I have a by now quite elderly Macbook Pro from 2013 which I call Wee Beastie.  When I bought it in 2013 I had no idea that I would still be using it in 2025 but the simple fact is that it is still plenty useful for most things.  Music and photography and internet and email and writing, I have no real complaints.

I also have a newer Macbook Pro, an M1, but it’s a bit large for my taste.  The old 2013 is a smaller 14" model and the M1 is a 16".  I got the M1 as a side effect of working with a previous employer and it’s a fantastic computer, but I really wish it was a smaller model.  I’ve been giving serious consideration to selling it and moving to a 14" M4.  Anyway, back to the 2013 Mac.

Last year I decided that I was going to convert Wee Beastie to Linux and I installed Ubuntu Studio on it.  I’ve been using it as a Linux machine ever since and it’s been…  fine, I guess.  I’ve been using Linux professionally for over 30 years, I’ve had a lot of Linux machines in my life, but Linux as a desktop environment has always felt wonky.  I always WANT to like it but I never really DO.  Still, I stuck with it and it was adequate.  I ran Gnome for a while, but it was too slow on that hardware, so I went KDE, and then switched to Lubuntu desktop to get even faster and lighter, but nothing was ever all that enjoyable to use.  To be honest, Windows 10 and 11 are a far better desktop user experience than anything I’ve ever used in the Linux space and none of the above holds a candle to MacOS for usability.  But, like I said, it was OK.  That is, until I tried to upgrade it.

When I installed Linux on the thing, I installed the version of Ubuntu Studio based on 22.04(?) and had no issues.  Installed easily, handled the Retina HiDPI screen stuff correctly, no audio driver issues, all good.  But the upgrade to the latest release included a copy of the kernal that couldn’t even get to the login screen, loading with either a blank screen or a frozen error message.  This was frustrating but, unfortunately, par for the Linux course and I figured out how to get it sorted out and got into a recovery mode, installed new kernals, etc.  Fine, fine, but then the machine managed to boot and the performance was DREADFUL.  Everything slower than crap.  Ah, Wayland, I see.  Spent a few days tweaking and hacking and researching until the basic system usability was at least adequate, and finally I was back to “Meh”.  That is, until I tried to play any sort of videos.

OMG.  This computer has been capable of smooth HD video playback since day 1 using MacOS but with Linux?  I could not get it to happen.

And then it hit me…  I was spending hours and hours of headache and irritation just to run an operating system that provides a user experience that is somehow even more annoying and inconsistent than freaking Windows.  Why was I doing this?  Yes, I love Unix but I can run Linux as a process within Windows if I want (via WSL) or I can just run MacOS which is the most polished Unix-based operating system on the planet.  Mac IS Unix just as much as Linux is, but with a level of user friendliness that no Linux distro can even touch.  The biggest problem was that Apple stopped supporting this machine years ago and newer versions of MacOS are not available by default.  So what?  I know how to get them installed anyhow, I have an iMac in the recording studio that is of the same vintage that runs the latest versions of everything, unofficially but perfectly well.

This Linux experiment was a bust.

So, this morning, I threw in the towel.  I backed up all of my files to an external drive and then wiped the machine and did a network install to reset it to Big Sur.  Now I am getting ready to use OpenCore Legacy Patcher to bring it up to the latest version of MacOS and I’ll be back in business.  What did I learn?

First, the Linux promise of running faster and better on older systems is not always true.  If you want to have a computer capable of video editing, audio production, photography, software development, etc., the loaded Ubuntu Studio seems to make sense but it actually performs worse than a hacked and unsupported MacOS install.

Second, the multimedia production applications that Linux brings to the party are disappointing.  The best of them are also available for the Mac and the rest are not worth using.

Third, despite Apple’s neglect and their seeming desire to keep people away from the platform, the Mac is still the Mac.  It’s a better Unix than Linux, the best software development and multimedia platform available, and still kinda crappy as a gaming platform (which is fine because Linux is worse and I’m not gaming focused with my laptop).

I keep trying to get away from the Mac because I don’t like Tim Cook’s take on Apple but the alternatives on offer just aren’t good enough to keep me around.  Hours of frustration just to reach a state of “tolerable”?  No thanks.