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Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

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Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#201

Post by yesenadam »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #58
falcolas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never that simple, especially for professional users and gamers. Those whose applications are only available for Windows. Sure, there are some open source alternatives, but they are only rarely as good, and even more seldom better, than their Windows counterparts.

>It's never that simple, especially for professional users and gamers. Those whose applications are only available for Windows. I'm both, and you're definitely wrong. 155 of my 343 steam games have direct native ports. I've just stopped playing stellaris and started playing KSP. I've been a linux gamer for the last three years and it's been a better experience, not worse. I dominate on ballistic overkill because the…

In the chess world, everyone—every strong player in the world, it seems—uses ChessBase, which is Windows only. They used to have a Mac version years ago but it apparently was the worst software ever. It's used for studying recent master games, storing and training on your opening theory, analysing with computer engines to find new moves in the opening, studying the games of your next opponent etc. Other programs have similar functions, but it's more powerful, and no grandmaster uses anything else. Also its data format is secret, so no other software can convert to or from ChessBase format. It was created by some Germans in collaboration with Kasparov in the 1980s, and was instrumental to his unprecedented level of opening theory knowledge.

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#202

Post by sofaofthedamned »

emodendroket wrote: post #193
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it's awesome. I'm saying we didn't need it, and if you are a startup you probably don't need it either.

Yeah, fair enough. I started my career in the world of computers doing Windows desktop administration stuff and I was kind of surprised to learn how primitive the competition seemed to be.

But apart from AD the rest of Windows is primitive compared to the competition. Windows usage will decline - Azure will increase - it's all a case of how it works out for Microsoft in the end.

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#203

Post by badsectoracula »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #113
badsectoracula wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW there are some games on those systems i'd love to play (Last of Us being an example), but at least i know that they'll eventually be emulated so even if it takes 10, 15 or whatever years i'll play them at some point. But the two major differences between what you are talking about and what others are talking about are that a) we have the hardware, it is totally a software issue and b) we are mainly talking for s…

>we are mainly talking for software we already have paid for, not software we may or may not buy in the future. A solution for this is to set up dual boot or whatever and use it only for the Windows-only games, until you get bored of them. Then kill Windows and you're free.

Yes, this is what i'm usually doing, although i tend to use Windows even for games that are available on Linux since they tend to perform and/or look better. I mainly use Linux for gaming when i'm already doing something on Linux and i don't feel like rebooting.

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#204

Post by thomastjeffery »

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #169
thomastjeffery wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting sick of this dichotomy. It's trivial to install both. Keep windows 10 on a partition big enough for your games/Netflix/etc., and use Debian/Archlinux/NixOS/whatever for everything else.

Netflix works fine on Linux. You can even run it on a Raspberry Pi.

Netflix does not allow 1080p streaming to a browser other than Safari/Edge/IE. I did try this firefox plugin[0], and it works sometimes, but it is a bit flaky.

[0] https://github.com/vladikoff/netflix-1080p-firefox#with-exte...

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#205

Post by sli »

koonsolo wrote: post #74
devopsforlyfe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is the only remaining OS for general purpose desktop computing that has a non-negligible market share.

When my old acer laptops hard drive crashed, I tried to get my hands on reinstalling Windows with my OEM license: no go. I installed Linux Mint. My new laptop with Windows 10 became so slow I also switched to Mint. Couldn't be happier.

I bought a super cheap Toshiba laptop for taking notes in college. One of those ~$250 ones. Completely unusable with the included Windows 10, but sailed with ElementaryOS.

I put Fedora on it first, and it was mostly fine but Gnome was too slow for my liking. But then again I was usually taking notes in vim in a terminal, so that probably wouldn't have mattered in real world use.

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#206

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

nottorp wrote: post #185
taurath wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is most of the indy games coming out I’m interested in are windows only. Also really good games this generation like Divinity 2 have no Linux support

Well it depends what you like. I never tried any of the Divinitys because I'm under the impression that the storyline is unimaginative and just game mechanics mostly don't cut it for me (let's not mention how much time i spend in Minecraft though). My 2nd place entertainment activity is reading, and there are few games that can approach a good book in storytelling.

I don't normally click on timestamps to add to a deep thread, but if you like good storytelling, check out Pillars of Eternity. If you're a pen-and-paper nerd, then it might be right up your alley and the storytelling is really well done.

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#207

Post by Amezarak »

sofaofthedamned wrote: post #202
emodendroket wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, fair enough. I started my career in the world of computers doing Windows desktop administration stuff and I was kind of surprised to learn how primitive the competition seemed to be.

But apart from AD the rest of Windows is primitive compared to the competition. Windows usage will decline - Azure will increase - it's all a case of how it works out for Microsoft in the end.

The NT kernel is very advanced and in many ways "better" than the Linux kernel.

Backwards compat on Windows is fantastic compared to competitors.

Even Powershell, though niche, can hardly be called primitive relative to the average default Linux shell. This is especially apparent to me, since I work in an old csh all day. :) If anything is primitive, it's passing around strings instead of objects.

Saying Windows is "primitive" compared to the competition makes it sound like you're working in a bubble, to be honest. It's different, to be sure, but I'm hard pressed to think of normal desktop or laptop applications where I'd call Windows primitive. On the server side there's many things competitors undeniably do better, but even then I wouldn't call it primitive.

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#208

Post by emodendroket »

sofaofthedamned wrote: post #202
emodendroket wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, fair enough. I started my career in the world of computers doing Windows desktop administration stuff and I was kind of surprised to learn how primitive the competition seemed to be.

But apart from AD the rest of Windows is primitive compared to the competition. Windows usage will decline - Azure will increase - it's all a case of how it works out for Microsoft in the end.

For instance? I actually think most of it is quite good now. I particularly like PowerShell.

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#209

Post by emodendroket »

Amezarak wrote: post #207
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But apart from AD the rest of Windows is primitive compared to the competition. Windows usage will decline - Azure will increase - it's all a case of how it works out for Microsoft in the end.

The NT kernel is very advanced and in many ways "better" than the Linux kernel. Backwards compat on Windows is fantastic compared to competitors. Even Powershell, though niche, can hardly be called primitive relative to the average default Linux shell. This is especially apparent to me, since I work in an old csh all day. :) If anything is primitive, it's passing around strings instead of objects. Saying Windows is "…

That said, Windows has closed a lot of ground on the server too.

Re: Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

#210

Post by kakarot »

bsilvereagle wrote: post #20
falcolas wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never that simple, especially for professional users and gamers. Those whose applications are only available for Windows. Sure, there are some open source alternatives, but they are only rarely as good, and even more seldom better, than their Windows counterparts.

> especially for professional users and gamers. Those whose applications are only available for Windows. I have gotten around this with a virtualized Windows installation for CAD applications. The Windows VM goes online for software activation only. With VFIO, a dedicated graphics card, and an nVME SSD I don't feel any performance degradation. The graphics card and nVME drive are passed directly to the VM. Some simpl…

What card are you using, and what virtualization solution?

I'm running my Windows KVM on a GTX 1080, and it took months and months to work out all the little kinks causing system instability... now it runs quite smooth. I could never ever go back.

I've been slowly collecting blog posts and articles with the idea of writing an updated guide to making a completely stable and optimized VM with vfio, hugetables, reduced DPC latency, bridged networking, etc., written for audiences that aren't too familiar with Linux.

It would benefit adoption really well if someone unfamiliar with Linux could visit a single resource that explains everything they need to know.

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