> Linux Mint with Cinnamon is bliss.

This is one of my go-tos when I need a VM, so I’m familiar.

> I found the Mac Desktop absolutely unusable for any development work as it comes out of the box.

But why are we comparing vanilla macOS to an extreme customized Linux setup as if they’re the same thing? Why one set of rules for one platform but those criteria are suspended for Linux, where we get to assume some specific set of perfectly configured everything?

This is the hyperbole that I can’t really take seriously. Calling it “absolutely unusable” just isn’t something I can take seriously.

I understand that some people like to customize their environments to the Nth degree and can’t live without their personal set of customizations, but that’s personal preferences. Calling other platforms “absolutely unusable” or “vastly inferior” is just an exaggeration when millions of devs use them just fine.

> But why are we comparing vanilla macOS to an extreme customized Linux setup as if they’re the same thing?

Your assumption that these Linux setups are "extremely customized" is wrong. Personally, I hate configuring or customizing much at all. The appeal of Linux is that there are distros that come configured out-of-the-box pretty much as I like it, whereas MacOS and especially Windows requires configuration and constant upkeep and maintenance. (MacOS doesn't even come with a decent terminal, for starters.)

For me, my main problem with MacOS is that it's full of looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong animations that you can not disable or remove. Disabling animations (or setting them to be <10ms long) is one of the few configurations I like to do. But this is not even an option on Apple's operating systems. It's like running through molasses in a dream-- it's so damnedly and artificially slow.

What makes you say it isn't an option?

defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true

Because there is no option to disable all animations. Despite the name, that doesn't disable all animations. (In fact, I couldn't even find an animation that does remove.)

One can not disable the animations on MacOS. I would very much like to be wrong. Please tell me I am wrong and how to disable animations, especially when swapping between desktops.

You can do that by installing FlashSpace. It reimplements the desktop management just to get rid of that stupid animation.

Apple is at this point maliciously incompetent...

I'm surprised and happy a third party solution exists for this. It's a shame a Mac requires so much third-party software to get it to a usable state. But it's a good thing supply-chain attacks are a long solved problem, and Macs can not get malware.

(For posterity: I am being sarcastic, to highlight how Apple's UX stance increases users exposure to supply chain attacks. "Macs can not get malware" is a long-standing myth.)

Unfortunately the app comes with its own limitations and weird edge cases, many of which are pretty unintuitive. It would be much nicer to simply use the native experience and disable animations.

> disable animations, especially when swapping between desktops

When I first started using a mac for dev at my current job, I tried their virtual desktops implementation as a workaround for macOS's lack of alt-tab support. That desktop switching animation is so long it's honestly really funny, I just sat there for a minute switching around and laughing my ass off in disbelief at how slow it is. Unfortunately it does also make the feature completely unusable, so we're just stuck with one desktop and a gimped alt-tab. Just an absolute usability train wreck going on over at Apple.

> But why are we comparing vanilla macOS to an extreme customized Linux setup as if they’re the same thing? Why one set of rules for one platform but those criteria are suspended for Linux, where we get to assume some specific set of perfectly configured everything?

My Linux Mint installation is actually barely customized. It absolutely works out of the box. I disabled a few animations and selected a different theme and added like three extra shortcuts but that is it. Nothing that would take more than ten minutes.

I was comparing the vanilla experience.

And yes, I should have specified that I am talking about my needs. I totally believe that the Mac Desktop might be better for the average user but that is no me.

Other OS’s handling of “alt-tab” does not make it de facto “proper”.

You are trying to use macOS like your other favorite OS(s). This is not how macOS has ever worked, and the macOS approach is more than fine for millions of people.

I doesn't matter if it is fine for millions of people if it isn't fine for me.

None of that matters when it was your poor description being corrected.

> You are absolutely spoiled for choice with Desktop Environments in Linux.

That is both a pro and a con. For someone offering tech support or writing documentation it's a pretty big negative.

> as it comes out of the box

This doesn’t seem like a fair way to evaluate MacOS given the effort involved in configuring a Linux installation