Switching to Linux after nearly 27 years of Apple ?

[Dr. McKay]

I have been a Mac user since 1999 when I bought my first Apple computer, a 233 Mhz G3 iMac Blueberry. Since then, I have owned and worked with several models, ranging from Powerbooks, Powermacs, iBooks and Macbooks, with G3, G4, G5 and Intel processors to my current M1 Macbook Pro.

My parents, friends and girlfriend are all Windows users, not adamant defenders of the platform, but just because everyone uses it and because they don't care about which platform they're on. Needless to say, I have been called upon by all of them to troubleshoot their respective laptops and desktops on numerous occasions. It goes without saying that I have never been, and still am, not impressed with Microsoft's OS, in whichever incarnation.

However, for over a decade, I have been keeping a close eye on the Linux world, trying out several distros on older Macs I'd been keeping around. Long story short, Linux has considerably matured at this point in time, so much so, that I am considering switching after a quarter of a century of using and breathing Apple.

My main Mac is currently a 14 inch Macbook Pro M1 and I also use an iPhone 13 Pro. I'm however typing this on my old Intel Macbook Pro (2015 model) running my distro of choice (after careful consideration), namely, Linux Mint LMDE with the Cinnamon desktop, based on Debian, as opposed to the regular Linux Mint that's based on Ubuntu (I prefer the concept of a (semi) rolling release).
I have also dusted off my old iPhone 8 Plus, running iOS 16.7.14 (including the recent security update) : practically all my apps install without issues, although I got a message saying I needed iOS 17 for some apps so I've installed an older version for those.

So far, all is well for the basics. I still need Adobe CC suite for a client of mine until late April this year but after that, I won't really be needing Adobe anymore because of a recent career switch. I haven't needed Microsoft 365 for a long time, although our business (just my girlfriend and myself) has all files stored on Onedrive, which is easily swapped for another cloud service ; she sticks with Windows, though, as Solidworks is Windows only.

So why am I considering switching at all ?
Well, in my humble opinion, it should be quite obvious : Apple's Creator Studio. I could be wrong, but could this subscription model be a sign of more things to come ? Could this mean that we may have to subscribe to OS updates as well, or anything else Cupertino may come up with ? This may be a far fetched idea but just take the time to think about it...

I admit, the 'subscription model fear' is not a solid reason to switch to a completely new OS, not to mention all possible limitations and/or frustrations said switch may bring with it.
But, I must say that I am immensely enjoying Linux and that I am effectively doing research into acquiring a dedicated laptop for Linux and a reasonably priced Android phone that could replace my iPhone 13 Pro (all I really do is check my mail and Whatsapp messages so the 'Pro' moniker can effectively be considered overkill).
My gaming PC, a recent AMD system, can be easily switched to Linux as well, as Linux gaming has been making some very positive strides in the last couple of years.

Will try and post updates in the coming weeks but I would like to see some feedback from people who are more or less in the same boat as myself, or are following my way of thinking...

 

[jz0309]

I have been a Mac user since 1999 when I bougth my first Apple computer, a 233 Mhz G3 iMac Blueberry. Since then, I have owned and worked with several models, ranging from Powerbooks, Powermacs, iBooks and Macbooks, with G3, G4, G5 and Intel processors to my current M1 Macbook Pro.

My parents, friends and girlfriend are all Windows users, not adamant defenders of the platform, but just because everyone uses it and because they don't care. Needless to say, I have been called upon by all of them to troubleshoot their respective laptops and desktops on numerous occasions. It goes without saying that I have never been, and still am, not impressed with Microsoft's OS, in whichever incarnation.

However, for over a decade, I have been keeping a close eye on the Linux world, trying out several distros on older Macs I'd been keeping around. Long story short, Linux has considerably matured at this point in time, so much so, that I am considering switching after a quarter of a century of using and breathing Apple.

