I'm somewhat surprised that Windows is still most of personal computers. In my eyes, it's fundamentally inferior to Linux, and its superficial superiority only comes from the ecosystem, which is to say adoption, not some inherent trait. But then, since Linux adoption didn't meaningfully change in the last 20 years, I'm forced to confront the fact that either I'm wrong about its fundamentals, or the market is able to be irrational for longer than I find reasonable. Either way, Windows in my mind, represents a world I'd like to leave behind. Apple too, btw.
Windows is not technically inferior to Linux. To the extent it has problems, it is mainly because of top-down anti-user behaviour mandated from corporate. But anyone capable of using Linux is capable of hacking out that BS and getting a generally superior experience. I use both literally side-by-side, two laptops with a KVM switch, and I still greatly prefer Windows for many reasons.
Some reasons: Even as a low-level programmer fully capable of resolving problems, I want to spend my time working on my programs, not working on making my OS work, and Linux frequently demands that I spend hours chasing down issues. Windows does a better job of managing memory/swaps, at least out of the box. Windows has a stable userland with 30 years of backwards compatibility. Windows makes good use of both GUIs and CLIs, letting you choose whichever is faster for the task, while Linux distros and devs have some kind of bizarre ideological purity culture and generally refuse to make good GUIs. Windows has a built-in tool for easily making full system images while the system is running, without requiring the image destination be larger than the system drive including unused space. Windows developers are not so in love with dynamically linked system libraries that dependency management becomes a pain in the ass. Windows generally has a polished UX with a lot fewer papercuts.
I think there are 3 major points that made Linux much more viable option in the last 2-3 years.
1) Somehow both GNOME and KDE got much better in the last 2 years. It's very smooth and polished experience that I now prefer to both MacOS and Windows. I only need to install 1 or 2 extensions and it's good to go for me.
2) AI! It's orders of magnitudes easier to fix any Linux issue now compared to 3 years ago. The issues that would take a whole afternoon of fighting are now just a couple back-and-forths with the LLM like ChatGPT or Gemini.
3) Valve and SteamOS. The large and mostly successful push by Valve to make Linux be the platform for gaming has cleared many Linux issues and hurdles on the way. I think this will have ripple effects in the industry. My prediction is that thanks to Valve and SteamOS we will see a viable, widely used Linux based phone in the next 3 years.
The point isn't "run the Linux kernel on a phone", the point is "run an non-big-tech OS that respects the user's privacy and choices". See also Google's recent announcement regarding locking down Android app installation to "protect users"
That's not what was said here, though - and also not something that's going to become a viable major platform.
The folks who care about privacy can't agree on the definition of a privacy respecting phone, so whatever you make some of them will be unhappy. 99.9% users care way more about price, availability of apps, and hardware, in that order. App developers will only write apps for the platform once it has sufficient users, and users will only switch if the platform has sufficient apps.
I guess I’m not clear what the point would be. I suppose you could build a phone that uses more of the gnu ecosystem than Android does, but you’re not going to run desktop apps on your phone because none of them are made for the phone. It would be a bad experience. So it becomes (Desktop) Linux for (Desktop) Linux’s sake.
Linux has been able to serve most non-gaming use cases for over a decade now (source: I've been running the OS longer than that). The one thing it used to not be able to do was play games ... and now it does that.
The happy path has improved a lot. When Linux is working it's reasonably usable. But once something breaks it breaks HARD and recovery is still miserable.
For reference I've been using Linux since Red Hat 5.2 circa 2000. I cut my teeth debugging problems without internet access. I ran an LTSP lab at my high school. I remember the hell that was XF86Config (I was there, Gandalf, I was there 3000 years ago).
....and like the previous commenter I run Windows on my personal machines because I want to spend my free time using them, not debugging them.
The only app non technical users use anymore is a web browser. And since Linux has the same web browsers, non techies don't care. Also, it isn't spying on them or putting ads on their desktop, or breaking the mic randomly like Windows does. Big differences to most people.
I'm halfway between a technical and non-technical user. And half my time is spent in Chrome. But my other half time is in Excel, Dropbox, and Everything. Do those run on Linux? Maybe there are equivalents but I don't have the time to investigate. Access crashes too frequently these days but I couldn't find a GUI equivalent for PostgreSQL. Spying/ads/breaking the misc aren't in my top 10 Windows issues.
I dunno, I thought about this before switching to Linux, when I gave my wife a Linux box I had sitting around in a pinch during the pandemic laptop shortage—a lot of people these days just need a browser, and there’s not really much to go wrong with that. If something does go wrong you can just nuke the whole thing and start over pretty easily.
I’ve certainly run into some odd situations on my desktop Linux machine over the past 6 years since I started using it full time, but I think most of them were related to the nature of how I use the machine more than inherent instability. I think I’ve spent many more hours of my life unwinding piles of malware and bloat from non-technical folks’ Windows machines than debugging this one.
My parents used Linux as their home computer for three years, regularly updating it and doing basic document writing with open office, as well as all of their banking etc
They don’t know what Linux is, and know nothing about tech, they just know that we had a 30 minute lesson on “here’s Firefox, this icon means you need to install updates, here’s how you print”.
I'm now also comfortable to have my family members use Linux on day to day basis. To the point where I use linux to revive 10 year old Macbooks, since the Apple hardware is just solid. I don't dual boot, I just fully flash with Linux.
When something breaks,
Fixing Linux means running some commands that LLM suggests.
Fixing Windows means downloading some shady .exe that may or may not fix the problem and it may or may not backdoor your machine.
Fixing MacOS means paying $5 for some app that maybe does the thing.
I don't get this. People would put up with absolute nonsense on Windows. But when it comes to Linux, they want to experiment, mess around with the configs, copy/paste random commands from internet and basically turn into l33t haxers and then stuff breaks, its Linux's fault. Like how? Install Fedora, don't add any extra repos, don't install anything not in the Software Center and let us see how many times your system breaks.
I have been using Linux since 2000s as well. I do remember the rpm hell, dealing with x config issues etc. It is NOT the same experience now a days. I don't have the time or inclination to mess around so I use Fedora + KDE and that basically stays out of my way. I don't rice my desktop or do any hacking around beyond basic automation and I have had zero instances of the system just breaking.
* I wanted to update a Raspberry Pi from Ubuntu LTS 22 to LTS 24. Turns out this is basically impossible. Ubuntu themselves tell you not to do it and their recommended solution is to wipe the system and try again. I ignored them and tried to do it anyway and my Pi ended up refusing to boot. Great.
* I needed to update a Raspberry Pi to change the list of WiFi networks it knew about. Except apparently there are two different networking stacks for Linux with different config files and I edited the wrong one.
* I built a new TrueNAS server. Turns out that you absolutely cannot configure the networking from the GUI. There's a section there, sure, but every time it refuses to save the information until you "test the changes" and that fails to reconnect every single time. You have to locally plug a monitor into the machine, boot it, and log in with a keyboard to get to the config there.
* Not strictly a bug, but I installed Debian in WSL and it doesn't include `man` by default. So I get a command line and no help for it. Brilliant.
* How do I get that? With cargo, so sudo apt install cargo
* `cargo binstall --strategies crate-meta-data jj-cli` -> `error: no such command: `binstall``
* `cargo install binstall` -> `error: cannot install package `cargo-binstall 1.17.7`, it requires rustc 1.79.0 or newer, while the currently active rustc version is 1.75.0`
* `sudo apt install rustc` -> `rustc is already the newest version (1.75.0+dfsg0ubuntu1~bpo0-0ubuntu0.22.04).`
Apparently the guidance is to manage your rust versions with a tool other than apt that you install with `curl ... | sh` because no one ever learns anything about security
Yeah like... on Windows that's the exact same steps you would need to take if you insisted on using binstall? You might have slightly different steps for installing rustup for Windows (e.g. you need to install Visual Studio).
Though honestly IMO this is more of a failure on the jj devs to not provide something that can be installed straight using apt, I guess (looking at https://docs.jj-vcs.dev/latest/install-and-setup/#linux). For Arch for example you just install it from the official repos.
> * I wanted to update a Raspberry Pi from Ubuntu LTS 22 to LTS 24. Turns out this is basically impossible. Ubuntu themselves tell you not to do it and their recommended solution is to wipe the system and try again. I ignored them and tried to do it anyway and my Pi ended up refusing to boot. Great.
"Ubuntu themselves tell you not to do it" - you do see it right? Let us see how you forgive Windows for breaking things by ignoring Microsoft's advice and blame them anyway when it breaks.
> * I needed to update a Raspberry Pi to change the list of WiFi networks it knew about. Except apparently there are two different networking stacks for Linux with different config files and I edited the wrong one.
Why? Why not connect it to the network you want so that it just connects to that going forward?
> * I built a new TrueNAS server. Turns out that you absolutely cannot configure the networking from the GUI. There's a section there, sure, but every time it refuses to save the information until you "test the changes" and that fails to reconnect every single time. You have to locally plug a monitor into the machine, boot it, and log in with a keyboard to get to the config there.
And TrueNAS's shortcomings are somehow Linux's fault just like every Windows thirdparty software issue is Windows' fault?
> * I want to install jj
* Its docs say to use cargo-binstall
Installation¶
Download pre-built binaries for a release¶
There are pre-built binaries of the last released version of jj for Windows, Mac, or Linux (the "musl" version should work on all distributions).
Cargo Binstall¶
If you use cargo-binstall, ....
You could have just used the pre-built binaries as per their advice. But if you didn't, you should have atleast bothered to click on that cargo-binstall link to see that it is an add-on which has its own instructions - it is not bundled with cargo by default. Unlike you, I did follow the steps and was able to install jj without issues:
$ > curl -L --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cargo-bins/cargo-binstall/main/install-from-binstall-release.sh | bash
+ set -o pipefail
+ set -o pipefail
+ case "${BINSTALL_VERSION:-}" in
++ mktemp -d
+ cd /tmp/tmp.8IdPJtQBlE
+ '[' -z '' ']'
...
+ case ":$PATH:" in
+ '[' -n '' ']'
$ > cargo binstall --strategies crate-meta-data jj-cli
INFO the current QuickInstall statistics endpoint url="https://cargo-quickinstall-stats-server.fly.dev/record-install"
Binstall would like to collect install statistics for the QuickInstall project
to help inform which packages should be included in its index in the future.
If you agree, please type 'yes'. If you disagree, telemetry will not be sent.
...
INFO resolve: Resolving package: 'jj-cli'
WARN resolve: When resolving jj-cli bin fake-bisector is not found. But since it requires features test-fakes, this bin is ignored.
WARN resolve: When resolving jj-cli bin fake-diff-editor is not found. But since it requires features test-fakes, this bin is ignored.
WARN resolve: When resolving jj-cli bin fake-echo is not found. But since it requires features test-fakes, this bin is ignored.
WARN resolve: When resolving jj-cli bin fake-editor is not found. But since it requires features test-fakes, this bin is ignored.
WARN resolve: When resolving jj-cli bin fake-formatter is not found. But since it requires features test-fakes, this bin is ignored.
