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Comment by 6f8986c3 | Hacker News Reader

macOS releases used to be exciting. Now I just wonder what new instability they’re going to introduce.

I keep wishing for a Snow Leopard-like release. An OS update that improves stability, takes care of bugs, and increases performances. Who else is MacOS competing with – not Windows really – is it iOS? Is that why we need more features at the expense of everything else? I recently used a 2008 MacBook with Lion and it felt good.

I don’t get the sentiment. From my POV MacOS has been stable for the past 7 years.

Same here. I mostly assume that people saying this either haven't used windows/desktop linux or haven't used MacOS. The difference between stability is night and day. Also I have been using macos from snow leopard time and could be considered power user. I don't like design changes and things like remove 32 bit binary support, but apart from that the stability has not changed so dramatically as people make out to be. I am fine with opt out security features like SIP and having to click open anyways.

I sometimes think I live in another reality where I'm not using the same OS as these people. Because the macOS I use for 70+ hours a week just doesn't seem to be the same as I hear described.

I sat here trying to really think about what I could just be ignoring, but all I can come up with is sometimes when I disconnect my dock and then reconnect it later the OS doesn't remember to switch my sound output from laptop speakers to my docks audio output. But that's it I think, everything else just stays out of my way.

Working on Fedora and MacOS every day and I don't see much difference.

Fedora had its issues. MacOS too (like fuse driver, 32b support, apfs migration issues, randomly dying restore from sleep, sleep auto-wakeups which mean 50% less battery after an unplugged night).

There are some things I just can't do on MacOS at all though - for example custom audio routing and inline effects. (Apparently I could spend a few hundred $ to get it... but yeah, no, I get it for free on Linux)

They used to sell the macOS releases, and now give them away for free. In some way the quality seems to be related to the price.

If this isn’t a feature release, then surely they’re working more on stability and fixing issues, right? It’s not like Apple has downsized their SW development meaningfully.

I don’t think they have downsized as a whole, but the balance has definitely tipped towards iOS over the last 10 years, both for OS and application development.

Well yeah. Switched to Linux 5 years ago and keep recommending it to people. But depending on where you work, may not be approved by the company.

I did the opposite and don't want to come back. I install a couple of linux distros every year just see what's up and every time it gets worse in my opinion. Or at least going nowhere

Same, starting around 2012. Was "Windows is for games and Linux is for work" before that. Now it's "Windows is for games, macOS is for work, and Linux for servers... until I get comfortable enough with FreeBSD". Not where I expected to be (holy shit, especially the macOS thing, I used to hate Macs, and now I resent not having other viable options for Serious Business) but here I am.

It's the drivers that are the problem, largely. That and the desktop software generally is just... not as stable as I've come to consider table stakes. Used to be fine, when the other major operating systems were bad, too. Not anymore. An X or Wayland crash is just as bad as a kernel panic, on a desktop, but while macOS and Windows are both a hell of a lot more stable than me-in-1999-2011 would have expected, Linux is... not. It's treading water. A crash of any sort whatsoever—application, OS, windowing system—is shocking now on Windows or macOS. It's a once-a-year thing. Linux? Hahahahaha.

Part of it's that macOS has spoiled me, too. Like, I never even used to try to drag and drop things because there was a 1/3 chance it'd work, a 1/3 chance it wouldn't, and a 1/3 chance it'd make something (a program, or a WM) crash. Simply didn't do it. Now? I expect it to work, and to result in sane handling of the action, and if anything goes wrong it bugs me. Repeat for all kinds of other stuff that I just expect not to do subtle weird shit anymore, which I used to totally overlook.

Same here. My introduction to Linux was Gentoo pre documentation fiasco. Even though I tinkered with it all the time, it just ran and ran well in my Pentium 4. The apps may have not been as polished but it delivered what was promised.

Now I can’t even get Bluetooth to work, wifi is still a pain as back then, but the defense is that back then wifi was relatively new and it was expected to be a bit difficult. However once set up it actually worked. Now wifi won’t connect for ??? reason. No error, just… no. And this is with distros that are supposed to be user friendly (Ubuntu, Mint) even tried Manjaro because I figured the Arch fans would have it more figured out. Nope.

Everything feels so broken and disconnected, carrying legacy bugs, trying to reinvent the wheel.

What the Linux world needs is to get United and a bit more organized, even if that means less “freedom “

>What the Linux world needs is to get United and a bit more organized, even if that means less “freedom “

This.

I want for once to hear about some standard rather than yet another fork of a fork I've been using for a couple of years since the previous "let's split and each of use will do whatever we want" incident.

What distribution? can you share?

Same. I'm kind of shocked how poor basic functionalities on MacBooks are. You need a third party app to tile your windows. If you run in "clamshell" mode, connected to a monitor with the lid down you need to do all sorts of hacks to make it work and it drains battery like crazy and the fan is always whirring. In Linux instead you write two config options in a file and it works like a charm.

MacBooks don't even work with multiple displays. Linux is the opposite. Works with all the displays you can connect.

My work makes us use MacBooks, otherwise I don't have much experience with them. Linux I've been running for 8 years now.

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