EDIT: I can’t read, apparantly lol i read “I liked 10 more”. disregard this first bit. Oh no no, you misunderstand: I like Windows 10. Mostly because I have no strong opinion on Windows 7 and didn’t use anything prior to that (and because Windows 8 was…Windows 8) As an OS, it was pretty fine. My problem was microsoft itself (and well, the changes that 11 brought. The list of complaints was basically me going “you had a good thing with Win10, why the radical changes to something that worked well?”).

I’ve also no delusions that Microsoft making controversial changes is gonna do much for Linux growth unless its something massive, like, “we can’t come back from this” massive–but that’s very unlikely to happen. I’ve said this dozens of times before, I’ll say it again: The only way Linux adoption will grow is if someone can walk up to Best Buy (or Browse Newegg/Amazon/whathaveyou), and walk out with a laptop or desktop with Linux already installed and ready to go + maybe a small tutorial like Fedora gives when you first boot up, since Gnome will probably be the default it comes with.

The Steam Deck was a good first step, but if Linux wants adoption, they have to put out stuff that runs Linux out the box to well-known and used markets and brick and morter shops. Not in the back either, front and center where everyone can see it. Much like Chromebooks, people will get used to Linux and its quirks–but they have to be able to access it in the first place (and by that, I mean i could grab an HP laptop packing Ubuntu if i wanted to instead of one packing Windows 11, not being told “to use Linux, you have to first choose one of many distros that are out there, then go download an ISO file and burn it to a USB”)

I can think of a few reasons why someone would complain about Windows 11 without touching privacy aspect at all: the number of clicks you now have to do to get even basic things done because they messed with the context menu, and speaking about changing things that were fine before: the (lack of) file explorer Ribbon and the start menu, the ChromeOS looking layout they went with not being to most people’s taste, the need for a microsoft account to even use the thing (tho you can edit the Registry to bypass this and several other grievances, even some i mentioned…why not just have those as settings/options, just saying?) etc, etc

Some of the above changes and then some + just how much of a pain it was to even upgrade to it were enough for me to move to Linux in the first place when i learned about it, so…yeah, I’d say it’s kinda bad when it made an (at the time, but you can argue I still am and I won’t despute it) tech idiot like me permanently move OS’s

Strange, last I checked most of the top played games were also Linux compatible. Then again, the most played titles change frequently, so I’ve no doubt at least a couple of non-Linux compatible games make it up there depending on several factors like update/DLC resurrance and such.

Really? I’ve heard the opposite, but maybe their stances have changed and i just didn’t keep up with em or i was misinformed to begin with. Regardless, I have seen a couple of multiplayer games go from broken/not working at all to actually launching and being playable (as an example Naraka: Bladepoint. It also took Dead by Daylight forever to be playable on Linux, but it is now. I believe Apex was the same). Some aren’t perfect yet, but they work instead of stopping at the title screen–if even that. Sure, not all of incompatible games are gonna make it to Linux for one reason or another, but they are being brought in–albiet, i admit It’s slow as hell but hey, s’long as more people get to play what they want on the OS they choose to use at the end of the day–at least from what I’m seeing. Could be very wrong and am willing to admit so if shown otherwise.

Unfortunate, but true that.

Oh, I’m not disputing that a large chunk of gamers play games that aren’t playable on Linux yet (tho i disagree with the claim that the majority of PC gamers play those). I’ve always said “it depends on what you like to play” when it comes to gaming on Linux and I’ll stand by that until/if that stops being the case. My first point still stands tho:

The unplayable ones are a drop in the bucket. That’s a straight up fact. And some, if not most of the unplayables are getting patched to work on Linux sooner or later (save for Fortnite. Why do I pick on that one specifically? 1) I personally dislike it and Epic, but more importantly, 2) Epic’s CEO straight up shot the idea of Linux compatability down…even tho there’s nothing really stopping them from enabling Easy Anticheat on their side and making it work vs say, making something like Battle Eye Anticheat play nice with Linux).

