[A]n INI configuration file in the Windows Canary channel, discovered by German website Deskmodder, includes references to a “Subscription Edition,” “Subscription Type,” and a “subscription status.”
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For the average consumer, this would help Apple and Google out more than anything. People want what they know.
On the more savvy user side and for gamers, this move would, potentially, help Linux adoption rates.
It would help all of their competitors. A non zero number of people would move from windows to each of the others.
Whether or not the number moving away from windows and on to each of the others is significant or not is a different matter.
The biggest thing helping Linux right now is Valve’s work improving the gaming experience, IMO.
Even the rumor of this makes Valve’s focus on Linux seem that much smarter.
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I’ve never used Linux but if Microsoft goes subscription I’m out and I’ll be learning Linux.
NGL PopOs is easy and the works with steam/most things easily.
I really hope Windows doesn’t go subscription based because of the proliferation of ads.
I’ve been meaning to install Linux on my primary gaming PC but haven’t yet due to laziness. This would 100% get me to pull the trigger if/when I ever had to upgrade/reinstall.
valve would be really happy if Microsoft do windows subscription, lmao
For the average consumer, this would help Apple and Google out more than anything. **People want what they know. **
Exactly, which is why this will probably work, do you really think the average consumer that’s used to Windows is going to switch to Mac when they can just pay 5$/month instead? Lol
As long as the price isn’t ridiculous like 50$/month or some shit, the average consumer is just going to pay it lolol
To start, I don’t think it’ll be a “subscribe or else” type deal. My assumption would be something like a forced S mode unless you subscribe.
Second, people won’t jump right away. To start, word will get around and they’ll simply not update. Then, when it comes time to buy a new computer, the average user will be possibly swayed to look at entry level MB Airs (They often go on sale for like $750) or Chromebooks.
The people who will get really pissed will be power users and gamers who will be forced to shell out money to get back features they had in previous versions of the OS.
Honestly, I don’t even think it’ll be S mode. Just Home really and for pro users they’ll end up with the subscription model
Yeah the only people whose minds this will change are agnostic techies
Yup, Chromebooks are already cheap and pretty intuitive, I think this will bump their sales a lot. I’ve ditched windows long ago except for my gaming PC and the PCs at my office (I don’t have a say in those though, I just much prefer Linux
And tablets, which most people seem to be using these days.
I’d switch at that point. I’ve only not switched because the pain isn’t worth the reward right now. I’d have to learn a bunch of new apps and hasn’t been worth it.
Start charging a subscription fee. I’ll learn to use whatever tools a priority.
Trust me, it’s already worth it. Literally every other operating system in existence is better than windows. I’d use Temple OS before going back.
Caveat: if the software you need is supported. Unfortunately that’s the major reason I haven’t switched
Does that include the Miley Cirus operating system?
I was thinking, “Wait…what…?” But there it is:
Yes.
And a lot of linux programs take inspiration from Microsoft’s design because they’re the norm. When you think of a word processor you think of Word, same goes for all of Office 365 actually.
I think of Word 2007. All downhill after that…
Edit: Or was it 2011? I can’t even remember anymore…
They implemented the ribbon menu in ~2007 office iirc, somewhen around Vista. 2003 is the old WinXP styled one with all these little menus and buttons, fugly but usable. Is that the one you’ve meant?
No I think it was 2011. Whatever the stable most streamlined release was before Office 365 rolled out.
Aha, okay. So we have different tastes in software. Are we supposed to fight each other now?
I’m having to use windows+office for work after a few years of being linux only, and god do I hate modern office’s interface.
The ribbon, on its own, isn’t super offensive to me - its just a chonky toolbar. But why on earth did they have to get rid of the classic menus?! If I don’t know where a feature is, it’s so much easier to skim through text menus than flipping from ribbon to ribbon, hovering over each button for tooltips, and popping out secondary toolbars of icons to find what I want. It’s maddening for someone who only needs to use office intermittently.
If i remember correctly, 2010 introduced the ribbon and 2013 was the last edition before 365 took over
That’s the one!
I think of Google Docs now because the inconvenience of not being able to have word on my own system without a price caused me to use the free alternative.
@solivine Same, and it just works better. Whenever I need a word processor or spreadsheet at home I don’t need that much, and I need to be able to access it on all my devices, not just my home computer. So having the free alternative work faster, better, everywhere, then I don’t even see Office as relevant anymore.
When you think of a word processor you think of Word.
Only if you’re a cretin! The only thing one should envision when thinking of a word processor is WordPerfect 1.21a for the Apple IIgs!
Envisioning Calligra Words is also acceptable.
Now that’s just some bullshit and you know it
Haven’t used windows by choice in over a decade, and no regrets.
