Comment on The Windows 11 problem
qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Honestly, between the telemetry data collection, the strange hardware requirements, advertisements, bloatware, and unknown future licensing model, Linux is looking like an attractive option. At this point, I only use Windows for Office and gaming, and Linux + Proton has gotten really good lately. I don’t see a reason to use Windows on my personal machine any more.
Linux is fine for people like you and me who are comfortable installing our own operating system, and trouble-shooting any problems. Most ‘normal’ people though will continue to walk into a store, buy a laptop, and use whatever came installed.
Of course, the year of Linux on the desktop actually happened some time ago without anyone noticing. It’s called ChromeOS, and that’s a whole different can of worms.
While true, how much troubleshooting does windows require? Because as I sometimes use windows, it’s not that much less work to get it to do what you want it to do, or solve issues, than linux.
Especially since it feels like windows tries to fight you every step of the way.
Most distributions require little to no troubleshooting, and if they do, someone has probably already posted the solution online. It’s pretty rare these days that you run into a problem that someone else hasn’t and you’re stuck figuring it out yourself.
The only pain point is trying to find the Linux equivalent of the Windows apps that you commonly use. Web browsers are the exact same, but that’s about it. A fair amount of apps to offer Linux counterparts though.
When windows needs fixing, people take it to the best buy genius bar or whatever
While true, how much troubleshooting does windows require?
A surprising amount
Linux is easily fixed but the problem is that the issues that crop up needing to be fixed are generally not pain points on Windows. The first Arch install I did this year was busted and I thought I had broken my networking setup because it wouldn’t connect, but the issue was that the system clock was wrong. Something like that may pop up in Windows but you can quickly press the sync time and date button in the settings and it’ll sort itself out, while Arch requires a lot more work than just that, especially if it has no connectivity.
…I’ve certainly had that issue on windows as well. I had to manually set the time. Windows sync at least didn’t use to always work.
I’ve been using Linux for like 15 years and Arch for about a decade. I’ve never had an issue where the system time prevents the network connection from working. That’s odd.
Every district has ntp setup by default. New users shouldn’t use Arch…
Once people get over the initial Windows indoctrination, Linux is simple to use and doesn’t require tons of complex troubleshooting like people think. Before the COVID lockdown I tried for the Nth time to get my dad to use Linux. I had it installed and told him to stick with it for a few weeks (he only browses the web and plays solitaire). If he still didn’t like it, I’d reenable Windows. Well that few weeks turned into 6 months. Now both he and my mom have been happy Linux users for about 2 years.
If I may ask, how do you deal with updates? Have you enabled unattended upgrades or do you update the machines yourself?
His dad just need to put a password when asked. It’s a 6-years-old kid task updating on most Linux distro. One needs to be able to write, that’s it
I’m not the guy you asked, and I hope he responds because I’d like to hear his answer too, but a lot of that depends on the Linux distro you select. On rolling releases you get continuous updates automatically, not major upgrades like forced Windows Updates.
I do it for them whenever I come over every month or two (I live out of state). I could also just SSH in and do it remotely if I really wanted to. I showed my dad how to do it with the GUI package manager, but he’s the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” type. Linux will run perfectly fine without updates for years.
To add to that, Android is likely the overwhelming market share of Linux-based operating systems in use today. For that matter, an absolute ton of Intel CPUs have Minux installed on them too, but I wouldn’t call this “on the desktop”, just interesting.
Imagine sounding this elitist because of an operating system you use
Until you realize that many orgs have software that only works on windows.
Its not a great situation
Storage is super cheap these days. Just buy an extra hard drive for Windows and boot into that on the rare occasion you truly need to use Windows. Or just use a VM.
You could just use a VM or put on the same disk. There is no reason to spend extra money
Windows has had a bad habit of fucking up Linux boot partitions when it updates, so proceed with caution if you decide to keep them on one disk.
Corporations have access to a version of windows that doesn’t have telemetry, advertisements or bloatware. Its called Enterprise Edition.
That comes at a cost premium
Cost wasn’t mentioned in the original scope. OP was saying he hates the telemetry, ads, etc. and then you stated that companies have software that needs windows to run, to which I stated that there is a version that doesn’t have OPs concerns and runs custom apps that companies use.
I’ve worked as a SWE at Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, and none of the devs I worked with used Windows. Everyone either used Mac or Linux. It’s just a matter of time before the dev world bleeds out into the consumer world.
We’re a Mac shop here, but almost everyone I know still runs windows on their desktops. The few who don’t are on MacBooks and don’t have desktops.
Linux is still a minority, even among developers
At LinkedIn everyone had a Linux desktop that matched the server environment. Very few people actually coded on their desktop though. Most of us used a MacBook then either tested on the desktop or tested on a dev server.
At Google, almost everyone used a MacBook or their Goobuntu desktop (Google’s custom version of Ubuntu). Basically everyone would remote into their desktop to write code. Some people used Windows and some used Chromebooks.
At Facebook, most used MacBooks, the rest were pretty evenly divided between Windows and Linux (on Thinkpads). Everyone had a Linux dev server in one of the data centers to test on.
At every one of these places, the production environment is 100% Linux, so eventually, everyone had to test their code on Linux (except mobile or desktop app developers).
The subscription rumor was debunked pretty quickly. I honestly don’t see that happening anytime soon, PC makers would get pretty upset (especially if they don’t get a cut of the revenue).
No, it’s coming. And for thin clients it’s already here.
Yes, that’s reporting on the “leak” from Neowin, which Neowin later redacted because there wasn’t actually enough evidence: neowin.net/…/microsoft-might-want-to-be-making-wi…
Windows 365 is a cloud streaming PC that isn’t even available to consumers yet.
I had not seen that newer Neowin article, thank you for the correction.
But Windows 365 is certainly available to business and enterprise users right now. When they roll it out to home users is a separate matter. I would add that home users are not usually thin client users, lol: even Chromebooks have a limited OS on them.
Do it. I only use Windows to play my heavily modded copy of Skyrim and now Starfield. Everything else has been Linux for years.
I was using Mint for a while but the system got hosed. I plan on modding Starfield, and there was another game I can’t recall that wouldn’t work on Linux. After I best Starfield I fully expect to wipe my system again and go with a more stable distro of Linux (e.g. Gentoo or something).
They work fine unmodded (AFAIK) it’s just a pain getting them to work through MO2 along with other things.
I have been playing both of those on proton with little issue, and I’m not positive that the issues I experienced are exclusive to linux.
Using ModOrganizer2 to launch a Windows game from Steam using Proton is a massive pain in the ass, I’ve tried to set it up a few times before. I finally got it to work correctly, where it would actually run the game with ENB, and I was getting 15 FPS on an RTX 2080 Super and Ryzen 7 5900.
Also trying to get all the other programs like DynDoLOD and xEdit to work with MO2 was a pain as well.
OldQWERTYbastard@lemmy.world 8 months ago
We don’t use the word “Spyware” like we did twenty years ago. It’s baked into Windows now.
magic_lobster_party@kbin.social 8 months ago
They could bring back BonziBuddy and nobody would bat an eye
queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Bonzi Buddy is called Cortana now.
TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 8 months ago
At this point, Bonzibuddy is damn near benign compared to what we're dealing with now.