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[Helios]

This gets brought up every once in a while , especially when people talk about Microsoft's attitude towards the PC market. For gamers, there has always been a vicious cycle on PC in terms of OS. They want the freedom that Linux brings to the table but they are not willing to switch to Linux because there aren't enough games available. At the same time developers don't want to add Linux support because of it's low userbase. This cycle has been going on for many, many years.
A few days ago Ben Golus (ex-game developer for Uber Entertainment most known for Planetary Annihilation and Monday Night Combat) started a twitter thread in response to Ethan Lee's joke(or shitpost as he says) claiming that game devs consider Linux a niche platform and yet they support devices like Nvidia Shield and Amazon Fire TV

We shipped Planetary Annihilation on Win, Mac, and Linux. Linux uses we're a big vocal part of the Kickstarter and forums. In the end they accounted for <0.1% of sales but >20% of auto reported crashes and support tickets (most gfx driver related). Would totally skip Linux.
So yes, fragmentation is still totally an issue.
We eventually laid out a guide with known good versions of Linux and graphics drivers, but it didn't matter. Part of the allure of Linux is the customizability, so few actually stuck to it, and generally wanted to run the game on older hardware we didn't support.
By the end of my time at Uber I believe very nearly 100% of both crashes and support tickets actually for the game were still Linux related, even after significantly engineering time. Way more Linux specific time put into that project than any other platform.
And again, that was for a tiny fraction of the users. Adding Linux support ended up likely costing Uber hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few hundred dollars in sales revenue.
As a follow up: The game came out in 2014 Runs OpenGL 3.0 on all platforms I didn't handle support, I do VFX I no longer work for Uber (who also no longer run PA) I'm not directly involved with PA now, and haven't been for many years [Planetary Annihilation] will continue to support Linux!
This also wasn't a condemnation of Linux itself, or its community, or really even in the volume of (generally very helpful!) support tickets. It's about the financial realities of supporting a platform with few users and high fragmentation.

Jonathan Blow (Game developer of Braid and The Witness) also gave his thoughts on the matter

There's a Hacker News thread about this tweet, and the amount of denial and wishful thinking in that thread is not any less than it would have been 10 years ago. So I predict that game development won't ever get better on Linux barring some asteroid-strike kind of event.

But it got me thinking about what it would take to ship reliable software on Linux. My understanding is that Linus understands the importance of interface stability and that the kernel itself is pretty stable; the problem is the giant mound of userspace garbage that is all dynamically whimmed.

If you can make an exe that doesn't use libc, and that talks to the kernel itself, you could probably ship something that works everywhere. Certain tasks like opening a window would be much more annoying, but you could certainly program the minimal amount of functionality you need, and after that it's probably nicer than using the actual libraries you're supposed to use.

I have no idea how to talk to a hardware-accelerated 3D graphics driver under these conditions, but maybe that just means software rendering is the thing on Linux.

All of this seems super hard / annoying, but if you are making a new programming language, the least you can do is keep these things in mind and not build your structure on the currently-existing userspace shantytown.

On my programming livestreams, once in a while people ask what I would do if I made a new operating system, and I don't totally know, but I did say you could do a lot of good with a relatively small amount of work just by using the Linux kernel and deleting all of userspace and starting over, no compatibility whatsoever, to build a system that makes sense in 2020 and minimizes complexity in an appropriately hygienic way.

"Makes sense in 2020" probably means you can run a binary without "containers" or whatever else the kids are inventing these days in order to overcomplicate the job that static linking already did in the 1960s.

The other thing I should mention ... for people who think "Linux just had an especially buggy couple of years, it just needs more time in its now-stable state and it will take over on the desktop and everyone will love it," look, that is what people have been saying since 1992; for a long time the reason Linux didn't take over was supposedly because evil Microsoft was pulling dirty tricks to prevent it.

But Microsoft just spent TEN YEARS seemingly doing everything they could to make their desktop OS unusable, and hostile for shipping software, and many other bad things, and Linux is still in the same relative position it was before that time (probably declining, actually?)

What you see today is the end-state of what shipping software looks like on an ecosystem built the way Linux userspace is built. It ain't going to improve unless the system itself changes its philosophy in a fundamental way.

I know I am going to get tons of mild Twitter harassment from Linux fans for saying this stuff, but look ... I wantto switch to Linux or something like it. ...

