7 ms·

Windows is so terrible, though. I could never go back.

repsilat 8y ago
Twoish years ago I moved from Linux full time to Windows at home and whatever the Apple OS is called at work. The Apple one was a pain. Command line tools are almost but not quite right (zcat in particular just doesn't work) and I found the user experience pretty annoying at first but passable after that. Still don't really understand how "installing software" is supposed to go, and lots of struggle against Homebrew and lots of other software packaging. Windows had WSL when I got my laptop. Real Linux command-line, nice. Filesystem performance was crap, and they didn't have postgres at first, but it was probably a better dev environment than my Mac, with one exception: no Docker in Windows 10 home. Explorer started getting a bit slow and unstable after a while, but I was on preview releases. A couple of months ago I quit my job, and yesterday I formatted my home laptop to install Linux again (decided to put my hobby project onto a Docker-heavy workflow) and oh my God it's lovely. Installing packages is fast again, software compatibility goes without saying, and Unity was surprisingly pleasant (though I did drop it for i3 because I'm a masochist.) Hard to say how much of that experience is "Linux is nice" and how much is "I'm a Linux person" though.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  > The Apple one was a pain. Command line tools are almost but not quite right (zcat in particular just doesn't work) That's because it's BSD, and are you sure you don't want gzcat?
- umanwizard 8y ago
  > zcat in particular just doesn't work ? I used `zcat` on macOS just today. What issue do you have with it?
  - lgbr 8y ago
    The issue with Apple's unix environment is that it comes with BSD tools. A lot of functionality that you'd expect to work doesn't end up working, which can be frustrating. You have to go through some pretty annoying steps [1], which are more involved than the steps required to get a Linux environment on Windows [2]. 1: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/69223/how-to-replace-mac-os-x-utilities-with-gnu-core-utilities https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/69223/how-to-repla... 2: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
    - umanwizard 8y ago
      The zcat that comes with macOS works fine. Learning how to use the BSD tools is not that hard. Also, you mean GNU environment I guess, not Linux environment.
- terminalcommand 8y ago
  Linux doesn't cut it for me after I've tried a BSD. It isn't as bad as Windows, but BSDs have a certain kind of elegance. And because the things you can do on them are limited (browsing and coding) and there aren't as many packages you are much more focused.
- noway421 8y ago
  The fact that MacOS/Darwin has BSD utilities instead of GNU is a common gotcha. Not a showstopper though, `brew install coreutils` will get you the tools you are used to!
hungerstrike 8y ago
Windows is better than anything. Nothing else even comes close to its mix of quality, flexibility, stability and commercial support. Nothing.
- kbd 8y ago
  Plus you get free spyware and adware included!
  - hungerstrike 8y ago
    Sure, where pre-installed apps are "adware" and debug logging is "spyware". In which case you should never use Android, iOS, a Mac, Ubuntu or any website.
- gsich 8y ago
  Sadly true.
- jakecopp 8y ago
  Though you didn't mention UX which is more important to me than all of the above. I'd even take Linux with i3 over Windows.
  - hungerstrike 8y ago
    The things I mentioned are what constitute the superior UX that you get with Windows. Also, the majority of programmers and the vast majority of desktop users are on Windows. So, outside of the tiny HN/SV bubble the market disagrees with you.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  That's actually quite subjective. I've had it on the desktop on and off for decades and it's constantly been a source of unhappiness. Linux had been the solid rock for me, and MacOS was good for a while.
DavideNL 8y ago
I feel the same. Especially the endless Update-hell in Windows which regularly and spontaneously brakes things and consumes hours and hours of your time. Never experienced this on my Macs. (Of course nothing is 100% perfect, but the difference is huge in my experience.)
- tluyben2 8y ago
  Yeah, updates is why I really dislike Windows. The rest I can live with. I prefer Ubuntu + i3 or Mac OS X, but if I have to use Windows, then it’s mostly doable besides the updates. Be it updates to the OS or Visual Studio (which is why I do use it; Xamarin); random breakage and it takes far too long and happens far too often.
  - dsuth 8y ago
    Honestly updates seems to be a more or less solved problem in Win10, for general use at least.
    - DavideNL 8y ago
      Well... about 3 months ago my Windows 10 machine got stuck updating. Basically it just kept endlessly updating the same update consuming huge amount of resources; At first I figured i just let it do it's thing so i waited and waited and just kept it running over night. After a few days i noticed it was the exact identical update it kept installing over and over. I searched online, and many people were having exactly the same problem. At that time there wasn't a solution yet. So in the end, i just gave up... - i'm a developer btw so i have at least some technical knowledge :) (can't remember the exact KBxxxxx number unfortunately.)
analogmemory 8y ago
I've been curious to see if could get a laptop to be a dual boot linux and hackintosh https://www.modmy.com/how-dual-boot-macos-and-linux-hackintosh https://www.modmy.com/how-dual-boot-macos-and-linux-hackinto...
red75prime 8y ago
Windows is so fine. I will never switch away.
sschueller 8y ago
For me OSX is a nightmare for usability. Just the window management alone can drive you insane. I am not a person who has one just application open at a time.
- sakarisson 8y ago
  I agree with you. However, with Spectacle I am able to have a really nice workflow with my window management.
  - ehecatl 8y ago
    Spectacle is nice, but may I direct you toward hammerspoon (general purpose OS X workflow 'wrangler'), e.g window management: http://thume.ca/2016/07/16/advanced-hackery-with-the-hammerspoon-window-manager/ http://thume.ca/2016/07/16/advanced-hackery-with-the-hammers...
- plattegrond 8y ago
  Have you explored the multitouch gestures for all this? I work on a 40" 4K monitor and I can't live without OSX's window management exactly for that reason. Windows wants you to fullscreen everything, while OSX has nice little touches like making the windows subtly magnetic or letting you resize symmetrically by holding alt. Not to mention OSX is the only OS where you can drag the file icon out of a window's title bar to do stuff with it (eg. upload a file you have open) or right clicking the title to see the folder structure it resides in. All these little affordances exactly where they need to be, and invisible when you don't need them. In my experience OSX is designed with a degree of consistency unheard of elsewhere, and that's why it gets accused of being unusable: people keep looking for the crutches you need on other platforms instead of just interacting directly.
guardian5x 8y ago
I wish these comments would at least mention one thing that is so terrible.

