Yeah. I was literally just talking about how my SteamDeck is going to let me retire my remaining Windows PC. And by retire it, I mean install Linux, and continue to enjoy it.
Not that I condone that notification, as I equally hate it too, but if you right-click it, you can tell Windows to never show those notifications ever again. I haven’t gotten one since doing that.
It’s still shitty, nonetheless, and I still fucking hate Windows. Only use it because I have to for work and gaming, for the most part.
I suspect they allowed notifications from some application. When I installed 11 I did it with the offline/local account login instead of the Microsoft account and skipped activation with all optional “features” disabled, then on first login immediately installed Firefox as default, and then disabled telemetry, tracking, targeted ads, location settings, updates, Defender, crash reporting, phoning home, and all unused devices and services that are turned on by default that I don’t use. It’s a shame those are the defaults but I have no complaints about Windows performance after that.
But I finally got speedy with i3 keyboard shortcuts and my games all work great on Linux (perfunctory “btw I use Arch”), so now the only use I have for Windows is in VirtualBox to run ShareMouse until I can find a linux <-> macos KVM alternative that doesn’t require sudo on macos (rip input-leap).
I’m also surprised that people see this kind of ads: I haven’t seen any since I removed Outlook free (after Windows prompted me to switch because the older UWP Mail app was being retired). I’m always surprised when people complain about the number of ads they get in Windows.
But that’s not the point: the point is no paid software should contain any ad.
Gaming on Linux is pretty legit now. I don’t even boot into windows very often. In recent memory, only one AAA game didn’t work out of the box for me that required booting into windows.
Same here. Linux just need rolling gameplay recording and better controller support (steering wheels for one) and for me it’d be set. I know Decky has it for the Steam Deck but I haven’t seen one for desktop that works fine on Wayland.
Have a rather „expensive“ sim racing rig and would love to switch over to Linux again. But it’s simply a niche in a niche so I don’t expect any surprises in the near future. Too bad
Yeah, sim racing is very much left out in the Linux world, if not pretty janky. Virtual reality isn’t doing too hot here either, Valve just announced Steam Link for the Oculus headsets, and right now it’s Windows only.
TBF I haven’t actually tried Asetto Corsa with my steering wheel, or XPlane with my VR headset on Linux yet I just assumed it wouldn’t work. As soon as they do, I can’t wait to shitcan Windows forever.
I’ve tried Euro Truck Sim 2 with my G29, which was built for PlayStation but can work on PC with drivers on both Windows and Linux. On Linux, PS4 mode doesn’t work on Linux, but PS3 mode does - the main thing is you lose the speed indicators on your wheel, if you really want them speed lights you’ll have to go Windows and install G HUB.
Some say PS3 mode disables clutch support since that was the case when using it on a PS3 but IDK if this is the case on PC and specifically Linux. Cursory search points towards no.
That’s useful to know that it at least mostly works. I should really try it out with my Thrustmaster T300, I could be pleasantly surprised. I use an Oculus Quest 2 headset, which requires Meta’s app to run on Windows, so not sure how that would pan out.
If I could one day be playing BeamNG, with my FFB wheel, in VR, on Linux - I will have truly attained nirvana.
So far black desert online is the only game that I’ve wanted to play that I can’t on Linux (eac is awful). I know there are others, but it’s mainly fps games that bother with windows-only eac and I don’t play fps games all that much. Battlebit is probably the only fps I’ve been playing in the past few months, and they use/will be using a linux-compatible eac version which I’m jazzed about
Actually, EAC has a Proton-compatible build, the devs just have to use it. It’s not a hard switch, they just have to choose to allow Linux compatibility, which most devs (well, really it’s probably an exec level decision) do not.
Really sucks because older games will likely never get this. Looking at ones like Ghost Recon Wildlands. I do not care for the newer release but was excited to play Wildlands with my brother from my Steam Deck.
Game loaded just fine into the world and then I got kicked within a few seconds with a EAC error.
In black desert’s case, there’s no chance they would ever allow anyone to play without a kernel anti cheat, which EAC doesn’t allow on linux. The game is literally all grind, if bots could run on linux it would absolutely ravage the already shit economy.
From the controversy around battlebit using eac, apparently the eac version that is just a checkmark for proton/Linux support is not a drop in replacement for the regular one that is more popular. The one with that option would require a lot of refactoring code, and doesn’t have all of the features of the main eac unfortunately.
I use Windows and Mac but I would think that Mac is slightly better. Just because I got this privacy statement off them once where they said they will do as much processing locally as they can, rather than sending it off to the cloud to be processed. I just appreciate that they acknowledge that.
