7 ms·

Windows 7 was objectively the best Windows, and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros. Why were you so desperate to flee Windows 7?

frantathefranta 2y ago
In my case (when I was 13-14 and messing with stuff) Ubuntu might as well have been the only distro I've ever heard of and my experience with Windows 7 was that it did not run as smooth and fast as Linux on my poverty spec laptop.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  I can see that. Appreciate the answer, thank you.
hnlmorg 2y ago
> objectively I don’t think you understand what objectively means. When it comes to things like this, it almost always boils down to personal preference. Which is subjective not objective.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  I think a case can be made for Windows 7 being objectively the best windows in terms of stable features, user surveys, other objective indications of user satisfaction. We could look at things like serious incidents, compatibility issues, various widespread problems, etc. Your comment implies Windows versions could not be ranked objectively, which suggests an objective criteria could not be established. I disagree.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    How do you choose which categories matter most? That’s subjective. User satisfaction and user serveys are subjective. Also the stability of features often depends on where along the life of Windows you measure. For example XP post-SP3 is a very different OS to XP pre-SP1. So how do you decide where to measure? That’s also subjective. Not to mention the subjective question about what “stable” means and how you compare stability There’s been enough arguments on HN regarding that last point alone. For example Windows 2000 has crashed fewer times for me than Windows 7. Does this mean that Windows 2000 is now “objectively” the better OS? You might argue that the sample size is too small, but who decides the sample size? Are you including or excluding specific datapoints? Of course you are, which means “better” is then defined by the sampled data (for example the power-user vs novice ratio for windows 2000 will be different to Me and 7). And thus it’s subjective again because who decides which datapoints are important and why? Are we talking about “better” for web browsing? Home server tasks? Software development? Video editing? Etc. who decides that and why? What about “better” for memory or CPU footprint? That matters more to other people. We might think that because we are making measurements that this isn’t subjective but those measurements are still a matter of personal judgement. Edit: as an aside, this is precisely why I never use absolutes in a professional capacity. It’s easy to “say X is better than Y!” but it demonstrates far more professional experience to say “it depends. Tell me what your requirements are.”
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      I find it fitting here to reassert the last point from my previous reply: Your reasoning here implies Windows versions, or any operating systems can not be ranked objectively, which suggests an objective criteria can not be established. I disagree. The approach to accomplishing that can be a discussion, but not one relevant to the point I made above - it need only be acknowledged that it is possible.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        I’m not saying operating systems cannot be ranked objectively. I’m saying the GPs statement was far far far too broad to be objective. If they said “highest rated for performance X according to Y” (where X and Y are defined measurements), then it would be an objective statement. However just saying something is “objectively the best” doesn’t make it objective.
        kennysoona 2y ago
        > I’m not saying operating systems cannot be ranked objectively. I’m saying the GPs statement was far far far too broad to be objective. > If they said “highest rated for performance X according to Y” (where X and Y are defined measurements), then it would be an objective statement. So you are saying OSes can only be compared objectively on specific features, and not in an overall capacity? > However just saying something is “objectively the best” doesn’t make it objective. True, which is why I said I believe a case could be made. This being a HN comment I'm not taking too seriously, I'm not going to put in the work to do so, I'm more interested just to see casual discussion and see people who might agree or disagree, without worrying too much about the semantics of the claim.
        hnlmorg 2y ago
        > So you are saying OSes can only be compared objectively on specific features, and not in an overall capacity? Depends. “Better” is a subjective term so if you were to discuss overall capacity objectively then you would need to explain why you arrived at that conclusion. Otherwise it’s left to interpretation (ie subjective). For example: I could make several well reasoned arguments why I consider Windows 2000 to be better. Others could do the same for XP. We are all correct for our own interpretation of “best”.
- LeFantome 2y ago
  Hard to disagree in principle. However, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 7, and Windows 10 are all crowd-rated quite a bit more favourably than Windows Vista, Windows 8, and Windows 11. So, it seems that there are objective criteria after-all.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    You’re talking about a collection here whereas the GP singled out one specific OS without any parameters describing how that judgement was made. And it’s there’s a very broad range of parameters that need to be agreed upon. Those parameters will differ from one person to another. And the fact that the GP has been downvoted in oblivion further demonstrates how others disagree with their statement. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the peer-moderation though but rather using is a datapoint to illustrate that if 7 is “objectively” the best then there shouldn’t be any room for interpretation — and yet people are interpreting “best” differently. See my other comment for examples.
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      Eh, I think the downvotes are more for questioning why someone would move to Linux (Which I wasn't questioning so much as the claim they were dying t get away from Windows) in a way that was perceived as rude rather than my ranking Windows 7 above other versions.
      - hnlmorg 2y ago
        You can try to argue that, and you might be right, however plenty still spoke up in disagreement with your ranking of Windows though. So my point still stands
        kennysoona 2y ago
