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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

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Re: The day Windows died

#561

Post by Toutouxc »

newaccount74 wrote: post #518
Nursie wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they sell 128GB macs any more do they? They shouldn't! 512GB seems to have been enough for me for the last ten years or so, if I need more storage than that, it goes on a different machine or cloud storage of some form. I haven't found it restrictive at all. I had my 2013 MBP (i5/8/512) in active use until 2020 when lockdown hit and I stopped needing a laptop for a while. Now I'm on a M1/16/512 Air, and…

They don't sell 128GB any more but 256GB isn't much better. Pretty much everyone apart from the most casual users is going to fill that up.

My 256GB Air, which is my work+personal computer, shows 94 GB free. That's my whole job, my paperwork, Apple Photos library with 5 years worth of data, all my apps and personal projects, all my ebooks, memes, notes, screenshots, cached music from Spotify, everything is in there.

I do have a 4 TB NAS at home, but that's backups and childhood photos, no daily-driving stuff. I don't consider myself a casual user.

Re: The day Windows died

#562

Post by whstl »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #524
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 don't understand how Microsoft can cheapen their main OS that much. If they really wanted to emulate Apple, they wouldn't fill their OS with trash in every corner. This also extends to the default landing page of Edge. This is the worst form of bullvard, it is a tiny bit better than directly advocating for penis enlargement on the internet. But not by much at all. There should be no ads on the OS level. Especially…

I think it's just different groups in the Windows team pushing for different things. One portion wants to move in an Apple-like direction, while another group wants to increase "engagement", have metrics and add shovelware to get another revenue stream.

The obvious reality of course is that #1 won't make Apple users migrate to Windows because of #2. And both #1 and #2 will alienate diehard Windows users.

Re: The day Windows died

#563

Post by iforgotpassword »

If you still think Windows is a good OS today, then I don't know what to tell you. Microsoft realized about when Windows 10 came around that Desktop os/software isn't the future and is now trying to milk that cow for as long and hard as possible while putting the minimal amount of effort into further development. Just enough to still be more attractive to the masses than MacOS or Linux. But with everything moving to the cloud, they'll eventually run out of breath if there won't be something leading to a reversal of that trend.

And honestly, if you want your kid to tinker and break things and be able to look under the hood, isn't Linux the perfect choice anyways? At least if they have some interest in the technical aspects and don't just want a gaming rig.

Re: The day Windows died

#564

Post by otikik »

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…

Windows is losing on the “there’s a compatible driver” front, too. Not-so-old devices only have drivers for win <= 10, and don’t work on 11 (but they work on the latest Fedora)

Re: The day Windows died

#565

Post by bilekas »

> So I spent some time uninstalling all those apps. Only to figure out they were not gone from the system but only from his account's start menu.

This is infuriating, even as an anti-social adult who has no use for them and actively wants to demote them.

Re: The day Windows died

#566

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

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…

You say that as if Windows doesn't have the same problems. But it does. I've never had Windows "just work" for a long time. It's either the OEM installed one that's crammed full of bloatware, or you do a fresh install in which case you still have to dick around with:

  1. Running the many cycles of updates and reboots that invariably need to happen on a fresh install. Oh yeah, and one hard reset or power loss when Windows update hangs, as it does regularly, can be enough to irreparably corrupt the installation and force you to reinstall.
  2. Finding the drivers that were missed by Windows update *without* being tricked into downloading malware.
  3. Finding and installing software without being tricked to download malware by SEO spam. And without every application adding itself to startup or installing 3rd party spyware, slowing down boot time.
  4. Finding and changing all the settings whose defaults are making the system slow, insecure, etc. Some of these settings automatically change themselves back after some time btw, unless you use regedit or other hacks.

Re: The day Windows died

#567

Post by alpaca128 »

dncornholio wrote: post #528
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…

How is this Windows fault? Format the drive and install your own Windows.

> How is this Windows fault?

By allowing OEMs to do this? Microsoft could stop it if they had any interest in making Windows a more consistent and reasonable experience.

Yes, you can and should reinstall Windows, but you shouldn't have to.

Re: The day Windows died

#568

Post by apatheticonion »

GeekyBear wrote: post #458
foobarbecue wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I do almost everything in WSL. You can run Linux in a virtual machine on any OS.

^ 100% this.

WSL1 was interesting because it was a Linux compatibility layer for Windows. WSL2 is a VM that automatically provisions additional hardware and adds some paravirtualization for Nvidia GPUs.

Before WSL I was just using VMWare or VirtualBox to run a Linux instance on Windows. VSCode has the ssh extension that allowed me to develop within the Linux VM while appearing to be native.

Re: The day Windows died

#569

Post by ElFitz »

h4ch1 wrote: post #549
tuyiown wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

18% seems to be the sales tax (GST) for iPhones & iPads in India.

Re: The day Windows died

#570

Post by mise_en_place »

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.

Yeah you could do that, but now even Ubuntu includes ads when invoking apt. There is no escape from the ads, and it will only get worse. Even flatpak must be immediately removed, and snaps for that matter. As it is adware clutter for the system.

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