I’m pretty sure nobody has enough money to pay me to give up my Linux…
I’ve been a computer geek since 1987. I started out on dos and spent a lot of my time in Windows, but I’ve used Linux as well for more than 25 years now.
This article was as useless and as stupid as I anticipated. They clearly are happy in Linux and they were not going to be happy in Windows.
I’m quite happy in both. I like both. I think there’s advantages and disadvantages to both. I will definitely say that there are some things I really prefer in Linux. But in recent years, a lot of that I’ve gotten to incorporate over on the window side things.
I now have bash under Windows. I have the compose key under Windows thanks to a third party utility called wincompose. It’s free.
It doesn’t take me excessive clicks to do things. In Windows I mean.
And thanks to modern technology, not quite everything is upgraded under Linux with APK anymore.
I’ve had very few problems under Windows. And I’ve had very few problems under Linux. As far as system stability.
Use what you like. Use what you enjoy. Use what works better for you. For me, that’s both.
He’s completely overlooked the thing that annoys me the most: the unbelievable number of clicks you need to make in Windows/Microsoft to get anything done. – Saving a file to a folder of your choice:
- Windows: Click ‘Save’ -> Click ‘Choose a different location’ -> Scroll down to skip all the favourites and default locations -> Click the drive where you want to save the file -> Find the folder -> Click ‘Save’
- Linux: Click ‘Save’ -> Go to the folder -> press ‘Save’
Not ot mention my recent attempts to rename a Bluetooth device (two devices of the same type were displayed under the same name, making it impossible to tell them apart) 🤮
Be fair though, “saving from a GUI app” is not exactly Linux’s strong point either.
Click “save”; wonder which badly written save dialog this app is going to use; is it the one with the save button at the top? Or the bottom? Will it actually appear, or will it pop up below the window for Reasons, making you think the dammed thing has crashed? Maybe it’s one with a list of favourite locations in the left maybe it’s not… Maybe they’re actually my favourite locations, or maybe it’s an entirely different set of the developer’s. If I’m lucky, there’s a way to navigate to my home directory without going all the eay to the root and working up from there, more than likely not…
Best of all, it’s one of those Save dialogues that thinks it’s smart to enumerate the entire goddamned filesystem, network mounts and all, before it will respond to any input at all, leading to the window manager eventually fretting that maybe the application has crashed… Or perhaps it’s one of those ones related to Dolphin that thinks it understands WebDAV mounts better than davfs, except that it actually doesn’t and you end up saving to a temporary directory just so you can move the file where you actually wanted it from the commandline…
aaaaaargh
Don’t get me wrong, I use Linux on all my machines and have been a Unix user since NetBSD 0.8 (33 years, fml…) But clicking “save” or “open” is one of those things that has me shaking my head thinking “how can it STILL be this bad” every time.
Wait till you use a Mac!
Somehow they saw that and said “Hold my Beer” and went out of their way to ensure their users get maximum RSI pain.
I’m gonna ask a dumb question here and hope for a not dumb answer. When the author says “I know UI consistency has been a dirty word ever since the web and then iOS rose to prominence”, what exactly are they referring to?
Best guess : Web interfaces are known for being inconsistent because they don’t follow any particular OS-specific design language. And I’ve seen people complaining about MacOS being really inconsistent, especially in its use of menu icons (what an essay!), and I’ve seen some people complain the bad UI practices come from iOS.
Going further down the rabbit hole, most software now, if not bundled with the OS, is produced 3rd parties who often have their own established brand and design language.
It used to be if you were making an app for Windows, you somewhat tried to use the existing design language for your app. Nowadays if you’re a big company you want your interface to be consistent no matter what is it’s running on, so you set your own rules.
Linux still has this as well, but its less prominent because of the general ethos of trying to create an app to do one thing and do it well. Things are shifting as big companies jump on the Linux train though, who knows what it’ll look like in 10 years.
For someone used to desktop Linux, where respect for the user, consistency, customisability, and performance are still held in high regard, Windows 11 feels like an endless string of punches in the face.
I’ve been forced to use windows for some propriety software during uni. I got a laptop from IT with higher specs than my old one and:
- It runs worse than my old shitty laptop
- It boots up slower than my old shitty laptop
- The battery icon was missing from the taskbar for some ungodly reason (I had to get IT to force an update)
- The internet it gets is way worse than my old shitty laptop. I do not know why
So yeah I’m not using Windows 11 ever again
Yeah i have to use W11 for work and the brand new Dell XPS, upper mid range, they gave me compared to my 2017 i3 with linux and all this is true.
