Egyptian Full-Stack and Unity game developer, bilingual in English and Arabic, planning to learn Data Science, Cybersecurity, Calculus, and taking AP CS A.
https://buymeacoffee.com/codeswallop
MacOS is similar to Linux, especially in terms of the CLI. And while MacOS is based on UNIX, Linux is generally considered more performant, especially with the same theoretical PC specs (not with an advantage for Macbooks over other PCs). I found that my PC became much faster after installing Ubuntu and making some customizations [that will be listed in an upcoming article]. Despite the learning curve, I believe Linux is well worth it!
As objective a resource I could find, I asked perplexity.ai: If price were no object, would software developers more likely prefer using linux or mac?
Answer: If price were no object, software developers would likely prefer using Mac over Linux for several reasons:
Hardware-software integration: Macs offer seamless integration between hardware and software, providing a highly optimized and stable development environment.
User experience: macOS provides a polished, user-friendly interface that "just works," reducing the time spent on system configuration and maintenance.
Unix-based architecture: macOS offers a Unix-based system with a POSIX-compliant command-line interface, similar to Linux, making it familiar for developers who appreciate Unix-like environments.
Development tools: Macs come with a rich ecosystem of developer tools, including Xcode for native Apple development, and support for various programming languages out of the box.
Cross-platform development: macOS allows developers to work on projects for multiple platforms, including iOS, macOS, and web applications, all on one machine.
Compatibility and testing: Macs enable developers to test their applications on Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, covering major browser compatibility issues.
Mobile development: For cross-platform mobile development, Macs are essential as they can run both Android Studio and Xcode, allowing developers to build for both iOS and Android.
Stability and performance: macOS is known for its stability and performance, especially with the transition to Apple Silicon, which has improved efficiency and speed.
Professional support: Apple provides regular updates and professional support, which can be crucial for enterprise environments.
While Linux offers advantages like open-source flexibility, customization, and a wider range of hardware options, many developers would likely choose Mac if cost wasn't a factor. The combination of a Unix-based system, polished user experience, and seamless integration with Apple's ecosystem makes it an attractive option for software development.
Egyptian Full-Stack and Unity game developer, bilingual in English and Arabic, planning to learn Data Science, Cybersecurity, Calculus, and taking AP CS A.
https://buymeacoffee.com/codeswallop
All qualifications aside, if I'm reading this correctly, you're implying macOS is a preferable development environment to Linux. We agree on this.
I've always been OS-agnostic; I've never been an evangelist for Apple, Microsoft, Linux, or others (Atari, DEC, NeXT, OS/2, Sun/Oracle...), even if I've enjoyed their products. I will add this tho: A friend on social media once commented it's amazing how quickly after moving to a new city that it becomes a part of you, and to me that applies to computing environments.
Computing has come a long ways, and computing resources (storage, memory, graphics, networking) are now a better value than they've ever been, and performance has roughly followed Moore's law for decades. Maybe you're different, but every Open Source Software advocate I've known--and there've been more than a few, uses proprietary smartphones; point being that you've probably spent a fair sum on proprietary operating systems at the same time you're talking badly about them. Even Linus Torvalds, inventor of the Linux kernel, uses a MacBook Air M2 for ARM64 architecture compiling. Every computer has a price, even if it was given, and there's no pretending that that capitalism doesn't dictate our consumer choices.
Windows has improved a lot on the software side. Security, reliability, compatibility, price, and you can usually buy an OEM Windows license on eBay very reasonably. Apple doesn't sell macOS. Apple sells computers, of which macOS is one component. The problem with comparing Linux to macOS is not value, but rather than macOS is not a product.
A couple years ago I bought the most affordable and lowest spec-ed M1 macbook I could find on a Black Friday sale, which was pretty affordable. In terms of performance, it's far exceeded my expectations, but it's value is not based solely on benchmarks. Most software developers are looking at that list above. Am I coding, or spending time configuring a tiling/3D window manager, or install a requirement for a development environment and finding it's incompatible, or requires reconfiguration, or another package manager, or any number of things. macOS developers usually just code. Also, part of the value proposition of a mac is the build quality, which is impossible to compare with Linux because Linux is an operating system rather than a retail computer.
This is why I wrote the comparison of Linux vs mac is inapt. Your thesis is too coarse.
