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Comment by regexorcist | Hacker News Reader

Seriously, why use Windows in 2026? Such a hideous OS and ecosystem with endless malware, backdoors, and dark patterns.

The worst OS except for all the others.

This is false. Linux is better in every way, unless you are forced to use Windows at work or to use some Windows-software (whose developers thus make make the choice for you). But this also does not make Windows better.

Linux obeys the user, doesn't have malware in the repositories, fast and light even on older hardware and doesn't try extract as much money from you as possible.

IMHO it's the best OS as a games developer, Visual Studio just doesn't have anything remotely close. And all console toolchains are windows only. But genuinely as a C++ dev I much much much prefer it over MacOS or even Linux for work.

Of course this is a “I need the OS for work” situation. It reminds me a lot of 20 years ago when we’d say things like “I’d love a Mac but it’s not compatible with anything I do for work,” and that sentiment didn’t last.

I definitely wouldn’t predict that Linux is taking over the world or anything but it wasn’t that long ago that playing AAA games on Linux on day one of release was ludicrous. Now the most popular PC handheld runs Linux, a PC console launched that runs Linux.

Now we have hardware like the MacBook Neo that threatens Windows even more. Sure, the XPS 13 came out and is arguably a compelling alternative. But I think the mindshare damage has been done on that one.

The idea that Windows might disappear entirely is not that far-fetched, especially when you look at Microsoft’s financial results.

If I was a PC OEM like Dell I would probably band together with other OEMs like Lenovo to make my own Linux distribution and support Windows offboarding even further as a hedge to my business.

Yeah for sure. And I wouldn't be surprised if at least Sony and Nintendo released their toolchains for Linux for the next generation.

IMHO the big difference is in enterprise Vs personal Windows, enterprise Windows can genuinely be a very lean, fast experience that is great for work. But my personal PC running windows is very firmly in the "I wonder what the latest update will break" teritorry.

Have you tried Rider? I've been using that for C++ Unreal development and absolutely love it. It does help that IntelliJ was my daily driver for Java dev for a while.

Yes, for general writing/reading/navigating code it's fine. But (imho) when you really need to get down into debugging some engine level crash, I'll take VS over Rider every time. Might be personal preference.

Excellent hardware and software support (especially for Snapdragon/ARM64 CPUs and Microsoft Office) and best in class multitasking/window management are the top 2 reasons for me. Like someone else said, it's the worst OS, except for all the others :)

Buy preinstalled Linux, and you will not have to care about the hardware support. Worked for me. LibreOffice is better than MS Office for 90% of users.

You know why desktop Linux doesn't have much malware? Because ~no one uses it. That's it. Once you get users, you get malware.

The rest of your comment is just as ignorant.

There is plenty of malware for Linux. The difference is that the OS won't install it for you.

I don't like the standard practices for installing software in Linux though. Most Mac or Windows users will go to the publisher's website and download. In Linux, it's often recommended to install via a package manager, possibly not even from an official repo, and especially not in Arch. More ways for the supply chain to get compromised, and it has.

So nobody is installing "monitor drivers" for Linux, but they're probably frantically installing packages trying to fix some random issue.

There was malware for systems with 1/1000 the userbase of Linux. Even Amiga and Atari had plenty of it, macOS when it had 2% share, and others.

Linux doesn't install malware, because it is free software, which guarantees the four user freedoms. Whenever someone adds malware, anybody else can remove it for everyone or create an equally useful fork without it. Try this with Windows.

In other words, Stallman was right, and proprietary software developers have too much power over users. And they inevitably, sooner or later, leverage this power for (more) profit, even if you paid for the product.

Except there's plenty of proprietary software for linux, you just won't find it in default repos and have to install it manually.

Did I say otherwise? Any proprietary software for Linux suffers or will suffer from the same problem. But not Linux itself or any free software running on it.

No one uses it? There are dozens of us!

This isn't accurate at all.

The reason people don't get malware on Linux is because they install software through the package manager, via trusted and reviewed repos. And drivers are all built-in to the operating system, not third party (with some exceptions, like nvidia).

On most Linux setups you aren't just downloading random junk from the internet and running it. Also the operating system won't install things automatically for you generally either. Even system updates are optional if you don't want them, and you won't be nagged for it.

Basically it comes down to a difference in culture.

I agree that culture makes a difference, but the largest aspect of it is that the average Linux user is fairly technically proficient and would be fairly unlikely to install malware even on Windows.

As for software installation, that is true for software packaged by your distro (for Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora and others, that only includes open-source software by default), and similarly, a lot of Windows software is now available from MS Store. But even on Linux, you'll need to download software manually (e.g., Chrome is not available in default Ubuntu repos, same for Discord, Slack, Teams, VS Code, Dropbox, Spotify and other common software). Even worse, less known dev tools are quite often installed with `curl ... | sh` or equivalent, which is a strictly worse alternative to installers on Windows from a security perspective.

Then, there's the question of phishing, infected torrents, fake movie pirating sites,... Currently, most malware from these sources will target Windows (various .mp4.exe files, Excel macros,...). If Windows users migrated to Linux, malware would adapt and start targeting Linux.

Desktop Linux is currently protected by being a low value target – it has low market share, and most of its users are power users, which makes them harder to trick. The opposite is true for server and embedded Linux, and it's a frequent malware target as a result.

Gaming

That's rapidly changing. Gaming these days is much more enjoyable on Linux than Windows.

Still not 100% there but yeah in 5-10 years it wouldn't surprise me if Linux becomes the dominant desktop gaming platform.

Linux is great if you win the hardware support lottery.

I've had several laptops where audio just doesn't work even on rolling releases. Or the screen freezing up constantly.

This was all with relatively new hardware within the last year or so.

My issue with the Linux community is if you bring this up it's all of a sudden the fault of everyone but Linux.

The end user should of picked better hardware.

The hardware OEMs should of shipped Linux support.

The end user is lazy for not installing an RC kernel.

Macs are great, but my current workhorse computer has a 2TB SSD, and only cost 550$ with the SSD upgrade.

Vs 2000$ for the cheapest MacBook with a 2TB SSD

> Linux is great if you win the hardware support lottery.

This is fairly easy to do by just not buying the absolute latest hardware. Installing something like Fedora in a 8-12 month old laptop I just can't recall last time I had issues.

How exactly would a new Linux user know this ?

What happens when they install Ubuntu and the Wifi doesn't even work ? An experienced Linux user might figure it out.

A new user would, very reasonably, assume Linux doesn't work and reinstall Windows.

> How exactly would a new Linux user know this ?

It's easy: whatever is preinstalled will be guaranteed to work reliably. Worked for me.

So sticking with Windows because that's what the computer probably shipped with ?

No, buying preinstalled Linux.

I've had plenty of issues on ~2y old hardware too. Does your laptop sleep properly, do the fans scale properly, do wireless chips like Bluetooth and wifi work right, does audio (incl over BT) work, and does it switch between graphics cards if applicable?

To be fair Windows also can't sleep properly.

Yeah that's kinda true, but Linux is worse about it. And Hackintosh is the ultimate in not sleeping. Users of both will still often claim their machine works perfectly, and when you ask about sleep, shrug and say sleep isn't needed.

You don't have to win the hardware support lottery if you do a bit of research or buy a laptop made for it.

>or buy a laptop made for it.

Which is usually at least 2x as much if we're talking about buying a System 76 laptop.

Windows laptops go on sale very often.

Although I will admit I have an HP laptop I brought last December that worked out of the box with Ubuntu. Nvidia drivers and all.

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