https://www.autodesk.com/products

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computer-aided_manufac...

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology#1-computer-o...

HN is atypical of the world, particularly anything outside of the USA.

By the way, I'm not using Windows (but love .NET) and prefer Linux, but I'm not fooling myself that it's a popular choice on the desktop by any metric.

Probably someone remembers the history better than me and have more clarity and/or corrections.

Unfortunately Microsoft decided to stuff it with user hostile spyware instead.

Saying this as someone who've used both Linux and Windows as a main OS for decades, and would dump Windows 100% if I could get Ableton to run properly on Linux. I'm still using WSL2 from time to time, but for things I need to be productive with, I prefer my Linux environment 99% of the time.

I do actually start up Arch / Ubuntu / whatever in WSL for some things but mostly just use the above setup which is most Linux like without having to shell into WSL all the time. That being said, I use actual Linux / Arch whenever I can - yeah, I use Arch btw.

But developer focused software is trash on Windows, if I want to remain productive I need a Linux environment so I can just run stuff without having to fuck around to configure it for Windows and what not.

winget install -e --id RedHat.Podman

podman run --it --rm -p 8000:8000 .. image

For gitbash, add a new profile in Windows Terminal and find "bash.exe" in Program Files\Git (sorry I can't remember the details and not on Windows right now). Once you have this you can use normal Linux commands, setup a .bashrc, ls, cd ~, vi, etc.

Anyway, food for thought in case you want to try a different workflow one day.

Where exactly does this run? Podman/Docker makes no difference, doesn't it? You still need to run a VM (WSL2 on Windows), so might as well run those directly in the WSL2 environment I already have? But again, docker in WSL2 doesn't work as directly on Linux, for whatever reason.

> For gitbash, add a new profile in Windows Terminal and find "bash.exe" in Program Files\Git (sorry I can't remember the details and not on Windows right now). Once you have this you can use normal Linux commands, setup a .bashrc, ls, cd ~, vi, etc.

Been there and tried that, and "git bash" on Windows is probably the worst mixmatch, and bunch of tooling gets confused when the shell is bash but the actual host is Windows.

I used WSL2 for years and never had any issues with it.

A year ago or something, changing the size of the WSL disk via some Powershell command also corrupted the disk after it was done, I had to start from scratch which was a bit annoying.

Sorry, but this is just nonsense. I used Linux on the desktop from 1994 to 2007 (lucky enough to start using Linux when I was 12). I have used macOS as my main desktop since 2007, but I also have a ThinkPad with NixOS and a Linux workstation (currently used headless though). I feel like I'm able to make a fair comparison.

macOS for me feels like a much more mature version of the Linux desktop, on more mature hardware, with applications that are not available on Linux. macOS is rarely getting in my way. The primary reason I also use Linux (and contribute in various ways) is that I find FLOSS morally preferable and hope for that reason that the Linux desktop wins in the long term.

Though having been around for many 'Linux is soon ready for the desktop'-moments since around 2000 (anyone remember Corel Linux?), I don't hold high hopes. As long as basic things like waking sleep results in a kernel panic because waking your Thunderbolt display puts the kernel in a weird state (and the 999 other paper cuts), Linux on the desktop won't happen.

* AutoHotkey

* Voidtools Everything

* Agent Ransack

* Irfanview

I wouldn't says it's been smooth sailing. I've had a ton of technical issues which are not all resolved (I still can't get my laptop to wake from sleep, I have to do a hard reset if it sleeps) but at least everything else is working now.

A lot of minor display related issues (mostly involving using an external monitor as my main screen) were solved when I switched to Gnome on X11 instead of Wayland.

The most important lesson I'm taking from this is: if you want to use Linux, you need to buy certified hardware. Don't assume your laptop will work. Don't recommend other people to install Linux on random laptops, they'll probably have loads of minor and major issues that you don't have if you bought hardware specifically with the goal of running Linux.

