From Linux to MacOS
My takeaways from a year on the other side.
I have been a Linux diehard for almost all 4 years while I’ve been in high school, and still hold to my beliefs about FOSS and privacy. However, when I entered university I realized that I didn’t have the time, nor the patience to maintain a laptop Linux install. As much as I enjoy having full control over my system, my distrohopping addiction never died down since my last post. So, when my trusty Thinkpad died, I decided to see if the grass truly was greener in Apple’s walled gardens.
The Good
Apps have been much more pleasant to use on Mac versus Linux. Whether it be the design language, high DPI scaling, or availability, doing everyday tasks is just plain easier on a platform that more developers support.
Programming on a *NIX-like environment is leaps and bounds better than Windows. While Linux will always be slightly easier to work with when it comes to compatibility, MacOS is already a lot better than needing WSL for everything.
Package management is also a surprisingly strong point for Apple. Homebrew has mostly everything I need for development, and while it’s no AUR, it is better than the fractured ecosystem that Windows is currently in, with winget being adopted slowly, while Chocolatey still has most of the userbase.
Performance and battery life has been expectedly excellent. I’ve had no issues doing anything from light video editing to running a bunch of Docker containers, and the battery lasts through even a relatively heavy school day of use, although I have needed to pull out a charger in the library at times.
The Bad
As much as MacOS has been praised for being the epitome of software that “just works”, there are a ton of things that randomly break on Mac. Whether it be desktop switching randomly dying after a day of power-on time, or apps randomly deciding to not accept keyboard input, there are definitely areas where I feel like even Windows would be superior.
There is no place where this is more evident than MacOS’s native window management. The fact that I can’t snap windows to the left or right with a keyboard shortcut or by dragging the window to the edge of the screen is a design decision that I can’t believe Apple is still sticking with. I shouldn’t need to install a third-party utility just to have proper window snapping, and the lack of a FancyZones equivalent on Mac is just sad.
The Ugly
I knew that game support on Mac was going to be terrible when I bought it, but it’s a lot worse when I realized Apple discontinued Proton development for non-Linux platforms.
Hell, even light web games like Tetr.IO lag like hell on my Mac, when they perform perfectly well on a similarly specced Windows device. No absolute pointer input also makes it difficult to play web-based FPS shooters like Krunker, and don’t get me started on the headache it is to make Osu run.
TL;DR
If you can stomach the cost, and absolutely need the battery life, a Macbook is a perfectly fine development machine. If you can live with needing to plug in after 3–4 hours, are fine with running Windows or Linux, or want to be able to run any games at all, then look elsewhere. As for myself, I’m probably going to use this Mac until either it dies or I finish my undergraduate degree, at which point I’m going to retire it in favour of a lightweight gaming laptop.
