Hacker News Reader

Comment by _fw | Hacker News Reader

I’ll never forget the day my laptop Wi-Fi worked on Linux. I was a teenager and it was my first machine and I’d been dying to Ubuntu to break free from the grasp of Windows 7.

Wi-Fi was a dealbreaker because it was a laptop and it was my only machine. I remember one day booting in the latest live CD that Canonical had sent (way back when you could get them delivered by post), switch on my laptop and seeing those SSIDs appear.

It honestly felt like magic, and I’ll never forget it. Something as mundane as working WiFi drivers on a basic spec Vaio quite literally changed my life, by allowing me to run Linux natively with a web connection. That opened many doors to me later in life.

Forever grateful for that work.

View on HN

I started somewhere around Red Hat Linux 7.2 and I remember in high school I had to have some shell scripts lying around to load the driver, bring up the interface, force DHCP renewal. I couldn't really play any games (outside of Battle for Wesnoth) and Flash's iffy Linux support always caused problems browsing the web. People didn't even care about supporting Mozilla browsers until Firefox shipped.

I started using Linux full time again a year ago (Bazzite) after ~15 years away and I'm astonished how much stuff just works now. I can just use Chrome and every website works. My entire Steam library works. I installed this as an experiment but the experience is so damn good these days I haven't had the need or desire to break glass and install Windows.

I came here to pretty much write the same comment. I also had my first Linux experiences via Ubuntu's CDs via post scheme. I grew up on a farm with poor network connectivity, so for a few releases in a row, I would apply to have them sent. I started using Linux at about 14 years old. By the time I was 17, I'd been offered an undergrad level job at an award winning software development agency. I don't think that would've happened if I hadn't become very interested in Linux at such a formative moment in my life.

Before I managed to get WiFi working (I had lots of trial and error with ndiswrapper), my very first triumph was getting a USB-powered "winmodem" to work with Damn Small Linux (which I got for free in a magazine). One of the websites I used seems to still be online: http://www.linmodems.org

While I am so thankful that compatibility and ease of use has dramatically improved since those heady days, I honestly think I wouldn't have gotten the career I have without that struggle and the curiosity FOSS provided that drove me to push through and learn something.

Great story.

And ndiswrapper… I haven’t read that word in SO long!

I spent a whole weekend on my Vaio trying Linux distros for the first time, same dealbreaker as you, until I discovered that same magic feeling on first Ubuntu boot as well. Super cool to hear such a similar journey.

> I remember one day booting in the latest live CD that Canonical had sent (way back when you could get them delivered by post), switch on my laptop and seeing those SSIDs appear.

Ah, those are fond memories. I had a similar experience with my first laptop when i was 13 or 14... Suddenly the new Ubuntu release (6.06? 6.10?) shipped with better drivers (nv?) and my display was correctly recognized as 1280x800 where as previously it was driven at 1024x764.

Felt like magic :)

Oh, to be young again...

unrelated here, but I'm yet to get used to meet "I was a teenager" and "Windows 7" in a single sentence.

Windows 7 was objectively the best Windows, and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros. Why were you so desperate to flee Windows 7?

In my case (when I was 13-14 and messing with stuff) Ubuntu might as well have been the only distro I've ever heard of and my experience with Windows 7 was that it did not run as smooth and fast as Linux on my poverty spec laptop.

I can see that. Appreciate the answer, thank you.

> objectively

I don’t think you understand what objectively means.

When it comes to things like this, it almost always boils down to personal preference. Which is subjective not objective.

I think a case can be made for Windows 7 being objectively the best windows in terms of stable features, user surveys, other objective indications of user satisfaction. We could look at things like serious incidents, compatibility issues, various widespread problems, etc.

Your comment implies Windows versions could not be ranked objectively, which suggests an objective criteria could not be established. I disagree.

How do you choose which categories matter most? That’s subjective.

User satisfaction and user serveys are subjective.

Also the stability of features often depends on where along the life of Windows you measure. For example XP post-SP3 is a very different OS to XP pre-SP1. So how do you decide where to measure? That’s also subjective. Not to mention the subjective question about what “stable” means and how you compare stability

There’s been enough arguments on HN regarding that last point alone.

