In the Summer of 2024 when I decided to pass my base model 2020 M1 Mac Mini over to my partner Kathleen, whose MacBook Air was nearing its end of life, it marked my departure from the Apple ecosystem. At least it did for my at-home computing. As I outline in my uses page, its replacement was an off-lease Dell tower that I installed Debian on.
My reasons were partially emotional (wanting a change of "computing scenery", nostalgia for earlier days), partially practical (wanting to be able to upgrade hardware after purchase - something Apple doesn't provide for on many systems), and partially asserting my values (wanting to have a bit more control over my computing, finding FOSS-type arguments compelling, being at odds with big tech, etc.).
After thinking it over for a few weeks - first passively, then more actively - yesterday afternoon, I opened the Apple Store app on my phone and ordered a slightly-customized M4 Mac mini.
Environmental Scan: Severe Irritation on the Horizon
One major source of irritation I've had with this Linux machine relates to my main hobby: film photography.
Although making photos and developing the film has nothing itself to do with the computer, living in an apartment too small to accommodate a dark room, my process involves scanning the negatives and slides to work with the final product digitally.
I have two scanners: an Epson Perfection V600 Photo, which I use for scanning 120 film, and a Plustek 8200i, which I use for scanning 35mm film. While the V600 is (nominally) compatible with Linux because Epson provides drivers and a sort of usable version of their software, Plustek does not.
When I made the switch in 2024, I understood this drawback and because I had already invested in SilverFast 9 for both scanners, I decided to do my scanning in Windows 11 running in VirtualBox.
It was never ideal. VirtualBox does not get along well with fractional scaling in Wayland, leaving everything blocky and fuzzy. Not exactly a good situation to be in when dealing with photos and it is compounded when the colour spaces between the two were different enough that it took quite a while to get a sense of what final scan would look like when saved into Linux. And if all that weren't enough, this clunky method is also quite slow in spite of my computer having 32GB RAM and an adequate CPU.
My dissatisfaction with my film scanning setup was recently underscored when, out of curiosity, I plugged the scanner into my mid-2104 MacBook Pro (which I recently replaced the battery for in preparation for post-surgery blogging), tried scanning a roll of film, and found that it was noticeably faster at scanning and processing than my main desktop's setup in spite of it having a slower CPU and a quarter the RAM.
(Although I wasn't really interested in paying for it, I did give VueScan a try, and found it too spartan and unable/unwilling to produce the results I've come to expect and prefer from SilverFast.)
Since there is a good chance that if I'm at the computer, I'm scanning a roll of film, the irritation only grew.
No Upgrades for the Foreseeable Future
It's possible that I might have been willing to overlook the scanning issue, but thanks to the market-distorting powers of some of the most awful companies, the market for upgrade components has gone caterwonky, sending prices skyrocketing in short order with no signs of them coming down any time soon.
SSDs, HDDs, and RAM whose prices I balked at before Christmas for being 2X what they were in the Summer are now going today for 2X-5X the price they were before the holidays.
In most cases, when combined, the retail prices for these upgrades (if you can even find stock in some cases) are making Apple's built-to-order prices look reasonable. I have no appetite for paying more than Apple's prices for the older and slower upgrades I would want for a 7-year-old second-hand computer.
Since upgradeability was one of the main practical reasons that I was willing to make a few usability and compatibility tradeoffs in the first place, left without affordable upgrades, the various incompatibilities and irritations stand out all the more.
Not Just Parts: Nostalgia also in Short Supply
It also turns out that I don't actually care very much about tinkering, customizing, and otherwise making my computer "my own" as much as I thought I did. I used to care deeply about this sort of thing, customizing my e16 or Windows 2000/XP installs extensively.
This has worked out the same as my relationship with video games: I lost interest in playing them in the early 2000s and since then, have been happy to play the occasional bit of Diablo or OpenTTD for very short bursts. Usually measurable in minutes.
On Linux, whenever I've tried out a different desktop environment or used Gnome plugins or whatever else, I set it up, use it for a few minutes, declare it "neat", and move on back to the mostly default Gnome desktop experience of Debian 13.
Values & Ethics: Same Green, Smaller Lawn
This one has been interesting, because there is something to it. At least a little bit, anyway.
The values - both spoken and lived - of so many active contributors and organizations in the FOSS community have values that align closely with mine. It is always heartening to see other trans women living their best lives and contributing interesting, useful, and vital things to the computing world.
It shouldn't be surprising, but the same sociopolitical machinations that have brought us the global fascist uprising we're currently facing have had a large impact on open source software too. The fash aren't all beavering away at X the everything app, OpenAI, or Facebook.
They're also vibe-coding FOSS apps and otherwise spending time advocating for remigration, trans elimination, and cheering on ICE and hoping to bring that energy to their own countries when not American.
I have most definitely lost count of the FOSS projects and "privacy-respecting" services that are lead by, supported, or at least championed by individuals and organizations whose values match those of today's best-known evil figures, and only lack the unlimited resources to make their rotten ideologies real.
It seems that every other day, I end up learning that another small piece of software is "fashware" and a brief look at the mailing list, Matrix, Discord, or Twitter accounts shows me that the programmer who has made it wants me dead.
The grass isn't greener, in other words, the yard is just smaller.
Eighteen Months Total
In the end, the downsides have just begun to pile up and the expected positives haven't really materialized. I really just care that my computer works in the ways I want it to, that it supports my hobbies, and that it otherwise quietly sits on my desk. I expect my new Mac to be delivered at some point between March 13th and 20th.
While my computing setup will change, I will continue to blog here as I always have: using a markdown editor, 11ty, and pushing to Neocities via GitHub.
I already do it that way on my 12-year-old MacBook Pro and see no reason to change it.
February 21, 2026