What's Next Power Users? Linux or Hackintosh?

[Mikael H]

I’ve had nothing but problems with Ubuntu. Always driver issues or just plain weird bugs. On different computers, different versions of Ubuntu even. The Arch Linux and Fedora branches of Linux were the most reliable and pleasant for me. I really liked FreeBSD as well, but there was just too much end-user software missing for me and the community is just too small to find enough guidance for solving problems on your own.

Regarding driver issues, if you're serious about running any operating system other than the one which is preinstalled on your next computer, you'll research the included components and ensure they are supported. When you buy a pre-built machine that's part of what you paid for. If you roll your own, it's unfortunately your own responsibility. There are pretty large communities, though, that try stuff out. Some computer makers and models have a better track record than others. Many of Lenovo's business laptops, for example, usually work just fine with Linux.

Regarding bugs: Well, we rarely pay open source/free software application devs for QA, do we? On the other hand, the source code usually is freely available, so if something bothers us too much we could actually fix it and send the patch in to the developer(s) for review, right? But realistically, few people ever do.

So basically you have two alternatives: Either your workflow is supported in Linux or BSD systems or it's not. If it is, these systems may be viable alternatives if you can live with some of their quirks. If not, well, then you probably can't.

I have to say I'm a little bit confused by your statement about end-user software missing in FreeBSD compared to Linux. I haven't checked for myself, really (I've only used it for servers), but wouldn't it in most cases just be a matter of compiling from source when something is missing from the package repositories?

 

[KALLT]

Regarding bugs: Well, we rarely pay open source/free software application devs for QA, do we? On the other hand, the source code usually is freely available, so if something bothers us too much we could actually fix it and send the patch in to the developer(s) for review, right? But realistically, few people ever do.

Few people can. How many people are in the position to find the cause of a problem and have a solution? I can only report bugs. In my experience, Arch Linux and Fedora were just less troublesome than Ubuntu in particular.

I have to say I'm a little bit confused by your statement about end-user software missing in FreeBSD compared to Linux. I haven't checked for myself, really (I've only used it for servers), but wouldn't it in most cases just be a matter of compiling from source when something is missing from the package repositories?

My statement included package repositories as well as the ports collection. Linux has just more software available, thus I do not see what is so confusing about it. I do not have the experience, nor the time frankly, to try and modify software so that it runs on FreeBSD. Not to mention that not all software is open source. I did flirt with the 'Linuxulator' for a time, but it was just too much of a hassle to get working and there was very little guidance.

 

[jasnw]

So basically you have two alternatives: Either your workflow is supported in Linux or BSD systems or it's not. If it is, these systems may be viable alternatives if you can live with some of their quirks. If not, well, then you probably can't.

I believe this is the basic point of many of us against using Linux. If you want your computer/OS/apps to "just work", you want/need a desktop system, and you do more than browse the Intertubes Linux is probably not for you. Realistically, no OS provides this level of performance, so if you need just-workedness you get whatever seems to you to be closest. For me, that's still macOS. I'm not real happy with the state of macOS these days, but it still comes closest to the goal even as it retreats from the high-water mark that was Snow Leopard.

Now, if Apple would just find a way to support macOS on non-Apple HW in a plug-and-play sense. And maybe pigs will fly.

 

[jblagden]

I believe this is the basic point of many of us against using Linux. If you want your computer/OS/apps to "just work", you want/need a desktop system, and you do more than browse the Intertubes Linux is probably not for you. Realistically, no OS provides this level of performance, so if you need just-workedness you get whatever seems to you to be closest. For me, that's still macOS. I'm not real happy with the state of macOS these days, but it still comes closest to the goal even as it retreats from the high-water mark that was Snow Leopard.

Now, if Apple would just find a way to support macOS on non-Apple HW in a plug-and-play sense. And maybe pigs will fly.

