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I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

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Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#81

Post by browningstreet »

I was watching the Lenovo CES keynote and couldn’t believe how hard they were selling Qira on Lenovo computers and Motorola phones. All the major players have platform specific Windows features that can’t possibly meet their success criteria in terms of ROI. Lenovo isn’t Apple or Google or Microsoft, and even the latter two have trouble selling fully integrated platform services on hardware.

All this time, money, dev energy, and marketing to keep trying to find a magical bean in their stalk and they still just won’t support open hardware and open source OSes with vigor.

Apple people tend to buy Apple products generation over generation, and none of the Windows hardware manufacturers are even close to having that rep. Even in this thread people are recommending Gen 1 Thinkpads, but Lenovo’s heart really isn’t in it across the board. Dell went simple with the revived XPS but the release versions don’t offer Linux in the BYO order flow.

And no, I don’t think Framework is good enough.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#82

Post by layer8 »

al_borland wrote: post #43
toddmorey wrote: post #9

Commercial OSes (both Windows and MacOS) now feel so insanely agenda driven, and the agenda no longer feels like anything close to making the user happy and productive. For Mac, it feels like Apple wants to leverage what came out of VisionOS and unify the look and feel of mobile and desktop--two things no one asked for. For Windows, it feels like ads for their partners and ensuring they don't fumble the ai/agent tran…

I find it so odd that Apple put so much weight behind the VisionOS design, rolling it out to all platforms, considering so few people have Vision Pro. The justification for bringing some iOS ideas to macOS made sense, because everyone knows how to use iOS and is familiar with those conventions. I’m curious if we’ll see another major shift with the new deign lead, or if the higher ups will want to run with Liquid Glas…

It’s not actually really the same as the visionOS design, merely inspired by it.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#83

Post by Wowfunhappy »

al_borland wrote: post #43
toddmorey wrote: post #9

Commercial OSes (both Windows and MacOS) now feel so insanely agenda driven, and the agenda no longer feels like anything close to making the user happy and productive. For Mac, it feels like Apple wants to leverage what came out of VisionOS and unify the look and feel of mobile and desktop--two things no one asked for. For Windows, it feels like ads for their partners and ensuring they don't fumble the ai/agent tran…

I find it so odd that Apple put so much weight behind the VisionOS design, rolling it out to all platforms, considering so few people have Vision Pro. The justification for bringing some iOS ideas to macOS made sense, because everyone knows how to use iOS and is familiar with those conventions. I’m curious if we’ll see another major shift with the new deign lead, or if the higher ups will want to run with Liquid Glas…

> I find it so odd that Apple put so much weight behind the VisionOS design, rolling it out to all platforms, considering so few people have Vision Pro.

I suspect they began working on Liquid Glass before the Vision Pro was publicly unveiled, so they didn't know what the public response would be.

What I honestly find more baffling is that they thought the Vision Pro would sell well. It just isn't a good product.

Perhaps they're still banking on a future where the Vision Pro becomes a pair of real glasses. In which case, Liquid Glass is the type of interface you'd want to have.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#84

Post by bee_rider »

toddmorey wrote: post #9

Commercial OSes (both Windows and MacOS) now feel so insanely agenda driven, and the agenda no longer feels like anything close to making the user happy and productive. For Mac, it feels like Apple wants to leverage what came out of VisionOS and unify the look and feel of mobile and desktop--two things no one asked for. For Windows, it feels like ads for their partners and ensuring they don't fumble the ai/agent tran…

Windows is a bizarre product at this point; it is what the company is famous for, but it is small beans next to Azure, right?

Nobody would get into the Operating System business to make money I think, the going rate is $0, subsidized by something (an ad company, a hardware company, or general kindness and community spirit).

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#85

Post by p4coder »

Majestic121 wrote: post #30
p4coder wrote: post #15

How do you do taxes in Linux? Install a windows VM? I don't want to use the web version. With Google docs being good enough, I don't really need windows for anything else. Last time I checked, the tax software didn't run under wine.

Where do you need windows to do your taxes? Is this a US thing?

Yes, it is the unfortunate reality of the US. You either fork over all your data to tax preparation companies on the web or pay them to use windows/MacOS software. There is still paper filing by doing taxes by hand, but that's a bit too inconvenient. Free online filing is restricted to $89k annual income.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#86

Post by modeless »

> My goal here is to see how far I can get using Linux as my main OS without spending a ton of time futzing with it

> First challenge: My mouse buttons don’t work. [...] Not a major issue; I can get around fine with just the keyboard.

> Then I remember that my root partition is only 100GB. I reboot back into the Cachy live image and use the Parted utility to increase it to 1TB, then make a second btrfs partition in the remaining space.

I don't think the goal was achieved here. For most people it still takes some dedication and a lot of computer knowledge to switch successfully.

But I expect things to continue to improve now that Valve has solved the single major blocker for a large chunk of people, that being running their back catalog of games. It's an amazing gift to the community that we should all be very thankful for.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#87

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

xerox13ster wrote: post #74
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and I also had a flip phone before the iPhone came out and a 90 pound CRT before large CRTs got affordable. In fact my first computer was a 1Mhz Apple //e with 128KB of RAM.

I’m not sure what your point is? You were ahead of the curve on displays and behind the curve on phones and I guess congrats on the 2e start, I had an early Mac. What does this have to do with the price of CPU cycles in clamshell PCs? You abstained until ARM because you could see the future and you knew that the specs you demanded we’re gonna be available eventually?

My point is that because something is acceptable before something else came along better doesn’t mean it’s acceptable now.

Would you have been okay if Android phones had still been BlackBerry clones 7 years after the iPhone came out?

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#88

Post by cocoto »

bee_rider wrote: post #63
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come back when I can run Linux on a laptop that has 12+ hours battery life, runs fast, that’s lightweight, quiet and doesn’t cause infertility from the heat when I put it on my lap…. Using an x86 laptop in 2025 is like using a flip phone 6 years after the iPhone came out. Of course if you are a gamer, ignore everything I just wrote.

Why would anyone come back? Nobody is bothered by you having a device that you like, and nobody cares if you replace it. People without this particular 12 hour battery life requirement (which is quite niche, most of us live near plugs) are talking about what works for them.

Battery life is the best selling point of MacBooks and the reason these are selling like crazy. I’m a full time Linux user and I’m even considering buying a macbook and running a Linux VM full time because of the battery.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#89

Post by carlosjobim »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #66
carlosjobim wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battery life was always better on Macs, along with a bunch of other things.

Apple did some OS optimizations. But the next to last x86 laptop generation (the butterfly keyboard era) was really bad. The keyboards were bad and they had poor thermals

Yes, those were far from perfect. Keyboards were horrible. Still superior in many other aspects.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#90

Post by blipvert »

Not a desktop thing (digital out-of-home signage) but we’re dropping Windows like it’s flaming dogshit. Minimal Linux install with X, Blackbox and player software (and management/monitoring stuff obvs) on all new assets and the thousands of extant ones will get replaced as soon as feasible.
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