25 Years Ago the most significant Windows operating system was launched

[[XAP]Bob]

Windows still just about has the edge for gaming, but the only things really keeping people on it are:

- Familiarity
- Excel (and I say excel rather than office, because actually excel is the only one that is genuinely hard to replace)

And all the other software that simply won't run on anything else (or does but is a poor version).

IMO Windows has a nice smooth but bloated feel to it.
Linux is like a homemade sports car, lively, a bit rough round the edges and you have to stop and pick the flies out of your teeth occasionally.

Ultimately though the question is really about will the software you require run on it.

Wine does a pretty good job for most things...
There are some hardware drivers that are low enough volume that they can't be bothered to support anything other than windows, and that's a real shame, because it just perpetuates the myth that windows is in some way "good".

I can't think of many other bits of software that are irreplaceable and windows only.

[kwackers]

Wine does a pretty good job for most things...
There are some hardware drivers that are low enough volume that they can't be bothered to support anything other than windows, and that's a real shame, because it just perpetuates the myth that windows is in some way "good".

I can't think of many other bits of software that are irreplaceable and windows only.

Haven't tried WINE for a while tbh. Last time I did a fair few things I used didn't run on it.

I'm probably not your usual user, I run various compilers and tools often hooked up to specialised hardware hanging off ports (and in a couple of cases actual hardware buried in the machine).
These are often specially written with no attempt to generalise - if they work for a specific machine that's often good enough.

Sometimes it's the other way round, OSX or Linux specific, in most cases I just leave the appropriate machine hanging on the network and batch work to it - far easier than messing around with 'wedges' between my apps and the OS.
Because I have these machines on the network there's little incentive to try to make anything work on a platform it's not designed for.
Once it's all working then it's all transparent to me anyway.


I'm curious how many people actually use a 'proper' pc these days anyway.
I know from the metrics of my website the majority of visitors use smart phones and I suspect for a lot of peoples use for a PC (i.e. "web browser") there's probably little reason to have one...

[Mick F]

Yes, a web browser.
That's all that most folk need.

I keep a spreadsheet or two for accounts, and produce a letter or document or two to print out or save.
Generally though, just an internet link with a decent screen and a keyboard big enough for my chunky fingers.

[[XAP]Bob]

Both documents and simple spreadsheets are now easy to do browser based as well...

[[XAP]Bob]

I'm probably not your usual user,

Yeah - that use case is certainly atypical...

[mercalia]

re Office . I use Softmakers products. A German company that has its own office suite that is compatible with MS Office. Its also quite cheap. It also broadly looks like MS office.

https://www.softmaker.com/en/

They often have special offers incl free keys for older versions.

Better than the bloated thing that MS offers these days

[Manc33]

25 years and they have yet to add something in where you can make a window always on top.

[DaveReading]

25 years and they have yet to add something in where you can make a window always on top.

Doesn't Ctrl+Space do that in W10 ?

[Pastychomper]

Have only used Red Hat Linux and that was all command line - nothing wrong with that and I prefer it for system admin etc and it's easy enough to write shell scripts to automate tasks, do system admin, run processes etc. Used mainly for running Oracle databases which it didn't do quite as well as Solaris. Also used it on one box for running a suite of Cobol programs previously running on a an ICL VME machine. They did what they did very well and were also easy to maintain so no point in rewriting them in some other language. Quite pleased about that - had written the whole lot in 1988 and they're still running 32 years later.

Fairy nuff, I get the impression that most professional Linux use is very command-line driven. I came from the opposite direction, a desktop-using amateur who had had to do one Windows reinstall too many. In those days (2001) using Linux did mean either getting lucky with hardware or getting familiar with the CLI, but over the years the graphical tools have matured a lot.

[ferrit worrier]

I do remember one of my nephews who worked in IT telling me that an American warship was using a flavour of Win 95 and a certain error message cropped up

"A fatal exception error has occurred. press any key to continue"
response
" A thermo Nuclear device has been launched"

[francovendee]

Yes, a web browser.
That's all that most folk need.

I keep a spreadsheet or two for accounts, and produce a letter or document or two to print out or save.
Generally though, just an internet link with a decent screen and a keyboard big enough for my chunky fingers.

Spot on. It's why I bought a Chromebook, it does all I need. You do have to trust Google mind!

[sjs]

MS are still doing the old Embrace, Extend, Extinguish to keep Windows relevant for gaming, as I found out this week to my miffage.

FWIW I use 100% Windows 7 at work and 100% Linux at home (in the form of a Slackware box and an Android 'phone). Tried playing with OpenBSD once, but I made a silly mistake and bricked the old laptop I was using.

100% Linux at home (Ubuntu currently, various over the years, and tinkered with FreeBSD for a while). No real need for a CLI in Ubuntu unless you want to. Win 7 (still) at work for standard office stuff, but real number crunching from the Win 7 box on Red Hat servers, entirely CLI (bash) driven.

I do agree that none of the alternatives I've tried is a patch on Excel, despite its foibles. I find its solver especially useful.

[sjs]

Still have a soft spot for the VAX/VMS CLI I used to use, on a VT220 terminal (yellow text on black background IIRC).

[al_yrpal]

Yes, a web browser.
That's all that most folk need.

I keep a spreadsheet or two for accounts, and produce a letter or document or two to print out or save.
Generally though, just an internet link with a decent screen and a keyboard big enough for my chunky fingers.

Spot on. It's why I bought a Chromebook, it does all I need. You do have to trust Google mind!

+1 Windoze is just a costly load of hassle. Frequent upgrades taking ages make me yawn. Threat of viruses all the time.

Chromebooks are hassle and virus free and upgrades take seconds. If you trust Windoze you can surely trust Google.

Al

[CliveyT]

Still have a soft spot for the VAX/VMS CLI I used to use, on a VT220 terminal (yellow text on black background IIRC).

Now you're talking. VAX/VMS via a terminal emulator running on MS-DOS in my case. The disruption caused when we moved onto UNIX (proper UNIX as well, no Linux back in those days) and having to reteach my fingers all the basic commands (I don't think I can even remember any of the VAX/VMS commands any more).
Nowadays my employer is happy to let me use whatever I want, they just don't offer any support to anything other than Windows. I'm typing this on a PC running Linux Mint. At home I have 2 laptops running Mint (one is Mrs T's), and a desktop running LMDE. For most of them I never need the CLI. If I'm working from home I often boot into a text-only mode but that's more because it's easier for what I do and saves my getting distracted with things like the internet.
For the most part the Linux graphical interface (all of them running cinnamon now, I finally weaned myself off KDE after 10 years) is rock-solid. My laptop is a bit glitchy, but that's started when I had to install Zoom and MS teams (binary blobs on my computer- I feel unclean).
Hardware-wise I do have to do a bit of research before buying. HP and most Brother printers play well, the webcam on my laptop works, but the one installed on Mrs T's doesn't. Getting a bluetooth dongle for my desktop was more problematic than it should have been and wifi is often a pain