Only I don't dislike chili (Linux). What you're saying is that someone who likes beans in their chili wouldn't be welcome at a chili cook-off because beans don't belong in chili in your opinion, and your opinion should be the law of the land.

Or are you saying a person can only attend a chili cook-off (or a discussion about Linux) if they eat chili every day (or use Linux)? Can someone who is merely interested in the subject not partake, Your Holy Imperial Majesty?

Interesting response. I'm not subbed the the Linux community; Lemmy is small enough, I just browse /all. Still, even among Linux users, there's no best. You got the Arch guys, the Mint guys, the Ubuntu guys, and everyone in between, and hashing out which options are best has got to be an interesting part of it. So if you add Windows and macOS into the mix, you're not really changing the conversation. Just more pros and cons to toss around. Saying things like "proprietary" and "Apple tax" are reductive and don't really get anyone anywhere. Like who gives a shit. Really. Though I think a lot of people agree paid Linux and proprietary Linux is seldom good. Like Lindows/Linspire. Nobody liked that shit. There's a new one that's paid, or it's free but has paid options, apparently it's pretty popular? I forget the name right now. Marketing itself as a better alternative to Windows. And I get it. Support options and all that. It's a good idea. But the Arch guys aren't buying it, and I suspect the Mint and Ubuntu guys aren't interested, either. But a Windows guy who, that's all he knows? Maybe it's a nice first step to something else.

Well, if you have an old Mac (like Intel era), I think Linux would be a good target if your Mac isn't supported anymore. I'm not sure what Linux distros run on Apple Silicon. Linux being a bit lighter weight would mitigate some of the issues Mac guys have with certain Intel Macs (overheating). And certainly breathe new life into the machine.

I'm not quite sold on Mac Studio. For high end, I don't want something that's all on one chip and can't be upgraded. But that's what Apple Silicon is all about. Just seems like someone who needs that much computer would be better served by a different kind of machine. For cheap consumer grade computers, Macs are kinda hard to beat, but at every price point, there are other options. Hard to say what the best is. It would depend on the user.

I wouldn't give BIOS/rootkit access to a game I like. I'll just play it on Xbox.

I feel like Riot is doing gamers a favour here.

Fair point, but also, the M4 Mac mini is $500 for a pretty competitive chip, 16GB RAM, and 256GB on-chip SSD. You can beat that with a PC (and probably get a bit bigger drive, like 500GB, and you'd be able to upgrade), but you wouldn't save that much money. The Windows license puts it over; of course, the idea is you get someone to sell you one without a Windows license and install Linux. But if they aren't including Windows, they aren't selling in enough bulk to get the price down. There are a bunch of little computers from China that are competitive, but do you trust them? Up to you, I guess.

The other option, I went over in my top-level comment, is to find a gently used office PC that can't be upgraded to Windows 11, like a 7th gen i5. It's not gonna be competitive, performance wise, against that M4 Mac mini, though, but you might get it for like $100 from eBay or something, so maybe it's fine.

To add to your point, not only does it run on "generic" hardware, it runs on "whatever" hardware.

You should ask the AI what the advantages are of Linux Mint over macOS. You should then ask the reverse and compare the pros and cons from both angles.

Note that the AI is just going to aggregate Reddit posts and dress up the language a bit. But you should get good information.

As a macOS user typing on a Mac mini (M2 Pro) running macOS 26.2 Tahoe, I will say that Linux is better for gaming via Proton. We have the Game Porting Tool Kit (GPTK) but this is not really user facing. We have paid options like CrossOver, and there used to be a free option called Whisky, but it's been discontinued. Linux is kind of awesome for gaming and like, most games run on Linux now. (I choose to game on Xbox and Switch, but that's beside the point.)

I think macOS is a slightly more polished product, but the trade-off for Linux is, you can run it on more hardware (like if you have an ageing PC and you don't want to get a Mac — or, if you can find a decent PC for the price of an M4 Mac mini, which goes for $500), and you have more control over the software. For example, it just came up again in the Windows communities that Windows 11 can't move its taskbar to the sides or the top like it's done since Windows 95 through Windows 10. macOS has a menu bar that is stuck on the top always (always has been) but it has an application dock on the bottom that can move to the left (but not the right, nor can it sit on or under the menu bar at the top). In Linux, not only can you put your system bar wherever you want it, I think you can customise it to have more than one (like you can go macOS and have a menu/system bar and dock, but you can put them where you want them).

I personally wouldn't choose Linux over macOS, but if I did, I would start with Ubuntu. Personal preference. And, while I wouldn't trade my MacBook, I could use Linux on the desktop. I wouldn't hate it. I like my Mac, but if I got ahold of an older PC, like something a company was getting rid of because it can't run Windows 11 (say, a 7th generation i5 with 16GB of RAM would be nice), I'd wipe the drive and put Linux on it. I would not try to make it a Hackintosh (I'm honestly not gonna do the work). Coming from an office, it would likely be sold without a drive. So I'd get a cheap SATA SSD (like 500/512GB) and put Ubuntu on it.

