Fully agree. And more than that, I think you're objectively correct.
Think about the evolution of the term "social media". It evolved from social networks, which themselves evolved from forums.
The "media" in "social media" refers to third-party content that is algorithmically boosted through social signals, with signals from your own network weighting higher, and in the end creating a personalized algorithm of media content.
There is no personalized media on HN. It's the same feed for everyone. There is no network on HN. No friends, follows, private messages.
So there's no social to HN, and no (personalized) media, and no network.
Anecdotally (under 45; American), I agree that "never took a sick day" is indeed not a laudatory statement, but I also strongly believe that working hard is a prime virtue.
At least for American technologists (if not technologists more broadly, or Americans more broadly) failure is not at all seen as a bad thing: it's seen as a data point that XYZ didn't work, so now we'll pivot to ABC and give that a go.
Edison's quote about not having failed, but rather, discovering 1,000 ways not to do something captures this well.
It’s a good counter point, but I don’t think it mimics the kind of failure embracing that Clark talks about.
It is more a reframing of failure as a success of learning and growing. E.g, while the project failed, you didn’t. You learned lessons and are stronger and better for it. You succeed.
The serious answer is that you get an "it-just-works"⁺ Unix-like operating system that gives you a development experience on-par with Linux.
If you are doing sysadmin stuff: you will not like macOS.
If you care about configuration for your window manager, desktop environment, or systemd services: you will not like macOS.
If you are a graphics engineer or a kernel engineer: you will (probably) not like macOS.
If you are a C++/Rust/Python/JavaScript/Java/mobile/desktop engineer who wants a rock-solid developer environment and doesn't care about the above: you will like macOS.
You get all the Unix tools you could ever want, whatever shell you want to use (Zsh, Fish, even PowerShell), clang/LLVM, etc.
Does that answer your question?
⁺: caveat being "it just works" is getting less and less true with every macOS release.
This would be my answer, though I also do sysadmin stuff from macOS just fine. I've used OSX/macOS for a long time, I understand how it works and how to move around, and the ecosystem integration is nice. Adobe products, MS products also all work without any hassle along with any software development I want to do. Then there's the hardware which Apple Silicon has been great for. I bought an M1 Max 64gb laptop on release and it still never feels slow. Battery life is great, trackpad works great, etc...
And I say all this knowing that someone can likely get similar use out of a MS or Linux laptop. At this point, just pick what you know and get on with it.
MacOS is fine as a client/dispatch node for SSH/Ansible/Terraform/whatnot; I think they meant that you cannot sysadmin MacOS itself as a target with many of the same tools/techniques you would sysadmin a Linux server.
I wish that weren't true, as someone who struggles with a lot of cross-platform Puppet tooling that I wish behaved better on Mac. No, Nix doesn't help; not when the goal is "configure other people's machines to a baseline but don't otherwise prescribe how they should use them".
Good point. We all end up with different definitions of sys admin. I’ve managed fleets of Linux servers just fine with a macOS as my only client computer, but I’ve never managed other clients. Maybe a Linux client would have helped in that case if sys admin was my singular job, but even then I may have just created a Linux client in my vps to use as the management node.
And I thought that I'm the only one saying that. I bought my first mac just because of that, it was rock-solid, it was unix, and it came with ruby/python/xxx preinstalled so that I could just worry about doing the work.
But from (let's say) El Capitan, I am always postponing upgrades, and recently I've been only upgrading by buying a new machine every 2 ys (except this year, I had to upgrade because of Metal, but I'm still one version below, still scared to upgrade to Tahoe). Every new feature they add to their OS I'm just disabling, every time I upgrade. Either I am not their customer anymore, or they are more and more clueless.
And it's not that hard, I just want it to work so that I can focus on my own stuff.
> If you are a graphics engineer or a kernel engineer: you will (probably) not like macOS.
On the contrary, Metal is the most developer friendly of the modern 3D APIs, and macOS is the best desktop OS having graphical debugging tools in the box, with modern language tooling without the mindset only C and C++ are worthy to be used in graphics programming.
> If you are doing sysadmin stuff: you will not like macOS.
Even then, that's debatable. Should say if you like doing sysadmin stuff on your own machine.
