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1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

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Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#251

Post by wartywhoa23 »

andrekandre wrote: post #171
wartywhoa23 wrote: post #127

I've been using Ubuntu for 3 years now, and now that I'm about to upgrade my 13 y.o. laptop, there's a dilemma for me between choosing some top(ish)-spec x86_64 laptop or macbook pro M4. The former just keeps me going with Ubuntu, but forces to still dual-boot Windows for some creative software I use that Ubuntu lacks (a certain DAW and a CAD modeller). The latter gives me an awesome (or so it seems) OS that is much…

> I'd like to ask people who had been using both Ubuntu and MacOS, what would you advise? And MacOS users in particular, are you happy with the direction it has been evolving, and with that of Apple itself? macos out-of-the-box experience is gonna be much better and smoother and more consistent than ubuntu for sure, and you get both unix environment and most desktop software (check first of course) that windows has t…

Thanks, I appreciate your feedback!

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#252

Post by carlosjobim »

array_key_first wrote: post #250
carlosjobim wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

This is very subjective. Their hardware is very good, but it's not as far ahead as you think. Intel makes SOC very comparable to M series in terms of compute and power efficiency. They're rare, but they exist. And MacOS as an operating system is slipping in many ways to open source competitors. The UI is stagnant in a lot of ways, and actively regressing in others, while open source competitors truck forward. Mind yo…

Touchpad is not subjective. And we've been waiting for at least 15 years for other manufacturers to compete. Realistically it will take 15 more years before they can be bothered.

Battery life is not subjective. Same for performance, same for display quality, same for speaker quality. I deliberately tried to focus on non-subjective aspects in my original post. If you say that Intel has chips to compete with Apple on a laptop, I believe you. But I haven't heard of any such laptop until now.

As for the operating system, MacOS is getting worse. A lot worse with Tahoe. But it is still the only tolerable operating system if you're working within a GUI. For programmers and sys admins who live in the terminal, this doesn't matter. Neither for people who only stay inside one application (Excel). But if you want to have applications and the operating system working together cohesively in a graphical user interface, MacOS is still about 20 years ahead of competition.

Not to mention sleep/hibernate mode, which is part of the OS, and probably the single most important feature of any portable computing device.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#253

Post by fragmede »

Grazester wrote: post #241
fragmede wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and also peak crashibility. con/con, anyone?

I think you're mistaking Windows millennium for Windows 98 SE

I never got into ME. 98SE was my jam.

While we're down this rabbit hole, my favorite bit was wrapping up the versions of windows: CE, ME, and NT: Windows CEMENT.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#254

Post by etempleton »

Someone1234 wrote: post #60

I've been a Windows user since 3.1; and I've even defended Microsoft in the past (particularly when they made unpopular choices, but for technically correct reasons, like UAC or forcing vendors to rewrite their drivers into userland or using a safer driver model). BUT, I won't defend Windows 11 and Microsoft's general direction. I feel like there has been a slow cultural shift within Microsoft, from a core of fantast…

I find both Microsoft and Apple have lost the thread with the desktop operating systems. Microsoft seems intent on trying to kill their market share with adware, slow performance, hardware security requirements, etc. while Apple, has made MacOS an after thought that sometimes gets poorly implemented features from iOS. See liquid glass as the latest example.

For the first time in a long time I tried out Linux again using gnome and was shocked at how refreshingly good it was. I still think Linux has a few too may hurdles for most people, but I think most people would prefer the user experience if they gave it a try.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#255

Post by etempleton »

array_key_first wrote: post #250
carlosjobim wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

This is very subjective. Their hardware is very good, but it's not as far ahead as you think. Intel makes SOC very comparable to M series in terms of compute and power efficiency. They're rare, but they exist. And MacOS as an operating system is slipping in many ways to open source competitors. The UI is stagnant in a lot of ways, and actively regressing in others, while open source competitors truck forward. Mind yo…

Mac OS UX is fairly atrocious now. It was slowly regressing for some time, but Liquid Glass on MacOS actively makes me sad.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#256

Post by bluecalm »

carlosjobim wrote: post #252
array_key_first wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very subjective. Their hardware is very good, but it's not as far ahead as you think. Intel makes SOC very comparable to M series in terms of compute and power efficiency. They're rare, but they exist. And MacOS as an operating system is slipping in many ways to open source competitors. The UI is stagnant in a lot of ways, and actively regressing in others, while open source competitors truck forward. Mind yo…

Touchpad is not subjective. And we've been waiting for at least 15 years for other manufacturers to compete. Realistically it will take 15 more years before they can be bothered. Battery life is not subjective. Same for performance, same for display quality, same for speaker quality. I deliberately tried to focus on non-subjective aspects in my original post. If you say that Intel has chips to compete with Apple on a…

There are many annoying things about Windows but Windows/app switching is light years ahead of MacOS. MacOS is slow, has annoying animations, doesn't have properly working alt+tab.

