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Crap like this makes my Linux desktop (Gnome on Ubuntu) feel nice in comparison. As the mainstream players have added more bloat/ads/etc (e.g. ads in the start

Crap like this makes my Linux desktop (Gnome on Ubuntu) feel nice in comparison. As the mainstream players have added more bloat/ads/etc (e.g. ads in the start menu) over the last N years, and the Linux desktop has gotten more mature, it really does just feel simple & smooth in comparison. Not suggesting Linux is for everyone, but if you happen to use it or are thinking about it, it's nice.

jaimex2 4y ago
Linux desktops are nicer period. Both OSX and Windows feel like an archaic mess when you go back to them. How are system restarts still a thing?!
- bombolo 4y ago
  Windows doesn't support changing the volume by scrolling when having the mouse on the speaker tray icon. I miss that so much when I'm on windows and not on KDE.
  - crtasm 4y ago
    install Eartrumpet to get that, and other useful features.
  - danyho 4y ago
    I am on Windows 11 right now and it most definitely does work.
    - chupasaurus 4y ago
      And 10, both "new" scroll panel and the old mixer one.
  - blooalien 4y ago
    It's all the little conveniences like that in desktop oriented Linux-based operating systems (which directly correspond to opposing "paper-cuts" in Windows and often MacOS) which have kept me on Linux for a couple few decades now (last Windows I used regularly was Windows 7). It was rough going at first, as Linux distros weren't nearly as "polished" back then as they mostly are now, but it was worth it because Linux simply kept improving in every little detail that mattered to me. Every time I'm forced to touch Windows these days, it's positively painful trying to navigate even the most basic functions.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- massysett 4y ago
  They’re still a thing on Linux, I have to restart with every kernel update.
  - blacksmith_tb 4y ago
    Do you mean like the "system restart required - in 60s" style of the other OSes, or just in order to boot with the newly-installed kernel? The only you-must-reboot-now-no-choice thing I can think of any of my Linux desktops is nvidia driver updates, I guess because you're living on borrowed time without a reboot...
    - lostmsu 4y ago
      Not only that, unlike Windows TPM + Secure Boot still requires lots of manual shenanigans on every kernel update (at least on Fedora).
  - KMnO4 4y ago
    It was designed that way, but it doesn’t actually need to be that way. KSplice, for example, lets you update the kernel without rebooting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice
    - lostmsu 4y ago
      > does not provide any mechanisms for ensuring function-level consistency while the hot patches are applied E.g. a shotgun pointed at your feet
      - riskable 4y ago
        To be fair, the comparison is against the way Windows updates itself which is like Russian roulette.
        lostmsu 4y ago
        You are talking about unbootable system (extremely rare) or missing drivers. But what I quoted potentially means data corruption.
- dmonitor 4y ago
  I've been quite enjoying macOS. It's a different paradigm for sure, but as I get more fluent in it I find I enjoy it almost as much as my linux desktop. Windows still feels like I'm waging war against Microsoft for control of my computer, though.
  - waboremo 4y ago
    It's frustrating how easily Microsoft is annoying users purely because they have to have every single pixel monetized on Windows. So much user frustration comes down to this. A potentially useful widget feature if it was open to Windows app developers first, is just another avenue to throw MSN News and ads at you, becoming yet another thing to fight your computer about.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- throw10920 4y ago
  I've had trouble with sound, wireless (both wifi and bluetooth), graphics, boot, and power-state management with Linux, with at least one of these issues appearing in every single device I've installed Linux on, with none of those appearing on the Windows devices that I've also used. I also have experienced performance, usability, and integration problems with every Linux desktop environment that I've used. Linux desktops are certainly not "nicer period". They're better than Windows and macOS along certain axes (e.g. transparency and modularity of internals) and worse along others.
  - riskable 4y ago
    > I've had trouble with sound, wireless (both wifi and bluetooth), graphics, boot, and power-state management with Linux, Hah! I could say the same for Windows! I'm the family IT support person and I've experienced all those problems and a whole lot more in Windows. Especially after Windows upgrades (e.g. going from Windows 7 to 10 or 10 to 11). At least with Linux there's always a way to fix it. It might be in some obscure StackOverflow post or the Ubuntu forums or the Arch wiki (which is fantastic BTW) but there's always a solution. With Windows there often isn't a solution other than, "wait for the vendor to fix it." There's not even good troubleshooting options in Windows because the built-in logger is the worst in all of the history of computing and I don't know how anyone can put up with it!
