11 ms·

I’m a little split on it. I don’t actually mind their streamlining because of the way I windows. Which is professionally and for video games. I wouldn’t use win

by devjab 2y ago

I’m a little split on it. I don’t actually mind their streamlining because of the way I windows. Which is professionally and for video games. I wouldn’t use windows professionally if I had a choice (company policy, and one I get from an ops perspective), but at least every setting is taken care for me. I wouldn’t really use windows for video games either, but the fact that they are removing more and more of the “use windows” part means that my only windows machine is basically just a console at this point with how little I have to interact with it. I do understand where you’re coming from. Which is the flip side of it, but what I don’t understand is why anyone really wants to use Windows in 2024. I’m not a huge fan of the direction Apple is going with their continuous platform lockin, but the smallest MacBook Air is cheap and works better than anything that runs windows. Similarly Chromebooks are actually just fine, ok maybe not outside the context of windows/macos/chromeos. I chose the Apple lock-in because my families likes iOS, but I would have been fine with Google. If you like to tinker and own your OS there is still Linux. Professionally I think Microsoft is doing fine. They have a functional monopoly on enterprise organisations, especially the 99% (citation = made up) which aren’t tech related. So it’s probably a decent enough strategy for them. Hell, I think the primary reason they don’t have a cheap device to compete with MacBook airs and Chromebooks is because they know windows would lose.

