7 ms·

I started my journey with linux at the age of 12 when Canonical was sending out free CD's of Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04. After nearly 13 years of usage I am a happ

by jbirer 6y ago

I started my journey with linux at the age of 12 when Canonical was sending out free CD's of Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04. After nearly 13 years of usage I am a happy user of Windows 10 now. My reasons are: * Horrible font rendering that makes me not even want to code * Terrible application support * Audio and touchpad support is noticeably superior on Windows * Small things that you have to tinker with in order to get everything set up But the most important thing is that I am just tired of tinkering. Nowadays I just want to open my computer and get on my programming job and have everything just work. MacOS seems to be a good compromise though (Application support and UNIX subsystem for programming)

fb03 6y ago
And now we have WSL2 which is quite good in that regard too. I love being on Linux but I am sick of tinkering too. I make music and game on Windows and Dev on WSL2 with X11 forwarding to desktop, which is flawless.
- thebigspacefuck 6y ago
  WSL, even WSL2, has always been much slower in my experience.
fartcannon 6y ago
I don't tinker. I just run Linux. On Windows, I find the tinkering insufferable. No, windows, I don't want you to track me. New update? Do it all over again. Advertisements in the start menu? Ever update I have to disable that. Every time I try and fix something broken, Windows forces me to redo it again and again.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  On Windows 3 I had a custom-built VGA.DRV with my own bitmaps in the widgets. These days I don't bother to change Ubuntu's background. I use the computer to get my work (and my hobbies) done. As Stephen Fry would say, I don't use a computer in order to use a computer.
supah 6y ago
I’m a lot older then you but my experience was similar, I went from Windows versions upto 7 to Linux for about 5 years then to mac (Because it just works), I can’t spend my day figuring out why my Linux device didn’t boot. Then I got a bit sick of Apple, So I tried installing Linux on my macbook. Some things didn’t work like randomly opening the laptop and nothing appears on the screen. It was ok, but I missed critical apps like, iTerm2, Tableplus, Nice email client like Mac Mail etc. (Today might be different to when I tried this 3 years ago) Then WSL 1 came out and I thought i’ll try windows again, purchased a surface, but the UNIX features just wasn’t compatible with what I needed. In the end I purchased a new Macbook Pro again. WSL 2 might change things and I might end up back on Windows one day, but I really wish I could simply just use a Linux distro as a desktop daily driver, that’s my ultimate desire. For now I use a Mac. For two reasons, It 99% of the time just works and great app support and it’s unix subsystem.
moocowtruck 6y ago
I've been using linux since 95, both doing kernel dev and using as desktop. At some point around windows 8 i decided to give windows a try, and purely use windows 10 now and love it for many of the same reasons you mentioned. To me OS wars are over, if someone prefers linux desktop more power to them, but for me anymore I feel like I want technology out of the way as much as possible, and I feel like windows 10 desktop does that for me.
- fartcannon 6y ago
  Technology out of the way, advertisements in the menus, right?
  - pault 6y ago
    I’m so tired of reading this same comment over and over every time someone on HN dares to say they prefer Windows. As if it obviates all of their other points. Also, you turn it off once after install and that’s it.
    - executesorder66 6y ago
      The fact that there are ads on by default, in an OS that you PAID for, is really so laughable. There is so much cognitive dissonance in the typical windows users minds. You'd think the average person would not PAY to have LESS control over their own machines. But I guess that microsoft PR has got you all by the balls.
      - ketzu 6y ago
        This might have reasons: * As far as I remember, start menu ads were premiered by ubuntu [1] * They might not have "bought" windows 10 at all or at least don't feel like they did: a free upgrade from 7/8, a campus license from their university, "included" in the computer they bought Many of the advantages and disadvantages of various OS come down to personal taste and willingness to deal with them. There's no need to belittle either side. [Dual payment systems are not new either: Ads and payments at the same time allow you to keep the cost lower (or increase your profit if you want to formulate it more cyncically).] [1] https://www.howtogeek.com/126995/how-to-disable-the-amazon-search-ads-in-ubuntus-unity-dash/ https://www.howtogeek.com/126995/how-to-disable-the-amazon-s...
ls65536 6y ago
> After nearly 13 years of usage I am a happy user of Windows 10 now. All right, then I really need to ask: it took you 13 years of using Ubuntu unhappily before you decided to switch to Windows? > Horrible font rendering that makes me not even want to code I know every system does font rendering a bit differently, and what people like to see really seems to have a big subjective factor it. Personally, I've always had a preference to how fonts are rendered on, for example, Ubuntu compared to Windows 10, especially with 2x scaling on high-DPI displays, but I acknowledge everyone's different. > But the most important thing is that I am just tired of tinkering. Nowadays I just want to open my computer and get on my programming job and have everything just work. Not disagreeing with you on this point. However, when it comes to "tinkering", I find all the cloud-connected nonsense and "extras" that Windows comes with turned on and thrown in your face by default after an install a much bigger annoyance, and I often have to go digging through all kinds of settings windows to get a good deal of that turned off, and even then it's not always possible (see telemetry, for example). A new Windows 10 install is a lot more effort in "tinkering" with all the settings into some sane configuration than any Linux distro where you're not compiling your own kernel and/or packages (and maybe even then).
