So I moved to Linux

[Skwoodge]

What software are you wanting that is missing or unsupported?

99% of commercial software (both big and small) aren't available on Linux, such as Adobe. I also use Capture One. About 99% of the apps I use on my Mac aren't on Linux and don't have anything even remotely comparable.

 

[Luftkopf]

What software are you wanting that is missing or unsupported?

AutoCAD would be a good start.

 

[teh_hunterer]

An OS that let me use the computer to do things rather than an OS that let me play with an OS.

That's pretty much the crux of it. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to tinker with your OS, but where I get a bit annoyed is when those people try to convince the rest of us that Linux is better for the average person as well. If you want to larp as a Cyberpunk netrunner, by all means put on your trench coat and have at it, just don't try to drag the poor unsuspecting masses into it.

 

[MysticTalisman]

Sure. I used to run my own calDav (calendar), cardDav (contacts), and WebDAV (files) servers. But once owncloud and now Nextcloud came out, I’ve used their server to self host. Nextcloud does file hosting, sharing, and syncing. It also has the calendar, contacts, and reminders server all in the same setup. You don’t need a Linux box to run it, but I use Linux because I also do other server functions.

This allows me to sync my phone, tablet, and computers with my own server for contacts, calendars and reminders. And once iOS added the folders app, I’ve been able to use the files functions even in iOS. It has been a replacement for iCloud for me.

For those who want more privacy, to learn, or are just looking to be less reliant on a company, I’d say give it a shot.

I thought you might be using NextCloud. I took a look at their website again and I see the option to sign up with a 3rd party provider but under the self hosting option that leads to NextCloud Enterprise that is self hosted by NextCloud. Is that what you are doing?

 

[Siliconguy]

Yeah. People say "linux is too hard" but I disagree. Because look at the Microsoft DOS era of the 1980s and 1990s. People used DOS just fine then. People edited config.sys and autoexec.bat files. Set hardware jumpers.

If average people could do that in the MS-DOS era, they can also accomplish tasks of similar computing complexity on Linux if need be.

Oh yes, and those expanded memory managers to use the RAM between the 640k Dos limit and the 1 Meg of actual RAM. You have to load the device drivers in exactly the right order or else.

Oh, the expanded memory drivers for AutoCad and Word Perfect were not compatible, so you had to reboot and select what program you were going to use as it booted.

Oh, the bad old days.

 

[teh_hunterer]

Yeah. People say "linux is too hard" but I disagree. Because look at the Microsoft DOS era of the 1980s and 1990s. People used DOS just fine then. People edited config.sys and autoexec.bat files. Set hardware jumpers.

If average people could do that in the MS-DOS era, they can also accomplish tasks of similar computing complexity on Linux if need be.

I don't think the average person wast doing that stuff in the 80s and 90s, rather enthusiasts and technicians were.

If the average person was willing to do that kind of nonsense, then the year of the Linux desktop wouldn't be a meme.

 

[Siliconguy]

AutoCAD would be a good start.

Ah, you are in the elite group. Very few people use that as opposed to corporations. I was actually an engineer at a chemical plant and never used it. What's the license cost now? $2000 a year? Not a home use application.

For me the killer Windows app was the PI system and its ability to pull DCS data straight into Excel. I don't need that at home either.

 

[appleinsiderbro]

Consolidating a number of posts I've made in other threads on this matter, I decided to exit any "ecosystem" lock in and migrate to Linux over the last few months. This has been quite a difficult task if I'm honest so I'd like to share why and how I did it so you can look and laugh or at least know what you're getting in to. I will note that I have about 30 years of Linux experience on the server-side and a lot of other Unix experience so I'm not exactly a novice. This will be reflected in what I'm posting.

