I mean Mac OS has its place. There’s a reason so many music producers and coders choose that OS. It’s a rock solid stable approach for those use cases.
That being said, personally I would always prefer Linux but that’s mostly because I don’t do those things.
I don’t even particularly hate windows, I just like PopOS better
I’m a dev and I mainly see issues with removed… Every update breaks some tools the cli tools are ancient, homebrew is slow as hell and breaks quite often, docker is really slow and costs money if you don’t know how to avoid that, it’s very expensive to get to a certain amount of RAM that costs nothing on PC and so on.
Homebrew recently broke for me permanently on a macbook because it was made in 2013 and is now blocked from upgrading, so xcode no longer can be upgraded…Which means lots of other shit also no longer works. Including homebrew. Soon have to put a distro on it, I guess.
I was starting to get issues with a macbook from 2012 (specifically homebrew / xcode) when I upgraded. I’m going to be honest: Having a powerhouse of a machine for 10 years before it becomes obsolete, I’m not going to complain for one second. Got myself a new macbook, and it runs like the wind. Works seamlessly with all the tools I need in an environment where we rely on gfortran / gcc, and a lot of my coworkers use Linux.
To be fair: Part of the reason I waited for so long before upgrading was that I was waiting for them to ditch the butterfly keyboard / touchbar, and get some ports back into the machine. Once they did that I was sold. My only issue with macbooks would be the absurd price for an adequate amount of RAM, but as far as having a good computer, once it’s paid for it’s fantastic.
Open core legacy patcher has kept my 2012 MBP able to run modern versions of macos (currently on latest update to Monterey). No stability issues, but AirDrop is flakey and I am no longer able to run anything in a VM using Apple’s hypervisor. It runs well; might be worth looking into for your use case.
Docker costs money? What?
The docker desktop does. It is very tricky to install docker without it on the Mac.
You can try installing it on GitHub actions for your CI runs with the Mac runner. It can be done, but takes forever, is hacky and breaks very often.
For my simple local container needs I switched to Podman for that reason. Work gave me a Macbook Pro among my other systems I am wanted to use it as a daily driver to learn the platform better.
I use podman on NixOS. It’s cool, but be warned there are subtle and less subtle differences.
Use colima ;)
I wonder what highly offensive word you wrote in the first line, the only thing I know for sure is that it was clearly filled with misogynistic hate (thanks Lemmy.ml!)
It’s baffling to me that the devs would choose to cripple their own instance. I have not once seen someone use a blocked word in the context where it would be harmful - it is literally always just confusing and annoying.
It is just me wanting to filter 🍎 completely from the instance, so all mentions to 🍎 products get redacted. That is kind of an insider joke due to that company being so prevalent in internet forums such as HN or Reddit. At least in my own instance all mentions of removed are hidden.
Haha interesting, that was absolutely not what I expected. Lemmy.ml bans words like “female dog” and “woman who has sex for money”, so I assumed it was something along those lines since that’s the instance I’m on.
Yours is funny, but also insanely confusing
Genuine question, how is MacOS better for coders? I think those that do usually choose it because they’re used to it or their company offered either a bulky ThinkPad or a Mac and they wanted something thin and light.
Everytime I see tutorials for setting up or building something there will be a simple Linux install command, downloading a zip for windows (or if you’re lucky you can find it on Choco), and then there will be the multiparagraph homebrew setup.
macOS offers a lot of stability, it’s reliable, predictable, boring even. It works out of the box and stays that way, it survives upgrades, and rarely crashes.
The release cycle is steady, and changes are generally gradual and incremental. Mac users don’t usually have to worry about a new release breaking their system or their workflow because a developer wants to reinvent the wheel or a UI designer wants to make their mark. The only big shifts have been processor transitions.
The Mac ecosystem also allows users to have a foot in both the proprietary and open source ecosystems on a single platform. Being able to run, say, web development environments and Adobe CS for example, can be a lot easier than farting around with Wine or WSL.
Granted, there’s plenty of downsides to the Mac as well, but the platform definitely has merits.
Macs are pretty solid for coding. You don’t need to tinker with them, most of the time stuff just works. On the other hand, I spent lots of time to make sure stuff just works well on my Dell or ThinkPad with Ubuntu or pop.
For software, I’ve found that some software doesn’t give you much help if you get into problems on Linux.
And there is always something with Linux that doesn’t work for me. Like my Dell laptop with pop!os doesn’t charge over usb-C from Dell monitor (it worked on windows). Touchscreen doesn’t always work after waking up. I had ThinkPad with awful fan control on linux and hibernation issues. I had issues with scaling with external screens.
yeah it’s mostly because of the official support that reduces a lot of faffing about. I don’t wanna be a nix guru I just want to search stackoveflow and paste in commands when I have issues.
