At this point, I have lost count of the number of times that I’ve left my perfectly working Windows computer at the end of my work day, only to return to a completely broken computer that won’t boot the next morning.
I find this to either be a lie or self inflicted. I manage a small fleet of a few hundred windows systems and all updates have been fine for years.
In the windows admin user groups there are more than a few that are deploying updates within 24hrs of release to thousands of servers and workstations and have not reported issues.
Lastly I think that tech bloggers say things like this to get clicks, so they can get ad revenue. Then they also tell you how to disable updates so they can get more clicks and ad revenue.
It’s disingenuous and probably harmful to be telling people to disable updates that lead them to be exposed to vulnerabilities.
I hate Windows for all the monetisation and privacy issues but I never really had problems with it killing my computer.
I had a Windows 10 update fuck up my laptop for about 15 hours until it somehow magically unfucked itself and started working again once.
But thats about it
As a linux fanboy, the primary issues that I faced with Windows (Win10 nearly a decade ago) are
- very slow updates
- constant 100% disk usage after boot
- high background process usage
- [Rare] messing with my dual partition setup
- The final error which caused me to format my PC -> After logging in, the desktop froze, no icons showing up, no task manager.
If I had never used Linux, these wouldn’t even seem like problem; just normal Windows shenanigans. But after using Linux, I can never go back. I don’t know how much worse/better Win11 is now but can’t be bothered to try.
A future Linux enjoyer spotted
Not everyone likes Linux.
Why wouldn’t you?
Hard to figure out. Have to settle for similar but different apps. Video drivers not built in. Inconsistant bluetooth. Update all breaks everything. Hard to get support for your individual set-up when Linux is so fractured.
Just to name a few.
Man. That’s some weak-sauce arguments against linux. In my experience, just a default Mint install with no stuffing around of any kind came with fully-functional video drivers and bluetooth. No update has ever broken anything; and the first thing that launches after a fresh install is a menu with bunch of different ways to get personal support for Mint.
I don’t like Ubuntu that much but one thing they really do right is a tool that made installing the few drivers not built into the kernel stupid easy. That’s the number one thing I see people mess up with Nvidia drivers. You always install Nvidia drivers through your distro app store/package manager never the website.
I understand the mistake but it’s painful to see someone manually install Nvidia drivers from their website just for it to shit the bed in a kernel update.
I’m sure the update manager was probably very important back in the day but I am glad updates come through the software manager now. Even though I don’t use it it’s very intuitive.
When I installed Mint my entire video screen was tinted blue. Bluetooth sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t. People yelled at me for having a Dell PC in support forums, and when I followed the advice of someone trying to help, he suggested to update all, and when I did the fans stopped working.
Hard to figure out
Which part? The one where to install an app, instead of downloading a .exe you search for the app in the package manager?
Have to settle for similar but different apps.
That’s not exclusive to Linux though. Like for example moving to MacOS you wouldn’t really expect for all the apps to work either?
Video drivers not built in.
Video drivers aren’t built into Windows either? And on Linux AMD’s drivers are, and for Nvidia, you’ll probably have Noveau installed.
Inconsistent bluetooth.
How? I’ve found BT to just work on Linux, while on Windows I had to track down the specific drivers.
Update all breaks everything.
Unless you installed Arch (or any rolling release distro) as your first distro, this probably won’t be an issue.
Hard to get support for your individual set-up when Linux is so fractured.
Then maybe install Mint, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS or anything more widespread that does have the support you want?
Ah, I see. So because YOU understand something, and know what you’re doing, and haven’t had anything fail on YOU, then it must be everybody ELSES fault, right? Meanwhile Linux has less than 5% of PC userbase, and that INCLUDES Chromebooks.
I don’t think it’s even fairly controversial to say that Windows over the last couple of versions have turned into an unmitigated privacy dumpster fire, and only looking to get worse, and MacOS is and always has been a walled garden which offers very little in the way of customization or individuality.