I am a sysadmin, and my daily driver is an M4 macbook pro and I wouldn't have it any other way. I admin other machines, I don't want to play sysadmin for my own. But its mostly for the hardware more than any other reason.
Microsoft's Copilot AI software has been integrated in every corner of the operating system, from the start menu to the notepad to settings. Beyond the intrusiveness of it, it also does not work very well. Other AI mishaps include Recall, which takes screenshots of your desktop every so often, and the original version of Recall stored these in an unencrypted, insecure database.
On top of that, the OS feels more bloated and disorganized than ever, with something like six different UI frameworks all present in various spots on the OS; system settings are scattered across the Settings app (new) and various legacy panels like Control Panel and Network Connections.
What else... Microsoft now requires an online connection and Microsoft account to sign in to your PC; no more local-only accounts allowed.
I'm sure there's more I'm missing. It's not a pleasant operating system.
I added a local-only account to a Win 11 Pro box just two days ago. Nothing seems different to me—the usual horsing around with the no online account stuff but it let me create the account.
Most people are fine with Windows, including myself. I find it a good business workhorse with excellent productivity features that I can rely upon, knowing that it will handle pretty much any task I throw at it.
Another factor vs Mac (for me) is that if something to happen to my ThinkPad while I'm at a factory somewhere in rural Uzbekistan, there is always a store in the nearby city where I can grab a Windows laptop for like $400 and continue with the job, and/or have my machine serviced.
Windows has enormous userbase, and obviously you'll hear a high absolute number of criticisms, especially considering that those who actively dislike the OS for whatever reason will take take their time to bring their frustrations online, and those who are fine with it rarely comment about it.
I hear people say that, but I’m yet to see what’s unreliable about Windows. I’m running Windows 11 with latest updates on my ThinkPad X1 Carbon, and it hasn’t ever failed me, not even once. It has been solid as a rock for me.
Windows laptops vary in hardware quality and software support significantly, maybe that’s where issues arise for some people?
Wtf is up with the Windows 7 screenshot in the article? It looks like an image generated with AI... and a particularly poor AI, too; maybe the same model that gave us "Will Smith eating spaghetti."
On top of that, the article says a lot without saying really anything at all.
Not worth the click and surprised this made it to the front page.
It's just weird that I couldn't find any info on which kernel they use. Linux seems the obvious choice for the task (most internet facing servers run Linux after all), but my (admittedly very poor) understanding of the GNU licence is that derivative works also needs to be published under the GNU licence? And they're using a different licence..
You misunderstand how licensing works. They can build an entirely closed source OS around the Linux kernel if they want. The only thing they'd have to publish is the changes to the kernel itself. I don't see why they'd need to modify the kernel so they'd have to publish absolutely nothing!
But to answer your question, umbrelOS is debian. You're right that they don't advertise that fact anywhere (that I've seen). They use rugpi to build a preconfigured image that includes their changes and their software. All the details are indeed public and open, if you know what you're looking for:
That also answers the questions some other commenters have had elsewhere in this thread, about what happens to the hardware if the company fails. Now we know: it's Debian. Apt will remain.
I had a friend in grad school who influenced my political beliefs more than anyone I'd met.
He never engaged in political conversation with "here's what I believe, and here's why you should too." His approach was more Socratic; to listen to me talk, and then offer an additional viewpoint or context.
I never got the impression from him that he was trying to convince me of something, or that he thought I was wrong about X/Y/Z, but rather, that we were on an intellectual journey together to identify what the problems actually were and what nuanced solutions might look like.
I still have no idea to this day what his ACTUAL political party is (or if he even has one). I genuinely could not tell you if he was left, right, or center.
> I still have no idea to this day what his ACTUAL political party is (or if he even has one). I genuinely could not tell you if he was left, right, or center.
Did you not asking him about HIS position on different matters? That is how I would do it. Some people won't share their views unless directly asked
Think about the evolution of the term "social media". It evolved from social networks, which themselves evolved from forums.
The "media" in "social media" refers to third-party content that is algorithmically boosted through social signals, with signals from your own network weighting higher, and in the end creating a personalized algorithm of media content.
There is no personalized media on HN. It's the same feed for everyone. There is no network on HN. No friends, follows, private messages.
So there's no social to HN, and no (personalized) media, and no network.
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