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0 pointslinguae5y ago0 comments

I've been a Mac user since 2006, and I currently own a 2013 MacBook Air and a 2013 Mac Pro that I both regularly use. For a long time macOS was the marriage of Unix with commercial hardware support (even if tied to a specific manufacturer) and support for major proprietary software products such as Microsoft Office. I also loved the stability and quality of the operating system, not to mention that it looked wonderful.

Unfortunately I've been disappointed with Apple's stewardship of the Mac under Tim Cook. The move toward soldered RAM and SSDs throughout most of their lineup, the increased locking down of macOS (especially with Catalina's enforced notarization), the stagnation of the Mac Pro and then the doubling of price of the entry-level Mac Pro in 2019 from $2,999 to $5,999, and the butterfly keyboard fiasco (although finally completely over as of this week) have pushed me toward a greater appreciation of the Linux/BSD ecosystem, despite its shortcomings. I'm still using my Macs (albeit they're still running Mojave), but my long-term plan is to switch to Linux or FreeBSD, though I might keep a Mac around for Keynote use unless a compelling competitor for Linux emerges. The thought of replacing my MacBook Air with an X-series ThinkPad sounds really enticing, as well as one day replacing my Mac Pro with a Threadripper build.

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phs318u5y ago

This exactly. I recently resurrected my MacBook Air by replacing a dead SSD (was it coincidence that it died right after the Catalina upgrade? Can SW brick an SSD?). I’m now running UbuntuStudio on there and spending great chunks of my lockdown time re-learning Linux (after a 17 year hiatus) and trying to iron out weird kinks in my config (Bluetooth detects my Logitech K670 keyboard but just won’t pair with the damn thing).

I’ve already determined that when I pick up my next contract, I’ll be buying a Lemur Pro from System76.

Apple, you had me 17 years ago. Now you’re losing me.

nsomaru5y ago

The lack of tb3 on the lemur is seriously discouraging me. I’m thinking about building a headless server and just xfowarding.

This way I can run a win10 be for games too

flir5y ago

It's the trackpad that keeps dragging me back in... it's a hard habit to break.

iainmerrick5y ago

Yeah, you’d think all other manufacturers would just start making trackpads that don’t suck.

(Sarcasm, of course... Although I don’t quite see what makes it so difficult a problem. Unless there are patents involved, maybe?)

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