- jbirer 6y ago
  >All right, then I really need to ask: it took you 13 years of using Ubuntu unhappily before you decided to switch to Windows? I went from Ubuntu to Debian, from there to Arch, played around with BSD's, back to Arch, then to Ubuntu. I had a lot of fun doing things like writing GTK+ apps and playing around with sysadmin stuff but certain user experience related things never really went away. >I know every system does font rendering a bit differently, and what people like to see really seems to have a big subjective factor it. Personally, I've always had a preference to how fonts are rendered on, for example, Ubuntu compared to Windows 10, especially with 2x scaling on high-DPI displays, but I acknowledge everyone's different. At >200 dpi I find that even VGA fonts look good. The difference is clear when you compare MBA 2017 to MBA 2018 font rendering, a HiDPI display fixes everything. I could see Windows font rendering degrade on hiDPI due to Cleartype forcing subpixel rendering but I don't possess such display devices. >Not disagreeing with you on this point. However, when it comes to "tinkering", I find all the cloud-connected nonsense and "extras" that Windows comes with turned on and thrown in your face by default after an install a much bigger annoyance, and I often have to go digging through all kinds of settings windows to get a good deal of that turned off, and even then it's not always possible (see telemetry, for example). A new Windows 10 install is a lot more effort in "tinkering" with all the settings into some sane configuration than any Linux distro where you're not compiling your own kernel and/or packages (and maybe even then). I used the Windows 10 LTSC iso from Windows' own website and it has no adware or extra apps installed, even Microsoft Store is disabled. Nowadays Windows Defender seems to carry it's weight. I guess instead of "I am tired of tinkering" I should have specified it as "I am tired of tinkering on things I don't find fun to tinker with" like DPI and drivers on Linux. I'd rather tinker with Haskell or my job without the OS getting in my way. MacOS seems to be a great compromise between the two. HiDPI macs look great and I can tinker on choice.
nyolfen 6y ago
i don't expect this to win you back, but i can't recommend this highly enough: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/better-font-rendering-in-linux-with.html http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/better-font-rendering-in-linu... you can choose between different system font rendering styles, including macos and windows
- arrakeen 6y ago
  infinality is long dead and its rendering engine has been upstreamed to freetype. here's a more up-to-date guide to font rendering on linux: https://pandasauce.org/post/linux-fonts/ https://pandasauce.org/post/linux-fonts/
  - nyolfen 6y ago
    news to me! thank you
- jbirer 6y ago
  I did use Infinality on Arch circa 2015 to 2017. It was pretty good. Then it stopped working.
zvrba 6y ago
Same here. I used Linux for 10+ years, then at one point, copy/paste between browser and terminal stopped working. I got mad at that shit (yes, also constant tinkering, subpar drivers, etc.) and installed windows, never looked back. And yes, font rendering is horrible. I went out of my way to find bitmapped fonts for coding. And yes, trying to get audio mixing to work on Linux was just a waste of time. My Win10 machine runs rock-solid, when I'm done for the day I put it to sleep, and resume my session the next day in under 10 seconds. Like 90% of my reboots (and it's like WEEKS in between) are due to updates.
- blockmeifyoucan 6y ago
  Can you expand on the driver problems you had? I keep reading this here but people never give actual examples.
  - zvrba 6y ago
    First and foremost, sound. I tried to get mixing -- simultaneous playback from different programs -- to work, spent like half an hour on trying to figure out and gave up. On Windows, it works out of the box, so half an hour was more than generous allotment of time. Next, sleep / resume. Has never worked for me on Linux; at the work place where I used Linux, I just let the machine run overnight. That would be a no-go at home, as I sleep in the same room. When I got a new machine, I installed Linux only to check that the HW was working and to download Win installation. The kernel had only experimental support for the chipset and integrated graphics (Intel, Skylake just about came out). I had to enable it with boot switches, after which I was able to start GUI (X). However, the GUI randomly and completely froze the machine, a hard reset was required. I also think that audio mixing didn't work out of the box. I also tried copy/paste for the fun of it, it did work this time, but only if I managed to guess the "correct" clipboard. Thanks, but no thanks. $100-ish license that I paid for Windows Professional has paid itself out immensely with things that "just work" out of the box. My time is worth way more than $100.
    - blockmeifyoucan 6y ago
      > Skylake From this I gather that we are talking ~5 years ago? > First and foremost, sound. I tried to get mixing -- simultaneous playback from different programs I remember this being a problem 10 years ago, but not since pulseaudio. > sleep / resume I successfully use systemctl suspend a lot. But yeah, depends on the hardware, def. a pain point. > experimental support for the chipset [...] completely froze Not sure what to respond to this. Experimental drivers are expected to be, well, experimental, as in highly unstable. > clipboard Ok. Thanks for the info, this will be helpful to know what to look out for when getting New hardware.