Yet despite all that, Linux only has about 4% marketshare, because nobody is able to use it. But hey, must be 95% of societys fault, and not the direct result of a confusing to use interface, right? And if YOUR bluetooth works fine, and doesn’t refuse to connect at random until you restart, that must be something I’m making up and doesn’t exist, right?
Hard to figure out.
It’s much easier nowadays. I find Windows much more hard to figure out now that I’ve made the switch. At the very least, everything in Linux takes very few steps to perform tasks and install programs compared to Windows.
Have to settle for similar but different apps.
The sooner you do it, the faster you’ll be free. Once you do, you can be confident that said program won’t undergo enshitification since it’s open source. That said some apps can’t be replaced like Photoshop if it’s for work. I like Gimp, but I understand it’s not for everyone.
Video drivers not built in.
It pretty much is now if you install an Nvidia specific distros. AMD is preferable of course.
Inconsistant bluetooth.
Totally fair.
Update all breaks everything.
Use a rolling release distro like Debian or Fedora and you should be fine.
Linux is not perfect, but it’s better than Windows. Nobody will force you to use your computer in a way you don’t want to. It’s so awesome and it’s free. There is no way I’ll ever go back to Windows. Linux is the ideal OS for so many people (especially those who go the extra mile to modify Windows heavily) they just don’t know it yet.
Use a rolling release distro like Debian
?
I LOVE Linux and I am still to lazy to use it on my gaming PC… normal folks don’t want anything to do with it. Effort is an allergen.
what afford is there with steam?
but yeah if it is not steam, fair
My biggest issue with Windows (at least on my desktop) is with my GPU driver for my Intel Arc A770 LE. Windows Update will not stop automatically “updating” my driver to a driver that was made about a year and a half ago. It’s too old that Intel Arc Control doesn’t even work with it. It doesn’t matter how I install the latest driver from Intel, I can DDU the old one, install the driver and wipe all custom configurations or just install it normally. Nothing works, upon the next reboot, it automatically says “there’s an update” and installs regardless if I want it or not. The driver installation also has a 50/50 chance of blue screening my whole system when installing, both the installation from Windows update, and from Intel. The Window driver “updates” for my driver have also just happened randomly with no notice, they’ve occurred during hour long Blender renders, crashing it and wasting hours of my time redoing work. (This is all on Windows 10). It is frustrating to deal with
Meanwhile, my Linux install on the same computer just runs mesa and I’ve had no issues at all with my GPU. (Or any issues with drivers really, it all just works).
Although it didn’t “kill” my computer. Whenever I still used Windows, it would spontaneously install this outdated driver which would either blue screen or crash whatever I was in the middle of doing such as working in Blender, playing a game, etc.
It’s kind of disingenuous of you to proudly say, “I don’t use the same version of Windows that this person likely does and I don’t have the same issues that this person does so they must be full of shit”.
There aren’t many versions of windows since 10 and 2016. They are all very similar now.
There are vast differences between Windows home and Windows pro and Windows Enterprise editions as far as how easy it is to control and block off the annoyance ware that Microsoft builds into it.
If you use deployment software to roll out your images after standardizing them and have a set image that you can deploy to a thousand computers as easily as one then it’s very simple to sign in with a local domain account and disable the windows things through a group policy and just start rocking and rolling whereas your average Windows home user is not going to even have access to GPO and we’ll have to tediously for each and every single computer every single time they reset it redo all of the things to disable all of Microsoft’s crap activation.
They are not entirely different but definitely distinct versions of Windows and dismissing the home and non-enterprise users that their experience is inferior to your experience on the Enterprise side is what I’m saying is disingenuous
I’ve found the more you mess with defaults the more likely you’ll encounter problems.
The article author was talking about their work PC anyways.
Gpo/Intune just allows you make mistakes at scale.
The author was talking about their work computer suddenly not booting up the next day. The windows version differences wouldn’t cause this.