About the half the time i boot it and the network just doesn’t connect. Wired or WiFi. Have to unplug the dock and reconnect it. DNS will drop for 10s at random.
There’s times my laptop shows it age like i was bulk processing a load of photos, just resizing, and it took several minutes when the newer cpu was probably several seconds but that’s the hardware, not the software.
I use windows 11 at work. I run solidworks, which is a 3D CAD/modeling program so my work computer is reasonably powerful with a decent chunk of RAM.
My laptop from 2020 uses mint. It’s faster, although I havent tried to use solidworks on it because I’d have no idea where to start on getting that to run.
Only way I’ve found to get solidworks to run on Linux is to run a windows 11 VM using virtual machine manager (VMM). Ideally with GPU passthrough, among other optimizations. Kind of runs like shit on my Thinkpad T580 though, which is to be expected for an 8th gen quad core i5 laptop from 2018…
I’ve tried FreeCAD recently, and it isn’t that bad. The latest updates (v1.0 and beyond) have made it much better than it used to be. It helps to watch video guides, as the workflows are a little different. I found this one to be helpful: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9cqs3oTzpac
Every time I’ve tried to use freecad its been basically useless due to nothing working the way it does in pretty much every other CAD program. Every once in a while I give it a shot because someone swears that its been fixed.
Oh FreeCAD definitely works in strange ways, mainly in the UX department, where it still needs work (kinda like GIMP does). Building a model in a broad sense is similar to solidworks (sketches extruded to 3d, cutting off material from there, etc), but understanding which workbench does what and navigating things is kind of a pain, even now.
Then again, it was similarly frustrating when I had to use fusion 360 instead of solidworks for a project. CAD programs are generally complex pieces of software, so it isn’t surprising that switching to one you aren’t familiar with really slows you down.
God I really hope someone figures out Wayland+Wacom. I cannot wait to escape Windows
I’m stuck on windows for HDR compatibility reasons.
Absolutely sucks. I hate it so much. You can’t do anything with the computer.
X11?
Apparently Wayland has become default in most distros, and actually installing X11 back on some of them is a lot of work (it was straightforward only on CachyOS) and I don’t have the tux-fu to wedge it in by sheer hackery.
So there’s this end of life situation and the fact that I work with different monitors and do CGI so there’s a few more downsides there too (scaling, color management)
Wacom tablets should work with KDE and Wayland. They work great with X11 though.
Yea, I know. Thanks. It’s what people told me (users and developers) but it just doesn’t work for me. You’re right that it works fine with the X11 session. The problems have been the same in every Wayland distro I tried (Debian Trixie, Nobara 42 and Bazzite something) and are consistent between two (very different) tablets, so I ended up ruling out the hardware. At least on the tablet side…, because I have yet to try the same thing on my laptop to rule out any potential signal issue with my USBs
tl;dr it needs a little more investigation on my part to explain why it doesn’t seem reproducible for other users
There’s a similar incentive to this Windows 11 one, but for macOS. Yikes.
Not sure why that warrants a yikes; macOS is far more usable than Windows 11. I’d go so far as to call it downright pleasant in comparison.
Yeah mac os is the best middle ground. It is a lot more like Linux than Windows will ever be
Maybe everyone has their biases, but MacOS is often terrible in comparison to Windows, at least in my experience. Hell simply things like snapping windows appropriately MacOS absolutely is trash at still.
It’s always seemed to me that MacOS is still suffering from design decisions made back in the 80’s when it was running on a single 9" monochrome screen, and Apple is far too stubborn to change it.
At least Microsoft isn’t afraid to change things up, even if a lot of their UI changes end up pretty questionable.
Different workflow, macOS does not expect you to snap windows. I’m not 100% familiar with the macOS workflow, but I know it’s different.
That’s the issue. IMHO. A desktop environment should not dictate how the user use it. That’s just stupid.
I like being given a workflow designed by UX engineers, it means I don’t have to think about it and I can just do my work instead of figuring out the best workflow.
My opinion is that computers should stay out of the way as much as possible. It’s an appliance.
I like being given a workflow designed by UX engineers, it means I don’t have to think about it and I can just do my work instead of figuring out the best workflow.
And that’s perfectly fine, and probably the most sensible thing ad well. However. The user should have the option to do whatever they want to.
My opinion is that computers should stay out of the way as much as possible. It’s an appliance.