WARN The package jj-cli v0.39.0 (x86_64-unknown-linux-musl) has been downloaded from github.com
INFO This will install the following binaries:
INFO - jj => /home/xxxxx/.cargo/bin/jj
Do you wish to continue? [yes]/no yes
INFO Installing binaries...
INFO Done in 7.549505679s
$ > jj version
jj 0.39.0-d9689cd9b51b4139d2842fcf6c30f65f4eed8cd1
$ >
Again, a) this is third party b) just because you don't know how to follow the instructions, doesn't make the OS bad. Hell it doesn't even make cargo-binstall or jj look bad. By now, you should see that years of experience != knowing how to use things.
Having said all that, none of this stuff you mentioned even remotely resembled an average user's workflow who just uses his computer for listening to music and browsing the internet with some occasional document editing thrown in. Despite its warts and shortcomings, Linux does a much better job today than it used to.
> "Ubuntu themselves tell you not to do it" - you do see it right? Let us see how you forgive Windows for breaking things by ignoring Microsoft's advice and blame them anyway when it breaks.
Not giving a supported upgrade path between version N and N+1 of your operating system is unacceptable, user hostile, and not something a home user could deal with. "Install from scratch, wipe all your files, and set everything up again" is not OK. You can upgrade Windows from 1.0 through 11 without Microsoft saying "nah, this is impossible": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwXX5FQEl88
"the binaries" are a tarball whose instructions refer back to the previous document, whose "Install > Linux" section starts "from source" and says "go obtain Rust > 1.88", so all of the previous problems still apply.
> "the binaries" are a tarball whose instructions refer back to the previous document, whose "Install > Linux" section starts "from source" and says "go obtain Rust > 1.88", so all of the previous problems still apply.
Again with the assertions without checking things. This is the path of "the binaries":
From your link, at the very top: "See
the installation instructions to get started".
Not "figure out how to extract a tarball, find somewhere unspecified on your path to put things blah blah" but "to get started go read this doc whose first step is to install rust, which your package manager isn't capable of".
This is a fairly standard Linux experience, not one reserved for developer tools.
On Windows, if you're not going through an app store you get an EXE or MSI installer that you double click and it does everything else necessary. Every time.
And this is why Linux desktop remains a ~1% marketshare OS, despite all of the vocal complaints about the corporate enshittification of Windows. Countless people say they're going to switch out of frustration, and then quickly meet reality and understand how good they actually have it with Windows when they try Linux, not at all helped by encountering the snobby community who will deride anyone for not knowing everything they know. The Linux ecosystem very much assumes you already have the knowledge of having always used Linux. For somebody who just started using it, "following the install instructions at the top of the page" is a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing. It is not the user's fault if those instructions are bad and you could totally get it working more easily if only you already knew what you were doing.
I note you also dropped the line of argument about the OS updating, where you were chiding them, saying they did need to follow instructions in that case. Of course, the instructions in that case are indefensible - you cannot seriously suggest an OS is production-ready for the real world if the instructions are "this cannot be updated. Seriously, don't even try.".
> The Linux ecosystem very much assumes you already have the knowledge of having always used Linux.
Yes, because as per the poster, they are not a novice:
> For reference I've been using Linux since Red Hat 5.2 circa 2000. I cut my teeth debugging problems without internet access. I ran an LTSP lab at my high school. I remember the hell that was XF86Config (I was there, Gandalf, I was there 3000 years ago).
No one is expecting a novice to know how to run curl, untar and compile. This is not that situation by the very admission above.
> For somebody who just started using it, "following the install instructions at the top of the page" is a perfectly reasonable thing to be doing. It is not the user's fault if those instructions are bad and you could totally get it working more easily if only you already knew what you were doing.
Did you actually go to jj's github which the poster mentioned? This is what is literally the top of the Installation page:
Installation and setup¶
Installation¶
Download pre-built binaries for a release¶
There are pre-built binaries of the last released version of jj for Windows, Mac, or Linux (the "musl" version should work on all distributions).
I demonstrated in this thread that if you download and untar the pre-built binary, it works perfectly. No curl command or compilation necessary. Again, I don't expect a novice to know this but for someone proclaiming to have wrestled with XF86Config config, this should be par for the course.
> I note you also dropped the line of argument about the OS updating, where you were chiding them, saying they did need to follow instructions in that case. Of course, the instructions in that case are indefensible - you cannot seriously suggest an OS is production-ready for the real world if the instructions are "this cannot be updated. Seriously, don't even try.".
I admit that I was shallow on this point. I did research further and Raspberry Pi situation isn't great when it comes to upgrades. Most people are using separate SD cards to host the OS and doing a hard upgrade. I admit and apologise to @Arainach for not checking further on this point and ignoring it.
Edit: I guess today was the day I couldn't ignore Linux bashing from an experienced user and got somewhat carried away. My tone could and should have been softer.
> You can upgrade Windows from 1.0 through 11 without Microsoft saying "nah, this is impossible"
Have you tried that lately? It was probably true for Windows 10, but not 11. There is no supported path to install 11 if you don't have the Microsoft-approved hardware with TPM etc, which would certainly include Raspberry Pis. Installing Windows 11 on non-Microsoft-approved hardware seems to require levels of jank at least as bad as anything I've seen in Linux. Advice is all over the place, usually involving full reinstalls, setting random registry keys, running Powershell scripts downloaded from a random Github repo as Admin, or something along those lines. And no telling which if any work at any particular time, since Microsoft is constantly fighting them apparently.
> Why? Why not connect [the Raspberry Pi] to the network you want so that it just connects to that going forward?
I'm not the guy who wrote that, but I had the same use-case myself. (Except that I happened to choose the correct networking stack so I didn't have a problem). I wanted to set up a Raspberry Pi in my parents' house that would run Tailscale so I could use it as an exit node. (With my parents' full knowledge and permission). I wanted to pre-configure it with their WiFi password so that when I showed up for Christmas, I didn't have to spend any time configuring the device, just plug it in and go have dinner. (Then they changed ISPs, got a new router with a new WiFi password, and I had to ask them to plug it into the wired network so I could connect to it remotely and change the WiFi password again, so I had to do that work twice. But thankfully, I didn't have to walk them through the steps, just say "Hey, please plug it into the router with an Ethernet cable until you get an email from me telling you I've reconfigured the WiFi".)
I think you are missing the point. Windows programs would install with "Next", "Next", "Next", "Finished". Just look at what you posted and compare the user experience.
There are more details that make me believe that linux as mobile OS is more feasible in near future. Apart from the Valve&SteamOS push, the one notable phenomenon that I see happening is retrogaming. In retrogaming handhelds ecosystem there are now many devices with form factor close to phones (they often literally use screens from older iPhones, etc) that are running on Linux or in some cases provide option to easily switch between Android and Linux. For example on Anbernic RG35XX using Garlic OS there's a toggle in the UI to switch between Android and Linux. Similarly Retroid Pocket 5 allows switching in the bootloader menu.
As a separate point, it seems quite feasible to run Android apps in VM on Linux based phone and make the experience fairly seamless. Something like what Waydroid provides.
> As a separate point, it seems quite feasible to run Android apps in VM on Linux based phone and make the experience fairly seamless.
But why?
The premise of Waydroid seems to be to bring Android apps you want to your Linux desktop. But why would you want the phone in your pocket to run Desktop Linux so that you could then run Android apps on your Desktop Linux mobile phone instead of just running Android on your phone?
What desktop Linux features do you want on your phone that would justify this complexity?
I want to use pre existing apps from the Android ecosystem, but I want the system to let me install and change anything I want. It looks like android is going to heavily restrict installing apps that are not on play store and there are now ~5 apps that I use that don't exist on Play store, but only on Obtanium or Zapstore.
My hope is that installation of the Android apps on Linux phone could be made seamless.
It seems like an Android fork that supports the stores you want would be a lot simpler.
I’m sure Google would deny Google Play Services to any popular fork that didn’t follow their rules. But they would do the same to any Linux desktop or whatever that didn’t follow their rules, too, if it became popular.
I think this is an underrated comment. On (2) you're totally right. Fixing issues is so much easier now I can interrogate an LLM for the right changes to make. It's not for everyone, but it makes my life a lot less stressful.
I don't know what it is, but UI on Linux always feels too disjoint from the rest of the system.
It's a bit like how Windows 3.11 was just UI-on-DOS. I get the same feeling.
Don't get me wrong - I love Linux for all its CLI use but for some reason I've never been able to primary drive it without going insane after a week.
Windows just seems to feel more put-together and I guess that's because the kernel probably has hacks to support Office, and Explorer probably has hacks to support the kernel, etc.
The only other system I've felt this level of unity in is FreeBSD with its userland+kernel harmony.
Maybe I need to try a Linux desktop again as I haven't done it in ~10y but the other comment here about Fedora not feeling production ready doesn't inspire much hope...
I run Trinity Desktop [1] on Linux. It's basically KDE 3 kept up to date (and has been around as long as I've been running Linux), and has a more or less similar look and feel to Windows from the 98/XP days. I run it on Ubuntu (currently 22.04), but it works with most distros.
Many Linux users seem to like upgrading (if you can call it that) to the latest eye candy every time Gnome or KDE or whoever puts out a new release. I'm the opposite. I do think much of the UI work in Linux has done more harm than good. But that's the nice thing about Linux: I don't have to care, precisely because of the lack of such close coupling between the GUI and the underlying OS. I can't stand the GUI that comes by default with Ubuntu, but I just don't use it; I use something else instead.
I felt the same as you, up until quite recently, although I was using Xbuntu which uses a very barebones desktop environment. Since changed to CachyOS + KDE Plasma late last year and haven't booted up Windows for 3 months other than to extract a few files. I"m a MacOS laptop user, Windows desktop user, but these days I much prefer CachyOS for speed, responsiveness, easy customisation. You may still find you prefer Windows but it's worth a revisit I think and easy to try via a USB Boot as you know (although running it off USB is way more sluggish I find).
I’m daily driver Linux now after three decades of Windows usage. I have Bazzite-dx (Fedora based) on my desktop and Cachy (Arch based) on my laptop, both using KDE Plasma for the GUI.
I can’t place my finger on it, but Bazzite feels more “coherent” despite using the exact same GUI.
I had the misfortune of using a Windows 11 machine the other day and I didn’t even recognise it. They’ve taken a huge misstep with the Copilot rollout.
10 years is a long time, you should definitely try again. Go with one of the mainstream distros, like Ubuntu or Mint. Regarding Fedora, I heard the opposite, but as I wrote in another comment, users tend to have vastly different experiences with a given OS. If you like Windows' UI, Zorin could be the distro for you.
XWindows/Wayland being a userland application with no solid hooks into kernel space (that has both advantages and disadvantages), where as Windows operates the Window Manager/GDI within the Executive [for performance]. It makes it feel disjoint. Mouse acceleration differences, too (also impacts macOS), but that's something you get used to, though I find gaming awkward on macOS because of the weird default acceleration.
Windows UI is the most disjoint though, with designs accumulated over the past 20 years still kicking in various places.
