I have always been partial to gedit, kate aint bad either.
Well it’s a good thing there’s no shortage of free replacements.
My understanding of the different operating systems
MacOS: One time hardware payment for their service (plus for every other device)
Linux: Free as in price free and freedom
Windows: 30+ subscriptions to edit 1 file, then cooldown till next day or upgrade subscriptions to enterpise version for a kidney/per user/per month.
Title
ChomeOS: Communism for the children, supported by the Education System
CheomeOS: Let Google silently start tracking your kids until they are old enough to sell all of that accumulated data.
Apple heavily pushes their users towards iCloud subscriptions. More so on iOS than macOS but still.
imo macOS is better value than Windows. A Windows PC of similar quality to what Apple offers (built quality and specs) is not that much cheaper and with a Mac you get a ton of actually usable software included.
Obviously FOSS still wins offering a ton of good software for free, lots of choice and the option to choose from hardware at any price point. But Windows is just bad unless you’re an enterprise user or gamer (and the latter is changing fast in Linux favour).
Have you ever built PCs? Macs are significantly more expensive for the same spec
The rest I agree with, it doesn’t help that Windows has been steadily going downhill with each new version…
I guess for desktops you have a point, especially if you build it yourself. I was thinking of laptops mostly and also considering the build quality and things like the keyboard/trackpad, screen and speaker quality. If you want something comparable running Windows the price difference isn’t going to be massive.
You can buy a top CPU laptop then upgrade or even pay to upgrade with high quality ram and storage modules and you would still be paying less than an equivalent Mac. Which you can’t upgrade of course, because the only option is buying as is out of the gate. No matter what Apple says, 32 GB of ram simply doesn’t cost $300, their pricing is meant to fleece customers.
Is there a particular model you’re thinking of? Not just the line. I usually find that Windows laptops don’t have enough cooling or make other sacrifices. If you want good cooling, good power (CPU and GPU), good screen, good keyboard, good battery, good WiFi, etc., the options get limited quickly.
Even the RAM cost misses some of the picture. Apple Silicon’s RAM is available to the GPU and can run local LLMs and other machine learning models. Pre-AI-hype Macs from 2021 (maybe 2020) already had this hardware. Compare that to PC laptops from the same era. Even in this era, try getting Apple’s 200-400GB/s RAM performance on a PC laptop.
PC desktop hardware is the most flexible option for any budget and is cost-effective for most budgets. For laptops, Apple dominates their price points, even pre-Apple-silicon.
The OS becomes the final nail in the coffin. Linux is great, but a lot of software still only supports Windows and Apple; Linux support for the latest/current hardware can be a hit or miss (My three-year-old, 12th-gen Thinkpad just started running well). If the choice is between Mac OS or Windows 11, is there much of a choice? Does that change if a company wants to buy, manage, and support it? Which model should we be looking at? It’s about time to replace my Thinkpad.
Running LLMs is not a feature that 99% of users need or want. Look at all the AI laptops flopping in sales. People don’t care about RAM soldered to the motherboard to squeeze a milisencond on a feature they don’t use. It’s a money grubbing strategy, plain and simple.
Finally, I can proudly proclaim that I’m no longer bound Microsoft’s bullshit. Been a rocky start, but I’ve been happily using Kubuntu on my Surface for a while now, and it’s going awesome
I have a lenovo yoga 14s which is similarly transformable. Are there good resources out there for installing linux on these kinds of laptop, or are they mostly focused on surface laptops?
Honestly Windows on it is just a nightmare and I’d love to ditch it.
Nothing I could find immediately. I found an Arch Wiki entry which shows that most features work out of the box. Not sure if that’s your exact model and can’t comment on how reliable the information presented is too.
Thanks! Looks like on the talk page there’s doubt about whether it even has a touchscreen, which is a little discouraging. I guess I can just try, but It’s good to know a resource like this exists.
Hey, great for you! Which Surface do you have and did you get the camera(s) working properly?
It’s a Surface Go 2, 8GB RAM, I think - maybe 4 - and a couple years old now. Haven’t tried, actually, since I rarely if ever need the cameras. However, I read that getting the cameras to work is a bit of a hassle. Not impossible but annoying
Notepad++ FTW
Sublime Text for me. It has some nifty features that NP++ doesn’t, and looks better out of the box.
deleted by creator
Microsoft what the fuck are you doing.
You fucking idiot’s.
This is misinformation. They added the login requirement for their Generative AI and the actual notepad doesn’t require a login. But I guess we’re ragebaiting today.
