Have any developers regretted switching from OS X to Linux? | Hacker News Reader

Have any developers regretted switching from OS X to Linux?

7 pointsmarkhuge8 comments

For the last ~12 years I've been on OS X. Before that I was primarily Slackware user. I switched to OS X when I started doing a lot of A/V work (at the time working with SDL dependencies was kind of a mess).

My Air is dying and I'm considering purchasing one of the newer Skylake-based 4K laptops to run Arch, rather than shell out $3k for a $1200 notebook. (It's a value thing, not a cost thing. I'll happily pay $3k for $3k worth of laptop)

I dev primarily in C, JS/Node, Golang, Python, Ruby, and have started working with Elxir and Swift recently (I'm fine using a hosting CI server to build Swift projects). I also do a lot of audio production, consume most of my media through my laptop, and need to be able to interface with CNC/Laser Cutters/3D printers.

Has anyone who does some or all of these things switched to a modern release of Linux? If so, what was your experience?

View on HN

Developing C, JS/Node, Go, Python, and Ruby on Linux rocks. I liked it way better than using OS X, but then again, all of the apps I used were cross-platform. Is there anything on OS X-only that you think you'd miss? For example, you should definitely investigate any RDBMS GUI that you use on OS X, because there's nothing great in that area for Linux.

Audio production is... another matter. Linux certainly has hardware weaknesses, even in areas that have been massively improved (like GPU drivers). I've also done kernel upgrades that randomly broke drivers and had to revert. So honestly the audio/CNC/laser cutter/3D printer thing is much more iffy.

Consuming media through the laptop is another sticking point. I had tons of bizarre issues with Chrome/Firefox and streaming video sites. It was just a mess.

I'd be very wary of Arch, as well. If this is your primary work computer, I strongly suggest a distro with a well-funded corporate backer. Arch is also going to give you cutting-edge updates, but sometimes (theoretically) at the expense of breaking things.

Have you considered a Hackintosh? And what's keeping you off of Windows? Since Vagrant/Docker, developing on Windows doesn't require huge sacrifices, and driver/media support on Windows is better than any other OS.

> Is there anything on OS X-only that you think you'd miss?

I've paid for a lot of software that can't run on Linux, but I feel like I've gotten the value out of most of them. In theory everything I do either works in Linux natively or has a Linux equivalent. I just haven't tried any of it on modern hardware to know if it'll actually work.

> Have you considered a Hackintosh? And what's keeping you off of Windows?

Most of the reasons for switching to Linux are related to OS/security/privacy/automation tweaks that I haven't been able to make work (or work reliably) in Windows/OSX. I have all that stuff working in Linux today, but my hardware is too out of date to do the bulk of my work on.

Honestly, I could probably spend some time in mastering powershell, and educating myself on the current state of Windows and maybe do everything I want, it's just not something I'm interested in doing.

> Consuming media through the laptop is another sticking point. I had tons of bizarre issues with Chrome/Firefox and streaming video sites. It was just a mess.

This has been my experience as well, but I'm also on 7 year old hardware.

Really good RDBMS GUI for Linux (and other platforms) https://www.jetbrains.com/dbe/

I honestly can't thank you enough for pointing this out to me. I love JetBrains products, and I had no idea this existed!!

about half year ago, I purchased a lenovo carbon x1. I run ubuntu on it.

for development, linux is the easiest. building stuff is often just make and make install. convenient package manager...

there are two things I hate though.

linux doesn't support high dpi displays well. the default text is very small. you can scale the ui, but it doesn't always look good.

second, no trackpad experience on other platforms can match that of macbook. I never feel the need for a mouse when using mac notebooks, but when using a linux or a windows notebook, I need a mouse connected.

FWIW I run Linux Mint on a Macbook Air, and it supports the (admittedly quite nice) touchpad well. Obviously a little different than your particular issue, but I thought I'd comment for anyone reading.

what about the three finger move gesture?

I've missed the screenshot tools, preview and keystrokes I've committed to muscle memory.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com