Firstly why? Well we're not in particularly good times to be honest. I'm in the UK and we have government policy which is starting to encroach on our privacy. "The cloud" as it stands was the first obvious target, which is where big tech companies focused on consolidating all our stuff and dependencies. In retrospect I find this abhorrent and dangerous. On top of that, all of the ecosystems (via cloud) I depended on are sovereign to the US. Without wishing to get into politics, that's not really ideal now. And lastly, everything is a control point. All devices are now registered and remote managed through online accounts otherwise they're not exactly useful. There have been numerous events where totally autonomous systems have destroyed people's lives through shutting their accounts down resulting in making their hardware and software useless. For this pleasure, we have to pay an up front premium and monthly subscription. The big tech companies in question are aggressively pushing further lock in to this model. And I don't want it.

Another trend in the industry is the aggressive push of LLM technology into everything. This is not something I need or want as I'm not technology driven but requirements driven. Nothing I do requires an LLM. Nothing I do benefits from an LLM. Not without dehumanising me in some way which isn't great. The effect also pushes into hardware so hardware supply chains are now compromised, prices are escalating and the only way this is getting paid off is if the companies leverage my previous point about the up front premium and subscription. I have no desire to do that.

Another principal annoyance was it's actually really annoying to get some software working reliably on macOS which I need to use on a daily basis. Particularly Maxima + wxMaxima CAS system. And this is not the software's fault. There's a huge amount of churn of macOS internals so minor OS releases seem to break it regularly. And that's somewhere in the depths of Qt. Even Microsoft don't screw that up as much.

And the final straw was the absolutely hideous pricing that Apple charge for RAM and storage and well, everything really. I really don't give a crap if I have to wait a couple of seconds extra here and there because my RAM isn't on die or my storage isn't bussed directly to the SoC. Realistically the last 6 years of progress does just buy me a couple of seconds here and there. And it doesn't add up to a material gain over the lifespan of the device.

Anyway the obvious option here was to switch to Linux which is entirely free of cloud lock in, vendor tied accounts, store models, LLMs (unless you want them) and the like. And it runs on trash machines, which are still affordable even with the RAM and storage crisis going on.

So a year ago I bought a modest machine and decided that I would cram my workloads into it. I've gone from a fairly high end M4 Pro configuration with studio display to this. Lenovo M720T desktop, i5-9400, 16Gb of RAM, 512Gb NVMe, Dell P2423DE monitor (24" 2560x1440p). And some crappy Creative speakers. Side by side, the display and speakers are as good as each other if I don't have my glasses on. If I do, there isn't £1300 difference. The speakers are better than the Studio display and cost £20. This machine is running Debian stable and Cinnamon desktop. The entire machine and monitor cost less than the AppleCare for the M4 Pro and it functionally isn't really any worse than what I had. This is painful.

Software was inevitably where the problem was so it took a long time to migrate out. Some details:

Pages / Numbers. Proprietary formats which are totally impossible to read anywhere else. These were exported to Excel / Word format and then carefully ported to LibreOffice. I didn't have a lot of documents which needed further edits so I just flattened all the old ones to PDFs.

iCloud email / domain. This was moved to UK provider Mythic Beasts. New client is Thunderbird. Migration was done by connecting both iCloud and the new mailbox to it and just dragging the emails across. I keep my mail box relatively tidy so this was a low effort job.

iCloud drive/Airdrop. These were entirely disabled. Files only exist on my desktop now. If I need to move something to the phone I will use LocalSend between them to explicitly send a file to the phone or back again.

Safari. Firefox + uBlock origin. Such a better experience. It's actually much faster even on a 6 year old machine. I haven't had anything that doesn't work on it yet.

Apple Music / Airpods. Decided I don't want them. Apple Music is utterly painful and laggy if you accidentally hit something that requires network access when the network is dicky. Also there are constant BT problems now with Airpods dropping due to the sheer amount of BT devices. So I've gone back to cabled earphones - some £20 Sony ones and the Apple USB-C/3.5 adapter for the phone for now. Player is VLC both on desktop and phone and I am using FLACs ripped from CDs with abcde or bought from online sources. I am directly supporting the artists and get to keep actual media forever without a subscription cost then. This has been a slog but I feel it was worth it.

Apple Photos. By far the bulk of iCloud was Photos.app. I just "exported originals" into the same folder structure as I had set up in photos app. All good. Disabled iCloud photos. I don't keep photos on my phone. If I want to move stuff back and forth I use LocalSend again.