The Windows train is obviously going to a bad place. But, you know, I need to be able to write software that I can ship to people. I need to be able to work on a stable machine, and so forth. Make that possible and I will happily switch, and quickly.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

This is brutal, but very true. Linux is and always will be a tinkerer's OS. I use Linux every day at work and the Mac is just easier.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

i would stay away from linux because the users at least. the ones on the web. are the scumbaggiest people on the internet

 

[The Mad Draklor]

The userbase isn't big enough for developers to make a Linux port without regretting it financially. The Linux share on Steam has been growing since Steam Play Proton, but it is still minuscule. Linux's best bet is to have Proton, Wine, Lutris, and DXVK improve over time.

 

[bitbydeath]

Once you go Mac you won’t go back.

 

[MayauMiao]

Unlike Linux, Amazon TV and Nvidia Shield is very consumer friendly to use.

Linux will never be seen as a gaming OS as long as gaming on the platform requires you to be good at the OS.

 

[Aurelian]

Linux's perpetual problem: the rigid ideology and tinkerer's mindset both lead to an OS where the real issues hindering mainstream adoption are never addressed.

It needs a genuinely easy-to-use UI. There have been significant strides over the years, but it needs to be at least Windows-level (and preferably Mac-level) easy, not "at least you don't have to use apt-get" easy.

It needs much more robust driver support. That means accepting, even embracing closed-source drivers. Waiting for companies to "see the light" guarantees you will never get the driver support you need to rival Apple or Microsoft.

It needs to downplay the zealotry. Part of why Android succeeded where desktop Linux failed is that Google eventually got over the ideological crusade (I remember their annoying "Android is open! Open open open!" shouting in 2010) and focused on making a good product. Concentrate on making a good, broadly appealing OS first; absolutely everything else comes second.

As it stands, if all that falls into place, it might take some time assuming it isn't too late.

 

[jshackles]

Valve figured this out years ago but never fully capitalized on it: Linux can a good abstraction layer for gaming, but the OS itself is not geared towards the everyday user. SteamOS, while easy to use, failed to gain traction simply because there weren't games developed for it as well as the fact that it had zero functionality as an actual desktop PC. They gave SteamOS the "Field of Dreams" approach (build it, and they will come) except it turns out that's bullshit unless you're in the movies. They should have been subsidizing the development of major PC games in exchange for SteamOS / Steam exclusivity and product branding.

Until someone steps up to do that to get the ball rolling, Linux is going to remain a dilemma for most developers.

 

[Kenpachii]

Planetary Annihilation of all the people LOL.

They where the no man sky before no man sky on scam artist level.

 

[theHFIC]

linux users are also like mobile device users in the sense that the majority feels that every program on the platform has to be free

 

[GoldenEye98]

For linux gaming to become a thing it needs exactly what linux users don't want.......a company to create a platform.

I mean technically PS4 is based on Linux.

 

[SonGoku]

Once you go Mac you won’t go back.

Mac for laptop, Windows for PC

 

[dirthead]

It's not like this is news. You knew Linux was DOA when even Carmack stopped supporting it with Doom 3 and Rage.

IHVs literally wrote their drivers against his games and it still was too much of a pain to support.

This is why I get irritated when people try to downplay just how much damage Microsoft has done to PC gaming, though. The mere existence of Direct3D really fucked things on a colossal scale. IHVs had to do at least double the work writing drivers that'd work with two APIs, games had to be tested against multiple APIs. And it was all for nothing. OpenGL was better, and if the industry had just embraced the open standard we'd all be better off today. If there had just been OpenGL, maybe having Linux and Windows versions of games wouldn't have been quite as much of a bitch, and maybe things would be different today. Even AMD might be in a better position today, because AMD's major problem early on was that they just couldn't get both their OpenGL and Direct3D drivers up to par. If they had only had to do an OpenGL driver, maybe they could have pulled it off.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121945-John-Carmack-Argues-Against-Native-Linux-Games

"The conventional wisdom is that native Linux games are not a good market. Id Software tested the conventional wisdom twice, with Quake Arena and Quake Live," Carmack wrote. "The conventional wisdom proved correct."

For linux gaming to become a thing it needs exactly what linux users don't want.......a company to create a platform.

I mean technically PS4 is based on Linux.

