If you’re looking for specific software you’ll find a whole bunch missing. If you’re open to learning a new way of achieving the same result, there’s a lot of coverage in the Linux world.
I have to confess that I have very little knowledge in that area, having pretty much only used iCloud backups for my iDevices. When it comes to managing devices, do you mean in the business sense (e.g. MDM, device profiles, etc), or do you mean as in connecting them to iTunes?
Nope, that's one thing that I don't think has become easier over the years. There have been backwards-engineered solutions to this, working to a limited degree, but they've all been broken by later iOS updates, to my knowledge. It's iCloud or nothing, I think.
Lightroom, and GotomyPC are two examples of why I can't switch. Yes, there's a lightroom competitor called dark table, but if I wanted to switch, I would have done so on windows. As much as I hate subscriptions, I'm seemingly pretty entrenched with LR.
Among enthusiasts it probably was. But look at what happens in server rooms: Serious projects need money to keep people working on the boring daily tasks instead of striving for the next generation of "shiny". Many software maintainers solve this by providing a "community" edition of their software which acts as a combination of feature test and demo version for people with more time than money, and beside this they have one or more versions with commercial support and less generous license terms. This would have to happen to many software suites to have them keep evolving to a point where non-nerds can appreciate them.
But it was, we've heard probably ad nauseam that this year is the year of linux - granted that talk is now long gone for years on end, we heard that year x, will be the year that linux comes into its own and be a viable alternative to the common man.
Yeah, but that is just a subset of the Linux community. Not all of us believe that hype. I'm of the camp that Linux is never going to replace Windows or macOS and that the larger community doesn't want it to either. It's a decentralized community that enjoys the freedoms open-source software provides.
I've floated between them all with overlap periods too. I was always a DOS then Windows person. Then in 2006 I got my first Mac and in a few years I was Mac only at home. Then at work a few years ago, I got so pissed at Windows that I wiped my machine and put Linux on it and have been using it since. This past summer at home I made the full time switch to Linux and no longer have a Mac there. I do have a Windows PC at home, but I strictly use that for gaming once in a while.
Frankly, if I couldn't use macOS anymore, I would switch to Linux or one of the BSDs out of spite and live with the consequences. My gaming computer and my home lab is all on Linux and FreeBSD already.
You are correct that in 2019, its a forgone conclusion that Linux isn't, but years ago it wasn't such a forgone conclusion and many people were trying to unseat windows. Maybe it was people tilting at windmills but it was popular fodder for the technical writers of the day.
If there’s an opinion to be had, I’m sure you’ll find hardliners supporting it..
Not arguing against your main point, but anecdotally I was at a conference recently, where I saw a handful of Windows machines but mainly a 50/50 split between various MacBooks and mostly Thinkpads running some Linux variant or other. While almost everybody did have a terminal window or more on their screen, even the most hardcore of the Linux users there were running at the very least a window manager but more commonly a desktop environment.
Couldn't agree more. I used to be a sysadmin, but I didn't live entirely in a terminal. I used a normal desktop environment for a long time.
I'll disagree there. I'm confident that there is an app or script on Linux that can accomplish the same goals that apps on other platforms can do. The difference isn't that there is or isn't an app, rather, it's that there is a different way to do the same thing. It just takes a person to learn a new way, a new method or a new program to achieve the same end.