Exactly! And that’s not possible if you have to fight it every time you use it.
I agree, user choice is important, which is why I use Linux :) (GNOME)
Maybe it’s because I’m more used to windows but my experience any time I’ve had to use mac at work is I’d rather just be fired. At least with a bit of work you can set windows up to mostly fuck off but I’ve never figured out how to do that with mac so it aggressively gets in my way when coding and doing qa
In what ways does it aggressively get in your way?
I hate the multi desktop stuff.
Drag a window to top of screen and it doesn’t snap full screen fast enough or consistantly.
Doesn’t like to display 1 window across 2 screens.
Sometimes a window will shoot off to the side past the visible desktop for god knows what reason.
You can’t nativly set up the mouse scroll to work in reverse direction to the touch pad.
I’m still not sure how to uninstall things.
When my headphone cable is plugged in and I turn on the Mac it insists to make the boot sound though the speakers as an advertizment to the world that there is a Mac around.
If I click x on a browser or app, it doesnt actually shut the program, it just minimizes it.
I can’t easily see the size of hard drives/folders and how much space is left available.
Files are just scattered willy nilly in a folder instead of snapped to a grid unless I set that folders defaults…per folder?! Instead of across the whole OS
They are my personal top of mind gripes.
Longtime Mac user here. Most of this is valid, and some of these are my biggest gripes.
A couple tips:
I can’t easily see the size of hard drives/folders and how much space is left available.
In the Finder, go to View > Show Status Bar. That’ll show you free space easily. (This used to be on by default. I don’t remember when they changed it, probably with 10.7 Lion’s increased iOS-ification.)
Files are just scattered willy nilly in a folder instead of snapped to a grid unless I set that folders defaults…per folder?!
From a Finder window in icon view, go to View > Show View Options. Select Sort By > Snap to Grid, then click “Use as Defaults”. Then it will apply to all your folders that use the default view. Why is “Snap to grid” under “Sort” when it does not sort? WHO KNOWS?!
That said, icon view suuuuuucks. Learn to love list view and you will be happier for it. I gave up on icon view like 25 years ago, after migrating from Mac OS 9. Apple half-assedly ported the Mac OS 9 Finder, and then proceeded to neglect it for a decade or two. At least you can change the grid spacing now.
Doesn’t like to display 1 window across 2 screens.
I’m not totally sure how it works now, but I think this changes if you go to System Settings > Desktop and Dock and turn off the “Displays have Separate Spaces” box.
I’m still not sure how to uninstall things.
There’s no universal method. :(
Basic case: just drag the app to the trash. This will leave your user settings in place in ~/Library/Preferences.
Complex cases should have a vendor-supplied uninstaller. For manual cleanup, you have to hunt through your /Library and ~/Library folders to delete related junk from the vendor. Mostly this will be in the LaunchAgents and Application Support folders. But again, no universal method.
If I click x on a browser or app, it doesnt actually shut the program, it just minimizes it.
This is the one thing I strongly disagree about, although I totally understand how it feels wrong when you’ve spent years learning different behavior.
It’s one of the biggest fundamental differences between Mac and Windows UI design, going all the way back to the 80s: Windows is window-centric (I mean…hence the name, right?), while Mac OS is application-centric.
You can still interact with Mac applications with no windows open, via the menu bar. Closing a window and quitting an application are two entirely different concepts. This is not the same as “minimizing” the app. An app can be in the foreground with no open windows. There are plenty of times when I close the last window in an app with the intent to continue using the app (e.g. opening another file or creating a new one).
Fun fact: many years ago, Apple made a few of their apps behave this way by default, with an option to change it back to normal Mac behavior. TextEdit, Preview, and maybe QuickTime Player. Just those few. I guess they wanted to accommodate Windows users’ expectations, but it was so half-assed that all it did was ensure that everyone was confused at some point by the inconsistency. They only recently changed it back so we have consistency by default again, but now there’s no option at all. Go figure. I wouldn’t mind if they implemented an option in a whole-assed way, but I’d go absolutely batty if Windows-like behavior were forced on me.
I get frustrated with the track pads. Sometimes they click, sometimes they drag, sometimes they right click. I know its number of fingers and pressure/speed of clicking? I’m sure it’s great if you learn it, but nobody else has adopted it.
Oh, and 2 programs side by side and you have to jump between menus of both of them for whatever reason. The whole “1 menu per desktop” is frustrating
Thanks I’ll have a fiddle when I get back to work.
Coming from an IT background. I 100% agree with this assessment.
