Comment by ericwooley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericwooley | Hacker News Reader

I also switched to Linux, and I love it, but only on my desktop machine. I got uhk for key remapping, and that's been great. For email and calendar, I use wavebox, which side steps most of the app issues.

As the article says: The laptop experience is not anywhere near as good. I had a lot of the same issues, even on a system 76.

Eventually I decided to try giving windows wsl2 a shot for my laptop, and I gotta give Microsoft credit. It's been great. All the benefits of windows ecosystem, hardware comparability, games etc.... And the ability to do pretty much everything development wise through wsl2. The keyboard combos are similar enough in Linux and windows that I don't have trouble switching contexts. However, most of my development is still on desktop.

A few years ago, I would probably have described myself as a never Microsofter. Maybe my passion for using as much open source software as possible is dying down, or maybe Microsofts push to embrace open source is paying off. Whichever it is, I've come back around to appreciating windows recently.

WSL 1 was great, WSL 2 is probably even more amazing. The problem is it comes with a massive ball and chain called "the rest of Windows 10". Even ignoring all the ads, all the spyware, all the Windows Update shittiness... the UI is a confusing mess and easily beat by the likes of XFCE, Mate, or Plasma. Add that other stuff, and it's all just a huge pain that I don't want to deal with. So I don't, and I just run Linux desktops. They do what they're called upon to do and otherwise just stay put.

And Windows isn't even that bad. Compared to busted up 90s Windows it's a dream come true. But I've been spoiled by Linux and my "geek privilege" of knowing how to operate it all these years.

> Compared to busted up 90s Windows it's a dream come true.

Hard disagree. A 90's-era Windows wasn't perfect by any means, but Windows peaked with Windows 2000 and it's been downhill from there. Modern Windows - at least as Microsoft intends for people to use day-to-day - is an abomination, and I would sooner use Windows ME day-to-day than any version of Windows 10 normally available to consumers.

That said, most of that downhill has been due to bloat. Windows 10 LTSC almost makes Windows nice enough for me to consider using it as my daily driver again.

Can’t say I agree with this. I’ve been using Windows as my daily driver for the last decade since switching back from Mac+Linux for work reasons.

Honestly there’s lots to like in Windows 10 even if there’s a bit of bloat around the edges. I cannot imagine wanting to go back to the bad old days of ME. Modern Windows is stable, secure, fast and has plenty in there for power users.

Driver support and sleep mode is seamless and just works. Even video drivers are sandboxes in their own process. Windows can and I have seen it recover from video and other driver crashes. My laptop can switch between embedded and nVidia graphics seamlessly. This is a lot better than the situation on Linux.

Integrated firewall, AV (Windows Defender), drive encryption (bit defender) and application signing is great for end users. The update process is pushy but nags less than I’ve seen on Macs and honestly you should update regularly.

PowerShell, WSL and inbuilt virtualisation (Hyper-V) are great for power users. Revamped Explorer is also nice with options like open in PowerShell.

Integration with Azure AD and SSO means that for all internal applications for work I don’t need to sign on.

My main complaints are that start menu search is still broken with unnecessary integration with Bing and file search corrupting search results with the slightest typo, file copy is still slow for many small files (although directory merging is nice) and Microsoft is a way too aggressive in their product placements on the start menu and trying to force people to create Microsoft accounts.

having 4 different sound control panels is a sickening joke. there's so many disjointed laters on layers on layers everywhere. nothing is ever cleaned up, just new glossy over layers that don't quite work as well created atop the old. tragi-comic experience.

tragi-comic, hilariously terrible.

You can now set a static IP either in the new network configuration panel or from the old adapter properties. If you set a static IP in one, it won't show up in the other. Either being set to a static IP overrides a DHCP setting. Who knows what happens if they are both set to different static IPs.

Not trying to argue, but god-mode is pretty cool, made probably because ms-dev's had the same problem.

See, all of these things would be great reasons to use Windows, and I agree that these are nice (though I'd hardly call "seamless GPU switching" unique to Windows; my Linux laptops can do that perfectly fine with FOSS drivers).

