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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

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Re: The day Windows died

#651

Post by mikro2nd »

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…

They don't want to emulate Apple. They want to emulate Google. Hence "trash in every corner".

Re: The day Windows died

#652

Post by cujaneway »

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

You should check out what Lenovo is doing currently; I just picked up a X1 Carbon 6th gen for £340 and loaded Ubuntu on it. The machine runs incredibly well, the trackpad is fantastic and it's a very quiet machine. Literally blew me away with the value for money, coming from my experience with Dell / Huawei laptops they're great.

Re: The day Windows died

#653

Post by mikro2nd »

fsflover wrote: post #516
oblio wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wo…

My non-technical relatives are using Linux just fine. They wouldn't be able to install it themselves though: I did it for them.

I don't know why they wouldn't be able to install it themselves, tbh. The last n times I've installed (various distros) the install process went something like: select keyboard layout, select locale/timzone, go away while it installs, reboot. There was nothing there to do unless you want to get into customising disk partitions or something.

Re: The day Windows died

#654

Post by whywhywhywhy »

izacus wrote: post #636
catach wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is probably Apple because individuals in management believe that maintaining "good taste" is in their professional interest, above goals like boosting a quarter's revenue through any means possible. That's not a simple switch you can flip on in an organization. Especially if you lack a culture that has a consensus view of what good taste even is.

On the other hand, I've been seeing ads across my Apple products as well (both macOS and iOS) so it's not like they're above enshittening their products for more revenue. They're just a bit behind the curve.

Taste was definitely more important to them in the past but since the "services" deluge you can see its started to deteriorate in ways that would be unthinkable 10-15 years ago. The amount of times I've had to click through an Apple Music offer to play the music on my device a year is getting absurd.

Like really, you have outstanding hardware, great margins is it really worth deteriorating the experience in the hopes people will sign up to one of more of the 20 or so subscription services you now sell. They've even resorted to car industry-like subscribing to use hardware features on the chunky watch.

End of the day its inevitable unless you have a product CEO at the helm with a strong vision, Apple no longer has that so the money graph will always win at the expense of experience.

Re: The day Windows died

#655

Post by jmartin2683 »

dan-robertson wrote: post #603
pengaru wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Monster-drinking, giant truck-driving redneck here for some perspective:

We have no class. It’s kind of the brand.

Re: The day Windows died

#656

Post by whywhywhywhy »

Mizoguchi wrote: post #646
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…

Companies are not charities. To bring down prices so that you can buy a brand new laptop for $500 they will have to make that money somewhere else.

Who said I wanted to spend only $500?

The issue is more this stuff is brought in to justify the garbage end of the spectrum then creeps into the rest of the spectrum because its normal and the lower end didn't complain.

Re: The day Windows died

#657

Post by torh »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #600
dncornholio wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's Windows: a product sold to people by a billion dollar corporation. Literally everything is their fault. If you have to reinstall the OS to get rid of OEM shitware, might as well install Linux.

I was surprised when I installed Windows 10. It used to be a simple process to get rid of the OEM shitware, but now Microsoft has included a lot of shitware into the base image as well.

I installed Linux last week. The biggest issue was USB-C docking and DisplayLink. Actually, it was only the DisplayLink part, the docking worked fine.

Re: The day Windows died

#658

Post by ta1243 »

bobsil1 wrote: post #548
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.

I see people complain about "the" UI in linux distros all the time. I don't understand. Ubuntu itself has several options- LXQt, xfce, kde and Gnome.

I've used xfce as my desktop for the last decade or so, before that it was fluxbox/blackbox, and before that enlightenment.

Looking at other people's screens at FOSDEM there's till plenty of choice in UI

Re: The day Windows died

#659

Post by gommm »

zamadatix wrote: post #596
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…

Something I try to spread general awareness for whenever someone posts a local account workaround: The easiest and most foolproof workaround to get a local account is to attempt to use a banned account. Someone conveniently got "no@thankyou.com" banned so if you attempt to log in with it (use anything for the password, you're not actually trying to succeed in logging in) it'll dump you straight to the local account s…

Thanks for this, easy to remember :)

Re: The day Windows died

#660

Post by sgjohnson »

Aeolun wrote: post #576
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.

To be fair, you can easily use apple hardware for 5 years, where windows is just completely dead and unuseable after 2.

> To be fair, you can easily use apple hardware for 5 years

I have a MacBook Pro from 2015 which I still use every day. It's still going strong.

My only issue with it is that it can't be upgraded to MacOS Ventura, and it prevents me from enabling full encryption on all the iCloud stuff. I will probably replace it with a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro 16" later this year and my expectation is that it'll last me for another 8 years. Yes, 4 grand for a laptop is a lot, but not really if it lasts for 8 years and then can be resold to recoup some of the cost or given to a family member.

So for me the lifespan of the machine is over (iCloud encryption being the dealbreaker), but I'm sure it'll last at least a couple of more years for someone else.

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