My main Mac is currently a 14 inch Macbook Pro M1 and I also use an iPhone 13 Pro. I'm however typing this on my old Intel Macbook Pro (2015 model) running my distro of choice (after careful consideration), namely, Linux Mint LMDE with the Cinnamon desktop, based on Debian, as opposed to the regular Linux Mint that's based on Ubuntu (I prefer the concept of a (semi) rolling release).
I have also dusted off my old iPhone 8 Plus, running iOS 16.7.14 (including the recent security update) : practically all my apps install without issues, although I got a message saying I needed iOS 17 for some apps so I've installed an older version for those.

So far, all is well for the basics. I still need Adobe CC suite for a client of mine until late April this year but after that, I won't really be needing Adobe anymore because of a recent career switch. I haven't needed Microsoft 365 for a long time, although our business (just my girlfriend and myself) has all files stored on Onedrive, which is easily swapped for another cloud service ; she sticks with Windows, though, as Solidworks is Windows only.

So why am I considering switching at all ?
Well, in my humble opinion, it should be quite obvious : Apple's Creator Studio. I could be wrong, but could this subscription model be a sign of more things to come ? Could this mean that we may have to subscribe to OS updates as well, or anything else Cupertino may come up with ? This may be a far fetched idea but just take the time to think about it...

I admit, the 'subscription model fear' is not a solid reason to switch to a completely new OS, not to mention all possible limitations and/or frustrations said switch may bring with it.
But, I must say that I am immensely enjoying Linux and that I am effectively doing research into acquiring a dedicated laptop for Linux and a reasonably priced Android phone that could replace my iPhone 13 Pro (all I really do is check my mail and Whatsapp messages so the 'Pro' can effectively be considered overkill).
My gaming PC, a recent AMD system, can be easily switched to Linux as well, as Linux gaming has been making some very positive strides in the last couple of years.

Will try and post updates in the coming weeks but I would like to see some feedback from people who are more or less in the same boat as myself, or follow my way of thinking...

If that works for you, go for it. After all, a computer is a tool and if that tool does the job, doesn’t really matter what OS you’re using. Enjoy it.
Me, being retired, my main use for my computer is photos and I’m using Lightroom/photoshop thus having to use a Mac or Windows and the latter is not really an option for me.

 

[SnowPenguin]

It seems like Linux could work for you. Just give it a try, you can always go back if it didn't work out. The main problem with Linux is certain software that many people can't live without. You don't seem to have that issue.

In the worst case scenario, and in case it didn't work, you have an option to go back to if needed.

 

[Dr. McKay]

It seems like Linux could work for you. Just give it a try, you can always go back if it didn't work out. The main problem with Linux is certain software that many people can't live without. You don't seem to have that issue.

In the worst case scenario, and in case it didn't work, you have an option to go back to if needed.

I use several apps on Mac OS, all of which have either a dedicated app on Linux (Discord, Spotify, etc.) and/or have a web version (Trello, Famous AI, etc.).
There's even a built-in app in Linux that lets you transform any webpage into a working desktop app, also works in Firefox. So, on that front, no problems there...

 

[ADGrant]

If that works for you, go for it. After all, a computer is a tool and if that tool does the job, doesn’t really matter what OS you’re using. Enjoy it.
Me, being retired, my main use for my computer is photos and I’m using Lightroom/photoshop thus having to use a Mac or Windows and the latter is not really an option for me.

Well there is an app called DarkTable that I use instead of Lightroom on a Mac that is also available on Linux.

 

[jz0309]

Well there is an app called DarkTable that I use instead of Lightroom on a Mac that is also available on Linux.

Thanks, I just 1 month ago renewed my Adobe subscription, for a year to the old price but been thinking about trying something else, so I shall look at DarkTable.
How large is your library? I have ~ 100k photos with a single catalog, total ~ 1.2TB

 

[ADGrant]

Thanks, I just 1 month ago renewed my Adobe subscription, for a year to the old price but been thinking about trying something else, so I shall look at DarkTable.
How large is your library? I have ~ 100k photos with a single catalog, total ~ 1.2TB

My library is not that large.

