I’m actually having the opposite experience (for the most part). All the little papercuts of yesteryear are almost completely gone, and it’s only looking better on the horizon. Of course your mileage may vary depending on use case and hardware…

Some things of the top of my head:

• Flatpak replacing 3rd party PPAs. Brand new software without dependency hell or breaking system packages? Yes please
• Snaps and AppImages too
• XDG Portals standards, making snaps and flatpaks play nice with confinement
• Audio and Bluetooth? It “just works” now
• Pipewire
• Even gaming works really well now, with Proton, DXVK etc
• AMD and Intel drivers baked in to the kernel
• Wayland finally being production ready for many use-cases, and being adopted as the default, fixing so many of the ancient X11 issues (screen tearing, multiple displays with different scaling, refresh rate, fractional scaling) ( cries in Nvidia )
• Nvidia finally changing their mind so Wayland on Nvidia can be a thing (I can’t wait 😊)
• KDE Connect / gsConnect phone integration
• Screensharing on Wayland even on legacy X11 apps becoming a thing through the new screensharing Portal

The only problem I’ve had recently is Ubuntu’s forced snapification, and snap being very rough around the edges for Desktop apps (ahem drag’drop)

Right now I am using Ubuntu and I cannot drag and drop into VS Code from Nautilus, I can’t drag and drop from the default archive manager,

anything from Snap or Flatpak in there?

If you can afford it, or even give Mac a test run, it might be worth it for your mental health. Health trumps everything and if your are honestly burnt out and you feel like it could be linked to your operating system, it is worth trying a change.

I use Linux, MacOS and Windows more or less parallel. Each has its quirks and benefits, but I would say Windows is the worst. MacOS looks very clean at forst glance, but has some weird things that appear randomly and seem to get worse with every update. On Linux it depends a lot on how you set up your system, my Fedora with mostly flatpaks works really well, but there are UI inconsistencies all over the place and maybe you need to look for a workaroubd from time to time.

macOS is still Unix, so you’ll find yourself somewhat at home in the terminal.

Honestly, if you’re distro hopping a lot, find one that supports your hardware well out of the box with a desktop environment that suits you and works and stick with it. Futzing around with everything can definitely make it more frustrating.

I’ll echo others’ comments and say that operating systems are tools. Find the one that works for the job. If I’m doing audio production, macOS wins for me. If I’m gaming, I have a Windows install. If I’m doing anything else, Linux is my preferred environment. Don’t overthink it, go with what works for what you need!

Always choose what’s right for your work. You can still keep your Linux distro for the less relevant tasks and skip to macOS for the main productivity job. It’s not a matter of religion

Yup Im like you, been using Linux since I was a kid basically. Probably for 20 years now I guess.

For me, its just screen sharing that is a major annoyance. This is something that is so annoying when it doesnt work, and quite embarrassing as well.

I have had periods when my Linux machine has been the most stable in the team. Mac users had constant problems with bluetooth issues and other bugs.

Currenly im the one having the most issues though, and my collegues with macs dont have any major issues.

So yep, its frustrating. But i really love linux and when I have used mac, I stopped being interested in open source and technology. I dont want to become that guy who just waits for the next Apple conference for exciting news. I enjoy new Gnome and KDE releases and reading about Linux features very, very much.

But yes, its not without its annoyances to run Linux.

I’ve been a Ubuntu user for 12 years. Got bored. Turned my hp laptop into a Hackintosh. Got hooked on macOS and all the convenience the Apple ecosystem has to offer (copy on iPhone, paste on macOS; AirPods automatically switching to whatever device started to play audio; drag&drop works everywhere in exactly the way you’d expect; etc. etc.) Also with brew.sh you can install some commandline tools and use the Terminal almost the same as with Linux. Python and bash scripts work, there’s FUSE available, etc.

And the best: it all “just works”. There’s the odd issue after a major macOS update, but nothing critical.

MacOS is a good middleground and everything blends it smoothly.

But tbh Ubuntu has gone south lately and GNOME has always had troubles with apps interoperability.

I find it easier to use Plasma because I can actually drag and drop to another app. But it’s not perfect either.

Anyways, be it MacOS, Linux or windows the choice is yours. You should switch to something that feels good to you. Plus, on macOS you still have a decent terminal, zsh, etc.

Be free.

I’m new to daily driving Linux. I’ve dabbled with Linux for years, but never used it that much until I installed it on a new m.2 drive on my main PC. Been using Arch for a little over 1 month now.

