Windows 7 was the last good version of Windows. I still run it, counting on Norton to protect me from viruses. I also run Linux, and think it truly rocks for certain programming tasks.
But the graphics programs are better on Windows than Linux. The Gimp confuses and frightens me. And Libre Office has annoying delays in Linux. And I haven't ventured to print from Linux in many years.
I may go Linux only yet, as I loathe Windows 10 and fear Windows 11 for the reasons you mentioned. But I'm not looking forward to being Linux only. Even though I have been running Linux since the days of the Pentium 60, there are sysadmin annoyances that I don't have with earlier versions of Windows.
I may yet give ReactOS a try.
As for the Mac, I disliked the user interface to a degree which surprised me when I finally got around to buying one. Despite all the declarations that the Mac is user friendly, the Mac requires more keyboard magic than Windows 7. The apple key is harder to reach than the control key. A one button mouse is stupid! My first mouse had three buttons (on a Sun workstation). And that business of having only one menu bar is not appropriate for a multi-tasking machine!
Sun workstation nice. Probably the first time I saw a gui on a *nix variant must have been early Solaris on a Sun box some time in the hazy 90s. :-) A shame how their intellectual property got gobbled up by Oracle, but they did bring RISC to the masses so there is that.
The other sad part of that saga was Sun/Oracle's failure to continue supporting Java applets. Java may be a clunky anal retentive language, but for GUI code it's actually pretty good.
It was grad school. The pre Solaris Sun OS was better IMO. SunView was MUCH better than X Windows. On a SparcStation 1, the GUI was snappier than on any GUI based OS since. The only thing close were DOS programs using the extended character set vs. raster graphics to do rudimentary GUI stuff.
Bloatware is real.
----
And the really sad thing is that Sun had a PostScript based windowing system called NeWS that was WAY superior to X, but they dropped it in favor of X because the rest of the UNIX world was tired of letting Sun set new standards. X11 makes the MS Windows 16 bit API look genius and programmer friendly by comparison.
Recall is bizarre. I can't think of a scenario where it would be useful to someone. If I want a file I worked on yesterday, I'll just sort by Date Modified.
Unless people's memories are so garbage now they have to scroll through images of a screen to remember what they did yesterday....
I use mac os but even tho I subscribe it wouldn't let me vote. I have to use windows on my employer's computer we are forced to use. I've been using mac os for 5 decades. It was the best then & continues to work well for me. Because I had a mac I started doing newsletters & then seminars and news articles all to drive my sales career years before anyone else caught on and before their dos computers became capable of that kind of work.
I have used Ubuntu Linux for about 20 years for home applications. I used to keep a Windows box to run work applications. Ubuntu on old slow laptops or desktops works fine, just add a solid state drive .
As it happens (historical accident or maybe due being an old git) I have always used Microsoft, as my workplaces were all PCs and no Macs. So from DOS/OS2 and on to Windows my workplaces were always Microsoft when it came to network PCs. I had no home laptop until well into the 2000s, so never got used to Apple. But my missus is an Apple groupie and would never give up her iPhone or iPad. TBH, when she asks me to help with anything online, I have to get her to check with her daughter or something, as the interface drives me instantly insane! It just is not intuitive to me, even in the simplest tasks. So I guess I am completely set in the Windows world now. I have never had massive issues really, even if the arbitrary and unannounced updates can be an irritant. Get that with any OS though. The built-in obsolescence of a Windows-based laptop is infuriating though, as you just know they are shoving loads of unnecessary stuff on there which will eventually mean the memory or disk won't cope without taking forever to load stuff....and they sell another copy of the OS with the replacement laptop you need to buy. Linux sounds great in theory, as I have an old Vista-based laptop which might even work on it. I am not techie enough in that field to do my own problem-solving, so maybe it's a non-starter for the likes of me. I can't do your gaming poll, as I have never partaken !
I have one computer with Windows for games and Photoshop but I am taking classes on GIMP so I can use it on Linux.
But I wouldn't call Linux easy for the general public. I have to search up how to do things on Linux almost everytime I have to install a new program and I am pretty tech savvy. There is just no way a normal non-tech person would feel comfortable using Linux. It has a high learning curve.
I have used Mint and a few others I cannot remember the names of. I try to use programs like DaVinci Resolve and crypto wallets and AI art generators and such. I am not talking about programs you can just easily download via the "store". I am just saying it isn't user friendly if you want to branch out to other programs.
