upvote

points

by steve_adams_862 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby bigyabai2 hours ago|
next
[-]
> It’s not super current and not all apps work

That's an enormous concession, relative to Windows or Linux.

reply
upvoteby mschuster912 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
> That's an enormous concession, relative to Windows or Linux.

Windows yes, but Linux... no, at least if it's open source.

Closed source apps that compile fully static, these tend to be stable and Just Run in my experience... but open source apps? Good luck trying to bring these to even compile 10 years afterwards without going through an insane dance with Docker...

reply
upvoteby doodlesdev1 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
While that's absolutely correct, you're arguing with a strawman. Take a look at the original quote:

   > I can still use my 12 year old MacBook Air. It’s not super current and not all apps work, but it’s actually still a decent Apple experience.
The point is I can run the latest Linux distributions and software on a 12 year old computer with no issues whatsoever.

You might be able to do that in Windows, if you bypass TPM and CPU requirements or if you stay with Windows 10 extended updates.

You won't be able to in macOS without OpenCore Legacy Patcher and a lot of faith in your God of choice.

reply
upvoteby cavem0nkey1 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
Couldn’t agree with this more. Stuff I wrote 25 years ago for NT4 still actually works on windows 10 without a recompile.

The Linux situation reminds me of unix back in the 90s even across distributions.

reply
upvoteby serf30 minutes ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
>Closed source apps that compile fully static, these tend to be stable and Just Run in my experience... but open source apps? Good luck trying to bring these to even compile 10 years afterwards without going through an insane dance with Docker...

who cares?

when a closed source app fails the door is shut for good on self-remediation, unless you want to reverse engineer/break the law.

when an open source app fails to compile you can choose to put the time in to get the thing working. it's not a shut door, it's just a long path.

reply
upvoteby mschuster915 minutes ago|
parent|
[-]
> who cares?

The problem is that most software people use for work is going to be closed source because the vendor wants to make money on these juicy business contracts.

Linux makes a point of being very difficult to be used with closed source stuff, in kernel and userland alike (getting static compilation to work is an utter PITA), and that is a reason why commercial software written for Linux is rare, and that in turn is the dominant reason why Linux adoption on the workstation has been very slow for a very long time - until a lot of business applications shifted to the browser, making the client OS platform all but irrelevant.

reply
upvoteby select12 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
On Linux, there aren't 'apps' that normal people want. Basic things like 'functional 1080p/4k Netflix' and 'commercial software' aren't really a thing.
reply
upvoteby fragmede2 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
Netflix works, just not 4k. Blender and Davinci Resolve say there's commercial software, just not actual Photoshop.
reply
upvoteby 1 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
deleted
reply
upvoteby bel82 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
That's another goalpost. That's because DRM doesn't go well with Open source.
reply
upvoteby bigyabai2 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
Correct, you have just successfully identified the reason why Windows exists. Well done!
reply
upvoteby pudgywalsh2 hours ago|
prev|
[-]
> Haven’t they actually done a relatively good job in this regard in many ways?

No.

Can't run current versions of any apps including Chrome, Edge, and Safari.

Meanwhile the hardware is perfectly fine and could run a supported version of Windows or Linux.

Call me when Apple has a "LTSC" version of their OS. (Spoiler: they won't, ever. Supporting Apple in an enterprise is nothing short of a nightmare.)

reply
upvoteby cosmic_cheese34 minutes ago|
parent|
[-]
This is partially on third-party devs' shoulders. There are community-maintained backports of Chromium and Mozilla for old versions of macOS, which means it isn't strictly impossible, but Google and Mozilla just don't bother and cut off compatibility earlier there than on other platforms.

It's even possible to build Mac apps to run on everything from OS X 10.4 (2005) through macOS 27 (2026) across PowerPC, Intel, and Apple Silicon in a single binary. See XLD[0], which does exactly that.

[0]: https://tmkk.undo.jp/xld/index_e.html

reply