    - wrldos 4y ago
      There isn’t always a solution on Linux. I’ve hit a few things over the years where I’ve hit a wall and got stuck. On two occasions I fixed it myself and submitted patches and got entirely ignored. The bot closing your ancient PR that the maintainer of a large open source project didn’t even bother looking at is the status quo in my existence. Now I acknowledge that I’m helpless on any platform.
      - jaimex2 4y ago
        In 10 years, there's nothing I've run into that a kernel update didnt fix.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Branding alone gets me. Booting up MacOS or Windows just feels wrong, nevermind the time I spend uninstalling their bloatware or disabling the ads. A fresh Linux system is unparalleled zen, as long as you coughed up the money for a properly supported machine.
  - jonathankoren 4y ago
    > A fresh Linux system is unparalleled zen, as long as you coughed up the money for a properly supported machine. In before, “Yeah, we’ll, I just don’t use that feature so it doesn’t bother me.”
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      In response to what? All three operating systems here have things they are uniquely capable of, and uniquely incapable of. The stones are all in glass houses, I dare someone to throw the first one.
      - jonathankoren 4y ago
        This is a really weak retort. Only with linux is buying hardware a minefield where it's common to blame the purchaser for "not doing the research" or knowing what chipset(!) is in some piece of consumer hardware. Meanwhile, this problem simply doesn't exist on the two main desktop competitors. It's been this way for 30 years. And yes, this counts for "fully supported" hardware.
        livueta 4y ago
        Is the whole suspend/hibernate ("Modern Standby") clusterfuck not real enough of an issue for you? Seems like that fits pretty well into the category of problem you're describing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 Let's see: in the last couple of years, my Linux laptops have made me... spend a few minutes googling for how to get systemd to leave dhcp-provided dns servers alone, and one time where I couldn't get a serial driver to install cleanly. Meanwhile, my (work) Windows laptops have tried to burn down my house.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  You don't ever restart your Linux system even after kernel and driver upgrades? That's the only time I usually have to reboot windows.
- danw1979 4y ago
  Every time I hang up a phone or video call on my bluetooth headphones, Apple Music opens on my mac and starts playing House Of The Rising Sun. I’ve just come to accept this now because there really is no way to stop it. I expect that at some point in the future Asahi linux will be mature enough and someone will have finally figured out how to support the trackpad properly so we really can enjoy Linux on Apple’s incredible hardware. Then I’ll have some kind of awakening where I realise it’s not normal for The Animals to play an outro to every meeting, and well… it’ll be goodbye macos my old friend of 20 years.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Thank you for corroborating this, every time I bring it up on HN people ignore it like it's a non-issue. My headphones should not be a shortcut for launching Apple Music; that is a terrible default setting. > someone will have finally figured out how to support the trackpad properly We're there, if you use Wayland. In Firefox I have pinch-to-zoom, forward/backwards swipe shortcuts and KDE has 1:1 desktop navigation gestures. I'm using a wired Magic Trackpad, but I'm sure the behavior is the same on all of Apple's trackpads. Give it a whirl this weekend, if you've got the stuff lying around!
proc0 4y ago
It's amazing to me that Mac and Windows don't really feel (from UX standpoint) that much faster or smoother than 10 years ago despite hardware being much more powerful. Computers get faster but software keeps operating on the "edge" by adding more complexity. Linux is nice, but it would be nicer to have a UX focused product that keeps it simple and takes advantage of fast hardware instead of seeing it as an opportunity to load it with more complexity for seemingly no benefit.
- noahtallen 4y ago
  The main problem is Mac's windows management. I'm having good success with the new stage manager feature along with "reduced motion" enabled, and some hotkeys to activate apps. This gives me near-instant transitions, which I really love about many Linux window managers. (Like Sway.) This with M1 is the smoothest UX I've ever had, even compared to my powerful Windows computer. While Linux and SwayWM did feel a bit more snappy, the other part of the UX was lacking enough that I spent too much time tweaking and not enough time getting shit done.
  - tonfreed 4y ago