 

[Cape Dave]

I have been a Mac user since 1999 when I bought my first Apple computer, a 233 Mhz G3 iMac Blueberry. Since then, I have owned and worked with several models, ranging from Powerbooks, Powermacs, iBooks and Macbooks, with G3, G4, G5 and Intel processors to my current M1 Macbook Pro.

My parents, friends and girlfriend are all Windows users, not adamant defenders of the platform, but just because everyone uses it and because they don't care about which platform they're on. Needless to say, I have been called upon by all of them to troubleshoot their respective laptops and desktops on numerous occasions. It goes without saying that I have never been, and still am, not impressed with Microsoft's OS, in whichever incarnation.

However, for over a decade, I have been keeping a close eye on the Linux world, trying out several distros on older Macs I'd been keeping around. Long story short, Linux has considerably matured at this point in time, so much so, that I am considering switching after a quarter of a century of using and breathing Apple.

My main Mac is currently a 14 inch Macbook Pro M1 and I also use an iPhone 13 Pro. I'm however typing this on my old Intel Macbook Pro (2015 model) running my distro of choice (after careful consideration), namely, Linux Mint LMDE with the Cinnamon desktop, based on Debian, as opposed to the regular Linux Mint that's based on Ubuntu (I prefer the concept of a (semi) rolling release).
I have also dusted off my old iPhone 8 Plus, running iOS 16.7.14 (including the recent security update) : practically all my apps install without issues, although I got a message saying I needed iOS 17 for some apps so I've installed an older version for those.

So far, all is well for the basics. I still need Adobe CC suite for a client of mine until late April this year but after that, I won't really be needing Adobe anymore because of a recent career switch. I haven't needed Microsoft 365 for a long time, although our business (just my girlfriend and myself) has all files stored on Onedrive, which is easily swapped for another cloud service ; she sticks with Windows, though, as Solidworks is Windows only.

So why am I considering switching at all ?
Well, in my humble opinion, it should be quite obvious : Apple's Creator Studio. I could be wrong, but could this subscription model be a sign of more things to come ? Could this mean that we may have to subscribe to OS updates as well, or anything else Cupertino may come up with ? This may be a far fetched idea but just take the time to think about it...

I admit, the 'subscription model fear' is not a solid reason to switch to a completely new OS, not to mention all possible limitations and/or frustrations said switch may bring with it.
But, I must say that I am immensely enjoying Linux and that I am effectively doing research into acquiring a dedicated laptop for Linux and a reasonably priced Android phone that could replace my iPhone 13 Pro (all I really do is check my mail and Whatsapp messages so the 'Pro' moniker can effectively be considered overkill).
My gaming PC, a recent AMD system, can be easily switched to Linux as well, as Linux gaming has been making some very positive strides in the last couple of years.

Will try and post updates in the coming weeks but I would like to see some feedback from people who are more or less in the same boat as myself, or are following my way of thinking...

I would think that the lack of telemetry would also be quite a decisive factor. I have looked at Linux a lot as I like to have options. Any basic distro would be fine for me. Mint, Ubuntu, etc.

 

[th0masp]

Well there is an app called DarkTable that I use instead of Lightroom on a Mac that is also available on Linux.

I've always had issues with that program through the years, Mac or Linux. Looks just right as a Lightroom replacement the first time you set it up, then depending on database size it may or may not load, crash at startup, etc. Installed it on my new Mini a couple days ago, imported my (small!) camera folder - now it just beachballs when I run it.
There's a four letter word that would aptly name this thing. 🙄 Right off into the trash with it (again), time better spent giving Rawtherapee a shot.

Anyway on topic I think Linux is fine if you are not too hung up on a particular software or two. Heck, in my mind it was mature in 2004 or so when I used it at Uni. Beyond that though I always find it tricky to tune the installation to get it up to the user experience delivered elsewhere, there's so many little things I usually want changed.
On the current one: nice mouse/scrollwheel feel for starters - here it's a bit off for my taste and I'm not looking forward to fiddling with imwheel to tweak it. Trying to get a filebrowser with features like Finder (not as simplistic as default Nemo) and a Quicklook equivalent sent me down a proper rabbit hole. Do I really want to install Konqeror and a whole bunch of KDE stuff just to see if that's perhaps a viable option?

