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Microsoft is driving users away

christitus.com

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Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Every time a pundit, even an Apple-focused one, complains that macOS “hasn’t changed” I have to shake my head at such ignorance from people who should know better. The interface changes relatively slowly, all things considered. (When it does change suddenly, some of the same pundits throw a fit.) But the internals are always changing, virtually always for the better; things like the `discoveryd` situation are o…

Under the hood, macOS changes things (and break them) so fast, that Linux distros blush with envy, while they figure out, how to change something in 5 years that macOS does in 1.

Like passkey support. I thought for sure it would be further ahead in Linux but nope.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#392
post #259
post #16

DHH today on how windows is just as good as Apple now. https://world.hey.com/dhh/vscode-wsl-makes-windows-awesome-f... (OK he hates Apple so is pushing an alternative but a good POV)

> (OK he hates Apple so is pushing an alternative but a good POV) Seem like an odd take. In the article he does say that he still uses it as a daily driver. He can't hate it that much.

He's had beef with them because they want the app store to take a cut of hey.com SAAS payments. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1755984581214499317 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1750937133328834656 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1747697778455962014

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#393

It's amazing to me that Microsoft messed up Windows. All they had to do was not not change things, but they continued to force junk on me that I don't need, take power away from me, and spy on me. Honestly MacOS isn't much better. Linux is still crap software, but we've reached the point where most things can be done on Linux, so good riddance. I hope that more people switch and Linux continues to improve. There's ac…

> but they continued to force junk on me that I don't need

With all the built in advertising Windows reminds me of Frito's TV in Idiocracy. What an augural movie, btw.

> Linux is still crap software

Ubuntu is rock solid and easier to use than Windows. Linux Mint, Fedora and Pop!_OS too.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a thing sucks, or even merely has some little blemish, the fault is in the thing, and it's entirely fair and rational to say so.

All the moaning and groaning over something trivial to avoid with even a modicum of common sense is neither fair nor rational. Even more so since it's an intentional design decision and it's already well known to be an intentional design decision.

What common sense is your own moaning and groaning exhibiting?

It is a useful ability to be able to deal with something that isn't as you would wish.

But that is orthoganol to another fact which is that in the entire history of the world, not one thing ever got better by accepting things as they are.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who want to run Linux buy hardware and laptops that support Linux. The user you're replying to specifically said they don't care to evangelize the benefits because it works great for them. Replying with an example of a Nvidia card and Ubuntu Snaps doesn't really address them because they're in all likelihood running compatible hardware with a distro that works for them. Please continue to use other OSes with t…

> Please continue to use other OSes with the blessing of the rest of us Linux users. No one is forcing you or trying to convince you otherwise. Speak for yourself. That condescending attitude is disgustingly lame, and everyone is welcome to use linux, even the haters. It is free and open source, not free and open source (except for people that emptysongglass doesn't approve of) Everything deserves criticism. Everythi…

I'm not upset and it's a little presumptuous to assume that I am or that I was condescending. I really do want people to be happy where and when they go to do their compute on whatever OS they go to do it on. Parent made a strawman where grandparent explicitly said Linux was in a place where they no longer felt the need to evangelize it.

And that's a good thing. Trying to convince people to use Linux has been likely the worst sort of thing to happen to its adoption. Chromebooks and Steam Deck promote Linux without arguing its virtues.

> It's reached a point where it no longer really matters. Linux is good enough, usable enough, and supported enough, that getting more users won't change much. It might actually be worse if a lot more users, with a lot of wide-ranging needs and demands, switch to Linux.

Grandparent explicitly stated that getting more users might actually be a worse thing for Linux. I agree. Parent going out of their way to criticize unsupported hardware makes their case.

> And it doesn't matter how upset you get for it, Linux's feelings have not been hurt by the criticisms it has received. Rather, many people have heard those criticisms and raised the flag and ran to the rescue and made linux better because of them.