In my experience, 90% of games work on Linux just by using proton. I’ve even had some of my GoG games that just absolutely did not work on modern Windows just straight up be “install and click play” on Linux via just Wine or by using Proton. The 10% that don’t are multiplayer games with heavy anticheats–which, unfortuenatly are what a lot of people play. Some of them already work (Apex, Dead by Daylight, Halo) some are getting worked on (Genshin–tho there IS a way to play it on Linux, at the risk of a ban, a buncha easy-anticheat games like Hunt: Showdown, etc) and some have just plain said a Linux version is out of the cards (Fortnite, Destiny 2 AFAIK).

Modding games also works fine on Linux, but there’s a bit of a catch: it’s not as simple as installing MO2 and Vortex (you CAN install both via Lutris or Steamtinker, but I’ve personally never gotten either to work like that so i can’t say how well it does or doesn’t), you kinda have to play around and see what works. I was able to mod Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout New Vegas, and Morrowind exactly as i do on Windows (the former three using Rockerbacon’s Mod Organizer 2 script, the last one manually), Fallout 4 manually (haven’t tried the script since i don’t really play FO4, tho I’m sure it works), Pathfinder WOTR via using it’s mod manager in Proton, using Steam Workshop if a game supports it, and using Mod Managers for Linux when they’re available, like Baldur’s Gate 3’s LAMP. Yeah, it’s a hassle depending on the game. For me, it’s fine because I accepted long ago that there would be some annoyances to Linux, and as long as there isn’t any native mod managers built specifically for Linux and we’re stuck jury rigging mod managers made for Windows, modding will be one of those annoyances. But my tolerance is not everyone’s tolerance and I completely understand if people are put off by this and just stick to Windows for modded games.

Could probably be me being ignorant, but how does this look “run down” exactly? It looks like a Walmart, and them looking like this is not strictly a US thing. Walmarts look exactly like this in Mexico too, and from what ever little I seen of em, also look the same in Canada.

But to answer your question, no. Not all shops in the US look have the Walmart look.

Thanks for the good vibes, internet stranger. Also for spitting straight facts: world always seems to be “falling apart, for reals this time” every other decade since…forever, and yet we’re still here doing the best we can.

His other comments seem to imply that since it didn’t happen to them, it doesn’t happen on Windows period. That’s just rejecting reality.

I’ve never protrayed Windows as overly terrible in my comments in this thread…or at least, I didn’t mean to if it came out that way (i stand with it being a hassle to actually get it installed tho. Had to jump through so many hoops just for it to pick up the only drive plugged into my PC and recognize “oh hey, it’s a valid drive”. And this was Win10, not 11 either). Windows as an OS is fine, and has its own problems and quirks just like every other OS in existance does. If anything my problem with it comes from Microsoft basically going “no, you’re going to use the OS you paid a liscene for how we say” and them (I assume it’s them, anyways) reverting several of the changes I made to my settings with updates + it being so heavy to install–to where laptops and such that CAN’T handle it still come shipped with it by default despite preforming horribly because of it. But i never brought any of those up, just the fact that one of those updates messed up my install so bad I had to do a re-install, and it was annoying to actually do. I didn’t call it a devil worship machine or whatever the heck the other guy keeps calling Linux lol

Still doesn’t disprove my point that Windows bricking itself is a thing that happens:

https://www.minitool.com/backup-tips/bricked-computer.html

Qoute: “PC bricked issue often occurs, especially you have installed a Windows 10 update. When searching for “bricked computer” in Google, there are many forums on this topic…Well then, how can you fix the bricked computer in Windows 10/8/7 if the brick is caused by the operating system itself (soft brick)?”

