- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
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Ask your doctor if Linux is right for you
He prescribed me a medication but when I went to get it from the pharmacy they just gave me a bunch of precursor chemicals which are just toxic if not combined in the right way. When I asked for help the pharmacist just said “RTFM”
Also, what is a comorbidity?
It isn’t your computer, user license clearly states you’re renting the software. You always have been, it’s just now they can enforce that agreement more readily. Microsoft is making a lot of bad decisions at the moment, but the majority of consumers really don’t care - adverts and surveillance are what they grew up with.
You can switch to Linux, but as much as I love it (it’s my daily driver for work and for travel gaming, oh and the community is absolutely amazing), it’s not 1-1. You will have to jump through hoops sometimes to get things to run (but damn me there are amazing people out there who can and do help). Then again, you own it because it is free, and it will run most things with the right tweaks.
I can’t speak for MACs (too poor to use one, my devices tend to be upgradable or VERY long life), but I hear they’re a better experience in terms of less bloat/adverts. Again though, you are renting with Apple, and are largely trapped in their ecosystem, and they have a ‘reputation’ for lack of repairability…
Let’s be honest, very few people who talk about how much they hate Microsoft will even consider alternatives
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).
I agree with your point, but I never would have thought of describing Windows as “polished”.
It’s a sliding scale
Sure. I could accept hearing “Windows is more polished than most Linux distro’s”. But to say blankly that Windows is polished is crazy talk. It’s jank as balls. Its got like 3 totally discrete and independent UI frameworks for the menus operating in parallel, and somehow none of them provide all the functionality you would need, have to mix and match them.
That’s just a single example. I could rant for hours.
there was a time where that may have been the case, but microsoft has been chipping away at any polish they had for years. sure there’s still some rough edges in linux, but it’s only getting better where windows continues to get worse
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.
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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”)
You can run adobe products on Linux with Wine.
Adobe products barely work correctly on Windows, I wouldn’t want to try to run them in an environment that was even less supported
Like, I’d understand a free version of Windows that has the ads and bloat, but the idea that people are paying $100 for this disrespect is insane.
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?
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Haha… NO
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There is a difference between asking nicely and shoving down the throat.
the fact the install media can’t provide a working desktop by itself is pathetic.
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.
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‘ve had several faulty Windows updates in recent years and my machine is pre-built. And going by the threads I sifted through in search of solutions I am far from the only one. It‘s perfectly fine to not have the newest update at all times so as long as you update once a month when you can afford a potential faulty update. Having an older than most recent version is far from your biggest concern regarding security. I would even say it‘s a non-issue compared to good old fishing mails.
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
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.
I hate Windows for all the monetisation and privacy issues but I never really had problems with it killing my computer.
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.
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.
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.
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
#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.
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 more time and you have to be always doing it.
Linux you have set it up but after that it just works
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
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 being extremely unlikely…
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.
In Linux I wanted a window to open in a specific place on boot. Fairly simple bash script.
In Windows FUCK YOU.
With llm’s you can get a lot of bad info but for Linux commands, basic tutorials and scripting Linux is WAY easier to learn nowadays.
Edit didn’t mean to imply Linux is easier than Windows to learn in general.
Would you mind sharing that script? That sounds incredibly useful lol. I’m new-ish to linux as my daily driver and love customizing it!
of course sorry for delay.
Requirements: wmctrl, xdotool
My left screen is 1440p, second screen to the right is 1080 in portrait so you will have to swap the horz/vert locations to match your layout.
#!/bin/bash # Time in seconds to wait after launch of program and manipulation of window timer=5 # Launch FreeCAD maximized on the main screen freecad & sleep $timer # Wait for FreeCAD to launch wmctrl -r "FreeCAD" -b add,maximized_vert,maximized_horz # Launch Cura on the second screen, top half cura & sleep $timer # Wait for Cura to launch xdotool search --onlyvisible --name "Ultimaker Cura" windowsize 540 960 windowmove 2560 0 # Launch Firefox on the second screen, bottom half firefox & sleep $timer # Wait for Firefox to launch xdotool search --onlyvisible --name "Mozilla Firefox" windowsize 540 960 windowmove 2560 960 echo "Applications have been launched and positioned."
Edit didn’t mean to imply Linux is easier than Windows to learn in general.
It is though. People just neglect that in today’s world, no one “learns” Windows from scratch.
Learning to do anything from scratch is easier on most Linux distros than on Windows. The tools are better and the documentation is light years ahead. Windows is a steaming pile of horseshit in comparison. But once you’ve made yourself a cozy nest in the middle of said pile, getting to the comfy whirlpool hot tub that is linux requires you to scale over the walls of horseshit surrounding your nest. And that is what makes people claim “but Linux hard, muh duh!”
