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What Keeps You On (or Off) Windows in 2013?
Five years ago today, reader J.J. Ramsey asked what's keeping you off Windows (itself a followup to this question about the opposite situation). With five years of development time gone by for Windows as well as all the alternative OSes, where does Windows stand for you today? (Is it the year of Linux on the Desktop yet?)
I created this name 12 years ago because I was young, immature, and hated Microsoft with a passion.
(typical slashdotter at the time in 1999)
Windows crashed and DOS was horrible though slashdot had its loyalists I should not by 1993 create autoexec.bat files for Monkey Island and another to play Doom because of expanded vs extended memory?? WTF this is a 486 not a 8086?!
Around the time they were asked 10 years ago on what kept me off Windows questions
I tried Linux then and fell in love with the aspects of free software, tons of apps on cd (I was on dialup then), I did not have to pay $$$$ for compilers for game development, could get any gui I wanted, I could get paid a shit load of money if I had Unix on my resume.
I fell in love with FreeBSD. It was stable, never changed, just worked, unless I did something stupid to it. I started disliking Linux. It was beta quality and kept crashing compared to FreeBSD and Solaris. I felt it was the Windows version of Linux where crapware and hardware are thrown on it and it is not tested well.
I took a java programming course and gave up on FreeBSD as I needed Java 5 in 2004. I reluctantly started using XP.
Why in 2013 I stick with Windows
It works and no longer blows and sucks. For the slashdotters who have ran Linux for 10 years you have to ask yourself if your memories of IE 6 and WindowsME still apply today?
Windows 7 is stable, IE 10 is a modern browser and has 90% of Firefox's HTML 5 features, Office has its issues but it still is professional, and Adobe products are nice to have but they also exist on the Mac as well. Windows Server 2012 is ok. It is finally catching up and is finally VM ready.
Linux never just works and has problems with updates with my ATI and AMD hardware due to the lack of a stable ABI. It doesn't have Microsoft Office. Java is butt ugly as the fonts are broken in Debian/Ubuntu distros as the bug is 6 years old now! WTF. FreeBSD is out of the question today as 5.x and 6.x were horrible! I stuck with the 4.x all the way until 4.12 which was now quite stale by 2005.
My exwife asked me (no not flamebait moderators but her real opinion and words) why I use such an inferior system? My response was WTF Windows sucks, Windows blows, Windows is unstable, and went on and on. Her response was well you are the one who always has to reinstall your operating system. My Vista just works? Whose is better now?
She is right. World of Warcraft was a pain with Wine, then I had to get Ventrillo to work, and then Office. In the end it just is not worth it.
I keep CentOS around in virtualbox and VMWare. It rocks as a server
In 2011 after gnome 3 I gave up. Sorry guys. I put Windows 7 on and it just works. I have reinstalled it a few times but that is it. Compared to Windows 3.1 it is certainly tolerable.
http://saveie6.com/
I've run Linux since college. I dual booted Fedora Linux (it was Fedora core back then) and Windows xp on my Laptop. I was in the habit of reinstalling windows xp every 6 months. After one such install, I went to my C: drive to tweak something, and the files were hidden with the message that it was dangerous to change any files. I suddenly realized that message encapsulated everything I disliked about Windows. My computer was telling me I wasn't to be trusted with anything under the hood. I wiped out that windows install and have exclusively run Linux on my main machine ever since. Now I actually have control over my computer and what runs on it. It's also more usable than a Windows machine for IT and server administration. My two disappointments are that one: I am still running the proprietary video card drivers (though with the upcoming Fedora release, I'll probably run with the foss drivers), and two: Coreboot doesn't yet work with my mobo and processor combination.
In rough order of importance:
1) Games. I am a gamer, I'd rather play video games than watch TV for entertainment. I also find that the games I like the best are either PC only (like Civ), or better on the PC (like Skyrim). So a PC it is. Well, Windows is far and away the best for games. Any other platform has way, WAY less games. So all other things equal, I'd be on Windows just for that.
2) Pro Audio. I like to play with audio creation and production. This is something I could do on a Mac, though not with my prefered tool (Cakewalk Sonar). I couldn't do it on Linux though, the audio production software there is abysmal, and even if it wasn't all the samples I own are Windows and Mac only, and I do not wish to rebuy them, nor have I found any for Linux remotely close in quality.
