Okay, all you who post on every post “you should just switch to Linux”. Here’s your chance. I’m someone who really does want to run Linux on the desktop. I run Linux servers at home, was a Unix sysadmin for years running Linux on the desktop in the '90s. But now I’m in sales and run Windows at work (actually very happily with some help from StartAllBack and Rufus).
I want to replace my Macs at home. Since they removed upgradable RAM and disk, I am no longer willing to pay the high tax for the few little things they do better. But there is some functionality I just cannot seem to find replacements for. This is where you folks who say “I should just switch to Linux” come in. Tell me how please:
Requirement 1) I have heavily invested in my local music library on iTunes. 1200 albums. I have little to no interest in streaming services. I want to organize my music with * ratings from 1-5 and from that have smart playlists that autopopulate and sort themselves by * ratings and genre. I have more than 40 of these types of playlists and it’s completely unworkable to populate them manually.
Requirement 2) I must be able to sync my music library in full to my phone. I use an iOS phone now, but I could even be convinced to switch to Android if there was a good solution. I am not willing to go in and select 100 different playlists manually to sync. It must completely replicate what’s on my desktop on my phone, 100% locally, including all the afformentioned smart playlists. I travel a lot for work and want my music always available even when there’s no network.
Requirement 3) My job really doesn’t require much more than Office and a browser, but it requires very heavy use of those things. Firefox is fine for the browser, so no trouble there, but I need full fledged Outlook, OneNote and most of the features of Excel at a minimum. Word I can take a bit of a hit on as long as I can save something that others can open. Ideally I would want to run the Windows version of these tools. I will not be able to live with only the browser versions, that I’m 100% sure of.
Requirement 4) I’d really like some sort of decent photo management tool. I can probably manage just by keeping them organized in folders and having google photos suck that in, but I don’t much trust Google, so would like to have a second tool that can also do a good job at replacing MacOS’ Photos app. AI image recognition and search a-la Google Photos would be the cherry on top.
Requirement 5) I need to be able to scan in batches from my Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner into Evernote. I use this on mobile, other OS’, etc. and have a lot of organization built into it now that I really don’t want to try to migrate from.
That’s it. 5 high level requirements that must be met. Is it possible?
I’m fully capable of escaping vendor lock. I’m technical and persistent and have switched platforms at least 5-6 times in the past. I’ve run just about every desktop operating system that has existed since the '80s. The only things that are holding me on Mac are the specific features I’ve mentioned.
Isn’t that the vendor lock part?
I look at vendor lock in more as giving you proprietary file types or other data that simply won’t work on other systems. I’ve been very careful to avoid that by using DRM-free media exclusively for example. Smart playlists and those sort of things are features that can and have been delivered on multiple platforms. The only place where I’d say I’m truly “locked in” is in Echange server integration, but that’s a choice my work made which I have no control over.