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Except I can make a bootable Linux disk on Windows, and a bootable Windows disk on Linux. I can download Linux wifi firmware on Windows and move it across on a

by dTal 6y ago

Except I can make a bootable Linux disk on Windows, and a bootable Windows disk on Linux. I can download Linux wifi firmware on Windows and move it across on a flash drive. I can troubleshoot my mouse on any damn computer I want because it doesn't need third party drivers. We are not used to the requirement that the second computer be running a particular OS made by a particular company.

dtydgh 6y ago
Although it's important to have that level of freedom, it hasn't always been the case in the PC world. Furthermore, there are OSes out there working on PC which don't have that level of interop. Finally, some people don't have 2 different OSes installed, and if their setup breaks, they'll surely need another box to fix it. OTOH, needing a second machine for that sort of maintenance (installing a second drive iiuc) seems indeed quite a big requirement.
stuaxo 6y ago
Love it how apple fans will contort themselves telling us how every new inconvenience is normal.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  I always wondered what it is that makes some products enjoy customers with very high brand loyalty and others not so much. Microsoft sits at the opposite side of the spectrum with most of it's clients being highly critical of it, and passionately angry at nonsense, except in the case of XBox, other gaming consoles also seem to enjoy very high brand loyalty; I also see it with GNOME.
  - throwawayfood 6y ago
    Marketing/psychology tricks. Apple has convinced people that wearing their products give them "uniqueness". Tesla has something similar, but with "change the world". You will hear other excuses that are more tangible, but those are the brain listing features that have little to do with why someone bought it. Apples poor record on privacy, security, performance, and ease of use should all be stark reminders that marketing sells products.
    - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
      I was first thinking about the I'm a p.c..-advertisement campaign, but GNOME has never done such a thing, as far as I know, and enjoys similar levels of loyalty, and they are often compared as well in terms of visual design choices.
      - throwawayfood 6y ago
        It's quite similar, you are a tinkerer, you are a nerd.
      - Maken 6y ago
        Hating on GNOME has been cool for a long time.
        Blikkentrekker 6y ago
        So has hating on Apple, Microsoft, and XBox, but two out of those three enjoy extensive brand loyalty, and one does not. It's not typically the brand loyalists that do the hating.
    - NoOneNew 6y ago
      The only thing surprising about this whole ordeal is the "surprise". Its Apple. Its 2021. Who the fuck still thinks Apple is pro-consumer? The same person is probably surprised that smoking isnt as healthy as 1940s ads used to say. This also goes beyond that 3rd party repair dude out of New York on youtube. Apple making it a complete pain in the ass due to their highly gated ecosystem is... well... Apple. You buy into it knowing what your getting at this point. Or you can never claim with any honesty that you do any form of due diligence before buying a computer. At this point, it's being surprised that water is wet.
      - EricE 6y ago
        Apple supporting users upgrading their hardware with freely available tools is anti-consumer? A bit over the top, no? We are speaking English and anti is the opposite of pro still, right?
  - dTal 6y ago
    Honestly, I think it's a dedication to competence and good engineering. Say what you like about Apple, but they try damn hard to make everything "just works" (often at the expense of interoperability and maintainability). People complain about all sorts of flaws, but the outrage comes from an underlying expectation that Apple products should be flawless. Apple users yell bloody murder when their phone loses signal when held a certain way; Windows users lose their work to a spontaneous reboot, and sigh and move on with their day. When you can convince people that all they have to do is buy in to your system and everything will be fine, that gets you religious levels of dedication. And of course the people who buy in are deeply invested in their not-easily-reversed decision, so they market you for free!
    - oblio 6y ago
      > Windows users lose their work to a spontaneous reboot, and sigh and move on with their day. I keep hearing about this, but except for BSODs (which are super rare these days), but I haven't ever had this happen to me. My guess is that the people complaining about this stuff are the ones abusing their systems, and not telling you that part (the kind that would postpone updates for <<years>> and then wonder why Sasser or whatever were a thing).
      - xxs 6y ago
        >BSODs yup, save for overclocking (or undervolting, which is essentially the same) I have not seen BSODs for a decade plus. I have seen laptops overheat due to clogged/uncleaned air vents, but that's a hardware issue. flip note: what's wrong w/ the parent's post to deserve the downvotes.
