With how aggressive Microsoft is becoming with ads, services, and data collection they could at least make Windows itself free.
But no, you still have to pay £100+ per license to have the pleasure of putting up with this crap.
Piracy is not a real solution to the problem. Microsoft allows these sorts of things to exist in the background because they would rather lose out on some sales than lose market share.
Ding ding ding!
Like how Adobe puts minimal effort into protecting from cracks for their software.
They’d much rather have little Jimmy and a million others pirate PS at home and get used to the workflow, so that businesses pay out big recurring fees for Adobe’s tools, which they will if that’s what everybody knows how to use.
Kinda the same thing as winrar. They rather have consumers get used to it so the companies they work at have a higher chance of buying licenses. That’s where the real money is.
aka spyware
Piracy is their weapon. If not for piracy, ex-USSR countries wouldn’t transition to Windows till around 2009, and I’d expect that in such an alternative reality they wouldn’t then too.
Piracy is the solution when what you think you’re buying is not what you’re getting and the company that you’re buying changes the product without your consent.
Every generation has this moment, where they learn to hate Microsoft (or Micro$oft). Then, 4% install Linux, 6% buy a Mac with half the RAM for twice the price; and everyone else to keeps complaining.
With me it was when they killed off my favorite browser. I’m now using the reanimated bushy red corpse of it.
Netscape?
MS has done shady things but Netscape’s own top employees have written about how Netscape destroyed itself with the version 4 rewrite. Joel Spolsky has also written about how complete rewrites are always a mistake.
Their corporate side failed too. If you weren’t fortune 500, Netscape wouldn’t talk to you. I was spending $50k a year with Netscape and they wouldn’t fix a bug unless I paid for an additional $75k a year support tier. ( The bug was Netscape 4 didn’t support dialing with area codes! )
Meanwhile during the late 90’s Microsoft devs put their personal emails in the readme.txts and would quickly patch any bugs or add features if you emailed them.
All the small isp’s (which were over 50% of the market) gave up on Netscape because of this.
What was your favorite browser?
This is the way
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I feel like you’re describing Windows here lol
Windows does manage it quite well with the OOBE to be fully functional with regular hardware. Only special stuff like (d)GPUs and external stuff might require special drivers.
Basic sound, networking, (multi-monitor) video and peripheral support works very good.As does practically every Linux distro. I install it, it just works. Don’t even need to hunt for GPU or printer drivers like I do for windows.
That was the status quo when I tried Linux ~5 years ago. Nowadays, Linux is much more plug and play (and I’m specifically referring to Pop OS).
Cool, but didn’t everyone tell me I should use Mint, for a bunch of reasons including “it’s arguably the most beginner-friendly”?
From what I read, Mint is better for lower-end PC specs, but otherwise, I’d strongly recommend PopOS.
Linux mint user here.
Sound works even better then windows, Printers needed terminal work to install, but forums were very helpful. https://safereddit.com/r/linux/comments/rpgn28/my_grandma_called_and_thanked_me_for_installing/
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Thanks for trying linux!
I don’t use pop os or gnome personally and I’m not part of any cult or whatever.
I found a accessibility setting that changes stuff to be white but I don’t think I got what you wanted 🥀I know kde plasma has a white general look, and can be themed much more than gnome in pop os seems to be.
it also has 3 finger click in its setting under the touchpad option
Also, try Fedora 39 kde spin https://fedoraproject.org/spins/kde/ I mention this because fedora has the new linux tech in it so your laptop might behave better with this os.
Oh, thank god. Plasma looks good for me. Easy to look at and professional. Assuming I understand how it works, which popular distros can use Plasma? Update: After some quick research, I think I want to use Kubuntu? Does that sound like a good idea?
Sounds good to me, never used kubuntu myself though.
I ended up giving up on it after first spending 2 hours trying to learn to set up ProtonVPN (it turned out the info I was missing was that there is missing an actual download button on their site, had to accidentally find it via a Reddit where someone else complained. This after how-to videos and other message boards led me nowhere). Then spending a few more trying to learn things about my NAS I couldn’t figure out, so I could try to connect it to Kubuntu and have it mount automatically. It was overwhelming, I gave up pretty fast. Nobody has time for this. I’m probably done with Linux forever. Kubuntu’s not half bad though, but Linux sure is.
