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The day Windows died

thomasbandt.com

401–410 of 925 posts

Re: The day Windows died

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were being asked about Surface vs Macbook Air - why're you bringing MacBook Pro into it? There's no extra upfront cost for Apple. It is mind boggling how good a computer you can get for USD$800 from Apple compared to anything else on the market.

No I wasn't, but if I was it works like this: Surface Go = iPad, same rough price and specs, Surface Laptop Go, Surface Laptop vs Macbook Air or low-end Macbook Pro, same rough price (Laptop Go is a few hundred cheaper), Surface Book vs medium-high-end Macbook Pro, same rough price. Right now a entry level Macbook Air in NZ is ~1600, 1400 on special, and a Surface Laptop Go 2 is ~1400. Same size, same ram, same hdd,…

[deleted]

Re: The day Windows died

#402

It's really sad that there is no where for us to go in the desktop OS space right now. I, weirdly, daily drive all 3 OSes. MacOS; Work issued laptop and longish-time user (about 6 years with it). Windows; Desktop PC mostly for games. I've been using Windows since I could walk. Fedora; Desktop PC, dual booted which I use for most everything else. I cannot believe how much of a dumpster fire Windows has become. From th…

> but no matter how much I love it, Linux is janky.

I see this a little bit different. I have ADHD and this relates to my operating system because I tend to go with the path of least resistance a little more so than my peers, or at least that's my anecdotal experience. Which means I haven't used Linux for a loooong time, exactly because it's janky.

Where Linux is improving, however, both Windows and MacOS aren't. MacOS is degrading at a much slower rate, and it's likely going to be a long time before a MacBook Air with MacOS stops being my main Laptop (things like Framekwork aren't available in Denmark). I am, however, seriously considering putting Linux on my gaming machine because of how bad Windows has become. This is sort of "easy" for me because I don't play a lot of games. For the past 10 years it's been Blood Bowl 2 and Path of Exile/Diablo 3, for the next ten years it'll likely be Blood Bowl 3 and Diablo 4 + whatever ARPG I come to love. So if those few games work on Linux, then I'll be perfectly set. I wouldn't have considered switching to Linux if it wasn't because Microsoft keeps making Windows worse. Who ever thought it was a good idea to put advertisements into your operating system? Like seriously? And why isn't it illegal, at least here in the EU?

Going back to Apple, the annoyance of having the closed ecosystem, is also getting to the point where it's becoming more of a burden than a feature. At least for me personally. This is largely because a lot of the people I communicate a lot with aren't in the ecosystem. It is also because a lot of the "digital home" stuff you can get in Denmark isn't going to be Apple. Even for the stuff that is available, like Apple TV, it's not like it's going to be a good option compared to a Chromecast because we simply don't get a lot of the features Americans do, and the Apple stuff is 10-100x the price of its alternatives. Then when your otherwise lovely ecosystem doesn't work when you're trying to have a group conversation via SMS with people not using iMessage, or a media setup with a Chromecast + some Linux stuff, it just becomes more trouble than it's worth, which means it no longer really makes sense to get the iPhone simply because it fits in with everything...

I could go on ranting, but the point is that so far, the closed tech giants have been mainly driving me toward open alternatives out of convenience, and I'm likely not the only one. I think it'll hurt Microsoft more than it'll hurt Apple, but then Microsoft likely makes it money in enterprise sales where they have no competition, at least not yet.

Re: The day Windows died

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post is basically about the author's nostalgia for his early days of computing with Windows 95 and how he wanted his son to have the same experience. This post is screaming out for Linux. Linux is the solution to his dilemma. If he reformats that drive and puts say Kubuntu on it - the kid's first PC experience is going to be a vaguely retro 90's style shell with a start menu, the start menu is going to have a Ga…

> And of course it's Linux, so there's infinite opportunity to get under the hood and tinker. - Or keep trying to fix the environment + hardware compatibility issues and not do the actual work/study. Or keep editing some random xorg.conf file because his monitor's display suddenly became weird. Or try to fix some other random files since the sound driver doesn't work. He's 10. I'm 40 and still horrified to deal with…

This is very much true. The first time I had mouse scrollwheel issues on Linux, I was just casually told to create a bash file to change config settings.

Not user friendly at all.