Random Windows laptops have been slightly more frustrating. Hibernation may not work out of the box, and sometimes one other piece of random hardware won't be usable. For a laptop that basically lives on a desk, you might get away with it.

Desktops are usually easier. They don't have as much built-in hardware, hibernation to disk may not be necessary, and it's easier to replace a webcam or something if you need to. I'd still check the graphics card, especially if it's an expensive one.

Or test yours with a live distro beforehand

That can often make all the difference, but it's not intuitive for Windows people who are used to install hardware drivers.

Especially for hardware like new Bluetooth or Wifi chips, fingerprint readers, but also when there is a new Intel or AMD CPU generation and chipset.

E.g. instead of Ubuntu or Mint, try Fedora or CachyOS. Or even Nobara or Bazzite for gaming-specific optimizations.

Agreed. Note though that the Ubuntu live installer has a "Try" mode that gives you a nearly normal desktop experience without installing, and is an effective test environment to discover what will work and what won't. Wifi, graphics and suspend are worth trying out this way.

One thing I didn't have major issues with was my Nvidia graphics card, which was a surprise.

- wake from suspend - laptop power consumption - poor wayland support - sudden desktop restarts - hidpi, external monitors, virtualization

Nvidia's proprietary crap has always worked badly, the re-implement everything and put all their development effort into NIH syndrome instead of playing along with the already existing open source stack.

Now I'm a desktop user, so the first two don't really impact me, and the rest has been working fine for the ~2 years I've been in Wayland+Arch+Gnome across 3 different NVIDIA GPUs. Not sure why virtualization is there, but it also seems to work, although via WSL2 is slightly buggy, but I blame that on Microsoft rather than Linux/NVIDIA.

As to sudden restarts, this has never happened to me.

This is the weakest point of modern Linux - suspend/resuming not working properly on many machines. And the systemd-logind / inhibitor architecture makes it incredibly hard for non-technical users to opt out of suspend.

But if it does not work that is highly annoying of course.

For me, it was a ThinkPad X1 Gen 11 and Mint 21.2 (MATE) about a year ago.

> Linux Mint 21.2 features a Linux kernel 5.15 and an Ubuntu Jammy package base.

That's from Oct. 2021, so it wasn't new a year ago.

https://tuxcare.com/blog/is-linux-mint-based-on-ubuntu/

Doesn't time fly!

Personally I focused on reducing the boot time when the suspend never worked properly.

I would suggest to use Linux Mint or Pop_os for example.

Pop_os is in a weird state right now too, with the upcoming migration to their new GUI framework

I think this is a wrong approach. These are the first two thoughts that come to mind: 1. A major reason for migrating from Windows 10 to Linux is avoiding e-waste and by encouraging others to acquire a device specifically for Linux causes more e-waste to be generated (I don't deny the benefits of picking special hardware, I just think this it something worth pointing out). 2. Linux generally has excellent hardware support in my experience and while not everything may be plug-and-play, it's usually easy to get it working. I've installed Linux on an old no-name laptop with really unusual hardware and while Windows required special drivers (which I couldn't find) for audio, webcam and wireless networking, with Linux all worked out of the box. Many issues with laptops running Linux have already been solved. You might find the Laptops category in the Arch Wiki [1] useful.

> A lot of minor display related issues (mostly involving using an external monitor as my main screen) were solved when I switched to Gnome on X11 instead of Wayland.

Display issues are indeed one of the weak points of Linux, frequently due to the need for proprietary graphics drivers which may not even be available on Linux. X11 is more stable in this regard, as it is way more mature, but Wayland is catching up quickly.

Linux isn't perfect and you can certainly improve your experience by preferring well-tested setups, but existing hardware can be brought back to life, which is important. Not everyone can afford new devices.

So does producing a new one:

https://www.networkworld.com/article/752694/computer-factori...