        I don't see people speaking up disagreeing with W7 being the best, one guy said 10 was objectively better, but he didn't respond for us to be able to discuss. If you search best versions of windows, pretty much every single result is giving it to win7. I think that's sufficiently convincing evidence for my point. Also, in response to comment being downvoted as though that indicated something, your comment disagreeing with my first comment is more downvoted than my own, indicating more people disagree with your contention than with my ranking.
p_ing 2y ago
Nothing will be better than NT4... ...who doesn't like rebooting when re-IP'ing an interface?! Or maybe 2000... ...because the dropshadow cursor rocked! (And Slackware on the Linux side) There will never be a 'best' OS. They're all constantly improving in one way or another. Whether you appreciate the improvement or not, that's subjective.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  Slackware was great, but I think Alpine is an improvement in every way. Just speaking as a former loyal Slackware user of 7 years or so.
  - LeFantome 2y ago
    Interesting that you see Alpine as the next step after Slackware.
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      I couldn't defend it as such in a general sense, but the reason I always liked Slackware was minimalism. It never had that as an explicit goal, but it was for a long time a distro great for people who wanted minimal systems, without any 'wizards' to get in the way. It kind of lost it's way trying to comepte with things like Ubuntu though. Alpine is so much better from a minimalist point of view (a functional minimal desktop install is only 700mb, while on Void, Devuan and Gentoo it's about double that), and that it has security as a priority at the forefront is icing on the cake.
      - p_ing 2y ago
        I like Slack from a purity of Linux perspective, or at least 'early days of Linux' perspective. Alpine is busybox, so that goes right out :-(
        kennysoona 2y ago
        Alpine is only busybox until you apk add coreutils
dsego 2y ago
Not sure what was so great about win 7. But maybe there is something I missed, because I also started using Ubuntu at that time and then MacOS. From a bystander perspective Win 7 just seemed like a vista plus. Ubuntu was a breath of fresh air at the time, it genuinely seemed like they were going to bring desktop linux to the masses... and it had compiz! But this was before canonical started taking a less practical approach and reinventing everything.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  It was a much needed advancement from XP, and smoothed over all the rough edges that Vista had. It was incredibly stable, the Aero Glass interface was pretty, low resources and non-distracting. It also allowed you to configure updates and, importantly, only choose to receive security updates, something removed in later versions. Windows 10 and 11 have telemetry and stability issues, don't respect user choices, force software on people, force updates and reboots, and have an interface mixed with 3 different frameworks - for starters.
- Moto7451 2y ago
  Win 7 was in many ways a Vista- where a lot of things people didn’t like were removed. The same sort of joy would be seen online if Windows 12 puts the start menu back on the left side. Sometimes it isn’t a huge change that makes people happy.
  - p_ing 2y ago
    Win 11 2H24 allows you to put the menu on the left. And yes, it made people happy.
- LeFantome 2y ago
  Windows 7 was as fancy as Vista and as snappy as XP (though more memory heavy). You can only understand why Windows 7 was so loved if you relied on it and tried Vista before and Windows 8 after. Vista made hardware absolutely crawl when it was new. Windows 8 was a UX disaster. In comparison, Windows 7 was fast and functional. I guess you have to compare 7 to XP as well as the other option was to stay on XP forever. Windows 7 had a lot of improvements over XP though, most natively being 64 bit. So, the big difference between XP and 7 was modern software. Other than the telemetry, Windows 10 was objectively better than 7. Although they did add a lot of bloat on top of 10 over time.
yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
> and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros Today Ubuntu has a poor reputation in some of the userbase. Back then, it was much more universally liked.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  I remember a lot of positive reception because a lot of stuff worked out of the box, but that was at the cost of stability, because they made things work like shipping unstable versions of pulseaudio. So I had the impression it was a mixed bag, then got a better reputation as the software continued to improve, then continued to go downhill pretty much ever since Unity.
znpy 2y ago
The best windows is still a shitty operating system. Linux was just snappier, quicker. Like, noticeably so. And it was also way cooler. I don't use windows nowadays, but at the time the GNU/Linux desktop was lightyears ahead. Compiz, beryl and all the crazy 3d madness of the time were just cool. It was an exciting time to use GNU/Linux on the desktop, and Canonical was a visionary company. Such times have not come back so far, it all looks so dull and dead right now when compared to those times.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  > The best windows is still a shitty operating system. > Linux was just snappier, quicker. Like, noticeably so. Eh, that seem like zealotry. Bechmarks could be mixed and both had advantages. > And it was also way cooler. For tech geeks that liked playing with tech, absolutely.
  - trelane 2y ago
    "How could you possibly leave Windows for Linux?!" also smacks of zealotry.
    - kennysoona 2y ago
      If you paraphrase to remove context and qualifiers it does, sure.
      - trelane 2y ago
        Reminds me strongly of https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/our-blessed-homeland-their-barbarous-wastes https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/our-blessed-homeland-their-ba...
        kennysoona 2y ago
        That's weird, it doesn't seem relevant in the slightest.
  - 2y ago
trelane 2y ago
> Why were you so desperate to flee Windows 7? Well, let's look at your statements: > Windows 7 was objectively the best Windows, and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros. You have two statements: one about the distribution of "goodness" as a function of Windows versions, and another about the distribution of "goodness" as a function of Linux distros. So, logically, the question to answer if we want to get at your question is: how does the distribution of "goodness" compare across Linux and Windows? Perhaps their answer might differ from yours. :)

