Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#331

Post by 72deluxe » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

I don't understand why he thinks all users will use WSL in Windows. I have never ever touched it, and I've developed on Windows for decades (C++/C#/JS/web). It seems like trying to make Windows non-native or some semi-Linux.

I also have never touched Docker on Linux, despite having used that from RedHat 6.0 days (Fedora, Ubuntu LTS now).

Also, he missed out Shotcut as a decent video editor. It recently enabled a 10bit workflow (plus the Frei0r plugins are easy enough to write for it, if you so desire).

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#332

Post by buckle8017 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #259

I just started a new job where I'm subjected to Windows 11. They gave me a behemoth of a laptop. 64GB of RAM, absolute screamer of a CPU, big GPU, the whole deal. Windows 11's file browser lags when opening directories with more than 100-ish files. Windows 11's file browser takes a few seconds to open at all. Context menus take a noticeable amount of time to appear. I'm getting used to a new keyboard, so I keep hitti…

I swear windows is just full of sleeps and it doesn't matter how faster your system is.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#333

Post by thetwentyone » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

FWIW for similar reasons I nuked my Windows install and installed CauchyOS. My main reason for not doing it earlier was concerns about game compatibility but so far the games I want to play either are working without any issue or work after enabling Steam's proton compatibility layer.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#334

Post by arthurjj » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

Had a similar experience in around ~2017 and switched over to Linux. At the time I didn't have the time to build my own and bought a mid-range System76 laptop.

Best computer decision I've ever made. I'm not a heavy gamer so the machine is still running fine. I've only had one time in the last 9 years where I had to drop everything and fix my computer vs Windows where it felt like once a year

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#335

Post by jayd16 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #309

tracker1 wrote: post #228

I came to rely pretty heavily on Docker and WSL(2) in Windows. I was an insiders user for a bit over a decade, and worked with .Net and C# since it was "ASP+" ... I had setup a dual boot when I swapped my old GTX 1080 for an RX 5700XT, figuring the "open source" drivers would give me a good Linux experience... it didn't. Every other update was a blank/black screen and me without a good remote config to try to recover…

It's really hard to maintain a product team where the mandate is just "don't break anything and keep the quality high". Especially something with as big of an installed base as Windows. The team will look for excuses to build new and exciting stuff and new opportunities to increase revenue. Even if the product is pretty much "done".

The mandate seams to be "squeeze everything for a subscription fee and keep the quality... actually just the first thing".

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#336

Post by alphax314 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

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)

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#337

Post by rawgabbit » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

> I'm gonna go full conspiracy nut here, but I bet it's because the LLM understands JavaScript better, and Microsoft can't be asked to pay actual humans to write proper native code.

Do LLMs like Claude really excel at JavaScript than other programming languages? Similarly does OpenAI prefers Python over other languages?

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#338

Post by shevy-java » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

My main operating system is Linux since 2005 or so, or actually late 2004. I still use Win10 on my laptop, for various reasons; in part to test java code and ruby code on windows, in part due to elderly relatives.

Win11 really annoyed many users though. That's actually interesting, since Microsoft committed to it yet it gets harder for Microsoft to retain the people. Linux is unfortunately way too complex to really break the desktop system (and no, Wayland, GNOME, KDE, are not going to change any of that either), but if it were, Microsoft would probably have lost its de-facto monopoly already. Either way it is interesting how much people hate Win11. Microsoft really committed to driving down the cliff here.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#339

Post by connicpu » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #296

DrBazza wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Plasma 6 is really polished and simple. I think anyone familiar with windows would be able to grab and run with it immediately. No hate for anyone that likes other desktop environments, I as a long time windows user just really appreciate how familiar KDE feels.

The familiarity is great but the thing that really draws me to Plasma over Gnome is that the KDE developers seem to have an attitude of just implementing the features people want even if it's not perfect yet. Gnome is polished, but it's missing so many basic configuration options out of the box.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#340

Post by bobsterlobster » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

arthurjj wrote: post #334

Had a similar experience in around ~2017 and switched over to Linux. At the time I didn't have the time to build my own and bought a mid-range System76 laptop. Best computer decision I've ever made. I'm not a heavy gamer so the machine is still running fine. I've only had one time in the last 9 years where I had to drop everything and fix my computer vs Windows where it felt like once a year

Honestly that's what it feels like when something breaks. Linux - you see what's wrong, you fix it, it's done

Windows - you pull your hair out trying to figure out what caused the issue, you fix it, it's back with the next update