[mixedCase]

Tacking on some of the good stuff from Linux doesn't make Windows any less of a horrible option for many, if not most, of us.

I am impressed by what Microsoft is doing, and I'm willing to use Azure and other MS tech at some point, but only if I can get away with not having to deal with Windows for anything but a small build slave server for Windows Phone and Windows builds, just like I currently do with a Mac Mini.

[coldtea]

>Tacking on some of the good stuff from Linux doesn't make Windows any less of a horrible option for many, if not most, of us.

Actually that's exactly what it does. What were your pain points?

(Besides "it's proprietary").

[mixedCase]

st3v3r mentioned two valid points.

On top of that I will add "It's propietary". Because it is. It's a security risk, it means I have to buy it and I have to manage every license I buy. No need for the Stallman pasta here to express clear reasons why it is unacceptable for me and many others.

Other reasons:

- Bloated by default. Comes with many things I do not need, and some I outright despise.

- Resource hungry. It's gotten much, much better with the last few versions, but I can take my Linux set-up to a lowly Chromebook, a discardable netbook or a cheap SoC like the RPi and barely notice a difference for most of what I do. I cannot do that with Windows.

- Not POSIX. I could switch to OS X or BSD tomorrow and barely notice the difference for most of my computing. Not on Windows.

- Carries a particular culture of everything having to be done on the GUI. And what a bad GUI it is.

- Security wise it's terrible, you can't simply brush off the threat of malware as I do on Linux.

- No first class package management. The App Store is a joke.

- It is a completely different system from what I run or would run on my servers anyway.

I could go on but I think it's enough to justify why Windows is not a good option for me (me, as in, me, not someone who's really happy now with Windows).

[mastazi]

> And what a bad GUI it is.

IMHO every GUI (Win, Mac, Gnome, KDE etc.) is bad compared to any decent CLI, if you are trying to complete non-trivial tasks. The real problem is, on Windows you don't have a simple way to switch from doing things in the GUI to doing them on command line. You can, but it's sort of second-class citizen.

> you can't simply brush off the threat of malware as I do on Linux

Uhm, as a former Linux-only user (for about 2 years, circa 2011-2012) I would advise you not to brush it off completely.

[pekk]

Did you have a lot of bad experiences with malware on Linux?

[mastazi]

No but TBH I didn't with Windows 8/8.1/10 either. In either case, you should be aware that malware exists for any platform (Linux too) and always apply the right level of caution.

[cm2187]

To be honest my last malware experience on Windows date from years ago, when I was still naive and clicking on popups in a browser. Haven't seen a malware in a long time, if we don't count as malware the nuisances like the Java installer, Java updater, flash updater, iTunes updater, Adobe updater, all of which either install malware or open popups regularly to nag me to update or install things.

[iso-8859-1]

"It's proprietary" is a fully legitimate pain point. It means that I can never fully trust that part of my toolbox, what if it has a bug that gets neglected by the developer or it gets abandoned. The open source ideology is not attractive just because of its ethics.

[cm2187]

But open source has its own history of major security flaws, particularly the last two years.

I would be curious to know what % of security flaws are discovered because exploited vs as a result of a code review.

[dohboy]

Why is this being discussed like Ubuntu is the only Linux edition available? You seriously think CentOS, Arch or *BSD users will jump ship because of this?

[coldtea]

No, but people wanting a stable no-fuss desktop with everything (from laptop sleep to device drivers) working, access to proprietary software and all kinds of 3rd party drivers available, will.

I use OS X mostly because of the UNIX underpinnings. I could not care less for Linux of the desktop, despite having used it since 1997 (and having a history with UNIX going back to Sun OS and HP-UX).

If Windows gets good enough with its basic unix userland support, and has a decent shell, I'll be very tempted to try it.

After all, any actual deployment etc, I do on Linux servers and VMs (vagrant etc) -- no reason to pollute one's base desktop system with development libs and setups.

[cyphar]

> No, but people wanting a stable no-fuss desktop with everything (from laptop sleep to device drivers) working, access to proprietary software and all kinds of 3rd party drivers available, will.

Have you used a recent Linux distro? They are mainly stable and no fuss, and they don't require you to run proprietary software.

[coldtea]

>and they don't require you to run proprietary software.

Only I specifically asked the inverse: to be able to run all the proprietary software I want.

Besides, that's always the case -- "a recent Linux distro" is always supposed to fix all of these problems, I've been hearing that (and trying in vain) ever since 2000 or so. And I use Linux on the server side just fine (and actually have several desktop Linux installations too, since 1997 and RedHat 5.3 IIRC, just not as my basic everyday work/fun desktop, because they're dreadful still).

[qplex]

I must say you are quite delusional to argue that Linux desktop is still in the same state as it was in 1997.

[st3v3r]

Tracking, ads on the desktop...

[cyphar]

It's proprietary. And Microsoft spies on its users. So there's that. I don't need any more justification.

[coldtea]

>It's proprietary.

Which doesn't mean much -- or even it's a plus for some.

>And Microsoft spies on its users.

Well, we're spied on any network use we do anyway.

[cyphar]

>>It's proprietary.

>Which doesn't mean much -- or even it's a plus for some.

It does mean a lot, you just don't accept that it does. And yes, some people are masochists. That's their decision, but we should reward people who force people to be masochists.

>>And Microsoft spies on its users.

>Well, we're spied on any network use we do anyway.

Privacy isn't binary. Just because it's possible to penetrate walls with xrays doesn't suddenly mean that you don't close the curtains in your house when you're naked.

[qplex]

I really can not understand how anyone would trust Windows or anything else from M$ after what they have pulled off so far.

Go with Linux if you want to build on something that is not built on sand, greed and damned lies.