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I feel using Windows for anything other than gaming is just going to give you more headaches than just learning to use a unix based OS. Most applications are av

by xyst 5y ago

I feel using Windows for anything other than gaming is just going to give you more headaches than just learning to use a unix based OS. Most applications are available on multiple platforms and alternatives exist for those few applications that are not available. In my opinion, the only reason why Windows is so prevalent in the "enterprise" world is because Microsoft provides support contracts to make it easier to adopt. Problems with your windows laptop? Send it off to Microsoft or open a business priority ticket to have them work on it for you. No need to hire an internal IT team.

lrem 5y ago
I'm a hobbyist photographer. Not enough energy for the hobby to learn new software, so I'm stuck with Lightroom. And since I didn't want another Mac, I'm on Windows now for my personal laptop. It's ok. Not as snazzy as MacOS. But security/privacy concerns excluded, feels less headachey than Linux (which I'm also using in parallel, since Slackware 7).
Miraste 5y ago
I'm not unfamiliar with Linux and I've been looking into switching recently after a long string of Windows "features" causing problems, but unfortunately gaming isn't the only area Microsoft has an advantage. Linux still doesn't support HDR, for instance. It also has a lot of problems with desktop compositing, because the switch from X to Wayland is at the point where neither of them are good options. That's not even getting into enterprise software compatibility. For programming, by all means use Linux instead of Windows, it's better. For anything else, it's still not there yet.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Why is anyone interested in HDR? 16M colors should be enough for anyone. I do have minor issues when scaling my 4K screen to a lower resolution, and starting a fullscreen game, but that’s about it.
  - exikyut 5y ago
    I personally hate the color banding you get from things like big drop shadow radiuses in webpages. Look at them from juuust the wrong angle and... war flashbacks to Windows 3.1 in 256 colors. I'm not sure if newer tech has better viewing angles than my old (but not that old) IPS LCD, but having having greater color depth to represent color fades with finer progression, and having more pixels to spread the fade across (hidpi), does sound like a nice step forward to me. ~"1.07 billion colors" though? Ehhh, I can't deny that does feel like overkill, but I'm honestly not even sure if there's a way to fix the above problem with a smaller colorspace.
    - mlyle 5y ago
      > ~"1.07 billion colors" though? Ehhh, I can't deny that does feel like overkill, but I'm honestly not even sure if there's a way to fix the above problem with a smaller colorspace. Given that we're starting with 24 bits / 16.7 million, we're just up 6 bits more.. or 2 more bits per color... so a purely red gradient would have 4x as many steps. And we're using some of that space to get "whiter than white" -- so that the brightest white in photos/videos can be brighter than the normal value of white. https://www.lifewire.com/how-apple-devices-show-hdr-brighter-than-pure-white-5090726 https://www.lifewire.com/how-apple-devices-show-hdr-brighter...
  - Miraste 5y ago
    It's not about the colors so much as the fantastic contrast, it really makes games/videos feel more alive.
lrvick 5y ago
I even dropped Windows for gaming. Almost all Steam games work flawlessly out of the box now thanks to extensive investment in Proton. That is why the Valve is confident shipping the steam deck with Linux.
- dontbesquare 5y ago
  Thank you for giving me the courage to go this route. The only reason I'm on Windows at this point is for gaming. Time to give Proton another try. I can't wait for my Steam Deck to arrive next year! =)
  - milesvp 5y ago
    Some games will have issues due largely to drivers. But I stopped booting to my win7 partition at least a year and a half ago, and gaming on steam has only gotten better. Just know that games with anti cheat tend to not work. Lucky for me the only multiplayer game I play much of is Overwatch on lutris. And lutris is still supported enough by blizzard that it won’t trigger a ban by itself.
    - lrvick 5y ago
      That situation just got a huge update this week: https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-launches-anti-cheat-support-for-linux-mac-and-steam-deck https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-la...
- jturpin 5y ago
  I have just recently done the same thing, Pop OS with Steam, on my gaming PC. It works perfectly so far and I'm so thrilled - CS Go, Planet Coaster, and most recently Gas Station Simulator have been playing great for me. It gives me a lot of hope that the Steam deck is going to be a real game changer.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
True but I have to say Microsoft support is pretty awful. Most of the tickets that aren't trivial (and most aren't since we have pretty experienced people) end in endless "give us more logs / try one of the many things we've asked to try before again" loops until we either find the cause ourselves or a workaround. I know business premium support is a selling point (ironic because it actually costs money on its own) which is good for the CYA of top management. Someone to blame when stuff goes wrong. But it doesn't really solve issues on the floor and Microsoft isn't alone in that.