The problem is that the Microsoft-sanctioned Windows desktop experience seems to be actively hostile to user experience due to all the extra shit that Microsoft has tacked onto the "goodness" that's Windows 10:

- Cortana not only enabled by default and difficult to remove, but shouting at me at max volume as my very first experience with a new Windows installation

- Random apps being preinstalled, even on so-called "professional" versions (hell, even on enterprise versions by default - and yeah, it's trivial to disable these things with GPOs, but I shouldn't have to)

- Literally no option to create a user account in the "home" edition that doesn't entail connecting to an online account, which is dumb as hell

- Ads. On a product that I paid money for. What the fuck, Microsoft?

Each of these things in isolation is itself entirely unacceptable for any product that even remotely respects its users. In combination, these things make Windows 10 Home and Professional the two absolute worst versions of Windows money has ever been able to buy, and fundamentally undermine any trust I might have in Microsoft.

I would, however, change my tune in a heartbeat if LTSC was at least an option, if not the default, for desktops. Windows 10 LTSC is what Windows 10 should be, and probably would be if the Windows team didn't seem driven to make the default Windows UX as janky as possible. I still think Windows 2000 was peak Windows, but LTSC is almost there - all the neat things you mention, and none of the bullshit.

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EDIT: there are also a bunch of little papercuts that bug me every time I use Windows, like never knowing which tool is the "right" one to use for various things (screenshots come to mind; what was wrong with the Snipping Tool?), or the fact that "ClearType" is anything but. Not that Windows 2000 didn't have its own share of little papercuts, but when an OS has accumulated 20 more years of those papercuts, they start to really add up.

Also, maybe I'm just butthurt that Microsoft dropped Space Cadet Pinball ;)

Didn't realise Linux did seamless GPU switching these days. It's good to know. Personally I wish they'd move to proper driver isolation though.

Agreed about the BS. Honestly I'd pay more money to get rid of it and have thought about switching back to Linux a few times but the day-to-day Windows 10 experience is smooth enough that I always end up staying (maybe I just have Stockholm syndrome from the downright abuse Apple and Google throw at their mobile users though..)

==

PS: Snipping Tool is still around btw and works fine. Sometimes you might want to hit print screen to capture mouse over state though.

Also as long as you don't connect to the internet you can skip creating an MS account on setup and Cortana won't bother you either afterwards either.

I've had Windows installs (in a VM) go sideways because Cortana started listening DURING THE INSTALL and I was on a conference call.

Everything is wrong with that.

Microsoft has disabled Cortana during the Windows 10 install process for recent versions -- albeit not for this reason. Rather, it was due to IT personnel doing multiple installs for corporate deployments only to be faced with a room full of chattering Cortanas.

EDIT: It's more likely due to Microsoft decoupling Cortana from the OS and making it available as an app download. Since Cortana is not a selling point of Windows 10 itself it makes no sense to have it during the install.

I use Linux Mint on various laptops (mostly Zenbooks) as a primary OS in HiDPI mode and I am totally fine with it. You just need to install drivers properly and find software you need and then you finally feel like in control and 100% in the flow.

Me too, several different High and very low end laptops using mint, mostly flawless except one issue with wifi

> All the benefits of windows ecosystem, hardware comparability, games etc

The etc contains the integrated spying and telemetry and a horrible update system. A big caveat.

So you never updated Windows 10, not?

Microsoft is really killing it these past couple years. I'm still not sure I'd recommend for a tech team over OSX. But mostly because most devs now know how to deal with the issues from Brew and OSX, not so much Windows. But hell, most barely know how to deal with Linux/Unix stuff.

>But mostly because most devs now know how to deal with the issues from Brew and OSX, not so much Windows. But hell, most barely know how to deal with Linux/Unix stuff.

If you can operate Brew, you can operate a Linux package manager.

> but only on my desktop machine... The laptop experience is not anywhere near as good.

That was a neat trick. You get me to read your whole post because I wanted to know why you didn't use Linux on your servers.

Given the context of the article, I didn’t expect him to be even talking about Linux Servers in his comment.

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