Re: Windows Is A Great OS ... If Your Time Is Worth Nothing

On 2025-02-26, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-02-26 2:55 a.m., RonB wrote:

On 2025-02-25, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-02-24 9:10 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 20:55:55 -0500, CrudeSausage wrote:
>

If you can still get Windows or MacOS
running on the machine and it doesn't lock you out in any way, don't
bother with Linux. It's fine, but it's not always worth the struggle.

>
I think people are habituated to the kind of struggles you need to get
Windows working, so they discount those compared to effort on a Linux
installation. Because Linux is less familiar (even though the
configuration setups are better understood), that is somehow seen as a
greater struggle.

>
It's not even that. Even if you have the patience to set Linux up
properly, you'll find that a good amount of your hardware won't end up
working. There are always people here and there who claim that they get
it working, but when you follow their own instructions and the
distribution they've used, you get different results. Heck, I followed
the instructions to enable the hardware encryption of my nvme through
Linux and, lo and behold, they didn't work. It works fine in Windows if
you follow the instructions (which require you to have a separate
Windows installation on a USB drive), but Linux won't even get past the
unlocking stage. That is part of why a lot of us just stick to Windows
or MacOS.

 
It doesn't take much patience to install Linux. In twenty minutes it's
installed and fully updated for me — including most of the applications.
Can't do that with Windows hobbyware. (This depends on how fast your
Internet is — I'm moving soon so my Internet may soon be slower.)

>
Updating Linux is definitely faster than MacOS. On this machine, simply
updating from 12.7.4 to 12.7.6 took an hour. It is definitely not
because the Internet connection is slow either (I get 1.5Gbps at home).

Same experience I've had when updating MacOS (on "1 GB" i.e., 750 Mbps
Internet). I compiled a wxPython "wheel" for Trelby on that Mini (in the Mac
OS side) and it took over five days. (I thought it had quit working, but
I just let it go and it eventually finished. I had upgraded wxPython and
thought would fix the cursor issue (it doesn't stay with what you type) but
it worked exactly the same. I think the programming has to be changed for
Mac OS but nobody who is on the Trelby GitHub owns a Mac computer (I don't
think they do, anyhow).

Mac OS updates seem even slower than Windows updates, but this is an old
machine — still it has 16 GBs of RAM, it should be faster than it is.  

I just got my 2017 MacBook Air with MacOS Monterey yesterday. I am
surprised that most of the software I need installs fine (except
Microsoft Office 365 which requires at least MacOS 13), and the hardware
is in perfect order. The SSD still has 75% health, the inside of the
laptop was fairly clean, HDMI sound somehow works through a
mini-DisplayPort to HDMI adapter and suspend/wake works as it should.
There is no reason to install Linux on this, an eight-year-old Mac I got
for $150. Considering that, I now wonder what hardware is a candidate
for Linux.

 
My 2012 Mac Mini works fine with Linux Mint 21.3. I dual boot it with Mac
Monterey (using OpenCore). I guess Monterey is now also outdated. I hear
that Ventura is a step too far for these old machines — so this Mac will
probably never be up to date again on the Mac side. On the Linux side I can
probably keep updating it for another ten years.
 
So you're back in the Mac fold? (You're almost as "computer restless" as I
am.)

>
I'm definitely not on the Mac side. I just got this machine by offering
very little for an old machine on eBay. The guy wanted $200 for a 2017
MacBook Air with two chargers, and I offered $150 as a joke to see if he
would accept it, given the age of the machine. Surprisingly, he took it.
Older machines than this one are selling for more on the site. When I
realized that I had purchased it, I figured I might as well make use of
it at work instead of constantly bringing my main laptop in. As old as
it is, it still manages to do what I need in the classroom. If Apple
annoys me about how outdated this system is, I'll simply put Linux on
it. For the time being, I'm keeping it as is.

I own a 2015 MacBook Air that I keep planning to sell, but never get around
to doing it. I've pretty much waited to the point where it has almost zero
value now. They were well made, I'll give Apple that — though too damn
slick, It keeps wanting to slip out of my hands. That, and the fact that the
metal is soft is probably why so many of them have dented corners (this one
doesn't). It has 8 GBs of RAM and a 128 GB SSD, now running Monterey (I
think it was faster under Catalina).  I think Apple figured you
would use their cloud, which I don't (kind of like Google figuring you would
use their cloud on Chromebooks, which I don't).

I'm pretty sure the 2017 MacBook Air will work well for you (if you can
stand its "wonky" UI, which I just don't like).

--
“Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy
what has been invented or made by the forces of good.”  —J.R.R. Tolkien