Also, Windows has just swapped to a new default email app that requires I sync my email with their own servers. They can fuck off with that.
In what way is macOS more closed than Windows? The kernel is open source, the app store and cloud stuff is entirely optional, and it runs most Unix-y stuff natively.
In the ability to legally and without hassle install it on random PCs.
The kernel is open source
The actual userland is proprietary in both cases. Opening Apple Terminal on macOS and using homebrew is as “open” as running Windows Terminal with WSL: Basically the things in the terminal are FOSS, the graphical surroundings of both systems aren’t.
Having used both, I don’t find WSL comparable to macOS’s native unix shell. Aside from the bloat of it, integration with the rest of the OS is troublesome on Windows, and WSL apps are second-class citizens. On macOS, there is no “rest of the OS” because the unix shell is fundamental. It’s not running in a virtual environment like WSL; it is the native environment.
the WSL 2 architecture uses virtualized networking components, which means that WSL 2 will behave similarly to a virtual machine – WSL 2 distributions will have a different IP address than the host machine (Windows OS).
As of right now WSL 2 does not include serial support, or USB device support
If you have no open file handles to Windows processes, the WSL VM will automatically be shut down. This means if you are using it as a web server, SSH into it to run your server and then exit, the VM could shut down because it is detecting that users are finished using it and will clean up its resources.
WSL is a great addition to Windows, but it’s still kind of a band-aid.
Having used both, I don’t find WSL comparable to macOS’s native unix shell.
I use Windows with openSUSE WSL, macOS with homebrew and “real” Linux.
Aside from the bloat of it
Which bloat? It’s just a regular terminal.
WSL 2 will behave similarly to a virtual machine
That’s not so much different from a sanboxed environment on native Linux where a Flatpak application can request file system access but not touch processes outside its sandbox. If anything, I prefer that I have all my regular openSUSE thingies (zypper, my own Build Service repository,…) available unmodified on Windows, whereas the macOS terminal (and I know that’s subjective) just feels off.
It’s a virtual environment that requires installation of an entire Linux system. The disk and memory usage is not comparable to a native Unix OS.
Everything uses some sort of “virtual environment” these days. It’s not bloat, it’s the norm. homebrew does not use native macOS libraries except the very low level stuff. It handles its own dependencies. “Regular” macOS applications usually bundle their dependencies inside the .app folder bundle. On Linux, Flatpak installs its own dependencies. Heck, for whatever reason the Bazzite maintainers decided that installing Steam within a Arch Linux distrobox container is somehow preferable to the alternatives and Steam on Linux in turn uses “virtual environments” because the various Steam Linux Runtimes are specialized Ubuntu and Debian environments and every version of Proton is its own “virtual environment” of Windows.
I’ve bought a notebook almost exactly 10 years ago for €629 that had a 1TB hard drive and that I’ve upgraded to 16 or 24GB RAM for relatively little money (IIRC around €100). Sure, if you look at the insane prices that Apple asks for even a pathetic 8GB RAM / 256 GB SSD entry level MacBook, you surely want to avoid “bloat” but for many people in the regular x86 PC world a few “virtual environments” here and there don’t make a difference and aren’t considered bloat at all. If anything, for WSL users being able to run most unmodified Linux binaries is a benefit over relying on crappy ports of GTK to macOS and such because those ports of Linux software to macOS integrates so well…
I disagree with the characterization of Homebrew as a “virtual environment”. It installs binaries and libraries in its own directory and by default adds those directories to your PATH. This makes them first-class entities on macOS. Unlike with WSL, there is no secondary kernel and no hypervisor. Everything runs natively within the macOS environment. There’s no bridge, no virtualizer, not even sandboxing with Homebrew or MacPorts. Homebrew and MacPorts do not install “Linux” software; they install Mac software.
As a real-world example, I can install newer versions of standard tools like openssl and kerberos5 via MacPorts or Homebrew, and native Mac apps that rely on those pick them up seamlessly. I don’t think that is realistic with WSL, if even possible.
I haven’t re-evaluated a lot of development stuff since the release of WSL2, so perhaps things are smoother now, but in WSL1 I found there to be a big disconnect between e.g. a Windows-native installation of Spyder and a WSL-based Python environment. If there is a way to set that up, rather than installing Spyder within WSL and wrestling with X11 to run it as a second-class GUI, I’d love to hear it.
From what I have gathered online, it seems like most people believe that macOS is (slightly) more private than Windows. macOSshow you detailed characterization of the telemetry, and you can turn most of it it off; whereas you cannot turn off basic telemetry in Windows.
I cannot verify this claim, since I never owned an apple product.
