Much of big tech became Product leaders running amok. Somehow It shifted from users know best to "Product" knows best.

I think this all stemmed everyone wanting to be Apple except no one actually achieved it and now we have 3 different versions of the audio control panel in Windows, the start button is somehow in the middle of the screen, and windows search no longer searches your PC.

Deleting "Product" might save windows, short of that, I am doubtful.

[delayed]

Perhaps AI is taking off because it is the only thing actually listening to customer problems.

Great point. Just last week I used AI to build a minimal replacement for a SaaS tool I’ve used in the past that has obnoxious feature gating/price tiers. My version isn’t nearly a complete replica, but it has the base functionality I want without having to feel like someone spent hundreds of hours perfecting price tiers with artificial limitations that annoy me just enough to upgrade.

Getting a tool that did exactly what I wanted with no fuss was delightful.

Monkey's paw curls: listening to customers, except literally and 24/7.

Best insight I’ve seen today, thanks for this!

It's like...like a game...of thrones...

Someone called it a number of years ago once each kind of brand new apple device couldn't plug into each other without a dongle.

> and now we have 3 different versions of the audio control panel in Windows

And yet somehow none of them are as nice as https://eartrumpet.app/ lol

Even this cannot adjust volume levels independently for multiple tabs in the same browser, which I have always been able to do on linux with pulseaudio/pipewire. People on windows use browser extensions for this, with full access to all tabs/sites...

Every time I try to build a castle in my swamp, it gets to a certain height and then it just sinks?

STOP telling me about civil engineering, we fucking invented that shit. And NO, we have to build it in the swamp, it feeds us and keeps us safe, and I'm darned proud to say we invented that too.

Thanks, I actually didn't realize that my basically stock Linux install already did this

What makes that nicer than the built in volume mixer?

Per-app mixing on the first-level menu. I like SoundSource on macOS for the same reason: https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/

I right click the volume icon in Windows, select "Volume Mixer", and it gives me per-app mixing. Which I guess is an extra click, as with eartrumpet you can access the mixer with a single left click on the icon.

had to stop using eartrumpet cos it kept randomly pulling the cpu to near 100%. updating didnt help

I've never been bothered by Windows's changes, and I mostly think they were reasonable. But for a number of reasons it's never going to be easy for them to gain total acceptance: 1) the massive backwards compatibility back to Windows 95 stuff, 2) the willingness to try new and/or silly things that Apple is too stuffy to try, and 3) the fact that there's only ever going to be one "flavor" of Windows; if we were stuck with one single Linux distro people would be complaining about that one too.

There are two major problems with modern Windows.

The first is coercion. Installing without a Microsoft (Outlook) account is more and more difficult. An attentive steward of Windows would allow older gui themes (xp, Win7 Aero, etc.) to be applied for the nostalgic. And there would be an easy control to disable all Copilot integration. Microsoft is coercive towards their customers with these and other actions.

The second is incompetence. The Windows update process is intrusive, lengthy, and prone to repeatedly bricking unlucky PCs. Linux updates are far more pleasant.

These are big problems, and I agree, it will take great institutional change to curb these abusive tendencies. I don't know if they can.

The fact that Microsoft are doing zero nostalgia marketing is baffling to me.

Put a clippy skin on copilot and people would probably install it voluntarily.

>incompetence

Man..., its 2026 and just yesterday I did "Update and Shutdown" only for it to "Update and Restart" instead. It would be funny if it wasnt that sad..

Most updates need to reboot once or more, but the final one should have shutdown.

Now, don't get me wrong, what the hell is so special about Windows that it needs to reboot for every little update operation?

It doesn't, I have installed many Windows updates that didn't require a reboot. Even ones I expected to need an update, like an update to a graphics driver. Screen just went blank, then came back a second later.

AFAICT it's only updates to things that run at startup time that require a reboot, probably because NTFS doesn't allow you to write to a file that's currently opened (as opposed to nearly every Linux filesystem, which handles that just fine: the process that has the file opened continues to see the "old" file, while any that open it after the write will see the "new" file — but NTFS, probably due to internal architecture, can't handle that and so you have to reboot to change files that background services are using).

It has nothing to so with NTFS, but all with the Win32 API. The Windows kernel supports this file model, proven by WSL1. There is a blog post somewhere (Old New Thing?) stating the engineers would like to e.g. allow deleting a file even if there is still a program with with a file handle to it, but are concerned deviation from current behavior would cause more problems than it solves.

The reason that they want a reboot is that they do not want to support a system using two versions of the same library at the same time, let's say ntdll. So they would have to close any program using that library before programs that use the new version can be started. That is equivalent to a reboot.

And I completely understand the reason. For a long time when Firefox would update on Linux, the browser windows still open were broken; it opened resources meant for the updated Firefox with the processes runnung the non-updated Firefox. The Chrome developers mentioned [2] that the "proper" solution would be to open every file at start and pass that file descriptor to the subprocesses so all of them are using the same version of the file. Needless to say, resource usage would go up.

[2]: https://neugierig.org/software/chromium/notes/2011/08/zygote...

Thanks for the correction. Not having had to write anything against the Win32 API, I learned something from your comment. Appreciate the info.

> The Chrome developers mentioned [2] that the "proper" solution

Or to install into versioned prefixes, so the old keeps using the old files.

This isn't an NTFS thing. The I/O Manager implements NtLockFile. Applications can request exclusive byte-range write access to a file. And perhaps it is lazy programmers, or defaults, but they generally do.

I don't think Microsoft sees client machine reboots as an issue, and it used to be much worse when they used to be released weekly. On the server side, Microsoft expects that you'd implement some form of high availability.

NTFS on non-Windows follows the locking semantics of the underlying driver model/kernel, e.g. you can replace an in-use file on Linux. Likewise, using FAT on Windows you cannot replace an in-use file. This is just to demonstrate it isn't a file system-specific "issue" (if you feel it is one). It was a design decision by the original NT OS/2 development group.

Ultimately, the NT byte-range locking is a holdover from NT OS/2, where in OS/2 byte-range locking was mandatory.

That's a myth that Linux handles it better.

There a enough apps that keep old files open, but also (re)open updated files that do not fit to the old, open ones, thus have all kind of issues. (Subjectively Thunderbird has major issues with not restarting if libs it depends on get upgraded.)

I stopped answering support mails and tickets from users with long uptime with anything else than: reboot first. And it was >>80% the cause of problems. And yes, most times a logout would suffice, but with our users having >100d uptime with desktops and laptops, the occasional kernel update is done /en passant/ this way. (The impatient could kexec and have the advantage of both. Or look at the output of "need restart" or "checkrestart". But I couldn't care less in case of end user devices)

Can‘t replace files that are in-use and that includes running programs or loaded DLLs. Linux can, it keeps the inode and only actually deletes upon termination of last access.

Ive read this many times, so I tried this a few times, giving it the benefit of the doubt, only to find the PC on login screen the following morning every time.

Ugh, I've had this happen over and over. I can't trust my laptop to actually shut down. I have to wait to see the light stay off for a couple seconds before I put it in my bag.

If you have two candidate ui designs you pick the best of the two. If you have an established ui and a candidate the new design needs to be dramatically better. It has to scream superiority. If it isn't that you are just ruining ux.