For example Windows 2000 has crashed fewer times for me than Windows 7. Does this mean that Windows 2000 is now “objectively” the better OS?

You might argue that the sample size is too small, but who decides the sample size? Are you including or excluding specific datapoints? Of course you are, which means “better” is then defined by the sampled data (for example the power-user vs novice ratio for windows 2000 will be different to Me and 7). And thus it’s subjective again because who decides which datapoints are important and why?

Are we talking about “better” for web browsing? Home server tasks? Software development? Video editing? Etc. who decides that and why?

What about “better” for memory or CPU footprint? That matters more to other people.

We might think that because we are making measurements that this isn’t subjective but those measurements are still a matter of personal judgement.

Edit: as an aside, this is precisely why I never use absolutes in a professional capacity. It’s easy to “say X is better than Y!” but it demonstrates far more professional experience to say “it depends. Tell me what your requirements are.”

I find it fitting here to reassert the last point from my previous reply: Your reasoning here implies Windows versions, or any operating systems can not be ranked objectively, which suggests an objective criteria can not be established. I disagree.

The approach to accomplishing that can be a discussion, but not one relevant to the point I made above - it need only be acknowledged that it is possible.

I’m not saying operating systems cannot be ranked objectively. I’m saying the GPs statement was far far far too broad to be objective.

If they said “highest rated for performance X according to Y” (where X and Y are defined measurements), then it would be an objective statement.

However just saying something is “objectively the best” doesn’t make it objective.

> I’m not saying operating systems cannot be ranked objectively. I’m saying the GPs statement was far far far too broad to be objective.

> If they said “highest rated for performance X according to Y” (where X and Y are defined measurements), then it would be an objective statement.

So you are saying OSes can only be compared objectively on specific features, and not in an overall capacity?

> However just saying something is “objectively the best” doesn’t make it objective.

True, which is why I said I believe a case could be made. This being a HN comment I'm not taking too seriously, I'm not going to put in the work to do so, I'm more interested just to see casual discussion and see people who might agree or disagree, without worrying too much about the semantics of the claim.

> So you are saying OSes can only be compared objectively on specific features, and not in an overall capacity?

Depends. “Better” is a subjective term so if you were to discuss overall capacity objectively then you would need to explain why you arrived at that conclusion. Otherwise it’s left to interpretation (ie subjective).

For example: I could make several well reasoned arguments why I consider Windows 2000 to be better. Others could do the same for XP. We are all correct for our own interpretation of “best”.

> “Better” is a subjective term so if you were to discuss overall capacity objectively then you would need to explain why you arrived at that conclusion.

Well, like I said, I need not describe the methodology that would result in objective measurement - it need only be possible to measure things objectively to the best of our ability. And it is.

Hard to disagree in principle.

However, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 7, and Windows 10 are all crowd-rated quite a bit more favourably than Windows Vista, Windows 8, and Windows 11. So, it seems that there are objective criteria after-all.

You’re talking about a collection here whereas the GP singled out one specific OS without any parameters describing how that judgement was made. And it’s there’s a very broad range of parameters that need to be agreed upon. Those parameters will differ from one person to another.

And the fact that the GP has been downvoted in oblivion further demonstrates how others disagree with their statement. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the peer-moderation though but rather using is a datapoint to illustrate that if 7 is “objectively” the best then there shouldn’t be any room for interpretation — and yet people are interpreting “best” differently.

See my other comment for examples.

Eh, I think the downvotes are more for questioning why someone would move to Linux (Which I wasn't questioning so much as the claim they were dying t get away from Windows) in a way that was perceived as rude rather than my ranking Windows 7 above other versions.

You can try to argue that, and you might be right, however plenty still spoke up in disagreement with your ranking of Windows though. So my point still stands

I don't see people speaking up disagreeing with W7 being the best, one guy said 10 was objectively better, but he didn't respond for us to be able to discuss.

If you search best versions of windows, pretty much every single result is giving it to win7. I think that's sufficiently convincing evidence for my point.