    My work M1 Mac is buttery smooth. Shame about the mess they've made of Window management and focus stealing crap.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I had a 2019 Macbook and it felt like an unbearably slow piece of crap that constantly had the spinning ball and fans blasting full speed doing just about nothing. Now my 2020 M1 feels extremely snappy. Everything is instant now.
- BizarreByte 4y ago
  They don’t feel faster than a decade ago and they feel significantly slower than two decades ago. There has to be some “law” name for how software expands to consume any increased resources.
  - 4y ago
wrldos 4y ago
I disagree. I've tried Linux on the desktop over and over and over again from about 1997 and there's just problems with it all over the place. I have used it on the server for the same period. The desktop environment for a start has been incredibly volatile, the kernel maturity is just not there and honestly most of the commercial apps out there which are Windows or macOS only aren't available on Linux. Also sometimes updates break things terribly. To this day many people dread closing their laptop lids or running apt-update on non debian distros. Ergo I stuck with Windows and used Linux in VMs when required. Then I dived out back into macOS about 3 years ago. This was just expensive, volatile and obtuse. If you stay within the rails it just works though and I'll give them their due; the hardware, particularly ARM is top notch. But again some stuff I need to do just doesn't work well on it and it's very pay to play. I feel a little exhausted if I'm honest after riding the rollercoaster on that. So now, here I am with an ass end desktop PC again running windows 11 pro and it really does just work fine. I got one annoying notification which was gpedit'ed out and it's been wonderful so far with no further eye pokings. I don't get ads thrown at me. It keeps out of the way. There was one hardware issue which was fixed by replacing an HDMI cable with a DisplayPort cable. It's absolutely boring which is how I like things. If something does go wrong, a thousand people will have had the same issue, so I can fix it with Google in 10 minutes. Edit: I feel dirty giving Microsoft some credit here. Edit 2: notable commercial apps I use: Photoshop (sorry gimp doesn't cut it), Lightroom (and no darktable doesn't cut it) and Excel (libreoffice nope). I also have a Lenovo T495s Ryzen here running Ubuntu that hangs after 2-3 minutes on the desktop consistently.
- tokai 4y ago
  Not being snarky, but when did you last try linux? Your points about volatile DEs and kernel maturity seems almost 10 years out of date.
  - wrldos 4y ago
    See my last edit. 22.04 LTS on a ThinkPad T495s Ryzen. Hangs after 2-3 minutes. Absolutely no issues on Windows. Last updated about 2-3 weeks ago. This is the hilarious thing: https://ubuntu.com/certified/201906-27170 https://ubuntu.com/certified/201906-27170 And yes it hung on 18.04 LTS as well. I don't have the time or energy to deal with that shit in my life.
Gigachad 4y ago
I don't suggest Linux to anyone who can't set it up themselves now. Every time I set someone up with Ubuntu or something, they don't realize you have to manually update it so everything is 4 years out of date and the upgrade process doesn't even work anymore so you have to do a full install again. Windows is built for the average person who just needs their computer to manage itself. The average Windows or macOS user wants the system to prompt regularly and for the "yes" button to just make it work.
- ldxza 4y ago
  This is why you show them. I did. And they were fine with doing it. But if someone is like my brain damaged sister (who drinks their lives away) and is incapable of grasping any information, I make a simple script with just a single command (that I put in a folder called 'scripts' under root) to run at a specific time in the background to do the updating (Typically during hours of non use). The only time it really has to be rebooted is when a new kernel is installed. Well, I let the user take care of that whenever they reboot, or shutdown their machine. In fact, to make life easier, that is what I do for all of my household computers so that I don't have to think about it (because I am lazy). Ever think of doing that?
- betaby 4y ago
  Why it's out of date? Ubuntu prompts/install updates in the same ways as Windows.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Don’t know. Presumably the Ubuntu prompts were not as aggressive as the MS ones so the person just closed the window. While my grandma will just end up on Windows 11 without even knowing how which is exactly the “just works, can’t mess it up” setup these types of users need.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Exactly. With Linux, the user has to actually click on the update icon, click a button to start the updates, then type in their password. For most users, that's just *way* too hard to do, so it never gets done. With Windows, it'll force updates on you at some point, so Grandma will be updated whether she wants to or not, even if she's in the middle of something. Users like that *need* this.

