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Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

himthe.dev

511–520 of 1001 posts

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#511
There’s a lot of odd things said in this article. Like “no more file explorer hanging”, “no more waiting for the start menu to open” - is this something that actually happens to people? Perhaps on very old hardware I could see it, but it’s not my experience at all. Lots of weird emotional and very biased parts to this article.

But it’s just gonna take off here anyway because it’s a switching to Linux article which is like offering HN users free coke.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#512
post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can confirm this.

Honestly, I am really surprised this is a top comment here. This was an extremely easy work around. We are all mostly curious nerds here.

All this work because one couldn't google a easy work around?

Last time I tried Linux it sucked for gaming and I've spent hours trying to install a printer.

Not to excuse Microsoft in this situation, Linux is obviously more open.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#513
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…

Yep. Similar thing forced me off of Apple. They stopped making 17 inch laptops. They started soldering parts into place. Made it so you couldn’t open your own laptop to replace the HD.

Switched to Linux 8 years ago and haven't looked back.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#515

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 Because its supposed to be stripped down. To serve as a base to create things like Endeavour, Manjaro, or Cachy. There's still a lot of utility to doing things the hard way. I do suggest people that want to actually learn Linux install Arch and live in the terminal. You learn a lot very fast because you're forced to. But it's not for everyone…

I don't think it is because they can't do it or that they want to be a base for other distros. They simply let the user choose what the user wants. And if you don't know what you want then you learn it.

I switched to arch 15 years ago to learn Linux. And it is by far the best way to understand it.

Having used Arch I can easily maintain almost any distro out there, but it doesn't work the other way around.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#516
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…

Apple does this all the time, though, and seems to get a free pass here. I have four Macs in my home, and they are cut off at Ventura (for the 2017 iMac), Monterey (for the 2014 Mac Mini and the 2015 MacBook Air), and El Capitan (for the 2014 iMac). They are all stuck at 3, 4, and 5 major OS versions back. Nobody really seems to complain about this, though.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#517
post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have two laptops that - even being 8 years and 4 years old fit the specs MS decided to set.

I still kicked itin the can. Am a happy Arch User & Ubuntu (will probably migrate that one to an Arch derivate as well, though) nowadays. I still use WIN11 in my day job. And it is an okay OS. I had worse. I had better.

What I find interesting is, that I gained on average 30 - 50% more battery time from the laptops I switched to Linux. It is quite unexpected and to me quite frankly amazing. I am writing this on my day job quite expensive Surface machine. I pulled it from the power connection to sit on the sofa about 20 minutes ago. My battery? At 73%. And I am running Firefox and PowerPoint at the moment (plus whatever corp crapware is installed underneath).

Except for exactly one set of tools (older Affinity progs) I have no need for WIN anymore. And as my day job provides a WIN machine...

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#518

I've been running Ubuntu Linux for a long time now (over a decade, started with 8.04). Linux still has it's fair share of bugs but I'll take having to deal with those over running Windows or MacOS any day. For me the biggest thing is control, with Windows there are some things like updates that you have zero control over. It's the same issue with MacOS, you have more control than Windows but you're still at the whims…

I remember when Ubuntu decided to reroute apt installations into SNAP installs. So you install a package via apt and there was logic to see if they should disregard your command and install a SNAP instead. Do they still do that? It annoyed me so much that I switched to mint.

I agree with the sentiment but I keep Snap disabled because I like Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE) for its rock solid stability.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#520
Between using macOS at work and macOS at home, I really only had my Windows 10 PC for running games in Steam (and I don't even really game very much. I had originally built it with all new parts for Flight Simulator 2020) so its behavior was already becoming annoying whenever I went to use Windows such as the nagging and lack of consent implied with the "finish setting up your PC" window having "continue" (in a bold button) or whatever and "maybe later" (in a tiny link) as options, for example. (The linked article also pointed this out.)

So after making sure I had everything I wanted to keep copied off that computer, I was going to try out Bazzite, but something made me try out the plain old SteamOS steam deck installer first. To my surprise, it actually worked, but only because I had the exact type of system it expected:

64-bit Intel or AMD CPU. (I have AMD.)

AMD Radeon graphics.

NVMe SSD primary boot drive.

UEFI BIOS support

Even the wifi worked. Well, it didn't work the first time, so I thought it wasn't supported. So I hard wired it with Ethernet, but then I saw the Wifi was working. It's possible it updated something or maybe it just needed a reboot.

If it hadn't worked then Bazzite or something similar would have since it's designed to run Steam but with more driver support.

So my complete Windows history is: 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, XP (set to the classic GUI mode), 7, and finally 11, skipping all the others. Windows 7 was peak.

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