That was…stupidly easy lol Thank you so much!

Took ya that long? As soon as they went “That’s right fuckface.”, it was over lol. I knew whatever was gonna follow would be some unhinged shit…and it was, save for that one nugget of wisdom that was thrown in there about shutting up and using what you wanted (that of course, they wouldn’t follow. If they did this wouldn’t exist in the first place)

So basically, “they’re trashing KDE, Gnome, SystemD, etc, so I’m gonna trash XFCE/MATE/GRUB/anything that isn’t the latest bleeding edge stuff?”

Cuz that’s what i get outta that whole, article…that and that you really, really like to swear.

This so much. It’s like, you’d think when you shell out cash to pay for a license (or well, I did anyways. But tbf, most PCs you buy come with a valid license), you’d at least be entitled to do as you will with your copy of the OS (within reason, i mean. Yeah, less than legal stuff, go off Microsoft, but stuff like settings and such?) But, well…Microsoft just loves telling you “you opted out, but what you REALLY meant was to opt in. Source: because we say so” with basic settings, not surprising the do it for an OS…of course they would. My bud said it best at the time: they don’t care how you gain it, they just want everone to be on Windows 10

Two things made me leave. Both having to do with Windows.

1. Microsoft themselves.

2. My Windows install was just…bad. I’m not sure how else to describe a Windows that frequently crashed and just gave up and Blue Screen. Sure, both probably happen to any normal Windows install (well, the 1st thing. If you get the second, yeah that’s a problem)–but not at the frequency it happened with mine, I’m sure. Besides that, it was slow for no reason (AFAIA, anyways) and doing anything took a while. Yeah, I eventually reinstalled it after some hassle, and after that it was just slow, but then i made the fatal mistake of trying Windows 11 and was like “if this is what I’m eventually ganna have do deal with…no thanks.” Tbf, Microsoft was promting it, so i assumed it was an upgrade to Windows 10, not a wannabe chromebook with some baffling “lets fix what isn’t broken and works great as is” choices.

Well, thinking about it, there was a third reason i ususally neglect to mention:

3. I had a choice. I like looking at all my available options and choosing what to go with instead of having something chosen for me. I’m a big boy and can make my own choices for myself, thank you (looking right at you there, Bill). As soon as i heard “there’s something else besides this or an Apple Product. And it’s much better than some people like to give it credit for” i researched a bit on the differences, the requirements, and a good place to start, and well, here I am.

As for what I am, IDK. I’m a happy Linux user, but i also get some people are perfectly happy Windows users (or aren’t, but are locked into the ecosystem regardless) and hey, as long as we agree that both OS’s have their quirks, you let me keep my penguins, and I’ll let ya keep your…erm, Windows (does Windows have a mascot? I doubt it, but you never know)

Oh I know it can be installed, but after the headache I got re-installing 10 once before and then trying to get 11 running on…anything, really, i just decided “you know what? What will be will be at this point. I’m not gonna need it for much anyways.” when i finally got 11 to accept and install into a random external drive that i never really used (it didn’t like the one i had inside my PC reserved specifically for it. Somehow…).

(Note: this was a while back, so installation could be a helluva lot better now and i have upgraded a bit since then but, shrug. Already got Windows ready to go on a drive, and only have it because I might need it moreso than me actually wanting to have it, so meh)

That is…true, actually. The longer I use Linux, the more I’m like “…but what if, man, what if I ditch Arch for Fedora or NixOS or give Pop_OS! another chance (and i very well might when Cosmic launches)?” And sometimes I do…and then always come crawling back.

Going back to Windows full time ain’t even crossed my mind for a hot minute. Partly because i have a spare driver running it for emergencies (that i barely use anyways, only because Windows literally runs one important app that I need, that I can’t run on Linux), and partly because going back means being stuck with Windows 11 again, and I really dislike Windows 11’s design choices, personally (and Microsoft in general, but i digress).

