[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"Apple should stop nagging you to upgrade the OS if your hardware wasn't built to support the newer versions."

When Apple introduced OSX I refused to upgrade a G4; I stayed on OS9. I never connected that computer to the internet, it was only used as a DAW.

This "upgrade the OS" nonsense is an old trick. Microsoft made it infamous.

I had Windows computers back in the day, late 90s, where I only upgraded the hardware, not the OS. This went in direct opposition to all marketing, "technical advice" and hype.

These computers were always much faster. Hardware keeps getting faster and cheaper. Software keeps getting larger and slower.

Upgrades are almost never PRIMARILY for the user's benefit. Developers will never admit it. Upgrades are what developers want, not users. Then they try to convince people that everyone should want these "improvements".

Not that I know what other users want, but I want stuff that works reliably, does not slow down and does not need constant fixing. I prefer software that stays the same over software that is constantly changing. I like software that keeps doing what I installed it to do and nothing more.

[brokenmachine]

>Not that I know what other users want, but I want stuff that works reliably, does not slow down and does not need constant fixing. I prefer software that stays the same over software that is constantly changing. I like software that keeps doing what I installed it to do and nothing more.

This is exactly how I feel.

I think there are two camps - some people like shiny stuff for the sake of shiny stuff.

I want to perform the tasks I'm trying to perform as quickly and efficiently as possible. Often that means cli and custom scripts, if I need to use a GUI it's using the keyboard as much as possible and avoiding the mouse, and if I must use the mouse, then I have a lot of custom buttons mapped and/or ahk scripts.

When I see people entering username/password and not knowing that you can tab to get to the next field, I die a little inside. These are people who work on a computer every single day, but they never thought to look into increasing their efficiency on said computer, even for the most basic of tasks that they might do 50x per day.

[danuker]

How would you know you are doing something inefficiently, so that you can look into it?

And where would you look?

[Salgat]

The situation with Windows is nothing like this. When I upgraded my shitty netbook from XP to 7, magically my audio started working again (and I didn't have to touch a single driver) and it actually ran faster, even compared to a clean install of XP. The driver situation was huge and 7/10 perform very well. OS X on the other hand, I have no idea what they are doing that slows older computers so much while adding very little value.

Microsoft actually has a performance and user experience incentive to make their OS work well on older hardware. With Apple they can just force you to upgrade, consequences be damned.

[ivan1783]

Have to partially disagree here. Remember Windows XP? Do you want to go back to that after having used W10? In W10 everything just...works. Think about how much time you spent fucking around with drivers or registry settings or TCP/IP settings or whatever to get things to work in XP, all of that is gone in W10. I can do a fresh install in 2 hrs and the computer is back to "like new" and not have to spend an additional 4 hours on drivers and updates and configuration. For me, OS updates have been nothing but a positive (lets set security/privacy aside).

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"Do you want to go back to that after having used W10?"

I have seen this type of reply repeatedly in response to any comment that some software or the web was a better experience in the past. In this case, it ignores the point being made which is not that the past was better, it is that upgrading hardware while not upgrading software is a much nicer user experience than upgrading software without upgrading hardware, or upgrading both at the same time (buying a new computer). The former was and still is stymied by companies like Microsoft and now Apple. Plus we have to contend with "business strategies" like planned obsolesence and "automatic upgrades". Arguably W10 was a "forced" upgrade, minimising if not eliminating any user choice. IMHO, we as users miss out on the full enjoyment of improvements in hardware because developers usurp those improvements for themselves. The user's computer resources are donated to the OS developer, without any prior permission from the user. That is the price of having the OS pre-installed,

[ivan1783]

You make a slightly different point, perhaps I missed the original point of the comment. I agree with you that upgrading HW without SW is much nicer than SW without HW. No argument there.

[joombaga]

I often do want to go back to XP, yes. My experience is approximately the inverse of yours. W10 is better for included drivers for sure. I've had to do many more registry and group policy changes on W10 than I ever needed in XP. Sometimes it feels like the GUI is lying to me about how the system can be configured. The most obvious example is that from the Windows Update GUI is appears updates can only be delayed temporarily, and must be completed before another temporary delay. This isn't the case; they've broken the connection between GUI and the settings, then lied about the existence of the setting. This isn't entirely new (95/98/XP had TweakUI), but it feels more deceptive or controlling now vs. just not exposing a feature. The cumulative updates are a huge improvement.

[MonkeyClub]

> I can do a fresh install in 2 hrs

I can do a fresh install of OpenBSD in 5 minutes.

However I won't have to, because unlike Windows 10, the system doesn't gradually rot over time.

[strken]

Can you expand on this? I can't remember ever having a registry problem caused by XP itself, nor any issues with TCP/IP. Drivers are a fair call, though.

[ivan1783]

Nothing caused by XP itself, mostly issues which come up that seemed (at least to me - as a non-SW guy) to be connected with the immaturity of XP. Its been some years but I remember often playing around in the TCP/IP panel to fix internet issues when setting up new wifi networks - this seems to just work in W10. I don't mean special networks with static IPs or some special configurations, I mean just moms network at home. Today its very plug and play. Concerning registry it was the same - no issues concerning XP specifically but I remember having to change a lot of things in there to get things to work how I wanted them. Seems these settings are just in a menu now in W10. Its more a user experience thing rather than specific bugs or issues.