Twoish years ago I moved from Linux full time to Windows at home and whatever the Apple OS is called at work. The Apple one was a pain. Command line tools are almost but not quite right (zcat in particular just doesn't work) and I found the user experience pretty annoying at first but passable after that. Still don't really understand how "installing software" is supposed to go, and lots of struggle against Homebrew and lots of other software packaging. Windows had WSL when I got my laptop. Real Linux command-line, nice. Filesystem performance was crap, and they didn't have postgres at first, but it was probably a better dev environment than my Mac, with one exception: no Docker in Windows 10 home. Explorer started getting a bit slow and unstable after a while, but I was on preview releases. A couple of months ago I quit my job, and yesterday I formatted my home laptop to install Linux again (decided to put my hobby project onto a Docker-heavy workflow) and oh my God it's lovely. Installing packages is fast again, software compatibility goes without saying, and Unity was surprisingly pleasant (though I did drop it for i3 because I'm a masochist.) Hard to say how much of that experience is "Linux is nice" and how much is "I'm a Linux person" though.

jonathankoren 8y ago
> The Apple one was a pain. Command line tools are almost but not quite right (zcat in particular just doesn't work) That's because it's BSD, and are you sure you don't want gzcat?
umanwizard 8y ago
> zcat in particular just doesn't work ? I used `zcat` on macOS just today. What issue do you have with it?
- lgbr 8y ago
  The issue with Apple's unix environment is that it comes with BSD tools. A lot of functionality that you'd expect to work doesn't end up working, which can be frustrating. You have to go through some pretty annoying steps [1], which are more involved than the steps required to get a Linux environment on Windows [2]. 1: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/69223/how-to-replace-mac-os-x-utilities-with-gnu-core-utilities https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/69223/how-to-repla... 2: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    The zcat that comes with macOS works fine. Learning how to use the BSD tools is not that hard. Also, you mean GNU environment I guess, not Linux environment.
terminalcommand 8y ago
Linux doesn't cut it for me after I've tried a BSD. It isn't as bad as Windows, but BSDs have a certain kind of elegance. And because the things you can do on them are limited (browsing and coding) and there aren't as many packages you are much more focused.
noway421 8y ago
The fact that MacOS/Darwin has BSD utilities instead of GNU is a common gotcha. Not a showstopper though, `brew install coreutils` will get you the tools you are used to!

