It’s time to switch.
Removed by mod
I would choose Manjaro over Ubuntu any day…canonical is garbage
I know linux is likely the better option here, but for me I have two word…
Winaero Tweaker
I think that this betrays their plans: Windows will go “free with ads”, with an ad-free version that is subscription only. That doesn’t hurt their bottomline since the governments and companies of the western world will still go subscription in order to get support. The ones who don’t have enough money for that (individuals, small countries/companies, small municipalities), they will go “free with ads”. I mean, practically, Windows is free even right now. They have oem serial numbers that activate the OS for free, legally, to be reused. So why not make it profitable, it’s their thinking. Also, on newer builds of Win11 you can’t avoid logging in without an msn account.
That is the Trap. Pre-installed Windows is not free, you pay for it in the price of the PC, the same PC without OS is almost ~€100 cheaper. A lot of vendors offer now PC only with FreeDOS, where you can select to install Linux, paying only the CD or USB or install Windows, paying it’s license (€100-120).
So Microsoft is one of the most valuable companies in the entire world. They have a stranglehold on corporate America, power a huge the cloud infrastructure, hold one of the largest sources of telemetry/user data, and are the defacto standard of PC environments worldwide.
Why in the fuck do they need to pivot to ads? I’m genuinely curious. Even if they lost 50% of their entire business they would still be one of the most profitable companies in the world.
@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 I’ll explain in two very simple words.
MOAR MONIES
Would be nice if pivoting to ads caused them to lose 50% of their business.
Sadly it won’t.
@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 because once untamed capitalism sees a money spigot they can’t help but wonder how wide it will open.
Better question is “why not”?
Isn’t it obvious? Start Menu is being used by every windows user but is not generating any revenue Serving ads will enable them to better support the platform and provide more advanced features. Ad supported version is better than making it a subscription like some third party apps have done. Start8 I think, basic copy of Microsoft’s Start Menu but paid.
@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 Because capitalism demands infinite growth.
@SuperSynthia @dvdnet62 Because for capitalism, profit is not the end, only a means to the end. The end is to accumulate sufficient capital to absorb all competitors and achieve total control of markets.
Yea but like, their competitors, when it comes to operating systems are Apple, which isn’t anywhere near small enough to be obtainable by anyone and Linux and Linux-Derivatives, which are also unobtainable due to their open source nature.
@accideath The point isn’t whether Microsoft will reach that end. The point is that like all capitalist enterprises it will forever strive to do so.
Not all of them. Only the big and successful ones
@accideath All of them. That is the definition of a capitalist enterprise.
Not every larger company is automatically evil, just because they exist within a capitalist market. A lot of them are, sure. At least to some extent. But there still are privately owned enterprises that do have a conscience.
Also, calling them “capitalist” enterprises seems redundant.
@accideath I’m calling them capitalist enterprises to emphasize that they are capitalist enterprises. They accumulate capital. That is what they are and defines what they do.
A capitalist enterprise does not decide it has enough and can retire and take up gardening. It is not a person. It does not have a conscience.
Because they were “leaving money on the table” instead of getting it for their shareholders.
the shareholders don’t get that. the top managers, CEOs etc. get it. some of them may be shareholders as well, but that’s not how they fill their pockets.
I think it’s the same reason games offer a cash shop for things you can get in-game. Sure they’re making billions but why not billions plus ad revenue? I don’t agree with the practice but the answer always comes back to money.
Because when you have shareholders, there’s no such thing as “we’re profitable enough”. Shareholders always demand more. Ads means more profit, at least in the short term. Next quarter profits are all that matter to public companies.
It’s obscene, but it’s the way it is.
It’s not just that they demand more, they demand more/faster growth all the time. It doesn’t matter that the economy has slowed down to borderline recession, it doesn’t matter that they pretty much captured all the market they can, they still need to make more and more money every quarter otherwise they’re considered a failure even if they are one of the biggest companies in the world.
I have a feeling that this year is going to be the year of the Linux desktop.
If there is a recommendation that satisfies:
- A nice looking UI with good fonts, and a clean interface.
- The ability to run random Windows applications with minimal fuss.
All without needing to use the terminal, then that will likely win the battle.
Just get over it and learn
I also have to use terminal in Windows, and up until recently it was an awful useless terminal too
This already exists lol
Prove it.