It’s kind of a wide disparity for something that’s so locked down, though. It’s not as though one person is saying they get occasional issues and the other is they often have issues… it’s one person basically saying their own personal computer is nigh unusable and the other providing an example of a large number of examples of that never happening…
It’s far more likely this individual is fucking up their computer on a regular basis, or has a very high bar of usability that is broken any time there is even the slightest hiccup or inconvenience.
That’s the difference between the Home and Pro versions though. The things that generally break on the Home versions are all the things not generally enabled on a domain controlled Pro version. Thisbis more about Microsoft just being bad at small updates versus these giant roundup packages they like to ship.
What things? Home just doesn’t have GPO as far as I know.
The interesting thing for me is that I own two different surface pro 7 tablets. I have one for work and one for home (now that work doesn’t require me to bring my own device anymore). The work surface has windows 10 pro on it. My home one doesn’t, The difference is very interesting. The IT team have disabled a lot of stuff on my work surface that I don’t even have access to on my home unit. I don’t often have bugs from updates breaking things at work. I do at home though which is enough for me to perhaps upgrade the windows key on my home unit someday. If I don’t install linux first which is a possibility.
I find this to either be a lie or self inflicted.
“I’ve never experienced what you describe, so it must be either imagined or your own fault.”
I’ve seen this nonsense over and over again in communities of all kinds, most often in tech forums (where there are always a few participants suffering from a big-fish-little-pond effect). It’s a very rude and foolish bit of human behavior.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Not just me, many others.
I think the guy you’re replying to is probably right, just because you can tell from the article the author is not really an expert or advanced user.
But I upvoted you because honestly we do not get enough random Shakespeare on online comments lol
My two cents, I could say the same as the author. My Windows work laptop most of the times cannot wake up from sleep (you know, opening the lid after it’s closed) so I have to force a restart. There’s a 50% or less chance that Bluetooth and WiFi won’t work at all (they won’t be displayed on Windows, like it’s not even a feature) after I turn the laptop on, so most of my pre-work morning is restarting the laptop until it’s working as intended. It’s the third laptop I got from them, they’re different models but they’re all HP, and they all had problems. The Macs and the same HP laptops running Linux have none of these issues.
It’s disingenuous and probably harmful to be telling people to disable updates that lead them to be exposed to vulnerabilities.
That is probably why Microsoft forced updates on people in W10.
I can kind of feel the author on this. I’m in charge of a lot of “special projects” at work that basically come down to, “figure out a way to replicate this extremely expensive technology or software using low cost or free alternatives”. It ends up being an unholy mix of programs and hardware that is held together with duct tape and super glue and any minor perturbation means something breaks.
Sounds like less of a Windows problem than an individual problem, though.
Blaming Windows cause your Frankenstein machine breaks often is disingenuous.
I’m not passing blame. Just giving an example.
Doesn’t even need updates, in the 10 years I was on Windows it didn’t want to start after shutting it down again like 7 times
I hated having to reinstall every year
There have been two distinct Windows updates in recent memory that have broken things.
-
The one that stopped network printers from working, and you had to change a specific GPO setting which was not available in Intune at the time, meaning I had to do it manually on each computer.
-
The one that removed all shortcuts to Office 365 apps from the desktop and start menu, necessitating a repair… manually on each affected machine.
So it does happen on occasion. It’s not as bad as in the XP days, but it still can be a little sketchy at times
I had an update completely and permanently bricked my webcam, and another that fucked up my audio (but eventually got fixed months later).
Odd, i didn’t need to address either of these.
I would have scripted it for Intune.
This was before proactive remediations were a thing. Script probably would’ve worked, although I find them a bit vague as to how they work
Intune was def missing a lot of features early on.
