Live data from Hacker News

Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

scottrlarson.com

351–360 of 514 posts

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#351
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re this engaged already I’d just make the jump. Be part of the future you want to have rather than watching from the sidelines.

I could but I do not need to, so i'd rather make better use of the time it would take me to move at this time. Biggest pain point actually are not programs, but the need to format all hard drives to some linux file system. I cannot just replace windows with linux and that is it. No, I have to migrate all my data somehow to reformat all my drives and then move the data back. That was always huge pain in the ass.

... there is always some excuse.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaming on linux has been awesome for years. With the advent of systems like bazzite, the transition is only getting easier.

As far as I know almost all (if not all) anti cheat software just does not work on linux therefore "gaming on linux has been awesome for years" is not true if you play games online or competitive.

If you are worried about what Microsoft is doing you should be even more worried about running anti cheat malware on your computer.

This is like saying you won't stop smoking because then you might get less cancer.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make sure libreoffice is included, and ublock origin. Show them how much faster it is, with fewer ads, and no subscription to Microsoft required just to write a document. The business customers might want to know that databases are a lot cheaper on Linux, especially for small business. Literally spoke to an automation company the other week that told me "we have to delete a bunch of stuff every time the database gets…

I wouldn't recommend deploying ublock on customer machines. Or at least ask what their workflow is first. There are a ton of SaaS sites that break with ad locking enabled. I run firefox+UBO+privacy badger on my machines, and the only sites I've had to disable my privacy extensions in the last few years for were work related, B2B SaaS apps. A few years ago I pushed UBO to user machines (Chrome on win10) at work, and h…

> There are a ton of SaaS sites that break with ad locking enabled.

Never had one and I have been using uBlockOrigin for a decade. If a SaaS doesn't work with it, report it to them or skip it (if not already vendor locked on it).

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#354
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I need to think of a good way to automate updates..

"automate updates" A device can be woken up at silly o'clock and "apt update && apt upgrade && apt autoremove && shutdown -r now" can be run via cron. apt as deployed by Debian itself has options for automatic updates (via cron), which is the better option. Have a look under /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/

> A device can be woken up at silly o'clock

It can't. The device is in my room and making noise when on. If that device wakes up and wakes me up, it's either getting a force shutdown (breaking the update) or getting in the trash. Plus the device is generally left in suspend mode, so shutting it down would interrupt my workflow.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right-click requiring two clicks to get to the options you most likely want to use (e.g. 7z unzip or opening in a specific program) This one you can still change. It is some hidden registry tweak, but there is the capacity to always "show more options".

Or hold [Shift] while right clicking

Microsoft's own "you're holding it wrong moment": "You're right clicking wrong"

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is also a real potential for abusing TPMs or cryptographic co-processors to enforce remote attestation. People here REALLY need to start understanding this issue. Remote Attestation is the kind of tech that if abused will end free computing over night.

> People here REALLY need to start understanding this issue. The idea that understanding is the problem feels like a fallacy. People need to upgrade hardware, and when all chips contain such functionality, consumers won't have a choice of alternatives. What you want is legislation (or a dominant competitor lacking such features, which doesn't exist).

Legislation doesn't help unless its the right legislation.

After all, legislation is what is forbidding you from producing a competing x86 processor with the changes you want.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next step: escape the Google ecosystem. LibreOffice for docs (its far superior to Google Docs anyway). Syncthing for drive.

Slightly disagree - while LibreOffice might be better in features, the UI/UX of Google Docs worked so much better for me, it's not even funny.

I guess I kind of agree with your disagree, but disagree overall!

The UI in LibreOffice feels quite clunky and outdated and never seems to have been given any thought since the OpenOffice days. But Google Docs is so feature poor that I'd rather live with LibreOffice's UI. Especially as you can adjust to the latter after using the software for a while.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#358
post #264

I have been using windows since version 95. I even liked the Millennium version, that was most hated before Vista. I tried Linux several times, but Windows just always worked and Linux usually had always some issues(mostly drivers, lack of good programs and no gaming). But now, after more than two decades, I am certain Windows 10 is my last Windows. Nothing lasts for ever, not even Microsoft's domination on personal…

I switched to Ubuntu 3 years ago and never looked back for a daily driver. The reason Windows (and Microsoft itself) is not 6' deep yet is a relatively small number of commercial creative software like DAWs, graphics suits and CAD modellers. Yes, there's a huge amount of legacy software in CAM, plant control and whatnot, but that can run alright on all those Windows XP and 7 machines like forever. All major software…

I have used linux for 10 years now but I think you just have to view a mac mini as the cost of a hardware synth or a guitar. Then all your problems are solved.

At this point, I need a nice gpu on a linux machine and a mac mini. It is a dream setup. I think I booted windows once on my most recent laptop because I messed up booting from the thumb drive to blow it away.

Reaper runs incredible on linux for DAW software but you always run into something that is not available with creative software. Then it is really nice keeping the mac only for creative pursuits.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#359
post #92

I've been using Linux since the early 2000s. I've never been able to completely switch over from Windows or Mac. One issue I've always had is when updating applications you use every day, one bad library could make the application unusable. Most are a dependency nightmares and there just aren't enough people paid to work on Linux apps to offer good support. When I was young and poor, I had all the time in the world t…

> One issue I've always had is when updating applications you use every day, one bad library could make the application unusable. Most are a dependency nightmares and there just aren't enough people paid to work on Linux apps to offer good support. That's not really a problem anymore with immutable/atomic distros. Your entire system is upgraded in one go as a single image, any dependency issues are handled on the ser…

It's not with Windows or Mac.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#360
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM I had a Win 7 system and just entered a password on boot, this decrypted the disk. It was supported without mods or TPM (maybe some registry tweaks though). On Ubuntu I do the same, no need for TPM. Am I missing something? My disk is encrypted. If they take it apart, they need my p…

> Am I missing something? My disk is encrypted. If they take it apart, they need my password to crack the encryption. You’re not protected from an evil maid attack. An attacker with physical access could make your device boot their own payload to capture your encryption key and install a rootkit.

I—like most people—don't have a maid. Is Tom Cruise going to break into my house to add a keylogger to my computer without me noticing? If anyone is breaking in, my threat model is worrying about me or my family getting killed, not someone installing an evil bootloader.

Most market segmentation is just to screw customers (e.g. ECC support), but measured boot is one that really only needs to be on enterprise server or workstation-class hardware, and actually causes issues by existing in mass market hardware.

Post reply on HN