Whatever allows us to leave the clusterfuck that is Windows is a blessing. M$ has had a monopoly for too long and I’m not paying for MacOS.
macOS has been free for, like, 15 years.
Yes, you have to already own an Apple computer, but Apple users don’t pay for OS upgrades.
Technically, anyone could download the OS images, but there’s not a lot that non-Apple users can do with them.
macOS is included with every Mac, not free.
Well, then show me a receipt where you (or anyone) paid for macOS. Should be interesting.
As they need to be installed on Apple hardware, there’s an implicit cost associated with it.
If you want to be super pedantic for no reason, you’re correct, it is technically free.
Technically not. MacOS wouldn’t be what it is today if apple didn’t get any money out of it. They get that money from selling the hardware the software is exclusively on among other things. Let’s say i. e. Ubuntu: When it first got released then it relied on its owners personal revenue for a long time. None of the hardware sold financed Ubuntu, because Ubuntu didn’t earn money through hardware. It’s obvious that the money earned by apple through its sales also go back into macOS, because if the hardware didn’t make any money, macOS ceases to be developed as well.
With OPs logic, every software is technically free. But no, you pay for macOS with the hardware you purchase. You purchase the hardware because of the OS, not because of the hardware. Technically, you could spin the argument and say that you pay for the OS, and for it to be run a certain way and the hardware that comes with it is free. If that sounds like bogus it’s because it is bogus.
So is windows for most users. I technically have so many windows licences that I don’t use because the system has long ago been wiped…
There used to be a big movement to get windows refunded if you didn’t use it. I think you could get 20 euros if you managed to jump through all the hoops. And I’m not even sure it’s still possible.Is hackintosh not still a thing? Did they neuter it somehow? Or are we just not considering that since it’s a pain in the ass to set up and works out of the box on a very limited selection of hardware?
I believe macOS 26 will be the last that’ll run on Intel hardware. So functionally, a year from now, Hackintosh is dead. Well, Hackintosh running the current macOS, of course. I imagine there’ll be a thriving community working to keep existing hardware chugging along.
It’ll be interesting to see the momentum of Linux on Macs though. If Asahi manages to crack those last few hurdles with the M1/2 hardware, it’ll be a rock solid OS, particularly as ARM64 software becomes more common. Suddenly you’ll have a bunch of incredibly capable Macs going cheap because they can’t run the largest macOS.
I don’t understand this argument. It makes no sense. Just because a piece of software is included for free with an Apple computer doesn’t mean you’re paying for it. It’s like you see the word “free” and just decide it means something different than what it really means.
Do you also think the engine that comes with your car is free because the manufacturer doesn’t sell it as a separate item and it’s not listed on the receipt?
Edit: His answer proves he’s just a troll. Weird thing to troll about though but I don’t judge what someone gets off to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I don’t see how cars and engines have anything to do with the fact that macOS is free.
And, yeah, if it’s not listed on a receipt as something I paid for, you can’t argue that I paid for it. Or that anyone did. That’s absurd.
Because I am capable of critical and complex thinking. Just because something is labeled as “free” does not necessarily mean there are no costs associated with procuring or using a product. If you’re handed a proprietary piece of technology for “free”, but the only way to use it is to pay for another piece of technology or software that you have to pay for… it’s not free. It’s complementary, but it’s not free. You still need to pay some amount to use it.
This is the same faulty logic as arguing that Linux also costs money because you have to pay for a computer to run it on. Any operating system requires that you own a compatible device to run it on.
You’re just drawing some imaginary line at Apple computers. It makes no sense.
So when someone buys [anything] with a screen, the OS on the screen if free?
I don’t have a receipt for the OS in my car, so it means I must’ve gotten it for free. Same with the seats, steering wheel, mirrors, buttons, doors, you bang it! But what did I actually pay for then?
I never said that. But it does show how this black-and-white all the nothing approach makes no sense.
macOS is free because it’s free.
I have a MacBook Pro 15” 2018. I paid around $3K for it new. What is the cost for me to update to macOS 26 Tahoe or the one that comes after it?
I’m running Sonoma on a 2016 MacBook Pro. didn’t cost me anything because macOS is free.
The last version of MacOS I used was $130 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Tiger
And in my original comment, I said they hadn’t charged for it in about 15 years. And it’s been almost exactly 15 years.
I can show you many receipts where I bought a Windows laptop without a trace of any Windows licence on it.
Same, you can’t really install macOS on anything else than a Mac.
