Hacker News Reader

Comment by sshine | Hacker News Reader

The level of effort amazes me.

The first thing I do with a new PC is delete whatever scamware it came with, and install a free operating system on it.

I do the same and I wish, too, that we lived in a world without Microsoft: I'd take only Linux and Mac machines any day over having to live in a world where that turd that Windows is exists. But sadly it's not the world we live in: in the world we live in MSFT has a freaking 2.4 trillion USD market cap. so work like in TFA is needed.

At least Apple and Linux did make a big dent and the billions of Linux devices shall keep powering the real world for a very long time and it seems unlikely Mac users are going to trade their MacOS laptops for Windows turds, so all hope is not lost.

And thankfully, so far, Microsoft phones have all been miserable failures.

I do my part to fight Microsoft: I confiscated my mother-in-law's Windows laptop after she got malwared and fell for a scam and I bought her a Chromebook. My wife is more of a poweruser so I wiped her Windows system and installed her Ubuntu. I made my brothers switch to Mac computer a very long time ago: was tired of supporting their Windows never failing to get slow, catch malware etc. and simply told them: "You buy Mac computers or I'm not helping you anymore".

Microsoft is a mediocre company making the world a shittier place, but they're here to stay.

It's been ages that I've experienced a Windows install becoming slow. I haven't noticed any malware recently, either.

"Slow": I removed Windows on a freshly installed laptop less than 6 months ago. Its latency was noticeable in spite of running a 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12850HX. This is not a case of Windows "becoming slow", but of Windows "being slow". You could argue that my point of comparison is unreasonable, because I disable so many things in my operating system that I don't use that it's no wonder. Before starting my browser, I use less than 200MB RAM. My UI response time is lower than what my eye can perceive. I don't know exactly how fast that is, but I think gamers begin to care at around 10 ms.

Malware:

> Microsoft is Slowly Rolling Out Ads in the Windows 11 Start Menu

https://gizmodo.com/microsoft-windows-11-onedrive-notificati...

Somehow, paying for an operating system does not relieve you of advertisement.

It used to be that either you paid for the software product, or the software was free and you were the product.

I guess they just, you know, fixed the glitch.

And if we lived in a world where Apple was in Microsoft's place, it would be a darker world. I'm one of the original 3rd party mac developers, and despite liking their hardware and appreciating their OSes, the company that is Apple is one horrible fascist asshole. I've never published Apple software due to their Orwellian legal practices, they are flat out anti-independent developer in exponential layered ways.

In a world without Windows, malware would exist on whatever else the dominant OS is, and you'd still have to replace your MIL's laptop with a more obscure system.

I a world without Windows (or at least one with enough competition), software and hardware wouldn't require Windows either, since it would support multiple OSes.

Work involves supporting Windows

It's his first sentence. What does your (understandable) personal stance, have to do with his work environment??

Or the rest of his first sentence:

there's a lot of specialised hardware design software that's only supported under Windows, so this isn't really avoidable

Your statement feels unhelpful.

I see an opportunity to submit issues to the Wine project

"specialized hardware" sounds like hardware drivers could be involved, which is out of scope for Wine.

This feels like a needlessly combative reading of the comment!

the author has been a respected Linux developer for decades, so he is probably familiar with that option.

Astonishing that after more than 30 years of coexistence of Linux and Windows OSes such arrogant remarks are still being made

The coexistence hasn't exactly been friendly, what with things like Microsoft being SCOs biggest financial backer during the Unix lawsuits.

I would say nice things about Windows if it wasn't riddled with telemetry and data guzzling spyware.

> Astonishing that after more than 30 years of coexistence of Linux and Windows OSes such arrogant remarks are still being made

Why are you not astonished that, after "30 years of coexistence" people still: feel the need to buy Windows and slap Linux or BSD on it (as opposed to buying one with Linux or BSD out of the box) and are forced to buy Windows to use software and/or hardware required to do work otherwise unrelated to Windows?

Coexistence is a two-way street.

I don't mind paying for tools I'm using to get the job done. But ignorant remarks in the tone of 'drop the crap you're using, no matter what it is, and install Linux' were maybe good 30 years ago, now it's just kinda disrespectful. People have various reasons to use their tools and it's not because they don't know Linux exists.

>after more than 30 years of coexistence of Linux and Windows OSes

Despite Microsoft's best efforts.

After Microsoft changed its strategy from FUD smear campaigns to EEE corporate assimilation, Linux interoperability has become significantly better. My colleagues all have Ubuntu terminals on their WSLs, and it all seems to work pretty great.

I don't know why Microsoft technology triggers me so much.

I have been a big fan of C#, VSCode, LSP, GitHub Actions.

I'm sure it's an instinctive reaction to their aesthetic.

Microsoft are the Vogons of HHGTTG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents was significantly less than 30 years ago, so no, there have not been "30 years of coexistence of Linux and Windows OSes".

When you book a vacation and the hotel comes with a buffet, you know you're not getting the best restaurant in town, but you might opt for it because it's easier: You don't have to make a bunch of conscious choices and incur risk, you let someone else make that choice for you. When the sausage tray is always empty, you blame yourself for being cheap.

Windows is the buffet that comes with your new PC.

You didn't order ads, telemetry and questionable UX?

Don't worry, it's included in the price.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com