Hello everyone! I’m struggling with this myself. I would get a Dell laptop with Linux on this Black Friday (they come with Ubuntu, I would put Fedora in it as soon as it arrived), until a great deal for a used Macbook showed up and I just bought it. I must say it’s truly a premium experience, but I’ve been somewhat disquieted by the decision. I’m not a coder or a tech guy, so I don’t know how far my Linux experience could have gone. However I’ve been hardening my digital privacy for this whole year and using a Mac kinda seems like a setback.
My logic was this: there are no Google Pixels on my country, so the next better privacy/security solution is an iPhone, so in a certain way I already have to trust Apple, therefore using the Mac configures no new threat or party having access to identifiable information.
Also my job requires using some government platforms, and despite founding online solutions for this I’m pretty sure I’d go with some incompatibilities using any Linux distro. These could be a little trick as I’m not, as said, an authentic tech guy. Other than those platforms all I need to work is a browser.
In that case, do you have any advice?
My threat model is similar to OP. I need client’s data to stay untouched, as well as the greater possible balance between privacy and productivity.
Honestly, if you want to game on a laptop it being Mac or Linux it won’t be crazy powerful. Sure you can run something like Balatro but don’t expect to run The Witcher 3 anytime soon on any machine tbh haha.
I would also recommend considering Cloud Gaming, like taking a subscription with Nvidia and just plugging a controller or alike, so that way you offload the tasks to a remote GPU rather than your own machine.
If you need Native MS apps, then it’s indeed MacOS.
Even tho, I am not sure why people are so keen into locking themselves into such tools. Excel isn’t THAT crazy that it justifies using an Apple device in my honest opinion.
Libre/open office might be totally enough even if the UI is a bit different initially, at least you won’t need to pay or being enrolled into some AI or future nonsense MS would want to push on you…
Besides this, I don’t think that you will have much benefits running MacOS in itself.
You will anyway use packages with plenty of 3rd party and dependencies, Docker, VScode and plenty other are extremely vulnerable to supply chain attacks.
Not sure if you also plan on using Cursor or alike, but you would likely be breached by some AI prompting while coding, more than anything else.
For coding, Linux is 100% perfect and you won’t have any specific benefits from switching to MacOS. Most of the tools might already be pre-installed but it’s not like installing zsh or podman takes 2 days either haha.
Audio/video is always a bit of a pain on Linux depending on your drivers/devices indeed, but nothing unfixable either IMO.
So, keep your money honestly.
MacOS might give you 10% extra security in some circumstances, but again: you probably will be securing your front door while people come from the window on the other side (as an analogy).
While trading off some good chunk of Privacy and needing to rely on a lot of 3rd party tools like LittleSnitch to fix MacOS’ shortcoming. Most people actually just do that, install plenty of 3rd apps just to make MacOS more usable/practical and get around some nonsensical shortcomings.
TLDR: the difference will not be crazy and you have plenty of choice on Linux to not have to lock yourself in a corner by choosing MacOS, especially given your limited real needs.
MacOS has the benefit of being very battery efficient too, even if it has its own small quirks.
Indeed, but I assume he will mostly be doing backend/cloud stuff.
Very good recommendation indeed.
There are also plenty of other brands indeed.
It’s more about the hardware anyway. If you have an integrated GPU, you won’t go far. Apple has Metal but it’s indeed for basic games with low requirements.
grab yourself a Linux, especially if you can be pragmatic and not be a victim of Apple’s marketing or/and have very specific needs in terms of software
if all of what you do can be done in a browser, even a Chromebook is enough for you (even tho the privacy haha…)
“my job requires using some government platforms”, Linux can’t run Adobe Suite but it is fine going on a website tho (or maybe you meant some specific apps?) to which I could still be confident in saying that they probably have some Linux clients
“some incompatibilities using any Linux distro”, check your requirements first, hard to make assumptions without knowing exactly what you’ll need
“I need client’s data to stay untouched”, turn off the device for the encryption to kick in, problem solved (not a Mac/Linux specific thing)
“greater possible balance between privacy and productivity”, circle doesn’t align with “I’m not […] a tech guy” and with not knowing the tools you’ll need to run on Linux
You can launch the game, doesn’t mean it will run Cyberpunk 2077 in native 1440p @120.
Hence why it all depends on what’s a playable game for everybody’s taste.
Just as said above, people can run Minecraft on a Macbook air.
Sure it launches. Most people wouldn’t be satisfied with 20 FPS and short rendering distance tho.
Some other are totally fine with that so more precision as of what they want to play, with the resolution, framerate etc is very much needed.
And yes, I know that you can do some light gaming on Mac.
Overall, plenty of solutions like Moonlight, GeForce NOW etc…
So it will be soon 2 months I have my MacBook and I’m very satisfied with it.
About security and minimizing data collection and as @kissu reminded it well don’t hesitate to follow the Naomi Brockwell’s configuration. One of the most important features is FileVault so never forget to enable it.
Nothing more to say, there are already a lot of very good posts there, thanky you all
MacOS.
(or maybe you meant some specific apps?) to which I could still be confident in saying that they probably have some Linux clients
