I've been on the Mac since 2001 for my personal machines, with Windows at work and I've had linux installations on and off since late '92. I have decided that I won't replace my aging M1 MBP. I got an used thinkpad and installed Fedora 41. It's really been a stellar distro. I've been in it full time for a couple months now. Since I'm now retired I don't need to have the latest and greatest. Linux is just fine for me and the remaining development work I do. I guess I've always known I'd end up on Linux.

I left several years ago and moved to Windows with WSL. It has worked well for me.

I have tried using Linux as a daily driver but can't. Years ago I used BeOS and then Linux as drivers but my needs expanded.

Issues with Linux... there's software that I need that doesn't have an equivalent that meets my needs on Linux so, I would need to limit my Linux usage to only the other things I need but...

Not all of the games I enjoy from steam work on Linux so at that point. It's Linux only for development.

I need zoom for working with other developers and it is less stable for me on Linux than Windows or Mac.

There's a few minor annoyances with Linux beyond that but...

Some personal software I refuse to move off means no Linux for that.

My favorite video game isn't available for Linux on Steam so, I didn't end up playing games on Linux.

I can do development on Linux except for the zoom problems.

I have Linux machines I can ssh into for doing kernel hacking, otherwise, WSL gives me everything I need for development and I get the rest from the few applications I use on windows.

I find Linux, windows, and macOS all flawed but for me Windows ones are the most acceptable.

I suggest you give Linux a go and see if it works out. Given you mention steam, start by verifying all the games you want are available on Linux.

I too have been on Mac for over 20 yrs, but day-jobs are sometimes on Windows. Currently I work in Ubuntu under Windows on a Lenovo X1 Carbon. I feel the same about moving away from Mac. Apple's hardware planned obsolescence/deprecation schedule would have been reasonable during the Moore's Law era, but it feels too fast now, so I'm looking at migrating to Linux on Framework laptops. I don't play games much anymore so don't really need Windows.

Linux is fine, it's similar enough to macOS (and Windows, for that matter). For my tastes, all the OSes require some tweaking and compromise. I don't understand the fascination with tiling window mgmt, and disable it everywhere (was surprised it got added to macOS Sequoia). I love having different wallpapers on virtual desktops. Etc etc, there are all sorts of different setup options are available on one platform but not another.

It turns out that my stumbling block is the trackpad and keyboard -- I know this issue is highly specific to each individual, so you may not care about this. I haven't tried them on a Framework laptop but they're both horrible IMO on the Thinkpad. (Other people tell me that I'm crazy and they love the keyboard, so YMMV.) The trackpad feels like plastic crap and responsiveness is subpar. Causing a right-click by pressing slightly right of center is annoying. The page up/down keys in the inverted-T pad get in the way. Even on Mac, I didn't like the era of full size left-right arrows, and bought a couple spare old Mac keyboards that don't have those keys. Thankfully Apple fixed that in more recent designs.

Since I code all day, I'm constantly using the key sequences for copy/paste and search/replace. Maybe with time you can switch your muscle memory for these things, but I think it's simple to do these things on a Mac keyboard and not quite as easy (e.g. ctrl/shift-insert) on Linux/Windows.

However, the issues that you'd run into are most likely going to be different than the ones I did. You're probably just going to have to try it and find out if you like it or not.

My daily driver is a 2014 MacBook Pro. It's had a few repairs over the years, but in addition to Apple no longer supporting current macOS for it, I'm starting to feel the performance is impacting my work as well.

I'm still debating a replacement, but Linux on Ryzen is a leading option. I don't like Apple's recent work with macOS, and while the hardware seems to continue to be excellent, I'm not sure that's enough.

I've looked at Framework, Tuxedo, Lenovo ... nothing really looks great though, which is why I haven't made the jump. Yet.