Yes, they borrowed a macOS feature and put it in Microsoft Office.

On Windows, exotic/lesser-used symbols are inserted either via GUI via the CharMap.exe application, or via keyboard shortcut by holding in ALT and striking an "ALT Code," but only on the number pad. The number row above the letters doesn't count. Why? Nobody really knows. Anyway, on a Mac, you hold Option and optionally hold Shift, and press a key. For the em dash, it's Shift+Option+Hyphen.

Since ChatGPT and others have popularised the em dash, people want to use it more. Those of us who have used it all along can tell you from memory, on Windows it's ALT+0151. I can do that keyboard shortcut in my sleep. (Been using Windows for over 30 years. macOS, only a few.) It's way easier on the Mac, though. And, this year, Microsoft brought it to Office. In Word, Excel, Outlook, or the others, you can hold Shift and the Windows key (which is exactly where Option is on a Mac keyboard; where Windows users have the Left Alt key, we have ⌘ (Command; Windows users can see that symbol because it has an older meaning, on maps: it means "point of interest")) and strike hyphen to insert an em dash. If you're a Mac user who knows the Mac shortcut, the exact same muscle memory will serve you in Office on a Windows machine.

Unfortunately, it's only for Office. The same trick doesn't work in, say, Notepad. It's aggravating because Word will convert two hyphens without a space to an em dash anyway (maybe other Office apps, I'm not sure).

I've never played League (not my thing) but I feel like Riot has squandered a few opportunities along the way.

Arcane was more of a back story, but I think they should have released some kind of Jinx-centric game, or some kind of Jinx package to celebrate the anime. As I understand it, there are a few dozen Legends and Jinx is just one of them, and her play style may not match up with every fan of Arcane, so maybe some kind of spinoff game instead?

Also, My Hero Academia threw a shout out to League a couple years ago when two of the villains talked about playing League together (Spinner, the ninja turtle looking dude; and Shigaraki, the main villain). (The manga only said they play games; I don't think it name dropped League, but the fans kind of assumed it and the anime rolled with that.) So, a crossover event would have brought in some new players.

Though, I'm sure their numbers are good enough, they don't need to appeal to anime fans, but anime has reached out to them a couple times and it just seems like money left on the table. I know my wife would have gotten into League if she could play as Shigaraki.

I don't know, I've never tried.

For a ~$200 streaming box, that respects privacy, does 4K, AND does torrenting, you're basically looking at a Linux PC. Those come in many flavours; you can even start with a Raspberry Pi. I'm not sure about "ten foot interfaces" though; that is, interfaces that can be used with a remote from your couch. That said, they make remote-sized keyboards with track pads, and I'm sure you can do just about anything with Linux.

I think what OP is getting at is that people "in the know" (i.e. in privacy circles) boycott Firefox and use LibreWolf (and others), and the masses still use Firefox. Except the masses mostly use Chrome. But I think I see where they're coming from.

Apple TV, or some kind of dedicated, Linux-based HTPC.

Even if you don't use Apple stuff, Apple TV kills it with no ads and a dead simple interface. Having an iPhone just means you can type from your phone. But you can use your voice with the remote regardless of who makes your phone (it's unrelated). Controlling my ATV from my wrist is a neat trick, but it's hardly a sales point.

They have an interesting take. They're not against AI per se, they're against AI they can't audit. It was an interesting read.

The problem with forks such as Waterfox is that they don't get fixes as quick as the mainline browser. But, this is also somewhat of a myth. When Mozilla fixes something in Firefox, they don't push the update out to everyone right away. Some people don't get it for days. Someone who uses a privacy-centric fork like Waterfox is going to be more apt to stay on top of the updates, so even if it takes a day or two for Waterfox to integrate the fix, Waterfox users are likely updating before a lot of Firefox users. And even then, the chances of the average user being affected by whatever is being fixed is typically low, so it's better to have for browsing, but it's not like something that is constantly threatening you — in most cases.

That said, I use Firefox, and I was able to disable the AI stuff. Saw it, said nope, saw the option to disable, did so, and have been happy ever since. I don't always agree with Mozilla, but, I have been curious about forks and I have used Waterfox in the past. It's fine. It might be better, especially for "default settings" Firefox users, but for someone with a relatively low threat level and an intermediate to high skill in hardening browsers (my own assessment, subject to bias), I'm not particularly bothered by using regular Firefox. And if you're subscribed to a Privacy community (or subreddit), you probably shouldn't be, either, but then again, only you can judge your own threat level. There are certainly situations where something like Waterfox would be preferred.