I think that, regardless of brand, most users just want the most basic (almost black slate) OS that can run the programs they choose to install.
And that is close to, if not completely, impossible to get if you don’t have a mind for Linux.
This is beautifully familiar.
Am I seeing too many similarities between how Twitter/X was taken over and singlehandedly being irreversibly ruined?
While Windows is stubbornly becoming increasingly user-adversarial (advertising, constant intrusive updates, forced transition from your favorite browser to Microsoft Edge, etc.) and unintuitive (sometimes even counter intuitive) interface design, placement and inaccessible settings.
Well, delighting in schadenfreude, I won’t complain. Microsoft is inadvertently helping me help transition many friends, family and colleagues to various flavors of Linux systems, namely Linux Mint (whichever desktop they prefer) and/or Pop!OS most of the time, but also occasionally Fedora or a particular flavor of Ubuntu.
I never recommend Arch or rolling release systems or immutable systems to first time Linux user so as to preemptively avoid additional layers of complexity, learning curve, downtime and troubleshooting.
Ever since Nadella took over it’s been going down to shit progressively
It’s always been a pile of shit
Windows 7 was solid and didn’t treat you like an ad revenue.
@SuperSpecialNickname @Andromxda yep one of the best version of windows
That last version that was truly great. If it wasn’t unsupported I’d still be using it.
@SuperSpecialNickname I still miss the aero theme. It was the best.
I am looking to move to linux, again, due to ALL the amazing work Steam is putting into gaming on linux. Much of my flat game library works on the test laptop, my streaming software has linux native install. The 1 issue holding me back at this point is my OG Vive screens not turning on, tho the laptop monitor shows my VR environment. Once I get over that hurdle my days of windows will be almost over.
I want the calendar agenda flyout back on my taskbar
It’s literally just the Edge feature transplanted onto windows. I wouldn’t be surprised if they integrated Edge/WebView2 into Explorer just to do this.
I’ve been under the impression that it’s been the plan all the time: have a “system-wide” AI assistant.
And honestly, I bet other OSs are going to follow suit (Apple, Linux… Android already kind of has it).
3rd times the charm, right?
My problem with it is it’s an advertisement for a SASS service.
Also known as a SASSS
Software as ASSSS
Software to serve Software as a Service as a Service.
I put Copilot on MY taskbar —Microsoft
Really trying not to be that “use Linux” person, but it’s easy to underestimate the impact this has on user perception. It was communicated to me by these actions that this isn’t my computer. It kept pissing me off, so I went with something that respects me.
I think Microsoft is okay with that because their operating system isn’t a main profit center anymore. It’s cloud stuff.
I’m pretty sure Windows is a key part of their “cloud stuff” strategy. You are right that consumers are not the direct focus of Windows, since they are not the direct paying audience, and that shows in the direction Windows is going, but getting consumers to use Windows is a big part of creating corporate buy in for Microsoft cloud services. Corporate environments will shun Microsoft cloud services if employees can’t use Windows, or Windows features run afoul of corporate policies (like blanket LLM bans).
Over the years, Microsoft has been quietly taking away control from the users.
There’s been a transition from normal settings that you can do whatever you want with, to “yes / remind me later” settings that Microsoft uses to badger you until you submit, to finally just no setting at all - just quiet compulsory data collection and surveillance; with various bits of mysterious software that you can’t uninstall or disable or halt - because you’re not the admin - Microsoft is.
It wasn’t always this way.
It’s not even good for non technical users. Microsoft takes admin responsibility, but then they manage it poorly by applying updates that haven’t been properly tested and using your system as the guinea pig.
I’ve seen this happen to family. Forced update comes in, breaks system.
The Win10 machine I got in 2020 will be my last Windows computer now that gaming on Linux is basically solved.
Can you tell me how gaming on Linux is solved? It’s the only reason I use windows still.
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In my case, many of my games are purchased through Steam, which automatically handles Linux compatibility for most games. The product page of the game lists the compatible operating systems as SteamOS, Linux, or SteamPlay. You can also set up proton directly for other games, which is a fork of Wine that has really good gaming support these days.
I wouldn’t call it a completely solved problem. It’s always possible to find games that just won’t work, but most of them do. Even most DRM works. If the DB covers the games you care about then you’re golden.
Start with protondb
Exactly. It’s Microsoft ffs. They don’t care what consumers want. The only time they do anything truly beneficial is when the EU makes them.
The only time they do anything truly beneficial is when the EU makes them.
Except when they make programming languages
I mean sure, c# is better than java, but c# also makes you dependant on MS and all their shenanigans. Java is free of such burdens. Oracle sure is a dependency, but you’re free pick another vendor or fork your own.
