If you buy a system made with known linux compatible hardware you'll have zero problems. Just like a mac. Windows has the advantage that it gets first tier service and thus a greater chance with being stable with a broader swathe of hardware. OSX to me is much better than Windows because it doesn't get in your way. You want a new app download it and drop it in Applications. I don't know WTF windows does but some installs take forever; on Mac OSX and Linux install times are so much more reasonable and transparent. Obviously it matters WHAT you do with the OS, for some situations only Windows will have the software you need, and on those occasions I reluctantly use it. As far as stability on good hardware, for the average user, there's very little difference in the 3.
For me, I'd like an OS that Just Works with what I do with it; Linux has never been it. Linux desktop has always been a compromise - it KINDA works.
Professionally, I've used all three major operating system branches. Windows was a hack when it came to things like terminal support. Linux needed me to hack into config files pretty quickly just to make it work, and it's lacking the UI polish that the other operating systems have. Mac combines the best of both worlds.
Privately I've always used Windows, simply because all games work on there at the intended performance. It's not in the way.
If you expect Linux to be like macOS, you can only be disappointed.
It is a different operating system with completely different trade-offs. People are trying to improve usability on Linux (and things have changed substantially for the better since I first used Linux in 2006), but generally, the OS and software will hold your hand less than macOS. Actually, even Windows probably holds your hand less, macOS is clearly an outlier here.
People who like using Linux generally put up with the occasional nuisance or the necessity to sometimes dig a bit deeper when there's a problem for the increased flexibility and independence.
Why should I detest things that usually serve their intended purpose really well?
I actually like macOS on my MacBook Pro, I don’t have to tinker with it to keep it working like my Linux desktop.
I’ve been frustrated with iOS but I originally switched because I was tired of my phone being randomly off or otherwise having some unexpected behavior causing it to be unreliable.
I can understand why other people prefer Windows, Linux or Android. How can it be mystifying why some might prefer macOS or iOS?
Also... I don't really want Linux on the Desktop to beat macOS/Windows. Because at that point it will be just like macOS/Windows, and I am not on Linux for that.
I often see complaints that Linux on the Desktop is not enough like macOS/Windows, and I never understand: why use Linux then? I want Linux because of what it is now, not because I want a free macOS/Windows.
Linux is a totally different story. “Linux” doesn’t support anything. It’s a kernel and doesn’t remove things out of tree so comparability is rarely removed so you could build things. But user space / distros and binary drivers can be a different beast (DKMS helps). Anyway. Linux is choose your own adventure and not comparable.
For Windows you’re not comparing the same thing. Apple ships a new major OS release on a yearly cadence compared with Microsoft’s 7 years. Some people might prefer Microsoft’s approach. People buying into the Apple ecosystem understand Apple takes a different approach. Also Microsoft isn’t your one stop shop for support. While Windows may be supported for 7 years, i doubt your OEM is supporting your firmware for that long. Apple ties firmware to operating system so that is easier to understand.
Well that's fine, but Windows isn't Linux but everybody treats it like such, hating on it for not being Linux while people often praise macOS for being "Unix". For macOS, it doesn't have the installer system that Windows has, so solutions like Homebrew are created to try and graft Linux things on it. Usually, the trouble is that Apple has made some asinine decision with the default tooling installed or some other strange limitation.
And because Apple is constantly breaking software, it creates a lot of churn on macOS. From PowerPC to Intel to Arm, from ObjectiveC to Swift, from Cocoa to Metal, etc., they're constantly upheaving the ecosystem and OS. Meanwhile, it provides very little to the end user other than normally increasing the size of Apple's walled garden.
Dreaming of a world where normal PCs could have an OS on the quality level of MacOS with the software ecosystem but Linux is just too fragmented that you can't build anything coherent or reliable on an interface level in the way MacOS is.
This isn't saying Linux is bad, its great at what it does and being modular but how can something like MacOS spell check where it works on any text field coherently across any app work in a modular world like that.
Windows just feels like bad decisions made decades ago hold it back, it can't even open a folder of 20 thumbnails without choking, MacOS can handle 10,000 like a knife through butter. Can't even find a file opened yesterday when you search for it in the start menu by exact name, MacOS manages in a fraction of a second. Maybe the right team could rewrite all the things causing this jank but you'd essentially have to replace so much of the company that caused it anyway that it doesn't seem feasible.
Still use all 3 for different tasks but MacOS is the only one that feels like an operating system should feel in 2024.
This sounds like an Apple fanboy comment, tbh. Most people are used to windows and if they want an alternative, they'll reach for Linux. MacOS is more of a con rather than a pro since you're effectively locked in with no chance of switching.
Other than being proprietary, macOS is definitely much better than Windows. The problem is that macOS requires Apple hardware, which has been dog shit for years now.
This analogy to OS X is completely unreasonable. OS X software and hardware is co-designed to work together, by a single manufacturer/developer. In fact, you could even say that OS X is specifically designed not to work on any hardware not made by Apple. Creating a "hackintosh" desktop is seriously difficult business.
Linux and Windows are nothing like that. With both, the ecosystem of hardware is quite large, and there is an implicit expectation that any OS should work on any machine (ignoring edge cases like embedded hardware). With Windows, this assumption works well because all hardware manufacturers test their machines with Windows. This is almost never the case with Linux, where even if you are lucky to find that a manufacturer has tested with one Linux distro, they might not have tested with your preferred distro. What are you going to do if your distro "isn't certified"? Just walk away? That's not a reasonable choice for many people.
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