The problem with Linux is that there was simply never a justification to use it. There were always penalties and never benefits. It would have been one thing if it had been faster, had less latency, ANYTHING, but it not only performed worse but it was less compatible. It's always been a joke for games.

For any operating system to actually challenge Windows as a gaming platform, it needs to actually have an advantage. Like, if someone made a real time OS where you could basically have 8-bit NES levels of latency or something, and you could just objectively demonstrate it was superior, some hardcore people might switch (especially the emulation crowd). But Linux can't even do anything like that.

It's really sad, actually, because both Windows and Linux are dog shit kernels/architectures for running video games. A true, designed from the ground up operating system for games would be great.

 

[RedVIper]

I hope linux stays at it is, if it just becomes another windows/mac what the point? We already have those OS.

You can already play most(all I think) games on linux anyway with a VM with pretty much no performance impact.

 

[dirthead]

I hope linux stays at it is, if it just becomes another windows/mac what the point? We already have those OS.

You can already play most(all I think) games on linux anyway with a VM with pretty much no performance impact.

No one serious about playing video games on a computer is going to run them in a VM or even something like Wine. There are always problems, and it simply isn't the best experience possible. It's not just about raw performance. It's about latency, stuttering, hiccups, and all the little issues that make or break a great experience.

 

[xellos2099alpha]

It's not like this is news. You knew Linux was DOA when even Carmack stopped supporting it with Doom 3 and Rage.

IHVs literally wrote their drivers against his games and it still was too much of a pain to support.

This is why I get irritated when people try to downplay just how much damage Microsoft has done to PC gaming, though. The mere existence of Direct3D really fucked things on a colossal scale. IHVs had to do at least double the work writing drivers that'd work with two APIs, games had to be tested against multiple APIs. And it was all for nothing. OpenGL was better, and if the industry had just embraced the open standard we'd all be better off today. If there had just been OpenGL, maybe having Linux and Windows versions of games wouldn't have been quite as much of a bitch, and maybe things would be different today. Even AMD might be in a better position today, because AMD's major problem early on was that they just couldn't get both their OpenGL and Direct3D drivers up to par. If they had only had to do an OpenGL driver, maybe they could have pulled it off.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121945-John-Carmack-Argues-Against-Native-Linux-Games

"The conventional wisdom is that native Linux games are not a good market. Id Software tested the conventional wisdom twice, with Quake Arena and Quake Live," Carmack wrote. "The conventional wisdom proved correct."



The problem with Linux is that there was simply never a justification to use it. There were always penalties and never benefits. It would have been one thing if it had been faster, had less latency, ANYTHING, but it not only performed worse but it was less compatible. It's always been a joke for games.

For any operating system to actually challenge Windows as a gaming platform, it needs to actually have an advantage. Like, if someone made a real time OS where you could basically have 8-bit NES levels of latency or something, and you could just objectively demonstrate it was superior, some hardcore people might switch (especially the emulation crowd). But Linux can't even do anything like that.

It's really sad, actually, because both Windows and Linux are dog shit kernels/architectures for running video games. A true, designed from the ground up operating system for games would be great.

That is the point of a console....

 

[dirthead]

That is the point of a console....

And yet contemporary consoles don't run video games better than (or as well as) Windows 10.

It's a sad state of affairs, Jerry.

 

[Horsemama1956]

It's not like this is news. You knew Linux was DOA when even Carmack stopped supporting it with Doom 3 and Rage.

IHVs literally wrote their drivers against his games and it still was too much of a pain to support.

This is why I get irritated when people try to downplay just how much damage Microsoft has done to PC gaming, though. The mere existence of Direct3D really fucked things on a colossal scale. IHVs had to do at least double the work writing drivers that'd work with two APIs, games had to be tested against multiple APIs. And it was all for nothing. OpenGL was better, and if the industry had just embraced the open standard we'd all be better off today. If there had just been OpenGL, maybe having Linux and Windows versions of games wouldn't have been quite as much of a bitch, and maybe things would be different today. Even AMD might be in a better position today, because AMD's major problem early on was that they just couldn't get both their OpenGL and Direct3D drivers up to par. If they had only had to do an OpenGL driver, maybe they could have pulled it off.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121945-John-Carmack-Argues-Against-Native-Linux-Games

"The conventional wisdom is that native Linux games are not a good market. Id Software tested the conventional wisdom twice, with Quake Arena and Quake Live," Carmack wrote. "The conventional wisdom proved correct."