When I purchased them, I had no idea that would be the case. My perfectly good iPhone 12 mini is already at its last legs (I bet a couple of years), thanks to iOS 26 and the liquid ass. Why is it so? Why should I stress about initial purchases? I’m not that poor and young, sorry, I’m worried about the footprint. And I hope you would one day too.

After that, don't stress at all. As you say, you had no idea at the time of purchase, so toss it in the dump and move on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5r4hFY_oh8

Same story with clothes, paper and plastic recycling, it's just talk and green-washing.

But i can answer you the "guilt-free" part it's really easy:

Don't buy stuff you don't need, or stuff that's just for short-time-fun (Labubu vs. Guitar) ;)

Because 1kg of Plutonium is the same as 1kg of Wood?

Instead of poaching to the adults, poach it to the kids. Tell them stories of hackers, etc.

We can also volunteer in schools for a few sessions of introduction to Linux.

Our daughter initially had a Linux machine (also for the reasons you outlined). But she quickly ran into issues when doing work for school, collaborating with other kids, etc. So we gave her a Mac Mini M1. It was not very expensive, she can run many common apps (MS Office is a fact of life) and it's more secure (app sandboxing, sealed system volume, etc). But many of her skills are be transferrable to Linux if needed (in contrast to using an iPad or Android tablet).

So cool that your kid was able to use a Hackintosh in high school!

Any source for this? I grown on Atari, DOS and Windows. Most kids today are on mobile or consoles.

Linux does not need advertising, it is by far the best option from point of hardware selection, development, gaming and ease of use.

Familiarity and “just-workitude” really are by far the most important factors for people picking OSs, and these days it’s possible to stick with one platform for decades.

Gaming? No. Hardware selection? Lol absolutely not.

What happened to IT lessons at school? I had IT starting at the age of 13 onwards, and that was in the early 2000s. By the time you graduated from school, you were guaranteed to have at least basic IT skills.

At one point it shifted to "everyone has a computer at home" to "everyone has a computer in their pocket, and learns typing by themselves" and the classes seems to have disappeared.

I think in the early/mid 2000s most families already had a PC at home. At least all of my friends did.

> "everyone has a computer in their pocket, and learns typing by themselves"

Yeah, that seems to be the sentiment. Of course we all know this is completely wrong.

Same for me. But these are actually usefull skills and I find it strange that they wouldn't be taught anymore.

My kids have kubuntu on some old laptops and will have linux everywhere. Hopefully it is ok to maintain that,I'm afraid of school forcing incompatible software

I'm running Linux on five different machines, and two of them are portables: a ThinkPad Z13 and a GPD Win Mini 2024 - and have none of the issues you mentioned. In fact there's literally zero issues at all, I couldn't be any happier to be honest.

I went through this not too long ago. And the effort required feels like a very deliberate dark pattern move.

I primarily used Linux in various ways since Ubuntu 6.06, and every year it gets a little bit better, useful and stable, from my point of view at least. But I also moved to Arch some years ago, and CachyOS this year, so that might cloud my view on how well things work, and I also stopped using laptops, which makes Linux life a lot easier.

As W10 user, W11 denialer I’m waiting for that day!

I also tried to install various Linux distros on a partition but all of the installations failed towards the end of the process, causing various boot loader and other problems that required a lot of uncomfortable fixing in terminals and BIOS.

I would have liked to be using Linux but as it turned out a de-bloated Windows 11 experience is very good for me.

[1] https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat?utm_source=perplexit...

I completely switched to Ubuntu a few years ago, but the loss of a functioning version of WikidPad, which was my calendar at the time forced me back, having missed a few critical doctors appointments was the straw that broke me.

It was a breaking change to the WxWindows python Library that killed it. Because the windows version of public release from 2012 was an executable, it just kept working, while the software supply chain failed for the Linux world. Many other things written in Python were killed when Python 3 hit and took them out, unless they were actively being maintained.

I've even considered the possibility of switching to VMS, having used it back in my college days, but the cost seems to be almost $100/month for a license. ==8-o