Having this LLM bullshit in Notepad should be the real news
They really do seem to be on a mission to cram it into everything
Yeah. This is why I’ve disabled copilot and Gemini on my devices altogether. It’s not worth it to have this nonsense filling up everything you use or rely on on a daily basis.
Upvoted for visibility.
I recommend Notepad++.
I use Kate on the windows work pc
I love Kate, but I’ve only been using it since last August. Been using npp for a decade before that, even as my IDE, and I felt like it was stronger than Kate.
Kate has a lot of features that are not well documented or that you have to tape together to make something functional, while npp just works out of the box or with one of its many addons. Additionally the Kate documentation website is atrocious, lacking even basic search functionality. I had to join their IRC channel to get help figuring out something (path to some obscure config file that the latest version actually reads from), and while they were most helpful, I really shouldn’t have had to go through all that trouble.
Maybe my approach to trying to solve a problem was wrong, coming from Windows + npp.
Maybe I’ll give npp a test again. But I’ve been using kate because I’ve been using it on my linux system and found out I can install it at work on windows as well
I use Kate on the windows work pc
Is the Genevieve AI enabled by default?
After opening the notepad app does it ask you for that login?
Is your access to notepad restricted by the login?
No, only in so far as the button to use it existing passively
No
And no
“But it turns out that, while this screenshot is indeed real, those eagle-eyed enough should already be able to tell that something isn’t quite lining up here. In fact, nearly any Windows 11 user could open up the fully updated Notepad without getting this pop-up at all, even if they aren’t already signed into a Microsoft account. So, what’s the deal here?”
“The key is in the exact wording, identifiable within the first sentence: “Sign in with your Microsoft account to use Rewrite and its features in Notepad.” This is a prompt that exists, yes, but one that’s exclusive to Copilot+ PCs and explicitly requires the user to trigger it by clicking the Rewrite button, as confirmed by our own testing.”
Please read the article. No. My access to notepad is not restricted. I also don’t run any copilot features of any kind on windows 11. Yes, I believe Generative AI Copilot is enabled by default, but in this case the only time you get prompted to login is when you use a feature in notepad that directly needs copilot in order to work and you the user have to select that feature. Meaning you can use notepad without it entirely and never even see this prompt at all.
Microsoft is a tech giant with all the bad crap that implies. They do enough terrible things that we don’t need to lie to make them look bad.
Time to try my newly-released text editor lol.
So, turns out that they final push that convinced me to start learning Linux is the ol’ Text Document.txt of all things. Swear to God, I thought that it would be the automatic updates nuking my unsaved work (again), but here we are…
It’s so stupid that they’re making these additions to notepad. There is a need to have a basic text editor on an OS that isn’t going to try to “help” by giving recommendations, automatically backs up files or whatever other shit they’re trying to jam into it.
They had wordpad and if they wanted to add additional features into that, that’s completely fine. There are use cases for something that does a bit more than a simple text editor like notepad can do.
My guess is that they tracked that people used notepad more often than wordpad so they removed wordpad. Then started making notepad more like wordpad without considering why people used notepad more frequently.
It is batshit crazy. Notepad was never meant to be what they are making it into. Not even WordPad should have AI nonsense. It’s just not for that. It would be like adding advanced spreadsheet functionality to Microsoft Word. It’s not what that’s for, you have Excel for that.
Sure but with Wordpad I wouldn’t much care if they spam it up with this kind of crap. It’s something that doesn’t have much use now, because there’s notepad for basic text files and Word or Libre Office for actual word processing. So if someone wanted something to type up some notes that get automatic backups, and have AI recommendations (not that it would be me, but who knows?) just put it on there so we still have a simple text editor that’s installed by default.
If they’re going to enshittify something at least don’t enshittify the basic tools of the OS.
Notepad++ is way better anyway
How much shit are people going to endure before realizing Windows isn’t for them any more?
Dump the damn thing and use Linux. Yes, Linux is friendly, easy to use, you can play most games, you don’t need your proprietary programs because there are Free alternatives that are just as good that might take you a moment to adjust to (don’t cry about how it’s different, that’s Baby Duck Syndrome), and so on.
And Microsoft facilitates fascism and government spyware and all sorts of evil crap. So does Apple. And Google. Throw away your phone, use Linux on your PCs, free yourself.
Crying about it being different isn’t baby duck syndrome; saying it’s better/worse compared to what you’re used to is.
People just don’t want to spend hundreds of hours re-learning things that already work for them.
It is objectively easier to stick with something you know than to learn something new, so that’s what most non-technical users do.Pretty much everyone in IT should learn linux at some point though.
