Is anyone working on a true alternative to Windows?

Question

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I'm truly fed up with windows. It feels like recently everything Microsoft has done with it has been a step backwards, from trying to force me to create a Microsoft account when I first log in, to trying to sell me One Drive at every turn, to just plain bad UI design & implementation.That being said I don't want to buy a mac, I like having the power to control what hardware is in my PC. I like being able to choose between hundreds of different laptops to find the right price point to hardware power.Is anyone working on a new premium operating system that could be a serious competitor to Windows?

warrenm · Accepted Answer

>I like being able to choose between hundreds of different laptops to find the right price point to hardware power.
You're definitely one of the weird ones (which may (or may not) be "good")
The overwhelming majority of people do not want to waste time choosing "between hundreds of different laptops" - they want to get whatever they need to get done done with minimal issues
Such variety in "choice" often leads to being overwhelmed with the options, and going for one of the three or four you already know anyways
Don't want to run Windows? Cool - get a Chromebook, Mac Book, or any of the scores of laptops that'll run Linux nicely

warrenm · Answer

Why should anyone work on a "true alternative to Windows"? (Beyond, of course, the several options already out there (Macs, tablets, Chromebooks, various and sundry Linux desktop environments, etc)?)
I wrote this 9 years ago - https://antipaucity.com/2013/06/04/this-is-not-the-year-of-t...
And it's as true today as it was then
With very very rare exception, it does not matter what desktop you run
So run what you want

brudgers · Answer

No.The practical alternative is to stop dying on I-don't-want-to-create-an-account hill.That means creating an account or finding another hill to die on (e.g. Linux).There's no silver bullet.No free lunch.It's tradeoffs all the way down.Good luck.

thorin · Answer

The reason you mentioned is why I got sick of using Linux desktop, which I had done for several years. With Macs, yeah great...to a point but every corporation I've worked with has had 99% Windows machines and so I don't like to be the guy developing on something completely different to what people are running on.Windows 7 and 10 have been ok for me, sounds like things are going downhill AGAIN!

HelloNurse · Answer

You seem ready to try Linux, perhaps with extensive virtual machines running old Windows versions under recycled licenses.

t-3 · Answer

The selling points of Windows are backwards compatibility and Excel. Neither is irreplaceable, especially with VMs.

maverick74 · Answer

no...But worth nothing:FedoraopenSUSEGenodeReactOS

Is anyone working on a true alternative to Windows?

No.
The practical alternative is to stop dying on I-don't-want-to-create-an-account hill.
That means creating an account or finding another hill to die on (e.g. Linux).
There's no silver bullet.
No free lunch.
It's tradeoffs all the way down.
Good luck.

You seem ready to try Linux, perhaps with extensive virtual machines running old Windows versions under recycled licenses.

The selling points of Windows are backwards compatibility and Excel. Neither is irreplaceable, especially with VMs.

no...
But worth nothing:
Fedora
openSUSE
Genode
ReactOS