Why bother with Windows? Mostly the same reasons moving from Windows to a Mac can be a pain, however on macOS you get better professional software support and less reasons to virtualize Windows from time to time. To be fair, what’s the point of using X operating system if some of the tools you need require a virtual machine or you’ve to use alternatives that are sub-par, will make you waste time and have a worse experience. Again even under macOS with Microsoft’s own MS Office for Mac things sometimes aren’t as compatible as they should be.
Linux desktop is great, I love it but I don’t sugar coat it nor I’m delusional like most posting about it. Here is a list of cases that aren’t easy to deal in Linux:
People who need the real MS Office because once you have to collaborate with others Open/Libre/OnlyOffice won’t cut it;
Designers who use Adobe apps that won’t run properly without having a dedicated GPU, passthrough and a some hacky way to get the image back into your main system that will cause noticeable delays;
People that run old software / games because not even those will run properly on Wine;
Electrical engineers: Circuit Design Suite (Multisim and Ultiboard) are primarily designed for Windows. Alternatives such as KiCad and EasyEDA may work in some cases but they aren’t great if you’ve to collaborate with others who use Circuit Design Suite;
Labs that require data acquisition from specialized hardware because companies making that hardware won’t make drivers and software for Linux;
Architects: AutoCAD isn’t available (not even the limited web version works) and Libre/FreeCAD don’t cut it if you’ve to collaborate with AutoCAD users;
Developers and sysadmins, because not everyone is using Docker and Github actions to deploy applications to some proprietary cloud solution. Finding a properly working FTP/SFTP/FTPS desktop client (similar WinSCP or Cyberduck) is an impossible task as the ones that exist fail even at basic tasks like dragging and dropping a file.
If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with others then native Linux apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. Once collaboration with Windows/Mac users is required then it’s game over – the “alternatives” aren’t just up to it.
Windows licenses are cheap and things work out of the box. Software runs fine, all vendors support whatever you’re trying to do and you’re productive from day zero. Sure, there are annoyances from time to time, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive Linux desktop experience. It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months?) you want to spend fixing things on Linux that simply work out of the box under Windows for a minimal fee. Buy a Windows license and spend the time you would’ve spent dealing with Linux issues doing your actual job and you’ll, most likely, get a better ROI.
Also, the guys take on “what you go for it’s entirely your choice” when it comes to DE is total BS. What usually happens is that you’ll eventually find out while you can use any DE in fact GNOME will provide a better experience because most applications on Linux are design / depend on its components and installing them on KDE will simply give you small issues here and there, windows that don’t pick on your theme or simply create a frankenstein of a system composed by KDE + a bunch of GTK components.
But my daily driver is a Mac for the reasons you mention.
That was my position until Microsoft decided to create Windows Terminal, powershell, WSL and whatnot. At that point why pay more for hardware to end up virtualizing stuff when I could just simplify my life and use Windows? After all I don’t even used their ecosystem as I don’t trust cloud services and big providers handling my data. Less reasons to keep using Apple.
I’ve been a Mac user since OS 1.0 so Windows has stopped making sense to me. Whenever I try anything it’s like working on a car where all the bolts turn the wrong way.
Plus I haven’t bought a Mac in years. My job buys them and I get to keep them when I leave.
Im curious about your WINE comment, because you can go into the dialog that selects which version of Windows it “emulates”. The drop down has what looks like every release of windows back to DOS.
As for can’t collaborate, that depends on the industry. Teamcenter PLM and Siemens NX CAD work on both RHEL and SUSE desktop. When W10 came out it made those programs less performant so I switched to OpenSUSE and installed the NX CAD to get performance back.
WINE comment, because you can go into the dialog that selects which version of Windows it “emulates”.
Until the emulation fails at some basic Window API feature like window tabs with multiple rows that any Windows version from 95 does just fine. Or… until you try to get MS Office 2016 working and it requires dozens of hacks to end up with something very slow to startup and have graphical glitches… or 2019 also not working, or not being able to install 2021. Or… until you find out that Wine is still unable to just tell applications the screen size removeding up everything that depends on it. Wine is far from perfect and it isn’t that good.
As for can’t collaborate, that depends on the industry
Yes, you are lucky you got NX CAD for Linux, because for most people that’s not the case. Adobe products are a no go, AutoCAD is a no go, same goes for Multisim / Ultiboard.
WINE doesn’t emulate it translates the code so that it can run natively, so any problem you have is because you haven’t installed the windows dependencies of the program you are trying to run which you can do trough winetricks. And wine comes with a configuration tool called winecfg, and on there you can edit the window scaling, wine can in fact tell apps to screensize up
Half of the success of Windows and macOS is the fact that they provide solid and stable APIs and development tools that “makes it easy” to develop to those platforms. Linux is very bad at that. If major pieces of an OS are constantly changing and it requires large re-works of the applications then developers are less likely to support it. To be fair the Linux situation might be even harder than that - there are no distribution “sponsored” IDE (like Visual Studio or Xcode) and userland API documentation, frameworks etc.
Yep, this is one of the most common disadvantage of Linux ecosystem. Unless using something like Debian, but then comes (a little, but still existing) fragmentation.
My comment is about proprietary apps here. The biggest roadblockers with any change to next-gen technologies in the stack like Flatpak, Pipewire, Wayland, etc. are always them. Because with FOSS when someone create a new store or tech, they can be the ones doing ports of common apps, but with locked down software all he can do is please the original developers - the only ones able to do what they want with the program.