Not really my place to prove it. Perhaps try something that isn’t Windows and you’ll see how much it truly does suck ass.
My daily drivers are MacOS and Fedora (with Windows on my Surface Book), but I’m a software engineer, not the average person.
I would love for Linux on the desktop to be viable for the average person, but there isn’t really a built-in option that can beat Windows at what it’s good at, and that’s backwards compatibility, and a clean interface that users know. The attitude of “well, Linux is just better” hasn’t worked for decades, and it never will until there is a distro that prioritises that (hard) switch.
Elementary, Zorin?
Honestly Wine and Bottles are both pretty great at running windows programs these days, I wouldn’t worry to much about that so long as you check and make sure the critical software you need works.
A nice looking UI with good fonts, and a clean interface.
Pretty much anything beats Windows in that regard.
The ability to run random Windows applications with minimal fuss.
I mean if you REALLY can’t find a FOSS alternative, Bottles has been extremely successful and easy for me…
All without needing to use the terminal
This is the biggest hangup for me. Even if there is a GUI, most instructions will send you into the terminal nonetheless.
Pretty much anything beats Windows in that regard
Fonts have looked like shit on Linux for years, if not decades. The poor UI and lack of polish has been a big problem in design communities for a long time, and to many it’s one of the reasons why Linux is less favourable to Mac and Windows.
This is the biggest hangup for me. Even if there is a GUI, most instructions will send you into the terminal nonetheless.
For all the deserved shit that Windows gets, it “just works” without ever needing to touch config or a terminal. Until a Linux distro and window management system can get this part right, it’s silly to call it a desktop replacement for the average person because it’s not trying to be.
The poor UI and lack of polish has been a big problem in design communities for a long time
I dunno what to tell you except that it’s not a problem now.
For all the deserved shit that Windows gets, it “just works” without ever needing to touch config or a terminal.
Most people don’t need to use anything other than a browser, which works fine.
You think the average joe does browse this environment?
My guy, we are on lemmy. This ain’t reddit.My point exactly. I’ve watched people break down over the start menu changing, or being unable to do anything after switching to a Mac. If you think the average person will go through this shit you’re mistaken…but I’d expect nothing less from Lemmy. It’s a bit like Slashdot from 20 years ago…
I had to explain to users where to find the windows key or how to start a search in the start menu.
Many can’t comprehend typing if there is not a textbox…
I don’t think so
So maybe next year will be the year of the Linux desktop
Last year was the year of the Linux desktop, but only for me personally.
I don’t know if Microsoft’s choices to drive windows into the ground are going to have an immediate impact on Linux adoption (though you certainly see some governments trialing Linux right now because of it) but in the medium term they basically demand that Linux increase in users by a massive amount.
I know business not gaming is where Microsoft sees the value of Windows (and there is wayyyyyy more money in selling software for business) but I think a strategic defeat is happening right now with the steam deck taking off and more broadly the association in computer nerd’s minds that windows is the operating system to stick with is essentially all but evaporated from the series of bogglingly condescending decisions Microsoft has made about the future development of windows.
They lost, this period will gone down as a historic unforced error of a tech company undermining the foundation of their profits to make a bit more profits in the near term. They could have kept linux gaming mostly a pipe dream indefinitely if they just made sure windows wasn’t ever tooooo shitty of an experience for gaming, but now the dam is broken and though it might not be a flood all it once, the people leaving windows are never coming back and the movement of users away from windows will erode the levee behind the dam, compromising Microsoft’s basic ability to hold on to users, for gaming or business.
It starts with a trickle, but before we know it in a blink of an eye that trickle is going to cut a channel and slips its fingers back under the dam and destabilize the entire thing, and then it will be a massive rush of users leaving that Microsoft can’t control at all because they ignored the issue until the process was way past a point of no return.
It’s been the decade of Linux on the desktop for me
Thank you microsoft for doing bad changes to the windows operating system im sure linux users will enjoy this
I’ve used Linux on every PC except my gaming PC for years. This year I made the final leap because of decisions like this from Microsoft.
Very few games have failed to work, the ones that have are all from Epic and they fail because of their shitty anticheat software. The only other things I feel the lack of are paint.net and the Affinity apps.
EAC is now largely compatible with Linux, but devs have to enable support per game.
