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Comment on Microsoft's draconian Windows 11 restrictions will send an estimated 240 million PCs to the landfill when Windows 10 hits end of life in 2025

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jmp242@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Have you used a modern version of Linux or Windows? You can basically use most Linuxes like Android with a guide app store, and there’s almost no way to break it. Windows also will still let you be admin and let you break it. Neither is particularly easy to break anymore.

Peripherals certainly do not just work on Windows. More and more I fight with getting anything to work on a clean Windows OS install. First I have to go find a network driver and copy it via USB. Then hope Windows will find drivers from there, which often it doesn’t get good ones for say Nvidia. Printers often take me to the manufacturer website and hope. For things like mice or Wi-Fi adapters Linux just works, same hunt for less standard stuff.

Maybe I just deal with a wider array of hardware but to say it plug and play on windows and not Linux is just not true.

For someone who just uses Facebook…there is no learning Linux. I moved my mom from XP to XFCE and Firefox just copied right over. She has a lot less issues with Enterprise Linux than she did with XP and Facebook still just works like 8 years later.

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pycorax@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Have you used a modern version of Linux or Windows? You can basically use most Linuxes like Android with a guide app store, and there’s almost no way to break it. Windows also will still let you be admin and let you break it. Neither is particularly easy to break anymore.

It’s still something that can happen. I’ve run into an issue trying to install Ubuntu onto a PC which worked fine on the live USB but installed the incorrect Nvidia driver and ended up failing to boot. Took me a whole day, even as a software engineer, to fix it and even then, that’s just to get it to display, I had to do a lot more digging to even get CUDA to run on it since I was still using an incorrect driver. I’m fine with that but I can’t imagine most people are.

Even if Windows doesn’t get the best driver for the job, more often than not it will still somewhat function for the hardware that most people use.

It’s a lot better than it used to be but there’s still issues here and there. For the average user, better the devil you know than the one you don’t.

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- jmp242@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Well it’s not like Windows hasn’t bricked some pcs with their driver updates. It does just happen sometimes. The argument I’m making is if I went to Burger King and every time I went I was disappointed in the food quality, price and speed of service I would eventually risk Wendys.
  
  Heck my family was GM but after years of breakdowns and getting stranded by 3 different GM cars and weird / bad performance in a 4th, we changed car manufacturers.
  
  Sometimes you ought to give up on the Devil you know if it’s costing you too much money and time.
  
  On an individual level, having a computer is better than not having one. Even if you need a different OS.
  
  On a societal level, we should want to limit both ewaste and insecure OSs. We could legislate MS and other vendors not to do what Microsoft is doing here. But we probably don’t want to legislate updates for 20 years or something. (maybe we do IDK). The more likely thing is kicking known EOL OSs off the internet, but then we’re back to ewaste.
  
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  - pycorax@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I get your analogy but it’s a way larger jump going from Windows to Linux versus McDonald’s to Linux. To bring it back to what we were talking about, I think it’s more that the switch might end up costing more money and time because realistically, most people are gonna disregard the EOL status because “it still works and I can still use it”. Those who do switch are probably those who require or want an upgrade of some form.
    
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FonsNihilo@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yes, I use 2 modern versions of Linux. Ubuntu, and SteamOS. I have broken both several times. Granted, I was trying some more complicated stuff, but I still managed to break them.

Windows while you can still corrupt it, has more then 1 method already pre-installed to help recover data in emergency, while not the best, there already there, and if they work, they will get the job done.

Your response about your Windows installation is entirely a nitpicky you problem, that isn’t a problem for 99% of people, or it is by design.

Don’t want to plug in a USB driver with your wifi drivers? Plug in an ethernet cable. Windows already has REALTEK/Intel network drivers. It can automatically download your wifi drivers for you. Windows doesn’t get you the latest GPU drivers on purpose. New drivers can be a little unstable, or have some bugs, so Windows delays adding those to Windows updates, because Microsoft doesn’t want to launch unstable updates. Now for your final comment about how you moved your mom over. I’m calling BS/she has had a tech sons help. Based on your biase to Linux, i’m going to say there is much more to that story. No learning curve from chrome/Explorer to Firefox? No issues or performance loss? When the rare time occurs, can she install a program she is trying to get?

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- break1146@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think you don’t have any idea on what modern Linux desktop is doing. For most people, installing any sort of drivers on Linux is something of the past. If you use a beginner’s friendly distro like Linux Mint or PopOS stuff like Nvidea drivers will be taken care of or you’re guided through it. Mint offers Timeshift out of the box and guides you to set it up for easy restores may you break your system one day (or an update does).
  
