Comment by nine_k
Could you list some of these little things that macOS does and that you miss?
(I usually miss the little Linux-specific things that macOS does not.)
Could you list some of these little things that macOS does and that you miss?
(I usually miss the little Linux-specific things that macOS does not.)
Ah, I get it. I don't like integration of this sort, because it quietly screams "lock in", but do I see how it can be very convenient. So I make do with my own, likely inferior, using Syncthing, and Google Photos for browsing. My music is mostly CD rips, Bandcamp, and some YouTube, and I don't do TV, so it's just easier for me than for normal folks. I can listen to my collection anywhere over a Wireguard connection on my laptop or my phone.
It's a different set of trade-offs; less polish, more control.
Syncthing is great. I'm closer to the poster you're responding to -- I tried Asahi Linux and liked it, at least when I ignored the "Mac users will probably like GNOME more" and switched to KDE Plasma (this Mac user, at least, thinks it's way better), but still ended up back on macOS Tahoe despite having a myriad of nits to pick with it. But when I was playing around with it, I set up Syncthing so I would be able to keep working on documents on the Linux laptop, other Macs, and the iPad, and Syncthing worked fast and basically flawlessly, better than either iCloud or Dropbox in my experience. I may eventually set it up as a local sync solution between the Macbook Pro I'm using for everything and a Mac Studio that's become my home server.
For me it's the keyboard and hotkeys.
I use macs at work and Linux at home. There's no uniform way to make a Linux machine accept things like cmd right arrow to jump to the end of the line, etc.
This is the closest attempt, but it has many gaps: https://github.com/rbreaves/kinto
Most of my gripes are probably Gnome specific in this case - When you screenshot something it pins the image temporarily on the screen. If I drag into any open app it avoids saving it to disk. - Pressing CMD W or Q consistently closes any app (works on some gnome apps) - Mac keychain passkeys (I don’t own a usb stick) - Third party window management (through accessibility privileges only) - Apps respecting dark mode settings - The app menu (file, edit, window, etc) being in the same spot every time
Definitely not exhaustive since I only spent a few weeks with it. There were also plenty of things I liked about Gnome more but not enough to tip the scale for me
iMessage, Apple Pay (w/Touch ID), native Apple Music client, iCloud (if you're invested in the iCloud ecosystem) along with its seamless integrations with photo apps like Photomator (among others), shared music and movie library across my Mac, iPhone, and Apple TV.
There's probably a lot more I'm not thinking of right now. Point is, if you're an iOS, macOS, and iCloud user you give up a lot of quality of life bits going to another platform. There are times I want to go back to Linux, but when I think about the stuff I'm going to loose I talk myself out of it. macOS isn't the greatest, but it's not the worst either and Apple's products and services just tie in very well with each other. I get annoyed by things like the shitty support for non-apple peripherals, needing 3rd party apps to make them work decent, crappy scaling except on the most expensive monitors and no decent font smoothing when running at native resolutions. But... I stick with it because I either like or love the tight integration and added quality of life that comes with it.