No, I don't believe that to be the case, especially when it comes to bring-up on Nvidia. That blame sits squarely with Nvidia the corporation. And the people who can do something about it are the engineers sitting at Nvidia who haven't done anything about it for at least a decade. Rolling out the same old arguments for why Linux sucks because Nvidia is not productive.

For Snaps, there's a constellation of other distros available that don't ship Snaps. Shuttleworth doesn't want to listen to critique. He's been going his own way since the earliest days of Canonical. Have you seen their interview process? When he was called out publicly for the poor predictive power of screening using aptitude tests, he doubled down. That's been his way from the beginning. Critizing Snaps on Ubuntu as part of a broader argument on why Linux sucks is also not productive because the one person in charge of that decision does not want to make that decision.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#396

For full Disclosure, I once upon was a software engineer at Microsoft. I witnessed first hand the evil decisions around Windows. I left Microsoft in 2006 but I am still part of the Alumni Network. IMO Microsoft can gain users back by: * Not requiring a Microsoft Account * Ending all data/telemetry collection * Not forcing Edge on its users * Stop releasing improved UI updates every week * Make bash, zsh, ... native f…

Microsoft needs to fix their UX development platform urgently. WinUI 3 sucks compared to Apples SwiftUI. They don't appear to be investing anything much into it. Apple's efforts into improving their UX and development platform are orders of magnitude higher than Microsoft's.

Apple now owns the majority of the mobile+tablet+developer laptop market. Getting rid of Windows Phone was a VERY bad decision made by Nadella. A short-term gain in profitability for a long-term loss in marketshare. He completely ceded the OS/device competition and effectively made Apple the dominant cross-form-factor OS company.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The linux subsystem, despite being about as wrongheaded as running linux user space on the Windows OS can be as an idea, solves that problem. Nobody needs PowerShell, unless you're dealing with very old systems. And in that case, you're already lost.

The point of learning powershell is not because it is some great shell, but the available bindings to many subsystems, that allow you to admin them; including many toggles and options, that are not available in any gui. Bash running in wsl does not have these bindings.

You've convinced me. Getting away from Windows as quickly as possible in the fastest direction is definitely the goal.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that’s been forced to reluctantly wear the ‘Windows sysadmin’ on and off for the past ~15 years due to circumstances beyond my control…this just sounds like the complaint of someone too lazy to learn PowerShell.

The linux subsystem, despite being about as wrongheaded as running linux user space on the Windows OS can be as an idea, solves that problem. Nobody needs PowerShell, unless you're dealing with very old systems. And in that case, you're already lost.

Other UNIXes and mainframes did it first, in regards to emulating Linux kernel in some form or fashion.

WSL makes sense in the context that Microsoft was too dumb to keep improving Windows NT UNIX subsystem, and to throw away SUA as well.

Regarding WSL, it can't be used to admnister Windows systems anyway.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say “Linux is much easier” we can’t pick this weird anecdote of troubleshooting a printer. Is the average printer setup in Linux much easier? What about getting wifi going out of the box? Or Bluetooth? Or even finding out if something is not right? I don’t want to sound like a Window defender (heh) but let’s be honest here. If I open device manager and I see a little triangle I know something is wrong. In Li…

> What about getting wifi going out of the box? It's 2024. WiFi even works out of the box on Debian now. > Or Bluetooth? Getting some random device to connect to Bluetooth is a lottery - on both Windows and Linux. It's a horrible standard. That said, it usually works on both. > In Linux… ???? Where do you even go? If we are talking about printers and one of bigger Linux desktop environments, a little red triangle in…

In any laptop I decide to try it on, or still stuck to desktops?

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make bash, zsh, ... native for Windows Why? There is PowerShell, able to run on Linux and MacOS. And compared to Bash it is actually readable language.

IMO PowerShell is horrible. It is it an object, or not an object. You don't know, unless you know. How about operators? They make ZERO sense (-eq). They went supreme extreme on namespaces. I could write a paper on how bad PowerShell is. You can keep it. I'll stick with zsh or bash.

You never used Perl I see.
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