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Comment by ddevault | Hacker News Reader

Dude, just use Linux.

Three words: work issued laptop

Some people don't have complete control over every computer they use.

Yep. Had to use work-mandated Windows laptop and it sucked big time. Lots of small annoyances, it just couldn't compare to ThinkPad + linux when what you need the most is terminal.

We got to choose a Thinkpad or Macbook Pro. I went with the Thinkpad and I wonder once in a while if I made the wrong choice. Things like WSL and Windows Terminal have made my life significantly easier and more productive, it's hard for me to overstate the value I get out of WSL in particular, so I always balk a bit when I hear something like "lol just use Linux". With JetBrains IDEs just recently having the ability to run things on remote machines (and VS Code having been able to do this for quite a while) I think the productivity gap between Windows and Linux is closing.

It is closing, but it is still a valley.

With WSL, I still have to account for poor FS performance when files are not in correct location. GUI is still not seamless (Wayland is coming, but not yet arrived). I still have to fight the terrible UX that is Windows DE, instead of natural flow of i3wm.

Its the little things that eat up my cognitive budget that tire me way early in Windows compared to full fledged Linux distro.

Maybe he wants to have working WiFi and monitor hotplugging and sleep mode and games and battery life that doesn't suck and...

So he should just use Linux?

It takes very little effort to look up if something's compatible before you plop 2 grand on it.

If you have to preach something like a zealot it means it is not as good as you think it is.

Most people dont look up whether "something will work" on Windows or Mac.They just simply use the machines they buy.

The Mac comparison is better than the Windows one but Mac is in exactly the same position as Linux here: either you use the manufacturer recommended hardware (Apple hardware or the various pre-configured Linux laptops like System76) or you spend time looking up compatibility (Hackintosh/roll-your-own Linux).

The difference is that the manufacturer-certified hardware for Macs has a giant advertising budget.

Who's preaching? Doesn't get much easier than this https://certification.ubuntu.com/desktop

Completely incorrect for Mac. At least for those that want their peripherals to work.

Correct for Windows. But then they just buy the machines and complain about their issues later, hence, this subthread.

Apart from those, what else Microsoft has done for us?

All of that works on my System 76 Ubuntu 20.04. The real reason corporations use Windows is so that they can lock down the desktop to prevent users from installing tools without corporate approval. They could do it on Linux as well, but it's more difficult.

What distribution do you use?

To each their own (^_^)

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