My dad is 60 and uses Mint for years now. That enough “grandma” for you?
Just. Look at yourself. Who are you lying to? No, I don’t mean about whether or not your dad used Mint for 60 years, I mean if you think most people can use Linux for everything. Or do you live as a recluse in your dad’s basement and he’s the only adult you’ve ever seen have to use a computer for a lot of different things? Eff off, yeah?
Desktop Linux requires buying a USB / DVD, inserting it into your machine, and hitting OK several times. If you can’t do that, you also can’t install Windows.
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Verification is optional, but recommended. This is true for all OSs. Don’t do it if you can’t.
Note that I said to buy a USB or DVD with Linux. Burning your own is easy on Linux, but Windows puts up a lot of roadblocks. (One wonders why.)
GRUB works fine, but again, you only have to deal with it if you want to dual-boot.
Some sound cards used to not have first-party Linux drivers, so you’d have to find some third-party workaround. This is the only real problem among the ones you listed, but even this is pretty rare nowadays.
That’s all fair advice. It doesn’t change that installation instructions should have been a lot more thorough though. Once I get a third (or bigger primary) SSD, I’ll dual-boot Mint. I still want to try it. Regardless of my issues with it, I do know Linux is getting better. And we can see how ready I am for it now (and that’s partially up to the software).
Fair. I guess asking users to verify the ISO is just to avoid lawsuits. Buying USBs is more beginner-friendly than burning your own, but it would be very difficult to maintain an up to date list of sellers. They definitely need to explain GRUB and dual-booting better, as well as make it easier to repair / avoid the Windows overwriting GRUB issue.
Burning an iso with stuff like rufus is so stupid easy it should be illegal.
Linux and Nvidia really need to sort out their shit so I can fully dump windows.
Luckily the AI hype is good for something in this regard, since running gpus on Linux servers is suddenly much more important.
Its mainly Nvidia’s shit. The only reason Nvidia is caring about Linux now, is that is the platform AI models use.
The only thing keeping me on windows is the Nvidia GPU in my laptop. If Linux got actual dynamic GPU switching support I would delete windows and never look back.
it has that? You can use the nvidia utility to enable that on most any distro, or just use Pop_OS! 24.04 when it releases.
I’ve tried what popOS had around 6 months ago, and it wasn’t what I wanted. I needed to manually launch apps with the GPU. I want it to work like it does in windows where when the igpu gets too much load it dynamically switches to the dgpu.
i specified Pop_OS! 24.04 because in the new version with the cosmic dekstop, theyre going to add a seamless synamic gpu in the new version (thatll be out in a month or 2)
also, you CAN get that behavior on linux now.
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx3d4QH_43Ekei3-cNuecZpCaaaPzFFXbI?si=oha_xORoHC0oZvtr
this part of a linux experiment video shows how to do it, i cant confirm if it works as i do now have a laprtrop with an nvidia gpu tho
Oh wow, thats incredible! Looks like I have my Sunday project now.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/clip/Ugkx3d4QH_43Ekei3-cNuecZpCaaaPzFFXbI?si=oha_xORoHC0oZvtr
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Bazzite has an image that includes integrated chip swapping on my nitro 5
Is it dynamic, or does it use the existing Nvidia Optimus utilities?
since running gpus on Linux servers is suddenly much more important.
It’s always been important. Nvidia will never have actual open source drivers. They do this thing where they intentionally hobble your GPU unless you pay them even more money for a more expensive GPU.
I’ve been running NVIDIA under Linux for about six years now, with no more issues than one would encounter running hardware/drivers from a number of manufacturers under a number of platforms.
In all honesty, I’ve encountered far more issues regarding HP printer drivers under Windows.
I’ve been using Nvidia under Linux for the last 3 years and it has been massive pita.
