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Ask HN: Would you switch to Win 10 from OS X on a MacBook Pro?

9 points by jason_slack ↗ HN
I feel like Apple's QA recently is really bad. Several bad bugs. I'm still plagued by "Month 13 out of bounds" and many of my apps won't run currently.

Microsoft has seemed to make a log of improvements over the years and perhaps it is time for me to return to Windows. With Windows services for Linux, I am at home in a terminal. My other needs are c++, markdown, etc. I could still keep a small OSX partition for Final Cut Pro and some very Mac specific tasks I still have.

Has anyone considered this? Am I foolish for running Windows 10 on my MacBook Pro? Should I just wipe and downgrade back to 10.13 before I had problems and wait to see if Apple gets better?

19 comments

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mattbgates
Windows 10 is not without its own bugs and corrupted drivers. I actually like it for work.. it feels like if Windows 7 & Windows 8 had a baby... Windows 10 is that child. Still a stubborn sob at times, but for the most part, it works.

Both Mac & Windows have their pros and cons. My wife uses Windows 10 for Adobe Premiere Pro but she really wants to get her hands on a Mac OS (iMac) for further design purposes, as both systems do come with their own benefits for videography & graphic design.

May as well go back to what you know works for you.

And if you can partition for use in both, why not? :)

jason_slack
The drawback for me is the reboot factor. Needing to close down and reboot to the other OS. I could switch from Final Cut to Premiere. I'd have to learn a whole new tool, but that isn't a horrible task. I have tried VM's, but in this case, my VM's no longer run due to the "month 13 issue".
mattbgates
Sometimes learning something new isn't so bad. I have used both Windows and Mac OS. It might be a bit of extra work to have to reboot from OS to OS, but you could always run out and just by yourself a new laptop with Windows 10 on it if you wanted to go that route.

I just suggest both because they do have their benefits.

dyeje
I use bootcamp to dual boot Win10 to play some video games. I have absolutely no desire to use it as my main OS, it feels so unorganized and clunky.
kernelcurry
100% considered it and have a dual boot machine (nix / Win10) at the house for those non cross- compatible use cases, but I find them few and far between and end up using my Win10 machine for streaming and games mostly.

I have almost fully switched to nix and have had 0 issues. It is a but harder to find applications, but that is the mix when you are running non-commercial software... And if you really need that one application that only runs on Windows... Ask yourself why you have to use it... You probably don't and there is a terminal application that works better on *nix

CyberFonic
I agree that Apple QA seems to be getting worse. But in my experience Windows has its share of problems too. I have been using Ubuntu LTS without problems on an older notebook. Only use the MBP a couple of times a month. Some scanners, etc are still too difficult with Linux. But for everyday work Linux is far less hassle than either OS X or Windows. YMMV.
kevinherron
The grass is always greener...
akulbe
If it is, it's only because someone spread $H!T to fertilize it first. It's all about tradeoffs.
jstewartmobile
If you go for Windows 10, expect to play whack-a-mole with their Cortana and telemetry services.

I made the mistake of upgrading my laptop with it. Calculator takes around 5 sec to load, purely due to phone-home BS.

edit: I've had the best luck with Debian, then segregating all of the Windows stuff into a VirtualBox VM. Tried KVM. It ran well enough, but I could never get the clipboard to work between guest and host.

jam3sn
Why Debian over the likes of Ubuntu or Fedora, if you don't mind me asking?
jstewartmobile
My experience with Fedora has been either fantastic or terrible. Probably because it's the guinea pig RedHat tests things on before they go into RedHat proper. Non-LTS Ubuntus have been the same story.

RedHat/CentOS are also fairly nice on real hardware, but they seem to be even more conservative than Debian on what they put into the distro and the package manager. That and with the popularity of Ubuntu, just about everyone has a .deb package or even an apt repo for their software. Debian uses the same format.

But I mostly do software development using all of the old, old command line tools, so stability is my priority. With different priorities, one of the other distros may be better.

jordansmith
Honestly, just use whatever you feel most comfortable with.

I recently switched from OSX to W10 and after a week it was just all the same.

akulbe
I've done it. It hasn't been rosy, for sure. I talked about it here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15805100.

If I wasn't doing dev for Linux targets, the move wouldn't be as painful as it is. WSL absolutely does not get the job done, and it messes with things you create in a way that you can't really use it for deployment stuff as you'll always be doing fixing after you move stuff from WSL -> target.

My solution? run a full Linux VM.

I'd run Linux natively if it weren't for a customer who won't allow Linux clients to connect to their VPN.

BjoernKW
No, Windows 10 is still not a UNIX or even a remotely UNIX-like operating system. I need UNIX tools and a proper command-line for software development.

At the moment, macOS still is the only operating system that provides that alongside with a consistent, usable UI and an overall decent user experience.

lhinds
Why not run Linux as your desktop, especially if your at home in a terminal?

Perhaps give Fedora or Ubuntu a try (just two off the top of my head, not looking for a distro fight).

jason_slack
I have considered this. Most things I do are in text editors and a command-line. I have iOS apps that I need to consider thinking about, but I also have a Mac Mini.

Let me ask, how is the hardware support on a MBP, say the latest Ubuntu? I like to be able to close my lid, toss my laptop in a bag and go. They open the lid and continue. Linux distros I tried to use as my main OS years ago never let this happen. Any other hardware support that is lacking? Touch pad, I have a Magic Trackpad 2 also, wireless, etc should be supported I would think.

badpun
I've just started doing it (Win 10 on a MBP as a primary OS). So far, the only major annoyance was the touchpad drivers - both the ones provided by Apple and Touchpad++ (alternative) don't come near to the touchpad experience on OS X.
diweirich
I tried recently switching OSX to Windows 10 and using the Linux subsystem, but there were too many issues when I moved projects over. The configurations are too different for it to move over seamlessly.
aglionby
I always wait a few months from release before upgrading OS precisely because there always seems to be teething problems (for both macOS or Windows), so I'm still on Sierra and haven't had any issues to drive me away. Like others I couldn't live without the UNIX tools and CLI on my current machine, so I'd be interested to see where WSL is at when I next look for an upgrade in a few years.

Apart from those tools I'm really not a fan of metro and generally how Windows is laid out; everything feels pretty clunky while macOS feels smooth (though I'm definitely biased having used a mac for the last 4 years). I love the macOS window management and gestures, so there'd definitely have to an equivalent for those for me to move over. They all may well exist at the minute; I've not done any research for ages.