Lightroom. This was the painful looking one that turned out to be easy in the end. I had an Adobe subscription due in a month so took the emergency option of exporting everything to JPEG 90% quality and just moving those files into the same structure as Lightroom. All RAWs are moved off onto a couple of 2TB removable disks and I'll recover them if I need them. Editing is done with a combination of Darktable (for RAW editing - usually light) and NegPy (to convert film negatives)

Notes. Just exported everything using "Exporter" from the App Store. It creates Markdown files. They are kept on disk and slowly get moved into ODT documents if worth keeping. I keep a paper (!) notebook on me now. It does a better job and there are no distractions!

iCal. I'm leaving this one alive for now but iPhone only as I have to collaborate with some family members that use it.

Reminders. Went into the physical notebook with the notes.

Keychain. Moved to KeepassXC. It was a bit scary how much stuff was tied into iCloud there. I am glad I moved it out. Mostly manually and verifying stuff the first time I logged into it on the Linux box. I now keep keychain on the iPhone out of icloud and only with minimal stuff on it. Also got rid of passkeys and moved everything I could to Yubikey MFA as well.

Time machine. I have two time machine disks, one 2TB HDD and one 2TB SSD. I wiped them both and use rdiff-backup to back up my home directory, minus some of the caches. This is done once a week. The 2TB SSD is encrypted with LUKS/dm-crypt and gets thrown in my bag when I'm away from home. I have an off-site 2TB disk as well with an rsync snapshot of the home directory too, which is done quarterly.

The only issues I've had with Linux were stuttering video playback which was a simple config fix. Everything else just worked.

Anyway this took about 9 months of concerted effort. Was it worth it? Yes definitely, as a friend demonstrated to me not that long ago. She dropped her MacBook and realised she couldn't afford to buy another one thus locking her out of her entire tecnology existence. If this was to happen to me, I just order another desktop computer from ebay, restore stuff and carry on. Well realistically I just grab one of the other junk PCs I have lying around and do the same.

Bar some conveniences lost, I sleep better now. The Apple stuff is going on eBay in the next month and I'm going on holiday with the money.

Really well written and I applaud your motivation and persistence. I think being less dependent on Megacorps will be even more important going forward and you will be better off.

 

[Luftkopf]

I’m never going to tell someone who has the knowledge to not use Linux. It has its place, and is a highly competent system if you have the time and ability to get it at up right. It very much is not for everyone though. In my younger, nerdier days I played around with Linux as a hobby. It was fun, but never really became that useful to me.

To each his own.

Ah, you are in the elite group. Very few people use that as opposed to corporations. I was actually an engineer at a chemical plant and never used it. What's the license cost now? $2000 a year? Not a home use application.

For me the killer Windows app was the PI system and its ability to pull DCS data straight into Excel. I don't need that at home either.

I don’t do 3D, so I only need AutoCAD LT which is “only” AU$800 a year.

More importantly going forward is the much less well know HERO (Home Energy Rating and Optimisation) which is available on Windows and macOS. I haven’t put any effort into discovering whether that can be made to run on Linux mainly because I have no desire to use Linux again…

 

[atarixle]

An OS that let me use the computer to do things rather than an OS that let me play with an OS.

There was a time when people played with the newest version of Windows ... just because it was new and held some very cool improvements.
Every new version of macOS is to play with ... what did they change now? does it really look as cool as on the keynote? I moved some windows behind the Dock just to watch and study the light-bending effect. You can play with the OS on more than Linux.

 

[cjsuk]

I don't think the average person wast doing that stuff in the 80s and 90s, rather enthusiasts and technicians were.

If the average person was willing to do that kind of nonsense, then the year of the Linux desktop wouldn't be a meme.

Average people certainly were doing that in the 80s and 90s. My mother for example was pretty adept at Acorn MOS back in the day. She'd whizz through formatting disks, moving files around and configuring printers on the terminal. However that was out of necessity. The necessity has declined as we commoditised and simplified the interface to technology.