Of course they prioritise Windows and Azure, but still, .NET works on Linux well, and it’s licensed under MIT, so you’re allowed to fork too.
But on the other hand I won’t waste my time defending Microsoft here, because they have paid people for doing it.
They also created TypeScript which is a huge improvement over js imo. And with C# you can use Mono, so you really aren’t locked into MS automatically.
Plus, they made VS Code free. I hate MS but they do make solid tools for developers.
original report is here
“Report”.
It’s just a blog post quoting Reddit comments.
Perfect time to try Linux.
Mark my words: AI assistants are going to come to Linux too.
And you’ll have a choice to not install them. Or to install versions that you know how they were trained and have guardrails you approve of.
I posit that you’ll have the same choice on Windows… just wait for some antitrust attorneys to smell the blood 😉
I’m an American, I won’t get the luxuries of the EU court rulings.
How dare you speak some sense.
Hey, wake up! The new Clippy skin just dropped!
Wake up, developer. We have an OS to burn.
You are breathtaking!
I’d probably use it if it had a clippy skin tbh.
I see you’re trying to embarrass yourself with a reply to a really important email. Want help with that?
No it didn’t… but that IS the plan.
I have to say I’m not particularly against it either… AS LONG AS they let me pick alternative AI backbends, like they have been forced to do with web browsers (antitrust attorneys, get ready).
Yeah let me just go to the super informative and trust worthy windows copilot .news website
Definitely a good source for my news consumption lmao
The post is just quoting a “report”, which in turn is just a blog post quoting Reddit comments
Wait, there’s a whole website dedicated to copilot? #ffs
I wouldn’t be shocked if the articles itself are written using an AI tool. :D
So true!!
One of the most minimalistic blog posts I have seen in a while (content wise). It has only 2 sentences, a link and a quote. Some YouTube comments have more content…
How many times are we going to have to teach you this lesson, old man. Don’t fuck with the task bar.
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IT don’t like it. Lock the taskbar. Lock the taskbar.
Even the small things. When work upgraded to Win11 overnight and I logged into the Start being in the middle, I almost lost it. Yes, I could fix it, and a few other things, but I had a moment.
Man. Work moved us to windows 11 and you couldn’t ungroup windows on the taskbar… We use RPG / as400 and throughout the day you’ll end up with 4-5 windows… having them all grouped is annoying when I have to hover over a popup to see which window I need.
Googling revealed that win11 wasn’t shipped with that functionality and it was only patched into the operating system in late q3 of last year.
So annoying and a huge productivity hit for me.
Guess no one at Microsoft realized people use computers differently and more options is always better than one. Or they intended to have the option and either forgot to include it or it was buggy. Either way it was #2 on my “how do you disable this” list, and I had to deal with it for a while. I get how grouping can be good for some things, but when you want to be able to bounce between various windows and some happen to use the same app, it was a pain.
That’s why on my kde desktop at home it has a check box that say “allow these windows to be grouped” and I can check / uncheck as needed.
It works so much better. Imho
I don’t mind the taskbar in the middle, it’s like Apple’s dock. What I really hate, is the news popup on the left… and I don’t even mind the floating Start menu, I’ve been using MadAppLauncher for like a decade or more.
I hadn’t minded it if it were on the center. As you know, it was actually somewhere around the center, changing its position every time I added an icon or whatever in the taskbar. And they were proud enough to call it a UX revolution. WTAF…
They killed the vertical task bar with that update, which seems like such a pointless thing to disable.
I logged into the Start being in the middle
I’m sorry, what!?
At this rate, I’m definitely going to hold onto 10 until they pretty it away from me.
(Yes, I use Linux as well but gaming isn’t perfect on it, etc…)
if you feel comfortable mucking about in your BIOS, disabling TPM will pretty much guarantee they don’t spring 11 on you. they are really dead set on that requirement for some reason.
I understand it’s not for everyone but I jumped ship to Linux 10 years ago or so. The defining moment was me disabling Cortana only to have her reappear after an update.
At least with Linux when I’m fighting the OS it doesn’t feel like the OS developers are fighting back.
Same motivation here, but it took me until last year to make the switch. Pushing Office on me combined with all the good things I’ve been hearing about gaming on Linux was enough to push me over. I installed in dual boot, but I have never wanted to nor had the need to boot into my Windows install in at least three months.
I did the same thing about the same time as you. I did boot into Windows at one point and it updated, and it absolutely fucked my system. It removed or disabled the boot loader and I think it fucked up the partition table too IIRC. I then removed everything Windows and installed another distro I wanted to try and it’s been smooth sailing since, with no reason to regret removing Windows.
