This is a bit offtopic. I'd rather have more content on Linux in and on itself than these rants against a corporate OS. Thread locked.
this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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Zorin is a good OS but IMO it's a little too simplistic for most people who know what an operating system is.
But as the video gets at, the question of "when will Linux be better than Windows" is solidly "today". MacOS is probably still "better" for someone fully invested in the Apple ecosystem. But Linux is not far behind that either.
macOS has far better desktop applications across the board than Linux. What you get for free with a Mac is nothing to sneeze at:
- a full office suite Pages, Keynote, Numbers, all of which are very nice. - The default PDF viewer has many functions that allow you to edit and modify PDFs easily.
- GarageBand is a full featured DAW that gets you pretty far with music making at home.
- iMovie a super easy and performant video editor.
Sure Linux has replacements for all these, but they aren’t as nice to use, reliable, or fully featured. macOS has tons of commercial and FOSS applications are available as well.
The indie software scene on the Mac is pretty strong. Omni group deserves a mention with their excellent tools. Also applications like Git Tower and Kaleidoscope are such a joy to use and powerful.
Linux attracts lots of programmers, but it’s difficult to make a living by building a good desktop application. I hope that changes.
Linux on the desktop has other strengths, especially since it lacks the enshittyfication that had plagued macOS for a couple of years now.
Microsoft and Apple see disregarding, that an OS should get out of your way and enable you to get stuff done. To them it’s more of an opportunity to seek subscription services.
Linux on the other hand costs no money. That’s a huge advantage, especially when switching.
Apple tax pays for that. None of it is free. Doesn't mean it's an awful value proposition. Not always a great one either. The new M hardware is...... interesting. The M4 Mac mini, despite being needlessly un-upgradeable future ewaste. Definitely gives you more short term than cheap laptops which are becoming worse to upgrade as well. Even some cheap towers. If all you need is a basic computing appliance they're a reasonable value proposition for the moment.
If you configure the Mac mini with a decent amount of RAM, it will last for a decade of use.
Yes, it’s not cheap. Apple makes you pay in money, what you gain in convenience and time.
A maxed out Mac has never been a good value proposition. (For non professionals) But in years past it wasn't a horrible one. The M series is really changing all that. Right now, you can get unupgradeable M1 MacBooks for the cost of a low-end laptop PC from the same year. Low-end PC laptops that can often be upgraded with cavernous hard drives, voluminous RAM, and even faster networking. Unlike the M series.
And on that decade of support. That's nothing special in PC space. I have a 2009 MacBook that became unsupported by Apple before the end of the 2010s. Microsoft technically stopped supporting the hardware........ last year. When they started following Apple's bad practice of forced obsolescence. The reason many aren't upgrading to windows 11.
For an SBC, Apple's M Hardware is pretty impressive if overpriced. The system I run the most is a 2015 skylake i7. I seriously contemplated a base M4 as an upgrade for a moment because of up front costs. But I just couldn't make long term ownership make sense. So I spent 300 dollars on a 16gb PCIE 5 9060XT for a PCIE 4 system instead. Far better compute and performance than the Apple APUs, even bottlenecked. And able to last and run comfortably to the next generation and a bit beyond. Something that base M4 could never do.
And I admit. I'm not the average user. I run 20 year old systems 24/7. They have this really neat trick. 2 years ago I maxed out the motherboard RAM for 20 bucks a pop. And doubled the core count for 40 each along with clock bumps. Something you can't do with Apple hardware anymore. Hell, even other ARM SBCs are more upgradeable in many ways. Apple has really lost a huge part of their value retention lately. And that's sad.
macOS has far better desktop applications across the board than Linux. What you get for free with a Mac is nothing to sneeze at:
Counterpoint: The apple of yore is not the apple of today.
Recent examples:
- https://noheger.at/blog/2026/01/11/the-struggle-of-resizing-windows-on-macos-tahoe/
- https://blog.johnozbay.com/what-happened-to-apples-attention-to-detail.html
- https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/
- etc...
At this point, the beginner-friendly linux distros (Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Bazzite) are more sensible and logically consistent than either Windows or MacOS.
Tangent: If you're looking at paid git clients on MacOS, I'd recommend fork over Git Tower or Kaleidoscope.
I upvoted you, but I do feel it's only a matter of time before the open source community outpaces Apple as well. Just a few short years ago the "year of the Linux desktop" was a joke. Now for many, Linux is unquestionably the better option.
Imagine having the option to be-exactly-like-MacOS-if-you-want-but-aren't-forced-to (basically what's happened with Linux and Windows this year). It would be game over for Apple, at least from a software perspective.
Sounds like the Zorin astroturfing is paying back dividends.
Advertising works.
Ya all got an obsession with Windows, like it lives rent-free in your heads.
Yeah why are people obsessed with talking about the world's most popular consumer operating system that is, especially recently, consistently getting worse?
I have to use it at work. So I bash it all I can. Its the only solace I get when onedrive keeps advertising on my desktop, AI pops up in Excel, and outlook got much worse (slow AND interface is convoluted now).
Plus my computer stopped working last week and had to get a new one cause of the update....on the day of a major deployment. You cant make this stuff up. Its not just in my head, its every interaction at work.
You know? I don't even think about Windows since I started using Linux as my main desktop OS almost 2 decades ago. Even while I was using for the sole reason of playing games, I wasn't really thinking about it, because all I did was launch the games I wanted to play. Barely ever even opened Explorer ffs.
Nowadays in the glory wake of Proton, it never crossed my mind unless I see posts like this, or my friends are having issues with their computers and they're trying to troubleshoot Windows (lol).
wasn’t really thinking about it, because all I did was launch the games I wanted to play.
It getting increasingly belligerent trying to get me to switch to a Microsoft account over the last decade was by itself enough to make me furious.
Did you switch to Linux yet? If so, welcome to the family!
Oh yes. Like you I only used it on my gaming rig, and 2 years ago switched to Linux even for that
Glad to have you on board!