Sure you can do a Hackintosh, or run Windows without a proper licence (you can buy a Windows for like… $2 on the grey market). But you won’t have any support…
What does any of that have to do with the fact that macOS is free?
It is not free if you have to pay a specific hardware from the same company to run it. Same goes for Windows, it is not free if you are forced to buy Windows with the laptop.
In both case you pay for the software through the hardware.
Of course it is. It cost me nothing to download and install it.
Unless you can show me how you’re actually paying for the operating system, then I don’t see how you can keep making this argument. It makes no sense.
It’s the same nonsense is arguing that you have to pay for Linux just because the computer you are running on cost money.
when you buy a banana at the grocery store, show me the receipt that you paid for the shipping of said banana. When you buy a computer keyboard, show me the receipt for the ‘F’ key. When you buy a TV, show me the receipt for the capacitors.
This is not how receipts work.
You’re comparing apples and bananas. But the only thing that’s bananas is your argument
Hackintosh is a thing (or at least used to be), but it’s against the EULA.
Yeah, the big reason to do that was so you could attach an EGPU which wasn’t supported natively. Now it is, though, so the need for that mostly disappeared. Plus, macOS is now so reliant on proprietary interval hardware like the T2 chip, then I won’t run on anything, but Apple hardware.
The big reason to make a hackintosh was to use eGPUs?
eGPUs were not supported natively? And now they are?
What timeline are you talking about here? Is it all back 10-6 years ago?
Maybe, because I haven’t looked into it in a few years.
eGPUs? I ran a Hackintosh because Apple didn’t sell hardware in the configuration I wanted. Less to do with GPUs and more to do with the lack of hard drive slots or PCIe slots. I had a nice workflow with some pieces of shareware that slowly lost support with each major OS update and every major update also came with less customizing for Finder. By the time they switched to their own ARM chips, I was ready to drop it. Apple’s idea of game support was just mobile shit anyway. They should have become partnered with Valve on Proton.
Anybody can download Windows images too. That doesn’t mean the OS is free.
I never said it did.
macOS is free because they don’t charge for it.
This is a dumb argument. Apple does provide you the OS upgrades for free but getting an ISO file and installing it on a non-Mac computer is impossible so no it’s not really free
Really? Did you pay for it? Because it’s free for me when I download it.
Sounds like you got scammed
That’s not the point. You’re still going to have to pay money regardless if you want the operating system. Whereas windows and Linux allow you to use their ISOs is any laptop or computer so no buddy.
If I already owned a laptop beforehand and I wanted Linux on it, it’s free. If I want MacOS I WOULD HAVE TO GO SPEND MONEY ON A COMPLETELY NEW COMPUTER THAT’S A MAC. that’s the point I’m trying to get at.
Compatibility has nothing to do with how much something costs. The fact is, there’s no way to actually buy macOS. Because it doesn’t cost anything.
As I’ve said elsewhere, by your logic, every operating system cost money to run because you have to pay money for a compatible device to run it on.
You’re just drawing some imaginary line at Apple. That makes no sense.
You’re missing the core point: Compatibility directly impacts accessibility. Just because something doesn’t have a price tag doesn’t mean it’s actually usable without cost. macOS is only ‘free’ if you already bought into Apple’s walled garden. That’s like saying Disneyland is free because walking around inside the park costs nothing—after you paid $150 to get in.
I cannot believe there is this long, drawn out argument over whether MacOS is free or not when my intention was MacOS + Mac = me not buying because it’s too much money for a meh system that doesn’t run half of the games or apps (though that’s been changing).
I feel like reading between the lines is a skill, or an art form that has gone extinct with young folk.
You’re missing the point: macOS is free. Just because you have to buy hardware to run it on doesn’t make it any different than any other free operating system like Linux. There’s plenty of hardware that doesn’t support Linux , too, so your argument, especially falls apart there.
there’s not a lot that non-Apple users can do with them
Oh, there is.
I am a web developer and I use this to run Safari and the iOS simulator without paying Apple’s “debugging tax”.That’s a limited time opportunity because x86 support is getting dropped with macOS 27.
Well…looks like my employer will have to buy me a Macbook soon.
I bought the cheapest MacBook Air for my wife. It’s pretty nice. Lightweight, sturdy, and such good battery life that she doesn’t keep track of her charger. Personally I have a physical KVM that I use to switch between my Linux workstation and my laptop.
Bruh what? Did you really just say that not having to buy software exclusive to a certain hardware makes the software free?
That’s like saying the OS on a PlayStation is free because you only had to pay for the PlayStation.
Nah man, you purchased the OS with the hardware. That’s why it’s exclusive.
