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Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

scottrlarson.com

21–30 of 514 posts

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#21
> I'm recomming my customers switch to Linux rather that Upgrade to Windows 11 (scottrlarson.com)

But of a bait and switch from that to the actual article title…

> Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

If nothing else adhering to HN’s guideline on titles would have saved me having to suffer through reading “recomming.”

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#22
post #2

I am a IT solutions provider for the public and small business. I think the changes to Windows 11 is gearing up to work with organizations to create a surveillance state. So I have to decided to promote Linux over Windows for computers I build for customers. If you have any suggestions on how I can make this promotion, better let me know.

Make sure libreoffice is included, and ublock origin. Show them how much faster it is, with fewer ads, and no subscription to Microsoft required just to write a document.

The business customers might want to know that databases are a lot cheaper on Linux, especially for small business.

Literally spoke to an automation company the other week that told me "we have to delete a bunch of stuff every time the database gets near 10GB or we'll have to pay Microsoft".

Plus there's no license cost for linux itself either.

This stuff might not be viable for hundreds of employees in a business where MS is already entrenched, but for a small business it absolutely is a better deal.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#24
post #6

I switched my at home setup to MX Linux just in the last 2 months for dissatisfaction with even Win10. Win11 is a hard no, I’m keeping a laptop with Win10 for the small amount of games I play. I will likely even try WINE for them soon but just haven’t got around to it.

Steam Flatpak works great if your games are on Steam.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#25
In addition to the good distro options mentioned, there's also Debian Stable:

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/d...

There are several options for desktop environment, and you can select which ones to install when you boot that installer image (and also add/subtract more later, and change your preference at login time).

One of the nicest-looking ones that should be self-explanatory to use (for anyone who's used any version of Microsoft Windows since 95) is Cinnamon. Most of other desktop environments default to similar, except for the current default Gnome one, which is a bit more creative in a way that's not intuitive.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#26
post #2

I am a IT solutions provider for the public and small business. I think the changes to Windows 11 is gearing up to work with organizations to create a surveillance state. So I have to decided to promote Linux over Windows for computers I build for customers. If you have any suggestions on how I can make this promotion, better let me know.

Make sure libreoffice is included, and ublock origin. Show them how much faster it is, with fewer ads, and no subscription to Microsoft required just to write a document. The business customers might want to know that databases are a lot cheaper on Linux, especially for small business. Literally spoke to an automation company the other week that told me "we have to delete a bunch of stuff every time the database gets…

Yeah. I just tried LibreWolf recently and it comes with Ublock preinstalled. I think I am going to install that with some relaxed privacy settings. Libreoffice by default for sure.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#27

> I'm recomming my customers switch to Linux rather that Upgrade to Windows 11 (scottrlarson.com) But of a bait and switch from that to the actual article title… > Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state If nothing else adhering to HN’s guideline on titles would have saved me having to suffer through reading “recomming.”

[flagged]

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#28
post #2

I am a IT solutions provider for the public and small business. I think the changes to Windows 11 is gearing up to work with organizations to create a surveillance state. So I have to decided to promote Linux over Windows for computers I build for customers. If you have any suggestions on how I can make this promotion, better let me know.

If you're going to do this, set them up with something they can get commercial support for.

IMO, if a user's needs can be met with a Chromebook, Linux + a browser + email + Zoom/or whatever would suit them well.

I think you're going to have a hard sell if they rely on Office or other Windows-only software, and although well meaning, it might be doing them a disservice if they can't run the software they're accustomed to.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#29
post #12

Huge opportunity for Apple too.

Apple has never really tried to compete for the corporate desktop. It’s too low margin for them.

This. Google and Microsoft are the two juggernauts in this arena, Apple products live on the periphery of the corporate cloud ecosystem.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#30

I think describing TPM and Secure Boot as "artificial limitations" is unfair. Many Linux distros have no problem working with both of these and they serve a valuable purpose. The problem is not that they exist or that Windows 11 supports them. It's that Microsoft pretends they are required , when they are not.

Yup, they can give you a secure boot chain that's otherwise hard to prove, and I've worked at places where (for example) disk encryption keys were protected by TPM encryption, using TrouSrS.

They can also often be used as a (slow) source of hardware randomness.

Most modern intel (seris 8 onwards) and AMD Zen onwards have fTPM too. Often these can be enabled in the bios during upgrade then disabled again.

Personally I upgraded to Win11 the moment it became available, but that's because I want to continue my run of free MS windows forever and I only ever boot into it to play games, with even that becoming less common.

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