Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Get your Windows license refund

en.refund4freedom.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 354 posts

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#221

Post by heisenbit »

gwbas1c wrote: post #76

Seems like it makes a lot more sense to buy a computer without Windows preinstalled. > Device manufacturers and vendors should not impose an operating system or software on consumers This is not a reasonable expectation. Hardware needs software to work, and software runs on an operating system. You can't expect every vendor in the work of every kind of product you can buy to offer you a slightly different version tha…

Is this complexity intrinsic, accidental or even intentional? Bundling is a powerful move to defend monopolies.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#222

Post by upboundspiral »

brudgers wrote: post #52
dijit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we spend a little bit too much time optimising startup time. Anything more than 3 seconds and less than 45 seconds is perceptibly the same, it's the same level of inconvenience unless you're in a rush. .. but I can't honestly tell you the last time I booted my Macbook from cold. Worthwhile suspend/resume is a much better goal for the modern computer user... Windows fucked us all with s2idle, including themsel…

On Windows, Hibernate works a treat.

Hybernate is basically cold booting.

At least in my experience it's not comparable to suspend + resume in terms of speed.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#223

Post by whalesalad »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #206
whalesalad wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a boomer coded 'deal with it' take. The manufacturer is going to charge you a premium for the software license. If you never intend to use that license, it's completely reasonable to think that we could live in a world where you could uncheck a box and avoid that altogether.

Unfortunately, in practice most PC vendors get paid to bundle a giant pile of bloatware/malware/adware on the system, and they eagerly accept those payments because PCs are a low-margin business. So if your refund actually represented the amount the vendor spent, you'd end up paying them more to have a system without Windows.

You are forgetting that we are free to change and invent new rules whenever we want. PC manufacturers can change this. Some already have, like Lenovo (sorta) and Framework. It does not need to be the way that it has been.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#225

Post by toomuchtodo »

eblanshey wrote: post #187
scrollop wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding it's much easier to migrate to linux with an llm as a troubleshooting assistant. Even used it to make a task bar applet adjacent to Media Controls, where I can rate the current plexamp song without having to open plexamp. A big plus of linux is the easy ability to use workspaces and switch between them with a hover over the workspace taskbar applet and the mousewheel (and other options).

> Finding it's much easier to migrate to linux with an llm as a troubleshooting assistant. Especially with NixOS. I would never allow an LLM to make core updates to my OS for fear of breaking it. Now LLMs manage all my packages and upgrades, and because it's all declarative, I can always revert anything that goes wrong.

Do you have any code you can share with us on how you do this? Very interested! Related to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482425

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#226

Post by yndoendo »

feelamee wrote: post #22
p2detar wrote: post #3

I finally found the time this year to replace my parents' old T-series Thinkpad Windows 8 with Linux Mint. I also upgraded the hard drive to an SSD. The result - a 15 years old machine i5 Dual Core with 6GB RAM now boots and works extremely fast as compared to before. Also with USB and wireless mouse support out of the box - I didn't have to touch anything. Sorry, if this offends anyone, but Windows (non-Server editi…

would be interested to see comparison: 1. windows + hdd 2. windows + ssd 3. linux + ssd I know that Linux can greatly speed up startup, but more likely that ssd gave bigger impact.

The speed improvements based on OS are:

1) Reduced telemetry and background services. 2) More efficient resource management.

Windows is super bloated when it comes to number of background task that transfer information to Microsoft and how much of the system resources their own applications need. Weather APP for example.

Windows telemetry can easily consume one CPU core after startup for 5 to 15 minutes depending on the age of the computer.

Windows updating system uses even more system resources than a Linux distro updating system. Linux is simple file copying-replace while Windows has to perform logical transactions because of how bad the bones of the OS are.

It can take _cleanmgr_ 15 minutes or more to clean up a system when selecting to remove old Windows update installers. Linux just has to mark the file as re-usable and move on. _cleanmgr_ does not even clean out all of the Temp files and requires manual interaction to do so.

Worst of all, Windows makes it a complete pain the ass to manage air gap system with updates. Linux just needs to create a HTTP server pointing to the packages on USB drive.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#227

Post by [deleted] »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #220
boplicity wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am seriously saddened by the complete takeover of mobile computing by Apple and Google. There is no freedom on your own device to choose your own software, except inside the very narrow constraints allowed.

What freedom do you need beyond replacing the OS, which is possible on all phones Google sells? If you want to replace the radio firmware, that isn't something that would be possible without that duopoly either.

[deleted]

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#228

Post by retrocog »

Sometimes, it seems, Microsoft will actually OEM Windows at a loss. A year ago I bought some NUCs with Windows pre-installed that were less expensive that if they came with Ubuntu. Microsoft apparently felt is was important to try and hang onto that market. I bought the less expensive NUCs with Windows and then formatted them and installed Ubuntu, saving myself around $40 per machine.

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#229

Post by blaze33 »

noisem4ker wrote: post #176
CodesInChaos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which was extra nice because I had no idea I was in fact charged for the bloatware, but I still got ~50€ for it on top of the OS license price. I actually expected those to pay for being pre-installed, offsetting or possibly even exceeding the cost of the Windows license.

There's no way the typically included 30-day trial of an antivirus or Office costs 50€. It must've been a full yearly subscription of one or the other, that managed to sneak in right before checkout without being de-selected.

Apart from the OS I got reimbursed for 4 or 5 additional items between 6 to 15€ each as far as I can remember, I don't have the details as she only told me on the phone and have no record of it. The original invoice had the following list (although it seemed different from the itemized price list that customer service had access to):

  Camera : Software for Integrated Camera (Only for standard Base )
  Windows Live
  Optical Software : PowerDVD Software for Vista Home Premium and Ultimate, WIN7 Home Premium, Pro or Ultimate
  Software Driver : Latitude E6420 Diagnostics & Drivers 1 S
  Operating System : French Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Professional (64Bit OS) 1 S
  OS Media : MUI Windows 7 SP1 Professional (64Bit OS) Resource DVD 1 S
  Software : Microsoft Office Starter 2010 1 S
  Operating System Recovery Dell Backup and Recovery Manager for Windows 7 SP1 1 S
  AntiVirus : Trend Micro Worry Free Business Service (15 Month subscription)Software MUI
I sure as hell did not order extra antivirus or other kind of software but I guess it's possible there was some "Office and 15-month antivirus included" marketing offer that turned out to to neither be free nor optional...

Re: Get your Windows license refund

#230

Post by dublinben »

neallindsay wrote: post #185

I also raised an eyebrow at "the vast majority of laptops are only sold with a specific proprietary operating system: Microsoft Windows", but after looking at some estimates it seems legit. Probably only about 1 in 10 laptops is a Mac. Software developers really just live in a different world than normal people. It got me thinking though: what is a laptop? People probably count Chromebooks, and that seems fair. Is a…

Or as Apple once (in)famously asked, "what's a computer?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3S5BLs51yDQ

Post reply on HN