Remove the bloatware with a free program like ShutUp10++, and Windows is a fine OS. Linux may very well be better still, but better enough to go through the effort of switching over, reinstalling everything, relearning everything, finding alternatives to programs, etc.? I doubt it. Not for me at least.
Then save yourself and use a Mac! /s
Start trying some of the open source apps on Windows. For example, try using LibreOffice for a bit and see how it compares to Microsoft Office. You may be surprised to find that the difference isn’t as big as you thought.
LibreOffice works at least as well as Word on its own terms, the problem is how Microsoft deliberately breaks interoperability so you can’t reliably share the documents you create on Libre with people who are going to open them with Word.
Absolutely. Works great for printing or converting to pdf, though. I just export them to docx anyway and see what happens.
Don’t they both use the open format now? .odt? I haven’t needed to use an office suite for a while, but I would have thought that it would force compatibility.
Word does not use odt
Sorry, first chance I’ve had to check.
I’ve just opened a new file in Word and gone to Save As, and .odt is the default choice.
OpenDocument Text (*.odt)
I wish. Try editing a document with tables.
LibreOffice is fine if all you are doing is writing a Dear Princess Celestia letter, but when you actually start doing advanced things, the jankiness of LibreOffice starts to become wasted effort. If I have to spend more time fighting the program than actually doing work, it’s worth the money for Office. Especially at $70/year for M365, which is roughly 1-3 hours of work depending on what job and such.
Unfortunately the difference is huge. It’s not just the cost of learning a new tool, it’s that 10% of really important features are not there. For me for example it was the ability to apply a theme to an existing presentation in Impress. Well in the corporate world, it’s mandatory.
Using Linux daily since 99, as my only personal OS since 2013, and still struggling with the office alternatives.
Since most companies are moving their tools to web-based versions, the switch will be even easier.
Office already has extensive een versions. They’re not entirely there yet, but good enough if you don’t need advanced functionality.
Like garbage. That’s why I haven’t invested in the time. I write large documents and do lot of research for publishing. As such learning a new tool is a pain in the ass
It does the same job but when you’re using it constantly the small QOL things really matter.
Exactly. It’s taking the time to learn everything to produce a document quickly for publishing.
Even going from pc to Mac word requires an uplift.
I figure when I make the switch, it’ll cost me about 100k in lost productivity. Nothing has driven me to take that loss yet but a subscription might.
Favorite OS be damned when you have a fiscal consequence. Switching to Linux full time will cost me money at the end of it and I can’t justify that until it costs me more to NOT switch to Linux.
I started using a lot of the same open-source tools that are on Linux as replacements in Windows to ease the transition. As someone else mentioned, most of the top projects strive to match the workflows of traditional Windows options. Some lemmy instances have huge posts of top tier open source alternatives to most things you need and somethings you don’t.
There might be a subscription option or a subscription tier with a windows suite like office and stuff included in it, but for normal windows OS, they’re decades away from going to a subscription only model, at best.
I imagine they’ll split it into an enterprise version and then multiple consumer tiers, with a “free/lite” version with ads and progressively more function or less ads. Folks that dont use a computer for more than web browsing will jump on that
might as well be that they change their licensing model for businesses to some sort of Subscription. The resale of volume keys has been a pain in their butt for a long time.
That honestly makes sense B2B, wouldn’t hate that as a policy but I do dislike it on the consumer front. But I’ll never use windows personally again so I really only care for how it affects the rest of the computing world
Judging by this decade I don’t estimate in decades anymore.
Too true brother. I went from decades to years to months to weeks to, ah fuck… tomorrow?
Why? They could roll out W12 with subscription-only plans. Besides the contracts they currently have that specify a specific amount of security updates for X years, they can let W11 and previous versions die. No more updates besides what they need to protect themselves.
It’s not like governments and businesses will balk. They already pay a premium for Windows licenses and they’d probably get deals, anyways. Average home users might not upgrade, but all new PCs sold will have W12 and require a subscription if you want to be able to use most of the features.
This is what happens by not breaking up MS more or imposing penalties for anti-competitive behavior.
I could see them releasing hardware that’s tied to a subscription that Windows would track, perhaps, or offering subscription as a payment model for Windows.
You’re right, though I can’t see a straight migration to subscription-only happening. They haven’t even gotten Office to subscription-only yet, despite their wish to.
I’ve been hearing a variant of this since I joined Slashdot in 1999. “Microsoft really messed up this time, mainstream Linux adoption is right around the corner!”
Yeah, except the Steam Deck has been giving a huge reason to provide compatibility with Linux, and Valve/WINE have been pushing hard as hell to help facilitate it.
Unity pushed me to go with Godot. Unity already had a Linux editor, but this has pushed me to also move from Photoshop to Krita, since we’re in that kind of mood.
