The indoctrination of windows is extreme. Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.
And yet… linux is hard, and users decry RTFM as “not growing the userbase”
Linux isn’t hard anymore because I have ChatGPT to come up with all the command lines for me. And they work 60% of the time!
I don’t even understand the question.
Sorry, I love Linux and wish everybody was on it but no way is Windows “just as hard”. Maybe if you want to look behind the curtain and start tinkering Linux is easier but on the face of it I’d say Linux is somewhere around early Windows XP when it comes to usability for a normal person.
I’d say Linux is somewhere around early Windows XP when it comes to usability for a normal person.
I was confused until it struck me that maybe you don’t consider Windows XP the peak of operating system user interface design.
I’ll admit, Vista really messed with my perspective.
No, tbh it is.
The thing is that windows has “become the standard”
Where options are, how to fix any problems? You learn windows like you learn a language. German and danish isn’t too different, but if you grew up with danish it’s going to be harder to learn german.
i picked up linux mint in a weekend; it was incredibly easy to come over from windows.
If you had to install Windows every time you bought a PC you’d think that Linux and Windows are comparable. That is the issue, tbh. It’s not the RTFM; its because the average PC user had NEVER NEEDED to install an OS. Windows just comes preinstalled on 99% of consumer PCs! For the “year of Linux” to be a reality, there needs to be an easy way to get a retail PC with Linux preinstalled. When I show my Windows-only users my Linux laptop, how quickly it boots up, how many apps I have installed, how easy it is to install and update apps, etc., most say: “Oh wow! I can use this”. But when I demonstrate having to choose the boot loader, partition setup, etc., they say, “Nah! I’ll just go buy a laptop with Windows!”
Tech nerds have a really hard time understanding technophobia.
Yes everyone can use Linux if they just jump through the right hoops.
The average person does not ever want to jump through a single hoop EVER when it comes to learning a new tech.
Either it works or it isn’t worth the time/hassle to learn an entire world of information that is required to use different computers to the extent that linux nerds do.
Exactly!
Unfortunately, there needs to be a commercial/financial effort behind the mass adoption of Linux. The average person has no idea that an alternative to Windows or MacOS even exists because they have not seen it advertised on TV or mainstream social media.
These conversations on Linux communities on Lemmy and Mastodon are just us nerds yelling into our own echo chamber. The average person needs something that “just works” without having to read a book about how to set it up.
Well, we got Steam Deck on that front, so at least there’s something. Not a desktop, but a regular consumer device with Linux is still nice.
Steam Deck is a step in the right direction, but the manufacturer does not highlight the fact that it runs Linux.
Most people don’t realize that they are probably using Linux daily already. If they have a fire TV stick, or Android phone, or a smart speaker, etc.
One of my main problems with Linux is the obsessive amount of text things have to learn or understand it, I have to sig around online for someone who doesn’t say rtfm because the manual is extremely long and it’s usually a pretty small easy problem. Or I find someone who has the problem and no response or a response that doesn’t work in the current version. It took me a couple of days to setup my home Linux entertainment system because of these reasons.
Accessibility matters,it’s good to have proper documentation and it also good to make it accessible to everyone and not just the hardcore Linux people.
One of the things I had problems with is with my laptop turning off my external display with the lid was closed, took me a couple of days to find it was in some text file in systemd instead of idk in the power settings?
Linux is hard and it’s not user friendly. But better then Windows for me at least, mainly because Linux has more accessibility options now then windows.
Windows is to Linux what McDonald’s is to cooking your own food.
More like a restaurant that has Korean BBQ / hot pot on the menu. Most meals are completely prepared, but for some you need to do a small part yourself.
10/10 analogy
Linux is going to cook your own food, then realising that you don’t have half the ingredients, so you either have the choice of going to the shop where all the food is labelled in Swahili, and there’s no pictures of what’s in the packages, and a lot of the people who shop there are kinda stuck up and look down at you for not speaking Swahili, and by the time you’ve gone round the shop three times and asked for help and you’re still not sure what you’ve got in the trolley but you buy it anyway and then you get home and you’ve got some of the stuff for dinner but you’re still missing some essential ingredients OR going to McDonald’s and getting everything on the menu but Ronald follows you home.