jaimex2 4y ago

Linux desktops are nicer period. Both OSX and Windows feel like an archaic mess when you go back to them. How are system restarts still a thing?!

bombolo 4y ago
Windows doesn't support changing the volume by scrolling when having the mouse on the speaker tray icon. I miss that so much when I'm on windows and not on KDE.
- crtasm 4y ago
  install Eartrumpet to get that, and other useful features.
- danyho 4y ago
  I am on Windows 11 right now and it most definitely does work.
  - chupasaurus 4y ago
    And 10, both "new" scroll panel and the old mixer one.
- blooalien 4y ago
  It's all the little conveniences like that in desktop oriented Linux-based operating systems (which directly correspond to opposing "paper-cuts" in Windows and often MacOS) which have kept me on Linux for a couple few decades now (last Windows I used regularly was Windows 7). It was rough going at first, as Linux distros weren't nearly as "polished" back then as they mostly are now, but it was worth it because Linux simply kept improving in every little detail that mattered to me. Every time I'm forced to touch Windows these days, it's positively painful trying to navigate even the most basic functions.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
massysett 4y ago
They’re still a thing on Linux, I have to restart with every kernel update.
- blacksmith_tb 4y ago
  Do you mean like the "system restart required - in 60s" style of the other OSes, or just in order to boot with the newly-installed kernel? The only you-must-reboot-now-no-choice thing I can think of any of my Linux desktops is nvidia driver updates, I guess because you're living on borrowed time without a reboot...
  - lostmsu 4y ago
    Not only that, unlike Windows TPM + Secure Boot still requires lots of manual shenanigans on every kernel update (at least on Fedora).
- KMnO4 4y ago
  It was designed that way, but it doesn’t actually need to be that way. KSplice, for example, lets you update the kernel without rebooting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice
  - lostmsu 4y ago
    > does not provide any mechanisms for ensuring function-level consistency while the hot patches are applied E.g. a shotgun pointed at your feet
    - riskable 4y ago
      To be fair, the comparison is against the way Windows updates itself which is like Russian roulette.
      - lostmsu 4y ago
        You are talking about unbootable system (extremely rare) or missing drivers. But what I quoted potentially means data corruption.
dmonitor 4y ago
I've been quite enjoying macOS. It's a different paradigm for sure, but as I get more fluent in it I find I enjoy it almost as much as my linux desktop. Windows still feels like I'm waging war against Microsoft for control of my computer, though.
- waboremo 4y ago
  It's frustrating how easily Microsoft is annoying users purely because they have to have every single pixel monetized on Windows. So much user frustration comes down to this. A potentially useful widget feature if it was open to Windows app developers first, is just another avenue to throw MSN News and ads at you, becoming yet another thing to fight your computer about.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
throw10920 4y ago
I've had trouble with sound, wireless (both wifi and bluetooth), graphics, boot, and power-state management with Linux, with at least one of these issues appearing in every single device I've installed Linux on, with none of those appearing on the Windows devices that I've also used. I also have experienced performance, usability, and integration problems with every Linux desktop environment that I've used. Linux desktops are certainly not "nicer period". They're better than Windows and macOS along certain axes (e.g. transparency and modularity of internals) and worse along others.
- riskable 4y ago
  > I've had trouble with sound, wireless (both wifi and bluetooth), graphics, boot, and power-state management with Linux, Hah! I could say the same for Windows! I'm the family IT support person and I've experienced all those problems and a whole lot more in Windows. Especially after Windows upgrades (e.g. going from Windows 7 to 10 or 10 to 11). At least with Linux there's always a way to fix it. It might be in some obscure StackOverflow post or the Ubuntu forums or the Arch wiki (which is fantastic BTW) but there's always a solution. With Windows there often isn't a solution other than, "wait for the vendor to fix it." There's not even good troubleshooting options in Windows because the built-in logger is the worst in all of the history of computing and I don't know how anyone can put up with it!
  - wrldos 4y ago
    There isn’t always a solution on Linux. I’ve hit a few things over the years where I’ve hit a wall and got stuck. On two occasions I fixed it myself and submitted patches and got entirely ignored. The bot closing your ancient PR that the maintainer of a large open source project didn’t even bother looking at is the status quo in my existence. Now I acknowledge that I’m helpless on any platform.
    - jaimex2 4y ago
      In 10 years, there's nothing I've run into that a kernel update didnt fix.
smoldesu 4y ago
Branding alone gets me. Booting up MacOS or Windows just feels wrong, nevermind the time I spend uninstalling their bloatware or disabling the ads. A fresh Linux system is unparalleled zen, as long as you coughed up the money for a properly supported machine.
- jonathankoren 4y ago
  > A fresh Linux system is unparalleled zen, as long as you coughed up the money for a properly supported machine. In before, “Yeah, we’ll, I just don’t use that feature so it doesn’t bother me.”
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    In response to what? All three operating systems here have things they are uniquely capable of, and uniquely incapable of. The stones are all in glass houses, I dare someone to throw the first one.
    - jonathankoren 4y ago
      This is a really weak retort. Only with linux is buying hardware a minefield where it's common to blame the purchaser for "not doing the research" or knowing what chipset(!) is in some piece of consumer hardware. Meanwhile, this problem simply doesn't exist on the two main desktop competitors. It's been this way for 30 years. And yes, this counts for "fully supported" hardware.
      - livueta 4y ago
        Is the whole suspend/hibernate ("Modern Standby") clusterfuck not real enough of an issue for you? Seems like that fits pretty well into the category of problem you're describing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639952 Let's see: in the last couple of years, my Linux laptops have made me... spend a few minutes googling for how to get systemd to leave dhcp-provided dns servers alone, and one time where I couldn't get a serial driver to install cleanly. Meanwhile, my (work) Windows laptops have tried to burn down my house.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
You don't ever restart your Linux system even after kernel and driver upgrades? That's the only time I usually have to reboot windows.
danw1979 4y ago
Every time I hang up a phone or video call on my bluetooth headphones, Apple Music opens on my mac and starts playing House Of The Rising Sun. I’ve just come to accept this now because there really is no way to stop it. I expect that at some point in the future Asahi linux will be mature enough and someone will have finally figured out how to support the trackpad properly so we really can enjoy Linux on Apple’s incredible hardware. Then I’ll have some kind of awakening where I realise it’s not normal for The Animals to play an outro to every meeting, and well… it’ll be goodbye macos my old friend of 20 years.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Thank you for corroborating this, every time I bring it up on HN people ignore it like it's a non-issue. My headphones should not be a shortcut for launching Apple Music; that is a terrible default setting. > someone will have finally figured out how to support the trackpad properly We're there, if you use Wayland. In Firefox I have pinch-to-zoom, forward/backwards swipe shortcuts and KDE has 1:1 desktop navigation gestures. I'm using a wired Magic Trackpad, but I'm sure the behavior is the same on all of Apple's trackpads. Give it a whirl this weekend, if you've got the stuff lying around!