by jbirer 6y ago

fb03 6y ago

And now we have WSL2 which is quite good in that regard too. I love being on Linux but I am sick of tinkering too. I make music and game on Windows and Dev on WSL2 with X11 forwarding to desktop, which is flawless.

thebigspacefuck 6y ago
WSL, even WSL2, has always been much slower in my experience.

fartcannon 6y ago

I don't tinker. I just run Linux. On Windows, I find the tinkering insufferable. No, windows, I don't want you to track me. New update? Do it all over again. Advertisements in the start menu? Ever update I have to disable that. Every time I try and fix something broken, Windows forces me to redo it again and again.

rbanffy 6y ago
On Windows 3 I had a custom-built VGA.DRV with my own bitmaps in the widgets. These days I don't bother to change Ubuntu's background. I use the computer to get my work (and my hobbies) done. As Stephen Fry would say, I don't use a computer in order to use a computer.

supah 6y ago

I’m a lot older then you but my experience was similar, I went from Windows versions upto 7 to Linux for about 5 years then to mac (Because it just works), I can’t spend my day figuring out why my Linux device didn’t boot. Then I got a bit sick of Apple, So I tried installing Linux on my macbook. Some things didn’t work like randomly opening the laptop and nothing appears on the screen. It was ok, but I missed critical apps like, iTerm2, Tableplus, Nice email client like Mac Mail etc. (Today might be different to when I tried this 3 years ago) Then WSL 1 came out and I thought i’ll try windows again, purchased a surface, but the UNIX features just wasn’t compatible with what I needed. In the end I purchased a new Macbook Pro again. WSL 2 might change things and I might end up back on Windows one day, but I really wish I could simply just use a Linux distro as a desktop daily driver, that’s my ultimate desire. For now I use a Mac. For two reasons, It 99% of the time just works and great app support and it’s unix subsystem.

