I made the switch because I no longer had the time and interest in maintaining my OS - I wanted it to just work. Much can be said for Linux distros' improvements in hardware support over the years, but it pales in comparison to paying for a superbly built computer (even Torvalds uses an MBA) and never having to think about hardware compatibility or OS breakage again. That's worth the (significant) premium in cost for me, and it is worth it for many others on HN.

(This is only on the desktop side, obviously; I use an Android phone and run Debian/Ubuntu on my servers.)

Now, I'm on a Chromebook Pixel, and I can say safely that it's the only computer I've EVER used that really lives up to the "just works" mantra. To top it off, it actually is Linux inside, so for someone like me who uses a Linux VM on OS X most of the time, all I have to do is install crouton, do startx and go with Gnome 3 (which is quite polished now).

I've never personally had this experience, and I haven't heard a sincere account of something as basic as multihead graphics being broken for years.

I do enjoy using MacPorts because I can quickly search the packages from their website.

    $ brew search mysql

That said, let's say I do -- so I download and double-click the MacPorts installer, and then run 'port install' to install an X11 app from a binary package.

Not that I'd want to.

I feel that is no longer a valid excuse. I use ubuntu on thinkpads, and it just works.

I see people around me with more issues with their OS X machines in fact. That might be just anecdotal, of course.

You caught Ubuntu (or Fedora or other distributions that moved to GNOME 3) were on GNOME 2 greater part of the last decade. A breaking UI change had to be done at some point, and it happened to be 2 years ago. Even on macs, there was a huge overhaul going from OS9 to OSX in 2001.

You can make a point saying that you don't like the new UI. That will be a much more sound argument than saying the environment is changing from one release to the next.

My mother started off on 8.04 LTS. When upgrading to 10.04 LTS the window buttons changed sides and there was a new theme (this is enough to throw many users). When upgrading to 12.04 LTS there was a change from Gnome to Unity.

My mother now chooses to use a Mac because she was fed up with her computer "changing" each time I updated it. I doubt I could convince her to try any Linux distribution again - there are no perceivable benefits for her.

Edited to add: Not that I think Window Maker is necessarily the solution. I'm just pointing out that the default Ubuntu repos contain a huge number of window managers and even a few desktop environments which haven't changed that much between releases.

What sort of battery life do you get? Any heat issues? Hibernate/suspend?

(These are all areas where I've had issues with recent versions of Ubuntu, but on an older model Macbook Pro rather than a Thinkpad)

Using openSUSE 12.3 with 3.7.11+ kernel on a Thinkpad T530 (Intel graphics, 9 cell battery) I get 4-12 hours of battery life (depends on usage; coding and work on a dimmer brightness gets me 10-12 hours, watching movies and playing games with the brightness higher up gets me ~4-5 hours).

Newer kernels seem to have regressed as far as power consumption goes, I was trying the 3.10 kernel and getting 2-3 hours of battery life...

Really, at least with thinkpads, the just works excuse is just that: an excuse.

Looking forward to my X1 Carbon, already in the mail :-)

No heat issues.

Suspend works perfectly. Takes a few seconds to unsuspend, but that's about it.

Macbooks are much worse supported than thinkpads. For all purposes, thinkpads are the reference platform for linux, like macbooks are for OS X.

I say this as a 17 year linux only user. I am not trying to disparage linux, I just want to point out that the thinkpad is an exceptional case.

When a reasonably prudent consumer hears "OSX runs great on my macbook" they do not come away thinking that OSX will run great on any laptop. They know or have heard that "PCs and Macs are different."

When a reasonably prudent consumer hears "linux just works, well at least it works on my thinkpad" they might get the impression that the same can be said for any other "PC laptop." For the vast majority of the computer using population thinkpads and dell/acer/etc laptops are essentially interchangeable. Unless people know of the long and torrid romance between kernel developers and the thinkpad they will be oblivious to differences between thinkpads and every other major laptop brand.

I take it that you are not a linux+thinkpad user?

I'd rather just get back to hacking.

