BS, windows and macos cant even do proper window managing for a start, and then it just goes downwards from there on.. You can perhaps install various weird third party things, but it does not come with it by default.

If you took people who absolutely never tried any computing, and gave them macos, windows, and for example Plasma, they would NOT consider windows or macos to be ready for the desktop. If you go 15 years back, even way more so.

even in the early 2000s, windows was so hilariously crappy that you had to make floppy disks to even get to install the thing. If PCs didnt come preloaded with windows, regular users would never ever be able to install it, versus the relative ease a typical linux distribution was to install. This is also one of the large reasons that when their windows slowed down due to being a piece of shit with 1000000 toolbars, people threw it out and bought a new, despite the fact that a reinstall would have solved it.

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p_ing 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> You can perhaps install various weird third party things, but it does not come with it by default.

A Window Manager and Window Server don't come by default with Linux... It's always an install-time option on the major distros.

> even in the early 2000s, windows was so hilariously crappy that you had to make floppy disks to even get to install the thing.

Windows in the early 2000s installed just fine without a floppy directly from CD or PXE booting.

	▲	PunchyHamster an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Windows in early 2000s didn't even detect your early 2000s SATA drive Windows in early 2023 didn't even detect the network card it needed to download network card drivers. After changing mobos I needed to boot into linux to download network drivers for windows... Windows in early 2025 still uses SCSI emulation to talk with NVMe and only now the server part got a proper driver Windows in early 2025s still need virtio driver injection to boot properly as a VM without IDE emulation "Drivers working out of the box" were never windows strong part
	▲	tstenner 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Unless you needed a SATA driver not included in the installer because you wanted to avoid a legacy IDE emulation for your disks.

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OsrsNeedsf2P 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> If you took people who absolutely never tried any computing, and gave them macos, windows, and for example Plasma, they would NOT consider windows or macos to be ready for the desktop.

There's some truth to this. I've been installing fresh Windows 11s on family computers this holiday season, and good lord is it difficult to use.

The number of tweaks I had to configure to prevent actively hostile programs from ravaging disk read/writes (HDD pain), freezing and crashing, or invasive popups was absurd.

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figmert 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As someone who came from Windows, and has used Linux as my primary OS for 15 years, and MacOS here and there (cos work provided laptop), I can tell you that Linux was not ready for prime time 15 years ago. Today, I feel it is, but definitely not 15 years ago.

	▲	akho 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I use Linux on the desktop since 1997, and there was no point where Windows was even slightly more attractive. I don't know what "prime time" means here. edit: apart from, you know. Applications and drivers for random hardware.

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7bit 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

15 years back people were given Windows macOS and Linux and people voted which OS were ready for the Desktop and which were not. The only BS is your inflammatory contribution to this topic.

	▲	PunchyHamster an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Nope, Macs were expensive stuff games did not run on, and linux was just not pushed by near anyone. It was not a war "which desktop is easier to use", it was "which system can run stuff I need". And if "the need" was "video games and office stuff", your only choice was windows.
	▲	grim_io 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The average user only cares what they can run on the desktop. Linux did not have as much choice back then.

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someguyiguess 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I can’t tell if this is satire.

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MangoToupe 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> windows and macos cant even do proper window managing for a start

Well they certainly manage them better than x11 and wayland. What a fucking nuts thing to say. Are you rms?

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sho_hn 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Windows is reasonably OK, but MacOS' window management has always been really terrible.

Just think through the many different iterations over the years of what the green button on the deco does, which still isn't working consistently, same as double-clicking the title bar. Not to mention that whatever the Maximize-alike is that you can set title bar double click too (the options being Zoom and Fill, buried in settings somewhere) is different from dragging the title bar against the top of the screen and chosing single tile. Which is different from Control-Clicking the green button. Maybe. It depends on the app.

What a mess.

Both of them miss (without add-ons) convenience niche features I cherish, such as the ability to pin arbitrary windows on-top, but at least the basics in Windows work alright and moreover predictably and reliabily. Window management in MacOS just feels neglected and broken.

There may be many other ways in which MacOS shines as a desktop OS, and certainly in terms of display server tech it has innovated by going compositing first, but the window manager is bizarrely bad.

	▲	MangoToupe 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Windows is reasonably OK, Doesn't windows conflate window and process? That should kick it to the bottom of the bin by default. > There may be many other ways in which MacOS shines as a desktop OS May I suggest examining why your keyboard has a "home" key

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Arch-TK 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't use a Mac, but have you ever used Windows?

I mean, maybe you have, but if you are not fussy then at worst MacOS is quirky and Windows and Linux are identical and merely have different icons.

If you pay a little bit of attention you will notice that on linux things seem more flexible and intuitive.

If you are very finnicky, there is nothing that comes close to X11 window managers when it comes to window management flexibility, innovation and power.

	▲	II2II 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Windows allows you to launch applications from a menu or via search. You can switch between windows with a mouse or keyboard shortcuts. Windows can either be floating, arranged in pseudo-tiled layers, or full screen. KDE can pretty much do the same under Wayland. Ditto for Gnome under Wayland, albeit to a lesser degree. That covers the bases for most people. X11 window managers were a mixed bag. While there were a few standouts, most of the variation was in the degree to which they could be configured and how they were configured. There may be fewer compositors for Wayland because of the difficulty in developing them, but the ones that do exist do standout.
	▲	MangoToupe 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> and Windows and Linux are identical and merely have different icons At least on this we can agree, but windows never had to reboot the window server in my experience