My own burning hatred towards Apple runs a little hotter than most, and I have been seriously googling (and trying) alternatives since 2012.
That was when my $9000 Mac Pro — which had been a great machine, and still was, except for the little detail about not having been updated since 2009 and thus being stuck with USB 2 (!!!) to say nothing of Thunderbolt and any kind of modern accoutrements — started to feel like a personal affront, a sneering fuck you directed at not just me, but everybody remotely like me. (Wow!!! Déjà vu bro!!)
Nevertheless, I didn't switch then, and all of us complainers won't switch now either.
Because the fucking OS.
I've tried every iteration of Ubuttnu, CentOS, and FreeBSD since. Even OpenWhatever, before the goblins bought it. I have Thinkpads and Dell XPS "Developer Editions" and a drawer full of other crap like that.
Executive summary: it's all garbage time. It's like going back 10+ years. Nothing works right, on any of them. Copy/paste, batteries, wireless networking, drag and drop, high-res displays, multilingual input, even like fucking word processing and email and image editors and terminal programs... it's all like Mac OS X Jaguar level.
We can't give Apple the finger, even though we want to (and definitely after last week, we all want to) because there literally isn't an OS in the world that can touch Mac OS for general-purpose workstation/laptop use. (For niche and limited-purpose, yes, there are options.)
Elementary OS is a fucking joke. Every OS mentioned disparagingly above is a better choice for almost any purpose. But those are still horrible.
Apple's OS advantage is what lets them say "Fuck you peons, here's some 3 year old technology and a bag of dongles, that'll be $4000."
But we're mostly all gonna buy the new shitty MacBook Hipster, or gut it out with our old ones, until a better fucking OS happens. And that won't be soon — it's not even remotely on the horizon.
I try Ubuntu about once a year, in the hopes of getting rid of OSX. But each time, the reason for going back to Apple ID is interoperability: Try dragging stuff (images, fotos, links, files, formatted text ...) from one program to another, including the "dreaded" Finder; Works nearly always in OSX. While Ubuntu has come a long way with these things, I think it's still an even longer way away from what OSX can do.
So while I haven't tried Elementary, I'd be astonished if it's any better at interoperability than Ubuntu...
I'm really hoping this is just a phase. Hoping that Apple will reduce prices of new laptops and we'll be back to normal.
Right now everybody is using Macs. Walk into the Bay Area coffee shop, you see Macs everywhere. I love that.
I build desktop software for Macs (focuslist.co). My apps are prettier than any others. They are easier and faster to use. This is the reason why people pay me $5 while they can get the job done with paper and pen.
This is thanks to Mac as a platform. Mac developers don't want to just get the job done. They want to get the job done while winning an Apple Design Award. That's why Mac apps are the best.
Take Mac away and high quality desktop apps will go away. We'll have to endure multi-platform Electron stuff. Ugh.
So I went to their main page to download an ISO to give it a try in a VM.
They hid the download button really well: You have to type in "0" into the "how much you'd like to pay" field for the "Purchase" button to change to "Download".
I mean I understand that open source projects need funding. But if you want people to try your niche OS at least make it obvious how to download it. Ask for money later after people had to chance to try it out.
I only typed in 0 because I know that "trick" from other websites. If I hadn't known I would have just left the website and would possibly never return.
It is a shame for Elementary OS Team, because this issue was many times discussed on GH issues / IRC about implementing just a "$0" button. As I remember in launchpad there is also a task or discussion about suggestion of the dialog which will remind about donation after certain time duration.
I don't think this is a trick - especially as it states "Pay What You Want". They need money to develop the OS and apps. And asking later will result in more hate.
They should include more videos and screenshots so people have a better idea of what they are buying.
I agree this is kinda frustrating, but judging from other comments it seems like ElementaryOS is maintained by a for-profit company. Driving conversions is probably more important to them rather than optimizing for total total number of downloads. I personally think this strategy is limited in scope as it ignores the life-time value of users that donate after using for a period of time, but always interesting to play devil's advocate.