If you are in IT I’d hope you know some version of Unix. Consumers I wouldn’t expect them to know, they just want it to work and don’t care about configurations and how it works.
Linux is as messy and more as the apartment where I live (really bad).
If you want the operating system to make sense, use OpenBSD (no Wine, no Linux emulation, thus only native games) or NetBSD (there is Wine and Linux emulation, but limited) or FreeBSD (generally can do the same as Linux), but all three port graphics drivers from Linux with significant lag, and hardware support is worse in general.
And Microsoft facilitates fascism
There’s a lot of Linux in systems that governments and militaries use.
Throw away your phone,
Yes, right. Also change job so that an Android device for 2FA weren’t a requirement. And get used that I can’t communicate with someone over TG/WA/VK in transport.
And still be surveilled, because the information you give about yourself without an Android phone is sufficient, carrying one is a symbolic decapitation of your privacy and dignity, “symbolic” is the word.
What a sycophantic shitlord.
Something insulted you in my comment or you feel the urge to take sides in things you most likely haven’t compared? Linux is a mess compared to BSDs. Anyone who used them all can confirm this.
You mean the entire fucking world where *BSD is basically dead and Linux is fucking everywhere? Yeah… sure, buddy.
*BSD has always been a poor alternative to Linux because of design decisions, poor hardware support, and a garbage license that allows non-free software to “steal” (take) and use your code irresponsibly. *BSD sucks.
Someone is just jealous of Linux’s success but is so caught up being a contrarian shitlord that they can’t admit the truth.
You mean the entire fucking world where *BSD is basically dead and Linux is fucking everywhere? Yeah… sure, buddy.
This is not a valid argument and also you are quite ignorant of what’s everywhere and what is dead.
*BSD has always been a poor alternative to Linux
The other way around technically, one came before the other and was a more mature system, with ongoing lawsuits however.
Also SunOS 4 and Ultrix are BSD, if you didn’t know. Commercial high-end OSes before Linux even started. About “poor alternatives”.
because of design decisions,
You don’t know what you’re talking about, anything but this argument. BSDs’ design decisions allow them to solve the same problems orders of magnitude cheaper (in human effort) than Linux. That’s how they still survive.
Under FreeBSD there are GEOM, netgraph, properly working ZFS since long ago, proper separation of base system and packages, the ports system, Linux emulation for legacy software, all orderly and clean. Under Linux the horrible mess starts with Debian netinstall.
By the way, you don’t even know your own team, Eric S. Raymond of the “cathedral vs bazaar” glory notoriously disagreed with you, despite the comparison being supposed to put Linux on top. His point was that if you allow thousands of monkey developers, they might not do things so well, but they’ll do so much more that it’s justified, and thus Linux wins due to having shittier architecture, but developing faster.
poor hardware support,
Go use Windows then, it has almost perfect hardware support.
and a garbage license that allows non-free software to “steal” (take) and use your code irresponsibly.
So Google uses GPL code responsibly, right? Microsoft? Apple? Meta?
This argument is obsolete.
I dunno where the circus is, but the clowns are already here.
Holy fuck, I swear. This is exactly why I tell people that if they think Linux people are delusional, they know absolutely nothing about delusional because they’ve never seen a fucking *BSD luser try to argue his way out of a wet paper bag and fail.
So the idea that the overwhelming majority of every single place/person/entity that wants a free UNIX-like OS with a choice choosing Linux over *BSD is somehow not valid? Sure, buddy. *BSD had its time to rise up and win over Linux and it did not. It failed because of the reasons I said. It has zero advantages over Linux and so many disadvantages.
Of course, *BSD came first, but even back then, *BSD wasn’t the primary system, UNIX and other systems like MINIX and the ones you mentioned were so much more popular than *BSD ever was. But when Linux arrived, *BSD began to die out. *BSD was a poor afterthought, even before Linux. There’s a good reason the “*BSD is dying” meme appeared very early in internet culture even back when Slashdot was a huge thing, because it was absolutely based on the reality of the world.
Don’t make me laugh about *BSD’s “design decisions”, ones that basically create a system that is much more difficult to work with because it has a much more simplistic base than the much more robust Linux ecosystem. The idea of separation of base system and packages has nothing to do with efficiency and more to do with a simple design option, something Linux can also do with atomic distributions, which while not quite equal to what *BSD does but has the same idea of separation of base OS and packages, have their certain advantages but aren’t flexible enough to do more advanced, low-end system work, which gives Linux an advantage by far.
