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?
Full disclosure: I ran manjaro as a daily driver for a while a few years back bad have been forced back on windows as well by company policy. So I’m not going to be the ultimate authority to answer your questions.
All I wanted to comment is that with iTunes and Office you have picked two pieces of software by two companies that have a very strong interest in not letting you migrate away from them. I tried to migrate my gf’s password manager from the iCloud one to bitwarden and it’s amazing the hoops they make you jump through to get at your data. So what you might be experiencing right now is a thing called “vendor lock”, and I wish you the best of luck for finding a way out. ;)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.
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.
Some of these are going to be a bit of a challenge, but let’s put down some keywords you can look into.
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Airsonic or jellyfin in a docker container
- I also recommend a container with lidarr etc. and a qbitorrent locked into a VPN
- smart playlists may take some playing around with, however playlists are just a text file, so in a pinch a python script will do basic things.
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This one’s easy, I use rsync / unison with termux, there’s also syncthing.
- No clue with Apple. Jellyfin and airsonic stream well to it though
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Nope, if this is a deal breaker, stop now. If your flexible however:
- Excel: python, Jupyter, R and libre Office
- Rmarkdown will produce reports
- OneNote: Joplin, Obsidian, Dokuwiki, tiddlywiki etc (see r/pkms on Reddit)
- Word: markdown with vim, vscode Emacs and then pandoc
- Excel: python, Jupyter, R and libre Office
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Immich, shotwell, F-spot photoprism and I think there’s another KDE tool that has AI
- I’m very happy with immich, it does require docker, which is worth it imo.
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Scanners do work, but I don’t know how you’ll connect it with Evernote.
Probably one of the best responses so far, no idea why you are getting downvoted. I will look into it and get back to you.
Downvotes: Docker is contentious among some in the community.
Based on your use case, you may find your current workflow fairly incompatible with the Linux approach. However, id recommend you try nonetheless, always worth the learning experience even if it’s not your cup of tea.
Feel free to reach out if you need any support. always happy to help.
Unironically recommending OP uses Docker just to run two pieces of software. 🤦🏾♀️
I run many docker containers at home already so this is no issue whatsoever to throw a couple more on.
Absolutely, the portability and encapsulation is great.
If you want to spin it up by hand, go for it, but containers make things very easy with no downsides.
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Well I typically write my own dockerfiles so I have a good understanding of how a lot of software works, I’m sure others do too. It has increased the reproducibility of my stack, my understanding of dependencies and the reliability. Docker is not just
docker compose upYeah the containers can be large and usually will lead to large downloads. I have tried bubble wrap and raw chroots but the tooling around docker is a lot better. The change to php8 was a pain, hence why I went docker. An alpine base with clearly defined deps gives me a container that is thin enough but I can move from a Gentoo box to arch for free. This, for my use case, is great.
I put everything in a docker container and it’s been, mostly, a net positive. You may laugh at me but it works very well for my use case.
Overall, net positive. I recommend everybody try it and use where appropriate.
This isn’t a religion and subscribing to dogma for want of suckless stacks won’t always be the best path to the end goal.
However, you’re right, docker may not always be the best call and it may promote bloated garbage.
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Nix is really useful as well. But it’s not always a one-for-one replacement.
One problem I hit with nix is the size, after adding latex and a few other related packages, The install time took a very long time And the amount of space consumed was over 150 GB.
It wasn’t too bad because I was able to put it on a compressed ZFS data set but it wasn’t great. Whereas distrobox and podman built quicker, had a smaller size and it was easier to move the image between machines.
The other issue I hit with it was having to set environment variables for QT.
Definitely a nice piece of software just a little rough around the edges.
I suppose that’s my point. I have tried alternatives and many are good for many things but Docker works for all things.
But Docker is a bit of a sledgehammer approach by packaging a whole operating system.
I wonder how different that file size would be if you had gone with content addressed derivations. Good points.
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Those 5 requirements are not small things, but as a (relatively) recent linux migrant, here’s my take.
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Keep using iTunes (but use the windows version) - through wine. You get to keep all your stuff as is for now with the possibility of migrating to another service in the future.
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See above, stick with your current device, keep using iTunes for now.
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If it’s for private stuff LibreOffice suite does just fine though + the thunderbird email client. If it’s for work you should probably have a work device, but there is also winapps for linux, which isn’t official by microsoft, so it might be a bit funky.
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Maybe try out proton if you want something trustworthy to back up your photos. They’ve recently added a service for that. Costs a subscription though.