I tried several games last night that were rated gold or platinum rather than native on ProtonDB. While some people provided launch options, they all worked flawlessly out of the box. I’m even the first person to file a compatibility report for Furry Cyberfucker, let’s fucken go.
Piper let me configure my mouse and keyboard without the need for GHub. My HOTAS works flawlessly without the Saitek software, since I’m used to configuring buttons in-game.
I tried this last year, and went back to Windows with the same “it’s not quite there” response as everyone there. But I’ve been keeping an eye on this since I had to use ndiswrapper to get Ubuntu to play nice with my wlan adapter, and this month, I installed PopOS, and have been getting along pretty well. I haven’t encountered a single issue or compatibility that outright breaks this move for me, and I’m generally stubborn as shit to learn new things.
It may not be the “year of the Linux desktop” for everyone, but it is for me. If you’re expecting some monolithic mass adoption, keep dreaming, but this progress doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
I have two main concerns with switching. I may eventually switch when these get better.
- My mouse shortcuts (Logitech is fully integrated with discord allowing a mute toggle that actually bypasses any keypresses, don’t know if Linus has this as Logitech software on Mac used to be awful)
- FFXIV mods: reshade, quick launcher (does work with Linux it says), and ACT (which on windows does a packet capture to parse your damage and has overlays to show that)
I was just reading that ACT doesn’t work will with overlays on Linux. Here’s hoping though! I can’t for the day when I have a solid free/open source Linux desktop running all my games. One where I’m not afraid to update in fear of breaking. One where I don’t need to use docker to host Overseerr and nginx. One where I have the control like I (mostly) do on my work laptop.
One day….
I can’t speak for your FF stuff, that’s outside of my wheelhouse. However, Piper has taken care of my configuration for my G502 mouse and G815 keeb. Even the lighting options work. Will need to re-record your macros, probably.
Yeah, except the Steam Deck
aaand he replies with a gaming rant. Most users arent children nobody gives a fuck about steam and le wholesome gaben chungus. We want excel and word. Witcher 3 is not a selling point. You live in a teenager reddit bubble.
Hey, that’s cool, man. You do you.
Right!
If I had gotten 10 cent each time I heard (or said) this I would be close to 10 € by now :D
I switched to Linux back in 2006 but not everyone has the knowledge, the capacity or the motivation to do so.I have the capacity and the knowledge but not the motivation.
Someday Linux desktop percentage will jump up, but not how the optimists have thought. It’s going to be more because the younger generations don’t think they need desktop operating systems, leaving them exclusively to to younger gen-X, older gen-Y, various hobbyists, and those who need a desktop workflow at work and like it enough to bring it home. The desktop will settle into its niche, like live theater, fountain pens, and a thousand other mass culture relics, and Linux will still be there chugging along while Windows and OS X (as we know them) slowly molder due to reduced profits in the desktop space.
I have a kid, and yes, there’s a laptop she uses, but to her it’s exclusively for games and for dicking around in Roblox Studio or TinkerCAD. I’ve even seen her close a game, settle into her chair at the very same desk, and pull up Youtube on an iOS device. And this is from a kid who is more comfortable with a PC than most of her peers.
2025 is the year of the linux desktop!
It legit could be. When Win10 support ends you have three options:
- Buy a new PC with the required TPM chip.
- Bypass the check in the Win11 installer and hope the OS functions properly after install and going forward.
- Install a fully supported Linux that’s optimized for older hardware.
None of those three options are easy, and Linux is the only option that’s free and guaranteed to work. Although to be fair most computers made after 2018 have the TPM chip, and so I don’t know how many folks will actually be running 7+ year old hardware at that point. It’s probably more likely to cause a jump in PC sales more than Linux adoption.
Personally, mine has TPM but Windows is complaining that it didn’t give itself enough space in the bootloader to upgrade itself to 11 and this is somehow my fault. I’m debating whether I’ll bother to try troubleshooting it when 10 goes EOL or just move my gaming PC to linux. I do like having at least one Windows machine around for compatibility but it’s getting too annoying to get caught up.
I’ve been using linux on my laptops and tablets for years so it wouldn’t be a huge hurdle for me to switch.
Yeah, and steamdeck might gain more customers too
Or folks like myself that refuse to get a TPM just to run a worse OS. I’m fine with Windows 10.
Only if they manage to contain pirates.
if microsoft doing stupid shit with windows affected linux adoption rate, we’d all have switched by now.
I’ve played around with Linux before, but never really wanted to use it. I’ve always just been happy with windows. Without a doubt though, if they started a subscription for it. I would switch to Linux.
im really sad to say this because linux bros are cancerous but if they did a windows subscription i would probably have to swap linux…
I’m looking forward to the Year of the Linux desktop ™️
Remember when Microsoft said that Windows 10 would be the last edition?