So that’s what cooking feels like for people who never cooked before.
I recently switched to Linux after a lifetime with Windows. Last night I went to install a backup program on my media server but it couldn’t see the destination drive. I downloaded a partition manager and it crashed trying to load the external drive. DDG’d the issue, but I couldn’t find a clear cause/effect that applied to me. So I downloaded a different partition manager and backup program, and they worked right out of the box. Turns out the non-working apps were written for Gnome and the working apps were written for KDE, (which is my desktop environment). It was a very frustrating half hour, but it pales in comparison to the time I’ve spent troubleshooting (storage) driver issues in Windows. The point I’m making is, Linux isn’t really that hard to learn, it’s just unfamiliar and therefore scary. Getting past your fear unlocks a whole new world of wonder and possibilities! 🐧
🧐never had an linux app not working because it was “not designed for my desktop environment” I am confused, I was sure all Linux app run on all window manager / desktop environment 🤔
Are you sure?
Ummm… Both gnome and kde apps should work on any desktop environment
My guess is that they are using a KDE distro that doesn’t properly package gnome stuff
That’s just a guess though
Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.
With Windows, there is 1 current version of Windows (11), 1 “almost current” (10), 1 “outdated but you’ll maybe see it” (8.x) and only a few “you’ll probably only see this in obscure situations” versions. Linux has as many “parent” distros/package management systems (apt, rpm, pacman, etc.). This definitely complicates things, as each distro family does things slightly differently.
And we haven’t even touched the window manager/DE choices, of which there are a ton (as opposed to Windows). “Combinatorical explosion” maybe isn’t the right phrase, but you get the idea — Debian with i3wm is wildly different from Fedora Plasma.
This is all a good thing though, as Linux users tend to like the choice and flexibility — but it does mean that the “right way” to do something on Linux is very dependent on your particular setup, which isn’t the case with Windows.
(I have used Linux for the last 20+ years, and it’s definitely my preferred setup, and am lucky enough that I rarely use Windows for work, and never for personal use.)
That’s why we got together and agreed on one version of Linux to recommend to new adopters.
Linux Version
Okay, maybe we should have reconsidered when Hannah Montana Linux won the vote…
I know some of the issue is the manuals themselves are out of date. Ive literally had to have something explained to me via the developers Discord. I hate going to a projects Discord in order to find out crucial info.
Sometimes manuals are in 5 different places so you don’t know what applies to your specific system.
I usually try and improve the manuals when I do come across this with a quick PR, when I have time.
Windows is not as hard as Linux. You’re just being silly at this point. I’m not saying Windows is better, but it is engineered from the ground up to accommodate the lowest common denominator.
Case in point, installing a program on Windows? Double click the exe and you’re done. On Linux? It can be that simple but usually is much more involved.
That’s true! I just remember helping my troubleshoot his issues recently and it was a nightmare going into the registry and editing stuff, the UX is so bad!
I love when Linux gets complex because it makes sense. When Windows gets complex with Powershell, or any other horrible stuff in this OS, I just wish it wouldn’t lol.
Again, still not the norm. But I pray for all the nontechnical gen-z players of Valorant when something bad happens on their PC lol
Double click the exe, pending update blocks the installer, reboot, click the exe, go through a wizard that ask questions you don’t know the answer to (usually defaults are ok though), be prompted for admin password, get blocked by corporate policies, fill out the IT ticket, have them remote to your box and install, reboot, find the program in the menu, run it, have it blocked by HBSS, put in ticket for that, update antivirus, reboot, manually pull group policy updates, reboot, more updates install, reboot, run the program.
Obviously silly, but also real.
Not relevant when you own the machine.
Also, in Windows when you finally do run the program it just hangs with “Not responding”.
It took me more time to read your post than to install a program.
It depends on what you are doing
As it turns out, there are a lot of tools that work best on Linux because they were intended to be used on a Linux system. Same goes for Windows stuff that is meant to be run on Windows. You can make it work but for the most polished experience it is best to stick with something well supported.
