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The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

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Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#101

Post by vbezhenar »

lph wrote: post #71
everyone wrote: post #22

Just letting ya'll know the best version of Windows 10 by miles is called 'LTSB'. It doesnt come with any shit on it (windows store, xboxlive, cortana etc etc.) MS have also promised It will not receive any updates that change its functionality but will receive security updates, for 10 years. You can only get it if u buy in bulk tho. Or, u can just get it from tpb.. Considering MS are intentionally not selling by far…

Serious question: How can you possibly trust pirated software in 2019? How do you know it’s not riddled with rootkits and backdoors?

I did not try to crack LTSB, but I think that it's similar to other Windowses. You're downloading MSDN iso from torrents (which you can verify by checksumming and googling), you're installing fake license server somewhere and you're activating your copy with that fake license server. No need to crack or run anything and fake license server is open source, so you can even compile it yourself and run from VM or VPS or whatever.

I wouldn't even call that stealing, as many folks legitimately want stable Windows and MS does not want to sell LTSB to them.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#102

Post by dpkonofa »

diminoten wrote: post #27
pbreit wrote: post #9

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arrangin…

If you're changing the scroll direction, you're not moving, you're trying to recreate your MacOS experience on Windows, and it isn't surprising that didn't go well.

How is scroll direction, in any way, restricted to a MacOS experience when Windows has had the option for years? I also have the scroll direction set that way because it makes more sense for me when I use the touch screen. It's one of many ways that the UI on Apple devices makes a lot of sense but I don't see why that's somehow a "MacOS experience". Nonsense.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#103

Post by tomc1985 »

pbreit wrote: post #9

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arrangin…

It's a different platform. If you want it to be a mac, use a mac.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#105

Post by dpkonofa »

nextos wrote: post #30

I have used all 3 major OS (Windows, Mac & Linux) for at least a decade each, and I review my current choice every few months. I have regained a lot of sanity by realizing computing happens within platforms, and regarding the OS as just plumbing. My platforms of choice are the web (for hypertext), elisp text applications (for interactive development, task management, email), and Unix. I only need a browser (Firefox),…

I mostly agree with you except that I fall back to macOS because, in addition to development, I do a lot of media production and hardware support for Linux still just isn't there. I have a VM running Ubuntu for a lot of things but I always just find myself falling back to macOS with the terminal and being satisfied with that 99% of the time. That being said, I still have my gaming machine as a Windows rig and, every time there's a Windows Update, it reinforces my decision to leave Windows for day-to-day use. The last straw was when a Windows update caused me to lose video for nearly a week unless I ran in Safe Mode or without the AMD/Nvidia drivers (yes, I tried 2 different video cards). Turns out that the update changed something with HDCP that prevented video out from working because, and I shit you not, my HDMI cable was too old. It worked 100% ok until that update and, despite no hardware issues, was killed by a software update. Never again.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#106

Post by mynegation »

wlesieutre wrote: post #83
NeoBasilisk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was scared to ask what this was even referring to

Apple calls this setting "Scroll direction: Natural" and describes it as "Content tracks finger movement." That's been their default since back in 2011, and although a lot of people disabled it at the time I definitely prefer this mode of scroll interaction. It's more direct and is consistent across all the gadgets I use. It acts like you're grabbing the content and moving it around, rather than grabbing a scroll ind…

I tried it both ways and switched to the traditional scrolling. Changing the default once is a small and one time price to pay vs changing the decades of ingrained habits.

I don’t ever touch laptop screen even if it is touch enabled. To me mouse is strictly superior to touchpad which is superior to touchscreen and keyboard - outside of operations that require precise positioning on the surface of the screen - is superior to pretty much everything.

I thought about why I prefer things this way and decided that it is about travel time. With a touch screen if you want to love from a to b your finger has to travel all the way, whereas mouse can be tuned for maximal sensitivity. And for operations where you can use a keyboard shortcut the interaction time is even more immediate.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#108

Post by hermitdev »

crispinb wrote: post #40
pbreit wrote: post #9

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arrangin…

I haven't found it as bad as that, but agree it's a poorer desktop environment in lots of mostly small ways than macOS. I don't know how you work out it doesn't have a unix shell though. It does, in the estimation of many a better one by default than on macs.

WSL is pretty great, and if you're targeting Linux for deployment, it's somewhat superior than OS X. For one, it repects the case sensitivity of the file system on Linux (by default) while OS X is (by default) case insensitive like Windows (you can make OS X's filesystem case sensitive, but I've read it can cause problems with the OS and some apps that assume the default behavior.

I've never really used a Mac much, but it did cause a problem at a previous employer where most devs on the team worked on Macs natively and then tests would pass locally and fail in CI, because the CI was running on the target Linux config. I'd usually notice them first as I'd run the tests on my Linux VM (pre WSL) and anything with a case mismatch in a config or module import would fail. Was a pain to fix the first time because of bad assumptions about the Mac env, but subsequent issues were quickly fixed.

One big issue I ran into with WSL (not sure it's been fixed, not an issue for me anymore) was building large C++ projects under WSL with MacAfee installed. Apparently a known issue, but it (MacAfee) would leak memory like a seive as it scanned the files in a way that wasnt recoverable. The only way to get the memory back was to reboot. Even after the processes in WSL ended, the memory was lost. You couldn't see what process was using the mem. But, it showed in the system utilization. It is possible to hard freeze Windows due to this bug. Solution? Uninstall MacAfee. Had to have an antivirus due to company rules and (I think) financial regs, but Defender didn't leak memory and was sufficient (albeit slow while building). Don't know if it's still an issue as I haven't used that configuration in close to a year and a half.

There have been issues with the Console Host (I noticed artifacts using Vim in bash under WSL under certain circumstances), good news is that the Console Host is getting much needed love and is probably getting the most attention it has in over a decade. Its already improved quite a bit, and some big changes are coming soon. Also, the team behind it is very engaged on Github issues (the source isn't available, but they use GH for issue tracking directly from the public without having to use the Feedback Hub or file an issue with MS support).

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#109

Post by hermitdev »

wlesieutre wrote: post #41
diminoten wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're changing the scroll direction, you're not moving, you're trying to recreate your MacOS experience on Windows, and it isn't surprising that didn't go well.

I used to have a Surface Pro and it had the option for changing the scroll direction. From a quick google, Microsoft has supported this since at least 2013: https://tablets.gadgethacks.com/how-to/reverse-scrolling-dir... But it was a feature limited to their own devices, and was set via a special Trackpad Settings app that you had to download from the Windows Store, not a standard part of the OS. Which is a pretty go…

What does changing the scroll direction do? If you physically scroll on the trackpad horizontally, does it scroll vertically and visa versa? Not familiar with it, so curiously asking.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#110

Post by tbrock »

rayiner wrote: post #61
pbreit wrote: post #9

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arrangin…

Same thing here. Sold my 2013 MBP and bought a Thinkpad X1 carbon. After a year of frustration, bought a used 2013 MBP. Windows is somehow worse than it used to be. There's two control centers for some reason. Much more notifications and intrusiveness. Taskbar auto-hide doesn't work consistently. Updates install without permission. The big thing is the apps. Apps are getting much less functional (just like how the Se…

Well you made one huge mistake... you must run Linux on the x1 Carbon for it to be amazing.
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