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Ask HN: How did you transition from Mac to Linux?

76 points| brentjanderson | 7 years ago | reply

I have been a devoted Mac user for years, however apart from needing a Mac to build and release iOS apps, I am increasingly looking for great laptop hardware with great support for Linux, and recommendations on how to jump from the Mac to Linux (preferably Ubuntu). What pitfalls did you face? What apps and support did you miss?

145 comments

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[+] beagle3|7 years ago|reply
I was trying to do the opposite transition a couple of years ago (Ubuntu+Unity -> MacOS), and the Mac feels so clunky in comparison - I eventually switched back to Ubuntu, though I might try again soon.

Some of it is just unfamiliarity, some of it is trivia that is hard to get used to (I've been binding alt-shift to some actions for the three decades - and the Mac won't let me do that), and part of it is the Mac crapping all over my directories with DS_Store files and whatever.

Part of it was the inconvenience of having to buy a lot of thing I could earlier "apt-get". I would probably have spent $500 on things, glad to support the ecosystem, but it's from 10 different vendors, each with their own terms-of-service and mail and having to register and stuff. I would gladly buy it through the app-store if they were available there, but none of those I wanted were.

But the biggest thing is, I hardly got anything from the Mac that I didn't already have with Ubuntu; I do science, programming, and a little bit of movie watching / internet browsing - no multimedia production. Ubuntu is just as good, if not better, than MacOS for those things. Never had an issue with sleep/hibernate not working in Linux.

The things I did get from the mac: (And the reason I was trying to switch): Better hardware (especially screen, touchpad), better battery life, lighter weight. But overall, for me, they were not enough for the inconveniences.

[+] mping|7 years ago|reply
I use Karabiner for switching alt/cmd and fn/ctrl. I also configure iTerm to switch some keys - apple really annoys me by using a diff layout; so many years of muscle memory aren't immediately applicable.
[+] cdelsolar|7 years ago|reply
I've tried, but here are the issues I've run into. I'm not a Linux hater, but these are simple things there doesn't seem to be a fix for. This is on a new Dell XPS laptop.

- Headphones constantly crackle when they're plugged in. I've tried updating audio drivers, enabling/disabling various things, editing config files, etc. nothing fixes it. I've gotten used to listening to music with a crackle superimposed on top.

- Screen randomly flickers

- The trackpad interface is nothing short of _atrocious_. If you move around it too much it "locks up" the cursor and you can't move anymore, you have to click it several times while dragging until it starts working again. If you brush it with a single atom of your finger as you're typing, the cursor will move around wildly, often selecting most of the text you've typed and overwriting it with your next character. I've also tried updating/changing/etc libinput and it doesn't do anything.

- In an attempt to fix the above issues, I tried to update to Ubuntu 18.04 (it was on the latest 16.04). `do-release-upgrade` wouldn't recognize there was a new version available (this was a few days ago). I did `do-release-upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer. Now, it just boots to a cursor on a black screen and it never changes. At this point I just decided to start using my Macbook again until I get un-frustrated enough to figure out what to do with the Dell.

[+] scardine|7 years ago|reply
My personal pet peeve is the confusing paste buffer(s). On macs it is always ⌘+C and ⌘+V. On linux it may be CTRL+INS and Shift+INS, CTRL+C and CTRL+V, mouse-select and middle-button click and so on.
[+] gargravarr|7 years ago|reply
My greatest praise for Linux is that it's nearly impossible to completely brick the install - it's almost universally possible to recover it, no matter how broken it seems. You can potentially live-boot your XPS from a USB stick, chroot into your existing install and let the upgrade run to completion (Google around for some guides). 18.04 is a very slick OS - I'm running it at work on my company Precision laptop and it's fantastic. The '-d' flag is required until the 18.04.1 release, which is when the new LTS is considered stable enough for existing LTS users to upgrade.
[+] deno|7 years ago|reply
> Headphones constantly crackle when they're plugged in. I've tried updating audio drivers, enabling/disabling various things, editing config files, etc. nothing fixes it. I've gotten used to listening to music with a crackle superimposed on top.

I thought Dell’s XPS series was supposed to have first class support on Linux? Did you try to contact Dell? I never had problem with sound on Linux even with some very cheap hardware.

Anyway, if you’re willing to do some tinkering yourself it might be as simple as adjusting some deep alsa settings.

E.g. this guy makes it look easy[1] :)

> I've also tried updating/changing/etc libinput and it doesn't do anything.

Does it use “precision” drivers on Windows? Sometimes trackpads implement their own gesture recognition and all kinds of other weird things. Check what you get with `xinput list` and try disabling anything that is not a pointer device.