You really should, yeah. I've given up Linux as a daily driver in favor of a MacBook but I do have a work mandated Windows machine and I hate that thing with a passion. I cannot think of a single thing that's better on it than on my MacBook or any Linux distro I've ran as a daily driver.
In fact, most of the time I want to do any tasks which are not directly Teams or MS office related I find it easier to just use WSL.
> Windows UI is the most disjoint though, with designs accumulated over the past 20 years still kicking in various places.
But every Linux distro has its own UI, and pretty much every distro makes it easy to configure it to look how you want, with tens of thousands of themes out there developed over the past 20 years by people wanting their os to look a certain way.
The most glaring inconsistencies are going to be user-inflicted. If I spend a weekend tweaking defaults to look just right I need to be ok with possibly tweaking any new software I download to fit my theme.
But even from a non-power-user perspective, if my mom runs into problems with her computer it's much easier to walk her through a fix over the phone if she's on Windows or a Mac.
My dad, who is very tech-literate, once tried Linux and all the trouble shooting guides required him to open a command prompt (because there isn't a consistent GUI you can use to fix things across distros). He never forgave it.
As if you don't get a jumble of UI frameworks on Linux too.
You can run KDE but depending on the app and containerization you open you'll get a Qt environment, a Qt environment that doesn't respect the system theme, random GTK apps that don't follow the system theme, random GTK apps that only follow a light/dark mode toggle. The GTK apps render their own window decorations too. Sometimes the cursor will change size and theme depending on the window it's on top of.
I used to argue in favor of Windows with basically the same argument. But honestly, using Windows nowadays seems to require even more hacking than Linux. Particularly if you don't have the newest hardware made to Microsoft's standards. Or don't want to deal with regular full-screen ads to update to Windows 11, or don't want Copilot jammed into every app.
I installed Linux instead, Fedora specifically, and everything just worked. It actually cleared up some weird hardware issues I had on Windows that I could never manage to track down. I'm pretty sure I didn't need to do any CLI or config file tinkering for anything that wasn't getting an actual CLI app I wanted to use running. Beats the dozens of different registry hacks and powershell scripts downloaded off random Github repos people kept telling me I needed to do to make Windows 11 work and not be too annoying.
I miss win2k personally. the UI was decent, and I was able to install enough oss on it that it felt like I could do most of the things I did with linux, but with good font rendering. there were also, to my surprise, a couple of apps (winmerge and proxomitron) that felt like they should totally have been linux apps, but for which I have yet to see anything as good over on the linux side.
winmerge is an open source diff/merge tool with a really good UI. comparable linux apps are meld and kdiff3, but winmerge is more capable than meld and feels a lot more polished than kdiff3. I'm actually surprised no one has ported it to linux, though I presume a lot of the polish is due to focusing on look and feel in a way that is tied to the underlying windows gui libraries.
proxomitron is a rewriting proxy, which I always thought was a very nice approach to webpage filtering. again, I remember it having very good UI/UX as well as being fast and capable.
I want to have a computer with stable vendor supported OS so _I can do my stuff_ not tweak some os level configs.
I _don’t_ want to spend my time playing an os systems programmer.
OS is a _component_. Like the wifi driver. I think it’s great some people love developing wifi drivers but personally I just want network that-just-works because there are billion other cool things you can do with a computer.
Similarly I want an OS that just works! Without asking me to do a anything! Because _i don’t really care_. (I mean i care it works but i expect the engineers actually developing an os offering to have a far better idea than myself what is a good stable default config for the system)
This is exactly why modern Windows is problematic. MacOS is better. A right Linux distro (e.g. Fedora Silverblue) on right hardware (e.g. Thinkpad T series) also just works™; this basically the same kind of limitation as with MacOS.
I wish they issued a Windows Rock Stable edition. Ancient as rocks (Win7 look, or maybe even WinXP look), every known bug fixed, every feature either supported fully, or explicitly not supported. No new features added. Security updates issued regularly. It could be highly popular.
IMHO - disagree but it depends on point of view so this is not ”you are wrong” but ”in my view it’s not like that”.
I think it’s the role of the software vendor to offer a package for a modern platform.
Not the role of OS vendor to support infinite legacy tail.
I don’t personally ever need generational program binary compatibility. What I generally want is data compatibility.
I don’t want to operate on my data with decades old packages.
My point of view is either you innovate or offer backward compatibility. I much prefer forward thinking innovation with clear data migration path rather than having binary compatibility.
If I want 100% reproducible computing I think viable options are open source or super stable vendors - and in the latter case one can license the latest build. Or using Windows which mostly _does_ support backward binaries and I agree it is not a useless feature.
Software shouldn't rot. If you ignore the cancer of everything as a subscription service, algorithms don't need to be tweaked every 6 months. A tool for accounting or image editing or viewing text files or organizing notes can be written well once and doesn't need to change.
Most software that was ever written was done so by companies that no longer exist, or by people (not working for a software company) no longer associated with those company they wrote the tool for. In many of these cases the source is not available, so there is no way to recompile it or update it for a new platform, but the tool works as good as ever.
Mac works great out of the box. Linux can do whatever you want if you put some work into it. Windows sits kind of in the middle, and it turns out for a lot of people that's a comfortable spot even with its trade-offs.
They would still need to develop new drivers for new hardware, which could cause issues. But yes, the situation you describe would be much more stable than Win11.
I am using Windows now for about 20 years after being a FreeBSD user. I switched to Linux actually to be able to interact with my work environment which was using Windows tools (both office but also embedded development tools at the time) and I think virtualization/emulation was a lot easier. After bricking my laptop multiple times while traveling, because I always feeled inclined to fiddle with everything in my OS even during meetings. Linux was the perfect distraction (also me having latent ADHD). I eventually switched to windows for my laptop, when I needed to focus on productivity. What was meant to be temporary was permanent. I actually have stayed a console user and still use a lot of cygwin, using also the posix compat stuff earlier and now using WSL. Lately I even learned to like Powershell a bit. Only the latest annoyance with trying to force me into the Microsoft cloud and the temporarily very instable UI (taskbar hangs with not updating clock made me miss meetings) makes me think about switching to a free OS again seriously.
> Linux frequently demands that I spend hours chasing down issues
This is one of the points where people have vastly different experiences. I'm one of those that has fewer issues with Linux, and I definitely don't spend hours fixing problems. And this despite the fact that I use Arch, which is supposed to be an unstable distro. Why is that different users report so different experiences I don't know. I think that this might be partly due to perception: we tend to forgive more the OS we like. But your case doesn't seem to be just about perception. So I wonder how much the hardware could play a role here. I think Linux has quite good hardware support nowadays, but maybe I was just lucky so far.
No, it has to do with how your system is set up. Without fail, someone who has his opinion about Linux is using some ungodly bloated corpse of a distro because they genuinely do not know better. Hence why they blame their system's problems on the kernel, despite ostensibly never having any actual problems with the kernel itself. It's not like Linux is particularly perfect, but how many complaints about using it as the basis of a desktop system include the mistake that is the devtree? Or the fact that nice values are complete placebo? Or the million quirks with it's specific implementation of SIGALRM?
You don't have problems with Arch presumably because you've avoided building your system into a neutron star of corporate shitware, while that's the default state for most distributions.
> Hence why they blame their system's problems on the kernel
I'm not blaming anything on the kernel (other than memory management). The userland ecosystem is part of what makes an OS, a perfect kernel with no userland is of no value to the general populace. You don't really get to discount everyone's complaints about the Linux experience because they aren't complaints about the kernel, or at least you won't convince anyone by doing so. It is clearly possible to solve many of the issues I have on top of the Linux kernel, because Android used to be decent, but it seems the desktop ecosystem is just locked in to too many bad choices at this point.
The vast majority of complaints about Windows have nothing to do with the NT kernel, either, which by most accounts is actually quite good.
I mean, I literally opened my post talking about how it's the structure of your system, as in the components you choose to make up your desktop. The kernel is ultimately irrelevant, that's the point, I'm not sure how you managed to miss that. Linux does not have a canonical userland beyond the GNU Coreutils*, no matter how much Redhat and its sycophants would like it to be the case. Windows does, however. When you're complaining about Linux, you're complaining about your specific choices in how you structured the system, usually boiling down to your choice of distribution (but not essentially.) You can certainly at any point pack up your bags and leave the dogshit behind, your pain is a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Such is not the case on Windows, where you are proffered absolutely no choice, because there is a canonical desktop experience. Nobody made you use Gnome or other such crap. But there are certainly plenty of people who will lie to you and try to get you to stay within Redhat's kingdom of sewage.
You forgot the part where they edited a bunch of config files (that they didn't understand) for no reason or are running some experimental UI extension that makes their mouse pointer have a trail of stars or something.
All of these points apply to every OS. Windows bricking itself after updates is far more likely to be caused by all the bullshit software installed by manufacturers and the user.
I hear you, me personally I only use Fedora when it comes to Linux. It is easy to install, has everything I need. I keep everything default - maybe change wallpaper and install my apps and IDE. That is it. From this standpoint it is MUCH better than a Windows box for games, which always has some ads, long update, sometimes it breaks, a lot software is actually writing their config in "My Documents" folder which bugs me a lot AND I do not have to have Microsoft account (actually I don't need any account on that matter) to create a local account on my own computer. So yes, I would agree with inferiority argument almost completely. If Linux got a bit mainstream, the ecosystem and apps would follow very quickly I am sure. But Microsoft is trying hard to people try out Linux (which is good btw) so let's see. Myself, I am off to Fedora even for the games, I am done with Copilot and inability to have offline account.
1. Lots of rough edges "yeah it almost works if you tweak it a little" yeah thank you but no.
2. CLI is better for doing the thing you want, but GUI is better for discovering what options you have in the first place. The fact that GUI is an afterthought on Linux says a lot.
Not only is GUI better for discovery, it's not even always true that CLI is better for doing the thing you want. Depending on the complexity of the task, building a tower of CLI commands/arguments can be a pain, and if it's something you do ~once a month, good luck remembering the syntax. A GUI lets you not even have to think about it, not have to memorise syntax or go out of your way to write a script to save it. And while CLI is great for things you do routinely... Windows still offers great CLI support, so you simply get the best of both worlds.
We're in the age of LLMs and this is exactly what they shine at. Just the other day I got tired of Libre office having some crappy custom file picker.
"Claude, change the libre office file picker to the system default"
"Beep boop it is done"
Linux has a big leg up over windows in this regard because all the GUIs are essentially wrappers around CLIs and text files that LLMs can deal with quite well.
> A GUI lets you not even have to think about it, not have to memorise syntax or go out of your way to write a script to save it.
Unless the GUI buries what you want to do in five or six levels of menus and options--and then changes where they're buried in the next release, so you have to re-learn everything all over again. That's happened to me with work computers more times than I care to remember.
By contrast, my collection of shell scripts on my home Linux computers is still serving me well after more than twenty years.
I always turn off swap and that solves this problem. I really don't understand why it is on by default anymore. If you need swap, you are doing something very wrong somewhere else.