I not gung-ho on switching to Linux. I just can’t stand Apple’s Mac hardware design from the last four years. Soldered RAM, proprietary (and later soldered) Solid State Drives, et cetra - everything soldered to the logic board. Modern MacBooks, MacBook Airs, and 21.5" iMacs cannot be upgraded or repaired. On the 27" iMacs, you can only replace the CPU and RAM. On the Mac Pro, you can't upgrade the GPU and it can't house internal hard drives. In short, to make Macs thinner or smaller, Apple has reduced or removed the ability to upgrade or repair Macs over the years. With Windows and Linux, you can use whatever hardware you want - you're not limited to a single vendor.



I would also prefer to stay away from Windows, so I figure Linux is a good middle-ground.

But I’d really like to stick with macOS if possible. And yeah, if Apple’s not going to make upgradable, expandable, and repairable Macs, we can only hope "they’ll just find a way to support macOS on non-Apple HW in a plug-and-play sense”. I’d like to keep using Macs (in one form or another) for a long time. I’m just afraid that won’t happen with Apple hardware, at least not for a long time. There’s always the Hackintosh route, but I’ve read that it’s a pain to set up and maintain - and there's always the legality issue since Apple may one day decide to prosecute Hackintosh users, perhaps if the number of Hackintoshes gets too high for their liking. We can only hope Apple will either step up its game on Macs or license OS X for PCs.

And I'm at the point where most of my computing needs are pretty basic - documents, email, web browsing and media consumption. I like to play games, but my needs will be met adequately - Minecraft uses Java, StarCraft II runs pretty well in Wine, and Steam has a lot of good Linux games.

 

[Asclepio]

my last hope is affordable thunderbolt 3 hubs for external gpu's, storage ect. but it's too soon to tell. i start to digging a little bit in the hackintosh scene and i discovered more downsides than i expected to be honest. windows 10 is a good OS but it will be so hard for me to switch.

 

[Mikael H]

I not gung-ho on switching to Linux. I just can’t stand Apple’s Mac hardware design from the last four years. Soldered RAM, proprietary (and later soldered) Solid State Drives,



I would also prefer to stay away from Windows, so I figure Linux is a good middle-ground.

But I’d really like to stick with macOS if possible. And yeah, if Apple’s not going to make upgradable, expandable, and repairable Macs, we can only hope "they’ll just find a way to support macOS on non-Apple HW in a plug-and-play sense”. I’d like to keep using Macs (in one form or another) for a long time. I’m just afraid that won’t happen with Apple hardware, at least not for a long time. There’s always the Hackintosh route, but I’ve read that it’s a pain to set up and maintain. We can only hope Apple will either step up its game on Macs or license OS X for PCs.

As someone else pretty much said in this thread, macOS feels a lot like "Linux done right". The hackintosh route on the other hand reminds me a lot of my earliest memories of Linux in the early/mid-nineties: it may be passable if tinkering with your computer is part of why you use it, but it's nothing I'd use on my primary work machine.

Happily, my regular requirements put me squarely into 15" MBPr and possibly 27" iMac territory, with the exception that I'd love a Mac that didn't cost like a good used car while still having enough horsepower to pull X-plane around at good detail levels without sounding like an F16 itself. As it is, this is one of my main reasons for having a Linux desktop in addition to my Mac laptop.

 

[jblagden]

my last hope is affordable thunderbolt 3 hubs for external gpu's, storage ect. but it's too soon to tell. i start to digging a little bit in the hackintosh scene and i discovered more downsides than i expected to be honest. windows 10 is a good OS but it will be so hard for me to switch.

I agree 75%. The other 25% is that I’d really rather not use Windows 10 because it sends a lot of personal information back to the “home office” and it’s Windows, so it’s insecure by design, with thousands of backdoors. Not to mention, there’s a TON of malware for Windows.

 

[Mikael H]

I agree 75%. The other 25% is that I’d really rather not use Windows 10 because it sends a lot of personal information back to the “home office” and it’s Windows, so it’s insecure by design, with thousands of backdoors. Not to mention, there’s a TON of malware for Windows.

That, though, I mostly disagree with.
Yes, Win10 "calls home" and you can't fully turn that off. But Windows when used correctly is not, I'd argue, inherently less secure than any other operating system with a GUI. How often do you see remote exploits against the actual Windows operating system in the wild? Wouldn't we see quite a lot of those if there were "thousands of back doors" as you state?