Getting CUDA to work consistently is a feat, and one that must be repeated for most driver updates.
Wayland support is still shoddy.
Hardware acceleration on the web (at least with Firefox) is very inconsistent.
It is very much a second-class experience compared to Windows, and it shouldn’t be.
CUDA works fine here, in all honesty it’s never given me any problems. NVENC works fine, DLSS1, DLSS2, and DLSS3 all work fine, RTX runs at acceptable FPS compared to AMD under Linux - and NVIDIA Reflex is supported as of VKD3D-Proton 2.12 and DXVK-NVAPI 0.7.
On top of that, FSR is also fully supported - as is HDMI 2.1.
I only use Firefox, and hardware web rendering works fine. Hardware video acceleration isn’t working yet, but running back to back tests at 1080p with hardware video decoding under VLC, the difference between hardware video decoding and CPU rendering is about 5% CPU usage on average running a desktop PC with adequate power supply/cooling capacity as opposed to a laptop with limited power supply/cooling capacity.
The only problem with Wayland under KDE 6 is the lack of any form of sync, but explicit sync has ‘finally’ been merged, and should be supported under the 555 branch of drivers. Once explicit sync is supported, I really have few Wayland issues left to complain about.
Overall, I really don’t experience any showstopper issues that have me wanting for Windows in the slightest.
My old HP printer won’t even install on Win10 anymore. The have also removed the driver from the HP website. I’m sure you can still find it on some sketchy website, but I’d rather just use Mint on a laptop for printing all the 3 documents I print each year. Not to mention that windows updates take FOREVER on this low powered dual core laptop. On Mint it’s seconds.
PopOS has a good nvidia card support, try it out! It made me dump windows last October.
Pop OS has great Nvidia support out of the gate. Latest mint seems to handle Nvidia well also.
As much as I like Linux, and use it almost exclusively on desktop/laptop, every time I see something like this I am reminded how much I hate the fact that Apple of all companies is about the last bastion of commercial and consumer operating systems who isn’t trying to derive the bulk of their revenue from advertising.
Even Apple is falling. Their ad business (yes, they have one) makes billions and is the fastest growing part of the company. The app store is already quite ad-riddled, and the other parts of iOS are geared to get you to subscribe to all the Apple services.
Yes they just derive it by keeping the Windows/MacOS duopoly in place and monopolizing communication channels.
In some sense yes, but advertising for its own stuff is advertising too. It nudges you to use their whole ecosystem.
The most annoying thing for me is that you can’t remove the iTunes component in mission control (the settings deck).
It does nudge you…but it’s not full screen ads that take multiple clicks to get through every week. I was a Windows zealot through W7…W10 got bad…W11 got me to start using Apple and Linux.
That sounds like you’re seeing ads in Linux. Or doesn’t it count as “consumer OS”? Please elaborate.
Linux ain’t as mainstream as MacOS and Windows are.
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…and this here, folks, is the problem.
Ads have evolved into a cancer that is just growing and growing, making everything around them worse.
Ads have always been a cancer.
Not exactly. When the webmaster you knew put a banner in the corner of their site with ads from one and the same source, in one and the same place, not popping up and not bothering you, it really felt fine. I even felt the urge to click that and see where it leads.
Remember also Opera free version with that ad banner.
Yeah. I used to run a website back in the very early 2000s that a local bicycle seller/repair shop used to pay me to have a little static banner for. It was just an image, that’s it. No tracking, no malware, no silly animations or covering content, etc. It was unobtrusive.
Did I get a huge amount of money? No. But it paid for maintenance and made me feel like the effort I was putting into the site wasn’t wasted. It was relevant to the site content (cycling club in my town) and so was probably an effective advertisement.
Ads aren’t automatically evil, but the way they exist now definitely is. I wouldn’t dream of browsing the web without Firefox+Ublock origin.
The unbridled greed of companies has made me go out of the way to remove them all from my life. If they had been more restrained, I’d have happily accepted some ads as being the price I pay for using the web.