-
Seriously, anytime people make complaints like these about windows, it just tells me they are either
- Tweaking their system in ways far beyond what the OS is designed for (which is fine, but then don’t blame Microsoft when updates break your system)
- Doesn’t know how to use a computer
- Knows how to use a computer but is willfully ignorant so they can rant at MS and get clicks
- Incredibly unlucky and not representative of the general population
Tweaking their system in ways far beyond what the OS is designed for
That’s the issue: the way microshit is taking windows is not acceptable for an increasing number of people.
Why would I allow Satya the creep to control my PC that I paid money for.
Also, why are they putting ads into it.
Updates rolling back privacy settings, although this stopped now.
Forced online accounts.
At what point is it too much for you? I bet over next few years microshit will get to you too lol
While I agree with most of what you’re saying, it’s also stupid to blame Microsoft for breaking your computer if you forcefully uninstall the Windows store, despite the fact that it’s needed for parts of certain updates.
A lot of the “debloaters” have no fucking idea what they’re actually doing and are uninstalling/disabling critical parts of the OS so the task manager shows less RAM usage (because God forbid you actually use your damn RAM).
Yeah they just need to accept their fate and join Linux.
At some point, fucking with Windows is note time and you have to be always doing it.
Linux you have set it up but after that it just works
#1 is by and far the cause I see when people ask me ‘why did thing break?!’
There’s a lot of ‘Well, I edited the registry and then deleted these two files and installed this 3rd party software so that it looks like it did in Windows XP!’ floating in my circles, which almost entirely correlates to the people who are mad that their install is, yet again, broken/not working as expected/having weird problems.
Of course, people are doing this because Microsoft can’t stop shitting up Windows in a way that annoys people, and thus leading them to do things that maybe aren’t the best idea.
So, in summary: it’s a land of contrasts, but stop adding bullshit nobody wants Microsoft.
Yet further proof that all anyone really wants is Windows xp with modern support.
Well, people are trying to do just that. Small team and moves slowly, but slow progress is still progress.
Will it run on a Raspberry Pi 4, 4GB?
That is what people want out of Windows, it dove off a cliff from there. I’d still be using Linux, but it’d be a harder choice if the alternative was XP instead of Data Harvesting Simulator 11 begging me to subscribe to me own hardware.
The year 2000 was peak human technology. It’s been downhill in every way since, until generative AI - which is f’in amazing. But let’s be real, the future belongs to the bots.
Can confirm. N64 existed before year 2000…but not WWF No Mercy, which came out in 2001. Lets call it 2002 was peak. Pretty sure GTA Vice City was out by then.
Honestly, I’d get on-board with just about anytime 2000 to 2010. The enshittification of the internet and social-media-driven comment culture didn’t start in earnest until smart phones took off.
The thing that usually kills windows is shitty drivers. So people with different hardware can have completely different experiences.
Summary:
- The author expresses dissatisfaction with the commercial and impersonal feel of modern Windows operating systems.
- Past versions of Windows were disconnected and resilient, providing a more personal user experience.
- Advertising integration in Windows has made it feel cheaper and less user-friendly.
- Updates, intrusive changes, settings modifications, and lack of control are common issues plaguing modern Windows systems.
- The author compares the current Windows experience to the offline glory days of Windows, highlighting the shift in user experience.
- Windows now includes advertising, which some users find intrusive and unwanted.
- Updates on Windows often lead to issues, with users experiencing broken computers after updates.
- Users complain about settings changing after updates, impacting their preferences and privacy settings.
- The author switched to macOS due to technical issues with Windows updates, appreciating the user experience on macOS.
- Linux is praised for respecting its users by providing the operating system for free without intrusive ads.
- The author hopes for a future version of Windows that offers more user control and less interference from Microsoft’s software-as-a-service products.
did chatgpt wrote that for you
Lol, when I do summaries from now on, I’m going to have to start them with “Blorf blarf, I’m a human” or something. I’ve been accused of using GPT for things I’ve written myself. No, no GPT (not now or ever). I just know how to use words when I want to.
…You’re not OP.