That being said, if I have to use a closed-source OS, I would probably choice window, since I am more familiar with it and it is (slightly) more open than macOS.
You can shut down all telemetry in Windows Pro/Enterprise, I believe. You probably could with regular, too, especially if you’re blocking all Microsoft domains via DNS, firewall, or other methods.
and you can turn most of it it off; whereas you cannot turn off basic telemetry in Windows.
If only most telemetry can be turned off on macOS, it retains some basic telemetry that cannot be turned off. How is that better than basic telemetry on Windows?
I thought this until I actually tried windows, it just doesn’t work right ever and feels so weird and old. I wouldn’t use macos, but it’s fine, it feels competently made and for the most part makes sense.
Yes, Windows feels old but at least is usable (10 was more usable that 11 in my opinion). MacOS feels very janky to me and you have to jump to various hoops to do basic things
There are plenty of developers who use macs for work, me included. I mainly go with Mac for the build quality/battery life/performance though and also because my work pays for it so I don’t need to worry about the exorbitant price. I would agree that MacOS is pretty janky at times and it requires a few third party apps to be reasonable usable.
But I’m not really sure what you mean by useful bits? I don’t feel like I’m really restricted in MacOS. If there isn’t a UI element for something, you can probably adjust it in a terminal.
Generally, yes. I like MacOS more than windows because it’s at least *nix.
But to be honest I have no strong opinions on OS when it comes to work. I’ve used windows*/Linux/MacOS and none have stood out as far superior to get my work done faster or more efficiently.
I use MacOS with my Mac because that’s what’s installed out of the box.
The main things that seem to hold me back from working efficiently are programs that are required by the company to maintain their ISO accreditation like Microsoft “intune” or what ever it’s called.
It is true though, developers use macs because they give you a useful unixy environment but Apple do try to keep that hidden because the people they actually market the devices to are the casual users. I find myself constantly fighting with macOS because it has decided that things must be done The Apple Way and I have to go to the forums to find out where they’re hiding the features. Obviously I’m not going to use Windows for a dev environment (I’m not a masochist), but it’s a shame that most companies can’t be bothered supporting a Linux desktop environment.
I work in IT and i’d wager that 95+% of MacOS users don’t know how to find their Library folder or how to view other hidden directories. Keychain Access is also an unnecessarily convoluted system to use as a desktop password manager. The System Settings layout is also not intuitive (not that System Preferences was much better). And although MacOS is a *nix system, there have been plenty of times where I’ve had to Google certain commands to fix things that are different than on Linux.
Windows for Dev is very common actually. And not just for .Net based stuff. Many devs that I know work on Windows. I used all three OS for Dev and I don’t know why Windows is always listed as a nightmare. Maybe fifteen years ago but not now.
It’s not true in the slightest. Terminal is an app that comes on every Mac and is shown in the Launchpad and Applications folders. It’s not hidden at all.
It’s not finding the terminal, it’s finding that you need to install xcode separately to configure or run things, or install brew for a proper package manager, or install third party tools to do basic actions like move windows around with keyboard shortcuts. It’s the “our way or the highway” attitude which drives a lot of how they design their software.
This is just a clever safety feature so that those that don’t need it don’t accidentally mess around with things, if they’re curious they can look up what it does.
No one who would use the terminal would need to find the terminal. It automatically prompts you to install Xcode whenever you try to install a package that requires it through terminal. A “proper” package manager is a nonsense distinction and it’s literally one terminal command similar to any Linux distro that doesn’t include it. The same applies to window management. That all depends on the distro you pick and whether it does what you want out of the box. You’re either being disingenuous or you’re ignorant to how variable Linux actually is.
I don’t mean this in an accusatory way, but did you create your account just to talk up macs? I know some people really love them, but plenty of people have serious issues with Apple’s entire philosophy. The “our way or the highway” idea is great if you want to do everything their way but when that way doesn’t work for what you want to do then that’s what rubs people the wrong way.
You can’t always just not use it, a lot of people get given macs as work machines. And having had macos updates break software compatibility multiple times I would not say “a very stable system”!
I think the recent line of MacBook Pros (M1 and onward) clearly have a focus on the professional segment - stopping the focus on very thin computers, touch bars instead of function keys and USB C ports only.
There’s definitely a disconnect between hardware and software. I quite like the hardware and like you say it’s definitely appropriate for the serious user. The OS that updates, changes my settings, and shouts about new emoji reaction features? Not so much!
I personally love those features as a developer, I don’t need every type of port pretty much just one would be enough in a perfect world we would use wireless to interface all peripherals and media items like cameras
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