Arch + XFCE on my desktop. Have been for a while now, and everytime i try something else, I always come back to it. For my laptop, I’ve been using Gnome + extensions (Arch as well. That way I don’t gotta switch gears and remember two different sets of commands) before i had to take it in for repairs. Was pretty good because of the mousepad gestures IMO.

Could probably be me being ignorant, but how does this look “run down” exactly? It looks like a Walmart, and them looking like this is not strictly a US thing. Walmarts look exactly like this in Mexico too, and from what ever little I seen of em, also look the same in Canada.

But to answer your question, no. Not all shops in the US look have the Walmart look.

Oh, he’s one of those “muh freedoms to be a racist jackass are being censored!” types? I mean, from how you called him out in your comment, you seem to have had dealings with this guy (or his alts that I’m guessing were very short lived) in other threads, so I’ll take your word for it if that’s the case. Regardless, it wouldn’t surprise me either way if he was since again, to have to keep making alts to say his piece…

His comments were deleted (as I’m guessing his whole account), but I’m almost morbidly curious about whatever he was claiming to be the cause (I’m gonna wager it was “ThE ELiTe trying to subjegate the masses, man!” for $200?)

If you’re fighting a one man war for privicy? Yeah, that’s pretty much a lost cause. (Also, the “all or nothing” approach will leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth. Pick your fights, and accept that you’ll never be able to keep all away from companies selling em, and that sometimes, sacrifices to your privacy have to be made. Complete removal shouldn’t be the goal when it’s just you going at it–it should be the reduction of what they get as much as feasibly possible without inconveniancing the user)

If you spread and bring that war to the collective? That’s where things are gonna change. Slowly, yeah, but they’ll change.

Ditto. I’ve just never found the use for workspaces myself (like, i understand why they’re there but they never really worked for me). I tried them, didn’t like the flow of it, so i just ignored them (and Gnome for the most part, save Pop_OS, but I’ve a love/hate relationship with it cuz it’s always caused me problems when i try it out. Hopefully the Cosmic Desktop they’re making will run better on my systems) in favor of the windows philosophy myself

Agreed on Vanilla/stock XFCE being rough (and i love XFCE), and vanilla Gnome being divisive, but i’m the opposite of you and love to tinker with my stuff–even KDE, which lools good OOTB i can’t just leave it alone lol

That doesn’t sound like her getting spooked because you didn’t have an insta, it sounds like she got spooked because instead of being straight up and going “I mean, I do, but it’s old and I never really used it at all” you got weird and made up some weird BS about it.

And I know it’s that because not only would it make me raise an eyebrow if some random did something like that to me, I always tell people “Unless you’ve got a Whatsapp, its either text me or call me. The two social medias i have are ancient, I barely used em in the past, and the logins are lost to time I’m pretty sure.” Never given people weird vibes or anything by being honest like that, and we more often than not have a pretty nice time.

Also, being mindful of one’s privacy does not make said person anti-social. I’m pretty protective of mine, but i still reach out and talk to my friends and family near daily via face to face or messaging, am pretty receptive to a stranger or acquaintance wanting to have a chat or a coffee with me after work, all that jazz. That I don’t like the thought of Meta, Samsung, Google, and Microsoft snooping around people’s info, trivial as it may or may not be and thus distince myself from them (within reason, mind. I can cut myself off completely, but that’d be making both life, work, and everything inbetween too much of an unnecessary hassle), doesn’t diminish any of that.

His other comments seem to imply that since it didn’t happen to them, it doesn’t happen on Windows period. That’s just rejecting reality.