…it was an anecdote. 🤦🏼♂️
Sprinkle “I am indeed an actual human” throughout the summary so LLMs learn to associate summarization with insisting that one is a human.
very obviously yes. Twice as many bullet points as a human would put in a summary, passive voice, and “the author xxx” are all telltale signs
TIL nobody in academia is human.
The author hopes for a future version of Windows that offers more user control and less interference from Microsoft’s software-as-a-service products.
Currently there is zero incentive for Microsoft to do this, and only upside potential to keep doing what they’re doing.
You’d need thousands of companies to abandon their dependency on Windows, Office, and the entire Microsoft ecosystem for them to change course now.
I just got a new laptop and was genuinely gonna try windows 11 and wsl for my coding needs. But in first boot, it demands internet to do updates. Ok, I connect to coffee shop wifi. Nope, won’t do it because it can’t handle the click through screen to accept wifi ToS. Fine. I take it home, where my Internet is great but has a glitch where it drops out for a few seconds now and then. Turns out that windows will literally cancel updating and demand I reconnect and restart for the kind of drop that I barely notice day to day. So I gave up, plugged in my ArchLinux thumb drive, and
mkfs.ext4before rsyncing my entire old computer to itYou use Arch Linux but can’t fix your wifi?
Actual autism I know
I mean you probably want to have internet when you install any OS…
Haha… NO
Right. Having your OS up to date is not important, I suppose?
There is a difference between asking nicely and shoving down the throat.
I didn’t say otherwise…
Microsoft tried nicely during the XP era. We all know how it ended. The average user shall never be trusted with security.
The fact that it’s a requirement - and moreover automatically creates and integrates with MS cloud services - is what people don’t like.
Nobody is arguing that it’s a bad idea to let your chosen distro installer automatically pull the most up-to-date packages.
They gave it access to the internet twice.
PERFECT!
I don’t understand why this meme [template] exists. Did they rocket this guy up there to shoot him? Why would be be in space if he couldn’t be trusted with the truth?
I think the original showed the earth being a flat disk and the first astronaut says “it’s really flat?” And the second one says “always has been”. But is about to shoot him to keep the knowledge of it safe from the masses.
But in this case, the one with the gun is Microsoft.
I’m not sure why you were downvoted but you’re right about the origin. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wait-its-all-ohio-always-has-been
Yes and why the fuck would someone like that be flown into space
It’s a meme.
It is? I remembered the original as the continent being a giant Idaho and the first astronaut asks “it’s all Idaho?”
Here’s what I found about it. https://amp.knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-wait-its-all-ohio-the-always-has-been-meme-explained
Microsoft is constantly experimenting with how far they can push users into a corner and get away with it. There might be a day when Microsoft caves and releases a Windows that is more like what we wanted, but I imagine it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better. We have not yet seen the worst MS has to
offerforce upon us.Just look at how bad the car industry is now. Your car spies on EVERYTHING.
Windows can still get a lot worse before we begin to see an improvement.
There might be a day when Microsoft caves and releases a Windows that is more like what we wanted, but I imagine it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.
I thought that was going to be with Windows 10’s forced updates and telemetry, but people just stopped caring. I’m pretty much assuming that’ll be the same for the current batch of nonsense. I can’t imagine how bad it would have to get for the general public to say “enough is enough”.
Every bullshit move just creates more Linux users.
Best marketing Linux ever got lol
It WOULD if someone could create something that’s essentially Android on PC.
Work in progress, it will get there one day.
But it is good enough for most PC gamers which is attracting a lot of development that makes Linux more friendly.
OOOOOHHHH!!! Is this able to be run on Raspberry pi 4??? 4GB model? I would LOVE to try this out for a weekend on one of my spare memory cards.
Not sure what you’re asking. Linux is able to run on a Pi 4 just fine. If you want to play games, you’ll need to emulate x86 using either Box64 or FEX, but there will be performance issues.
