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Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

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Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#491

Post by jama211 »

sedatk wrote: post #382

My story is simpler. Microsoft dropped the support for Windows 10 and gave me no upgrade path to Windows 11 because my CPU was 5 years too old apparently. So I installed Fedora on that machine, I learned the process, I went through the hurdles. It wasn’t seamless. But, Fedora never said “I can’t”. When it was over, it was fine. Only if Microsoft had just let me install Windows 11 and suffer whatever the perf problem…

You can bypass the warning really easily, I googled it the moment I saw it and it was very easy. A keyboard shortcut to open the command window during the install and one cheeky command.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#492

Post by mixmastamyk »

alphax314 wrote: post #336

There was a post here a while back saying that Microsoft will eventually switch to Linux instead of maintaining Windows. Given all the negativity around Windows this seems more and more likely (I haven’t used Windows myself for over 20 years so I have no idea what its like now. Last time I used it, it was XP)

Unlikely but growing as profit dwindles. Previously it was unfathomable that Apple would offer RISC/Unix Workstations, or MS would jettison IE.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#493

Post by wackget »

Orygin wrote: post #349
marginalia_nu wrote: post #33

As a long-time Linux user who fairly recently dropped the Windows partition entirely, I do think the remaining chafing points are these: * UI framework balkanization has always been, and remains a hideous mess. And now you don't just have different versions of GTK vs QT to keep track off, but also X vs Wayland, and their various compatibility layers. * Support for non-standard DPI monitors sucks, mostly because of th…

> UI framework balkanization has always been, and remains a hideous mess I thought you were talking about Windows there. There are 4 (5?) different UI paradigms within Windows, and doing one thing sometimes requires you to interact with each of them. At least on Linux, with GTK/KDE, you can pick a camp and have a somewhat consistent experience, with a few outliers. Plus many apps now just use CSD and fully integrate…

If we're talking about mass adoption of Linux then there really has to be no concept of even "picking a camp". The vast majority of users - even techy people - will not understand what a window manager is, never mind be capable of choosing one.

Yes, there are many UI implementations in Windows but they are almost totally transparent to the user (no pun intended), and they can all run on the same system at once.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#494

Post by jama211 »

ufmace wrote: post #478
sedatk wrote: post #382

My story is simpler. Microsoft dropped the support for Windows 10 and gave me no upgrade path to Windows 11 because my CPU was 5 years too old apparently. So I installed Fedora on that machine, I learned the process, I went through the hurdles. It wasn’t seamless. But, Fedora never said “I can’t”. When it was over, it was fine. Only if Microsoft had just let me install Windows 11 and suffer whatever the perf problem…

I'm in the exact same boat. I was a little unhappy with the ads etc in Windows, but perfectly willing to give Windows 11 a try. But Microsoft decreed that my admittedly a bit old but perfectly workable CPU was incompatible, due to not having a feature I wasn't interested in. I'd need to replace most of my existing hardware to switch. So why not try Linux? It certainly seems reasonable when Windows apparently needs mo…

You can bypass the warning really easily, I googled it the moment I saw it and it was very easy. A keyboard shortcut to open the command window during the install and one cheeky command. I agree though that it’s silly they don’t offer it officially.

But I get the feeling you were on the edge of transitioning anyway, which is fine! Sounds more like the straw that broke the camels back.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#495

Post by OhMeadhbh »

Fwiw... I've been doing Leenucks since '92. Back when you had to install BSD first, compile the kernel and reverse engineer how to boot into the new kernel you just built with gcc. But it was cheaper than SunOS, and the developers mailing list was more active than the BSD lists. I still miss my 3B1.

Anyway... welcome to the party. We saved you a beer. Doesn't matter you came later than other people. It just matters you made it here eventually.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#496

Post by browningstreet »

sedatk wrote: post #382

My story is simpler. Microsoft dropped the support for Windows 10 and gave me no upgrade path to Windows 11 because my CPU was 5 years too old apparently. So I installed Fedora on that machine, I learned the process, I went through the hurdles. It wasn’t seamless. But, Fedora never said “I can’t”. When it was over, it was fine. Only if Microsoft had just let me install Windows 11 and suffer whatever the perf problem…

I've been using Linux for 20+ years, but I was fairly happy with Windows 11. At its core it did exactly what I needed it to do, and it allowed me to run some commercial software that is harder to install and run on Linux (Davinci Resolve).

But my Dell hardware drivers were flaky in Windows. My bluetooth had extremely variable availability. And then Windows rebooted itself, against my wishes, 3x in one week. And then there was the promise of Recall.

That's when I wiped Windows and installed Ubuntu. All my hardware issues went away (yes, I had to fiddle the sound driver a little so it didn't crack when it woke up from sleep, and I had to make one small change so suspend worked properly.. but both were easily solvable). My bluetooth has been flawless since and I was able to use my Logitech wireless mouse again.

I'm never going back.

I do a bit of napkin math on Apple Silicon single-threaded performance, GPU performance, and battery management against non-Macbook Air/Pro specs for same price. I follow DHH (who I otherwise object to) on his adventures with the Asus G14 machines.. but I'm not sure its GPU performance still matches the similarly priced Apple offering.

Less integrated OS, worse battery management, and weaker performance for more money? I'm not sure. But I'll probably still go that way.

The Intel/AMD laptop manufacturers need to get out from under Nvidia's hardware GPU thumb.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#497

Post by mrks_hy »

drillsteps5 wrote: post #297

I think Linux is not quite there as gaming system. Simply due to games' compatibility (and I don't play latest and hottest titles, more like Cities-Skylines/Transport Fever/Anno/Satisfactory etc). Plus to my knowledge NVidia drivers are still an issue. But for literally anything else I think it's ready. Just browsing? Office work (writing/spreadsheets/presentations/email)? Development? Media production? You're good.…

That's not my experience at all. The majority of games, especially on Steam, work out of the box.

I would advise the opposite: Don't get an old box. Take your new box, take a new hard disk, and just install Bazzite (and pretend you don't know anything about Linux, just stick with the defaults).

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#498

Post by newsoftheday »

the_arun wrote: post #87
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 would love to switch from Mac. But Mac hardware is so resilient & haven't seen that in PC world.

Dell, HP and Lenovo have been phenomenally resilient for us, going back more than 2 decades.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#499

Post by bikelang »

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,…

FWIW my 4070 Ti Super has had zero headaches in Linux. It’s only older Nvidia cards I’ve had issues with. Seems like there was a major driver change starting with the RTX 20xx series.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#500

Post by BizarroLand »

reddalo wrote: post #471
Orygin wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UI framework balkanization has always been, and remains a hideous mess I thought you were talking about Windows there. There are 4 (5?) different UI paradigms within Windows, and doing one thing sometimes requires you to interact with each of them. At least on Linux, with GTK/KDE, you can pick a camp and have a somewhat consistent experience, with a few outliers. Plus many apps now just use CSD and fully integrate…

>many apps now just use CSD If there's something I hate about Linux, it's CSD (Client-Side Decorations, in case people don't know what it is). If I wanted all my apps to look different from each other, I'd use macOS. I want a clean desktop environment, with predictable window frames that are customizable and they all look the same. CSD destroys that.

Conversely, I don't want all of my apps to look identical to each other. I want to be able to tell with a submoment of a glance what app I am working on or looking for without having to cognitively engage to locate it, breaking my state of flow in the process.
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