I don't intend to scoff at the work done on Linux distros; however, many of us looking to make the switch are doing so only because Apple has gone too far with their latest pricing schemes, and/or due to hardware changes.
Personally, I don't care about USB-C replacing USB 3.0, or the introduction of the new Touch Bar. The problem is the pricing (that Touch Bar is costing me $700-800 on top of the equivalent 2013 MacBook Pro model). The removal of the physical escape key and the inexplicable removal of the 3.5 mm jack on iPhones does not help to relieve fears that Apple has completely lost control of basic sense as to what their professional users want and need. The MacBook Pro line has fallen into the same category as the MacBook Air. It's supposed to be a professional machine, but it's now being specced to the lowest common denominator, meant for any average consumer.
For some of us, Linux is not being transitioned to with enthusiasm. We do not consider it a drop-in replacement for OS X, and already pre-emptively regret the inferior keyboard and trackpad we'll get on the OEM PC laptop manufacturers offer. Honestly, what the hell is with PC manufacturers that still include the TrackPoint™ Style Point, Nub, Nipple Mouse, Clit Mouse[1]?!
tldr; Apple is alienating its professional users. Windows is flat out unusable as a Linux-based developer platform for us. Linux is simply the only remaining alternative. Frankly, it's not "good enough" - it's simply the only remaining alternative when you can't reason spending $4,000+ on a laptop you actually do still want to buy.
They include it because people use it. I actually disable my trackpad on my thinkpad, and only use the trackpoint. (So does Randall according to that link). Thinkpad keyboard is in my opinion better than the apple keyboard.
Agreed. I just joined a company where Macs are mandatory, and so I'm reluctantly making the transition from Linux/Thinkpad to MacOS/Macbook.
I'm experiencing substantially more carpal tunnel issues because of the Mac's trackpad-only setup. The trackpoint means I never have to take my hands off the keyboard, which I love. Two months in I'm used to Apple's keyboard, but I don't think it's as good; my error rate is still much better on Thinkpads because the more sculpted keys make it easier for my fingers to know where they are.
And I should say that here I mean the older Thinkpad keyboard, not the newer one that looks much more Apple-ish.
That's a reasonable frustration, but I haven't seen anyone complaining that pc manufacturers still ship trackpoints. That's not to say that any pc comes close to Apple's trackpads though.
Most people switching, however, are annoyed by the absence of visual polish everywhere (hardware and software) and the lack of robustness compared to Apple laptops, which you can literally walk on or drop in your bag without paying attention to what else is next to it. Except for mil-spec laptops and thick toughbooks, I wouldn't do this with any computer.
Apart from console apps, there is no unified visual language on Linux, and most desktop application developers do not expect to make as much money as with mac or Windows. This often results in apps that just "get the job done", without much extra polish, but sometimes a LOT of extra features, which can actually confuse users. The best advantage of most Linux software is to be open source, which is unfortunately something 99% of people couldn't care less about.
I'm a day to day Linux user, and I couldn't be happier to have switched back from osx (2004-2016), but the switch is clearly not for everyone yet.
> I'm a day to day Linux user, and I couldn't be happier to have switched back from osx (2004-2016), but the switch is clearly not for everyone yet.
Personally, I have no issues with Linux being used almost exclusively as a developer OS (on desktops and laptops). I don't really see Linux moving towards being used by non-technical users any time soon, and I'm perfectly okay with this.
Tbh I never realized it but I feel the same way. I used to try to convert people to Linux when I was in high school, but those times are over and I'm okay with having my friends and family on MacOS.
Ideally, with more of us on Linux, things will improve. If vast swaths moved over at once, we might even get Adobe tools.
I've been on Ubuntu for nearly a decade, so I barely notice many issues any more, but you're absolutely right. It's a long way away from wonderful.
Obviously, I'm just used to it; I wait 2-3 months before upgrading to the latest releases because having three monitors has _always_ been a headache for me when upgrading any sooner. That's my new normal.
That said, I rarely have any issues that make me lose time. I might have to spend 5 minutes googling around before buying things like web cameras to ensure compatibility, but otherwise, everything tends to be stable. My desktop stays running for months at a time without complaints.
The next step would be to go beyond stable and make the platform a joy to use. I want to be able to plug in some of these fun toys like multi-touch pads and high dpi screens and have them work just as well as they do on other platforms. The journey to that ideal is far longer on Linux. But it remains free, hackable, solid, and powerful. And the more people using the system, the faster progress will come.
My problem with desktop Linux is actually development - it seems really hard to get patches and fixes into upstreams or deploy them stably (i.e. not fighting apt overwriting your custom builds, etc.)
There's scope somewhere in there for Canonical to improve Launchpad so the experience of fixing issues is more streamlined.
Windows is flat out unusable as a Linux-based developer platform for us.