This is a long-standing criticism of Elementary. I think they initially didn't even provide a way to get a free download, and eventually settled for the current UI. Basically the founder-owner is adamant that someone has to pay for his time, and tbh I don't begrudge him.
Sad. I tried to modify elementary OS entry in italian wikipedia for this (and... it is not open software, but 'free' if it is distribuited via GPL...). I did not be able to modify the wiki, anda banned for 24h... EDIT: for 'personal attacks'... LOL, it's all written, where are my personal attacks? LOL
Perhaps I am just dense, but the article references, specifically, the "Pro" market. For most pros that I know (and I am among them), our OS choice is often based on our tools, not the other way around. If I need Photoshop, Lightroom, Logic Pro, Visual Studio, etc., switching will be quite a chore. For the average user, this is probably a much more appealing argument.
I'm long term Linux user and I played with Elementary sometime ago. While just after installation everything is great and beautiful, it changed shortly when I need to install apps outside the ecosystem. Experience gives you feeling I could compare to using old-java application on Windows 10.
The other problem is that laptops are being built like mobile phones, with everything soldered to the board and the whole thing either sealed shut or taped down. Upgradeable & portable laptops just dont seem to exist at the price points they used to.
System76 is a solid choice (I love my four year old Gazelle, with 16Gb or RAM from the start), although ordering a laptop there is slightly cumbersome if you are living outside of North America.
What about Apple's hardware quality really makes that much of a difference? Is it really that important for a tool which is meant to be replaced in 3 years to be made from machined aluminum and beautifully designed (sometimes even at expense of usability)? Up until 5 years ago we were perfectly happy and productive using laptops with 3-4 hours battery life. Did our habits and requirements changed that much that anything below, what, 12 hours of battery life is scandalous and unacceptable?
my mac's battery backup is of 8+ hrs and it is a 2012 model, it depends what I do on it, sometimes I get a 12+ hr backup. I don't think there is any other laptop which is as slim and has such a nice battery backup
Most of the laptop manufacturers are mixing the legacy ports with the new usb-c ports. That'll probably continue for a while, and not sure if you'll see things like sd card readers disappear anytime soon. Apple's DNA is to make upsetting changes quickly (often to their benefit), but that's not how a lot of users like things to go down, so this feels like a legitimate gripe.
As for when the escape key / function row is going to disappear from windows computers, I'd say that one is a ways off / never.
As for when it's going to be impossible to get a nice nvidea graphics card, but given the track record, I'd say this trends towards "never" as well.
Personally, USB-C is the least of my problem. I care about having a fast, powerful laptop with 32 or 64GB ram (I run a lot of VMs for my work, I could offload it to the cloud but then it's more of a hassle).
I complain because Apple decided to make the macbook pro 15 inch lighter and thinner resulting in 25% less battery (going from 99.5 watt-hour to 76.0-watt-hour), this means that they have to make more compromises to keep a good battery life and instead of having a decent graphic card like the nvidia gtx 1080 or 32GB ram, the new macbook pros are underpowered.
Since, apple is unlikely to decide to go back to the previous form factor, they are unlikely to ever sell a laptop with decent performances compared to their competitors.
And to add insult to the injury, switching to usb-c forces users (at least for a year or two) to carry a lot of extra adapters which makes the weight loss moot.
You're too easily accepting the premise of the article at face value. It's likely the premise just was made up as a rhetorical device to promote the OP's favorite Linux distribution.
I am sticking with Mac because it just works. I have had quite a few non-Mac laptops previously. They rarely stay in good working condition for more than a couple of years. I currently have the late 2012 13" retina Pro and it has shown no signs of stopping. The only other one that has the sort of quality I see in a MacBook is Dell's XPS. The developer edition has me intrigued, but I really think this new MacBook with a Touchbar is going to be the future. The lack of ESC or function keys has no bearing on my development so that isn't an issue for me either.