The way they exist now is similar to taxi drivers in airports. You simply know that if something is being advertised this way, it’s likely not what you need and probably a scam. So anything you don’t find intentionally and not via ads becomes useless, so ads become useless.
🤮
The best part is when spammers and ad generators realized how easy it is to use GPT to automate and increased the number of spam bots and ads.
There has to be a point of diminishing returns for them with this kind of behavior. This is just so aggravating.
I’d wager they are hoping to entrap as many people as they can on the platform, with their TPM restrictions, and store restrictions, and account restrictions, that sunk cost fallacy will keep the overwhelming bulk of people stuck in their web.
I’d also wager that enterprise probably doesnt have any of this bullshit
Can confirm, I run enterprise at home and have yet to see some of these shenanigans I’ve seen posted.
But there’s still enough I hate about Windows 11 that I’m slowly transitioning to Linux and then just running windows in a VM for things there aren’t good alternatives for.
This is what happens when they know you won’t leave.
“But muh games…and Linux is too difficult and weird”
Well then you’ve made your choice, didn’t you? It’s going to keep happening, like it’s been since the 90s.
I may be spoiled in that I don’t play AAA multiplayer games, but I do play AAA single player and indie single/multiplayer (usually the type where one of the players is also the server, e.g. Terraria).
Been running Linux on my systems for more than a decade, and - especially since Proton/SteamDeck enchantments made their way upstream - I haven’t had any major ssues (except having to wait a while to play RDR2-PC in Ubuntu because of a weird game-specific graphics card driver issue, but even that was fixed in due course).
Fuck Windows, and fuck the assertion that it’s the only way to run games.
Proton really did marvels.
Made it so easy that even an idiot (like me) could get games running on linux without much headache. Especially nowadays, even big game titles working almost flawlessly on release day.
Again it might be that I pretty much don’t play competitive online games because if there’s anything that ruins gaming it’s random strangers, but I have had practically no problem playing games over the last ten years.
Why is the target of your comment towards people that use Windows?
I am not sure why People on Lemmy feel like if they point something out to people who can’t see the comment is going to get them to change their mind.
I have and use both Linux and Windows. I prefer both for different reasons.
I know I’m talking into the void. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind. I’m too tired of trying to do that anymore. Just trying to get people to realize they made the choices they have to live with.
What about people who needs NURBS tools and Affinity/Adobe class art softwares? Where do they go that corporations decided Windows and Mac are only to be supported? And believe me, plenty of them hates Windoze and I’m one of them.
Dual boot if you’re up for it.
Dual booting kinda sucks. It fragments your workflow and it is pretty disruptive compared to just being able to move to whatever you need to move to.
Run windows on a VM.
That’s better but assuming they have a system that can run windows in a VM at native resolution it’s still a broken workflow that won’t attract people to Linux.
Look Linux is my daily driver, my entire lab is Linux. We use a combination of Debian, fedora, and rhel. I’m not opposed to using other distros. It’s okay for working with my peers who are on windows but not the best. Easy enough to work around.
However if an important part of your workflow requires Windows, Adobe, Autodesk, the murky shit of office products, etc., then arguing for dual booting, using a VM , or a different computer isn’t going to win people to Linux. It makes proponents seem silly
Why does it have to be one tool though? More of a complaint to business in that they don’t let you use other tools.
Sure and that sucks but that’s reality
Those will not run under/with emulation?
Autodesk seems to be inconsistent with emulation. I can make fusion 360 run but not other tools.
My issue is more Rhino and Solidworks. If Blender actually can render NURBS and retesselate from NURBS to polygon, I can pretty much ditch Autodesk Maya as that’s the only reason I use Autodesk Maya.
Solidworks/Rhino probably can work under VM, but I don’t know.
Yep,dual boot.
Another day, another piece of enshittification by MS, another reason to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Linus Torvalds, if you can spare a few minutes.
At this point I’m convinced that the new windows feature announcements are just ads for linux
*Ads for MacOS/chromeos
What I love the most about Windows is just how easy it is to find all the user settings I need to change. And I super appreciate how they configure things that work so perfect for me. It’s like I never need to make decisions of my own, they can read my mind. /S
theyre turning the deskop into a mobile platform which is inherently difficult to mod. this is so they can provide it as a service to any device.