I don’t really think it’s better. They’re fine for coding.
They’re basically the corporate default because they’re easier for companies to buy and remotely administer, they’ve got good VPN software, good resale value, etc.
Exactly this. I was about to answer the question and realize you pretty much already had. Thanks very much.
They’re significantly better than windows, and you could make an argument on the stability front compared to Linux
I code daily on mine, by choice. I also have no issue coding on Linux and will happily spend all day in a CLI. Homebrew is just as easy as using apt or what have you, at least in my personal experience.
It isn’t always perfect.There was a bit of head scratching over shared libraries one time, until I figured out what stupidity I had to do to make Apple happy, but that is the only notable thing I can remember.
However, coding on Windows can be super painful depending on the language, especially with all of the backwards paths. The only coding work I enjoy doing on Windows is C#. Worst case WSL2 is around when I need some sanity.
No matter what, I have any of them available to me and the battery life on a MacBook Air is amazing. The corporate laptop is actually a decent machine and the size and weight is pretty good, especially considering the monstrous bricks the previous models were. Mobile workstation woes I guess. The most amusing part is AutoCAD 2024 running smoothly on the Mac. I never knew it could be that snappy.
Windows is a nightmare for development. Linux is generally not an option, so a UNIX based system is still easier than windows
For C++/C I used to agree, but now with WSL it’s easy.
My problems come with Java (versioning is a pain), JavaScript, Node, etc
C/C++ is probably the second easiest after C#
Node really? nvm makes it very easy, or using choco
Despite trying at least 6 times, I’ve never been able to successfully start a node project on windows. No such problems on Linux or Mac.
I tend to do my dev work at home with an Ubuntu server VM and ssh into it from my windows desktop now. Find that it’s the best of both worlds.
Despite trying at least 6 times, I’ve never been able to successfully start a node project on windows.
Huh fair, for me that’s cmake projects on Windows.
with an Ubuntu server VM and ssh into it from my windows desktop now.
That’s just WSL 💀
Ah yes, I love WSL deciding to consume 12 of my 16gb of memory
That’s a fair complaint
The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released on March 24, 2001. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and all releases from OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to macOS 14 Sonoma are UNIX 03 certified
I don’t like MacOS, but it’s actually able to be called UNIX.
I’m surprised you don’t lose Unix certification with crap like case insensitive filesystem defaults.
I don’t want to be like Stack Overflow, but tbh you have some design problems if you rely on case sensitive filesystems.
I haven’t heard this before, what are they?
Most importantly readability and usability for the user and debugging. Some programs aren’t case sensitive.
That last point is somewhat amusing considering you have to go out of your way to make your program case-insensitive.
Both HFS Plus and APFS can have case sensitivity enabled, it’s optional.
Enabling it has had a tendency to break third party Mac software though. Adobe used to be a particularly bad offender there.
And Steam.
Being able to be called Unix just means paying for certification. No more, no less.
Well you still have to check all the boxes, you pay for the license the same way you can study and take certain exams but have to pay for the certificate.
Not sure why the Linux community is convinced macOS is better than Windows. macOS has the same big issues Windows has (Spyware, ads, and the inability to delete the built in browser) while having worse issues like not supporting openGL/Vulkan, not allowing the user to install old apps, the inability to install hardware, and the small issue of only a select few Linux distros that work with it. Windows isn’t good, but it’s still better than macOS in most regards.
User experience is better on macOS vs Windows/gnu+linux newbie distros. Imho.
I bought a Mac laptop once and lasted about 3 months before running back to Linux. Mac OS may be great for some people, but it’s definitely not for everyone. It was also hell to pull my photos out of their damn software.
The machine was ok though.
(Spyware, ads, and the inability to delete the built in browser)
Ads for Apple services, yes. I don’t approve of that. But this is otherwise bullshit. I can delete any app I want. And I have to opt-in for Apple to get my crashlogs. And there aren’t ads for third-party bullshit.
And Linux is even better. Both OSes are great by comparison. And good on their own. We will never have perfect software.
What about Apple Music, ever deleted that one ?
So is there a linux circlejerk? Cause you’re just ridiculous with your tribalist shit…
Yeah, macos is pretty based. I don’t own a Mac product but I have and they were great.
Based on what?
Based on BaSeD. Try and keep up.
bsd
Based on shit
Yeah its called lemmy.
I use both Linux and MacOS. MacOS is pretty good, but it’s also very weird in the Unix world.
“Very weird to the UNIX world”??? It’s the only one that’s actually UNIX.