I don’t believe for one bit that windows will move to a pure subscription based model. They are greedy, but not stupid.
What’s more believable is that the base OS will be the same as usual, but if you want fancy AI assistants in your OS, you must subscribe, with the justification being that MS must pay for the servers running the models you’re using.
The idea that windows would require a subscription for an OS pisses me off more than I thought.
Good way for them to guarantee a exodus of people switching their OS.
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I will be very curious to see how the KMS works after all this
Kinda like the reddit exodus…
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If reddit decided to charge for access I’m sure everyone would leave
“Like all reddit protests, this will blow over too”
But why though? Like, the major complaint people have with Windows now is that it’s starting to advertise. They need to consistently provide updates and security patches, and the consumer has clearly shown it’s willing to pay subscriptions. This is kind of a blending of that. As long as they remove the advertising, and keep their “AI” out of my files I’d actually be happy paying for Windows again just like the “old” days except as a subscription. If it means that every windows install doesn’t come with Candy Crush and other bloatware I’d actually chalk this up as a win for consumers rather than the “free” windows right now that’s ad ridden and full of trackers.
Of course the realist in me also knows though that they’d fuck it up and make you pay while tracking everything, but I’d rather have an either or.
People hate advertising. That is why people switched over to cable. If you give companies money directly, they won’t have to do ads to make money… just like how cable has no ads! Or Netflix!
Can anyone confirm that my understanding of the source article is correct?
The “Windows 12 may require a subscription” is coming from the fact that the word “Subscription” exists in a Windows config file somewhere?
That seems like a pretty big leap to me. Not that I don’t think it’s impossible that Microsoft would do this, but the evidence here seems thin to say the least.
Maybe this will finally convince the world to move to Linux Mint
You’ll be surprised/dismayed how resistant people are to learning something new.
It’s extremely obnoxious to suggest that people don’t use Linux because they don’t want to learn something new. They don’t use it because there’s absolutely no need for them to do so when Windows is a fantastic OS for their needs
Even when you’re a bit more savvy it’s easy to configure Windows to your liking without all the bloat and spying
I’m perfectly happy programming a Pi for little projects so I know Linux wouldn’t be a problem for me, but I simply have no need for the hassle
Linux users are like militant vegans; they do more to put people off Linux than promote it
They don’t use it because there’s absolutely no need for them to do so when Windows is a fantastic OS for their needs
The issue has never been whether Windows is a good OS or not. Almost anything you can do with Linux you can also do with Windows[1]. The issue has always been the risk that Microsoft could pull the rug from under your feet and the fact that there’s nothing you can do about it as long as you’re on their platform. You can see all the bullshit that people have had to deal with in the past 10 years as the result of people being comfortable with taking that risk - shitty upgrades, telemetry, ads, and now this. And nobody even knows what other kinds of bullshit they’ll try to pull in the future.
None of this to say that you have to choose one platform or another. Everything is a calculated risk. Use Windows if that’s what you want, but by this point, it’s clear that you will have to continue with putting up with more and more of this abusive behavior from Microsoft if that’s the choice that you’re making.
[1]: This is somewhat starting to change though. These days, for a lot of programming- and data science-related tasks, Linux is starting to pull further and further ahead and Windows is becoming more and more unusable.
For me new Windows releases grow more annoying, slow and counter-intuitive. Switching PCs at work made it mandatory that I went through all ‘bad’ Windows, like Vista and 8, now on w10. Sure, XP-7-w10 weren’t\aren’t that bad, but they all feel worse than the previous one. Nevertheless, I could’ve sticked to one of them, get used to, no problem. But they all get outdated, can’t use X RAM, don’t have DirectX N, aren’t supported with security updates and are blocked from installing latest software.
Configuring it was very limited too. In W10 I can’t call TotalCMD or other file manager instead of win expoler from other apps. It eats RAM like candies for no reason. Touchscreen interfaces with empty spaces and no right click are everywhere. Undoing telemetry and defender requires know-how or executing scripts, otherwise it’s bloated. Start up times aren’t the best too.
Linux is a headache and it’s still far from a thing regular PC users would trust without a doubt to handle their usual tasks. The same state Windows slowly comes to, imho. But without being free and insanely customizable. The only things that I need to emulate are superproprietary DRMed products with no alternatives. They are a minority. Most users don’t need them, so they have one less argument against switching.
That’s my personal account tho. I’m a bit asurprised you like windows as a home system, so I’d want to hear about your positive experience with it if you have some outstanding moments with it.
