11 ms·
Such articles always give too much importance to the hardware (which is somewhat important, no doubt) and not enough importance to the software. Many people ar
by sinatra 8y ago
Such articles always give too much importance to the hardware (which is somewhat important, no doubt) and not enough importance to the software.
Many people are looking for quality alternatives to Macbooks, Mac Mini, etc (myself included). Mac Mini hasn’t been updated for 4-5 years. So, I started setting up a Windows desktop as a Mac Mini replacement. But when it came to finding all the alternatives to the OS X software I was using, and when Windows started showing me notifications about “try Edge,” “give us your valuable feedback,” etc, I went back.
If only Ubuntu could have native MS Office (needed for docs from lawyers), Sketch / Adobe products (needed for working with our designers), etc!
- justherefortart 8y agoConfiguring software is hard, especially with google available.
- maxxxxx 8y agoWindows 10 is really annoying. Tons of notifications and random stuff preinstalled. Even on the Enterprise version. I also don't like the Edge/IE split. Now we have two half baked browsers. And on my HP blue screens are back. I thought that was a thing of the past.
- tomnipotent 8y ago> and random stuff preinstalled It's less horrible if you buy MS hardware like the Surface - only a few games come pre-installed, unlike the misery HP & Dell inflict.
- hackujin 8y agoAn OS should not have any bloatware at all. This should not exist and yet it does: https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10 https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10
- wodenokoto 8y agoOne persons bloatware is another persons answer to "So .. what can I do?" Every major OS distribution I know of come with at least 1-2 games
- hackujin 8y agoPersonally.... I feel that if I don't use Onedrive I shouldn't see a prominent Onedrive icon always visible in Explorer or have onedrive.exe constantly running in the background using resources. So I guess I'm stuck with using hacks to keep my operating system from shilling products at me.
- tomnipotent 8y agoIt's no different than Apple's integration with iCloud, but I agree with you. OneDrive is one of the first things I uninstall.
- voltagex_ 8y agoHoly shit. https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10/blob/master/scripts/disable-windows-defender.ps1 https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10/blob/master/sc... is actively harmful - it's one of the better pieces of security software these days.
- skellera 8y agoI don’t understand this complaint. What notifications are you getting? The only thing I get is the notice from windows defender telling me a scan completed.
- eco 8y agoWith the latest Windows update that notification had a button with something like "see fewer of these" which took my into the settings where I could turn off that specific notification.
- dawnerd 8y agoAlso the focus notification when using a fullscreen app. Had to turn it off in two different places. Granted my mac gets a ton of notifications too so its not that big of a deal. Microsoft could just use with a little better notification management screen to quickly turn them off.
- marrone12 8y agoHey, at least you can dual boot!
- ChrisLTD 8y agoFWIW, the article does talk about Windows vs MacOS and the software ecosystem nearer to the end.
- throwawayqdhd 8y agoWindows keeps breaking with every update. My touchpad randomly stops working. Startup is excruciatingly slow even on an i7 laptop with 16GB of RAM. Starting up from sleep takes nearly as long, and for some reason, it takes at least 5 minutes for the machine to work at normal processing power again. The search function is still as broken as ever. There is a useless "People" tab near the clock that hogs my memory. Then there is that other useless thing - Cortana. There are random noises for whatever error or notification that keeps playing in the background. Permission control is still completely broken. The Control Panel is a confused mess. If I could go back to Windows 7, I might still be interested in keeping a Windows laptop. But 10 just keeps getting in my way. I just want to launch Chrome and use Google Docs, but Windows wants to distract me with a million little nuisances.
- 3rdAccount 8y agoChromebook is nice here.
- thinkythought 8y agoI had similar issues with a home-rolled desktop(nothing ridiculous! intel CPU, amd GPU, adaptec raid card, stack of ram. No old or weird hardware) and eventually just gave up and sold the entire lot. The last straw for me, after many update issues, is when it decided to update on its own in the middle of the night and then refuse to boot due to some date/time mismatch error killing the windows activation so much it wouldn't even start up beyond the error message. I googled it, and it ended up being faster to reinstall than fix since i had an install USB on hand.(it was some huge mess of "mount the boot drive on another system and then...") I just use my(pre-current design/mk1 retina) macbook pro with the same monitor at my desk now
- mwachs 8y agoYeah, you can turn off that "People" tab. Just right click.
