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the_luciferyesterday at 9:18 PM4 repliesview on HN

> I tend to disagree to a point: their laptops have great internals but are terrible from a usage perspective — I like to imagine their system board in a Thinkpad X1 Carbon chassis with native Linux!

> But HW is at least improving (eg. they added anti-reflective screen option), and SW is very much not.

And I would disagree with the idea that I should be running Linux on my primary machine. As a developer, I've faced enough "death by a thousand cuts" situations from running Linux on my personal router and servers to let it anywhere close to my main computer.

Don't even get me started on the hardware quality of Mac laptop including their stellar trackpads, screens and the smallest details like the quality of the hinge. I can still open my 5 year old Mac with a single finger and the hinge is as solid as the day I bought it.

As someone who's also particular about user experience, Linux always fails at this. If you have good UX, that means you can critically think for what a user wants from a computer, and can determine what should and shouldn’t be prioritized. UX is never a first-class citizen on Linux, and for all the issues with Tahoe, macOS still has enough residual quality left in it to not feel like I'm constantly fighting the operating system.

Simple example: I want HDR on Linux. Should be easy right? Just switch to Plasma under Wayland? Then do a one time config so mpv can play HDR. Oh and no browsers support it so good luck. Games need gamescope and flags to be set.

I want my computer to work, not for me to work as an integration engineer. So I use my Mac and it just works™. So I just let Linux live where I feel it works best, in servers and headless environments.


Replies

necovektoday at 11:04 AM

With Linux, it is really multiple UX ecosystems: you can be in one (eg. Gtk+/Gnome and/or Qt/KDE) and consistency will be there. Not perfect, but MacOS is not much better.

OTOH, I want subpixel rendering on my big screens, and you can't have it with a Mac.

3formtoday at 8:31 AM

Out of curiosity, what are you developing? While regular usage stuff such as HDR is indeed lacking, and general UX leaves a lot to be desired, Linux was always best for me in any software development discipline that I took on, and macOS was a "death by a thousand cuts" instead.

dlahodayesterday at 10:22 PM

did you tried nix home-manager for linux software setup? i never was able to use linux until nix.

hardware - afaik only lenovo(some say asus is worth to try - but no official linux support, framework is sturdy but feels cheap) is well know for quality hardware - others are questionable.

unfortunately AMD AI Max 390/2/5+ nor Qualcomm Elite 2 Lenovos are not here.

show 2 replies
eklavyatoday at 9:02 AM

I was sooo in your boat just a while ago. Recently (15 days) switched to an Asus NUC pro (mini pc) with intel 225h. I kid you not, I am running Almalinux 10, KDE on it, not even the latest/greatest. I have HDR, VRR, 120Hz, media acceleration, with dual monitors with different settings you name it. Everything works!!