So, it depends on how much RAM do you have. Also with a swap enabled system can swap out some very rarely used memory pages, and cache some frequently used files instead - so by disabling swap you rob yourself of this opportunity :)
I have 64 GB RAM on my workstation, yet i still have swap enabled (but with lowered swappiness value).
> anyone capable of using Linux is capable of hacking out that BS and getting a generally superior experience.
MS has made hacking out the BS harder and harder with each new version of Windows. Back in the Windows XP days, yes, I could avoid a lot of the BS on my home Windows computer (although I still had to deal with it at work because work computers are usually locked down so employees don't even have admin rights to them--if I have an issue with my work computer I have to put in a support ticket to the IT department). But even then there was enough friction on my Windows home computer to make me start using Linux at home. For a few years I was running both OSs at home, but even that got to be too difficult, and I simply stopped using the Windows computer at home, at least for my own use (see below). I've never looked back.
I do still have one Windows laptop at home, because some of the Python programs I write (I write them on the Linux computer) have to run on Windows, so I have to have a way of testing them. Even that is clunky compared to how easy it is to do things on my Linux computers. That laptop runs Windows 10, and if I am ever forced to upgrade it to Windows 11, I will probably just stop testing my programs on Windows (fortunately my livelihood does not depend on being able to do that), because Windows 11 is a nonstarter for me; the BS level has just gotten too high.
> Linux frequently demands that I spend hours chasing down issues.
As someone who has been running Linux at home for well over twenty years now, this has not been my experience. Back when I still had Windows computers at home, I spent more time dealing with issues with them than I have spent dealing with issues with my Linux computers at home.
I would make similar comments about the rest of your post.
It’s really unclear whether you have any Linux experience. Because it feels like someone who knows Windows very well, and spent some time with Linux here and there.
Windows USED to have a polished UX. Is it still better than most Linux distros? Maybe.
But it has regressed so far from where it was 25 (or more) years ago that every day I'm still infuriated and depressed that I've had to return to it for work. The idiotic UI blunders alone must waste hours of my life per week.
Aside from the absolutely baffling functionality removals, there are the hateful petty ones. Great example: the removal of Remote Desktop. I erred in getting my parents Windows laptops, thinking they'd benefit from the familiarity. NOPE. And when they encounter some defective bullshit that stops them from doing what they're trying to do, they call me for help but I can't log in from 2400 miles away because MICROSOFT REMOVED THAT ABILITY. Disgraceful.
It's not built in anymore. Microsoft took it away.
I can't remember exactly what the last name was that they gave the remote-assistance tool, but they removed it from all but so-called "pro" Windows... the one used by the LEAST-likely people to need it.
More anti-user BS from Microsoft. The baffling aspect is how Microsoft thinks it benefits from screwing users like this. I can't wait to buy my parents a Neo and shitcan Windows from their home forever.
Augh, annoying. I don't have non-Pro handy so I didn't realize it was removed. I also see "Quick Assist" but maybe that's the other one you were alluding to that you also found to be missing
I have never tried one, I'm not interested in Apple's walled garden approach. Buying a Macbook and being unable to put a (properly working) alternative OS on it if I don't like the one on it is a non-starter to me.
Asahi Linux is definitely a "properly working" Linux distro at this point. MacBook hardware tends to be better than almost all the alternatives I've tried.
Agreed that lack of m4+ support is unfortunate but it'll get there. However, m2 MacBook still outperforms any other kit I have (dell developer edition shipping with Linux etc.) Also external displays work today as long as you use a USBC display port cable, the other USBC video standards are supposedly in the works but display port dongles aren't exactly hard to find.
> Agreed that lack of m4+ support is unfortunate but it'll get there.
The question is when? How many generations behind will they be then? Will they have to skip support for some generations to keep up?
> m2 MacBook still outperforms any other kit I have
That's fair but you should consider what happens when Apple decides to lock down the boot process on newer hardware. I'm sure most people would give in and use macOS instead of going back to worse hardware.
If you don't see that happening just remember that all of Apple's other devices have a locked down boot process. They possibly only allowed it on Mac hardware to ease possible concerns people may have had during the Apple Silicon transition. Apple does not provide documentation for the hardware so Linux support is based on reverse engineering. If third-party operating systems do not support any of the recent hardware what is stopping Apple from cutting that unused feature from new hardware?
> preliminary m3 support just landed upstream in Linux this past week
Still way too early to actually use. GPU support is not there yet.
In all honesty, two generations behind is likely the best we'll ever get given the resource constraints on current porting efforts. I'm totally fine with that though. Buying prior gen laptops has been what I've always done since I was a kid, and I'm pushing 50 now. Buying current gen anything is a trap unless you absolutely need the fire power (and I certainly don't.)
Naturally, a hardware vendor can lock down whatever they want in their future hardware, that's their call, but specifically Apple hasn't. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but in either case there are still millions of m1, m2 and m3 mackbooks already out there, why _not_ use them?
If/when Apple chooses to lock down future 3p boot options, it won't affect that pre-existing pool of hardware. Sure, eventually that pool of will dry up, or maybe in a decade I'll need something faster than an m3 (assuming it takes less than a decade to get m3 to where m2 is at today, which is fairly conservative), but maybe not. My requirements are fairly modest with the personal dev work I do, I'm sure plenty of folks are in the same boat. We might as well use what decent hardware already exists and is available now. If appearing to support Apple is the problem just cover your kit in silly stickers, that's what I do.
After all, it's not like Apple will make a dime off me buying their shit second-hand anyways...
macs are amazing, you can close the lid on a macbook and the computer will be mostly asleep and won't burn down the house; and the best part is it'll work when you open it again. amazing tech.
> anyone capable of using Linux is capable of hacking out that BS and getting a generally superior experience.
Go ahead, try to delete the useless Microsoft Edge browser if you're not in a select few EU countries.
In my experience, you can't do it cleanly. Asking LLMs will tell you the following:
1)Modify a certain registry key to enable deletion. Which I did, but the only thing that accomplished is un-gray the delete button in the Control Panel. Once you press it nothing happens.
2)Windows will eventually reinstall Edge. So you're basically screwed.
the swap and vm tuning required on Linux to make it work even somewhat reasonably compared to Windows or macOS is batshit insane - or brain dead to quote Linus. you shouldn't need to do any of it and yet if you don't you risk hard locking your system when you run out of RAM - or even just write a lot to a disk - with zero warning.
> and its superficial superiority only comes from the ecosystem
So the only superiority is that it runs the apps most people want to run?
And this is why geeks are always the “Less space than Nomad. No Wireless. Lame” types or the HN equivalent when talking about DropBox:
“For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.”
PC gaming revenue on its own is around $45 Billion a year and there are all sorts of vertical market software that only runs on Windows.
But even if all most people want is browser, why go through the hassle of running Linux?
I usually recommended a Windows PC to most people because on the low end, they are cheap, disposable, and if the one odd program they might want to run isn’t available, I didn’t have to hear about it.
If they know what they want, I didn’t have a problem recommending an Air and now for a lot of use cases, a Neo.
Valve is making enough headway that game makers take Linux seriously. We’ll likely see a lot more native releases over time. (once the worry about anticheat subsides).
Why bother making native releases when Valve/Proton will take care of it? Who wants the headache of supporting another build and directly supporting N flavors of Linux distributions?
When it comes to games, Linux has an OS/2 problem.
Steam runtime already gives developers a single target rather than having to support different distros individually.
If Steam Deck, the new Steam Machine etc take a significant part of market share, I think it will be more enticing for game developer to release a native version for Linux. Providing a native version should still be more robust and performant.
And still why should normal people go to Linux over Windows? Linux support is still not that great from OEMs and for the unwashed masses your local Best Buy or Apple Store.
Have you read the article? There's real frustration with Windows. It's so bad that my 15 year old, who only really uses his computer to launch Steam, asked me to help him install Linux. He had heard about Bazzite and already knew his gpu would be compatible. He gets about 20 fps more on Linux and can choose when updates are applied. There's no forced online login, ads in the OS or copilot prompts. His browser doesn't revert to Edge.
He doesn't really want to care but Microsoft's decisions have made their main product into an annoyance.
Some people, myself included, are already less frustrated with Linux. Which means it is likely that other people would be less frustrated if they tried Linux. Not 100% of them, of course, but some for sure.
> Microsofts esteemed moat (office) is “Web only” on the lowest tier.
If you've ever used it before, you'd quickly come to the conclusion that web only Office is only useful for someone writing essays for school.
The moment you need to do anything more complex than that, the document renders completely differently on web vs app-- not to mention there are tons of critical features that aren't even available on the web version.
I don’t do anything too “serious” as far as writing documents that Google Docs can’t handle - we use that at work instead of Office - is Word that much better than GSuite for most cases or is Office Web worse than GSuite?
Some people have some bizarre obsession with having absolute and total control over the placement of every single last character in their document while simultaneously not caring about the fact that this placement is sometimes not reproducible and randomly becomes diseased.
My most memorable MS Word experiences are all the times I accidentally put my document into a weird state and didn't notice something was wrong until I've spent 3 more hours on it, at which point I was forced to re-create the document by copy pasting text into an earlier copy.
And the only reason I knew something was subtly wrong was because the weird VB extension I was required to use would stop working correctly. Basically this would happen when some random key element of the document had ended up with a very subtly different style. If I didn't have to worry about the VB extension breaking, I'd just have a document with some weird bug somewhere.
If I wanted a professional looking document, I would use some modern LaTeX variant maybe with Pandoc to generate most of it from something more restricted like Markdown.
If I wanted total control over the content of a page, I would use some kind of graphical publishing software with text and vector graphics.
I have zero idea what kind of Stockholm syndrome you must have to think that Microsoft Office (or any other similar WYSIWYG editor for that matter) is power user software.
It has lots of features, that's for sure. But the features form a Jenga tower. That makes it a toy.
And you’d be making the same mistake as all those people that claim Windows is too awful to use for real work. Web Office is limited, but it is more than enough for the majority of business users.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who only uses the web browser exclusively.
It’s true that most stuff is in the browser, but basically every user has a couple things that are native apps which don’t work on Linux.
Wine has come a long way for gaming, but my experience is for regular programs, most stuff doesn’t work. Even the simple apps are usually critically broken.
What a horrible take, nothing but a tautology. It only runs the apps most people want to use because it's installed on so many computers, so developers target it. Linux can run anything Windows can. It's the same hardware, and if it was a much more popular desktop you bet your life that banks and streaming companies and AAA game developers would target linux as a supported platform. Has nothing to do with the quality of Windows, only the install base, which was the original point.
It doesn’t matter why it only runs apps most people want to use. As long as you don’t think a “quality” of something is that “it can do what I want it to do”.
As long as you think of "quality" as "something that is not quality". bad logic. There are many systems that are only usable because they are popular but everyone hates them and thinks they are garbage. Market capture doesn't equal quality, sorry, that's a horrible take.
That's a fair argument as to why someone should use windows. What does that have to do with quality though? You are confusing two things. Whether you should use it or recommend it is not the same as whether it's good quality.
