[Nokinside]

As a Linux user I have kept Windows 7 & 8 partitions in my laptop and workstation disks for years because there used to be time where you needed Windows in the work for some programs to work and some documents to open.

Windows 10 upgrade push made me to realize that that time passed a long time ago. Last time I booted to Windows for other reason than playing a game was seven years ago. LibreOffice works well with MS documents and you can always use them from Google drive.

Windows has lost it's grip for good.

[mouzogu]

I don't get the general negativity around Windows. Variety, for me, is a good thing. Every OS has it's strengths, weaknesses and use-cases.

I know the argument is often framed as open vs closed source ecosystems but I think and hope that ultimately having more options and more variety is good and interesting for us.

Windows, does deservedly get a lot of stick for it's past issues (windows rot etc) and present issues. However, I think ultimately what we learn from these scenarios is extremely beneficial for a lot of people.

As a Web Developer I hated IE 6. I still do. But, I have to admit that it taught me a lot. It taught me about the box-model. It taught me how to debug JS before the days of Firefox/Firebug. I know this was not by design or intention and I know this is easier to say in retrospect.

I can imagine a lot of people working in info-sec learnt a lot from the various failings of Windows and other platforms too.

I guess my point is don't be negative for the sake of it. If Windows is bad, I hope it improves. Same goes for all technologies. I'm a Chrome user but I still love to run Opera, Firefox and Edge now and then because I enjoy different experiences and love playing with new apps and features. I also have a Macbook for work and and and Ubuntu partition. I enjoy using them all.

[evilgenius134]

>I'm a Chrome user but I still love to run Opera, Firefox and Edge now

Chrome has never actively tried to uninstall/remove competing browsers or corrupt your ability to reliably run them, I distinctly remember my own install of Windows 10 destroying my bootloaders set up by Linux and uninstalling applications automatically. Although it has show the ability to send as much information as it wants back home.

>If Windows is bad, I hope it improves.

I'm sure people in 2001 were saying the same thing about Microsoft and it appears they are emulating it again.

[mouzogu]

I was indeed saying the same thing in 2001. Just with more swearing.

[slightlycuban]

> I don't get the general negativity around Windows.

For me, it's that the system is completely closed and opaque, and there routinely isn't much I can do about it.

Not saying the other guys are perfect--far from it--but at least I can take a crack at changing things. Windows is the most closed-source OS I run (more so than OSX). When it doesn't do The Right Thing, I can get very negative.

And to your point, I feel I've learned much more from OSes that expose the internals and let me mess with them, than those that don't.

[bsilvereagle]

> Windows has lost it's grip for good.

For your listed use case of gaming & document creation.

There are a lot of niche applications that are Windows only. All major CAD platforms, a decent chunk of FEA packages, hardware vendor software, etc. At the professional level, Windows still has quite the grip.

[toxican]

I think even the idea that Linux is a solid alternative to Windows for gaming is still a joke. It's immeasurably better than it was even just 5 years ago, but outside of Valve, indie devs or smaller studios, we're not seeing a lot of linux ports. And when we do they seem clunkier, somehow. And sometimes I just want to pop into some obscure resource management game from 2006 without sacrificing a goat and praying to WINE gods that it'll work.

From a profession standpoint, I'm still tied to Windows because of Adobe's choice not to port to linux. Inkscape and Gimp are okay, but when you're the only one in the company running linux, what's the point?

[Sylos]

I wouldn't say, it's a solid alternative for everyone, but for some people, it can definitely be. I for example like indie games. As a result, and probably with a bit of luck, 80% of my Steam-library had Linux-support when I jumped into Linux.

And, for a game from 2006, you'll probably have to pray to the Windows-compatibility-mode gods at this point, too. I actually wouldn't be surprised, if it worked better under WINE...

[ctrl-j]

> And, for a game from 2006, you'll probably have to pray to the Windows-compatibility-mode gods at this point, too. I actually wouldn't be surprised, if it worked better under WINE...

That's just not true. I've got plenty of games from 2006 and earlier than run just as good as they originally did. Sure Oblivion crashes, but it did in 2006. Half-Life 2 runs pretty darn well. Company of heroes? Yep. Dawn of War and the expansions? Sure.

