Oh god I hate PCs - I'd forgotten how much

Grunfeld

p90fool said:

...and a pair of Linux laptops for browsing, with zero maintenance or extra virus protection, with no slowing down or other issues whatsoever. 

So PCs aren't the problem really, Microsoft is.  

This morning my W10 laptop told me it couldn't update because of some incomparability issue with the update and a driver.

Tells me to check the manufacturer's site which says...

Nothing I can understand. 

I know learning to use a Linux machine will be a long learning curve but, once I'm done with Uni, it's on the list of things to do.

digitalscream

p90fool said:

So PCs aren't the problem really, Microsoft is.  

Wisdom for this. Windows 7 and 8.1 were great, and PC hardware is at least as reliable as Apple hardware (certainly less of the designed-in heat issues) and PCs tend to have far more appropriate port distribution.

Windows 10, though, is utter gash unless you install it and immediately disconnect it from the Internet, disable all the automatic stuff, and then reconnect it and keep an eye on what it's doing (because turning updates off doesn't always turn updates off etc).

Microsoft have made a right pig's ear of moving into their new world.

However, I look down on everybody else smugly because my main machine runs Linux, and does everything I want it to quicker than Mac or Windows, and just keeps on trucking.

TimmyO

digitalscream said:

p90fool said:

So PCs aren't the problem really, Microsoft is.  

Wisdom for this. Windows 7 and 8.1 were great, and PC hardware is at least as reliable as Apple hardware (certainly less of the designed-in heat issues) and PCs tend to have far more appropriate port distribution.

Windows 10, though, is utter gash unless you install it and immediately disconnect it from the Internet, disable all the automatic stuff, and then reconnect it and keep an eye on what it's doing (because turning updates off doesn't always turn updates off etc).

Microsoft have made a right pig's ear of moving into their new world.

However, I look down on everybody else smugly because my main machine runs Linux, and does everything I want it to quicker than Mac or Windows, and just keeps on trucking.

That all makes sense.

I lack the knowledge to use Linux and I don't think it's a rabbit hole I want to go down at this stage in life - for the most part Mac for me provides the balance of mostly stable/usable out if the box and not needing me to learn a load of stuff. 

TimmyO

In other news, we have reinstalled Windows from a recovery USB stick that shipped with the PC (interestingly doing so from the restore petition in the SSD kept refusing to work) and have got the offending Windows update installed this time and set a restore point 

Snags

Over the years I've seen bolloxed MS boxes, Macs, and Linux. I've also supported 100s of Windows boxes that never skip a beat.

As with so many things, it comes down to people wanting to treat a highly complex system like a simple commodity or white good, and put fuck all effort into learning how to configure  and maintain it. Somewhere down the line they all stuff up. Linux arguably less so because you (used to) have to know more to make it work in the first place,  and it was largely the preserve of geeks anyway. 

Not sure if it's still true, but Macs used to have one of the highest failure rates, but also the highest customer satisfaction. The latter due to their excellent marketing, and ability to convince everyone that it was just a one-off. Truly Apple Genius:)

Strangefan

Snags said:

Over the years I've seen bolloxed MS boxes, Macs, and Linux. I've also supported 100s of Windows boxes that never skip a beat.

As with so many things, it comes down to people wanting to treat a highly complex system like a simple commodity or white good, and put fuck all effort into learning how to configure  and maintain it. Somewhere down the line they all stuff up. Linux arguably less so because you (used to) have to know more to make it work in the first place,  and it was largely the preserve of geeks anyway. 

Not sure if it's still true, but Macs used to have one of the highest failure rates, but also the highest customer satisfaction. The latter due to their excellent marketing, and ability to convince everyone that it was just a one-off. Truly Apple Genius:)

This is very true and to say pcs are crap macs are great is laughable, there are so many variations, and most of the pc issues are user related or cheap parts, which you can say about anything, eg a Ford ka is known as unreliable but a focus /mondeo are rock solid, however they're both ford's, 

Windows on a new gen cpu / quality ssd with 16 gig of paired ram etc will fly and have minimal issues,  just keep on top of the maintenence and its just as reliable as a mac, 

earwighoney

digitalscream said:

However, I look down on everybody else smugly because my main machine runs Linux, and does everything I want it to quicker than Mac or Windows, and just keeps on trucking.

I tend to use Linux mainly now.  I switched to Manjaro, after asking here on this forum for recommendations (Emp Fab's recommendation).  Has a few gripes here and there though like any OS but I genuinely believe it's easier to use and more fault free OS than many Mac OS's or Windows 10. 