The scroll thing is annoying. I like the “natural” scroll on a touchpad but not a mouse also.
The multi desktop is the same as on Windows and Linux… I don’t use it on any system. I like how MacOS handles fullscreen apps better than either of those.
You can disable the startup sound very easily: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102230
I have only used mirroring to external monitor and not extending a desktop, so I don’t know. As far as maximization I personally hate windows expanding when I move them to the top of the screen. It’s rarely what I want so I turn it off. If I want to maximize it, I hit the green button.
You uninstall Apps by dragging their folder from the Applications folder to the trash can.
Closing the window and leaving the application running is how MacOS has worked forever for some Steve Jobs reason. I am used to hitting Cmd-Q.
The folder stuff can be weird. The way the Desktop icons work is one of the worst aspects, thigh they kind of fixed that (using expanding smart folders or whatever used to be chaos if they had a lot of items in them).
You can check the usage of a Volume from right clicking it in Finder and choosing Get Info. Or just df -h
These seem like mostly familiarity issues, where Windows issues are malicious in nature.
No, OS X aggressively resists customization or convenience. There’s the Apple way to do pretty much everything and the painful way which is anything but the Apple way. Windows is anti-consumer because they want to harvest your data and cram ads down your throat. OS X just doesn’t care what you want or what you would prefer and will actively punish you if you attempt to deviate from the way it thinks you should be doing things. If something doesn’t work the way you want tough, OS X makes you adapt to it rather than trying to adapt to you.
This is because a Mac is basically a giant iPad with a keyboard. Everything is abstracted away, so if you’re actually a computer person and try and take command of what’s going on, the giant iPad will say “no you can’t do that” constantly
It feels like trying to drive a car with no steering wheel or pedals, and you’re expected to vibe your way through it with an overly helpful touchscreen interface running interference. Like just please God just give me the steering wheel
I dread having to use my work laptop for this exact reason.
aww…he deeed
Oh, yes… to input specific characters or disable caps lock, one needs to hack the registry with hex codes…
Stunning Windows goes still as user-friendly.
Edit: If you were lacking a reason to try modern Linux user Interfaces, try GNOME desktop with PaperWM. It works great on my 40’ display…
You can use PowerToys for Windows to (among other things) disable caps lock. I’m no fan of Microsoft, but they do provide PowerToys for free and there is a lot of useful stuff in it.
Should I applaud them for collecting a bunch of open source tools, which should never even have to be written and instead included in the OS, and bundling them in PowerToys?
I love powertoys. It’s potentially (along with C#/.Net) the best thing Microsoft have made.
PowerToys is the sole reason I somewhat get along with binbows on my work laptop.
I linked to the top search result.
Stunning Windows goes still as user-friendly.
I mean I get we are supposed to hate Windows here but highlighting a specific thing that very few people would even want to try and use that as a reason to doubt it’s user friendliness is just picking at straws. There’s tons of reasons that Windows can be interpreted as not user friendly already.
Matches my experiences between using Linux at home for decades, and being forced to deal with Windows at work. Luckily, I can drop all the shitty problems on IT…
Thanks! Lol
Ah, yes! Light gray text on white background. Perfectly legible.
Windows has went to shit. But I have a soft spot for older versions.
Windows 7 was peak Windows, at least from a usability standpoint.
What Windows says now, LOL!!
Coming from XP, 7 felt like an upgrade, but I wouldn’t say I was enamoured. Peak Windows for me was 2000, and while it probably lacks more useful modern features than I recall, I definitely still think it’s the best looking, and the visually most well put together version of Windows there has ever been.
I love Linux, and I love how it has managed to bring back, or even surpass, the enjoyment and the sense of wonder and possibilities, that I used to feel in regards to computer use, back then. And I love how it enables me to install, create and customise any graphical elements of the desktop environment to my liking. One of the first things I managed to do, after switching to Linux, was, in fact, to convert my desktop into a very convincing Windows 2000 look-alike - just looking at the desktop, I doubt many people would have been able to tell that it wasn’t actually the real McCoy. Nowadays, though, I wouldn’t want my desktop to look like Windows of any variety. I use a few different styles, depending on mood, that are all either replicas of other, real desktop environments from the 90’s, or they’re imaginary “fantasy desktops” from the 90’s of an alternate reality. I love that can just do that, not just because I love that particular aesthetic, but also because it is SO much more usable for me. The current trends in visual design, aren’t just off putting to me, it’s difficult and straining to parse too, what with the contrasts that are all out of whack, and lines and outlines all but seemingly banned, and with all the drop shadows and the transparency effects, and things fading and sliding around everywhere all the time, it’s just so much visual noise, and it makes my head hurt. The late 90’s is when GUIs and the graphical part of UX were at their peak, in terms of usability and readability, if you ask me. It’s sad to me that almost every type of design since has seemingly been a direct or indirect rejection of that period. I wonder how much better GUIs could be, if they had stuck with all the things that worked well from back then, and had then continued to build off of that.
