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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

601–610 of 925 posts

Re: The day Windows died

#601
post #529

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…

Running dos, win9x and others was quite a lot of fixing stuff as well. Getting your hardware to work with games and is took some patience and a lot of trial and error “back in the days”.

- You install chipset drivers? BSOD

- IE with too many windows? BSOD

- Process stack being mad? BSOD

Re: The day Windows died

#602
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built a gaming PC recently, so also new to Windows (normally Linux main). I was very surprised to see advertising in the operating system, for an operating system that people pay at least $190 CAD for. This issue is made worse by every hardware vendor needing to install their own bulky applications with their own popups. It's extremely noisy. My main take is that Microsoft has lost all pride in Windows and they're…

> I was very surprised to see advertising in the operating system, for an operating system that people pay at least $190 CAD for. Most people don't pay this - and I don't mean buying keys from lower-buying-power countries, I mean that anyone with a gaming laptop (which is a 2x bigger market than desktop[0]) is really only paying maybe $50 for Windows since Dell/Alienware, Acer, etc get very large volume licensing dis…

> Most people don't pay this

This is true. However, I have to say I still dislike the (kind of) double charging of selling the OS as a product and using it for advertising. The position Microsoft has allows them to both sell the cow and have the milk but that doesn't make it seem like a fair deal.

Discounts for Windows licenses to OEMs have been a thing for decades (maybe always?), yet Windows was still seen as one of Microsoft's crown jewels and an important business, and Microsoft didn't exactly go bankrupt.

Filling a paid product with advertising and monetized data collection just seems like a cheap move, even if the product is sold at significantly less than the list price in most cases.

Re: The day Windows died

#603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't understand how Microsoft can cheapen their main OS that much. I think the sad reality is a huge portion of the American population actually likes being fed commercial/branded b.s. Just look how common it is for folks to voluntarily affix things like Monster energy drink logos on their vehicles... The culture has no class, monster trucks dude.

I think you could do a better job of trying to empathise with people who are not like yourself and who do not conform to the norms of your social class.

Re: The day Windows died

#604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and don't get me started about the latency all the trash causes to the start menu. I had this routine, computer starts, you press win-key type 2 letters hit enter and the program you want starts instantly. Since Windows 11 this is horribly slow, like seconds sometimes, especially the first load. I can assure you this is not my hardware setup. Clearly their goal is not "provide the best, smooth and performant user…

The start menu and taskbar are disgusting. There are times where it feels like they’re making a round trip to the moon to get data. It’s not consistent enough to debug either.

A round-trip to the moon? That's far too generous. The moon isn't nearly that far away.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=distance+to+the+moon+in...

Re: The day Windows died

#605

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…

Browser support (including Safari support) is the main reason why expensive desktop Macs eventually become paperweights, as has happened to my father in the last year. Safari, Firefox, Chrome, all stuck at ancient and insecure versions, with the web slowly breaking on these older browsers. Despite how glossy and powerful the machine still is, if it doesn't have a working web browser it's only semi-valid. Watched my D…

How long would you expect a machine can be kept up to date with the latest OS?

I have a Mac Mini from 2012 that has the security updates from 2022-05 and Catalina, from 2019, but I have the latest version of Firefox that I use.

The machine is perfectly usable and probably performs even better than day one given I put in an SSD in it. I bought it used for less than 300 euros with a wireless keyboard, and given the form factor, ability to use multiple monitors, great integration with my other devices, it wouldn't be fair to complain about a this 11 year old machine that still works as intended.

Re: The day Windows died

#606
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…

Just another example of short sighted MBA idiots ruining decently engineered products in pursuit of shareholder value

Re: The day Windows died

#607
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.

My fresh install from MSF had tiktok.

Re: The day Windows died

#608
[GNU/]Linux.

I should be able to stop there, but I understand that if you never really gave Linux a shot, or you tried one distro once and gave up when the first thing broke, then you didn't get a chance to learn anything about Linux at all. If that's you, try Linux Mint next time. It's a good beginner distro, you won't break it easily, you will be able to google solutions easily and after a few months you will have learned enough to try other distros. It's important to start with a stable beginner distro to have the "things that work on linux desktop" benchmark.

Here's another thing you need to know about Linux: The look and feel of your Linux desktop is not locked-in. All those reviews you read about a Linux distro that talked about the look or feel, are actually just misleading. The look and feel are distro-independent for the most part.

Linux desktops are as customizable as you want them to be [1], or as little as you want them to be. GNOME and KDE are not the only game in town, XFCE is also a solid out-of-box minimalist experience which is very much like old-windows. If you want to boost productivity, tiling managers are waiting for you. You can also install all of them at once and switch at the login screen. Even the login screen is something you can customise or swap out.

[1] https://teddit.net/r/unixporn

Re: The day Windows died

#609
post #88
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically whatever runs Steam, if you want to play games.

Sure, but Steam doesn't run natively, and is very heavy on battery and GPU. So it isn't good for playing on a laptop when mobile; signficantly worse to native game binary running on a tablet or laptop.

I was referring to "Steam games" not (obviously) "the Steam client".

a) Not all Steam games are on Proton [https://www.protondb.com/]

b) Not all Steam games that are on Proton run efficiently without tweaks e.g. one that I found unplayable due to overheats (on MacOS) was Sid Meier’s Civilization VI [https://www.protondb.com/app/289070]

c) Not all Steam games where you had the pre-Proton version installed, download the right version update. See Steam's forums, people saying disable Steamplay; and have to do that globally, not per-game.

d) In addition, I found the Steam updater daemon (interacting with MacOS Mojave Quarantine) also burned power like no tomorrow.

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