Right. I spent the last several hours trying to get a mixed batch of Win10, Win11, and Win10-upgraded-from-8 computers to talk to a printer and had just about enough of this argument. If you want a pissing match of who can be the biggest dick, take it to Twitter.
Locked.
But like - use Linux?
My employer keeps saying I can’t do this
Oh easy. Just use Linux
time to rice a linux to camoflague the desktop. as long as it looks like windows theyll not see the difference right
I trick Windows-only vendor programs in the exact same way
Just dropping this here: https://gitgud.io/wackyideas/aerothemeplasma/
Keep asking, keep telling colleagues about it. Be kind. Change is a process.
Doubt they are going to replace tons of proprietary software costing thousands of dollars because some nerd on the internet told them to.
CERN is doing exactly this: https://home.cern/news/news/computing/three-year-malt-project-comes-close
Governments in Europe from local to state are doing it as well: https://eu-os.eu/ https://gitlab.opencode.de/sh
Many companies already allow Macs to used at work. The same process applies to Linux.
costing thousands of dollars
If I had a dollar for every $10k my company paid Microsoft…
Overthrow that guy, he is clearly unqualified. Power to the people.
There’s only so much incessant bitching I can hear about dark patterns, intrusive automatic updates, shoehorned-in and useless AI, zero user choice, planned obsolesence, and being blindsided by enshittification before I say “just try using the free thing that doesn’t have those problems”.
“I’ve tried nothing, and I’m all out of ideas.” If you have to for work or something, though, I totally get it and encourage the bitching.
I hear you, but in a lot of these cases the people with complaints are not competent. Anyone who has worked helpdesk or adjacent has seen boatloads of 'em. Imagine I’m an oldie or fool or even grew up without electrical power and I barely know how a computer works. I don’t really want to work with them and I think turning the monitor on and off is a reboot. Windows is horrible with all this bloat and AI and so much confusing shit but usability-wise it makes some sense I guess. I could do with a change but I can’t do anything confusing or outside of my limited range. I’m probably not installing a good distro. I am not partitioning a drive. I am not creating a bootable USB. What do I do?
The only option here is to have them go out on a limb and buy a machine online pre-installed with Linux or have someone else set it up, right?
What do I do?

Not literally, of course. But if you don’t have the baseline level of skill to exist in a technological society without being absolutely reamed by predatory corporations and other scammers and also refuse help to learn how to defend yourself, at some point that’s a “you” problem and you deserve to fucking lose.
No but genuinely I resonate with this answer so much. Imagine if you needed to pass a computer literacy test to own any sort of “smart” device/computer and needed a license to operate it. It would eliminate so many scam call centers and would make so many IT teams work load decrease 10x. Imagine the complete LACK of mis/disinformation on the internet. Sometimes i wish that were the world we were in.
While I agree with the “fuck 'em” attitude to a certain extent I’m not sure that should apply to the entire gradient of differently abled. A lot of people who are mentally infirm have to continue to work in this hellscape and may have real roadblocks preventing learning about 'puters and the interweb and there’s not a whole lot of resources anyway for people who don’t live in the city. But yeah I don’t expect a magic answer. Your GIF might actually be the best way haha.
Boomerism is not a mental illness they just don’t understand computers
Just don’t hire incompetent people then
The year of the Linux Desktop doesn’t happen when people shut up about Linux.
Hail
Kal Ort Por
I use Arch by the way
Do you have a few minutes to talk about our lord and saviour, Linus Torvalds?
Allow me to interject for a moment to talk about our holy father Richard Stallman…
Recite the GPL in its entirety over a bag of Fritos a la the Eucharist. The Fritos will transsubstantiate into that thing he ate off his foot that one time.
Perhaps you’d be more interested to meet our dapper mascot…
Xenia?
Curse you, filthy heretic!
Every professional Windows admin feels this in their bones. I hate Windows and Microsoft more than most of you ever could. Still gotta work with it unless the CIO gets the green light to rebuild the whole company’s infrastructure, commission at least one enterprise solution from scratch, and probably get fired in the process.
I still remember all the time I sunk trying to remove candy crush soda saga from the enterprise windows 10 image I cloned to all office computers back when I worked IT. That shit was basically a part of the core OS.
I did in fact get fired shortly after rebuilding all the on prem servers to be linux and introducing Linux mini-PCs which could be used to rdp into windows cloud pcs.
