I switched to linux full time almost a year ago.
I have been thus far entirely unsuccessful in convincing anyone else to make the jump. Normal people do not give a fuck, will not lift a finger to improve their digital lives. I’ve been telling friends and family about adblockers for YEARS, and not a single one ever bothered to do it of their own volition. If I don’t do it for them, then they just sit through ads like complacent sheep. None of them are going to change operating systems if they can’t even install a browser extension.
I really just don’t understand this. Folks will not lift a finger or a brain cell to figure out tech.
I was thinking about this earlier today for myself. Not specifically about computers, but the same principle. If I have something that bugs me and wastes 10 seconds of my time every single day but I could permanently fix the problem in an hour - logically it’s worth fixing. Even if it eventually saves time, I have to invest an hour of time and brainpower right now. If it’s something I don’t really care about, it’s just not worth it. I don’t need that hassle, I’ll just have a small annoyance every day instead of a big annoyance today. I’ve got better things to do. Like browsing Lemmy apparently
These are the people that companies like Apple pander to, with the whole “it just works” schtick.
I’m been a Linux power user for more than half of my life, 8 last years spent on NixOS. I self-host my everything. I’ve bootstrapped a toolchain and a Linux distro from scratch^Wtcc for giggles twice, first without a package manager, then without one. For the last five years, I earn a living by working on a Linux distro. I still have my only decent GPU in a Windows 10 box half a continent away I stream games from. Would you be able to convince me to switch?
Just face it, Windows is the gaming console firmware.
I’m talking about normies, not gamers, and not power users like yourself.
Normies touch their pc for less than one hour a day, because everything they could want is in their phone. Many normies don’t even have internet connections in their home because they exclusively engage with the internet through their phone. I’ve talked to normies who don’t have pcs at all because their ipads do everything they could possibly want.
It’s a fact that there are certain games that simply do not run on linux, because of drm or developer stupidity or any number of reasons. As a separate argument, I’d argue that those games are not worth playing. I used to be a hardcore gamer, I’ve gotten old since then and become a casual. I don’t have time nor energy to dedicate to figuring out why game x won’t run on pc y with configuration z. If the big green play button doesn’t work, I refund the damn thing, and in my almost 2 years of linux usage I have yet to need to do that. Another separate argument is my disdain for AAA games, the lack of ethics in their creation, and the abysmal conditions in which they always launch in these days.
So as to your actual question, can I convince you to switch your gaming pc to linux? No, and I’m not even going to try. If you insist on playing the latest AAA slop that the megacorps shovel at you, then you must have windows and you must continue to allow microsoft to continue to rape your digital existence in order to have crappy entertainment that I wouldn’t dignify with the time of day.
Can’t upgrade because my 4 years old mobo is apparently too old (haven’t checked out the workarounds yet). Installed Linux Mint to give it a try and I am positively surprised so far.
Only semi-related: Why do they always show pictures of Gates when he hasn’t been involved in MS in a long time? Why never Satya Nadella?
EDIT: Also, yes, related to the actual question already living Linux full time and when October rolls around probably gonna back up everything from the Windows side of my dual-boot and wipe the 1TB NVMe Windows is on to use as storage.
Personally, I think this picture of Steve Balmer is so much more iconic and should be used for every single article about Microsoft or Windows:
It’s weird how MS’s putting developers first became a joke. Back in the 80’s, companies like HP and IBM had open warehouses with coders at desks lined up like factory workers. MS was the first big company to give a private office to every programmer.
The approach isn’t what became a joke, it was the absolutely unhinged way in which it was presented in that famous Ballmer stage appearance.
I’d take that any day over the unhinged AI focus from all these companies now or Google’s awful documentation from the past few years.
Oh sure, it was crazy. But the sentiment behind it was good. It’s like how Howard Dean got dunked on for his scream.
I was thinking the same thing. He will just forever be known as the guy. Maybe it will change once he dies?
Maybe, he is indeed looking hella rough in this photo.
Seems he’s using the same orange tan as the other orange guy haha
I don’t think so. Gates’ shoes are big ones.
You’re right, it’s really hard to fill the shoes of someone who abuses their power and position to try to hook up with women.
Because he set the general, evil directions for MS. Like keeping users uninformed and locked in, smearing the competition, sabotaging open standards, taking your control over your hardware and data away from users, etc. All happened during evil Bill’s reign.