Windows is truly shit. If I click wrong in windows 10, like too little force on the trackpad it spazes out, so I thought, no problem a video driver right? Wrong, downloaded the latest nVida drivers no help. And this is a supposedly "professional workstation class notebook." I'd ditch Windows if it weren't for work and my proprietary laser cutting software. Linux Mint is better than Windoze in every way, and lately I can even do design and video editing in it.
Won't lie, I'm still on windows and planning to get on Macos. In the corner of Canada I'm in (Ontario) linux is forbidden. Techies report you for requesting it, get all self-effacing and pretend it's too long and complicated to set up, it'd cost too much or any other number of excuses so have never gotten it, though I've been begging and offering 100s of $ for years for it to no avail. Never ocurred to me to look into MacOs (I'm not very familiar with operating systems) so will check it out for my next pc. And when I give over this one to a family member, I'll be sure to reset it and have MacOs set up for it also.
Are you in a corporation? Then yes, they would need to install Linux. But if it is your PC, you do not need anyone's permission. See the Linux Mint link in my article. You can download it to a USB stick and then install of that, see the instructions in the documentation on the Linux Mint site.
basically Apple requires a hardware ID key for some part of the installation/use process if I recall correctly. the hackintosh community shares info on how to obtain that item as well as good info on installation and methods to get around other issues during setup or regular use of the OS.
I run windows on my laptop. Just haven't made the switch because I hadn't learned it was so easy to install linux. Not sure what it would do to all my information on my business - pdfs and invoices, tax info, etc. It's all backed up, but not sure how linux does on reading the stuff made by the google platform saved to those types of files. I assume ok?
Linux should be able to handle most file types. you may notice differences in fonts and formatting compared to what you see in windows, even with the same files.
it could help to have their proprietary fonts tagged in the document, when you create it in an open source tool and save, then reopen in a m$oft product. I've not tried that. I just remember that the docs I made ended up looking funny when opened in m$Word, but I wasn't concerned about the fonts… the spacing, indents, and “shape” of the document looked funny. since it was school related and grade-affecting I had to redo them with compliant junkware.
it's been a few years since I needed to produce any documents with m$oft compliance. if I recall I just used some obsolete version of their software I had obtained at a garage sale with a license key (office 95 cd pack I think.)
one huge issue with macos (formerly osx in recent memory)
it only runs current versions on up to 7 year old macs. any macos version more than 3 releases old will no longer install current versions of crapware like ms office or adobe. any macos version more than 7 years old no longer gets security updates, including https root certificate updates.
so you can still boot your os9/osx mac, and use software old enough to accept the operating system. but unless you're more tech savvy than you have to be to install a WiFi kernel module in Linux, you're not going to be dropping in new root security certificates as they expire to be accessing any bank sites or anything else https.
and even if you use Micro$oft, forget about installing supported windows versions on a Mac old enough that it won't run one of the latest three macos versions... you need Apple hardware drivers for window$, and Apple doesn't update those anymore either.
but fear not, gentle citizens! even the oldest Macs will run some current flavor of Linux, though you may have to dig through troubleshooting experiences of others to get that nasty camera working or have WiFi. and with a current Linux version, you have https again as well as a myriad of other software options.
If the Mac is an Intel based Mac, Linux is easily installed. I do not know if there is a version yet ready for the M chips though,I have not looked into it. But installing Linux on an Intel chip based Mac is not difficult. If you use Linux Mint, Ubuntu, or Fedora you should have all the drivers you need as part of the install.
Mint always goes super smooth for me, and installs all the audio codecs, and baseline software I need. I was even able to get Da Vinci Resolve running on it.
yeah, yuck. but you /still/ have to mess with variables for blocks and sectors on solid state drives if you get into the finer control parts of command line filesystem tweaking these days in Linux.
do it right and there's less wear on the flash memory of the drive, plus it will grab and drop data chunks faster if they're the right size to align with the drive bandwidth capabilities.
of course the default settings for filesystem manipulation aren't going to optimize like that.
I think most casual users would not have any idea what you are talking about, but your points are valid. For those who want to get the most out of their system, your take on it is the right way.
I think mint, being Debian based, also doesn't discriminate as much as Ubuntu against 32 bit hardware. you can't even install Ubuntu on 32 bit computers anymore.
with Debian based Linux, the only issues with 32 bit are with not being able to run specific software packages that act like Ubuntu and don't support 32 bit either.
