Ubuntu: was the first distro that came up… hated it and went back to windows Manjaro: tried it after Ubuntu, was great for 2 months until it broke and I swapped to arch Mint: never used it Debian: used it once for a VM because it wasn’t canonical, but it was meh Endeavour: never used it Arch: it was great and I still use it for my cheap side laptop, but I forgot to update it for a month and it broke on my main laptop and I wasn’t good enough with Linux to fix it at the time so that computer runs Nix Nix: used it after arch broke and I was paranoid with having to fix stuff… still use it on my primary computer but am frustrated with how hard it is to develop in rust on
For a lot of people Ubuntu is the linux. Canonical is just good at marketing. For all it worth, Ubuntu is not the bad choice for average user who’s not into ricing and not bothered by bloat.
Manjaro: haven’t you managed to kill it yet?
I’ve been using Arch and Manjaro for couple years each and in my experience they both break regularly. But, for some weird reason, Arch Linux is praised, when Manjaro is shamed upon.
Still quietly asking myself why tf that is important. I need an OS to do a task, and I need it to be as easily configurable and as unobtrusive as possible. If I was into nursing an OS I’d have stayed with Windows.
I love Mint, it has become my workhorse distro. I use LMDE on my personal business laptop. I switched my parents from Windows 10 to Mint earlier this year, and it’s been great on their very old and low power desktop.
Cinnamon is not the prettiest or slickest DE, but damn if it ain’t the most stable DE I’ve used.
I’m a KDE fanboi myself, but when I spin up a machine that I need to just work in a super dependable way and is no muss, no fuss, I usually choose Mint with Cinnamon.
For as much as Linux nerds (myself absolutely included) complain about distros like Ubuntu and Manjaro, I’d still take either one over Windows or MacOS any day.
You can use UTM on an M1 or up Macbook and iOS/iPadOS: getutm.app
It is not VirtualBox yet, but it is moving fast. And thank $deity it’s not Oracle… like VirtualBox
Ah, for gaming, yes Macs are not fantastic gaming machines that’s for sure.
Then again, Linux has long been known to have issues with gaming as well, especially with an Nvidia card…
Unless you use Steam, and then both work, kinda?
Still it seems like it’s Linux and Mac OSX on one side, and Microsoft left behind thousands of years in the past, except maybe for gaming where literally an old Windows running on a VM may run the widest selection of games?
But I still don’t see the logic of grouping Macs together with Windows, even for gaming.
For VMs, I expected more someone to bring up the switch to the M1 chipset, a huge setback for VMs definitely even if temporary, though I’m old enough to remember that Linux and Macs both running Intel were often easier to get things running on than Linux on Intel vs. Linux on AMD. But things definitely change over time, as to what is easiest at any given moment.
Microsoft sucks tho - now THAT’S universal. Can’t we all just get together, united in our hate for it?! (/s, or, well, actually… not!)
Edit: hey, anyone want to start like an anti-Windows or I-fucking-hate-fucking-Windows community? I’ll join it today if you do!? :-)
Privacy and data collection-wise MacOS is fine. It’s their main selling point. Doesn’t even force updates on you. I know it’s a low bar, but damn Windows bar is at the floor at this point.
I didn’t say it’s perfect, but it’s not terrible. And I think that page is mostly about Apple services, like iCloud and stuff, not MacOS specifically. It’s not necessary to use the services.
Even so, as the other reply mentioned, it’s still leagues away from Windows at this point. But yeah, fair then that both Windows and Mac OSX are doing it, while Linux is not.
Still, if you had to pick a machine for your grandma to use, or like either Windows or Mac at work (but not Linux, though lets say that there is a terminal SSH option to Linux available from either), I would pick Mac OSX. It’s fine if others would pick Linux for the former, but I don’t think Mac OSX is a bad choice there.
While Windows… urg, is basically synonymous with being a cuss word nowadays. Witch: “a pox be upon thee - nay, moresooth, may you be cursed to only use Windows for the rest of your days!” (Onlookers: “gasp! what could anyone have done to be cursed with that bad of a punishment!? I would not wish that upon even my worst enemy!?”) hehe:-P
That Apple blocks you from running every program you put onto it until/unless it can be properly certified, and that “Big Sur can bypass any firewall restrictions the end-user attempts to create”? It’s true that it’s not nearly as bad as it may sound at first, and they even released a statement that:
We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices.