john01dav 2y ago
The assertion that Linux needs tinkering to use is absurd. Fedora, for example, works great out of the box. Some people may choose to change a few settings in a GUI but that isn't tinkering in the way that I think that you mean it and it certainly isn't unique to Linux.
- lkirkwood 2y ago
  I used to feel this way but having installed Ubuntu on a friend's old laptop for him, it's crazy the amount of stuff you forget you do because it's second nature. I certainly think it's too far to say "absurd".
- Aleklart 2y ago
  Installing codecs, drivers (several times by different guides usually) and disabling Red Hat telemetry from command line is what user have to do to make it usable for something more than running neofetch
  - TaylorAlexander 2y ago
    Since we are comparing to Windows, the "disabling Red Hat telemetry from command line" step doesn't really count, since Windows out of the box is loaded with telemetry.
    - smolder 2y ago
      Windows is practically spyware now, all they're doing with the platform is enshittification. WSL was the last "good" windows feature and it's just an Embrace Extend Extinguish play.
- Simran-B 2y ago
  I have to disagree to a limited extent. I recently tried to boot multiple current Linux distros from a USB stick for evaluation and all of them had issues. Fedora wasn't usable at all due to lack of space because it lost the RAM partition in the boot process and had severe graphical glitches. Ubuntu had issues with the Intel iGPU and installing drivers for the dGPU isn't possible in a live boot without persistence (and Ubuntu showed a blank error message when using the GUI for switching drivers). It also somehow managed to trigger secure boot so that I had to use a recovery key to get my data back. Zorin can download Nvidia drivers during boot and thus worked decently but the system would randomly freeze and had graphical artifacts when using the desktop cube. There were also other issues on Ubuntu and Zorin like with the permissions for bubble wrap to make Flatpaks work and so on. If it already requires tinkering before installing or with a completely fresh OS, then I find it hard to believe that desktop Linux can be a daily driver.
  - walteweiss 2y ago
    [dead]
- meibo 2y ago
  Not sure what hardware you are doing this on, but installing Fedora 40 on my mid-range gaming PC from 2022 last month got me flickering windows (it only ships with a Wayland session) and broken sound out of the box. My screens still don't both turn on when I wake it up from sleep, if it does. If that is outside of "absurd" to you then the Linux desktop world clearly needs to keep cooking a little longer. My non-IT friends would not have been able to figure this out and I don't think they should have to.
  - vladvasiliu 2y ago
    Up until a year or so ago, windows wouldn’t recognize the webcam of my hp-recommends-windows laptop. On a different laptop, it refused to output 4k@60 through the HP dock. After it started working, waking from sleep would be a coin toss whether I would get any image at all, or something garbled. I’m “IT” and had no idea how to fix these. Even installing all the provided oem drivers made no difference. A new development is Windows using the us English layout, although it’s not enabled. I have to add and remove it to fix it. Everything worked perfectly on Linux since day 1.
    - sfn42 2y ago
      Sounds more like a HP issue than a Windows issue to me.
      - amlib 2y ago
        Windows machines have the benefit of official Windows support where the integrator worked out the kinks and built-in a bunch of hacks to fix whatever half-broken things the manufacturer cobbled together. Linux machines don't usually have such affordances, you just install it on a random _Windows_ machine and hope it works. It's actually amazing it works well 90% of the time.
      - vladvasiliu 2y ago
        How's it different from meibo's post? If the hardware is well supported by the OS, everything works fine. If it's not, you're gonna have a bad time. My point is that you can't say Xos is great because it works well on this particular hardware.
- bob1029 2y ago
  I spent a solid 2 days trying to get Ubuntu Server working on a WRX80 threadripper machine. Never once saw the actual installation process. Day 3, I grab an image of windows server 2022. It boots instantly to the install process and just works. I know you can make Linux work, but the amount of suffering is still unbelievable compared to the alternatives in many cases. By the time I get the Linux thing figured out, I'll have forgotten about what it was I wanted to originally build. I wouldn't mind a bit of tinkering, but this is sad. I happily pay Microsoft if this is the alternative.
  - smolder 2y ago
    This is such MS propaganda I'm flabbergasted. Windows is a joke OS at present day.
    - bob1029 2y ago
      How has your experience been installing Linux on the platform I described?
      - Numerlor 2y ago
        The double standards when discussing Linux are ridiculous, every issue people have with Linux must be because they're incompetent and using windows must mean you're fighting the OS every second