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Keep using evernote. There’s a linux client.
Obviously there will be hickups, and things’d be a lot more smooth if you were willing to make some adjustments, but this is perfectly doable.
Solid advice, thanks. Winapps looks really promising for those things where there is just no other option. I will have to give that a test run.
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I went local with my music collection.
I’m not sure if it ticks all your boxes. But there are many options for subsonic servers and clients - you can probably give it a good test run on Mac/iPhone as well. I managed to migrate from spotify painlessly enough to pass the wife test.
I’m running navidrome as server and tempo on my phone. It’ll either stream from my self-hosted server, or play offline if I’ve downloaded that playlist.
The last time I ran desktop Linux I recall the default music player for KDE being closest in functionality like ratings smart playlists a shuffle mode to select an album at random and play the whole album in correct track order. Looks like “search playlists” in Juk might be the feature you’re looking for. But I can’t recall much in terms of mobile syncing from then.
I’ll assume you have already, but did you look at Plex Amp on Mobile?
For Office, if Evolution can’t do what you want then I’d say to try MS Office under Wine.
Someone else already suggested DigiKam for phitos. I’ve looked at that a little for replacing Lightroom.
Plex amp unfortunately does not allow syncing the whole music library locally. Other than that it looks perfect.
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you could try Plex and PlexAmp. I believe you need to buy PlexPass but that can be a one time fee.
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if it hasn’t been mentioned then Immich is by far your best option here. I’ve tried most of the others and there isn’t much comparison in my opinion. Native mobile apps for iOS and Android are available. Browser for viewing from desktop.
Plexamp is so close but they don’t allow you to sync your whole music library.
Immich looks nice I will try it out.
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There’s a lot of people in this thread saying it’s possible, some saying it’s not and more than is really healthy saying there’s something wrong with you.
But the question I can’t help but ask is should you switch to Linux.
I don’t think so.
You’re trying to get away from the high price of Apple hardware, not out of a general unwillingness to pay for expensive things, but because the ram and storage in the computers are no longer upgradable.
To do so you’d have to find bespoke solutions based on new software and systems you might not be familiar with and which mill most likely face loss of maintainers and updates some time in the near future.
That’s not a dealbreaker really, but the general trend in laptops is moving away from replaceable memory. Sure at the moment you generally can still replace the disk, but for how long? Are you thinking that apples ahead of the curve on system on chip devices or that they’re making a misstep? Personally I think anyone your age or mine will have a hard time buying new computers that don’t have everything built into the board or processor before we shuffle off. I could be wrong though.
Let’s say it doesn’t matter though, just in dollars amortized over the life of the hardware, how much are you really saving by upgrading the memory and storage?
I tend to run five + year old macs and for the oldest ones, the 12 year old MacBooks, I got lots more life out of em by doubling the installed memory to 16gb and going from hdd to ssd. How much money was really saved though? Maybe ten bucks a month at the most.
Are you keeping em for fifteen years or cycling out every five or so?
Newer Macs which already have ssds don’t see near the stark performance change that we probably both wowed about when going from hdd to ssd.
You’re not really listing any software or operations in your post that would make upgrading the ram from the (maybe?) current 8gb minimum to anything more seem worthwhile.
It’s not that I don’t think a person could do what you want to do under Linux, just that it doesn’t seem like something you ought to pursue when weighed against the relatively low cost of just staying with the system you’re using considering the computers themselves will hold value better over time than anything you might swap out to.
I started using FOSS apps on OSX until I got familiar with them, then moving to Linux was a lot easier.
I’m sure you can find apps that do smart playlists. Metadata and regular playlists are easy, though you may need to do a little work to script some kind of conversion.
Outlook doesn’t have a Linux equivalent at all. Thunderbird is great, but it’s a downgrade. I’m not sure how well it would work through Wine or similar. What’s keeping you from OWA?
I think most people use Immich or Photoprism for a local image management program. Try [email protected] for more alternatives.
Any scanner program should be able to scan like you want.
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The smart playlists are actually the part I’ve spent the most time on, at least 3-4 hours over the years. I have found a few things that can do it, but none that can sync them.
Photos are probably the easiest option, I think I could manage with some of the options mentioned here. Immich and Photoprism both look very nice.
