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Comment by dcdevito | Hacker News Reader

The Linux Desktop didn't die, because you simply can't kill something that never had life to begin with. Linux (as in the kernel) succeeds because it's free, flexible, stable and secure. But none of those words are "pretty", "aesthetic" or "powerful". And the DEs associated with Linux reflect this in every nature. OSX became the uber tech junkie's OS of choice, but with Apple's recent shenanigans these savvy enthusiasts and devs are also starting to use Windows again. And in the end it doesn't matter, the internet has taken over the desktop OS anyway.

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> OSX became the uber tech junkie's OS of choice, but with Apple's recent shenanigans these savvy enthusiasts and devs are also starting to use Windows again.

I believe that hipsters/nerds migrated to Apple for two things: build quality (most laptops these days STILL are made of plastic, and well as someone who often eats near his machine or operates it with pizza-greasy fingers I can say that an Apple laptop just doesn't give a sh.t while all my Windows laptops end up looking very indecent after a year), and battery lifetime.

The latter is the most important: Apple with its ultra tight control down to the tiniest chip on the motherboard can tune the performance in ways that cannot ever be achieved by either Windows or Linux, with 6+ hour usage times being the norm. Windows laptops with this usage time usually are way more than expensive than Macbooks, are heavier than a piece of granite rock, or a combination of both.

> The latter is the most important: Apple with its ultra tight control down to the tiniest chip on the motherboard can tune the performance in ways that cannot ever be achieved by either Windows or Linux, with 6+ hour usage times being the norm. Windows laptops with this usage time usually are way more than expensive than Macbooks, are heavier than a piece of granite rock, or a combination of both.

This definitely used to be the case (and was one of the main reasons I used macbooks over windows laptops, the other being the touchpad) but this is no longer true (outside of cheapo laptops) imo.

High quality ultrabooks like the dell xps 13 rival the macbook in build quality and battery life, and afaik are not more expensive than macbooks.

> Linux (as in the kernel) succeeds because it's free, flexible, stable and secure. But none of those words are "pretty", "aesthetic" or "powerful".

I think that StumpWM, i3 & dwm are all powerful, æsthetically-pleasing environments. I think that emacs is a powerful, æsthetically-pleasing environment.

> OSX became the uber tech junkie's OS of choice, but with Apple's recent shenanigans these savvy enthusiasts and devs are also starting to use Windows again.

I think anyone who chooses to use Apple doesn't care about his freedom, and anyone who chooses to use Windows doesn't care about æsthetics. With Linux, I have both.

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