I can understand your tired of tinkering, I came from windows where I was tired of fighting the OS to do what I want. So in that regard I use the same “energy” but instead of fighting windows I’m learning and getting better and building and customizing my Linux install exactly how I like it.

As for other suggestions I don’t mind macOS, but their hardware screams planned obsolescence. they charge obscene amounts for a few gigabytes extra of SSD. I checked just now and they charge 259euro in my country to go from 256GB to 512GB. And I bought 2TB Samsung 980 pro NVME m.2 drive for 120euro a month ago.

Windows is probably the worst OS, but you can install software that rips out all the built in spyware. And you get keys around the web for cheap. This way you can keep your PC, and the next time you get a new PC you can buy one you are reasonably certain will work well on Linux.

I understand you. I reckon distro hopping burns people out in itself. I personally recommend using EndeavourOS if you’re minimum tech savy and ZorinOS if not. OpenSUSE is not a bad option if you worry about dependencies because it installs all of them and their relatives and the relatives’ relatives… XFCE is by far the best DE imo. Gnome and KDE are a recipe for burnout. In spite of the amount of users they have the most issues. XFCE just works and you can get a skin to make it look more mac like.

Generally I’d recommend avoiding Ubuntu and its forks (so ZorinOS) too if you’re somewhat tech savy. Avoid Fedora if you’re short tempered. It has a big community but things tend not to work OOTB hence why the need for the community. I find EndeavourOS by far the best. Rolling so no reinstalls. I just yay --noconfirm to update.

I also recommend to install Steam as a flatpak so you don’t deal with 32bit libs and flatpak handles them for you to limit issues. My only issue rn is my PC is so ancient the last released bios update was in 2015. 😅

Much love to all my fellow tuxes. 🥰

I felt the same after using Arch for 2 years. I switched to Fedora now and It’s pretty stable. Drag and drop with VSCode is generally broken, not an issue with your system

You should really try a distro that’s actually up to date instead of ubuntu or debian, things are changing rapidly because of wayland, and you might not have a good experience on stable distros until the big transition is done.

I’ve been using various Linux distros since Ubuntu 8.10 came out, when I was back in high school.

Ever since I got my iPad mini though, my computer usage has honestly kind of dropped off. I have a ThinkPad X13s, and I’m waiting on it to get better Linux support (since is has a Snapdragon ARM processor). Until then, it’s currently running Windows 11, and it’s fine. Not the greatest thing in the world, but it works for the things I need it to do, and that’s what’s important to me as I get older.

Once it gets better Linux kernel support, I may install a Linux distro, but at the end of the day 90% of what I do on my personal machines is just browsing the web and content consumption. I’m a Windows SysAdmin at work and tinker plenty. When I make it home, I end up just chilling and reading or watching something interesting.

Hardware and software integration are, for me, the major selling point of Macs and MacOS. If it makes you feel much more comfortable, go for it.

TBH I did the other way around. Ditched windows for Macs around 2005. Eventually got tired of my super outdated macOS on an 10yo laptop a few years ago, was working with Linux already for more than a decade, and I was already using FOSS software for most of my use cases, so I made the jump to Debian Gnome. Everything felt natural. I tend to organize my workflow around what works tho, so YMMV.

Firstly, I think if you want to try switching to macOS, do, it might suite you better. You could always switch back to Linux if you change your mind, but be aware linux typically runs worse on apple hardware. I would say I’ve read and heard people have plenty of problems on macOS too, so the grass might not be as green as it first appears. MacOS does have one thing going for it, which is integration between hardware and software, apple make both. You can get a similar effect by picking specific hardware in linux, it’s less important, linux runs well on most hardware, but if you for example pick a thinkpad, you’ll probably have a better experience on the whole as lots of linux kernel developers use them.

It could be worth trying to ask in a community forum or IRC about each bug specifically and try to fix them, or you could switch distributions and see if a different distribution runs better for you, although Ubuntu is pretty well used and I think I’ve heard they tend to ship recent kernels.

I don’t think the variety is effecting this too much, generally someone working on some tiling window manager isn’t impacting a user who’s using a vanilla-ish ubuntu install, it only really impacts the folk using it and if you’re using Ubuntu you’re using a well defined, well tested set of software. Yes maybe the variety of package management might be effecting you if you’re using some esoteric package management system, but ubuntu uses apt and to an increasing degree snap, so I suspect that isn’t playing a big role in your problems.