My understanding of the history of fashion is that back in the 1950s America it was expected that you wore a suit/dress at work unless you had a different uniform. There were a bunch of very boring people who thought that we should be wearing office job garb all the time, because they wore suits so much it was their default style, and since suits and dresses are both conservative and good-looking they were trying to nudge culture into accepting their worldview.
But with our computers, we are living in some boring-ass timeline where the suits-4-life squares won. We are all stuck using The Office Job OS at home, unless you work in a creative field that got really stuck in with MacOS ages ago. I don’t want to wear a suit at home. I want something I think is comfy and pretty, which is why I use Zorin OS.
I did not choose to get into Linux because I think it’s better for my workflow or because I am weirded out by all the trackers in win11 or because I care that Microsoft is an evil megacorp. I chose to start using Linux because the last version of windows that i was happy to boot up was Windows 7, and I refuse to use something on my own time that feels gross and looks icky. My preference for something that i can just set up and not have to tinker with makes Zorin a perfect fit for me, and I tend to throw a little fit when i have to do something in Windows specifically. I don’t understand why so many people are comfortable using the Office Job OS when they could be using something that suits them.
Preemptive edit because I’ve seen my post be misread twice already: I’m not trying to say that Microsoft isnt an evil megacorp that stuffs their os with spyware and bloat. I think that was the dealbreaker for most of us here. I just happen to have the sort of personality that Apple targets, and I have been struggling to articulate what specifically made me chose installing Zorin OS on a PC using a TV as a monitor instead of just getting a MacBook like my mom. Also its like 1 in the morning where I live and I need to get to sleep lol
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If i couldn’t use Linux at work, I would just quit.
If I couldn’t wear fuzzy socks and sweaters at work I’d just quit.
Well, obviously!
Not everyone can afford to make this choice, unfortunately.
I get that Windows is kinda boring, but it’s still like a thousand times more interesting and customizable than anything Apple makes. I find the whole Apple aesthetic to be painfully boring and restrictive. I get that it’s more fashionable or whatever. I just hate it.
I’m still mad about this whole “minimalist icons” thing. And both windows and macos (and Android and iOS) are guilty of this.
Now we have to play the “is this clickable?” game.
Which things do you find boring and restrictive about it? I think it’s rather nice although I don’t like some of the changes after Catalina like moving from skeuomorphic icons to more symbolic ones.
Other than aesthetics I think editing and writing is fast on macOS even when not using vim. I even changed my PCs to use mac keyboard layout because it’s better. Of course when using vim, editing should work same on any system at least in theory.
In the early 90s at the dawn of my programing/sysadmin career. I showed up to my first week of work at “Initech” in dress pants, shirt, and tie. The senior gray beard UNIX sysadmin wore wholey jeans and ratty t-shirts. I don’t recall whether he sat me down and told me, or I figured it out on my own that to be taken seriously in a technical field you must dress down. Brilliant people look disheveled (see Albert Einstein, Steve Wozniak, et al). I ditched the stupid tie & began dressing more comfortably.
Anthropologists call this antagonistic aculturation. Us IT geeks intentionally set our selves apart from the business drones & we had to exercise our privilege of dressing comfortabley while working ungodly hours to solve impossible problems.
Now I’m the gray beard and I’ve mentoed the brighter of the pimple faced youths I’ve hired in the ancient customs of our tribe. Looking back, It seems that IT’s greatest influence on business has not been the increased efficiency of the paperless office, but the casual attire that most office workers now enjoy.
You’re welcome, world.
I ended up briefing some very senior leadership…in a hoody.
I brief that specific group on a regular basis and it’s usually fairly laid back but this particular meeting a new, very high profile person was attending to get up to speed. Apparently everyone knew but me because they were suited up and all of the ladies were wearing makeup and had their hair all nice. And there I was, the lead brief, in my hoody and jeans and scruffy beard.
After the meeting I realized that it probably worked in my favor. Some sort of psychological “this guy must be really good because he dgaf about dressing to impress”.
Plus I think their is exactly as you said a stereotype that the better you are at your IT stuff the less put together you have to be.
I know it’s beside your point, but I want to chime in…
My understanding of the history of fashion is that back in the 1950s America…they were trying to nudge culture into accepting their worldview.
On the contrary, I don’t think that’s how the mentality came about, or was held at that time at all. If you go back to the 1850s or 1750s, suits and dresses (or some older variant of them) were a sign of wealth, intelligence, high class living, etc. They had to be hand-tailored by experts using rare fabrics and dyes that had to be shipped all around the world. Then the industrial revolution came, and clothing was able to be mass produced (usually at the cost of quality). Suddenly the middle class had access to suits and dresses, but the perception that it was something for the wealthy was still there. For many businesses targeting the middle class, the suit and dress WERE the uniform, as a means of displaying how regal their brand is.
