> My variosu Linux adventures have always resulted in doing random patches for audio or screen incompatibility.

This is the kind of dated argument that really makes me dismiss most of the critics. I was running xubuntu as my main desktop since 2010 at least, switched to Debian + nix + XFCE in 2022 and switched to full-on nixOS in 2024. I never had issues with audio then and had to go out of my way to "break" audio on NixOS when I wanted to try pipewire instead of pulse.

> feel like most Linux ricers wises for a MacOS-like experience

I've put together a Hackintosh once, tried for a few weeks as the daily driver. Aside from being able to use tools that dealt with real-time audio processing, there was nothing else I wanted to copy or bring to my Linux system. It cemented my opinion that most software developers that keep touting the "superiority of MacOS" never gave a fair shot at Linux on decent hardware and were just rationalizing their prior choice.

In my personal experience macOS is fine but updates are often buggy or regress performance. Linux has just been the more polished option. Plus it just has a nicer desktop and apps.

I use macos because of the battery life and because I want a Linux like experience without wondering if some weird software a company update forces on us will work, like citrix desktop or their random vpn client. But for someone who spends most of their time in the terminal, and the rest of the time in a browser, macos has some really annoying quirks especially when it comes to window management

"entirely possible" is a bit of a stretch. You can install some hacky WM and sketchybar but system settings, workspace three finger scroll speed, the finder app, window chrome, login screen etc are not something that can easily be changed. And the default apps are really not that great for power users. Calendar, Mail and Finder are all slow, dumbed down and only very superficially customizable. I daily drive an M2 Pro MBP and I was running a Linux desktop up until 2 years ago and I felt like there were barely any limits to customizing the latter while I have to fight macOS at every step if I want to do something that apple does not want me to do.

Not a problem I have had on Linux.

Some people seem to get better battery life with Windows than with Linux.

Most users on any OSes are not ricers. Most of my customisation is functional - panels and widgets placed for practical reasons. A lot of people do not seem to customise at all, or barely.

Ricing is big, but I also like the hackability and development friendly environment of Linux that isn't there on Macbooks (been running MacOS as a secondary for ~5yrs now)

MacOS is also optimised for M series chips in a way that realistically no linux distribution ever will be.

Definitely good to have the option, but you'll most likely never get quite the same performance or battery life on linux

> My variosu Linux adventures have always resulted in doing random patches for audio or screen incompatibility.

Is that on Mac hardware? I run a 14 year old Mac Book Air, and it works flawlessly with the latest Nixos, and has done for the last 11 years.

If you have issues on random PCs, it's because there are an enormous variety of them out there, with all kinds of incompatibilities that have to be worked around. On Mac hardware, there tends to be a more restricted number of variants, and after a few years, Linux becomes rock solid on them.

So the OP is correct, Linux on Mac hardware is the best combo.

Liquid Ass enters the chat, Apple can’t even make rounded corners anymore.

I was burned by the 2016 MacBook Pro keyboard, and once Liquid Ass was announced I knew it was time to get out.

Sold my MacBook Pro M2 Pro, which has a stupid gigantic notch that blocks the menu bar items with no built-in mechanism for getting to them when they overflow.

Now I’m on a Framework 13” and I’ve had zero issues with Linux. Everything just works. KDE Plasma is way more customizable than macOS or Windows. I’m finally able to ditch slow Homebrew and use a real package manager. I can finally play light PC games on my laptop without dealing with streaming or Crossover.

My preorder is in for the Framework 13 Pro, which looks to get even closer to delivering a MacBook Pro for Linux. Meanwhile, Apple hasn’t changed their chassis design in 5 years, while Framework updates their hardware constantly while maintaining cross-compatibility. A company with less than 500 employees is catching up to a trillion dollar corporation.

I’ve already got my fully modular LPCAMM RAM delivered and ready with no Apple tax. I’ll get better battery life watching YouTube videos than a MacBook Pro and the graphics are just as powerful as the M5 base chip.

And if something breaks I won’t have to deal with the nightmare I went through with my 2016 MacBook Pro.