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

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

#91

Post by zrobotics »

1over137 wrote: post #42

Where I work, I'd love to move our remaining Windows boxes to linux, but there's often software that only works on Windows. How well does Wine work these days? Can they run CAD software for example?

CAD machines are some of the few in our company that are staying windows instead of going to Linux. We're an autodesk shop, I tested fusion under Debian 6 months ago and it didn't work very well. I tried proton and wine, couldn't get either to work great and had issues. It would launch, but opening a medium complexity assembly was laggy, and the CAM module would crash fairly often. I can't speak for other programs from personal experience though.

That said, for home use freecad has gotten a lot better after the ondsel changes were merged, I was using the free liscence of fusion360 for personal projects, and moved over to freecad 6 months ago. I'd originally tried it 7 or 8 years ago, and it was just absolutely awful to use, but modern versions are really very good. There wasn't a huge learning curve, and I haven't run into anything that the program can't do. For hobby CAD, I'm using it for 3d printing, a Cnc mill, and making prints for manual machining. Honestly, I've been less frustrated with freecad than fusion360, it does a better job of getting out of my way and letting me design things. That said, I'm a software dev and IT guy, I don't know if it would work for commercial use. I certainly didn't push for the engineers to change, but their workstations are already running win11 that I had to debloat.

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

#92

Post by d3Xt3r »

billy99k wrote: post #49

I've been using Linux since the early 2000s. I've never been able to completely switch over from Windows or Mac. One issue I've always had is when updating applications you use every day, one bad library could make the application unusable. Most are a dependency nightmares and there just aren't enough people paid to work on Linux apps to offer good support. When I was young and poor, I had all the time in the world t…

> One issue I've always had is when updating applications you use every day, one bad library could make the application unusable. Most are a dependency nightmares and there just aren't enough people paid to work on Linux apps to offer good support.

That's not really a problem anymore with immutable/atomic distros. Your entire system is upgraded in one go as a single image, any dependency issues are handled on the server (basically the image won't get built if there are issues). And most of your user apps will be installed via Flatpak or other means (homebrew/Nix etc) so you won't ever have to suffer from dependency issues unlike regular distros.

So if you want to get a distro that "just works", get an immutable+atomic distro (eg Aurora, Bazzite etc). Assuming of course, you've got compatible hardware.

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

#93

Post by sitharus »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #70
Aurornis wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make sure libreoffice is included Probably an unpopular thing to say here, but in my experience pushing non-tech people to use libreoffice as part of a Linux transition is a fast track to getting them to hate Linux. Using Google Docs has been much more welcoming in my experience. Something about libreoffice doesn’t resonate with a lot of non-tech people.

OnlyOffice might be a better option here - its UI is similar to MS Office, and it has a much better MS Office file format compatibility compared to LibreOffice.

I've never heard of OnlyOffice, but that really looks quite promising. I'll have a deeper look at it later, but even though it's all webapp based it can't really be slower than libreoffice...

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

#94

Post by weikju »

IlikeKitties wrote: post #87
heavyset_go wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would say that specifically with Secure Boot, Microsoft actually promoted user choice: A Windows Logo compliant PC needs to have Microsoft's root of trust installed by default. Microsoft could have stopped there, but they didn't. This was not the case with the initial rollout of Secure Boot, it was combined with locked BIOS to lock PCs so that they could only boot Windows 8 on some devices. This was the case on W…

> There is also a real potential for abusing TPMs or cryptographic co-processors to enforce remote attestation. People here REALLY need to start understanding this issue. Remote Attestation is the kind of tech that if abused will end free computing over night.

s/if/when/

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

#95

Post by cam_l »

gruez wrote: post #79
scheeseman486 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the face of it they're just security features, and I don't deny they are, but the industry as a whole are using those features to implement device verification systems that are being used to lock down their platforms and centralize control over their software ecosystems. Being able to install another OS isn't much good if critical applications and websites refuse to run on it.

>Being able to install another OS isn't much good if critical applications and websites refuse to run on it. The battle has already been lost on this. Just look at all the companies that are app-only and don't offer a web version.

I honestly have only come across one company that is app only. That was because I was with them when they changed over, otherwise I would never have signed up.

This was my local gym which sacked their front desk staff and moved to app access only, and with an app infested with trackers at that. Needless to say I don't go to that gym anymore.

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

#96

Post by heavyset_go »

1over137 wrote: post #42

Where I work, I'd love to move our remaining Windows boxes to linux, but there's often software that only works on Windows. How well does Wine work these days? Can they run CAD software for example?

Here's a list of CAD application and their ratings on AppDB: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=category&i...

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

#97

Post by magarnicle »

d3Xt3r wrote: post #69
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #63

I may recommended the same for my parents. 20 years ago Ubuntu was the go-to for baby's first Linux. Is that still the case?

Ubuntu has unfortunately become the Windows of the Linux world - and I don't mean that in a good way. Unless you want to be the perpetual IT support for your parents, I would recommend getting a user-friendly immutable/atomic distro, like Aurora[1]. Aurora uses KDE, which most Windows users would find familiar. It is immutable, which makes it very hard to break, and it uses atomic updates (basically updates either ap…

The Windows of 15 years ago, maybe. Using Ubuntu now does not feel anywhere near as bad as using current Windows.

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

#98

Post by gruez »

cam_l wrote: post #95
gruez wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Being able to install another OS isn't much good if critical applications and websites refuse to run on it. The battle has already been lost on this. Just look at all the companies that are app-only and don't offer a web version.

I honestly have only come across one company that is app only. That was because I was with them when they changed over, otherwise I would never have signed up. This was my local gym which sacked their front desk staff and moved to app access only, and with an app infested with trackers at that. Needless to say I don't go to that gym anymore.

It's popular with fintechs, especially new ones. Robinhood for instance was app-only for a few years before they got their web version. Revolut theoretically has a web version but it has far less features than the mobile app. Restaurant "apps" (for ordering and offers) are often app-only as well.

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

#99

Post by d3Xt3r »

heavyset_go wrote: post #89
d3Xt3r wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu has unfortunately become the Windows of the Linux world - and I don't mean that in a good way. Unless you want to be the perpetual IT support for your parents, I would recommend getting a user-friendly immutable/atomic distro, like Aurora[1]. Aurora uses KDE, which most Windows users would find familiar. It is immutable, which makes it very hard to break, and it uses atomic updates (basically updates either ap…

In my experience, if you aren't dealing with power users, normal people won't be able to break their Linux install. The standard permissions model stops them from doing anything stupid, and they don't know enough to be dangerous.

Thing is, regular Linux distros are most prone to breakage when it comes to updates - especially Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distros[1]. My elderly mum is non-technical and has been a Linux user for the past decade, and she had Xubuntu, Mint and Zorin - all of which ran fine until update broke it (and this is just a bog standard DELL Optiplex desktop with an Intel iGPU). So I switched her to Aurora a couple of years ago and it's been rock solid.

This is why I recommend immutable/atomic distros for newbies, especially if the person installing it doesn't want to be a 24x7 tech support for that user.

[1] https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/02/05/done-with-ubuntu/

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

#100

Post by amanzi »

neilv wrote: post #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 (fo…

I use Debian Stable + Gnome as my main PC. I use a handful of native apps which are all available on Linux, and most other apps are web-based. I never used to like the Gnome desktop, but modern Gnome is fast, unbloated, and it gets out of your way.
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