That was the last time I had to work as a windows admin so it was great to get fired and move onto full time Linux work.
I have a fundamental problem with this attitude. If you recognize there’s a problem, and the problem disturbs you, and you CAN fix it, why not fix it? It’s not world hunger, it’s a computer for God’s sakes. Maybe I don’t want to hear people complain about problems that are 100% within their control and refuse to fix it.
Not about GNU/Linux. Just my thoughts on complaining about simple problems with easy solutions.

Edit: typo
Literally read the post and just decided to ignore the two examples huh?
If you recognize there’s a problem, and the problem disturbs you, and you CAN fix it, why not fix it?
Because if the fix for any particular problem is to learn a new OS, that’s a steep cost for things that can just be minor annoyances. If you’re in Lemmy, chances are you’re comfortable with nerdy shit, and not everyone is.
On top of that, Linux has its own quirks, so it’s not a panacea. There’s no easy way for me to change scroll speed on a track pad in fedora/gnome, for example.
I installed Mint on my MIL computer. I did not have to spend time teaching her anything. People are able to switch from Windows to Apple no problem but for some reason Linux is
learn a new OS, that’s a steep cost
”Linux is only free if your time is worthless” springs to mind.
With that attitude, nothing is free. And the “free” in free and open-source means free as in free speech, not as in free beer. Your comment is also generally disrespectful to the people who invest actual time into creating the software that you rely on everyday and take for granted. FOSS software is deployed all over the world and there is no software environment that does not make use of it in some form, not even MS Windows. So you think the time of the people who put their skills to use for the betterment of computing overall is worthless? You guys do not even begin to understand how many resources and how much thought is expended by strangers for your comfort.
Relax, it’s just a joke almost as old as Linux itself.
But using Linux is not a solution, that is the whole point of the post. Why can’t you read?
I CAN NOT install a different OS on my work computer because I do not manage them and NONE of our company software works on Linux.
I’d get more use out of it if I just smash my computer with a brick than if I switched the OS to Linux.
I reply “just use Linux” because I’m hoping for the one in a million chance that your boss reads the thread and goes “what’s Linux?” and then decides to switch your company to Linux.
That will never happen.
I can tell you from personal experience that you’re wrong
Im happy to hear that.
If enough people bring it up to their work, then the policy can be re-evaluated.
I take it to the next level and rant at our CEO about it. We’ve actually saved a good amount of money with Linux.
Oh look, I found someone who didn’t read the post
Boss told me I couldn’t use EndeavourOS because “it doesn’t work with M$ InTune”.
So I said if I could make an old unused laptop work with that setup, maybe the company could turn that into a pilot system and we could be more sexy to new developers we want to hire.
Boss said why not. IT said sure, here’s your laptop, have fun.
A few months later, a couple of devs have switched to Linux. Some have kept Windows. Some didn’t care because they have Macs. Everyone’s happy, we have more options, and everyone can choose what they subjectively feel is the best tool for the job - which is what professionals do instead of fighting.
And we actually hired a new dev who uses Linux.
Boss told me I couldn’t use EndeavourOS because “it doesn’t work with M$ InTune”.
That’s technically not true, it will work but with the caveat that Intune will show the device as non-compliant for the OS itself. If the OS version isn’t included in any of the applied policies then it shouldn’t matter.
You’re right, but I did manage to make the device show up as a compliant Linux laptop in their Intune UI, and that was all that mattered to them.
They don’t care that you have to make Intune think the distro is Ubuntu when it’s in fact EndeavourOS. Some necktie people were satisfied with the result and devs can now use Linux. Après moi, le déluge.
The necktie people’s understanding of tech is probably limited to “green good red bad” while looking at spreadsheets. It’s better if they don’t know about whatever wizardry you performed.
Ok, now I’m actually curious how you managed to do that. Please do tell!
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It’s the nail in the head all over again
How this same conversation can sound to non-technical folks:
“my boyfriend left his dirty socks in the living room AGAIN.”
“Well maybe you should switch boyfriends”
“…what?”
Blissful ignorance.
Are we really going to start enlightened centrist memes over Linux?
I say this as someone who daily drives Linux on their framework laptop, who self hosts jellyfin, home assistant, searxng, ollama, etc.
For a lot of folks, their lives don’t revolve around computers. I know that folks on Lemmy tend to skew more towards that computer lifecycle, but we gotta recognize that we’re out of the norm in that regard.
