7 ms·

Out of curiosity, if you're comfortable with Linux and do a lot of work in a Cygwin environment, what are your reasons for running Windows as your MBA's main OS

Out of curiosity, if you're comfortable with Linux and do a lot of work in a Cygwin environment, what are your reasons for running Windows as your MBA's main OS rather than a Linux flavor?

pyre 14y ago
Within cygwin, you can run Windows executables via bash, for example. I can't speak for the parent, but it would make sense that niceties like that are part of it.
masklinn 14y ago
> rather than a Linux flavor? Or a BSD.
- iuguy 14y ago
  Or a BSD-derived OS with a hat-tip to NextStep?
simcop2387 14y ago
I don't know it for certain about Airs but with the Pros as i understand there's some issues with bios/hardware support in linux. I don't know how severe as I don't own any of the hardware myself.
- Wheen 14y ago
  Airs shouldn't be that bad. IIRC, Linus runs one.
- mikeevans 14y ago
  I can't say one way or the other, but I know Linus develops on a Macbook Air. I'm sure hardware support isn't too horrible if that's the case.
barrkel 14y ago
Ask that question the other way around: if you could get all the command-line goodness you want from Linux but also have all the device support (particularly, solid graphics card drivers), apps, games etc. of Windows, isn't that better? Linux GUIs (Android only partially excepted), in my experience, are amateur in the worst way: dilettantish, faddish, inconsistent, incomplete, and replaced with something new and differently broken long before any stability emerges. I also really dislike the UI scaling: the font selection, border sizes, etc., KDE / Gnome defaults are all too widely spaced for my taste, and customizing it so that it would be acceptable seems to be a full-time job. As it is with Windows, I had to install Classic Shell to get a usable explorer tree view and start menu I could live with. There isn't a single graphical app available exclusively for Linux that I'm jealous of. And for command-line / server stuff that's Linux-only, I'm perfectly happy with ssh running in mintty on Windows.
- AncientPC 14y ago
  What about package managers? Windows management (e.g. Xmonad)? You don't like the KDE/Gnome defaults and don't want to spend time customizing. Fonts? Install from package manager. Themes? Install from package manager. Or download from gnome-look.org and install using gnome-tweak-tool. Yet you go out of your way to tweak Windows to your liking. I don't have driver issues, but that's from researching purchases before buying.
  - barrkel 14y ago
    Window management: I prefer cascaded windows (the bottom-left corners effectively start working like tabs - see http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-windows-7.html http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-win...). Tiled windows are a waste of screen space; I have far more open windows than can ever fit tiled. And what about package managers? Cygwin has a package manager; combined with cygports, it has just about everything I need, resolves dependencies just fine. I also mirror both repositories locally, where the relatively smaller sizes (18G + 19G) pay off, and I don't have to be worried about internet connectivity to install an app. Package managers on Linux (I run Ubuntu Netbook and Debian), Solaris (I run Nexenta NCP3) have given me plenty of headaches, mostly from packages disappearing from repositories, or repository servers going away. There's been times I've just wanted to e.g. update my text editor to the latest version, and started pulling on a thread that led to needing a new kernel - that never happens with Cygwin. Stuff starts failing to install because dependencies are no longer available. It's probably because I don't update enough, which is in turn because I don't want to break something that works (none of these machines are public facing); but I can go years between Cygwin updates without issues. Look at the information density of Windows explorer details view - http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/SK54tc5PEzI/AAAAAAAAACA/SVUZh3L0Whw/s1600-h/selection-1.png http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/SK54tc5PEzI/AAAAAAAAAC... - I could never get Nautilus to display data with this density, listview items always had huge margins around every item in the details view, like in this picture: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NwFlqMh7ZG0/Ty3Qrbk2gqI/AAAAAAAAAd4/mj2QNVFxFBo/s1600/nautilus3.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NwFlqMh7ZG0/Ty3Qrbk2gqI/AAAAAAAAAd... Driver issues: I don't have any, and I don't have to research anything! When I need a new machine, I just buy the latest hardware (for example, currently I have an Nvidia 680GTX), download the latest driver from the vendor, and it works. Linux? Just look at this fun here: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4ODc http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4O...