> (it was on the latest 16.04)

Was it a new Dell? If you have new hardware and old kernel then forgot all of the above as that is obviously not a great combination. You absolutely need the latest kernel for the latest hardware.

> I did `do-release-upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer.

Yeah sorry, Ubuntu doesn’t offer safe upgrades. I suggest if you don’t have much Linux experience (and even if you do) OpenSuse Leap/Tumbleweed which has full snapshot & rollback support[1], and since recently fully transactional upgrades as well.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1YkPtfC4LI

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJgWvTLo07k

[+] takluyver|7 years ago|reply
For the record, 18.04 isn't a dev version now, but 16.04 won't offer the update until 18.04.1 is released in a couple of months. That's a chance for early bugs to be ironed out before lots of LTS users upgrade.
[+] sametmax|7 years ago|reply
> In an attempt to fix the above issues, I tried to update to Ubuntu 18.04

Upgrade are offered from LTS to LTS only once the x.x.1 has been released.

[+] xenomachina|7 years ago|reply
Your headphone crackle and screen flicker issues both sound like hardware problems. I've never experienced anything like that on any Linux machine I've ever used. I did have an old HP laptop (running Windows) where the screen hinge had damaged the video cable, and I'd get flicker unless it was opened just right.
[+] rangibaby|7 years ago|reply
See if it boots with a Ubuntu live USB. If it does you can install over the old version.
[+] jnwatson|7 years ago|reply
Man, I'd avoid anything Dell. Our whole company switched to new Dell laptops running Ubuntu, and it is a complete mess (and I've been running Linux since '96, Debian since '00, and Ubuntu since '05).

There are OS issues, hardware issues, and driver issues. In terms of OS, Ubuntu/Gnome 3 still hasn't quite figured out hiDPI. Wayland isn't quite ready either. But these are relatively minor nits.

The CPU constantly throttles. It has power management issues where the USB isn't providing enough power if the laptop is running off battery. One of the fans in my 3-month old laptop is making funny noises. I'm constantly fighting limited USB bandwidth on the USB-C port, where I have to decide which 4 of my 6 devices to plug in. I get lots of kernel oopses with dropped/hung PCIe transactions.

And that's just my laptop. The other folks in the company are having similar problems. Basic stuff, like the camera doesn't work at all in the latest XPS 13 on Ubuntu 18.04.

It is pretty frustrating dealing with this relative to my Mac laptop experience which is essentially everything just works.

[+] gargravarr|7 years ago|reply
Part of the Mac experience has always been that, since Apple have full control of the hardware, everything Just Works. However, Dell seem to be getting there. Developers here get a choice of XPS 13's running Ubuntu, or MacBook Pros, and most choose the XPS. 18.04 gives you a binary choice of 100% or 200% UI scaling for HiDPI, but that seems to be good enough. Oddly, 16.04 Unity gave you a nice incremental slider for UI scaling. Nonetheless, Windows also doesn't handle HiDPI very well, and I think Apple are the only ones who've cracked it. Indeed, most other companies seem to be copying Apple in this regard - I prefer to have 1080 screens and just make use of the raw pixels rather than faff with HiDPI.

No hardware is infallible, and we've had problems with our machines, but Dell customer service has been great - they usually send an engineer out the next day for our company.

Can't deny, though, most people's machines display Ubuntu Experienced An Internal Error as soon as they log in, and we just dismiss the prompt. Doesn't seem to affect usability. Otherwise, the machines run Ubuntu very, very smoothly with all the hardware working. I upgraded one of our older XPS 13's to 18.04 with no problems.

[+] wasted_intel|7 years ago|reply
A Project Sputnik laptop from Dell with Ubuntu pre-loaded is a safe bet. I'd personally opt for an XPS 13" Developer Edition, even if I were going to load another distro like Arch Linux. Project Sputnik's objective is to ensure Linux compatibility, which involves picking components that are compatible out of the box, and submitting upstream patches for those that aren't.

It does help that it's also the laptop that Linus is using: https://www.cio.com/article/3119876/linux/linus-torvalds-pic...

[+] tapoxi|7 years ago|reply
I split my time 50/50 between macOS and Fedora 28. Fedora is very similar to Ubuntu from an ease of use standpoint, and something I'd happily recommend - especially if you use RHEL/CentOS servers.

Compared to a Mac workflow, you won't have a handful of business apps (like WebEx or Office) but its mostly identical. Both Fedora and Ubuntu are on 6 month release cycles, so you can use your system's package manager (dnf or apt) instead of relying on Homebrew. There's also user collections of packages available from Fedora's COPR or Ubuntu's PPAs.

