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Comment by jsz0 | Hacker News Reader

Probably untrue but the general trend of Apple throwing in the towel on privacy has made me start seriously thinking about the logistics of moving away from macOS in the near future. I know it's going to be super unpleasant because I've been a 20+ year macOS snob and it's an integral part of how I get any work done. Making a reluctant change is so difficult. I almost hope Apple makes some terribly egregious changes to macOS that will make it easier for me to cut it loose and move on.

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I've unplugged as much as I can from both Windows and MacOS. I still have to carry a Mac because of Xcode (and mobile development), Affinity (for design) and from time to time, MS Office (usually to deal with some ancient VBA code). The daily driver is just an LG Gram with Kubuntu, and here's the difference:

Command line: Linux wins by a mile. GNU gettext has better tab completion (i.e. it will complete parameters and paths). If you work with Linux servers, it's nice to have the same directory structure... and while brew is nothing short of amazing, package management on Linux (deb, rpm, pacman, etc...) is still the best.

Design: A lot of tools have moved to the cloud (i.e. Figma and Canva are getting better) but pro grade design software like Affinity Designer (or Adobe stuff) is still the best, especially if print shops are involved. If Serif ports Affinity to Linux, I will buy it for every machine at my company just to say thanks.

Video: Davinci and OSB run extremely well on Linux so life is good :-)

Development: Honestly everything is better on Linux... but no Xcode, which is required to distribute to the App Store. Xcode is a nice IDE, but most of the work I do is in JetBrains IDE (GoLand, PyCharm, WebStorm... and occasionally C Lion).

On the hardware front, Apple still makes great hardware, but some of the PC manufacturers are making great machines, too (LG, Lenovo, Dell). I'm particularly happy with LG's Gram 17" which has a giant screen and is an ounce or so heavier than a 13" MacBook Air. The M1 and M2 are fast, but a modern i7 or better is plenty fast and you can get one with 32GB for cheap.

Baby steps... maybe start with dual booting, or a VM, over time you get more and more comfortable as you find the bits you need on Linux or whatever.

You will probably never find a replacement for everything, but eventually you get to a threshold where the "Apple Hates Me" vibes > "Not quite everything I want", then you have somewhere to go when you flip the table... You will probably still hate it initially, but the nice thing is that you can work on it, making it into what you want, and unlike with Apple or MS you can make progress... it will stay how you put it, because the authors of the software are not working against you. i.e it gets more comfortable over time, and less of a battle over time.

Admittedly how easy this is, is highly subjective, e.g if you are a media person then it's going to be painful whatever platform you head to (although I hear audio and video editing alternatives are getting better).

Let's face facts, leaving macOS because of Apple's privacy policies is like moving to Canada because Trump was elected in 2016: lots of people will threaten it, few will actually do it. The state of the only realistic alternatives (Linux, BSD, etc.) desktop-wise is so woeful that people will put up with whatever Apple does. Otherwise, Apple wouldn't do it.

And moving to Canada is a terrible decision owing to how mediocre that place is compared to the US.

Moving away from your family, friends, and professional connections; the expense and hassle of the actual physical move; dealing with customs, immigration requirements, employment sponsorships, etc. in a new country; etc. may in fact be too expensive and unpleasant an undertaking for many cosmopolitan American liberals to countenance, irrespective of how nice Canada itself is.

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