I’ve returned home after a long time by deciding to switch from OSX to Linux on my personal computer.
I started using a Macbook about a decade ago when I was given one as a work computer. I enjoyed the fact that it worked seamlessly without the need for any hacking, so I could focus on my work. Over time, the Macbook became the default option for hardware in many tech companies, and I was always offered one. However, recently, my employment was terminated, so I decided to use again my old Macbook Air (2012), which I had purchased when I quit one of my previous jobs.
Although I found OSX usable because it’s a POSIX-compliant system, installing development tools with HomeBrew became a tedious process, and Apple’s business ethics no longer aligned with mine. Moreover, Signal started to notify me that my current OS version (10.14) was outdated, and I wouldn’t be able to use Signal for long. Although I had the option to upgrade to 10.15, I couldn’t do so for unknown reasons, despite spending a whole day debugging it. Even though I used OSX, I mainly used GNU Emacs, iTerm for command-line tools, the yabai tiling window manager, Firefox for the web, Thunderbird for mail, and Signal and Slack for messages. All these tools work well, if not even better, in Linux.
I also realized that I had lost control of my computer and became a consumer of its apps. I accepted the boundaries set by Apple. I worked full-time with the computer, and I didn’t want to spend my free time hacking it. However, when I reduced my working hours to three days a week, I started to miss interacting with the computer like back in the Linux days and customizing it to my needs.
So, I replaced OSX with Fedora GNU/Linux on my Macbook. It was a straightforward process that involved downloading the live version, writing it to a USB stick, restarting the machine, booting from the stick, and clicking “Install to disk.” The community warned me that wifi wouldn’t work out of the box, so I ordered an ethernet-to-USB adapter to be safe. I installed Fedora 39, and everything went smoothly. The wireless connection often dropped and restarted, but I solved the problem by updating the system to its latest state (sudo dnf update
) and installing the broadcom-wl
and kmod-wl
packages.
I chose Fedora for its freshness and stability. It comes with GNOME, which seemed like a good middle ground between the bells and whistles of OSX/yabai and a minimalistic desktop environment. Everything worked out of the box on my MacBook Air under Fedora 39, including the built-in camera, which worked with Viber, something I couldn’t achieve under OSX. Fedora also connected to my Bluetooth speakers without any issues, which wasn’t the case before. The only thing that was working previously and I couldn’t manage to get it working again is the microphone via the combo jack.
It feels great to boot into Linux again. I’m using open-source software that people write out of passion, and I’m happy to support them. If I want my computer to do something differently, I have the choice again. I’m one step closer to a digital vegan diet.