The only complaints on this entire post are down to people that have no idea what they’re doing. It’s full-on Dunning-Krueger. There are plenty of training wheels, but they are trivial to disable/bypass if needed. People need to get a lot more comfortable with justifying their preferences with “I don’t like it” rather than inventing problems and proving their own ignorance.
It’s the only one that’s actually UNIX.
Uh, no. I mean, yes it’s actually Unix, but so is BSD. In fact, OSX is only Unix BECAUSE BSD is - Darwin is BSD derived
Apple paid to license the trademark. The various BSD projects didn’t.
BSD is, FreeBSD and OpenBSD (and every other open-source descendant) are not unix-certified, so they are not. BSD was discontinued in 1995 so I assumed that was not what the meme is referencing.
I honestly don’t see why, when I’m looking for help on some problem on a mac, I’ll happily open a Linux forum, and throw whatever commands I need into the terminal. Works like a charm every time. Just replace
aptwithbrewor some other reasonable package manager (idk if macports or whatever is actually any decent, never tried it)I tried MacPorts once because I don’t like the name of Homebrew but it’s weirdly slow in comparison
MacOS is UNIX™
As a macOS user I don’t agree.
Me: “ls ~/Downloads”, mac-gui: Would you like to give “Terminal” access to the “Downloads” folder?
Ok, it’s true that you have to spend 15 mins after setting up to “install developer tools”, and remove some safety rails. However, the mac doesn’t prevent you from doing that, and doesn’t really even try to make it hard (if you’ve ever touched a terminal before). Once it’s set up, you’re good to go…
Removed by mod
what do you mean? clang is a command line tool, can’t you write some cmake and a bash script to automate the build process? That’s what I always do when I writing any C++ that needs to be compiled/updated fairly regularly.
I really like it, and I miss it on Linux. On Linux, I have to trust that each and every sh/bash script, package install script, or some stuff you download from internet are actually safe and don’t access your private stuff. On mac I get the prompt when some software needs to access a specific folder.
click yes when this happens. this one is a freebie.
As a carrot I half-agree.
I vividly remember when a friend of mine who runs a small graphic design studio was sent an archive file macOS couldn’t open natively and asked me for help. Never having used a Mac and without any clue as to which tools the stupid app shop (which was rather new at the time) held, I couldn’t for the life.of me get the blasted thing to obey me, until I found a terminal. I then installed build utils and compiled the frickin’ unpacker I needed myself since it only had Linux binaries. Worked like a charm.
I think it’s gotten better, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the countless times MacOS was too stupid to recognize a file type, and absolutely rejected all attempts to tell it what it was. I almost always found a way around it, but it would sometimes take dozens of minutes of fighting with the OS; these times almost made me long for Windows.
Apple’s position that users are fucking idiots may be usually justified, but they consistently violate the “… and make the uncommon possible” rule. The philosophy that the OS is always right is frustrating.
Our phones aren’t bad at reception, you are holding them wrong
I can agree that fighting apples UI’s can get frustrating (i.e. playing the “try to find the right button” game). What makes me think macs are great is that you get all the freedom you could wish for in a terminal that is unix-compliant, while also getting the reliability of a hugely widespread OS that a bunch of good developers are paid to maintain. With the new macs you also get the apple silicon hardware, which is great.
I think most people that use macs indeed do need the safety rails, but at the same time they bother me. I know how to disable them within 15 mins of setting up my computer, but if I’m helping someone with an issue, I sometimes first need to spend some time disabling safety nets and installing the tools I need. Also: Shoving iCloud storage down my throat is shit. They should stop that.
Next time, just install hombrew 😇 in the terminal, of course
I know a lot of people like macOS, and I’m sure they get a lot done with it. For me however, it’s easily my least favorite popular OS. That’s even considering the terminal running zsh by default, which is miles ahead of Windows.
A quirk that recently bit us at work is that Safari has a maximum allowed version based off your OS version. Now if it was just me as a user, I’d download a 3rd party browser. However, as a developer, I have to build solutions that work for every “reasonable” browser. This means I can’t use features that every modern browser has, including Safari, because Safari from 4 years ago didn’t have it.
This used to be the case with IE. you’re always going to have to support at least one legacy browser.that’s one of the few real benefits of everyone moving to chromium based browsers.
Yeah, thankfully I never had to develop with IE in mind. Though I have heard a lot of people dislike it for that reason.