Actually, I was surprised how well the Windows Subsystem for Linux actually works. Yesterday I even compiled some Ubuntu packages (using C++, Qt, Boost, etc.) and submitted them to my PPA on Launchpad. From Windows!
True, it's just somewhat unpleasant to have to remember where the file you're editing is and wonder if it's safe.
The good news is that a lot of these things are getting fixed. E.g. it used to be that path expansion for executable files lookup didn't work too well (as in, you could launch native Windows executables only via direct path, because the subsystem would otherwise check for an ELF header, so you couldn't launch foo.exe in your $PATH just by name), but I understand that this is getting changed in upcoming releases.
I'm keeping an eye on this thing, it is promising. I'm so looking forward to putting all the Red Hat-branded breakage behind me and not have to wrestle with my computer all day.
As far as I understand, it works fine if you store data outside %localappdata%\lxss. So, just put it on your regular C-drive and make a symlink from your home directory for easy accessibility.
But I agree that it would be great if they could solve this in the future.
PC laptops have often had better keyboards than Macs (e.g. Thinkpads), so I and many others would disagree with you there.
The trackpad situation is a legitimate gripe, but this is hopefully improving with Microsofts Precision Trackpad standard.
The big advantage of stepping outside the Apple garden into the wider world is choice. You have choices like matte screens, 17" screens, up to 64GB RAM, hotswap batteries, upgradable components, ARM chips, Xeon chips etc etc
Even the current Macbook Pros (high spec Airs) have had equivalents available in the PC world for a while, e.g the X1 Carbon, which is being upgraded to KabyLake soon, while Apple have only just released their Skylake machines.
Apple Music, global menu, font rendering exact like macOS (with same fonts);
dock software in which applications can fill their own context menu (imagine launching Spotify, pinning to Plank and upon right clicking spotify you can skip song, shuffle all songs, etc, truly, that is the future... that windows had since Windows 7 with it's new `tasks` API for taskbar entries...);
I want Adobe AfterEffects and Excel and OneNote that work and do not have alien UX because wine;
I do not care that there's Xorg and Wayland, I just want this desktop software to not kill my Rider IDE when nVidia drivers crash;
Are there choices? No, I do not see any choice. You see i3, i3-gaps, fluxbox, openbox, xfce, gnome, cinnamon, mate, kde, panteon, budgie, bspwm etc etc and go "whoa, all these choices", meanwhile I couldn't care less even if there three times more clones of a tilling wms, I just want macOS desktop. Choices of stuff that I will never use are useless.
> what the hell is with PC manufacturers that still include the TrackPoint™ Style Point
Different people have different preferences - I like the TrackPoint far better than a touchpad, because I can use it without moving my hands from the keyboard.
I really don't understand why you wouldn't pay $3,000 instead of $1,500 to have the work laptop you want for the next several years. Assuming it only lasts two years (my last Macbook Pro lasted 5, and I wasn't nice to it), and you work 240 days per year, that's $3.13 per day to have your preferred development environment.
I'm a huge linux fan and have ubuntu on a desktop and laptop, but if you hate it there's really no reason you have to use it.
I loved the magic trackpad 2, the main thing that held me back from switching away from osx. Now I love the logitech mx master. It has a thumb button that lets you do window management stuff that is 4 finger gestures on the mac trackpad. I was ready to shell out for a new macbook pro, but I was looking for a ram limit increase and don't really get that much out of the super expensive ssd vs the average priced ssd I can put in a pc.
Speaking of enthisiasm, I just transitioned from OSX to Fedora 25 and I'm loving it. I use both macbook pro and fedora laptops for development and both are excellent. Linux is faster all around, Gnome is excellent and my only complaint is oversensitive trackpad. OSX does much better job with that
Personally, I don't care about USB-C replacing USB 3.0, or the introduction of the new Touch Bar. The problem is the pricing (that Touch Bar is costing me $700-800 on top of the equivalent 2013 MacBook Pro model). The removal of the physical escape key and the inexplicable removal of the 3.5 mm jack on iPhones does not help to relieve fears that Apple has completely lost control of basic sense as to what their professional users want and need. The MacBook Pro line has fallen into the same category as the MacBook Air. It's supposed to be a professional machine, but it's now being specced to the lowest common denominator, meant for any average consumer.
For some of us, Linux is not being transitioned to with enthusiasm. We do not consider it a drop-in replacement for OS X, and already pre-emptively regret the inferior keyboard and trackpad we'll get on the OEM PC laptop manufacturers offer. Honestly, what the hell is with PC manufacturers that still include the TrackPoint™ Style Point, Nub, Nipple Mouse, Clit Mouse[1]?!
tldr; Apple is alienating its professional users. Windows is flat out unusable as a Linux-based developer platform for us. Linux is simply the only remaining alternative. Frankly, it's not "good enough" - it's simply the only remaining alternative when you can't reason spending $4,000+ on a laptop you actually do still want to buy.
[1] https://xkcd.com/243/