You'll see better performance with containers, since you don't need to go through a Hyperkit VM and docker will just run natively.

Out of the box, both run the GNOME 3 desktop, which is a bit of a mixed bag. The simplicity and ease of window management with shortcuts is great, and you can install extensions to modify GNOME's behavior. Unfortunately performance isn't exactly smooth, but you can look at other full-blown desktops (KDE, MATE, Cinnamon, Budgie) or fast window managers like Sway or i3.

With regard to hardware support, I went with the Dell XPS 13. It's a great machine and I've had zero issues so far. Fedora even handles firmware updates through the update GUI.

[+] wilkystyle|7 years ago|reply
I've heard so many good things about fedora and hardware support. If I end up needing to make the switch, this sounds like my best option.
[+] prudhvis|7 years ago|reply
I use both Mac(Work) and Thinkpads(Personal) laptops. Thinkpads (T470 and T470p are what i use) are really good wrt linux driver support. I personally use Fedora + Sway as my daily driver. It has excellent driver support(didn't get the nvidia ones though). These laptops have about 32G of ram. Plenty to run kvm vm's for all sorts of dev stuff.

Thinkpads specially the T series comes with TLP [1] support. So, the battery life is very good. Apart from that, the keyboard is pretty comfortable, display resolutions are Full HD+. I cannot recommend it enough.

[1] https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-ma...

[+] arghwhat|7 years ago|reply
I'm mostly bugged by the vastly inferior touchpad experience (Apple touchpad > pointy nub > Non-apple touchpad, and that is not up for discussion), and lack of things like Autodesk Fusion360 support for Linux (which I use for hobby CNC/3D printing purposes).

Also, some small UI things are just nicer in macOS, like how well scrolling follows input, making it seem like you're physically moving the content. That illusion is lost on Linux.

Most other things are as nice, if not nicer. I chose Fedora 28 Workstation, rather than Ubuntu, and it's all really quite polished. It's also a hell of a lot snappier, even on the same hardware. I wouldn't recommend using Linux on Apple hardware, though, primarily due to how annoying the gmux (dual GPU multiplexing chip) is to deal with.

I might be buying the XPS 2-in-1 when the 32GB model comes out. AMD > nVidia graphics when it comes to Linux (nVidia are assholes). I would've picked Ryzen, but it seems a bit immature for laptops.

[+] furgooswft13|7 years ago|reply
> (Apple touchpad > pointy nub > Non-apple touchpad, and that is not up for discussion)

I think you must have palmed your touchpad while typing out that list and somehow messed up the order. This is what you actually meant: 3 physical button trackpoint with textured nub gifted upon us by the Thinkpad Gods of old >>>> apple stuff > other stuff. There shall be no further debate!

[+] gargravarr|7 years ago|reply
I'd agree with the touchpad conclusion, with the only distinction that Lenovo pointy nubs > all other pointy nubs. I have a pointer nub on my work Dell and it's pretty poor, acceleration is uncontrollable. My personal ThinkPad, however, is superb. Just like Apple are to trackpads, Lenovo are to TrackPoints.
[+] wilkystyle|7 years ago|reply
I know lots of people here love the pointy nub, but it's never worked well for me personally. The Apple trackpad is far superior to any other vendor's offering, by a huge margin.
[+] krylon|7 years ago|reply
I went from GNU/Linux to Mac in 2013 and back to GNU/Linux about a year ago. (Never owned a Macbook, though.)

Laptop-wise, I can recommend the Asus Zenbook. The keyboard backlight does not work on Linux, and Bluetooth is a little flakey, but apart from that it works very well for me (on openSUSE Tumbleweed, at least).

There are two things I miss: At work, we use a VoIP-based PBX which also supports software clients; the client is available on Windows and Mac. So on the Mac, I could work from home and use my headset for telephony, which was very, very convenient. On Linux, I have not been able to get this to work. The other thing is that on macOS, the text input widget understands the basic emacs key navigation shortcuts (Ctrl+A -> Jump to beginning of current line, Ctrl+E -> Jump to end of current line, etc...); all the muscle memory I had build up over years of using emacs finally paid off in a big way, because I could use part of it everywhere.

Apart from those two pain points, I was very happy to get back on the GNU.

