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Had to edit a .docx today to refresh my CV today...and realised oh...I don't have any more windows machines on hand anymore. Interesting how smoothly that faded

• typpilol 1y ago
  They've been saying this for years now. The problem is there's no real alternative. Your grandma is not going to use Linux. So the choice is between windows and mac.. and the truth is a lot of apps people use are windows only. I don't see windows losing desktop share anytime soon.
  • 0xTJ 1y ago
    The average grandparent isn't installing an OS, they're using whatever comes on the device. If you had Ubuntu pre-installed and automatically updating, there isn't going to be that much of a difference for how many less-tech-savy people use the computer. Microsoft has a strong cycle of "applications run on Windows" -> "device vendors choose to bundle Windows" -> "people use applications on Windows", but that has been eroded, in part thanks to Wine and the work put in by people at Valve. If someone who uses their computer to browse the web and check the email picked up a laptop pre-installed with Ubuntu, they'd likely be perfectly fine with it.
    • fuzzfactor 1y ago
      >a strong cycle of "applications run on Windows" -> "device vendors choose to bundle Windows" -> "people use applications on Windows", >but that has been eroded, in part thanks to Wine and the work put in by people at Valve. Eroded even more so by the user-hostile approach of Microsoft itself. Exactly with things like being a complete failure to recognize a strong valid need for general users to only opt-in to an account according to their own personal needs alone. Not with Microsoft or Google or anybody else known to be a source of unwanted ads or anti-professional annoyances. Why abandon a remaining security element that can protect against PII compromise like no other? It's just sad to lose an essential feature that has always been built-in to Windows since the beginning, which helped make Windows into a far better business machine than would have been otherwise possible. And why now when security is more important than ever?
  • linguae 1y ago
    I don’t know…for people who can do their computing on a Chromebook, a Linux distribution would be suitable. The people who will have the hardest time switching to Linux are those who need proprietary software products that are unavailable for Linux and whose needs are not met by open-source alternatives. Microsoft Office is still the standard for office software, and the Adobe Creative Cloud is still the standard for many creatives. If LibreOffice ever reached 100% compatibility and feature parity with Microsoft Office, and if the Adobe Creative Cloud ever got ported to Linux, then this could spell trouble for Windows.
    • lucb1e 1y ago
      > for people who can do their computing on a Chromebook, a Linux distribution would be suitable That sounds reasonable, given that > ChromeOS is built on top of the Linux kernel. Originally based on Ubuntu, its base was changed to Gentoo Linux in February 2010 (--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromeOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromeOS)
  • lucb1e 1y ago
    Have you tried it? I see where you're coming from but don't think it would work out that 'no grandma can use it' My plan for years has been to install Linux Mint + Cinnamon for my grandma when she next needs a new laptop... but she still hasn't needed one :(. And she's slowly getting too old for any new computer Every Windows upgrade was a big change again. The UI would change each time, Windows Live Mail got discontinued, Office got ribbons, etc. Why reinvent the wheel each time? I've replaced: - Windows Live Mail with Thunderbird, that has been stable. - Microsoft Office with Libreoffice, that has been stable. - The next item on the list was going to be Windows itself, since Cinnamon hasn't significantly changed since I started using Linux over ten years ago. It still has a start menu, system tray, window list at the bottom (without the windows collapsing and hiding!), everything made for usability and working as you expect. The only exception is (grand)parents that need custom software. E.g. my mom has custom software (from Hema I think? Or Bruna maybe?) for editing photo albums to then send it to a print shop and get a real photo album. That will be web based nowadays I imagine. I should ask her but that could still be a barrier to switching Edit: Similar issue on Android btw. There isn't one function that my (grand)parents use, that Android 16 has that Android 4 did not. The only thing that keeps changing under them is UI. Sure, developer APIs got nicer, support for dual-frequency GNSS is there, screens got taller... none of that needed to touch the UI. Sadly Google does a phenomenal job of obsoleting old OS versions quickly so you need to keep buying new. EU law for longer device support doesn't even help because you still need to upgrade that OS and can't simply use an LTS with security updates
    • avhception 1y ago
      The last Windows versions my parents actually used was Windows XP, maybe they encountered Vista somewhere for a brief moment. In my capacity as the family sysadmin, I've switched them to Linux around this time. Ubuntu first, now Debian. XFCE back in the day, Gnome3 since a few years. I think they'd hardly recognize a modern windows installation any more. Gnome3 has it's warts, but I really hope it's here to stay, at least in the broad strokes of the UI paradigm.
  • wltr 1y ago
    Hey, but Linux is just ideal for grandma! Its only competitor is Chrome OS. Well, and iPad OS for obvious reasons.
  • MartijnBraam 1y ago
    I'll have you know my grandma was using Linux just fine... was certainly a lot easier than windows changing random UI elements every time.
• wyldberry 1y ago
  It will depend on if gaming studios continue to invest in a Linux Desktop experience. It's common to run your game server on Linux, but MS, partially through DRM support to the big media companies, creates an environment very strongly suited towards shipping your game binary to a hostile environment. This is partially why major (effective) anti-cheats have migrated to the Kernel. Windows allows the big-budget games, which are often competitive games, to operate with a higher level of game integrity, which leads to more revenue generation. MacOS is not an attainable gaming support platform in general, as the people who are interested in the AAA games are going to need a Pro series or similar quality device which prices a large part of the current windows gaming audience out. As an example: it's not too expensive to buy a laptop that runs valorant, and then be funneled into the skin shop. You can get a lot more sales that way than you can through the crowd of people who are on MBP, though perhaps the MBP crew is more likely to be a whale. note: Valorant is not supported on MacOS due to the anticheat requirement, but the hypothetical still stands.