These options probably aren't yet as polished as Macs, but if you want convenience and still care about an open source OS, give them your support. They won't get better without demand from people like us.

Is the argument that those machines are bad because they ship with Windows?

I'm a huge hater of MS-anything (I can not quantify my hate of Windoze), but I don't see a valid argument to support overpaying for a slow System 76 machine when I can get my i7 Toshiba for $879 and put whatever OS I want (including a hackintosh VM).

I actually do the reverse - buy a Zareason and install Windows on it for freelance projects that I need Windows to maintain, because I know that after the maintenance window has ended on those, I can throw Debian on it without issues.

I don't believe that Linux can ever go mainstream through just being installed on Windows machines: for most people it's just too much effort for too little reward. And for reasons both practical and principled, I want Linux to be a mainstream option. So I support people selling computers with Linux.

You do have to be somewhat careful of the hardware you buy, but arguing that having to buy exclusively Apple hardware is somehow better than exclusively buying, say, IBM hardware to maintain compatibility with your OS is pure sophistry.

The way forward on a Mac is to run Mac native applications. Not really a surprise -- a Windows user who switches to Linux but wants to run all the same old stuff via Wine would be better served by switching to native apps where possible.

I wish more free software developers would pay the $99 tithe to get their stuff added to the Mac App Store though. (Any free software guys here? I'll pay the $99 for the first one to email me at [email protected])

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store-...

Now although the situation might be the same, I'm not definitely sure that it is - for one thing OSX still lets you run unsigned binaries (and thus modification to source code).

https://adium.im/pipermail/devel_adium.im/2011-January/00797...

The better answer to this question is probably that Mac OS X is not the best platform to run free software on, just like Microsoft Windows is suboptimal at best. Given that those platforms are closed and proprietary this is not that surprising. If you want to run free software, start at the bottom - the kernel. It is not like there is a dearth of choice when it comes to running free kernels after all.

Each platform will have strengths and weaknesses. For example, the upcoming stuff in XCode which will let you see power usage have no parallel in Linux. If your stuff is portable to Mac and Linux, you get to use both Valgrind and XCode to improve your code.

The "trouble" comes from getting the core OS to behave and play nice with the hardware. That is rarely an issue with Apple's platform, speaking from personal comparative experience.

Also, Apple's SDK for their own platforms is the currently the best around, bar none.

And generally incompatibilities that need to be ironed out, but I'm glad to be mistaken.

As for stability, I think Debian's reputation for being rock solid is well established and deserved. I'm extremely happy with the setup I have and with how little effort I had to expand to get it.

If you have an older machine lying around, I'd heartily recommend giving it a whirl.

The next time Software Update asks you to update iTunes:

1. uncheck iTunes from the list of updates

2. click the help menu, search for "ignore update" and click on one of the options. (I don't remember exactly what it's called.)

It's a hidden way to tell Software Update to never bother you with iTunes updates again.

Warning: This will leave you exposed to any security issues in iTunes, so don't run iTunes after you've shut off its updates.

I assume the same is true for other Ubuntu derivatives and probably other major distros. Linux today is not Linux 10, 5 or even 3 years ago. They've improved a lot.

My enthusiasm for Free Software died years ago thanks to the ridiculous amounts of CADT (http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html) in the Free GUIs. Constant change without benefit is just not interesting to me.

Meanwhile, Apple has been advancing in really important ways that are not being sufficiently imitated by Windows and Linux: user-friendly backup; removal of the mental model where "file on disk" is somehow different than "file in editor"; unlimited file versioning; a sweet app store; mandatory code-signing.

Where do we start? Lets see:

Apple v/s New York City over 'GreeNYC' logo : http://www.widespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/gree...

Apple v/s Victoria School of Business and Technology over this logo : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Victoria_...)

Apple v/s Woolworths Limited over this logo - http://www.topnews.in/files/Woolworths.gif

Apple v/s Amazon for the use of "App"

And let's not talk about the abuse of Rounded Corners (TM)(R)(C)

Common bully behavior is worse then propitiatory software madness.

And Windows might be getting you more stuff than OSX, but that was not the point for GNU world, wasn't it? It was about the free and especially the open part.

