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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

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Re: The day Windows died

#381

Post by zargon »

herbst wrote: post #365
localghost3000 wrote: post #167

I am sure I will get all kinds of hate for saying this: despite the extra up front cost, apple stuff is a better value. Lets take device lifetime: I have a 2013 MBP 15 and 2015 MBP 15. I use them for intensive things like music production. Both devices work flawlessly. I also a System 76 Oryx Pro which cost more than any mac I own. The webcam failed 5 months in, several keys don't work anymore, and it gets hotter tha…

I've only ever had second hand ThinkPad T series laptops and a brand new 2015 MBP. The MBP had by far the most hardware issues of any devices I ever had (second screen only on power, running hot enough to cook on it, battery life was mediocre from the start, ...). Every single ThinkPad I ever owned is still ready in my drawer. My ~15yo T420 still has like 6 hours battery life and works like a charm The build quality…

True of older ThinkPads but Lenovo seems to have finally broken them. My current T14s Gen 3 AMD has modern standby problems. Fails to resume from sleep about once a week. Trying to get Lenovo to do something about it.

Re: The day Windows died

#382

Post by kuratkull »

pxc wrote: post #185
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t Android Linux?

> > good Linux phone to free me from Apple altogether > Isn’t Android Linux? Yes, but it isn't good, especially not in the ways that desktop Linux is good. Reminder: this thread is about avoiding anti-consumer behavior from manufacturers. Android is practically useless for that.

This seems like where RMS would chime in. Because what we're actually missing on Android are the GNU tools - we have the kernel, but not the userland tools that define the experience.

Re: The day Windows died

#383

Post by natnatenathan »

apatheticonion wrote: post #332

It's really sad that there is no where for us to go in the desktop OS space right now. I, weirdly, daily drive all 3 OSes. MacOS; Work issued laptop and longish-time user (about 6 years with it). Windows; Desktop PC mostly for games. I've been using Windows since I could walk. Fedora; Desktop PC, dual booted which I use for most everything else. I cannot believe how much of a dumpster fire Windows has become. From th…

I just installed Fedora on my personal computer (X1 Carbon, 6th gen) and it is everything I've ever wanted. There was no configurations I needed to fiddle with. The semi-annual update is amazingly smooth. It also makes my old laptop feel like a hotrod again. I'm happy to have a computer without an AI chip. I use a Mac for work, and it is good, but I sense the subscription mania creeping in there as well. I couldn't make the jump to Windows 8 - because Microsoft created a UI without considering the customer at all. Windows 10 was a great reprieve, especially with one of the early Surface Laptops. But I can't even remain a Microsoft customer with Window 11. The whole system is built with the only intention of driving ad-based subscription revenue. The new Edge browser feels the same way. Sometimes I really hate what our industry has become. Boy am I an old curmudgeon, I think I need to go yell at someone to get off my lawn.

Re: The day Windows died

#384

Post by Dwedit »

localghost3000 wrote: post #167

I am sure I will get all kinds of hate for saying this: despite the extra up front cost, apple stuff is a better value. Lets take device lifetime: I have a 2013 MBP 15 and 2015 MBP 15. I use them for intensive things like music production. Both devices work flawlessly. I also a System 76 Oryx Pro which cost more than any mac I own. The webcam failed 5 months in, several keys don't work anymore, and it gets hotter tha…

Right up until you need to repair anything, and Apple disables sleep mode because it detects a part that wasn't cryptographically mated to the motherboard.

Re: The day Windows died

#385

Post by apatheticonion »

foobarbecue wrote: post #355
apatheticonion wrote: post #332

It's really sad that there is no where for us to go in the desktop OS space right now. I, weirdly, daily drive all 3 OSes. MacOS; Work issued laptop and longish-time user (about 6 years with it). Windows; Desktop PC mostly for games. I've been using Windows since I could walk. Fedora; Desktop PC, dual booted which I use for most everything else. I cannot believe how much of a dumpster fire Windows has become. From th…

I'm fairly happy with my situation: Windows 10 work machine, I do almost everything in WSL. WSL is pretty impressive these days, with native graphical support and decent filesystem and device interoperability. Windows has come a long way; it has a decent terminal now and utilities like ssh and curl have been added to stock cmd.exe . I've been able to turn off all the awful ad stuff. Never crashes, and I can do vertic…

WSL2 has been pretty frustrating to deal with when I needed to anything that wasn't very basic - which limited its usefulness to scenarios already served well enough by WSL1 (or MSYS2)

But it's little things about the desktop experience that makes me roll my eyes; like drag an icon from your desktop to your start menu. Try to change the settings on your audio device. Try to uninstall Skype and remove all of the preinstalled stuff without removing something important. Try to use the start menu search to launch an installed application.

