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As someone forced to use a Windows laptop for work with the new job, I've stopped complaining about my Mac. It's so much worse on the other side of the fence..

As someone forced to use a Windows laptop for work with the new job, I've stopped complaining about my Mac. It's so much worse on the other side of the fence... Working on Windows makes me appreciate the Mac ecosystem so, so, so very much.

ein0p 2y ago
Yeah. Apple doesn't have to run faster than the bear. It only needs to run faster than the next guy. Which, as it turns out, is not that hard to do.
mastercheif 2y ago
I work at a 90% Windows shop. Obviously major benefits to being on the "main platform". I tried using a Windows laptop for my first two months. I couldn't do it.
enlightenedfool 2y ago
What exactly did you find so much worse in windows?
- jamesy0ung 2y ago
  The built-in bloatware (LinkedIn, TikTok, Clipchamp, etc.), the constant nagging (like full-screen reminders to buy Office 365 to "protect" your PC), Edge is basically forced on you. MSVC has insane licensing terms — you can’t use it outside of Visual Studio or VS Code, not to mention it's lacking support for C. Windows seems actively user and developer hostile. Beyond that, Windows' architecture is a mess, I hate it (There's a reason Microsoft has to ship WSL2). macOS runs all of my tools fine, just like Linux does.
  - jimbob45 2y ago
    Why use MSVC at all? You can hook up alternative compilers to both VS and VSC with ease.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      What’s windows bringing to the table at that point?
  - Loranubi 2y ago
    I hate Win11. It is horrible, but the first few points don't really make sense. I use it in 2 environments. - enterprise version: no bloatware, no ads, and edge is there but never has to be used for anything - professional version: bloatware is uninstalled in like 2min after OS install, another 2min later all ads are disabled. And it usually stays like that after updates too. Edge is never used at all. Windows architecture is great. the WinAPI is better documented and more comprehensive than anything on Linux or Mac. There are so many other issues. - The file explorer gets slower and more broken with each update. context menus randomly don't show, or take literally 30 seconds to load. - The renderer crashes randomly once a week (it's not a huge issue, but the screen goes black for 10 seconds or so) - the settings dialog is bad. goes through like 5 different layers of Windows generations and recently makes the old dialogs hard to find but doesn't offer adequate replacements (looking at network and sound) - and much more...
    - genewitch 2y ago
      I uploaded a video because no one can show me this alleged slowness or context menu stuff, it's all "vibes" and it is getting ridiculous on hackernews. I have a huge problem with windows - some api uses "@" for something, so all my folders with @ in the name(it sorts alphabetically before everything and is easy to type - on macos it's option-8 for similar, Linux I use @ as well) and because of that Windows API most applications crasb if you last saved into a path with @ in it and do file->open. Notepad++, notepad.exe, handbrake, VLC, mplayer, and so on. Its a frustration, but it is my fault for developing a stupid habit back before metadata or changing colors of folers or what ever exists now to force an arbitrary sort order. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx_t8SUwrEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx_t8SUwrEk
- stephen_g 2y ago
  Not the OP, but one thing I've run into is that I've had three or four Windows installs (both Windows 11 and Windows 10) just fail to upgrade - one of them new upgrades just stopped showing up, I had to install an 'enablement package' and that fixed it but there was literally no warning or instructions of what to do, I just had to Google it when I noticed I wasn't getting updates. The others just failed with random hexadecimal error codes, again I had to Google to try and work out what was going on. With one of them I had to use the command line and diskpart etc. to expand the recovery partition because apparently the default size when I'd made that Windows 10 install was no longer big enough, and Windows Update couldn't work this out (the error code from the failure was nondescript, took ages to find out what was actually wrong) and couldn't fix it. Had to do it manually in Powershell. Another one I think might have fixed by running sfc and dism recovery commands in the command line, again it would be nice if Windows could work this out itself!
  - jamesy0ung 2y ago
    To be fair, macOS isn't much better in this regard, the error codes can be quite cryptic, for example what is a -2003F. For some reason, a game I play called DCS can be buggy and I've been told by the support to sfc /scannow and dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth. For some reason on every install of Windows 11 I've ever done, it always picks up tons of broken files. This is installing using the latest at the time Microsoft ISO. I've had this issue on multiple different systems, a modern gaming pc, a Mac with bootcamp, an older Lenovo M93p and when installing inside VMWare or KVM. I do get less application and operating system crashes on a Mac though.
- cosmic_cheese 2y ago
  With every Windows release since 8, it feels more and more like the OS is actively antagonistic towards the user. This has come to a peak with Windows 11. Not too long ago I booted up an old laptop and put a fresh install of Windows 7 on it for kicks. Amazing how much of a breath of fresh air that was.
webdever 2y ago
As someone who works on both I don't notice a difference. Mac sucks just as much as Windows (or visa versa). There's things each does better and things each does worse.
- michaelt 2y ago
