Would be great to switch except I need Visual Studio Pro
Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
651–660 of 1001 posts
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#652This 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…
> if you don't sell your games on Steam or in a way I can run them on Linux I am not buying or playing them. So much this. People like to moan about "oh game XYZ doesn't run so it's not reasonable for gaming". More games run on GNU / Linux than any gaming console. There are simply too many games that do run to give a second thought about the ones that don't, and it's been that way for years.
> More games run on GNU / Linux than any gaming console.
Not for long. The Steam Machine aka "GabeCube" is also a gaming console, and will run all these games.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#653I'm still surviving on Windows but only because over the last four years, as each new annoyance and regression arose, I made the mistake of very gradually, in tiny increments, sinking the time into invoking the arcane incantations necessary to tame each one.
15 minutes to deactivate an entire branch of notification pathways, 20 minutes to (mostly) restore the Right-Ctrl key they hijacked into a CoPilot key. 10 minutes to restore Win10 functionality to the Win11 taskbar with the wonderful ExplorerPatcher. $5 spent on Start11 to sidestep the whole start menu train wreck. And little 3 to 5 minute fixes with WindHawk (an amazing store-like platform to discover, install and manage open source Windows GUI patches).
I'm the stupid frog who didn't leap from the gradually heating pot. I acclimated to the boiling. And it's... okay. At least for now. But I know someday soon, the thousand faceless product managers at MSFT will break something unfixable. Somehow exceed the considerable abilities of the large community finding clever hacks and patches to keep the harsh Win wasteland livable for hardy souls.
While I greatly appreciate Linux philosophically and deeply respect it architecturally, I still really liked what Windows got so close to being - right before MSFT shifted biz models, simultaneously de-investing and turning it into a promotional platform for their other business. When that day comes, it'll suck to leave behind the wonderful third-party tools like Everything search, Ditto clipboard and AHK automation that streamline my day.
The thing I don't understand is why MSFT refuses to just make a version of Windows that's a Product again. I'd gladly pay them $100/yr for an upgraded "Windows Ti Super+" that just wants to be a good operating system for advanced users, instead of a strategic moat or monetization flywheel.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#654Everyone are very unhappy with Windows 11. They kind of were OK with Windows 10. It's continuing the same old cycle. Windows 12 they will make hopefully things tolerable again..
I use Windows to play some games. I remember dual booting on 2000s -- my grub entry for Windows was called "WOW Client".
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#655My story is simpler. Microsoft dropped the support for Windows 10 and gave me no upgrade path to Windows 11 because my CPU was 5 years too old apparently. So I installed Fedora on that machine, I learned the process, I went through the hurdles. It wasn’t seamless. But, Fedora never said “I can’t”. When it was over, it was fine. Only if Microsoft had just let me install Windows 11 and suffer whatever the perf problem…
This was very useful for me. Force install Windows 11: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45853012
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#656I made the same switch but all linux always feels slightly jank. I think Macos is the best premium decoupling from Winblows, but that comes with its own ecosystem lock in. I use all three equally daily and it just drives me insane. Lots of games on Windows ONLY work on windows due to anti cheat. Ie BattleField 6.... MacOs Gaming is non existent and any attempt with say wine/parallels or whatever brings you back to windows.... Linux / PopOS / Cosmic is so close to being there but the gaming restrictions takes you back to Windows.. I tried the whole WSL2 but lots of apps need so much tuning to work properly.. Ie android studio needs to be specially configured to use the WSL2 paths and it gets broken fast.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#657Well, Linux reached ~5% market share in 2025. Imagine the incremental market share they have. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1lpepvq/linux_breaks... My only issue is that i am not a developer, I am heavily reliant on Excel, i know it inside and out and just not sure whether OpenOffice supports excel files. In the past it barely did.
LibreOffice does fine, though you’ll probably be unhappy. What is more important to you? Freedom, privacy, consent, or spreadsheet features? VMs are an option to partition your life as well.
There are many features of Excel that LibreOffice Calc doesn't support. Most importantly: structured references, VBA, PowerQuery. Not to mention its UI is very laggy even on powerful machines.
For real financial/business work, Calc is just not a serious player.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#658For 3D modeling (assuming you want to do CAD), Onshape is a fantastic alternative to native applications.
Came here to say this too - after 10+ years with SolidWorks I switched to OnShape. A small learning curve but now I enjoy it just as much.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#659I switched from Windows (11) to Linux (Xubuntu) back in November, mostly because of all the AI stuff I didn't trust. While Linux is working ok for me, I can see why people complain about its not being user-friendly, particularly if you're not a Real Programmer. I've had to go to forums too many times to figure out why this or that doesn't work. The latest is the fact that 'apt update' has stopped working today for Vi…
Can't help you with AV but otherwise your issues and confusions are all Ubuntu and Canonical and nothing on there is representative of other Linux dists.
Ubuntu is highly opinionated. Great for some/many people but not the best fit for everyone or even an obvious recommendation for newcomers (anymore). For your consideraion: Mint is basically a project that repackages Ubuntu to adress those issues to make it accessible for people not onboard with the Ubuntu idiosyncracies and more casual users who just want their desktop. Should be an easy migration for you.
Your Vivaldi problem comes from that you trusted gpg key for their stable. release repo, and fail verifying package from their archive. repo. Change repo to stable (that's prob what you want) or get the key for archive.
Your Ubuntu experience as told is not representative of desktop Linux experienced outside of Ubuntu. "But Linux sure could work better" is a misleading conclusion to share when that's all you know.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#660He doesn't get into why he didn't switch to Apple. Kind of a middle ground - it's still got the maddening things about being from a corporate behemoth, but it's closer to Unix and you can run your audio software there. (I would be using Linux instead of Apple yesterday if it weren't for a single music program I can't live without).
> But honestly I think not being able to launch League of Legends is actually a feature - one final reason to install Linux.
For all of macOS' gaming advantages, it still can't keep an SBF-tier addict off The Rift.