I think the keyboard is tipping me over the edge on the new MacBook Pro's, its horrendous. There's no travel at all, the keys just immediately click. Interested to see what other people think about them as they start getting their hands on the new models, as a developer this is a very important aspect, and on top of the unwanted touchbar, the massive price hike, the lack of standard ports etc its all just a bit too much this time around.
I find Apricity OS (Arch Linux) much better suited for developers. In fact at work I switched from Ubuntu to Apricity. Through yaourt (paceman frontend) and AUR (Arch User Repository) it's a breeze to install the latest versions of literally everything you need be it Docker, Java or IntelliJ. I think it's comparable with brew.
Plus Apricity looks so much better than Elementary in my opinion and almost manages to give you that macOS feeling.
Why not Manjaro? Does Apricity ship Arch packages passed through the its own repositories doing some testing and making sure core components are not broken and work well one with each other in the Apricity terms and in general? Manjaro does that, there is a kind of release cycle, every 1 or 2 week updates come, ie updates come not directly from the Arch repos (except AUR stuff obviously).
So I am clueless here, how does swapping the OS rectify any issues people had with machine pricing or lack of desired new hardware features?
I don't get the angst. To me the disappointment is wholly related to the action bar/etc/whatever it is called. Its such a lame approach to adding additional functionality I would have never expected it from Apple. The Windows environment has many machines fully embracing touch screens right where the action is.
Please don't be so gullible, folks! When you see an article marketing a product, and they claim people are looking to switch to their product in droves, take it with a grain of salt!
This is purely a promotional article, pretending to be a help article. Look at the unattributed quotes it uses. Pretty sure the part about anybody switching from anything to anything is made up. Sure people switch sometimes. Sure people are complaining about Apple products, what else is new? Way to capitalize on our sincere discussions of platform choices.
If HN swallows this kind of marketing-masquerading-as-technical-advice article so easily, we're going to see a lot more of this writing pattern in the future. Which means more marketing noise. Please don't buy it so readily.
I would highly recommend Xubuntu instead. Aesthetically I don't think there's a better Linux distro, and it's almost to the point quality-wise where I'd recommend it to my parents.
First impressions, it's very very pretty, the design out the box is nice though it's completely the antithesis of how I work (3 screens, panel on each, window buttons only for windows on that screen).
The level of integration is nice, it feels cohesive.
That said XFCE4 with some tweaking is pretty much perfect for me, it exactly works the way I want things to work.
How does this compare to Ubuntu Desktop? Why would I use one over the other? I ask as somebody who used to use Ubuntu a few years ago, and wants to switch back to Linux in the next few months.
I currently use xfce[1] with docky[2] and it feels pretty good. Probably not as polished but I know it's stable.
There were other distros in the past trying to copy macOS, pear os[3] was one of them.
I remember Lindows[4] trying to market itself as a windows replacement. I can't believe they got sued and actually lost[5]! Xandros[6] was also in this space. They probably went BK.
Every year is the year of Linux for the desktop but it's really not possible to capture this market. It'll have to come from someone like google. Why couldn't chrome os have been a legit linux distro instead of trying for a niche netbook market with a locked down OS?
Wait from the article on Windows, it actually claims the opposite, saying that the court rejected Microsoft's claims and that it later settled with Lindows, paying for their trademark.
It's great timing for elementary. I'm having a lot of software problems with the Mac, and since I develop exclusively for Linux it seems like it'd be a lot easier if I could build and run everything on my target platform.
[+] [-] veidr|9 years ago|reply
That was when my $9000 Mac Pro — which had been a great machine, and still was, except for the little detail about not having been updated since 2009 and thus being stuck with USB 2 (!!!) to say nothing of Thunderbolt and any kind of modern accoutrements — started to feel like a personal affront, a sneering fuck you directed at not just me, but everybody remotely like me. (Wow!!! Déjà vu bro!!)