frantathefranta 2y ago

In my case (when I was 13-14 and messing with stuff) Ubuntu might as well have been the only distro I've ever heard of and my experience with Windows 7 was that it did not run as smooth and fast as Linux on my poverty spec laptop.

kennysoona 2y ago
I can see that. Appreciate the answer, thank you.

hnlmorg 2y ago

> objectively I don’t think you understand what objectively means. When it comes to things like this, it almost always boils down to personal preference. Which is subjective not objective.

kennysoona 2y ago
I think a case can be made for Windows 7 being objectively the best windows in terms of stable features, user surveys, other objective indications of user satisfaction. We could look at things like serious incidents, compatibility issues, various widespread problems, etc. Your comment implies Windows versions could not be ranked objectively, which suggests an objective criteria could not be established. I disagree.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  How do you choose which categories matter most? That’s subjective. User satisfaction and user serveys are subjective. Also the stability of features often depends on where along the life of Windows you measure. For example XP post-SP3 is a very different OS to XP pre-SP1. So how do you decide where to measure? That’s also subjective. Not to mention the subjective question about what “stable” means and how you compare stability There’s been enough arguments on HN regarding that last point alone. For example Windows 2000 has crashed fewer times for me than Windows 7. Does this mean that Windows 2000 is now “objectively” the better OS? You might argue that the sample size is too small, but who decides the sample size? Are you including or excluding specific datapoints? Of course you are, which means “better” is then defined by the sampled data (for example the power-user vs novice ratio for windows 2000 will be different to Me and 7). And thus it’s subjective again because who decides which datapoints are important and why? Are we talking about “better” for web browsing? Home server tasks? Software development? Video editing? Etc. who decides that and why? What about “better” for memory or CPU footprint? That matters more to other people. We might think that because we are making measurements that this isn’t subjective but those measurements are still a matter of personal judgement. Edit: as an aside, this is precisely why I never use absolutes in a professional capacity. It’s easy to “say X is better than Y!” but it demonstrates far more professional experience to say “it depends. Tell me what your requirements are.”
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    I find it fitting here to reassert the last point from my previous reply: Your reasoning here implies Windows versions, or any operating systems can not be ranked objectively, which suggests an objective criteria can not be established. I disagree. The approach to accomplishing that can be a discussion, but not one relevant to the point I made above - it need only be acknowledged that it is possible.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      I’m not saying operating systems cannot be ranked objectively. I’m saying the GPs statement was far far far too broad to be objective. If they said “highest rated for performance X according to Y” (where X and Y are defined measurements), then it would be an objective statement. However just saying something is “objectively the best” doesn’t make it objective.
      - kennysoona 2y ago
        > I’m not saying operating systems cannot be ranked objectively. I’m saying the GPs statement was far far far too broad to be objective. > If they said “highest rated for performance X according to Y” (where X and Y are defined measurements), then it would be an objective statement. So you are saying OSes can only be compared objectively on specific features, and not in an overall capacity? > However just saying something is “objectively the best” doesn’t make it objective. True, which is why I said I believe a case could be made. This being a HN comment I'm not taking too seriously, I'm not going to put in the work to do so, I'm more interested just to see casual discussion and see people who might agree or disagree, without worrying too much about the semantics of the claim.