You’re totally right about that being a benefit to everyone moving to chromium. Thankfully Firefox has kept pretty up to date with new features/standards too.
at my last workplace we used a service called browserstack which cost something like 10$ a month, it allows you to run almost any combination of os/browser versions. you can even set it up to access a local server if you’re running one on your device machine for example. took out all the headache of running the specific ie version that the client was reporting bugs on it worked great but you can definitely find similar services to suit your use case
Thanks for the callout! We actually use browerstack too, but only for exceptions like that one. It’s not part of our typical process. Really cool software
macOS is certainly not better than Windows.
[citation needed]
Trust me bro
That’s just, like, your opinion, man
You’re getting ratio’d but you’re right. Core parts of the user experience are steaming piles of dogshit while people praise MacOS for its many gimmicks.
- Finder is an absolute pile of shit and gets first time users addicted to bad habits. It takes digging through hidden settings to even make it match the out of the box functionality that Windows Explorer offers and it still can’t match the full potential of Explorer for file management. The integrated search is unpredictable and fuzzy so they went and made Spotlight its own thing.
- Window management is a nightmare if you’re actually trying to do multiple things at once without switching windows. Mac OS has not implemented window snapping for years and they still managed to make it suck when they did. Not once have they considered stealing great ideas from the tiling window managers, Apple simply decided to reinvent the wheel and make it square.
- Got multiple applications running at the same time while minimized? Lol, get fucked. The only way to know what’s actually running at a glance is the shitty little dot below the dock icon and restoring a specific window takes either way too many clicks or requires you to know the magic keyboard shortcut for untangling your windows (another gimmick they added later in order to actually make the OS
usablebearable). - Got any sort of issue during startup? Here, take this black screen with a single icon. Not even a slight hint as to what the actual problem might be and if you should worry about it. MacOS might seem like a stable OS but that is mainly because it is very well integrated with the limited set of hardware it can actually run on. If any real issues do come up, the troubleshooting experience is basically just a giant “get fucked” sign pointing to the nearest Apple store.
- Sometimes simplicity is a good thing, but usually designing something to be accessible means severely limiting the amount of depth you can go into as an experienced user. Every aspect of the OS and the tools that come with it share this overall problem that there’s just not much depth to what you can do with it. Can’t have a steep learning curve if there’s just nothing to learn.
And I feel like none of these are unreasonable. I like using the right tools for the right jobs, which is why I run Windows for heavy productivity and engineering work. Desktop Linux has come a long way but it just doesn’t (yet) have the required toolset to support engineering workflows. While programming of any kind and getting more complex data wrangling done is best done using Linux. My server needs are also best covered by Linux as most distributions can be run without all the bloat that Windows comes with. And I am sure as shit not paying for Windows Server.
I just can’t find a valid reason for using MacOS. It seems to combine the worst of both worlds into an OS that’s like a trial experience of actually using a computer to get things done.
- What out of the box functionality are you missing? As for search, from context I’m going to assume you are not being sarcastic. Windows search has to be the single worst search I’ve ever fucking encountered. Say I made a picture of a bird. I called it bird.jpg, and saved it in my pictures folder. Now, I type ‘bird’ into explorer search, and it gives me a fucking DLL FILE called matrixRRT.dll. I waited literal minutes for this? Literally the advice on all over the internet for making windows search better is to use something else instead.
*Agreed, window snapping is better in Windows.
*It’s been a hot minute since I used anything other than Expose to choose which window I want (Which is great, btw) but don’t you just click and hold on the dock icon?
*Agreed, more troubleshooting on startup would be handy. But to be fair, I’ve had way more startup issues with my windows box than my Mac. In fact, the last Mac startup issue I think I had would have been about six years ago. Whereas I’ve probably had six in the last year alone on the Windows machine. Sample size of one, of course. shrug
*Have you met my good friend, the command line?
I’m not blind to the fact that Windows has a terrible search experience, but I won’t say it’s the worst. Out of the box it is fucking useless, but if you actually take the time to index specific paths and make use of the metadata options in Explorer you can actually get some decent results in reasonable time.
Apple had the right idea with Spotlight, it’s just sad that both parties can’t properly integrate the functionality into their file managers.
My search needs are mostly covered by Voidtools’ Everything, which is able to scan through the whole NTFS partition in a matter of milliseconds for realtime results. The caveat being that you have to know the name of the file you’re looking for. Otherwise I just use Powertoys Run for search and application launching needs, which is what Spotlight could have been if it was made by passionate nerds.
I do realise this makes my argument lose it’s bite somewhat, but it comes down to user experience. MacOS has a terrible out of the box experience that can’t be fixed, use something else instead. Windows has a terrible out of the box experience that can be fixed to some degree if you take some time to learn how it works, but you can still opt to not bother with any of it and use something else instead.
Linux was always going to be the clear winner here.
