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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

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Re: The day Windows died

#541

Post by apatheticonion »

NovaDudely wrote: post #462
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…

Not sure if I just got used to it or my hardware setups just work but Linux systems have been pretty good for me the last few years. Desktop environments like Cinnamon and Mate still have that basic interface without the clutter but it definetly isn't for everyone. That said, there is nothing quiet like a new install of Windows XP/Windows 7. Nothing captures that feeling. It is merely an interface for running program…

> It is merely an interface for running programs and managing data then it gets out of the way.

This captures exactly how I feel about it as well. Windows XP and 7 were fantastic in that they were graphical portals to run things. You didn't really notice them there for the most part.

Though I am speaking about vanilla installs and not preinstalled Windows from OEMs - they were loaded with garbage

Likewise though, Linux has been very stable for me in recent years

Re: The day Windows died

#542

Post by vetinari »

CoolCold wrote: post #437
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…

Couldn't it be WhatsApp and TikTok what a "general customer" wants actually? Could it be MS has stats from MS Store to actually see what users install (say I have WhatsApp from the Store, among several others, not mentioning Office). We don't have numbers from the telemetry, but they have, so we guess, but they may actually know . Not something unrealistic for me. As side note, I find astonishing things, for good or…

While I do agree with the general sentiment, that it probably is what a normies want, but then the cynic inside me wakes up.

Preloads are not there to make the service or experience better. Preloads are there, because someone paid for them to be there. So someone makes money on them, doesn't care exactly what they are, and is selling your attention and your time to get there.

So no popularity numbers needed, only a good offer.

Re: The day Windows died

#543

Post by deafpolygon »

natnatenathan wrote: post #398
fwlr wrote: post #104

Being around colleges, I have heard MacBooks derisively referred to as “$2000 Facebook machines” - the hardware is there to render videos, edit photos, compose music, build software, etc., but all the user wants to do with it is browse Facebook. From this discordance arises derision. Maybe the derision for Windows is in some way the inverse: users want to do all that other stuff, but the OS just wants you browse Face…

I will say the cost of MacBooks has fallen through the floor with the new Apple Silicon. My M1 MacBook Air was $1,100 for 16/1TB. I'm not sure how much good Windows laptops go for these days.

> My M1 MacBook Air was $1,100 for 16/1TB.

Are you serious?

It's precisely 1908,85 euros right now for an M1 Macbook Air with 16G ram 1TB storage, and I'm in northern Europe. That's over 2k usd.

A baseline M2 Macbook Air is 1515 euros for 8GB ram 256GB storage. Bumping that to 16g ram and 1TB storage is 2210 euros.

NOT cheap.

Re: The day Windows died

#544

Post by microtonal »

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

Oh wow, they unironically posted a video that a chat application takes 9 seconds to launch. What is wrong with computing?

Re: The day Windows died

#545

Post by vetinari »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #481
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…

None of those have been a thing for 20 years. Linux just works, straight out of the box, with pretty much any sane hardware. Have you ever tried to get anything as outré as a USB keyboard, or USB memory stick, or heaven help you, a USB serial port working in Windows?

> USB serial port working in Windows

The whole FTDI hoopla happened only because FTDI serial driver was the only one shipped with Windows, so only one that was really plug and play.

Re: The day Windows died

#546

Post by AnonCoward42 »

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 depends. With new hardware you're bound to have some trouble especially on "old" Linux versions (i.e. using Ubuntu 22.04), however these issues are very often fixed by installing a newer kernel. YMMV

Re: The day Windows died

#547

Post by vladvasiliu »

oblio wrote: post #526
vladvasiliu wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm familiar with this, but I didn't find a way of remapping the alt/win keys with it. The closest I've found was using alt-gr for level 3. But I don't want that, I want the key next to it to be alt-gr. I also want to have it on the left side, too. I've managed to make this work by combining that and another app that fiddled something in the registry to move super to caps and remap super to alt-gr. > A lot of Linux e…

> I'm familiar with this, but I didn't find a way of remapping the alt/win keys with it. The closest I've found was using alt-gr for level 3. But I don't want that, I want the key next to it to be alt-gr. I also want to have it on the left side, too. https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys/releases BIG WARNING if you do this! I've done it in the past and using other computers will just break your brain. Think working…

Sharpkeys is the one I use, yes. I always forget what it's called.

> BIG WARNING if you do this! I've done it in the past and using other computers will just break your brain. Think working with someone else or helping relatives, etc.

What saves me is that my French colleagues use French layout keyboards, so I have to mentally switch anyway when I use theirs. Luckily, it's not that often.

> Oh, so just like Linux stuff? :-p The double standards are real :-D

I think the biggest issue with Windows is finding a reliable source for these things. For Linux, there's the arch wiki, which is wonderful even for people using other distros. For Windows, there are many sources which are just blogspam and basically say that you should reinstall some driver and reboot your pc. Also, fiddling with registry keys with opaque names that you found on ad-laden webpages always feels a bit off (I'm thinking about trying to remove the "shortcuts" in windows 10's explorer, for example).

I'm actually quite impressed with some things available on Windows, especially the lesser known ones, but find it extremely frustrating that they're so hard to find out about.

Re: The day Windows died

#548

Post by bobsil1 »

mr_woozy wrote: post #85

Windows 7 was the last possible usable version as far as I´m concerned. When Steam sunsets support in 2024 I´ll most likely switch to Ubuntu. Windows 8-11 are just untenable choices and we should all just realize this.

Agree Win7 was the last usable. Ubuntu is great / fast but the UX feels like bad Mac clone, 5 years later.

Re: The day Windows died

#549

Post by h4ch1 »

tuyiown wrote: post #523
h4ch1 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about OP but they're significantly more expensive for me (non-US; Asia) than any other offerings, that I feel like I'm being scammed. That with more subscriptions for anything I might want to use (Spotify/Netflix/Prime) just make it kind of a pinch, and so for a lot of people in my country. Edit: for ex: the $799 iPad pro costs an equivalent of $994.35 in India.

US public listed prices are tax free. Add 18% tax (if I'm not wrong), you're off by ~50$

18% seems a lot, I did Google and Louisiana seems to have the highest sales tax, and entering 70726 as my pin on checkout gives me a tax of $87.49; totalling $886.49. Still a 100$ shy of the price.

Re: The day Windows died

#550

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

tuyiown wrote: post #523
h4ch1 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about OP but they're significantly more expensive for me (non-US; Asia) than any other offerings, that I feel like I'm being scammed. That with more subscriptions for anything I might want to use (Spotify/Netflix/Prime) just make it kind of a pinch, and so for a lot of people in my country. Edit: for ex: the $799 iPad pro costs an equivalent of $994.35 in India.

US public listed prices are tax free. Add 18% tax (if I'm not wrong), you're off by ~50$

Which US state has 18% sales tax???
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