It's a pleasant change to use an OS which isn't full of bloatware and works as quickly it should do.  

What's your linux distro of choice @digitalscream?

Snags said:
Not sure if it's still true, but Macs used to have one of the highest failure rates, but also the highest customer satisfaction. The latter due to their excellent marketing, and ability to convince everyone that it was just a one-off. Truly Apple Genius:)

I've been using the more recent Mac OS's recently for work (video editing) and I was genuinely shocked at how bloated the more recent OS's have become, High Sierra in particular is incredibly cumbersome.  They seem to have an exceptional reputation outside a few geeks who share my same concerns, and I agree the marketing machine seems to have papered over the cracks.  

fretmeister

TimmyO said:

fretmeister said:

stickyfiddle said:

In their defence, PCs are way better for MS Excel. I'm not even being facetious - Excel for Mac is crippled and absolutely does my head in. Thankfully I don't need excel often when at home

This.

Most of my day is in Excel. PC at my desk, but when I needed a laptop the only thing that would give a genuine 8 hours from a charge was a Macbook Air.

When it dies I'm going back to Win10 purely for excel reasons.

I use Parallels to run actual windows in the Mac for the very few times I need a Windows client for something 

my laptop gets used for 2 things - Excel and updating my Helix!

beed84

Not to say they're infallible, but the two MacBook Pro’s I’ve owned (a 2013 non-retina and currently a 2013 retina) have probably suffered less than a handful of problems between them and have been nowhere as problematic as the PC’s I’ve owned and currently have to use at work.

gringopig

.

darthed1981

I've worked with hundreds of Windows PCs over the years as an IT Professional and I'd mostly echo what @snags said.

I'd probably add that one thing Windows does that very few other systems do is support the running of very old software basically forever (The 64 bit versions won't natively run some 16-bit applications, that's basically it).  Unless your old bit of software does something it probably shouldn't have done anyway, it will probably work on Windows 10.

This leads to very bad habits on the part of developers, for example professionally at my place we use an accounting package based on Visual Fox Pro and it's fun file-based database system.  It's not bad but it's a bit flaky and slow as shit over a VPN, because it's technical innards are ancient.

So many other businesses are using LOB applications running in a terminal emulator on the client, on virtual servers pretending to be servers from 30 years ago.

Microsoft could get the blame because I've got lots of old games that won't work on Windows 10, "fucking windows 10" I might say, but with a little research the reason it doesn't work is that the DVD roms contain a copy protection technology that is basically by modern definitions malware.  So MS blocked it rather than let old games put malware on their system...

I've not had a reboot loop because of updates at all recently, but it has been known in Windows.  The only time I think I've had Windows 10 bricked during updates was when impatient users buttoned the laptop, or hibernated it while it's "configuring updates".

Microsoft deserve some flak, and Linux is great (especially for bringing old hardware back to life, I installed Mint last night on an old Dell 9400 and got a half decent web-browsing PC with a hi-res screen out of it) but MS stuff isn't that bad.

crunchman

All operating systems have their flaws.  We've had Win 10 at home on 3 machines for almost 4 years.  They have all been rock solid.  I've had problems this week, but they have been hardware related.  An SSD can die in an Apple just as easily as in a PC though.

The Apple stuff doesn't always "just work" either.  When I had one, I had all kinds of problems getting an audio interface to work with Logic.  Myself and a friend (who is a diehard Apple guy, and knows it a lot better than me) spent something like 20 minutes having to fiddle around before finding some obscure setting somewhere to tick.  That same interface worked first time on a Windows machine.

If you go back to the Vista era, Windows was horrible and bloated, while the Apple OS was much slimmer and more reliable.  After that, Apple got more bloated for several years, but Windows got better.  It appears that Windows is now getting more bloated again.  With both, there is a whole load of bloatware that I never use.

Personally, I don't like Apple.  I just didn't get on with their OS while I had one, and their way of doing business is awful. The way they drop support for almost new devices is appalling.  We got given an Apple TV several years back, and when Google changed the API for Youtube, they just removed the Youtube app.  That was probably still within a year of that version of Apple TV being in the shops new.  To drop support that quickly is bang out of order.

Yearofthegoat

digitalscream said:

However, I look down on everybody else smugly because my main machine runs Linux, and does everything I want it to quicker than Mac or Windows, and just keeps on trucking.

Hmmm. I had to go into the command line in Ubuntu just to get the right mouse button working. Plug n play in Windows...

Audio is also a problem, Ubuntu doesn't send SPDIF out, even if you select it in VLC. Haven't got around to that one yet.

