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Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

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Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#811

Post by int_19h »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #140
Zambyte wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They don't mean all games thru all times, they mean "the latest $70 release" that still can have problem if it is multiplayer DRM/anticheat ridden one. I haven't booted windows in months but there is definitely some caveats for gamers

It doesn't have to be "the latest $70 release", there are plenty of games that are many years old now that still don't work because of KAC.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#812

Post by hadlock »

ryukoposting wrote: post #259

I just started a new job where I'm subjected to Windows 11. They gave me a behemoth of a laptop. 64GB of RAM, absolute screamer of a CPU, big GPU, the whole deal. Windows 11's file browser lags when opening directories with more than 100-ish files. Windows 11's file browser takes a few seconds to open at all. Context menus take a noticeable amount of time to appear. I'm getting used to a new keyboard, so I keep hitti…

I vibe-coded my own apple system-6 style shell in rust and use that. If I don't like a feature, I change it. It is lightning quick, in it's (emulated) 1-bit glory. There's no requirement for you to use the built-in explore.exe to launch things, even for games. The graphics are decoupled from the shell so I use it for windows and linux.

If vibe coding your personal GUI utopia is too much, you can use something like Cairo - https://cairoshell.com/

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#813

Post by [deleted] »

pzo wrote: post #612

Its was a good read until at the end ... > For the remainder of 2026, Microsoft is cooking up a big one: replacing more and more native apps with React Native. But don't let the name fool you, there's nothing "native" about it. These are projects designed to be easily ported across any machine and architecture, because underneath it all, it's just JavaScript. And each one spawns its own Chromium process, gobbling up…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#814

Post by RunSet »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #140
Zambyte wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

They don't mean all games thru all times, they mean "the latest $70 release" that still can have problem if it is multiplayer DRM/anticheat ridden one. I haven't booted windows in months but there is definitely some caveats for gamers

On the other hand, those who find contemporary game development trends distasteful might find much to like about the fruits of the Debian Games Team's work on game-data-packager.

https://game-data-packager.debian.net/available.html

The games on that list have native ports that can be integrated into the Debian environment just by installing packages, and the game data packages can be automatically generated from each game's official install media.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#815

Post by h4kunamata »

Btw, my first computer was an Intel Pentium MMX 166Mhz IIRC, massive 64MB of SIMM ram, and impressive 8GB of disk. Trident "graphic card", Creative sound card and the ultra fast Motorola 56k modem haha

"I installed CachyOS .... It wasn't a painless process. In fact, sleep mode was broken from the start"

This is the problem with newbies into Linux world, they follow hype instead of installing a stable distro.

As it stands in 2026, Linux Mint Cinnamon is by far the best distro to use, no matter if you are into IT field, heavy gaming, video editing and 3D design, it just works.

It follows the well known stability of Debian Linux, while being up-to-date like Ubuntu but without all the bloatware, kernel panic and privacy issues from Ubuntu.

If you are following hype or those distro so called "rolling releases" aka Arch Linux, don't complain that you are having problems. They are everything but stable and "just works" lmao

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#816

Post by acuozzo »

simgoh wrote: post #419
Aldipower wrote: post #406

Linux since 1996! In chronological order: Slackware, SuSE, DLD, LSF, Gentoo, Ubuntu (starting with 04.10!), eventually Debian 12, now 13. Back in the days I compiled the kernel myself! :-D Sure, occasionally I used Windows 3.11, 95, 98se, XP, Vista, 7 and 10, but never as my main system. I am a software developer, but also do gaming, video production and audio producing. I never got the discussion, Linux works for me…

Out of curiosity, back when you were compiling the kernel yourself was it because you wanted to learn it or because you wanted to add more modules to the kernel that didnt exist there by default?

Memory and storage were far more expensive and limited in 1996 than they are today.

Go a few years earlier and you find that Microsoft introduced a boot-time menuconfig system mostly to enable people to select which *drivers* to load because, if you weren't careful, you could wind up leaving too little memory for the game you were trying to run.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#817

Post by xtracto »

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…

Mu gaming needs are more than fulfilled with Steam/Proton and Xbox Live. Both of them work in Linux (Mint is my flavour of choice) and Mac.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#818

Post by neogodless »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #770
progforlyfe wrote: post #6

Every month more and more people switch to Linux and I just love it. I'm tired of one company controlling the core operating system of 85% of desktop computers and users being at their whim. You want proprietary programs? Alright, fine, one can argue for that. But the central, core operating system of general purpose computers should be free and fully controllable by the users that own them!