I install Gimp one time. I like to casual draw on autopilot, usually while doing something else, talking, watching a movie, listening to a podcast etc. For some reason half the icons were missing and the existing set was replaced with the hipster horrifying flat single color monstrosities. This would have been a waste of their time if it was only an option for no one who wants this some place buried deep in the settings where it would only clutter the nesaserily complex options.

With MS it feels more like intentionally trolling the user

The best spot for the applications sub menu is to not make it a sub menu. The second best is to leave it wherever the fuck it was before. I want to struggle remembering what an application was called and wonder why they are organized so poorly. (Not by file Association) In stead they have me wonder where they even are???

I'm actually not sure what you're saying about GIMP. I mean - I understand the frustration, the "button groups" or whatever they did to declutter things made things (imo) worse; I don't think it's a good default.

BUT

I don't actually understand your sentences for the most part. I really had to work to glean what you were talking about.

I'm not trying to be insulting here; sometimes I write in inscrutable ways too. But - could you reword a few things so I know what you're trying to say?

I've never been sentenced to repeating myself. I'm sure people normally hope for improvements in silence without informing me. Thanks!

The general point was that "Improvement" that ruin muscle memory usually aren't. It should be the most basic UI design principle.

One should be able to instinctively click on the Gmail icon while focused on the task at hand. If the icon isn't where one expects it to be you are no longer doing email things. Same goes for having the user search for the inbox inside the application. If they can't find it they are unproductive and feel dumb but they aren't to blame. Some bad designer came up with the brilliant idea to call it "all mail". The inbox is expected to live at the top of the menu. You can't improve it.

It's such basic stuff. It's like someone used your tools or your kitchen and put everything in a new spot. Eh, I mean the wrong spot.

I could give 1000 example inside windows but it seems everyone is trolling their users. They all want to create the new and improved slashdot, now without threaded discussions! - Hurray!

Here’s a great example of UX that needed changing despite breaking muscle memory:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QYM3TWf_G38&vl=es-US

Very impressive effort. He mentions so many cool ideas. I really like the drop-down with what you want on the toolbar. Good way to unclutter the settings menu.

I wonder what would be a good way to visualize settings the user changed (and changed back) and some way to see the defaults. Perhaps save custom settings? Useful but it adds even more cans of worms.

Say, after I change the minimum font size on my browser, is it still usable for webdesign?

What if I want to configure Audacity for podcasts and for music?

I wondered if one could ask the user when they started using an application but it seems unworkable.

Then had a silly idea to do a slider that moves the ui in time with animations so that you can see buttons fly in and out of sub menus. Slide it a few decades to the left and you are back in windows NT. Not a realistic thing for MS to make but depending on the project it might be cool.

Then had an idea for a tree shaped slider with all the ui branches in it.

For websites I often keep the old designs on the server and append a date to the file name. Never had a reason to expose the user to those but it could be fun. I did lots of crazy experiments that didn't live up to expectation.

Can in stead throw designs in there that appeal to single digit % users. And then they won't be able to find it.

Maybe some day AI can save us.

There's another pressure: each major release has to look different from the last one, otherwise it feels like a minor release. In this regard XP, Vista and 7 were successful. 8 also succeeded here, but at the expense of usability.

It doesn't have to use different window layouts, just differently themed decorations. Changing the default wallpaper is a simple way to do it.

> This would have been a waste of their time if it was only an option for no one who wants this some place buried deep in the settings where it would only clutter the nesaserily complex options.

I'm not sure what this sentence means. Perhaps you already knew that Gimp's monochrome icons can be replaced by colorful ones by going to the Gimp settings under Theme -> Icon Theme, and unchecking the "Use symbolic icons if available" checkbox. That may be what you meant by "some place buried deep in the settings". But if you didn't, at least now you know how to get the colorful icons back.

The reason I'm making this comment, though, is to contrast it with Windows. A comment by chasil, left shortly after your own comment, said that "[a]n attentive steward of Windows would allow older gui themes (xp, Win7 Aero, etc.) to be applied for the nostalgic." Gimp has done just that: in Icon Theme, you can choose the "Default" or "Legacy" icon theme, so if you got used to the older icons, you can get them back. And you can still use the newer icon set if you like, but get the icons' colors back by unchecking a (confusingly-named, the name definitely needs improvement) checkbox. Windows doesn't have any built-in way to get the older themes back; if you want Windows 11, or even 10, to look like Windows 7 or XP or whatever version you trained your visual memory on for years, then it takes third-party software to make that possible. (And it may not even be possible, I haven't checked).

When even one of the most infamous-for-confusing-UI pieces of open-source software (I mean Gimp, of course) is doing a better job of providing good UI than Microsoft is, Microsoft has a problem.

I'm happy the old icons are still available. I consider the flat icons (by default) a bad idea because one can't use them with peripheral vision. Even after getting used to them i have to look much longer to see which does what.

Windows compatibility is pretty overrated at this point. There are a bevy of programs we use commercially that are quite old that just don’t work on 11, and not well on 10. Compatibility mode only gets you do far.

I would say the primary reason that windows still is acceptable is familiarity and games. Nothing else.

Non tech people don't care about control panel etc. they just go through the pain of entering the WiFi password. Done.

- gamers. Double click install - go on. I know very few gamers that have moved to Linux.

And corporate. Most normies that I know DON'T have own computers. Everything can be done via smartphone these days.

With games it's performance. I have a graphics card, I'm uninterested in losing %s off it for running on Linux.

It's doomsday if Linux starts outperforming Windows. If SteamOS for PC still required me to dual boot - which I already do - but guaranteed is get 100% windows performance or better, then that would be the official end.

It's not clear to me this couldn't happen either: I am very willing to hand over the entire PC configuration if the promise I get in return is "your games will run as fast as it is possible to run them".

Depending on which game, and which month it is measured in, Linux and Windows have been on par or trading blows for performance. Last I saw the performance had swung back slightly in favour of Windows though (seemed they started fixing some of the issues they had).

When you think about it, it is kind of insane that Linux can match or outperform windows when it has an extra layer translating the system calls though. And for many of us, who don't play competitive twitchy shooters on a high level, the performance of gaming on Linux is perfectly adequate currently. I played Baldur's Gate 3 on Linux earlier this year for example, and it maxed out the frame rate of my monitor.

I'm not sure it does have an extra layer. Reading through the design, it's quite possible the number of layers is the same or less. It might translate win32 calls to Linux libraries and system calls, but on Windows pretty much the same thing is happening, win32 -> lower level libraries and system calls.

IIRC from some discord threads, some games already perform better on Linux than on Windows. We are getting there. The only moat left is kernel anti cheat for games like Battlefield. I’m just fine if those stay on windows actually.

I haven’t had a Windows box in about 8 years, but even back then all the big names had consistently better performance on Linux.

Usually about a 10-20% fps improvement for my usual fare in those days: League, Overwatch, Civ5, Minecraft, Crusader Kings, Factorio, etc. Try it for yourself and see what you get.

