Slashdot Mirror
Why Run Linux On Macs?
jones_supa writes Apple has always had attractive and stylish hardware, but there are always some customers opting to run Linux instead of OS X on their Macs. But why? One might think that a polished commercial desktop offering designed for that specific lineup of computers might have less rough edges than a free open source one. Actually there's plenty of motivations to choose otherwise. A redditor asked about this trend and got some very interesting answers. What are your reasons?
Why run a mac at all if your goal is to use Linux? PCs are a ton cheaper and in most cases just as good.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
The subject says it all
Vanity < Logic after all :)
http://www.gibby.net.au
freedom
It's safer to run away from Apple!
We can.
Because you're bisexual, obviously.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
My company buys apple hardware for everybody and I have been working on GNU/Linux for 15 years. I use the operating system where I'm most productive, which is GNU/Linux. Also, nowadays OSX seems to be more prone to problems that were reserved for windows users in the past, like unexplicable slugginesh, tons of crap loading at startup, etc. No thanks.
My other signature is a car
Why run linux on mac hardware? To get systemd, of course.
Better known as 318230.
`because it's there'
Or more accurately, " because we can."
Then again, why not just set up dual-boot or dump either Linux or OSX into a VM inside the opposite OS?
I will note that Apple went competitive by making Yosemite a free upgrade. But if you don't mind figuring out how to make a startup script run to load your trackpad config options and similar stuff that works automagically under OSX, and don't mind not being able to use MsoftOffice (skip the flame wars, please-- we all have to be able to exchange files with the noncognoscenti), it really comes down to which desktop environment you like.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
That's the choice when you buy a laptop: You can buy cheap and get rubbish or buy expensive and get quality. (But my mother always said: We are poor, we cannot afford cheap things. ).
Now for most users there is the big difference between running Windows or running MacOS X. That obviously makes a big difference. But we are talking here about people who are going to run Linux anyway. That means an important question is Linux compatibility, which I didn't see discussed at all.
The important things to answer: How well does the trackpad work under Linux (because that's a major plus of a Mac compared to any Windows laptop), is the retina display supported well, are external monitors supported well, is energy saving supported well.
No offense, ninnle linux, but mklinux is pretty good. It's linux on top of the mach microkernel. (Think of it as a "fuck you" to gnu/hurd, though that's not why it exists :-). Since it's sponsored by Apple, it works better on Apple hardware than the stock linux kernel. Maybe now that Linux is using OS X and Sublime Text for linux development, we'll get better Macintosh support in the mainline kernel? Anyhow, mklinux is pretty cool.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
.. and completely happy. Works like a charm with long battery endurance and a rugged aluminum body. mm.
You know that hackers are always attacking mainstream OS. Use an obscure one and everyone leaves you alone.
A recent employer issued me a new 15" MacBook Pro. I really liked the weight, battery life, screen quality, and the feel of the keyboard. But the non-PC keyboard layout drove me nuts. I.e., the absence of stand-alone keys like home, end, page-up, alt, etc.
If I was using only native Mac apps, I would have been okay enough. But I was accessing Linux GUI apps within a VM, and linux console apps via SSH. It was a real challenge to get decent Mac-to-PC key bindings. I also had real finger-memory issues as I'd switch between driving Mac and Linux programs from the same keyboard.
If I could get a laptop that's just like a MacBook Pro, except it had a PC keyboard layout and a 17" screen, I'd be all over it for my Linux work. But barring that, I'll choose a non-Apple laptop.
Power Mac G4: Debian 8 runs like a champ. The latest Mac OS won't even install.
1) It's beautiful hardware. 2) I don't want to run an OS that the NSA can simply summon the passwords of.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
...or have other specialized needs. Apple hardware has an unparalleled build quality; no one disputes that. The only question on that front is whether you find it worthwhile to pay for that quality. My Apple Laptop is dual-boot; Windows at work and OSX at home. Both work perfectly. My home system previously also had a Linux boot volume; that worked well too. However, for MY purposes, it did nothing that other Unix variant, OSX, did not - and it was trickier to install and maintain.
So the answer is, specific needs (like my absolute IE9 requirement at work) or just like to play with the OS.
Lenovo's Thinkpads are there. You don't get out that much cheaper (e.g. pricing out a x1 carbon versus a macbook pro to be as equivalent as possible has the x1 come about about 10% cheaper, or can be configured to be only slightly better than a macbook air for about equal price to air).
After Mavericks Memory Management on OSX is unbearable. I have to wonder if this is directly the brainchild of the shuttering of Darwin x86... For those like me with existing Apple Hardware a move to Linux is a very interesting idea and one that merits a closer look!
Is this work or tinkering?
Our business has about 15 developers running unstable branch of debian (sid) because this is cuting edge + close nough to long term support version of debian.
Why not develop in the same OS environment of a production server. Its like anything too if you've been using linux for 15 years why change you know all the tools, tricks and going to commerical OS just wont cut it functionality wise.