[wyager]

It's such a breath of fresh air to run a barebones OS that hasn't become corpulently bloated over the last few decades. This basically restricts you to slim server-oriented operating systems like {Open,Free}BSD and a small number of Linux distros. Everything feels lightning fast. Of course, if you need to use a web browser or something the benefit disappears.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Of course, if you need to use a web browser or something the benefit disappears.

Nope.

[blagie]

I would love nineties Debian, with modern hardware support and security patches.

[michaelmrose]

So basically void linux plus trinity (TDE) or mate for the continuation of kde 3 or gnome 2.

There is an issue to package TDE for void and it apparantly can be built.

https://www.trinitydesktop.org/

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/issues/19243

[blagie]

I used things like twm or fvwm at the time. in 2021, xmonad works well.

My concern, though, is that:

1) I've never seen modern "lightweight" distros work well. There isn't critical mass, and it's always my wifi or bluetooth or something. In the nineties, there were Linux HOWTOs. In 2021, there's always some kludge written by Ubuntu wrapping some kludge written by Red Hat wrapping some half-baked API and no documentation.

2) The instant you run an app, you lose all the upside. Firefox or Chrome can eventually eat up all available memory. Most apps are super-bloated, e.g. written in JavaScript/electron, and distributed in some containerized VM or some nonsense like that. If you skim out the 5% between apps and iron, it just doesn't help much.

3) Dependencies. If you want Bluetooth sound....

Is void better? Or does it somehow address this?

[michaelmrose]

TLDR: It works for me which doesn't mean it works for you depending on your needs.

I use "apps" like firefox emacs mpd mpv not electron crap and it works well enough for me. I don't need anyones kludges to run well behaved native apps in their intended environment. Seems like you would be liable to experience hassle to the degree you decide to make it complicated.

Sound working on supported hardware hasn't been a problem in over a decade. Bluetooth is dicier but for example I didn't have much trouble using it for example on my thinkpad where its useful for a small portable wireless mouse to talk to the laptop. I've honestly never used it on my desktop. I still think it 99% comes down to supported hardware not distro.

Honestly although I've had working bluetooth sound I have entirely switched away from bluetooth because sound quality at least on affordable hardware is much crappier than wired. People that must have wireless especially because their phone doesn't have a port are selling Bose QC25 for $75 all day long. I bought a pair that I plan on using for the next decade. Look at the more recent competition. For $300 for the QC35 I could depending on audio codec have a differing degree of worse sound from noticeably worse to almost as good with a specialized battery that is going to crap out a few years and eventually need major surgery.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Bose+QuietComfort+35+Battery+Re...

As bad as the difficulty to replace is the fact that its built in and not hotswappable so if you forget to charge it then its down for the count. It's dead Jim. With my qc25 I pop in a freshly charged bog standard NIMH AAA for days of use and if it dies I swap in another. When they no longer charge into the trash they go and I get a replacement from anywhere. If none are at hand it still works just sans noise cancellation.

It's also easier to switch between an always connected set of headphones and speakers instead of a script shuttling everything between pulseaudio sinks and switching the default it now just needs to toggle which alsa output is muted a trick that worked 18 years ago.

It's like a microcosm of why new isn't better.

On the topic of firefox I've noticed the run away eat all your memory issue seems to be highly correlated with having a bunch of addons but I did learn a handy thing before I realized this. Userspace oom daemons. Something like earlyoom kicks in WAY faster than the oom killer with configurable targets. This means an out of control firefox trivially meets a fiery death instead of your session.

[blagie]

Well, I do have a job. I don't have complete control over what I use, since I'm not comfortable tenured/retired/living a life of leisure. There are tools I need to use. One of those was at 14gb when I was writing this message, so I could communicate with my coworkers.

For Bluetooth, I like a cheap set of headphones I bought for <$10 from some random Chinese seller. It's luck-of-the-draw, but these work well. People hear me well, and I hear them well. I don't need audiophile grade -- for that, I'd rather use my speakers. When the batteries die, I'll buy another set.

The nice thing about Bluetooth is that I can be gardening, cleaning, or otherwise keep my hands engaged during meetings. I find I focus a lot better if I'm not sitting at a computer.

I do have some fancier headsets for entertainment use, but those are not for work use. As a footnote, all the Bose headsets I've used have almost uselessly bad microphones.

I wasn't familiar with earlyoom. Thank you. That will be a game changer, if it works as I expect it will.

[salamandersauce]

I'm pretty sure the QC35s still work fine as normal headphones with the battery dead and 3.5mm cable. That's how my Sony WH-1000XM3s work. You only need to turn them on to use noise canceling or have them be Bluetooth. They also quick charge giving a couple hours usage in a few minutes of usage. It's a bit of a tradeoff but the convenience is IMO worth it.

[AlfeG]

I've updated my old home PC to windows 10. It's a two core Athlone with 1 gig of ram. And it still usable. Quite long to load, but can run Chrome.

[o8r3oFTZPE]

"I had Windows computers back in the day, late 90s, where I only upgraded the hardware, not the OS."

How would that be possible since Windows almost invariably came pre-installed by OEMs. New hardware would have the latest Windows version pre-installed. Downgrading would be extremely difficult if not impossible.