Similar experience here, started with the same G4 ("white") iBook. That was an amazing machine. Under the hood it was hard to distinguish many differences with Linux/BSD of the time. The UI on top (OSX Tiger) was peerless -- I recall being very excited for the introduction of Spotlight. I'd say the decline came around 2012-2013 or so. Hardware was still great, but they were no longer updating the GNU stuff and anti-features like SIP made it harder and harder to run the applications I want (gdb for example). I gave up not long after they introduced the touchbar
These days I'm happier (or at least content) without a Mac. My FW13+Linux setup may not be as nice as the latest macbook, but it does exactly what I want and if it doesn't, I have options.
These days I'm happier (or at least content) without a Mac. My FW13+Linux setup may not be as nice as the latest macbook, but it does exactly what I want and if it doesn't, I have options.