Taking Another Run at Linux

I've been a Mac user for over 20 years. And I used Windows for 10 or 15 years before that. I played around with other operating systems here and there but never spent enough time with any of them to get comfortable.

I've also been a hardcore Apple fan ever since I made the switch from Windows. But over the last few years, Apple's operating systems seem to be getting less reliable.

I don't know if it's their annual upgrade cycle not allowing time to fix bugs, the need to stuff "exciting" new features into each release, or a general lack of caring about the details the way they used to. Whatever it is, I run into more and more weird problems on all my devices.

Apple's prices are also getting to be a little much. They've always been on the high side but it's getting harder and harder to justify the cost. Especially when you want more than the base RAM and storage options.

I've seen several long-time Apple users who switched to Linux recently so I decided to try that myself.

I've been fascinated with Linux for over 30 years. The first time I used it was sometime in 1993 or 1994. I don't remember what version or distribution it was but I remember an ad in Byte magazine catching my eye.

Poking around in old Byte issues in the Internet Archive, I think it was this one:

I used AIX, IBM's flavour of Unix, a little bit a few years earlier. I knew little about the command line but I loved the idea of having the kind of control it offered. Being able to install a Unix-like OS on my own PC sounded like a lot of fun.

I ordered the Linux CD-ROM from the ad and installed it on my PC. Probably a generic 386 or 486 of some sort at the time. It was early days for Linux though. It didn't support some of the hardware in my PC and I quickly gave up on it.

The allure of a Unix-like system never really went away and I tried Linux various times over the years. OS X's Unix foundation was one of the things that originally drew me to the Mac too. Linux never stuck for me though - it always seemed like too much work to maintain.

Seeing all the people making the switch lately convinced me to give it another shot. I bought a used ThinkPad T480 on Amazon for about $300 and installed Ubuntu as the main operating system.

I also came across the Omakub project by David Heinemeier Hansson of 37 Signals fame. It sounded like an interesting way to get a lot of niceties I'm used to with macOS without having to go searching for them myself so I set it up on my vanilla install of Ubuntu.

Now I've got a fully functioning Linux laptop and so far, I'm really enjoying it. Everything worked out of the box and most of the apps I use regularly have Linux versions available. There are a couple of macOS apps that I'll need to find alternatives for (particularly DEVONthink and OmniFocus) but I was surprised at how many were available natively for Linux.

From what I've read, ThinkPad laptops have good Linux support. And Ubuntu seems to have good support for a lot of hardware too. I don't know if I happened to pick a good combination or if Linux support is that much better than it used to be, even a few years ago. But for my particular setup, it's been solid as a rock so far.

I don't know if this is the first step toward leaving Apple's ecosystem but I can see how it might lead to that eventually. It'll be interesting to see how I feel about this new setup once I learn a bit more about Linux and start to get comfortable with all the differences.

I'm sure this won't be the last time I write about this switch.