Terminal is a great application though, very needed on Windows and the usability of things like explorer and multi monitor window management is fantastic (though MacOS does workspaces better than Windows, everything else about MacOS's window management story is garbage)

Re: The day Windows died

#386

Post by timanderson »

Agreed that Windows has become rather unpleasant but this:

"So, there is basically little you can do with Windows out of the box but buy subscriptions and log into pre-installed social media apps."

is not true at all. Well, I suppose if you don't install anything. But what you are going to do with Windows "out of the box" is not to buy subscriptions, but to install stuff. LibreOffice, VSCode, Audacity, Paint.Net, VLC, etc. There is so much fantastic productivity software for free. In the end it's just an OS with its share of annoyances. The big advantage of Mac for me is not the OS but Apple Silicon.

Re: The day Windows died

#387

Post by eastbound »

danaris wrote: post #288
petilon wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> despite the extra up front cost, apple stuff is a better value What extra up front cost? The Macbook Air costs $799 at BestBuy. Do you mean to say a similar quality Windows machine costs less? Only Samsung makes computers that are comparable to the Macbook. This Samsung [2] arguably has a better screen but costs $1450. (There are cheaper Samsungs but they don't have 200% screen resolution.) [1] https://www.bestbuy.…

> Do you mean to say a similar quality Windows machine costs less? These days, the extra cost is (mostly) for the quality. (Some of it is also for some of the capabilities, which a given user may not need all of, but the selection is very limited.) So much of the time, when people are comparing a Mac to a PC on price and complaining that the Mac is overpriced, they're comparing it to a PC whose build quality is very…

The opening test: Open a PC laptop, the keyboard obnoxiously holds on to the screen to about 10cm, at which point your grip fails and it slams against the table. That’s all the treatment it deserves, and the rest of your experience will be similar; It may sound like a joke but there are many situations where this is useful: When you’re on the phone, when you’re in bed, when you’re holding the power adaptor in the other hand, etc.

Re: The day Windows died

#388

Post by kerpotgh »

apatheticonion wrote: post #332

It's really sad that there is no where for us to go in the desktop OS space right now. I, weirdly, daily drive all 3 OSes. MacOS; Work issued laptop and longish-time user (about 6 years with it). Windows; Desktop PC mostly for games. I've been using Windows since I could walk. Fedora; Desktop PC, dual booted which I use for most everything else. I cannot believe how much of a dumpster fire Windows has become. From th…

[dead]

Re: The day Windows died

#389

Post by inciampati »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #224
surgical_fire wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently moved back to Linux, perhaps permanently. What kept me from it was not being able to reliably play games, but I can confirm that is no longer a problem. I can't properly describe how happy this makes me.

The issue with Linux for me is how crude and unpolished the desktop environment is compared to windows and Mac. For the average user the desktop is everything and Linux lag way behind on that. Why are there basically only 2 choices on Linux and both have the same boring font?

What elements of polish are you missing?

Have you used gnome shell in the last five years?

My desktop experience on Linux is so clean. Everything is a "windows" key press away. I hit they then enter the first characters of the program name. It's all composited and GPU accelerated too, and interaction is instantaneous.

Almost anything that needs additional polish is on the web and looks the same on every computer...

For me, what seems janky is stuff with the systems on MacOS (planned hardware obsolescence = jank, batteries that die after a predetermined number of years, expanding until they break the motherboard = jank) or the user treatment and configuration of Windows (the article in question gives a lovely example of windows jank). In short, being treated like a consumer = jank. I can't understand how anyone puts up with it, much less says "polished" when referring to it. But I'll admit I'm weird!

Re: The day Windows died

#390

Post by bboygravity »

piyush_soni wrote: post #380
safety1st wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post is basically about the author's nostalgia for his early days of computing with Windows 95 and how he wanted his son to have the same experience. This post is screaming out for Linux. Linux is the solution to his dilemma. If he reformats that drive and puts say Kubuntu on it - the kid's first PC experience is going to be a vaguely retro 90's style shell with a start menu, the start menu is going to have a Ga…

> And of course it's Linux, so there's infinite opportunity to get under the hood and tinker. - Or keep trying to fix the environment + hardware compatibility issues and not do the actual work/study. Or keep editing some random xorg.conf file because his monitor's display suddenly became weird. Or try to fix some other random files since the sound driver doesn't work. He's 10. I'm 40 and still horrified to deal with…

This is 100 percent why I (and many others no doubt) don't want to touch Linux. Even though it feels better/best. When it fully works on my hardware. Which it never ever does.
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