I'm on Pop-OS and trying to get Samba working both ways between Mac/Win and Linux was another thing that should have been straightforward but the GUI on the Linux side only did half the job. Infuriating if you just want to be a user, not a sysadmin flicking through manpages.

I was set on moving from Mac to Linux entirely but already relented on the desktop. Laptop also now looking rather unlikely because of all the little issues and convenience downgrades I encountered.

 

[TechnoMonk]

As some one who has been using Linux workstation along with myMBP for almost a decade, it’s more thorns than roses on Linux. Give it a go. Security is big concern on Linux and I usually spent countless hrs fixing incompatibilities in Linux.

 

[capamac]

MacOS Tahoe / Liquid Glass has spurred me to plan for a PC running Linux/BSD as my next machine instead of Mac. Macs have been my primary machines since the 1990s. I've used BSD and Linux as well during this time. But Tahoe ... ugh. Gawd. Design nightmare. Subscriptions. Adobe's decades-long anti-consumer behavior. And at the same time, Linux has improved. There are lots of good Free Software alternatives.

Apple's recent choices have put them in a position where _LINUX_ of all things -- a project run by volunteers! -- starts to be competitive with Mac.

 

[cjsuk]

I'm a former systems programmer turned engineering lead at a large fintech. We use Linux behind everything. I've personally used it myself since 1996. On the desktop I've been Mac since about 2008 though.

There was a period I used Linux on the desktop quite regularly, around 2003-2006. What killed it for me then was the sudden rise of online services like gmail and the ubiquity of smartphones. Linux remained fully static and with virtually no integration with these services and associated tech so it sort of got sidelined here by macOS.

In the last 20 years I've been quite critical of the Linux desktop as well due to some technical and design choices that have been made.

Roll on 2026 and things are a bit of a mess. We are owned by the innocent looking services that crept into our lives. They are operated and controlled by quite frankly not very nice people. They are perpetual rent seekers holding your life hostage at every corner if you stop paying. Add a layer of geopolitical instability to the turd cake and smear an advertising and social media topping on and it's even worse. When they finally reached a position of power they act without accountability or concern for their customers. And break everything because they need to demonstrate that they're doing something shiny to attract new customers.

So I want out because it has become a tangible risk for me. Linux it is here as well. It's the only thing left that doesn't scare me.

I have an old-ish trash PC here which has been running Debian stable since about November with no issues. The workloads are moving over slowly. I'll detail what I've done so far - hopefully it'll help some people as well...

• Disposed of Apple Watch and iPad. Both functionally useless devices. Spent the money already on going on holiday - a far better waste!
• OS. Debian stable. Using it for over 25 years on servers with no real issues. So it is now doing desktop duty. Works fine!
• Hardware. Actually you don't need a lot. I've got a Lenovo M720T with an i5-9400, 16Gb of RAM and a 500Gb NVMe SSD in it. This is plugged into a Dell P2425D 24" 2560x1440 display. It's pretty fast. I might build a Ryzen box again if I find it can't cope with some workloads, but only after I've disposed of some Apple kit.
• Adobe. I was using Lightroom and Photoshop. I rarely touch Photoshop so I didn't look for a replacement. Lightroom is slowly being replaced with Darktable. It's a better product but has a learning curve.
• Pages/Numbers. Yeah that redesign poked me in the eyes. I've moved all my stuff over to LibreOffice.
• Reminders. Back to paper for that one. Just have a scrap sheet with a list on it!
• Calendars. Again back to paper. I use a Muji week planner.
• Browser. Firefox obviously.
• Keychain. KeepassXC.
• Mail. I was using iCloud+ custom domain but this has moved to Mythic Beasts now and I'm using Thunderbird as a client.
• Notes - this is the current sticking point/migration issue. Working on that one still. I have found Exporter in the app store which turns the notes archive into markdown which can be read elsewhere but I need to test it all properly.
• The iPhone - fairly large sticking point. Due to my general mobility, which regularly involves international travel, I need to work on this one carefully. I've travelled with Android before with no issues but I don't want an off the shelf build because it's trading one problem for a worse one if I do. TBC.
• Apple Music. I did a stupid back in the day and sold all my CDs when I got an iPod after ripping them and chucked all my ripped m4a files after a year of Apple Music. I'm slowly re-purchasing CDs and music in FLAC form. Based on what I sold them for in the first place and the cost of Apple Music, I will break even in a year. After that it's always cheaper to buy CDs if you actually want to keep music.