        dTal 6y ago
        >flip note: what's wrong w/ the parent's post to deserve the downvotes. Probably people are rattled at being told that the well-documented phenomenon of spontaneous Windows reboots are somehow their own fault for "abusing their systems".
      - dTal 6y ago
throwanem 6y ago
It's more like complaining that the software your mechanic uses to tune your McLaren F1 only runs on specific hardware. [1] In this case the required platform is a lot easier to come by - there might be one shop in the world whose fleet includes Mac Pros but no MBPs; I can't imagine there are two - but the point remains that exotic hardware tends to come with exotic support and tooling requirements more or less as a matter of course. Why not complain instead about the totally needless complexity of the Mac Pro case and its spacecraft-grade CNC manufacture? Slow, wasteful, expensive - and for what? Nothing in the world I can see, save to satisfy Jony Ive's apparent thing for metal with lots of tiny regular holes in it. I'm not here to kinkshame, but I'm glad dude has finally found a different venue for it. [1] https://jalopnik.com/this-ancient-laptop-is-the-only-key-to-the-most-valuabl-1773662267 https://jalopnik.com/this-ancient-laptop-is-the-only-key-to-...
- hnlmorg 6y ago
  I don't think it helps to conflate a common consumer hardware with purpose built professional racing cars. At most, the kind of car we'd be looking at would be an Audi or BMW and they have pretty standard ports and desktop software for tuning the in car firmware. The reason it's standard and widely available is because while their cars are premium end, they're still widely bought and widely driven so those respective car manufacturers need to make maintenance accessible. Apple, on the other hand, are part of an increasing new trend where manufacturers intentionally remove the ability for 3rd parties to maintain their own hardware. So Apple (and others who pull the similar stunts) should absolutely be called up on this unethical practice.
- Kwpolska 6y ago
  You don’t need a MacBook for this process to work, you can use a second Mac Pro just fine (the ergonomics of moving around a 18 kg box aside). But if you own only one Mac (and it doesn’t have to be the Pro tower, similar steps apply to other Macs when they get bricked [1]), you need to find somoene else with a recent(-ish) Mac or go to an Apple Store. [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-an-intel-based-mac-apdebea5be51/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-...
Toutouxc 6y ago
> I can make a bootable Linux disk on Windows, and a bootable Windows disk on Linux Have you ever noticed how Apple considers Macs a separate platform from PCs? Not as in "Windows or Linux or macOS on a computer", but as in "macOS on a Mac, or anything you want on a PC". They don't want you to make a bootable macOS disk on Linux, because Macs and PCs are not supposed to be friends. Like PlayStation and Xbox, their hardware is similar and from the outside they both look like general purpose computers, but they're different platforms and they're not friends. You can run macOS on generic PC hardware (Hackintoshes) and you can run Windows or Linux on Mac hardware, but that's mostly a byproduct of the platforms being similar. You can disagree with Mac not being a PC and not being an open general computing platform, you can choose not to buy them, use them or develop for them, but I don't think it's a difficult concept to understand that Apple doesn't sell, support or care about PCs.
- CogitoCogito 6y ago
  Your original post said you didn't understand the outrage. You then explain how Apple goes out of their way to unnecessarily inconvenience the user by forcing them to have multiple Macs. I can't understand why you don't understand the outrage...
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  I can flash any iOS device using iTunes for Windows. I don't see this situation as fundamentally different.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  "Apple considers Macs a separate platform from PCs?" Apple might consider paying taxes optional, or the moon to be made of cheese. But why should any of us care or be bound by that? "and PCs are not supposed to be friends." Wtf does this even mean, how is it helpfull or provable?
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
Another important distinction is that most of the operating systems you mentioned are not bound to any particular hardware.
Manozco 6y ago
I don't think I ever managed to create a working bootable Windows disk on linux. The hardest part was to fetch the image (from Linux).
- remexre 6y ago
  My constant struggle is some motherboards (mine!) refuse to boot the Windows installer from the UDF-formatted image Microsoft provides as a download; IIRC I have to copy all the files to a FAT32 partition on the disk instead. (I assume their installer-creation tool, which naturally requires an already-working Windows install, plays some games with creating a disk that's both FAT and UDF, and building all the right tables for files to show up in both? Never dug into it though, this is just conjecture.)