"Apple has yet to sue anyone other than blatant and uninspired copyists"

Let's keep a little less brazen attitude about tech and engineering, shall we? Just because lines were crossed in the dark age doesn't mean that those lines aren't in place any more.

"Meanwhile, Apple has been advancing in really important ways"

I do not deny true innovation, but we all know that the reason for some matters being "really important" is sole for just being Apple-related.

"that are not being sufficiently imitated by Windows and Linux"

Might it be that not all Apple "advancements" are worth to be "imitated"?

"sweet app store"

...and incurable Apple fan-boy.

In fact, I was in a conference a couple of weeks back and people were mocked for using Windows and especially Linux. Devs were asking others to get a 'real' OS. Practically 90% of the conference had Macs.

90% of your peers using a Mac is a good reason to use a Mac. But I have to admit people feeling superior for using a Mac is ridiculous.

Raw sockets in Windows (I've used them a couple of years back...)

I spent years using Linux on the desktop. I wrote software for it, was active in the community, and was an active core contributor to well-known distribution. I love Linux desktops.

Yet I stopped using them when I got my Macbook Air (before you flame me for using that machine, Linus himself uses one [0]). It's an absolutely phenomenal machine for my use.

Sadly, however, running Linux on it is a majorly sub-par experience. Touchpad drivers are awful (as is software which can support it), battery life is abysmal, and overall it's a pain in the ass. This is coming from someone who happily spent days configuring Gentoo and Exherbo[1] on his desktop just for fun.

True, I could invest in a laptop which is known to play nice with Linux, but frankly, there exists no machine on the market today which can compete with the Macbook Air for my use (ultra-portability, durability, extreme battery life, great screen and solid performance).

In short, I "succumb" because the portable hardware is the best. Plain and simple.

[0] http://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvalds... [1] http://www.exherbo.org/

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Macbook#Touchpad

I rely on it heavily for window management and navigation, and the Linux community is sorely lacking in this department atm.

easystroke-mt - Use mouse and screen multitouch gestures to initiate commands and hotkeys.

touchegg - Multitouch gesture recognizer

Obviously I can't tell how well those work and whether there are better projects...

It could use a magsafe-like power connector, though.

1. Ubuntu does not remember screen brightness after reboot.

2. Getting Flash properly installed so I could watch Amazon Instant Video was a struggle. Netflix over Wine works like a charm if not ideal (it's broken for me a couple of times but it's working again now) and HBO GO works even better.

3. Firefox does not seem to support high DPI screens for Linux yet. So you either have to zoom on each page or use an add-on such as NoSquint.

4. The SSD is apparently too fast for lightdm, the logon software, to handle. I had to change the default logon software to gdm.

5. Frequently, the feature which saves Facebook/Google/Twitter login info for desktop apps would forget my password and generate blank popups and error reports.

6. Random error popups every once and a while.

All of the above are minor gripes considering I am not paying anything for this software. Overall, I am very happy with the entire stack from Ubuntu to the Linux kernel. I choose to do most of my home desktop activities on Ubuntu when possible. I keep my Windows desktop around to run iTunes and that's about it. I like the Ubuntu/Linux experience but the above problems prevent me from recommending it to my family.

Issues with ZenBook Prime:

1. Touchpad is not great.

2. I have hardware problems with the keyboard and the power and I've had to send it back to ASUS for repair. Seems to be working fine now.

The zenbook looks like a competitor, but I'd need to be sure that it's built as solidly as the MBA. The MBA is even thinner and for about the same price you get hardware that is incredibly well designed and manufactured.

For me, I've learned the hard way that going by raw specs alone is a poor way to judge a laptop (desktops are another beast) -- it's the build quality and the little things that make or break the pleasantness of the experience.

ASUS and other manufacturers should be out with their Haswell refreshes soon enough. Then you can make a more meaningful comparison.

The previous generation Macbook Air (Ivy Bride) still gets more at 7 hours anyway.

