I recently started a new job at Plain and in addition to all the normal new-hire nerves, I was faced with my first Apple device - a Macbook Pro. Having spent the last decade plus as a Linux desktop guy I was nervous to say the least, but after having spent a few months getting to know Apple’s operating system and hardware I feel like I’ve come out the other side alive and want to share some thoughts.
Most Linux distributions nowadays work just fine out of the box, however, it really becomes a joy to start building your own environment on top (or instead!) of the one your OS shipped with. And this brings me to the first thing I miss in Mac OS. While I’ve given in and just rolled with some changes (i.e. Cmd vs Ctrl), other things I just want to work the way I’m used to them working and not having control over my computer in order to make them so is really frustrating. Daily driving a Linux desktop operating system brings a joy back to the computing experience because the device is yours and you can do whatever the hell you want with it. It also forces you to learn more about how your computer actually works. When stuff breaks, and oh it’ll break from time to time, you’ve got to figure out what’s going on. Of course this is not for everyone, but if you’re a similar type of nerd I know you’ll enjoy it too.
The next thing I noticed is how (unsurprisingly) polished the Mac operating system and ecosystem are. One aspect I wasn’t aware of before daily driving a MacBook was the plethora of really nice indie Mac apps available. Of course the open source ecosystem has lots of desktop applications available too, but Mac apps differ in that it seems completely normalized to offer your app as paid only. Funny how normalizing asking for money for your software and having only 1 desktop environment and programming language to write for results in higher quality software.
I think daily-ing a MacBook is not as far of a leap as many Linux users imagine. Obviously it’s a unix based system as well and you’ll find many of your favorite CLI and developer tools available there as well. Getting used to the operating system is the biggest hurdle, but there are a few things that can make that bridge much easier to cross. So I’ll finish off this post by just listing some of the most useful Mac apps I’ve found. Happy to hear about yours in the comments!
- Raycast - App launcher
- Stats - Menu bar widgets
- Karabiner Elements - Key remapping
- Amethyst - “Tiling window manager”
- Little Snitch - Firewall with great GUI