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I'll be interested to see how this bifurcation of the Windows team plays out. Windows 10 has been a mixed bag - some nice new features but also a lot of half b

• bigmanwalter 9y ago
  Linux on desktop is pretty amazing. Haven't looked back in 3 years.
  • pjmlp 9y ago
    Yep, the other day I was also pretty amazed how using VS Code alongside Rust, for writing a Gtk-rs application, managed to hang X forcing me to reboot the whole thing. With the open source AMD drivers.
    • erric 9y ago
      I have been quite impressed with VS Code. I’m....honestly shocked I’m using it but it’s doing what it advertises and is doing it pretty well. Sublime is getting less use these days.
      • Fnoord 9y ago
        Memory consumption and speed are apparently not important for you then, and that's fair enough. To each their own. I can only use so many resource hogs before my laptop says no. It starts with battery life and memory consumption. Speed (and benchmarks) is a good early warning sign.
      • pjmlp 9y ago
        I only use it because it is the best Rust experience on GNU/Linux and I am not willing to pay for CLion just for the debugger. For everything else I do use native editors.
    • pjc50 9y ago
      One of the more amazing bits of technology in Windows is that which allows the graphics drivers to crash and restart without taking down the system. They've spent so long fighting buggy third parties that this is the solution.
      • jacquesm 9y ago
        QnX did that in ... 1983.
        • pjc50 9y ago
          I too remember the QnX demo disk with a web browser and desktop environment on a single floppy. But Linux still doesn't do this kind of isolation, partly due to philosophical opposition. Edit for the audience: http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html
          • jacquesm 9y ago
            In the famous Torvalds - Tanenbaum discussion Torvalds got it terribly wrong, but Linux was good enough to get off the ground anyway so in the longer term might made right. But a microkernel based Linux would have been a serious game changer rather than a re-run. After all we already had plenty of free Unixes back then, and the descendants of those are all still more or less alive today. The major sticking point in that whole discussion is that Tanenbaum may have been right in principle but Minix was not a very good illustration of what a micro kernel could look like. QnX on the other hand was awesome and to this day powers a very large chunk of the embedded sphere.
            • pjmlp 9y ago
              Tanenbaum was certainly right, given the adoption of micro-kernel like architectures across the industry, specially on embedded. Even containers are a kind of workaround for achieving the same goals.
              • 9y ago
    • thedoctor79 9y ago
      Tip: when X hangs, press Ctrl-Alt-F1 or F2 to switch to console mode, then Ctrl-Alt-F7 (or F8 on some distros) to go back to X. While in terminal mode you can investigate which process is reponsible for the X issue (high CPU? memory? disk I/O?) If that does not fix it, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will kill X and every X application and you won't have to reboot.
      • pjmlp 9y ago
        That only works if console mode and X escape keys are configured. Which is usually not the case on desktop oriented distributions.
        • badsectoracula 9y ago
          X escape is usually not configured, but personally i haven't seen any desktop distribution to disable virtual terminals. Regardless, even if that is the case, it only takes a single PC restart for you to notice that the terminals are disabled and enabled them back so next time you need them they'll be there.
          • pjmlp 9y ago
            Yep, now explain that to a regular macOS/Windows user.
  • arcbyte 9y ago
    Is there a laptop you would recommend?
    • jimktrains2 9y ago
      I like trackpoints, so I've been using various thinkpad models for a while and they all seem to work well.
    • ekianjo 9y ago
      Lenovo Thinkpads.
    • prolikewhoa 9y ago
      Dell XPS 13. Works with Linux out of the box as Dell made all of the driver's work for their developer edition's in Ubuntu. Battery life and and the 3200x1800 screen are phenomenal. Well made and Dell's warranty process is actually fairly good. It's no Apple warranty, but does the job.
    • pinkythepig 9y ago
      I use an xps13 9350. I am running fedora on it and quite literally everything works out of the box on install.
    • isostatic 9y ago
      I've used Linux on the desktop and laptop since about 2000, always with thinkpads. Back in the late 90s there were genuine hurdles to do with Linux desktops, my 1999 desktop didn't work in X with redhat 5.2 because of the graphics card. Today's when most productivity programs are web based, and so much more is cross platform, its far easier to run Linux than windows.
