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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

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Re: The day Windows died

#501

Post by deafpolygon »

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…

What basic desktop functionality is degraded? I mean, I understand the ads, and the push towards cloud with OneDrive.

But what functionality has been degraded? As far as I can tell, Windows still has the best multi-monitor support of the 3, and pretty good window management defaults out of the box. Driver support out of the box as well, and rock-solid stable DE.

macOS, on the other hand, has this weird ideas of window management and requires third party software for snapping your windows to the corners, and so on.

I see a lot of hand-waving in this thread which makes me doubt the credibility of many posters.

Re: The day Windows died

#502

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #417
grumpyprole wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy a laptop with good Linux support, e.g. a ThinkPad. It should be fine for well over a decade in my experience. That is better value than Apple offer.

Thinkpads are solid devices but they’re really falling behind in screen and trackpads. Most higher end Thinkpad models have 1080p screens with 300-400 nits of brightness at most. The base M2 Macbook Air is 2560x1664 with 500 nits brightness. And it’s cheaper than a Gen2 Thinkpad T14. And of course, all Thinkpads can’t hold a candle to Macbook trackpads

If you buy customized from Lenovo instead of a retailer you can almost always choose to upgrade the screen to something like 2560x1660. You have to wait longer for production and delivery though.

Re: The day Windows died

#503

Post by syl_sau »

elihu wrote: post #485

I just bought a Lenovo Ideapad from Costco for about $500. The last time I bought a computer preloaded with Windows was about a decade ago. My experience so far: I turn it on, there's a license agreement. Actually, there's two. One is from Microsoft, and it's rather long but I guess it's about par for the course. Then there's the Lenovo license agreement, which is actually a bunch of other license agreements concaten…

And that was just the install process. Soon you'll start using it and you'll quickly come to despise anything Windows-related. A good tangent is this absolutely marvelous video put out by the Microsoft Teams people, where they compare the performance of the "classic" version to the brand-new version. A sight to behold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT7nnXej2K4

Re: The day Windows died

#504

Post by Gordonjcp »

StrangeATractor wrote: post #452
piyush_soni wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's 2023, do people still have driver issues on Linux? Last I had to worry about that was when Ubuntu was (Admittedly, I've done well by staying away from nvidia)

> It's 2023, do people still have driver issues on Linux?

Almost nobody. Most manufacturers have come to the conclusion that if they're going to dick about with special proprietary drivers, they can expect to sell a handful of their product compared to one that is just normal.

No-one wants a webcam that uses a special super-sekrit magic driver that has to be downloaded from some sketchy website. They want to plug it in and wave to granny, or join their Teams call. Thus, the special super-sekrit proprietary crap got evolved out of existence.

Re: The day Windows died

#505

Post by oblio »

elihu wrote: post #485

I just bought a Lenovo Ideapad from Costco for about $500. The last time I bought a computer preloaded with Windows was about a decade ago. My experience so far: I turn it on, there's a license agreement. Actually, there's two. One is from Microsoft, and it's rather long but I guess it's about par for the course. Then there's the Lenovo license agreement, which is actually a bunch of other license agreements concaten…

> I guess I'll crawl back into my cave and keep using Linux for the foreseeable future.

That's a valid choice, but not due to technical concerns.

You're presumably very technically literate since you're using Linux.

You can just save your license key somewhere and get fresh installation media and reformat the garbage on your device with a clean installation.

You don't need any of the Lenovo stuff, your laptop will work just fine with regular Windows Update drivers.

Re: The day Windows died

#506

Post by Gordonjcp »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #403
piyush_soni wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 very much true. The first time I had mouse scrollwheel issues on Linux, I was just casually told to create a bash file to change config settings. Not user friendly at all.

Haha, yeah, I remember 1996 too...

Re: The day Windows died

#507

Post by Thorentis »

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…

Also still have a 2015 MBP that is going strong. Never changed the battery, but I probably should (though I usually use it on charge anyway). Best laptop I've ever bought.

Re: The day Windows died

#508

Post by soco »

natnatenathan wrote: post #383
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 m…

I see lots of comments about ads in Windows 11 but I didn't see any so far on my home PC. Might it be country related and most of the commenters here are US based? Where in Windows do you see ads folks? Again for clarity: I'm in Switzerland and I don't remember seeing any ad. Zero. Or could be Norton blocking them?

Re: The day Windows died

#510

Post by oblio »

syl_sau wrote: post #503
elihu wrote: post #485

I just bought a Lenovo Ideapad from Costco for about $500. The last time I bought a computer preloaded with Windows was about a decade ago. My experience so far: I turn it on, there's a license agreement. Actually, there's two. One is from Microsoft, and it's rather long but I guess it's about par for the course. Then there's the Lenovo license agreement, which is actually a bunch of other license agreements concaten…

And that was just the install process. Soon you'll start using it and you'll quickly come to despise anything Windows-related. A good tangent is this absolutely marvelous video put out by the Microsoft Teams people, where they compare the performance of the "classic" version to the brand-new version. A sight to behold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT7nnXej2K4

> Congratulations to the Microsoft Teams team on all their hard work! Maybe in a few years we won't have to watch Teams draw itself like a Windows 1.x application on contemporary hardware!

Hilarious :-)))

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