I thought Mint was based on Ubuntu, but also had a Debian version? I remember it being called Linux Mint Debian. Or did they finally dump Ubuntu and just go with Debian all the way?
I was never a fan of Ubuntu, and never used it as my main distribution. It was Linux Mint and then also Fedora later. When I ran Mint, I used the Debian version. It was rock-solid and just ran and ran and ran and ran without any problems.
I read up on mint some years ago, and was really pleased with the wide variety of CPUs they had installers to support. especially since ubuntu had completely dropped 32 bit support by that time.
I've also read that mint is pretty stable and easy to use. I may try it one of these days, as ubuntu becomes more and more opaque and pushy like windoze every release, and debian requires a lot of user intervention to get non-standard (using proprietary drivers and firmware) hardware working past the installation process.
if you have a 2011 or older Intel mac you may well find the WiFi does not work right out of the box. or the camera in 2009 or older models.
but I haven't used mint or fedora. I like debian, or if I'm lazy and using 64 bit cpu, Ubuntu is the windows of Linux as far as ease of basic installation goes.
I built up a fair collection of ecycled yet functional older macs during my 6 years repairing them. haven't found one yet Linux won't run on.
but the older they are the more tweaking I've had to do to get the extraneous hardware like camera or WiFi recognized.
May 23·edited May 23Liked by Morgthorak the Undead
when I was still fixing the junk, as recently as 2022, there were basically functional Arm Linux installs on those m1 chip phone-board-in-a-big-case macbooks. dunno about the later m variants, but I'd be shocked if nobody has everything working on arm Linux for an m1 yet.
also the older powerpc chip (68000) Macs can also handle Linux, just not the same installer as for the Intel.chips.
Windows 7 was the last good version of Windows. I still run it, counting on Norton to protect me from viruses. I also run Linux, and think it truly rocks for certain programming tasks.
But the graphics programs are better on Windows than Linux. The Gimp confuses and frightens me. And Libre Office has annoying delays in Linux. And I haven't ventured to print from Linux in many years.
I may go Linux only yet, as I loathe Windows 10 and fear Windows 11 for the reasons you mentioned. But I'm not looking forward to being Linux only. Even though I have been running Linux since the days of the Pentium 60, there are sysadmin annoyances that I don't have with earlier versions of Windows.
I may yet give ReactOS a try.
As for the Mac, I disliked the user interface to a degree which surprised me when I finally got around to buying one. Despite all the declarations that the Mac is user friendly, the Mac requires more keyboard magic than Windows 7. The apple key is harder to reach than the control key. A one button mouse is stupid! My first mouse had three buttons (on a Sun workstation). And that business of having only one menu bar is not appropriate for a multi-tasking machine!
Sun workstation nice. Probably the first time I saw a gui on a *nix variant must have been early Solaris on a Sun box some time in the hazy 90s. :-) A shame how their intellectual property got gobbled up by Oracle, but they did bring RISC to the masses so there is that.
The other sad part of that saga was Sun/Oracle's failure to continue supporting Java applets. Java may be a clunky anal retentive language, but for GUI code it's actually pretty good.
It was grad school. The pre Solaris Sun OS was better IMO. SunView was MUCH better than X Windows. On a SparcStation 1, the GUI was snappier than on any GUI based OS since. The only thing close were DOS programs using the extended character set vs. raster graphics to do rudimentary GUI stuff.
Bloatware is real.
----
And the really sad thing is that Sun had a PostScript based windowing system called NeWS that was WAY superior to X, but they dropped it in favor of X because the rest of the UNIX world was tired of letting Sun set new standards. X11 makes the MS Windows 16 bit API look genius and programmer friendly by comparison.
Gimp has the most horrid interface ever. Krita and Inkscape are pretty decent now though.
Recall is bizarre. I can't think of a scenario where it would be useful to someone. If I want a file I worked on yesterday, I'll just sort by Date Modified.
Unless people's memories are so garbage now they have to scroll through images of a screen to remember what they did yesterday....
I use mac os but even tho I subscribe it wouldn't let me vote. I have to use windows on my employer's computer we are forced to use. I've been using mac os for 5 decades. It was the best then & continues to work well for me. Because I had a mac I started doing newsletters & then seminars and news articles all to drive my sales career years before anyone else caught on and before their dos computers became capable of that kind of work.