        kylebenzle 2y ago
        It's not a double standard but the simple truth. It is true, if you are having a problem with Linux 9 time out of 10 it's possible it fix the problem, aka, you are the problem. My limited experience with paying for an OS means if there's a problem your just out of luck.
        bob1029 2y ago
        > you are the problem. I wonder if Linux advocates could take a small amount of ownership over the user/customer experience instead of projecting all flaws upon the user. It's an operating system. Most people aren't interested in making it their hobby or full time job.
- josephg 2y ago
  I use Linux mint at home. It usually works great, but it definitely needs tinkering to keep the system working. Just in the last few months: - My nvidia drivers stopped working because the drivers I had (which didn’t auto update) apparently weren’t kept up to date with the kernel (which had auto updates enabled). - My computer wouldn’t boot at all last week after I disconnected an external usb drive running zfs. It showed the logo and just kind of stalled out. I had to use a recovery grub setting to disable zfs from the boot process. This sort of routine breakage is pretty common. My rodecaster doesn’t have all its audio interfaces show up in the default audio devices list. HDMI audio broke last year from a kernel update. IntelliJ stopped scaling according to the HiDPI mode I have set up. And so on. It’s fine. It’s worth it for me. But it’s definitely less reliable than macOS or windows.
  - smolder 2y ago
    > This sort of routine breakage is pretty common. Yes, the free OS is occasionally worse than the trillion dollar companies product.
    - nehal3m 2y ago
      For this audience these are inconveniences. For others it’s unusable.
      - prmoustache 2y ago
        OTOH windows OSes autosuicide themselves. On my works laptop I had initially kept the corporate windows install on the original drive and installed Fedora on a second non drive. I would fire up the windows machine once every other week for a few hours so it gets its updates. But every single time I would enter the firmware settings or boot Fedora the OS bootlocker would lock itself and force me to go to https://aka.ms/recoverykey https://aka.ms/recoverykey to get a recovery key the next time I booted windows. Until one day it started not booting even after giving the correct key. Bitlocker basically bricked itself. So don't tell me that windows is more usable. And this is even without tackling the non functionning parts of windows when it accepts to boot, like the broken keyboard for anyone not using english language that Microsoft never even tried to fix in more than 30 years. People used to laugh about a sliding date for linux to be "read for thr desktop" but windows has never been ready either.
- rty32 2y ago
  Nah, give me a freshly installed Windows 11, I can be productive and start actually working on things within five minutes. Give me any Linux distribution, not without an hour. I say this as a professional software engineer who works on a Linux VM 8 hours a day plus off work.
  - legends2k 2y ago
    Can you give some example tasks that you do on both OSes? Just curious to know how the difference is so stark.
- yonatan8070 2y ago
  When I started at my current job I asked if I can install Linux on my work machine, and was relieved to hear a "yes" I then booted up Fedora KDE 40, and installed it with 0 issues or tinkering. Have been using it ever since and it has been working flawlessly.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  It really depends on what hardware you are working with. HiDPI support is more than a bit sketchy still, especially on nvidia, and especially if you attach multiple screens to the computer and don't want all of them to have the same scaling. Webcam support is also still quite sketchy. It'll work, but actually configuring the thing to e.g. select the resolution or adjust the white balance, feels like a regression to 2004.
ExoticPearTree 2y ago
Because I manage Windows based servers that run various business applications. And as it happens, when things go wrong, you want to be able to see all settings and options, not just three options that don’t help you. And don’t even get me stared about netsh… I failed to mention in the initial comment that I am refferring to Windows Server, but I got triggered by “we’re removing the lasr useful bits of Windows configuration options”.
- minetest2048 2y ago
  Can you expand on what they removed from Windows server? Removing options for normal users is one thing, but for sysadmins is another thing
  - ExoticPearTree 2y ago
    Windows Server 2016 onwards: updates are all or nothing. The default is the new settings app and you have to be very persistent if you want Control Panel options. Everything is oversimplified and dumbed down. My example with network settings: Removing useful admin info for no reason.
hulitu 2y ago
> what I don’t understand is why anyone really wants to use Windows in 2024 I don't want to use it. I am forced by my employer.
soygem 2y ago