Now for the dock icon strategy: try doing that repeatedly with multiple instances/windows from the same application and compare the experience to the “never combine, show labels” taskbar in Windows. I guarantee there is going to be a clear winner in terms of usability. As always, under Linux is not an issue because you can just do whatever the fuck you want.
The troubleshooting bullshit a pattern seen in all of Apple’s products. They have a habit of hiding all important information in case of an issue, and I have had this complaint about all the iDevices I’ve had the displeasure of touching over the years. iPhone update failed? Tough shit, have a red message saying “something went wrong, try again”. Fan controllers randomly stuck on 100% speed on an iMac without the ability to get any information about the sensors. None of the system tools provide any information beyond the bare minimum. I’ve come to a point where I just refuse to help any family member having trouble with an Apple device because it turns into a multi-hour wild goose chase.
I’d argue having an overall stable experience with the occasional vague issues that can’t be troubleshooted is worse than having slightly more frequent issues that actually lead to a solution. Apple’s products by design teach the user nothing about technology because there’s no entry-point to the knowledge itself. Meanwhile Windows, while flawed, does provide the user with an incentive to learn about proper maintenance and troubleshooting which leads to more competent users overall.
Last but not least, the command line: I love my experience using package managers on both Linux and lately also on Windows with winget. It has quickly become the main way I install and manage most utilities. MacOS has options but none of them are integrated neatly and have to be installed separately.
Even on Windows I use command line utilities where I can and GUI functionality where it makes sense. While the realm of possibilities is not as broad as the GNU/Linux world provides, I at least feel I have a great deal of control over what I do. MacOS is an impostor that has murdered a UNIX distribution and is wearing its skin. The terminal experience feels like it’s a remnant from the early days that they never bothered to put any more love into but they can’t get rid of it either. Just like some of those Windows 3.0 components you can still find in the modern versions of the OS.
I’m 100% done with Apple and their products because they make everything I’m trying to do slightly more difficult and annoying than the alternative. And those are just limited to my issues with the way they do software. I also have very valid issues with the way they design hardware and with the way they conduct business (ethics, monopolies, their overall effect on tech markets in general).
What is wrong with the Mac? Is the only device that that makes me feel attached to Linux somehow.
Linux but perverted version
Well if you put it like that I just want it more…
I mean macos is Unix certified. But *nix systems are better.
Why is BSD listed twice?
Apple bad! Give me points
But it’s not better than windows.
Gotta disagree, the gestures are actually amazing. Only pain point is gaming, but I don’t really do that, and the dev experience is pretty good compared to windows too. Installing programs is as easy as it should be on windows. Fuck msi installers
Eh, as long as you don’t update it its extremely stable. And it’s a UNIX system so you can still do shenanigans if you’re still inclined.
That is an interesting sentence: as long as you don’t update it’s extremely stable
But this is more about macOS having no package manager (officially), telemetry and such
I know, and trust me, I hate Apple for essentially breaking my computer after an update. But I had my MacBook for 6 years now, use it daily, and have no hiccups other wise.
Yeah, back when I was playing around with terminal not having a package manager was a huge pain in the ass.
Do you know about Brew?
At the time I couldn’t get it to work. It’s been years though
I still don’t get the love for package managers.
As a windows and Mac user who has tried to use Linux multiple times I can’t stand the centralized managers. They never have what I need and then it ends up out of date and not working.
Is there some hidden benefit I’m missing? Because sourcing from the developer seems like the much better way to do it like Mac and Windows.
1.Security 2.Up to date depends on distro, rolling releases have more up to date software 3. Convenience: just open the app center and click install
Security: if they leave checksums on their website I don’t see how it’s any more secure
Up to date: I definitely haven’t had this experience. Multiple times on arch I had issues where an outdated repo caused an app to not be able to boot
Convenience: That’s subjective. I’ve never really seen much convenience from an all in one solution for anything. I find it more of a hassle to find the distro specific manager that has a terrible UI rather than just downloading directly off a web page
Easy: Nothing beats the simplicity of
brew install whateverorapt install whatever, and then havingwhateverjust work, in my experience, pretty much every single time.Click download on the webpage Drag downloaded app to wherever you want to store it Open app
It’s just a matter of what you’re used to.
Packet managers are quicker to use. They also keep everything up to date.
Personally I find them slower and less convenient. Like they said, it’s easier to do what you’re used to.
I’ve not had that experience. I’ve had to go hunting down package names on google before I can install it using the package manager, when instead I could have just downloaded it from their website.
Apt, brew and whatever Arch has have all had the same problems for me. They almost never work out of the box and they’re a major reason I don’t like using Linux on desktop.