I'm very sus on Linux not receiving regular driver updates. I just last month solved an ongoing issue I had with many games, no uniform reason, but widespread force closures w/o error messages and some of the games with the most significant issues - could run on a potato. I dont have a potato. It was frustrating - and it was a random driver, that I stopped from being updated and never fixed. In a few years, when I am thinking about upgrading - I might consider linux. I really do expect more users and more stuff made for that platform in the near future. Drivers are high priority tho bc they directly transfer into functionality also.

What do you mean? If you install a distro with a fast release cycle, you'll get constant driver updates!

> 1) the massive backwards compatibility

Greatest strength. Greatest papercut.

Golden handcuffs

Apple achieved it with Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Apple then spent ~15 years un-achieving it. It started with iOS 7, and has culminated in the Liquid (Gl)ass era: a mess of unintuitive menus, terrible and inconsistent UI patterns, the lobotomite twins Siri & Apple Intelligence.

Although, surprisingly, built on top of absolutely incredible silicon.

> Although, surprisingly, built on top of absolutely incredible silicon.

To me that's because thats a capital E "Engineering" driven task that Product can't get their grubby little mitts on and ruin.

No, it’s because product is now 100% the h1b class deciding what to do. Indian take over is real

Minority in Apple R&D is mostly Asian, not Indian

I don't particularly care what their ethnicity happens to be. Just write good, bug free code that does things people want. How they get to there from here? No f'ing idea -- but I know that first they have to have to want to and they _clearly_ do not.

  > Just write good, bug free code that does things people want

in big tech, this is rarely caused by individuals and more by management, just fyi

Pretty cool being racist. I noticed people from varying ethnic backgrounds seemed to land in particular divisions (maybe schools in those countries focused on these cores), but I wouldn't ascribe nationality to anything as broadly as you did.

It's a fair point. The Indian take over is more relevant in Microsoft.

It has posix shell, all is forgiven, can't complain about UI patterns that I never interact with.

Exactly.

Who could imagine Apple would eventually inherit Sun’s crown as the king of the RISC unix workstation?

No one, given how A/UX went down.

It was a mix of not buying Be, having a reverse acquisition with NeXT, Jobs taking over the reigns yet again, Sun doing a bunch of bad decisions.

Nowadays, following the spirit of old Apple, they only care the UNIX underpinnings as good enough, and that's about it.

Still, they managed to bring Unix to the masses. On a RISC platform even.

And their Unix is just fine.

UNIX had already won the server room by them with RISC.

Lets not pretend outside IIS with ASP, later ASP.NET, Active Directory, Sharepoint, SQL Server, SMB, there were any other deployment scenarios left for Windows.

I have to confess I've never seen a modern .NET stack deployment on anything other than Linux.

Snow Leopard was riddled with bugs. Take a look at all the updates it had following its release to confirm that.

If that's true, consider what it means for modern macOS quality when people look back on SL fondly as the most stable release.

I think it means they are wearing rose tinted glasses.

Exactly. SL was not as polished as people remember it to be. They’re just delusional with nostalgia.

The noteworthy thing about Snow Leopard is that it was released at all. Apple had shifted all their effort onto getting the iPhone released and development on OS X pretty much stopped.

I thought they delayed Leopard, not Snow Leopard...

I have become ~comfortably numb~ delusionally nostalgic.

Was it? I remember it being a pretty solid experience.

I still regret that I did not get a ModBook running Snow Leopard.

> windows search no longer searches your PC

Absolutely baffling, when the perfect, magical, instant, high performance search tool has existed for a decade at least: "Everything"

One of THE BEST windows apps.

If you like “Everything”, you might like https://filepilot.tech/ - a 2MB, no install, Explorer clone designed to be quick and including a similar fast search.

As an ex winforms dev, I haven‘t touched windows since I got an M1 max.

Microsoft has always known better than their users, they practically invented this attitude. Others then copied it.

> ... the start button is somehow in the middle of the screen ...

If you take a look at the size of widescreen monitors, you can kinda guess why someone decided to move the start button/menu to the middle of the screen.

I know Samsung and Dell have ginmorous 49 inch monitors. Start menu that pops up from the lower left corner of the monitor would be a bad UX - the user might not even notice that a menu had popped up if that lower left corner of the monitor is out of their peripheral vision.

Moving the Start menu to the middle of the screen does go against years of muscle memory... moving your mouse/trackpad to the lower left, using the monitor border as a stop-zone though.

I guess they didn't want to make it an option/toggle hidden in some dialog box somewhere...

You used to be able to move the taskbar to any side of the screen. IMO the more sensible move for widescreen monitors is to move it to the side so it takes up less screen real estate. Windows 11 removed the ability to move the taskbar like that; it's stuck on the bottom (unless you seek out 3rd party software solutions).

Also it should be noted that (at least as recently as September, haven't used 11 since) you could move the start button back to the left side.

The article mentions they're (re?)adding in the ability to put it on any edge of the screen

Which is absolutely a good thing, but my point is that they removed a feature when it had only become more relevant with time. They get no credit for the change to move the start button to the middle, which is admittedly defensible if the goal was to accommodate widescreen displays, when they removed the ability to move the taskbar entirely, which had been in windows for 25+ years, and also had that benefit.

It's inconceivable they ever removed it. Why would they do that? It's been a feature for a long time and a lot of people use it.

If you're going to introduce a new thing, you have to make sure it justifies replacing the old thing. The new windows 11 taskbar was essentially a straight downgrade.

> We are introducing the ability to reposition it to the top or sides of your screen...

Using the word introducing is so disingenuous to me considering how long that was a capability.

I have a 48" 4k non-curved monitor, running stock KDE with the launcher in the corner and UI scale set to 100%. Not only is the experience just fine, I simply cannot see having the launcher in the middle being useful. It would lead to a beak in left-right organizational thinking for where window and pinned tasks live as my active applications change and I have to hunt for their new screen position. Alt-tab breaks down after a certain number of windows, as does the exploding "overview". Having a consistent order and positioning for multitasking is both faster and less cognitive load.

the user would most definitely notice a menu popped up. Because they clicked it themselves

Tapping the Windows key on the keyboard can also bring up the Start menu (or another key combo like WindowsKey+X brings up the Power User/WinX menu ).

With the Windows Key next to the Alt key on many keyboards, the user could press the Windows Key accidentally when they wanted to press the Alt key.

> I think this all stemmed everyone wanting to be Apple except no one actually achieved it

Given the repeating pattern of Apple shipping a hated operating system update in recent year, it feels like it's more “everybody wants to be Steve Jobs and no one actually achieves it including Apple”.

People having Apple in high regard should also learn about its history, and the almost bankruptcy that didn't kill the company out of sheer luck.

> Somehow It shifted from users know best to "Product" knows best.

In a world where consumers have less and less power, products are designed to please CEOs.

Money is power, as inequality grows and concentrates the average user/worker/citizen has less power and their voices matter less. Today's Internet is designed for the needs of big corporations, users are there just as another product to be sold.

Normal people can not install an OS. Aside from like 3 ThinkPads on Lenovo's website, you can't really buy Linux pre installed on a computer.

This is about the MacBook Neo coming for the budget laptop market. At 500$ it's an easy choice.