Yes. After using Linux for servers and lower end machines I switched to mint on my main desktop a week ago. And while I’m quite pleased, it was not a seamless experience. I had to use a script that fixes my Bluetooth headset that connected but wasn’t showing up as an audio device when reconnecting, and apt sometimes having very out of date packages that just don’t work anymore. I love Linux but i really find it frustrating that many Linux users just seem a bit out of touch, don’t see that even some basics sometimes need weird fixes and that windows is just better at working out of the box. I really want Linux to get there but tbh i don’t see that happening in the near future.
Honestly after using Linux for a while I greatly prefer to just enter one command in my terminal to install something like a CPU monitoring tool or a disk space analyzer. All in all I don’t think Linux is any harder vs windows, it’s just different and most people are used to working with Windows so Linux is “hard”. Like if there’s an issue with a program you just run it from terminal and it’ll tell you exactly what’s wrong usually, whereas on Windows I have to google these obscure error logs from eventvwr.
The fact that you’re capable of using a terminal or Googling error logs puts you in the top 10% of computer users. You do not understand just how dumb the average person is.
Yes you’re right, I realize all too well as I work in tech support, I just find that on a technical level that both are just as “hard” each with their own peculiarities.
If you allow me a random question; I’m new to Lemmy and made my account in lemmy.world but I can only see the context of our discussion in lemm.ee, is this expected? What I mean is the “show context” button isn’t working for me except when I go to the source of your comment here : https://lemm.ee/comment/19375854
EDIT : I think it was a language setting thing which I’ve reverted back to “undetermined” after making that first comment. Like I can’t even find that comment back on my own profile but I can find this one perfectly fine. Sorry I’m new to this lol.
Lemmy.world has a lot of censorship from what I understand. Maybe it’s related to that?
On the other hand half the users I interact with on EE are Chinese propaganda promoters so it’s a trade off.
I’ve managed to fix it. I had to set my language to the same as when I made my initial comment to you, then I could actually find it and edited that one as language “undertermined”. Then changed my profile language back to “undetermined” and everything looks ok now. It’s now all showing up in lemmy.world for me with full context. I guess lemmy.world is more strict about this type of stuff vs lemm.ee
RTFM is great when it covers the problem you’re having, but I’ve seen multiple times in various forums, when the problem isn’t covered by the manual or the solution isn’t immediately obvious, the user is just ignored entirely. Some people have a really weird “linux doesn’t have any issues, its the user’s fault” attitude.
Last year I got told to RTFM and was linked to a documentation page that said
STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Which was very helpful
I’m probably gonna get hated on for this but here’s my story:
About 3 weeks ago I bought a new gaming laptop with no OS with the intention of installing Linux myself and ditching Windows.
I’d read a lot online about how Linux was now competitive with Windows as Linux emulators could run Windows games with a 10-15% boost in performance. I read that it was all a case of finding the right distro and that Linux is much more user friendly and compatible now. So I did a little research, made myself a ventoy boot USB with Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Pop, Garuda and Fedora to see which one I liked best.
None of them worked properly. All of them had weird little quirks. Some I could live with, some were completely infuriating. So l did a little tinkering as I was determined not to give in. None of the distros detected my hardware properly, and so I went away found forums with similar issues and I fixed most of them. However, no matter what I tried I could not get the laptop speakers to work. No problem, I thought, I’ll be either using headphones or BT to my soundbar (as that worked fine). So having given up on the speaker issue, I downloaded some games. In all of the distros they ran like shit. Sound bugs, laggy game play, some wouldn’t play at all. Again, I tried tinkering with the settings, using a different version of proton, different sound drivers, different graphics settings, different commands and programs which might solve the issues. No. Each different distro threw up different issues which I spent hours and researching and experimenting. I tried a few more distros and found new issues which needed more research and more experimenting.
Over the three weeks or so I was trying I became irritable and depressed. I’d spent a lot of money on the laptop and I was unable to use it because no matter what I tried, even with relatively low resource hungry games, they did not run well at all, and even linux itself seemed slow and unresponsive in comparison to what I was used to.
