It's been 19 years since I started using computers. 2007 was probably the earliest time I remember using a computer (could've been earlier too) and back then Windows XP was the real deal everywhere.

Computers weren't very widespread in India during that time as India was an incredibly poor country during that time but somehow I was born into a family with a better financial condition than most. We had a Windows XP computer that ran on a Pentium 4 CPU if I recall correctly.

Computers were an amazing piece of tech back then and I used to spend all of my time on that computer whenever I used to go to my grandparents'. I used to play a lot of classic video games, the likes of road rash etc. I eventually became a bit tech savvy and started tinkering around the internet when I had an internet connection in 2008.

Internet back then was very slow and limited but most of fun was in the offline part of the computer. You bought the computer? You own it and can do whatever you want with it.

Eventually Windows Vista came but I didn't use it a lot tbh. Then came Windows 7 which was probably the operating system that a lot of Indians first used. Many people literally skipped Windows 8 but I was one of those people who liked it. Windows 10 came out in 2015 and I immediately wanted to use it as it had a really good looking user interface.

Windows 10, despite being notorious for telemetry, was an amazing release and probably the last good release of Windows. Windows 10 fixed everything wrong with Windows 8 and brought Windows back to its feet again. Despite the problems it had, I loved Windows 10.

Then Windows 11 got released and I was again, an early adopter of it. I honestly didn't like Windows 11 for a lot of things. Firstly, it removed that good looking start menu live tiles in Windows 10 and secondly, it was incredibly bloated and heavy with the whole release feeling like totally unnecessary. I was quite reluctant to use Windows 11 and moved back to 10 but with me using a newer device, I had to move to 11 for modern driver support.

Then Microsoft started shoving in AI into every single thing. They axed off Xbox (my old favourite console) and diluted the brand with Xbox Game Pass. I was also a part of Microsoft Student Ambassador Program and I left the program after they started mandating workshops on AI. My computer was becoming slow due to all that bloat. To add more fuel to the fire, they once deducted money for my OneDrive subscription last year and immediately denied access to my own files. This was the last straw for me and this is when I decided to move away from Windows. They violated my right to access my own computer.

Why not use Linux?

I have a love and hate relationship with Linux. Linux is an amazing operating system and Debian is my go-to Linux Distro but the problem is that I often tend to fall into rabbit holes of distro hopping or ricing that make me waste too much time and not to mention that some stuff isn't natively built for Linux and I gotta go through heap load of terminal commands to fix something at times.

Sure, Linux is free and focuses on giving the user a lot of power but often at times I don't need that kind of power. I just need to get my work done and not focus on making my GNOME look like MacOS.

Oh well, speaking of MacOS....

My move to MacOS

There was a time when I used to be a critic of apple products because they're very expensive to their Android and Windows counterparts. At some point in my life, I was fine with my 11,000 INR Android Phone and 40,000 INR Windows laptop but things slowly changed as both of these devices had issues within just a year or two, that windows laptop died and no computer technician could diagnose its problems. I recalled that my first iPhone, the iPhone 5s, literally outlasted every phone I had in the past. My last Android phone was Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. While it wasn't too bad, it started having some issues after the first year too.

That is when I wanted to get something nice so that I don't have to buy something twice. iPhone 16e was the perfect choice for it. It costed me 51,000 INR for it but it was way better than its predecessors in terms of battery and was pretty good for the essentials. It's been 6 months since I've been using this phone and I have zero complaints.

I also purchased a ThinkPad E14 Gen 5 back in 2023 but last year, I suddenly noticed some slow downs. I tend to use my computers to the maximum so they often wear down really fast. The slow down was a result of a power anomaly where the laptop would perform better on battery as opposed to while connected to power. I knew that my ThinkPad doesn't have much time left so I started looking into buying a new laptop. With me being fed up with Windows, the next best option was MacOS. I never used MacOS in the past and I have no clue how it even works but I thought it'd be a good pick with it being a Unix-like environment with the ability to use proprietary software.

Then there was this RAM and SSD shortage due to AI slop industry and I knew that I shouldn't delay buying the Mac and I decided to get it a few days ago -- MacBook Air M4.

My Experience with MacOS so far

Contrary to the popular belief, MacOS isn't really that restrictive as people might think. It just felt as tinkerable as Windows but you have better support for Linux based tools that got ported to MacOS. My prediction was right; MacOS takes the best out of both Linux and Windows -- a Unix-like system with the ability to run proprietary software. MacOS however has a huge learning curve, you're not supposed to shut down your PC and it relies heavily on that Magic Trackpad and keyboard shortcuts which are quite handy but take time to get used to. The best part is how good the free software support is on MacOS. Homebrew was the first thing I installed on Mac and it really fills up the gap left by the App Store and downloading random dmgs from websites.

The battery life is honestly pretty good. I don't do 100-0% but as per my habits I charge it up to ~85% and charge again only when it comes to below 40-30%. The software support is also pretty decent, a lot of stuff I use everyday is perfectly available on Mac and the performance is honestly pretty good.

Only bummer is that the native gaming support is honestly pretty bad. I know crossover exists but I refuse to do something on a computer that's not natively supported, a habit I learned from Debian. I still use my ThinkPad for gaming.

My future of computing

The ThinkPad that I currently own will be the last device that I use to run Windows. It already has a dual boot with Debian. I will continue to use Debian and Linux for any kind of research environments as well as Debian packaging. I will not be purchasing a gaming laptop or something that runs Windows, I will be moving back to consoles again as they're more convenient to play games. MacOS will be my main PC operating system going forward, with Linux as a supplement.