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Comment by pkulak | Hacker News Reader

You're suggesting that Windows is equal to Linux as an alternative to MacOS if you favor control and privacy???

Windows doesn't come close to Linux in terms of privacy, but Linux doesn't come close to Windows in terms of reliability and professional software support (Photoshop, MS Office, etc.) without hacks and Github scripts.

For the technically-minded Linux is an option, but for everyone else Windows at least allows you to firewall off any domain you choose. Sure, you'll probably break Windows Update in some way, but the Windows kernel doesn't try to bypass your settings (yet).

> "Linux doesn't come close to Windows in terms of reliability..."

I can't tell if you being extremely sarcastic or lack experience running both of these OS's...

Linux is quite reliable. Maybe even more reliable in day to day use. However it occasionally breaks for me in very subtle ways and when it does break, I have to use technical skills to resolve the issue. That doesn't happen to me on Windows or MacOS. For those reasons, I don't think I'd suggest Linux to anyone who I didn't feel would be able to resolve issues on their own.

I haven't really found windows to be that reliable, although I don't use it a lot. Lots of weird little issues and googling dll names, but maybe I'm just unlucky. a while back i tried installing vscode and it was literally just an all black window, until i installed directx or something along those lines. and that's just off the top of my head

I got my parents on Linux Mint after their desktop died, which I fixed, but they didn’t want to buy a new Windows license. They are absolutely not tech savvy, but only use the internet and some super basic document editing & viewing.

They got used to the system quickly and used it for 4 years, until the OS went out of LTS and I told them not to use it anymore… but still, they have no idea what a terminal is, no tech savvy, but still used it for their basic use-case for 4 straight years without issue! I didn’t even have to help them after the initial install. Couldn’t have been easier.

My experience, as well. I just set up my parents' Linux desktops to look and act like the systems they were used to and it's been fine for them for years. They've even added printers and scanners to their systems without my help.

I think it works for either very tech savvy (who tinker but know how to fix things) or completely not tech savvy people (who will never tinker and use the computer for very basic things).

If you're medium tech savvy then you run the risk of knowing how to break something but not fix it.

Installing regular OS upgrades has in turn broken, fixed, and broken hibernation again on my PC. Sound is another adventure that either goes great or it's a constant game of cat and mouse.

My Windows 10 install may be full of spyware I need to block, but the software works pretty flawlessly in comparison.

With the terrible state of Nvidia's drivers, my Linux install has kernel panicked more often than my Windows box has BSOD'd.

The only thing you said that I agree with is that Windows has better professional software support. Unfortunately, that's not what we're talking about. :/

In my experience, if someone's use cases would be well-suited by Chromebooks or ChromeOS, then desktop Linux will work just as well, if not better, for them.

Reliability-wise, desktop Linux is boringly stable these days as long as you don't insist on the bleeding edge by using Arch or Debian unstable.

The MS Office situation has gotten much better with the rise of online office suite web apps, including Office 365, as well as professional desktop software like SoftMaker's closed-sourced and misnomered FreeOffice[1] that has great compatibility with files written in MS Office's formats.

Lack of Photoshop is a problem, but if you're doing animation, special effects or video editing work, Linux has you covered because companies release Linux versions of their workstation software like DaVinci Resolve, Houdini, Autodesk Flame, Blender, Lightworks etc.

[1] https://www.freeoffice.com/en/

In what way is linux less stable than windows? Sure, on some shitty hardware, maybe. But I had much less random audio stack restart, visual glitches etc on a modern linux system, and then we don’t even talk about service reliability where linux’s server domination should be evidence in itsef of it being that much more stable.

Windows is by far the worst of the three.

Not in this use case.

With regards to privacy and control, yes. There’s loads of telemetry you can’t turn off in Windows anymore, and you can’t even setup Windows 11 without an internet connection.

You can. Today I learned how. You just have to press Shift+F10 to access the console when it asks you to connect to a network and then enter 'OOBE\BYPASSNRO'. That is all. To skip the security questions set no password initially and then set it later using ctrl+alt+del.

Well TIL but that’s a bit silly. They should just give you a button.

Lol. If something in Linux took that much convoluted process, people would say it was totally unsuited to all but the most nerdy sadists.

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