I always laugh when someone says Linux has fragmented settings. Windows has that buddy. the fucking MOUSE SENSITIVITY setting is in a windows 7 UI.
You got me on the first half
Now that Linux can run pretty much all the games I play on the PC I don’t think I’m going to have much use for windows at home anymore
May I suggest getting a mini PC if the home PC is going to be used by everyone else at home?
I tried building a Steam box with the bootleg version of SteamOS from the deck… Can’t remember the name of the distro. Steam Games ran great for the most part, but getting Epic, EA and Ubisoft to work was a nightmare. If Linux can get that sorted, I’d never use Windows again.
Most EA and Ubisoft games I’ve played run fine on Deck. Just need to run the game in desktop mode first and then it boots in the Steam UI side of the OS just fine.
You don’t need the bootlegged version of SteamOS, there is ChimeraOS (GitHub).
Also Steam runs great on a lot of distros, I use
ArchMint btw. ;-)For Epic Games, GOG and Amazon you can use Heroic Games Launcher (GitHub).
Heroic is amazing. Rather than running the crappy Epic client via Wine, you just install this native piece of software that then launches each game via Wine/Proton/whatever else and pretty much just works every time, complete with things like EAC
I mean doesn’t sound like you’re missing out on anything tbh
I wanted to say this, but I mean, people can choose to consume garbage if they want
Right. Snob all you want, but I thoroughly enjoyed Div1 and 2. AC Origins was also a lot of fun, especially for someone that grew up fascinated by ancient Egypt.
Civ6 is on EGS… Battlefield 1and5 on EA, plus the Mass Effect series…
But hey… Those games are awful, right… The chi chamber is loud today.
Are those games not available on Steam and GoG? And like I said, you do you. I cant stand EA and Epic, but everyone has their own lines in the sand that they will or wont cross. I specifically called EA and Epic garbage though, not the customers who’d be willing to do business with them
Not a video gamer myself and can’t love linux enough. No more searching for installers.
yayall the way.Yeah, it’s definitely better now then it was before believe it or not. I honestly just avoid them at all cost even on windows. I hate games that ship their own launcher even though I bought it on steam
So, literally every game I’ve bought on steam is playable on my Manjaro box.
Additionally, a recent KDE6 upgrade messed up my config and necessitated a full system reinstall. After remounting the partition where my steam games were installed on in the old sys, they…just worked. Even the ones that don’t cloud sync, saved games all there, DLC all there.
I don’t know how long reinstalling ~1TB of games would take on windows… a lot? Pretty sure you have to fully reinstall them, not just “point steam to the drive where they live”
Frankly I just don’t see why people tolerate windows anymore. It’s just laughably bad.
I used to keep my steam games on a separate windows 10 partition and it worked exactly as you describe after a reinstall, it was all there. It’s still incredibly cool that this works on Linux and we get to use it as daily driver without being forced to dual boot for games. A windows installation still lingers on my desktop but it’s been years since I booted into it.
If you have games in a separate partition, then you will have no need to reinstall it even in case with reinstalling Windows, though.
You haven’t really highlighted any of the linux advantages here.
You haven’t really highlighted any of the linux advantages here.
I wasn’t really on that side quest, I’m only asserting it’s (apparently) as easy as Windows is. If you don’t see “not having to use windows” as an advantage, or if it’s actually an impediment to your non-game-related computer use, that’s totally fair; subjectivity is absolutely part of this. I’m just glad it all works for me in my life and that I’m lucky enough to be able to get to work on the platform I prefer.
Like I wrote, Steam games were generally good, other storefronts, not so much.
Bottles and Lutris would help in this case for you.
It didn’t work before, maybe I’ll try it again when I have the time.
Epic runs nice using Lutris 😃😃
I want able to get it to work unfortunately. This was a few years ago though.