So what were they, besides the obvious ones? All I see answers to two questions. Why do you use Apple Hardware? Why do you use Linux?
Both have been discussed to death.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
...installed FreeBSD on a Mac and called it OSX? ;)
whilst i find the practices of apple absolutely deplorable - forcing people to sign up for an ID in order to use hardware products that they have paid for, taking so much information that even *banks* won't work with them - bizarrely the amount of money that people pay them is sufficient for apple to spend considerable resources on high-quality components and design.
i have bought a stack of laptops in the past (and always installed Debian on them - see http://lkcl.net/reports/) and have found them to be okay, but always within 2 to 3 years they are showing their age or in some cases completely falling apart. the 2nd Acer TravelMate C112 i bought i actually wore a hole through the left shift key with my fingernail after 2 years of use. hard drives died, screen backlights failed, an HP laptop had such bad design on the power socket that it shorted out one day and almost caught fire. i had to scramble for a good few seconds to pull the battery out, smoke pouring out of the machine as the PMICs glowed.
about 6 years ago my partner had the opportunity to buy both an 18in and a 24in iMac at discounted prices. i immediately installed Debian on it: it took 4 days because grub2-efi was highly undocumented and experimental at the time. so i had a huge 1920x1200 24in screen (which over the next few years actually damaged my eyes because i was too close: my eyesight is now "prism" - i've documented this here on slashdot in the past), a lovely dual-core XEON, 2gb of RAM and it was *quiet*. there is a huge heatsink in the back, and the design uses passive cooling (vertical air convection).
awesome... except not very portable. and no spying or registration of confidential data with some arbitrary company that you *KNOW* is providing your details to the NSA, otherwise there's this conversation which begins "y'know it's *real* hard to get that export license for your products, if you know what i mean, mr CEO".
so, when i moved to holland i had to leave the 24in iMac behind - apart from anything, 2gb of RAM was just not enough. i leave firefox open for 4-7 days (basically until it crashes), opening over 150 sometimes even as many as 250 tabs in a single window. it gets to about 4gb of RAM and starts to become a problem: that's when i kill it. on the iMac, it was consuming most of the resident RAM. i compile programs: 2gb of RAM is barely enough for the linker phase of applications like webkit (which requires 1.6gb of RESIDENT memory in order to complete within a reasonable amount of time). i run VMs with OSes for study.
so i was used to the 1900x1200 screen now, where i could get *five* xterms across a single window. i run fvwm2 with a 6x4 virtual screen, and run over 30 xterms in different places, 3 different web browsers; as i am now developing hardware i run CAD programs in one fvwm2 virtual screen, PDFs in the ones next to it, i run Blender in one virtual screen, OpenSCAD in another, firefox in another, chromium in yet another, then i have to view and manage client machines so i use rdesktop to connect to those (move over to a free virtual window area to do it) - the list goes on and on.
so i figured, "hmmm laptop... but with good screen. must have lots of RAM too, minimum 8gb, must have decent processor". i then began investigating, and found the Lenovo Ideapad. great! let's buy it! .... except their web site crashed. so i then - reluctantly - began investigating iMac laptops. 2560x1600 LCD, 8gb of RAM, dual-core dual-threaded processor: $USD 1500 and *in the UK*, with a U.S. keyboard so nobody was buying it. researched it, saw the success reports of people installing debian on it, knew it could be done: sold, instantly.
so now i am extremely happy with this machine - not with apple themselves - but with the hardware that i have. it's light, it's fast, it's a sturdy aluminum case, the fan only comes on if i swish large OpenSCAD models around in 3D (or if firefox gets overbloated as usual).
the only downsi
for the lulz!!!!!
I ran Linux on my first MacBook Pro, but eventually I gave up. OS X just ran better on the hardware. Linux would sometimes fail to suspend on lid close and if this happened with the machine in a bag it would get super hot. The touch pad never felt right on Linux. I think the battery life was worse. It just wasn't worth it in the end, since OS X has most of the Unixy features I want.
soylentnews.org
Apple still has one thing going for it: Predictable hardware. Even after 15 years or so of OS X, the range of devces is fairly overseeable. If a crew gets Linux to run on a mac, they've like also gotten the drivers and all the extras to run halfway properly.
But that's about the only reason to get a mac to run linux. Besides, I'd pick up this device these days. Awesome project - deserves every support they can get.
Bottom line:
You buy a mac for the awesome hard- and software integration and their sleek product design. Using a mac without its OS isn't that smart, IMHO.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I had a 6220 back in the day and ran LinuxPPC on it for many years. I got used to Linux. Since OS X came about the need for Linux isn't as much but I still keep it in VMWare.