You do have to ask yourself why Windows has such a high market share. Chrome OS is Linux based but still managed to poke a deeper hole than much of us expected in the consumer space. Android is Linux based and practically annihilated Windows CE off the face of the earth. Mac OS has been competing fairly well with Windows despite being hardware exclusive. I very very very rarely see a Linux distribution in the wild being used on a PC/Laptop. When I do, it's usually being used by a nerd who knows their thing.
I think the reason Windows is so successful is because it's stable, bulletproof and easy. You don't have to burn an ISO to a USB and boot from it, partition a disk and install it. You don't have to grep grub at any time. You rarely have to use PowerShell for much of anything at all, including device management, managing services and even tweaking the registry.
The "desktop environment" is the operating system, not a seperate abstraction around it. There's no research required on what distro works best for you, what package manager is ideal, what file system to use, what window manager to use, what desktop environment to use. There's no messing with repositories either. No issues with drivers that require compiling from source, no marking an executable as "executable" through chmod.
I like Linux, but the Linux community overestimate how usable it is outside of their meta, and underappreciate their own mental model of what a computer is and how it differs from the layman. Most people want to open their laptop, double click a browser and watch Family Guy funny moments on facebook.com without having to troubleshoot PulseAudio because it's suddenly gone super quiet.
ChromeOS did not poke a hole in the consumer space. It’s the B2B of hardware where the user is not the buyer. To a first approximation, no one wants a ChromeOS based computer for their home anymore than they want to run Salesforce at home. It is cheap and from what I have heard, Google’s MDM software is top notch.
Android “won” as pyrrhic of a victory as it is since Android manufacturers besides Samsung make very little profit and every one who has money (again to a first approximation) buys iPhones. It won because Google gave it away, shared ad revenue with OEMs and it bent over backwards to the carriers and Apple wouldn’t.
And yes Linux would save OEMs maybe $30 on licensing Windows. But OEMs make mire than that on bundleware.
It's so simple. It's because windows DID have a much better desktop experience in the past, for decades, and they built a trillion dollar company around it. It's no longer the clear winner though, and they are simply surfing the momentum of having an existing user base that doesn't want to relearn apps and UIs, apps and games that only work on windows due to the size of the user base, and general marketing and sales and existing corporate contracts.
None of this has anything to do with the quality of the desktop of Linux or windows. If Linux had 75% market share I promise you all those things above would quickly become true for Linux as well.
But it still was lame and ultimately made the world a worse place; and mounting remote storage is convenient and often preferable to something like Dropbox for several reasons. The fact that these aren't what matters for gaining wide popularity doesn't make such statements false.
If you follow the reasoning that the iPod led to the iPhone which made mobile internet use dominant and common, you can also follow that line to social media and attention economies which many would argue have caused the world to be worse.
But this is kind of like the 'great man' theory of history where you can also argue that the markets would have converged on this outcome regardless of what the specific device was that we attribute to it.
I was more thinking about normalization of walled gardens in personal computing devices and resulting duopolisation of the market. Widely used mobile Internet, social networks, touchscreen smartphones were coming with or without Apple, and it's not like the carrier-dominated market was all flowers and butterflies otherwise, but ultimately it was Apple who used its market and cultural position to push non-interoperable stuff like iMessage, fight "jailbreaking" and "sideloading", gatekeep software availability etc. which defined the course of action in the industry for the next decades. These things aren't what made iPhones successful and it didn't have to be done this way.
There was no “wall garden” with the iPod. In SJ’s “Thoughts on Music” that he posted on Apple’s front page in 2007, he said that less than 5% of users music came from iTunes.
This was the same post he said he wouldn’t license Apple’s DRM. But if the music industry would license their music DRM free, the interoperability goals would be achieved an Apple would sell DRM free music.
One of the major record labels and some independent labels took him up on it immediately. It took two years for the rest to come onboard.
iMessage always supported SMS and now RCS. What more did you expect Apple to do?
I think we would have been stuck with BlackBerry/Windows CE/SideKick type devices.
Even the then CEO of Google used BlackBerry devices years after Android came out as opposed to SJ who used the iPhone before it was released and after it was announced, saw that the screen was easily scratched and publicly did a press release that they were going to change it to use Gorilla Glass from plastic.
iPods are the main thing that allowed iPhone (the bigger brother of iPod Touch) to be successful. I'm reasonably convinced that without the iPod craze, Apple's phone wouldn't make such a big market impact, if they would release it at all.
What’s funny is that there were two years worth of rumors about the “true video iPod” and people nailed the specs of the iPod Touch. But no one suspected the “iPhone” that had also been rumored would be basically the same thing
I love Windows, or at least I used to before Windows 8. I think that it is a truly pleasant OS to use, and is my preference. I use Linux as my daily driver today, but it's because I'm a refuge from the anti-user thugs MS has done (ads in the OS being first and foremost among them), not because I don't like Windows. If they brought back Windows 7 security updates, I would switch back to it in a heartbeat.
Same here. With Windows 11 I feel like, "look how they massacred my boy"
There were so many things in previous versions of Windows that were done with thought and care. Probably the blogs helped make me appreciate it (especially Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing). Windows 11 feels like an insult created by people who hate Windows and never use it
I really wish we could keep the modern underpinnings with a prior shell
The right click menu never once showed me “loading…” when I just want to click “properties”
A not too overly flashy UI that made efficient use of your screen space.
It didn’t used to by default shove “news and entertainment” bing suggestions. Nobody wants to open their browser after an update to be greeted by tabloid rags.
The search used to work. You could find files instead of bing results. You could grep text files with the explorer search bar (across the network too) and it just worked. Good luck doing that today.
Search just worked. (It still works if you use ClassicShell / OpenShell). Now it's braindead; even if the start menu shows results, half the time if you click one, Explorer pops up and just sits there broken, contemplating its life choices that led it to this rock bottom
Coffee drinkers "loved" Starbucks. EV advocates "loved" Tesla. The perception of something being good is not an indicator of quality in a post-industrial society, it mostly just reflects marketing efforts and other forms of artificial tastemaking.
Today, people don't love the iPod or Dropbox. Both products became completely commoditized once consumers realized that there is actually nothing special about using MP3 files or hosted NFS. Windows is a commoditized OS, it's unapologetic post-desktop slopware. And it sells.
Thats a little revisionist isn’t it? iPods and all music players started dying in popularity after the iPhone.
Steve Jobs himself said “Dropbox is a feature not a product”. Dropbox is the same cost for 5TB of storage as GSuite + 5TB of storage or Office365 with 1TB each for 5 (6?) users.
The iPod was never “commoditized”. It didn’t o market share to other cheaper “good enough” music players. It was “obsoleted” as technology moved forward.
Saying the iPod was commoditized is like saying 8 track tape players were commoditized.
I like Windows. Windows 11 gets on my nerves a lot but fundamentally I think it's a great system if you're a software developer or if you play video games(and I do both). I also have to use MacOS as part of my work and I don't understand how anyone uses it daily, it's like it's made by someone who never actually has to use it themselves. But I imagine it's a matter of personal preference to an extent.
I don't really mind Windows that much for non-development use, once you disable all the bloat. But for development... It seems obviously a distant third behind Linux and Mac, and I don't think I've ever heard any developer say otherwise. And I say this as someone who is forced to use it at work, so it's not out of ignorance (thank god for WSL).
But that's why I ask what kind of development you do, because I suppose there are areas where Windows really is a good option.
Visual Studio(the proper one, not Code) really has no rival. I'm a C++ low level engine developer and the kind of debugging I can do in VS, I don't know if any other IDE that allows that level of control and overview of every part of the system. I've tried
Raider and Xcode and neither comes close to the functionality of VS.
I was forced to use Windows recently for a year between late 2023-2024. Windows itself is fine. It’s the hardware that sucks with it still being forced to be on x86. The heat, the bad battery life, the fan noise, etc.
On the Mac side, either way I spent all of my day in VSCode and the browser - we use GSuite - Zoom and Slack. It wouldn’t make that much of a different either way.
The only integrations I use between my work Mac and my personal Apple life are my iPad for a second screen, shared subset of passwords. I have a separate Apple Account for my work computer and I share work related passwords.
I think you're vastly underestimating the technical illiteracy most people have with computers.
99% of people buy a desktop and don't even consider what the operating system is let alone think about changing it to something else. I would imagine they don't even know that a difference exists between operating systems.
This point stands to be underlined! Even the least possible friction is more than people at large are willing to deal with, it's only if the system changes are pushed from the top (rumblings in the EU block at the mo) that we'll see casual consumption of Linux in more mainstream context. Having run Linux Mint across a 50+ coworker setting from a sysadmin perspective this is entirely doable, most will not even notice as long as Chrome is in place alongside with something office-like.
I try new distros all the time and not a single one of them is 'GUI native' in the sense that you can do everything without touching a terminal. Some weird stuff always happens and you need to do a bunch of research to figure out how to fix it. The settings GUIs never have parity with the config files and it shows.
Depends what you are doing. I have Bazzite Linux on my gaming desktop and I don’t even connect a keyboard to it, let alone open a terminal. Everything is accessible via a controller.
Windows is 'GUI native', yet manages to be utterly incomprehensible. I'm a technical person and family and friends know it. Whenever someone tells me "you understand computers" and wants me to help them with their Windows, having used Linux for the past 20 years, I mostly cannot get the task done. This has become better with LLMs, but Windows gets zero credit for that.
What is the benefit of 'GUI native' if things are broken and people cannot fix them?
Do non-tech people even buy computers anymore? I imagine you basically have tech enthusiasts, gamers, and IT at offices buying desktop computers at this point.
I’ve never met someone who doesn’t own a computer. Every uni student owns a personal laptop. For all the marketing from Apple, the iPad still isn’t close to replacing a laptop.
You aren't well connected to GenZ. Especially Gen Z not going into higher education.
The only computers they tend to own are phones, tablets, and maybe a game console.
Heck, my millennial sister in law got her first computer because of covid. Until that point the only computers she was using was her work computer and her phone.
I agree, a tablet isn't as capable as a laptop. However, a very large portion of the population doesn't need those capabilities. They just want something to watch netflix on.
I am Gen Z on the older edge. Literally all of them I've ever met have a laptop. It may not be a good one or one they use often. Conversely I don't know many who have iPads unless they are artists. Even the ones who aren't in education usually have a desktop to play counter strike or something.
Your a Gen z in college (or just out of college) and I suspect most of your peer group is educated.
I'm an older millennial with a ton of genz family (nieces and nephews, I have 50 total. Mormon family). Very few of them have or want computers. I see the same thing with my in-laws. They have family computers which the kids have no interest in. It's the Gen x and millennials, mostly, that are obsessed with it.
Edit: I've been looking for stats to back my claim and this is frustratingly hard to find. Perhaps because genz is just starting to fully mature. 14 to 29 is just a large gap in terms of life experience.
The best I can find is the vast majority of Gen z have phones and access to laptops/PCs. One study I saw absolutely backed up what you are saying that Gen z tends to own laptops.
