I’ve raised this question on a few Linux communities and it had little to no engagement, maybe everyone just tired of answering the same question over and over again , but I’ll give it a try given that this can help others trying to fully migrate to Linux.
I do use Linux on servers, but I do most of my coding using a Macbook Pro M1 Max. The issue is the following, I’m getting really tired of Apple’s control over everything. I love the CPU, I love the consistency of the OS, sometimes good and bad, and the applications, damn, I love the applications: Things, Mail, Calendar, Keynote, etc… some have counterparts on Linux, but none with the same quality.
I’m very inclined on ditching completely the macOS and stay full time on KDE, this is why I’m asking here, and I’m wondering if others have done the same, and if yes, what are your thoughts?
If everything goes well I’ll switch to a Framework 13 with the Ryzen AI 9 370 HX with 64GB of memory. I tried to find other laptops but none have the same qualities. Most goes only to 32GB of memory, and those who go to 64GB are very expensive. But I’m open for laptop suggestions.
Please, don’t get me wrong here. What everyone is doing at the open source world is God’s work, but we need to agree that most of those softwares have teams of paid engineers just improving them.
It was my first post, that’s why I could not edit it and I’ve added a reply.
Oh well! I switched to linux and completely ditched windows back in 2000 (the windows millennium and windows 2000 era) because my SCSI CD-Recorder didn’t work in millennium and my printer (epson stylus color) didn’t work in windows 2000.
I never installed windows again in my personal computers and honestly it was the best decision in my life because after 2008 I turned it to a job (sysadmin and programmer).
I started on Linux as well as BeOS in 2000, moved to Linux full-time in 2002.
I do not work in any sort of technical field at all.
I still sometimes have work that requires Windows, and I am frustrated and annoyed by it every time. I can’t make it do what I want, the way I want, with the software I want.
To be honest, I have never played a game on Steam in Windows, even though my account is pushing 20 years now. I have not had to deal with Adobe, but to be honest, I don’t think I know anyone in real life who uses their products, either.
The long answer: I still have my Windows install just in case but I’ve not had to resort to it. I do have my pain points, mostly on the graphics side: the HDMI Forum deciding I can’t push 144hz on my display and VRR being imperfect but that appears to be being worked on, more video sliders (brightness, contrast, etc) would be nice but Plasma’s existing offerings with HDR enabled are enough for a casual like me to emulate having a contrast slider.
There are other GUI things I’d like in audio: setting bitrate and depth, making virtual audio devices and loopbacks for example but in these cases I found the ways that already exist to do them.
I’d be happier if I could have global hotkeys working with the OBS Flatpak release but that’s an OBS problem more than a Linux one (even Wayland has the infrastructure in place) but I have a workaround (thanks to Fedora) so I’m reasonably happy. I can use my computer for all the things I was using it for in Windows and I’m not being spied on for the privilege.
I’ve used some form of Linux for nearly 25 years. I dual-booted for quite a while. Now, it’s been more than a decade since any of my PCs or laptops had Windows installed. Sadly I have to use Windows at work. But for home use, a decade without Windows has been GLORIOUS!
Windows 2000 to OS X in 2001, very happy for 10 or 12 years, then gradually fed up with bad software quality and the “yes I do, god____it where is the I-know-what-I’m-doing-leave-me-the-f__k-alone-button???” factor.
So Mac to Linux around 2019, first a year of Cinnamon which is ok but since then KDE which is very lovely. Feels just as cozy as OS X did back then.
Yes, some of the programs I use are a little bit cruder on the outside than most Mac-programs but I have to say I’m very happy with what I’ve got. Thunderbird takes some getting used to and turning off UI elements but then it’s cool (especially if you have 64 gigs of RAM - it likes eating that after running for a while).
Hardware: Frame.work is pretty nice but I tend to buy cheap, used laptops off ebay (I spread the love among my peers, you know). Honestly, if you’re not a gamer or do rocket science, any machine will do. KDE is snappy as hell on my 7 year old i3 with 16 gigs.
I have been using Linux as my primary operating system since 1998.
With dual boot until 2018. First because it was “necessary” (for gaming mostly) then because I had paid for it anyway.
In 2018 I made the choice to discontinue that practice and buy a laptop that had Linux pre-installed (Tuxedo InfiniBook 13).
I think on the current system I don’t even have a Window VM around anymore or it has been dormant for years.
Quite happy with the features and consistency of the KDE software eco system, both desktop and applications.
My personal highlight is the flexibility of the PIM applications as I can run them as separate programs (KMail, KOrganizer, etc) on my desktop PC and also run them “combined” as a single program (Kontact) on my laptop.
For my next laptop I am also considering a Framework 13 but also re-evaluate current Tuxedo offerings as they had great configurability the last time around.
I guess that also applies to other Linux laptop vendors like SlimBook and System76 as they are more likely doing “built to order” than mass producers like Apple, Dell or Lenovo.