Notarization checks if the app contains known malware using an encrypted connection that is resilient to server failures.
These security checks have never included the user’s Apple ID or the identity of their device. To further protect privacy, we have stopped logging IP addresses associated with Developer ID certificate checks, and we will ensure that any collected IP addresses are removed from logs.
Though I also understand that if someone wants the ultimate in privacy, it’s difficult to trust such a corporate promise, especially one like Apple known to hide or lie about such things. (Edit: also… “developer ID certificate checks”, so if you don’t register with Apple as a known developer then…?)
I still use Mac OSX myself, but if someone wants to avoid that and use Linux for this reason, I’m not going to argue with them - whereas I would push back a little bit if a friend were to tell me they planned to put Windows (as the primary OS) onto a machine.
MacOSX is great, other than the fact that it only runs on insanely overpriced, un-upgradeable and irreparable hardware. And that you have what I would consider limited control over it.
Its sins are just of a different sort - e.g. you don’t need to repair or upgrade those machines so often, bc they work so well for so long as it is, plus other than for gaming, who even upgrades machines these days to begin with?
For non-gaming, Macs are great machines. So too are Linux. While Windows sux ass no matter what. Thus that’s the dividing line, imho.
I mean… a Mac machine will run non-Mac OSX software. Pretty much everything can run linux, with a little effort put into it:-) (unless somehow these M chips have prevented that? even if so, surely it’s only a matter of time before someone cracks that barrier)
But yeah, it’s definitely a choice. e.g., Apple does not even sell cheap Macs, whereas machines intended to run Windows can be bought all up and down the scale - though I recall at various points in time, comparing equivalently-equipped machines, Apple ones were pound-for-pound actually cheaper than their Windows equivalents. This is ofc b/c of the monopolistic practices: when you rigidly control the hardware, you are able to order in bulk, and when you order in bulk, you are able to get large discounts from the supplier!
Though surely nobody was arguing to purchase a Mac, not knowing who or what Apple is or is about? Installing Arch Linux is also known to be somewhat ah… “tricky”, so if we are comparing things like ease-of-use, the question gets back to OP’s “which distro?” And it’s all a matter of choice - what you want to get out of it, and which constraints you want to live underneath.
But anyway, we were talking about “Mac OSX”, which yeah, very much is limited to specific sets of hardware, and cannot be installed willy-nilly on any old machine, this is very much a true statement, to be paid very much attention to by anyone wanting to learn more, or use that in their purchasing / installation decisions:-). I was just saying that while Apple (& iOS) may be evil these days, Mac OSX itself kinda is great, caveat: if you can live with its restrictions, and moreover, those are MUCH less than Microsoft’s set of restrictions these days (whereas Linux has its own set of difficulties).
I mean… a Mac machine will run non-Mac OSX software.
Ah yes, the worst of both worlds! Wonderful!
I recall at various points in time, comparing equivalently-equipped machines, Apple ones were pound-for-pound actually cheaper than their Windows equivalents.
I was only illustrating how Mac hardware is not identically the same as Mac software. They are tied together, yet distinct entities.
Your lack of recollection neither proves nor disproves anything at all. If you doubt me, look it up? (since surely if I did so for you, you would distrust that as well? 🤪)
It’s worth noting that Apple has (for example) gone so far as to replace bash with zsh just because the GPL v3 was too copyleft for them to handle. In other words, fuck Apple.
TL:DR: Repeated dumb mistakes that a (relatively) big distro like Manjaro should not be making. Haven’t heard any drama in the past year or so though, so maybe they’ve finally gotten their act together. Time will tell.
Yeah, it’s fine. Haven’t had too much trouble in a good 10 odd years, once the WiFi drivers settled. Mind you I’m not fucking upgrading to 24.04 for another couple of weeks.
Spent a ton of time trying to install GrapheneOS because web USB doesn’t work in snap version of chrome. How about letting me install the normal deb version? Nope, can’t let the user choose
10 years security updates, plus security patches for community packages (instead of waiting on community patches). It’s basically the corporate support plan provided for free for up to 5 machines per account.
Exactly. In Debian, the community implements security patches. In Ubuntu, Canonical implements security patches for a part of the repo (main), the community implements them for the remainder (universe). This has been the standard since Ubuntu’s inception. With Ubuntu Pro, Canonical implements security patches for the whole repo (main and universe).