Tech savvy people choosing proprietary software is so sad.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  "Nobody got fired for choosing IBM." It's not about being tech savvy or not, it's about self preservation and career advancements. If you're tech savvy and push for FOSS in your org then you're the one on the hook whenever that SW fails or some coworker gets it to fail because now it's YOUR responsibility. But if MS Office fails than it's not your fault, it's Microsoft's, or Crowdstrike's, or whatever $BIG_CORP you bought it from. Most people want a chill 9-5 and aren't willing to die on that hill for the sake of pushing FOSS religiousness. Martyrism isn't rewarded. You want something where you can outsource the risk to away from you, so that you can always go home early. Why do you think Google uses SAP. Do you think they can't develop their own alternative on site? But why bother?
grujicd 2y ago
> what I don’t understand is why anyone really wants to use Windows in 2024. Because I'm Windows power user (30+ years of experience) and novice on MacOS and Linux? Doesn't that count for something? It's not that alternative OSes are terrible, they're just terrible for me. I use shortcuts without thinking, I use TotalCommander all the time and no, there are no 100% replacements that I can just install and continue using with all shortcuts I'm used to. I use Home/End/PgDown/PgUp all the time, and not only that MacBook doesn't have these, it doesn't even have Delete key (opposite of backspace), which I find mind-boggling. Sorry about little rant. I'm sure people are very productive using MacOS or Linux. But I'm super productive on Windows, everything just flies without thinking. Oh, btw. I'm typing this on MacBook which is a wonderful piece of hardware, and I use it a lot, but even after a year I feel like my hands are tied behind my back when working on it. I think it's ok for a guy to have his preferences without been judged by his fellow developers. I though we're behind judging for personal preferences in 2024?
- mrjin 2y ago
  Same, I have been on Windows for over two decades. Now I'm migrating away. M$ pretty much broke every good things that were rock solid before.Just like you, there are something I don't have an alternative yet, so still have to hang on a bit, but I feel I might just have to bite the bullet and ditch it.
- kylebenzle 2y ago
  [flagged]
- Retric 2y ago
  The issue with that argument is Windows keeps depreciating existing functionality so old experience is worthless fairly quickly. Nobody has decades of expertise with Windows 11, at this point with how little Windows 3.11 experience still applies. Remember .ini files? Yea how relevant is that today? How about using a DOS prompt recently?
  - snozolli 2y ago
    Remember .ini files? Yea how relevant is that today? AFAIK there's nothing stopping you from writing software that pulls config info from an ini file. Has something changed? Edit: I think I've edited ini files to configure video games somewhat recently. How about using a DOS prompt recently? I host my command prompt inside a 3rd party program, but I still use the Windows command prompt all the time. I think that's pretty normal for "power users" who haven't moved on to PowerShell (I use PS when I have to, but it's not my go-to).
fragmede 2y ago
Thanks for admitting you made up that statistic. Microsoft's hegemony is challenged in some areas, with Google Workspace being a credible threat. Microsoft is still dominant in some regions, but Google's made significant inroads. $16 billion to $64 billion, which works out to be 75%. As far as devices, Microsoft makes the Surface. The fact that you didn't mention it speaks volumes about how successful it has been.
bob1029 2y ago
> the smallest MacBook Air is cheap and works better than anything that runs windows. The casual computer experience on Apple is absolutely unbeatable. It's not even close. I can't stand to do anything even remotely technical on these machines though. I spend about 50/50 time on windows and apple these days. Windows for work/building & MacOS/iOS for entertainment, personal notes, kitchen internet appliance, socializing, HN, etc. I actually don't like to use HN on my windows PC (on iPhone right now). I like the mental separation between the two. I can feel my blood pressure drop when I move from my sweaty nerd workstation to my MacBook or iPhone.
- philistine 2y ago
  You’ve made that distinction yourself. There’s nothing inherently impossible on macOS that you can only do on Windows. They’re just different.
- theshackleford 2y ago
  It’s always interesting to know other people’s method of separation. Im the complete opposite, but for the same reasons. Windows is a toy for me, its not a tool I’d ever willing use for productivity or business, that’s left to OSX, Linux etc. It just helps to not cross the streams, which when your job is computing and your hobbies involve computing helps, or at least I feel it does. I can’t use a nix os without it feeling like my day job. Ironically when I worked in PC repair, it was the other way around, I couldn’t bare to look at windows when I got home.
dagaci 2y ago
Since when did Mac's become the cheap option :)