Edit: I was able to recover the partitions, but the Windows section of the bootloader I was never able to get working again after getting it to boot into my Linux install. That’s the moment I decided to just clear out that drive and switch distros.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a similar story. Windows is often not a good neighbor in multi boot configurations.
with no reason to regret removing Windows.
I’ve been using Linux on my desktop since the 1990s. I’m certainly not opposed to people using Linux on their desktop. But I can definitely think of things, even in 2024, that someone might want Windows for.
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If you go and buy a piece of hardware from a vendor, even really obscure stuff, there will almost certainly be a Windows driver. These days, Linux support is pretty common, and stuff like USB device classes providing a standard interface for a lot of hardware deals with a lot of that. But if I were getting something weird like, oh, one of those projectors that displays 3D images on mist, I’d be more-cautious. VR headsets are probably one of the more-prominent recent examples. Yeah, you can get a VR headset for Linux, but not all of the VR headsets out there are Linux-compatible.
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Maybe a more-prominent issue – while it’s rare for hardware to not work, it’s more-common for some functionality not to be available. tries to think of an example Okay, here’s one. I have a flightstick and throttle from CH from some years back. These are standard ol’ USB Human Interface Devices. Their axes and buttons are detected, and I can use them just fine. But they also have a little button on both their throttle and joystick that – besides acting as a button – cycles a series of one illuminated LED through three LEDs, green,yellow,red. I believe that it’s intended to switch between different “profiles” – so, like, say you’re just flying along, you have one set of controls, but then you enter into combat in some flight system, you can toggle to the “yellow” profile by tapping a button. Whatever software CH ships to handle that on Windows isn’t shipped for Linux. Okay, you could probably set something similar up for Linux if you’ve the time and technical chops, and maybe there’s a way to do it for Steam games using Steam Input. But there isn’t gonna be software provided to do it out-of-the-box on Linux, whereas there is on Windows.
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There are still a few pieces of software that you can’t run. If you specifically need or really want to run something, that may be a problem. There are very few games on Steam that I can’t run, but one happens to be Command: Modern Operations, which suffers from both relying on 3d hardware – so not being VM-friendly – and not having anyone manage to get it working. There are other military simulation games, but no real direct alternatives. Now, I can live without that software package, though I sure would like to run it, but there may users that don’t have that kind of flexibility.
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There’s also some software that you can make use of on a machine running Linux, but need to run in a Windows VM. That…works, but is also kind of annoying. A good example might be something like Solidworks, which doesn’t support Linux. There are engineers out there who are going to need to use Solidworks to do their work. I understand that you can run it in a VM – and there’s sufficient demand that apparently the company certifies VM environments with a dedicated GPU for pass-through use with the VM but that’s kind of annoying, if you’re someone whose work revolves around the package.
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Ironically, Microsoft would later remove Cortana itself in an update.
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If MS would sell me a license to own my computer, I would buy it, but they don’t offer that. Instead it’s ads and spam and data collection. And I want nothing to do with that.
I kind of feel like that about Google’s services (to a lesser extent). Like, Google produces some really outstanding services. YouTube is great, and I’d have no problem with paying for it. But I have no idea whether, if I buy YouTube Premium or whatever Google calls it, I can buy privacy or whether it’s just going to mean that they can link my data to my financial information and carry on data-mining.
Switched to Fedora at the beginning of the year and couldn’t be happier.
I use Arch BTW
Funny you say that ah
For real though I use a down stream arch distro.
Installing arch manually is a good learning experience but I’ve got other things to do.
I asked it how to uninstall itself. It responded with the command line. I copy and pasted (this was probably dangerous, given that LLMs lie, but whatever). Now I no longer have it on my task bar. This is sort of like the open edge to get Firefox deal I’ve always had when using a fresh install.
There’s a button for it in taskbar settings.
The Taskbar setting just hides it, no? Sounds like the previous commentor uninstalled it completely.
OP didn’t post what code they put in, and they only said it was “gone from my taskbar,” not that they had ensured it was nowhere on their system.
The code easily could have just flicked the button in settings.
We have no idea without the code in question.
Also, even if its fully removed, Microsoft will just re-install it next update anyway? Like they do with everything the fuck else you manually remove?
This is like staying in an abusive relationship and then complaining about how abusive their partner is. Get the fuck out of there. Linux works like a charm. OK, now come at me with your bullshit excuses of “Linux bad” “mah games”, “my Adobe” blah blah blah. Staying in this abusive relationship is what makes microshit what it is.
It is getting better but there are still alot of things you just can’t do on Windows.