Yes, there are hundreds of millions of professionals who need a computer for their work, while not being techies. They write and publish, do spreadsheets, edit photos and videos, make music, make invoices, read and send e-mails and so on.
It's like asking why a non-mechanic would ever need to use a car.
I did mention IT at offices buying computers for their coworkers. :-)
I know more and more people who are editing photos and videos on their phone/tablet - not movie producers, sure. But lots of YouTubers, influencers, etc.
Yes, but outside of corporate settings (Windows), there are hundreds of millions of people who work professionally with computers without being techies.
> More and more just a phone and maybe a ipad or other tablet.
And I think this is one reason why, for those of us who grew up with "computers" modern UI trends are, to quote https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm, "like we woke up one day to find our Legos had been replaced with Duplos"
KDE is an experience that is not that different in quality from Windows. And if 75% of users used KDE as their desktop instead of Windows, I promise you that the rough edges would be worked out. It has nothing to do with Windows having better UX or quality.
I like a lot of things about Windows and would consider myself technically literate. I also like Linux and especially FreeBSD, but Windows has Good Bones. Shame about all the spyware and the shitty modern UI though.
This. While I was in college, I worked for Circuit City doing tech support (the "IQ Crew", heh, later called "firedog". Memories). People would call/come in and I would try to gather information about their setup.
It was extremely common to get Q/A like:
Me: Who is your internet serviced provider?
Them: I just click the 'e'.
Translation: They were telling me they use internet explorer.
Me: OK, bring in your computer and I can look at it.
Them: (arrives some time later, plops their CRT monitor on the table).
It was always like that. It took me a while to figure out how to ask the right questions to get the information I needed from them. TBH, this was most of the job.
HN in general always does this. I got a lot of push back when I said that in general consumers don't care at all about open source, and the majority of them probably have no clue what it even means.
You can really sense the SF-centric bubble HN lives in.
Open source is a supply chain specific issue and consumers don’t care about supply chain.
Anyone with any illusions about this name quickly the top vendor for the third item in the materials itinerary of the first thing with a materials itinerary you get your hands on (for me it’s usually food. Who is the main vendor for citric acid? Or sugar. Or that red dye that causes adhd. I have no clue)
General consumers could not care less about open source.
I had a chat with a Linux fan the other day. They said Linux is better because you can replace kernels easily to get driver support for something that wasn't working.
The problem is that I do not want to mess around to make things work. This is the power of Windows. Everything is built around it and it does not need or want you to keep hacking it.
Don't get me wrong I am working on Mac and my personal dev laptop is a Linux Mint, but sometimes it physically hurt to find something that sends me down a rabbit hole yet again on Linux. I just think the whole "you have to hack it because you can and otherwise you don't really own it" thing is a big hurdle on Linux that keeps mainstream peeps to stay away
Not sure if I made sense, but yeah basically in order to challenge Windows Linux would need to "just work" which is not the case right now (or ever was)
Normal people buy computers at a retail store and use it in the factory configuration indefinitely. They think about changing their OS in the same way you think about changing the type of hem stitching on your slacks.
The world is a big place and while Linux is very visible to many of us it is irrelevant to the mindshare of the vast majority of the world. Not because of ignorance, but because it legitimately isn't that important to their life.
I don't care about the hem on my pants. My pants either work, or I get a new pair. This is most people's relationship with their computer.
I love Linux, I run it on all my computers and haven't run a proprietary OS at home since 2018. I've built up considerably instincts over the years to the point where I never have issues anymore. My Linux machines are far more stable than my Wife's Windows laptop at this point.
Having said that, I don't begrudge people from using Windows or Mac. As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, Linux has rough edges that most people really don't want to deal with. I'm willing to give Linux some grace because I believe in open source and want to support that world with my actions. But when someone complains about why their fingerprint reader doesn't work, all I can say is "yep, that can happen". I think the little niggles in Linux are worth it for having a free (as in freedom) OS, but as it turns out, most people don't value that.
The UX/UI of Windows 98 is far, far ahead of whatever Linux DWM we have today. It's nowhere near close. My KDE is usable but everything feels off, from icon shapes and sizes to mouse cursor icons, mouse cursor speed, the way settings are organised, almost everything. And it's not a matter of habit, as I've been on KDE for years, and I kept trying to make it work. Windows just clicks out of the box, it's more comfortable.
Microsoft, once upon a time, put an enormous amount of money into creating a user experience that makes sense for a maximum amount of people. Even though this experience suffered enormously over the last decade, it's still better than everything else, including OSX. And I'm not praising Microsoft, everyone else (including Canonical) is just that bad.
>I'm somewhat surprised that Windows is still most of personal computers.
It's the easiest route. On non-Apple computers, Windows is already installed. (It takes a bit of effort to buy a computer without an OS.) Microsoft makes it easy for a user to get Microsoft 365. With that, users have the computer they have at the office and are familiar with. Most are just surfing the web and writing an occasional letter, anyway. That doesn't include people who are perfectly fine with a Chromebook or just their phone.
Finding a Linux distribution, downloading it, putting it on a USB stick (or burning a disc), then installing it is not simple for most people. (Don't even ask them to verify the checksum.)
> I'm forced to confront the fact that either I'm wrong about its fundamentals, or the market is able to be irrational for longer than I find reasonable. Either way, Windows in my mind, represents a world I'd like to leave behind. Apple too, btw.
I think that the market (though it is certainly irrational) is moving away from windows. It's very likely the reason why this post was written and they're now (4+ years after the release windows 11) addressing even the most basic complaints (like the taskbar). I have zero faith that the attitudes driving the fundamental problems that brought us to the point where MS has to be genuinely worried about the future of Window's market share have changed.
Microsoft still sees your computer as belonging to them. They still feel entitled to all of your data and the contents of your hard drive. They still want to use their OS as an ad platform. They're still deeply envious of Apple and want an app store with similar control over what you can and can't install on your computer.
Like you, they've lost me. The moment any meaningful amount of gaming was viable on linux they lost the only thing that could have kept me using Windows in any capacity (and even then my gaming PC would have been treated like a console. Almost zero personal info and mostly offline).
They fucked up badly and promises like "you can move your taskbar" or "we'll be less obnoxious with updates" is not going to being me back.
The only winning move is not to play - leave behind all the Windows and Apples garbage, and life gets remarkably better. I'm almost 6 months in switching from Windows to Linux and it's so awesome that my computer doesn't fight me anymore. I've done 10% of the troubleshooting under Linux that I had to do under Windows, and that was just early on; once things work, they stay working, and there's no sense of dread about what was going to break next after every patch Tuesday.
My mother calls up geeksquad when she has a problem with windows. Who do you call when you have a problem with debian or ubuntu or arch setup to use kde or gnome or xfc using wayland or x11 with systemd or launchd or ...
When her printer dies, does she go to the store and buy a new one, or does she get online to research what's compatible with her distro?
The expertise required to cover the surface area known as "linux on the desktop" is going to make that a much more expensive call, and a "i can't help you with that" from anywhere she can buy a printer in person.
Maybe at one point in time; I've had objectively fewer issues with Linux than I had with Windows, and they only happened because I was doing nerd shit; in normal person average user mode, I haven't had any issues whatsoever. I installed linux on a laptop, and it's been an absolute joy to use. Network, printers, browsers, regular apps, all that stuff just works. Windows would reliably fuck up something important on a weekly basis, whether it was drivers, security, printers, app compatibility; I'd spend a minimum of 30 minutes a week simply overcoming some arbitrary bullshit Microsoft decided to inflict on me.
I honestly think there are many distros that are more than up to the task of handling normal users and providing an objectively better, easier, less hassling experience than windows out of the box.
Windows is horrifically awful. Everything it does is completely, thoroughly enshittified. User experience and quality control are a distant memory. If you're so jaded to it and just letting it happen, I highly recommend getting on Linux ASAP- it's not like it was 5 or 10 or 20 years ago; the desktop experience is just good. If you absolutely need Excel or some other Windows software, look for the cloud version, find an alternate workflow.
>>Who do you call when you have a problem with debian or ubuntu or arch setup to use kde or gnome or xfc using wayland or x11 with systemd or launchd or ...
Any AI. they all have libraries worth of troubleshooting sessions and successful linux troubleshooting workflows and documentation and so on in the training data. Agentic training and operator training flows often include Linux environments, specifically. Any IT person worth half a damn is going to be using AI and will be more than capable of resolving anything it is possible to resolve. Support your local independent IT businesses, too.
But again, get the Linux PC working and I'd bet a good donut that it takes less work to maintain and is easier to use - even for our moms.
I think you're incredibly disconnected from how most people use computers, and how most people hate computers, because they're a means to an end that often just get in the way.
My mom isn't going to use AI, or go to a library and read books, or read documentation about who knows what, to fix her computer. She's going to do as most people do: if something goes wrong, you take it to a place to fix it. And, that's good. Computers should be boring things that help you get actual things done, with the OS being something that lets you open apps, just as all the subsystems in your car are just something that lets you push the gas and get somewhere.
> that it takes less work to maintain
What is "maintain"? This concept does not exist for the average user. What they see is that their system sometimes reboots, or takes a bit longer to turn on, for some sort of update. Who knows, it just does that sometimes. There's literally nothing beyond turning it on and off, and opening apps.
The context here is the average user, so you need to consider if this they share this perspective of fundamentally inferiority that is so obvious to you.
Here's a litmus test: Put your non-programmer relative in front of each, have them do some common simple tasks, like print an email on their printer, and ask them.
You are *NOT* an average user.
edit: people are focusing on the printer too much. my point was some arbitrary task they would be common to an average user. OMMIT THE PRINTER. After they use their computer as they normally would for a week, what is it exactly that so clearly results in their perception of "obviously inferiority"? My claim is somewhere between nothing and the very first thing to go wrong.
Sit a non-programmer relative in front of each, and have them plug in a printer. One of them will end up with malware and maybe be able to print something, the other will almost certainly not even notice that they didn't have to do anything to make the print item in gmail put words on paper.
This sounds disingenuous. How does your grandma fare on Windows? Can your grandpa even navigate Linux? For all I know, your grandma could be a HN user and your grandpa a plumber.
She's significantly worse with technology than he is. Neither could tell you what an operating system is. These are exactly the type of average people that supposedly Linux isn't good enough for.
Setting up printers on Linux is way easier than windows. Usually you don't have to do anything at all special at all as long as it's a fairly well known manufacturer. ChromeOS is just linux after all, and it uses the exact same CUPS infra under the hood, and it works just fine.
On Windows you often have to download and install drivers, which is always a headache.
Manufacturers selling Linux computers could attach little stickers with ""As long as..." Inside", to commemorate the official motto of "The Year of the Linux Desktop", for the last 30 years. :P
Tbh all OSs handle printers that way. Ones that have drivers “just work.” It’s just that if you buy any printer in the store you can be assured that if it isn’t on that list of drivers that ships with the OS, there will be a driver for Windows and Mac from the manufacturer. You don’t get that assurance automatically with another OS.
