Ask HN: What if I don't want constant OS upgrades?

[plg]

I am getting old (I started coding as a small kid on a Radio Shack TRS-80 pocket computer).

I am getting to the point with my Mac computers (Studio Ultra and MacBook Pro) that I dread when OS updates are on the horizon. I know there are new features that maybe could be useful. Maybe. But there are a giant turd of other features that I do not want. The OS slows down, bugs appear, etc etc etc.

I guess the solution is to choose a Linux distro and stick with it. I mean I know what I need to use my computers for and what I don’t.

The VR thing, avatars, AI, I want no part of it. Call me old fashioned but something I’ve learned over my years is that tech can be very inhuman/inhumane. (it also can be great of course, sometimes)

Anyway curious what other people’s thoughts are. I was once one of those kids/adults who would look forward to the latest updates, download and install immediately, etc but I am not that person any more.

PS I work in a field in which I can more or less decide for myself what tools I use.

[thomassmith65]

Not only do I dislike updates, aside from a web browser, I don't want my main machine to have network access (and that just to read static webpages and download non-executable files).

The updates and network access are mostly nonsense. The main 'benefit' of the former is to protect my machine from the ramifications of having the network access. The main 'benefit' of the latter is to facilitate downloading the updates.

My main computer is what I use to make things. When the software I use suddenly changes, when I have to worry about random apps connecting arbitrarily to other people's machines... it is more an impediment to my making things than it is an aid.

[plg]

"The updates and network access are mostly nonsense": This rings so true to me.

Though so much of my actual work now involves network access... whether that's referring to files on someone's OneDrive folder (my admin assistants, who are subject to my institution's obsession with Micro$oft, are constantly sending me links to files in a OneDrive folder) or looking up papers on Google Scholar or PubMed.

I guess what bugs me about modern MacOS and Windows operating systems is that one has no choice but for their computer to be constantly talking to who knows who on the internet, all the time... even if you login and just sit there and not run any internet-facing apps. I could log into my laptop, launch MS Turd, write a paper, and all the while my OS (and MS Turd) would be doing who knows what, at the mercy of who knows what security threats.

I know I could disable WiFi. For a while. Eventually my OS would start complaining.

I guess a linux-based OS in which I lock down network access to (for example) only a web browser. Then at least it's my own hand.

[fuzzfactor]

I used to be that old, I was already a professional when I programmed my "Pocket" Computers, to use in place of hand calculators and on-board mechanical adders, as a portable device to handle cargo ships.

IBM hadn't released PC's anyway, and laptops were a long way off. It was over a dozen years before laptops started being used a bit, but there I was, the only one to be seen carrying a portable computer up the gangway with all the options including the 4-color mini printer-plotter and RS-232 interface before they started calling them COM ports. In the full TRS-80 carrying case I guess it gave the first image of what was to come with laptops eventually.

It would be cool if they still had portable plotters now, since we expected all kinds of technology to become more common once the 21st century got here. I'm probably just not up to date, they're probably everywhere and I just don't know about it.

Anyway, I update my main Linux systems manually every month, so it doesn't bug me but I have to keep up with it.

The occasional Windows Pro PCs are not allowed on the web every day but they autoupdate as a mainstream user. Maybe you would like the "elusive" LTSC versions if you stick with Windows so you can choose to avoid updates entirely, but this soon leaves you insecure if you don't at least enable security updates, you need that much auto or manually when you do go on the web.

For scientific instruments that only support Windows Pro, I highly tweak it so that nothing ever interrupts that primary purpose, and simply stay off the web forever. On one instrument the 2016 version of Windows 10 32-bit will be going strong until there is no functional hardware any more within reason. Spectrometer readings work the same year after year with no upsets or surprises.

Unlike one of the units at the time where IT was still responsible, it eventually auto updated from W7 to W10 when it really got ridiculously forceful. I told them they might not want to let that happen :(

Well that locked up one of the robotic titrators due to completely misguided permissions and there was no way to recover without physically dismantling the unit while full of chemicals, before the internal memory chip could be removed and returned to previous backward-compatible functionality.

So after all these years I do think "upgrades" definitely have their upsides and downsides, and people should still be able to choose as well as they could during higher-quality times.

[frankjr]

> I am getting to the point with my Mac computers (Studio Ultra and MacBook Pro) that I dread when OS updates are on the horizon.

You don't have to update to the upcoming major macOS version. You can just stay on the current one for as long as it's supported (usually a few years, Monterey is still getting regular updates).

[thomassmith65]

Unless you write Mac apps. Then you're constantly chasing Apple's yearly releases, praying that your own software update will not be as obviously rushed and buggy as Apple's own.

[mrinfinitiesx]

I like Manjaro XFCE, it's rolling updates so it's as packages come out you can update to the newest (it pulls latest from github, but has other repos)

if you want oldschool oldschool, check out antiX linux, MX Linux is based on AntiX but looks semi-better, they're based on Debian. Remember though, debian is like 5 package versions behind, because that's what they do with their auditing for stability.

MX Linux has a UI (https://mxlinux.org/) - AntiX is popup menus for settings.

Manjaro XFCE is a complete OS for me without all the bells and whistles of KDE. Based on ARCH.

You're probably wanting MX Linux though. Choose just the security updates and you'll be where you want to be.

[fsflover]

Debian is the solution. You can choose to only receive security updates unlike any other OS. And it's supported for many years.