Technology

This is the reason I will never buy an apple device and go out of my way to (try and) convince people in my circle not to buy apple devices.

The only apple things I've ever owned was an IPod. And I never paid full price for that shit.

Ubuntu and it's spin-offs are really are as close as we're ever going to get to a full, user-friendly Linux OS. At least one that isn't going to scare off as many people.

It's just when you tell people the part where you have to keep track of some of the software that they use through the terminal, that's when you start seeing them trickle off back to Windows.

Because the average user doesn't have the patience, time or know-how to utilize commands in a terminal. If you plopped them down during the era where DOS was prominent, they'd be so lost and be begging for a UI to handle everything.

Isn't it? I think it's quite there, unless you get unlucky with hardware.

It's actually astounding, how weirdly unmaintained Windows is in many areas. Just look at the settings chaos. There are three completely different settings trees, and at least for me, it's impossible to know which one to choose for a given task.

There's constantly stuff going on in the background for no reason and updates take forever and require 7 reboots. That's not okay.

For those who unfortunately have to use Windows laptops for work, there is a workaround. Unplug the laptop before putting it to sleep/hibernate. That's it. Super irritating they won't fix it, but not surprising, too busy trying to shove (more) ads into the start menu.

For me, it was wake on LAN that Windows just kept sucking at. Leave the computer, it goes to sleep. Wake up the next morning, head into my office, computer is wide fucking awake and the whole room is warm...

There was a video on LTT about this. From what I remember the conclusion was that if you shut down the laptop while connected to power, it remembers the fact and wakes up in the middle of the night to apply updates and shut down again, assuming the power cable will remain connected so there wouldn't be an impact on the battery. But of course, most people (I think) disconnect the power cable once the laptop is shut down. Windows still wakes up, sees the power cable disconnected, and goes 'oh well' and proceeds to update anyway.

SSDs boot fast enough that I just hard shut down windows at night whenever I have to boot into it -- usually for games, since all my non-vr games run on Linux but I have a Quest 2, and Linux support for those is Incredibly sketchy.

It can't wake from sleep/hibernation if it's fully powered off and there's no windows code running to wake it.

For anyone wondering what the issues with sleep in windows are, the problem is that instead of using traditional S3 sleep (suspend to RAM) Microsoft has been pushing hard for "Modern Standby" where insted of only the RAM being powered the whole system is powered on and kept in a low power mode.

In theory this can provide a shorted wake time (because apparently the approx 5 seconds provided by S3 sleep isn't good enough). The problem is that Windows will sometimes wake up to do maintenance and drain your battery.

You might be able to fix it by disabling Modern Standby (also called S0ix, Connected Standby and S2Idle)in your BIOS. Unfortunetly a lot of modern BIOSes no longer offer the option to disable it and even sometimes lack support for traditional S3 sleep.

I haven’t had the same experience.

My MacBook Air is 9 years old and still running strong. I’ve more than gotten my moneys worth out of it.

Unless your laptop isn't brand new, at which point Linux absolutely beats Windows on compatibility.

I think (although I've never tried to verify) Steam is making progress to make most games playable on Linux.

Gaming is no longer a reason, really. 99% of the time it works out of the box.

At his point for me it's only CAD and Lightroom that keeps a Windows install in my machine

All the games I like run fine on Linux nowadays

There is pinch to zoom and multitouch gestures on the trackpad, which I consider a lot more convenient than a touchscreen since my hand is already there.

I haven't actually bought a Mac in a long time since I get them from my job, but the Windows laptops I've used and seen don't have the build quality, and having a big network of retail stores is a nice insurance policy. And if I was going to buy a Mac I'd buy refurbished anyway.

I've been a Mac user since the late 80s so I have the opposite problem with keyboard commands on Windows and Linux that you do.

Most of the people I've seen who use Macs - mainly developers working with Linux servers - do use it because it has a shell. (Though Apple switched to zsh not too long ago.)

What does maximalist design mean in the mac world ? Is this regarding UI and/or industrial design ? I was teaching design back when we were transitioning from OS9 to OSx early or mid 2000s I guess . We had to switch between them for a good couple years I think as various packages became available or affordable on osx. Never owned one in the early days but study and work from mid 90s onward was generally on them. I can’t relate to them ever being maximalist really but I guess they gradually did get more minimalist very gradually as far as UI. Throughout this time I was almost always using windows at home so my super basic summary of 90s, 2000s mac vs pc argument would be that the mac rarely interefered with workflow in the sense that win98,2000,xp etc were requiring a large percent of maintenance time. To me thats the minimalism mac were always about and for me still holds to a degree - though far more retail/consumer and far less industry/pro focussed despite FCP, Logic, and fast apple silicone etc.

Dont necessarily disagree though, just curious what it means. Now also using kubuntu or similar around 9 years (I’m jumping between 3 OSs these days) it often feels like the os9 days as far as community vibe and support - smooth and low stress though the ui approach is sometimes an afterthought rather than the end goal perhaps. Completely capable though. Mac feels more consumer and indeed less concerned with service feeling direct or individualised . So agree with you there. Maximalist service, or is it minimalist :)

You can also use Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, iCloud, etc to send files back and forth.

that hasn’t been the case for years though you do need some apple software to make it work. Or you can use Files and connect to Windows over file sharing (smb).

They could probably make it easier, but then they’d have a harder time selling you up to a Mac.

Just got a Mac last week, and was able to set up file sharing with my PC in less than 5 minutes last night. In fact, it was way easier than getting the sharing working with my Surface, which refuses to acknowledge my desktop's existence.

I don't generally encourage buying a Mac, I'm not at all convinced it's worth the price premium. I'm only commenting insofar as I have context.