  Once people start saying "forced to use [...] for work" you've got to analyse platforms from a different angle. Namely: How good is this platform after Corporate IT cheaps out on hardware, and loads as much 'security' crapware as possible? On Windows, there are incredibly cheap laptops available, and corporate IT has loads of crapware like antivirus and crowdstrike and profiles and enterprise endpoint management to slow it down. On Mac, there aren't any cheap hardware options, and there's a medium amount of "security" crapware. On Linux, corporate IT let you manage it yourself, because they don't know how to. They can't develop the skills either, because anyone who can manage Linux gets promoted out the set-up-new-users-laptops department.
  - wl 2y ago
    Or at some point, corporate IT bans desktop Linux because they can’t manage it.
    - userbinator 2y ago
      Linux users then start using Windows VMs to contain the worst of it.
  - thebytefairy 2y ago
    Great point. I use both Mac and windows. Love my windows pc, but I have certainly used corporate windows laptops that make me want to throw them out the window - minutes to boot, minutes to open anything, etc. between Mac and windows, they've each got their pros and cons but nothing that would make me choose one over the other.
- ABCpickD 2y ago
  The answer with any discussion of this nature is to immediately disregard any and all answer that doesn't come in, unprompted, with an explanation. Which is about 90% of the comments here. Not a joke. I have counted 18 and see only 2 with specific gripes. Worthless comment section. (Sorry, but I did include yours too) I was 16 when I first met the first big "Mac is better than Windows" argument in person. I asked why, and they mentioned a number of things that didn't feel relevant to the people at the table, but the one that stood out was a particular feature that was indeed quite useful. Well, I didn't know how to respond at the time, but as soon as I got home, I checked with windows and the feature was right there. I don't think they were wrong for their preference. In fact, back then there was a lot of major differences in the workflow for these OS that isn't as big nowadays, specially if you're someone who can actually use google for more than 20 seconds. But the interaction proved to me the importance of being able to back your stance, because, if you don't, you may as well be just another 16 year old idiot with 0 technical or practical knowledge of the stuff that dictated your preference. They don't learn how to resolve their problems with them either, if they hide the reasons from others. So, again, worthless - take up screen space that could have better comments, while informing nothing and helping no one.
forrestthewoods 2y ago
Windows is great. Windows laptops are universally garbage.
- dismalaf 2y ago
  They become a lot better when you install Linux.
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
    As someone who makes video games in C++ I’m going to have to disrespectfully disagree. But I will admit that SteamDeck is great. It’s deeply ironic that the best API for Linux gaming is Win32.
    - dismalaf 2y ago
      So what's actually better about Windows? Other than the fact some legacy software still runs on it... Because for developing, say, financial apps in C++, Linux is much, much better IMO.
      - forrestthewoods 2y ago
        Better profilers (Superluminal). Better debuggers (Visual Studio). Linux package managers are an abomination and a failed model. As evidenced by Docker being required both to reliable build and reliably run modern software. glibc is an abomination of bad design ideas from the 80s. Compilers relying on whatever random ass version of a .so you have is broken AF. The fact that you can’t target an arbitrarily version of glibc or runtime environment is an embarrassment. Once upon a time I shipped a popular-ish game with Linux support. 1% of Linux users represented 50% of bug reports. And no it’s not because Linux players were more reliable at reporting Linux issues. It has been a few years, but supporting more than SteamDeck is likely similar. At least for non-proton builds.
        genewitch 2y ago
dandellion 2y ago
I know the feeling. I'm forced to use a Mac laptop for work, and it's really made me appreciate Linux.
- mfer 2y ago
  Which distro do you use? I've run a mac and Linux laptop and the Linux setup keeps sending me back to Mac.
  - lurk2 2y ago
    I set up Mint for a friend a few years ago and it took me about an hour never having done it before. What did you find difficult about it?
  - abnercoimbre 2y ago
    Please try a distro [0] maintained by a company making their own Linux laptops. [0] https://pop.system76.com/ https://pop.system76.com/
  - bigyabai 2y ago
    NixOS, for me. I deal with a lot of wild development environments, so flakes + direnv has probably saved me hundreds of hours and a few system reinstalls. Nix is also availible for Mac, but I'll warn you that it may ruin Macports and brew for you forever.
    - notnmeyer 2y ago
      can confirm. nix + home-manager has been the configuration and dotfiles solution i’d been searching for. it’s not flawless, but its strengths outweigh the weaknesses. i still need homebrew for casks, but that’s fine.
  - xedrac 2y ago
    I run Fedora these days. Ubuntu is the worst.
    - 2y ago
paxys 2y ago
Compare the median sale price of a Windows laptop vs Mac. The qualify bar should be significantly higher for anything with an Apple logo on it just to justify the price tag.
gonzo41 2y ago
I just spin up a ubuntu server vm and use it as my dev machine. VScode remote is pretty solid these days.
- skydhash 2y ago
  I use my mac as a on the go computer for work (it's really light, and proprietary software works always), but I have a linux VM that I sync the needed project on it before I go out. If I have to use containers for extra services (DB,...) I may as well use a VM I can configure as I like.
WD-42 2y ago
There's more than 2 sides to the fence. Desktop Linux is actually awesome, even better if you are even remotely technical.
kibwen 2y ago