My comment is about proprietary apps here. The biggest roadblockers with any change to next-gen technologies
Yes, but those proprietary apps provide good features, support and have tons of hours of dev time and continuous updates that the FOSS alternatives can’t just match. We need that software as much as we need FOSS.
with FOSS when someone create a new store or tech, they can be the ones doing ports of common apps,
This isn’t true. Linux was the worst track ever of supporting old software, even worse than Apple. Rewriting applications for the latest version of GNOME doesn’t count as “support older software”, counts only as a pain in the ass that makes Linux unattractive to professionally developed / non FOSS software - after all who wants to constantly spend time updating an app just because the GNOME team decided to reinvent the wheel again to no marginal gain?
There unfortunetly is something to it, like shown by some game developers dropping Linux port when Proton got good enough and just officially supporting the game to work with Proton.
Why bother with Windows? Mostly the same reasons moving from Windows to a Mac can be a pain, however on macOS you get better professional software support and less reasons to virtualize Windows from time to time. To be fair, what’s the point of using X operating system if some of the tools you need require a virtual machine or you’ve to use alternatives that are sub-par, will make you waste time and have a worse experience. Again even under macOS with Microsoft’s own MS Office for Mac things sometimes aren’t as compatible as they should be.
Linux desktop is great, I love it but I don’t sugar coat it nor I’m delusional like most posting about it. Here is a list of cases that aren’t easy to deal in Linux:
If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with others then native Linux apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. Once collaboration with Windows/Mac users is required then it’s game over – the “alternatives” aren’t just up to it.
Windows licenses are cheap and things work out of the box. Software runs fine, all vendors support whatever you’re trying to do and you’re productive from day zero. Sure, there are annoyances from time to time, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive Linux desktop experience. It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months?) you want to spend fixing things on Linux that simply work out of the box under Windows for a minimal fee. Buy a Windows license and spend the time you would’ve spent dealing with Linux issues doing your actual job and you’ll, most likely, get a better ROI.
Also, the guys take on “what you go for it’s entirely your choice” when it comes to DE is total BS. What usually happens is that you’ll eventually find out while you can use any DE in fact GNOME will provide a better experience because most applications on Linux are design / depend on its components and installing them on KDE will simply give you small issues here and there, windows that don’t pick on your theme or simply create a frankenstein of a system composed by KDE + a bunch of GTK components.
I work primarily on Linux machines, have four Linux servers in my closet running a bunch of services, and do tech support on Linux for sysadmins.
But my daily driver is a Mac for the reasons you mention.
That was my position until Microsoft decided to create Windows Terminal, powershell, WSL and whatnot. At that point why pay more for hardware to end up virtualizing stuff when I could just simplify my life and use Windows? After all I don’t even used their ecosystem as I don’t trust cloud services and big providers handling my data. Less reasons to keep using Apple.
I’ve been a Mac user since OS 1.0 so Windows has stopped making sense to me. Whenever I try anything it’s like working on a car where all the bolts turn the wrong way.
Plus I haven’t bought a Mac in years. My job buys them and I get to keep them when I leave.
Im curious about your WINE comment, because you can go into the dialog that selects which version of Windows it “emulates”. The drop down has what looks like every release of windows back to DOS.
As for can’t collaborate, that depends on the industry. Teamcenter PLM and Siemens NX CAD work on both RHEL and SUSE desktop. When W10 came out it made those programs less performant so I switched to OpenSUSE and installed the NX CAD to get performance back.
Until the emulation fails at some basic Window API feature like window tabs with multiple rows that any Windows version from 95 does just fine. Or… until you try to get MS Office 2016 working and it requires dozens of hacks to end up with something very slow to startup and have graphical glitches… or 2019 also not working, or not being able to install 2021. Or… until you find out that Wine is still unable to just tell applications the screen size removeding up everything that depends on it. Wine is far from perfect and it isn’t that good.
Yes, you are lucky you got NX CAD for Linux, because for most people that’s not the case. Adobe products are a no go, AutoCAD is a no go, same goes for Multisim / Ultiboard.
I like your WINE rant :)
WINE doesn’t emulate it translates the code so that it can run natively, so any problem you have is because you haven’t installed the windows dependencies of the program you are trying to run which you can do trough winetricks. And wine comes with a configuration tool called winecfg, and on there you can edit the window scaling, wine can in fact tell apps to screensize up
Aaaand as always the problem is proprietary corpo software :). People locked to this exists and there are not a few, but how is the OS to blame?
Half of the success of Windows and macOS is the fact that they provide solid and stable APIs and development tools that “makes it easy” to develop to those platforms. Linux is very bad at that. If major pieces of an OS are constantly changing and it requires large re-works of the applications then developers are less likely to support it. To be fair the Linux situation might be even harder than that - there are no distribution “sponsored” IDE (like Visual Studio or Xcode) and userland API documentation, frameworks etc.
Yep, this is one of the most common disadvantage of Linux ecosystem. Unless using something like Debian, but then comes (a little, but still existing) fragmentation.
My comment is about proprietary apps here. The biggest roadblockers with any change to next-gen technologies in the stack like Flatpak, Pipewire, Wayland, etc. are always them. Because with FOSS when someone create a new store or tech, they can be the ones doing ports of common apps, but with locked down software all he can do is please the original developers - the only ones able to do what they want with the program.
Yes, but those proprietary apps provide good features, support and have tons of hours of dev time and continuous updates that the FOSS alternatives can’t just match. We need that software as much as we need FOSS.
This isn’t true. Linux was the worst track ever of supporting old software, even worse than Apple. Rewriting applications for the latest version of GNOME doesn’t count as “support older software”, counts only as a pain in the ass that makes Linux unattractive to professionally developed / non FOSS software - after all who wants to constantly spend time updating an app just because the GNOME team decided to reinvent the wheel again to no marginal gain?
There unfortunetly is something to it, like shown by some game developers dropping Linux port when Proton got good enough and just officially supporting the game to work with Proton.