In atleast 3 distros I wanted to add program at start-up, easy peasy on windows , Linux is mess , some has gui for that but these three distorsion HAD ZERO option for it and I still don’t know how to do it.
In windows i want to serch for here is program installed, so easy to know and find . In Linux I had to fight multiple terminal commands ( in 2024 no less) and ev n then indid not come across whwre is the program installed
In Linux I plugged in hdd and wanted a program to acess its content, turns out I can’t do that without mumbo jumbo or wv n with it Whwre as in windows , inplug it and VOILA! I can access it across anything.
Linux MAY be good at something , but it still sucks for real Common usage.
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.
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.
It’s not like it’s difficult to switch these days. Try something like Bazzite or Nobara and gaming should work out of the box.
Keep in mind it’s still a drastic reduction in security by default.
What are you talking about? Windows isn’t very secure to begin with. Bazzite in particular is one of the more secure Linux desktop distros as it’s immutable and comes with SELinux enabled by default. It’s secure enough to actually cause me problems lol.
It’s a real challenge to get a fully encrypted system with secure boot (easier now but still hit or miss with Linux) and tpm.
What you’re describing is the user level security model which is as you said restrictive enough to be annoying, and more controlled than windows.
Edit: undid autocorrect from user level to user never 🙄
I don’t use or particularly believe in secure boot.
I have a fully encrypted root partition, with automatic unlocking using the TPM. Wasn’t even that hard to setup either. Bazzite makes it fairly easy to enroll a secure boot key if you really want that, as do some other distros. Nothing you are describing is that difficult.
A lot of systems use AppArmour instead of SELinux, as this is easier to work with while still providing enhanced security.
It’s not hard to set up if you already have sufficient baseline technical knowledge to feel comfortable copy-pasting the right commands from the Internet with hope that you don’t brick your computer (which ironically fedora or opensuse kinda did although I eventually found out how to work around the failure which makes my laptop permanently unable to use an older version of Linux lololol).
Arch was really easy to set up, I followed tutorials for fedora from fedora which never worked, and opensuse worked until a power outage then never again. So easy. So simple.
Secureboot with shim is the easiest, the arch (/standalone) way seems to work better and more securely since it’s my own keys, but again depends on feeling a lot of unearned confidence. Some distros like Ubuntu and suse include mechanisms for secureboot, others do not, hence hit or miss.
Tldr I know what you’re telling me, and from my pov and experience none of that changes what I said for the average “go on, try Linux, you’ll like it” user.
I’m using Linux on servers and for self hosting, but Linux on a desktop is a sick joke.
Linux on desktop is amazing. My experience has been absolutely flawless.
Except for (raytraced) games, for your Logitech keyboard, your Razer headset, your Xbox Controller not connecting, your Windows-only Software that won’t work.
It’s terrible. You probably just found a way to live with it and get used to.
Ray tracing works on Linux just fine. I don’t know what your talking about. I have software to control the lights on my Asus laptop keyboard if needed, my other keyboard is not addressable RGB anyway. I’ve seen Linux work with controllers too. Maybe not Xbox specifically, though I think there is a way to do that too.
Edit: Logitech keyboards have support: https://pwr-solaar.github.io/Solaar/
There are projects for supporting the Xbox controllers too: https://github.com/medusalix/xone
As I said in another post
I’m very well aware that all of these problems can be fixed. But you need to put extra work in. There is no benefit for doing that.
But you need to put extra work in
Uh, no? You just install one application to configure your Logitech peripherals. Just like you would install an application on Windows. It takes like 15 seconds to google “logitech keyboard linux” and the second result you get is Solaar.
For Xbox controllers, it’s just one package that you need to install.
This is one of the few rare cases, where the Linux kernel doesn’t include a driver, and you manually need to install it. It’s the exact opposite on Windows. You basically need to install all your drivers manually, since Linux is mostly a monolithic kernel, and Windows is not. I can name enough cases where you need to install extra drivers on Windows, in order to get basic functionality. For example if you want to connect your Android phone, every manufacturer has their own drivers that you need to manually install on Windows. On Linux, these are built in.There is no benefit for doing that.
There are many benefits. Linux is free, doesn’t force you to create an account, doesn’t show you ads, doesn’t collect and sell your personal data, doesn’t try to force you to use a specific browser, has lower resource usage and better performance, especially on older devices, doesn’t have stupid and arbitrary hardware requirements, has better security, most of the applications are free and open source, you can customize your OS to suit your needs and there’s a great community. And most importantly, you have full control over your computer.
