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Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

himthe.dev

361–370 of 1001 posts

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#361

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)

This is a simultaneously insane yet deeply delightful concept. Does anyone have the link to that discussion?

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wayland has fractional scaling as a sort-of workaround if you can tolerate the entire screen being blurry. Every other major OS can deal with this. I think Windows is the only other one which really does this properly, macOS also does the hack where they simulate fractional scales by rendering with an integer scale at a non-native resolution then scaling it down.

> I think Windows is the only other one which really does this properly Windows is the only one that does this properly. Windows handles high pixel density on a per-application , per-display basis. This is the most fine-grained. It's pretty easy to opt in on reasonably modern frameworks, too; just add in the necessary key in the resource manifest; done. [1] Linux + Xorg has a global pixel density scale factor. KDE/Qt…

> Windows is the only one that does this properly.

How can you say this when applications render either minuscule or gigantic, either way with contents totally out of proportion, seemingly at random?

I don’t have to pull out a magnifying glass to notice those issues.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#363

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 b…

It's funny, but I had my grandmother on Linux for about a long while before she passed... Wine managed to run the 3 Windows 9x era games games she was still playing into the 2010's (where real Windows wouldn't) and her browser/email. I wasn't even able to do that for myself. All I had to do was run updates for her every few months (because she didn't) and the one time she had a hardware failure, I'm the one who fixed it.

In the end, I'd say for most people, who aren't their own computer admins/repair anyway... Linux is probably fine. Since most people don't use more than the browser for the most part.

My other grandmother was on a docked Chromebook after the 5th time I had to clean malware off her computer, and she didn't need any windows apps anymore... she couldn't help but click on the "you might have a virus" ads.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#364

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…

> Steam and Proton work perfectly I am a hardcore DayZ player. DayZ does not work on Proton[0]. I cannot use Linux as my main gaming platform. Battlefield 6 does not work. Latest Call of Duty does not work. You can talk about voting with your wallet, but when millions of people are buying the game, your one non-vote means nothing. So either you punish yourself and refuse to play with friends, or you punish yourself a…

This is really just a subset of competitive shooters. Arc Raiders, The Finals, Hunt Showdown, Halo Infinite all play fine.

I have a Windows drive for Battlefield but I stopped booting into it after interest in the game waned.

Playing on console is also an option. Most games allow you to alternate between keyboard/mouse and controller. Discord works fine, and every game is cross-play.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#365

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.

What do you mean by that? As a long term windows user I've never had any issues running my laptops and PCs for years and years.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#366

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.

I just got a new work laptop: the ThinkPad X1 Carbon gen13. It's gorgeous: weighs a bit over 900 grams, has an amazing matte OLED screen, Intel Lunar Lake that sips power (1-2W idle) and is fast enough to compile Rust if needed, amazing keyboard, touchpad is great but I just use the trackpoint, everything works from the box on Linux (they even deliver it with either Fedora or Ubuntu, but I installed CachyOS).

Suspend: works always. Battery life: great, the whole day. Wifi: works always, connects fast, works fast.

The build quality is really nice, especially the carbon fiber body that doesn't feel so cold/hot to touch.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to switch from Mac. But Mac hardware is so resilient & haven't seen that in PC world.

You can run Linux on Apple Silicon with Asahi Linux

M1&2 yes with slight caveats, m3-5 not really (at least yet)

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#368
post #258

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…

I'm using KDE with Wayland and 2 non-standard DPI monitors (one at 100% the other at 150% scale). No workarounds needed, nothing is blurry. I think your experience comes from GNOME which lacks behind in this regard.

Mint/cinnamon here at 150%, X11, not blurry. It’s FUD.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#369

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…

My spare PC runs Win10. Was able to install it without internet and thus get an offline account.

Since they stopped full updates for it, it's a lot less annoying. Almost all the nags were at reboot time, usually triggered by the update giving it a new thing to nag about. Only thing now is it'll ask me once a month about either OneDrive or Win11, which is bad but tolerable.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#370

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'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…

At least on the latest Sequoia, there has been no hard requirement for an online account. They nudge you towards it, but you can decline and continue. As far as I can remember, macOS has never required an online account to set up a Mac.
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