Ask YC: Has anyone switched from OS X to Ubuntu?

[rob]

I'm considering switching from OS X to Ubuntu full-time for both personal and development work. One of the reasons (although not the only) is that since I run Ubuntu on my server, I'll be able to develop on the same platform my apps will be running on. Before anyone mentions it, I do know I can run Parallels/VMware on OS X with Ubuntu virtualized, but I'd like to see if anyone has made the switch completely and if they either regret it or love it.

[tx]

I had two of them running side-by-side for several months now: I've been struggling to make a decision between MBP+OSX vs Thinkpad+Ubuntu and ended up with both.

Over time I find myself glued to Linux more and more: the software I like tends to be native on Linux and somewhat foreign on OS X, and yes - I know about Macports and I don't like it: too limited and too awkward compared to apt. All in all, OS X just isn't particularly hacker friendly: it always took me longer to do something on a Mac, the recent case was Python/Pylons stack with some libs: I was done under a minute on Ubuntu while Mac took some googling and IRC'ing to accomplish the same task.

Moreover, I keep hitting OSX limitations on less exotic stuff all the time: the terminal is retarded by default, Finder doesn't really do FTP properly (in 2008! WTF??), windows are resizable only by bottom-right corner, font rendering is worse than Ubuntu is capable of, Mac "spaces" are dumbed down version of Gnome workspaces - the list goes on and on. The only area where OSX destroys competition is their window management: I find myself Alt-tabbing a lot less on the Mac.

Also OSX is too commercialized: people are selling freaking screensavers for god's sake... So I am on Ubuntu most of the time now, the only thing that I am envious of is nearly instant ruspend/resume on my macbook and, as mentioned above, Macs window management.

But hardware plays an important role too. MBP+OSX wins head down against an average disposable Dell/HP/Whatever, even Ubuntu powers can't help that junk, so Thinkpads rule.

[sunkencity]

Totally agree but:

>But hardware plays an important role too. MBP+OSX wins head >Down against an average disposable Dell/HP/Whatever, even >Ubuntu powers can't help that junk, so Thinkpads rule.

Running linux on a mac is fantastic, the hardware is well supported, only caveat is the one-button touchpad. And it totally pisses of Apple Freaks!

[white]

Well, I have a Unix experience with more then 10 years and I can tell you that OS X (Darwin) is not less functional or harder to use then any other Unix system. I bet you haven't tried SunOS...

[sayhello]

>> the terminal is retarded by default, Finder doesn't really do FTP properly (in 2008! WTF??)

What's wrong with Terminal.app? I find only 2 complaints for the Leopard version: the inability to change ANSI colors and in second, no support for 256-color rendering.

As for ftp, have you tried 'ftp' from the commandline? if you want a GUI, give cyberduck or transmit a try.

>> But hardware plays an important role too. MBP+OSX wins head down against an average disposable Dell/HP/Whatever, even Ubuntu powers can't help that junk, so Thinkpads rule.

Macbooks are manufactured by Asus and Foxconn, or at least the components. Granted though, they may require more quality components than Dell/HP/etc such as higher quality PCB, capacitors etc...

[admp]

Regarding FTP I would say: FTP? WTF? It's 2008, isn't it?

[micktwomey]

To give you a switch in the other direction story: I was a long time linux user, always very happy and quick to defend it. However, I found myself being ground down by hardware support and the pain it took to get basic things to work. I migrated from redhat to debian to gentoo and was always ultimately frustrated by the effort it took to get anything working. (Sound was always a big source of fun.)

So a friend got a mac, purely on the grounds it was less hassle than a linux pc, and frankly, after looking at all the amazing things he could do (wow, he can plug in a vga cable and have the monitor work without restarting X) I was seriously feeling won over. I finally bought a powerbook and was instantly chuffed by the fact I could do real work and not waste time mucking about with hardware. Honestly, my productivity increased by an order of magnitude. I realised how much it was really my ego vs the machine when it came to getting things working.

These days I don't faff about with macports or fink (they just don't work well enough) but instead I run ubuntu in a vmware instance. To top it off, my vmware ubuntu with 512MB of RAM runs faster than my dual core, 4GB ubuntu desktop. Go figure.

Putting aside hardware support, it's the software I love. Mac software authors have a wonderful sense of design and detail, which I always find lacking on linux or windows.

I develop using python and deploy on a combination of redhat, debian and windows boxes and the only real platform related pain I've experienced is the repeated stupidities redhat enterprise inflicts upon people. (You know it's enterprisey when they only give you five packages, forcing you to use random, untested rpm repositories around the world.)

Ok, maybe the hardware support is the biggest reason after all, just this week my linux co-workers were high-fiving over undocking their laptops without having to reboot them. Most of the time.