Saying that, Linux has actually mostly just worked. I mean my laser printer is a bit of a dick on Windows for example requiring you to use HP's driver installer stuff and argue with it for about 10 minutes over what a network or wifi connection is, the difference not being totally obvious. Linux, like macOS as it has the same printing stack, just print something. It's already there.

There's also the sudden uptick of things like Bazzite and CachyOS which crept into the enthusiast space where the gamers are. They run Steam and Discord fine. Job done for a whole class of user.

 

[NeekonMike]

I've worked on a number of Unix systems over the years, mainly Solaris but also Irix, AIX, HP-UX and Ultrix, even some NextStep. My first Linux distro was the early Slackware, and I kept checking the Linux state of the art every few years with the same result - nice, better than last time, but... no thanks. Although I have no problem doing it, I don't want to mess with my system all the time and recompile the kernel because of some driver or app every so often. I can also double clutch with an unsynchronized manual transmission, crank up a car without the starter motor and determine the right exposure on a Nikon F with the base prism. But I'm not a masochist.

To provide a counterpoint, based on my experience with various systems (HW and SW) over almost 50 years:
- Apple's M-series is revolutionary, M5 Pro that I have is truly amazing. Idles below 3 Watts, jumps to 90 Watts when needed. Very impressive thermals throughout.
- Local LLMs are evolving rapidly and offer tremendous help to humans who know when and how to use them
- macOS allows me to go as "dumb" or as "hardcore" as I wish - from PhotoBooth (just kidding) to command line, Python, Rust, bash/zsh, macports etc. Also, I can go as open source or proprietary as I want/need.
- I find the ecosystem very valuable, nothing is perfect but I've seen nothing coming close. And I make my choices carefully, I'm no fanboy: I wouldn't touch Pages/Numbers with a 10-foot pole. Apple's mice are garbage IMHO, but Logitech makes excellent alternatives that work great. etc. etc.

 

[robertosh]

There are a lot of cheap PCs out there, but remember that an Intel Mac can run Linux too. I started with Mint (which has really easy installation of Broadcom Wi-fi drivers unlike nearly everything else.) Since the beginning of the year I was playing with various distros including Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Zorin, Debian, and Fedora with Plasma. Gnome was my least favorite by a large margin. Zorin supposedly is very Windows 11ish and I didn't like that either. (I never used Windows 11 and Windows 10 has apparently been 'updated' to the point I don't really recognize it.

The main PC is Mint Cinnamon, and I have an 2012 Mini that is on Mint MATE. I rather like that one too, it's sort of austere but quite friendly for some reason. It even works on a 2009 Mini (Core 2 Duo) although it is a bit pokey.

KDE Plasma is all the rage for the elite and it is pretty, but it's also a resource hog and some of the UI does not work on on a 2010 Mac Pro with a Radeon RX 560 graphics card.

So yes, you should go and play. For the moment avoid Arch, they had a security breach in a code repository and it will take some time to clean up the resulting mess. Also Arch is not really intended for beginners. Mint and Zorin are, and Ubuntu is manageable, they have good help sections.

You can also run linux on Apple Silicon, thanks to the Asahi Linux project, but currently only up to M2s. I don't recommend to go this way though, unless you really want to experiment things and have linux background.

For Desktop environment, you can also give it a try to Cosmic, a brand new desktop environment that is getting good traction. Is still on early stages, but I'm using it for months and has very nice workflows, specially for productivity (tiling, etc). It's updated every week so it's constantly improving.

 

[Janichsan]

Have any guides? This is one thing I’ve been looking for

Not a general one, as this differs between desktop enviroment and sometimes distros. If it's KDE, it should be only a few clicks. In other cases, it might take a bit more tinkering.

 

[robertosh]

I tried. I have a MBP 16 M3 Max with 36gb of RAM (30 gpu)

I made myself a Mac Pro stylish PC. Beautiful and powerful.

- AMD 9900x3d
- 64gb of RAM
- 2TB of SSD
- GPU RX 9070 16gb
- QUBE 540

With fedora, and, it was amazing, everything amazing. I'm in love with it.
So fast, more powerful, as snappy like M chips, and the OS simply amazing. For me, better than macOS (KDE version)

Amazing again, but....

Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro and Power Consumption were an issue.

I tried a lot of photo editors and none of them was as fast and useful like Pixelmator pro

I some video editors and Kdenlive and was ok, but the file management was not for me.

And power consumption, from 0 noise and heat for 2 screens (4k and 2k). To listen the CPU fans speed up and more energy consumption. The energy bill show a double increase, so....

I'm back with macOS.

Thinking to make a Hackintosh but to much trouble and still power consumption, so prefer to pay M prices.
I was about to buy Mac Studio with 64gb of ram M4 or wait for M5 and next day prices increase, jajaja, pretty bad schedule for me.

I stuck with my MBP until Studio M5 came out to sell my MBP.

Agree on this, my main concern after I switched was noise and power (specially noise). I admit that is not easy to digest (and to fix). Apple's MX are really power-efficient.

But there are options. You need to be careful buying the components, specially selecting low noise fans like Noctua. You can also run processors at lower power modes (on AMD is called "EcoMode") which reduces dramatically the power usage at the cost of a fraction of power processing, reducing the temps. You can also do the trick for the graphic cards reducing the power they use. But the most important part is to tweak the fan curves, this can be done easily on normal BIOS, it's quite easy in fact, you define several temp thresholds and how much rpms you want on the fans. I tend to let the fans very low until reaches ~80 or so which starts to be uncomfortable. That would make normal daily usage to be almost silent. I know it's not plug and play as buying a mac, but is just half an hour of work.

Another option for avoiding this is to use passive cases like the ones from HDPLEX. This way, you can use a normal processor up to 65W TDP with no fans at all. You can build a mini-style passive PC with a Ryzen 9 7900, which has 12 cores, or put a Ryzen 8700G if you want more graphics power.

 

[Luftkopf]

There was a time when people played with the newest version of Windows ... just because it was new and held some very cool improvements.
Every new version of macOS is to play with ... what did they change now? does it really look as cool as on the keynote? I moved some windows behind the Dock just to watch and study the light-bending effect. You can play with the OS on more than Linux.

I’ve used Windows since version 2.1, and OS X since Jaguar, so I’m well acquainted with the new OS exploration. You know what I mean. Linux is a next level tinkerer’s paradise. You can use Linux without needing to recompile the kernel most of the time, but it’s more likely that you’re going to need to find some esoteric fix for a highly specific bug for something that should just work.

 

[MacBH928]

The beauty of Linux is its configurability: there are ways in most desktop environments to enable a global menu, if they don't have it out of the box.

thanks i will have to check it out. From the ones i checked, other than gnome, they all have a windows task bar kind of thing.

 

[maflynn]

From the ones i checked, other than gnome, they all have a windows task bar kind of thing.

KDE Plasma is the most like Windows, in that you have a start menu like setup, and the task bar. KDE is extremely customizable, to the point that it can look completely different to the original intent. I'm not a fan of Plasma, but its one of the most popular. Many Windows switchers prefer it simply because its very much like windows

Gnome goes in a different direction and I suppose its more mac like, the app launcher (called the dash) is like Mac's Dock. Gnome uses extensions to customize and alter the look, so built in customizations are not there, per say, but there's a rich inventory of extensions to make Gnome your own

Cosmic - it was first a customized shell on top of Gnome, it is now its own DE, and while it offers many similarities to Gnome, System 76 went in a different direction and its quite popular, even on non-POPOS machines. I have it installed on my machine.