Like for my work we have alot of specialized software that is only for Windows. Sure I might be able to get it working under Linux but what do you think will happen if I need get software Support for this software? They will say i am using an unsupported OS and hang up.
And for my home, there is so many anti cheat software that refuses to work on Linux or potentially get you banned.
Linux has come a very long way in the last 5 years but there is still alot of situations the abusive relationship is your only option.
For work is understandable. I use nothing but windows at work because work requires it. I don’t give a shit if they used a potato, as long as I get my paycheck. At home, though, sorry my friend, I won’t ever understand no matter how many excuses you give me. If a company doesn’t want to support my os then to fucking bad, I won’t give them my money, and will move on to the ones that do.
I won’t ever understand no matter how many excuses you give me. If a company doesn’t want to support my os then to fucking bad, I won’t give them my money.
Sure the is commendable but end of the day it is what is important to you. If my group of friends is playing a game and that game isn’t supported on Linux. That affect me a lot more then it would affect the company.
I want to switch to Linux, but I honestly don’t know how/where to even start or the proper way to even ask.
I asked once on a Linux forum when the whole Cortana debacle happened, and I was called a moron or sent a link to “Linux from scratch”…which was definitely above my technical knowledge at the time. I’ve been scared to post on Linux communities ever since lol
I’m so sorry this happened to you. We do have some assholes on our forums. But from experience, I can assure you that people on Lemmy are much nicer. Also, Linux is now so very easy to install. All you need is to get your ISO and burn it onto a USB stick then boot from that USB from the Bios. Linux even has a “live environment” where you get to try it and see if your hardware works. Don’t worry too much about what “distro” to install for now. They’re all the same except minor differences and how often they get updated. Your only mission is to choose which desktop environment you like. If you like how macos looks like, choose gnome. If you like windows, choose KDE plasma, if you like a windows 7ish look, choose xfce or cinnamon. If you want the easiet way to burn an ISO to a USB, then check out Fedora media writer. It even downloads the iso for you. Just stick your USB into your pc and launch the app and go from there. It does everything for you. It’s available for all OSs. Fedora comes with both KDE and gnome and others. I’d stick with the distros that are the easiest to install and where everything works out of the box. Fedora and Linux mint are the ones I’d choose from. And also, now YouTube is full of amazing Linux channels like this man Jay Lacroix. He is freaking awesome and has so many videos that will help you. Here is his channel. He even made a video the other day on how to dual boot with windows. If you have any questions at all, please post them in the Linux community here on Lemmy and we will all help you.
Thank you for the links! Someone else has also mentioned Mint, and I love the Win7 interface, so that’s probably what I’ll be playing around with.
Of course. Also, try it in a virtual machine or on a spare laptop if you got one, before you commit to it.
Yeah whatever that forum was sounds kinda toxic, Linux from Scratch is like, notoriously the most complicated Linux install there is so that wasn’t even bad advice, just straight trolling. Sadly there’s a few places like that that are hostile to newcomers because they’ve heard the same questions asked a lot and see that as a fault of the user, instead of remembering how it was when they first switched to Linux as well.
I’d highly +1 to giving Linux Mint a go, it’s designed to be very similar to Windows layout (specifically Windows 7) to make a lot of things more familiar for someone switching over, and their forums are some of the most beginner friendly I’ve seen. This install guide is pretty good for it, not making it complex, images to walk through the process https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-mint/
If you prefer videos, I just gave this one a watch through and it looks good to follow, just download the latest version instead of the one downloaded in the video (current is 21.3 “Virginia”, though following the video should put you at that one anyway), the install process is the same https://youtu.be/ysqMhUpS7Ew
Others will also likely recommend other Linux distros to start with and that’s fine too, whichever one seems the most easy or comfortable for you is fine to go with
Thank you so much for writing this out, I really appreciate it! Looks like I’ll be installing Mint on my old laptop this weekend to see how I fair.
I second this. Been using a few distros in the last 20 years, going back and forth between windows and Linux, but I’ve been using Mint in the last year and I don’t feel like switching anymore. Teams, office and outlook all have a web app so no need for a native office installation anymore, and most Windows games on steam work well with proton.
Agree. Just try Mint. It’s a solid choice.
From what I found, Lemmy is much better in this regard. I’ve gotten lots of helpful answers here, so give it a go! There is also a ton of tutorials on YouTube, I recommend something like this for beginners.
From what I found, Lemmy is much better in this regard. I’ve gotten lots of helpful answers here, so give it a go! There is also a ton of tutorials on YouTube, I recommend something like this for beginners.
Asking stuff like that is always a good idea, IMO. It could be the difference between a successful Linux install and a very expensive paperweight.