So after hours and hours of climbing the walls and snapping at my wife and neglecting my kid, I downloaded Windows. And everything just works. There are bespoke programs for my graphics card and everything in my steam library runs beautifully with very minimal tinkering. So now I have a dual boot system, windows for games only and Linux for everything else.
I hate that I’m still enthralled to Windows, but seriously, Linux is just not ready for mass adoption. If something doesn’t work on Windows , it’s usually a case of just downloading the correct driver and Windows normally knows which one you need. If something doesn’t work on Linux it’s a slog through paragraphs of text which all assume some basic knowledge of coding or Linux’s file system or some other jargon, or watching endless YouTube videos and then still getting nowhere. As a working husband and father I just do not have the time to put into it.
Tl;Dr - Windows is much easier than Linux. That’s why everyone uses Windows.
Wait, what brand/model laptop did you get?
A lenovo legion 9i
Ouch, the legion series has pretty bad compatibility.
So I’ve learned! I’m no programmer so I guess I’ll just wait until the software catches up. Hopefully won’t be too long!
To be fair, you most likely have nvidia in your PC.
As I see it, the distos you tried ether have a gui to install those proprietary drivers, but are on old kernel or no GUI to install them, but a recent kernel.
Installing nvidia drivers on endeavourOS is very simple and you always get the newest fixes after writing “yay” into console.
Installing apps is as easy as “yay [desired app]” and then choose out of the list. (Just don’t take the “-git” versions but the “-bin” versions 🤭)
After that, install steam out of multilib and make sure to pick the right vulkan package (based on GPU driver in use)
All this nvidia stuff is so complicated on Linux, because nvidia is not caring enough about Linux yet.
Only way to fix that is adoption.
All this nvidia stuff is so complicated on Linux,
I installed mint, opened the driver manager, picked the latest NVIDIA driver and it just worked. No idea what everybody is talking about …
Granted I’m on an old 1080ti, so maybe that’s it …
Even Nvidia drivers have come a long way recently. I used to always have a windows setup and used it more than Linux whenever I was off work, but this year I was finally confident enough on Linux to ditch it. I have Nvidia gpus on all my PCs, with both Intel and AMD cpus, and they are all working perfectly fine with multiple 4k screens.
So far there were only two games I was unable to play on Linux - Demoncrawl and Inzoi. And the second is filled with reports saying it works ootb for other Linux users, so if I had tried to tinker I could probably get it to work. (I haven’t had to tinker with anything else tho).
Thanks this is very helpful. I was steering clear of the more terminal heavy distros as tbh I find the terminal a bit daunting as a noob. I’ll give it a go tho.
Don’t know about your hardware. I don’t own a notebook anymore. I read good things about the AUR package optimus-manager-qt for hybrid GPUs (iGPU+dedicated GPUs) but also that it can be a bit tricky.
I exlusively used dedicated Nvidia cards in desktop rigs with Arch & EndeavourOS since 2017 when I switched from Win 10. Additionally exclusively KDE.
Though I had a bit of experience with other distros and desktop environments before my switch I’d wager to say you should give one last try to EndeavourOS, even if you have barel any Linux experience. I mean you had so many failed attempts. One more won’t hurt.
Use EndeavoutOS, not arch. First, it uses the standard initial system-setup (Calamares), then it comes with some good default settings & tools and finally a welcome screen which features links to additional tools like mirror selection (for faster updates), update shortcuts, package search, docs/wikis/forums or logs.
I’d select KDE in Calamares and I’d install the graphical package manager octopi via “yay octopi” after system installation and activate yay for the AUR in the octopi settings as e.g. optimus-manager-qt (which should only be used with hybrid/dual-gpu notebooks) is only available in AUR. You need to click the alien symbol in octopi to install from the AUR.
The AUR (Arch User Repository) is the repository for packages not available in the main repositories. AUR packages are user contributed where the maintainers write a so called PKGBUILD file which contains the steps to build and install a package from foreign sources (e.g. from a debian DPKG or from github sources). With octopi you can quickly open the PKGBUILD file and look from where the maintainer pulls the parts of the package.
