The day Windows died • Hacker News Board

Re: The day Windows died

#421

Post by tamrix » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:38 AM UTC

foobarbecue wrote: post #355

apatheticonion wrote: post #332

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…

I'm fairly happy with my situation: Windows 10 work machine, I do almost everything in WSL. WSL is pretty impressive these days, with native graphical support and decent filesystem and device interoperability. Windows has come a long way; it has a decent terminal now and utilities like ssh and curl have been added to stock cmd.exe . I've been able to turn off all the awful ad stuff. Never crashes, and I can do vertic…

After using WSL. I liked it so much that it made me reinstall Linux lol

Re: The day Windows died

#422

Post by quickthrower2 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:41 AM UTC

petilon wrote: post #258

localghost3000 wrote: post #167

I am sure I will get all kinds of hate for saying this: despite the extra up front cost, apple stuff is a better value. Lets take device lifetime: I have a 2013 MBP 15 and 2015 MBP 15. I use them for intensive things like music production. Both devices work flawlessly. I also a System 76 Oryx Pro which cost more than any mac I own. The webcam failed 5 months in, several keys don't work anymore, and it gets hotter tha…

> despite the extra up front cost, apple stuff is a better value What extra up front cost? The Macbook Air costs $799 at BestBuy. Do you mean to say a similar quality Windows machine costs less? Only Samsung makes computers that are comparable to the Macbook. This Samsung [2] arguably has a better screen but costs $1450. (There are cheaper Samsungs but they don't have 200% screen resolution.) [1] https://www.bestbuy.…

Dells and Macs seem to have insane upgrade prices vs. market for parts.

Re: The day Windows died

#423

Post by EchoReflection » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:42 AM UTC

piyush_soni wrote: post #380

safety1st wrote: post #353

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…

linux has lots of flavors and one can run virtual/emulated OSes on i imagine any of them. Win11 sux big time though, no doubt. I actually had a Geeksquad dude visibly grimace when i told him i accidentally "upgraded" to Win11 and he helped me wipe the HD and put win10 back.

Re: The day Windows died

#424

Post by blkhawk » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:42 AM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #403

piyush_soni wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

why is that user-unfriendly? Didn't it work? Did you miss the ads and the tracking you cannot turn off, updates that ninja-popup and log your PC for half an hour if you not careful for half a second while writing something or the simplicity of selecting the type of user you want to setup by pulling the network cable or disabling your wifi?

Re: The day Windows died

#425

Post by alentred » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:44 AM UTC

Same experience just recently: installing Windows for both of my kids. I got insanely frustrated with it.

Forget the Family Safety. I honestly don't see it working at all. I created Microsoft accounts for my kids and set their ages. This changes nothing I can see. Search menu shows VERY explicit news. It asks my kid to sign in to her Microsoft account every now and then, even though she's signed in since it was installed in the first place. It asks to add payment methods, because why not?, and this is for a 10-year-old! Edge resets the homepage to edgeservices.bing.com, shows some tabloid news on it and refreshes this page every 30 seconds or so. Ads EVERYWHERE. I'll stop here, but only to keep this short. The bottom line is: it is unfriendly and sometimes unsafe for kids, not by my standards anyway, and I am a pretty tolerant parent.

Lots of posts here mention the "debloat" apps. No way. I already paid for the OS. And I cannot just go and check my kids’ computers every now and then to see if Microsoft decided to roll out another dark pattern.

Anyway, just yesterday I placed two orders for reconditioned MacBooks, and will be selling the two PCs as soon as those get delivered.

--

Please excuse me if you are a Windows user and the following sounds strong, I don't want to be mean, but to raise awareness. My guess is just like frogs get boiled slowly, Windows users got tolerant to the progressive decrease in the quality and don’t even notice it anymore. In my experience, when you switch from Linux or Mac, you can't help but see all that is outright wrong with Windows.

Re: The day Windows died

#426

Post by hooby » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:44 AM UTC

apatheticonion wrote: post #332

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.

To be honest though, so is Windows (in certain aspects).

I believe that someone who works with Linux every day, gets used to certain stuff being janky and no longer notices it - just like someon working with Windows every day gets used to the jank found there, and no longer notices it.