[+] estro|7 years ago|reply
I second the recommendation to get an Asus Zenbook, with the same cons. The case is solid and durable; specs range from reasonable to outstanding (especially at its price point). I would also look at the IBM Thinkpad, as I've had friends and coworkers praise its Linux interoperability.
[+] jasonm89|7 years ago|reply
I made the switch after my Macbook Pro was stolen and I needed something quickly to get back to work. The transition from osx to ubuntu was pretty easy after changing my shortcuts to mimic the ones I was used to in osx. I've been using linux daily on my work machine for 7 months now, and i'm actually a little obsessed with it. I transitioned from Ubuntu to Arch and am using KDE as my desktop environment. Everything can be customized and it's great, I don't think i'll be returning to osx ever again.

I do miss the integration with my iphone though. I used the messages and notes app a lot in osx, so it's kinda annoying to not have that anymore.

Also, i'm using a Thinkpad. Would recommend.

*EDIT I now pretty much use the trackpoint 100% of the time, and don't miss the trackpad gestures at all.

[+] pnutjam|7 years ago|reply
kdeconnect integrates with android spectacularly. I'm on OpenSUSE, but my coworker uses it on Slackware.
[+] Thev00d00|7 years ago|reply
Its a shame you dont have an Android, as KDE-Connect does pretty much what you are missing in terms of phone integration...
[+] aorth|7 years ago|reply
The only thing I miss about my Mac is the hardware. To be more specific: I miss the trackpad. I just picked up a 2018 ThinkPad Carbon X1 (6th Generation) and the machine runs Linux very well. The battery life is around eight or nine hours, the HDR screen is very good, etc. But nothing can come close to the Mac trackpad!

I'm running Arch Linux, for what it's worth. My use of several Macs over the last few years was basically confined to a web browser, Mail.app, and Terminal, where I installed a handful of GNU userland tools from Homebrew and essentially used it as if it was a Linux machine. I never bought into the Apple ecosystem with Photos, iCloud, messaging, etc. My pictures and music are organized in directories and I use open-source applications like darktable and GIMP (pictures) and cantata and mpd (music) so I didn't have any lock-in there.

Caveat: I'm on the systems / devops side, not dev.

[+] skadamat|7 years ago|reply
I made this exact same switch a few months ago! RMBP 15 to Thinkpad X1 Carbon + Arch Linux.

I've loved it but I do miss the trackpad (although I've adjusted my workflow to use physical buttons now + thinkpad's trackpad). I also miss the larger screen (15" was really nice).

Whenever I go back to my RMBP 15 for moving files over, I've noticed the display is still nicer for text. Even with installing some calibrated color profiles, I haven't been able to match the same perfection the RMBP 15 had. Is this something you ran into at all / how did you tweak?

[+] kahlonel|7 years ago|reply
Did you apply the "non-official" patch for the deep-sleep? How well does it work? I'm actually waiting on Lenovo to release an official patch for it before buying this machine.
[+] tannhaeuser|7 years ago|reply
I've always been into Unix and bought a PowerBook back in 2003 as a capable Unix laptop which also did support the couple commercial apps I was using at the time (PhotoShop, MS Office, some graphics apps). Competent out-of-the-box support for displays (had up to two externally hooked up with a PCCard graphics card) and power management, Apple innovations (Expose, Spotlight), plus Unix command line and F/OSS apps was adding to a real great experience at the time.

But I don't like Apple's current lineup (no display options/only glossy screens, keyboard sucks IMHO, no port options). More than everything else, I took offense in Apple selling these as "Pro" machines (and at "Pro" prices) when there's really nothing "Pro" about them compared to older PowerBooks with replaceable batteries and RAM, all the ports, etc.

What did I miss when going back to Linux (XPS 13, Ubuntu)? Not much really. SketchUp for architectural 3D drawings (though I haven't checked with Wine recently which is an unbelievably capable environment for running Windows apps; back then it did almost work but would crash when attempting to save), general polish (Ubuntu is a bit frugal and ugly vs Mac OS), power management and touch pad as good as Apple's, and a nice shopping and unpacking experience, albeit for a price. Didn't miss iTunes, nor Mac OS's slowness :)

[+] 0wl3x|7 years ago|reply
Starting off with Ubuntu is a good idea. That's the friendliest distro of linux yet it still provides a fair amount of extensibility so you can start playing around with the really cool things linux offers. There wasn't anything I found myself missing. I suppose the keyboard layout is a little different but that's about it? Again though, the beauty of linux is that you can change just about anything for your preferences. I guess the recommendation is simply to just switch and just start and be patient! Good luck!
[+] brotherjerky|7 years ago|reply
Install VirtualBox or similar and setup Ubuntu in a VM. Try running that full screen for a while as an easy low-risk way to start kicking the tires.
[+] eropple|7 years ago|reply
VirtualBox performance on OS X is awful enough and it lights your battery on fire to the point that it'd give most people second thoughts about switching.
[+] coolspot|7 years ago|reply
This or dual boot.

