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The latter may also be true, but that’s not what they describe in this article. Because in this article what they are trying to describe is trying to setup Linux to do the things they did on OSX the way they did it on OSX.
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WSL 1 was great, WSL 2 is probably even more amazing. The problem is it comes with a massive ball and chain called "the rest of Windows 10". Even ignoring all the ads, all the spyware, all the Windows Update shittiness... the UI is a confusing mess and easily beat by the likes of XFCE, Mate, or Plasma. Add that other stuff, and it's all just a huge pain that I don't want to deal with. So I don't, and I just run Linux…
> Compared to busted up 90s Windows it's a dream come true. Hard disagree. A 90's-era Windows wasn't perfect by any means, but Windows peaked with Windows 2000 and it's been downhill from there. Modern Windows - at least as Microsoft intends for people to use day-to-day - is an abomination, and I would sooner use Windows ME day-to-day than any version of Windows 10 normally available to consumers. That said, most of…
Honestly there’s lots to like in Windows 10 even if there’s a bit of bloat around the edges. I cannot imagine wanting to go back to the bad old days of ME. Modern Windows is stable, secure, fast and has plenty in there for power users.
Driver support and sleep mode is seamless and just works. Even video drivers are sandboxes in their own process. Windows can and I have seen it recover from video and other driver crashes. My laptop can switch between embedded and nVidia graphics seamlessly. This is a lot better than the situation on Linux.
Integrated firewall, AV (Windows Defender), drive encryption (bit defender) and application signing is great for end users. The update process is pushy but nags less than I’ve seen on Macs and honestly you should update regularly.
PowerShell, WSL and inbuilt virtualisation (Hyper-V) are great for power users. Revamped Explorer is also nice with options like open in PowerShell.
Integration with Azure AD and SSO means that for all internal applications for work I don’t need to sign on.
My main complaints are that start menu search is still broken with unnecessary integration with Bing and file search corrupting search results with the slightest typo, file copy is still slow for many small files (although directory merging is nice) and Microsoft is a way too aggressive in their product placements on the start menu and trying to force people to create Microsoft accounts.
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> Apple software does “just work” with Apple hardware. This is essentially a false statement for all intents and purposes. Apple software is far from being immune to bugs, bad UX, etc., even on Apple hardware, as I can personally attest today from using a Macbook Pro daily for work.
> being immune to bugs This is a total straw man. “Just works” has never meant free of bugs. It means not having to do a bunch of incidental configuration, tuning, and setup. Things do just work.
You use this word, "straw man". I do not think it means what you think it means.
No, it is not a straw man to point out that bugs interfere with the notion that something "just works". When bugs interfere with getting things done - as I've found they often do in the course of using macOS daily, like when I can't open firewall ports for development or share my screen via Google Hangouts because the Big Sur update broke the password prompt for editing restricted things like firewall settings or app permissions, or when apps can't present an Open File dialog anymore across the board because God knows why, then it's a complete farce to call that "just working". There is no "just" nor "works" about that. Not to mention all the little paper cuts, like the lock screen taking 30 seconds to unfuck itself before I can actually type in a password, or constantly forgetting which applications I've set to open things by default (meaning that every so often I end up with a cacophony of fan whirring instead of an editor window when I try to open an XML file because macOS yet again decided to reset the default app to fucking XCode). (EDIT: oh, and the Touch Bar stops working if I plug in an external keyboard, which is just dandy)
Also, I love how both comments immediately coming to defend Apple's honor stop at the "bugs" bit and entirely ignore that I'm taking a fat steamy deuce on Apple's UX, too. So on that note:
> It means not having to do a bunch of incidental configuration, tuning, and setup.
Which you have to do anyway, because the macOS UX sucks, and seems to be getting worse with each update. Want to have persistent named workspaces? Nope, gotta install some buggy hack of an extension to do it (which in turn required going through a whole bunch of red tape to bypass a bunch of security checks, because of course it does). Want to control where in which of those workspaces application windows open (or at the very least whichever workspace currently has the selected window)? lol fuck user intent, Workspace 1 Monitor 1, and switching away from whatever workspace was on Monitor 1 because double fuck user intent. Application menus are so far away from application windows that the Ever Given could do a goddamn u-turn between them with room to spare. Forward/back buttons on mice don't inherently set focus, so instead of navigating the history on the window my cursor's actually pointing at said buttons end up doing so for some random window on an entirely different monitor. (EDIT: and how could I forget the arcane screenshot shortcuts! Command-Alt-whatever-4? The fuck?)
I could go on, but this comment's already enough of a deranged rant. A Chromebook has fewer bugs and a better UX. Even the grotesque hackjob that is the average GNU/Linux desktop has fewer bugs and a better UX. The bugginess and UX is maybe better than (modern, non-LTSC) Windows, but that bar is so low that even ants have to duck when crawling under it.
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EDIT:
I will, however, give Apple credit where credit's due: I do like the use of Command instead of Control for the CUA shortcut prefix (and the use of Emacs shortcuts for text navigation), and the touchpad gestures are nice, even if limited in options. It'd be great if more operating systems adopted these things. And the Touch Bar's kinda cool, I guess.
Beyond that, I don't really have much praise for macOS. It's overrated, and "just works" is a myth in this day and age. It was arguably a lot more true back in the PowerPC days (even if OpenBSD is my current preference for my PowerPC Macs), but it's been getting worse and worse over the years. Maybe the switch to ARM will be an inflection point re: software quality. Fingers crossed.