PC for me - with Windows 8.1. Does everything I want, doesn't hang/crash and you can fix and upgrade things yourself.

WiresDreamDisasters

The main thing I dislike about Windows is the constantly forced updates - only because of the surprise reboots every now and then. Really annoys me.

But otherwise I think it's an exceptional OS. Much better than Win7 and Win8, and it brings Windows to parity with OSX ... erm... Snow Leopard. lmao.

Seriously, every version of OSX since 10.6 has just made it even more dogshit over time. Ah well. They had a good run.

Linux just isn't a serious option for anything related to audio or video production, and it never will be because there is no money in making software for Linux. Nerds do it out of some sort of loyalty, but big business pretty much ignores it in terms of the end customer. So that's why I've never jumped into it. Yes there are options to replace Cubase, Reaper, Studio One, et al. And yes there are options to replace Premiere Pro, Final Cut, and Resolve. And yes there are ways to run VST's on Linux.

But fuck that. I wanna turn a computer on and make stuff.

I suspect OP's problem is he bought an off the shelf unit from PC World or the like, which sometimes can have hardware incompatibilities and the like. I would always build my own from scratch personally. ymmv.

stickyfiddle

fretmeister said:

TimmyO said:

fretmeister said:

stickyfiddle said:

In their defence, PCs are way better for MS Excel. I'm not even being facetious - Excel for Mac is crippled and absolutely does my head in. Thankfully I don't need excel often when at home

This.

Most of my day is in Excel. PC at my desk, but when I needed a laptop the only thing that would give a genuine 8 hours from a charge was a Macbook Air.

When it dies I'm going back to Win10 purely for excel reasons.

I use Parallels to run actual windows in the Mac for the very few times I need a Windows client for something 

my laptop gets used for 2 things - Excel and updating my Helix!

I use my work laptop for Excel, but then I get pulled up by IT if I ever email anything with excel attachments to my personal account in case I'm stealing client data. 

I've looked at Parallels, but even that isn't perfect as the Mac keyboard is a bit fucky for Excel as well, so not sure I want to spend the cash to get it working and still be a bit annoyed sometimes.

prowla

A Mac is a PC, just one with a more precisely defined set of standard parts bolted together.

Me, I run Linux as my main OS, but I have virtual machines running Windows for Excel/Word/etc. when I need them.

I have a dead Mac, but I've never got 'round to replacing it. I do have its files restored into a VM, in case I want to get things.

I don't do gaming though; it's just not my thing and I find them boring.

digitalscream

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Linux just isn't a serious option for anything related to audio or video production, and it never will be because there is no money in making software for Linux. Nerds do it out of some sort of loyalty, but big business pretty much ignores it in terms of the end customer. So that's why I've never jumped into it. Yes there are options to replace Cubase, Reaper, Studio One, et al. And yes there are options to replace Premiere Pro, Final Cut, and Resolve. And yes there are ways to run VST's on Linux.

But fuck that. I wanna turn a computer on and make stuff.

It's interesting...the only real problem I've found doing audio work on Linux is the iLok dependency - almost all the other plugins I've tried work just fine by simply copying and renaming a file after installing the VST wrapper with a single click. And oddly, I've found that Windows VSTs like Helix Native actually run more efficiently under Linux than they do under Windows (at least under the Linux version of Reaper), which makes no sense at all.

As for options to replace Resolve...that would be silly, because there's a native Linux version

Of course, I'm not recommending that everyone goes to Linux, because there's a certain amount of setup that goes into getting a Linux machine audio-ready; that process is pretty trivial these days (it's pretty much down to adding a repository and a few clicks after that), but the main issues are a) knowing what you need to install (if you don't know what you need, you'll find it difficult to frame the question to Google), and b) selecting the right hardware because not all audio interfaces are supported, although that's getting better these days as more interfaces are becoming class-compliant.

TimmyO

WiresDreamDisasters said:

I suspect OP's problem is he bought an off the shelf unit from PC World or the like, which sometimes can have hardware incompatibilities and the like. I would always build my own from scratch personally. ymmv.

It is a prebuilt machine - albeit from a specialist supplier if that makes any difference. 

Same update worked the next time oddly 

TimmyO

(after a reinstall) 

TimmyO

I've looked at Parallels, but even that isn't perfect as the Mac keyboard is a bit fucky for Excel as well, so not sure I want to spend the cash to get it working and still be a bit annoyed sometimes.

Can't speak to the keyboard thing but I've always been impressed at how solid parallels is - you can even make it so that your docs and images etc from your Mac account show up as available under your Win account - nifty