When was the last time you used Linux on the desktop? It has come a long way and is getting better every month
People don’t use Windows because it’s a “fantastic” OS for their needs. It very evidently is not “fantastic” (or anywhere close) for anyone’s needs but Microsoft’s. People use Windows because it comes bundled with their PCs due to Microsoft’s monopolistic malpractices, and because they can’t get bothered to figure out how to get rid of that bloatware / malware (or, they would get rid of it if possible, but are held hostage by the software — or malware, e.g., Adobe — they need to work only working on Windows, again due to said monopolistic malpractices).
A Linux user watching someone use (and bitch) about Windows is like watching someone right click to copy & paste.
If you know of a vast improvement, why would you keep the benefits of better things to yourself?
Think about how often Windows users bitch about Windows. Think about how many zillions of things they bitch about and how many new things they find to bitch about all the time. Think about how many Windows users say things like, “I love this OS!” or, “This OS is so cool! Look what I can do!”
Now think about how many Linux users you see bitching about Linux. Think about how many are super excited about it and how many instantly become, “fanatics” practically overnight.
There’s a reason
Even when you’re a bit more savvy it’s easy to configure Windows to your liking without all the bloat and spying
Bootlicker spotted.
This has not been true since at least win10
Try stopping start or search services from pinging daddy sataya microshit and see how that shit works for you
Also, they revert privacy settings after updates.
👆
Linux users are like militant vegans; they do more to put people off Linux than promote it
You sound like a 12 year old
Least insane windows fanboy
I’m technical and I still prefer Windows at home. Linux, as great as it can be for development, is not great for everyone. It doesn’t “just work.” My favourite example of Linux not “just” working is when Linus tried to install Steam on Pop_OS. He accidentally nuked the entire desktop. I could have easily done the same if I wasn’t paying careful attention. One should never, ever be able to destroy their OS by installing Steam. That’s part of the issue. When things go wrong, all of the instructions which present on Google are people providing terminal commands. Unless one is very comfortable with using the terminal, they’re going to be copying and pasting these commands in and hoping for the best. This is what went wrong for Linus. This is far worse than following GUI based troubleshooting techniques which guide the user through defined and safe resolutions.
This over-reliance on the terminal is pervasive, and I find myself having to use it for everything from basic OS configuration to software installation to software configuration to drivers to hardware installation and troubleshooting. Every year I boot up a new flavour just to see if things have improved, and they haven’t. Ultimately Linux is built by developers, for developers. That’s great, and it does many things really well. I’ve just come to accept that it doesn’t do consumer stuff very well. It lacks the UX polish present in Windows and MacOS, and most consumers like that. It fails especially hard when it comes to gaming. I literally cannot install any of my Fanatec wheel/peddle/shifter peripherals in any distro. Only 18% of games on ProtonDB are Tier 1. Even of those, it doesn’t guarantee a trouble-free experience. Half the top streamed Twitch games just don’t run on Linux at all, or require absurd workarounds and suffer from terrible performance.
I’ll keep using Linux for my home server, but it’s along way from replacing my PC or laptop OS.
There was nothing accidental about Linus. He did it on purpose, the system very clearly told him not to.
And Proton works much better than you imply. I don’t know about their new “tiered” rating, but 30% games get Platinum rating (top 1000 most popular titles by player count). Besides that 45% have Gold, and nowadays more often than not that means the game simply just works.
Trying to say “oh, but it doesn’t always work perfect!” is just nonsense.
How many games work perfectly without any issues on Windows?And please don’t say anything about “UI polish” on Windows when it can’t even keep all its UI consistent - it’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
And Twitch… almost every game in top #10 works perfectly without any troubles, so what’s your point exactly?
Happend to me without any warning.
I wanted to uninstall icons from the GUI and it did remove all desktop environment.
I had the exact same thing happen to me once, except I didn’t get an ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE warning. It just listed a bunch of packages like it always did, except this time it was listing packages it was about to remove, not packages that could be upgraded like it usually does. That was 8 years ago, so maybe they added the warning some time after that? But by that point I’d already dealt with enough issues that I just lost all motivation to use Linux as a desktop anymore. It’s just always something.
There was nothing accidental about Linus. He did it on purpose, the system very clearly told him not to.
No, the system asked him if he was sure he wanted to install Steam. He was.
And Proton works much better than you imply. I don’t know about their new “tiered” rating, but 30% games get Platinum rating (top 1000 most popular titles by player count).
You think telling players that 30% of their games are playable without issue is a benefit. What I read is that 70% of my games are not guaranteed to run.
And please don’t say anything about “UI polish” on Windows when it can’t even keep all its UI consistent - it’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
I’m not sure how you can compare different menu styles with allowing the entire OS to self destruct. That’s quite the disingenuous comparison.
And Twitch… almost every game in top #10 works perfectly without any troubles, so what’s your point exactly?
