macOS vs. Windows vs. Linux

[Cogito]

asking about "the best OS" is like asking about "the best music album". the many personal preferences are not indicative of superiority, just about personal preference in the moment.

That is absolutely NOT true! Pink Floyd's "The Wall" is the greatest music album of all time and always will be. Don't be "THAT" person!

 

[Soundproof]

Thanks I will look into Mullvad browser. I use Tailscale to connect all my computers. I don't use AI assistant or spotlight or any AI coding apps. I have run some LLM's on the M1 == MLX. With newer versions of Windows I am sure it would very hard to get rid of AI .

Inclusion of more (a lot of) AI is quite likely for Apple Creative Studio. First and foremost utilising on device hardware like the doubled up neural engine, and whatever is neede from cpu/gpu. To me, such approach makes a lot of sense. I believe one should expect this development in a lot of production tools/suites for all platforms including cross platform software. Blender, Davinci, CAD/CAM, Musical studio software and what not. I wouldn't exclude communication platforms or the likes of LibreOffice either.

Probably the most useful development of software since forever.

 

[Petrushka]

There’s no need to worry about security updates if you don’t browse the internet or open emails.

 

[Soundproof]

There’s no need to worry about security updates if you don’t browse the internet or open emails.

Whoopz, where did that come from?

That is fundamentally wrong in every way I can think of, and you shouldn't really mislead people that way.

 

[Waxx]

As IT system engineer as profession, i prefer windows, even if it has it's downsides also.

Mac is great if you don't expect to much, and if you're not very litterate in IT, it's safe because it's hard to break. But it's also very limited in what you can do with it. So for a nerd like me very boring and frustrating.

Linux is way to complex for what it is, and altough i understand it, i don't want such an complex envirroment for daily use, and certainly not for a music station that should just work. It's great as server software or for technical purpose. But it still needs a lot of work to work as smooth and intuitive as the two others.

Windows is easy for me, I know it inside out, and work all day with it from all sides. And the days of the crashing windows XP and Vista is gone since lontime. Since win7 windows is very stable and solid build. The user interface is sometimes a bit a mess, but not the functionality or stability.

 

[somebodyelse]

There’s no need to worry about security updates if you don’t browse the internet or open emails.

Probably what the Iranians thought before they got hit by Stuxnet.

 

[Petrushka]

Probably what the Iranians thought before they got hit by Stuxnet.

They installed updates. And, they painted a big bullseye on themselves.

The thing about malware is it has to pay the creator. If you are serving music files, you have nothing to offer.

 

[Soundproof]

Probably what the Iranians thought before they got hit by Stuxnet.

Ongoing now: 150 million US driving licences and ID's available through Nexus, suspected breach of car rental servers....

 

[Soundproof]

They installed updates. And, they painted a big bullseye on themselves.

The thing about malware is it has to pay the creator. If you are serving music files, you have nothing to offer.

You got to stop this nonsense. It is pure manure.

 

[somebodyelse]

The thing about malware is it has to pay the creator. If you are serving music files, you have nothing to offer.

If your machine is connected to the internet and powered on you have something to offer. Your machine can be a participant in a DDOS, a VPN exit node, a conveniently deniable place to store CSAM - just a few of the things malware has been found doing that have nothing to do with your data. The idea is you know nothing about it until the police turn up at your door rather than their door.

 

[terryforsythe]

Linux is way to complex for what it is, and altough i understand it,

If it has been a while since you investigated user friendly distributions, e.g., Linux Mint or Zorin, you might take a look. They may surprise you. You can try them out by running them on a thumbdrive. Just use something like Etcher to burn the ISO file to the thumbdrive, then boot from it.

 

[Waxx]

If it has been a while since you investigated user friendly distributions, e.g., Linux Mint or Zorin, you might take a look. They may surprise you. You can try them out by running them on a thumbdrive. Just use something like Etcher to burn the ISO file to the thumbdrive, then boot from it.