What Windows has is a huge user base of people who never were taught security, and despite (or perhaps because of) that, it has always had some insane default settings. Concrete example:
Where Linux distributions have warned against using the root account as your main user since pretty much forever, it wasn't until Windows Vista & Server 2008 that Windows got a default behavior that's similar to a sudo environment. This behavior is still being improved upon.

This doesn't mean that Windows is necessarily less secure than other operating systems, but you have to know a little about security not to do stupid things that open your computer up against attacks. I'd even go so far as to say that from Win 8.1 and Server 2012R2, a lot of the potential vulnerabilities available need to be actively enabled by a user to be exploitable.

And finally: Yes, there's a ton of malware for Windows. Again, attribute that to a large install base and literally millions of users who will a) make their default account a local admin (yes, this is still a stupid default the way Windows is built), and b) click literally anything that promises cute cats, quick money, or sexual content.
There are pretty much no real viruses out there anymore. They've been replaced by Trojan horses that require user interaction to spread. Why? Because Windows isn't that insecure anymore, but no operating system can tell the difference between "I would like to encrypt large parts of my hard drive" and "I really don't want to encrypt all important files, but I started a program that does that anyway because even though I didn't order anything, I got an invoice for a lost DHL package."

 

[vrBrew]

That, though, I mostly disagree with.
Yes, Win10 "calls home" and you can't fully turn that off. But Windows when used correctly is not, I'd argue, inherently less secure than any other operating system with a GUI. How often do you see remote exploits against the actual Windows operating system in the wild? Wouldn't we see quite a lot of those if there were "thousands of back doors" as you state?

What Windows has is a huge user base of people who never were taught security, and despite (or perhaps because of) that, it has always had some insane default settings. Concrete example:
Where Linux distributions have warned against using the root account as your main user since pretty much forever, it wasn't until Windows Vista & Server 2008 that Windows got a default behavior that's similar to a sudo environment. This behavior is still being improved upon.

This doesn't mean that Windows is necessarily less secure than other operating systems, but you have to know a little about security not to do stupid things that open your computer up against attacks. I'd even go so far as to say that from Win 8.1 and Server 2012R2, a lot of the potential vulnerabilities available need to be actively enabled by a user to be exploitable.

And finally: Yes, there's a ton of malware for Windows. Again, attribute that to a large install base and literally millions of users who will a) make their default account a local admin (yes, this is still a stupid default the way Windows is built), and b) click literally anything that promises cute cats, quick money, or sexual content.
There are pretty much no real viruses out there anymore. They've been replaced by Trojan horses that require user interaction to spread. Why? Because Windows isn't that insecure anymore, but no operating system can tell the difference between "I would like to encrypt large parts of my hard drive" and "I really don't want to encrypt all important files, but I started a program that does that anyway because even though I didn't order anything, I got an invoice for a lost DHL package."

If you actually look at the CVE for bugs and vulnerabilities between apple and microsoft they both have around roughly 4000 bugs since 1999. The higher counts of bugs are normally attributed to third party or additional software outside of the scope of the OS. Some people just like to believe that their personal choices in an OS are somehow the best that can ever be.

http://www.networkworld.com/article...rating-systems-in-2014-ie-wins-worst-app.html

https://nvd.nist.gov/

https://cve.mitre.org/

 

[ZapNZs]

Possibly a ThinkStation for me. I'm not sure if I am a "power user" since words like "power user" and "professional" seem so subjective. I need a capable computer for work purposes with decent quality hardware, and my rMBP-15 isn't going to be enough to meet future needs.

I'd like to purchase a Mac Pro, but I don't think I can bring myself to invest that kind of money in a 4 year old design that is far less upgradable than the model it replaced. I also would prefer a design where many of my components can be housed internally...otherwise it's just clutter. I've considered a used cMP. Depending if/what a Mac Pro refresh brings, it could influence my personal decision.

It's not like iOS and MacOS don't send information home to Apple. If anything, Apple pulls as much or more of your information.

Think about how Siri works. It's easy to disable info going to Microsoft. Couple clicks and done.