Coming from a 12" ThinkPad with 1024x768 screen, the 1080p sold me on the ASUS. I'm sure the MBA will get "Retina" display screens soon though.

PS -- Debian GNU/kFreeBSD has it backwards. A FreeBSD userland w/ a linux kernel might actually be interesting to me.

Simplicy for one since BSD utils are developed in a mostly non-fractured enviroment. I gave one example in a previous post. That isn't the end of the story, but it's a good start.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5640751

No, I don't remember that. Because I never was.

I strongly dislike Microsoft. But I was just as happy on Solaris as Debian.

I really can't understand why hackers, coders, etc are happy to sign up to the shit Apple are doing. I do understand that "normal" people love Apple, but I just can not understand why coder people, who grew up learning to code in a GNU world (like me) can succumb to go Apple.

I learned to code from Perl. Which was never so dogmatic about the whole GNU thing.

I guess, for some of us, the low amount of friction that Apple provides is worth the illusory premium that people attach to it.

I never signed up to fight for an open or free OS, I could really care less if one exists or not. I like Linux, but I don't get religious about these things because being religious about these things would affect my bottom line. I use it on the server, but I would never use it on the desktop, mostly because of aesthetics. Linux looks like shit to me. It's like a Toyota to a Mercedes. Toyota might actually have superior mechanics, but the Mercedes drives so nicely.

And then there is Objective-C. After 20 years of C++, C#, C, Delphi - I dunno, I can't describe the love I feel for Objective-C.

I've been using Linux for the past several years without any issues with its design or integration, and I haven't had to "fiddle endlessly". And I'll continue to do so, regardless of what most everyone else thinks and says. Although it is quite hilarious when people express amazement at the fact that I don't own any Apple products.

- Dropped the entire Linux desktop software stack.

- Wrote a well-integrated top-down designed set of frameworks that provided a consistent API for desktop software, with binary-level ABI compatibility across major releases of the operating system.

- Promoted and encouraged the distribution of standalone applications that included all their dependencies, including distribution via an app store.

- Dropped the use of package management for anything other than OS components, especially for managing application dependencies.

- Leveraged their well-designed set of frameworks to advance the state of the art and simplify the lives of developers, making it easier to ship "great software" for their platform as compared to others.

As it is right now, Linux is a cess pool of poorly maintained, unstable, poorly designed, rapidly shifting crap. There's almost no centralized vision, and what centralized vision does exist is almost entirely co-opted and captured by massive ubernerds that don't seem to understand the first thing about producing a viable platform that end-user application developers would want to target.

What Canonical has done is put lipstick on a pig; it's not enough to throw money at making the operating system acceptably attractive to just end users.

My preference isn't borne of ignorance, although I think Linux's failings have a lot to do with ignorance from Linux/GNU developers about how the professional development world produces a coherent platform.

The "hacker" in "hacker news" has little to do with any traditional meaning of hacker. I'm not sure why it's in there at all really.

Well, the _traditional_ meaning would largely predate the availability of Linux, anyway...

I personally run SUSE on a Thinkpad, I prefer Linux to OSX and Windows, and love Thinkpad hardware (the keyboard is the best I've ever used). I can however understand why Apple stuff is attractive.

I've also heard that Linux is easier than OSX when it comes to installing languages, tools, etc..., but OSX is easier when it comes to things like Skype, Office, and of course proprietary software. I've found using Linux full time to be painless and enjoyable though.

Some of us are more awed by technical prowess than by anything else, and OSX has done some amazing stuff.

Quartz compositing, the migration from IBM to Intel processors using Rosetta, Time Machine, etc.

All of that is great from a technical point of view, and you should at the very least acknowledge it as an inspiration. If you write code, that's it.

However, if you mean the iPod/iPad/iPhone locked stuff, yes, by all means fuck Apple.

I just bought the best machine for my money. The machine that would allow me to do my job better. I don't care at all about free philosophy and other things of that nature in software.

It's by far the OS I'm most productive in, and all the parts I care about (SSH) are open source.

Obviously, you're not going to have a good time writing code native to a particular OS if you aren't working with that OS. At best, your experience will be subpar. imo