No, I said your argument is ridiculous. So is this one you just made.
It’s not like either of those things.
macOS is free. Just because it requires a computer to run doesn’t mean it isn’t free. That’s the worst rationalization. I’ve heard yet.
macOS is absolutely not free, and your argument is exactly the same as those examples the previous user provided.
Floo just means that Apple used to charge for MacOS updates but they don’t anymore. They are old enough to remember the $129 upgrade fee. You’re also right because the hardware is obviously a license dongle that costs more than a retail copy of Windows. If you want MacOS, at least the $500 Mac mini and $800 MacBook Air are as good as anything you can buy at that price point. Kind of irrelevant but to this thread tho.
Prove it
Proton is the reason I daily drive Linux. That is a simple, unequivocal fact.
Not me! I switched in 2017, right around the time Windows 10 “telemetry” (read: spyware) was getting backported to Windows 7.
It was a rough first couple of years, gaming-wise, but I managed to get by playing mostly Linux-native games and using PlayOnLinux with pre-Proton WINE for the one or two games important enough to justify the hassle.
(INB4 “weird flex but OK”)
I gotta admit, I was pretty conflicted about Proton when it was first announced, since there was a lot of fear that it would reduce developer impetus to make proper Linux-native games. I’m not actually sure whether that came to pass or not, but I feel like the issue is a lot less important than it seemed at the time.
Me too, soon I guess. I have a Steam Deck, and now using Windows on my laptop is kind of like torture, so the Deck has been my main PC.
Yeah it has. I don’t even bother looking at the supported operating systems for most games on Steam anymore. I also don’t play overhyped microtransaction-laden bullshit like cod or fortnite, either, so no loss there. If I ever wanted to play that kind of game, I have a PS5.
So, my middle aged ass plays the microtransaction-laden bullshit known as Roblox because my 3rd grader and all his friends love it.
It doesn’t even have a Linux version but thanks to the project “sober” it plays absolutely fantastically on Linux. I think they claim 2x the performance of the windows version. I just know I have a powerful but old system (8c/8t 9700k cpu and gtx1080 gpu) and I can lock it at 144fps at 1440p and it uses like 20% of my system resources. Not that it’s a visually demanding game, lol.
Going all-in on my switch to Linux (my win10 partition for dual booting lasted less than two weeks) has had zero negative impact on my ability to play the games I want. In fact, it has led to me using my PC a lot more and my phone a lot less. Feels good.
I’ve suffered one loss, I can’t play Mechabellum any more. But other than that my experience has been much the same, smooth across all fronts.
Literally this week I learned that you need to install flatpak Nvidia drivers if you use flatpak Steam. Once I found that out, proton works great!
This is why I have used flatpak steam. It’s a lot easier to manage drivers in it vs the shitshow that is doing it natively with adding custom driver specific repos and whatnot.
Hoping the new PC I just ordered (with an AMD GPU) will be better with the native app.
I will remark that that sounds like a distro issue - I use Arch and the drivers are just in the official distros, no need to add external ones. Just look up what you need on the wiki and install it.
That said, AMD will still probably be a better experience.
I’m on Fedora KDE. I think it was drivers. I had the official drivers just fine, but at the time (18-24 months ago?) they were shitty and breaking some games on my GPU so I switched to alternate drivers. I think the drivers are better now, but I haven’t switched back and cleaned out my repo list.
I think I was using an NVidia GPU up until about 3 years ago, when I switched to AMD when upgrading, so my knowledge on that front is a bit outdated.
The arch wiki has more information if you’re curious, but I’m aware of official proprietary drivers, official partially opensourced drivers, separately packaged legacy drivers, and the unofficial opensource Nouveau drivers which weren’t really usable back then.
What you’re describing sounds odd to me, but looking it up, sounds like Fedora doesn’t package official drivers? I’m having trouble finding proper information on this, but it could be for ideological reasons, since those drivers are proprietary - so the default drivers might be Nouveau, which might be rather broken, both because of lack of workforce and NVidia blocking unofficial drivers from using their devices properly.
If that’s the case, it’s basically a conflict between ideology and usability within that distribution - it might seem like a great distro for users, and it might be competently made, but when somebody doesn’t care about the ideology and just wants their device to work, they’ll end up with confusion and work to do.
Bazzite has native drivers included. I believe Fedora requires you to install them.
It does seem to go a step further, Fedora seems to not only require you to install them, but also not provide them in the official repositories, requiring you to use unofficial repositories. Most software in a distro’s repositories doesn’t come preinstalled, but it’s generally as simple as running the package manager.