I'm forced to use Apple and Microsoft products at work regularly. They're all so much worse than desktop Linux that it's not even funny.
- scarab92 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jensensbutton 2y ago
    Presumably their experience.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      You can’t just experience the world and then talk about it. We need sources to back up all our opinions nowadays.
- bigyabai 2y ago
  This is exactly what happens to me. I get the company laptop, think "maybe Linux isn't that great anymore... how is modern FAANG handling things?" Then the ads come in, and any of my doubts evaporate instantly. The home PC runs NixOS, it's been that way for 6 years now and it will probably remain that way until the advertising glut is satiated. Even then, it won't be easy getting me to switch away from desktop Linux.
  - starfezzy 2y ago
    Linux is nice if, like nixos users, you want to spend hundreds of hours over several years writing every QoL feature totally custom for your unique use case. For me, Mac is 99% of what I liked about Linux, and there is ALWAYS an existing QoL solution—usually reasonably polished—for everything it lacks. Windows has none of the benefits ofLinux, none of Homebrew or even the AUR, a tiny fraction of the QoL third party features from Mac (usually unpolished)—to say nothing of the first party QoL features—plus the hardware is comically bad. Diving board trackpads are normal on $3k windows machines in 2025, 500nits displays, whistling fans on about 17 high-end laptops I tried in the past 6 months. Truly the worst experience imaginable. Abominable, even.
burnte 2y ago
None are actually better than any other, they're al great but fir different types of users and what they value.
nikolay 2y ago
That's not true and your opinion is subjective. Windows 11 is a great developer platform.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  How can their opinion be both “not true” and subjective? Windows 11 might be an ok developer platform though (does Cygwin still work?)
  - hu3 2y ago
    Use WSL2 so you get best of both worlds. Windows, an OS that's compatible with almost all hardware and devices. Linux on WSL2, an OS which is probably the best for most work.
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      If you have some hardware that only works with Windows I guess I can see some value there.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - nikolay 2y ago
    It's not true, because it's subjective. For many years, Windows has had WSL and now it's the second generation WSL2 and you can run graphical Linux even without a VM. It has a decent package manager out of the box, a great open-source terminal. Containers and VMs are also available out of the box. Windows also has a developers' hub, which allows you to install toolchains easily, including IDEs such as VS Code. Meanwhile, macOS comes with its own version of CLI tools such as find, which have quite different parameters than Linux, it doesn't have a package manager, when I install an app on my iPhone, it somehow decides that I want to install it on my macOS, too, etc. And I won't even mention how poor the menubar is! I have at least 10 apps I need to install to make macOS usable - PopClip, Moom, Bartender, etc., while the Windows equivalent for things like Dock and menubar are working pretty well, including notifications - I've accidentally have clicked so many times on notification banners, covering my scroll bar or window controls. Not to mention that so many times I'm typing something in window, which has my input focus, then another window pops up, steals my input focus, and I end up trying parts of my password in the wrong window due to that! There are so many things wrong with macOS, Apple doesn't really care to improve it, and the System Settings is growing out of control! Windows' settings are much better organized! And, yes, macOS freezes and crashes not less frequently than Windows. In fact, I haven't had any such issues with a heavily constrained Windows 11, running in VMware Fusion! Also, Windows now has a free equivalent of the paid CleanMyMac app, and it works pretty well. Not to mention the free security software. But even with CleanMyMac, uninstalling software leads to tons of junk all over the place.
Salgat 2y ago
With official linux support on Windows, I really love developing on Windows, it's the best of both worlds. Mac on the other hand feels like a second hand citizen to both linux and windows depending on what you're doing.
stronglikedan 2y ago
As someone who wants to be productive at work, I chose Windows over Mac and Linux. Thankfully I had a choice.
rf15 2y ago
Any system you have deep knowledge and experience with makes all the others look like garbage, because you don't know the right menus, can't intuit what you are trying to do and don't know the right workarounds/what the designers intended. As someone who uses MacOS, Windows and Linux on the regular, let me just say, uh... man, Solaris is pretty bad!
chamomeal 2y ago
I helped my little brother put together a gaming PC a few years ago. Before that, I hadn’t even touched a windows computer in a very long time. I was blown away by how difficult and opaque everything was. I’m sure a lot of it was just unfamiliarity, but a lot of it definitely was not. I actually could not believe how hard of a time I had
lurk2 2y ago
I've had the same experience. MacOS had lots of features intended to make it friendly for casual users, which made it a pain when you wanted to modify it, but if you wanted to modify something, you generally could; it just took some extra steps compared to Windows 7. By contrast, I spent an hour figuring out how to uninstall Edge on Windows 10 this afternoon, and I suspect it's going to reinstall after the next update like all of the other bloatware did.
cryptozeus 2y ago
100% ever since I switched to design and no longer using windows, I forgot what blue screen of death looks like :D
pjmlp 2y ago
Ironically, I have the reverse opinion.