Are you using an ad blocker or something else that might interfere with the poll? Not sure why you couldn’t vote.
yes that be it. Thanks. KS
I have used Ubuntu Linux for about 20 years for home applications. I used to keep a Windows box to run work applications. Ubuntu on old slow laptops or desktops works fine, just add a solid state drive .
As it happens (historical accident or maybe due being an old git) I have always used Microsoft, as my workplaces were all PCs and no Macs. So from DOS/OS2 and on to Windows my workplaces were always Microsoft when it came to network PCs. I had no home laptop until well into the 2000s, so never got used to Apple. But my missus is an Apple groupie and would never give up her iPhone or iPad. TBH, when she asks me to help with anything online, I have to get her to check with her daughter or something, as the interface drives me instantly insane! It just is not intuitive to me, even in the simplest tasks. So I guess I am completely set in the Windows world now. I have never had massive issues really, even if the arbitrary and unannounced updates can be an irritant. Get that with any OS though. The built-in obsolescence of a Windows-based laptop is infuriating though, as you just know they are shoving loads of unnecessary stuff on there which will eventually mean the memory or disk won't cope without taking forever to load stuff....and they sell another copy of the OS with the replacement laptop you need to buy. Linux sounds great in theory, as I have an old Vista-based laptop which might even work on it. I am not techie enough in that field to do my own problem-solving, so maybe it's a non-starter for the likes of me. I can't do your gaming poll, as I have never partaken !
I have one computer with Windows for games and Photoshop but I am taking classes on GIMP so I can use it on Linux.
But I wouldn't call Linux easy for the general public. I have to search up how to do things on Linux almost everytime I have to install a new program and I am pretty tech savvy. There is just no way a normal non-tech person would feel comfortable using Linux. It has a high learning curve.
which distribution are you using, Barbara? Some are easier to use than others.
I have used Mint and a few others I cannot remember the names of. I try to use programs like DaVinci Resolve and crypto wallets and AI art generators and such. I am not talking about programs you can just easily download via the "store". I am just saying it isn't user friendly if you want to branch out to other programs.
Windows is highly compatible. That's pretty much the only reason left to use Windows.
Windows is truly shit. If I click wrong in windows 10, like too little force on the trackpad it spazes out, so I thought, no problem a video driver right? Wrong, downloaded the latest nVida drivers no help. And this is a supposedly "professional workstation class notebook." I'd ditch Windows if it weren't for work and my proprietary laser cutting software. Linux Mint is better than Windoze in every way, and lately I can even do design and video editing in it.
The simple answer is a question: why do they believe in vaccines?
Fauci works for Microsoft now? I did not know that. 😉
Won't lie, I'm still on windows and planning to get on Macos. In the corner of Canada I'm in (Ontario) linux is forbidden. Techies report you for requesting it, get all self-effacing and pretend it's too long and complicated to set up, it'd cost too much or any other number of excuses so have never gotten it, though I've been begging and offering 100s of $ for years for it to no avail. Never ocurred to me to look into MacOs (I'm not very familiar with operating systems) so will check it out for my next pc. And when I give over this one to a family member, I'll be sure to reset it and have MacOs set up for it also.
Are you in a corporation? Then yes, they would need to install Linux. But if it is your PC, you do not need anyone's permission. See the Linux Mint link in my article. You can download it to a USB stick and then install of that, see the instructions in the documentation on the Linux Mint site.
if you want macos on a pc, look up "hackintosh."
hackintosh? Alright.
basically Apple requires a hardware ID key for some part of the installation/use process if I recall correctly. the hackintosh community shares info on how to obtain that item as well as good info on installation and methods to get around other issues during setup or regular use of the OS.
Oh okay
What’s your favorite Switch game?
I run windows on my laptop. Just haven't made the switch because I hadn't learned it was so easy to install linux. Not sure what it would do to all my information on my business - pdfs and invoices, tax info, etc. It's all backed up, but not sure how linux does on reading the stuff made by the google platform saved to those types of files. I assume ok?
Linux should be able to handle most file types. you may notice differences in fonts and formatting compared to what you see in windows, even with the same files.
You can download the M$ fonts, which may help some with formatting.
it could help to have their proprietary fonts tagged in the document, when you create it in an open source tool and save, then reopen in a m$oft product. I've not tried that. I just remember that the docs I made ended up looking funny when opened in m$Word, but I wasn't concerned about the fonts… the spacing, indents, and “shape” of the document looked funny. since it was school related and grade-affecting I had to redo them with compliant junkware.
it's been a few years since I needed to produce any documents with m$oft compliance. if I recall I just used some obsolete version of their software I had obtained at a garage sale with a license key (office 95 cd pack I think.)