hungerstrike 8y ago

Windows is better than anything. Nothing else even comes close to its mix of quality, flexibility, stability and commercial support. Nothing.

kbd 8y ago
Plus you get free spyware and adware included!
- hungerstrike 8y ago
  Sure, where pre-installed apps are "adware" and debug logging is "spyware". In which case you should never use Android, iOS, a Mac, Ubuntu or any website.
gsich 8y ago
Sadly true.
jakecopp 8y ago
Though you didn't mention UX which is more important to me than all of the above. I'd even take Linux with i3 over Windows.
- hungerstrike 8y ago
  The things I mentioned are what constitute the superior UX that you get with Windows. Also, the majority of programmers and the vast majority of desktop users are on Windows. So, outside of the tiny HN/SV bubble the market disagrees with you.
lallysingh 8y ago
That's actually quite subjective. I've had it on the desktop on and off for decades and it's constantly been a source of unhappiness. Linux had been the solid rock for me, and MacOS was good for a while.

DavideNL 8y ago

I feel the same. Especially the endless Update-hell in Windows which regularly and spontaneously brakes things and consumes hours and hours of your time. Never experienced this on my Macs. (Of course nothing is 100% perfect, but the difference is huge in my experience.)

tluyben2 8y ago
Yeah, updates is why I really dislike Windows. The rest I can live with. I prefer Ubuntu + i3 or Mac OS X, but if I have to use Windows, then it’s mostly doable besides the updates. Be it updates to the OS or Visual Studio (which is why I do use it; Xamarin); random breakage and it takes far too long and happens far too often.
- dsuth 8y ago
  Honestly updates seems to be a more or less solved problem in Win10, for general use at least.
  - DavideNL 8y ago
    Well... about 3 months ago my Windows 10 machine got stuck updating. Basically it just kept endlessly updating the same update consuming huge amount of resources; At first I figured i just let it do it's thing so i waited and waited and just kept it running over night. After a few days i noticed it was the exact identical update it kept installing over and over. I searched online, and many people were having exactly the same problem. At that time there wasn't a solution yet. So in the end, i just gave up... - i'm a developer btw so i have at least some technical knowledge :) (can't remember the exact KBxxxxx number unfortunately.)

analogmemory 8y ago

I've been curious to see if could get a laptop to be a dual boot linux and hackintosh https://www.modmy.com/how-dual-boot-macos-and-linux-hackintosh https://www.modmy.com/how-dual-boot-macos-and-linux-hackinto...

red75prime 8y ago

Windows is so fine. I will never switch away.

sschueller 8y ago

For me OSX is a nightmare for usability. Just the window management alone can drive you insane. I am not a person who has one just application open at a time.

sakarisson 8y ago
I agree with you. However, with Spectacle I am able to have a really nice workflow with my window management.
- ehecatl 8y ago
  Spectacle is nice, but may I direct you toward hammerspoon (general purpose OS X workflow 'wrangler'), e.g window management: http://thume.ca/2016/07/16/advanced-hackery-with-the-hammerspoon-window-manager/ http://thume.ca/2016/07/16/advanced-hackery-with-the-hammers...
plattegrond 8y ago
Have you explored the multitouch gestures for all this? I work on a 40" 4K monitor and I can't live without OSX's window management exactly for that reason. Windows wants you to fullscreen everything, while OSX has nice little touches like making the windows subtly magnetic or letting you resize symmetrically by holding alt. Not to mention OSX is the only OS where you can drag the file icon out of a window's title bar to do stuff with it (eg. upload a file you have open) or right clicking the title to see the folder structure it resides in. All these little affordances exactly where they need to be, and invisible when you don't need them. In my experience OSX is designed with a degree of consistency unheard of elsewhere, and that's why it gets accused of being unusable: people keep looking for the crutches you need on other platforms instead of just interacting directly.

guardian5x 8y ago

I wish these comments would at least mention one thing that is so terrible.