ein0p 2y ago

Yeah. Apple doesn't have to run faster than the bear. It only needs to run faster than the next guy. Which, as it turns out, is not that hard to do.

mastercheif 2y ago

I work at a 90% Windows shop. Obviously major benefits to being on the "main platform". I tried using a Windows laptop for my first two months. I couldn't do it.

enlightenedfool 2y ago

What exactly did you find so much worse in windows?

jamesy0ung 2y ago
The built-in bloatware (LinkedIn, TikTok, Clipchamp, etc.), the constant nagging (like full-screen reminders to buy Office 365 to "protect" your PC), Edge is basically forced on you. MSVC has insane licensing terms — you can’t use it outside of Visual Studio or VS Code, not to mention it's lacking support for C. Windows seems actively user and developer hostile. Beyond that, Windows' architecture is a mess, I hate it (There's a reason Microsoft has to ship WSL2). macOS runs all of my tools fine, just like Linux does.
- jimbob45 2y ago
  Why use MSVC at all? You can hook up alternative compilers to both VS and VSC with ease.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    What’s windows bringing to the table at that point?
- Loranubi 2y ago
  I hate Win11. It is horrible, but the first few points don't really make sense. I use it in 2 environments. - enterprise version: no bloatware, no ads, and edge is there but never has to be used for anything - professional version: bloatware is uninstalled in like 2min after OS install, another 2min later all ads are disabled. And it usually stays like that after updates too. Edge is never used at all. Windows architecture is great. the WinAPI is better documented and more comprehensive than anything on Linux or Mac. There are so many other issues. - The file explorer gets slower and more broken with each update. context menus randomly don't show, or take literally 30 seconds to load. - The renderer crashes randomly once a week (it's not a huge issue, but the screen goes black for 10 seconds or so) - the settings dialog is bad. goes through like 5 different layers of Windows generations and recently makes the old dialogs hard to find but doesn't offer adequate replacements (looking at network and sound) - and much more...
  - genewitch 2y ago
    I uploaded a video because no one can show me this alleged slowness or context menu stuff, it's all "vibes" and it is getting ridiculous on hackernews. I have a huge problem with windows - some api uses "@" for something, so all my folders with @ in the name(it sorts alphabetically before everything and is easy to type - on macos it's option-8 for similar, Linux I use @ as well) and because of that Windows API most applications crasb if you last saved into a path with @ in it and do file->open. Notepad++, notepad.exe, handbrake, VLC, mplayer, and so on. Its a frustration, but it is my fault for developing a stupid habit back before metadata or changing colors of folers or what ever exists now to force an arbitrary sort order. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx_t8SUwrEk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx_t8SUwrEk
stephen_g 2y ago
Not the OP, but one thing I've run into is that I've had three or four Windows installs (both Windows 11 and Windows 10) just fail to upgrade - one of them new upgrades just stopped showing up, I had to install an 'enablement package' and that fixed it but there was literally no warning or instructions of what to do, I just had to Google it when I noticed I wasn't getting updates. The others just failed with random hexadecimal error codes, again I had to Google to try and work out what was going on. With one of them I had to use the command line and diskpart etc. to expand the recovery partition because apparently the default size when I'd made that Windows 10 install was no longer big enough, and Windows Update couldn't work this out (the error code from the failure was nondescript, took ages to find out what was actually wrong) and couldn't fix it. Had to do it manually in Powershell. Another one I think might have fixed by running sfc and dism recovery commands in the command line, again it would be nice if Windows could work this out itself!
