[lholden]

I ended up doing something similar a few years ago. Picked up a MacBook Pro M1 Max back when the M1 stuff was new to replace an aging Lenovo running Linux. I actually really loved my Lenovo + Linux, but the M1 was new and shiny and I desperately wanted better battery life.

The hardware was great, but life on a Mac always felt a bit convoluted. Updating the OS was especially frustrating as a software developer because of all the interdependent bits (xcode, brew, etc) that often ended up breaking my dev environment in some way. It also always amazed me at the stuff that was missing. Like, how isn't the default terminal app fully functional after all these years? On the plus side, over the time I used it they did add tiling and the ability to hide the notch.

Finally at the start of the year I moved back to Linux and couldn't be happier. Had forgotten just how nice it is to have everything I need out of the box. The big thing I miss is Affinity Photo, though that looks like it's in the middle of dying right now.

[krisgenre]

Exactly! I too bought the M1 Macbook Air in 2021 because of its great battery life. I wanted a powerful device for hacking on personal projects at home (I use a Dell running Ubuntu at work) but every time I opened it there was always something frustrating about OS X that made it unsuitable for dev stuff (at least for me)

* Finder - this is my most hated piece of software. It doesn't display the full file path and no easy way to copy it

* I still haven't figured out how to do cut/paste - CMD + X didn't work for me

* No Virtualbox support for Apple Silicon (last checked 1 year ago)

* Weird bugs when running Rancher Desktop + Docker on Apple Silicon

But still Apple hardware is unbeatable. My 2015 Macbook pro lasted 10 years and the M1 is also working well even after 4 years.

[FabHK]

> * Finder - this is my most hated piece of software. It doesn't display the full file path and no easy way to copy it

View -> Show Path Bar to display the full path of a file.

When a file is selected, press Option-Cmd-C to copy the full file path. Or just drag the file anywhere that expects a string (like the Terminal, or here). That strikes me as quite easy.

Cmd-X, -C, -V work as expected, what exactly is the problem? (Note that macOS, unlike Windows, doesn't allow to cut & paste files to avoid loss of the file in case the operation isn't completed. However, you can copy (Cmd-C), then use Option-Cmd-V to paste & move.)

Now, that might not be completely easy to discover (though, when you press Option the items in the Edit menu change to reveal both "tricks" described above, and contain the keyboard shortcut).

At any rate: when switching OS, is it too much to ask to spend a few minutes online to find out how common operations are achieved on the new OS?

[fragmede]

FWIW, Virtual box did get ported to Apple silicon, but long time Mac software developer Parallels has a consumer grade VM management software. Theirs supports directX 11 on arm windows, which is critical for getting usable performance out of it. Conversely, VMware's Mac offering does not, making 3d graphics on that painfully slow.

There's also a couple of open source VM utilities. UTM, tart, QEMU, Colima, probably others.

[danhau]

Reg finder: you can drag and drop the little folder icon into other apps, which will insert the full path.

[neop1x]

In Finder moving a file is mac+c like copy and mac+shift+v or something like that. mac+x and mac+v works for text.

[skydhash]

I have an M1 air and 8th gen intel Dell (openbsd) and I’m much happier wit the Dell for hacking on stuff. MacOS is pretty much a nightmare if your workflow is not apps and IDE centered.

[linehedonist]

What’s missing in the terminal app?

[lholden]

It is maybe one of the most featureless terminals out there. Slow, poor color support, weird and frustrating permission interactions, limited font options, incomplete terminal emulation, etc.

It has improved a bit over the years and is generally fine if you just need to knock out a few commands. But I don't find it to be a very pleasurable experience compared to the alternatives. It feels very much like Apple implemented "just enough" and no more.

[fragmede]

For the tmux-ers, tmux integration. iTerm2 integrates really well with it, for both local and remote sessions.

[schwartzworld]

Download iterm2 and see for yourself

[neop1x]

iTerm2 is a must. This is probably the only Mac app I miss on Linux. Kitty and Ghostty are missing so many important features, they fill like hobby proof of concept terminals to me. The closest alternative for Linux IMO is Wezterm.

[wongogue]

It’s a TextEdit vs Pages thing. Try Ghostty, Kitty or iTerm2.

[stevage]

The one that always surprises me is that there is absolutely no image editor of any kind.

But really, I just don't use that many desktop apps (or at least, not generic ones) so I don't have much of an issue on MacOS.

[snowwrestler]

I frequently edit images in Preview on my Macs.

[dent9]

The lack of a native simple image editor does indeed suck. I've been using Paintbrush for years and it's good enough

https://paintbrush.sourceforge.io/

[abrookewood]

Pretty sure you can run Asahi on that? Might have been worth the effort instead of swapping out the machine as it's still pretty capable.

[lholden]

I didn't actually buy anything new for my transition back to Linux. I have a gaming system that had traditionally been running windows. It's a powerful system, but has always been a "toy" running Windows for playing games. Last year I moved it to Linux and have been incredibly happy with the move.

These days I am also now working from home full time, so it kinda hit me. "Why the hell am I trying to work from this MacBook when I have my really great gaming desktop that runs Linux now?" Moved my work over and have been incredibly happy.

I'll have to give the Fedora Asahi Remix a go on my MacBook Pro though. That's a great idea!

[cromka]

You can run Affinity Photo on Linux via Wine, though