I've run OS X since Tigar..I got this MacBookAir around the Snow Leopard/Lion days. OS X isn't an operating system anymore...it's Apple's sales platform now...BookStore..iTunes Store...AppStore...all about selling, not about a good OS. So Linux is now on this MBA...it runs sweet, less resource intensive, and doesn't phone home to anywhere when I turn it on (capture the traffic for a Mavericks/Yosemite bootup...it's ridculous...even on a clean install with nothing else installed).
Worst hardware support ever, even at the end of its five years life cycle. Never again.
OS X does a good job on my 2012 MacBook Pro, yet I have noticed that it becomes very unresponsive at times. It appears to be due to memory management issues, and switching to Linux is a far less expensive upgrade route than bumping up the memory. The other consideration is my ability to maintain the system. While OS X does make certain things easier, Linux is easier to maintain over the long-term.
From a hardware perspective, Apple devices rock. If one disregards the "walled garden" aspect, most of their equipment is well thought, with great usability and clever solutions for some annoying PC problems. That said, there are some problems:
- because they are so good, they also manage to create planned obsolescence with greater competence; other makers, while generally producing worse products, can now and then make a product that lasts forever (in the "Volkswagen Bug" sense); because of the "walled garden", these superb devices won't work with Apple things...
- some problems arose out of philosophical stances: the double-click, for instance, out of a then prevailing notion that mouses should have one button (double-click IMHO being one of the greatest turn-offs in a GUI).
From a software standpoint, one might consider Linux better than "Applesoft", because Apple software is aimed at a certain target public, which aims at not really using the PC. There's a lot of defaults and "unique better ways" of doing things. In real life, a developer or a power user might want to have a more equipped tool belt. Linux (IMHO) is more faithful to the Unix idea than OS X. Ultimately, perhaps one could install a better shell (or even Bash) and use OS X' BSD roots -- but like one considers *BSD, Linux stands stands out as a wilder frontier. Some people like that, just not the usual Apple clients.
From a human point-of-view, I was once asked whether using Linux would give any advantage over using Windows. I took into consideration the context and the nature of the one who asked... and concluded in that case it was better to stay in Windows. That was in 2003 or 2004. Fast forward to 2015 and it's becoming clear M$ is not a long term option anymore. Human attitudes change slowly, so perhaps I failed in my reply: I should have recommended Linux use, just for the technical prowess gains. Same thing with Linux versus OS X.
(I'm not an Apple fanboy, I think. Of the 8 computers in my house, only two are Apple hardware, and one of them is > 5 years old.) The rest are either Acer or System76.
A lot of people buy Apple hardware because it's a known quality and (relatively) easy to get fixed. You (probably) know you're going to pay a little extra, but you know the build quality is generally consistently good and if there are hardware issues you can take it into an Apple Store and get it fixed fairly quickly.
It's fine for people that buy PC hardware all the time to say that a particular brand or model is good price and excellent quality. Most people don't want to do that much research for a laptop or desktop. And many have burnt themselves with buying something expensive and had it go bad in a couple years or need to be troubleshooted over the phone or mailed back due to some obscure issue. Better to drag it to the local Apple Store for many.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
might have less rough edges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_vs._less
Because I can.
in my country MacBooks are more cheap than Thinkpads and other high end laptops for example, other reasons are Linux lets you take better control on the hardware (subwoofer volume, accelerometer as joystick for neverball, custom commands with the ir remote, better thermals) and 100% software customization.
I've got a 2013 i7 iMac and have for the last two months been running it with Windows 8.1 via Bootcamp to play some games I was given for my birthday. I spent an afternoon (2-3 hoursish) installing Windows, an IRC client, a Torrent client, and a pair of web browsers--guess what? All the same versions I have on the OSX side. I prefer OSX's look and polish--especially the fonts; and PuTTY isn't as nice as having the native terminal It speaks the the hardware that either OS works "enough."
I know what you're thinking. Did I forward 65,535 packets or 65,536 packets?
I've got a 2009 era MacBook Pro. Originally it ran Snow Leopard but since then I have upgraded OS's as they came out and now I'm on Yosemite. One thing I have noticed is that memory requirements have steadily gone up. At the moment I'm running an email client, Skype, Chrome and a password manager and it's using over 6GB of RAM. The same thing on Windows 8 uses less than 4GB of RAM. On Linux it's about 2.5GB of RAM.
The MacBook is pegged at 8GB of RAM - I can't add any more than that. So just a very basic load, like above, and I'm almost maxed out on RAM on OSX. That is unacceptable to me - almost unusable.
Ubuntu or Mint on the MacBook runs flawlessly. Faster, smoother, way less system load. Multi finger gestures work perfectly out of the box. The Mac trackpad, incidentally, is a major reason to run Linux on a Mac rather than a commodity PC. PC trackpads suck. Running Linux gives you infinite configurability, whereas on the Mac it is limited in that regard.
So for me on an older Mac, Linux (or even Windows 8) is a better option. The hardware still performs flawlessly (have to hand it to Apple there) and a new OS just breathes new life into it.