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EDIT 2:
And even just now, doing an SMC reset (to fix that password issue in System Preferences) broke the UI, giving me no background, no dock, and no workspaces. Rebooted to find that no input devices worked until I unplugged my docking station. Background loaded briefly, then back to brokenness. System logs say that the dock is crashing due to a SIGILL. Here goes another night of troubleshooting macOS again instead of getting work done. "Just works" alright...
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What makes Homebrew a failure? I don’t generally have issues with it for my needs.
There is one single feature of homebrew that regularly bites my coworkers. You can refer to software by name@version ("brew install postgresql@11" or "brew install postgresql@12") and there is no confusion about what you are installing; or you can refer to software by name only ("brew install postgresql") and the version number is calculated to be "most recently released." (v13 at the time this was written.) Hypothet…
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> Compared to busted up 90s Windows it's a dream come true. Hard disagree. A 90's-era Windows wasn't perfect by any means, but Windows peaked with Windows 2000 and it's been downhill from there. Modern Windows - at least as Microsoft intends for people to use day-to-day - is an abomination, and I would sooner use Windows ME day-to-day than any version of Windows 10 normally available to consumers. That said, most of…
Can’t say I agree with this. I’ve been using Windows as my daily driver for the last decade since switching back from Mac+Linux for work reasons. Honestly there’s lots to like in Windows 10 even if there’s a bit of bloat around the edges. I cannot imagine wanting to go back to the bad old days of ME. Modern Windows is stable, secure, fast and has plenty in there for power users. Driver support and sleep mode is seaml…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People state consistent shortcut mapping is an advantage of using Mac but after 2 years of being required to use a Macbook Pro I'm not really sure about that - often they are more complicated IMO. I still miss built in Linux and Windows key mappings. For example Windows + Left to move the window on the left side of screen for side by side apps on the same screen. Great for remote demo's and coding sessions. Ctrl + Sh…
There is a great app for your window move/resize issue called Moom. You can bind keys and mouse to window move/resize actions.
>apt-get was a revolution when it was released in 1998 and it is still the best way to manage software today. brew is a mediocre replacement. While apt still isn't the best package manager (my heart belongs to pacman, no matter what the haters say), I completely agree that brew is a failed imitation. I wanted to use MacOS for the longest time, because I've been told that it's a real "Unix system". Brew has distilled…
What makes Homebrew a failure? I don’t generally have issues with it for my needs.
Brew upgrade usually breaks stuff if it hasn't been updated in a couple of months, which is not the case for other package managers.
Forced update on any command is really bad behavior.
>apt-get was a revolution when it was released in 1998 and it is still the best way to manage software today. brew is a mediocre replacement. While apt still isn't the best package manager (my heart belongs to pacman, no matter what the haters say), I completely agree that brew is a failed imitation. I wanted to use MacOS for the longest time, because I've been told that it's a real "Unix system". Brew has distilled…
People state consistent shortcut mapping is an advantage of using Mac but after 2 years of being required to use a Macbook Pro I'm not really sure about that - often they are more complicated IMO. I still miss built in Linux and Windows key mappings. For example Windows + Left to move the window on the left side of screen for side by side apps on the same screen. Great for remote demo's and coding sessions. Ctrl + Sh…
Drives me crazy every time, given that command + backspace deletes a word (and command +del deletes a word in the other direction).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Compared to busted up 90s Windows it's a dream come true. Hard disagree. A 90's-era Windows wasn't perfect by any means, but Windows peaked with Windows 2000 and it's been downhill from there. Modern Windows - at least as Microsoft intends for people to use day-to-day - is an abomination, and I would sooner use Windows ME day-to-day than any version of Windows 10 normally available to consumers. That said, most of…
Can’t say I agree with this. I’ve been using Windows as my daily driver for the last decade since switching back from Mac+Linux for work reasons. Honestly there’s lots to like in Windows 10 even if there’s a bit of bloat around the edges. I cannot imagine wanting to go back to the bad old days of ME. Modern Windows is stable, secure, fast and has plenty in there for power users. Driver support and sleep mode is seaml…
The problem is that the Microsoft-sanctioned Windows desktop experience seems to be actively hostile to user experience due to all the extra shit that Microsoft has tacked onto the "goodness" that's Windows 10:
- Cortana not only enabled by default and difficult to remove, but shouting at me at max volume as my very first experience with a new Windows installation
- Random apps being preinstalled, even on so-called "professional" versions (hell, even on enterprise versions by default - and yeah, it's trivial to disable these things with GPOs, but I shouldn't have to)
- Literally no option to create a user account in the "home" edition that doesn't entail connecting to an online account, which is dumb as hell
- Ads. On a product that I paid money for. What the fuck, Microsoft?
Each of these things in isolation is itself entirely unacceptable for any product that even remotely respects its users. In combination, these things make Windows 10 Home and Professional the two absolute worst versions of Windows money has ever been able to buy, and fundamentally undermine any trust I might have in Microsoft.
I would, however, change my tune in a heartbeat if LTSC was at least an option, if not the default, for desktops. Windows 10 LTSC is what Windows 10 should be, and probably would be if the Windows team didn't seem driven to make the default Windows UX as janky as possible. I still think Windows 2000 was peak Windows, but LTSC is almost there - all the neat things you mention, and none of the bullshit.
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EDIT: there are also a bunch of little papercuts that bug me every time I use Windows, like never knowing which tool is the "right" one to use for various things (screenshots come to mind; what was wrong with the Snipping Tool?), or the fact that "ClearType" is anything but. Not that Windows 2000 didn't have its own share of little papercuts, but when an OS has accumulated 20 more years of those papercuts, they start to really add up.
Also, maybe I'm just butthurt that Microsoft dropped Space Cadet Pinball ;)