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-updates-keep-bricking-my-laptop/7eb5ac2d-fff0-41a7-b008-c59946be4333

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/windows-10-pc-bricked-overnight-please-help.3599394/

“I think its important to point out that Windows has been forcing updates on me that just bluescreen me. Once i blue screen it resets the system to its original config and it boots normally. When asked to schedule a time for the update, I chose 4/27. Sure enough after that, cant boot once.”

https://www.reddit.com/r/ZephyrusG14/comments/pguu58/recent_windows_11_update_bricked_my_g14/

First comment: “This is related to Windows 11, everyone is facing the same issue right now. It seems to be due to an expiring certificate.”

And we can keep going. Microsoft can screw up and ship an update that bricks your hardware. It’s happened before, and will continue to happen again. (And just so we’re clear: Ubuntu, Red Hat or other Linux maintainers, and even Apple with their products, are not exempt from this either. They’re also human and can mess up. But we’re not talking about Linux or Mac, we’re talking about Windows sometimes bricking itself, so they’re irrelevant to this conversation) Why you’re so adamant on denying it ever happens on Windows even tho evidence is a search away and instead paint it as solely a Linux problem is beyond me

It’s not what I think tho, it’s what’s written by others…unless I’m somehow imagining actual search results of people detailing their experiences of their machine, yes. bricking themselves. That, or Google results and Microsoft’s own forum posts are lying. Along with several other threads, videos, and examples. Which i very much douvt is the case here.

It’s a man-made thing. No man-made thing is infallible. They can and sometimes do break or mess up. That shouldn’t be hard to understand, i should think

What’s unintuitive about sudo apt install wine?

In the interest of fairness, maybe the first time you ever do it, yeah, I can see it as someone completely new to this thinking it’s black magic (heck, I’ve used Linux as my daily OS for a while and some of the things users are able to do with their skills, i describe as black magic lol). After a while tho, it becomes no big deal, and the user might even prefer doing it that way because it’s quicker (IMO) to que up a buncha packages to install one after the other vs hunting them all down and installing one by one. But yeah, point is, it can look unintuitive if you’re new to it…but once you’re used to seeing it, it’s like “ah, ok, it’s just another way to do things”

And there also nothing really stopping you from installing stuff the ol Windows way, if that’s how you prefer to do things. Just open your package manager and look up what ya need. Or even open your browser and go to the offical site, they might also have official packages to download.

Either way is valid and up to the user’s prefrences. Never understood why both sides sometimes make it sound as if there’s only one way to install stuff on Linux (not saying you’re doing that here specifically, to be clear, but I’ve seen others do so. The other person kinda is tho).

never had Windows brick on me

Congrats, if that’s true. You’re the exception, not the rule. Windows has bricked itself on several users with a couple of updates before tho (and I know this because one of those is exactly when i learned how much of a removed it can be to actually install on your system), and a quick basic search proves that yeah, this isn’t some rare thing, the OS tends to do that sometimes to the frustration of many.

IDK, if both my very-much-not-so tech savy siblings, mother, and even an idiot like myself can all pick up and use it with very few, if any, hiccups, then “user expierence” on Linux is…

Not hard. Or, well, in general as well. The more I hear people go “Learning Linux is hard” and hear them out, the more I’ve come to realize they’re actually trying to say “Unlearning Windows is hard”. Which is absolutely true, considering 95% of people use Windows basically out the womb…and then they keep using it/put up with it no matter what unless you’re like one of my old professors who didn’t “need windows” for his work (and used Mac all the way), or like me and several others who got tired of Windows constantly messing up on me–or being invasive of your privacy, bloated, all of the above. Take your pick–enough where I just said “you know what, no. I have options besides basically throwing dice at the wall with this. They can’t be that bad.” (spoiler alert: they weren’t bad at all).

And again, unless you’re throwing yourself off the Linux deep end from second one and trying to build the system from scratch or compile Gentoo by yourself, learning it isn’t this grueling, impossible task. Plus there’s free resourses that can make it even simpler for you if you want to more than learn as you go. There’s growing pains, yeah, but no different than learning anything new in life

Gotta disagree. Even with following a handful Linux groups on here, there’s several other topics and discussions that quickly dominate my feed, from games, to music, books and comics, to pets doing adorable things, to anime, and TTRPG stuff (…and Star Trek. Now that’s something i can’t seem to escape on The Fediverse and makes me feel just a tiny bit left out because I’m not really into lol). Then again, it’s up to you what you see since the user is in full control of what they allow or block in thier feed.