by dTal 6y ago

dtydgh 6y ago

Although it's important to have that level of freedom, it hasn't always been the case in the PC world. Furthermore, there are OSes out there working on PC which don't have that level of interop. Finally, some people don't have 2 different OSes installed, and if their setup breaks, they'll surely need another box to fix it. OTOH, needing a second machine for that sort of maintenance (installing a second drive iiuc) seems indeed quite a big requirement.

stuaxo 6y ago

Love it how apple fans will contort themselves telling us how every new inconvenience is normal.

Blikkentrekker 6y ago
I always wondered what it is that makes some products enjoy customers with very high brand loyalty and others not so much. Microsoft sits at the opposite side of the spectrum with most of it's clients being highly critical of it, and passionately angry at nonsense, except in the case of XBox, other gaming consoles also seem to enjoy very high brand loyalty; I also see it with GNOME.
- throwawayfood 6y ago
  Marketing/psychology tricks. Apple has convinced people that wearing their products give them "uniqueness". Tesla has something similar, but with "change the world". You will hear other excuses that are more tangible, but those are the brain listing features that have little to do with why someone bought it. Apples poor record on privacy, security, performance, and ease of use should all be stark reminders that marketing sells products.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    I was first thinking about the I'm a p.c..-advertisement campaign, but GNOME has never done such a thing, as far as I know, and enjoys similar levels of loyalty, and they are often compared as well in terms of visual design choices.
    - throwawayfood 6y ago
      It's quite similar, you are a tinkerer, you are a nerd.
    - Maken 6y ago
      Hating on GNOME has been cool for a long time.
      - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
        So has hating on Apple, Microsoft, and XBox, but two out of those three enjoy extensive brand loyalty, and one does not. It's not typically the brand loyalists that do the hating.
  - NoOneNew 6y ago
    The only thing surprising about this whole ordeal is the "surprise". Its Apple. Its 2021. Who the fuck still thinks Apple is pro-consumer? The same person is probably surprised that smoking isnt as healthy as 1940s ads used to say. This also goes beyond that 3rd party repair dude out of New York on youtube. Apple making it a complete pain in the ass due to their highly gated ecosystem is... well... Apple. You buy into it knowing what your getting at this point. Or you can never claim with any honesty that you do any form of due diligence before buying a computer. At this point, it's being surprised that water is wet.
    - EricE 6y ago
      Apple supporting users upgrading their hardware with freely available tools is anti-consumer? A bit over the top, no? We are speaking English and anti is the opposite of pro still, right?
- dTal 6y ago
  Honestly, I think it's a dedication to competence and good engineering. Say what you like about Apple, but they try damn hard to make everything "just works" (often at the expense of interoperability and maintainability). People complain about all sorts of flaws, but the outrage comes from an underlying expectation that Apple products should be flawless. Apple users yell bloody murder when their phone loses signal when held a certain way; Windows users lose their work to a spontaneous reboot, and sigh and move on with their day. When you can convince people that all they have to do is buy in to your system and everything will be fine, that gets you religious levels of dedication. And of course the people who buy in are deeply invested in their not-easily-reversed decision, so they market you for free!
  - oblio 6y ago
    > Windows users lose their work to a spontaneous reboot, and sigh and move on with their day. I keep hearing about this, but except for BSODs (which are super rare these days), but I haven't ever had this happen to me. My guess is that the people complaining about this stuff are the ones abusing their systems, and not telling you that part (the kind that would postpone updates for <<years>> and then wonder why Sasser or whatever were a thing).
    - xxs 6y ago
      >BSODs yup, save for overclocking (or undervolting, which is essentially the same) I have not seen BSODs for a decade plus. I have seen laptops overheat due to clogged/uncleaned air vents, but that's a hardware issue. flip note: what's wrong w/ the parent's post to deserve the downvotes.
      - dTal 6y ago
        >flip note: what's wrong w/ the parent's post to deserve the downvotes. Probably people are rattled at being told that the well-documented phenomenon of spontaneous Windows reboots are somehow their own fault for "abusing their systems".
    - dTal 6y ago