Apple is really no better than Microsoft in regards to data flowing in Apple's data centers. Apple has a much clearer picture of you than you realize.

They're both terrible when it comes to this aspect. With Apple, I like how we have Little Snitch (and I'm aware how many people hate the program.) At least this gives us a simple option in reducing OS X's frequency of phoning home to the motherland without permission. I'm yet to find a decent Windows or iOS equivalent.

What Windows has is a huge user base of people who never were taught security, and despite (or perhaps because of) that, it has always had some insane default settings.

Heck, I know many Windows Users that don't even understand what a secure password is or why it is needed (and often use personal identifying information in their password.)

Trying to explain the difference between a standard login password and full disk encryption is as easy as herding cats, and saying something like, "you should always enable BitLocker" is like speaking a foreign language from outer space.

 

[Queen6]

They're both terrible when it comes to this aspect. With Apple, I like how we have Little Snitch (and I'm aware how many people hate the program.) At least this gives us a simple option in reducing OS X's frequency of phoning home to the motherland without permission. I'm yet to find a decent Windows or iOS equivalent.

Have a look at SpyBot's AntiBeacon which can shutdown Windows telemetry, another is GlassWire similar to Little Snitch

Q-6

 

[Partron22]

Windows and Linux. I've got a 12 year old mini still giving good service. My 2014 ought to last til 2024. Apple's not added anything to their OS that I need for several years; in fact I'm still using iTunes 10.4 on OS 10.12.3, so I see little reason to go Hackintosh. By the time things burn out I'll be happily ensconced in Windows/Linuxland, and won't miss the Mac anyway.
Except of course for that copy of Photoshop I've been updating since 1.0.
I'll live, so why prolong the life of an OS I'll no longer need?

 

[pastrychef]

"I'll Go Back to Windows" is not applicable to me since I was never really a Windows user. I use Windows for the purpose of running 3-4 apps that are not available on macOS and I'm outta there.

I like macOS. I'm comfortable using macOS. macOS makes sense to me. I don't want to use any other OS.

For these reasons, I went hackintosh a little more than half a year ago. Even though I was a complete novice to the entire hackintosh scene, I got my build up and running stably the same day I finished physically building the system. I didn't even do a fresh install. I pulled the SSD from my Mac Pro, installed Clover and a few kexts and I was off and running. It was really amazingly easy and nothing like the horror stories some people wanted me to believe. I think trying to install Windows on my Mac Pro was more challenging.

Now, I think I love my hackintosh more than I loved my old Mac Pro 5,1.

 

[lowendlinux]

There's lots of horror stories out there and they all hold a kernel of truth but the reality is that if you are a "power user" things rarely happen and when they do you can fix them. I just wish that people that didn't want to use Windows or Linux would just say that instead of repeating meme's. No OS is for everybody Linux especially, Linux isn't something you can just stumble into and play with part time you have to want to use it, you have to be so fed up from where you came from that you're willing to learn and do without some stuff. Windows is the easiest switch most people use it at work, it's everywhere but to be a Windows "power user" you also have to learn and learn a lot. I don't use Windows simply because I don't like it and I have zero desire to learn the in's and out's but I will throw a windows drive in for benchmarking and making sure everything is right, just like I throw an OS X drive in when I need to work from home. All computers in 2017 are pleasant and easy to deal with compared to where we were so just relax and enjoy the differences or your chosen community.

 

[bigfatipod]

Windows and Linux. I've got a 12 year old mini still giving good service. My 2014 ought to last til 2024. Apple's not added anything to their OS that I need for several years; in fact I'm still using iTunes 10.4 on OS 10.12.3, so I see little reason to go Hackintosh. By the time things burn out I'll be happily ensconced in Windows/Linuxland, and won't miss the Mac anyway.
Except of course for that copy of Photoshop I've been updating since 1.0.
I'll live, so why prolong the life of an OS I'll no longer need?

I had a similar plan not to upgrade.... but then, i got a new phone....and i needed new iTunes...and i needed a newer mac os... apple beat me that round

 

[Partron22]

but then, i got a new phone....