  • incompatible 1y ago
    If you have to play games, just have a separate Windows computer for that, and do everything else on a Linux box.
    • bbkane 1y ago
      I agree, but I'm not sure that's acceptable to the general population
      • incompatible 1y ago
        Fine, but the general population will have to accept whatever fate Microsoft has in mind for them. Edit: I'd guess a lot of them just follow whatever instructions they are given, and create the online account. If Microsoft thought there was a chance of serious rebellion, they wouldn't be doing it.
    • bil7 1y ago
      Dual boot seems like a more obvious recommendation? Or better still, play games on linux, except those that require kernel AC?
• RestartKernel 1y ago
  > And mac side is obviously competitive on various fronts too. After a lifetime of Windows use, I'd even say MacOS is almost on par with Linux for development, while Windows' best feature on this front is WSL so you don't have to use Windows.
  • lynndotpy 1y ago
    I agree with you here, as someone who uses all three (mostly Linux). IMO the two biggest pains with MacOS is (1) brew is not as good as any other package manager in my experience (mostly in bugs that need manual fixing) and (2) Docker naturally is much worse (not just for performance, but for requiring 'Docker desktop'.) All the other pains are just the myriad niceities I miss from a lifetime of mostly Linux that MacOS just can never have.
    • hamandcheese 1y ago
      > IMO the two biggest pains with MacOS is (1) brew is not as good as any other package manager in my experience (mostly in bugs that need manual fixing) I've been happily not using brew for a couple years now. Nix can function as a brew replacement without much fuss. However it lacks a simple alternative to brew services (for that you have to enter the rabbit hole which is home-manager).
      • denkmoon 1y ago
        I like devbox (jetlify), you get nix with its packages but also integrates process compose for running services.
    • pjerem 1y ago
      Also macOS UI is stuck in the past but not in a good way : they never fixed their windows management which is still stuck on the old paradigm that the user is using an application and not only a window of an application. The Dock is the biggest illustration of this : good luck if you have opened more than two windows of the same app.
• jazzyjackson 1y ago
  You're forgetting business critical software outside of office that's windows only or windows/macos. Stuff like Quickbooks, AutoCAD/Autodesk, off the top of my head
  • mixmastamyk 1y ago
    Moving to cloud, or very rare for the general public to be aware of them.
    • jazzyjackson 1y ago
      Well, I wasn't trying to dispute that general home uses can get by on Linux, just that industry is a large user base that isn't going to switch because the software they depend on is tied to an OS. QuickBooks is used by a lot of people, and their web product is not an alternative to the desktop app
      • mixmastamyk 1y ago
        If it isn't it will be, as non-subscription software is phased out by big companies.
  • ecshafer 1y ago
    I've never worked at Autodesk, and I don't use CAD. But I see they have a Web version of AutoCAD. I assume there are a bunch of Autodesk employees on Hackernews who can correct me, and I know there's probably a boat load of issue for a huge legacy project like that. But how long until AutoCAD web is just AutoCAD? Or some competitor a'la Figma is in the web?
    • pathartl 1y ago
      It will _never_ get to that point unless they port the original codebase to WASM or something. Or another product comes around that's so market upsetting that it takes the crown. The same can be said for Adobe products.
  • 1y ago
• avazhi 1y ago
  > and gaming on linux is rapidly becoming usable. I hate Microsoft and Windows just as much as the next self-respecting nerd, but this is no less a lol right now than it was 20 years ago. It’s like Linux users all play the same 15 titles that have Linux support and think those 15 games reflect broad ecosystem support.
  • hollandheese 1y ago
    You clearly haven't been paying attention or are being disingenuous. Most games released now just work on Linux thanks to Proton. There's a reason the Steam Deck is blowing away any other PC gaming handhelds.
  • 87967646537543 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • pjerem 1y ago
    Except for games with anti cheats, can you quote from your head three games the last 10-15 years that aren’t running perfectly on Linux ? Because from my ~1 500 titles steam library, I can think of one game that I had issues with. And even this particular game (which is Tomb Raider 2013, btw) worked perfectly fine after a little hack. And ironically the "hack" was checking a checkbox in Steam to force using the Windows version of the game instead of the official Linux port.
    • avazhi 1y ago
      Overwatch, Guild Wars 2, Valorant. ??? Oh right. ‘Except for games with anti cheats’ - so like, at least half the market lol, and more than 90% of games by game time.
      • 63stack 1y ago
        Do you have anything more tangible than "lol"? Looking at the most played steam charts, there is about 10% that has anticheat that does not work on linux. https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed
• dev_hugepages 1y ago
  Time to get a LaTeX/Typst resume ;)
  • willis936 1y ago
    This is the way. Don't forget to include vectorized logos of your employers and use pdfsizeopt for the sub 100 KB flex.
• DoctorOW 1y ago
  > Short of corporate world - Excel/Sharpoint/AD That's a big market to just handwave away. Manufacturers have been pretty scared off from shipping Linux by default on consumer PCs, so the only way to affect Windows sales is to impact the corporate world.