The amount of software available in the AUR is gigantic but it can potentially contain malware (which happened a very few times). But you’ll have a hard time finding users who actually happen that to them. A good indicator that the package is ok are its number of votes but if you really want to know you have to check the sources in the PKGBUILD. If they come from github, you could check the github-repo and only it’s stars (votes) if you won’t read the sourcecode.
That all sounds mighty complicated but it isn’t. Just try to install packages from the main repo. Click the alien symbol only when you don’t find something official.
So with octopi and the welcome screen you don’t need to enter any terminal commands for package installation or the system update. I had only a few updates where problems occurred in like 7 years and they were always fixable. The Arch Wiki and the Endeavour forums could always help.
I can’t guarantee you’ll have a better experience than with the other distros and you will meet some bumps or roadblocks for sure. I’m not playing the the most current games and a lot of retro games via Lutris and Heroic. For some of them I had to tinker a bit and try different starters than Steam. Arma, Path of Exile, Sekiro (fitgirl repack), Diablo Resurrection were tricky but all the steam games or e.g. Witcher 3 via Heroic run very nice.
On the screen where you login (usually SDDM) you can switch between Wayland and X11. Which two very different Display managers. Wayland is the replacement for the very old X11. It works way(land) better with AMD GPUs than with Nvidia which is usable though but works much better on X11. Games can be faster on wayland for Nvidia than on X11. But things like missing color management in nvidia-settings make me stay with X11.
This is much less a Linux problem and much more a communuty one. We really need a semi-centralized place to get recent linux info and a nice guide on linux specific knowlage for beginners, but then people will cry needing to learn what wayland/x11 and such are will turn people away. Whoever was telling you windows games 10-15% faster were fucking dumbasses, I have zero problem running any game I want on my machine but the preformace has been exactly the same as windows (which I still consider a win for linux)
The next big problem is people going “We don’t need gaming distros” when those gaming distros are made to solve this exact problem. If you haven’t already try out Bazzite or Nobara and it might “just work” (no promises tho). But a distro like Mint/Pop/Debian are going to have a lot of missing drivers/package updates for the latest hardware, Fedora needs relatively a lot of post-install tinkering to get things working since they only ship opensource packages by default, Garuda is not ment for beginners and uses a more unstable kernal for preformance, but you still need to tinker with drivers. Bazzite and Nobara are the two big distros that aim to “just work” out of the box and even re-package some software with the latest fixes. And incase you don’t like the look of them, you can install whatever theme over KDE Plasma you want
Ofc I get if your tired of hearing “just install this distro instead” but a lot of advice is coming from others who also don’t actually know whats going on under the surface, and sometimes your hardware just isn’t supportes (not a linux issue but a manufacturer one). And if your at the point where using windows for gaming works and thats enough for you, nothin wrong with just using windows
You sound like a Windows power user and of course linux will be harder because you are not used to it.
I had a simmilar first months until I was used to linux. Now I find many things much more convinient in Linux.
And yes there is hardware that works in windows but not in linux like there is hardware that wont work in macos. But over time you will only buy stuff that is compatible and you wont think about it anymore.
Thats why I recommend dual booting at the start because sometimes you need to get shit done without trying to learn the new way and so you don’t get burnt out. But if you keep at it you will start to use windows less and less.
I have similar experiences. I converted my surface laptop to linux and overall I’m happy that I did, but games that ran fine on windows now are unplayable because I can’t get it to work properly, neither with wine, unbottled nor proton.
I still have a W10 gaming pc and I planned on converting it to linux with pop os being the frontrunner, but I will keep it on dual boot with the fallback scenario of just going with W11. Linux is not and might never be ready for mass adoption because it is simply too reliant on volunteers, forums and self-troubleshooting for that.
Microsoft and Apple provide OS’es that are thoroughly tested and validated with firmware and drivers that are specifically written for them by people whose job it is to do that. It might not always be perfect, but it usually does what it needs to do right away.
Oh interesting! What model surface do you have? I have a surface pro which I was considering converting (before the above nightmare) but have read that MS have made it super difficult for anything later than a 7 and I have an 8.
