MacOS is garbage

There are people here who say that GNOME is a copy of MacOS I want to let you know that you that you are deeply unserious, one desktop is functional and the other is MacOS.

Same thing with people who say KDE is a Windows clone like Windows 11 didn't just steal KDE design language but made it worse because unlike KDE which is unified, just a few clicks in Windows you are suddenly transported to 2010 with the old Windows control panels, and Windows users vastly prefer the older menus.

Linux desktops are superior to their proprietary rivals. We may not have Adobe (lmao who needs that shit 🥴), we may not have HDR (not yet, check back in a couple of months or half a year), we don't have display mirroring (okay that one is valid) but our workflow is far superior.

GNOME did a lot of innovation and took A LOT of flak for it, but in the end they were right and most of the improvements to Windows Explorer after the disaster of Windows 8 were cribbed directly from it. The fact that you can launch a program on Windows by pressing the Windows key and typing two or three characters followed by enter is all thanks to GNOME. The fact that, after launching that program you can send it to the left half, right half, or full screen by pressing Windows-left, WIndows-right, or Windows-up is all thanks to GNOME. For all the talk in Windows 9x era programming manuals about how not all computers have mouse inputs, GNOME actually nailed down the keyboard-driven interface for "floating" window managers. The fact that you can hold ctrl-shift-left/right and drag these windows between several virtual desktops is just Linux users grave-dancing on Windows with a 10+ year old concept.
- mfw Linux file managers had tabs more than a decade before file explorer.
- I hate that the GNOME team is called "woke"? by a lot of Linux-using chuds online. Idk why though, it's so fucking weird.
Workflow on Linux: Whatever I want. Workflow on MacOS: Whatever they want, and if I want to change something, I have to install a third party tool reverse engineered from their private API that will break on every update.
Gnome did kinda steal its look from osx though. Gnome looked nothing like that when osx was released.
Windows11 definitely stole a lot from KDE though.
I can't see much except the most surface level similarities between GNOME and macOS, anyhow. After finally ditching Windows a couple of years back, I now use GNOME daily, and the transition was very natural. Annoyingly, I (have to) have macOS for occasional work stuff, and current macOS is nothing at all like GNOME except they both have dialog windows and popup menus, I guess? Even those don't look or work similarly though, so I'm not sure where this idea that they are a copy came from. Maybe from people who haven't used either one in years?
How in the hell macOS got a reputation for being intuitive, I do not understand; it is the polar opposite of intuitive. GNOME on the other hand, just works exactly as I would expect. It's easy, it's pretty, it's free, and it doesn't have any ads. Installing software is simple for non-technical people, and the home key takes you to the front of a line of text as you'd expect. 🤣
- From the few Mac enthusiasts I keep in touch with, MacOS peaked with Catalina apparently. It's like their version of Windows 7.
We may not have Adobe (lmao who needs that shit 🥴)
The majority of workers in many media-centric fields, unfortunately. Can’t for Adobe to rest on their laurels for so long that they finally lose some market share.
I've always seen people say that if you are coming from MacOS then try GNOME, and if you are coming from Windows then try KDE. This is the first time I've heard of anyone say either of those desktops blatantly ripped their respective OS's off.
- The two proprietary desktops are so feature-bloated that it's hard to say exactly what "creative inspiration" was taken but KDE devs have talked about how they noticed Windows likes to copy KDE and even Deepin for their desktop for the "new and improved" ugly bottom bar that Windows users love to tell everyone they hate.
  MacOS and Windows and KDE all use Qt as their toolkit so it's not hard to see the similarities.

Dgaf it’s10x better than Windows,

you’re trying to desperately hide Windows in the corner, putting up

to fight. Mac’s not winning that battle, sure, but bring out the red headed stepchild

wat is 10 x 0
- 0

I don't get the joke, but yes, and it has been since like 1998. Toy OS for the computer illiterate.

alluding to those who will say something like, "linux is great, and macos is ok, but windows is awful!"
- the worst people: "Linux is free for those don't value their time" and the somehow worse corollary "macos is like linux but functional"
for the computer illiterate.
Except when you have a single little problem, then you need a degree in Apple bullshit to fix it
- No, you just need a credit card.

No, MacOS's UI is fantastic!