    • krylon 9y ago
      FWIW, I run openSuse Tumbleweed on an Asus Zenbook; all in all, it has worked very well. I have the low-end model with a Core m3 CPU, so it's not blazingly fast, but it plays 1080p videos smoothly. The only problem I had I might blame Linux for was that it randomly dropped the connection to my Bluetooth headset, and it took a reboot to connect the headset again.
  • someguy1234567 9y ago
    Same. Linux desktop all day every day.
  • Philipp__ 9y ago
    You gotta be kidding me. Good luck using multiple HiDPI monitors. The only reasonable way to use Linux is tiling wm with as less graphical interface as possible, in my case only xterm and emacs. Which is crazy, since it’s 2018. and I am using modern computer with modern OS like how computers were used before I was even born.
    • mmjaa 9y ago
      I'm not having any problems running two monitors in HiDPI with my Ubuntu Studio workstation .. everything just works and I enjoy it immensely. Curious what your issues are...
      • TheForumTroll 9y ago
        That he hasn't actually tried Linux.
      • snerbles 9y ago
        To be fair, some applications on some distros have HiDPI issues. LibreOffice [0], icons in GTK2 apps, anything that uses Java Swing, etc. Particularly galling is the oft-suggested fix of temporarily reducing desktop resolution and fowling up all the other apps that are supporting the proper DPI. [0] https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=90796&hide_resolved=1 https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/showdependencytree.cgi?i...
        • deno 9y ago
          > anything that uses Java Swing OpenJDK 9 supports HiDPI out of the box[1]. [1] http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/263 http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/263
    • FractalLP 9y ago
      To some, that is good. Despite fancy displays, the terminal is still far more efficient in my opinion for many operations, although graphics are nice for things and those things work great on Linux
    • 9y ago
  • JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    Funny - I use a linux desktop in a VM only when I absolutely have to. Because I can't get much done without a struggle. But to each his own!
    • ekianjo 9y ago
      Opposite. I use Linux in VM because I can't be bothered to do everything in Windows (when I have to be on Windows).
      • mmjaa 9y ago
        Reverse here: I only boot my Windows VM when I really need to build something with Windows. Other than that, its Linux all the way. I find it an utterly pleasant experience compared with either Windows or MacOS, which is interesting..
        • ekianjo 9y ago
          Oh, I use Linux all the way usually, except when I am stuck on a Windows workstation - hence the VM solution.
  • Someone1234 9y ago
    If I still have to open the terminal and edit text files in /etc for essential things like sound, WiFi, accelerated graphics, and so on then it hasn't really evolved in the right ways. Linux on the desktop has always been a niche experience for a niche audience. ChromeOS and Android (both based on Linux) are mainstream desktop experiences, as are MacOS, iOS, and Windows.
    • segmondy 9y ago
      If you still have to, except you don't have to.
      • Someone1234 9y ago
        Except I have in the last month, I was following this article: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshootingProcedure https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshootingProced... Someone should tell Ubuntu that this is no longer needed.
        • m45t3r 9y ago
          This is for when you're having issues, quite rare nowadays. Similar things happen on Windows, for example fiddling with drivers to get sound to work or stop popping.
    • komali2 9y ago
      That hasn't been the case for a while for me, even for graphics stuff - do you use a desktop setup with gnome or similar? I'm pretty noobish at this stuff but gnome, unity, etc should be coming with gui settings baked in.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • krylon 9y ago
      Well, you can do that if you want to, but on the more desktop-friendly distros, I have not had to edit a configuration file in years.
  • maxxxxx 9y ago
    Outside of Dev work unfortunately Linux is not that much fun. If you need to do accounting, graphics or other work there are options on Linux but they are usually way behind what Mac or Windows are offering.
    • ekianjo 9y ago
      This has nothing to do with Linux, rather with the publishers who decide not to support Linux or any particular distro at least.
      • maxxxxx 9y ago
        Sure. It's not the direct fault of Linux but it prevents wider adoption by non tech users.
        • ekianjo 9y ago
          Let's not forget that most non-tech users can do almost everything they need nowadays in the browser.
      • AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
        Yeah sure, let's not wonder why maybe developers don't want to develop for your platform or anything.
        • ekianjo 9y ago
          Nothing to wonder, it's easy to understand why they prefer to invest in 90% of the market, but they shoot themselves in the foot by investing in non-free platforms at the end of the day.