Valve and devices like the Steam Deck and soon the Steam Machine are also grabbing the gaming segment away from Windows. Distros like Bazzite also are enticing to those technically inclined enough to boot from a USB drive and run the simple installer.

It isnt a huge amount of people yet but those things do plant the seed that grow over the bext decade.

There are an awful lot of groups installing Linux on Win 10 cast offs around the world.

My uncle runs one in Bradford on Avon and they are slapping on an OS for you whilst you supp tea and chat. Often, the user-agent is set to something Microsoftie in the browser. If necessary Edge is installed but that is frowned on 8)

I have not heard of this MacBook Neo thing ... Why would ? I only own a little IT company and hang around on HN.

2 things:

1. The usage statistics don't reflect your anecdotal Linux usage; Linux desktop/laptop usage share has not grown that significantly in 20 years and Windows remains quite dominant.

2. MacBook Neo was widely discussed on HN not very long ago, and I'd think if anything an owner of an IT company would be more aware of it than an average HN user. It's definitely going to shake up the market for lower-end laptops.

1. The devil is in the details: How are those stats gathered? Many, if not most Linux users hide their OS affiliation via USER-AGENT

2. Missed it or perhaps blanked it. It really will not shake up the lower end because anyone wanting a lower end laptop (whatever that is) will insist on it running Windows and not Apples.

There is a really good reason why car manufacturers run multiple marques - the budget, standard and premium ones. Attempting to put the Apple "premium shine" on a budget effort may backfire spectacularly (and devalue the entire brand) or maybe they will somehow manage to re-invent marketing.

You really should learn about the new MacBook.

I’m not sure what market you are in, but this thing will absolutely upend the low end market in North America. This is a MacBook which handily competes with used/refurbished M1 airs for performance, but sells for less. Hell, it sells for less than an iPhone.

They have managed to keep the build quality without really sacrificing anything you would expect on an entry level computer.

My experience with the low end of laptops is that people can’t even tell you what OS they have (chrome or windows). People are going to see this and think that apple makes good phones, good tablets, and now good computers for affordable prices. The existence of the c model iPhones never “cheapened” the high end models. The existence of the iPad does not cheapen the iPad Pro. All the reviews and media basically are people wondering how they managed to create such a high quality product at this price point.

The ad on TV here tells me it will cost 599 quid and comes in multiple colours. No hints as to what it will actually do.

Personally, I advocate people to convert Windows 10 cast offs away from e-waste, rather than buying tomorrows e-waste.

The number of ex Win 10 machines will vastly outnumber however many of these things that budget Apples will ever sell.

It’s a general purpose computer that runs MacOS, just like every other Mac from the past few decades.

If you want an ad to tell you what that means, well...

There is great value to be had in reusing old hardware selling for a fraction of new pricing. There is great value to be had in an affordable machine with great battery life, light weight durable design, and a user friendly interface that will work and be supported for the better part of a decade. Knowing that some customers will be better served by the former or the latter is pretty valuable.

As an aside, if you are concerned about e waste, take a look at the teardown videos of this machine. This is being touted by many as the most repairable Mac in decades (admittedly, a low bar). Just about every component can be replaced in a few minutes with nothing more than a screwdriver

The Neo is a quality laptop. It's not a cheap laptop with Apple lipstick.

Apple made a significant number of tradeoffs to reach $500, but for a budget user, they're reasonable tradeoffs.

It's also not at all new that Apple's had a budget laptop

What was Apples previous $500 laptop?

Never quite that cheap, but budget is relative, and the Neo is certainly a new degree of meeting that category, but I think in those relative terms the polycarbonate macbook would have been quite a good value for money at the time, even at around ~$1000. You could get cheaper laptops, and you still can, but what you'd get for that money would truly be terrible for the amount you'd save, unless you literally just played solitaire on them.

Even after years of operation, they'd be a decent buy on the used market compared to comparably priced windows laptops that would literally fall apart at the hinges and overheat.

It doesn't have the haptic trackpad and I feel liek that's a dealbreaker.

For you maybe but seems a reasonable compromise to hit the price point and I bet you’d miss it less than you think

The trackpad still clicks better than 80% of all other non-Apple trackpads, for any price.

I’d say 100% with a fair share of confidence since Apple’s magic lies both in hardware AND software (as usual). The hardware is already phenomenal (and far above anything else in the market) but the Mac makes fantastic use of it in such a way that neither Windows nor Linux have managed to even start replicate.

True, I'm only considering the physical hardware clicking sensation in my 80% estimation :)

Tried one of those MacBooks Neos in a store a few days ago because I got curious.

As a Linux/windows user I was completely baffled that you actually have to click (at least in the default setting) to make a mouse click instead of just giving it a tap. Does anyone prefer that?

That’s configurable. That’s default on haptic-enabled Macs, but you can enable tap to click very easily.

I don't think anyone cares. I remember the switch from a MacBook with a (no-adjective) trackpad to a MacBook with a haptic trackpad. There was absolutely nothing earth-shattering about that switch, it was a great trackpad before and a great trackpad after.

True, I don’t think people care since Apple’s non-haptic trackpad is still far (and I mean FAR) better than anything else in the market. People who eventually move on to a higher priced Mac with a haptic trackpad will probably feel a difference and think of it as a nice bonus that came with their upgrade (and probably would not like to downgrade, if possible), but I dont think any newcomers would frown at its absence first-hand.

Good to hear Bradford On Avon mentioned, the town where I grew up. Is there a link to the place where they're installing Linux?

The Tithe Barn in Bradford On Avon was the medieval equivalent to an Amazon warehouse!

Good question ...

I finally managed to query one of my mailboxes effectively and its part of this:

https://shareandrepair.org.uk/

A quick gander on that website turns up: Wallington Hall.

> Why would ? I only own a little IT company and hang around on HN.

Something’s not quite right here.

If you hang around HN you have absolutely heard of the Neo. And I’d be downright frightful to have anything to do with your little IT company (whatever service it provides) if you haven’t at the very least /heard/ of the Neo at this point.

I suspect this is a little white lie just to drive a point home but I fail to see the benefit of such an act when all it does is make you look like you’re lying.

> If you hang around HN

This could mean 2 hours per week,

not 10.

Never know.

"you have absolutely heard of the Neo"

I blank threads I'm not interested in. To be honest I certainly did not notice it here and now I have engaged, I've only now noticed the adverts on TV here.

Now I know what I'm looking at, the Neo ads here are so up their own arse that it is unlikely that anyone has noticed what is on offer. Its an Apple {something, in pastel shades} is my only takeaway.

I hang around on HN a fair amount and I'm even a mac user. Never heard of a mac Neo.

Normal people can definitely install an OS. Last weekend I set aside time help a friend install CachyOS. They'd never used a terminal before and wanted some help.

When I called them, they had already set it up and was playing Risk of Rain 2. They started streaming for me on the Discord Flatpak they installed from the app store.

Define normal. I would argue at least 75% of the US population has zero interest in learning how to install a new OS, let alone actually do so themselves.

I say this as a decades-long Linux user (who has tried to evangelize it many times).

I would argue its close to 99% of the population. Technical people like us usually live in a bubble.

