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When Apple moved to Intel CPU’s there was the creation of the Hackintosh. Which was running apple’s OS on any PC hardware you had around that happened to be compatible. If you thought finding Linux compatible hardware was rough…that was worse.

Does messing around to play Red Alert at 640 x 480 (instead of the default 320 x 240) qualify? I emphasize that I modded the thing to have ICBM carrying submarines for more realism, and played global thermonuclear war with my university course mate over an RS-232 cable. :P

(We could not afford Ethernet, or maybe couldn't understand it, since it was such a new thing. I recall seeing shiny Ethernet cards from 3COM with some envy.)

I don't have to troubleshoot my kid's Speak and Spell either.

The automation features in macOS are fantastic. Search, filter, run scripts when a new file arrives in a folder, great GUIs for automation, services. It’s sooooo powerful and accessible. Search for menu items in every application from the keyboard. Change keyboard shortcuts for all menus in all applications. Python, ruby, zsh, bash, are all installed by default. The default image and PDF viewer Preview.app has great editing for PDF included.

If you want to get shit done, macOS is just excellent in so many ways.

I started with a windows computer and learned lots about troubleshooting windows. However once I started using a Mac, I actually made cool stuff with my computer like music, nice documents, fun automation, video, programming, and so on.

The indie software scene on macOS is also unmatched, I think. The apps made by Omni and Panic have no equivalent on Linux or Windows. Kaleidoscope.app is the best diff app on any platform.

Listen I love the battery life on my m1 but it's the first mac I've owned and "intuitive" is not the description I'd use for the ui. Is terminal and homebrew familiar sure, and for most things it does work. But then there are the real oddities in the ui. Like why does finder not show me my full file system by default? Why do I drag and drop when installing a new app, thats fucking stupid. Why are files in folders just placed where ever with no order? There should be a grid pattern that works by default so it doesn't become so disorganized. Why does clicking into folders just add a divider in finder instead of actually opening the folder so that after a couple nested folders you can barely make out file names. If you have lived with that madness for all your life maybe it's "intuitive" because you have gotten used to it but linux and windows are just miles ahead in ui intuitiveness when it comes to basic functionality like this.

I've used mac for 2 years now for work (despite my repeated requests for a linux laptop). I have all kinds of weird issues including screensaver taking up gigs of memory, login not working unless I click off my portrait and click back on it (with no other changes), and a bunch of other just weirdness. I can't stand the thing.

Every year I believe this more and more. I've always been lumped in with the tech crowd by anyone not tech-savvy, but in reality all my knowledge is from personal troubleshooting and very limited (I'm thinking of trying Linux and that's gonna be like a whole ass event for me). I used to think that was dumb, but then I started working with more Gen Z...

They have zero idea how to troubleshoot anything. If the computer doesn't do what they expect, it's a full stop for some of them. I have "solved" so many IT problems by replugging a cable or just knowing the settings option exists. These aren't stupid kids either, they're in a tough industry and very capable otherwise. I think my generation was right place, right time to learn this stuff organically because shit just never worked quite right -- apple was largely the outlier back then.

I have an external Samsung SSD that my mac mini just refuses to keep indexed.

The solution to this is when I log in every day I have to go into the Mac system settings and tell finder to ignore my external drive, close system setting, then reopen systen setting and tell finder to no longer ignore the external drive. This is the only way to get it to reindex everything.

I need to do this everytime the mac mini wakes from sleep.

Intuitive for very basic things, but if you want to do anything outside the norm or some ease of use things from other desktops, goodluck.

it occurs to me that we're not a representative section of the online community

This! I have been preaching this for years, both online and IRL with the IT techs I manage. Tech nerds (myself included) forget just how little the normal person even cares about computers, let alone how they work.

The vast majority of people just want to buy a computer in a box, and have it work mostly perfectly. Which windows and Mac's do really really well. And yes, windows isnt perfect but neither is Linux. And for 95% of people the most demanding and complicated thing they'll do is web browsing, and power users might do something wild like play games through steam or install an alternate browser.

And we havent even touched work computers yet, which is a whole other level of "I don't care at all" from end users.

Remember people "Linux is amazing!" is meaningless to people who have never heard the acronym SSD let alone what it is or why it's better than a HDD.

I like to compare it to sewing because I genuinely don't care at all about it. But I hear people say "just thrift clothes and tailor them to you!" But that ignores two things.

1. I genuinely can't think of a whole lot of other leisure activities I'd want to do less than sewing and tailoring.
2. I barely know how to sew a button or mend a rip. Do you think I know how to actually tailor something? Or what types of tools I need? Or how to use them?

Well, the time to find out is now :)

Depending on when and how deep your Mac experience was, it might be an easy switch. Despite its numerous failings MacOS, from OSX onwards, is a Unix. In particular a BSD, via NeXTSTEP.

Mixed messages here: "I’ve simply followed instructions and referred to the help communities, whenever I’ve had trouble." Fellow human, those are the actions of a programming genius and hacker. The bar is remarkably low. A lot of people can't even read what it says on the screen.

It was VIsta for me!

I feel old. Linux didn't exist when I was 10 years old, Linus was still in high school at that point. My home computer was a TRS-80 CoCo 2.