Egyptian Full-Stack and Unity game developer, bilingual in English and Arabic, planning to learn Data Science, Cybersecurity, Calculus, and taking AP CS A.
https://buymeacoffee.com/codeswallop
I don't consider myself an "Open Source advocate" since I do use many proprietary products. But I talk about what the common guy can use. And it's not just macOS and Linux, I've spent more than half of my life using Windows and the countless issues (that most Windows users aren't aware of since they're used to them, or at least, after the issue is resolved they forget about it) that come with it!
I once had more than 20GB of disk space available in my 200GB hard drive (60GB of that space taken is just for windows), when I started my computer it gave me a BSOD with such a vague error that describes my disk as offline or non-bootable or something. I used diskpart to see my disk and turns out that Windows switched the boot drive to another drive I had on the PC because the 20GB+ space available for it was too little!
And there were many issues like that, they didn't come often, but when they came, they wasted hours and days of my time. I could switch to a MacBook but I can't afford the price tag. So my only solution was Linux. On Linux, such problems mostly only come due to mistakes you have made (whether intentionally or accidentally).
So I do agree with you, that if you have enough money and disk space, macOS wins. But that's the point: If you have enough money and disk space, which many people don't have both. You need to consider all factors at once, not some of them. Part of why I could prefer MacOS over Linux is that MacOS is a much more restricted operating system since it's part of the Apple Ecosystem and only works with compatible products.
Even as a non-macOS user, I know people who use MacOS and their top complaint is that it doesn't work with most products since they don't "fit apple's standards", which is a phrase they use to mock this super incompatibility. One of them, a PhD, had to send their presentations to their colleagues since their MacBook just didn't work with the cable that connected to the pointer (or whatever it's called) that's used to control the slideshow. They bought different cables and trying until one of them randomly worked.
MacBooks are the most incompatible piece of Hardware I've used. So for those wanting to stay with their normal PCs but not the Windows operating system, it's Linux.
However, I do not consider this argument worth it, since after all, everyone chooses what fits them most. I prefer Linux, and you prefer macOS, we both live our lives according to our preferences.
While Linux uses a swap partition, Windows by default uses shadow RAM on main storage, meaning the Windows system uses available storage for it's own performance and stability, so if your storage is ~ 90% full, that can be an issue. While it's true that Linux operates with few constraints, some constraints are for self-preservation, as some will expect to be able to use 100% of their disk capacity with no consequences. On Linux with sudo, deleting the kernel itself is trivial, while commercial operating systems like Windows and mac do more hand-holding, and self-preservation is a good thing. Everyone makes a mistake at some point.
My macbook cost US$600, came with 256GB storage, of which I'm using half, although I have VMware Pro with Windows 11 Arm64 beta installed for testing, which uses a 64GB disk image--and runs at near native performance--both free. I have 11 USB devices connected, including multiple keyboards, multiple mice, storage, monitor, and 0 Apple cables or devices, plus several bluetooth devices including 2 pair of headphones. I've never used the Apple charger, rather getting power from my USB monitor. You might mention to your colleague that there are now several specs for USB cables, and it doesn't need to be Apple, but some USB devices require different USB cable specs. I can't speak to prior to 4 years ago when Apple started manufacturing their own M series cpu's, but since Apple created their system on a chip where memory, storage, and graphics are integrated onto the cpu, performance is solid, and 4 years is long enough to be an established baseline. Also, my macbook will run for 20 hours, which is highly efficient, and it has no fan so it's silent. I've even run it outdoors in 110+°F with no operational anomaly, and this is the lowest specced model. mac's build quality is also a perk for travel, which is becoming more common.
I do like Linux, which has improved so much that installation is trivial, although I'd usually suggest a virtual machine over dual-booting, and for dated PC hardware post Windows 10 end-of-life, Linux is definitely a solution. However, developers will likely find mac a more pleasurable coding environment than Linux for those 9 reasons Perplexity.ai summarized, and buying a macbook doesn't mean you have to take out a second mortgage, plus on M series cpu's, meaning any mac produced in the last 4 years, performance is a non-issue. The good thing about Dev is people can see all the information and decide what's best for themselves!
Egyptian Full-Stack and Unity game developer, bilingual in English and Arabic, planning to learn Data Science, Cybersecurity, Calculus, and taking AP CS A.
https://buymeacoffee.com/codeswallop
Yeah exactly, Dev has all the information available for anyone to take their pick!
But the M chips and stuff are all hardware capabilities, my performance comparison was in a hypothetical case where all three operating systems have the same specs (on the same motherboard), Linux would probably win.
