I think in general macOS is an amazing operating system, recent Catalina bugs aside.
Something related: what I've been really living with is the T2 chip kernel panic hardware bug. Over 3 different models (the 2017, 2018, then the 2019 16-inch MBP which is my current), I've seen Apple go from:
- The initial full-scale buggy behaviour of 1-2 complete system crash & forced reboots per week;
- to Apple suddenly deleting all my previous system kernel crash logs (and no longer recording new ones in Console.app) without my consent or knowledge even though it's my own machine that I paid over $5000 for (must be silent updates of some kind because it happened in between macOS updates);
- to observing Apple slowly tweaking how macOS responds to the kernel panic by no longer crashing the system but just freezing the screen and all controls for up to a minute (while sound continues) before unfreezing itself (this happens maybe 3-5 times per week for me, even more, it happens when watching full-screen video in any app).
So they've improved it but it's still disruptive and noticeable, and plain unacceptable on hardware this expensive.
Yes, I'm slowly planning a move to Linux, but it's not easy, it will take time and it's a major adjustment depending on what your computer needs are. Linux Mint Cinnamon seems the safest bet to me.
I say all this knowing how catastrophically worse Windows 10 is in terms of bugs like Windows updates suddenly hard deleting your entire Documents folder.
Recently made that move having spent most of my life on MacOS. For me it was the feeling of losing control of my system (plus the recent quality issues -- feels like they're busy pushing new features out instead of fixing the bugs with the existing ones).
I thought it would be a lot harder than it was for me, but in the end I'm now much happier on Linux than I was on OSX. There's no specialist software I need that doesn't work on Linux, so it was probably easier for me than if you, say, work in FinalCut all the time.
> to observing Apple slowly tweaking how macOS responds to the kernel panic by no longer crashing the system but just freezing the screen and all controls for up to a minute (while sound continues) before unfreezing itself (this happens maybe 3-5 times per week for me, even more, it happens when watching full-screen video in any app).
That's not a kernel panic then, by definition a kernel panic is an unrecoverable event. What you're seeing is likely an issue somewhere in the GUI/GPU driver stack. Windows used to crash upon such issues too, they mitigated it by moving lots of stuff to userspace.
For me, what is a regular event is freezing for a dozen seconds whenever I alt-tab to Cisco VPN, but ah well that may also be a result of shoddy antivirus software.
I have these regularly when I wake my 16inch macbook from sleep. Keyboard+Trackpad+(Touchbar) Freeze for 30s or up to 1min.. and then it continues like nothing happened. Haven't found much info about that, but reading this, it seems to fit. I'm really digging my machine, but those "silent" errors and apple not admitting anything takes a lot of fun out of it.
OK, I might now agree with that. Perhaps it's a second issue (which only makes the criticism stronger). I still do occasionally get the T2 'crash', i.e. entire system reboot, but not very often. What's most frustrating is how Apple's taken away control of troubleshooting and knowledge about one's own device and what's going on with it, for their own business reasons. Extremely hostile to the consumer.
I would really go with regular Ubuntu for the best support. It really just works and you don't need to put any effort in getting things running smoothly.
I went from Ubuntu to macOS as my daily driver because the company switched to Macbooks. I really like the integration of everything. Especially for developers, though, Ubuntu is the perfect OS.
I would have said Ubuntu a year ago, but I've been watching the Desktop Linux space closely for a year now, and it appears Mint is actually more user friendly than Ubuntu, which is quite surprising and nice to know (I'm not a fan of Snap centralisation either). E.g. the GUI app store is superior, it's been demonstrated...along with other things that actually matter under the 'just works' category.
Yep. Mint doesn't have snaps and they've switched their base from Ubuntu to Debian. They haven't caught up to Ubuntu yet but I expect them to eventually. I don't care for Cinnamon myself but they still have an XFCE edition and you can install KDE or another desktop without issues.
Something related: what I've been really living with is the T2 chip kernel panic hardware bug. Over 3 different models (the 2017, 2018, then the 2019 16-inch MBP which is my current), I've seen Apple go from:
- The initial full-scale buggy behaviour of 1-2 complete system crash & forced reboots per week;
- to Apple suddenly deleting all my previous system kernel crash logs (and no longer recording new ones in Console.app) without my consent or knowledge even though it's my own machine that I paid over $5000 for (must be silent updates of some kind because it happened in between macOS updates);
- to observing Apple slowly tweaking how macOS responds to the kernel panic by no longer crashing the system but just freezing the screen and all controls for up to a minute (while sound continues) before unfreezing itself (this happens maybe 3-5 times per week for me, even more, it happens when watching full-screen video in any app).
So they've improved it but it's still disruptive and noticeable, and plain unacceptable on hardware this expensive.
Yes, I'm slowly planning a move to Linux, but it's not easy, it will take time and it's a major adjustment depending on what your computer needs are. Linux Mint Cinnamon seems the safest bet to me.
I say all this knowing how catastrophically worse Windows 10 is in terms of bugs like Windows updates suddenly hard deleting your entire Documents folder.