And it’s not like we’ve gotten past this. If you go on any of the social media sites with ads, take a look at what you see: some knock-off piece of trendy clothing that’s made to look like a high end fashion brand, but targeting the lower/middle class.
All that said, I’m all for the “punk rock” mentality. Don’t do what your parents did just because society told them to tell you it was important. Stick it to the man, yadda yadda. But I think it’s a trap to assume that the 1950s proletariat felt any differently than the same class of people do today.
As for windows v linux, of the people who are aware of both yet continue using windows, I think most would say that they use it specifically because they have a “preference for something that i can just set up and not have to tinker with” and because they also aren’t making their choice based on “the trackers in win11 or because [they] care that Microsoft is an evil megacorp”.
Love your analogy. However I must say windows looks terrible. Then again so do suits, so it holds up. I had to run a win10 VM a while back in order to flip the developer bit on the oculus (don’t even get me started on that PoS). Hadn’t used it in years. Felt like some kind of money grab freak show. I couldn’t even mount an iso without having to visit several pushy sites and use one of those creepy installers. That’s when it hit me how digitally spoiled I truly am.
While I too like the analogy, and agree that Windows is becoming increasingly money grabby, I feel the need to be fair: as an OS it has supported native ISO mounting since Win7, just right click an ISO file and choose “Mount”…
True. But as I found out, the ISO file needs to be stored on a partition formatted with NTFS for that to work.
Ha! Good to know
Neat!
I don’t know when it was added, but you can mount ISOs directly now
You people who make Linux you identity should go touch grass. Fur real, it’s weird.
Out of curiosity, why do you feel this way? And what are you passionate about?
Did you miss their username?
What does my user name have to do with individuals unhealthy basing their entire identity around a fake “suits vs creatives” universe?
You don’t think there are significant maladaptive thought patterns that would lead you to base an entire identity based off some bull shit “suit vs creatives” imagining of the world? They took “dell guy vs apple guy” and made it there identity.
This type of shit is cringy.
That doesn’t answer my question, it avoids it. Passions come in many flavors, and are not all-consumimg. For some its music, and culminates on an instrument. For some it’s sports, and revolves around one. Do you have anything you are passionate about?
Yes. They don’t make up my identity.
And perhaps OP is the same.
👌👍
That isn’t the reason most of us use Linux, and even if it were, the “administration vs. creatives” divide probably goes back to Ancient Egypt, if not further. But fight it if you want to. I give it six months before you burn out, and the division in question will still be there, and some people will still be basing their identities around it. (I mean, what do you think is a good thing to base your identity around? Your degree of appreciation for Taylor Swift? 'Cause I think you’d find that one is a lot more common.)
This isn’t about most of you. It’s about those that take a love of foss too far and invent narratives that just aren’t true. If you commit and are active, that is fantastic. This person is imagining an entire reality that just isn’t true.
And? Seems relatively harmless, as alternate realities go. No one lives in the real world 100% all the time. We’re not designed for it.
I don’t think it’s actually all that healthy but I guess I’m no professional.
Windows doesn’t let me have a desktop cube or have my windows burn up or be torn apart by claws when closed.
Sure, I also like the GNOME workflow and the open source ethics and repositories and the like, but my inner 12 year old likes the eye candy, too.
I work as an web admin for a small, all remote, company. I use Linux and I wear fuzzy socks.
Oh, I thought this was going to be a post about you being trans. Threw me with the title /j
Ah, the freedom to modify software as you wish. Got to love it.
I appreciate the not your office OS commentary. I have the use Windows for work. I do this mostly via RDP to a work provided laptop, as well as a win10 VM for MS Teams. And I take great pleasure in shutting those down at the end of the work day.
The last tolerable version of Windows for me was XP. I find myself fond of Windows 98, but that’s probably just nostalgia speaking.
What are you referring to exactly by “suits at home” in terms of OSes? I always thought that using Linux is about doing whatever you want / whatever feels most comfortable to you.
Microsoft is the suits. Suits are for office work. Microsoft is for office work.
Ah right okay. I definitely agree with you, aside from work, I try to use Windows as little as possible. I honestly wish I could use Linux at work too lol.
The problem is, like you said, the suits won, and everyone sees Windows as the default OS. Its preinstalled with most home computers, and that’s what most people know how to use.
If more home computers were installed with an easy flavor of Linux, there would definitely be more users.
So what does macOS wear?
Basically MacOS is high end fashion wear that is only workable on a runway and is outrageously expensive. It’s worn as status not for function. You wear it like the designer thinks it should be worn not how you want it otherwise your wearing it wrong.
A button down shirt and jeans, according to Justin Long.
looks at closet
looks at macbook
Sounds about right.
Don’t forget the turtle neck sweater.
I thought you were going to say you liked lint (the source code checker).
This all falls apart as a “reason” when you consider Windows Home vs Windows Enterprise.
The better reason is that Windows Home sucks.
This is beautifully written and I agree with the analogy, though I never saw it that way before. Thank you for sharing this.