I bought a MBA M1 in 2021 (replacing a 2015 MBP) and it's really a nice machine, but the OS is not as nice. I'm running Fedora Silverblue on 2 other computers and while Gnome is not as polished, the whole ecosystem actually let you adapt it to your workflow, which macOS does not.

I don't really use a lot of pro software for non-programming tasks, so I don't miss them. Flatpak and GTK based applications are more than OK for the majority of tasks I have to do. And for the rest, it's easy to write some scripts. The main pros for me were no annoyances from corporate headquarters (pushing whatever services) and sensible configuration choices.

The first time I tried, despite thinking I'd done my research I had so many issues with basic things like wifi I gave up, but that was like 10+ years ago.

I think for my phone, I'd still prefer iOS -- I think the lack of freedom can be a form of protection, in terms of maleware.

My next laptop will probably be a Linux laptop -- I'm thinking Debian or Xubuntu. (I like XFCE, aesthetically and in terms of resource cost.)

If anyone has suggestions, I'm basically looking to just do music/movie streamin and light text editing -- maybe fire up a Parrot VM to run some tests. Battery life is more important to me than processor/ram.

I stopped using my 2009 MBP in 2021. It had three batteries and a HD to SSD upgrade by that time. For heavy lifting I have been using a Debian minitower with 3 LCDs since 2017. I do 90% of my work on the minitower. For on the road use, I have a Lenovo ChromeBook.

I'm not a gamer, but for development Debian Linux is absolutely perfect. Having multiple screens allows me to have reference information a mere glance away.

I have toyed with other people's recent Macs and I find that with each upgrade Apple increasingly locks you into their ecosystem and ways of working.

I am not a fan of extended use of laptops. By sitting so close to the LCD you end up with myopia and other eye aliments.

The only macs I used were work issued ones, and all of them have been terrible. I can't imagine spending your own money on those. I went through 5 in a 4 year period, through no fault of my own.

At home I was Linux for the longest time, running VFIO passthrough to a windows VM. Once WSL2 got released, Im fully on Windows. WSL2 does everything I need in terms of Linux, so now I pretty much have the best possible setup since I can run any software. Pytorch with GPUs within WSL2 works great as well.

You do have to get Windows Pro though to be able to disable a bunch of stuff, but once you do its a pretty smooth experience.

I’ve been on some Mac or another for 20+ years now, and just upgraded to a refurbished M3 Max for LLM experimentation. I just don’t see the appeal for me of going to windows, although Linux is always possible if we get some decent affordable unified memory boxes from nvidia (eg digits). Macs keep killing on performance/watt though, I wish someone would compete with Apple more aggressively.

Note I don’t really use any Mac apps (well, just apps that are available on other platforms, like vscode, chrome), so that wouldn’t stop me from switching.

My mac of 13 years is running fine..except I am unable to update the OS because Apple has set limitations on the upgrading OS with old hardware. I will probably end up buying a new mac until I can see a good Linux ecosystem.

A friend who is also in the same situation is however going to Surface Pros. He swears its on par with Mac on hardware.

Not moving away from Mac, I still have my Mac and love it.

But I've installed Bluefin-dx on my gaming PC and work laptop. I love it. It's similar enough to Mac OS and really solid.

If you ask me: A recent Ryzen based Framework laptop with Linux is pretty damn sweet....

As a pure dev i just use Linux now. With proton for the odd game.

I've moved away from MacOS for everything but work.

At home I'm 100% iPadOS and iPhoneOS (also have a Kindle that I use daily). When I'm not at work I've been able to eliminate all "computer" use.

There was an adjustment period when I'd use my partner's MacBook Pro for a few random things. The last thing I remember doing on one was my taxes in 2023. But past 2 years now I just did them on the iPad and it was fine.

It's been great.

I have not moved away from Mac; instead, I've been slowly moving towards it with an eye to replacing Win11 with Linux. The amount of data leaking from Win11 is mind-boggling. While I'm aware macOS does too, Apple is just a little bit more transparent about it.