- AlexandrB 8y agoIn my experience it comes back after every major update. I've installed StartIsBack[1] to get rid of this nonsense for good but it's a pretty awful out-of-box experience. [1] http://www.startisback.com/ http://www.startisback.com/
- daxorid 8y agoLibreOffice works perfectly well for 99.9% of MS Office documents.
- lstepnio 8y agoMy experience differs drastically.
- asshole15 8y agoThis is pretty common. Ironically modern day software "engineers" are grotesquely bad at imagining anything outside their bubble of experience. The average nerd claiming "99.9%" usability is about the very restricted set of docs they are probably viewing only. I'm really all in favor of use Libreoffice or gdocs or Pages if that really works for all you need to do. Maybe get outside though and realize there are people with other needs. I've lost count of the times I've literally had to tell these freetards to STFU.
- jeswin 8y agoI've been a Linux user for ages, and I disagree. Readable yes, but the formatting is almost always off (in Writer and Calc). Basically unusable if the docs have to be shared back with MS Office users.
- oldcynic 8y agoMore like it spoils the layout of 99% of documents. It works perfectly well for really simple stuff. Like letters and a little bit of what-if doodling in the spreadsheet.
- 3rdAccount 8y agoAgreed. Windows updates and the fact that it still doesn't have a viable shell after 30 years make it a no go. Powershell and Ubuntu Bash on Windows10 isn't as nice as having built in native support.
- GordonS 8y agoUbuntu bash is a huge step up for me. I recommend using cmder too, which will give you a massively configurable shell with a tabbed interface.
- admiralEyebrows 8y agoHigh Sierra has had some bad bugs, some that made my stomach churn even more than root access. One's that directly impacted my work flow make me the most angry: regular screen flickering, occasional computer falling asleep, and two times a complete logout. This is on the current model 13" Macbook Pro touchbar. I bought it in december to upgrade from my 2012 model. I keep up to date on the software, but I sincerely hope after High Sierra Apple poured the necessary resources into making Mojave different. The thing about OS X is when it's working in my opinion it blows every other operating system out of the water. Clean. At least for my own workflow. I don't buy a macbook for it's hardware. It could be two pounds heavier, have half the RAM for twice the price and look like a shoebox for all I care. OS X is what I'm paying thousands of dollars for.
- thinkythought 8y agoI've had more issues with high sierra than any release since lion, but still less than i've had with windows 10(and i even own a surface pro!). I really hate having to choose between two bad options, but it's more a borderline unacceptable option with 10 and a begrudgingly workable one with HS. I'm completely with you, and i don't understand how it seems to have peaked in reliability somewhere around 10.9-10.11 and just slid downhill since. 10.9-10 was probably the most reliable release since 10.6. I would pay significant extra money for some kind of ESR/enterprise release that was that stable just to get stuff done.
- oldcynic 8y agoCouldn't agree more. From a usability perspective peak Windows was 7. Despite years of use I still dislike Windows insistence on extreme flatness, and still find it counter-productive. Even with the huge gain from WSL and some other newer features of Windows the horrible privacy model, ads in menus, and a return to commonly occurring BSODs cancel out the improvements. I could have failing memory, but I don't recall ever seeing a blue screen in 7 across a selection of machines. Over on the Mac peak seems to have been around Mavericks, most of the changes since have been rearranging the furniture, and adding pointless flatness (thankfully not to the extreme variant of Windows). The number of minor annoyances and niggles has been growing steadily. Reliability has been trending down to the point that High Sierra during my 6 month ownership of a '16 MBP actually felt more flaky than Windows - a first I never thought I'd see. Back on Sierra with a '15 has fixed that. Like you I'd vote with my wallet for an ESR or Mavericks with security and driver updates. I'll take dark mode on that though. :)
- owenwil 8y agoHey! Writer here. I discuss the software at length in here, but as I point out in the piece I've already covered why WSL and Bash work very well at length, so didn't want to muddy the water too much: 1. How to use Bash on Windows to retain your previous setup: https://char.gd/blog/2017/how-to-set-up-the-perfect-modern-dev-environment-on-windows https://char.gd/blog/2017/how-to-set-up-the-perfect-modern-d... 2. Why WSL/Bash is good enough these days: https://medium.com/charged-tech/why-i-left-mac-for-windows-apple-has-given-up-b48c0eaac64 https://medium.com/charged-tech/why-i-left-mac-for-windows-a...
- singularity2001 8y agoI tried Bash on Windows and it was absolutely not good enough. Not yet.