Also, in response to comment being downvoted as though that indicated something, your comment disagreeing with my first comment is more downvoted than my own, indicating more people disagree with your contention than with my ranking.

Then you need to look harder because comments are definitely there

There is one comment explicitly disagreeing saying 10 was better, the others are not disagreeing about the ranking if W7 at all so much as making the same point that subjectivity can play a part in considering what is the best, which is not something I ever disagreed with. One comment is just saying they didn't see what was great about W7 that it just seemed like vista, and other comments clarify things for that user.

I disagree. Go have another read of the comments. I counted at least 3 before I stopped reading.

You're probably misinterpreting some.

Like there is one that says NT is the best...or maybe 2000...but that person is not disagreeing with ranking but making the point that subjectivity plays a part.

I disagree about misinterpreting them. But glad you're now identifying that others have also disagreed with your opinion about which was the best.

You disagree about a lot of things even when the evidence isn't subjective or open to interpretation in the least. Fascinating.

As previously stated, it's not merely an opinion that W7 is the best, but an objective argument supported by reasoning and evidence, also both objective.

But by all means, let's keep discussing this despite your proclamations to want to be done.

Others have disagreed with you too.

Sure, just not in a way that supports your claims.

More people disagreed with your initial first comment to my point than with my ranking, which is pretty much considered the industry consensus as evidenced by search results.

I disagree. Others have also disagreed with you. There were also those that did agree too. We had a situation where everyone shared different opinions. One might describe the conversation as "subjective". ;-)

> I disagree. Others have also disagreed with you.

Sure, just not in a way that supports your claims.

> One might describe the conversation as "subjective". ;-)

Only if one ignores the evidence that shows a point to be "objective".

Again, it's industry consensus that W7 is the best version of Windows. That, at least, is indisputably objective.

When you and only you get to choose which opinions are "objective" then the outcome is still subjective

Again, it's industry consensus that W7 is the best version of Windows. That, at least, is indisputably objective.

The parts of the industry that agrees with your opinion, you mean? Rather than the parts of the industry that disagreed. Such as the metrics offered by several other people on HN. Those people who also happen to be part of the industry too.

edit:

I noticed that you're not replying to my other question. Can i take it from that, that you're more interested in trolling than genuine discourse?

> The parts of the industry that agrees with your opinion, you mean?

I am referring to an industry consensus, not simply a random subset of industry professionals. You are free to dismiss that as irrelevant as you dismiss other evidence if you like.

> I noticed that you're not replying to my other question. Can i take it from that, that you're more interested in trolling than genuine discourse?

Given your behavior if you had the ability to be notified by replies I think it would be worse for discourse on HN, as you would get in more discussions like the one you are going out of your way to prolong here. I simply don't want to be the one to enable that.

I was honestly thankful you asked a question I felt I could ignore so that particular discussion could end.

> I am referring to an industry consensus, not simply a random subset of industry professionals. You are free to dismiss that as irrelevant as you dismiss other evidence if you like.

You do know that "consensus" means:

> An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole.

Ergo there is no consensus reached and thus your opinion is subjective.

> Given your behavior if you had the ability to be notified by replies I think it would be worse for discourse on HN, as you would get in more discussions like the one you are going out of your way to prolong here. I simply don't want to be the one to enable that.

Ouch. More insults and personal attacks. You do also realise you're the one who said you'd keep replying until I stop? Shouldn't your comment apply to yourself too? (those are rhetorical questions by the way)

> I was honestly thankful you asked a question I could just leave hanging so that particular discussion could finally end.

So you're just interested in trolling then. Got it.

> You do know that "consensus" means:

> > An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole.

> Ergo there is no consensus reached and thus your opinion is subjective.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression a consensus is synonymous with unanimous consent - that simply isn't so.

Look at a scientific consensus for example, there will always be a minority of scientists who disagree.

> Ouch. More insults and personal attacks.

Well, certainly not 'more' since unlike you I didn't engage in insults...that aside, though, insulting you here was honestly not my intention, but that is an honest answer to the question you asked.