A recent article confirming my own experience, Apple's software is deteriorating. The newest mini's don't come with a server version anymore, so Apple has lost interest (for a change).
Access with the last few OS X versions to a Mac OS 10.9 server is terrible, so my latent interest in Linux got a boost. I've been trying to get it running on an external HD. However, I can't get Ubuntu to install using Canonicals instructions. I tried a utility, but that didn't work either.
Bert
Whenever I get new hardware I think about putting Linux on it. With my Macs, I found that OSX is already Unix (certified Unix TM). The bash shell is exactly the same and I can run all my favorite FOSS software on OSX, so for day-to-day use there's no significant advantage to Linux, at least not on my new hardware. I know the system-level stuff like snapshots better in Linux, but OSX comes with all that stuff working nicely out of the box.
In the old days, no one would have asked a stupid question like this. What happened to the free software movement, and open source, and people who care about that stuff?
The bash shell is exactly the same
Actually it is not. Due to political reasons the latest OS X release still ships with an eight year old version of Bash. Sure it's still fine for most users, but you're missing out on eight years of new features.
Because linux is cooler than OS X.
For a bunch of software that some people use, life is just easier on Linux. Applications like Gimp, Libreoffice etc tend to work better. Last time I tried GIMP on mac os x you had to click everything twice, once to focus the window and again to actually click something (maybe fixed now). Sometimes there are up to date no Mac builds of a project because none of the developers use mac, and none of the users with macs know how to compile it. Installing things can be a big pain compared to having a good package manager.
Back in 2008 I bought a refurbished 2007 MBP. The machine was great, I ended up replacing the battery after 2 years. After a couple of years of use, eventually it got too old, the second battery crapped out completely. Fast forward to about 3 months ago. I began the process of ripping all 250+ CD my wife and I own. I didn't want to tie up my Linux laptop or desktop with ripping. I decided to see if the MBP would still boot on AC power, which it did. OSX was hopelessly outdated and nothing would install any new software without a progressive Apple upgrade (costing $$$), which on old hardware was not worth it.
I tried installing Mint but the installer couldn't handle the graphics card and simply initialize. I ended up getting Ubuntu to install, but it didn't like the graphics card much either. After messing with Grub I was able to get it to boot and load Unity (don't even get me started on that crap) but the software rendering was PAINFUL! I installed Gnome 2 and fiddled around with X drivers a bit to get a working machine. It runs pretty good still and is used for playing all music to my stereo. Video playback is troublesome as I suspect it's still using software rendering.
I know OS X is UNIX and has bash, c compiler and all that stuff. But every time I use command line on OS X I feel like I am stuck in the 80s. No bash-completion, no apt-get, missing critical components that you have to install manually. At least with linux I get a working, out of the box, command line that "just work", ironically. I couldn't care less about the graphical effects when I switch from the web browser to the email client. Also finder and safari both suck in terms of usability. And I absolutely hate the dock. Who had the stupid idea to put open and closed programs at the same place? I also hate unity, for the same reason, but at least on linux you don't have to use it. Window management on OS X is very poor. Having to use exposé to find an open window is a waste of time.
I can't go back to using a laptop with an offset keyboard, that model is a non starter for me at any price. The number pad does nothing but keep my money in my pocket.
I think someone is using a seriously non-standard definition of the word "trend". People have been running Linux on Mac hardware since before the Intel switch. This is neither new, nor on the increase.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Except that you get to run free software instead of the proprietary crap from apple.
I prefer Linux and the software ecosystem, and want a laptop with good specs, battery life, features, and build quality. So I got a Mac and run Linux. I tried OS X but don't like the interface. They kept switching up the file manager on each OS revision, hiding folders I wanted to see, and it was hard to get apps I like working properly on the OS such as Inkscape. It is just not ideal for what I want to do.
Twinstiq, game news
Apple was the ones who started to ruin the pinnacle of great software design with it's upstart which Sun, Ubuntu, and now red hat are cloning with systemD
http://saveie6.com/
I have an oldish core2 duo macbook pro on which mac os x became more and more of a pain to run. Ubuntu works like a charm on it.
Most of OS X is open source, with the overall OS being called Darwin in the open source version. Quartz is not open source. Different people have different opinions on how they feel about that.
Here's the deal. I am not a fan of Apple. If I weren't recommending a laptop to someone I would never recommend an Apple product. BUT! When it comes to laptops, Apple is really the only option. Why? Because you can walk down to the apple store and someone will fix any hardware problems for you. You can't get that with any PC maker. Heck, the best rated PC maker for customer support took a month to repair something for me, and that's after it took me weeks to get them to even look at it. If you think your laptop hardware is ever going to break or die within the timeframe of a warranty (hint: they almost always do), then Apple is really the only option.
Some idiots bought Mac because they loved its well designed appearance, then after a few weeks they realized OS/X sucks ass because apps on it are designed for true idiots (ex: those who always sort hundreds of bookmarks manually and unzip files of TBs in the same place then move them).