In fact, my overall gaming experience on windows 10 is far better than it was on windows xp and vista. Less overall crashing, and I never get bluescreens any more.

[qu4z-2]

For what it's worth, I find a lot of older games I try to run on Win 10 crash, or don't work 100%. KOTOR, for instance. So while I can get a lot to work more or less flawlessly, that's more-or-less a tie with wine.

[adrianratnapala]

And most of those vendors were windows-only because their customers, their suppliers were windows only. But that knot seems to be loosening.

Windows still dominates on workstations, but that no longer locks people in like it used to. Some user-interfaces can be pushed onto the web or mobile apps. Suppliers further down the chain are now as likely to support Linux as Windows.

My employer is a hardware vendor, our software is turning out Linux-only for the forseeable future. Of course the office PC's for us an most of our customers are Windows, but this is workable because of all kinds of (mostly network based) interoperability that has grown up over the years.

[djaychela]

Yeah, it's the only reason I have a Windows laptop (or desktop) - I teach music technology, and that means a DAW which works - in my case Cubase - so unless Steinberg changes their mind on supporting Linux (which seems massively unlikely given the amount of effort needed to get it working properly), I'll have to have a Windows machine for the foreseeable future; everything else I do is done on my Chromebooks (one Chrome, one GalliumOS).

[zambal]

In case you haven't heard about it: Bitwig Studio works effortless on Linux with a great feature set. The workflow is more similar to Ableton Live than Cubase though.

[djaychela]

I've heard about it, but there are a number of problems - firstly, as you've said, it's more Ableton than Cubase, and I've spent a fair bit of time trying to get on with Ableton (I regularly work with a producer who uses it), but alas, having spent 20 years+ using Cubase, it's difficult for my addled brain to make the shift in paradigm, and things which are just "natural" now in Cubase involve a lot of thinking to remember how to do in Ableton.

Secondly, plugins - there are a heap of free and paid plugins that are Windows-only that I'm not sure will work in Linux (I know about being able to bridge them, but even 32/64 Windows bridges have issues!) - having said that I've not tried this lately, so hopefully there's been some good progress.

Third, and probably most intractably - it's a big enough ask to get school IT departments to support 'odd' software like Cubase; getting them to support Linux, alas, would be infinitely unlikely, so I'd still need a Windows PC to support my teaching work (which is my main income).

Thanks for the tip, though, I shall re-look into Bitwig again as it's on Linux, and then my GalliumOS Chromebook could become even more useful!

[wazoox]

You should try Ardour. It can even use windows VST plugins on Linux.

[maccard]

Windows is still definitely dominant for gaming. There are definitely an increasing number of games being released on Linux, but the vast majority of "PC" games are still windows only.

[_RPM]

If you're a windows shop. My shop doesn't use windows at all.

[criddell]

I think for the kinds of applications that the poster was talking about (CAD, FEA, etc...), there's no concept of the department or business being a Windows shop or a macOS shop any more than it being an Intel shop or an AMD shop. The OS is just infrastructure and not that interesting.

It's the applications that are key and if some application requires a Windows machine, that's what they buy.

[oolongCat]

The biggest reason why windows still has that grip vs linux is hardware based.

Try installing Ubuntu on a brand new laptop. Its just not something a non technical user can deal with. I am sure a good share of us here on HN has, at-least one relative who calls us because the "internet is broken" imagine them trying to deal with something like ubuntu on a brand new computer.

I like to think this is partially our fault as consumers, we need to actually do more to demand hardware vendors to support Linux. Especially laptop manufacturers.

[dragonsky67]

I've got a reasonable number of relatives who would not be able to install windows or MacOS on a new computer, they just purchase new computers.

In my experience installing a friendly linux like Ubuntu is a lot more simple than installing Windows. Unless the hardware is very new the install will just work. If you want to play games you may have to play around with installing the latest video drivers from the vendor, but how is this any different from what you have to do on a Windows machine?

