult thrown.)  Parallels is amazing,  but you don't mention Crossover or their contributions to Wine, and what all you can do natively.  This just makes me sad, and I'd love for Alex to take a look on some things like enabling steam compat and running games via proton without a vm.  That said, I still use vm's for Solidworks.  You just can't beat their offering yet and to me, it's a 100+ dollar tax for work.  Pages being free makes us even (seriously Microsoft, how much is Word alone per month???!?  Don't google it.  It'll make you cry at 180.00 a year).

 

Man, I really thought i'd have more to offer, and I sound like a mac junkie.  So i'll leave with this, things you haven't hit yet in your videos: life expectancy of the hardware vs the avg windows laptop vendor;  OSX Remote desktop being free via vnc and a setting while windows is now charging for it based on version.  I cloud included, passkey, etc.  The features that are free can't be discounted.  That said, really microsoft charging maintenance fees on something you know doesn't meet expectations....   <needs jeopardy clock>

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