moocowtruck 6y ago

I've been using linux since 95, both doing kernel dev and using as desktop. At some point around windows 8 i decided to give windows a try, and purely use windows 10 now and love it for many of the same reasons you mentioned. To me OS wars are over, if someone prefers linux desktop more power to them, but for me anymore I feel like I want technology out of the way as much as possible, and I feel like windows 10 desktop does that for me.

fartcannon 6y ago
Technology out of the way, advertisements in the menus, right?
- pault 6y ago
  I’m so tired of reading this same comment over and over every time someone on HN dares to say they prefer Windows. As if it obviates all of their other points. Also, you turn it off once after install and that’s it.
  - executesorder66 6y ago
    The fact that there are ads on by default, in an OS that you PAID for, is really so laughable. There is so much cognitive dissonance in the typical windows users minds. You'd think the average person would not PAY to have LESS control over their own machines. But I guess that microsoft PR has got you all by the balls.
    - ketzu 6y ago
      This might have reasons: * As far as I remember, start menu ads were premiered by ubuntu [1] * They might not have "bought" windows 10 at all or at least don't feel like they did: a free upgrade from 7/8, a campus license from their university, "included" in the computer they bought Many of the advantages and disadvantages of various OS come down to personal taste and willingness to deal with them. There's no need to belittle either side. [Dual payment systems are not new either: Ads and payments at the same time allow you to keep the cost lower (or increase your profit if you want to formulate it more cyncically).] [1] https://www.howtogeek.com/126995/how-to-disable-the-amazon-search-ads-in-ubuntus-unity-dash/ https://www.howtogeek.com/126995/how-to-disable-the-amazon-s...

ls65536 6y ago

> After nearly 13 years of usage I am a happy user of Windows 10 now. All right, then I really need to ask: it took you 13 years of using Ubuntu unhappily before you decided to switch to Windows? > Horrible font rendering that makes me not even want to code I know every system does font rendering a bit differently, and what people like to see really seems to have a big subjective factor it. Personally, I've always had a preference to how fonts are rendered on, for example, Ubuntu compared to Windows 10, especially with 2x scaling on high-DPI displays, but I acknowledge everyone's different. > But the most important thing is that I am just tired of tinkering. Nowadays I just want to open my computer and get on my programming job and have everything just work. Not disagreeing with you on this point. However, when it comes to "tinkering", I find all the cloud-connected nonsense and "extras" that Windows comes with turned on and thrown in your face by default after an install a much bigger annoyance, and I often have to go digging through all kinds of settings windows to get a good deal of that turned off, and even then it's not always possible (see telemetry, for example). A new Windows 10 install is a lot more effort in "tinkering" with all the settings into some sane configuration than any Linux distro where you're not compiling your own kernel and/or packages (and maybe even then).