by devjab 2y ago

john01dav 2y ago

The assertion that Linux needs tinkering to use is absurd. Fedora, for example, works great out of the box. Some people may choose to change a few settings in a GUI but that isn't tinkering in the way that I think that you mean it and it certainly isn't unique to Linux.

lkirkwood 2y ago
I used to feel this way but having installed Ubuntu on a friend's old laptop for him, it's crazy the amount of stuff you forget you do because it's second nature. I certainly think it's too far to say "absurd".
Aleklart 2y ago
Installing codecs, drivers (several times by different guides usually) and disabling Red Hat telemetry from command line is what user have to do to make it usable for something more than running neofetch
- TaylorAlexander 2y ago
  Since we are comparing to Windows, the "disabling Red Hat telemetry from command line" step doesn't really count, since Windows out of the box is loaded with telemetry.
  - smolder 2y ago
    Windows is practically spyware now, all they're doing with the platform is enshittification. WSL was the last "good" windows feature and it's just an Embrace Extend Extinguish play.
Simran-B 2y ago
I have to disagree to a limited extent. I recently tried to boot multiple current Linux distros from a USB stick for evaluation and all of them had issues. Fedora wasn't usable at all due to lack of space because it lost the RAM partition in the boot process and had severe graphical glitches. Ubuntu had issues with the Intel iGPU and installing drivers for the dGPU isn't possible in a live boot without persistence (and Ubuntu showed a blank error message when using the GUI for switching drivers). It also somehow managed to trigger secure boot so that I had to use a recovery key to get my data back. Zorin can download Nvidia drivers during boot and thus worked decently but the system would randomly freeze and had graphical artifacts when using the desktop cube. There were also other issues on Ubuntu and Zorin like with the permissions for bubble wrap to make Flatpaks work and so on. If it already requires tinkering before installing or with a completely fresh OS, then I find it hard to believe that desktop Linux can be a daily driver.
- walteweiss 2y ago
  [dead]
meibo 2y ago
Not sure what hardware you are doing this on, but installing Fedora 40 on my mid-range gaming PC from 2022 last month got me flickering windows (it only ships with a Wayland session) and broken sound out of the box. My screens still don't both turn on when I wake it up from sleep, if it does. If that is outside of "absurd" to you then the Linux desktop world clearly needs to keep cooking a little longer. My non-IT friends would not have been able to figure this out and I don't think they should have to.
- vladvasiliu 2y ago
  Up until a year or so ago, windows wouldn’t recognize the webcam of my hp-recommends-windows laptop. On a different laptop, it refused to output 4k@60 through the HP dock. After it started working, waking from sleep would be a coin toss whether I would get any image at all, or something garbled. I’m “IT” and had no idea how to fix these. Even installing all the provided oem drivers made no difference. A new development is Windows using the us English layout, although it’s not enabled. I have to add and remove it to fix it. Everything worked perfectly on Linux since day 1.
  - sfn42 2y ago
    Sounds more like a HP issue than a Windows issue to me.
    - amlib 2y ago
      Windows machines have the benefit of official Windows support where the integrator worked out the kinks and built-in a bunch of hacks to fix whatever half-broken things the manufacturer cobbled together. Linux machines don't usually have such affordances, you just install it on a random _Windows_ machine and hope it works. It's actually amazing it works well 90% of the time.
    - vladvasiliu 2y ago
      How's it different from meibo's post? If the hardware is well supported by the OS, everything works fine. If it's not, you're gonna have a bad time. My point is that you can't say Xos is great because it works well on this particular hardware.
bob1029 2y ago
I spent a solid 2 days trying to get Ubuntu Server working on a WRX80 threadripper machine. Never once saw the actual installation process. Day 3, I grab an image of windows server 2022. It boots instantly to the install process and just works. I know you can make Linux work, but the amount of suffering is still unbelievable compared to the alternatives in many cases. By the time I get the Linux thing figured out, I'll have forgotten about what it was I wanted to originally build. I wouldn't mind a bit of tinkering, but this is sad. I happily pay Microsoft if this is the alternative.