ESR’s Cathedral and the Bazaar arguments have been repeatedly argued against as a good model for Free software development for a very long time, and Linux wins because of more flexible development done by more people but with a very strong and centralized point of vetting said code for most Linux software, which means it’s not just “thousands of monkey developers” randomly throwing code at Linux. Your use of ESR as an argument against Linux shows how out of time you are with understanding Free software and how it all works to come together to create a great system.
No one wants to use non-free hardware support, troll.
If Google, Microsoft, Apple, or Meta were caught using GPL against its license, they’d be sued to oblivion and they know it. That’s why they don’t. If you think GPL is unenforceable, you are a fool. Meanwhile, ALL of those companies are, in fact, using the hell out of *BSD licensed code and you fucking know it. Your garbage development model helps those garbage companies exist.
Your argument is obsolete, and the clowns are all in the *BSD tent.
If you must use windows, Notepad++ is the way to go.
Vi
Clay tablets
ed is better
VSCode is better than np++ in every way
Startup time. RAM consumption. Privacy.
vscodium fixes the privacy anyway. It’s always open so startup times are no issue for me.
I still prefer to keep a stripped down, basic text editor though. Ah well, I’m not on windows so no big deal.
vscodium fixes the privacy anyway
At the cost of some features not working (e.g. Pylance, which is the default Python extension, as well as others by MS).
What do you use instead? Sublime?
For plain text, either nano on CLI or whatever built in basic text editor comes with LMDE.
Windows I used notepad, from now on I’ll add ++ :)
I guess you’re doing it wrong then? Stop parroting memes
I heavily use both and this is objectively untrue.
Those are 2 different use case pieces of software . NP++ is an editor while vscode is an IDE
Clearly this is a controversial statement. I’m team “use what’s available and preference tools that get the job done quickly.”
I work in several different languages. VSCode has TreeSitter and a bevy of slick plug-ins. NP++ does not. I can use VSCode on both Windows and Linux. If I’ve got a desktop environment, I will hands down pick VSCode over NP++ every time.
Otherwise, let’s be real, NeoVim is king.
NP++ was good 20 years ago during a time with much weaker competition and it’s been coasting on that good will ever since
It’s OK for a text editor (compared to something totally basic like notepad) but other text editors have caught up in every single category
like you said, VS Code is now the default go to code editor for a lot of people. if you don’t use VS Code, you use vim.
for non-coding uses, I don’t see the functional difference between NP++ or something basic like Gnome’s text editor
Completely agreed. At one point, maybe 12 years ago, I remember trying to learn NP++'s macro system. It was better than whatever we had at the time, but I’m glad I didn’t spend more time than I had to. Just a couple months ago, a coworker was raving about how great NP++ macros are … to do a task handily solved by some light regular expressions and/or column edit mode. Both REs and CEM are far more ubiquitous concepts than some bespoke, domain-specific language for defining repetitive tasks.
Install time? Startup time? Useless bloat?
Linux
End of conversation.
I think that’s the start of the conversation. Which Desktop Environment?
I want a clean, advanced, well designed desktop and Im okay with redoing my work flow
Use Gnome
Gnome is cool but can it be slightly more Windows?
Use Cosmic (PopOS)
I want lots of customization, advanced features, and a traditional windows desktop metaphor
Use KDE
I want Windows and don’t really care about customization
Use Cinnamon
Dude the Windows 9x look was fucking dope
Use Mate
Im installing this on a potato
Use XFCE
This is always so unfair to XFCE. Sure it is low impact on resources but it is also very flexible and customizable. Most people sleep on how good it can be outside of the low resources need.
Just try out multiple desktops in a live environment and see what you like before you commit. In fact, I recommend people to use a linux live session for several weeks or months before switching, just to get used to it.
Gnome is an opinionated desktop environment and that turns some people off. But it’s bold enough to make some design decisions and have a limited scope. KDE tries to be another Windows alternative.
Of course, you could go with a tiling window manager but my vote goes to Gnome. I’ve had a very smooth experience on Gnome for the last couple years.
Yeah, Gnome is like the Apple of the Linux world. The devs have the same kind of “we know better than you do” mentality towards design. The issue tracker is a lot of “hey the OS won’t let me do [edge-case scenario that an OS should be able to do, but which most users won’t bother with]” followed by the devs going “Gnome isn’t designed to support [edge-case scenario]. Bug report closed.” Like the devs have a very “it’s not a bug; It’s a feature” mentality, and anyone who runs into that bug must be using the OS “wrong”.