No we don't... right guys?!

lmaoo

> has zero interest in learning

Well I can agree with that, but that's not the same thing as being incapable of doing it. Both of my parents could easily install Linux, it's infantilizing to argue that they can't fill out a user wizard and select a drive to wipe.

> and select a drive to wipe

You are vastly overestimating the percentage of the population that knows what a "drive" is. Not saying that's a good thing, but it's the reality.

You don't have to know. The Calamares installer annotates your partitions and explains what will happen in natural language. If you can order a pizza online, you can install Linux.

Yeah. If ordering a pizza also regularly involves entering BIOS setup to change boot device ordering, change SATA mode from RAID to AHCI and disable secure boot, depending on your distro.

> change SATA mode from RAID to AHCI

This is funny. I have an HP PC that has an option in the BIOS to "prepare for RAID" or some such. I wondered what that was, so I turned it on. I had Linux on it at the time, and nothing happened. I shrugged and just forgot about it.

Fast forward a few months later, when I gave this PC to my dad. He installed Windows on it, then started thinking the PC was somehow borked: "the installer sees the drive, installs, reboots, then it fails to boot". I was shocked, that PC worked perfectly.

Then I remembered about that setting, told him to untick the box in the BIOS, and he was off to the races.

I can't drive stick.

This doesn't mean if someone gave me a manual car I wouldn't try to learn.

If your around a bunch of car people then it's much easier to over estimate how many people will want to drive stick.

Gamers are one of the few demographics still buying new Windows PCs. There are now so many discord servers and subreddits filled with people discussing which Linux distro to use.

Honestly for your average home consumer, there isn't much need for a Windows PC now days.

I don’t disagree that installing windows/macos and certain Linux distros can be stupid easy but to a layman it’s daunting.

In my experience most people who use a computing device may be able to tell me “this is window” or “this is Mac” by virtue of the branding being all over the stuff but for all intents and purposes these things are appliances.

In the same way most people except ambitious DIYers don’t rip apart their 500-1000 dollar washing machine to replace a worn belt the call a repair guy. Or in your case, have a buddy who knows how to do it.

Correct. And they usually don’t install windows on their computer either. The 8 year old laptop they got at Best Buy had it pre installed. So if Linux is going to go mainstream it’ll be because stores start offering PCs with Linux that are at a $140 discount.

Normal people will be expected to upgrade to Windows 12 next year after seeing "your hardware isn't supported" Windows Update messages, without any idea of what an NPU is or why it's a system requirement to receive a system upgrade.

I think this is in response to slightly abnormal people trying Steam OS and other user-friendly Linux distros as they grow increasingly annoyed with Windows 11 antics.

Yes they absolutely can. Nowadays it's as simple as clicking "install" from inside windows to try a linux distro

"from inside Windows"

That's a problem right there.

This is why Linux doesn't exist on more PCs - this is a problem.

Imagine a plumber talking about how much better his toilet is than everyone else's - bc everyone believes only a plumber can install it (which was truth for most of Linux history and general PC users).

Nobody took it seriously bc they took it as mostly an odd humblebrag for niche Windows haters.

Reminds me of https://www.terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm and the UltraMax

Haha, yes - exactly like that!

"My favorite toilet is the Ultramax by TOTO." , "Its model number is "xxx-xx-etc" - that man definitely believes in Ultramax!

Thank you for sharing this treasure. Going into my regular reading Hall of Fame curriculum.

Site's been slashdotted, I'm getting nothing but 504s when I try to load it. There's an archived copy at https://archive.is/30a07

$1K for a toilet!

https://www.totousa.com/ultramax-ii-one-piece-toilet-elongat...

Not when Windows is actively pushing people away. New computers are a tiny market, people stay with their old computers for decades now.

I mean it should be easy WITHOUT Windows.

What can possibly be wrong with giving people a different option to try Linux? If it’s not right for you, who cares because you have other options? The constant negativity is so boring.

Not sure what you're referring to, but I mean it should be easy to try Linux WITHOUT Windows.

System76 sells some pretty nice computers with Linux preinstalled. Not to mention every Chromebook is a Linux machine.

> Not to mention every Chromebook is a Linux machine.

.. which might need a bit of tinkering to install Linux on. Just because it runs a kernel doesn't mean it will be usable out of the box.

For example this: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1nc1jui/how_to_actua...

I think GP's point is that a chromebook is a perfectly cromulent apternative to windows, running normal ChromeOS, for users looking for a simple web/docs/email machine.

That might be what they think. I just installed windows and it had countless dialogs. Most have a reason to exist but it's a lot of work. The Ubuntu live usb on the other hand just boots into the desktop environment. It just works? There is nothing to do?

Puppy Linux and Fedora also have sane defaults.

I hadn’t tried Fedora until late last year, and was very impressed. Came across as highly polished and complete.

Hadn’t tried Pupply Linux until a couple months ago, and it’s now my new favourite. I’m now running it on a small form factor desktop HP with no internal drive.

But this also mean you are not consulted on some critical configuration choice and that you are left alone wondering what to do next.

Earliest Macintoshs in the 1990 launched a tutorial on first boot until you explicitly finished or skipped it. This was a wonderful experience as a kid and still warm my heart today thinking back of it.

Today's Mac only display "tips", "what's new" after first boot or major update because people are generally more computer literate. But (unless Liquid Glass changed that too) they never gave on this mantra that the OS should guide newcomers.

So yeah I think Linux distro have room to do better.

These days it's as easy as running a powershell script. There is 0 functional barrier to installing Linux from any windows machine. Soon the same will be true for the Neo.

Those and System76 of course. Plus the SteamDeck is Linux, as are a number of other handheld gaming systems. The new Steam Machine is as well.

Starting at 1700 USD, vs 500$ for a Neo or a very capable Windows PC on sale.

My personal favorite is a lightly used Thinkpad, you can get a nice Linux machine for under 400$. But it's still a lot of work for most people.

If a Ubuntu update does something weird, what do you do with your 1700$ System 76 laptop ?

With your Neo, you go to the Apple store and they'll sort it out.

If Windows update does something weird what do you do?

You hope it offers a way to revert or accept your computer no longer works. I bumped into someone at the local bar, I think Windows is just corrupted, but she had no interest in fixing it.

This isn't easy stuff for most people.

When did you ckeck last? They are everywhere, even Bestbuy sells them: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?kax=-1&q=pre-installed+Linux+PC...

Best Buy has a marketplace of 3rd party sellers.

I guess you might be able to order one or something?

I can not walk into my local best buy and get a computer running Linux.

It's a moot point anyway, since you'll usually have to pay more for a Linux laptop vs buying a Windows one and installing it yourself.

I bought two Linux pre-installed PC's last October. They were €350 cheaper apiece than the same Windows PC (presumably because the Windows machines came with a lot of additional software installed idk).

> It's a moot point anyway, since you'll usually have to pay more for a Linux laptop vs buying a Windows one and installing it yourself.

That's silly. In general, people don't mind paying more for a product they perceive as better. Just look at Apple.

It's not clear that these niche Linux laptops are higher quality.

Usually their just rebranded , like System 76 is a rebranded Clevo laptop.

Now I can imagine Valve launching a SteamBook, but even this would be very niche compared to the Neo.