[ingenium]

I've switched from OS X to Ubuntu, and would never go back. I'm not really a developer, but I do some coding every now and then. Perhaps what I like most about Ubuntu is that I can customize it to fix all those little annoyances that I couldn't do anything about on OS X. It's also trivial to install programs thanks to a real package manager (Fink doesn't count in OS X). GNOME is also the only GUI I've found that lets you type the whole filename to jump to a file/folder rather than jumping to the filenames that start with the last letter you typed.

I suppose my biggest annoyance with OS X is that it doesn't let you actually have control. A perfect example is that I have SAMBA turned on in OS X to share some files to other computers on my network. For security, I have a separate user account for the share. I can't configure the shares and permissions in the GUI because it's not a "simple" setup, so I have to use the config file for samba. Every single OS update I get overwrites this file, so I have to re-create it every time. Furthermore, as of 10.5, permissions seem to just spontaneously change. I can no longer get group permissions to inherit.

Another time, I needed to quickly use TFTP. Trying to get this setup in OS X is a nightmare, and after spending a couple hours on it, I just gave up. It's installed and there, but it for some reason its configuration is just non-standard.

It's just these little things that make me glad I switched to Ubunutu, and I would never even consider using OS X again.

[boucher]

"GNOME is also the only GUI I've found that lets you type the whole filename to jump to a file/folder rather than jumping to the filenames that start with the last letter you typed."

Mac OS X's Finder does the exact same thing.

"It's also trivial to install programs thanks to a real package manager"

I find installing programs to be trivial in OS X since it requires nothing but dragging them to anywhere on my computer.

"I suppose my biggest annoyance with OS X is that it doesn't let you actually have control."

OS X gives you plenty of control, it just hides most of it in the terminal. For almost every use case, this is great, because for the 1 or 2 things you actually want to do, Apple has made it drop dead simple. The rest of the time, if you really need to do something complex, there's usually a way to do it via the terminal.

It sounds to me like you're main complaint is that OS X doesn't work like linux. This is true. If what you're looking for is a better linux, OS X is not that. Linux is all about being ultra customizable. OS X is about getting out of your way. In my opinion, Linux sacrifices usability and simplicity for customization, and for me (and I suspect most people) the trade off isn't worth it.

[tlrobinson]

I prefer the OS X method of application "installation"... drag and drop to your applications folder. That way (as long as the app isn't sneaky) I know exactly where everything is location: the main application is in /Applications, the preferences are in ~/Library/Preferences, and various data is in ~/Library/Application Support.

[sant0sk1]

I actually just switched in the other direction. I ran Ubuntu for 2.5 years both at work and play and loved it.

However, the hardware, GUI, and software offerings of a MBP were too much for me to bare. I made the switch a few months ago and have never been happier.

Sure Terminal.app sucks but iTerm fixes that. OS X has a few killer apps that Ubuntu can't compete with. Quicksilver, Skitch, and Textmate to name a few.

[tx]

Linux can't compete with Textmate? You must be kidding me. I could make fun of Textmate and 37 signals who popularized it, but I really don't want to start flamewars. Come on... Unix is the king when it comes to text editors for programmers: vim&emacs rule.

Besides, there is simply co much to look at when it comes to pedestrian text editing (Textmate style): netbeans, komodo, eclipse+plugins, aptana - all built for Linux first, OS X - second.

[tjr]

Many thanks! I looked for alternatives to Terminal.app but eventually gave up. iTerm looks awesome.

[sanswork]

I used Ubuntu at work fulltime for over a year. I kept OS X at home though. What type of development are you doing?

Ubuntu is good but I would say that as far as unix like desktops go it still has a long way to go to match OS X.

edit

Just read through your posts and it looks like you're a webdev in which case except for the lame PHP build OS X comes with by default(just replace it) you shouldn't notice any difference that would make it worth switching over to Ubuntu for except if you just generally perfer Ubuntu. It won't make your work easier though.

[mk]

I'm running Ubuntu at work and OS X at home. For a workstation Ubuntu is fine, but I'm not going to give up OS X. I develop on both and the experience is similar, but the OS X gui is just what I prefer.

[notauser]

It does come down almost entirely to personal preference in the end.

Because of window shading, tabbing together groups of windows, focus on mouse and vastly better terminal support (including Yakuake, a terminal that behaves like the doom console) I am roughly twice as productive on Linux as on OS X.

That is before you add in apt-get, but honestly if I had to put up with Fink on Ubuntu I still wouldn't switch because of the interface limitations.

[mosburger]

I use Ubuntu at work, OSX at home. I've customized Ubuntu with Avant Window Navigator to make it a little more Mac-like (once you start using a Dock, it's hard to give it up).