Of the top 10 video games playes on Twitch right now, these games either don’t run at all, or Proton reports game-breaking issues:
- EA Sports FC 2024
- Valorant
- Fortnite
- GTAV
- Apex Legends (Linux players keep getting banned
M
No, the steam install failed, and he went looking for solutions and one of the potential solutions he found literally says “proceeding might break your system, continue?” And he said yes. The thing that broke his system had nothing to do with steam apart from being recommended by someone somewhere to fix the issue he was having.
Also you can very much play GTA V on Linux.
It’s pretty clear you’re doing your best to misrepresent the reality, so arguing any further is useless…
Check you facts, see what Linus really did, as a self-proclaimed technical person you should be able to understand very clear warnings he ignored after running random commands he didn’t understand.
What I read is that 70% of my games are not guaranteed to run.
Maybe read again. 75% of the most popular games on Steam have at least Gold rating, which means they have minor glitches or need trivial workarounds.
That’s quite the disingenuous comparison.
You’ve brought up the point about UI polish.
You’re the one trying to compare UI polish to ignoring simple warnings.
Breaking your system on purpose does not quality as self-destruct.
I only use my over speed PC for one thing. Gaming. I’ve looked into going to Linux and shuddered at the immense trouble trying to make it work for me. I’m with you in that I have the knowledge, having used it for a couple decades, but I just don’t care to put myself through mountains of bullshit for an idea.
I also do programming and am fairly used to the terminal, and I still have a headache when thinking of going back to linux, because even when I want to do something as simple as watching netflix on firefox I had to go through a maze of troubleshooting via the terminal to get the correct packages installed. I can’t imagine what someone who isn’t tech savvy who tries to switch to linux would do.
The user experience on linux and its distributions just aren’t there for the everyday user, and until they are, windows will always be the preferable choice because it actually works. You don’t have to end up having a dispute with it on some arbitrary software download because it doesn’t quite like it, and have to wrangle through many software alternatives that aren’t always available or even anywhere near feature ready because they aren’t available on the platform.
Linus fucked up his os by entering the command that prompted him “are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do? if you don’t know, then it isnt.” and presed yes. windows does the same when doing a factory restore, if you click “yes i’m sure” then that’s on you. yes, ideally steam worked and he wouldn’t have had to try to fix it, but that kind of thing happens all the time on all software, linux just gives you the option of fixing it yourself instead of going “welp i’m not using that”.
this fix-it yourself mode of functionning is really what sets it apart from other OSes, for examp,e if you have a windows problem good luck finding anything beyond “have you tried dism /online?”, which by the way is also a console command and is like the very first step in all windows troubleshooting.
as for gaming, I daily drive debian and i’m not really encountering any setbacks beyond the obvious “this game developpers is incapable of making a linux anti-cheat so it won’t run on there at all” problem, or its cousin “this game developper is incapable of going into their EAC dashboard and click ‘enable linux support’” (yes, it is that easy, i have done it personally).
Also worth mentionning that Linus is accused by ex-employees of misconduct, and is generally an asshat when it comes to technology despite being a technology reviewer.
The thing with your first statement is there’s so many times dealing with software when you are meant to just click ‘yes I’m sure’ that I’ve become desensitised to those warnings.
And see, this is the kind of bullshit response that drives home why, even using it for a ton of things myself, I absolutely hate having to use Linux. Any time you ever encounter a problem, you always get the absolute shittiest responses imaginable from people. It’s always your fault for being such a filthy uneducated peasant, and never the OS’s for being incredibly unintuitive and esoteric at times.
“How do I do ‘thing’?” invariably receives a response of “What kind of fucking idiot are you for wanting to do ‘thing’? No one should ever do ‘thing’. Thread closed”
After using Windows for nearly 25 years at this point and doing thousands of installs, do you know how many times I’ve encountered some basic thing that’s utterly broken, and hasn’t been fixed by one of the basic commands like dism or some other relatively painless fix? I can probably count it on a single hand. Do you know how many times I’ve used even very “friendly” distros of Linux and spent at least tens of hours having to fix something that completely shit the bed after doing something basic like Linus did? Damn near every single time.
Here’s the thing: I don’t mind dealing with those issues (aside from any time I have to ask questions, see the aforementioned community behavior), because I like fixing things and appreciate the incredible power and flexibility Linux offers, hence why I use it for my dev machine, homelab setup, etc. But 99.9% of the population is never going to put up with that shit, and the insanely toxic community doesn’t help things either.
Also, nice ad hominem there. I had no idea that being a shitty person made it okay for the OS to nuke the desktop environment when trying to install Steam. I guess if it only happens to asshats, then it’s totally okay then.
Linus fucked up his os by entering the command that prompted him “are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do? if you don’t know, then it isnt.”
From his perspective, he was sure he wanted to install Steam. I don’t understand why you find that confusing. It’s only people with experience who understand that that message might indicate a system incompatibility, and it might nuke the OS. IMHO, no consumer OS should ever run the risk of being broken by installing Steam. There is no excuse for that.