throwanem 6y ago

It's more like complaining that the software your mechanic uses to tune your McLaren F1 only runs on specific hardware. [1] In this case the required platform is a lot easier to come by - there might be one shop in the world whose fleet includes Mac Pros but no MBPs; I can't imagine there are two - but the point remains that exotic hardware tends to come with exotic support and tooling requirements more or less as a matter of course. Why not complain instead about the totally needless complexity of the Mac Pro case and its spacecraft-grade CNC manufacture? Slow, wasteful, expensive - and for what? Nothing in the world I can see, save to satisfy Jony Ive's apparent thing for metal with lots of tiny regular holes in it. I'm not here to kinkshame, but I'm glad dude has finally found a different venue for it. [1] https://jalopnik.com/this-ancient-laptop-is-the-only-key-to-the-most-valuabl-1773662267 https://jalopnik.com/this-ancient-laptop-is-the-only-key-to-...

hnlmorg 6y ago
I don't think it helps to conflate a common consumer hardware with purpose built professional racing cars. At most, the kind of car we'd be looking at would be an Audi or BMW and they have pretty standard ports and desktop software for tuning the in car firmware. The reason it's standard and widely available is because while their cars are premium end, they're still widely bought and widely driven so those respective car manufacturers need to make maintenance accessible. Apple, on the other hand, are part of an increasing new trend where manufacturers intentionally remove the ability for 3rd parties to maintain their own hardware. So Apple (and others who pull the similar stunts) should absolutely be called up on this unethical practice.
Kwpolska 6y ago
You don’t need a MacBook for this process to work, you can use a second Mac Pro just fine (the ergonomics of moving around a 18 kg box aside). But if you own only one Mac (and it doesn’t have to be the Pro tower, similar steps apply to other Macs when they get bricked [1]), you need to find somoene else with a recent(-ish) Mac or go to an Apple Store. [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-an-intel-based-mac-apdebea5be51/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-...

Toutouxc 6y ago

> I can make a bootable Linux disk on Windows, and a bootable Windows disk on Linux Have you ever noticed how Apple considers Macs a separate platform from PCs? Not as in "Windows or Linux or macOS on a computer", but as in "macOS on a Mac, or anything you want on a PC". They don't want you to make a bootable macOS disk on Linux, because Macs and PCs are not supposed to be friends. Like PlayStation and Xbox, their hardware is similar and from the outside they both look like general purpose computers, but they're different platforms and they're not friends. You can run macOS on generic PC hardware (Hackintoshes) and you can run Windows or Linux on Mac hardware, but that's mostly a byproduct of the platforms being similar. You can disagree with Mac not being a PC and not being an open general computing platform, you can choose not to buy them, use them or develop for them, but I don't think it's a difficult concept to understand that Apple doesn't sell, support or care about PCs.

CogitoCogito 6y ago
Your original post said you didn't understand the outrage. You then explain how Apple goes out of their way to unnecessarily inconvenience the user by forcing them to have multiple Macs. I can't understand why you don't understand the outrage...
vbezhenar 6y ago
I can flash any iOS device using iTunes for Windows. I don't see this situation as fundamentally different.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
"Apple considers Macs a separate platform from PCs?" Apple might consider paying taxes optional, or the moon to be made of cheese. But why should any of us care or be bound by that? "and PCs are not supposed to be friends." Wtf does this even mean, how is it helpfull or provable?

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

Another important distinction is that most of the operating systems you mentioned are not bound to any particular hardware.

Manozco 6y ago

I don't think I ever managed to create a working bootable Windows disk on linux. The hardest part was to fetch the image (from Linux).

remexre 6y ago
My constant struggle is some motherboards (mine!) refuse to boot the Windows installer from the UDF-formatted image Microsoft provides as a download; IIRC I have to copy all the files to a FAT32 partition on the disk instead. (I assume their installer-creation tool, which naturally requires an already-working Windows install, plays some games with creating a disk that's both FAT and UDF, and building all the right tables for files to show up in both? Never dug into it though, this is just conjecture.)