Ok. Thanks!
one huge issue with macos (formerly osx in recent memory)
it only runs current versions on up to 7 year old macs. any macos version more than 3 releases old will no longer install current versions of crapware like ms office or adobe. any macos version more than 7 years old no longer gets security updates, including https root certificate updates.
so you can still boot your os9/osx mac, and use software old enough to accept the operating system. but unless you're more tech savvy than you have to be to install a WiFi kernel module in Linux, you're not going to be dropping in new root security certificates as they expire to be accessing any bank sites or anything else https.
and even if you use Micro$oft, forget about installing supported windows versions on a Mac old enough that it won't run one of the latest three macos versions... you need Apple hardware drivers for window$, and Apple doesn't update those anymore either.
but fear not, gentle citizens! even the oldest Macs will run some current flavor of Linux, though you may have to dig through troubleshooting experiences of others to get that nasty camera working or have WiFi. and with a current Linux version, you have https again as well as a myriad of other software options.
If the Mac is an Intel based Mac, Linux is easily installed. I do not know if there is a version yet ready for the M chips though,I have not looked into it. But installing Linux on an Intel chip based Mac is not difficult. If you use Linux Mint, Ubuntu, or Fedora you should have all the drivers you need as part of the install.
Mint always goes super smooth for me, and installs all the audio codecs, and baseline software I need. I was even able to get Da Vinci Resolve running on it.
Definitely one of the slickest and best distributions for new Linux users. I'd recommend it over Ubuntu for sure.
I don’t miss having to know how many sectors you had on a spinning platter hard drive for a command line install.
Ha, ha, I know what you mean. It's nice to just let the installer run and be done with it, with minimal to no fiddling.
yeah, yuck. but you /still/ have to mess with variables for blocks and sectors on solid state drives if you get into the finer control parts of command line filesystem tweaking these days in Linux.
do it right and there's less wear on the flash memory of the drive, plus it will grab and drop data chunks faster if they're the right size to align with the drive bandwidth capabilities.
of course the default settings for filesystem manipulation aren't going to optimize like that.
//end nerd-ery
I think most casual users would not have any idea what you are talking about, but your points are valid. For those who want to get the most out of their system, your take on it is the right way.
I think mint, being Debian based, also doesn't discriminate as much as Ubuntu against 32 bit hardware. you can't even install Ubuntu on 32 bit computers anymore.
with Debian based Linux, the only issues with 32 bit are with not being able to run specific software packages that act like Ubuntu and don't support 32 bit either.
I thought Mint was based on Ubuntu, but also had a Debian version? I remember it being called Linux Mint Debian. Or did they finally dump Ubuntu and just go with Debian all the way?
I was never a fan of Ubuntu, and never used it as my main distribution. It was Linux Mint and then also Fedora later. When I ran Mint, I used the Debian version. It was rock-solid and just ran and ran and ran and ran without any problems.
I read up on mint some years ago, and was really pleased with the wide variety of CPUs they had installers to support. especially since ubuntu had completely dropped 32 bit support by that time.
I've also read that mint is pretty stable and easy to use. I may try it one of these days, as ubuntu becomes more and more opaque and pushy like windoze every release, and debian requires a lot of user intervention to get non-standard (using proprietary drivers and firmware) hardware working past the installation process.
if you have a 2011 or older Intel mac you may well find the WiFi does not work right out of the box. or the camera in 2009 or older models.
but I haven't used mint or fedora. I like debian, or if I'm lazy and using 64 bit cpu, Ubuntu is the windows of Linux as far as ease of basic installation goes.
I built up a fair collection of ecycled yet functional older macs during my 6 years repairing them. haven't found one yet Linux won't run on.
but the older they are the more tweaking I've had to do to get the extraneous hardware like camera or WiFi recognized.
when I was still fixing the junk, as recently as 2022, there were basically functional Arm Linux installs on those m1 chip phone-board-in-a-big-case macbooks. dunno about the later m variants, but I'd be shocked if nobody has everything working on arm Linux for an m1 yet.
also the older powerpc chip (68000) Macs can also handle Linux, just not the same installer as for the Intel.chips.