Comment on Microsoft is bringing annoying Windows 11 Start menu ads to Windows 10

• Boozilla@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Chicken and egg. Linux is roughly 4% of the OS space. If more people would get on board, it would become a better tool. I use both. Windows because I have to. Linux because I want to.

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  • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Linux missed the mark years ago. It’s not a lack of people using it, it’s a lack of usability for people. You’re blaming users because Linux doesn’t work for them.

    My standard response to “just go Linux” :

    I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it’s still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.

    As some background - I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I’d stuck with Cobol).

    I had my first UNIX class in about 1990.

    I run a Mint laptop (for the hell of it, and I do mean hell) . Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even boot.

    Windows would never do this, no, Windows can never do this. It is incapable of running a battery to zero, it’ll shutoff before then to protect the battery. To really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows simply will not let a battery get to zero.

    There’s no way even possible via the Mint GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions. None, nada, zip, not at all. Command line only, in the twenty-first century, something Windows has had since I don’t recall, 95 I think (I was carrying a laptop then, and I believe it had hibernate, sorry, it’s been what, almost thirty years now).

    There are many reasons why Linux doesn’t compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.

    Now let’s look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that’s just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. The devs of open office refuse to support tables, saying “you should manage data in a proper database app”. While I don’t disagree with the sentiment, no, I’m not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That’s just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn’t realistically shareable with other people. I do this several times a day in excel.

    Now there’s that print monitor that’s on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? Again, in the 21st century?

    Networking… Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn’t say “save creds”? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. In the 21st century?

    Oh, you have a wireless Logitech mouse? Linux won’t even recognize it. You have to search for a solution and go find a third-party download that makes it work. My brand new wireless mouse works on any version of Windows since Win2k (at the least) and would probably work on Win95.

    Someone else said it better than me:

    Every time I’ve installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it’s gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn’t look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works… only it doesn’t save my preferences.

    So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically… but that doesn’t work, so now I can’t boot… so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that… then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution… wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it’s been four hours, it’s 3:00am and I’m like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.

    And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren’t supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can’t wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?

    I just can’t do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I’ve loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.

    I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.

    Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM’s on Linux (Proxmox) because that’s better than running Linux VM’s on a Windows server.

    Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.

    Linux doesn’t even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it’s own way), and that’s a massive barrier for users.

    If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would’ve had a chance to beat MS, even then it would’ve required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.

    These are what MS did in the 1980’s to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.

    All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).

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    • ParetoOptimalDev@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It sounds like many of your problems could be fixed by installing kde plasma6 instead.

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      • coolkicks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I think this supports his argument. Having to research desktop environments to decide which is optimized for the potential problems a new user may face, then finding a distro that packages that DE is quite frankly too much for the average user.

        I’d argue between 3% and 5% of PC users are willing to research and experiment to find the flavor of Linux that truly works for them.

        Linux has come a long way, I still remember using Gentoo as a daily driver and seeing Linux cross 1% of desktop share, but the average desktop user doesn’t know the difference between a kernel and a colonel, and they don’t want to.

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      • tyler@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Whoosh. This happens literally every time anyone comments about how difficult Linux is, someone just recommends some other distro or obscure fix (this time a new desktop). You’re literally missing the actual problem here because you’re always trying to solve strange problems on Linux. The fact that you know a solution to this and the solution isn’t continue using your current system but instead install a new graphical interface is the exact problem that the person you’re responding to is complaining about.

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    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I was going to write a reply to that guy about how linux doesn’t work for the common man, but then you come in and write shakespear level articulation that blows away my tiny brain cell reply.

      It’s just such a complete analysis of the situation. The only thing missing is how linux requires you to use the terminal. Yes, REQUIRES. People can say it doesn’t all they want, but go on any self help guide, and any problem you have, is “step 1, open terminal”.

      What would you say to someone who doesn’t know what terminal is?

      “Ok, open terminal?”

      “Whats that?”

      “Its like a command line, but better”

      “Whats a command line?”

      And this is why 96% of people AREN’T using linux. Most windows users don’t understand how windows works. Most drivers don’t understand how cars work. And linux you HAVE TO be a mechanic to use linux. Because unlike windows and mac, linux isn’t designed to be used by idiots. And most of the world are idiots. Hell, I’m an idiot.

      And until linux can fix itself FOR the user, no user will even take a look. Even if there were a single distro that did all that, you’d have to convince people “this linux isn’t like the other linux”. It’s the main reason that even though Android is linux, it stays far far away from that branding. It doesn’t want the linux stink.

      And from what I’ve seen, every developer WANTS linux to be hard to use. Like a right of passage. “I had to endure these learning curves, and so shall you!”

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      • antithetical@lemmy.deedium.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I have heard this argument for over 20 years… “You have to use the terminal in Linux, so user hostile”.

        Well, try to do ANY windows sysadmin tasks without Powershell… See how far that gets you. Need to manage Exchange? Powershell. Need to change some settings? Powershell… It is even getting more and more unavoidable. Now Powershell doesn’t even have a good terminal environment, sane parameters or good usability. And a general lack of documentation for all the obscure incantations.