- fgonzag 8y agoWhat problems did you find it with it? I've been using it for the past 6 months after dual booting and running VMs for a long time and found I haven't found a reason to boot into my VM yet.
- hackujin 8y agoI can't open files in VSCode that live in the WSL virtual file system. Which is a huge problem for setting up the same exact dev environment I have on my Mac. It's honestly dumbfounding. VSCode works great on Mac with the existing terminal but the WSL team can't figure out a good way to allow you to edit WSL files from a normal Windows application.
- freeone3000 8y agoThe way you do this is to cd into your Windows system from within WSL. WSL can see files from the Win32 subsystem just fine.
- hackujin 8y ago
- jeswin 8y agoBut software preference is a very subjective thing - it's better not to venture into analyzing it if you've mostly been working with a single OS. As a Linux user (who also owns a Macbook), I find OSX to be a weak substitute. Many features (that we take for granted in Linux-land) require downloading binaries from unknown sources, vastly inferior package management, can use 32 gigs of RAM, relative lack of server-side packages, installs and updates take longer, poor support for NVidia etc. But this is all just my opinion - I'm quite used to running Linux. Windows is actually a fine OS too - just different. In fact, running on an uncountable number of hardware configurations is a feat of engineering. Not to mention backward compatibility.
- ravitation 8y ago> In fact, running on an uncountable number of hardware configurations is a feat of engineering. Not to mention backward compatibility. They are feats of engineering that are remarkable externally, but mean absolutely nothing to me as a user of only one of those uncountable number of hardware configurations.
- mamcx 8y agoIs ironic how all, Apple, MS & Google sabotage theirs efforts with the PRO crowd. Everyone agree we are a small niche. So anything below will have a minimal impact in the so important shareholders pockets, and win a enough love for us, IMHO: - Apple hate to give better, more powerfull hardware with enough flexibility (change SSD, Memory, so not more glue. End). Make a limited true mac pro, heck, make it semi-ugly, non-thin so most will not want that, and VICTORY. - MS give the hardware but refuse to give away the spyware. Give a solid Windows 2000 Server alike thing without cruft, give it with a LTS edition and even ask money for it, dammit. VICTORY - Google could give a combo chrome machine/linux with the hardware/LTS edition, stick to it, VICTORY.
- erikpukinskis 8y agoI spent a minute trying to figure out what PRO stands for.
- raarts 8y agoCare to spare other people some time?
- kyleashipley 8y agoI think they thought it was an acronym, but the commenter just meant "pro," i.e. a dev or designer.
- s73v3r_ 8y agoMy assumption is Pro, as in professional. Why it's in all caps is beyond me.
- mamcx 8y ago> Pro, as in professional Yes, no idea PRO will be confusing :)
- remir 8y agoApparently you can now run Linux apps in ChromeOS/Pixelbook.
- Casseres 8y ago> If only Ubuntu could have native MS Office (needed for docs from lawyers) Crossover by Codeweavers works very well with Office 2016 on Ubuntu.
- earenndil 8y agoLibreoffice has some ms office compatability, and a surprising (and rapidly increasing) amount of stuff works fine in wine. I think an old but relatively recent photoshop version (cs6?) has an almost perfect rating.
- BerislavLopac 8y ago> If only Ubuntu could have native MS Office I'm using Google Docs and it works perfectly
- paulie_a 8y agoBetween Google docs and libre office I haven't used Microsoft office since they destroyed the UI with the stupid ribbon. There simply is no need for it personally or professionally anymore.
- rablo 8y ago>try edge So exactly what safari does, no?
- PascLeRasc 8y agoOther users can report their experiences, but I've never been prompted to try Safari in three years of using OS X daily. Default web browser is available in the first page of system preferences and all the stock applications (Mail, Notes, etc) open links in there, unlike Windows settings opening Edge if you click something like "Learn more".
- rablo 8y agoJust google “try the new safari notification”
- sneak 8y agoI mean, this article in particular was written by a developer who can develop in any language they want, and chooses PHP. Of course they don’t pay attention to how important software choices are.
- walterstucco 8y agoHave you ever tried something else than Ubuntu? Honest question My work machine is a Debian with KDE Plasma 5 and it's everything you ever dreamed of plus I can go back to Xfce whenever I feel like life is moving too slow
- Shorel 8y agoIn Ubuntu I use WPS office, and it does an OK job. Not perfect, but native office is just out of the question.