Linux

Perhaps you shouldn't. Any honest Linux user will tell you up front if that if you have a comfortable system already it may not be worth the disruption in your workflow while dealing with the learning curve. That being said, being free from the whims of Apple is a nice feeling.

I think that's a lot about personal preference. Do you enjoy your machine? That you can't repair it? That you can't easily take your OS with you one to a machine from another manufacture? Maybe you don't care. I do. I think Linux gives you a lot of freedom, but if you don't need or want it, I don't think there is a reason to change. I mean, apart from the whole Apple-being-a-big-coorporation-that-actively-hinders-reparability issue that one might care about from a societal and environmental perspective.

Maybe you could get all the same stuff you need for development in Linux, and a lot more freedom to boot.

I apologize that this comes off a bit hostile. I am a bit hostile. I am also sorry for it!

I generally find that setting up dev environments to be easier and cleaner in Linux. I prefer standard distro packages compared to homebrew and all it's quirks. There's also native support for docker. If you're doing backend stuff, it also helps that the machine you're developing on is using a similar OS as the server that's going to be running your code in production.

If it's for your workplace though, evaluate whether it's worth disrupting your workflow to make the switch. Don't let your productivity suffer because of it. Maybe test it out in your own free time and make gradual migrations. For a long time, I was dualbooting between Windows and Linux, and I've slowly migrated over.

„It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.“ — Voltaire

I would use the word people instead of fools, because even the smartest people can be misled.

Also, for some people freedom is very important even if it cost them dearly. Other people just want convenience and luxury, and don't mind living in a golden cage.

You really have to make your own decisions in life. What makes you tick?

I don’t know that anyone would be in a position to convince you. If macOS fulfills your needs and you don’t have a strong ideological opposition to anything from closed-source software to private corporations, there isn’t a reason to change. I have a MBP that’s a fantastic machine.

Linux, to me, is largely about choice and the ability to directly shape your tools. So I also have a roll-your-own custom Silverblue installation via the ublue.it project on a Thinkpad. It’s not better than my MBP, but I can do different things with it that aren’t tied to Apple’s release schedule. And it’s pretty great to manage my personal OS through GitHub.

In the desktop world, some folks roll with only suckless software and a forked personal copy of an esoteric tiling window manager. Some folks roll with default gnome or kde. Most are somewhere in between. They can use a privacy-focused fork of Firefox or they can use Microsoft Edge. The only limitation is imagination and time, whether yours or someone else’s. The downside compared to a private, proprietary ecosystem like macOS is that more tools are developed erratically, abandoned, or have “unique” user interfaces and assumptions.

But, again, I use both. If you feel like you need to switch away from macOS, that’s really up to what you need to do and what you want to accomplish.

Eventually you would not have to switch from your MacBook M1 if you like the hardware. Consider following asahi linux, you can follow them on Mastodon or just their GitHub

While I am a Linux user myself I would not recommend switching if you are happy with macOS, especially in the software eng. field there is not much reason to switch unless you explicitly need a platform to do your work. If you can accomplish your work on any platform pick what you're most comfortable with.

Being able to run Docker natively is pretty sweet.

At the end of the day you should use what you prefer. As for why I use Linux, it comes down to the core design philosophy. Apple designs their products for the happy path. Stray from that and you're going to be fighting the OS for every inch. Linux is designed for hackers (as in the original term, not security). It not only allows you to do what you want, but encourages it.

As an example, consider the number of window managers available on Linux. There are the two big ones that are closer to the "happy path" (Gnome & KDE), but there are also dozens of other mature options. i3. bspwm. sway. Xmonad. Awesome. There are so many options, and for the most part you really can stitch your OS together from the parts you like. Except for systemd... but that is a whole different conversation.

There are plenty of other reasons I use Linux for everything I can, but that's the selfish one. And it's why I feel downright uncomfortable using anything else at this point.

i mean, if it works for you, it works! by all means, stick with it. it's all about what works best for you

but since you're asking about Linux's features...for me, a college student, Fedora Linux works. the desktop's workspaces feature allows me to have a different workspace for each task or context, and i can create as many as i want easily. i can open up several apps at once by dragging icons from the app grid and dropping them onto workspaces, so i can get set up quickly

when it comes to updates, i appreciate that i can update my computer whenever i want or put updates off until a more convenient time. app management is super easy (especially in comparison to the dumpster fire that is Windows app management), the Software app that comes out of the box does everything: installing apps from different repositories, system updates, firmware updates, even version upgrades for the OS are handled in one place

the desktop itself is a bit restrictive out of the box. there are no desktop icons and you can only tile windows to half the screen. you can download extensions that restore any functionality you're missing though, like Desktop Icons NG for desktop icons, and Tiling Assistant for quarter tiling. i like the minimalism though. having no desktop icons forces me to actually organize my files, and to compensate for the lack of tiling i use the workspace feature i mentioned above. i especially like how everything hides itself away when you're actually doing work, so all that's visible is the clock, the system indicators, and whatever you have open

there's plenty of other advantages other people cite like top-to-bottom control of what software is on your system (Linux will even let you get rid of the bootloader if you wanted to for some reason), no DRM, and Everything Just Works™. i can't personally speak about my experiences with those since i haven't felt the need to replace any integral software, i haven't done repairs to my laptop other than putting in a new SSD, and i don't use any peripherals other than a printer (the printer setup was dead simple though). but i know that if i ever want to do any of these things, i can totally do them

i know my use case is pretty different from a backend software engineer's, but i thought i would share my personal experience with using Linux as a daily driver

In terms what you missing out compared apple os to some linux distro for me as for fellow backend engeneer it is defenetly docker. For work i am forced to choose apple or microsoft os so i picked apple because their docker integration is slightly better but both are far behind linux in this. It is because both need to run vm with some custom linux distro under the hood because docker is built on top of some feature exclusive to linux so it is running slower and also they need to connect base os filesystem with the one on linux vm so you can sync your project files with docker container and this feature especially is worse on windows than on mac altho both again far behind linux where your containers are practicly as fast as if you run nativly.

I have plenty of philosophical arguments regarding support of free software, and building our own way online we can wax poetic about. There's also a discussion to be had of the benefits of a 'bazaar' over a 'cathedral' style of software use.

There's plenty of great reasons to search out alternatives and not wind up 'beholden' to or reliant on any one mega corporation. We're responsible for the bridges built for those that come after us, do we want those bridges built by Apple and Facebook, or built by the public? You may think that as a user, your choice of operating system doesn't matter, but your choices do have an active effect on those around you.

At the end of the day though, if you have a work flow that you're happy with and there's no reason to change or upset it, I tend to tell people to do what they're comfortable with. However since you've asked this question to begin with, maybe you're looking for a challenge and just looking for a push?

push

If the tools you just work for you and make you happy, keep using them. If you want to play with Linux out of curiosity, just install it onto a virtual machine. There's very few things that one OS can do that the other one cannot.