On my work computer I still have Windows which I didn’t boot into for more than a year. It was my safenet during my windows -> linux switch for full time. If stuck with task - 5 minutes and I am back to Windows. Don’t recall actually using that capability, especially after I set up free testing Windows VM on Linux.

[+] isaachier|7 years ago|reply
Honestly, nothing. Now I regret all that time I wasted using Mac. I find Linux is really built for software developers, so if I experience problems, usually someone online will have a one-line terminal solution to fix it.
[+] wyclif|7 years ago|reply
If you need a Linux laptop, I think it's wise to look at the appropriate ThinkPad models first. Of course, if you can get away with desktop-only or workstation your options are a lot more interesting.
[+] peatmoss|7 years ago|reply
Seconding this. For the price you can have a desktop at work and at home. The hardware will work flawlessly, and with much better performance as well.

Ask yourself whether working from the coffee shop or couch is really critical or even beneficial to your productivity and mental health.

My biggest realization with workstations is that they are more of a location than they are a computer formfactor. Habituating yourself to work in the work... place liberates you to not work everywhere else.

Back in the day, portable computers were luxuries for the important people in a business. Now I see the true luxury is NOT having a portable.

EDIT: Seconding both the Thinkpad recommendation as well as the suggestion to reconsider a workstation.

[+] anon1253|7 years ago|reply
Note Carbon X1 is not the appropriate one ... which I learned the hard way
[+] crms1496|7 years ago|reply
In my experience Dell laptops also provide a great Linux experience.
[+] mattkevan|7 years ago|reply
I run dual-boot macOS and Ubuntu on a ThinkPad.

Ubuntu worked out-of-the-box, and macOS works well after a few tweaks. I also have a third partition to share files between the two halves. Clover bootloader has a friendly way to select which system to use on boot.

I'd like to use Linux full time, but the software I need isn't there.

[+] williamstein|7 years ago|reply
I recently switched by buying a Pixelbook and installing the new full Linux support (dev channel) vcalled Crostini. Love it! Apple's direction and quality don't match with my needs anymore.
[+] kernelcurry|7 years ago|reply
I am debating on moving over full-time to Linux and picking up a laptop from https://puri.sm/ the hardware and open drivers are the most annoying thing when finding a laptop for Linux it seems. Almost everyone uses terrible wireless hardware or does not fully support the highest resolution or something strange. I am hoping https://puri.sm/ has that all figured out.
[+] rrggrr|7 years ago|reply
PureOS was not a great experience for me and I'm using Ubuntu (budgie) now.
[+] charlieegan3|7 years ago|reply
My first computer was a 2005 iBook. I used to be a huge apple fan but after a bad experience with a 2012 rMBP I started looking at other options.

I bought a Dell precision laptop at the end of 2016 and installed ubuntu. This wasn't the first Linux machine for me but it was the first I really worked at.

At around the same time I set myself the goal of reducing any and all dependencies on gui apps other than a browser. I quit dayone, various database guis, etc in this period. This was key, I also got better at many cli tools in the process.

I spent a considerable amount of time building a dotfile config that was cross platform / worked with my work mac and other apple computers. This was really painful, it was never 100% consistent but it did all me to prove to myself that it was possible to productively use Linux - something I'd always been skeptical of before, for whatever reason.

I then took on a massive downsizing effort and sold all of my computers, this was also a lot of work. Disassembling custom PC's and selling laptops on eBay took longer than expected.

I was then left with only my work computer. Down from 6 laptops/desktops. My work laptop was a max spec first gen touchbar 13" at the time.

I then got a new job, when asking for my new laptop I bit the bullet and asked for the new Dell XPS 13.

So far I'm getting on fine, native containers is the biggest benefit I've seen personally. I miss photoshop a bit as I haven't invested the effort to run it properly on Linux via wine etc.

[+] Sholmesy|7 years ago|reply
I got a fast external SSD and put Antegeros (Arch) onto it.

I then used it as my daily driver, dropping back to Mac if I needed something.

I haven't had to use MacOS for a couple of months for anything. Basically have a useless SSD sitting inside my mac now :)

Added benefit is I can plug the SSD straight into my PC at home and have my full work environment up and running. No driver stuff-around either, it all works perfectly.

I would honestly recommend arch/antegeros. Ubuntu and others are over-hyped for their "ease of use".

[+] karmajunkie|7 years ago|reply
just out of curiosity, what kind of external SSD did you get, and what kind of hardware interface (i.e. usb-c, thunderbolt, etc?)