Linux will run on it. But you need a gaming rig to game tho lol
But what about ReactOS that you linked. Will it run on Raspberry Pi 4?
That’s fine. I’ll just stick with Windows 7 for the next 30 years.
Let’s be honest, very few people who talk about how much they hate Microsoft will even consider alternatives
It’s not a failure to consider the alternatives that slows adoption, it is the very real material problems with those alternatives.
It’s not fair that a multinational corporation gets to wield virtually limitless power to starve the alternatives of oxygen and create as much friction as possible in the process of switching, but it is a very real problem, and blaming the users won’t solve anything.
Most people believe they will start seeing problems where there were none before. They need to invest time into research about their use-cases, which is a cost even before switching.
The typical user used Windows since before they became scared of change, so that’s what they’ll stick with.
The pain of using Windows still can and will be higher without the majority of people switching to anything.
The typical user used Windows since before they became scared of change, so that’s what they’ll stick with.
In some ways this was me, then win 11 came around and I really didn’t like it, and it was pretty unstable for me, so I was stuck between two options for change, neither being what I would call “comfortable” (I had to, win 10 was blue screening literally every other day) which was when I saw the steam deck announcement, (also the LTT Linux Challenge) and I haven’t given win 11 a serious try sense
I don’t want to point fingers/cast shade or anything. Hell, I myself resist change where I can.
It costs incredible amounts of energy and time to change, and that change might even be counter productive to some or most of the things you do.
Gratulations on starting Linux, I hope it does everything you need it to do. Even if you should end up using it only for a short amount of time, I hope the experience enriches you.
Yes, because I need Adobe to do my meh wage part-time job in developing country from my one and only working laptop and I don’t have the luxury of surplus money, time, and mental energy to do anything about it.
But I get your point. If I have the means, I will fix my broken Thinkpad and definitely install Linux there the first chance I get. Either that or Adobe finally release Linux version, which will probably be released after Half-Life 3.
I can’t wait to try Endeavor (so I can finally be an obnoxious person who say “I used Arch-based distro, btw”)
Either that or Adobe finally release Linux version, which will probably be released after Half-Life 3.
Yeah, I’ve seen what Adobe’s support looks like. I remember the linux version of Flash Player. The guy in charge of it whined on the official Adobe blog on the subject that he had to support “minority browsers” which at the time was everything but Internet Explorer on Windows.
You can run adobe products on Linux with Wine.
you could always duel boot or VM for your adobe stuff.
Adobe, you mean photoshop? https://github.com/MisconceivedSec/photoshop-22-linux
I used to help maintain a Linux distro, and there is a level of polish Windows has that I feel cannot be reached by the FOSS ecosystem due the resources dumped into hiring dedicated teams at MS. Microsoft has tons of money. I’m sad about the direction of windows, but it generally works pretty well for how it’s designed (which is in some cases awful).
That’s my point, people may complain but nothing else competes.
Acceptance is the last stage of grief. You are ready to move on.
It’s like when people in abusive relationships suddenly realize that their partner doesn’t actually care about them, and everyone around them is like “Yeah, no shit. Fucking leave their ass.”
I switched all of my Windows systems over to Windows 10 LTSC a few months ago, and it’s been a game-changer. I still get security updates, but no advertisements, bloat, or new “features.” I believe it’s supported until 2032.
After that, I’ll probably switch my remaining systems over to Linux, but until then, it’s not half bad.
I ran ltsc for a few months… Then I found it didn’t have simple stuff like the camera app? I forget why, but there was one all I really needed that I didn’t have, so after fighting trying to install it, I just want back to Windows pro. I might give windows enterprise a try though.
VLC, Open Capture Device would probably have worked. Or OBS if you wanted to get fancy.
I’m thinking about doing it too but with w11
I haven’t tried W11 LTSC. Even if you cut out the bloat, I just can’t stand the interface. Hopefully 12 is better, but I’m not hopeful.