It's only when you are used to one system and switch over to the other, that you notice the jank - because it's a degradation from your normal experience.

I've been using Mint for years now (and a few years of Ubuntu before that, and a single year of OSX before that, and many years of Windows before that). Despite still having a Windows PC for gaming which I use regularly - I've grown accustomed to Linux enough, that trying to use Windows professionally causes me pain.

For example: I'm so used to package managers these days, that the practice of installing software by going to a website, downloading a downloader which downloads an installer that installs an updater... all the while having to agree to various long and complicated EULAs and T&Cs, and also having to take care that no unwanted "bundled" software comes along... these days this seems just utterly absurd to me - but back when I was a Windows user, this was just normal - and having to do `sudo apt install the-thing-I-want` instead, would have seemed completely arcane and stupid to me.

Re: The day Windows died

#427

Post by einr » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:44 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #411

einr wrote: 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…

In a lot of ways it was way easier back then as you didn't have the fragmentation. You ran X11/Xorg (no Wayland), sysv init (no systemd), OSS or ALSA, not pulseaudio, you had sane/not insanely bloated desktops like KDE2 or XFCE. Even unicode wasn't something most really had to care much about...world was still mostly ascii.

You're right in a way, and I long for those days when it was easier to understand the system, but 90s Linux had its own headaches and really was the embodiment of the "ugh, sometimes you have to edit files to make computer go" meme that still survives to this day.

Yes, you had to edit your XF86Config to make your graphics work right, maybe even write your own modeline and be nervous that you screwed up your timings and blew up your CRT permanently. Maybe you had to recompile the kernel to set the proper settings for your Soundblaster. Less fragmentation? Desktop consistency? FORGET IT. A million window managers to choose from. Whichever you go with, your apps will be in a mixture of Motif, Tk, GTK, Qt and/or plain Athena widgets and there are no theme engines that will save you. Just deal with it or write your own.

For those without memory of how it was, search up some screenshots of RedHat 5.2 and its stock FVWM95 window manager. That was the easy to use, business-oriented distro of the day. That was considered acceptable look and feel to ship to an end user.

But all this? Fun. FWIW I still think a kid could have fun tinkering with modern Linux, it's probably just that they would tinker with different things. (Because contrary to popular belief, video and audio almost always "just work" these days)

Re: The day Windows died

#428

Post by nine_k » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:45 AM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #416

apatheticonion wrote: post #332

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…

> Windows; Desktop PC mostly for games. That's totally fair, but I would definitely recommend that you try installing games on your Linux desktop as well. Proton is absolutely stunning in what they've managed to accomplish. I'm always a little surprised when a game _doesn't_ run well in Proton now. If you've got particular games that you must play that don't run well on Linux, you'll probably want to keep the Windows…

Maybe a Steam Deck could be a better game computer. BTW it's Linux under the hood anyway.

Re: The day Windows died

#429

Post by mrweasel » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:48 AM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #308

This means the CEO of Microsoft does not care about product. Impossible to imagine Steve Jobs littering MacOS with ads and crap ware.

There have been an increase in articles and blog posts about the sad state of the Windows desktop for the past year or so. What bothers me is that it doesn't appear that any journalists have attempted to get Microsofts take on this. It's just complaining, valid as it may be, but apparently Microsoft seems to believe that this is how it should be, and I'd really like to hear the CEO of Microsoft explain to me why a tool that's suppose to be about work and productivity now looks like a traveling carnival. Do they need to money, do they no longer see Windows as a tool for professionals?

Re: The day Windows died

#430

Post by vkou » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 6:48 AM UTC

chillfox wrote: post #357

vkou wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you'll get to enjoy all sorts of other fights with your OS. (I, will, of course, be put in my place by everyone who is ready to chime in that if I just change , then .

If you are that unique then obviously you will need to develop your own unique operating system to perfectly get what you want... For me, either Mac or Linux works just fine, no fighting required. I am just not that special.

I'm not that special, either. But I also don't give two figs that the Start menu includes a link to TikTok, or that the pre-loaded Solitaire is a mobile game straight out of the fifth circle of hell.

I don't click on shit in the start menu, I don't play Solitaire, and I have way more important things to get upset over.