Never again.
The only windows manager a real computer user uses... and OFC you user Gentoo so you can easily get rid of systems (so far).
Parts of it is open source, but we don't know if it's "most of it". Probably not.
Quality has dropped tremendously since Lenovo bought the Thinkpad business.
You statement was true back in the IBM days, but not now.
Building a cross-compiler for embedded development is a major pain on OS X when it does work.
At less than 10% marketshare OS X is already safe from the mainstream
The few GNU/Linux users do it for idealistic reasons, or because they're developers, or because they like the latest OS on very old cheap hardware and don't mind to deal with whatever this entails.
The more interesting question is really if freedom exists when you never make use of it. (Do you actually hack the kernel or fix somebody's proprietary binary-only drivers as a GNU/Linux user?)
If I was using only native Mac apps, I would have been okay enough. But I was accessing Linux GUI apps within a VM, and linux console apps via SSH. It was a real challenge to get decent Mac-to-PC key bindings.
Just out of curiosity, what linux apps are you using that can't be installed using one of the many mac package managers such as Macports, Fink, Homebrew, etc? While I don't use fink or homebrew, Macports typically has pretty good support for a good swath of popular (and even some pretty obscure) console and GUI programs. If the translation of key mappings between host and VM is the issue, having a native version installed could help solve your problem.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
There was a time when Apple built better quality boxes than the every Windows PC.... before the fruity company switched to RISC processors and begged Jobs to come back. Today they build pretty, but flimsy PCs without Windows preinstalled.
Try to do this now: Google the iMac, which has been around for nearly 20 years.
Offc pays up for the HW , and need a reason to offload the crap from the system :)
EFI updates. On Mac hardware, they can only be delivered by a Mac OS update. Run Linux exclusively, and you will not get firmware updates.
I'm as Mac a fanboy as one can be - but if you want to run Linux, build yourself a nice PC - far less pain that way.
I switched from Debian to OS X in 2004, then from OS X to Ubuntu in 2014. The story of the switch back is told in full here. That meant that the cheapest route for me was to install a distro on my MacBook, because I already owned it :). And it really is good hardware, so I'm happy with the amount I paid for a high-quality laptop that fulfils my needs.
The interesting part of the switch for me is the question "why not use OS X"? There are all sorts of bugs in OS X and its applications, just as there are in Linux, GNU and their applications. The difference is that I'm allowed to fix the bugs in GNU, and other people can take advantage of those fixes. So I've been learning about GTK+ and Vala, as well as getting back up to speed with GNUstep, so that when I find a bug I can contribute a fix back.
Plenty of other posters have discussed that there are cheaper GNU/Linux-compatible laptop choices, and indeed had I not already owned a MacBook I probably would've considered some of those. But "cheapest" is a non-goal for me, or at least far down the chain below reliable wifi, good battery, solid construction and (to the extent that this is at all an option on any laptop) decent keys.
So I can experience the joys of systemd and everything that comes with it, of course! You can't run all that software perfection from God's own coders on BSD.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
How about a previous (5,1) generation Mac Pro with 2 3.33Ghz 6-core Xeons and 48GB of RAM in it. I used it for a few years editing videos, and then moved to the new 6,1 Mac Pro. Instead of selling the 5,1, I loaded it up with Linux and KVM. It makes for a superb hypervisor.
Jason Van Patten
So I can dual boot two actually useful operating systems.
Mac OS X for video editing, Linux for development - and nearly everything else, really.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
I tried to fix an iMac once by re-installing Mac OSX and I could not get it to boot from the installation disk. It would just sit there loading and loading and never load the installation. So I installed Ubuntu 14.04 and it worked flawlessly. Why is it so hard to install Macintosh OS on the actual hardware?
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
Mac for running the "corporate" stuff.
Linux for doing work, since I need a Linux environment for building kernels and applications.
Previous job I used Linux exclusively. It's getting better, still not "there" for desktop use, still too many quirks that are just painful.
I was given a Mac laptop at my last startup. I used it instead of buying new hardware because it helped keep our costs down. I ran (xubuntu) linux on it because all of my OS-specific development targeted linux, because most of the software that works well for me is developed primarily for linux, and because the open nature of linux makes admin, troubleshooting, and customization far easier for me than on any proprietary OS. Linux was therefore the only sensible choice.
My CEO sometimes asked why I didn't keep OSX and just run linux in a VM. He seemed surprised that anyone would willingly discard the Mac environment and Mac applications and beautiful Mac perfection that comes with a Mac. (He was a bit of an Apple fanatic.) I explained that since I don't need anything that OSX has to offer, using it as a host for my real OS would just waste resources, complicate timing issues (which were important in my work), potentially add security vulnerabilities, and increase admin overhead (like having to reboot for OSX updates). In other words, all loss, no gain.