I know them, and they get better each year. But i can manage a windows computer still much easier than a linux computer. I have 2 older computers that run on mint, one is for messing arround and the other is used as music player in my workshop (where sound quality is less important, because of the machine noise). They are too old to work with windows 11. But the music computer in my living room runs on win11, and my main laptop that i use in my office (and so also plays music) also. My NAS where all my digital music is stored also runs on a Linux version, so even if my player (JRiver everywhere) runs on windows, it gets it's music from a Linux computer (the NAS) over lan or wifi (depending on where).

 

[Waxx]

They installed updates. And, they painted a big bullseye on themselves.

The thing about malware is it has to pay the creator. If you are serving music files, you have nothing to offer.

I know people who thought like that, untill their computer seems to be used to mine cryptocurrency by hackers, and they got to pay the bill for the wear, the high power it used and the internet bandwith that was stolen from them... CPU/GPU power and memory are enough to be interesting for hackers

 

[OldTimer]

Better buy the MacOS before you can't buy it anymore because AI agents are very very hungry.

 

[mpw]

As IT system engineer as profession, i prefer windows, even if it has it's downsides also.

Mac is great if you don't expect to much, and if you're not very litterate in IT, it's safe because it's hard to break. But it's also very limited in what you can do with it. So for a nerd like me very boring and frustrating.

Linux is way to complex for what it is, and altough i understand it, i don't want such an complex envirroment for daily use, and certainly not for a music station that should just work. It's great as server software or for technical purpose. But it still needs a lot of work to work as smooth and intuitive as the two others.

Windows is easy for me, I know it inside out, and work all day with it from all sides. And the days of the crashing windows XP and Vista is gone since lontime. Since win7 windows is very stable and solid build. The user interface is sometimes a bit a mess, but not the functionality or stability.

Really ?? You can do almost anything with MacOS as its Unix along with homebrew to install millions of open-source software, far from boring. Windows constantly is a thread from Malware, Reddit, have fun with that. You can run musical software on Linux and the MacOS, stable and fast. Boring is stuck with Windows using Powershell instead multiple shells under Unix. Linux as a desktop and server are great users just need to spend sometime understanding Unix/Linux not that big of a deal.

 

[Waxx]

I work with the 3 OS's every day for my job, so I know them quiet well. But after work i don't want to sit the whole evening messing arround with computers again fixing problems. I just want it to work so i can listen music or do something else.

So Windows, that i tuned and automated works best for me. If for you it's Linux, that is great. But for me it's not as easy as windows. And no, i don't have problems with malware and so, never had in the last 20 years any issue. But i manage my windows systems (and my whole home network) like it should. Linux has more the tendency to break configs with updates than Windows for me, but once stable it stays stable. It's just more work to make it stable.

And i use powershell (next to other languages) in VScode, just like i use Python and Bash in it for linux when i need that. So i have one editor for all. It's whatever works best for you in this case because all 3 OS's can do that, and have their merrits, their good and bad sides.

 

[terryforsythe]

Linux has more the tendency to break configs with updates than Windows for me, but once stable it stays stable. It's just more work to make it stable.

I agree, but much is dependent on the Linux distribution, especially rolling release vs. fixed release. As far as stability goes, Windows has come a long, long way since the days of Windows 95 and Windows 98. Those were the most unstable operating systems I have ever used.

 

[JustAnandaDourEyedDude]

In the first half of this linked twelve-minute long YT video, DHH of the Omarchy linux distro opines that Linux is a better fit for AI LLMs and Agents than are MSWindows or MacOS, and cites reasons why he thinks so. He believes the meteoric rise of LLMs and AI Agents will push Linux to the fore. The second half of the video, which may not be as relevant to this thread, veers off into whether Linus Torvalds' sometimes abrasive style of management of the linux kernel development is optimal or not. DHH feels that given the scope of the mission (about 40 million lines of kernel code, thousands of contributors, importance to the software world), the management style is probably necessary. The video is a "Lex Clip" from a much longer interview by Lex Fridman, Part 2 of which runs over five hours.

Why Linux will win over MacOS/Windows: Linux is best for AI agents | DHH and Lex Fridman