3) Price. This relates only to switching to a Mac, but to get what I want, that being a tower unit with some good hardware, it would be monkey-fuck retarded expensive compared to PC hardware. I am not a rich man, so while I'll spend a good bit on computers, I can't afford to just blow money for no reason.
4) Hardware support. Linux in particular has issues with much of the hardware I choose to use. I really don't feel like compromising on that, I don't want to have to say "Man I'd like to use that, but it won't work on my OS." Thus far, no piece of hardware I've want has not had Windows support.
5) Ease of use. Perhaps it is just my lack of familiarity with it, or my somewhat odd requirements for use (like pro audio and good 3D acceleration) but I seem to be able to find an unsolvable problem in Linux rather quickly. When I've tried to use it at work I'll find something I can't get to work that even stumps the Linux guys. I feel like I have to fight with the OS to get it to do things, and often the solution is "Oh just write a script," or "Just modify the code and recompile," which isn't an option. I'm not a programmer and have no wish to become one.
6) It works. I'm not big on change for change sake. Were I to move to another platform, someone would have to convince me of the superiority. They'd have to show me what it is I could do there I can't do now, or how I could do what I do better. Even if it is just equal, I've little interest in changing.
That's my reasons at home. At work, well I'm the Windows lead, so of course I use Windows. I need to be familiar with it and be able to easily administer the Windows servers because that's what I'm expected to do.
I've heard this Windows thing has become better, much much better, since Windows 95. I've seen it on other peoples computer and it looks real nice. What's keeping me off trying this Windows thing is that I'm really happy with my computer as it is, I have the software I need and it's stable and I get what I need to get done. I've also got the impression that this Windows this is very limited when it comes to the command line (which I use all the time), multiple virtual desktops, good editors and so on. But I may be wrong, all these things and more may exist in the Windows world - I haven't really paid much attention to what's going on there, but I do have the impression that Windows has become a lot better since I switched.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
I'm going to be marked as troll and care very little about it but:
There is something to be said about using an OS 90+% of the population uses. There are intangible and tangible benefits, like hardware working properly and to full capacity (not the lowest common denominator support Linux often boasts), like MS Office working well, saving you the effort of mucking about with Libre/Openoffice, Strange IE-only sites not being a issue, not worrying about updates breaking your system (updates are much more likely to break things under Linux), A stable video-editor (Linux has nothing compared to the windows side), being able to connect to a projector.
There is also the stability you get when you buy a complete desktop OS from the same vendor, with everything from the kernel to the UI because closely coordinated. This is better than the Linux approach of fiefdoms with everything being plugged together by the distros, praying that updating one package won't break another package because it's often impossible to test all the possible configuration variables.
When MS introduced UAC, discouraged the use of the registry (preferring a local approach to settings management), and separated the update manager from the browser windows and began offering a decent AV, all in vista, windows became a superior option. Linux offers litter benefit to the user because MS has largely addressed their problems.
If you look at msdn you will still see some ancient articles of mine. I have written books about .net and c#. When windows 8 was announced I decided that I will switch. Windows 8'to me was a piece of do do. I switched to osx and Linux. And now I use for the most part Linux.
As I trade the market my main concern was excel. But what was interesting is that I ended up not needing it because I changed the way that I write algos. I used to be my algos would use excel as the front end. Now I use HTML. Let me tell you HTML rocks, and excel sucks. What is more impressive with HTML is its ability to do whatever I want. If I want a grid with spreadsheet like functionality it is possible. Do I want to insert a graph, no problem. It really is an evolution.
What made the switch hard was the leap of faith. I have used Linux since 94, but was always a bit disappointed. However now with both osx and Linux I can honestly say windows is not needed anymore. And if you say you need it, then it is because you don't want to make the leap of faith. Especially with osx around.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Every time this type of question comes up someone pipes up with this kind of statement.
It always makes me wonder if I'm the only one that has zero problems with sound? Or pretty much anything? Am I just that lucky and skillful and freaking awesome in selecting hardware?
For other desktop uses I again must just be some kind of freak outlier. The only time I've had problems using Linux in the office was when I worked at places that were outright Linux (really "non-Windows") hostile and would actively prevent you from using anything else or at best just didn't help a lick. If it wasn't that kind of place I had no problems doing everything everyone else was doing. Maybe it was just that my job didn't require me to be some fancy Excel jockey or something.
Am I really alone in that?
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"