> You do also realise you're the one who said you'd keep replying until I stop? Shouldn't your comment apply to yourself too? (those are rhetorical questions by the way)

Rhetorical or not, responding since this was edited in after my reply and I think is a misrepresentation. I said upfront that I would rather be done but will continue to reply to anything that I feel is a misrepresentation. You simply said you wanted to be done, yet went out of your way to continue the discussion, even if it was to do nothing more than add an insult.

> So you're just interested in trolling then. Got it.

Not at all. There is a reason I didn't reply and say that in answer to your question, and only answered here because you asked explicitly. It's what I honestly believe. Sorry.

Exactly, and I think Windows 7 would be ranked generally over 2000 and certainly XP as well. It wasn't just technological progress, but a solid level of refinement over various past implementations.

You need to account for the era of release though. If you do, then Windows 2000 is easily the better OS, in my personal opinion.

And hence the subjective part: I disagree with your selection of criteria.

We might just have to agree to disagree though it’s been an interesting conversation nonetheless.

> You need to account for the era of release though.

Sure, I account for that.

> And hence the subjective part: I disagree with you’re selection of criteria

I explicitly haven't listed an entire set of criteria, although I'd be curious to se which version of Windows you would think could be put forward as better objectively.

Pretty sure Windows 7 has all types of aware and highest scores for user satisfaction and what not, so a cursory review of the available data would seem to align with my ranking.

But, still, which version do you think beats Windows 7 since you disagree based on the few qualifiers I listed? You seem like an XP man, is it XP?

No. I don’t like XP.

For me it would be Windows 2000.

When it was released its competition was

- Mac OS 9 (which was about as reliable as Windows 98)

- OSX wasn’t yet released. But when it did, it wasn’t particularly great for existing Mac users. It took a few years for OSX to really gain momentum.

- Linux (who’s desktop support was still immature)

- BeOS 5 (which was bloody awesome, but also very niche)

- Windows Me (easily the worst desktop OS Microsoft have ever produced. Say what you will about Vista, but its flaws were a combination of its ambition and Microsoft “certifying” it for hardware that wasn’t powerful enough. Whereas Me just sucked in every conceivable and irredeemable way).

Windows 2000 was the first time Microsoft but focus on the little details. For example Notepad was finally given hot keys like ctrl+s to save. In fact I’d argue it was the last time Microsoft put refinement above new features too.

It was the first time we saw a workstation OS suitable for home use (aside perhaps BeOS but much as I love BeOS, NT was a more sophisticated engineering feat).

Windows 2000 was the first time a windows release didn’t double the system requirements. A trend that then continued again right up until around 7/8.

Windows 2000 was rock solid. I only managed to crash it twice and one of those times was because I was playing around with an undocumented Windows API — so that really was my own fault.

Windows 2000 was the last time was unified UI across all of the OS management tools. Except for the font management which was still a 16-bit app. Microsoft have only gotten worse at this since too. It was also the prettiest too (but that’s entirely subjective).

Windows 2000 was the OS that shipped the most sane defaults. Though there was still some WTF moments like the terminal port being open. Since then though, I’m constantly fighting with Windows trying to dumb everything down.

Windows 2000 is what proved to the world that Microsoft could release a half decent OS that supports SMP and doesn’t require a DOS bootloader. It was a real game changer of an OS and released at the time when everything else on the market was garage too. Which just goes to demonstrate just how much of a game changer it was.

It was, in my opinion, not only the first Microsoft OS that didn’t completely suck in every conceivable way. But arguably the only good OS they’ve ever released because everything since has been fraught with compromises. Including 7.

XP pre-SP2 was basically an uglier 2000 with twice the CPU and memory footprint. After SP2 XP grew into its own entirely. But by that point desktop Linux was good enough to run as my primary OS.

Edit: the opinions here are both my own, and my professional experience managing desktop and server IT infrastructures for small businesses at that time. And at that time, Windows 2000 changed everything. If 7 hadn’t been released then Microsoft could have kept supporting XP and most people would have been perfectly happy. But if 2000 wasn’t released then Microsoft would have been in the same deep shit that Apple were with their repeated failed attempts at creating a successor to Mac OS prior to re-hiring Steve Jobs.