Framework, System76, and a few others do offer it now but yeah only as a niche dev thing.

I think there is a real chance that there will be an EU push for that to be made available as a way of gradually decoupling national security interests from the US, for obvious reasons.

> Normal people can not install an OS.

Of course they can. They might be too lazy or ignorant to do so, but it's not really any harder to learn to install Linux than it is to learn to make mashed potatoes once you're motivated to bother -- and billions of people have managed to do the latter just fine.

Normal people are absolutely capable of following basic directions like: "download this file", "insert a USB stick", "run this program", "reboot your computer", "double click the install icon", "click the 'Continue' button (or similar) following the on-screen prompts".

The file in question -- good enough for most people with a Windows computer from the last decade: https://pub.linuxmint.io/stable/22.3/linuxmint-22.3-cinnamon...

The program to run: https://etcher.balena.io/#download-etcher

Detailed instructions here, including screenshots if you need them: https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/lates...

That all sounds really difficult compared to going to the Apple store , and buying a Neo.

Not to mention Linux is great, things start going wrong. Cool, you found a DE you like, it's on X11. Another application you want to use only works on Wayland.

Ohh, you want to use a Bluetooth headset, your DE might randomly crash upon connect.

The best thing about Linux is you can customize it. The worst thing about Linux is you can customize it. We have no single answer as to what distro a new user should try.

Ubuntu might not support your wifi card. Ok, so you try Arch. A bad update bricks your system.

I love Linux, but I've spent countless hours to understand and use it. Some people might prefer to buy a Neo and then go play with their cat, etc.

>They might be too lazy or ignorant to do so

That's a very self-important and arrogant way to say "unmotivated".

> where Linux emulating Window's entire API space for games with worse drivers is

> dangerously close on performance

sometimes more performant.

> sometimes more performant.

That's usually due to:

1. Converting directX into Vulkan (potentially very large performance gains)

2. Less OS overhead (usually minor gains)

> Converting directX into Vulkan (potentially very large performance gains)

That's not at all how that works. DirectX12 isn't slow by any stretch of the imagination. In my personal and professional experience Vulkan is about on par depending on the driver. The main differences are in CPU cost, the GPU ultimately runs basically the same code.

There's no magic Vulkan can pull out of thin air to be faster than DX12, they're both doing basically the same thing and they're not far off the "speed of light" for driving the GPU hardware.

Not all games are DX12 though.

Emulating DX11 and below, as well as OpenGL, using Vulkan does not confer any performance benefits. In fact, it’s really hard to surpass them that way.

The performance benefits of Vulkan and DX12 come from tighter control over the hardware by the engine. An engine written for older APIs needs to be adapted to gain anything.

There's really no reason why DirectX 12 can't be as fast as Vulkan. In fact, the fact that converting DirectX to Vulkan makes it faster sort of proves that point.

3. Superior CPU schedulers, which do not ever undergo serious regressions that are not ever fixed: https://x.com/SheriefFYI/status/1856356547875541196

https://x.com/itsHemu2K/status/1887359825731899587

https://x.com/fREQUENCYCS/status/2003057996302049603

Windows is notoriously slow at opening files. So a common optimisation is to store all game content in few package files.

most games I'm getting 1% lows that are much higher than windows at 4k resolution

So are you predicting that 2026 will be the year of “Linux on the Desktop”?

Its going to take a lot longer than that. Hardware companies are very slow to adopt this sort of change, for this transition to happen it requires Microsoft to not get its act together for another decade.

Just for perspective - that meme started around 1998-2000

Every year is the year of Linux on desktop ;)

I'm waiting for a better Nvidia drivers/performance in either Ubuntu or Fedora family and that's it for me.

I prefer user experience on Linux so much more (I've been always using Linux laptop as a work PC), its just that I like gaming casually in my free time.

I'd try the migration already, but due to the *** up NVMe prices I don't have a new disk to start with, so I'll have to do the slow and more careful migration.

Linux works about as well on the desktop as it did in 2003 - if you know what you're doing, you can make it work, and if not, you can still run a browser but most things won't work for you.

Linux is better than Windows on the desktop because Windows got worse, not because Linux got better.

Unless you mean for gaming. That was Valve's exit strategy from Windows.

If that is truly what you think, then you clearly haven't used a Linux desktop distro since then because that absolutely incorrect.

I’m relatively new to Linux desktop and this hasn’t been my experience at all. What do you think doesn’t work?

I wish you were right, but Microsoft has a lot of money they can throw at the problem. Right now they don't care about Windows because their money comes from Azure. There are a few concerns here: if people _really_ moved away from Windows that would actually threaten the Azure ecosystem. Further, since Microsoft doesn't care to make a profit (with Windows) they could also just throw resources at Windows because it supports their Azure business. Microsoft can hire talent if they need to and turn the ship around.

It's possible that due to Azure success they decided that consumer sector is a testing ground for their exploitation patterns, where they can test out how much their userbase can withstand before being seriously annoyed. And this is what happen, people said "enough" by looking for alternatives.

They can throw money to tweak some stuff but I doubt they'll fully back off from pushing for software+services or all this recent conditioning for Copilot. This piece is a damage control but wording shows they won't change. I doubt that in last 26 years we had a company that truly admitted its mistakes - that's not in the "nature" of such entities.

I think companies think that once they go past the threshold they will know almost immediately and then returning is a simple matter of returning to the threshold. But it doesn't work like that its more like how tires loose grip at the limit, once they start to slide they loose an enormous amount of grip and you need to roll back your use a lot before they regrip up. In tires its 30%, but the amniosity with customers that all the anti user things they have done its a never ending list of complaints and the last 10% nor 30% is going to cut it to stop the exodus. Once people have left its very unlikely they come back if Linux is still working well for them. People change operating systems like they change banks.

Azure is only successful because of big enterprise. Consumers using or not using Windows makes no difference

Two factoids: Azure runs more Linux VMs than Windows VMs and AWS runs more Windows VMs than Azure.

I really hope you're right. The challenge with Linux still seems to be practicalities -- like in particular, does Zoom run well on most distributions?

Reports seem to be of system crashes and degraded performance. I imagine there are lots of 'it works for me' stories, but think: for Linux to eat into Windows user market share (which I would greatly support), critical things like Zoom have to work at least as reliably as on Windows. For nontechnical users who would never figure out which incantations to type into the terminal to fix it -- because they have their next meeting in 15 minutes.

> like in particular, does Zoom run well on most distributions?

It works fine (tested on Arch), but at the very least you should run that kind of malware as a separate user, or better yet, in a VM.

Limiting it to a browser tab is sufficient :)

How many hours has Zoom put into making the client stable on Windows and Mac?

How many hours have they put into the Linux client?

My guess is the answer to these questions indicate more of how it got there than anything the distros or upstream components can do.

> How many hours has Zoom put into making the client stable on Windows and Mac?

Users don't really care, do they?

I'm not talking about that. I was replying to a claim that Zoom is less stable on a platform, as if that somehow happened for free and not as a result of a team tracking and fixing bugs on the application side, likely over the course of years.

