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1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

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Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sheer innovation. I moved on, as other makers are pushing the enveloppe, but feel it's a shame Apple couldn't keep pushing during the Tim Cook area. Also having no good commercial alternative to Microsoft sucks, and that's where we're heading.

That sounds like a bit of a lazy response. Everybody is complaining about Apple, but they are still 10 years ahead of all competition on some features, and 20-30 years ahead of competition on other features. I'll mention what I personally think they should do in sheer innovation, which has the potential to have a larger impact than their A and M chips: A device with an e-paper display. E-Ink is almost there for black…

Every major maker is decades ahead of the competion in some specific niche. By that token Lenovo is 30 years ahead of Apple in customizability and Asus 20 years ahead in RGB lights. I'm not sure that that wins hearts.

On what I care the most, and as a goal Apple set for themselves, Apple still couldn't make the iPad Pro a general use computer. Microsoft is 10 year ahead of them in that regard, even Samsung's Chromebooks end up being more powerful for a "Pro".

Apple couldn't overcome their gaming aversion, and the Vision Pro is such an unattractive product in no small parts because it's at the crossing of that and the iPad "what is a computer" syndrome. I waited for its launch before renewing my headset, and honestly regretted the wait.

Valve came up last week with a set of devices that genuinely looks fresh and opens new doors. Lenovo keeps pushing the boundaries of what a mobile computer looks like, with actually interesting screen/keyboard combinations I'd buy in a heartbeat if I was still commuting. Asus keeps showing the world what a real "Pro" tablet looks like.

Innovation is happening in spades, while Apple still hasn't fulfilled its own promises.

> e-ink display

Chinese makers are already on that beat, and that's where we saw the first e-ink smartphones. Computer wise, I'd expect Lenovo to hit the mark first. Now I get that many here won't touch a laptop with Windows on it, but Linux support is also getting decently good.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is actually nothing complex or hard to understand about KDE. You can navigate your way around as you would with any other piece of software you're new to.

My 8 and 11 year old both use KDE. About 10 minutes and they figured out enough to start a browser and mod Minecraft. I think the people who have the hardest time are those who think they know what they’re doing so feel they need to change things. I’ve never seen a beginner at anything start digging through settings wildly, and experienced people know what they want to change. It’s that middle ground.

maybe i'm less smart that your 8 years old, i remember i wanted to switch the bottom bar to the left and the overlay was so cumbersome... i tried a few things and ended up breaking the layout.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#233
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably like MX Linux, which has, for some reason, topped the Distrowatch popularity list for years in front of Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Debian. Strangely enough, CachyOS seems to have adopted the same strategy and it's now first place on that site. I've been using Linux since 2001, and I honestly I find it funny how these niche flashy distros are popular with the new generations. Probably because newbies follow…

Distros like Debian and Ubuntu also suffer from issues with compatibility with newer hardware due to their older kernels. This is part of why distros based on Fedora and Fedora Atomic (such as Nobara and Bazzite, respectively) have seen popularity.

On that I agree. I run Fedora Atomic and I'm not switching to any other non-atomic distro ever again. Once you get used to the papercuts, the old model of overwriting system files and hoping for the best is antiquated to say the least. (And no, I don't care for NixOS, sorry)

I'm still wishing very hard for a serious and battle-tested Arch-based atomic distro, so I can chuck Fedora and its RPM packaging model into the flaming sun.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone posted these settings on HN recently and it has made working on my Mac once again usable: https://imgur.com/a/macos-accessibility-settings-simpler-ret...

Having to tweak the defaults to get something more usable is a huge step back for MacOS. If I wanted to spend time with settings I’d use Linux. I use and recommend Mac OS because historically everything works perfectly out of the box, like an appliance, so I can focus on work and hobbies (that don’t include spending time on the computer as an end goal).

I totally agree, however, (to wax slightly philosophical) things will change, that's just the nature of tech (and the world at large). To play Devil's Advocate: at least MacOS provides these settings, unlike Windows, which does provide some settings, but many things you are just stuck with unless you install some nerd's github project which tweaks low-level settings and hopefully isn't doxxing you to some gov't. I resisted as long as possible moving from Win10->11 because the UI/UX is such an abomination, similarly bad as the new Liquid (Gl)Ass, but at least MacOS is mostly just changing the color scheme, whereas Windows is constantly changing the position of everythign, what happens when you jiggle the mouse, auto-docking, and pretty much everything that can be changed, they have changed - multiple times! Just as soon as I get comfortable with some UX change, they change it again, because I guess the UX department needs to get paid? Every time I re-install Win11 (4 times in the last 12 months due to new PCs, forced upgrades, etc.) I have needed a full week before everything is to my (near) satisfaction, whereas with MacOS it's just these 5 toggles and bam, I can read things again.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#235
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet nobody knew/wanted to touch that code. So they just wrote something worse with less features in React. Peak web development.