I've gotta say I agree with people who say it's easier to develop on Ubuntu. E.g., to do Django development on my Mac with Postgres, I needed to install an alternate, MacPorts version of Python (which ends up in /opt/local/bin/python2.4, not in /usr/bin/python), get the Postgres driver from MacPorts, then do all of my Django development with the alternate python installation. Yecch. The Postgres driver wouldn't compile otherwise.

On Ubuntu, I just apt-get'd the packages and started developing.

And don't even get me started on Java development in the two environments (yeah, I know, I'm a loser Java developer). The state of the JDK on OSX has never been very clear (OpenJDK FreeBSD Based Java 6? Apple's Java 5?)

Anyway, just use what you like. If it were up to me, Ubuntu wins for hacking and development, OSX wins for usability and commercial polish, but either environment will handle both functions well enough to get you by.

[tlrobinson]

I finally made the move from PowerPC Mac to Intel Mac and I'm trying out Parallels Desktop 3, and I must say it's pretty freakin awesome.

Coherence mode for Windows is very cool. Basically it lets you run Windows apps alongside you Mac OS X apps. XP + OS X is pretty ugly, but Vista + OS X actually looks ok. Coherence mode doesn't work for Linux, but windowed or fullscreen works well.

Here's a screenshot of Mac OS X, Vista, and Ubuntu coexisting peacefully (it's rather cluttered just because I wanted to show all 3):

http://tlrobinson.net/misc/parallels.png (480KB)

This is an excellent environment for any sort of cross platform work. For example, I regularly need to use PowerPoint on Windows, test on IE in Windows, test in Firefox on Linux and Windows, etc, but I'm most productive developing in OS X.

[pierrefar]

I'm currently using OSX at work and Vista at home. Over the years I've tried many OSs, including various flavors of Linux and BSD. I think I can answer your question very simply: they all suck, and you have to find which one sucks the least for you.

For me, OSX is mostly eye candy any keyboard junkie should steer clear of. Also, it tends to be sluggish and not as responsive as other OSs I've tried. The spinning beach ball (I call it the pizza of boredom) is a very common sight.

Linux is about plug and pray. Maybe, hopefully, if you're lucky, things work out well on your computer. I mean come on, Ubuntu, in 2008, made a big fuss about the new (yes new) screen manager that lets you visually control multi-monitor setups. Whoopie. Welcome to the '90s.

Vista is rubbish. SP1 made it better but it's still annoying. If it weren't for the hassle, I'd switch back to XP. More than OSX, the eye candy is very distracting and useless.

XP is old but darn good, kinda like an old pair of jeans. It has flaws but they're familiar and known-enough to be fixable.

So should you switch from OSX->Ubuntu? Is your software Ubuntu ready? Are you ready to drop to the command line fairly regularly? Are you ready for a different GUI? It's certainly doable, and perhaps easy, but it's a lot of "easy" steps to be taken. That may be too much work for you.

Good luck.

Pierre

[mosburger]

> For me, OSX is mostly eye candy any keyboard junkie should steer clear of.

Actually, when I got my Mac, one of the things that really surprised me was how many other Mac people use keyboard shortcuts for everything. I think that, contrary to what one might expect, having a particularly mouse-intensive environment actually induces people to learn keyboard shortcuts more, to become more efficient.

[rbanffy]

Pierre... From what you say, it is glaringly obvious you never spent any time either with a Mac or with a modern Linux. True the monitors stuff is not mature, but multi-monitor machines are just now becoming more common. As for OSX being sluggish... What have you been using? a G3?

And I find that dropping to the command line is fairly common with me because I am a programmer. My son uses my computer from time to time and he has no idea there is such a thing as a command line. Maybe your sample is skewed by a number of programmers using Linux more than any limitation of the graphical environment.

I only agree with you about the Vista thing. It is the lousiest OS I have ever seen being pushed out the door. It's even worse than Windows Me.

[wanorris]

I have an OS X system that I use occasionally, but it's never been my primary desktop.

Personally, I just prefer the way the Ubuntu desktop feels -- but everyone's different. If you feel really at home with all the aspects of the Mac desktop, Ubuntu's not going to feel right -- which is how I feel on a Mac desktop. There's nothing wrong with the Mac desktop (other than that virtual desktops were a bit borked, last time I checked), it's just a question of what feels more comfortable to you.

Also note that Linux gives you a wider choice of desktops, ranging from Gnome and KDE at the polished end to lightweight desktops like IceWM to funky tiling desktop managers like ratpoison and xmonad. But again, if what you really like is OS X's desktop, at best you can customize a desktop into a second-tier knockoff of it.