I fully agree on all hardware points: battery, speakers, displays. Sleep/hibernate is a big one as well. It's surprising seeing Windows dropping the ball on this one as well.

There are also things MacOS does way worse than Linux. For example Finder is pathetic.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#257

Post by bluecalm »

carlosjobim wrote: post #249
makeitdouble wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are lopping "consumers" in a single basket where they are all supposed to want the exact things Apple focuses on, and even on these aspects Apple isn't guaranteed to be the top choice. > 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 Apple was really hitting perfectly all the important aspects, they would have 90% ma…

I feel that we've drifted from our original discussion about innovation. The Mac touchpad hardware/software is genuine innovation. Same for getting great sound into a small laptop, removing pixels from being a factor with high DPI retina displays, same for all-day battery, and same for the M chips. These are all things which change the way we do computing. And these examples are all things where nobody would prefer s…

>> But nobody prefers having a bad touchpad, for example

I don't like Apple's touchpad because it's too big and makes their keyboard worse. I much prefer laptops with smaller touchpad. I usually disable it anyway so most of the time it's wasted space for me which makes my main input device worse.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#258

Post by stonogo »

fau wrote: post #181
BoppreH wrote: post #63

Very sleek marketing, but why did they rebrand (the fantastic) KDE Connect to "Zorin Connect"[1]? From the mere If it was tightly integrated into the OS I could sort of understand not mentioning its name, like you don't want "Foobar Control Panel" and "FizzBuzz Start Menu". But KDE Connect is a standalone app you can install even on Windows. And this is not just hiding the name, it's replacing it! So, why the "rebran…

Presumably because a good portion of the target audience are less technical users, and there's no reason to be throwing extra (ex-)initialisms at them. "Zorin Connect" is clearly something that will connect my Zorin OS to something . "KDE Connect" is something that might perhaps connect me to a "KDE", but what's a "KDE" anyway and why would I ever need to connect to it?

On the other hand, you've now made it one step harder for people to find the documentation.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#259

Post by carlosjobim »

bluecalm wrote: post #256
carlosjobim wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Touchpad is not subjective. And we've been waiting for at least 15 years for other manufacturers to compete. Realistically it will take 15 more years before they can be bothered. Battery life is not subjective. Same for performance, same for display quality, same for speaker quality. I deliberately tried to focus on non-subjective aspects in my original post. If you say that Intel has chips to compete with Apple on a…

There are many annoying things about Windows but Windows/app switching is light years ahead of MacOS. MacOS is slow, has annoying animations, doesn't have properly working alt+tab. I fully agree on all hardware points: battery, speakers, displays. Sleep/hibernate is a big one as well. It's surprising seeing Windows dropping the ball on this one as well. There are also things MacOS does way worse than Linux. For examp…

The big problem with Cmd+Tab in MacOS is that it only works well on a US keyboard where you have the little ' key next to Tab to switch between app windows. For non-US keyboards I never figured it out.

So yes, it's a weak point in MacOS. But the discussion isn't whether Apple devices have weak points, it's whether they are innovating or not. And even if they're not perfect, they are still way ahead of the competition, IMO.

You're implying that Linux file managers are much ahead of Finder, what are the innovations they have? One innovation I still miss in Finder is z-snake menus for navigating, moving and copying files:

https://discuss.haiku-os.org/uploads/default/original/2X/f/f...

On the other hand Finder does have Miller columns, which to me is the best way to manage and explore files.

Re: 1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18

#260

Post by mips_avatar »

DANmode wrote: post #218
mips_avatar wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the toughest thing for me has been watching my former coworkers on Windows transform from technology loving builders into depressed cynics. Like these were some of the most brilliant people I knew and now they struggle to get out of bed.

This may be reversed correlation. People I’ve known with deteriorating health lost their interest in tech beyond familiar point A to point B.

My coworkers who left Microsoft started doing a lot better once they left, it's a bad place to be right now.
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