The user experience has something to do with it as well. I was a Mac lover for a while long ago, and although I'm happy that MacOS is finally built on a real operating system and wraps it in a package that many people find intuitive, it isn't intuitive to me, and it comes with a lot of restrictions and design choices that get in my way and frustrate me. That's part of why I run linux even when work doesn't demand it.
Apple is the only manufacturer providing 16x10 screens at any resolution. All other laptops, at least above 13", are 16x9. Until that changes I'll keep paying an extra $1000 for a Mac that I immediately install another OS on. I believe 16x10 is a sweet spot that provides more vertical space for doing anything other than watching movies. The PC industry has chosen to use screens in the same aspect ratio as TVs to save on costs and has therefore turned their products into glorified DVD machines. Then they wonder why sales are slipping...
Well all was well running Archlinux with the 3.17.x series of kernels, and then 3.18.x came out earlier this week. Needless to say there have been numerous reports of people who have broadcom wireless adapters saying their networking stopped working because of a kernel panic (o.O)
There is a thread over at arch forums where people are describing various broadcom wireless adapters that stopped working, https://bbs.archlinux.org/view...
So how does this relate to running Linux on a Mac, well most all modern Macs are running some form of broadcom wireless adapter.
I am not the grand parent, but in my case it was mostly stuff from KDE. Also, I struggled porting some POSIX applications across due to OS X's poor handling of fork(), that requires an exec() because it cannot guarantee thread safety (sad that it managed to get Unix certification despite violating it).
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Sometimes the build process for a commercial tool or app is all set to run under a Linux environment. The scripts work and the tools tend to have all the parameters as expected. I have tried to run such build processes under OSX, but OSX as derives from BSD, there are enough differences between the two toolsets that the build scripts do not work when they are not thoroughly tested for use under BSD. It is notably hard to convince a shop that maintains such a build process to get it to work right under BSD, since they're not trying to propagate the build system, their focus is on maintaining the product of the build, and they already all run Linux.
So after foundering for hours while trying to get the scripts to build something via Terminal, I installed a Linux disty in a VM, and viola, the thing built.
You can use Fink, Homebrew, MacPorts to build and install the relevant Linux disty tools, but you still wind up investing a lot of time doing it and messing with search paths. Installing an entire Linux distribution as a VM is straightforward, usually fast and painless.
It's multiple neuroses combined. You've got overpriced hardware and and overhyped OS in a single package combined with geek hipster smugness.
Seconded. Boss is ready to pay for a replacement of my 6 year old 15" Dell, but the only 15" with centered keyboard the Mac, and that's out.
I dislike the malls too, but truthfully - I consider the Apple retail stores a net positive, and another reason to keep buying Macs instead of something else.
If I don't want to visit a "Genius Bar", I don't have to, and neither do you. Apple has a toll free number you can call for service and support, which I've used several times before. They'll even overnight you a postage paid return mailer box to pack up your machine in, to go back to them for service, if needed. (This is identical to the service procedure I've gone through in the past with Toshiba -- except Apple is much quicker to answer their phone, vs. leaving you on hold for 45 minutes first.)
The GPU problem you're complaining about on your 2011 model of Macbook? That was a WELL known issue, across the board, with just about ALL notebook manufacturers who used those GPUs. So it's not even fair to use that as a reason you feel Macs lack quality or reliability. By contrast, I've got a 17" Macbook Pro that's from early 2010 which I leave on 24 hours/7 days (typically in a Henge dock on my office desk these days) and it's never needed service at all. It's my main work computer, and with a 512GB SSD I put in it a while back, it still feels pretty fast too. 5 years of daily use isn't bad at all for a portable, no matter what the brand.
I agree that Dell, arguably, does Apple one better in the area of service by sending out on-site technicians. BUT, I've worked for years in places that used exclusively Dell so I'm very familiar with that whole process too. Especially in more recent years, those techs are notorious for not showing up when they're scheduled, or bringing out an incorrect repair part, causing you the inconvenience of waiting around for them to show a second time.
For what it's worth, too.... Apple does have a couple of different programs you can join if you're a business user of their machines, to make the repair process a lot easier. They don't advertise these as well as I think they should, but they do exist. With one of them, you can get your own employees certified as Apple technicians so they can troubleshoot problems themselves and call Apple to get repair pairs overnighted to them under the warranty.
Besides, I'd pick up this device these days.
From that website:
There is absolutely no mystery cod...
I'm switching right now. If there's one thing I don't want in a laptop, it's mystery cod.
Sorry to post a/c but just wanted to say we have over a hundred mac minis running Linux. They are great once OSX is erased. Salt management let's us efficiently wrangle them, and in our peculiar use case, the size is critical combined with longevity at close to 100% CPU 24/7. Lesser hardware burns out in half the time.