No, they absolutely know. They've been very very slowly migrating stuff over to the new Settings panel bit by bit. If you look at what's in Control Panel now, it's maybe half as much as what used to be in there ten years ago. That said, it's insanely ridiculous that it's taken 10 years to get it even halfway done.

Yes, and that means that settings in one edition of Win 11 no longer exist in the next one as they rewrite the settings code.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, had to create an account just to answer. Vendor lock-in is not that much of a problem with macOS; you can install pretty much anything you want and it looks like it will still be in the future unlike mobile platforms. MacOS is very easy to get used to so the transition shouldn't hurt :) If your only concern is vendor lock-in, I think you should be good with macOS. I am saying this as someone who switched to Asahi…

Oh, thank you very much for chiming in! That twist on Asahi x M3+ was interesting - is that because something wasn't ported yet and the support will be there one day, or there'll be a hard block for Asahi forever for M3+?

From what I understood, the CPUs are different and need work for them to be supported. There is no hard block, but sadly, two key people resigned from the Asahi Linux team. I am not even sure if there is someone even trying to work on this.

Another example is microphone support on M2 series that's not there yet.

Many issues with Asahi are also that there is an incompatibility in page sizes (16k on MX vs 4k on most CPUs), and combined with the usage of ARM, software compatibility is an actual problem if you want to use VMs, DAW software (nothing will work there except Reaper ...) (Maybe this paragraph was a bit ranty, but I'm actually very glad we got Asahi in the first place. It's my daily driver and I'm relatively happy with it)

TL;DR: no hard blocker but there is a people "problem"

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a bit of a lazy response. Everybody is complaining about Apple, but they are still 10 years ahead of all competition on some features, and 20-30 years ahead of competition on other features. I'll mention what I personally think they should do in sheer innovation, which has the potential to have a larger impact than their A and M chips: A device with an e-paper display. E-Ink is almost there for black…

Every major maker is decades ahead of the competion in some specific niche. By that token Lenovo is 30 years ahead of Apple in customizability and Asus 20 years ahead in RGB lights. I'm not sure that that wins hearts. On what I care the most, and as a goal Apple set for themselves, Apple still couldn't make the iPad Pro a general use computer. Microsoft is 10 year ahead of them in that regard, even Samsung's Chromebo…

> Every major maker is decades ahead of the competion in some specific niche.

Apple is ahead in every aspect which matters for consumers. Touchpad, speakers, battery, performance, operating system, display. And those are incredibly important aspects. Not gigabytes of RAM and such things which people here care about. If another manufacturer made a device which would be as good as Apple on any of those points, people would be singing their praise for years.

If any operating system was released which was half as good for general computing (not administering servers and programming), then likewise. It would be considered incredible.

As for gaming, I'll give you that one. It's not Apple's strong point. Never was. Just like enterprise office suites.

> Chinese makers are already on that beat, and that's where we saw the first e-ink smartphones. Computer wise, I'd expect Lenovo to hit the mark first. Now I get that many here won't touch a laptop with Windows on it, but Linux support is also getting decently good.

Yeah, and they are not consumer ready. The display tech is almost there, but the devices mostly suck because manufacturers seem to not be able to understand how to deliver quality in their products. I expect Apple to be the only company to be able to do that, just like with so many other technologies where others were first.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#239

If people stopped creating weird spinoff distros, which offer zero value except for a preconfigured Desktop, the entire Linux Desktop ecosystem would be in a far better place. These distros focus on aesthetics choice, but underneath they are always plagued by the same things, tiny maintainer teams completely overwhelmed with the task of managing a distribution. Leading to a great first impression, but an inevitable b…

This opinion is what’s holding Linux back. Having a clean and pleasant user experience on top of a stable Debian based distributed is the goal.

> Having a clean and pleasant user experience on top of a stable Debian based distributed is the goal.

This pretty much describes LMDE[1].

[1] https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excel and Visual Studio, .NET Runtime and C#, Windows 2000 were among the best things for their time. I think there were like 2-3 months in which even internet explorer was the best browser on the market

My operating system teacher was a hardcore Linux zealot and "M$" hater. But one day he praised Microsoft for Active Directory and group policies. Comparable, well integrated easy to use solutions didn't exist at the time. (mid 2000s). Batch scripts were lame though...

Another thing that Microsoft is regressing on. Entra and intune are a poor substitute for Active Directory.

Likewise with SharePoint compared to file shares and NTFS permissions

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