It's a form of Stockholm Syndrome for most people. They'll have some bit of software they imagine is irreplaceable because they have some special use case that means that they just have to tolerate the relentless abuse. Or some other excuse. Whatever. It all boils down to people being afraid of change. Most of that fear is not all that rational. It's not unlike kidnap victims falling in love with their captors. Your…

This might have some merit for some people.

But the talk of abuse is also heavy-handed.

I've spent months testing and trying out RAW photo editors, and months trying out Linux gaming.

Linux is incredible, but my experience with Windows is still better. As many that still use it can attest, you can disable almost any annoyance. It's extremely stable. Things just work including brightness controls, fractional scaling, high refresh rates and high FPS gaming, and my favorite RAW photo editing. I could switch to a less enjoyable experience with Linux but I choose not to after extensive evaluation. I don't spend any money on Microsoft services, no Office or OneDrive subscription.

But my decision isn't permanent. My hobbies, software use, gaming selection, etc. can change over time, and Linux is getting better while Windows is getting worse. If it's ever "abuse" and I can have a better experience with Linux, I won't hesitate to change. But it's also a lot of effort to try out alternatives, and dual booting is slow and annoying. Plus when I dual boot to Linux Mint the kernel fails to boot every other time and I have to select an older one, reboot, select a newer one, reboot. It's a huge waste of time. A bad experience and I have chosen to avoid it and try again in another year or two.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#819

Post by int_19h »

whateverboat wrote: post #65
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…

- Yes. I think big players in Linux should start supporting core functionalities in GNOME and KDE, and make it polished for laptops and desktops and that would be very cool. For a long time, KDE had a problem of having too many things under its umbrella. Now, with separation of Plasma Desktop and Applications, focusing on Plasma Desktop and KDE PIM should be a good step. - Kind of ties to the old point: KDE on Waylan…

It would help if Gnome wasn't so hostile towards proper cross-DE interop. A famous quote by a Gnome dev goes, "I guess you have to decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu app, or an Xfce app unfortunately"

They seem to genuinely believe that their way is the right way and everyone else is "holding it wrong" so there's no need for things that would make cross-DE apps easier (or even possible).

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#820

Post by mrandish »

thr1owaway9621 wrote: post #788
mrandish wrote: post #653

I'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 minute…

I never realized Windows tuning was a thing (WindHawk, Start11). Thank you for mentioning those. I recently had to install Windows 11 to play a video game that runs janky on Linux, and I am encountering all the annoying problems people are describing in this thread (forced updates, full-screen ads, etc). It does not bother me too much, since I effectively use Windows only to play that one game. But maybe I can tune W…

You're welcome. One of the best things I did once I realized I was reluctantly on this journey, was start keeping notes in a cloud backed-up file of every registry setting I tweaked or little utility I installed. Just a quick cut and paste to remind me.

Of course some of the notes become stale or irrelevant as things evolve but it's still invaluable insurance if this Windows install eventually gets crufty and needs to be hosed out for a fresh start (which eventually happens even with diligent hygiene). Also, don't forget ExplorerPatcher which restores some essential Win10 taskbar and explorer functionality MSFT removed from Win11 (promising to eventually replace with new code but now, years later, obviously never will). It's clear at this point MSFT isn't devoting any serious effort toward re-implementing previous functionality or creating new features for power users.

AFAICT, the only things getting meaningful funding now are fixing critical 0days / bugs, reworking the interface to create "more exposure vectors to support corporate initiatives" and a couple under-resourced teams clearing only the most critical technical debt threatening the whole edifice. Meanwhile, every PM or UX designer who suggests "Hey, it'd be easier to just decide that new feature or unrestored functionality will just confuse 'our average user'" gets promoted. I just feel sorry for the engineers still there who joined the Windows team wanting to build toward a state-of-the-art operating system supporting a powerful, flexible, extensible, customizable user interface. Now it's "If it ain't broken, there's no funding to fix it" and "If it just broke, see if we can just remove it instead of fixing it", "if it's there but incomplete, remove what's there, patch over the hole and we'll pretend it was never there." And finally, "You seem ambitious and diligent, we just wish you'd align your interests with current strategic priorities (ie sticking AI where it doesn't belong or pushing Office, cloud, etc subs)."

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