Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#271

Post by phkahler » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

blackcatsec wrote: post #239

I honestly don't understand the hatred that Microsoft gets for most of the work they're doing in Windows. As I've stated before, most 'problems' people ultimately have are either configuration issues or hardware issues. And I still stand by this even as I've had issues over the years here or there. I think the most recent 'production' Windows issue I've had was OneDrive failing to recognize it was syncing my data eve…

>> I honestly don't understand the hatred that Microsoft gets for most of the work they're doing in Windows. As I've stated before, most 'problems' people ultimately have are either configuration issues or hardware issues.

And then you go on to describe your own hardware problems with windows. That's called "projection" - attributing your experience to everyone else. It's like you don't read the other complaints or somehow dismiss them. Have you not seen the ads yourself? Maybe you take the suggestions to use other Microsoft products as helpful suggestions rather than ads. Is that it? OneDrive failing? Try saying NO to using OneDrive - that's what some people would like to do and it'll keep advertising and trying to enable itself. Then when we do use it... well you've got issues with it not working right too.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#272

Post by zikduruqe » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

Muromec wrote: post #99

giancarlostoro wrote: post #68

This was me in 2022 or 2023. I have posted on HN about my shift a few times. I gave up with Windows 10 because you needed Windows Pro in order to make an "offline" account, I spent $2000+ for a gaming rig, and I couldn't add new users, one program told me to use the other program which brought me back to the original program... I had to go out of my way, buy a license just to make it work. I just went and installed L…

This was me in 2005. I cant believe people say that M$ started to suck in 2025. It always did.

My first distro I booted from was Ubuntu 4.04.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#273

Post by cogman10 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #155

Zambyte wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you don't sell your games on Steam or in a way I can run them on Linux I am not buying or playing them. So much this. People like to moan about "oh game XYZ doesn't run so it's not reasonable for gaming". More games run on GNU / Linux than any gaming console. There are simply too many games that do run to give a second thought about the ones that don't, and it's been that way for years.

> oh game XYZ doesn't run so it's not reasonable for gaming People tend to generalize, but what they probably mean is "it's not reasonable for gaming for the games I play. I haven't fully switched over yet because the games the combo of the hardware I have + the games I play regularly, still give me issues vs. Windows. Getting them to run isn't the problem, but I haven't been able to solve miscellaneous crashes, lag,…

Over the last year or so, nVidia support for the 3+ series of hardware has gotten pretty stable.

With that said, I'm probably going to grab and AMD or Intel card once my 3060 becomes too much of a pain to continue using. It's a little ridiculous that the 5060 gives very little reason for my to update my 5 year old video card.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#274

Post by Eric_WVGG » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

> If 3 years ago you would have told me that Microsoft would singlehandedly sabotage their own OS, doing more Linux marketing than the most neckbearded Linux fanboy (or the most femboy Thinkpad enjoyer), I'd have laughed in your face

I have no idea what that Thinkpad burn is supposed to mean.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#275

Post by jimbokun » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

> Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote a blog post asking people to stop calling AI-generated content "slop" and to think of AI as "bicycles for the mind."

I can't believe Nadella stole Jobs "bicycles for the mind" metaphor without attribution.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#276

Post by poolnoodle » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

I really want to like Linux but every time I try it (and I tried a lot of distros and DEs) it is death by a thousand UX paper cuts.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#277

Post by DrBazza » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #68

This was me in 2022 or 2023. I have posted on HN about my shift a few times. I gave up with Windows 10 because you needed Windows Pro in order to make an "offline" account, I spent $2000+ for a gaming rig, and I couldn't add new users, one program told me to use the other program which brought me back to the original program... I had to go out of my way, buy a license just to make it work. I just went and installed L…

I've been using Fedora+KDE for over a decade, Windows 8 was last version of Windows I had installed at home, and we all know what a squarified mess that was.

Gnome is fine, but it's just not for me.

For everyone on here that complains about Windows requiring an 'online' account, MacOS does as well, but the perception is different. MacOS, just kind of quietly does it, with no ceremony, but Windows does a Ballmer-esque right-in-your-face demand. I couldn't possibly comment on Windows 11 as I've yet to use it, but Win10 felt a lot worse than Windows 7 which was probably the last high water mark for Windows after Windows 2000.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#278

Post by tambourine_man » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

> Adobe Suite: Runs via Winboat. Far from perfect (no video acceleration, laggy at times), but functional

That’s not acceptable to most professionals and one of the things holding me back on a Mac.

Adobe has so many different cross-platform layers that a solution like Proton may never be viable, practically speaking.

For Photoshop alone I remember reading that they still have some custom MacApp Pascal UI code, along with HTML/CSS/JS rendered by WebKit. And there used to be a flavor of Flash as well in mix, to name a few. Lightroom had its own custom Lua UI binding.

The only hope for fast and reliable Adobe-apps-on-Linux IMO is through a Windows VM with GPU pass-through and a focus on making that as easily and seamless as possible.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#279

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

troupo wrote: post #30

bittumenEntity wrote: post #19

Like the author says: > Linux is the preferred platform for development Honestly I'm surprised he was using a non unix system this long, I guess it kinda proves his point that switching costs can seem huge

Both MacOS and Windows with wsl are perfectly fine for development. Especially MacOS. There's literally nothing special about Linux when it comes to development. And there are quite a few downsides especially when it comes to some specialized tooling because many vendors often only have Windows tools for their devices.

I would have to agree with this. I don't understand people how say developing on Linux is somehow better. I have built C++ software across Windows, macOS and Linux and I can't say one is easier than the other at all. Perhaps it is because of the package management system that makes installing a compiler "easier" than downloading Xcode or downloading/running the Visual Studio installer??

I certainly don't find development tools better on Linux, particularly for C++ debugging. Windows/Visual Studio is the leader in that regard.

I have also done C#, PHP, Java, JS + web development across all 3 and don't see the difference.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#280

Post by xattt » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #68

This was me in 2022 or 2023. I have posted on HN about my shift a few times. I gave up with Windows 10 because you needed Windows Pro in order to make an "offline" account, I spent $2000+ for a gaming rig, and I couldn't add new users, one program told me to use the other program which brought me back to the original program... I had to go out of my way, buy a license just to make it work. I just went and installed L…

> idk why Arch doesn't invest in whats standard in every other major distro

It could be a deliberate measure to set the bar high and filter out people who don’t want to troubleshoot themselves.