While I do agree that Linux's 100% freedom can be system-breaking sometimes (e.g. when I first installed Ubuntu in dual boot, I accidentally uninstalled python instead of upgrading it, which led to me having to reinstall the system after further breaks), some people just prefer freedom. And having a swap partition is more transparent than using a form of swap are from the current disk space displayed as available to the user since it's clear what's for you and what's for the system. A simple tool like baobab (explained in the third article of this series) can additionally tell you how your taken disk space is distributed across your entire filesystem!
I have to say it was nice talking to you, I would conclude this discussion with saying that there's no one-size-fits-all OS that everyone should use. It all depends on various personal and technical aspects that vary from person to person!
Egyptian Full-Stack and Unity game developer, bilingual in English and Arabic, planning to learn Data Science, Cybersecurity, Calculus, and taking AP CS A.
https://buymeacoffee.com/codeswallop
MacOS is similar to Linux, especially in terms of the CLI. And while MacOS is based on UNIX, Linux is generally considered more performant, especially with the same theoretical PC specs (not with an advantage for Macbooks over other PCs). I found that my PC became much faster after installing Ubuntu and making some customizations [that will be listed in an upcoming article]. Despite the learning curve, I believe Linux is well worth it!
As objective a resource I could find, I asked perplexity.ai: If price were no object, would software developers more likely prefer using linux or mac?
Answer: If price were no object, software developers would likely prefer using Mac over Linux for several reasons:
While Linux offers advantages like open-source flexibility, customization, and a wider range of hardware options, many developers would likely choose Mac if cost wasn't a factor. The combination of a Unix-based system, polished user experience, and seamless integration with Apple's ecosystem makes it an attractive option for software development.
Yes, but that's the point: Cost is a factor. As I said in the article:
I love MacOS, I've tried it on my friends' computers but I'd also love it to be more accessible and more lightweight!
All qualifications aside, if I'm reading this correctly, you're implying macOS is a preferable development environment to Linux. We agree on this.
I've always been OS-agnostic; I've never been an evangelist for Apple, Microsoft, Linux, or others (Atari, DEC, NeXT, OS/2, Sun/Oracle...), even if I've enjoyed their products. I will add this tho: A friend on social media once commented it's amazing how quickly after moving to a new city that it becomes a part of you, and to me that applies to computing environments.
Computing has come a long ways, and computing resources (storage, memory, graphics, networking) are now a better value than they've ever been, and performance has roughly followed Moore's law for decades. Maybe you're different, but every Open Source Software advocate I've known--and there've been more than a few, uses proprietary smartphones; point being that you've probably spent a fair sum on proprietary operating systems at the same time you're talking badly about them. Even Linus Torvalds, inventor of the Linux kernel, uses a MacBook Air M2 for ARM64 architecture compiling. Every computer has a price, even if it was given, and there's no pretending that that capitalism doesn't dictate our consumer choices.
Windows has improved a lot on the software side. Security, reliability, compatibility, price, and you can usually buy an OEM Windows license on eBay very reasonably. Apple doesn't sell macOS. Apple sells computers, of which macOS is one component. The problem with comparing Linux to macOS is not value, but rather than macOS is not a product.
A couple years ago I bought the most affordable and lowest spec-ed M1 macbook I could find on a Black Friday sale, which was pretty affordable. In terms of performance, it's far exceeded my expectations, but it's value is not based solely on benchmarks. Most software developers are looking at that list above. Am I coding, or spending time configuring a tiling/3D window manager, or install a requirement for a development environment and finding it's incompatible, or requires reconfiguration, or another package manager, or any number of things. macOS developers usually just code. Also, part of the value proposition of a mac is the build quality, which is impossible to compare with Linux because Linux is an operating system rather than a retail computer.
This is why I wrote the comparison of Linux vs mac is inapt. Your thesis is too coarse.
I don't consider myself an "Open Source advocate" since I do use many proprietary products. But I talk about what the common guy can use. And it's not just macOS and Linux, I've spent more than half of my life using Windows and the countless issues (that most Windows users aren't aware of since they're used to them, or at least, after the issue is resolved they forget about it) that come with it!
I once had more than 20GB of disk space available in my 200GB hard drive (60GB of that space taken is just for windows), when I started my computer it gave me a BSOD with such a vague error that describes my disk as offline or non-bootable or something. I used diskpart to see my disk and turns out that Windows switched the boot drive to another drive I had on the PC because the 20GB+ space available for it was too little!