by xyst 5y ago

lrem 5y ago

I'm a hobbyist photographer. Not enough energy for the hobby to learn new software, so I'm stuck with Lightroom. And since I didn't want another Mac, I'm on Windows now for my personal laptop. It's ok. Not as snazzy as MacOS. But security/privacy concerns excluded, feels less headachey than Linux (which I'm also using in parallel, since Slackware 7).

Miraste 5y ago

I'm not unfamiliar with Linux and I've been looking into switching recently after a long string of Windows "features" causing problems, but unfortunately gaming isn't the only area Microsoft has an advantage. Linux still doesn't support HDR, for instance. It also has a lot of problems with desktop compositing, because the switch from X to Wayland is at the point where neither of them are good options. That's not even getting into enterprise software compatibility. For programming, by all means use Linux instead of Windows, it's better. For anything else, it's still not there yet.

Aeolun 5y ago
Why is anyone interested in HDR? 16M colors should be enough for anyone. I do have minor issues when scaling my 4K screen to a lower resolution, and starting a fullscreen game, but that’s about it.
- exikyut 5y ago
  I personally hate the color banding you get from things like big drop shadow radiuses in webpages. Look at them from juuust the wrong angle and... war flashbacks to Windows 3.1 in 256 colors. I'm not sure if newer tech has better viewing angles than my old (but not that old) IPS LCD, but having having greater color depth to represent color fades with finer progression, and having more pixels to spread the fade across (hidpi), does sound like a nice step forward to me. ~"1.07 billion colors" though? Ehhh, I can't deny that does feel like overkill, but I'm honestly not even sure if there's a way to fix the above problem with a smaller colorspace.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    > ~"1.07 billion colors" though? Ehhh, I can't deny that does feel like overkill, but I'm honestly not even sure if there's a way to fix the above problem with a smaller colorspace. Given that we're starting with 24 bits / 16.7 million, we're just up 6 bits more.. or 2 more bits per color... so a purely red gradient would have 4x as many steps. And we're using some of that space to get "whiter than white" -- so that the brightest white in photos/videos can be brighter than the normal value of white. https://www.lifewire.com/how-apple-devices-show-hdr-brighter-than-pure-white-5090726 https://www.lifewire.com/how-apple-devices-show-hdr-brighter...
- Miraste 5y ago
  It's not about the colors so much as the fantastic contrast, it really makes games/videos feel more alive.

lrvick 5y ago

I even dropped Windows for gaming. Almost all Steam games work flawlessly out of the box now thanks to extensive investment in Proton. That is why the Valve is confident shipping the steam deck with Linux.

dontbesquare 5y ago
Thank you for giving me the courage to go this route. The only reason I'm on Windows at this point is for gaming. Time to give Proton another try. I can't wait for my Steam Deck to arrive next year! =)
- milesvp 5y ago
  Some games will have issues due largely to drivers. But I stopped booting to my win7 partition at least a year and a half ago, and gaming on steam has only gotten better. Just know that games with anti cheat tend to not work. Lucky for me the only multiplayer game I play much of is Overwatch on lutris. And lutris is still supported enough by blizzard that it won’t trigger a ban by itself.
  - lrvick 5y ago
    That situation just got a huge update this week: https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-launches-anti-cheat-support-for-linux-mac-and-steam-deck https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-la...
jturpin 5y ago
I have just recently done the same thing, Pop OS with Steam, on my gaming PC. It works perfectly so far and I'm so thrilled - CS Go, Planet Coaster, and most recently Gas Station Simulator have been playing great for me. It gives me a lot of hope that the Steam deck is going to be a real game changer.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

True but I have to say Microsoft support is pretty awful. Most of the tickets that aren't trivial (and most aren't since we have pretty experienced people) end in endless "give us more logs / try one of the many things we've asked to try before again" loops until we either find the cause ourselves or a workaround. I know business premium support is a selling point (ironic because it actually costs money on its own) which is good for the CYA of top management. Someone to blame when stuff goes wrong. But it doesn't really solve issues on the floor and Microsoft isn't alone in that.