The problem with Linux is that there was simply never a justification to use it. There were always penalties and never benefits. It would have been one thing if it had been faster, had less latency, ANYTHING, but it not only performed worse but it was less compatible. It's always been a joke for games.

For any operating system to actually challenge Windows as a gaming platform, it needs to actually have an advantage. Like, if someone made a real time OS where you could basically have 8-bit NES levels of latency or something, and you could just objectively demonstrate it was superior, some hardcore people might switch (especially the emulation crowd). But Linux can't even do anything like that.

It's really sad, actually, because both Windows and Linux are dog shit kernels/architectures for running video games. A true, designed from the ground up operating system for games would be great.

OpenGL would have turned out just like D3D if it became the standard. It takes money to support this shit. Plus you have decades of bloat you need to maintain to keep people happy.

This reads like none sense.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

This is brutal, but very true. Linux is and always will be a tinkerer's OS. I use Linux every day at work and the Mac is just easier.

Exactly. That's why i think that the amount of games available natively is not the primary reason for gamers not to switch. Linux is simply not user friendly, and that's not going to change any time soon. You need to be somewhat of a nerd to enjoy Linux as a daily driver.

 

[dirthead]

OpenGL would have turned out just like D3D if it became the standard. It takes money to support this shit. Plus you have decades of bloat you need to maintain to keep people happy.

This reads like none sense.

Uh no. The whole point is that companies have had to support two radically different APIs for two decades now. It's been an enormous resource drain. It isn't about which one's better or worse. It's the fact that the market was split.

 

[Sakura Doritos]

Linux gaming is dead Jim. Developers that supports it do it out of love and denial.

 

[Sakura Doritos]

Exactly. That's why i think that the amount of games available natively is not the primary reason for gamers not to switch. Linux is simply not user friendly, and that's not going to change any time soon. You need to be somewhat of a nerd to enjoy Linux as a daily driver.

That isn’t really true. Windows 10, macOS and the popular Linux distros are all pretty competitive in ease of use.

Between MacOS + Brew, Linux + Yum /APT+Snap, Windows 10 + Poweshell and Chocolatey the platforms are all pretty close in how you use them.

 

[dopey]

Even as a 24/7 Linux user for 15+ years, I can't see it ever becoming a worthwhile target for native games. Solutions like wine and Steam's Proton (wine wrapper) are the best bet if you want to game on Linux, personally I do the vast majority of my gaming on console, with the exceptions usually being indie games, which in turn typically run perfectly fine under wine.

As for Linux being a 'tinkerers OS', I think that largely depends on what distro you choose, something like Ubuntu should not be much harder (if at all) to use than OSX or Windows.

 

[petran79]

I was using Ubuntu for 9 years and the last few years it became a good gaming alternative. Unfortunately even in Ubuntu you need to have advanced user skills, even with internet help. Over the years I reinstalled and reset Ubuntu many times but it was due to my own fault. Few months ago after a normal update routine, update process broke. After reboot , OS would crash. Not even command line recovery mode would work. Posted for help in the Ubuntu forums, pasted the crash logs but users asked to type specific commands and examine specific logs that were thousands of lines long. Had no clue what was going on.

While I can solve most Win related issues myself, my Ubuntu skills are elementary. A user said update broke the system and I had to reinstall it. Even when trying to reinstall from CD to save at least user settings and installed programms, CD installer required to erase everything. Upgrading a crashing OS was not recommended either, though even that was not possible.

This was the breaking point for me. Spent dozens of hours installing and tweaking programmscand games. Was not in the mood to repeat it.Erased the Linux partition and spent even more time restoring Win boot sector. 9 years were enough. This OS is not intended as primary with that kind of support

 

[Bonfires Down]

I don't know what freedom it is that you say Linux brings, but it's not something that I care about.

 

[ToughestSoul]

For me, life is just to short for using Linux. I think only if you enjoy Linux itself as kind of a hobby it makes sense using it.

Windows already pulls some incredibly terrible crap sometimes.

 

[bhunachicken]

I've seen reports from Linux gamers that running the Windows version in WINE is the best bet. Sometimes the game even runs better in WINE than the native version(!).

Steam is pushing Proton, a WINE / Vulkan wrapper that works surprisingly well. Seems that's the best bet for Linux folk (like myself..!)