It’s quite easy actually. Just google linux surface and you will find the project website where they list all surface models and potential issues with installation guidelines. I have a pro 8. The only thing not working are the cameras as nobody has figured out the drivers yet.
Oof. Sorry you had such a bad experience.
Pro tip for others: It takes time for volunteers to reverse engineer new proprietary laptop hardware.
If the laptop manufacturers aren’t advertising Linux support, it’s up to the community to play guess and check, to figure out what the proprietary drivers do.
You might get lucky and pick the same exact model as a passionate reverse engineer. Or you might not.
With old stuff, your odds are much better that someone has figured it out for you.
For new hardware, it’s still essential to pick a vendor that chooses to write and release Linux drivers.
This will get better when truly open hardware platforms gain popularity.
Yeh, I’d come to that conclusion myself. The laptop I bought was a 2023 lenovo legion 9i which is have discovered is not a particularly popular model but shares a lot of it’s DNA with the far more popular 7i. So I figured most of the software and fixes would be cross-compatible. Turns out that I was wrong. I’m not giving up hope yet, and I’m not gonna get rid of the laptop anytime soon. Maybe they’ll be a new kernal that come out which fix the issues I’ve been having.
Well, that sounds like issues with your specific hardware, because that’s definitely not the usual Linux experience.
Tip for next time: find some distro that has up to date kernel. Ubuntu, Mint and Debian are definitely not good if you have very recent hardware, they stay on old kernels for quite a long time. And drivers are in the kernel.
I have to disagree about Windows being easier, but that’s fairly subjective. What’s 100% objective is that it’s definitely not the reason everyone uses Windows, the reason is much simpler: it came with their machine.
Anyway, I recommend Nobara for gaming - it’s basically Fedora, but preconfigured for gaming and general normal use.
I mean, people are gonna bite my head off for this, but most non technical folks are turned off by someone calling them stupid… That’s what “RTFM” sounds like. I think there needs to be a culture change to drive adoption, but stuff like the Steam Deck is helping a lot.
I understand the impetus behind RTFM - It happens when the user failed to do basic troubleshooting and expects others to do their thinking. Being blown off doesn’t feel great, but other people’s time is valuable, and in the end your system is your own responsibility.
deleted by creator
Make Local LUGs Great Again.
My brain had to work hard to pull that acronym from the depths lol.
Even technical folks aren’t huge fans of RTFM.
If I’m doing something incredibly interesting, and I’m asking for help, I should RTFM.
If I’m doing something routine, we can (and usually do, now), make it simple enough not to need a manual.
These days, they could even just ATFAI (like Ask The Fucking AI) and would arrive at desired destination.
The thing that prevents adoption is the human fear of change.
Hot take among what often seems to be an “AI is the devil!” crowd.
😄yes, but to be honest, I, for example, learned practically all coding I can by reading code together with AI
And as it is code, I see what happens when I compile/execute it and can uncover hallucinations like this.
Of course, my code is at first vibe programming with many small commits, but as soon as it is working, I clean up by rebasing and double checking all commits to be consistent.
And it generally helps me well with my Linux issues, as it is pretty good parsing the arch wiki
I think the troll users are getting old and grey at this point. People people are willing to help.
I feel like linux demands an understanding of the relationship between hardware and software more than windows does.
If all personal computer users were tech tinkerers like they were in the 70s and 80s, then linux and its distros would basically be the default OS everyone used. But that is not the world we live in. Microsoft saw a world where everyone was a computer user and Windows was designed in a way to support that vision.
Theres nothing inherently wrong with catering to the lowest common denominator, linux apostles just need to understand that not everyone can be uplifted to their level, nor do they want to be - or, even, should be.This was my thought as well. Unix was built from the ground up as an OS to support researchers and engineers. Later people adapted it to desktop use. Windows was built to be easy to use for the average person from much earlier on. I don’t think anyone claiming that it’s not easier to use than Linux has used it lately or is being completely honest.