The devs have the same kind of “we know better than you do” mentality towards design
It’s not “we know better than you do”
It’s “we have a vision for the desktop environment”
If you granted the user every little thing they wanted, you don’t become a better piece of software. You end up middle of the road. There are limited resources and by keeping a limited scope and having a clear idea of what you want to accomplish- you can do what you aim to do really well. Instead of being mediocre at a lot of things.
My experience with Gnome- it does 95% of what I need a Desktop Environment to do (and certain things others don’t do very well). Some features like
- Being able to push a button, start typing an application’s name, and push enter to start that application
- Being able to push a button, and immediately see at a glance all of the windows I have open and quickly navigate to them
- Being able to easily set keyboard hotkeys so that I launch applications and can run my own custom scripts with the push of a button
Example- I have a script that I set to “Control+Num Pad 5” that opens up a Gnome folder search dialog. I navigate to a folder and click “Ok” and then 4 terminals open on my left monitor. Three small ones stacked on top of each other on the left, one big one on the right. Basically like a tiling window manager. This script has custom commands that run depending on the directory. If I open a react-native folder, it runs an Android emulator and neovim on the big terminal.
Setting that script to a hotkey is as simple as going to “settings -> keyboard -> shortcuts” and just typing in the path to the script and the hotkey combination
- Being able to easily run scripts on files and directories directly from Nautilus (Gnome’s file manager)
Example- When I right click on a pdf file in Nautilus, I have custom scripts that I can run. One is “splitPdf” which creates a new folder called “split” and then creates n.pdf files where n is the number of pages in that pdf. I also have “compressPdf” which will compress the pdf as much as possible and pops up a notification showing you how much. I have one for .xlsx and .doc files called “printPdf” that converts those to pdf files.
Those scripts can be whatever language you want, they just have to be executable, and you just drag and drop them into a specific folder (
~/.local/share/nautilus/scriptsif I remember correct)Those 4 things I think Gnome does better than any other default desktop environment I’ve ever used and I’ve used a lot over the course of my life. The remainder of the items (the 5% of stuff Gnome can’t do) I have found custom plugins and in one scenario it only took me a couple hours to write my own custom plugin.
MacOS does #2 and #4 well by default (although it’s harder to write scripts with their clunky apple script language whereas with Gnome because you can just use regular old fish or bash scripts). With certain applications (like better-touch-tools or karabiner) you can get similar functionality as Gnome.
Windows with Autohotkey does #3 although you have to again use a clunky language (even clunkier than Apple script)
KDE can do #1 (search/launch apps), but feels slower and less streamlined than Gnome’s immediate overview. It does #2 (window overview) and #3 (keyboard shortcuts), but buries these features under layers of settings and inconsistent menus. For #4 (file manager scripts), Dolphin technically supports actions, but configuring them requires wrestling with clunky .desktop files whereas on Gnome you just use fish or bash or python or javascript or whatever the hell you want and stick it in a directory.
In my opinion, Gnome is miles ahead of KDE and while it’s obviously not as polished as MacOS, it has accomplished so much more with its limited resources than a megacorp like Apple does.
What I love is it gets rid of stuff that’s useless. For example desktop icons. What’s the point of having some directory on your computer that’s somehow different than all the other directories? So that you can clutter up your background?
I 100% agree that desktop icons are an outdated concept and I love that Gnome got rid of them in order to focus on the fundamentals. It’s often not about what you add, but what you take away.
we know better than you do” mentality towards design
And I agree with them. I think people should pick whatever desktop environment needs the least amount of customization for their needs. Keep it simple. If Gnome works out of the box, use it. If KDE works out of the box, use it.
This is Gnomes biggest advantage to be honest. They have a singular vision of how they want their product to work and they aren’t concerned with edge uses.
I enjoy elements of so many DEs but I keep coming back to gnome because it’s just so well executed over the others.
Yeah my only complaints with gnome are the lack of system tray and the fact that sticky keys don’t work well
I really like my KDE plasma
IMO:
-
want to show off? i3wm with gaps and rofi for menu launcher. Add it some transparency effects too.
-
want the MacOS style? Gnome. Default on a lot of distros.
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want something stable? XFCE. Install and forget.
Things preventing me from moving to Linux : video games and Adobe Lightroom.
Most video games work through proton on Steam. Lightroom has a web app you can use instead.
Plus RawTherapee and DarkTable are pretty good, and actually free, Lightroom alternatives to boot.
…my cracked version of Adobe CS6
-
Well… it just removes so much toxicity from the outset
Thanks god that I’m not using windows for 4 years now, and at least notepad++ exists.
Why would a bot be using notepad?
It’s like they want people to use npp instead