 

[llien]

First, there still is nothing to replace Microsoft's DirectX with (yeah, Vulkan is kinda there, out there somewhere).
Second, insane number of Linux distro's.

They actually work amazingly well (2D and standard stuff) given the circumstances, but 3D adds yet another layer of bugs/anti-bugs, I simply cannot imagine scenario of Linux defeating Microsoft at gaming.

 

[Great Hair]

Once you go Mac you won’t go back.

No wonder, with empty pockets ya cant buy anything else ... #lol

Elementary OS will hopefully take that spot in Desktop, as right now that Distro with GoboLinux´s way of handling apps (similar to windows c/progams/...) would be my linux os of choice.

i got no interest anymore to fiddle around in slackware, no time to waste on terminal ... linux has to adapt already or remain the "ulgy duck" of OS. Simplicity is the key to success ..

 

[GenericUser]

Linux has a lot of technical and non technical problems and the community is plagued by elitism ever since. Linux being niche for gaming is probably not going to change in my lifetime. I wish it would, because having and running a competent open gaming OS for free would be sweet, but as I said, not going to happen for numerous reasons.

 

[Hendrick's]

Linux is on less than 3% of the words computers, why would anyone develop a commercial game for it?

 

[JLB]

Once you go Mac you won’t go back.

I use two MBPs daily, but I still love the freedom that Linux provides.
But yeah, for an end user, Mac is orders of magnitude simpler and nice.

 

[DreamsiclesPlz]

It's a shame, because Linux is fun to use, but I totally understand why they wouldn't bother supporting it as an OS.

 

[dirthead]

I've seen reports from Linux gamers that running the Windows version in WINE is the best bet. Sometimes the game even runs better in WINE than the native version(!).

That's bullfuck and you know it. There is no possible way an additional layer is going to result in the game running better. In fact, we have confirmation that games with WINE have more latency compared to running in a native Windows environment.

So much fucking FUD on the internet from Linux zealots who don't want to accept reality.

Linux has a lot of technical and non technical problems and the community is plagued by elitism ever since. Linux being niche for gaming is probably not going to change in my lifetime. I wish it would, because having and running a competent open gaming OS for free would be sweet, but as I said, not going to happen for numerous reasons.

That's the thing, though. It really isn't a competent gaming OS. It's basically got terrible support for features critical to gaming. The other thing that people sweep under the rug with Linux is that it's got absolutely fucking horrible audio support. Have fun getting a 7.1 gaming sound setup going with Linux. It's just a fucking joke that people actually pretend there's a point in using it for gaming.

 

[bhunachicken]

That's bullfuck and you know it. There is no possible way an additional layer is going to result in the game running better. In fact, we have confirmation that games with WINE have more latency compared to running in a native Windows environment.

I think you've misunderstood me. What I mean is: a Linux gamer running the Windows game under WINE has reported better performance than the native Linux version. In other words, the native Linux version runs like a dog and it's better to use WINE.

Unless I've now misunderstood you..?

 

[hariseldon]

It's worth noting that WINE isn't an emulator, hence the acronym Wine Is Not Emulator. It's actually something that picks up requests and handles them but doesn't fully virtualise or emulate as such. If you couple that with say a low-footprint window manager and a low-footprint linux there's every chance that on an older machine you could get improved performance.

There is a problem with drivers, which stems primarily from AMD and NVidia not putting much out there for the open-source drivers to use while releasing utter shite closed-source ones. The problem with the latter is that they're a real obstacle to getting stuff done in the kernel to improve compatibility and reliability. If you can't get at the code how can you fix it?

I use a linux machine for work, simply because it's the best development environment for what I do. Specifically I use KDE desktop in CentOS, but I'm just as happy in Gnome on Ubuntu or Mate or Cinnamon. The desktop environments are actually legit lovely. I mean properly fucking good. For most users, these days, all you need is an office suite and a browser, we have firefox and chrome for the latter, and LibreOffice does the job for most cases with the former (and failing that, google docs, or Office in Wine). Gaming is the headache though, and I don't doubt the support tickets from Linux, it's likely that the devs don't have enough linux experience to do much with it, and maybe people are trying to run without the right dependencies in place etc, but yeah it's not a great experience for the user. My gut tells me that tech like flatpak will improve that situation on some level at least.