        hnlmorg 2y ago
        > So you are saying OSes can only be compared objectively on specific features, and not in an overall capacity? Depends. “Better” is a subjective term so if you were to discuss overall capacity objectively then you would need to explain why you arrived at that conclusion. Otherwise it’s left to interpretation (ie subjective). For example: I could make several well reasoned arguments why I consider Windows 2000 to be better. Others could do the same for XP. We are all correct for our own interpretation of “best”.
LeFantome 2y ago
Hard to disagree in principle. However, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 7, and Windows 10 are all crowd-rated quite a bit more favourably than Windows Vista, Windows 8, and Windows 11. So, it seems that there are objective criteria after-all.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  You’re talking about a collection here whereas the GP singled out one specific OS without any parameters describing how that judgement was made. And it’s there’s a very broad range of parameters that need to be agreed upon. Those parameters will differ from one person to another. And the fact that the GP has been downvoted in oblivion further demonstrates how others disagree with their statement. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the peer-moderation though but rather using is a datapoint to illustrate that if 7 is “objectively” the best then there shouldn’t be any room for interpretation — and yet people are interpreting “best” differently. See my other comment for examples.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    Eh, I think the downvotes are more for questioning why someone would move to Linux (Which I wasn't questioning so much as the claim they were dying t get away from Windows) in a way that was perceived as rude rather than my ranking Windows 7 above other versions.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      You can try to argue that, and you might be right, however plenty still spoke up in disagreement with your ranking of Windows though. So my point still stands
      - kennysoona 2y ago
        I don't see people speaking up disagreeing with W7 being the best, one guy said 10 was objectively better, but he didn't respond for us to be able to discuss. If you search best versions of windows, pretty much every single result is giving it to win7. I think that's sufficiently convincing evidence for my point. Also, in response to comment being downvoted as though that indicated something, your comment disagreeing with my first comment is more downvoted than my own, indicating more people disagree with your contention than with my ranking.

p_ing 2y ago

Nothing will be better than NT4... ...who doesn't like rebooting when re-IP'ing an interface?! Or maybe 2000... ...because the dropshadow cursor rocked! (And Slackware on the Linux side) There will never be a 'best' OS. They're all constantly improving in one way or another. Whether you appreciate the improvement or not, that's subjective.

kennysoona 2y ago
Slackware was great, but I think Alpine is an improvement in every way. Just speaking as a former loyal Slackware user of 7 years or so.
- LeFantome 2y ago
  Interesting that you see Alpine as the next step after Slackware.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    I couldn't defend it as such in a general sense, but the reason I always liked Slackware was minimalism. It never had that as an explicit goal, but it was for a long time a distro great for people who wanted minimal systems, without any 'wizards' to get in the way. It kind of lost it's way trying to comepte with things like Ubuntu though. Alpine is so much better from a minimalist point of view (a functional minimal desktop install is only 700mb, while on Void, Devuan and Gentoo it's about double that), and that it has security as a priority at the forefront is icing on the cake.
    - p_ing 2y ago
      I like Slack from a purity of Linux perspective, or at least 'early days of Linux' perspective. Alpine is busybox, so that goes right out :-(
      - kennysoona 2y ago
        Alpine is only busybox until you apk add coreutils