I think a lot of these reasons are explicitly subjective preferences without even making an attempt to list objective criteria.

Windows 2000 was indeed much better than XP and I ran it myself, but it was designed to be a replacement for NT and not geared towards consumers. Win7 was the culmination and peak of what MS started with XP - moving consumers to a stable NT based OS.

W7 was also rock solid, didn't double the system requirements from Vista, and I would also argue had a 99% practically unified UI experience with Aero Glass. The defaults were mostly fine, not worse than W2000 IMO, as a bunch of services still had to be disabled, but it was nothing like what you have to do to restrict W10.

What arguments could you make, attempting to use objective criteria and technical merit only (i.e. excluding being first at something and just considering how well something worked) that 2000 was better than W7, when AFAIK W7 was a better culmination of Microsoft's goals with a better user experience, and much longer longevity. W7 had a longer lifetime than XP, and XP and 7 both had far longer lifetimes than 2000.

I don’t know if you remember, but I was the one who originally said these types of conversations are seldom entirely objective.

The arguments you’re making about my comments are precisely the ones I made to you yesterday.

No, not at all.

I said OSes can be objectively measured, when you were pointing out that much of the measurement is subjective. I pointed out that is largely irrelevant, since all that matters is they can be measured objectively, even if it's a discussion on how best to do that. You begrudgingly agreed.

I simply stated W7 was the best without defining criteria, but did say I believe it would hold up against whatever objective criteria are established, and that there is already objective evidence in support of that point.

Here, you've listed unambiguously subjective preferences and opinions, with not even a slight attempt to define objective criteria to support your point.

For what it's worth, if you search 'best version of windows', pretty much every singles article ranking them is giving Windows 7 first. At the very least, it seems to be the majority opinion.

I think the text from the Digital Trends article giving it first place is fair:

"There’s an argument to be made that Windows 7 is a just a refined version of Windows Vista, released at a time when people actually had the kind of hardware that could run it properly. But this king of Windows releases did so much more than that. It was fast and responsive, with many important visual upgrades over previous versions of Windows. It had excellent compatibility, working with older hardware and software alike, and introduced important features which are still Windows mainstays today. It added pinning applications to the taskbar, introduced stacking Windows for better organization, let you preview windows with taskbar thumbnails, and it made it possible to snap Windows to different portions of the screen.

Windows 7 is important for what it didn’t have, too. It feels like the last Windows operating system that was fast and modern, but hadn’t yet started chasing features designed for other platforms, like touch-targeted UI elements, or smart assistant integration. It didn’t have the Microsoft Store or overblown data collection, and there was no attempt to force you to use an online account to login.

It was a clean, responsive operating system that many would likely continue to use today if it was still supported by Microsoft and modern hardware alike."

> Here, you've listed unambiguously subjective preferences and opinions, with not even a slight attempt to define objective criteria to support your point.

Now you’re just being obtuse. Most of my comments were on a par with your own comments. In fact some of the comments you’ve just shared are literally just repackaging similar remarks I made about 2000!

I’m honestly surprised you can’t see the irony in your comments. You’re literally applying a double standard where its “objective” it’s your judgement but anyone else’s judgement that disagrees with your own is subjective.

I’ve got a fair amount more I’d love to discuss, but it’s probably better we just agree to disagree.

> Now you’re just being obtuse. Most of my comments were on a par with your own comments.

I strongly disagree.

> In fact some of the comments you’ve just shared are literally just repackaging similar remarks I made about 2000!

Except, the context matters, because 7 was a continue refinement of those things whereas things took a downturn other than that, meaing 7 was the peak, which is what is part of the justfiication.

> I’m honestly surprised you can’t see the irony in your comments.

Because I think it only exists in your perception.

> You’re literally applying a double standard where its “objective” it’s your judgement but anyone else’s judgement that disagrees with your own is subjective.

Not at all, I have repeatedly stressed that objective criteria should be fined and used.

> ’ve got a fair amount more I’d love to discuss, but it’s probably better we just agree to disagree.