No, this kind of thing doesn’t happen all the time on Windows. There’s no way to nuke Windows by installing Steam.
This is actually funny because I installed steam on pop os without issues. But that said, sometimes it freeze my whole pc and I have to hard reboot it (idk why)
edit: I don’t understand the down votes, it was supposed to be (as stated) funny and not insulting
idk why)
Precisely
I’ve been watching Reddit and Twitter, nothing can surprise me anymore.
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unless you’re just naturally adventurous like me
LMAO
People like you are the reason I haven’t tried Linux.
I’m not up my own ass enough to proudly declare myself “naturally adventurous,” but I have stayed at a few Holiday Inn Expresses in other towns before. I use Debian and Ubuntu somewhat regularly, but mostly use Windows and MacOS in daily life, and I don’t understand where the “sinking ship” metaphor comes in. Microsoft will attempt this recurring-revenue monetization, and it will either be successful, or it won’t; Windows won’t go away if it isn’t. Otherwise, Apple prints money from its beautifully made consumer-friendly hardware, which also features shockingly good in-house silicon.
No ships are sinking. This isn’t some grand narrative where Linux awaits us all at the end of personal-computing history.
Humans are creatures of habit. The average user won’t switch until the pain of using what they know outweighs the pain of learning something new + the fear of something new.
I have mint dual booted on my laptop with Win 11. I find myself using Win11 more.
Idk why, linux mint doesn’t feel finished to me:
- 120hz won’t work with my dock (works fine in ubuntu and w11)
- Touchpad scrolling is insanely quick and almost unusable
- My mouse jitters allover, accelleration or something seems wrong.
- Can’t seem to set different governors depending on battery or power.
- Fingerprint doesn’t have a driver (works in Ubuntu ok though).
- Scaling 125% seems janky, everything is blurry as shit
It does work mostly ok though and is quick, but it doesn’t feel polished. Ubuntu was great but fuck snap packages.
If you’re using synaptics as the touchpad manager, there is a config element to control the speed of the scroll
VertScrollDelta and HorizScrollDelta (integer) configures the speed of scrolling, it is a bit counter-intuitive because higher values produce greater precision and thus slower scrolling. Negative values cause natural scrolling like in macOS.
It’d certainly convince me. I run windows 11 since my laptop came with it but if I had to pay for my OS I’d run to Linux. The existence of Proton makes it much easier to switch now as well.
Switching to a Linux can be overwhelming. A few distros have made great strides to make most of the OS work right after installing it. But even if there’s only 1% issues due to hardware, drivers, gaming, etc., troubleshooting those issues would often require using terminal and are not accessible to everyone. There’s no customer support to reach out to, and online forums can be difficult to navigate for someone not familiar with coding.
It ‘can’ be overwhelming, yes. I’ve never found, however, so MANY online guides that literally tell you step by step what to enter in the terminal window to succeed. There’s always a learning curve, it’s just about whether or not you want to pay Windows every month to avoid figuring this out. This is why I mentioned Mint specifically, btw. It’s the most user friendly.
Most of my tech literate (yes, literate, not illiterate) friends were actually supportive of this.
So imagine what tech illiterates will be like.
Most people will just accept it as a cost of computing, I fear.
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I’m in the same boat and have been waffling about it for some time. At least we kind of have a target for when our research needs to be done.
For personal use maybe. Im 100% my job (and possibly most workplaces) will just eat the subscription cost to stick with what they know.
Arch
btw?
Time to contribute heavily to Linux open source and make Linux desktops super useful to everyone.
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Microsoft overcharges for Windows anyway. You can go to StackSocial and regularly get Win 11 Pro for $30, when the retail price is $200.
In any case, everything else tech is moving to SaaS. It’s not hard to believe that MS would “give” out a free (read: ad-laden) version of Windows, with various features enabled depending on tier of subscription. They’ve already got the technology in place with Azure Active Domain and this seems like a logical extension of that.
They’ve also already got the embedded ads feature ready to run in windows.
It’s not hard to believe that MS would “give” out a free (read: ad-laden) version of Windows, with various features enabled depending on tier of subscription.
Except that already have that with the Enterprise/SA tier and have for a long time. Sure, Pro is still required but it’s typically an OEM license included in the cost of the hardware.
Those are typically grey market keys, and subject to being voided.
Not saying it’s not a good deal, or not worth the small risk, just that those aren’t true retail prices.
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almost zero chance of consumer grade windows requiring a subscription
And even if they did, fully hacked local install versions would be created… adobe photoshop is subscription only and I see full installs for it all over the place (and I might even have one myself but Im admitting to nothing)
The rise of Linux is upon us
I know there’s always someone evangelizing Linux when you mention Windows anything, but when Microsoft requires a subscription for Windows is the day I will actually move to Linux.