I expect to be fully migrated by Q3 this year.

----

Edit.... a some horror stories with direct impact for me...

First one. A friend's icloud calendar just lost all the entries in it a few weeks back. Irrecoverable and the support people at Apple could not resolve it. Despite being synced with icloud in the settings, no calendar data was in icloud (checked the web version of calendar)

Second one. Deceased relative's hardware. Couldn't get into it or repurpose it due to device lock so it went to the recycler.

Third one. Not Apple but online service risk. My daughter was doing her dissertation and O365 subscription crapped out and killed office dead for her. Due to a technical problem at MSFT end that we couldn't get them to sort, we lost the whole account. That was O365 family so 5 people down with no office and Onedrive about to delete stuff.

Fourth one. Apple "genius" (idiot) repair staff chewed up a screw on a 13 pro doing a routine battery swap and then told us the device was water damaged and blacklisted it for repair entirely. I got an excellent insight into how politics filled and poorly structured Apple are inside. No one could or wanted to do anything. The shiny happy facade over everything is a lie.

Fifth one. Buggy ass crap. I have three persistent issues now for over a year. Despite submitting bug reports, no fixes.

I'm sure I can go on and on and on with this one all day but I can't be bothered.

 

[cjsuk]

I've always had issues with that program through the years, Mac or Linux. Looks just right as a Lightroom replacement the first time you set it up, then depending on database size it may or may not load, crash at startup, etc. Installed it on my new Mini a couple days ago, imported my (small!) camera folder - now it just beachballs when I run it.
There's a four letter word that would aptly name this thing. 🙄 Right off into the trash with it (again), time better spent giving Rawtherapee a shot.

Anyway on topic I think Linux is fine if you are not too hung up on a particular software or two. Heck, in my mind it was mature in 2004 or so when I used it at Uni. Beyond that though I always find it tricky to tune the installation to get it up to the user experience delivered elsewhere, there's so many little things I usually want changed.
On the current one: nice mouse/scrollwheel feel for starters - here it's a bit off for my taste and I'm not looking forward to fiddling with imwheel to tweak it. Trying to get a filebrowser with features like Finder (not as simplistic as default Nemo) and a Quicklook equivalent sent me down a proper rabbit hole. Do I really want to install Konqeror and a whole bunch of KDE stuff just to see if that's perhaps a viable option?

I'm on Pop-OS and trying to get Samba working both ways between Mac/Win and Linux was another thing that should have been straightforward but the GUI on the Linux side only did half the job. Infuriating if you just want to be a user, not a sysadmin flicking through manpages.

I was set on moving from Mac to Linux entirely but already relented on the desktop. Laptop also now looking rather unlikely because of all the little issues and convenience downgrades I encountered.

Darktable on the mac is terrible. Loads of problems here. Sometimes it doesn't even start up and you have to kill it on the terminal. It works absolutely fine on Linux though!

I wouldn't run anything on a laptop myself these days if I can help it. They're all crappy and compromised machines. My MBP, which is just the least crappy, gets whacked into a monitor all day and used as a desktop.

 

[maflynn]

My main Mac is currently a 14 inch Macbook Pro M1 and I also use an iPhone 13 Pro. I'm however typing this on my old Intel Macbook Pro (2015 model) running my distro of choice (after careful consideration), namely, Linux Mint LMDE with the Cinnamon desktop, based on Debian, as opposed to the regular Linux Mint that's based on Ubuntu (I prefer the concept of a (semi) rolling release).
I have also dusted off my old iPhone 8 Plus, running iOS 16.7.14 (including the recent security update) : practically all my apps install without issues, although I got a message saying I needed iOS 17 for some apps so I've installed an older version for those.