I recommend browsing protondb to see how (if) people have made games with anticheat work, you might need to change proton versions, add launch options etc.
It was Fortnite and Fall Guys, I’m not really missing them.
Pinta is a fork of an older version of paint.net: https://www.pinta-project.com/ I have no idea if it is any good. I just thought that this might solve your problem.
I have Pinta, it’s ok but lacks a lot of the plugins I used and hasn’t been too stable. The graphics editing thing is something that will,just take time for me to rework my workflows. Gimp is great, I’m just not used to it.
How many PCs do you have, lol. And Gimp and Inkscape are pretty good art programs.
5 in use. Main Gaming PC, Laptop, Game server pc, media server PC, and another for testing things out. Whenever a family member upgrades I get the old one so most of these are pretty old.
I have gimp and other graphics tools, I also have a LOT of hours of use in the ones I mentioned so there are things I know how to do quickly in those programs but not in their counterparts.
KDE Plasma 6, and their distro KDE Neon, are both really good.
There are many very friendly Linux communities on Lemmy who can help you get set up.
Fedora+KDE ftw. I switched my un upgradeable windows PC to fedora and I couldn’t be happier.
I had the same issue holding me back from giving up Windows, until I discovered the Python keyboard module.
How to bind key presses to it varies, but here’s a recipe for Ubuntu, as an example:
Overall, it’s not quite as elegant, as AutoHotKey, but it’s ultimately a more powerful, since there’s so much else I can also do from the same Python script.
Edit: Most notably, I don’t recall AutoHotKey having any nice way to tell which apps are open, and Python can quickly call out to
ps. It’s been on my to-do list to leverage this to let me map keybindings according to what is open (i.e. a favorite game, or a move player.)KDE can do that without third party software I believe.
Windows 11 looks like a crappy knockoff of KDE with all the good bits removed and replaced with spyware and adware.
It looks much better actually, with the fancy blur and transparency effects. Not to say it works better than Linux, and I’m sure it must be possible to customise KDE to look better.
Yeah, if there is one thing that windows 11 does well is looks. I think its fancy.
Yeah there are plenty of kwin effect you can install that would make it as pretty as windows 11 if that’s important to you. Just like there are plenty of themes you can install if you want a macOS experience instead
@tsonfeir But Linux does not have AutoHotkey. This is the biggest deal-breaker for me by far. AutoKey seems be the closest thing, but it’s such a massive pain to even try to use by comparison.
Fuck me, there is no worse way automating things
Depending on your usage, perhaps this re-implementation of AHK for Linux might be of use to you.
Interesting, thanks. I think ultimately, seeing this port’s adherence to AHK v1 syntax, I’d just have to bite the bullet and learn Python or something, though…
Never mind, I’ve since stumbled across
xdotool!
I doesn’t have auto hotkey because for the most part, you can control Linux from the command-line without someone having to invent a new scripting language from scratch to control it.
I heavily recommend you familiarize yourself with bash and the system commands you’ll need to send key presses, move windows, spawn and kill programs, etc.
Hmm, thanks. Can it simulate mouse-clicks?
Apparently,
xdotoolcan! I guess the next thing would be generating GUIs. I think the final issue is that this would cause quite the fragmentation given how I use the same scripts on my Windows-only work laptop… but I’ll think about this more…
If you have to stay on windows check out: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
I have been using it on my work laptop over a year. Nice piece of software 👍️
This looks like it is solving a different problem but also useful. If you are saying it is better to disable everything and keep the original start bar. I prefer disabling everything and keeping a consistent start bar style from yesteryear. Either way thanks for the link. I’ll added it to my tool list!
This or CTT’s Winutil? Which is better?
Also good, it does almost the same, but I think, for what I’ve seen, that the Optimizer is way more easy and intuitive to use and has some more features.
Cool. I just started testing Nobara
This is amusing. They might as well replace the wallpaper with an ad.
They have on the lockscreen already, so not too far off
Done already, they are ahead of you guys Pic
I can’t see Reddit anymore
Sorry, but i couldn’t reupload the picture on my instance
i’m daily driving mint for a month now and i appreciate i did
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEACH YOU THIS LESSON OLD MAN
Every time.
Because this old man hasn’t learnt the lesson…
We love a good call to arms, what more can be said
I coincidentally installed Linux Mint today and I’m not going back.
