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It's 2025, and I've been using Linux now for about six years. I have tried Apple, seems better than Windows, but not by much, and I don't like that Google turned an open-source Linux-based OS for phones into a closed-source, closed-architecture nightmare on the same level as Apple's "iPhone". As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft, Google, and Apple can all get f***ed. I'm not using, supporting, or promoting their use, unless there's a paycheck at the other end of that corporate tech bro rainbow.
That's why it's taken me so long to write the "modern" computing section of the site. My O/S usage has been in massive flux since 2019. I decided in 2023 to make a "triple boot iMac" and then try ALL THREE major desktop OSes for myself. And out of the three, Linux Mint won hands down. Here's why.
| Windows 10
| Mac OS Monterey
| Linux Mint
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- Costs between $47 and $300 for a license and a stupid product key that won't work after I use it 5x because the OS breaks after awhile if you're a heavy "power user"
- I constantly have to tweak Microsoft Windows to suit my taste because every bloody update sets certain settings back that I have to change back. No Microsoft, I don't want Microsoft Edge! No Microsoft, I do not want to "sync my settings"! No Microsoft, I'm not paying a monthly fee to use Microsoft Office when I can use Libre Office for free! No Microsoft, I do not want the Photos App, IrfanView does the job just fine.
- Takes about 45 minutes or more to install, especially on any PC over three years old
- The new version is trying to artificially kill off older hardware in the name of "capitalism", I will buy a new computer when I WANT TO BUY A NEW COMPUTER!!
- BCD sometimes breaks, and it's a nightmare to get fixed, comparable to a broken GRUB bootloader
- Microsoft Bitlocker sometimes gets triggered requiring a 48-digit recovery key to get into your computer for something as simple or stupid as replacing a bloody GPU, and in Windows 11, they REQUIRE you to use Bitlocker.
- I have to constantly disable/remove things I don't want on my computer, see the big about Updates and settings changes
- Microsoft likes to remove features and packages that I still deem useful that others deem "obsolete". Remember when they removed MS Paint. Apparently I'm not alone in this plight with these people.
- Similar to above, the constant "dead end" forks off of a particular obsolete service, program, or feature - I'm talking about things like the "new style UI" the "microsoft store" or "Paint 3D", or PowerShell vs CMD for example, breaks things even further, and adds needless complication. Either decide to use powershell or keep with your MS-DOS roots with CMD. Either decide to be a touch-enabled lamestreamer O/S like Android and iOS, or choose to be a DESKTOP O/S like MacOS and Linux. You can't be everything. That's why nobody has a phone that docks in a tablet, laptop, and desktop docking station yet.
- Everything being so highly reliant on the Cloud causes you to be unable to work. They love talking a blue streak in their ads about productivity (hence I share the same view with Marketing that Bill Hicks did, may he rest in peace), but when push comes to shove, shit breaks, and you have to get it fixed. It'd be less bothersome if this was a "toy" but Microsoft is the most used ecosystem in all of Business all over the world.
- Yes, gaming is native, but is there really a point to it anymore with things like Proton and Lutrix around anymore? I'm running Drive Beyond Horizons on a computer that's 5+ years old and has a GPU under spec and yet I'm getting a full 60fps most of the time. Yet I see constant whining from Windows users about their crap framerates and crappy experiences with the game on native O/S - why? Maybe it's time we leave this old junk behind. Much like I feel about FreeDOS.
- Every piece of software is going to SaaS. Office, Windows itself probably will if it has not already, and all thes other companies are. This is no different than all that pay-wall ridden crap for your cell phone. This is very inconvenient and another roadblock to productivity should I say.
- Windows doesn't recognize Apple Hardware either, and without a prayer of it happening, which is hilarious because Apple offers Parallels and/or Bootcamp for the purpose of running Windows on their Intel Macs, sometimes THROUGH MacOS. So somehow Windows 10 can't recognize the webcam on my late 2015 iMac 21.5, but it has no problem with a 15 year old Logitech that people on YouTube call a "Potato Cam" - go figure.
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- It's free if you have a Apple computer, including if the old computer is a $12.99 Mac Mini you bought from goodwill. However, without the Apple, you're not running MacOS without a lot of f***ery, or a lot of moolah for one of their computers that costs 2x-10x the cost of a regular PC from Wal-Mart.
- It takes for blooding EVER to install. MacOS takes 100x the time Microsoft Windows does to install, and 1000x the time Linux takes to do....anything.
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- Linux is 100% free for home users in 99.9% of all cases and distributions. I just download an ISO on a working internet connected device, write it to a USB flash drive with Etcher, and I'm done.
- Linux takes me 45 minutes or less to install, even on a 10 year old PC or iMac. Even with extended drivers, and extra bells and whistles.
- Linux takes, at most, a minute and a half to boot, and that's LOOOONG to all the nerds with a silver spoon who have some Ryzen Threadripper device with 2 NVIDIA Cards in it with Windows 11, but to me, it's ripping fast. For once, my FreeDOS 486 with a 128GB SSD in PIO Mode 4 on a VLB controller has some competition from a modern computer. That PC takes 10-15 seconds to boot on it's worst day, and it's a 30 year old Pre-Pentium 32-bit, single core, single thread, in-order execution PC with a (mostly) Write Through 8K L2 Cache at 100MHz.
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