jbirer 6y ago
>All right, then I really need to ask: it took you 13 years of using Ubuntu unhappily before you decided to switch to Windows? I went from Ubuntu to Debian, from there to Arch, played around with BSD's, back to Arch, then to Ubuntu. I had a lot of fun doing things like writing GTK+ apps and playing around with sysadmin stuff but certain user experience related things never really went away. >I know every system does font rendering a bit differently, and what people like to see really seems to have a big subjective factor it. Personally, I've always had a preference to how fonts are rendered on, for example, Ubuntu compared to Windows 10, especially with 2x scaling on high-DPI displays, but I acknowledge everyone's different. At >200 dpi I find that even VGA fonts look good. The difference is clear when you compare MBA 2017 to MBA 2018 font rendering, a HiDPI display fixes everything. I could see Windows font rendering degrade on hiDPI due to Cleartype forcing subpixel rendering but I don't possess such display devices. >Not disagreeing with you on this point. However, when it comes to "tinkering", I find all the cloud-connected nonsense and "extras" that Windows comes with turned on and thrown in your face by default after an install a much bigger annoyance, and I often have to go digging through all kinds of settings windows to get a good deal of that turned off, and even then it's not always possible (see telemetry, for example). A new Windows 10 install is a lot more effort in "tinkering" with all the settings into some sane configuration than any Linux distro where you're not compiling your own kernel and/or packages (and maybe even then). I used the Windows 10 LTSC iso from Windows' own website and it has no adware or extra apps installed, even Microsoft Store is disabled. Nowadays Windows Defender seems to carry it's weight. I guess instead of "I am tired of tinkering" I should have specified it as "I am tired of tinkering on things I don't find fun to tinker with" like DPI and drivers on Linux. I'd rather tinker with Haskell or my job without the OS getting in my way. MacOS seems to be a great compromise between the two. HiDPI macs look great and I can tinker on choice.

nyolfen 6y ago

i don't expect this to win you back, but i can't recommend this highly enough: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/better-font-rendering-in-linux-with.html http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/better-font-rendering-in-linu... you can choose between different system font rendering styles, including macos and windows

arrakeen 6y ago
infinality is long dead and its rendering engine has been upstreamed to freetype. here's a more up-to-date guide to font rendering on linux: https://pandasauce.org/post/linux-fonts/ https://pandasauce.org/post/linux-fonts/
- nyolfen 6y ago
  news to me! thank you
jbirer 6y ago
I did use Infinality on Arch circa 2015 to 2017. It was pretty good. Then it stopped working.

zvrba 6y ago

Same here. I used Linux for 10+ years, then at one point, copy/paste between browser and terminal stopped working. I got mad at that shit (yes, also constant tinkering, subpar drivers, etc.) and installed windows, never looked back. And yes, font rendering is horrible. I went out of my way to find bitmapped fonts for coding. And yes, trying to get audio mixing to work on Linux was just a waste of time. My Win10 machine runs rock-solid, when I'm done for the day I put it to sleep, and resume my session the next day in under 10 seconds. Like 90% of my reboots (and it's like WEEKS in between) are due to updates.

blockmeifyoucan 6y ago
Can you expand on the driver problems you had? I keep reading this here but people never give actual examples.
- zvrba 6y ago
  First and foremost, sound. I tried to get mixing -- simultaneous playback from different programs -- to work, spent like half an hour on trying to figure out and gave up. On Windows, it works out of the box, so half an hour was more than generous allotment of time. Next, sleep / resume. Has never worked for me on Linux; at the work place where I used Linux, I just let the machine run overnight. That would be a no-go at home, as I sleep in the same room. When I got a new machine, I installed Linux only to check that the HW was working and to download Win installation. The kernel had only experimental support for the chipset and integrated graphics (Intel, Skylake just about came out). I had to enable it with boot switches, after which I was able to start GUI (X). However, the GUI randomly and completely froze the machine, a hard reset was required. I also think that audio mixing didn't work out of the box. I also tried copy/paste for the fun of it, it did work this time, but only if I managed to guess the "correct" clipboard. Thanks, but no thanks. $100-ish license that I paid for Windows Professional has paid itself out immensely with things that "just work" out of the box. My time is worth way more than $100.
  - blockmeifyoucan 6y ago
    > Skylake From this I gather that we are talking ~5 years ago? > First and foremost, sound. I tried to get mixing -- simultaneous playback from different programs I remember this being a problem 10 years ago, but not since pulseaudio. > sleep / resume I successfully use systemctl suspend a lot. But yeah, depends on the hardware, def. a pain point. > experimental support for the chipset [...] completely froze Not sure what to respond to this. Experimental drivers are expected to be, well, experimental, as in highly unstable. > clipboard Ok. Thanks for the info, this will be helpful to know what to look out for when getting New hardware.