So what? I’m tired of shit aimed at the lowest common denominator and won’t comment as if I need to appeal to or be understood by those who can’t be bothered to learn a bit about things that play a major role in society.
They are tired of hearing about linux? Well I’m tired of hearing about whining about windows, plus I blame their inattention for enablong the enshitification in the first place because windows would be much better if more people were willing to look at alternative options. A lot of shit would be better if that were the case.
Though usually I don’t bother engaging at all and only really engage when there’s pushback saying it’s hard (I found it less effort overall than installing windows and getting it to a state where I don’t hate interacting with it so much), or these kind of arguments that imply because it’s not as accessible a lot of people, it shouldn’t be brought up or something?
“you are constantly complaining to me about your boyfriend and he doesn’t seem to listen to you. Why are you still with him?”
Did Lemmy just compare using a computer to domestic abuse… really…
That’s some out of touch bullshit. These are not comparable on any level. I get this is a meme section for Linux, but it’s some out of touch bullshit.
The funkiest part here is a lot of big tech keeps acting more and more like an abusive partner.
Gaslights you regarding your desires and choices, tries to get you to stop using any other service so you only use theirs, demands increasing amounts of ad views/dollars in exchange for decreasing quality of service, makes it intentionally difficult to leave etc.
So while comparing the choice to not install a new OS on your computer to an abusive relationship is weird, there’s also some parralels that are getting even weirder
Isn’t Microsoft slowly pushing its fist into your ass?
I’d just like to point out that not only are you minimizing the harm of domestic abuse with this comparison, but you are now doubling down on it.
I am not.
If you are hurt you should get help.
That’s not a debatable matter, friend, you already did it. You compared bad software to domestic abuse, which minimizes domestic abuse to the intensity of someone using Windows
No it doesn’t. If I say I’m melting on a hot day, I’m not trying to minimize the suffering of burn victims. It’s just comparison.
This is the level of delusion the average Linux evangelist operates at.
Thinking you should leave an abusive boyfriend / girlfriend is delusional now?
Shh, just let them complain about their boyfriend.
This brings back bad memories lol
You mean from just now? Otherwise I don’t get the reference
Thinking its as simple as “Just leave your boyfriend” is pretty fucking delusional, yeah.
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are you saying ms is not invading users’ privacy by scanning all their files, contents included, it possible? while also removing more and more control options over how the system runs
I feel like they’re saying that what you described doesn’t equate to do getting hit in the face by your boyfriend, which is subjective.
its_a_metaphore.avi
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Sir, this is a
Wendy’sLinux meme community.use linux
If I have to see you whining about windows, you have to see me shilling for linux.
/s
This but without the /s
People trying to shame us encouraging people switching to a OS that respects our privacy from the shit show Microsoft has become makes me roll my eyes every single time.
We pass so much of our time in front of a screen. Why not do it while retaining our freedom as much as we can? Sure, if you must use it for work, it is what it is, but Linux is definitely something worth learning using no matter what your technical level is.
If you can navigate through Windows with some degree of confidence, you absolutely can use Linux effectively. You can go full GUI no problem if you want to.
Linux is so easy nowaday. Yeah, some niche things might require some digging around, but that’s nothing compared to the bullshit you have to accept from Microsoft.
If it’s not for work, I’m sorry but use Linux or stop bitching. The correct answer will always be don’t use the trojan OS.
I learned more in 3 years of using Linux than I did in 20 of using windows about how pcs work
Ill shame you all because most of you come off as complete pricks about it. Its very rarely presented as an answer, and more of a boast. Like using linux makes you a big brain, and using windows makes you a dumb dumb. Theres a hostility in the exchange. An implied superiority, or in some cases, and outright stated superiority.
See also, people who say “Just buy a Toyota” whenever anyone complains about their car. Because no one ever had any issues with a Toyota in the history of the brand…
If it’s not for work, I’m sorry but use Linux or stop bitching.
You really think anyone is listening to you anymore after saying that?
If i have to listen to people complain, then they can listen to the rational and obvious solution to their problem. It doesn’t add anything of value you say? What value is there in your complaining? If i have to hear you bitch about something thats easily avoidable im gonna call yout out for it. It goes both ways.
There is more value in complaining than there is in giving dumb “solutions”.
Dumb “solutions” don’t solve anything ever.
Complaining at least can lead to GOOD solutions.





