I’ve got a fair amount more I’d love to discuss, but it’s probably better we just agree to disagree.

Entirely up to you. I'll probably keep replying every time I see a reply. If you think we can have productive discussion, then I hope you would continue, if you think we are seeing things too differently and the discussion will devolve and not be productive, then I would hope you don't.

I will note that in a recent, separate discussion you resorted to insults and vulgarity. If you think the same would occur in this discussion with me, knowing we disagree, then I would definitely ask that we just leave it here - but again, I will continue to reply to any messages received that I feel are misrepresenting anything or need what I consider correction.

> I will note that in a recent, separate discussion you resorted to insults and vulgarity.

Hard disagree.

I hadn’t clocked that you were the same person who was lecturing other people about the politics in their country while living in a different country. I remember from that conversation that you considered your own opinion irrefutable regardless of any evidence presented so it’s no surprise to learn here that you also consider your opinion to be objective and infallible.

If I’d clicked you were the same person I wouldnt have bothered replying and just downvoted you like others had.

> > I will note that in a recent, separate discussion you resorted to insults and vulgarity.

> Hard disagree.

It's not a matter of opinion. You literally resorted to insults and vulgarity. Do I need quote your words back to you?

> who was lecturing other people about the politics in their country while living in a different country. I

No, I was someone pointing our your arguments were bad. Out of the two of us, I'm the only one who has lived in both countries, and my arguments were not fallacious.

> I remember from that conversation that you considered your own opinion irrefutable regardless of any evidence presented

This is certainly ironic given you engaged in whataboutism and your evidence was shown to be flawed for the points you were trying to make.

> so it’s no surprise to learn here that you also consider your opinion to be objective and infallible.

I think you are bad at reasoning your points and you ignore objective evidence. My opinion isn't infallible, but the reasoning and evidence to support it is better than what you are relying on to support yours.

> If I’d clicked you were the same person I wouldnt have bothered replying and just downvoted you like others had.

Funny, I suspected you only started the discussion you did because you had recognized I was the same person.

But, whatever - let's just not engage with each other anymore? I'm here for productive discussion, if we are clashing to a point that isn't possible I would rather us just both avoid each other.

I disagree on all of the above apart from

> So let's just not engage with each other anymore?

I find it absolutely astounding you deny you engaged in vulgarity and insults, for the same reason I find MAGA folk astounding when they deny reality. Unless for some reason you don't consider saying 'Bullshit'[1] vulgarity - I assume that would be your defense, and indeed I would perceive that to be disingenuous since it clearly is, in the sense it lowers the quality of and taints an otherwise civil conversation.

I'd be more curious to hear why you don't think calling my comment idiotic[1] is resorting to insults - that seems harder to deny, so I wonder what creative justification you might come up with?

> So let's just not engage with each other anymore?

100%. If you want to reply just to note you in fact do not consider saying 'Bullshit' vulgarity' or defend how calling a comment idiotic is not resorting to insults, I'll understand and might respond to that. If we are not discussing operating systems or problems with countries, I consider that a win since that thread would run its course very shortly, then we could be done with each other. Of course if you don't want to reply at all I'll consider that an even bigger win.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43064306

Now who's being vulgar?

(I also disagree with your accusations -- but anyone who's read this conversation can see the evidence for themselves)

> Now who's being vulgar?

Not me. Feel free to quote the vulgar word I used that wasn't just quoting you.

> I also disagree with your accusations

Yes, incredibly, you disagree that calling a comment idiotic is resorting to an insult.

> but anyone who's read this conversation can see the evidence for themselves

Yes, they can see that you called my comment idiotic which is unambiguously and objectively resorting to an insult.

You've insulted me on multiple occasions too. I chose to rise above it.

Anyway, I thought you wanted us to part ways?

> You've insulted me on multiple occasions too.

So now you're admitting you insulted me after previously denying that you had?

I never called you an idiot, I stuck to facts and explained why I thought you were wrong.

> Anyway, I thought you wanted us to part ways?

If you read above, I said that if you must reply to this final thread that at least it will be over quickly, and that I will continue to reply to messages as I get notified of them if I feel I need to defend against misinformation (such as you denying you resorted to insults).