And there were many issues like that, they didn't come often, but when they came, they wasted hours and days of my time. I could switch to a MacBook but I can't afford the price tag. So my only solution was Linux. On Linux, such problems mostly only come due to mistakes you have made (whether intentionally or accidentally).
So I do agree with you, that if you have enough money and disk space, macOS wins. But that's the point: If you have enough money and disk space, which many people don't have both. You need to consider all factors at once, not some of them. Part of why I could prefer MacOS over Linux is that MacOS is a much more restricted operating system since it's part of the Apple Ecosystem and only works with compatible products.
Even as a non-macOS user, I know people who use MacOS and their top complaint is that it doesn't work with most products since they don't "fit apple's standards", which is a phrase they use to mock this super incompatibility. One of them, a PhD, had to send their presentations to their colleagues since their MacBook just didn't work with the cable that connected to the pointer (or whatever it's called) that's used to control the slideshow. They bought different cables and trying until one of them randomly worked.
MacBooks are the most incompatible piece of Hardware I've used. So for those wanting to stay with their normal PCs but not the Windows operating system, it's Linux.
However, I do not consider this argument worth it, since after all, everyone chooses what fits them most. I prefer Linux, and you prefer macOS, we both live our lives according to our preferences.
While Linux uses a swap partition, Windows by default uses shadow RAM on main storage, meaning the Windows system uses available storage for it's own performance and stability, so if your storage is ~ 90% full, that can be an issue. While it's true that Linux operates with few constraints, some constraints are for self-preservation, as some will expect to be able to use 100% of their disk capacity with no consequences. On Linux with sudo, deleting the kernel itself is trivial, while commercial operating systems like Windows and mac do more hand-holding, and self-preservation is a good thing. Everyone makes a mistake at some point.
My macbook cost US$600, came with 256GB storage, of which I'm using half, although I have VMware Pro with Windows 11 Arm64 beta installed for testing, which uses a 64GB disk image--and runs at near native performance--both free. I have 11 USB devices connected, including multiple keyboards, multiple mice, storage, monitor, and 0 Apple cables or devices, plus several bluetooth devices including 2 pair of headphones. I've never used the Apple charger, rather getting power from my USB monitor. You might mention to your colleague that there are now several specs for USB cables, and it doesn't need to be Apple, but some USB devices require different USB cable specs. I can't speak to prior to 4 years ago when Apple started manufacturing their own M series cpu's, but since Apple created their system on a chip where memory, storage, and graphics are integrated onto the cpu, performance is solid, and 4 years is long enough to be an established baseline. Also, my macbook will run for 20 hours, which is highly efficient, and it has no fan so it's silent. I've even run it outdoors in 110+°F with no operational anomaly, and this is the lowest specced model. mac's build quality is also a perk for travel, which is becoming more common.
I do like Linux, which has improved so much that installation is trivial, although I'd usually suggest a virtual machine over dual-booting, and for dated PC hardware post Windows 10 end-of-life, Linux is definitely a solution. However, developers will likely find mac a more pleasurable coding environment than Linux for those 9 reasons Perplexity.ai summarized, and buying a macbook doesn't mean you have to take out a second mortgage, plus on M series cpu's, meaning any mac produced in the last 4 years, performance is a non-issue. The good thing about Dev is people can see all the information and decide what's best for themselves!
Brainwashed apple fanboy.
discuss.kde.org/t/kio-gdrive-not-w...
Yeah exactly, Dev has all the information available for anyone to take their pick!
But the M chips and stuff are all hardware capabilities, my performance comparison was in a hypothetical case where all three operating systems have the same specs (on the same motherboard), Linux would probably win.
While I do agree that Linux's 100% freedom can be system-breaking sometimes (e.g. when I first installed Ubuntu in dual boot, I accidentally uninstalled python instead of upgrading it, which led to me having to reinstall the system after further breaks), some people just prefer freedom. And having a swap partition is more transparent than using a form of swap are from the current disk space displayed as available to the user since it's clear what's for you and what's for the system. A simple tool like baobab (explained in the third article of this series) can additionally tell you how your taken disk space is distributed across your entire filesystem!
I have to say it was nice talking to you, I would conclude this discussion with saying that there's no one-size-fits-all OS that everyone should use. It all depends on various personal and technical aspects that vary from person to person!
I think they're just mixing up which factors we're comparing, nothing more.