          • maxxxxx 9y ago
            "they shoot themselves in the foot by investing in non-free platforms at the end of the day." When is that end of the day? Over the last decades it would have been extremely difficult making money with Linux dekstop software. Windows and Mac were the only viable options to run a business.
  • eric_b 9y ago
    I should wade back in and try again. I attempt to use a Linux distro as my daily driver every couple of years or so. I can usually get pretty close, but inevitably I end up going back to Windows and MacOS. There's small UI affordances I miss, there's no MS Office (which is becoming less of a problem for sure), Spotify is iffy, etc etc. So many small things that add up. Finally - Windows Susbsytem for Linux, or whatever it's called, has really made CLI work on Windows painless. With oh my zsh and CMDer I can do just about everything I can on my Ubuntu machines. Even though Windows 10 or MacOS aren't perfect, the pain isn't quite great enough for me to seriously make a change.
  • ekianjo 9y ago
    I just went back to using KDE a few days ago afters years on GNOME and boy, did KDE change! Plasma is a welcome change and KDE feels a lot more customizable and flexible.
  • agumonkey 9y ago
    A tiny linux/windows story: For the last year I ran a x200 (c2d p8400, passmark 1458) + below average ssd. Win10, almost no cruft, some cortana disabled etc. It's ok but became worse and worse (regular pointer lag for a minute, pointer lag is very very sad and indicates very low level perf issues) I don't use full fledged linux Desktops, if at all. I run a bare i3wm + emacs + $browser + mpv setup. Last week I booted my old x61 (c2d l7500, passmark 967) on old intel 80GB SSD linux machine. I was stunned .. chromium and firefox are seriously more reactive. They're only slower for graphics/video/intense workloads. emacs and git flies. Everything is tiny and leaner. Even on an older, slower cpu. It's even mentally easier since I have less things to handle under linux (still too much to my tastes, but windows has so many components and moving pieces..) I have to run that archlinux/i3wm setup on the x200 to get more data.
    • yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
      > I have to run that archlinux/i3wm setup on the x200 to get more data. Well, it's Linux; unless you're running Gentoo, you can probably just swap the hard drive :-) Unless of course the SSD is an important part of this test.
      • agumonkey 9y ago
        no you're right, I was just not willing to swap the disks
        • keithpeter 9y ago
          Caddies same size, so just one screw on each machine and a quick swap. X220/8Gb/xfce4 runs fine for my modest needs. At one of my employers they are using Windows 10 for Education. We had some atom based small form factor desktop PCs that worked really nicely with Windows 10 just after the upgrade, but then as great grandparent post says began to become noticebly slower as the weeks and months went by. They have been replaced with i5/8Mb machines now which seem fine.
          • agumonkey 9y ago
  • kochandy 9y ago
    Say what you want about bloated Electron apps, but they've improved the Linux desktop experience. Slack, VSCode, Atom, KeeWeb, among others. Also the modern web, PWAs, etc.
    • api 9y ago
      http://adamierymenko.com/web_eating_desktop.html http://adamierymenko.com/web_eating_desktop.html
    • pjmlp 9y ago
      Electron apps are by definition packaged web apps, the desktop where they run is irrelevant.
  • prolikewhoa 9y ago
    Linux is definitely ready for full time Desktop use as long as gaming isn't needed. 7 years only Linux and I feel great about it. I highly recommend Linux Mint with Cinnamon to anyone just starting out.
    • remir 9y ago
      Solus is great for gaming, and very user friendly, too.
    • isostatic 9y ago
      I play KSP and Civ on Linux just fine. I stopped playing games shortly after civ 3 (which I installed windows specifically for, lasted about a year) - until about a year ago when I decided to check out KSP.
  • api 9y ago
    I used it for a while a few years ago at work. My impression was that 90-95% of it works well but there remains this persistent and very stubborn 5% load of edge case bugs. The problem is that when you hit one of these issues it's infuriating and often costs a lot of time. It also has a way of happening when you really don't want it to, since when you're traveling or in a hurry you're more likely to be doing "different" things with your machine and thus are more likely to hit a problem. Linux desktops are like a car that runs great for your daily commute but blows up on road trips. IMHO the reason for this is that the remaining 5-10% of the polish that's required to reach excellence in software often takes >50% of the time and is by far the least fun part of programming. As a result people generally have to be paid to do it. Free software rarely does unless it's heavily sponsored or incubated in-house by someone with resources. This is why I still like Mac. I think Apple as a company is a little past its prime but Mac still offers by far the most reliable and consistently productive desktop experience. Windows has improved but they've decided to encrust it with advertising. Ads in a paid app or OS are a total deal breaker. Windows also still has more edge case issues than Mac, mostly due to driver issues.
