[kwlug-disc] Jason's new book

[Andrew Kohlsmith (mailing lists account)]

> On Jan 26, 2019, at 3:02 PM, Chamunks <chamunks at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm somewhat holding my breath for M$oft to ditch the Microsoft model and switch to the Apple model entirely and replace everything underneath windows with Linux.  Then we might have a vaguely passable windows experience and then people could potentially enjoy using a better underlying OS.

There really isn’t anything inherently terrible about the Windows kernel. It’s got its warts but it’s stable and largely modular. Hell, it’s even doing a decent job at power management. The big problems with Windows is the UI and underlying OS. 

I mean look at Windows 10; it’s a hideous mishmash of tablet features overlaid on a traditional desktop UI, with a ton of “telemetry” thrown in to make it extra disgusting. The registry has always been a total shitshow. Replacing the kernel with Linux or even BSD won’t solve these issues at all.

Apple is making their own series of increasingly unpopular changes, both in hardware but also in software. I’m typing this on an 11” 2012 Air. I love this machine and use it probably 12-16h a day, 6 days a week, but like others in this thread have stated, there is nothing compelling about their current offering of hardware. I’d *like* a retina screen, and I’d *like* more than 8G of memory, but neither of these things are dealbreakers and I am able to continue to use a 6 year old machine which operates as well as it did when I purchased it new.

I don’t know where I’m going next; it may be with a Dell or Thinkpad and hackintoshing it. I do know I’m not going back to Linux on the desktop, and I know I’m sure as hell not going to run Windows.

It’s a kind of dark time for serious computing, IMO. Everyone is tripping over themselves to unify mobile and laptop and none of it is done particularly well.

-A.