Out of curiosity, if you're comfortable with Linux and do a lot of work in a Cygwin environment, what are your reasons for running Windows as your MBA's main OS rather than a Linux flavor?

pyre 14y ago

Within cygwin, you can run Windows executables via bash, for example. I can't speak for the parent, but it would make sense that niceties like that are part of it.

masklinn 14y ago

> rather than a Linux flavor? Or a BSD.

iuguy 14y ago
Or a BSD-derived OS with a hat-tip to NextStep?

simcop2387 14y ago

I don't know it for certain about Airs but with the Pros as i understand there's some issues with bios/hardware support in linux. I don't know how severe as I don't own any of the hardware myself.

Wheen 14y ago
Airs shouldn't be that bad. IIRC, Linus runs one.
mikeevans 14y ago
I can't say one way or the other, but I know Linus develops on a Macbook Air. I'm sure hardware support isn't too horrible if that's the case.

barrkel 14y ago

Ask that question the other way around: if you could get all the command-line goodness you want from Linux but also have all the device support (particularly, solid graphics card drivers), apps, games etc. of Windows, isn't that better? Linux GUIs (Android only partially excepted), in my experience, are amateur in the worst way: dilettantish, faddish, inconsistent, incomplete, and replaced with something new and differently broken long before any stability emerges. I also really dislike the UI scaling: the font selection, border sizes, etc., KDE / Gnome defaults are all too widely spaced for my taste, and customizing it so that it would be acceptable seems to be a full-time job. As it is with Windows, I had to install Classic Shell to get a usable explorer tree view and start menu I could live with. There isn't a single graphical app available exclusively for Linux that I'm jealous of. And for command-line / server stuff that's Linux-only, I'm perfectly happy with ssh running in mintty on Windows.

AncientPC 14y ago
What about package managers? Windows management (e.g. Xmonad)? You don't like the KDE/Gnome defaults and don't want to spend time customizing. Fonts? Install from package manager. Themes? Install from package manager. Or download from gnome-look.org and install using gnome-tweak-tool. Yet you go out of your way to tweak Windows to your liking. I don't have driver issues, but that's from researching purchases before buying.
- barrkel 14y ago
  Window management: I prefer cascaded windows (the bottom-left corners effectively start working like tabs - see http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-windows-7.html http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting-win...). Tiled windows are a waste of screen space; I have far more open windows than can ever fit tiled. And what about package managers? Cygwin has a package manager; combined with cygports, it has just about everything I need, resolves dependencies just fine. I also mirror both repositories locally, where the relatively smaller sizes (18G + 19G) pay off, and I don't have to be worried about internet connectivity to install an app. Package managers on Linux (I run Ubuntu Netbook and Debian), Solaris (I run Nexenta NCP3) have given me plenty of headaches, mostly from packages disappearing from repositories, or repository servers going away. There's been times I've just wanted to e.g. update my text editor to the latest version, and started pulling on a thread that led to needing a new kernel - that never happens with Cygwin. Stuff starts failing to install because dependencies are no longer available. It's probably because I don't update enough, which is in turn because I don't want to break something that works (none of these machines are public facing); but I can go years between Cygwin updates without issues. Look at the information density of Windows explorer details view - http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/SK54tc5PEzI/AAAAAAAAACA/SVUZh3L0Whw/s1600-h/selection-1.png http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/SK54tc5PEzI/AAAAAAAAAC... - I could never get Nautilus to display data with this density, listview items always had huge margins around every item in the details view, like in this picture: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NwFlqMh7ZG0/Ty3Qrbk2gqI/AAAAAAAAAd4/mj2QNVFxFBo/s1600/nautilus3.png http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NwFlqMh7ZG0/Ty3Qrbk2gqI/AAAAAAAAAd... Driver issues: I don't have any, and I don't have to research anything! When I need a new machine, I just buy the latest hardware (for example, currently I have an Nvidia 680GTX), download the latest driver from the vendor, and it works. Linux? Just look at this fun here: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4ODc http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA4O...