  • ataturk 9y ago
    But it's not--I've worked with it for many years and Ubuntu and others are still ticky tack and annoying and you can't get decent apps the way you can on a Mac. It's fine for lightweight work, but for really hardcore development work it sucks.
  • rconti 9y ago
    2018 is the year! (I exclusively used Linux on the desktop from 1995 until I bought my first Mac in 2002).
• laumars 9y ago
  > There's already a lot of low hanging fruit they could clean up with an update, but haven't. In all honesty that's been my impression of Windows since its inception. The only time I can recall ever feeling like Windows was deserved market leader was with Windows 2000: Linux wasn't mature on the desktop, OS X wasn't yet released or literally only just released and OS 9 was god awful (worse than the Win 95 in my opinion). The only platform that really competed in technical merit was BeOS and we all know how that ended up. Win 3.x felt like a huge step backwards from what Atari, Amiga and Apple were doing. Windows 9x was an improvement but slow and buggy. Windows XP took a long time to mature - years and two service packs in fact. And before then it was basically just a slower (bar start up time), uglier version of Win 2000. And by the time Microsoft recovered from the cluster fuck of Longhorn OS X and Linux were both streets ahead in terms of stability, usability and even just basic features. There are obviously people who genuinely warm to Windows and prefer that as a platform - good for them; variety is the spice of life and all - but from a technical standpoint Windows has always felt like it's had a multitude of low hanging fruit which aren't trendy enough for Redmond to invest development time in (case in point: why did it take until Windows 10 before shortcut keys were added to cmd.exe? And then why did MS stop there? The terminal emulator still totally sucks compared to nearly every other ever made!)
  • JoeAltmaier 9y ago
    I think because there's no career advancement at Microsoft, working on cleaning up existing features. Only by working on new stuff can you get noticed. So, interns work on 'old' stuff (like office apps, Windows, tools). And they always look pretty rough.
    • JoeAltmaier 9y ago
      ...as attested to by my relatives and friends who work there.
    • JustSomeNobody 9y ago
      That's pretty much how it works everywhere. There's no career, or even pay, advancement for people who like to do this sort of work. You're called a "maintenance programmer" which people take to mean you're not very good. On the contrary, a lot of those types of developers are very good. Better than the people who initially wrote the code and jumped ship when the bugs started rolling in that they couldn't fix. They understand the system and the business much better than the talky-talky system architecture wanna-bes. Whew, that turned into a rant quickly. I've just seen plenty of strong, smart developers get screwed because they don't do flashy work.
• criddell 9y ago
  > also a lot of half baked buggy stuff This morning I noticed I have a 3D Objects folder pinned to the This PC item that I can't remove. I also have Mixed Reality Portal and Mixed Reality Viewer that I can't remove. Why on earth are those apps part of the default install? Worse though - why doesn't Microsoft make it easy to uninstall them? I don't want their crappy news, weather, contacts, maps, music, and other default apps. They should make the apps so good users want them, not force install them and make them uninstallable.
  • jacquesm 9y ago
    That's to be able to claim an 'installed base of 100's of millions of users' for technology 'x'. Even if none of those people installed it voluntarily or has ever used it.
  • wilun 9y ago
    In their conference they presented that shit part of their VR strategy or similar completely insane BS. In the same vein, I don't know what they intent to mean by their AI division (esp as a platform, service, whatever) and probably neither do they, but hey, you got to make the speech of the boss somehow vaguely believable, even if the whole earth know it is just for show.
• asdginionio 9y ago
  >I'm worried they're going to let the OS stagnate. An OS should be stagnant. Its job is to get out of the way as soon as possible, not to constantly wow its users with cool stuff. Any user-facing change will break existing workflows and force people to learn new habits. Change is bad. That goes for every piece of software, from OSes to web browsers to libraries. Stagnation should be your goal. Microsoft can't do things properly. Without constant pointless novelty they couldn't convince people to buy a new version every few years. That business model has made them a lot of money, but making money and making good software are nearly orthogonal goals. EDIT: Maybe I've misunderstood you. It sounds like you're talking about bugfixes, which certainly something Microsoft should work on.