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.
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.
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.
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.
Being able to be called Unix just means paying for certification. No more, no less.
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.
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.
Yeah its called lemmy.
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..
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.
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 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.
macOS is certainly not better than Windows.
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.
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 is wrong with the Mac? Is the only device that that makes me feel attached to Linux somehow.
Why is BSD listed twice?
I mean macos is Unix certified. But *nix systems are better.
Apple bad! Give me points
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
MacOS is way more often worse than Windows than how Linux does it.
Linux sometimes have important settings hidden in config files that are different in every distro. Sometimes an API is legit worse in Linux, than in Windows.
MacOS has a lot of things that cannot be set at all, constantly deprecated APIs, not to mention it's locked into overpriced hardware. CoreAudio was only better than the Windows native offerings until XAudio came, and Pipewire for Linux seems promising from at least a developer standpoint.
They also charge developers for the privilege of compiling their programs for Apple platforms* (and using one of the worst IDEs known to man).
^(*Yes, you can technically compile apps with a free account, but AFAIK they will be restricted to only run on the developer's machines unless you shell out $99 a year.)
Had to show a person today how to install Nextcloud. Literally Nextcloud and we couldnt find a way to move to the home folder. Its somewhere in a menu but damn macos is fucking weird, like a toy.
I always thought it was like "the apple unix" or "the better ios which doesnt suck" but actually it seems just as locked down and childish like a toy.
People are used to that?? Damn we are fucked
As Richard Stallman said: Steve Jobs created a cage and made it so shiny that millions of people want to be trapped in it (From memory so not exact, just search Richard Stallman Apple fanboys are fools)
MacOS gets much more fluid to use when you memorize the keyboard commands. Command+Shift+G in the Finder brings up a menu where you can type any path you want, including ~
I don't mind MacOS
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
sudo in Windows.Please report posts and comments that break these rules!