One of the upsides of linux is its ability to run on lower end, or older hardware. Personally, I'd avoid running older iPhones, as the OS is not receiving security updates. If you're intent on leaving the apple platform consider Android.

So why am I considering switching at all ?
Well, in my humble opinion, it should be quite obvious : Apple's Creator Studio. I could be wrong, but could this subscription model be a sign of more things to come ? Could this mean that we may have to subscribe to OS updates as well, or anything else Cupertino may come up with ? This may be a far fetched idea but just take the time to think about it...

Sounds like you're throwing out the baby with the bath water. I'm in no way defending Apple with the subscription service, particuarly this one. Some of their subs can and do make sense, but this one - no, not at all.

Yet with that said, that doesn't diminish the advantages that Macs have over Linux, easier setup, better support, better apps. No one is forcing you to use the creative suite, and in fact I don't use MS Office, nor apple's iwork, but rather OnlyOffice. I also bought the license for Pixelmator Pro, and while I'll be losing out on the updates, I bought this application last year simply because it fits my needs, not over what new features I'll see in 2026, or 2027.

Linux hasn't really caught on for desktops for a variety of reasons, those reasons have not disappeared, and managing your setup can take more work, then just turning on a Mac. Its great to learn a new platform, I'm not down on that. I've used Linux for years, but depending on your distro, your experience will be quite different.

 

[Hicksmat1976]

I have several older macbook's and I would love to make use of them using Linux etc. I need to look into it.

 

[edubfromktown]

I've used Linux since Slackare on floppies (Linux .99 kernel) days back in 1993. Got my 1st Mac in 2000 and ran Kodiak (OS X beta) on it. As soon as OS X became an official release I switched at home and haven't looked back.

My daily driver these days is a Chromebook (i7 16 GB) along with a couple of Mac's for command line work (using Zoc terminal emulator which has been around for ages- initially on IBM OS/2, then Mac and PC's), Office apps, photo fiddling and a few other tools and utilities. Gave up on iPhones (owned a 3 on up to 8 Plus) ~5 years ago which has also been a refreshing change.

Linux has always had the advantage of being able to run on older hardware and does well for me running on Raspberry Pi 3+, 4's and an incredibly speedy 5 too. It is an excellent server OS platform and occasional remote control CLI and GUI system (from anywhere via connect.raspberrypi.com tunnel) however macOS and Windows remain far more efficient desktop OS options for all day use in my opinion.

 

[kharys415]

I enjoyed running Arch systems (Manjaro, then actual Arch) on an all-AMD gaming PC for almost three years, it involved a lot of tinkering (mostly voluntary, although plenty involuntary too) and I ended up with a great-looking customized, efficient setup that runs games well and squeezes maximum performance out of the PC in any given app, but there were some things it always failed me at, productivity software being one.

There were drivers for my tablet and Krita (which is my software of choice for Windows and Mac anyway), so at least I could draw and do some photo editing without issues, but music production is a total mess, the only software I'm familiar with that had a native version was Renoise (and a Linux-native version introduces VST headaches), while FL Studio through Wine was almost completely broken GUI-wise. Other minor software through Wine had some issues too, despite Wine being near perfect at running games. I don't do anything video, but I never heard Linux video production positively mentioned by someone who wasn't a die-hard Linux fan. LibreOffice was ok, but I'm not picky about office software as I barely need it.

If you want to truly feel "in control" of your system, learn some new things, that kind of stuff - I definitely recommend it. I'd even recommend it for gaming if your system is all-AMD, because it's quite common for RADV (FOSS Vulkan driver for AMD GPUs) to improve GPU performance over Windows, except for ray tracing. But I wouldn't expect productivity to go smoothly. Aside from customization, I kind of appreciate it in a similar way I appreciate old computing/web - it may not do everything perfectly, but it'll only do what it's supposed to do without trying to figuratively and literally oversell itself, applying both to the system (at least in case of Arch) and the software you could install there.

