181–190 of 203 posts
This article feels like ignorance. The best "Windows Lite" is a Linux distro with VSCode, .NET, PowerShell, etc. There is no hope for improving Windows at this point.
Wow. Let's see what an informed opinion looks like.
> The best "Windows Lite" is a Linux distro with VSCode, .NET, PowerShell, etc.
Oh.... ok then.
Exactly, we need Windows Lite! Just Win32, media encoders, graphics drivers, CoPilot, and enough to run movie maker and Office, the rest is useless anyway! Or do you mean no Office support, just everything you need to run Steam? Or maybe you mean no UI and just the admin interface so you don't need all that bloat when all you need is a server. Except for Powershell and the management interface, of course. Actually, t…
I know you're trying to make a counter point, but nobody wants copilot. Out of everyone I've talked to in the last year, across a broad spectrum of Windows users from sys admins who make me feel like a caveman down to my parents, nobody trusts AI and nobody wants AI in their OS or apps.
An AI free Windows would be an instant hit, but it would fly in the face of everything Microsoft stands for, so for that reason, it'll never happen
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is easy to administer. Nothing come close to Active Directory + Group Policy, not even Entra ID + Intune. Windows in the enterprise is just a completely different beast to what you see in the home, or even small businesses.
If it's so easy to administer, why is my work computer a never-ending series of updates and reboots and annoyances such as a printer list which scrolls through several screen worths of clicks before I can find the right printer?
No they don't. Why should they bother? * Costs them money to make * Costs them money to maintain * Will only be used by a TINY subset of ultra-enthusiasts (no, neither HN or Reddit are majorities) * Every user on it is less telemetry and less advertisement The reality is that most users don't care, and will just use whatever seems to work fine. Finding out that 'oh yeah, feature/software X does not work on Windows Li…
And then maybe we could get the dream that is Windows lite
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is one reason it was great when I migrated to a Mac at work. Because there is less spyware and administrative software slowing down and making my computer buggy!
That just means your IT department isn't putting in the effort. Antivirus, remote management, MitM proxies, software permissions, macOS can do everything Windows can, it just takes three or four subscriptions and double the effort for the IT team. macOS makes it kind of difficult to do these things, so when companies do deploy the same control they use on Windows, the problem actually becomes worse, because every man…
A problem Windows admins often face is that there are lots of knobs to tweak, and because they can tweak a knob in GPO, they (or their bosses) start believing that they automatically should.
But I genuinely miss having the ability to take the bloat out before you ever install the OS
For desktop use, sure, $45 could fly, but, the main draw of windows is compatibility with existing software, and honestly that is no longer worth it.
No they don't. Why should they bother? * Costs them money to make * Costs them money to maintain * Will only be used by a TINY subset of ultra-enthusiasts (no, neither HN or Reddit are majorities) * Every user on it is less telemetry and less advertisement The reality is that most users don't care, and will just use whatever seems to work fine. Finding out that 'oh yeah, feature/software X does not work on Windows Li…
They have windows iot. That can easily count as 'windows lite'
I honestly don't think windows is worth any price. Unix is the platform of builders, and nobody needs a middleman charging them to breathe air (run an os).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some architecture and some implementation details and sometimes purely economic reality: 1. NT is a hybrid kernel. Windows runs many drivers in userspace, if not in a limited kernel environment. This includes network drivers and GPU drivers. It can recover from crashes more gracefully than Linux and BSD kernels. Linux has similar drivers for specific use cases like FUSE, however, they are not as performant as NT. 2.…
> There is simply more money invested to make consumer drivers work on NT. Linux is often an afterthought for many consumer device manufacturers. There is still not enough buy-in. This would not be the case in the hypothetical situation where Windows becomes a Linux distro.
Providing a closed-source friendly ecosystem for both the OS and the application layer is what Google did for early Android and that's why it caught on.
The advantages of Win32 and the filesystem structure on top of NT's technical advantages guarantees Microsoft's monopoly will go unchallenged for consumer devices. Linux has to become more like NT, not NT become Linux for success in consumer space. Linux will never become more like NT, so it will never get a stronghold.
The question for Linux (or any kernel / system layer) is very simple: If an OEM can hire developers who will independently play a mediator role under an NDA, creating stable kernel internal APIs that live more than 5 years, making sure the kernel is ready before launch without leaking any hardware specifics, Linux is a viable platform for mass-scale consumer hardware. If not, it isn't. Linux fails on all stages of that.