[RollAHardSix]

I now use Windows professionally & use Debian on my older home laptop (and server), & I previously used a Mac professionally--last year. My thoughts can be summed simply, Macs are toys.

Windows is the king of business productivity; I've never seen someone with a mac do what I qualify as real business work using any applications outside of the Adobe ecosystem- If you took someone who works heavily in Microsoft & gave them a Windows machine, they'll be vastly more productive then they are in Mac OS even though Microsoft works on both platforms.

I suspect this is a core design issue more then anything as in Windows the work you do is forefront, in Mac using the Mac OS is forefront, and with Linix open source is forefront. I can tweak my Debian all day long but it won't ever run Rufus; while my Mac might run some windows applications it also won't give me the same terminal power as Debian will. Debian however won't allow me to run windows apps, will have driver issues (like my completely incompatible-still audio drivers for a laptop from 2008). Package management is and likely always will be a nightmare in Debian. However if I baby Debian and focus on particular workflows, I can set up a workflow for what I want-aka a writing environment or my golang environment but it lacks the robustness of jumping between applications seemlessly like Windows has. Linux continues to fail by not providing a superior desktop environment, however I'll still take Linux over Mac OS for any real work.

My next personal desire is to move my home computing towards purposed servers- one for writing, one for programming, etc while going either super-light laptop or portable screen & usb keyboard / mouse for maximum flexibility. That way I can setup at the multi-monitor command center if I want, or move out to the porch lightly.

I'd even go so far as to say that with the exception of gaming setups, beefier laptops / desktops isn't needed at all- just build home servers.

[conor-]

> I can tweak my Debian all day long but it won't ever run Rufus

Why do you need to run Rufus instead of using dd or mkisofs?

> if I baby Debian and focus on particular workflows, I can set up a workflow for what I want-aka a writing environment or my golang environment but it lacks the robustness of jumping between applications seemlessly like Windows has

This sounds like something solvable by switching to a different desktop environment or using a window manager with more configurable options

> Debian however won't allow me to run windows apps, will have driver issues (like my completely incompatible-still audio drivers for a laptop from 2008)

Perhaps this is a Debian-specific issue because of restricting non-free repos by default and other less principally stanced distros wouldn't suffer from that issue? Also many Windows apps that don't even run on Windows anymore will run perfectly fine under Linux with Wine or other compatibility layers.

[RollAHardSix]

In this particular case dd did not accomplish what I wanted & mkisofs is for ISO's which doesn't encapsulate all cases. Dd also has a particular drawback in that running it incorrectly can wipe your entire hard drive...oops I guess... Linux is like this everywhere- rough & poorly designed from an end user standpoint. In no world should I be using, or even able, to run a command so freely which could f up my system without not only elevated permissions but also confirmation of the very bad thing I'm about to do. That conceptsfollows into package managers with a dozen random dependencies to download or setup some utility you are likely downloading to solve some other problem. Like I said, linux suffers from a poor end user experience & that is their biggest failing...next to the absurd file system standard- thankfully some distros are moving away to something more sane but that will likely be ten plus years before it sees better adoption. Linix should have focused on the desktop environment long ago & as a community stopped looking at distributions as 'a hundred ways to do the same thing' to instead focus on a more cohesive operating system. I could go on but that's enough, they just don't have a great vision & their claims of server OS dominance mostly have to do with it being free more then anything else.

[LogHouse]

> Windows is the king of business productivity; I've never seen someone with a mac do what I qualify as real business work using any applications outside of the Adobe ecosystem

I agree but I feel that’s a very unpopular statement. There’s also counter examples. The OpenAI teams run on Macs, and it’s VERY hard to say they’re not productive. But in general, if you use excel or outlook, yah, there’s no way to replace that with a Mac. Even if, as you said, the apps are available.