- jamesy0ung 2y ago
  To be fair, macOS isn't much better in this regard, the error codes can be quite cryptic, for example what is a -2003F. For some reason, a game I play called DCS can be buggy and I've been told by the support to sfc /scannow and dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth. For some reason on every install of Windows 11 I've ever done, it always picks up tons of broken files. This is installing using the latest at the time Microsoft ISO. I've had this issue on multiple different systems, a modern gaming pc, a Mac with bootcamp, an older Lenovo M93p and when installing inside VMWare or KVM. I do get less application and operating system crashes on a Mac though.
cosmic_cheese 2y ago
With every Windows release since 8, it feels more and more like the OS is actively antagonistic towards the user. This has come to a peak with Windows 11. Not too long ago I booted up an old laptop and put a fresh install of Windows 7 on it for kicks. Amazing how much of a breath of fresh air that was.

webdever 2y ago

As someone who works on both I don't notice a difference. Mac sucks just as much as Windows (or visa versa). There's things each does better and things each does worse.

michaelt 2y ago
Once people start saying "forced to use [...] for work" you've got to analyse platforms from a different angle. Namely: How good is this platform after Corporate IT cheaps out on hardware, and loads as much 'security' crapware as possible? On Windows, there are incredibly cheap laptops available, and corporate IT has loads of crapware like antivirus and crowdstrike and profiles and enterprise endpoint management to slow it down. On Mac, there aren't any cheap hardware options, and there's a medium amount of "security" crapware. On Linux, corporate IT let you manage it yourself, because they don't know how to. They can't develop the skills either, because anyone who can manage Linux gets promoted out the set-up-new-users-laptops department.
- wl 2y ago
  Or at some point, corporate IT bans desktop Linux because they can’t manage it.
  - userbinator 2y ago
    Linux users then start using Windows VMs to contain the worst of it.
- thebytefairy 2y ago
  Great point. I use both Mac and windows. Love my windows pc, but I have certainly used corporate windows laptops that make me want to throw them out the window - minutes to boot, minutes to open anything, etc. between Mac and windows, they've each got their pros and cons but nothing that would make me choose one over the other.
ABCpickD 2y ago
The answer with any discussion of this nature is to immediately disregard any and all answer that doesn't come in, unprompted, with an explanation. Which is about 90% of the comments here. Not a joke. I have counted 18 and see only 2 with specific gripes. Worthless comment section. (Sorry, but I did include yours too) I was 16 when I first met the first big "Mac is better than Windows" argument in person. I asked why, and they mentioned a number of things that didn't feel relevant to the people at the table, but the one that stood out was a particular feature that was indeed quite useful. Well, I didn't know how to respond at the time, but as soon as I got home, I checked with windows and the feature was right there. I don't think they were wrong for their preference. In fact, back then there was a lot of major differences in the workflow for these OS that isn't as big nowadays, specially if you're someone who can actually use google for more than 20 seconds. But the interaction proved to me the importance of being able to back your stance, because, if you don't, you may as well be just another 16 year old idiot with 0 technical or practical knowledge of the stuff that dictated your preference. They don't learn how to resolve their problems with them either, if they hide the reasons from others. So, again, worthless - take up screen space that could have better comments, while informing nothing and helping no one.