 

[The_Mike]

Once you go Mac you won’t go back.

Just curious. Why not?

 

[hariseldon]

Personally I can't stand using a mac. And I'm a guy with a Windows PC for gaming, use every linux desktop under the sun, Android phone, iPad, etc so I'm not exactly tied to one OS. I just can't get on with macOS for whatever reason, everything just feels wrong, in the wrong place.

 

[JCK75]

Once you go Mac you won’t go back.

This is 100% true, I used an iMac and Macbook pro for a few years since my boss was an apple fanboy so they were free, and now that I'm done with them I'll never go back to Mac.

 

[bitbydeath]

Just curious. Why not?

OSX is the best, most stable, simpliest and fastest OS around. Apple really know how to make software.

 

[The_Mike]

OSX is the best, most stable, simpliest and fastest OS around. Apple really know how to make software.

Macs are just way expensive, and you can’t really use them for gaming.

 

[bitbydeath]

Macs are just way expensive, and you can’t really use them for gaming.

Macs have steam and due to having great (albeit expensive) hardware built in have no issues running the games.

They don’t get anywhere near as many games as Windows though but they still get a lot of the new ones as they release.

Here’s a list of some received this year-
https://www.macgamerhq.com/new-mac-games/

It includes a lot of the main stuff like Life is Strange 2, Cuphead, Two Point Hospital, WoW expansion etc

 

[The_Mike]

Macs have steam and due to having great (albeit expensive) hardware built in have no issues running the games.

They don’t get anywhere near as many games as Windows though but they still get a lot of the new ones as they release.

Yeah but you have to pay three times as much hardware wise to get the same result.

 

[ethomaz]

Gamers doesn't use Linux or Mac.

That is true in the past, now and probably will be in future or forever.

There is no dilemma.

 

[wit3tyg3r]

OSX is the best, most stable, simpliest and fastest OS around. Apple really know how to make software.

This is a very subjective statement. I would argue that Apple knows how to make really good hardware, but they are really bad at software. There are really only a handful of things that I actually like about Mac OS. However, Snow Leopard was the last good version of OS X. It's been downhill since then with every major OS release. I'm running Mojave right now on my office workstation and it gives me way too many problems on a brand new iMac that my company just purchased for me a couple months ago.

Sure, there might be some nice things about Mac OS, such as how easy it is to install most software (simply drag the app to your applications folder or, more recently, install it form the Mac app store). But then there is a huge issue with uninstalling apps. People might say it's as easy as dragging the app to the trash bin and deleting it. But then you have a bunch of leftover files in several different directories that you either have to hunt down manually or use another app to hunt them down for you.

Mac OS also has several issues with multi monitor support. One example: I currently run two monitors on my office workstation. Very often, when I click on an app on my dock on one monitor, the window opens up on the other monitor. Also, if an app has a pop-up dialogue box, it will often show up on the other monitor or underneath another window and I won't notice it, so I think either the whole program is locked up and not responding or I didn't do something right.

And when it comes to cloud services, iCloud is not nearly as sophisticated or seamless as Google's online services or even Microsoft's Office365/OneDrive.

Honestly, all of it is subjective. Even though I'm running into these and many more issues, I'm sure there are people out there who are happy with their experience. Find an OS and platform that works for you and stick with it.

 

[ethomaz]

This is a very subjective statement. I would argue that Apple knows how to make really good hardware, but they are really bad at software. There are really only a handful of things that I actually like about Mac OS. However, Snow Leopard was the last good version of OS X. It's been downhill since then with every major OS release. I'm running Mojave right now on my office workstation and it gives me way too many problems on a brand new iMac that my company just purchased for me a couple months ago.

Sure, there might be some nice things about Mac OS, such as how easy it is to install most software (simply drag the app to your applications folder or, more recently, install it form the Mac app store). But then there is a huge issue with uninstalling apps. People might say it's as easy as dragging the app to the trash bin and deleting it. But then you have a bunch of leftover files in several different directories that you either have to hunt down manually or use another app to hunt them down for you.

Mac OS also has several issues with multi monitor support. One example: I currently run two monitors on my office workstation. Very often, when I click on an app on my dock on one monitor, the window opens up on the other monitor. Also, if an app has a pop-up dialogue box, it will often show up on the other monitor or underneath another window and I won't notice it, so I think either the whole program is locked up and not responding or I didn't do something right.