Should have bought a Samsung.

 

[bigfatipod]

its an iPhone 6, so it goes back a few years. and at that point, i still had much more allegiance to the mac brand than i do today. so..maybe in the future i'd be a switcher. i think the only thing i'd miss would be iMessage and Aperture (well, i guess we can forget aperture, anyhow...)

 

[dumastudetto]

Interesting poll, but I'm definitely Mac for life. Linux is terrible (no professional apps like Adobe Photoshop) and Windows has too many security risks attached and suffers from bad performance bottlenecks.

 

[maflynn]

Windows has too many security risks attached and suffers from bad performance bottlenecks.

Do you mind expounding upon the performance bottlenecks. I find Windows to perform faster and more efficiently then OS X. As for the security risks, I think at this point in Window's lifecycle, its more of an over-blown issue that critics of windows trot out. Yes, there is more malware out there, I'm not denying that, but like OS X, if you practice safe computing habits the risk drops dramatically.

 

[ZapNZs]

Interesting poll, but I'm definitely Mac for life. Linux is terrible (no professional apps like Adobe Photoshop) and Windows has too many security risks attached and suffers from bad performance bottlenecks.

I don't know if Macs are much more immune to the most concerning of security risks than Windows machines? - specifically, firmware attacks (that both Microsoft and Apple would have limited power to detect and eliminate - especially those using third party accessories as the route of infection), extension/add-on/plugin vulnerabilities made by third parties, the general public's ignorance regarding encryption or the layered approach, and the tendency of TLS to have inherent vulnerabilities not related to the OS or the browser (and yet both companies use TLS extensively for exchanging PII with clients.)

 

[Partron22]

I like my M900. It doesn't ask for my password for stupid things with even a quarter of the frequency of my Macs.
I like having a secured computer, but I do not like security theatre that serves no purpose other than to irritate me.
Apple should stop doing that stuff.

 

[dumastudetto]

Do you mind expounding upon the performance bottlenecks. I find Windows to perform faster and more efficiently then OS X. As for the security risks, I think at this point in Window's lifecycle, its more of an over-blown issue that critics of windows trot out. Yes, there is more malware out there, I'm not denying that, but like OS X, if you practice safe computing habits the risk drops dramatically.

Yeah I experience a lot of UI lag when working with file explorer. I find it really struggles with network drives and often locks up when moving big files around. I find Windows is far less stable than Mac in general when working under heavier loads. Windows can freeze up and lock up a lot.

Windows is well known to do a pretty terrible job of sleeping computers. Computers often wake up and stay awake all night until the battery dies. My Dell XPS 15 does this, and the only safe option is to shut it down completely when I want to end a session and would sleep a Mac. I've had colleagues tell me the same thing happens with their Surface Books.

Windows 10 also does a terrible job of maintaining Window placement of apps when an external display goes to sleep. You'll often comeback and find all your apps dumped on a single desktop, or a single display (when using multiple displays) and all of them resized to something different than the state you left them in. Really annoying! To be fair a Mac can also sometimes do this one, but Moom from Many Tricks solves that little problem automagically. I've found nothing like that utility for Windows.

I've also had issues with ultrawide monitors resetting to tiny resolutions when turning off a display and then later turning them back on (i.e. stuck at 1280x1024 when it should be at 3840x1600). Windows just errors saying it can't set the resolution to 3840x1600, and no trick fixes it, you simply have to reboot the computer and then your computer goes back to the full 3840x1600 resolution. Infuriating!

I've also had issues with duplex printing on Windows. It works beautifully on a Mac everytime, even Linux works without fail for me. On Windows, the printer sometimes decides it will only print on one side of each sheet. I've tried using both the official drivers, and the ones Microsoft recommends when detecting the printer. Take that print job over to the Mac and immediately it'll print full duplex. It's probably a Windows driver issue so not necessarily the fault of Microsoft and Windows 10. But the fact this stuff works perfectly on a Mac and even from a Linux system every single time, it's embarrassing that Windows can't do it consistently.