If you want our interacting to cease sooner, simply resist your urge to reply.

I disagree

Of course you do, thankfully I trust most readers to look at the evidence and see that without any doubt, you resorted to an insult and vulgarity when I did not, and then denied doing so.

I don't think this thread will age well for either of us but I also don't think even you believe the stuff you're posting

I have no issues with my behavior or anything I've said, as I didn't resort to insults and then deny doing so. Additionally, the evidence is overwhelmingly on my side (yes yes, "you disagree", I know).

> I also don't think even you believe the stuff you're posting

Instead of choosing not to reply, you chose to continue the discussion instead of being done with me as you said you preferred, just to make a bad faith accusation.

>Instead of choosing not to reply, you chose to continue the discussion instead of being done with me as you said you preferred, just to make a bad faith accusation.

You do understand that you're also engaging with me, right?

And that every comment you've made for the last hour has been directed at me as a person?

>You do understand that you're also engaging with me, right?

The difference is I said upfront that I would continue to reply to messages as I see them, as where you just said you wanted to be done yet keep making the effort to engage - even if it's just to make a bad faith accusation.

Edit: And interestingly as your below comment shows, you are manually refreshing to monitor replies which is an extra level of dedication.

> And that every comment you've made for the last hour has been directed at me as a person?

So? I keep getting notifications that you've replied, and I am not engaging in any other discussions so far.

>I keep getting notifications that you've replied

HN sends notifications about replies? How did you set that up?

Nothing will be better than NT4...

...who doesn't like rebooting when re-IP'ing an interface?!

Or maybe 2000...

...because the dropshadow cursor rocked!

(And Slackware on the Linux side)

There will never be a 'best' OS. They're all constantly improving in one way or another. Whether you appreciate the improvement or not, that's subjective.

Slackware was great, but I think Alpine is an improvement in every way. Just speaking as a former loyal Slackware user of 7 years or so.

Interesting that you see Alpine as the next step after Slackware.

I couldn't defend it as such in a general sense, but the reason I always liked Slackware was minimalism. It never had that as an explicit goal, but it was for a long time a distro great for people who wanted minimal systems, without any 'wizards' to get in the way. It kind of lost it's way trying to comepte with things like Ubuntu though.

Alpine is so much better from a minimalist point of view (a functional minimal desktop install is only 700mb, while on Void, Devuan and Gentoo it's about double that), and that it has security as a priority at the forefront is icing on the cake.

I like Slack from a purity of Linux perspective, or at least 'early days of Linux' perspective. Alpine is busybox, so that goes right out :-(

Alpine is only busybox until you apk add coreutils

Windows 2000 is still the best Windows in my head. Sadly, it is 32 bit and missing a tonne of APIs. So, not really viable for modern apps.

If Win2K would run modern software, it would be the Windows I use in a VM.

Not sure what was so great about win 7. But maybe there is something I missed, because I also started using Ubuntu at that time and then MacOS. From a bystander perspective Win 7 just seemed like a vista plus. Ubuntu was a breath of fresh air at the time, it genuinely seemed like they were going to bring desktop linux to the masses... and it had compiz! But this was before canonical started taking a less practical approach and reinventing everything.

It was a much needed advancement from XP, and smoothed over all the rough edges that Vista had. It was incredibly stable, the Aero Glass interface was pretty, low resources and non-distracting. It also allowed you to configure updates and, importantly, only choose to receive security updates, something removed in later versions.

Windows 10 and 11 have telemetry and stability issues, don't respect user choices, force software on people, force updates and reboots, and have an interface mixed with 3 different frameworks - for starters.

Win 7 was in many ways a Vista- where a lot of things people didn’t like were removed. The same sort of joy would be seen online if Windows 12 puts the start menu back on the left side. Sometimes it isn’t a huge change that makes people happy.

Win 11 2H24 allows you to put the menu on the left. And yes, it made people happy.

Windows 7 was as fancy as Vista and as snappy as XP (though more memory heavy).