 

[ClaraStahlbaum]

Main thing that has kept me away from switching to Linux is the learning curve involved and the usage of the terminal. I use MacOS to browse the internet, and play some downloaded flash games. Linux has all these different ways of downloading and installing programs, and I am concerned that something like Pinta won't work the way I want it to on Linux. It also seems that Linux is more prone to failure and you have to tinker with it more as opposed to MacOS which just works right out of the box.

 

[Puonti]

For no particular reason I recently spun up a Linux VM through UTM on my Apple Silicon Mac. It's been years and years since I last fooled around with Linux, and that was on an x86.

So in goes Ubuntu server arm64 + KDE Plasma 6.5. Not a fire and forget kind of affair but I could figure it out with plenty of web searching.

I was disappointed to find out Firefox does not respect system keyboard shortcuts. I wonder if that's a common thing on Linux - every application having its own shortcuts? I had to go tinker around in about:config to get it to accept CMD for shortcuts (cut, copy, etc).

Interesting experiment that reminded me how nice "the little things" are on macOS. We'll see what else I can learn.

 

[maflynn]

A timely article, at least regarding windows and linux.

5 reasons Linux actually beats Windows 11 (yes, we said it)

 

[winxmac]

• Long time user of Windows since 1999
• macOS user since 2023, iPhone user since 2016
• tried Linux sometime in the late 2010's but did not understand it back then

I am browsing this thread and posted this using Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 running on a pre-built DELL Optiplex

When using Windows, I prefer installing software using GUI while now on Linux I am exploring installing software using Terminal.

I have not abandoned anything. I only went back to Windows 7 [and stopped using anything newer] and I have macOS 15 Sequoia OCLP on my 15" MacBook Pro 2015

I have Windows 7 dual boot with Linux Mint Debian Edition 7 on my DELL Optiplex

 

[Abydos]

agreed on subscription services (I've subscribed to a newspaper, and a magazine on line - no software), they remind me of the bad old days of mainframes and mini's with their renewable software licenses (and the priesthood of the computer staff) - so no cloud services for me. the linux alternative is attractive but requires a more technically astute user than the consumer brands - its a tradeoff your money or your time. open source software can be frustratingly quirky ( who are you developing for a market or yourself - in my case for my personal amusement is the best answer ) as always buy a system that meets your needs ( or at least what you think you need ) personally msft has been on my no go list since at least windows 95 (for publications I use a mix of bare bones edit plus a type setting program like latex - it requires extra work but what the hell )

 

[capamac]

One person's experience switching to Linux:

 

[Dr. McKay]

Nice to read all the feedback and to see that my post has spiked the interest of several forum members 😉

I'll spend several months working with Mac OS and Linux side by side to make a reliable comparison. We'll see what happens.

It's too soon to share any results of my investigation, but I will do so in the coming weeks.
If and when I make my next purchase, it will either be a new MacBook Pro and iPhone, or an AMD-based laptop and Android phone...

 

[ProbablyDylan]

Main thing that has kept me away from switching to Linux is the learning curve involved and the usage of the terminal. I use MacOS to browse the internet, and play some downloaded flash games. Linux has all these different ways of downloading and installing programs, and I am concerned that something like Pinta won't work the way I want it to on Linux. It also seems that Linux is more prone to failure and you have to tinker with it more as opposed to MacOS which just works right out of the box.

You should check out Aurora! Works great out of the box - even includes stuff like video drivers so you don't need to fight to get those working. System updates are automatic and apply in the background with built in rollback functionality if something goes wrong.

It comes with Bazaar, which is a frontend for FlatHub - functionally an "app store" for Linux. Your heavy hitters like Spotify or whatever are in there (including Pinta, if you mean the painting app).

I promise this isn't a sales pitch - I'm just an immensely satisfied user.