        In the meantime KDE on Linux is wonderful, fully integrated with the system, easy software maintenance (on Kubuntu for example) and with a sane settings menu… You hardly need a terminal at all. Try to find that in Windows.

        So sorry, this argument is either invalid, out of date or Microsoft is even worse.

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      • AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I really don’t understand the objection to using a terminal to get things done. It’s just a window that you can type text commands into. You don’t even have to come up with the commands on your own, you find the ones that solve the problem on the internet, copy and paste, and boom problem fixed. How is this different from looking up a solution to a Windows problem that walks you with a series of pictures through using Regedit or Group Policy Editor, only instead of pasting text into a terminal, you have to click through dozens of menus, trees, and tabs to find the setting you need to change? You’re still looking up solutions online in either case, but the Windows solutions require navigating windows with dozens of mouse clicks versus copying and pasting some text in Linux.

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      • obbeel@lemmy.eco.br ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        That’s a marketing problem, not a functionality problem. The terminal isn’t really hard to use.

        People used BASIC easily back in the 80’s. My mom did it back then, and she isn’t tech savvy.

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    • mox@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. For what it’s worth, I haven’t run into laptop problems like those you described.

      You’ve reminded me that people who declare “linux isn’t ready” often make the same mistakes:

      • Expecting Linux to work 100%, with no effort, on random hardware that was built specifically for Windows.
      • Expecting random google results to yield good guidance on a subject that’s well understood by a tiny fraction of those who know Windows. The web is an ocean of bad advice (but there are some worthwhile islands).
      • Expecting to be able to manage any new operating system as well as the one you’ve been running your life with for decades.

      Proficiency with any tool takes practice. More so when you don’t have an abundance of good mentors and pre-packaged solutions for what you want to do with it. That doesn’t make the tool bad. It doesn’t mean it lacks usability. It mostly just means that you haven’t learned how to use it yet.

      To anyone who is seriously considering a move away from Windows:

      • Set your expectations appropriately. Linux is not a drop-in replacement for Windows. IMHO, it shouldn’t be.
      • Some things that you take for granted are not universal. Much like a new language (especially your second one) even the basics are often different.
      • There is a lot to learn. If you have the patience and humility to be in kindergarten again, you’ll probably do fine. If you expect to be a master quickly, you’ll probably get frustrated.
      • You don’t have to tackle the whole learning curve all at once.
      • A few notable Windows programs won’t run on Linux. If you have very rigid and specific software needs, like “Photoshop is the only tool that I can use to make a living”, you might consider running those in a virtual machine, or on a second system, or dual-booting. If that’s too complicated for you, then you probably shouldn’t try to force yourself into Linux. Maybe try again in a few years.
      • There is more than one GUI (desktop environment) for Linux. Some look a bit like Windows. Some look more like MacOS. Others look like something you’ve never seen before. You can test drive many of them by booting from a USB “live image”. In case none of them feels quite right, most can be customized. To get started, just pick one, and know that you’re not married to it; you can always switch desktops later, without even reinstalling the OS. Your applications will still run.
      • Investigate hardware before leaping into it. Linux supports a great many devices out of the box, and even more with a bit of configuration. If you have the means, you can buy a system pre-packaged for Linux, including drivers, just as most systems are for Windows. If not, chances are that you can still find or build a system that runs it well. Plan ahead.

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      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Expecting Linux to work 100%, with no effort, on random hardware that was built specifically for Windows.

        Thats ALL PCs.

        Expecting random google results to yield good guidance on a subject that’s well understood by a tiny fraction of those who know Windows. The web is an ocean of bad advice (but there are some worthwhile islands).

        Alright, fair enough. But then within the linux operating system, it should make those islands official sources for quality information. Make them easier to find.

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    • foofiepie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Thoroughly enjoyed this post thanks. I have long wished for a FOSS OS that can truly become popular by considering these users and carving a mainstream path for them. Even - for people who don’t even know what terminal/shell is and don’t care.

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    • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You must be fun at parties

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    • barsquid@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You post this same thing all the fucking time. “Someone said it better than me,” this guy decides to install random shit and run whatever command he can find and it, shockingly, doesn’t fix the problem?

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    • obbeel@lemmy.eco.br ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      If you want to run Spotify, Linux really isn’t your thing. Now, aside from Autodesk (I’m not an engineer, but I think FreeCAD doesn’t come close), you can easily use Linux to work. It is much better for programming also. Windows puts so many proprietary barriers into programming that you actually need a minor version of GNU (MinGW) to make C++ work. Want to program something on C#? You should have this proprietary Visual Studio. Wants something for Android? You will need proprietary Android Studio.

      The environment is just different. Every thing is built around people expecting to make money out of proprietary software. That’s Windows. It’s built by proprietary for proprietary. It encourages people to put absurd licenses into the most minor of works. “Wants to automatically lowercase a text? Hey, you should be profiting out of that!”. “Wants to automatically copy and paste a text to many boxes? Oh my, you should be profitting out of that, clearly!”.

      It’s another environment. Don’t compare Windows as if it were more convenient because for programmers, and for ordinary people in many cases, it certainly isn’t.

      That said, I agree that Office 365 is a flagship, but maybe that flagship is sinking.

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