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Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

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Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#71

Post by WordSkill »

LaGrange wrote: post #27
have_faith wrote: post #7

I use MacOS and Windows at home. I want to switch to Windows exclusively just so I can have more control over the hardware but using my windows machine for the occasional gaming gives me enough reasons not to want to switch completely. No standout problems, it's death by a thousand cuts.

The incompatibility between the Windows and *nix filesystems is doing that to me. Running Vagrant or Docker based development on Windows turns quickly to nightmare, not because the tools are bad, but because mapping your dev directory to the vm side is non-trivial. I've tried the linux subsystem, but the result was also disappointing. The one way I could see it working would be if I switched back from VS Code to vim,…

There is a Linux version of VS Code.

Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#73

Post by beatgammit »

wc_cs wrote: post #11

I only bought a Mac because I like the experience and unix utilities for programming. I still use Windows when I want to game on PC. Presumably this is the case for a lot of developers?

Have you tried Steam Play? It has worked quite well for me on Linux, and I know Proton works on macOS (not sure if you still have to build from source), but it could be enough to get you away from dual booting.

I dual boot Windows and Linux, but since I default to Linux, I find myself choosing to do stuff on Linux instead of rebooting (even though rebooting takes ~10s). Only rarely do I get a hankering for a Windows-only game.

I wonder if Valve's initiative will get enough games to work that people increasingly switch to Linux/macOS for gaming.

Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#74

Post by m_mueller »

beatgammit wrote: post #62
m_mueller wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fear of driver issues. I've kept mental tabs on how many people (a) tell me that everything went smooth but on further inquiries admit that there were actually a number of issues, some of them unresolved (b) admit (and complain about) issues outright (c) actually have had everything going smooth For laptops I've yet to talk to someone in category (c).

I'm an experienced Linux user, and I've certainly dealt with driver issues (sound and wifi were my biggest hurdles). However, I've heard more and more success stories recently, especially if you spend a bit more than the absolute minimum for your hardware. I or my co-workers have successfully installed on several laptops without any driver issues whatsoever, and some were really cheap pieces of crap (~$400). Driver s…

That‘s good to read. I‘m hoping we‘re getting back to a state like with Ubuntu 10, and staying there.

Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#75

Post by basch »

actf wrote: post #67
veesahni wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cygwin just doesn't cut it for me as a substitute for having a real UNIX underneath Windows 10 has WSL, which replaces cygwin. It's a wonderful compromise which lets me can execute unmodified ELF binaries on Windows 10. Realistically, this means I can install almost anything via apt, do bulk file management using scripts, use native linux rsync binaries for backups, etc.

WSL is a great idea and I think Microsoft is onto something super cool with WSL, but after a week of serious use I found that it was not a viable replacement for cygwin. The major problem with WSL right now is that you can't effectively edit files in both Windows and WSL. For me this was very limiting because I could not interact with a git repo via WSL and then also open the files from that repo with a Windows IDE.…

can you sync/cache the repository twice, once in windows and once in WSL?

Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#76

Post by neverminder »

m_mueller wrote: post #44
dTal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing to put up with inconsistency and a time-wasting learning curve, value responsiveness, and have no attachment to Windows software (which seems likely if you're coming from a Mac) - why not Linux?

fear of driver issues. I've kept mental tabs on how many people (a) tell me that everything went smooth but on further inquiries admit that there were actually a number of issues, some of them unresolved (b) admit (and complain about) issues outright (c) actually have had everything going smooth For laptops I've yet to talk to someone in category (c).

There's a third option if you don't need too much horsepower and like portability: Chrome OS. With recent Crostini release (https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/chrome-os-69-stable-re...) Linux apps are supported, effectively enabling Chrome OS laptops to support largest number of apps compared to any other device on the planet - Chrome OS apps, Android apps and Linux apps combined. Top end Pixelbook comes with 16 GB RAM and core i7 CPU.

Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#77

Post by dTal »

m_mueller wrote: post #44
dTal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing to put up with inconsistency and a time-wasting learning curve, value responsiveness, and have no attachment to Windows software (which seems likely if you're coming from a Mac) - why not Linux?

fear of driver issues. I've kept mental tabs on how many people (a) tell me that everything went smooth but on further inquiries admit that there were actually a number of issues, some of them unresolved (b) admit (and complain about) issues outright (c) actually have had everything going smooth For laptops I've yet to talk to someone in category (c).

Well, I have a T480. Here are the issues:

---

fingerprint reader: unsupported, driver under development

smartcard reader: unsupported

infrared webcam: half works with V4L, flickers or appears green at full resolution due to odd pixel format (fully working if you write your own image processing)

Live switching between discrete NVidia GPU and integrated Intel GPU: distro-dependent

---

Other than that, as far as I can recall, everything works perfectly, and did so out of the box. The main thing that annoys me about Linux these days is a lack of vendor-supplied binary packages, meaning I have to either compile from source or rely on a package manager. But if you use an Ubuntu LTS release even that is mostly a non-issue.

Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#78

Post by simonh »

The motivation for me to switch in 2007 was living the virus nightmare on Windows, time machine backups and access to really great photo management and video editing software preinstalled given I’d just had kids.

My most recent Mac was a 27” 5k when 4K monitors were on the cusp of being a thing, given the whole Mac was the same price as a high end 4K monitor - just the monitor - at the time. Love fusion drives as well.

Those were contingent on the times though. Nowadays there are decent software options on Windows, backups are still a pain but there are decent cloud options, I don’t know. Up to now the Mac has given me things you couldn’t really get on Windows. If that’s not the case when my current max expires I might consider Windows again but it would be a wrench to go back.

Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#79

Post by neverminder »

randomsearch wrote: post #50

- Linux for all things technical - coding, sysadmin - Windows for the office: Mail, documents - OS X for a good, imperfect, compromise between the two. Can’t see this changing any time soon. Windows bash etc are an add-on. Linux sure as hell is better than a Mac for geek stuff, but for simple things like email it completely sucks. I’ve spent months recently using a Linux machine for non-work dev. I have tried every e…

If you are thinking about the MB Air, I would also consider a chromebook (like Google Pixelbook). Lately enabled Linux app support makes it best of both worlds.

Re: Why Apple Eventually Lost Me and I’m Switching Back to Windows

#80

Post by then »

velobro wrote: post #6

Just another run off the mill "I'm not getting another mac" complaint article. 1) Introduce myself by explaining how emotionally attached I was to the first Macs I bought 2) Complain about price 3) Complain about price some more 4) Did I mention price? 5) Windows has caught up to MacOS (which assumes Mac was ever ahead of Windows to begin with) 6) I'm an "x", and I do "y". I can do "y" just as well on Windows 7) Sinc…

haha these articles just tend to make you (me) resort to the same kind of complaining really. I agree, while not being most informative, I wished the author got some relief and insights. Building your own PC is so nice tho, you should start with this (?). Just use what works for you I'd say. I have difficulties with win/osx/linux/.... So I use all of them, according to my needs. This is not ideal, nor idealism, nor practical. Maybe my mode of using is best described as 'opportunistic computing'. Therefore, I will never make a hard switch, I remain in flux but contribute where I can, willingly or not ;(.
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