- smolder 2y ago
  This is such MS propaganda I'm flabbergasted. Windows is a joke OS at present day.
  - bob1029 2y ago
    How has your experience been installing Linux on the platform I described?
    - Numerlor 2y ago
      The double standards when discussing Linux are ridiculous, every issue people have with Linux must be because they're incompetent and using windows must mean you're fighting the OS every second
      - kylebenzle 2y ago
        It's not a double standard but the simple truth. It is true, if you are having a problem with Linux 9 time out of 10 it's possible it fix the problem, aka, you are the problem. My limited experience with paying for an OS means if there's a problem your just out of luck.
        bob1029 2y ago
        > you are the problem. I wonder if Linux advocates could take a small amount of ownership over the user/customer experience instead of projecting all flaws upon the user. It's an operating system. Most people aren't interested in making it their hobby or full time job.
josephg 2y ago
I use Linux mint at home. It usually works great, but it definitely needs tinkering to keep the system working. Just in the last few months: - My nvidia drivers stopped working because the drivers I had (which didn’t auto update) apparently weren’t kept up to date with the kernel (which had auto updates enabled). - My computer wouldn’t boot at all last week after I disconnected an external usb drive running zfs. It showed the logo and just kind of stalled out. I had to use a recovery grub setting to disable zfs from the boot process. This sort of routine breakage is pretty common. My rodecaster doesn’t have all its audio interfaces show up in the default audio devices list. HDMI audio broke last year from a kernel update. IntelliJ stopped scaling according to the HiDPI mode I have set up. And so on. It’s fine. It’s worth it for me. But it’s definitely less reliable than macOS or windows.
- smolder 2y ago
  > This sort of routine breakage is pretty common. Yes, the free OS is occasionally worse than the trillion dollar companies product.
  - nehal3m 2y ago
    For this audience these are inconveniences. For others it’s unusable.
    - prmoustache 2y ago
      OTOH windows OSes autosuicide themselves. On my works laptop I had initially kept the corporate windows install on the original drive and installed Fedora on a second non drive. I would fire up the windows machine once every other week for a few hours so it gets its updates. But every single time I would enter the firmware settings or boot Fedora the OS bootlocker would lock itself and force me to go to https://aka.ms/recoverykey https://aka.ms/recoverykey to get a recovery key the next time I booted windows. Until one day it started not booting even after giving the correct key. Bitlocker basically bricked itself. So don't tell me that windows is more usable. And this is even without tackling the non functionning parts of windows when it accepts to boot, like the broken keyboard for anyone not using english language that Microsoft never even tried to fix in more than 30 years. People used to laugh about a sliding date for linux to be "read for thr desktop" but windows has never been ready either.
rty32 2y ago
Nah, give me a freshly installed Windows 11, I can be productive and start actually working on things within five minutes. Give me any Linux distribution, not without an hour. I say this as a professional software engineer who works on a Linux VM 8 hours a day plus off work.
- legends2k 2y ago
  Can you give some example tasks that you do on both OSes? Just curious to know how the difference is so stark.
yonatan8070 2y ago
When I started at my current job I asked if I can install Linux on my work machine, and was relieved to hear a "yes" I then booted up Fedora KDE 40, and installed it with 0 issues or tinkering. Have been using it ever since and it has been working flawlessly.
marginalia_nu 2y ago
It really depends on what hardware you are working with. HiDPI support is more than a bit sketchy still, especially on nvidia, and especially if you attach multiple screens to the computer and don't want all of them to have the same scaling. Webcam support is also still quite sketchy. It'll work, but actually configuring the thing to e.g. select the resolution or adjust the white balance, feels like a regression to 2004.