And when it comes to cloud services, iCloud is not nearly as sophisticated or seamless as Google's online services or even Microsoft's Office365/OneDrive.

Honestly, all of it is subjective. Even though I'm running into these and many more issues, I'm sure there are people out there who are happy with their experience. Find an OS and platform that works for you and stick with it.

Software is the best part of the Mac... the UI is flawless and super intuitive. Something I give to Apple is how they make UI simple and effective for every program.... it is a joy to use.

MS latest attempt of UI was a trainwreck to the points they have to back to old Windows UI with Windows 10.

Hardware wise there is no difference between PC and MC anymore... it is the same parts.

 

[wit3tyg3r]

Software is the best part of the Mac... the UI is flawless and super intuitive. Something I give to Apple is how they make UI simple and effective for every program.... it is a joy to use.

MS latest attempt of UI was a trainwreck to the points they have to back to old Windows UI with Windows 10.

Hardware wise there is no difference between PC and MC anymore... it is the same parts.

I honestly don't have any major issues with Mac OS UI. Something I absolutely love, for example, is how the System Preferences are organized in OS X. It's always really easy to find things and much more intuitive than Windows' Control Panel.

My complaints are more towards the basic fundamental functions of the OS, such as the examples I gave in my previous post. There are stability problems, and I was pointing those out specifically since bitbydeath said it was the most stable and fastest OS in the world. My experience have not aligned with that viewpoint.

Outside of Mac OS, I don't think Apple has perfect UI design across all of their platforms. iOS' notification management is always several steps behind Android and, from a purely subjective viewpoint, the structure of the iOS launcher isn't to my liking.

 

[Blam]

I wish what you were saying is true, but Apple barely knows how to create software. OSX Is beyond shit for anything other then music production unless you use FL, or really nothing other then that.

You're at a complete disadvantage

if you're editing videos, creating art, or even music lmao.

Mac's are facebook machines the entire OSX experience amounts to just internet.

OSX is the best, most stable, simpliest and fastest OS around. Apple really know how to make software.

It's stable because you can't use it for anything and it's fast because there's nothing on it. On that note W10 is stupid quick.

 

[mneuro]

I'm a Linux fanboy, but it's easy to see why Linux has not dominated the desktop PC market. It has little to do with gaming. Even popular distros like Ubuntu have a lot of rough edges. One example is pulseaudio. It constantly crashes and has issues handling multiple input devices correctly for a lot of people. Updates break the OS as often as Windows updates do, but require much more advanced troubleshooting knowledge to fix. Just a couple examples. I use Linux and an Xbox for gaming. Linux is superior for me, but easily not the best choice for average users.

 

[ethomaz]

I honestly don't have any major issues with Mac OS UI. Something I absolutely love, for example, is how the System Preferences are organized in OS X. It's always really easy to find things and much more intuitive than Windows' Control Panel.

My complaints are more towards the basic fundamental functions of the OS, such as the examples I gave in my previous post. There are stability problems, and I was pointing those out specifically since bitbydeath said it was the most stable and fastest OS in the world. My experience have not aligned with that viewpoint.

Outside of Mac OS, I don't think Apple has perfect UI design across all of their platforms. iOS' notification management is always several steps behind Android and, from a purely subjective viewpoint, the structure of the iOS launcher isn't to my liking.

Well I won't say the fastest because any OS today take way lower resources than the actual hardware... so any OS runs fast with actual hardware... any test between them in terms of performance will be really small because the actual hardware can brute force them to be fast.

There is issues like all OSs... with the advent of the constant updates via internet sometimes it is stable others not... it a issue that happens with any OS with recent updates... sometimes the devs left a bug that break something with the new update.

I love the UI... that is all... I found it way superior to Windows UI... if I'm comparing with Linux then it is really a shame that there is no complete UI in the Linux world... there are several UIs with good features but that lacks in others parts... and due how they are maintained I think Linux UI the most slowest of the three unless you use a minimal UI with only basic features.

IMO OS UI: MacOS >> WinOS >>>> Linux and their several UIs

Now about the iOS notifications... well I find the Android (most specific Galaxy S) notifications a mess... it is too much with things you don't need, polluting the screen, with way too complex use of them... I just don't like the way Android do notifications I guess... with iOS even having issues it is simples, practical and really helps you... I prefer it.