I installed PopOS (22) and zoom worked fine right off the bat. So did steam and all my steam games. Heck even my printer worked. (It has since become more temperamental and now only works with one of the 3 print dialogues on my Linux box...)

My game controller worked, my BT headset, the media keys on my keyboard even worked.

Lots of stuff was mildly broken but no more so than it was on Windows. It is just differently broken.

Zoom works fine for me on Ubuntu. Or at least, it's no more flaky than it is on Mac.

I mean... Windows legitimately doesn't work. I work at one of the mag7 and it's a running jokes while using windows that suddenly everyone's microphone quits. We then have to restart. This has been going on years. Our colleagues on Linux don't have such problems.

It's just that we accept windows issues as "that's how computers are". While Linux is expected to work

I haven't used Zoom in years, but Teams in the browser on Linux runs better than Teams natively on Windows. Which is odd, since I understand it is just an electron app on Windows, so it is effectively running in the browser anyway. Still, those of us on Linux have way fewer audio and connectivity issues.

Even my Starbook, so... literally made for Linux, doesn't do things like going to sleep when I close the lid. It made me switch back to my Mac because despite being able to, I have a life and little time for my main work device to decide to not work randomly.

Linux is never, and I mean never going to be a legitimate alternative to Windows or MacOS on the desktop under the current paradigm. "Switch to X desktop or distro" means less than zero to 99.9% of computer users (probably a few more nines in there too).

"Oh but the Steam Machine!" essentially no one who uses that will actually care what the OS is, it's a shell and a very specific one to do a single task, no-one is buying it as a general purpose machine they can do their taxes on.

Yes, precisely. And then as I anticipated, the "it works for me" stories, even here in this thread. Wish we could get past this steady-state in the Linux ecosystem.

Imagine a Linux distro largely displaced Windows and Mac simply due to usability, security, reliability, and the fact that there's no monstrous corporation pulling the strings. That would be awesome.

Works fine on recent Ubuntu and Fedora, both Wayland and X.

"Fine" and not amazing because occasionally I have screen sharing issues, but that's like once in a blue moon? Could be down to my specific configuration, but it's allegedly more stable than my coworker's zoom on Mac.

Absolutely. Fuck them.

I am curious whether they will "suddenly realized" this after the community feedback process they initiated because they supposedly care so much about their users. Then, out of nowhere, they discovered that users do not want to be spied on or treated as the product. They just want to use their fucking operating system in peace without Microsoft constantly forcing its own products on them.

I wonder when that realization came and why. Maybe they started losing market share to Apple or users just prefer phones to pc even more?

> its going to take Microsoft a long time to row back

They won't actually move back to a user-focused OS at all. It's nice for them to declare they will, but their culture and business pressures will prevent any kind of sustained effort. (Their users aren't their customers.)

I really wonder how much of an impact these AI tools are going to have on the Linux ecosystem. Seems like huge potential advantage brewing over proprietary OSs. Look how fast Omarchy came together and improved…it’s phenomenal.

I keep hearing that marketing term beautiful but I'm really not seeing it. It just looks like a tiling windows manager. Feels like we're going back in time.

It is a very well integrated, smooth and preconfigured tiling window manager that also has a scroll mode like Niri.

I was using a different tiling manager before and there were all sorts of annoyances, pops breaking things. Behaviorally, this one gets everything right.

Yes. This. Too little too late MSFT.

And it really comes down to $MSFT. If the stock keeps dropping, how long do you think any real commitment to “quality” for a boring, low(no?) revenue product will last? Very little when the ad/partner revenue really starts flowing for “ai focused metrics” that can directly tie to windows surveillance (ie recall).

OS was twice made irrelevant by the browser and mobile. AI assistants will make the OS about as important to the average user as the BIOS.

Are the Linux graphics drivers actually worse, though? I thought it was widely agreed that the open-source user-space drivers, e.g., in Mesa, are actually very good these days.

Could be, but I can't afford the GPUs they are so very good on.

It's been 10 years since I booted Windows or MacOS.

It's been fantastic. People always find an excuse but really they are doing themselves a disservice.

Microslop employees down voting - lol

It hard to say what went wrong with this company. They were doing all the right things, hiring top notch decision makers like Satya, Pavan Davuluri, Asha Sharma, Sonali Yadav. Then employing tens of thousands of highly skilled H1Bs. I guess its just bad luck that this company's product quality is down in the drain.

> I guess its just bad luck that this company's product quality is down in the drain.

You're right. It can't possibly be bad leadership and poor decisions. Sometimes you just slip on a patch of ice and that's how you lost your business.

WSL is great. Its biggest drawback is that it requires the use of Windows.

I don't know, man. For the past year I've been having the "pleasure" of using Windows again for the first time in 16 years. My coworkers recommended I try the WSL since in their eyes I'm a "Linux guy". Well, the WSL crashed an hour into using it (forcing me to reboot Windows because nothing else helped) and then a couple more times that very same day. On a fresh Windows installation.

I ended up installing VMWare and using a full Linux VM. Yes, VMWare. That's how desperate I was.

Nothing wrong with it. VMPlayer is still solid. I've been working in a Linux guest for years.

It's definitely not bad luck. It's entirely a driven chosen situation. Read the blog post. They're not improving quality there reverting anti-end user decisions. "Quieter defaults," "more control over widgets"

There's zero intention to improve the fundamentals of the os. These are what a smart group thinks will be the smallest concession to retain goodwill.

Come off it with "bad luck"

Look at the names, the parent comment is implying hiring Indians destroyed Microsoft with a wink/nudge. And conspicuously omitting Phil Spencer who led the deteriorating Xbox/gaming division for almost a decade but instead chose to include Spencer's replacement of 1 month and some Xbox PM because his ethnicity wouldn't fit.

Not sure why this is being downvoted. That comment was clearly implying Indians ruined MS.

The media is a powerful force.

When I first tried Ubuntu decades ago it was like an awakening and I started seeing every developer using Windows and Mac as brainwashed fools. That's not to pick on others because I also started seeing my former self as brainwashed.

For a developer, Linux is far superior for many reasons.

Moving from Windows to Linux reminds me of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

A lot of times, with software, you could be severely constrained but not realize it because you don't know better. The effect is very strong in this industry.

> For a developer, Linux is far superior for many reasons.

This is precisely why Microsoft created WSL2

Yes, for a developer it's great.

But then you come across things like "movie not playing due to missing DRM support" and crap like that.

Normal users are probably better off with a Macbook.

I've used *nix extensively headless for the last 30 years, but I have decision paralysis when it comes to figuring out what the heck Linux distro is good for a desktop.

Honestly, pick one of the well known distros at random. Personally I use Manjaro with GNOME: up to date software and a polished out of the box experience. I never have to go to the terminal unless I want to.

There's a handful of the easy ones, all offering slightly different experiences, all good.

Ideally you'd spend at least a day or so trying them all, and about a week reading and watching about their differences, pros and cons.

Unless you are using nVidia for gaming or have an obscure hardware configuration, chances are you're supported wonderfully well at this very moment, by at least 2-3 distributions (Mint, Manjaro, Fedora, Ubuntu, Bazzite, SteamOS, PopOS, CachyOS -- you'll also have a choice KDE/Gnome).