The interface is fine. The inconsistency of it is awful. Makes me wonder how the most popular os in the world, can that be bad and useless.
You got it the wrong way round. It’s awful because it is the most popular os. If you look back at Windows XP or 7, they were clean, consistent and a pleasure to use. Everybody had XP, then 7 and by then it was too late and everybody was used to it and Microsoft can do whatever they want now and people will just take it because they’ve always used Windows. No need to put in effort.
it’s pre-installed on everything by default. that’s the only reason it’s “”“popular”“”
People that lived through getting kicked off XP are like “w11 interface is fine. I’ve been through worse”
“popular” as it “it came on every computer every Luddite got from Best Buy and contracted to every business”
Honestly, it Linux was as easy as Windows and played every steam game without any effort, windows would drown a slow death.
Hopefully 12 is better
Hahaha. Oh man, I needed that laugh. Thanks. 🥲 This is a one way journey until all computers look and behave like smartphones. Hopefully I’ll have dementia by then so I won’t remember how amazing computers used to be.
It’s so weird to me that Lemmy is full of anti-Windows, anti-Google posts but the comments are always “I’m thinking about switching.”
How about… just do it?
I don’t know what I’m trying to say but being 20 years into “Windows-free” a few years of “Google-free” it’s tiring. I know everyone isn’t me but it’s tough watching this from the other side.
You know it’s not the same person posting every time
Some people have moved passed thinking about it. Others have just started. Its a growing sentiment and more people are starting to feel it.
It’s not easy committing to the change when you have no knowledge of the platform. The status quo is always easier until it no longer is.
Having seen how different Linux is from what it was 20 years ago, it’s way more approachable than it used to be. Most people could adjust pretty quickly, but with so much of the technical bits hidden from sight, the average PC user these days isn’t as tech savvy as they were many years ago, and making the switch can be intimidating.
Good point — I’m pretty far down the rabbit hole. I haven’t really wanted to mess with a non-UNIX/Linux based OS in ages.
Side note: what OS would that be besides DOS or Windows? Old-school Mac OS comes to mind (System 7) but I like playing with modern platforms more than older ones.
Linux won’t work for my needs.
What are your needs, if I may ask?
Give it a couple weeks and maybe by then I’ll hopefully have upgraded from win10 on my desktop to either Spiral or Netrunner. Only thing holding me back from upgrading on my desktop right now is how much stuff I have to save to my new external drive and how it feels like a Herculean task.
I gave Linux a try 2 or 3 times back when I was in school. It was a horrible user experience and games wouldn’t work back then.
Now that games on Linux are a thing, I would love to give it a try once more. But now I have a full-time office job and a family. When I’m off work, I just want to fire up the PC and have everything work, which it does with windows. I also have the Pro version of Windows 11 and don’t experience all of the ad horror that everyone here is talking about.
If I gain back the free time and mental capacity, I’ll give it a try.
Only computer I have Windows on is my laptop and that’s only because it’s fairly new and laptops are notorious for proprietary hardware that’s hard to get decent drivers for. My desktop has had Linux for a couple of years and everything else runs Linux.
I can relate to the anxiety that comes with the thought of switching and finding out you’re missing something essential.
It wasn’t a big deal for me since I’ve used FOSS alternatives for almost everything even on Windows and was hardly gaming anymore when I made the switch (but somewhat ironically I started again on Linux). But that’s hardly the position most unhappy Windows users are in.
That’s a good point too.
I’m primarily a web developer so essentially my entire toolkit is already FOSS and it doesn’t make sense to even run half of it on Windows. Windows is usually the odd one out with weird hacks to make it play nice.
I use macOS a lot too and because it’s UNIX my Linux toolset is available and ported to the OS with (what I understand to be) minimal changes.
And I’ve never needed to deploy to some Windows Server either (the thought frightens me).
Getting rid of Google would require switching phone for me as there isn’t a google free ROM for the Redmi K50 Pro.
