Biggest upside of Apple computers is a linux-like operating system. Apple as a company is atrocious, but windows is a dog shit operating system and it sucks to develop software on/for.
True Mac is nicer than windows bwc it’s Linux like… So just use the best and go for Linux. Obviously I know there are situations you can’t, say working on a company laptop, but outside of that…
How minimal-hassle can Linux promise?
Genuine question. Open up out of the box, and be good to go? Have to run an installer from a USB? Have to mess around with drivers?
What sort of cross-device persistence is there? Can I access all my saved passwords across my phone and my laptop seamlessly?
With Apple, the most annoying things I’ve experienced recently have been some older screens refusing to work due to some DRM in new HDMI, iCloud login shenanigans, and a hacked Nintendo Switch not playing nice with auto-created system files.
Ideology aside (and I respect the hell out of the ideology behind it), will Linux make my life easier, or harder?
Overall I’d say Ubuntu or pop_os or mint are extremely easy to use operating systems. In many ways easier than Mac. But yes there being no central authority means some such services need to be rigged or self hosted.
As far as drivers go I’ve really had very little issue with them. Only a built in fingerprint reader on a random laptop needed a driver that wasn’t included in the distribution.
As far as passwords Firefox does a good job keeping em all on all my web browser based devices.
So Overall will it make your life easier or harder? Depends on perspective. It will make some things harder at first as you learn and setup solutions. Afterwards and in some cases immediately it’ll make things easier because you’ll have complete control. No need to deal with icloud shenanigans. Don’t gotta talk to apple support if something breaks. Etc
Plus it’s honestly just fun
I built a computer with my sister who does computer science. The installation took maybe an hour including the fiddling. There was a learning curve for the different file types and how to use the command line to get them to install. Not a big one, but I reckon there’s near 0 learning curve for an Apple product. I would argue that someone who hacks a Nintendo Switch can Google the stack overflow questions you would come across. BUT, it would add some difficulty to your life in exchange for the freedom of Linux
The apt package manager for Linux (and others like it) is honestly amazing. No more downloading compiled executables from random websites, you just type “apt install <program>” and it both installs your program and keeps it up to date.
Basically every distro now comes with a graphical interface for it now too so you can just browse it like an app store.
A lot of people hate them, but Snap packages are really easy to use as well. You just type “snap install <program>” and it installs a containerized version of whatever program you’re installing. Which means no fiddling with filesystems as it runs in a LLVM in the background.
Installing programs on Mac is more complicated than installing packages on Linux.
this sounds more like a criticism of microsoft more than anything. M1 goes *non-jet-engine sounds*
enjoy your 100W TDP lapburns
I’ve been super interested in the PBP for awhile, but I am not sure about it. Someone made a post recently that negatively reflected on Pine pivoting toward a more exclusive partnership with Manjaro and the negative relationship they have with the Pine user community. They also made statements that the PBP had major issues and it was not a good endorsement. Interesting timing for me to come across it because I was seriously considering the purchase, even with the warnings about dead pixels and “only for those interested in linux on ARM, don’t fuck with it if you’re basic and use 86” or whatever. If you are interested in sharing any of your experience with it I’d be happy to hear it.
yeah, but unlike windoze, apple makes their prison really expensive and pretty, so you know it’s better.