All you need is pendrive. For the super easy transition you'd want an entirely separate system drive (nvme for example). I know, its expensive. I said for the super easy transition, its not necessary. Slow portable disk to store your current documents and game saves should be enough.

We live in the exciting times.

Just go for whatever DE looks pretty to you, I personally like KDE. Don't be afraid to switch to a different desktop later on, its just a few packages to install most of the time.

As for distros, pick something established that looks good to you. You said you have experience, so you probably know what you want from a distro. I ran arch on my machine a lot but recently switched to fedora for its simpler installation.

You know, I tried KDE recently on a UBUNTU install it's got some nice features, but man is it buggy when it comes to scaling on 4K monitors. Also, the UI is a little rough. I switched back to gnome.

Well the look and feel is subjective, I like KDE because it feels like what windows could have been if it was done well.

As for the scaling, I use it on a 1080PC laptop screen but also sometimes my 3440x1440 display and haven't really run into bad scaling. Were you using X11 or Wayland? I've been on Wayland for years.

yeah im on X11 always have display issues with wayland as I use a lot of legacy applications

> We are now at the point where Linux emulating Window's entire API space for games with worse drivers is dangerously close on performance with none of the privacy invasion and anti user features.

.. yet. The absolute roll-over I've seen regarding OS level age verification is concerning and disheartening.

Microsoft Windows will be just fine for a very long time. Corporate security systems and IT admin doesn't typically run on Linux well or at all, but it does run on Windows and MacOS. We're using popular auth software at my work, but it does not run on Linux otherwise I'd have switched to Linux on my work machines a while ago. That alone is 3 computers that won't ever have Linux. Anecdotal, I know, but the corporate world does not care about Linux as a computing platform outside of servers and machines that people don't use as a desktop/laptop to get work done. Sadly, Microsoft isn't going anywhere and I doubt they are worried about losing any market share to Linux.

Gamers aren’t the table stakes.

Enterprise users are.

Even though MacOS is not terribly better, it's good enough. Add to that the new cheaper macbook and it must inspire pause in the great folks at Microsoft.

MacOS has been going downhill as well though, at least from what I hear from long time users.

One thing I will give to them is the MSVC ecosystem. (Something something developers)

No doubt it’s starting to show its age but it’s like watching a lion die. Win32 amenities just being automatically available is quite sick and I wish there was something similar for Linux.

It’s like windows devs and users live in alternate realities, I’m sure a lot of cool things can happen if they bring some of that dev love over to their UX.

I genuinely wish they woulda gotten beytet, it's always good have some competition Nd alternatives, but Microslop just wanna slop around after all.

This is a good time to reflect on how business actually works (as opposed to how hopeful consumers wish it would work).

A business exists because its shareholders invest capital with the expectation of a return. As a result, nearly all businesses go through similar lifecycles. The stages are launch, growth, maturity, decline, and sometimes renewal. There is a lot of capital injected in the early stages and to capture market share the firm often produces the best product it can.

Once the market share is acquired, the business puts up moats if it's able, and then it enters the MATURITY phase. That's where the Windows business is. In the maturity phase a business focuses on TAKING PROFITS wherever it can find them. This includes but is not limited to cutting back on its investment in product, as much as it can. If it can cut budgets and quality and give that money to the shareholders it will. If it can inject ads into the product or resell your data it will.

The very purpose of a business is to reach maturity and then take profits.

That's capitalism. The investors provided the capital. In the end, they gets what they wants.

Now if a company leans into this dynamic as hard as Microsoft has, you should know what's coming. No one should be surprised - maybe they're scared of the Neo right now and there'll be a few years of reprieve, but they're a mature firm, they're in profit taking mode, and the goal in this phase is not to make Windows as great as possible, it's to squeeze as much money out of it as they can.

The next stage is decline -- where the squeeze gets so hard that the business actually collapses. All businesses fail sooner or later. Everything becomes lawyers and accountants slicing it up, selling it off, and sometimes it gets restructured and reborn, sometimes it doesn't. This can take years or it can take decades but it's basically a bumpy downhill road from maturity to that point. If you stick around at this point and keep using Windows, keep in mind that's what you opted into. There isn't really any other way. It's just business.

Intriguingly, free software in its more elemental forms doesn't appear to follow this lifecycle. It's not for profit and there are no investors to satisfy. Contributors who build the software do it mainly out of self-interest: they build what they want to use, and as a result they may come and go at any time. But the software remains there, and you are welcome to tinker with it, too.

I'd argue that although publicly-traded businesses do usually go through that cycle (I would say that it's not ALL, but it's certainly MOST, because I can't come up with a counterexample), privately-owned businesses are more likely to avoid it. For example, McMaster-Carr. Privately-owned, with just a few owners rather than a large number of shareholders. And as far as I know (never having been one of their customers myself, just hearing testimonials), they're still just as good at making quality products that their customers want as they were a hundred twenty-five years ago when they got started. No "TAKING PROFITS" stage, and no subsequent decline.

But it does seem like publicly-owned companies go through those stages. It may be shareholder pressure, but part of it also appears to be when they get people in upper management who went to business school to get an MBA, rather than who have been with the company for years. I don't know what makes MBAs so prone to the nonsensensical pursuit of short-term profits that tank the company, rather than the greater (in the long run) long-term profits available by just continuing to make good products that customers want, but it shows up often enough (in many industries) that I'm starting to think of it as "MBA syndrome". And if a company is publicly-traded and run by MBA-style management? Sell your shares now and get out while you still can, is my advice.

Ive found it useful to regard MBAs and the entire pipeline from education to managing companies for MBAs akin to a clergy class.

They spend so much time and effort learning the scripture and then are praised as having some sort of intimate knowledge of business practices and working towards the ever growing prophet (read: profit).

Their forecasts akin to divination (but with charts and graphs, oh my!)

In this context, it's helped me understand, or at least create a useful caricature of what must be going on in those spaces where everyone drinks the kool aid of "there is only the next quarter".

The irony here is that their "commitment to quality" is essentially an admission they never delivered. And half of what they promised—like moving the taskbar—are features that already exist in Windows 10. They removed them, ignored complaints for years, and now they say they're "listening to feedback."

Similarly with "reducing unnecessary Copilot integration." They added it everywhere before, users hated it, and now removing it is considered a feature.

This isn't a commitment to quality. This is just a fix for years of treating the operating system as an advertising platform.

I would love for you to be right. Unfortunately in many cases the “windows” decision is made by C-levels who barely understand what you are talking about (or if they do, pretend they don’t to save their jobs)

The efforts to make Windows a storefront and user data harvester over an OS will never be suspended, at least not under this CEO.

Nice to see them finally admitting user needs might be important to some level, but the way MS operates historically is that no bad idea ever dies, at best they get delayed and then shoehorned in with less fanfare at a later date.

100%. It's amazing how unfriendly/hostile MS has become with things like forced updates, trying to force users to use their shitty, bloated "Edge" browser, MS "Copilot", building location "services" as an "on-by-default" aspect of the OS. it's like they were deliberately trying to make users switch to Apple or Linux. But since Linux is a little more for "tech-savvy" ppl, I imagine Apple has been the biggest winner of MS's blindness.