 

[maflynn]

Yeah I experience a lot of

You're moving the goal posts, you stated that there's " too many security risks attached and suffers from bad performance bottlenecks." Yet other then the first sentence, you go off on a tangent of everything that goes wrong with windows.

You made a statement that Windows is slow, and that's not true. Games is a great example of where the performance edge of Windows outstrips that of OS X. I've found the UI to be a bit more responsive as well.

Now addressing the other comments; OS X has had complaints about UI lagging since my 2012 rMBP

The way you make it sound, is that you cannot print, you cannot see anything (external monitors or wide), the UI doesn't work, it does not sleep or turn on. Basically your stating that a windows machine simply does not work, and I think we both know that's simply not the case.

I understand you love Macs and Apple, but that in turn does not mean that any competitor is instantly inferior.

If PCs had the number of problems you state, and is unable to do the most basic tasks, like duplex printing, then businesses would not use them. By the way, I've NEVER had a problem duplex printing, or with monitors. I've had the same amount of sleep issues on my PCs as I do with Macs. Some Macs did not sleep very well, and some PC did not.

 

[dumastudetto]

You're moving the goal posts, you stated that there's " too many security risks attached and suffers from bad performance bottlenecks." Yet other then the first sentence, you go off on a tangent of everything that goes wrong with windows.

I gave the performance issues at the top of the post, and then listed even more of my gripes so as to explain other reasons why I am staying Mac. I didn't bother detailing the security stuff because those are well established.

You made a statement that Windows is slow, and that's not true. Games is a great example of where the performance edge of Windows outstrips that of OS X. I've found the UI to be a bit more responsive as well.

Now addressing the other comments; OS X has had complaints about UI lagging since my 2012 rMBP

Did I say Windows was slow? I said there are performance bottlenecks. They've been there since Windows started, and believe me I know - I grew up on Windows from the 3.1 days all the way through to Vista when I finally bought my first Mac. Admittedly the problem is less extreme than it used to be, but the problems that have always dogged Windows come biting back when you put a Windows system under load. macOS does a much better job probably because of its solid UNIX underpinnings. File Explorer is terrible have you seen the lag when you try to reorganise large folders according to some specific criteria? It is embarrassing how slow it is.

The way you make it sound, is that you cannot print, you cannot see anything (external monitors or wide), the UI doesn't work, it does not sleep or turn on. Basically your stating that a windows machine simply does not work, and I think we both know that's simply not the case.

I understand you love Macs and Apple, but that in turn does not mean that any competitor is instantly inferior.

That really isn't fair. I listed one specific issue with printing that pisses me off. I even went out of my way to say Microsoft may not be responsible for my duplex printing woes, that it could be crap drivers from the vendor. But it surprises me that even Linux can do the job flawlessly. I also said Macs do have issues with multi-monitor setups too. Linux actually handles multi-monitor setups the best by far.

If PCs had the number of problems you state, and is unable to do the most basic tasks, like duplex printing, then businesses would not use them. By the way, I've NEVER had a problem duplex printing, or with monitors. I've had the same amount of sleep issues on my PCs as I do with Macs. Some Macs did not sleep very well, and some PC did not.

Nowhere did I say the issues I listed out affect everyone. Some people may well have a flawless Windows experience like you, others may run into a series of hellish problems like me. It's the horrible inconsistency of experience that turns me off. With a Mac, you can broadly be sure almost everything will work almost all the time. That has always been my experience since I switched from Windows to Mac. The amount of times I'm sat cursing at my computer have been dramatically reduced. The Mac is not perfect, but I find it massively less painful to maintain versus a Windows PC.

 

[maflynn]

Did I say Windows was slow?

Yes, right here:

and suffers from bad performance bottlenecks.

Performance bottlenecks means performance issues, which means its not fast.

But it surprises me that even Linux can do the job flawlessly. I also said Macs do have issues with multi-monitor setups too. Linux actually handles multi-monitor setups the best by far.

Ok, fair enough, I apologize for putting words into your mouth, but as you admit, its seems more vendor related. To be fair, printers and OS X never seemed to play nice - at least for me and vendors let Apple produce the drivers. I find windows drivers and support apps to be more robust and feature filled.