I don’t necessarily agree that it’s what most people want. I think the reason that most people keep buying macs is because of MacOS. It is so nice to have a UNIX-based OS with great UI, so we keep buying the overpriced, out-of-date, defective laptops because we have no other choice. I’m convinced that a solid, secure, reliable and polished Unix-based OS for developers would quickly wipe out a large segment of Apple’s market share.
I've long felt that the greatest threat to Linux on the desktop (for the past ~15 years) has been OSX, not Windows.
We all want a solid and reliable UNIX-based OS, but we also want an OS that won't be treated as a bastard child by hardware and software vendors. As much as we all love the world of free software, sometimes we actually do want/need to use commercial software as well.
Apple has given us what we fundamentally want, so we just put up with all the baggage that comes along with it. After all, what else are we going to do? Use Windows?
I have been going back and forth for many years between Linux and MacOS. In 2013, I just got annoyed at how finicky it was to get something compiled. I ended up with a Mac at my current job at the beginning, but a year into it, I had enough.
Ubuntu has been a fine OS for me. It's not perfect, but it serves its purpose well enough.
I think that's right. Our only two options are the Linux desktop with its high-maintenance potential of timesink, and Windows that, while it has improved, suffers from an authoritarian approach to things like reboots, updates, ability to customize and so forth. I use Windows 10 + MobaXTerm after moving off of the increasingly annoying MacBook design choices.
But there's something far worse: killer apps (for some professionals and hobbyists) only exist for Mac OSX and Windows. I'm looking at you, Adobe.
Linux has improved a lot in the last couple of years. Even on state-of-the-art hardware you can expect reasonable support if you choose a distro that uses a recent kernel (ie. Manjaro instead of stock debian).
I've been using a 8th gen computer for a year and I haven't had any problems. On the contrary the hevc hardware decoder/encoder works on linux, but I couldn't get it to work on Windows.
On the other hand Windows looks more polished than KDE and GNOME.
Having recently built an AMD gaming rig and bought a Aero 15 laptop with the latest 8th gen chip and installed the latest Ubuntu on both, not everything works out of the box (sensors and discrete graphics specifically), but both machines did everything I asked of them.
Curious. Have you tried Gnome Shell or recent KDE or some modern Linux desktop like that for a while?
Because I always assumed MacOS as a Unix with shiny UI as well, however once I worked on one for a year or two I realized it long lost its uniqness. In many ways the UI is closer to Windows 7 than Windows 10 is. And things like Unity/Gnome Shell or even win 10 long went in a more productivity focused UI concept.
Agreed... we need another apple that makes laptops and polishes the linux OS that it comes with (great software/hardware integration). I'll buy those over macs
