Hello everyone,

I have a bit of an unconventional question.

I'm an academic--- and have, at the past two universities I've worked at, gotten permission to wipe my computer hard drive and install Linux. It's been great- but along the way I've had some issues (e.g. WebEx at the start of the pandemic was tricky, filling and digitally signing PDFs often requires a virtual machine). My most recent upgrade was an adventure with docking stations.

I'm switching universities soon... and I have the opportunity to switch to Mac OSX if I want. I've been on Linux full time since 2005 (Mint, XFCE). While I started out tinkering under the hood a lot... these days I find myself valuing stuff 'just working' so I can keep cranking out my research.

My typical day to day applications are Evolution (with an Outlook account), a Tex editor, a Python IDE, RStudio, a LaTex editor, and a handful of specialized statistical software applications (some of which have Linux versions). Zoom also here and there.

Has anyone had experience making this switch? What were the pros and cons?

To be clear- I still love the idea of Linux. I love the FOSS model... I'll likely always keep a Linux machine around. But, time is valuable.

Thank you!

Shane

I haven't dived deep enough into OSX to make the switch - just enough to realize it was too much of a learning curve to be worth it for me.

But in an academic setting, it's different if, say, you're part of a Math department that fits on a single floor and there's an "IT Guy" to help out a lot. If that "IT Guy" knows OSX and the tools used by math profs then he'll have no problem getting you up and running and keeping you up and running. Let him worry about maintaining/fixing stuff. That just leaves you with using the tools.

It depends on the specific situation, of course. If there isn't a dedicated Math department "IT Guy", and IT support is slow/unresponsive, then ... well, you might want to stick with what you're familiar with yourself.

It has been awhile since I used MacOS, but when I did I was able to get various GNU apps installed on it. Apps that need a GUI like X where a bit tricky to get a rootless X client working, but once it was they worked fine.

Whereas I use MacOS/OSX constantly. It’s Unix, not Linux, but otherwise it is extremely familiar.

(And, if you find yourself ”pinin’ for the fjords,” it also runs VirtualBox very well.)

Also: it does provide an “X” implementation which allows traditional apps to run seamlessly.

I would therefore encourage you to take full advantage of this opportunity to explore Unix. “The water’s fine.”

Apple originally used FreeBSD & their Aqua desktop, & FreeBSD runs most, (if not all), FOSS software, so it is likely a case of just installing your specialist programs.

BSD is slightly different from Linux at the command line level, but close enough, that you won't need much time to familiarize yourself with it.