Nevertheless, I didn't switch then, and all of us complainers won't switch now either.
Because the fucking OS.
I've tried every iteration of Ubuttnu, CentOS, and FreeBSD since. Even OpenWhatever, before the goblins bought it. I have Thinkpads and Dell XPS "Developer Editions" and a drawer full of other crap like that.
Executive summary: it's all garbage time. It's like going back 10+ years. Nothing works right, on any of them. Copy/paste, batteries, wireless networking, drag and drop, high-res displays, multilingual input, even like fucking word processing and email and image editors and terminal programs... it's all like Mac OS X Jaguar level.
We can't give Apple the finger, even though we want to (and definitely after last week, we all want to) because there literally isn't an OS in the world that can touch Mac OS for general-purpose workstation/laptop use. (For niche and limited-purpose, yes, there are options.)
Elementary OS is a fucking joke. Every OS mentioned disparagingly above is a better choice for almost any purpose. But those are still horrible.
Apple's OS advantage is what lets them say "Fuck you peons, here's some 3 year old technology and a bag of dongles, that'll be $4000."
But we're mostly all gonna buy the new shitty MacBook Hipster, or gut it out with our old ones, until a better fucking OS happens. And that won't be soon — it's not even remotely on the horizon.
[+] [-] fnl|9 years ago|reply
So while I haven't tried Elementary, I'd be astonished if it's any better at interoperability than Ubuntu...
[+] [-] Void_|9 years ago|reply
Right now everybody is using Macs. Walk into the Bay Area coffee shop, you see Macs everywhere. I love that.
I build desktop software for Macs (focuslist.co). My apps are prettier than any others. They are easier and faster to use. This is the reason why people pay me $5 while they can get the job done with paper and pen.
This is thanks to Mac as a platform. Mac developers don't want to just get the job done. They want to get the job done while winning an Apple Design Award. That's why Mac apps are the best.
Take Mac away and high quality desktop apps will go away. We'll have to endure multi-platform Electron stuff. Ugh.
[+] [-] kybernetyk|9 years ago|reply
They hid the download button really well: You have to type in "0" into the "how much you'd like to pay" field for the "Purchase" button to change to "Download".
I mean I understand that open source projects need funding. But if you want people to try your niche OS at least make it obvious how to download it. Ask for money later after people had to chance to try it out.
I only typed in 0 because I know that "trick" from other websites. If I hadn't known I would have just left the website and would possibly never return.
[+] [-] mohanmcgeek|9 years ago|reply
http://m.slashdot.org/story/213469
[+] [-] INTPenis|9 years ago|reply
But this time I regret every cent. Coming from Mac OS, or even Fedora, Elementary seems unpolished and unstable.
[+] [-] xd1936|9 years ago|reply
"How much do you want to pay?"
"0 Dollars."
"Great!"
Why is that so horrible?
[+] [-] piotrkubisa|9 years ago|reply
[1]: http://blog.elementary.io/post/110645528530/payments
[2]: https://github.com/elementary/website/pull/655
It is a shame for Elementary OS Team, because this issue was many times discussed on GH issues / IRC about implementing just a "$0" button. As I remember in launchpad there is also a task or discussion about suggestion of the dialog which will remind about donation after certain time duration.
Edit:
Found https://blueprints.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+spec/donation...
[+] [-] vamur|9 years ago|reply
They should include more videos and screenshots so people have a better idea of what they are buying.
[+] [-] chairmanwow|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] askmike|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] PascLeRasc|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pulce|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FrankBlack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kornakiewicz|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anondon|9 years ago|reply
The only laptops comparable to Macbook Pro hardware quality and battery life are the Dell XPS series and the Thinkpad X1.
I feel there is a serious shortage of good laptops with linux pre-installed that the non-technical user can pickup and start using.
[+] [-] goombastic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Freak_NL|9 years ago|reply
https://system76.com/laptops
The build quality of their offerings seems to get better with each successive generation too, and of course everything works out of the box.
