> Linux is still as bad as it ever was. It's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. I've been using Linux on laptops since Redhat 7 (the first one from 2000) and a Dell Latitude C-series.
This is so far removed from my world as a daily Linux user. I put Fedora 25 onto a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition and everything worked perfectly out of the box. The OS looks gorgeus, and I now have the tooling so perfected to my workflow that I would be absolutely gutted if I had to change OS. In fact, I would likely turn down a job if it meant having to use Windows as a daily driver. MacOS I could likely get on with ok, but would miss the customizations I have on my linux machine.
Absolutely. Maybe it's also just a Fedora thing, installed it a week ago on my laptop that only had Win on it before, and from prior Linux experiences (Xubuntu & friends) just some ~3 years back I was absolutely baffled how everything installed quickly without a hitch, without glitches. HiDPI graphics recognition with a good default scaling, there, no config-file messing required. Wifi, there. NumPad, multi-touch trackpad, even audio!! you name it, it Just Worked. Still very-minor rare glitches throughout the Gnome environment but no showstoppers especially regarding the first-install experience. Major props to the Fedora devs for rounding out such a smooth distro.
If someone gave me a MacBook tomorrow, I'd install Fedora on it, no contest. At least I wouldn't have to get lost in "homebrew ports" and such, or some "Powershell" RedmondUbuntu2017 concoction ;))
I'm surprised HiDPI is working so well for you. See my other comment but I'm guessing you don't run anything in WINE. Yes Fedora is miles better than other distros regarding HiDPI but there's still no way to force per-application scaling in Wayland.
I mean, Windows doesn't get a pass here - you still can't scale HyperV, or anything involving mmc.exe, but Mac's HiDPI support is flawless.
Now that is true. I can readily believe that Apple invests more efforts than the others in somehow ensuring even old no-longer-updated apps somehow render properly. It really is weird how the OS' font-scale factor seems to be ignored by so many old programs (or their GUI toolkits)!
For gaming, I will be the first to admit Linux has a way to go yet and the coverage is much better on Windows. It is certainly moving in the right direction though, and with recent developments such as vulkan.
I have a standing offer to buy a developer a laptop with a high DPI screen [1] if they can make High DPI support suck less on any distribution.
At least Fedora auto detected the screen and enabled 2x scaling. GRUB is still unreadable. WINE apps are unreadable. QT less than 5.6 is unreadable. GTK is unreadable.
> I put Fedora 25 onto a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition and everything worked perfectly out of the box
You have a 13" 1080p screen correct? Then all text will be absurdly small because Fedora only supports scaling at 1x and 2x but not at 1.5x, which is what that screen size / resolution combination requires for a comfortable DPI. Windows does support 1.5x scaling.
Maybe we have different definitions of 'unreadable'. I'm typing this on an XPS 13 with 1080p screen and 1x scaling (Fedora 25). The text is perfectly readable.
This is so far removed from my world as a daily Linux user. I put Fedora 25 onto a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition and everything worked perfectly out of the box. The OS looks gorgeus, and I now have the tooling so perfected to my workflow that I would be absolutely gutted if I had to change OS. In fact, I would likely turn down a job if it meant having to use Windows as a daily driver. MacOS I could likely get on with ok, but would miss the customizations I have on my linux machine.