(Once you install 4 different 3rd party software tools (2 of which require licenses to buy (1 of which is abandoned and doesn't work smoothly on any officially supported Mac OS)) to fix it)

Anyway this is a way of saying yes, stock Mac OS UI is very lacking and also asking, what Linux distro should I try if I like a lot of things about MacOS's UI especially with the trackpad geature control and keyboard shortcuts for window organization and resizing I get from third party applications?

I dunno what's best for you, that's what's so beautiful about Linux
This is such an accurate comment. Mac is antithetical to productivity, out of the box. Managing windows on Mac is so frustrating. Especially if you run a vertical monitor because now the task bar is physically disconnected from the window. I hate it.
- Whenever I used macOS I felt very restricted, like as if I had to do real work but all I had in front of me was a toolbox full of plastic toys meant for children. It was NOTHING like GNOME, despite what many like to parrot. Compared to macOS, GNOME on Linux or BSD is SO much better in terms of workflow.
Any distro that uses GNOME as the desktop environment will have touch screen/trackpad gestures, an app tray, and virtual desktops, as well as a touch screen friendly interface.
Fedora Workstation uses GNOME by default and I really like the way that distro feels. Their full drive encryption is very easy to set up during install process too, just check the box and come up with a password.
If you haven't tried Linux before, make a Live USB and boot from that to check that your hardware works with it. There is no fully stable Apple Silicon Linux distro so it will have to have Intel, AMD, or ARM cpu.
https://fedoraproject.org/workstation/download
There is a popular GNOME extension that adds window gestures as well. Video demo and link to get it
- Cool! Thanks for the suggestion :)
  That's fine, I don't have and I'm sure will never get Apple Silicon anyway, the new machines are extremely expensive, deliberately fragile and difficult to repair and maintain, and I hate the direction MacOS is going in (worse UI, genAI -- one advantage of not having apple silicon is the ai bullshit doesn't run on older chips!)
Fedora Workstation or Silverblue. They come with the latest GNOME desktop environment which is closer to Mac's design vision minus all appleisms and steve jobs worship. You can easily install extensions using the extension manager flatpak application which adds neat functionality like window tiling and blur.
If you want complete customization and control you can instead use Fedora KDE/Kinoite which you can customize to look like MacOS or your own custom design. I personally think KDE is generally more powerful and feature-rich than GNOME but GNOME has a simple but unique and intuitive design that doesn't change and the GNOME devs are legit artisans when it comes to eye candy. GNOME is also the default Linux desktop on a lot of distros which is a plus.
Silverblue and Kinoite are atomic variants of Fedora that are based around atomic (one-click) updates to the OS image. It eliminates the haphazard-ness of Linux updates but certain things that are basic on non-atomic spins are slightly more involved (like installing additional programs outside of the ones in the image).
especially with the trackpad geature control
libinput-gestures
keyboard shortcuts for window organization and resizing
the window management options available for linux will make whatever you're using on macos seem primitive, so it's hard to tell you. best to look at your options and see what people do with them (i.e. on places like !unixporn@lemmy.ml)
- Whoah. Cool, thank you!

Nah, MacOS > Windows for me:

Homebrew > Chocolatey. Yeah, Homebrew doesn't hold a candle to apt/pacman/dnf, but with Homebrew you can install popular programs used in Linux like btop. With Homebrew, you can turn your terminal into something that mostly resembles a Linux terminal. Meanwhile, you're stuck with installing Windows programs like Notepad++ with Chocolatey.
MacOS comes with zsh by default, which is useful because zsh is used by other Unix-likes like Linux and BSD. As of Windows 11, the default shell is Powershell. Unless you really like Powershell, having zsh instead of Powershell is a plus if only because it's also used in other OS.
Spotlight > Windows search. Windows search is trash tier. It's slow and gives you useless shit instead of what you want. And unless they really botched spotlight post-Catalina, spotlight is honestly better than most Linux DE searches. Not as good as the golden standard for searches: KRunner.

For everything else, they both suck and require third-party tools to make them suck less. Windows is only better than MacOS if you're a gmer.