Fortunately, today the gap is really small compared to what it was IMO. Compatibility with games has gotten really good which pretty much leaves behind the proprietary professional apps in terms of raw functionality. With Microsoft testing the limits of how much they can exploit their user base, I think we’ll see slow but steady growth in the desktop Linux space.
Microsoft saw a world
That’s not what happened. They got a dominant position because IBM could not even on their IBM PCs, and were at the right place at the right time, even if DOS was actually just garbage. With the power/money from this deal, they strongmanned their position as dominant PC operating system long after that era using legal and illegal anti-competitive means.
Microsoft still has wide unethical reach with secret and not-so-secret contracts and agreements not to allow other operating systems to gain a foothold in OEMs. And that’s before you get through the sheer inertia from users that completely refuse to try something different on the grounds that they don’t want to.
Besides this, the complete apathy in Europe moving off Microsoft software is quite concerning. Companies in the US are already collaborating with fascists in an unreflected way in true capitalist fashion - as happened 90 years ago. The reaction to this in terms of OS selection by companies is to hide their head in the sand and pour concrete for good measure. This will not work indefinitely, and I feel like nobody is going to suffer consequences for being a completely willful useful idiot for what is in summation a batshit fascist regime.
Yes, I am putting Microsoft and fascism on the same pedestal, the end stage in Microsoft bashing. The sad part with this meme is that in 2025 it’s not unwarranted.
Nobody has ever been fired for ordering
SAPMicrosoft, right?Choosing software is mostly choosing a tool get a job done. Microsoft has powerful software and a big ecosystem around it.
Windows is really good for administrating lots of workstations for large organizations for example.
Honestly Active Directory is so underrated. I think having the ability to run all your machines Inna shared collective with group policies and high controls really helped Windows adoption.
Even today there isn’t anything quite like Windows polices. Sure you can get the same effect on Linux but it takes a lot more work and requires more scripting and customization. I think Apple and Android have equivalent management tools but I don’t really know how they compare in practice.
Apple and Android have equivalent management tools
MDM (mobile device management) is where Apple shines. Android has some features for it as well, but supported devices can be spotty. Samsung has their own thing going as well.
If you want to administrate a fleet of mobile phones and iPads, Apple has the most complete and easy to use platform. Their devices also get OS updates for longer than typical Android devices.
Nobody disputed that their current software works.
Choosing software is mostly choosing a tool get a job done.
The issue in this case is that the vast majority of companies will choose a tool made by a company that will now be bending their will to a fascist dictator whose cronies cannot be trusted to do rudimentary operational security.
There was always the nebulous strangehold that the US might have on the IT security of any company that chooses Microsoft, because you cannot build Windows and the vast majority of their software from source, or audit them.
From the IT security perspective of Europe it’s exactly like all zero-days and backdoors known and implemented by the US intelligence agencies were just handed over to North Korea.
Last time I checked there wasn’t an easy alternative. Linux might work for some things but it isn’t straight forward to manage and maintain.
It is best to try and keep Geopolitics out of software
You can’t get rid of Windows as it is deeply entrenched and heavily depended on.
Nothing wrong you say. Sure, noooothing can go wrong with this approach (I am looking at climate changes, fucking plastic in living organisms, wars not stopping even for a day, idiots in positions of power). Cool story bro, does not work
This is exactly how I felt when I switched to Linux and it “clicked”.
This is what personal computers were supposed to always be like before Capitalism ruined it for everyone.
That just depends on what you want to do
If you’re a tinker on Linux then you will be on Windows
If you’re the lowest common denominator on Windows then you will be on Linux
Linux just makes it easier for the user
I mean, this is why I have been using Mac since 1984. It’s not hard and it pretty much just gets out of the way and lets you do stuff. (Caveat: Gaming. It really doesn’t let you do gaming without jumping through a number of hoops.)
The fact Time Machine immediately hassles you to set up a drive and back up your stuff is so great for the average user. I’m sure both Linux and (I know) Windows have something similar, but it’s not immediately active and trying to get you to save your stuff. TM has saved my bacon numerous times and I love that it’s one click and a fresh HD for users to get it set up.