This is what finally let me transition to Mint :3
Thank you Lord Gaben
Thank you to the workers who actually programmed, tested, and implemented the thing*
to his credit as a billionaire he could have paid all those people to do something that sucks way more
I’m glad he’s not as evil as the other billionaires, but can we stop with the billionaire simping? Ironic that an account on a left-wing anarchist instance made that comment lmao
He’s still a billionaire tho 🤮
Thank you
Lord GabenCodeWeaverssSun MicrosystemsIt’s corporations making money off of OSS all the way down
How do they make money with proton and foss?
They sell games to people with SteamDecks, I guess. My comment was probably a bit blunt TBF. I think Valve is transformative in the gaming space. They’re not doing it for free though, and I think it helps to remember that.
Proton actually is free, I use it without a Steam Deck. I mean yeah they build a handheld console and they are allowed to sell it I guess? They don’t sell SteamOS and they don’t sell Proton, I could use both without paying them a dime right now. Legally. They also upstream to Wine … Actually for free?
So, Valve has indeed done a lot to make Linux more attractive for gamers. It isn’t perfect yet, but we are getting there. And yes, kernel-based anti-cheat is one of the reasons why it isn’t perfect yet.
Are they working on a fix for the kernel anti cheat? Is it possible?
Not really. But from a security perspective, giving software for a video game, done by InfinityWard, EA, Activision, Treyarch and similar, access to the lowest level of your operating systen is kinda insane.
I wouldn’t want any personal data on such a device, let alone do online baking on that thing. It’s weird how normalized it has become give entertainement-software this kind of power over your devices.
From what I read, Microsoft is planning to kick anti-cheat out of the Windows kernel too, so maybe that will help on the Linux side as well.
From Wikipedia:
Programs and subsystems in user mode are limited in terms of what system resources they have access to, while the kernel mode has unrestricted access to the system memory and external devices. Kernel mode in Windows NT has full access to the hardware and system resources of the computer.
I’d argue kernel-based anticheats are one of the areas gaming on Linux excels. Video game developers should not have that level of permissions over consumers’ machines, certainly with how little your average gamer understands the potential consequences of these rootkits. So the fact that all of the ones I know of can’t be installed under Linux is more than acceptable, it’s ideal.
I want it to evolve to support more desktop applications. This is the one thing that will continue to hamper Linux adoption. Games are the best place to start, but we need all those old obscure, irreplaceable desktop apps to work now.
Get it to run Office and you’ve a game changer.
Yes, yes I know Libre/Open Office but try telling Shelly in Accounting who still struggles with Excel after 36 years of experience.
Or Adobe, that’s the most frequent complaint
It’s built on Wine, any general improvements to compatibility will generally support desktop programs using the same APIs
I really only miss fortnite and the ocassional call of duty warzone but other than those two or some multiplayer games Linux is far more enjoyable. Yeah I know this games and those companies but let someone enjoy something for once. Help me find a work around. Until then I dual boot mint and windows debloated as much as possible for only a few multiplayer games.
It’s not that the companies should be boycotted, it’s that they chose this themselves, the publishers choose these types of drm and anticheats when they could have included decency, neither the players, developers or elitists need to take any heat it’s just a greedfaced choice for a publisher that carefully weighs gold against reputation and outrage, because they’re a parasite on Earth, a made up elaborate middle man professional scam that; just like hedge funds provide heavy negative benefit to the human race, actively ruining our chances as a species to survive, a bloated boil about to burst and provide nothing but pox on everything they touch
Common GabeN win
Didn’t it all start with Wine and later Vulkan / DXVK? Didn’t Valve just put it all together in a nice package or am I missing something?
I still use wine for most of my games on the desktop.
Proton upstreams to Wine a lot. You can tell by the number of patches they have keeps fluctuating
I love it! Not only do I use it on the Steam Deck, but also on my Desktop PC running Linux.
I’m getting back into PC gaming after being consult exclusive for a while. I’m assuming anything with kernel anti-cheat is still not trying to work which is a problem because it means I either have to buy a windows licence or mess around with a cracked one which has its own security concerns.
I think my plan is to dual boot and use Windows as little as often.
There’s this handy list of online games with anti-cheat that are compatible with Linux. The majority isn’t supported, but some major titles are, surprisingly.
well what has it been doing for the first 6 years
Building momentum for the year of the Linux.
You know, the one we’ve been reading about for 20 years.
Bro actually said it’s the year of Linux
Considering october is the planned end of life for w10 I wouldn’t be surprised