I’m old enough to remember Year of the Linux Desktop all over magazine covers pre-Y2K. My first attempt was 1998 (Red Hat) and I ran away screaming after a week or so. Gave it 3-4 more tries over the following decade but never made it >2-3 weeks. Just too many rough edges and loose ends.
Tried again in 2020 and survived 2-3 months on Mint and another month on Fedora before weird jank got on my last nerve. Somewhere in there I ran Manjaro for a week where I had my first contact with Plasma and this was kind of a Big Deal for me. KDE Plasma is the type of thing I have in mind when people say Linux is “hugely customizable” – look at all these knobs!
Now I’m giving it one more try. I hate to love it and I love to hate it.
Yay: Liquid smooth desktop animations and browser scrolling even with my old RX 580 Nay: Chromium h/w acceleration is somehow borked yet again after 2-3 years of works, now it doesn’t; works, now it doesn’t. OK, now it works with a long list of special command-line switches to force-enable a bunch of stuff. Lately it’s worse: Chrome’s only usable in x11 fallback.
Yay: I use a JavaScript intensive site on a daily basis and it’s somehow faster and more responsive on any browser w/ Linux vs. any browser on Windows. Nay: In the Year of Our Lord 2025 I’m dealing with scaling issues thanks to my stubborn love for HiDPI panels. Which aren’t exactly new anymore.
Yay: Look at all these QEMU knobs I can play with! (I was a VMware/storage guy for ~20 years so this is cool stuff). Nay: Look at all these QEMU knobs I must play with to make desktop virtualization semi-usable. Nay: Alpha quality virtio-gpu. Nay: QXL-DOD project abandonment. Nay: Libvirt software paternalism – if I want to feed options to QEMU that divide by zero, curve my spine, may induce blindness and bring peace without honor then let me. There’s really no other feature-rich front-end for KVM/QEMU? Nay: Windows virtio tools that install completely and correctly only when they feel like it. Nay: VirtualBox graphical glitches bad enough to force a kill -9 to regain control of my system.
Yay: All these filesystem choices! Nay: Tools which are mostly filesystem clueless. btrfs has been part of the landscape for many years yet we’re just now seeing installers and disk partitioner GUIs that know what subvolumes are? Nay: Just finished a tour of all the dedupe tools usable with btrfs. None of them worked quite like they’re supposed to. I recall duperemove being great in 2020 and hugely effective – what happened?
Yay: Solid iSCSI functionality and support (both target and initiator). Nay: Both lio and scst are brain-damaging to work with. FreeBSD’s ctld is a paragon of sanity and simplicity by comparison.
No, I don’t have any regrets on migrating to Linux – from MS Windows.
Yes, after many years of thinking about, I do have an Apple M3 MacBook Air – mainly because my camera’s RAW processing application is only available for either MS Windows or, macOS …
Is Apple’s macOS better than KDE Plasma?
Not really – it’s different – the HD display is quite impressive but, this Linux box can also deal with the images produced by the Sigma BF camera – colour rendition is comparable to what the Apple does despite, the Sigma camera inserting (quietly) extra HD information into the JPEG files which supposedly only the Mac can display properly – I can’t really see much difference between the image being displayed by the Mac against the same image being displayed on this KDE Plasma Linux box.
Would I be better off with Adobe’s photo management products against what digiKam can do?
I have more than 20 thousand photographs in my digiKam directories – no regrets and, don’t really know if the Adobe products would do a better job of managing the collection.
Documents, Word Processing, Text Layout.
Sorry but, I find the Microsoft products to be absolutely awful.
If you want to really test MS Word, try reading the larger 3GPP specifications (more than 1 000 pages) with it. LibreOffice Writer usually doesn’t complain to the same extent as the Microsoft product.
Text Layout – Microsoft still has Publisher – professionals use the Adobe products – Scribus is a perfectly acceptable Open Source equivalent product.
Spread Sheets and Databases.
The LibreOffice and OpenOffice products perform better and, are more intuitive to use – at least in my experience.
Desktop responsiveness and overall performance.
KDE Plasma has a better feel and responsiveness against the MS Windows desktop – at least in my experience.
The simple answer is no.
The only thing that I need to resolve, A win app (GordonReloadingTools) is crashing when printing. Once I resolve this issue, I would not miss Windows at all. I still have a dual boot into Win7 Ultimate.
Another annoyance, there is no Whatsapp native App on Linux that supports Video Calls.
jumped from windows 7 into linux midcycle of kubuntu 22.04 and now on 24.04
no regrets
my only regret was jumping off the LTS track to get plasma 6 at 24.10… that was a mistake and it was compounded by deleting my timeshift access to get back to 24.04 just about a week too soon, and had to reinstall 24.04
but thankfully my /home is on a separate partition so it wasn’t nearly as traumatizing as having to reinstall windoz
, but I’ll give it a try given that this can help others trying to fully migrate to Linux.
- it likes eating that after running for a while).
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