Comment by juancn
2 days ago
I get the joke, but I disagree. It mixed hardware with software in a weird way.
Macs are as much about the hardware than the software, and the OS is just another Unix variant. Much closer to Linux/BSD than Windows.
I like tech (no fear, I've been coding for 41 years at this point), but I don't like configuration, I'm a programmer, not IT, and also I heavily lean to getting shit done, so I prefer tools that don't get too much in my way.
I abandoned Linux on the desktop after I lost a battle with Linux audio. I can't freaking believe there's not a single thing that unifies everything, it's such a pain in the ass to setup right.
On notebooks it's a lost battle due to issues with power management that require way more fiddling that I'm willing to invest into.
I’m not sure what distro you used or how long ago this was - but I’ve been using Pop!_os as my general OS + dev env (and more recently switched off Windows to Bazzite for gaming) - and I’ve never once had to battle with audio or weird twiddling with settings to get stuff to work. In my experience - both have had the kind of out-of-the-box experience I’ve come to expect from Windows. If anything - Windows has required a lot more fiddling with settings and hunting down drivers as of late.
Try using a Bluetooth headset in online meetings. That's only the tip of the iceberg... Another is when you're trying to mix multiple inputs/outputs in Linux across various pro audio accessories, which only Mac seems to get right.
Work laptop on Ubuntu 20.04 with pipewire, I've used several bluetooth headsets over the years from all different brands and haven't had any issues across Google Meet, Zoom, or Teams.
Coworkers with wired headphones (also on Ubuntu, but I don't know if they switched to pipewire) tend to have problems regularly.
Usually PipeWire handles these situations better than PulseAudio, which is still the default audio daemon in many/most distributions.
To properly support Pro Audio you have to completely switch the audio stack to JACK - which I also used in MacOS a few years ago because Apple's audio stack wasn't up to the task as well.
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I use my Bluetooth headset on discord, slack, and google meet without any problems on Pop and Bazzite ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Funny enough - I have less problems with audio on Pop/Bazzite than my Mac (where my headset mic can be muted by flipping up - but is unable to unmute without power cycling the headset) or Windows (which cannot ever remember which device I want to use for which app).
I held off on switching to desktop Linux because of horror stories on places like HN. But it’s seriously not been my lived experience. I can only think that maybe these were problems 5+ years ago - or it’s folks that went with super customized Arch installs or something.
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