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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

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Re: The day Windows died

#691

Post by rishav_sharan »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #656
Mizoguchi wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you are willing to pay more, can you not just buy a laptop with no OS and have a separate installation of Windows premium done on it? That will at least save you from the OEM cruft.

Re: The day Windows died

#692

Post by donutpepperoni »

I'm glad you shared this. I have a very similar computing background to the authors. I used Microsoft exclusively until I started working in datacenters and then I switched to Mac/Linux. I was even a "Microsoft Certified Professional" at the age of 17 because of how much I had used the OS and remembered about how it worked. It was clunky and weird then but it's gotten even weirder now. All of the legacy clunk remains and now they're shoehorning more awkward stuff on top. For decades the first thing I would do on a fresh install of windows is move the task bar to the top.

Now Microsoft states that as a design choice they won't let you move the task bar:

https://www.reviewgeek.com/114501/microsoft-explains-why-you...

Re: The day Windows died

#693

Post by cubefox »

chongli wrote: post #643
raxxorraxor wrote: post #524

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…

Comparing Microsoft and Apple seems appropriate because they both develop operating systems that compete in the consumer market. It’s really not. Apple is a hardware company that develops an operating system and services to add value to their hardware. They make nearly all of their money from hardware. For the longest time, Microsoft didn’t really make any hardware at all, apart from some peripherals like keyboards a…

They now no longer make most their money from Windows, but from "Microsoft 365", a SAAS cloud version of Microsoft Office. Since they have no real competition in this area, they can basically do whatever they want. Littering Windows with ads, buying Activision, investing in OpenAI...

Re: The day Windows died

#694

Post by hooby »

Stibinator wrote: post #555
hooby wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but no matter how much I love it, Linux is janky. To be honest though, so is Windows (in certain aspects). I believe that someone who works with Linux every day, gets used to certain stuff being janky and no longer notices it - just like someon working with Windows every day gets used to the jank found there, and no longer notices it. It's only when you are used to one system and switch over to the other, that you…

Check out chocolatey. It's the package manager that Windows lacks.

Will do. Thanks for the tip! Can't imagine it is able to update your kernel though ;)

But the package manger is just one single example. There's many such things... I'm just too lazy to work out a whole list.

But I'll give you one more example:

When I run into an error message on Linux, I often get some cryptic error message - and when I google that, most times I come across an explanation and solution to exactly my problem. The instructions often involve bash commands - not very beginner friendly - but when going through the explanations you actually learn something and understand your system better.

When I run into an error message on Windows it's most often of the "An Error occurred" variety, which are an absolute nightmare to google (mostly leading to "fix-your-pc" software scams). And when I finally manage to figure out the right question to google (which requires you to be tech-savvy) - I get step-by-step instructions with screenshots that just don't match my version of Windows... and since the instructions don't contain an explanation, I learn nothing. And the good instructions that actually work... those often again require the use of power shell!

But thanks for mentioning chocolatey!

Re: The day Windows died

#695

Post by SgtBastard »

wffurr wrote: post #682
jmartin2683 wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monster-drinking, giant truck-driving redneck here for some perspective: We have no class. It’s kind of the brand.

You may not have class but you are a member of a class and regardless don't deserve shovelware and ads in your start menu.

Deserve? Perhaps not.

But respond favourably to, in sufficient numbers, that it remains profitable for the shovelling class? You betcha.

Re: The day Windows died

#696

Post by qbasic_forever »

matthew28845 wrote: post #302
joeman1000 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like hell. They will quickly be turned away from Linux and want something simpler. Yak-shaving in lieu of work sounds cool, but it sucks when you really need to do stuff other than dick around in the terminal.

My first computer was a Raspberry Pi v1 that I got when I was 9 (now 19). Definitely not the case for me. I became proficient in using Linux very quickly.

That's awesome!

Re: The day Windows died

#697

Post by oblio »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #547
oblio wrote: post #526

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. 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 stu…

Yeah, poring over all the garbage and spam blogs and "documentation" websites for Windows is the biggest hassle.

Windows is a very complex beast and frankly many of the good people move on, usually to Linux, since all the good IT work happens on Linux.

Re: The day Windows died

#698

Post by neogodless »

esperent wrote: post #397
neogodless wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran Linux Mint on a Lenovo Legion gaming laptop for 2 months. Almost everything related to gaming worked but I did have problems. Under X11 + Gnome, fractional scaling was pretty badly broken for some things, especially the Steam app. X11 + KDE fixed that issue. Under X11 + KDE with hybrid graphics mode (automatically use APU for light tasks, dedicated GPU for games), the laptop's brightness controls were totally i…

> Hogwart's Legacy ran horribly and was unstable in Linux Mint. It ran with much higher quality/performance and 100% stability under Windows. Do you think this is because it's new? If I could only play games with a year or two delay that would be fine. Cheaper too.

I can only guess!

It's very rare for me to even buy a new game (unless it's a $20 early access game) but my spouse was very excited for it and I wanted to play alongside. (It's not multiplayer but we can still talk about the parts we've played.)

Re: The day Windows died

#699

Post by redorb »

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…

you were only 350 from a macbook m1 air, at which point you remote into said windows machine and suffer less (as when you un-remote you have great laptop.

Re: The day Windows died

#700

Post by pcollinsmokonut »

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…

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste." — Steve Jobs
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