Every 6 months or so I get a wild hair and look to replace Mac OS X with a new Linux laptop. It always ends in disaster because of a few sticking points. My latest attempt was with an Ubuntu-certified Dell m3800.
The 4K screen was unmanageable in Linux. Many applications required their own configuration to deal with the high DPI display. Some (most notably Skype, which I need for business) were completely unusable when you increase the font size. If I stuck to lower resolutions, it wouldn't matter I guess...
Even with a K1100 3d accelerator, it was still limited in 2d mode, unable to play 4k videos in Windows w/ all the proprietary drivers, much less 60fps videos. Linux was completely useless in that department. It wouldn't play 1440p videos fullscreen without screen tearing.
Then we get to my personal problem. I remember the learning curve when I went from Linux to Mac OS X. The keyboard was insane. WTF? Why am I using my thumb? This is so weird... foreign... But.... nice....
The idea of using my pinky for copy and paste is insane now. Having to use shift+ctrl+c to paste in a terminal? UGH. gross.
Unfortunately, changing all of the configurations isn't possible in Linux. You have to go through every application and change them individually.
I love linux. I have VMs spun up right now for development, and all of our servers run linux. I have been using linux since the 90s. I just can't give up the productivity.
Also, if you have never had to experience a full system crash / losing a laptop, good. However I had this happen, and Mac's time capsule restore was amazing. I had my entire desktop back online in a couple hours. All of my files, and all of my configurations were there. It was magical.
I actually quite like Mac OS X. Things seem to "just work" most of the time, or at least, more of the time than they work for me on GNU/Linux. I can't give any examples off the top of my head, but it seems everything in OS X just "flows together" much nicer, and that's even including programs like Chromium which aren't from Apple.
The reason why I don't use it, however, is because it's tied to the hardware in such a way that if I want this "just works" feeling, I'd need to purchase hardware from Apple, which for me seems overpriced and it shouldn't be necessary. Further, OS X has its quirks that don't let you run it like Linux or BSD - for example, installing things like PostgreSQL.
The 4K screen was unmanageable in Linux. Many applications required their own configuration to deal with the high DPI display. Some (most notably Skype, which I need for business) were completely unusable when you increase the font size. If I stuck to lower resolutions, it wouldn't matter I guess...
Even with a K1100 3d accelerator, it was still limited in 2d mode, unable to play 4k videos in Windows w/ all the proprietary drivers, much less 60fps videos. Linux was completely useless in that department. It wouldn't play 1440p videos fullscreen without screen tearing.
Then we get to my personal problem. I remember the learning curve when I went from Linux to Mac OS X. The keyboard was insane. WTF? Why am I using my thumb? This is so weird... foreign... But.... nice....
The idea of using my pinky for copy and paste is insane now. Having to use shift+ctrl+c to paste in a terminal? UGH. gross.
Unfortunately, changing all of the configurations isn't possible in Linux. You have to go through every application and change them individually.
I love linux. I have VMs spun up right now for development, and all of our servers run linux. I have been using linux since the 90s. I just can't give up the productivity.
Also, if you have never had to experience a full system crash / losing a laptop, good. However I had this happen, and Mac's time capsule restore was amazing. I had my entire desktop back online in a couple hours. All of my files, and all of my configurations were there. It was magical.