This post is half a decade in the making. On June 15th, 2012 I took the plunge
and switched from Linux to Mac OS X. 1,585 days later, I am writing to let you
know that I have seen the error in my ways and I am back home, running Linux.
The thing is, I have always felt as if a little piece of me had died when I
wholly bought into the Apple Ecosystem prison. I had come from
a time when we called Apple users really nasty things. And no, I’m not talking
about calling them fanboys.
But it “just works”, right?
Sure, Apple stuff does just work. Maybe not 100% of the time, but for a filthy
casual, it works well enough. I don’t think I’ve ever been a casual computer
user nor am I filthy. Okay, maybe I’m a little bit filthy.
So my quest to switch back to Linux has actually been going on for a couple of
years now. I knew going in that I’d most likely be back on Linux but over the
last 2 years I’ve been very adamant that I would be switching back soon.
Everything just working does make it hard.
Sadly, when asked why I would want to move back to Linux, I would vaguely
respond that I was way more productive in Linux. When asked for specific
examples, I really didn’t have any.
Time to get real, I had become very productive with OS X. I would argue that I
was more productive in OS X because of some of the more advanced hackery I was
up to like using Karabiner to create dedicated hotkeys for apps.
Incidentally, this reliance on third-party hackery is ultimately what drove me
back. macOS Sierra brought Siri to the desktop and fucked up Karabiner with no
resolve in sight. And this isn’t even the first time that Apple has made
changes that impacted my productivity.
I’m sorry, I thought this was America.
Full disclosure, I’ve been watching a ton of videos of Richard M. Stallman and
Bryan Lunduke as of late. These guys make it really hard for me to stifle my
inner Saint IGNUcius.
Believe it or not, I do get it. Apple makes these changes because they are
trying to save me from myself. Father knows best and all.
But wait, it’s not “the” system, it’s “my” system. I bought this system with
money I earned and should be able to do what I want.
Warranty, schmoranty, over the last four years I have upgraded the RAM in my
iMac, only to find out that the system supported twice the RAM that Apple said
it could. They lied to me.
Apple also introduced System Integrity Protection (SIP) that made it harder for
me to swap my hard disk for an SSD without some recovery mode magic. Said magic
needed to be ran after each OS X upgrade. Not ideal.
At least half a dozen times I have upgraded to the lastest OS X only to find
that some piece of third-party software that was critical to my productivity no
longers worked because of something Apple changed.
These breaking changes usually took over a month to resolve and often times
resulting in me buying the latest version of the software that worked on my
version of OS X.
What really set me over the edge recently was Dash being pulled from the App
Store. Now I don’t even use the app, but I hate the idea of Apple having so much
power over their developers.
Even if the nonsense about fake reviews is true, who’s to say that Apple isn’t
going to make it so all apps have to go through the App Store in the future?
Next macOS, they could easily drop the setting to allow you to install apps that
aren’t downloaded from the App Store.
That’s why I’ve switched back to Linux. I’ll take freedom to choose how I use my
computer over it just works being saved from myself any day.
Next: Part 2: The Distro
