I've been a linux user for 20 years (mostly on KDE). I just started at a new job, and they gave me a mac. I found out later that I could have got a linux machine instead, which is a bit annoying. Still, I know there are some nice things about a mac, and I figured I'd give it a try for a while.
I'm pretty quick moving around my desktop environment, and I'm finding picking up the mac is not too bad. BUT I use keyboard shortcuts a lot, and they are all every different on a mac. So whenever I switch back and forth between my work machine, I end up stumbling a bunch and wasting my time, and getting annoyed. It's mostly keyboard shortcuts, but the trackpad buttons and scrolling are annoying too.
So, question is: is it possible to regularly use two OSs with wildly different control surfaces, and be comfortable with it? e.g. either MacOS + Linux, or I guess MacOS + Windows? Or will it be annoying forever?
Most definitely. I used to carry 3 laptops with me, one being Windows, another being my MacBook, and another being a Linux laptop. I now only carry the Linux and Windows laptops and traded the MacBook for a newer iPad Pro. I definitely became accustomed to all 3 OSes keyboard shortcuts.
You do find some overlap which helps. Mac was a bit of a struggle and still is with my iPad’s keyboard in figuring out whether it’s CMD or CTRL key for the shortcut. Even worse was when I used it to remote into a Windows computer as some used one and others used the other as the CTRL key in Windows.
Just takes practice and you grow as you go, the more you use it.
Yeah, the Cmd/Ctrl thing is the worst so far, because many of the combinations use the same letters, but the chord key is in a different place. But that also seems like the hardest thing to change..