I am a very technical person, living on a computer for the majority of my life by this point, and I've spent at least 3000 hours on each of the big 3 OSes. I like windows, because 95% of things just work. I love the philosophy of linux, I love its technical specificity, I love that with enough effort it's possible to do almost anything on it. But at the end of the day the computer is a means to an end, and windows is the sweet spot between customizability and fiddliness that lets me focus on the end rather than the means.
1. It's not "fundamentally inferior". It's just, historically, focused on a different type of user. Linux is for people who want a lot of control and power but don't mind learning how to use a command line or config file. Windows is more focused on typical users who just want things to work with GUI config tools and still be somewhat flexible. You also need to keep in mind that many new users have grown up on iOS and it doesn't even occur to them that things can be customized in more than superficial ways.
2. Linux has, historically, been fundamentally inferior for some purposes. Lots of (sometimes very expensive) equipment has proprietary drivers that only run on windows. You'll find old versions of windows running hardware in labs all over the world. This is minor though, compared to the mainstream office and home user, as well as gamers. If a typical joe uses windows and MS office at work, its only natural to do the same thing at home. Why learn a new OS for your home computer if you're only using it a few hours a week? Gamers, of course, are still locked into Windows for some titles despite Steam's best efforts. Some gaming hardware still doesn't support Linux properly (I'm looking at you, Razer). Linux is getting really close to Windows for gaming though.
3. Windows was actually a pretty nice OS for a while, until the recent slide into Microslop silliness.
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"Integrating AI where it’s most meaningful, with craft and focus: You will see us be more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows, focusing on experiences that are genuinely useful and well‑crafted. As part of this, we are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets and Notepad."
While mealy-mouthed at best, I take this as indicating MS has finally started paying attention to the growing backlash and is going to back off on trying to AI ALL THE THINGS. A lot of users simply don't need or want Copilot everywhere. Many users also now have a compelling alternative in Linux. Inertia keeps them with Windows, but a significant irritant could make them switch. If MS wants to keep those users, they need to stop pushing AI so hard and focus on keeping the rest of Windows in good shape.
It comes preinstalled on new hardware, and has drivers.
For folks who use odd-ball hardware, e.g., the new generation Wacom EMR stylus equipped Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 I'm writing this out on (really, using a stylus to write this out) it's pretty much the only option, which I wish was not the case.
That said, I bought a pair of Raspberry Pi 5s a while back, and am hopeful that the Soulscircuit Pilet I backed on Kickstarter will work well w/ a Wacom One, and if it does so, I'll upgrade to a Movink 13 or something similar.
I’d suggest you get out of your echo chamber. If you can’t see why Linux doesn’t make mainstream appeal. For civilians, computers are hard enough to use without them being desktop Linux.
It's nice to think about a FOSS-first world, but what people want is turnkey computing. That's why Apple does well -- the happy path on the Mac, or in iOS, is very very smooth for both technical people and octogenarians.
The fun thing about the Mac is that technical people can do more or less whatever they want, while the out of the box experience is still super simple and easy for people who do not have a comfortable relationship with computing. This is a good thing.
Consider the easy integration you get with Apple headphones and Apple devices. Regular Bluetooth pairing is far more fiddly and annoying.
Consider how you'd set up easy use of a password manager across devices. This is "it just works" territory with the Apple ecosystem. It's awkward and weird on Windows. It's a giant DIY project on Linux.
This is why Apple succeeds. They think about end user experience far more than Microsoft does. Linux, as a non-product (this is not a ding), doesn't "think" about this at all, for the most part.
I DO think it's pretty obvious that desktop Linux would be much farther along had Apple not pivoted to a FreeBSD based OS a quarter century ago. That brought a lot of very technical people onto the platfor that would've otherwise gone to Linux. There was a time when any given tech conf was a sea of illuminated Apples on the backs of laptop screens, because getting your average LAMP stack running was trivial on a Mac and painful on Windows. It was an opportunity for Microsoft, but Ballmer couldn't see it, and so here we are.
Enterprises love Windows for the ability to centrally manage an entire fleet's configuration using Active Directory. Is there anything for Linux that comes close to that?
People just have disliked computing in general as a result of their Windows experience.
I’m not seeing any brick and mortar stores selling Linux laptops or any mindshare for any Linux brand. Maybe if Ubuntu started selling hardware in supermarkets Linux would have a chance of capturing people’s consciousness outside of the power user / professional circles. But they’re years too late now.
It’s absolutely wild to me just how unaware tech people can be to how far from normal their experience is. Like this is just not even close to understanding what the game even is. We’d all be better off if we could somehow impart a lot more empathy for everyone to be even just aware of other life contexts.
That’s probably generally true. But I suspect any field that requires interacting closely with non-peers suffers less from this. I bet tech people who do user-oriented stuff like interviews, UX, etc. suffer less from it.
I've been interested in moving my windows machine to Linux. Do you have any recommendations for distros to use? Last time I used Linux was Linux Mint. It was fine, but definitely felt less polished compared to Windows or Mac OS
I've been using Linux for a long time, which might sound like I'm comfortable with all its rough edges, but it's honestly the opposite. Early on it was a new toy and I would accept issues as part of messing around with it. The past 10~15 years on the other hand, I've needed to get serious work done on it, and also use it for PC gaming, so I've gone the other way and focused on getting the most no-nonsense easy setup where I don't have to be tinkering with things all the time.
Based on that, I'd say: go for a popular distro with KDE. I'm sure there are other very polished options out there, but my recommendation is Kubuntu, even though it's not the one I use today (I use Arch mostly), as it's very simple to set up and well supported.
My father is a 70-year-old software engineer who programs .NET Core in Notepad and builds using custom BAT files that build the project using csc (the outright compiler). He browses and copies files in the Windows Terminal. He is also accustomed to Linux since we deploy to it in our business, and he can do everything comfortably in the Linux terminal.
He trusts me almost blindly, yet I can’t convince him to swap to Linux even though every time he keeps fighting Windows. I'm actually fairly surprised since I'm certain he'd find himself at home almost immediately( he already is when managing servers)
I’m fairly sure it’s Notepad keeping him there, but I’ve told him there is also a Linux clone or Wine.
I had been dabbling in Linux for 30 years, and it’s been about 7 or 8 years since I switched full-time and couldn’t be happier. But honestly, we're going to get there because it’s inevitable. It’s the only OS that's currently not wholly incentivized to "enshittify" itself and is actually improving at a pretty good pace due to Wayland's novelty fostering a plethora of alternative window managers.
I've met a surprising number of people who are seriously tied to the specific editor they're used to, some going so far as to not even wanting to change the version they are on.
I'm only a decade younger - I write .Net (C#) professionally - work it is Windows & Visual Studio (there is no way I'd want to mange any project that size without an IDE, tbh I much prefer using a IDE since I first got one in early 90s)
But at home - I use Jet Brains Rider (free non commercial) for C# .Net projects on Linux machines (Debian + KDE or Mint depending on machine)
I wonder if you mean Notepad++ not Notepad - I find KATE on KDE is good enough, when I just want to edit a file, but I've run Notepad++ under wine before.
I didn't think TextPad was included in Windows as it not a Microsoft product or free.
If you mean WordPad, which was on Windows - that is a simple Word Processor , so not suitable for writing code in.
Not sure how he will get along with all the stuff MS is adding to I'd suggest getting to look at NotePad++. On Linux Mint Xed behaves similar to Notepad
A super basic text editor is available anywhere. He's comfortable with many of them when editing other things (like vim/nano/ed on Linux)
He just likes Notepad for his personal use. Now that you mention it I do believe he used Notepad++ at some point (only 3rd party editor he's tried). I don't remember at what point he dropped it but he didn't use it long.
Like you said, with Windows 11 replacing Notepad with a rewritten version, he's probably going to have to switch to Notepad++.
I was hoping he'd just switch to Linux. Even tried baiting him by giving a pre Linux installed fully configured laptop with a beautiful OLED panel and great keyboard. He loved the hardware and reinstalled Windows.
He wrote a programming language for his master thesis, so obviously he used it to write all his software. His first project was the POS/management system for his father's music store (Now famous as the Mexican company that acquired Sam Ash). I believe they didn't switch until around 2005 or so (so about 30 years maintaining it or training a software developer on it as a side thought)
He then started a large sized customs software company with i that ended up getting acquired.. Everytime the language required a new feature the devs would just ask him (like when he had to write a graphical toolkit for it because it started as a text only runtime). There is no record of this language anywhere as far as I know.
I believe around the 2000s as part of the sale of the company he rewrote the whole stack in C#. And he's been using it ever since, including the company we started together in 2013 (together doing a lot of work here). Still with good old Notepad and CSC.exe just like year 1.He curses everytime the ecosystem has big required changes (async, nuget) though I've managed to coerce him into keeping up with the times, dragging and screaming.
> I'm somewhat surprised that Windows is still most of personal computers. In my eyes, it's fundamentally inferior to Linux, and its superficial superiority only comes from the ecosystem, which is to say adoption, not some inherent trait.
I'm not a Windows fanboy by any stretch, but it is a remarkably resilient OS. Case in point: I took the OS drive (SATA SSD) from my old workstation and installed it into a laptop. This was a Dell 7910, with a dual CPU Xeon configuration, NVidia graphics card and ECC memory. The laptop the drive was transplanted into was an old T520. The OS was Windows 10. Firing it up, I expected a kernel panic given how different the drivers would be between the two and resigned myself to a couple of hours using the Recovery partition. To my surprise, it booted up to the desktop and automatically started installing the missing drivers. In the meantime, I could actually use the darn thing.
In all my years of using Linux, I have yet to see that work without a hitch. A chroot to modify fstab is usually the starting point, then comes the inevitable blacklist and driver removal. Linux LiveCDs come close, but this was a full fledged Windows install with custom swap file configurations, 10G network card, etc.
Barring all this user-hostile behaviour from MS, at the OS level, Windows seems well-engineered.
That's exactly why fstab needs to be modified. If an old machine previously had two partitions/drives, the entry for the missing drive will prevent Linux from booting.
I use both, Windows 11 and Pop! OS (which is Ubuntu, with Cosmic).
Pop! OS is definitely not ready for the average user in my opinion. Some common work-related apps I need like Citrix Workspace straight up don't work. Audio + Camera randomly give out in the middle of video conferences, only fixable by a complete reboot. Some things are only fixable in the terminal.
I use it as much as I can, but there is still work to be done. I agree that Windows is on the wrong path.
There is a reason that this submission is currently on the top of the front page. There are enough “hackers” that still care about Windows, because it did a lot of things right.
You have a market that's locked by Microsoft working with OEMs and Microsoft spraying money around to ensure that nobody ever seriously consider switching. Add to that that Windows is used as a surveillance tool by the three letter agencies and you have the perfect storm for things not to change.
Install drivers, but they dont work due to some secure boot interaction with driver signing, that made me jump through quite a few hoops (thx to AI for walking me through it fairly well)
I'm sorry but an average person is not ready for this level of bs in their daily life
Well, on windows you just need to install Nvidia drivers so it stops crashing.