Sorry I think I went off on a tangent there.
As for 7 being the peak in terms of usability, what with some of the features it had over earlier versions, you may be right. I think 7 was the first version that had indexed searches, or at least had them enabled by default, and I remember how good that felt, experiencing it for the first time. But wasn’t 10, on release, pretty equivalent to 7, really? IIRC, much of its dark patterns, ads, spyware and enshittification was only added gradually over its lifetime, wasn’t it? Going by memory, I think I even appreciated the minor facelift it got, as it seemed essentially like the same thing, but with the Vista-esque/Aero-style glassy, glossy, noisy stuff gone or heavily muted and toned down, which made it much less distracting.
Please tell me you have posted screenshots somewhere of your fantacy 90s desktops. Sounds awesome.
I still think Win2K was the true peak. Everything since has been clown shoes and bloat.
… but I have to admit that my Mint Cinnamon customisation looks a whole lot more 7 than it does 2K.
This guy never even attempted to give windows a real shot. He complains about not being able to install windows on a drive that already has an OS on it, without getting rid of the other OS, for crying out loud
It’s a feature most big Linux distros support, but Windows doesn’t.
Windows does support it tho. You just need to partition them separately on the same drive.
Because it’s something that shouldn’t be done.
Multiboot was a common thing until Microsoft decided to make it difficult.
Having a different OS on a different drive is how it should be done.
is how it should be done
No it isn’t.
The whole point of partitions is so you can have multiple things on the same drive. Be them data, swap, or… yes, operating systems.
You shouldn’t be partitioning your OS drive and putting multiple OS’s on it. Terrible practice.
The best practice is to buy a separate PC for each system and while you are at it, try buying a new house to perfectly isolate both systems /s
And? Just because it’s a good practice doesn’t mean it’s okay for Windows to go and fuck up every other OS on the drive. There shouldn’t be any technical issues with having two OS on the same drive. What if you just want to test two different OS so you could decide which one to keep? Are you supposed to buy a new drive just because you’ll need it for a month?
What you’ve said is not an argument why Windows gets to fuck up every other OS that’s on the same drive.
I know more than you.
If you knew anything about operating systems you wouldn’t be saying that.
According to whom? You?
No one who wants to boot into multiple OS’s should want to have them on the same physical drive. That’s complete idiocy. Zero redundancy, lose all of them if the drive dies.
New OS, new disk. Every time.
No one […] should want
The moment you’ve written those words, you’ve already lost. Because they obviously do want it, and operating systems have supported it for decades, which means it’s perfectly reasonable for people to expect it to continue.
That’s cool that you do it that way. But why do you care how other people do it? And like… You seem really fucking emotional about it.
I’m glad that you have extra income to buy drive per OS to insert into your PC, but there are these things that are called laptops, and sometimes people have them, and sometimes they have quite old ones and non-extensible ones and you get where I’m going with this?
Why not? It works perfectly fine if you install windows first and Linux afterwards. I’ve done it multiple times and the problems only arose during windows updates, occasionally. If windows wasn’t such a piece of shit, what would be wrong with this configuration?
Lose one drive you now have no OS’s where before you might have had 4. One OS per drive.
That is a risk that should be accepted. Still doesn’t answer my question, why shouldn’t it be done?
Let’s say hypothetically that I’m a student who has a mediocre laptop with only a single internal drive. And I need Linux for college, and I want Windows to play [insert a game with shitty DRM that’s unsupported by Proton] with friends. Why shouldn’t I install two OS’s on the same drive?
You never need Linux for college.
Install windows first. Problem solved.
It does answer your question of why it shouldn’t be done.
And?
I think he gave it a fair shot (including spending money on Microsoft apps!), although plenty of the complaints are from the perspective of a Linux user migrating to Windows. For example, the average Windows user won’t worry about dual booting.
Personally, I think the biggest mistake was to not try out FOSS versions of things like Firefox and Thunderbird, but I appreciated the insight into Edge for example.