I am a very heavy user of Outlook, I use pretty much every feature to the max extent possible as my job is primarily about organization and throughput. Web tools require too many signins, tend to get lost in a pile of tabs, and are almost always stripped down versions of the thick client alternative. I have used OWA over the years occasionally when something wasn’t working locally, and every time I need to, I hate it, it feels like trying to work with both my arms tied behind my back. Things like dragging and dropping emails into other emails, dragging schedule items, dealing with attachments and tasks, etc. are just really painful, and I just spend too much time in outlook to deal with something suboptimal. Wine would probably be the best option for me, even with an older version if needed as long as it worked well and connected to exchange still. I don’t see anyone doing that though.
If it helps, the web versions of O365 have been closing in fairly rapidly on their desktop counterparts to the point that I often find myself working in the web version without realizing it (usually when I open an attachment in Outlook or a Teams shared link). The preview of the new desktop version of Outlook is 99% the same as the web version now.
I don’t know if its possible or not but you might be able to “install” them to your desktop as progressive web apps.
No.
If you ever so carefully paint yourself into a corner then the corner is where you will be stuck. How badly do you want out of your corner?
There are FOSS and SAAS options that could work if you wanted them to… but whether they will depends on you.
Meat eaters trying to become vegetarian for ethical reasons often fail because the “un-meat” options out there don’t meet their standards. Success almost always requires some letting go and re-adjusting. If you are not open to that then don’t force yourself to put up with something you don’t really want.
Fair points. But I need 3TB minimum on my desktop machine. I have 2 NAS’ with 6TB and 3TB RAID arrays. Yes I can get by with 8gb of ram but I keep a ton of stuff open. It’s slow. 16gb is probably the right amount but with upgradable ram 8 can get 64 for $200 which is well worth it to me. None of this is possible within my budget on new Macs, whereas on any normal hardware platform it’s pretty affordable. You might want to go back and look at Mac ram and ssd prices and compare them to market prices to see how out of hand they’ve become. It’s like a 10x multiple in some cases. The one area I don’t need to go big is on CPU as nothing I do is compute heavy, which is of course the one area where Apple doesn’t charge an absurd premium.
I didn’t see your reply because it was top level lol.
Out of curiosity, what has you using 3tb of space that can’t be moved off to a nas with (hopefully) some redundancy? Usually when I see people with huge drives in their pcs it’s for games or huge datasets but you said cpu power wasn’t a concern and most of the big data havers I’ve experienced want that cpu (and like minimum 64gb of ram). Of course the meta there is to not do anything on your physical computer and host it all on aws or some such so you don’t have to buy a billion xeons and cuda devices.
What’s your budget for a replacement computer and when are you trying to upgrade?
I’m not trying to convince you that apples prices are comparable or that you should be happy to pay them, but instead that when considered over the lifespan of the device, the price premium isn’t much and will most likely make your life much easier.
I looked at the new imac prices and you’d be paying $600 extra for a 1tb ssd and 16gb of ram. That’s a lot of money for me, but if you make it six years in between replacing the device (that’s about normal in my experience) you’re talking eight bucks a month to not have to deal with all the stuff you listed in your op and anything else that comes up.
I’m not trying to fight you about it, just to offer the perspective of someone who uses linux a lot and has many computers with 32gb+ of memory and also uses macs and wouldn’t try to do what you’re suggesting.
The 3tb are mainly my music and photo library and the rest of my files. I actually have 2 NAS’. I could use them, but I like having things locally and to keep copies of the most important things in multiple places. So one NAS is mainly for backup of the other computers around the house. The other is for home automation and media server.
The disk is less of a problem than the RAM as I just keep it on an external drive. With the 2018 mac mini I have now, I just bought the lowest RAM and SSD possible and added an SSD RAID externally and then upgraded the RAM. I could concievably keep the RAID for the next computer. But even the base 128gb without any of my actual home folders on it is still to small (it’s criminal that they even sell this SKU as it would be entirely unusable for anyone in it’s base config). I could get by on 16gb of RAM (8 is really shit, I can’t do it), but I have to ask myself why I should when I can get more for so cheap.
More than anything I’m just tired of being screwed, and generally want to move to FOSS for everything at home. The FOSS stuff I do run at home like Plex and Homeassistant serve me so well, so reliably, over such a long time, that that’s just where I want to end up with everything so I’m not constantly having to fight being herded into paying for too-expensive cloud solutions or overpaying for basic computer hardware. I’m tired of having my software and hardware be unsupported and then replaced by solutions that are worse just so that they can attempt to extract new revenue streams from me. I want off the treadmill.
I really hope you’re able to switch and it works out okay.
I think between all the ideas in this thread that I could conceivably pull it off. I’d probably have to stay on iTunes and Windows Office under a VM, but Windows and office licenses aren’t hard to come by.