Macos > Windows, but that doesn't mean it's not still garbage.
Spotlight is great. Alfred changed my whole searching game.

yea, never got why anyone would seek out macos. at least with windows you could run shit on it, i can download whatever repacks i want double click install and run.

windows (and yes, linux) runs on everything no issue everything from $100 mini PCs to 4090 gaming PCs, mac only runs on apple's hardware (yes there is hackintosh but no one but nerds use that shit). same reason why i do not care about Apple Silicon, its not like I can buy it separately.

what exactly can't you run on macos just out of curiosity?
- more recently, software for reflashing firmware on my LTE Modem, only on Windows/Linux.

As someone with a MacBook Air M2, the hardwares is top notch, some of the best in the world.

The software however, is complete garbage.

Time to check out https://asahilinux.org/
- I don’t mean to be a total bitch, but damn, hardware support is… not great right now. no non-HDMI external display support (so Thunderbolt, USB-C, and DisplayPort displays are a no-go), no Thunderbolt or USB4 support at all (so good luck if you’ve been using a Thunderbolt dock to connect all your peripherals + display(s) via one cable), and the internal display can’t do 120Hz or HDR. it’s cool that it mostly works, but those issues would make Asahi Linux on MBP a non-starter for many professionals – especially since many of us who have been running Macs for a few years are using USB-C or Thunderbolt displays with built-in USB hubs or Thunderbolt docks at this point, or displays that can only run their full resolution and/or framerate via Thunderbolt or DisplayPort and run at lower resolution and/or framerate over HDMI.
  source: https://asahilinux.org/fedora/#device-support
- Can I dual boot it?

MacOS is the OS i only ever use because they make me use it for work and I'm glad it's at least not Windows

ill take macos over windows any goddamn day of the week.. i work in IT and managing windows machines is for suckers

also homebrew sux and blows

It ain't THAT bad. Ever since they normalized on installing into /opt/homebrew/ it got a lot better.

Better than 11. I'm a Debian head for decades now, only boot windows for occasional rare Adobe or some game that works better there.
MacOS is the worst of all worlds, it's like modern Linux but with some of the obfuscation of the file system out of the box and limitations akin to those imposed in a Windows environment.

The hell are y'all doing with the OS that doesn't involve launching a browser?

worst thing my abusive ex ever told me was that macos was the best os 😔

I'll be honest, I'll take Mac os 10/10 times over Linux on my actual machine.

On a server? Linux 10/10 times. But you can't take my M1 MBP and Mac OS away from me. Nothing comes close to the combo.

The only thing good about macOS is zsh as the default shell.

i haven't taken the time to learn zsh, but i imagine there is an advantage to configuring it for yourself

Absolute truth, and has been since day 1

Agreed but unfortunately it's the only thing that can be used on a machine with the specs and QoL of an m1 air at that price

never used an m1, but i have an m2 for work and it is ass. stutters and does weird shit all the time
- i call foul on that. this has to be because your employer installed crowdstrike or some shit on it. The apple silicon chips are best-in-class and deliver the best performance per watt.
- Is it an m2 pro?
  The M1 pro I have for work sucks too
Asahi Linux exists and actually exceeds MacOS with OpenGL 4.6 support and a vulkan driver. The only things that are missing is device support for microphones and usb-c displays.
The penguin stays winning.
MacOS is a treat-based operating system.
- The only things that are missing is device support for microphones and usb-c displays.
  Those are pretty super important to a lot of people
You can run Linux on an m1 air.
- I'm ngl Linux casual use is even worse than macos

Only reason I am somewhat looking at Apple for my next laptop https://asahilinux.org/

MacOS is good for work because it's easy to administer remotely, more secure and less annoying than Windows. Also someone else is paying for it.

noone said windows is not garbage
- Did you just fall out of a coconut tree? Software exists in the context of what precedes and surrounds it.

As an alternative to homebrew there's also nix-darwin with a bit of a learning curve

I'm all for exploring nix on one of my own machines, but I'm honestly just punching a clock on MacOS and nothing more.
I have everything I need to do my work, I just will not ever enjoy the part where I have to do it in MacOS.

Who cares about what OS you use. Sounds like boring whiny nerd shit.

I see you also work in containers and your base OS doesn't matter
I feel like people hold this attitude to justify something they're actually insecure about because they know it has flaws.
- Mate. When you get to my age, what OS you prefer doesn’t mean shit. It’s just a repackage of “console wars”. Just dumb shit for weirdos to have a hissy fit over. It’s inconsequential to me what others like, as it should vice versa.

Better than windows

Windows > any Linux distro > MacOS