Shocker, you bought hardware with a compatible OS. That’s the dudes problem. He didn’t buy hardware compatible for Linux. 1984, so I know you are well aware, you have to buy hardware that is compatible with your OS.
Yeah, but the challenge is knowing what is compatible to some degree…
Nonsense. It has always been listed on the box if there is support. Same as all the other OSes. How many times have you bought random used Windows hardware to see if you could install MacOS on it? Nobody buys random Mac hardware to see if they can install Windows on it. There were Hackintosh’s but when some didn’t work out, nobody blamed MacOS. Back when Windows ran poorly on Intel Macs because of poor support, Nobody blamed Windows. It’s a double standard.
I’m sure both Linux and (I know) Windows have something similar, but it’s not immediately active and trying to get you to save your stuff.
Funnily enough, Microsoft does try to do this with OneDrive, prompting you during OOBE. A lot of the tech space demonizes Microsoft for exactly this.
Which to be fair, a lot of that does come down to legitimate concerns (such as being far to eager about this even when you say “No” and not offering a “don’t ask me again”) - but at the same time, some of the push (likely) comes from a good place of trying to set up backups for users.
It’s definitely not completely altruistic - companies hardly ever are (cough cough, forced online accounts). But I also don’t think it’s as black and white as “Microsoft is bad for this”. And though even I complain about this, the same goes for Microsoft being aggressive with Windows Updates.
AFAIK, OneDrive is very different from Time Machine? More similar to iCloud? It’s not a backup, it’s just an online sync.
The MS equivalent of Time Machine is File History, I believe. (Ie, a versioned backup that fills the hard drive until it’s out of space and then starts deleting the oldest copies of files.)
OneDrive does offer restoration of individual file versions or even the entire OneDrive contents (for things like ransomware attacks). Details are here
I think OneDrive is a pretty good (but paid) backup utility especially for non-technical people. There are a lot of things that I could nitpick on, but for some of the older people (octogenarians) that I am the family support for, I set it up and anytime I interact with their computer I click on OneDrive to ensure it is replicating. I very occasionally have seen a single file not replicating, but never have I seen it fail completely. These people previous had NO backups of any kind.
I use it myself as an additional backup location, but not in the way most people would.
Yeah, I just meant that I think that you can’t roll back to a version 3 weeks ago kind of thing, which is what Time Machine and File History do. Synchronization vs a true versioned backup.
You absolutely can roll back to previous versions using the steps in those links. I believe it has a 30 day limit, but that is pretty good for a consumer product.
Ah, perhaps that’s what I’m missing. I do have a Windows install for playing the odd games every now and then that don’t support Linux, but I don’t actually back anything up since all of my games are via Steam and utilize Steam’s cloud saves for syncing (and these games are usually multiplayer online-only games and wouldn’t need syncing anyways). I know that when I originally used macOS (back during “Mountain Lion” I believe?) Time Machine did utilize an external disk, but I would’ve thought these days it also leveraged iCloud Drive.
I did know about Windows’ File History mechanism, but I also made the assumption that Windows tech would integrate with OneDrive since they’re made by the same company… doing a quick search though seems to indicate that it “should” be possible, but actually getting it to do so definitely doesn’t have a simple toggle like you’d expect.
That’s what I get for speaking about features I’ve not used myself, whoops!
I will always remember my first experience using MacOS: I am comfortable with computers and a relative needed help with their recently purchased macbook. I had plugged in a USB stick to transfer some files and was done and wanted to eject it. I spent way too much time than I care to admit, trying all possible options, right-clicks, settings, everything imaginable, to eject the damn thing.
It was impossible to me to find the simplest operation with a USB stick, something required to operate it. I capitulated and looked online. The solution? I had to drag and drop the USB stick icon into the trashcan!?!?!?
To this day, I will never understand the absolute ridicule of this and I will never comprehend how anyone is expected to figure it out on their own. And this is from the OS touted as the most user friendly and intuitive. Go figure.
Linux is nice, but I wish there weren’t so many distros. The entire project should be managed by a central authority that uses violence to punish deviance, like Lenin said.
No.
I bet you voted for Kamala Harris.
Who’s that?