You can only understand why Windows 7 was so loved if you relied on it and tried Vista before and Windows 8 after.

Vista made hardware absolutely crawl when it was new. Windows 8 was a UX disaster. In comparison, Windows 7 was fast and functional.

I guess you have to compare 7 to XP as well as the other option was to stay on XP forever. Windows 7 had a lot of improvements over XP though, most natively being 64 bit. So, the big difference between XP and 7 was modern software.

Other than the telemetry, Windows 10 was objectively better than 7. Although they did add a lot of bloat on top of 10 over time.

> Other than the telemetry, Windows 10 was objectively better than 7.

Some of the downsides other than telemetry:

- Not being able to select only security updates

- It requiring more technical hacking to ensure forced updates don't force reboots

- An embarrassing mix of interfaces, with the migration from the classic Control Panel only half done.

- The forced included software which also requires more hacking that in should to remove.

> Other than the telemetry, Windows 10 was objectively better than 7.

The GUI/UX/UI in Windows 10 is a total shitshow. The introduction of RCE "Apps" in contrast to native programs was also something terrible.

> and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros

Today Ubuntu has a poor reputation in some of the userbase. Back then, it was much more universally liked.

I remember a lot of positive reception because a lot of stuff worked out of the box, but that was at the cost of stability, because they made things work like shipping unstable versions of pulseaudio. So I had the impression it was a mixed bag, then got a better reputation as the software continued to improve, then continued to go downhill pretty much ever since Unity.

The best windows is still a shitty operating system.

Linux was just snappier, quicker. Like, noticeably so.

And it was also way cooler. I don't use windows nowadays, but at the time the GNU/Linux desktop was lightyears ahead. Compiz, beryl and all the crazy 3d madness of the time were just cool. It was an exciting time to use GNU/Linux on the desktop, and Canonical was a visionary company.

Such times have not come back so far, it all looks so dull and dead right now when compared to those times.

> The best windows is still a shitty operating system.

> Linux was just snappier, quicker. Like, noticeably so.

Eh, that seem like zealotry. Bechmarks could be mixed and both had advantages.

> And it was also way cooler.

For tech geeks that liked playing with tech, absolutely.

"How could you possibly leave Windows for Linux?!" also smacks of zealotry.

If you paraphrase to remove context and qualifiers it does, sure.

Reminds me strongly of https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/our-blessed-homeland-their-ba...

That's weird, it doesn't seem relevant in the slightest.

> Eh, that seem like zealotry. Bechmarks could be mixed and both had advantages.

"revive an old computer with gnu/linux" has been a meme for like 25 years now. to some degree it's less true nowadays because most stuff run in the web browser, and web browsers are total memory hogs. but ad the same time, with any decent gnu/linux you won't be running spyware/adware and useless ai stuff nobody asked for so yeah i'm going to keep assuming linux is noticeably faster even if i haven't used a windows laptop for personal use in ~15 years.

> For tech geeks that liked playing with tech, absolutely.

yeah i'm a tech geek that likes playing with tech (easy bet given what website we're both posting on) -- so ?

> "revive an old computer with gnu/linux" has been a meme for like 25 years now.

More like 10/15, but sure.

That's more to do with up to date software though, really. Windows 10 when properly configured was perfectly snappy on older hardware.

> it's less true nowadays because most stuff run in the web browser,

I don't think it was ever really that true.

> with any decent gnu/linux you won't be running spyware/adware and useless ai stuff

Yeah bundled software sucks, but it's not fair to judge the OS with it ifit can be removed, and if tech users like yourself would be removing it.

> yeah i'm a tech geek that likes playing with tech (easy bet given what website we're both posting on) -- so ?

Just clarifying your statement was not in general terms.

> Why were you so desperate to flee Windows 7?

Well, let's look at your statements:

> Windows 7 was objectively the best Windows, and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros.

You have two statements: one about the distribution of "goodness" as a function of Windows versions, and another about the distribution of "goodness" as a function of Linux distros.

So, logically, the question to answer if we want to get at your question is: how does the distribution of "goodness" compare across Linux and Windows?

Perhaps their answer might differ from yours. :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com