Why not try dual booting into Linux? Since Mac and Linux are POSIX-related, I see more ease of use switching to Linux. I always hated Windows and it's CMD. When I switched to Linux, shells weren't a seven headed beast.
With regards to dual booting Macintoshes: not very troubling, at least in my experience. Back in my alma mater I had to use an 2008 iMac locked in Yosemite (I guess it is version 12?). Got so annoyed from having to use such outdated OS that I dual booted the device with Manjaro Linux. Didn't run like a new machine, but still worked flawlessly and was able to use up-to-date programs, record 8 audio tracks in reaper and run some shenanigans in OBS. Em seg., 21 de jul. de 2025, 15:59, Robert Schmaus via LilyPond user discussion <[email protected]> escreveu: > Dear Lilypond community, > > I have a strange question (if one could call it a question at all). > I've been using Lilypond in the past quite intensively to write Jazz > Music - mainly lead sheets and bigband scores. Also (for those who > remember) I took part in Urs Liska's "Das Trunkne Lied" Project. Now I > haven't used Lilypond in years. > > I'm a Mac user, and I always found it hard to upgrade Lilypond to a new > version. As a rule I would stick to an old version as long as I possibly > could because upgrading it was ... not exactly straightforward. I know, > that might partly have been the case, because I used the program in a > wrong way, I don't know. But it wasn't just getting the new version, > there was always the issue of copying the font files for the jazz font > somewhere to the right folders and stuff like that. > > As for editors, I used Frescobaldi, and that too doesn't run well on a > mac. My current version is 3.1.3, and at least that one is still > opening. I don't really dare trying to install a new one. Again, it > always was a lot trying to find out what extra programs (ghostview? > poppler? python?) in which version I'd have to install until I finally > got it running. > > I know that some folks on this list might find this strange, but in > particular as someone who creates software as a profession, I actually > have no interest in having to administer and tinker with my computer at > home too. I would simply like to concentrate on the music. And I love to > use LaTeX, so Lilypond is just perfect for me :-) But because my old > Lilypond version stopped working after a system upgrade, I put upgrading > off ... for some years now. Simply stopped using lilypond, because I > couldn't face doing that upgrade again. > > So I guess my questions are this: Would I be better off, using Lilypond > and Frescobaldi on a Windows machine? My hope is: For Windows, you get > some .exe files that already contain everything. No need to check what > python or whatever needs to be installed. Also, in particular in case of > Frescobaldi, sometimes the available Windows versions were of higher > version number that the available Mac version. > > BTW, I'm using MacOS 15.5 on an iMac. > > Best, > Robert > > > >