proc0 4y ago

It's amazing to me that Mac and Windows don't really feel (from UX standpoint) that much faster or smoother than 10 years ago despite hardware being much more powerful. Computers get faster but software keeps operating on the "edge" by adding more complexity. Linux is nice, but it would be nicer to have a UX focused product that keeps it simple and takes advantage of fast hardware instead of seeing it as an opportunity to load it with more complexity for seemingly no benefit.

noahtallen 4y ago
The main problem is Mac's windows management. I'm having good success with the new stage manager feature along with "reduced motion" enabled, and some hotkeys to activate apps. This gives me near-instant transitions, which I really love about many Linux window managers. (Like Sway.) This with M1 is the smoothest UX I've ever had, even compared to my powerful Windows computer. While Linux and SwayWM did feel a bit more snappy, the other part of the UX was lacking enough that I spent too much time tweaking and not enough time getting shit done.
- tonfreed 4y ago
  My work M1 Mac is buttery smooth. Shame about the mess they've made of Window management and focus stealing crap.
Gigachad 4y ago
I had a 2019 Macbook and it felt like an unbearably slow piece of crap that constantly had the spinning ball and fans blasting full speed doing just about nothing. Now my 2020 M1 feels extremely snappy. Everything is instant now.
BizarreByte 4y ago
They don’t feel faster than a decade ago and they feel significantly slower than two decades ago. There has to be some “law” name for how software expands to consume any increased resources.
- 4y ago