Why not now?
Not the commenter but the answer is easy - right now, it’s not costing me anything to run Windows on my PC, and installing Linux takes research, time, and attention that I don’t feel like investing in my home PC at the moment. Probably the next PC I build (whenever my 10 year old Dell i7 is too damn slow, only now starting to get laggy) will run Linux. Previously I only installed linux on laptops I retired from active use, just for shits and giggles. Never once had a linux powerhouse, but now that linux gaming is a reality, I’m very interested in getting away from the advertising platform that Windows has become.
We’re running a 6 year old selfbuilt gaming rig on Garuda Linux … Runs like a charm. Husband is playing Warthunder which uses Anti-Cheat - so far everything runs out of the box.
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This website is a godsend https://www.protondb.com/
You can search any game in steam, and it will tell you exactly what to expect.
For most games, it’s as simple as checking one box in the steam settings for the first time.
Tbh you don’t even need to check unless it’s a competitive multiplayer game or something with anti cheat. I just buy games and assume they work.
Also https://areweanticheatyet.com for just anti-cheat compatibility of non-Steam games. Also has Steam games but you might as well check ProtonDB for those.
Linux gaming has made mind blowing progression thanks to Valve.
If you’re using Steam, most games run, zero fiddling needed.
I’m running Void Linux and have no issues running most games. Proton pretty much handles everything. And performance is often better than on Windows these days.
Other platforms are a bit more difficult. There are several apps that take care of the heavy lifting, but a bit more knowledge is required.
Pretty much thrown out every Windows installation and haven’t missed them at all.
Check out protondb.com … click explore and check out how many games run perfectly on Linux now.
Valve / the steam deck is really pushing development.
There has been a lot of progress recently due to the SteamDeck, but it’s still not as good as Windows gaming. There are a few outlier examples where games run better on linux, but those are few and far between. Give it another few years, and hopefully things will improve even more.
Pretty much the only games that don’t work now are games with anticheat.
Steam really pushed windows games on Linux after the steam deck.
It’s been at the point for awhile now that I can just buy games on a whim without looking up any sort of compatibility, and I just assume they work. It’s worked every time so far. Right now I’m like 100 hours into Bauldurs Gate 3 lol. The other online game I play is Genshin Impact, which I just had to install with the exe through wine and then it just works.
Short answer: no. You can expect to fiddle at least sometimes. Many games will run out of the box in proton, but there a million things that can throw a wrench in the gears. I’ve personally never had a 100% seamless experience for the duration of a game.
This has been true across a couple distros, although none that were specifically geared toward gaming. Maybe I’ll change my tune next time I hop distros.
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There’s Valve’s custom Distro they built for the steamdeck, unfortunately they haven’t fully released it yet, for the time being it’s only available via steamdeck recovery software.
I’ve heard that Mint, PopOS, and Manjaro are good for gaming, but I have not tried them myself. Mint is high on my list for my next distro.
I’m on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS now, which I chose in the hope that it would eliminate a lot of fiddling since it’s a common, stable target officially supported by most companies (like Nvidia). Unfortunately, it is simply too old at this point.
I assume that if you are running AMD instead of Nvidia, you will have an easier time. Nvidia’s drivers have been a pain point on every distro I’ve used.
Pretty rare that you run into an issue at all these days, but one big bummer is that non-steam-workshop mods are a pain to install. Basically anything that uses a mod manager.
Article: “We don’t know how, but Windows is taking away a pint of blood from the user every time the OS is booted up”.
Some guy at the edge of fainting: “I swear, I am this close to switching away”.
Not OP, but Linux isn’t much good for professional creative work. Would love to try it out, but without a functioning Adobe suite it’s not gonna happen.
In my opinion, Inkscape is a great competitor to Adobe Illustrator. The problem comes in with the fact that we don’t have a viable image manipulation software. Gimp just aint it.
Because he is lost
Windows would always give you a homeopathic dose of value to being kept from switching out.
I have friends that no longer use Facebook to chat, but still doomscroll their timeline anyway, because once per twenty ads there is one post that barely interest them. They won’t switch, they won’t even try other media, they just keep telling themselfs about those two times per year they got something useful out of it.
So the year of the Linux desktop is finally happening
So does Linux, I subscribe to the Arch rss feed, which is the operating system I use btw.
I have used Windows for a decade now and keep using it because my workflows and the application support are there. But as someone that uses Linux on my server, has tried out Linux desktops, and uses WSL, I can confidently say that I am gone if they start charging me a subscription. It will be annoying as hell but just like leaving Reddit I am willing to give up some niceties to keep my money and my morals.
I knew sooner or later they’d push me to Linux, but that’d do it alright