Re: The day Windows died

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more people could have the experience of using Mac and Win11 on a daily basis for real work. I've been developing on Mac/Win11/Linux for 8 years. Win11 vs Mac/Linux is night-vs-day. But you really can't get a sense of how awful windows is without spending serious work time on both Mac & Win. It's not an exaggeration. The simplest things, like remembering settings, switching displays, or setting up hardware, Wi…

I'll do you one better, used Mac for two years, Windows for most of the rest, and a hell of a lot of Linux all throughout. Found the opposite regarding cognitive load with MacOS - it feels like a ten year old operating system full of weird quirks and I got annoyed with its almost-linux-but-not command line. Win11 with WSL2 is my preferred driver, both for hacking and development (primarily Rust/Go not Node so maybe t…

You’re not alone. Windows + WSL gives you the sanity of Linux and driver support of Windows. Best of both worlds, though it takes some work to get there.

Re: The day Windows died

#405

It's really sad that there is no where for us to go in the desktop OS space right now. I, weirdly, daily drive all 3 OSes. MacOS; Work issued laptop and longish-time user (about 6 years with it). Windows; Desktop PC mostly for games. I've been using Windows since I could walk. Fedora; Desktop PC, dual booted which I use for most everything else. I cannot believe how much of a dumpster fire Windows has become. From th…

But the difference is, you can fix Windows with lots of powershell and mumbo jumbo. Others still unfixable.

Re: The day Windows died

#406

Setup your 10 year old with bleeding edge Arch Linux, add a script to automatically update nightly (or even hourly lol), and give them a secondary device like a tablet loaded up with access to arch wiki, every man page, etc. but nothing else. They will be an absolute Linux wizard in months and maybe a core contributor soon after.

My daughter got a new laptop recently. I was very happy and proud that one of the first things she did was to install a Linux partition.

Rebecca?

Re: The day Windows died

#407
post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or keep trying to fix the environment + hardware compatibility issues and not work on the actual study. Or keep editing some random xorg.conf file because his monitor's display suddenly became weird. Or try to fix some other random files since the sound driver doesn't work. He's 10. I was doing this stuff in Linux when I was… well, not 10, but 12. Today I work with computers. What do you think ”tinkering” means? I do…

Not everyone is here to become a Computer Scientist or even a computer professional unfortunately, they want to study their favorite subject, do screen recordings, make nice presentations etc. Our company uses RHEL / CentOS distributions of Linux. And they still suffer from all these weird problems I don't find 'fun' to fix because I have actual work to do, but I have to anyway.

Sure. But the article here is specifically about someone who wants their child to learn about computers by tinkering and trial and error.

Re: The day Windows died

#408
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But at least “yes, it can do that” That's a good point. Hardware failures are far more costly on a Mac that on a windows machine. I'm so far removed from that being an issue (because I'm old) that it is a privilege I forget I have. Duly noted. Cygwin/MSYS/Mingw are really sad reflections of their source material. Not to take a big crap on the millions of man hours the developers have put into them, but they are not…

WSL2 should help some? It's not perfect, but can get you a lot of the way there.

WSL2 is the best Linux you can get anywhere. Perfect hardware support.

Re: The day Windows died

#409
post #16

Microsoft has a habit of flipping settings back to stock, but so far as I know, this has never happened for group policy. I've been using GPOs to reliably flip things off in Windows 10 Can't speak to 11 but I imagine it's the same; GPOs are one of the few things Microsoft wants to make sure never break with an update given the market that uses them.

I can't tell you how relieved I was when Windows Update pronounced my gaming desktop as not cool enough for Windows 11.

I've heard that TPMs are mandatory for Windows 11 - if so, those can typically be disabled in the BIOS and this can be used to prevent unattended upgrades.

Re: The day Windows died

#410
post #104

Being around colleges, I have heard MacBooks derisively referred to as “$2000 Facebook machines” - the hardware is there to render videos, edit photos, compose music, build software, etc., but all the user wants to do with it is browse Facebook. From this discordance arises derision. Maybe the derision for Windows is in some way the inverse: users want to do all that other stuff, but the OS just wants you browse Face…

I will say the cost of MacBooks has fallen through the floor with the new Apple Silicon. My M1 MacBook Air was $1,100 for 16/1TB. I'm not sure how much good Windows laptops go for these days.

Last time I bought laptops was for my kids at beginning of pandemic. They used them for school and stuff for the past 3 years. Both costed $500 each and they still use them to this day. Though I went for a Ryzen 7 instead of Intel, so maybe that's why I got that good of a deal.
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