dsego 2y ago

Not sure what was so great about win 7. But maybe there is something I missed, because I also started using Ubuntu at that time and then MacOS. From a bystander perspective Win 7 just seemed like a vista plus. Ubuntu was a breath of fresh air at the time, it genuinely seemed like they were going to bring desktop linux to the masses... and it had compiz! But this was before canonical started taking a less practical approach and reinventing everything.

kennysoona 2y ago
It was a much needed advancement from XP, and smoothed over all the rough edges that Vista had. It was incredibly stable, the Aero Glass interface was pretty, low resources and non-distracting. It also allowed you to configure updates and, importantly, only choose to receive security updates, something removed in later versions. Windows 10 and 11 have telemetry and stability issues, don't respect user choices, force software on people, force updates and reboots, and have an interface mixed with 3 different frameworks - for starters.
Moto7451 2y ago
Win 7 was in many ways a Vista- where a lot of things people didn’t like were removed. The same sort of joy would be seen online if Windows 12 puts the start menu back on the left side. Sometimes it isn’t a huge change that makes people happy.
- p_ing 2y ago
  Win 11 2H24 allows you to put the menu on the left. And yes, it made people happy.
LeFantome 2y ago
Windows 7 was as fancy as Vista and as snappy as XP (though more memory heavy). You can only understand why Windows 7 was so loved if you relied on it and tried Vista before and Windows 8 after. Vista made hardware absolutely crawl when it was new. Windows 8 was a UX disaster. In comparison, Windows 7 was fast and functional. I guess you have to compare 7 to XP as well as the other option was to stay on XP forever. Windows 7 had a lot of improvements over XP though, most natively being 64 bit. So, the big difference between XP and 7 was modern software. Other than the telemetry, Windows 10 was objectively better than 7. Although they did add a lot of bloat on top of 10 over time.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago

> and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros Today Ubuntu has a poor reputation in some of the userbase. Back then, it was much more universally liked.

kennysoona 2y ago
I remember a lot of positive reception because a lot of stuff worked out of the box, but that was at the cost of stability, because they made things work like shipping unstable versions of pulseaudio. So I had the impression it was a mixed bag, then got a better reputation as the software continued to improve, then continued to go downhill pretty much ever since Unity.

znpy 2y ago

The best windows is still a shitty operating system. Linux was just snappier, quicker. Like, noticeably so. And it was also way cooler. I don't use windows nowadays, but at the time the GNU/Linux desktop was lightyears ahead. Compiz, beryl and all the crazy 3d madness of the time were just cool. It was an exciting time to use GNU/Linux on the desktop, and Canonical was a visionary company. Such times have not come back so far, it all looks so dull and dead right now when compared to those times.

kennysoona 2y ago
> The best windows is still a shitty operating system. > Linux was just snappier, quicker. Like, noticeably so. Eh, that seem like zealotry. Bechmarks could be mixed and both had advantages. > And it was also way cooler. For tech geeks that liked playing with tech, absolutely.
- trelane 2y ago
  "How could you possibly leave Windows for Linux?!" also smacks of zealotry.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    If you paraphrase to remove context and qualifiers it does, sure.
    - trelane 2y ago
      Reminds me strongly of https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/our-blessed-homeland-their-barbarous-wastes https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/our-blessed-homeland-their-ba...
      - kennysoona 2y ago
        That's weird, it doesn't seem relevant in the slightest.
- 2y ago

trelane 2y ago

> Why were you so desperate to flee Windows 7? Well, let's look at your statements: > Windows 7 was objectively the best Windows, and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros. You have two statements: one about the distribution of "goodness" as a function of Windows versions, and another about the distribution of "goodness" as a function of Linux distros. So, logically, the question to answer if we want to get at your question is: how does the distribution of "goodness" compare across Linux and Windows? Perhaps their answer might differ from yours. :)