The other consideration is what apps you care about, of course. My main apps are Emacs, Firefox, and a terminal window, and switching those is pretty easy. Personally, I like Open Office, InkScape, Gimp, and other Linux productivity apps just fine, and I greatly prefer Amarok to iTunes. However, everyone is different, so you may find something you can't live without from OS X. And if you're wedded to something like Cubase or Final Cut Pro, I doubt you'll be satisfied with the alternatives.

[Jesin]

Hmm. I'd suggest you try dual-booting (if you aren't already). If you think you might want to switch completely but aren't sure, you could try using most of your disk for Ubuntu but keeping a partition just large enough to hold OS X just in case you change your mind.

[siblog]

Like many have said it is all a personal preference. You will get reasons from Mac users why OSX is better and you will get reasons from Linux users why Ubuntu is better......both are great Operating Systems, but in the end it is just a personal preference.

And like others have also said I think the best way to figure out which you like better is to dual boot. Try both the GNOME and KDE environments too.

I personally have been using Linux/Ubuntu for the last 2 years and have not found anything that I can not do that I absolutely need. I love the ability to customize everything.

In the end the reason I prefer Linux/Ubuntu is because I like the FOSS ideology and the people/community behind it. I can find a free Open Source application for almost everything, and if I have an issue I have thousands of Linux users who have probably already come across it and know how to solve it. The community has also put together a great idea-brainstorming site called Ubuntu Brainstorm to better improve the OS for the users. Oh and Ubuntu 8.04 comes out in just a few days!

[attack]

From a developer's perspective, what's the appeal of all the glossiness of OSX and default WMs on popular Linux distros?

Is everyone here more design/graphics oriented?

Between firefox tabs, emacs buffers, and GNU screen, I hardly make use of the window manager at all.

[sunkencity]

When I do solely server work I like to boot my mac into Gentoo linux, but I am considering to switch to Brownix because I'm starting to think that Ubuntu is what I want to run the servers on as they grow more plentiful. I run the wmii X11 window manager, and it's fantastic for my productivity. Totally get's out of the way.

When booting OS X I still have most of the terminals in wmii on the crappy Xorg that comes with leopard. I still have to have a few iTerms because it's a pita to copy and paste to Xorg. Periodically I do a lot of graphics work and then I need to be in OSX. Working with large number of files in for example web projects are great to do in TextMate too.

[icey]

I'm making this switch right now... I was getting ready to buy a macbook pro to replace my macbook, and made the realization that I use OS X to run *nix applications; so why not jump directly over to linux?

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread =D

[macnod]

I think in extremes:

If you're a computer and software user, OSX is the way to go.

If you're a hacker, you can code in more than 10 programming languages, and you've been writing code for more than 10 years, then you'll be way better off with Ubuntu.

If you're somewhere in between, stick with OSX.

Forget about Windows for now. But don't be surprised if they come out with something truly wonderful some day.

[mronge]

I think both are very productive platforms. I use both, but for me Mac OS X is better.

The big reason for me is that there are apps I rely on that run only on Mac OS X. Keynote and OmniGraffle are the two biggies. Also, I find things "just work" on OS X.

I spent an entire morning configuring my dual monitor setup on Ubuntu, for OS X there was no setup. Also the instant sleep is a killer feature for OS X.

[hs]

I use OSX, Ubuntu and OpenBSD OSX for my SMS needs (probably can be done in ubuntu) Ubuntu for mouse-related programs (GIMP, Firefox) OpenBSD for devel and servers (~90% of my time)

Try OpenBSD, ... after a while, u will feel that Ubuntu is lacking

Ubuntu does not have FTP, SSH servers installed by default (must apt-get things) ... in OpenBSD, it's just an edit to config away (ftp is installed but not running)

Ubuntu's FTP client is crippled (mget/msend broken), No feedback on how % file's transferred, freeze a lot too

apt-get is complicated (universe, stable, unstable and what not). OpenBSD just uses pkg_add (tgz files) and PKG_PATH set to an FTP server ... really simple

Ubuntu is pretty secure; by being weak, it can't do a lot of damage. OpenBSD is very secure ... and dangerous if u need the power

To me, Ubuntu feels like that it's designed for mass by a committee - the devs themselves may not use it

Of course, I downloaded the Ubuntu DESKTOP (not the server version) ... and use it as such (desktop, i don't care if it's weak) and comparing desktop vs server OS is like comparing apple to orange, right? I'm sorry for ignoring Ubuntu server OS

NB: it's not a bashing against Ubuntu, I in fact use it, mainly for new hardwares (bluetooth, etc) where OpenBSD lack drivers

[comforteagle]

I ran linux on the desktop for a long time, switched to osx for the wireless support, went back to linux (ubuntu at the time), & pined for osx again.

Linux is a fabulous server os & is better than windows on the desktop anyday, but osx on the desktop is much nicer to work in (once you install all the unix/server-ish tools you need).