I have a USB-bootable thumbdrive with Ubuntu 24 on it. Two home systems down, two to go.
My chief concern is that this wave of enshitifiation will eventually make it to Microsoft’s security support. Historically, at least recently, the weekly updates and response to critical vulnerabilities and virus scanning have been pretty good. But now that they’re attacking their own flagship products - Office and Windows itself - I think it’s only a matter of time before they fumble Windows security in a big way.
I’ll also predict that Non-pro Windows will eventually be “free” (as in beer), but will be useless without a live internet connection and cloud services. So now really is the time to switch. IMO, all the money points in that direction.
My chief concern is that this wave of enshitifiation will eventually make it to Microsoft’s security support.
That and their general quality control. It’s already been happening. Their updates and new products have been having some serious issues with a lot more frequency over the last year. At least that’s the strong impression I have. Oh, here’s an article also calling this out: theregister.com/…/microsoft_lacks_quality_control… - apparently they may have started going down this path over a decade ago, but it seems to have accelerated since they started using Gen AI.
Out of curiosity, why does everyone always go for Ubuntu in posts like this? I’ve always hated that distro; all my machines run Fedora instead. IMO Fedora with KDE is way better than Ubuntu with Gnome in terms of usability for people switching over from Windows, but maybe I’m just biased since I’m already super familiar with Linux
I’m also a Fedora KDE user and I agree with you. The only real gripe I have with it is that if you don’t know about the full version of RPM Fusion, you’ll get frustrated that certain things are missing or don’t work right, and the GUI button to enable third-party repos after installation isn’t enough. I personally just skip that button and enable the full version following the directions on their site and then use Discover to enable Flathub.
It took me way more than a decade of using Ubuntu before I got to a point of preferring Fedora, in spite of frequent distro hopping in periods when I was bored.
I think Fedora has gotten better in the last few years, but for me it also feels a bit more cold and unwelcoming maybe? Dunno, but I was always happy with Ubuntu until some really obscure dependencies got into conflict and I had to change things up. Canonical might not be the absolute best, but neither are Red Hat.
Ubuntu doesn’t respect the spirit of free open-source software. They keep jamming proprietary stuff into their distro. There are plenty of better alternatives. (E.g. Debian, OpenSUSE or Fedora for general-purpose distros.)
Use curl.exe otherwise you might invoke the default powershell alias which has different syntax (just learned of this here somewhere some time ago in a meme)
deleted@lemmy.world 2 days ago
curl -L -o ubuntu.iso …ubuntu.com/…/ubuntu-22.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
Yeah. This is better.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I have a USB-bootable thumbdrive with Ubuntu 24 on it. Two home systems down, two to go.
My chief concern is that this wave of enshitifiation will eventually make it to Microsoft’s security support. Historically, at least recently, the weekly updates and response to critical vulnerabilities and virus scanning have been pretty good. But now that they’re attacking their own flagship products - Office and Windows itself - I think it’s only a matter of time before they fumble Windows security in a big way.
I’ll also predict that Non-pro Windows will eventually be “free” (as in beer), but will be useless without a live internet connection and cloud services. So now really is the time to switch. IMO, all the money points in that direction.
Cricket@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
That and their general quality control. It’s already been happening. Their updates and new products have been having some serious issues with a lot more frequency over the last year. At least that’s the strong impression I have. Oh, here’s an article also calling this out: theregister.com/…/microsoft_lacks_quality_control… - apparently they may have started going down this path over a decade ago, but it seems to have accelerated since they started using Gen AI.
belit_deg@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Newest post from Cory Doctorow is about exactly this pluralistic.net/2026/01/06/1000x-liability/#grace…
AMoistGrandpa@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Out of curiosity, why does everyone always go for Ubuntu in posts like this? I’ve always hated that distro; all my machines run Fedora instead. IMO Fedora with KDE is way better than Ubuntu with Gnome in terms of usability for people switching over from Windows, but maybe I’m just biased since I’m already super familiar with Linux
danielton1@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I’m also a Fedora KDE user and I agree with you. The only real gripe I have with it is that if you don’t know about the full version of RPM Fusion, you’ll get frustrated that certain things are missing or don’t work right, and the GUI button to enable third-party repos after installation isn’t enough. I personally just skip that button and enable the full version following the directions on their site and then use Discover to enable Flathub.
deleted@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I run Zorin OS 18 on my desktop. I just commented Ubuntu since more people would understand the comments.
Also, for Surface tablets, I believe Ubuntu is the best option for touchscreen support.
AMoistGrandpa@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Fair enough, thanks for responding
cabbage@piefed.social 2 days ago
It took me way more than a decade of using Ubuntu before I got to a point of preferring Fedora, in spite of frequent distro hopping in periods when I was bored.
I think Fedora has gotten better in the last few years, but for me it also feels a bit more cold and unwelcoming maybe? Dunno, but I was always happy with Ubuntu until some really obscure dependencies got into conflict and I had to change things up. Canonical might not be the absolute best, but neither are Red Hat.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Ubuntu doesn’t respect the spirit of free open-source software. They keep jamming proprietary stuff into their distro. There are plenty of better alternatives. (E.g. Debian, OpenSUSE or Fedora for general-purpose distros.)
danielton1@lemmy.world 1 day ago
A version of Ubuntu that’s nearly 4 years old?
deleted@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The link is no longer working. I just needed a direct link to make the point that’s it. Recent versions have buttons to download with script.
passenger@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Use curl.exe otherwise you might invoke the default powershell alias which has different syntax (just learned of this here somewhere some time ago in a meme)
SleepyPie@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I refuse to use or recommend American distros.
I can confirm Debian 13 works great for newbies.