[mc32]

At the consumer level, it makes little difference now that most things are interoperable. It's only at the enterprise where lots of enterprise grade software are still NT-only and its likely to remain that way for a while as most of those shops don't have enough in-house expertise to support multiple platforms simultaneously.

[lettergram]

I agree to an extent... but I have seen a massive push to Mac's at the two largest companies I've worked at. Literally, all new employees get Mac's as opposed to Windows, which was not the case five years ago. Both are fortune 500 companies, so they have a large number of employees.

[matheweis]

Just want to throw out that AutoCAD runs incredibly well on the Mac; I suspect that it's more likely the significant cost premium of the Mac that's keeping it out of some parts of the professional world...

[zokier]

> All major CAD platforms

NX runs on Linux too.

[tantalor]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_computer-aided_d...

Many run on Mac & Linux. Hell, AutoCAD runs on iOS & Android.

[zokier]

I don't think any others on that list really qualify as "major". And AutoCAD 360 (=the mobile version) is very much not the same as AutoCAD proper.

[drzaiusapelord]

The desktop market is bigger than the little world you live in. It seems every month there's a highly rated HN post about how this is finally the year of the Linux desktop. And before that on Reddit and before that on Slashdot and before that newsgroups for the past 15+ years.

I think its difficult to know the vast amount of software that's user/business critical that's Windows-only and how many people will never run an OS that isn't pre-install on their computer. Even as a sysadmin/devops for over a decade, I'm still surprised how strong Windows is. Some of it is legacy inertia and some of it is merit. No one else is investing in gaming like MS does. No one else builds developer friendly tools that a very mediocre team of devs can be made productive with. No one else builds a dumbed-down office suite that even a high school drop out can be productive in. No one else markets to the business community like MS, etc, etc.

It also doesn't help the "year of the linux desktop" argument that Windows is losing to mobile, but Windows 10 includes many mobile concepts. In fact, as far as I can tell, its very much modeled after Android. I know grandma won't buy a Surface Pro, but it is now easier for her to go from Android or iOS to Win10 and not be scared or confused.

I think Windows has a long life still. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean you can just wish it away. For segments that aren't the kinds of people who post on HN, its still very popular and that's ignoring its dominance in business.

[yandie]

I develop mostly on Linux (EC2 instance), but my email and documents are still on Windows. Excel still beats LibreOffice in terms of data analysis (yes, we use other tools such as Jupyter as well, but sometimes Excel is an easy route to communicate with other business people).

Also I use two massive 27-inch screens at work. My co-worker Ubuntu boxes have difficulties driving them properly (probably driver issues, manufacturer's fault). Also text rendering is still subpar on Ubuntu.

Windows 10, IMO, provides many nice aspects in terms of UI experience. Not that I'm gonna start developing on Windows in any foreseeable future

[ocdtrekkie]

Congrats on being happy about your choice of operating system. What does that have to do with this article?

[Yhippa]

As a consultant I find Windows everywhere. A lot of big companies have their end-user computing platforms managed by a big vendor like Dell or HP. The typical attachments passed around in email at BigCorp is probably going to be an Excel, Word, or Powerpoint document.

Personally I don't use Windows anymore but it seems like it's going to take a lot of work to get rid of the Windows platform out of commodity IT.

[kemiller2002]

This is most likely true, and I believe that this is the reason you see MS trying to migrate to being an online provider and moving the .NET framework (and SQL Server for that matter) to work on other platforms.

[hudell]

A couple months ago I tried to ditch windows for linux at work and I failed, mostly because neither Skype nor Hangouts worked properly on it and the client was tired of switching tools, but other than that I think I didn't miss anything. At home linux is a complete no no, I run into windows only tools every week. But for a better experience on linux, I recommend changing libre office for wps office.

[touristtam]

your anecdotal experience against mine: Hangout and Skype (and Vibe) are working fine on Ubuntu.

[hudell]

The problem with skype was that it only worked if everybody involved used old versions of it. Dozens of people had the same issue on the client's office, so they switched to hangouts which worked now and then. There's a new version of skype for linux now that seems to be working fine though.

[ljk]

totally agree, just one small thing:

> Windows has lost it's grip for good.

its* grip