I’ve never protrayed Windows as overly terrible in my comments in this thread…or at least, I didn’t mean to if it came out that way (i stand with it being a hassle to actually get it installed tho. Had to jump through so many hoops just for it to pick up the only drive plugged into my PC and recognize “oh hey, it’s a valid drive”. And this was Win10, not 11 either). Windows as an OS is fine, and has its own problems and quirks just like every other OS in existance does. If anything my problem with it comes from Microsoft basically going “no, you’re going to use the OS you paid a liscene for how we say” and them (I assume it’s them, anyways) reverting several of the changes I made to my settings with updates + it being so heavy to install–to where laptops and such that CAN’T handle it still come shipped with it by default despite preforming horribly because of it. But i never brought any of those up, just the fact that one of those updates messed up my install so bad I had to do a re-install, and it was annoying to actually do. I didn’t call it a devil worship machine or whatever the heck the other guy keeps calling Linux lol

Still doesn’t disprove my point that Windows bricking itself is a thing that happens:

https://www.minitool.com/backup-tips/bricked-computer.html

Qoute: “PC bricked issue often occurs, especially you have installed a Windows 10 update. When searching for “bricked computer” in Google, there are many forums on this topic…Well then, how can you fix the bricked computer in Windows 10/8/7 if the brick is caused by the operating system itself (soft brick)?”

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-updates-keep-bricking-my-laptop/7eb5ac2d-fff0-41a7-b008-c59946be4333

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/windows-10-pc-bricked-overnight-please-help.3599394/

“I think its important to point out that Windows has been forcing updates on me that just bluescreen me. Once i blue screen it resets the system to its original config and it boots normally. When asked to schedule a time for the update, I chose 4/27. Sure enough after that, cant boot once.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/ZephyrusG14/comments/pguu58/recent_windows_11_update_bricked_my_g14/

First comment: “This is related to Windows 11, everyone is facing the same issue right now. It seems to be due to an expiring certificate.”

And we can keep going. Microsoft can screw up and ship an update that bricks your hardware. It’s happened before, and will continue to happen again. (And just so we’re clear: Ubuntu, Red Hat or other Linux maintainers, and even Apple with their products, are not exempt from this either. They’re also human and can mess up. But we’re not talking about Linux or Mac, we’re talking about Windows sometimes bricking itself, so they’re irrelevant to this conversation) Why you’re so adamant on denying it ever happens on Windows even tho evidence is a search away and instead paint it as solely a Linux problem is beyond me

It’s not what I think tho, it’s what’s written by others…unless I’m somehow imagining actual search results of people detailing their experiences of their machine, yes. bricking themselves. That, or Google results and Microsoft’s own forum posts are lying. Along with several other threads, videos, and examples. Which i very much douvt is the case here.

It’s a man-made thing. No man-made thing is infallible. They can and sometimes do break or mess up. That shouldn’t be hard to understand, i should think

What’s unintuitive about sudo apt install wine?

In the interest of fairness, maybe the first time you ever do it, yeah, I can see it as someone completely new to this thinking it’s black magic (heck, I’ve used Linux as my daily OS for a while and some of the things users are able to do with their skills, i describe as black magic lol). After a while tho, it becomes no big deal, and the user might even prefer doing it that way because it’s quicker (IMO) to que up a buncha packages to install one after the other vs hunting them all down and installing one by one. But yeah, point is, it can look unintuitive if you’re new to it…but once you’re used to seeing it, it’s like “ah, ok, it’s just another way to do things”

And there also nothing really stopping you from installing stuff the ol Windows way, if that’s how you prefer to do things. Just open your package manager and look up what ya need. Or even open your browser and go to the offical site, they might also have official packages to download.

Either way is valid and up to the user’s prefrences. Never understood why both sides sometimes make it sound as if there’s only one way to install stuff on Linux (not saying you’re doing that here specifically, to be clear, but I’ve seen others do so. The other person kinda is tho).

never had Windows brick on me

Congrats, if that’s true. You’re the exception, not the rule. Windows has bricked itself on several users with a couple of updates before tho (and I know this because one of those is exactly when i learned how much of a removed it can be to actually install on your system), and a quick basic search proves that yeah, this isn’t some rare thing, the OS tends to do that sometimes to the frustration of many.

Yes. The question was “why Arch?”, but specifically the question was asked because Arch demands some level of competance from the user when it comes to fixing and maintaing their own system by nature of it being a rolling release. So yeah, expierence is relevant here.