forrestthewoods 2y ago

Windows is great. Windows laptops are universally garbage.

dismalaf 2y ago
They become a lot better when you install Linux.
- forrestthewoods 2y ago
  As someone who makes video games in C++ I’m going to have to disrespectfully disagree. But I will admit that SteamDeck is great. It’s deeply ironic that the best API for Linux gaming is Win32.
  - dismalaf 2y ago
    So what's actually better about Windows? Other than the fact some legacy software still runs on it... Because for developing, say, financial apps in C++, Linux is much, much better IMO.
    - forrestthewoods 2y ago
      Better profilers (Superluminal). Better debuggers (Visual Studio). Linux package managers are an abomination and a failed model. As evidenced by Docker being required both to reliable build and reliably run modern software. glibc is an abomination of bad design ideas from the 80s. Compilers relying on whatever random ass version of a .so you have is broken AF. The fact that you can’t target an arbitrarily version of glibc or runtime environment is an embarrassment. Once upon a time I shipped a popular-ish game with Linux support. 1% of Linux users represented 50% of bug reports. And no it’s not because Linux players were more reliable at reporting Linux issues. It has been a few years, but supporting more than SteamDeck is likely similar. At least for non-proton builds.
      - genewitch 2y ago

dandellion 2y ago

I know the feeling. I'm forced to use a Mac laptop for work, and it's really made me appreciate Linux.

mfer 2y ago
Which distro do you use? I've run a mac and Linux laptop and the Linux setup keeps sending me back to Mac.
- lurk2 2y ago
  I set up Mint for a friend a few years ago and it took me about an hour never having done it before. What did you find difficult about it?
- abnercoimbre 2y ago
  Please try a distro [0] maintained by a company making their own Linux laptops. [0] https://pop.system76.com/ https://pop.system76.com/
- bigyabai 2y ago
  NixOS, for me. I deal with a lot of wild development environments, so flakes + direnv has probably saved me hundreds of hours and a few system reinstalls. Nix is also availible for Mac, but I'll warn you that it may ruin Macports and brew for you forever.
  - notnmeyer 2y ago
    can confirm. nix + home-manager has been the configuration and dotfiles solution i’d been searching for. it’s not flawless, but its strengths outweigh the weaknesses. i still need homebrew for casks, but that’s fine.
- xedrac 2y ago
  I run Fedora these days. Ubuntu is the worst.
  - 2y ago

paxys 2y ago

Compare the median sale price of a Windows laptop vs Mac. The qualify bar should be significantly higher for anything with an Apple logo on it just to justify the price tag.

gonzo41 2y ago

I just spin up a ubuntu server vm and use it as my dev machine. VScode remote is pretty solid these days.

skydhash 2y ago
I use my mac as a on the go computer for work (it's really light, and proprietary software works always), but I have a linux VM that I sync the needed project on it before I go out. If I have to use containers for extra services (DB,...) I may as well use a VM I can configure as I like.

WD-42 2y ago

There's more than 2 sides to the fence. Desktop Linux is actually awesome, even better if you are even remotely technical.

kibwen 2y ago

I'm forced to use Apple and Microsoft products at work regularly. They're all so much worse than desktop Linux that it's not even funny.