So curate until you barely see any Linux, if that’s what ya fancy.

Kinda hard to forget tho, no? Lol

…i thought for a second it was the cat that was rapping Like some kinda Hatebeak thing…

For the curious: https://open.spotify.com/track/3lxKJYh9YpZTLhO2ipkBFF?si=5lxcZ_jiShmzOEBDMPm09w

Yes, as the OP put it, there really is all kinds of music out there lol

I’m inclined to agree with ya there since I have no strong feelings towards Windows 7 in particular and I’ve never tried earlier versions. Yeah, I can live with Windows 10 if i had no other choice or say in the matter, and it wasn’t my old install (see the other parenthesis if you care to know)

The ads are on the Start menu search. They’re not that bad as far as I remember, but i can see for others why’d they’d be annoying–in particular, those who paid for the software liscene already. it’s the small little annoyances when it came to Microsoft’s decisions (and the fact i wanna believe my Windows was just messed up from the word go…seriously, that thing was laggy as it was slow and just…strange is the best word I can describe using it, compared to other machines running Windows 10. So yeah, I already had one foot out the door as it was) and the fact I realized I had a choice that was NOT apple that moved me to Linux and it’s been pretty good, considering 95% of my needs are met on Linux

Depends. what version of Windows? 10? I can agree for the most part that yeah, it’s fine. Most users loved 7, I…never paid it much mind (mostly because it was good, i guess? Got nothing bad to say about it, at least) and 8 was…Windows 8.

Windows 11 tho? Eh…the UI’s ok. I like it better than 10’s, at least. Ish. But whose bright idea was it to limit the number of items in the context menu? Or to hide the ribbon that, again, shows you more options? Or basically force ya to make a Microsoft account to even use the thing? (there’s apparantly a way to revert some of these things via messing with the Registry) Like, Windows 10 was fine like you said, dunno why 11 needed such drastic changes. And that’s without mentioning ads or the habit Windows has of reverting some of the setting you set after an update (tho that was a thing since 10, tbf. Still annoying)

I bet the experience outside of Steam Deck depends a lot on the dist, graphics drivers and card and someone’s personal knowledge/willingness to screw around making everything work

In my experience, it’s been about the same. Then again, I also use an Arch based distro on my desktop, but I dunno, even when I distrohopped a lot and used other distros and hadn’t replaced some of my specs, gaming wasn’t a pain to setup or do in general unless it was something that specifically didn’t work with Linux (maybe modding was hard at first, but once I found out what worked for me, I was golden).

I just don’t like how you get around in an iphone. Admittedly, I haven’t used Macs in a very long time, so maybe they’re pretty good nowadays (I still hear you can’t upgrade them at all tho, sooo…maybe not?), but most of it comes down to me feeling lost navigating the thing.

The other thing is how expensive Apple Products are in comparison to the competition, and the walled garden thing they got going on. Androids are just easier to move around in, cheaper, and give me more control over my device. That’s the other big thing that steers me away from iphones: I pay more for a “premium” product and get a lack of control over it.

On android: If I wanna not use the Play Store, I can ignore it and use something else, if I don’t like the stock apps, i can look for replacements that do suit my tastes (tbf, I can do this on Apple too, but there isn’t much by comparison), if I wanna install a custom ROM, I can install it, if I wanna root the thing and sideline apps while I’m at it, I can, if I want to brick my phone…I’m an idiot, but I have that option. I can do none of that, or do some of it in a limited way, on an iphone.

Pretty much, I don’t like how unintuitive the UI is, how restricting the system feels to me, and the company’s overall anti consumer stance