Mint might be the wrong choice. AFAIR on both Fedora and Ubuntu you can just add "nonfree" repositories (one checkmark) and you'll have proprietary, closed source binaries installed. At least this is how it worked kn my Linux laptops. I've never had to specifically install NVIDIA drivers and conversely, firmware upgrade was comes from the repository as well, so the installation is one commandline command and reboot, no obscure websites and weird firmware installers.
Having to figure out which distros are "good" or not, with the internet full of people arguing about those points, is another entry on the "why Linux isn't a good choice for most people" list.
In business, the “best” solution doesn’t win—the one that aligns with incentives does. You can argue Linux is technically better than Windows, but Windows wins in many orgs because of familiarity, vendor support, existing tooling, and lower perceived risk. Adoption beats superiority.
> superficial superiority only comes from the ecosystem, not some inherent trait
But since real users live at the level of the ecosystem, what's hard about understanding that they can't replace a lacking ecosystem with "inherent traits"?
It's like iOS. It's a closed ecosystem much like windows so to me android seems like the obvious choice. But that doesn't seem to be the case in the US. This is changing though, android is becoming very much like android
If my middle monitor didn't require a screen resolution change and revert to not be black after every boot or wake I'd use Linux all the time, but right now I can't make it work without a big hassle and believe me, I tried
When I had a similar issue on FreeBSD, I wrote some automatic pre- and post-suspend scripts (audio interface could cause full system crash going into suspend unless correctly managed beforehand). I’m sure you could do something similar on Linux.
While Linux may seem like a better experience to the technically inclined, it is an utter mess to the average computer user. Linux is like a Lotus Elise: fast, bare bones, responsive, and a pure sports car for racecar drivers. They don't care that it has no air conditioning, no power windows, no power locks, no remote start, no padding on the seats. Put an average driver in it and they hate it. Then there's Windows, which is kind of like a Mercedes - a technical wonder, but over the years they've tacked so many things on it that now we have a cooled cup holder, 4D surround sound, and a god damn glowing logo on the front. But the core has been forgotten for all of the creature comforts. Put a racecar driver in this and they hate it. Put your average driver in it and they think it's the bees knees.
You, I, and everyone on HN are all racecar drivers. Our view of Windows is heavily skewed by our technical knowledge, but it is exactly what it's supposed to be - the operating system of the masses. The masses will never love Linux...it's very philosophy is antithetical to what makes a good operating system for the average user. The idea that Linux could ever take serious ground from Windows is never going to happen. It is purely wishful thinking, but it will always have its place in infrastructure and for geeks like you and I.
All of that said, for daily driving, I'll take the Mercedes.
Many people have processes on these machines that would be too costly, disruptive and with questionable ROI to migrate. They'll stay there until it's no longer an option.
> I'm somewhat surprised that Windows is still most of personal computers.
The reason is simple: Microsoft has a lock on PCs used by corporate and government employees, so the vast majority of people who use computers at work use Windows computers. And so they naturally buy the same kind of computer for home that they're used to using at work. People like me, who run Linux at home even though I'm forced to use Windows at work, are outliers. And probably always will be. So the only way for the Linux desktop to really take off would be for large corporate customers and governments to switch from Windows to Linux. I would love it if that happened, but I'm not holding my breath.
I’ve read your posts for the past 25 years - originally on slashdot (not literally you). As you proposed, I think you’re fundamentally wrong. I got my MIL a Chromebook and it was probably the single worst technical support decision I ever made. For some, it will always be the year of Linux on the desktop. But rather the reality is the desktop will run its course before Linux has a foothold there.
Linux the kernel is fundamentally inferior to NT from 30 years ago, Linux the userspace is barely tolerable, Linux as an ecosystem is an amateur clownshow barely held together by corporate donations of drivers and absolute dedication of a handful of volunteers of wildly differing skill.
If your biggest innovation of a decade is a carbon copy of a feature introduced in NT 3.5 in 1994 AND THEN it turns out most serious people disable it because you cannot even copy a feature without introducing new vulnerabilities - that's a sign of quality.
NT was originally designed along the lines of a microkernel though in NT 4 they violated the rules and put the graphics driver in ring 0 (iirc) and didn't undo that until around Vista, I believe.
Technology-wise, Windows NT and it's APIs is well developed and designed.
You've gotta understand that most people outside of IT have very little to no computer literacy. They want something that just works, and Linux doesn't do that.
I've completely replaced Windows with Bazzite since November and it's been great for me, but it's not been without issues. Those issues are doable for me, but if I put Bazzite, Fedora, Linux Mint or any of the other beginner friendly distros on anybody else's PC they'll encounter a roadblock that they won't know how to resolve and that'll taint their Linux experience. Not to mention spotty hardware drivers (I've had several wifi drivers just stop working with an update, which is infuriating if you don't have a reliable wired connection), volunteer software for many configurations (OpenRGB doesn't support my motherboard), nVidia drivers and finding alternatives to software people know and use like Office and Photoshop.
These might not seem like a big deal, but they're dealbreakers for many and they'd rather put up with some dodgy window resize behaviour or their OS spying on them.
Microsoft hasn't been able to get marketplace in any other consumer product line. This seems pretty clear that Windows team is mostly just coasting on the fact that Windows is being forced upon people and frankly most people don't even understand what's an operating system so this strategy has been and will continue working well.
If you're having trouble confronting the facts, it might help to search up some of the criticisms people have of Linux, and - critically - ignore the replies to it. There's a psychological effect where if you don't understand where someone is coming from, if someone says "that's stupid" then it gives your mind license to conclude that the person you don't understand is just crazy. Staring into the abyss of the Linux criticisms long enough, and you'll start to see it from their perspective.
Walled garden, closed-source, user-hostility. That's my main gripe with Windows too. It's a bit lazy to lump them together, because when you get into the weeds they act differently, but both fall way below my standards of what I want my tools to be like. With Apple, the anti-ownership, anti-repair lobbying stands out to me as especially bad. Apple's walled garden is especially strong, and the hardware exclusivity is 1950s in the worst way. It's like hardware standartization never happened. Hate to think if every PC vendor was like this.
I recently installed Fedora and holy shit it's still not production ready. During the initial setup you need to input your location, you have a choice between clicking on the map or typing the city, I don't remember which it is but one of them makes your system freeze, no way to get out other than a reboot. It's documented since Fedora 42, and was still there on Fedora 43
Every time my swap is full the entire system freezes for a good second, sometimes it stays stuck, no way out besides rebooting, I've never experienced that in any other OS ever
It's impossible to get more than a few days of uptimes, it's like the ram is never ever freed, last time I had to reboot my mac I had close to one year of uptime.
A friend sent me a png to print, every time I open it with the image viewer it uses 100% of my memory instantly (10+gb), causing the system to freeze. The image is 700kb and opens fine on gimp
I completely understand why people stick to the alternatives, it's way too easy to "hold it wrong" with Linux
It's Fedora 43 and I ran into the exact same issue. The other issue I have is that I don't have any display output as soon as I install my graphics card drivers. So using Linux on my desktop is put on hold for now.
I've been using Fedora since version 36. It can become unresponsive when running out of RAM. True. Never had any of those problems. It literally just works. Would you mind uploading that png file so I can try it?
At least here, in a very low-end system, Fedora just freezes when ram is full, it's not as smooth. On Windows, there was a ton of problems, but in general, this never happened. Windows would increase the "swapfile" to 20gb, but would never let the system completely freeze.
My guess it's just the default kernel settings that Arch use instead of Fedora.
Arch uses zswap, while Fedora use zram... there's other stuff as well.
It's linux in the end, so you could just change several settings on Fedora... But then... why if you can just install arch?
I think some people are very used to high RAM devices, and doesn't realize these days how some distros can be very bad on low-end systems.
Like, packagekit on Fedora it's a ram hog (and they acknowledge that). Windows these years been bad, but the situation in some linux distros is not great either.
What Linux does better, it's respecting user choice and UX.
I have been daily driving fedora on my laptop for over a year now and haven't ran into a single issue. Not saying you're lying, but if you are having that many serious problems it might be a hardware issue.
The OS is definitely stable and perfectly fine to use.
I've installed and extensively used at least half a dozen different flavors of Linux on about as many computers over the last decade or two. I don't think there's been a single time where I didn't have to work around hardware compatibility issues. Just today, I tried printing a few pages on Linux, and could not get a single one to come out. I'd queue a job, it would just disappear without anything happening. I'd unplug the USB cable, reconnect it, try again, a page would come out with nothing printed on it. I'd restart the printer entirely, try again, nothing would happen. I'd unplug the USB cable, reconnect it, try again. Oh, maybe it's working? Oh no, the printer hard-failed halfway through printing the page, so I have to unplug the power cable, restart the printer, scrap that page, and try again. And so on, and so forth, for about an hour. I've been through this dance several times now and probably wasted at least 10-20 hours (re)installing printer drivers, messing with cups and boot configs, etc. This time I finally had enough, moved the printer over to my Windows machine, plugged it in, and printed my fucking pages. I have many other examples of wasting time trying to get basic stuff like this to work on Linux.
Picking the location odurong setup is a hardware issue? I find that hard to believe.
And do you mean hardware issue or hardware incompatibility?
The former would most likely manifest itself across many operating systems, but if you mean the latter... why would that matter in terms of a given person deciding whether to switch to Linux?
AFAIK the location lock is an nvidia driver issue... or more precisely the pitiful state of the open source nvidia drivers.
Yes the hardware you chose or is given will heavily influence your linux experience. I kinda wished the community was more proactive making lists of "certified" hardware that is likely to cause the least amount of problems...
If we’re collecting anecdata, I installed Fedora fresh on a framework a couple months ago. I like the cohesiveness of GNOME these days but i’ve seen a couple of issues like non stop notification bells on repeat or inability to wake screen when plugged in to a monitor that feel not prod ready.
I don’t know that i’d expect windows to be much better either, but that’s my experience.
Idk and I don't care, you're making my point. I'm in tech and I don't even know what "hardware designed for gnu" means, normies won't either, they have a computer, they want an os. If the os shits the bed during the initial location selection they won't swap their wifi module or motherboard for a "gnu compatible" one, they'll install windows
> I'm in tech and I don't even know what "hardware designed for gnu"
Honestly, I knew I was in a tech bubble but not that much. I mean, if you want your hardware to work with Windows/Linux/MacOS, you just buy it with the OS preinstalled. If you install something unsupported, non-working devices is your problem, not problem of the OS or hardware.
Just like MacOS will probably not work on a Windows laptop, Linux will not necessarily work on a Windows laptop.
I recently installed Fedora with KDE and ran into behavior that would have confused me if it wasn't for the setup of my home. Because the problem I was having didn't manifest directly on my PC at all, but rather on my AV receiver! When I log in, the receiver turns on and sets its source to internet music. If my PC and receiver weren't close enough that I could hear the relays clicking, I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to connect the two!
And of course when I look up the problem, the threads I land on don't point me to a thing to toggle in the UI. No, instead one of them directs me to create a config file for pipewire while another says the remove a specific package entirely. And they're not presented as a set of clear steps to follow, so good luck to your average person trying to fix the problem for themselves.