Since fixing these things are so easy, why don’t we continue with fixing my 5.1 Surround speaker that are plugged in with basic 3.5mm plugs and don’t work at all? And my GSync monitor that isn’t doing its GSync stuff. And my games having subpar performance. How about my Mincraft Modrinth Mod launcher that has like 10 fps just in the menu. Then let’s also fix all the DRM issues with Netflix and Prime.
I’ve been using Linux in Dual boot for decades for development purposes. But only for this. Because the list of problems is extremely long. I know I can fix all of that somehow but I’m just not going to do that. When I have a problem, I’ll just boot over to Windows where I usually don’t have it or it’s easier to fix.
Ray tracing works fine, I don’t know what you mean?
I don’t have a Logitech keyboard, but I find it hard to believe something as simple as a keyboard doesn’t work. I have a Logitech mouse and that’s completely fine.
My Xbox controller connects just fine with no special behaviour required.
Windows only software mostly works flawlessly. Almost all of my games are “windows only”, and they all work fine. Which is astonishing, really. How many other OSes virtually flawlessly run software from other OSes without any tinkering?
It’s amazing. Everything just works. Plug and play. No headaches like with Windows.
- Well Raytracing doesn’t work in Cyberpunk 2077. Besides that, some other games also have terrible performance. Even Minecraft, that’s running natively. Constant stutters with low GPU utilization.
- Logitech keyboard works but I cannot configure it because the software is not supported on Linux
- Xbox controller does not connect with the dongle unless I install the xone drivers
- I can think of a dozent more software other than the Logitech one that don’t have an installation for Linux
Sure you can fix any of these problems above like running Windows software with Wine or installing the appropriet drivers. But I don’t want to do that if I can just use Windows with no extra work.
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Ray tracing works in everything I’ve tried it in. I don’t have Cyberpunk but a quick Google tells me that it does have ray tracing and it does work in Linux.
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So the keyboard does work, you just insist on using one specific piece of software to make the keys pretty and refuse to use any others? Does it have a MacOS/iPadOS/Android version? I suspect not. Sounds like a shit product tbh, but it clearly works, unlike what you said earlier.
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Again, Xbox controller works fine. Wired, with the dongle, Bluetooth. All work great, no additional steps, completely plug and play.
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I can name a bunch of software that doesn’t support Windows, Mac, iOS, Android. I don’t see how this is an OS problem. Linux has wider software support than anything else.
You know you have to install drivers in Windows, right? And that it’s more cumbersome? With Linux in 99% of cases it’s in the kernel and you don’t need to install anything. Sometimes you’ll need to do something like type “Nvidia” into your software centre and click install.
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- Well Raytracing doesn’t work in Cyberpunk 2077. Besides that, some other games also have terrible performance. Even Minecraft, that’s running natively. Constant stutters with low GPU utilization.
I suspect you have GPU driver issues. What distro and graphics card are you running? Have you installed GPU drivers if your on Nvidia.
- Logitech keyboard works but I cannot configure it because the software is not supported on Linux
You just install solaar instead of the official software, one and done. Have you even tried?
- Xbox controller does not connect with the dongle unless I install the xone drivers
So install it then.
Sure you can fix any of these problems above like running Windows software with Wine or installing the appropriet drivers. But I don’t want to do that if I can just use Windows with no extra work.
None of this is extra work compared to working around Microsoft and Windows trying to push their garbage. Two Windows 11 systems breaking is what led to me switching back to Linux for the last time. Having to reinstall because of Windows issues is a lot more effort than installing a couple things.
Getting rid of Google would require switching phone for me as there isn’t a google free ROM for the Redmi K50 Pro.
GrapheneOS for the Google Pixel. I’m using a Google Pixel 4 which was like $120 and super easy to flash. I’m from the US, so I understand if things might be different where you are.
That would be a hilariously bad downgrade. I could probably afford to replace mine with a Google Pixel 6, but that would still be a significant downgrade (90Hz screen). After having two phones at 120Hz, I won’t go lower.
25% reduction in refresh rate to only 4x the historical standard that most humans alive grew up with balanced against any semblance of privacy seems like an easy win…
It’s not just that though is it? It’s a slower SoC, less RAM, possibly less storage, lower screen resolution, and I would be spending money to get it after just upgrading my phone a few months ago. So a downgrade in every other category while paying for it. On top of that losing banking apps and breaking the warranty. In what world does that make sense?
It’s something I could consider when looking for a new phone, but not right now. The fact you have to buy a new phone just to get a different ROM is absurd. In the PC world you can just install any different OS you pretty much fancy, with relatively few hardware issues in the way (such as Nvidia).
I don’t know what you’re responding to, I’m responding to a comment about refresh rate.
Maybe follow the conversation. I was comparing my current phone to the Pixel 6