That said I hate feeding the apple beast as they as they are horribly evil. But the mac mini gets the job done. Hopefully the new NUCs will improve in durability so we can stop giving apple money. At high constant high cpu loads though, total cost of ownership still favors minis loaded with linux...
I was developing Linux-only software. It wouldn't have been practical to develop it from within OS X.
Our team is about 50% Linux and 50% Mac OSX. Some of the people running Mac hardware run Linux. Our purchasing department has accounts with Dell and Apple. The Macs are more expensive, but are generally, lighter, faster, and have longer battery life than the Dell machines we buy. We essentially use OSX for the Unix underneath, not the UI. Virtually everybody on the team programs in terminals and I don't think we have a single person who uses an IDE any more. We use VMs a lot, and automate a lot of our internal stuff with shell scripts, etc. The Macs are OK, but basically you quickly become a second class citizen using OSX because Apple have broken a lot of the Unix-ness. Our internal wiki is full of - "On Linux run this script and everything will be good. On OSX you have to fend for yourself because is broken/weird". People tend to migrate to Linux from OSX because of those issues.
Another important issue is just the openness of Linux distros and GNU in general. Several of our team get frustrated trying to do things under the hood on OSX because there is a lack of documentation or an attitude that "users don't need to know how that works". As programmers, they just naturally gravitate to the system that gives them more control and flexibility. Honestly, I don't think the average consumer is going to care about stuff like this, but it is absolutely no surprise to me that programmers doing work that interacts with the Unix/Posix side of things move to a freer environment. It also won't surprise me if the next time we buy equipment, several of the people that are on Macs running Linux switch to Dell machines because it is generally less hassle.
Apple hardware is widely available and doesn't change very much, which makes it easy to predict what will and won't work. PC vendors constantly change their hardware around. In fact, Apple's hardware in many ways is old-fashioned, with traditional non-touch laptops and powerful desktops.
And why not use OS X? Because unless you run toy apps from Apple's app store or run a handful of "creative apps", it sucks. Its scripting sucks, it's UI sucks, its UI programming sucks, its tools suck, and its package management sucks. A decade of attempts to fix it via systems like Brew haven't helped either.
I don't expect this state to last; I think Apple is going to drop traditional desktops and laptops sooner rather than later, because they really can't keep up on the hardware, and they already are way behind on the software.
I'm a hipster and just have to be different, so I run Linux on my Macs, and Hackintosh on my PC laptops...
1. Win 8 on most laptops - nice and cheap, can range to expensive and powerful, but it's Windows
2. Mac OS X on lovely mac hardware - the best OS hardware combo out there right now
Anything else is a bad hack. I love Linux but it's a kernel not an OS. The Linux based OSs are all a mess and no hardware manufacturer supports them well. Try going into a store and buying a nice Linux based laptop that all works well, it's just not possible.
subj
While I normally prefer MacOS X to Linux, MacOS X 10.4 was the last MacOS X version that was officially supported on my dual-USB G3 iBook. I didn't mind it because 10.4 is still a nice OS, but some time later, like 10 years ago, I realized that getting the latest software, such as Octave, we getting increasingly hard for this OS. Finally, Mozilla announced that Firefox 3.6.28 was the last web browser supported on OS X 10.4 a few years back. At that point, I was left no choice but to install Debian.
It's just the closeminded thinking of an apple fanboy of thinking 'why run linux on a mac', why do people want to run linux on a PC, or a PS3 or whatever device?
So many people so many whishes... Some people like MacOS, some people like Windows, and some people like Linux..
Since I run linux on my desktop, remote server and even my phone (Jolla), I find it a good idea to have that "familiar" OS as secondary option on my latest Apple PowerBook.
For some reason I added even OSX as third option (rarely used), first is of course MorphOS :-)
I was developing Linux-only software. It wouldn't have been practical to develop it from within OS X.
Not even within a VM? OS X hosts those just fine...
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Isn't that reason enough?
If not, where do you go for a quality laptop? It used to be that you could just buy an IBM Thinkpad, but recently Lenovo has been destroying that. I have an L540 at work: The keyboard feels like something nicked from a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and the trackpad is so useless that I've started having a trackball in my bag to be able to use it at all.
1. OSX has 3 package managers, none of which works.
2. OSX has no text editors.
3. OSX has no games.
4. OSX has no freedoms.
5. Linux gets shit done.
"a better question"? Not really.
Since it precludes finding out why you may want both Mac and Linux. That is, answering YOUR question leaves an entire series of observations hidden. Indeed it's rather like saying "Investigating paedophile rings? Better question would be why not clear up all the murders first!!!". We can, after all, do more than one thing at a time as a society.
If you think you need to run Linux I think you need to evaluate the back-end of the MAC OS X which is powerful in knowledgeable hands. A lot of people claim to 'need to run Linux' on their Mac in the same way people claim to 'need a new phone every six months'.