… Don’t ask me how to install it, though. I’ve only tried Ubuntu as a dual-boot, and that was several years ago.
Oh absolutely. Looking back I probably asked in a hardcore Linux enthusiast community (no fault to them, we all get tired of our parents/siblings/coworkers asking us to “fix the wif”)
I just don’t know where the Linux-noob safe spaces are. Is Lemmy’s Linux community one?
I recommend taking a look at this Linux gaming wiki guide about getting started. It is geared towards gaming, but even if that is not your primary focus there is a lot of really useful tips and steps to take for anyone trying to switch to Linux. If you have some other questions you can shoot me a DM, I’m by no means an expert but I’ve been using Linux for around 4 years now so I like to think I’m at least moderately experienced!
Thanks for the link, I’ll take a look at the guide over the weekend! Someone already mentioned Linux Mint as a starter, but if I have any questions I’ll definitely take you up on the DM offer!
We have actual gaming distros. They’re literally put together for gamers. GloriousEggRoll, the dude who made protonGE spun up “Nobara” off of Fedora as a gaming distro. You have Garuda Linux and others.
It’s like the BDSM dynamic. Linux is sub, Apple is dom, and Microsoft is like a guy who calls himself dom, but is actually just a dick.
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This was back in 1765. The world has changed since then. I hardly ever touch the terminal. That’s another bullshit story some people tell you.
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Lol. I am not. Try it out for yourself. If you run a “works out of the box” distro, you’ll not need to touch the terminal, unless you choose to. Try Linux mint, fedora, zorin OS, elementary OS, Ubuntu, pop os… Etc. On those, you literally won’t need to touch the terminal for your day to day work. Everything works.
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For real. Literally yesterday, reboot my computer and Nvidia drivers that had worked fine the day before no longer functioned resulting in my screen resolution being reduced and unchangeable.
Had to run a few commands to fix it but they are not obvious to me as a new-ish Linux user. Something about dkms being a dependency but not configured?
To recover, I had to:
sudo apt purge nvidia-*
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/dkms/nvidia/
sudo apt install nvidia-dkms-550
(Reinstall Nvidia 550 drivers)
Why did I have to do all this? I ask that rhetorically, but Id like to know so I can understand what went wrong. Linux is non-trivial and people who deny that are not seeing things clearly. Then again, triviality of use isn’t particularly the most salient to me. Rather, it’s a mixture of is there enough compatibility to what I use my desktop for, is it reasonably easy to use for most tasks, and does it give me the freedom I want for the device.
Some don’t realize it’s an abusive relationship, because they never saw anything else. Or they are addicted (let’s call it Adobe drug or certain games drug). But these are the minority. Most people simply don’t care.
BTW just for the lolz, in 2010 I predicted that we would 10 years later (in 2020) have probably 30% market share on Linux desktop. Boy I was off.
My relationship with my Linux installation was disfunctional in its own way. It was that partner that went into a meltdown when presented with any new, slightly complicated situation that was outside of its extremely limited comfort zone. I guess that works for people that have the time and patience to hold its hand and convince it that it can actually do everything. But Linux definitely isn’t suitable for all people in all situations.
Distro dependent, and hardware dependent. Some have a great experience OOTB
That’s the correct answer. I run endeavourOS, and it’s even considered a “terminal distro”. Set it up once and never had any major issues after that. I’ve used Debian testing for like 2 years before that, and oh my god, that fucker was solid af. I literally had 0 issues. Like nothing. The thing just worked all the time. Fedora was the same for me.
I had great luck with OpenSUSE Leap on two machines. Another machine was really old and OpenSUSE was a bit slow on it so tried debian, it struggled with all debian based distros I tried. But NixOS has been amazing on it with 0 issues. It really is a dice roll.
Yup. Different distros work differently for different people.
That is kind of the problem with Linux though. I definitely had hardware-distro compatibility issues, and I get how for some people, trying out a dozen different distros to find the one that works best for them is a lot of fun, and that’s totally valid. It’s just not a good fit for everyone. I think fans of Linux can overestimate its stability, ease of use, and suitability for all use-cases. It’s right for some people, but not everyone.
Yep, to me there are two groups that linux works well for (at home)
- tinkerer type who likes new tech.
- completely computer/ tech illiterate type ( like my wife or mom)
In the 2 category if they just need a computer for netflix, browsing, email and zoom calls you set them up with a stable diatro and it works the same every day with no windows surprises.
Yep, I agree with that breakdown. It’s the people in the middle: tech literate enough to need their computer to do a lot, but not sufficiently interested in tinkering to spend time arguing with their OS, that are often better off using Windows or MacOS.