wrldos 4y ago

I disagree. I've tried Linux on the desktop over and over and over again from about 1997 and there's just problems with it all over the place. I have used it on the server for the same period. The desktop environment for a start has been incredibly volatile, the kernel maturity is just not there and honestly most of the commercial apps out there which are Windows or macOS only aren't available on Linux. Also sometimes updates break things terribly. To this day many people dread closing their laptop lids or running apt-update on non debian distros. Ergo I stuck with Windows and used Linux in VMs when required. Then I dived out back into macOS about 3 years ago. This was just expensive, volatile and obtuse. If you stay within the rails it just works though and I'll give them their due; the hardware, particularly ARM is top notch. But again some stuff I need to do just doesn't work well on it and it's very pay to play. I feel a little exhausted if I'm honest after riding the rollercoaster on that. So now, here I am with an ass end desktop PC again running windows 11 pro and it really does just work fine. I got one annoying notification which was gpedit'ed out and it's been wonderful so far with no further eye pokings. I don't get ads thrown at me. It keeps out of the way. There was one hardware issue which was fixed by replacing an HDMI cable with a DisplayPort cable. It's absolutely boring which is how I like things. If something does go wrong, a thousand people will have had the same issue, so I can fix it with Google in 10 minutes. Edit: I feel dirty giving Microsoft some credit here. Edit 2: notable commercial apps I use: Photoshop (sorry gimp doesn't cut it), Lightroom (and no darktable doesn't cut it) and Excel (libreoffice nope). I also have a Lenovo T495s Ryzen here running Ubuntu that hangs after 2-3 minutes on the desktop consistently.

tokai 4y ago
Not being snarky, but when did you last try linux? Your points about volatile DEs and kernel maturity seems almost 10 years out of date.
- wrldos 4y ago
  See my last edit. 22.04 LTS on a ThinkPad T495s Ryzen. Hangs after 2-3 minutes. Absolutely no issues on Windows. Last updated about 2-3 weeks ago. This is the hilarious thing: https://ubuntu.com/certified/201906-27170 https://ubuntu.com/certified/201906-27170 And yes it hung on 18.04 LTS as well. I don't have the time or energy to deal with that shit in my life.

Gigachad 4y ago

I don't suggest Linux to anyone who can't set it up themselves now. Every time I set someone up with Ubuntu or something, they don't realize you have to manually update it so everything is 4 years out of date and the upgrade process doesn't even work anymore so you have to do a full install again. Windows is built for the average person who just needs their computer to manage itself. The average Windows or macOS user wants the system to prompt regularly and for the "yes" button to just make it work.

ldxza 4y ago
This is why you show them. I did. And they were fine with doing it. But if someone is like my brain damaged sister (who drinks their lives away) and is incapable of grasping any information, I make a simple script with just a single command (that I put in a folder called 'scripts' under root) to run at a specific time in the background to do the updating (Typically during hours of non use). The only time it really has to be rebooted is when a new kernel is installed. Well, I let the user take care of that whenever they reboot, or shutdown their machine. In fact, to make life easier, that is what I do for all of my household computers so that I don't have to think about it (because I am lazy). Ever think of doing that?
betaby 4y ago
Why it's out of date? Ubuntu prompts/install updates in the same ways as Windows.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Don’t know. Presumably the Ubuntu prompts were not as aggressive as the MS ones so the person just closed the window. While my grandma will just end up on Windows 11 without even knowing how which is exactly the “just works, can’t mess it up” setup these types of users need.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Exactly. With Linux, the user has to actually click on the update icon, click a button to start the updates, then type in their password. For most users, that's just *way* too hard to do, so it never gets done. With Windows, it'll force updates on you at some point, so Grandma will be updated whether she wants to or not, even if she's in the middle of something. Users like that *need* this.