I just wish they would partner with someone in the EU; that way shipping costs, VAT, and tariffs can be handled more transparently.
[+] [-] antouank|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jablan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miguelrochefort|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thewhitetulip|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thewhitetulip|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nsxwolf|9 years ago|reply
What are you going to do when all other laptop manufacturers follow suit - switch back?
Mac users who make this threat sound just like people who threaten to move to Canada every election cycle.
[+] [-] awinder|9 years ago|reply
As for when the escape key / function row is going to disappear from windows computers, I'd say that one is a ways off / never.
As for when it's going to be impossible to get a nice nvidea graphics card, but given the track record, I'd say this trends towards "never" as well.
[+] [-] nicolas_t|9 years ago|reply
I complain because Apple decided to make the macbook pro 15 inch lighter and thinner resulting in 25% less battery (going from 99.5 watt-hour to 76.0-watt-hour), this means that they have to make more compromises to keep a good battery life and instead of having a decent graphic card like the nvidia gtx 1080 or 32GB ram, the new macbook pros are underpowered.
Since, apple is unlikely to decide to go back to the previous form factor, they are unlikely to ever sell a laptop with decent performances compared to their competitors.
And to add insult to the injury, switching to usb-c forces users (at least for a year or two) to carry a lot of extra adapters which makes the weight loss moot.
[+] [-] natch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjuel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matthewking|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] haffla|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vladimir-y|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fizzbatter|9 years ago|reply
I may have to give this a try when the time comes. By far the best looking Linux GUI i've seen yet.
I can't wait to see an a GUI layer made for NixOS though. I really want to be done with stateful OSs, NixOS is so tempting.
[+] [-] muyuu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjuel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
I don't get the angst. To me the disappointment is wholly related to the action bar/etc/whatever it is called. Its such a lame approach to adding additional functionality I would have never expected it from Apple. The Windows environment has many machines fully embracing touch screens right where the action is.
[+] [-] natch|9 years ago|reply
This is purely a promotional article, pretending to be a help article. Look at the unattributed quotes it uses. Pretty sure the part about anybody switching from anything to anything is made up. Sure people switch sometimes. Sure people are complaining about Apple products, what else is new? Way to capitalize on our sincere discussions of platform choices.
If HN swallows this kind of marketing-masquerading-as-technical-advice article so easily, we're going to see a lot more of this writing pattern in the future. Which means more marketing noise. Please don't buy it so readily.
[+] [-] Klarbichu|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps you don't find it interesting, but as a developer, I like it.
[+] [-] Semiapies|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] youdontknowtho|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 88e282102ae2e5b|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noir_lord|9 years ago|reply
First impressions, it's very very pretty, the design out the box is nice though it's completely the antithesis of how I work (3 screens, panel on each, window buttons only for windows on that screen).
The level of integration is nice, it feels cohesive.
That said XFCE4 with some tweaking is pretty much perfect for me, it exactly works the way I want things to work.
[+] [-] throwsincenotpc|9 years ago|reply
https://siliconislandblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/thoughts-...
> and support a preferred programming language (Vala)
https://launchpad.net/elementary
[+] [-] blowski|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] my123|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buckbova|9 years ago|reply
There were other distros in the past trying to copy macOS, pear os[3] was one of them.
I remember Lindows[4] trying to market itself as a windows replacement. I can't believe they got sued and actually lost[5]! Xandros[6] was also in this space. They probably went BK.
Every year is the year of Linux for the desktop but it's really not possible to capture this market. It'll have to come from someone like google. Why couldn't chrome os have been a legit linux distro instead of trying for a niche netbook market with a locked down OS?
[1] http://xfce.org/
[2] http://wiki.go-docky.com/index.php?title=Welcome_to_the_Dock...
[3] http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pear
[4] http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=linspire
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com....
[6] http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=xandros
[+] [-] cooper12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonhorlick|9 years ago|reply