Not to mention the many deals with hardware manufacturers in order to avoid competing OSs to have any chance. They managed to kill BeOS and dominate the Japanese market in the 90s
Under his watch they did form the anti-opensource and EEE mantra
I’m using 10+ years old hardware, Microsoft has already told me I can’t upgrade, followed by several messages asking me to upgrade…
In other news, Linux Mint works nice and I just need to check Protondb to get Warframe running at frames per second and not seconds per frame
I got ahead of the game a little bit by switching to Linux in 2008.
too late already did switch to linux :3
I won’t be doing pretty much anything about it. I have 10 pro, I don’t really give a shit about what Microsoft thinks I should do. My computer is behind a firewall, and bluntly, it’ll be a while before the security issues become such a problem that I need to go and upgrade.
However. I already did the legwork. I went out and upgraded the hardware TPM 1.2 in my system to TPM 2.0, and I picked up some (relatively cheap) Windows 11 pro product keys. I can upgrade if I want.
I also have access to W10 LTSC, so I can always pivot to that if I need to.
I get the security and other concerns with Windows 10. I do, but the windows 11 changes, to me seem like they’re changes for the sake of things being changed. Windows 10’s user experience was already quite good, apart from the fact that every feature release seemed to have the settings moved to a different location (see above about making changes for the sake of making changes). IMO, as a professional sysadmin and IT support, the interface and UX changes have made Windows, as a product, worse; it is by far the worst part of the upgrade process and I don’t know why they thought any of it was a good idea. I also hate what M$ has done with printers, but I won’t get started on that right now.
For all the nitpicking I could do, Windows was, for all intents and purposes, exactly what it needed to be, between Windows 7 and 10. There hasn’t been any meaningful progress in the OS that’s mattered since x86-64 support was added. Windows 10 32 bit was extremely rare, I don’t think I ever saw it (where W7 was a mixed bag of 32/64 bit). Having almost everyone standardized on 64 bit, and Windows 10, gave a predictability that is needed in most businesses. The professional products should not follow the same trends as the home products. If they want to put AI shovelware and ads into the home products, fine. Revamp the vast majority of the control panel into the settings menu, sure. But leave the business products as-is. By far the most problems that people have with Windows 11 that I hear about, relate to how everything changes/looks different, and/or having problems navigating the “new look” or whatever the fuck.
Microsoft: you had a good thing with Windows 10, and you pissed it all away when you put out the crap that is Windows 11.
Stop moving shit around, making controls less useful, and stop making it look like the UX was designed by a 10 year old. Fuck off.
And 25% of users in Asia still use Windows 7. People are going to stay on the OS for as long as possible.
I thought I read some time ago that Windoze 10 would be the last version of Windoze ever…
Switched to Linux (mint) recently.
All my games run (almost) perfect and (almost) everything has been working perfectly. Overall it is much nicer than Windows and isn’t that hard getting used to.
Would much recommend!
I’m a lifelong Windows user and tried Linux many many times but could never wrap my head around it. Recently I installed Nobara and it’s exactly the noob-friendly experience I need. All of my games run flawlessly, even the VR game I play. And everything is just FASTER. I never realized how bloated Windows was until now. I can’t imagine going back to Windows at this point.
What headset? I have my Index mostly working on Nobara, but can’t figure out how to get it to show as an audio device.
Quest 3. I only play Resonite which has native Linux compatibility so it might be easier for that reason.
I finally committed to Linux at the end of last year. Enough is working to make it preferable to Windows now. I’m still having a lot of bugs, and it’s costing quite some time. But at least my computer is mine again. No more telemetry, ads, and UIs that treat me like a toddler. No more updates forced onto me instead of being done whenever I want it.
Most problems people have with Linux, I think, come from trying to be Linux power users from the start by performing very advanced techniques beyond their time and patience: dual booting multiple operating systems (so they don’t have to buy Linux-dedicated hardware), using any graphics card (the latest and greatest GPUs are all closed source and developers who work on Linux do so because they despise closed source), using the least expensive hardware (which are typically closed source and buggy with anything except Windows), and emulating Windows apps so they don’t have to learn new workflows or abandon their favorite games (technically, Proton with Steam allows Windows games like FFXIV to be played, but it’s a neverending journey to get it working and keeping it working.
If you switch to Linux, accept that for a smooth experience you’ll have to pay more than you would for a Windows machine (e.g. System76, Framework) And if you want graphics card support for your emulated Windows games on Steam, you’re going to have to use the specific flavor of Linux the manufacturer supports.
That said, if you value free/libre open source software, then making the switch from Windows is totally worth it.
What does Bill Gates have to do with this, he hasn’t been directly involved in Microsoft in 17 years? He hasn’t even been on the board for 5 years.
Already switched to Nobara. Only have Windows dual boot because Space Engineers Multiplayer doesn’t seem to work on Linux.