scarab92 2y ago
[flagged]
- jensensbutton 2y ago
  Presumably their experience.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    You can’t just experience the world and then talk about it. We need sources to back up all our opinions nowadays.
bigyabai 2y ago
This is exactly what happens to me. I get the company laptop, think "maybe Linux isn't that great anymore... how is modern FAANG handling things?" Then the ads come in, and any of my doubts evaporate instantly. The home PC runs NixOS, it's been that way for 6 years now and it will probably remain that way until the advertising glut is satiated. Even then, it won't be easy getting me to switch away from desktop Linux.
- starfezzy 2y ago
  Linux is nice if, like nixos users, you want to spend hundreds of hours over several years writing every QoL feature totally custom for your unique use case. For me, Mac is 99% of what I liked about Linux, and there is ALWAYS an existing QoL solution—usually reasonably polished—for everything it lacks. Windows has none of the benefits ofLinux, none of Homebrew or even the AUR, a tiny fraction of the QoL third party features from Mac (usually unpolished)—to say nothing of the first party QoL features—plus the hardware is comically bad. Diving board trackpads are normal on $3k windows machines in 2025, 500nits displays, whistling fans on about 17 high-end laptops I tried in the past 6 months. Truly the worst experience imaginable. Abominable, even.

burnte 2y ago

None are actually better than any other, they're al great but fir different types of users and what they value.

nikolay 2y ago

That's not true and your opinion is subjective. Windows 11 is a great developer platform.

bee_rider 2y ago
How can their opinion be both “not true” and subjective? Windows 11 might be an ok developer platform though (does Cygwin still work?)
- hu3 2y ago
  Use WSL2 so you get best of both worlds. Windows, an OS that's compatible with almost all hardware and devices. Linux on WSL2, an OS which is probably the best for most work.
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    If you have some hardware that only works with Windows I guess I can see some value there.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nikolay 2y ago
  It's not true, because it's subjective. For many years, Windows has had WSL and now it's the second generation WSL2 and you can run graphical Linux even without a VM. It has a decent package manager out of the box, a great open-source terminal. Containers and VMs are also available out of the box. Windows also has a developers' hub, which allows you to install toolchains easily, including IDEs such as VS Code. Meanwhile, macOS comes with its own version of CLI tools such as find, which have quite different parameters than Linux, it doesn't have a package manager, when I install an app on my iPhone, it somehow decides that I want to install it on my macOS, too, etc. And I won't even mention how poor the menubar is! I have at least 10 apps I need to install to make macOS usable - PopClip, Moom, Bartender, etc., while the Windows equivalent for things like Dock and menubar are working pretty well, including notifications - I've accidentally have clicked so many times on notification banners, covering my scroll bar or window controls. Not to mention that so many times I'm typing something in window, which has my input focus, then another window pops up, steals my input focus, and I end up trying parts of my password in the wrong window due to that! There are so many things wrong with macOS, Apple doesn't really care to improve it, and the System Settings is growing out of control! Windows' settings are much better organized! And, yes, macOS freezes and crashes not less frequently than Windows. In fact, I haven't had any such issues with a heavily constrained Windows 11, running in VMware Fusion! Also, Windows now has a free equivalent of the paid CleanMyMac app, and it works pretty well. Not to mention the free security software. But even with CleanMyMac, uninstalling software leads to tons of junk all over the place.

Salgat 2y ago

With official linux support on Windows, I really love developing on Windows, it's the best of both worlds. Mac on the other hand feels like a second hand citizen to both linux and windows depending on what you're doing.

stronglikedan 2y ago

As someone who wants to be productive at work, I chose Windows over Mac and Linux. Thankfully I had a choice.

rf15 2y ago

Any system you have deep knowledge and experience with makes all the others look like garbage, because you don't know the right menus, can't intuit what you are trying to do and don't know the right workarounds/what the designers intended. As someone who uses MacOS, Windows and Linux on the regular, let me just say, uh... man, Solaris is pretty bad!

chamomeal 2y ago

I helped my little brother put together a gaming PC a few years ago. Before that, I hadn’t even touched a windows computer in a very long time. I was blown away by how difficult and opaque everything was. I’m sure a lot of it was just unfamiliarity, but a lot of it definitely was not. I actually could not believe how hard of a time I had

lurk2 2y ago

I've had the same experience. MacOS had lots of features intended to make it friendly for casual users, which made it a pain when you wanted to modify it, but if you wanted to modify something, you generally could; it just took some extra steps compared to Windows 7. By contrast, I spent an hour figuring out how to uninstall Edge on Windows 10 this afternoon, and I suspect it's going to reinstall after the next update like all of the other bloatware did.

cryptozeus 2y ago

100% ever since I switched to design and no longer using windows, I forgot what blue screen of death looks like :D

pjmlp 2y ago

Ironically, I have the reverse opinion.