99 percent of the time, I'm running OS X. But, I do keep a dual boot (OS X / Linux) Mac Mini handy for the odd cases where a particular program happens to only be available for Linux, or if I experience strange behavior from an application hosted on OS X.
For example, I was getting system crashes after upgrading my Macbook Pro (mid 2009 model) to Yosemite, and running Arduino IDE. Attempts to upload sketches to the target Arduino would make the entire operating system crash. Very dramatic. Thankfully, this problem hasn't appeared when using my new iMac.
I was a hard-core Linux desktop user for over a decade. Still do a lot with that operating system on the server side. But, as soon as I could afford to do so, I bought a Mac. I love not spending unscheduled time fiddling with the operating system when I have serious deadlines to hit.
Recently I bought a Lenovo Yoga 2 for a very rare bit of Windows IE testing for a web app. As soon as that activity concluded, I ditched Windows 8. Linux Mint is a delight to use on it.
I would buy a Mac so that I could run Mac and Linux at the same time (Linux as a VM). That way, I'd have the best of both worlds.
Tens of thousands of secure apps are freely available in most Linux distros. Of course, this places general productivity way ahead of any proprietary OS.
I am not a developer. I do not write code except for a few class projects in Mathematica. I wrote code once and it was likely before half the readers here were even born, on stuff that is so obsolete that most code might as well be magic incantations to me at this point. I do not claim to be particularly knowledgeable about computers except in a rather abstract way. Ask me how a computer works and I can tell you; ask me to fix a problem and I can do some pretty elementary things. I mean, I got as far as replacing some hardware (I have done some work on my mac). That's about it. But beyond that, I am not an early adopter. I use my laptop for work which is not really technical at all (I am a writer) and I need my computer to work, all the time, reliably. I cannot spend hours tinkering. When I was 16 I could do that, but now I not only have to work but get dinner made and every second I spend not working is money lost. Under those circumstances, why would anyone like me -- users who just want the damn machine to work -- install Linux on a Mac? Or anywhere else? This is something that I noticed in the Reddit comments and a lot of the time here. People who just use computers to do everyday stupid things are not stupid, we're just people who need shit to work. If I could work on a typewriter old-school I would, because it's simple. I am not a luddite by any means, I like what the technology can do. But as I don't play heavy games system speed is less important. I am not a graphic designer so I don't need the latest and greatest for a GPU. I just need my computer to turn the heck on and not do anything whacked. I need MS word to function and the internet to connect and not have to mess around when a deadline looms. I need to know that wherever I take this thing it will just WORK. The reason, I think, that the Mac OS is still popular among non-techies like me is just that. It works. And I am not going to try and get it to do anything weird or push the processor or make the software jump through hoops any of that other shit that makes techies brag. (I can't wait for the "you don't know what makes techies brag" line -- and that's sort of the point). I always get the sense that Linux fans simply do not get the simple power of convenience and the fact that 90 percent of what normal people do on a computer isn't and shouldn't be complicated. Can anyone make a case as to why I should install Linux? Or rather, what would I be getting from Linux that I am not getting from OS X? It seems I would have to re-install everything I run on here, which would be a major PITA. (OS X and Apple are not without frustrations for me -- one huge design flaw is that if your computer has a system problem you need to download stuff from the Internet but if your computer is messed up YOU CANT CONNECT TO THE F-ING INTERNET. Apple seems to think that the Internet is magic and their phone customer service is abysmal). And for some reason the preview function shows no paragraph breaks. So sorry about that.
There are those who claim that the majority of MacBooks run Windows, though I've never seen hard data.
Many large companies buy macBooks by the truckload as the default laptop and stamp Win7 images on them, no trace of OSX left
I'm not even kidding, that's literally what the systemd camp have proposed. (I actually think systemd is pretty snazzy on my smartphone, but I'm extremely skeptical of it as a sysadmin.)
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
My MacPro was acquired through a "salvage pile" at work in 2010. After I fixed it by puchasing a new memory riser I increased RAM to 32gb because it was cheap at the time and the virtual machines I run could take full advantage of the 8 cores and memory. Mac OS hasn't been stable since 10.6.8 I upgraded to 10.7 in 2011, 10.8 in 2012, 10.9 in 2013, updated to 10.9.5 in 2014 -> Linux Mint 17 September 2014, Linux Mint 17.1 December 2014 I figured out how to run Linux bare metal on mac so I am running Linux Mint 17.1 on a Mac Pro 2,1 with 32gb ram, NVIDIA GTX 560 graphics card, and 8tb storage. I do lvm snapshots to a ESATA jbod for backups. Linux is 100% stable on Mac Pro. It hasn't crashed or locked up since the install on September 2014.
So, as far as 'Buntu there still seems to be an issue with the macbook air's , right ?
I bought a macbook almost 2 years ago. brilliant piece of hardware. The OS though.... what a piece of crap... if my audio software were available on linux, I'd reinstall today.
You can install OSX on a USB stick and boot from it whenever new firmware comes out.