ExoticPearTree 2y ago

Because I manage Windows based servers that run various business applications. And as it happens, when things go wrong, you want to be able to see all settings and options, not just three options that don’t help you. And don’t even get me stared about netsh… I failed to mention in the initial comment that I am refferring to Windows Server, but I got triggered by “we’re removing the lasr useful bits of Windows configuration options”.

minetest2048 2y ago
Can you expand on what they removed from Windows server? Removing options for normal users is one thing, but for sysadmins is another thing
- ExoticPearTree 2y ago
  Windows Server 2016 onwards: updates are all or nothing. The default is the new settings app and you have to be very persistent if you want Control Panel options. Everything is oversimplified and dumbed down. My example with network settings: Removing useful admin info for no reason.

hulitu 2y ago

> what I don’t understand is why anyone really wants to use Windows in 2024 I don't want to use it. I am forced by my employer.

soygem 2y ago

Tech savvy people choosing proprietary software is so sad.

Rinzler89 2y ago
"Nobody got fired for choosing IBM." It's not about being tech savvy or not, it's about self preservation and career advancements. If you're tech savvy and push for FOSS in your org then you're the one on the hook whenever that SW fails or some coworker gets it to fail because now it's YOUR responsibility. But if MS Office fails than it's not your fault, it's Microsoft's, or Crowdstrike's, or whatever $BIG_CORP you bought it from. Most people want a chill 9-5 and aren't willing to die on that hill for the sake of pushing FOSS religiousness. Martyrism isn't rewarded. You want something where you can outsource the risk to away from you, so that you can always go home early. Why do you think Google uses SAP. Do you think they can't develop their own alternative on site? But why bother?

grujicd 2y ago

> what I don’t understand is why anyone really wants to use Windows in 2024. Because I'm Windows power user (30+ years of experience) and novice on MacOS and Linux? Doesn't that count for something? It's not that alternative OSes are terrible, they're just terrible for me. I use shortcuts without thinking, I use TotalCommander all the time and no, there are no 100% replacements that I can just install and continue using with all shortcuts I'm used to. I use Home/End/PgDown/PgUp all the time, and not only that MacBook doesn't have these, it doesn't even have Delete key (opposite of backspace), which I find mind-boggling. Sorry about little rant. I'm sure people are very productive using MacOS or Linux. But I'm super productive on Windows, everything just flies without thinking. Oh, btw. I'm typing this on MacBook which is a wonderful piece of hardware, and I use it a lot, but even after a year I feel like my hands are tied behind my back when working on it. I think it's ok for a guy to have his preferences without been judged by his fellow developers. I though we're behind judging for personal preferences in 2024?

mrjin 2y ago
Same, I have been on Windows for over two decades. Now I'm migrating away. M$ pretty much broke every good things that were rock solid before.Just like you, there are something I don't have an alternative yet, so still have to hang on a bit, but I feel I might just have to bite the bullet and ditch it.
kylebenzle 2y ago
[flagged]
Retric 2y ago
The issue with that argument is Windows keeps depreciating existing functionality so old experience is worthless fairly quickly. Nobody has decades of expertise with Windows 11, at this point with how little Windows 3.11 experience still applies. Remember .ini files? Yea how relevant is that today? How about using a DOS prompt recently?
- snozolli 2y ago
  Remember .ini files? Yea how relevant is that today? AFAIK there's nothing stopping you from writing software that pulls config info from an ini file. Has something changed? Edit: I think I've edited ini files to configure video games somewhat recently. How about using a DOS prompt recently? I host my command prompt inside a 3rd party program, but I still use the Windows command prompt all the time. I think that's pretty normal for "power users" who haven't moved on to PowerShell (I use PS when I have to, but it's not my go-to).

fragmede 2y ago

Thanks for admitting you made up that statistic. Microsoft's hegemony is challenged in some areas, with Google Workspace being a credible threat. Microsoft is still dominant in some regions, but Google's made significant inroads. $16 billion to $64 billion, which works out to be 75%. As far as devices, Microsoft makes the Surface. The fact that you didn't mention it speaks volumes about how successful it has been.

bob1029 2y ago

> the smallest MacBook Air is cheap and works better than anything that runs windows. The casual computer experience on Apple is absolutely unbeatable. It's not even close. I can't stand to do anything even remotely technical on these machines though. I spend about 50/50 time on windows and apple these days. Windows for work/building & MacOS/iOS for entertainment, personal notes, kitchen internet appliance, socializing, HN, etc. I actually don't like to use HN on my windows PC (on iPhone right now). I like the mental separation between the two. I can feel my blood pressure drop when I move from my sweaty nerd workstation to my MacBook or iPhone.

philistine 2y ago
You’ve made that distinction yourself. There’s nothing inherently impossible on macOS that you can only do on Windows. They’re just different.
theshackleford 2y ago
It’s always interesting to know other people’s method of separation. Im the complete opposite, but for the same reasons. Windows is a toy for me, its not a tool I’d ever willing use for productivity or business, that’s left to OSX, Linux etc. It just helps to not cross the streams, which when your job is computing and your hobbies involve computing helps, or at least I feel it does. I can’t use a nix os without it feeling like my day job. Ironically when I worked in PC repair, it was the other way around, I couldn’t bare to look at windows when I got home.

dagaci 2y ago

Since when did Mac's become the cheap option :)