Different now - works flawless with lutris
I have really tried getting epic to work, but both ea and Ubisoft launchers work quite well now through Lutris
Strange, was it recently?? My Epic install have been working for years (installed again a few times)
I just realized that I missed a word. I have not tried getting epic to work. Sorry for the confusion 😅
What games were you trying to play
I run both the Epic Store as well as the EA App via Bottles, and I had both up and running in about ten minutes.
You can also install both launchers under Steam via Proton. The process is a little more involved, but far from difficult.
Autodesk! All the others! Can you now, goddammit, for the sake of the mental health of your customers, start building your tools on platforms other than this crap? PLEASE? I mean I’m seriously considering building a parallel system running Linux for all my other office needs and just touch my Win-pc to run my CAD. I hope MS will continue in this way and ai-mercialize their OS more and more so hopefully the software providers will have enough at one point.
At that point you might as well just use a windows VM for CAD. With desktop integration you hardly have to notice you’re using windows.
I’ve certainly considered that, but have a hard time imagining a comparable performance with large assemblies. Any hands-on experiences?
I have used a windows vm at a previous job for a closed source IDE we were required to use. I’ve never used AutoCAD, so I’m afraid I can’t help you there.
I’ve used FreeCAD for hobby 3d printing and plywood CNC projects. It seemed buggy, and the workflow seemed strange, but I’ve never used anything else, so it’s fine, I guess, lol.
FreeCAD is of course the tool of choice for my hobby projects. All of our workgroup’s students get an introduction. But while its a great tool, you’ll notice the lack of … management (?) in the background. I’m not bashing or even judging. I very much appreciate all the work put into it. But it’s simply … not there yet to be considered a serious alternative to one of the big players.
Microsoft got to much time on their hands. Can they please work on the more important stuff like completing the transition from controlpanel to settings?
If anything, they need to revert back to control panel.
By the time they do that, they’ll have introduced a third settings app, and only four options from the current Win8/8.1/10/11 one will have been ported to it.
Or make Teams a not piece of shit. Even worse they had teams on Linux in the past. Now have new teams and new outlook, which are just electron…give it back to Linux please.
No
After Apple creates an iPad calculator probably…
They’re researching how to make a calculator great andndo it the apple way…
Nah, it’s because the technology hasn’t reached that level of advancement.
Calculator: Now available for iPad (M10 with FP1 floating point coprocessor)
/s
I want my power button to cut off the power instantly. I want my log off button to be instant. Add any delay and I start pulling cables!!!
I got to go, lock this computer, so I can do a thing! Oh shit, its not locking… fuck… Security says I can’t leave a unlocked console… POWER!
Adding needless friction is terrible! Don’t do it.
At work, when I did desktop support, the number of people who would just hit their power bar when they left every day…
Alpha move right there
Win+L to immediately lock a windows machine. You can get the logout dialogue with alt+F4
KDE Plasma uses largely all the same shortcuts as windows. The most important ones in my opinion being super+arrow keys to move and tile windows.
Is that bad for the computer? Because I didn’t even think about this in a corporate environment until your comment. All our employees would be pulling cords or batteries, they all march out at exactly 430.
any unwritten data would be lost, perhaps some file system updates get out of sync, but it shouldn’t be a big problem.
It is very easy to corrupt files doing this.
A proper journaling filesystem should handle this, but I hardly trust NTFS as it is.
Journaling should make sure that the file system itself doesn’t corrupt, but journaling doesn’t magically make all writes atomic. If a program is halfway through writing a file and the power is cut, that file will be corrupt.
As a user. When I want the computer to shut down. I’ve got my programs already closed. I really don’t care if there’s a half open log file or some telemetry isn’t properly recorded. It needs to shut down now.
By default, Linux can take up to 15 seconds to write a file to disk, this is for power saving reasons. You could corrupt the last document/photo you saved, your browser profile, or your nextcloud sync.
Linux usually shuts down immediately if you don’t have any unsaved files and nothing glitches out during shut down. But yeah, windows sucks, corrupt files is probably the least of your problems using Windows.
I guess on Linux, if you run
syncto write all cached files to disk, and then pull the cord, you’re probably fine.
