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Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

himthe.dev

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Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#701

Post by FlossyBean »

chungusman wrote: post #529

You've sold me. Does anyone have a lightweight guide or something of a no-nonsense tutorial on how to do this without causing an even bigger headache than using windows?

Ubuntu with the Gnome Desktop works well as a family PC. Very easy installer with a GUI that walks you through everything.

https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop

Linux Mint is nice, but it's been a few years since I installed it. Back in 2018ish we had a lot of machines with old dual cores and 2-4GB of RAM that chugged on Windows. But after installing Linux Mint, they were given new life and ran very well.

https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/lates...

I have been daily driving Ubuntu Cinnamon at work for ~3 years and it works pretty well. Some minor bugs here and there, but I can't imagine going back to Windows for a work machine.

https://ubuntucinnamon.org

There is a bit of a learning curve for Linux, so might be worth dipping your toes in to start before you go 100%.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#703

Post by qwertox »

Past week I got to know about InputActions [0] so I installed Kubuntu 25.10 to test it, and it is very promising. Linux never had a proper mouse gesture support, and I won't go into details, but this was one of the three dealbreakers for me. The other one was a Windows-only app which ran so sluggishly on all previous tests I've made over the years, but with Wine 11 the app is just as good and fast as on Windows. Though I first need to populate the registry with an icon set. But now with AI this can be easily automated (letting it write a script I then run). The third is some custom electron-based launcher which is heavily Windows-customized, which I will need to migrate to Linux, but also this should be easy with AI.

For the first time I feel like there is a real path for me to switch to Linux, and it's about time!

[0] https://github.com/taj-ny/InputActions

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#704

Post by giancarlostoro »

DrBazza wrote: post #277
giancarlostoro wrote: post #68

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…

I only use KDE, though it has weird instability from time to time. They just changed which gcc version I'm on so I am not sure if I've noticed the same instability or not. Overall though KDE is the perfect DE for me.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#705

Post by curtisblaine »

Aldipower wrote: post #696
curtisblaine wrote: post #446

He's a musician, he's switched to Bitwig. Ok, but what about VSTs? I have a collection of instruments I can't leave behind, many are NI, so I'm currently forced to use Windows or Mac.

NI recently filed for bankruptcy! This means that the licence server will probably be shut down at some point. Take the opportunity now. :-P I've been using Bitwig for two years now. And already produced a complete album with success. Next album is already following. :-) Many of Bitwig's own plugins are very good, and there are now top-notch native VSTs for Linux! Alternatively, there is yabridge for running Win VSTs…

If the license server goes down I'll just pirate them, I guess. The point is that I can't really throw aways years of investment because Windows sucks. The other important lesson is: if they have a licensing server, it's OK to pirate them from the start.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#706

Post by floxy »

megous wrote: post #393
senko wrote: post #41

Arch is great. However, I would never recommend Arch (or an Arch derivative) to a first-comer to Linux. Ease in gently, with Ubuntu or Fedora. Get familiar. Then go crazy.

I started with Slackware Linux—something arguably even more “hard-core” than Arch. What mattered most at the beginning was good installation documentation, and both Arch and Slackware delivered on that front. Slackware, however, had an additional appeal: it was intentionally simple, largely because it was created and maintained by a single person at the time. That simplicity made it feel conceivable that the system c…

Ah yes, Slackware. I remember downloading something like 15 floppy disks over the 56k modem for my first install. Maybe a v1.1 kernel?

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#707

Post by giancarlostoro »

a_vanderbilt wrote: post #370
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…

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.

You might need it for the App Store if anything, but even then... You don't need the app store for installing software. Mac is at its peak currently, though the new glass UI stuff is a little over the top for me. I miss the old simpler UI. I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#708

Post by amluto »

jsheard wrote: post #163
marginalia_nu wrote: post #33

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…

> 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 have precisely one Windows thing I use regularly, and it has a giant window that needs lots of pixels, and I use it over Remote Desktop. The results are erratic and frequently awful.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#709

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

ufmace wrote: post #560
ryandrake wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does this all the time, though, and seems to get a free pass here. I have four Macs in my home, and they are cut off at Ventura (for the 2017 iMac), Monterey (for the 2014 Mac Mini and the 2015 MacBook Air), and El Capitan (for the 2014 iMac). They are all stuck at 3, 4, and 5 major OS versions back. Nobody really seems to complain about this, though.

I don't think it's the same. On older Apple hardware, it just keeps on running on the older OS version. You don't get some new features or styling of the new OS, but nothing else changes. On Windows, it periodically brings up full-screen notifications that your hardware is obsolete and you need to upgrade, with the only options being to upgrade or "remind me again later".

I just installed Opencore and run the newer OSs anyway. It will eventually not be an option when they come up with an ARM-only OS, but at the moment it seems to work ok.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#710

Post by giancarlostoro »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #672
giancarlostoro wrote: post #68

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…

> (idk why Arch doesn't invest in whats standard in every other major distro) Trust me it was far more involved of a process 10 years ago, and that's why people liked it. The modern install process is paired down to something like 10 steps. Start the ISO, configure your partitions, mount your root and boot, and use the delightful arch-chroot tool to enter and install in those partitions. Set up your user, configure y…

My first distro was Slackware, which I setup all myself. I just don't see any true value in what could be a simple GUI.
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