Xfce is an older DE, best for low end, or older machines

I was going to continue listing the other DEs but you can test drive them here:
https://distrosea.com/ For instance, select Fedora and you're presented with the version of fedora and the DE

Try Fedora Linux online on DistroSea

Quickly try out Fedora Linux online on your web browser on DistroSea

distrosea.com

 

[MacBH928]

That's pretty much the crux of it. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to tinker with your OS, but where I get a bit annoyed is when those people try to convince the rest of us that Linux is better for the average person as well. If you want to larp as a Cyberpunk netrunner, by all means put on your trench coat and have at it, just don't try to drag the poor unsuspecting masses into it.

give mint a chance

 

[MacBH928]

KDE Plasma is the most like Windows, in that you have a start menu like setup, and the task bar. KDE is extremely customizable, to the point that it can look completely different to the original intent. I'm not a fan of Plasma, but its one of the most popular. Many Windows switchers prefer it simply because its very much like windows

Gnome goes in a different direction and I suppose its more mac like, the app launcher (called the dash) is like Mac's Dock. Gnome uses extensions to customize and alter the look, so built in customizations are not there, per say, but there's a rich inventory of extensions to make Gnome your own

Cosmic - it was first a customized shell on top of Gnome, it is now its own DE, and while it offers many similarities to Gnome, System 76 went in a different direction and its quite popular, even on non-POPOS machines. I have it installed on my machine.

Xfce is an older DE, best for low end, or older machines

I was going to continue listing the other DEs but you can test drive them here:
https://distrosea.com/ For instance, select Fedora and you're presented with the version of fedora and the DE

Try Fedora Linux online on DistroSea

Quickly try out Fedora Linux online on your web browser on DistroSea

distrosea.com

View attachment 2650221

wow! what an amazing site! i wish i knew about it before burning all those usb's with iso to check out different linux distro/DE . One important feature for me is when minimizing a window it becomes a thumbnail in the dock not a clickable bar like on windows. I believe Cosmic has that.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Yeah. People say "linux is too hard" but I disagree. Because look at the Microsoft DOS era of the 1980s and 1990s. People used DOS just fine then. People edited config.sys and autoexec.bat files. Set hardware jumpers.

If average people could do that in the MS-DOS era, they can also accomplish tasks of similar computing complexity on Linux if need be.

You've had a couple replies, but the “average computer user” in the DOS era was not the same as the average user today; computer ownership was far less widespread and disproportionately included people willing or able to learn technical tasks. It was primarily people who had enough money and interest to buy a computer or needed to because of work.

As computers became mainstream, the user base broadened and expectations shifted toward systems that work without editing startup files or troubleshooting hardware manually. That does not make Linux unusable, but DOS-era experience is not strong evidence that today’s average user will find it easy. In fact, it's likely that because we've had such generally seamless experiences for so long with Windows and Macs, Linux will be more challenging.

There are some distributions with some (even many) devices that mostly just work. However, because of the tight hardware/software/firmware integrations with Macs, it's likely that macOS to Linux will be a challenge for most people unless those people have someone willing to be their IT support. Also, because macOS is BSD-based, you can do a lot in macOS that you otherwise might need Linux for.

 

[maflynn]

One important feature for me is when minimizing a window it becomes a thumbnail in the dock not a clickable bar like on windows. I believe Cosmic has that.

I think it does, I bounce between Cosmic and Gnome, so on the next reboot, I'll have to take a look.

 

[skoodlyboop]

So yes, you should go and play. For the moment avoid Arch, they had a security breach in a code repository and it will take some time to clean up the resulting mess. Also Arch is not really intended for beginners. Mint and Zorin are, and Ubuntu is manageable, they have good help sections.

Said security breach was in the Arch *User* Repository, which has always been the wild west, but formerly unpopular enough to slide under the radar of people with bad intentions. No longer. Many if not most Arch users don’t use the AUR at all.

 

[maflynn]

So yes, you should go and play. For the moment avoid Arch, they had a security breach in a code repository

To build upon @skoodlyboop comment, Arch and its downstream distros are as safe as any other distro. Their repositories go through a rigorious review and are no less risky then any other distro.

What the problem is, is the Arch User Repository, or AUR, and there's a clear warning for people to use AUR

The files in that repo are source files that are compiled and so its expected that as you the user should review the make files, before building. So far the malware being introduced is easily identified, as its executing a post install script.

That's not to say you should just install AUR packages, I avoid them because they don't go through a review process. If only use pacman to install/update apps, you're safe. Using yay or paru is where you need to be careful.