  In theory, the store has virtually every application your version supports and that you ever want to use. No hunting on the internet etc. With Flatpaks, even dependency issues (however rare nowadays) are essentially a thing of the past. The user doesn’t need to know what that means, they can just click install on their application store as they’re already familiar with on their mobile device.
  
  Doing more “complicated” stuff and breaking it is just simply your fault then. I have worked end user customer support and repair for a few years and shit like that happens all the time on Windows. Very few clean or wholly functional Windows installations I have seen. The UAC just presents you “yes/no” and install whatever the fuck you want. People click yes on everything.
  
  I have a little headphone amp that has always been a huge fight to get to work on Windows with its drivers, but on Linux I later realized, wait, it just worked. Since Windows 10 drivers have been much better on Windows too, credit where it is due.
  
  Linux has made enormous strides the last couple of years of becoming more general user friendly. And it’s only getting better.
  
  Does this mean it’s all roses and happiness? No, of course not. Once a driver doesn’t quite work and you don’t have the Mint driver utility to help you out it’s a bit of a pain. You don’t need the CLI on desktop at all nowadays, but guides on how to do things usually are, because it’s universal. Problem is, the CLI scares people. Linux DEs are not Windows. It’s simply not the same, however much Mint is friendly to it, or Zorin’s efforts, it’s still different. There’s no hardware compatibility guarantees on any system, if you’re not using a Tuxedo, System76 or Framework system. App compatibility and sometimes there’s no app available. Wine and Bottles work pretty well, but that’s a little more advanced.
  
  It’s not a drop-in replacement. That’s just how it is.
  
  In an enterprise and business environment it’s still tricky. For personal use for a user that will happily use a Chromebook, they can use a suitable Linux distro (that’s literally what ChromeOS is btw, it being able to run Android apps was added later, it’s not Android). Yeah, don’t install Arch or god forbid, Gentoo lmao (unless you wanna have a laugh). If they do email, web-browsing, etc, and they are okay with some change, then Mint will most likely serve them pretty well.
  
  Also, Linux runs Chrome just fine? However much it pains me, I can even install Edge right from the store lol.
  
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  - FonsNihilo@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think it’s just you don’t understand what I am trying to say.
    
    I’m not going to respond to your essay you wrote when most of your points were off topic, or you took mine out of context/didn’t understand entirely what I was trying to say.
    
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    break1146@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I understand what you were trying to say just fine and have responded to all of it. You choosing to ignore it doesn’t make that less so.
    
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- jmp242@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Literally the statement was just Facebook. She doesn’t install software, nor did she on Windows. She uses Facebook. She never used Explorer so Firefox on XP to Firefox on Linux was no learning. The performance was better on Linux.
  
  I have corrupted Windows plenty of times over the years. You’re just used to Windows so intuitively know how to fix it or not break it again.
  
  The problem with modern computers is many don’t take a ethernet cable. They only have Wi-Fi. Maybe you are buying ones speced with a NIC but that’s a special order for most laptops, and likewise I can special order for Linux.
  
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  - FonsNihilo@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    No, some Laptops exclusively don’t have Ethernet, but come with pre-installed wifi drivers. Worst case scenario you get a USB to ethernet adapter. Again, ethernet drivers are pre-installed. This entire point is just you making the problems and crying about them, even though solutions are easier to apply then it is to create this problem.
    
    Also regarding your mother and your argument for me.
    
    You said you moved her over, my entire argument is regular people have no idea how to do stuff like that alone. Your mother did not install or maintain the distro. It seems you do. So that entire argument doesn’t really have a leg to stand on, as it about non tech people working with tech without help.
    
    Also what is your comment about me and Windows? Windows isn’t hard to break, but you need to know how to do it. To the regular people who don’t even what the control panel is will have an extremely hard time breaking Windows. I know how to break it, so I avoid breaking it. I don’t mess with Windows much anymore, I mess with Linux and I’m unintentionally breaking stuff kinda often, while just trying to make my Linux distros function in a way simular to what I’m used to on Windows.
    
    Your arguments are grasping at straws at best.
    
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    jmp242@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The point is, if you buy a pre set up laptop with Linux the drivers are pre installed too. You cannot take a clean Linux install and not compare to a clean Windows install.
    
    As to my Mom, she didn’t set up Windows either. In either case you’re paying someone to set it up if you’re like her. Just because you already learned Windows doesn’t make Linux harder, just different. Do you think an enterprise is not going to have IT in both cases? It’s not like the users are setting anything.
    
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