I stopped using Windows over a decade ago and Padme is right. My windows using friends are always mad about some change or another and I’m just chill as a cucumber.
I feel a sense of ownership over my OS. I tinker, I experiment, I break things and sometimes I fix them.
I still get mad, but it’s our problem. We got here together and I know that we can do better.
Windows feels like renting. The landlord only shows up when I’m not ready, fixes stuff that wasn’t broken, doesn’t fix any of the things that I need fixed, keeps raising the rent and installing hidden cameras. If I want to fix anything, it costs way more, is way harder because the landlord won’t tell me where anything is, gets un-fixed every time the landlord visits, and after all that it’s just fixing someone else’s house.
This is the first time I’ve ever wanted a reward system on any social media platform. Sure, I’ve used Steam rewards and such because they’re there. I put emojis on chat messages, etc.
In my last job I had colleagues using Windows, and they were super chill. When they turned on their computer in the morning, it took 20 minutes to boot, install the latest updates and log on. I had to start working right away, while they were having their third coffee and second cigarette, waiting for their computer to get ready. I’m sure it wasn’t healthy, but relaxing.
did they ever start actually doing anything useful?
between sharepoint and microflop dynamics-CRM, azure and windows (whatever the fuck version)
and mother-fucking oracle, I can often go days after booting up before I can do anything useful.
Sometimes I think the only people who can do any work are the procurement team and the only work they can do is issue MS purchase orders.
That sounds like poor IT policies to me. In previous office jobs I've had, our computers were configured with our working hours and we wouldn't shut them down at the end of the day, so that any updates could happen off the clock and minimize that sort of disruption.
Padme is right. My windows using friends are always mad about some change or another and I’m just chill as a cucumber.
I’m very much not-chill for a variety of reasons. Mainly because it’s a prime example of what’s been made abundantly clear the last couple of years: once you get users on your platform, they will never leave, regardless of how much abuse you throw at them.
For another, there’s a stupid idiom that goes around all the time that goes something along the lines of “if you don’t like it, don’t buy/use/do it!” as if their decisions don’t affect your personal choices. A prime example is headphone jacks on phones. Linux has the potential to be so much more useful with even a miniscule fraction of the funding (like 0.001%) that companies like MS and Apple have.
It’s incredibly frustrating asking people to consider doing something in their own best interests and being mocked and ridiculed in return or even listening to them excuse and defend their abusers.
I used to evangelize for Linux. It sucked and I was frustrated often. Now I happily use Linux and contribute to it without trying to convert anyone. Much more emotionally peaceful.
Linux is really just the kernel the OS runs on. What people dislike are some of the stupid choices a distribution’s maintainers make. Like, Ubuntu used to be a great entry-level operating system for people who wanted to get into Linux but didn’t want to ditch all the things they understood from Windows or MacOS. It provided a level of comfort and ease of use. Which is great, and something the Linux community needs. But then Canonical started injecting snap package bloatware with everything and it’s just a mess. You have as little control over snap updates as you do Windows updates unless you completely disable the service, which is hardly trivial for a new user.
unless you completely disable [snap updates], which is hardly trivial for a new user
Tbh it probably shouldn’t be trivial for new users to disable updates. I’ve seen way too many Windows/macOS users running a years out-of-date version of Chrome.
In Linux you have to do sudo systemctl disable snapd, which produces a warning about snapd.socket. New users sometimes get a little freaked out about disabling stuff in systemd, especially after they find out what systemd is and does and how important it is. They’re afraid of bricking their installation and you have to be like “no, that won’t happen. Yes, I’m sure it won’t happen. No, you don’t need to reboot. Just replace disable with stop in those commands again and it won’t run anymore. Yes, I’m sure it’ll be fine.” So the commands are trivial, but the psychological toll of doing stuff via the command line that you perceive as dangerous, for truly novice Linux users, isn’t to be underestimated.
I’ve been running Kubuntu for years now; it’s convenient to use for me for professional reasons, but I’ve never used to snap to get new software. I’ve never disabled the the service. Are there flavors of 'Buntu that are “unsnapped”, if you will? I know I should just search for it, but I thought I’d just ask.
I don’t care what Microsoft does any more it’s their OS. What really grinds my gears is the fact that people are so complacent and just down right fuckin submissive to a corporate entity
It’s the support angle, for me. I seriously don’t have to worry at all whether a piece of software supports Windows or not. And in my special case, my school doesn’t help with troubleshooting unless you’re using Windows or Mac because “of the many variations of Linux,” they said.
But that’s kinda typical of everything, how’s tech support going to help you troubleshoot something that has a million variables? I can fix things, but can the typical user? Definitely not.
I don’t use Windows at home but I still have to deal with it and their ‘features’ when I work with my spouse’s desktop and at my workplace. God I hate it.
This is the same with everything. Twitter, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Apple etc. They all shit on their users, people complain but then they just accept it. As long as people just keep sucking it up they’ll continue to do what they want.
Yes :( Self inclined vendor lock-in ™. I hope for more new Linux users (unless it does not fit their use case very well) who are willing to learn and spread the word!
And it also generally requires more energy than working with the current system, unless and until it becomes the default.
You want free-range grass-fed beef that is slaughtered with reasonably low suffering? Pay more for that, until it becomes the system.
You want an operating system that isn’t screwing you over at every opportunity? Use a Linux distro, and pay for ease or pay with learning how to make it do the things you think I should.
I’m happily using Linux as my daily driver, and have been for ages. I’ve gotten over the need to tinker as much - I just use it, report bugs when they matter to me, and live life.
Yeah it pisses me off the way people are like “tech bros ruined the internet”. No, users ruined it! There was no reason to stop self-hosting webpages, forums and IRC servers. Users switched to Facebook instead because they preferred it and didn’t care about the downsides. There’s an alternative to every website and app which respects privacy, serves no ads, and has no algorithm to farm your outrage. Users refuse to use them because they aren’t cool enough.
Yeah it pisses me off the way people are like “tech bros ruined the internet”. No, users ruined it! There was no reason to stop self-hosting webpages, forums and IRC servers. Users switched to Facebook instead because they preferred it and didn’t care about the downsides. There’s an alternative to every website and app which respects privacy, serves no ads, and has no algorithm to farm your outrage. Users refuse to use them because they aren’t cool enough.
You got a point there, though I think it’s users and corporations who both ruined it. And why ? Because users were not well informed and did choose for easy solutions without caring about privacy. At the last Tw(X)tter Exodus to Mastodon you could see several vocal new Mastodon users complain about not having a quote option. And probably several of them stopped using Mastodon for that. People have strong opinions and when they can choose to communicate with most of them friends with things like Facebook they go for that rather than having to spend time on exploring more privacy friendly options. And why ? Because there is so little time and because technology is scary for a lot of “normies”. I believe that is the success of Apple : shiny looking white design and easy of use. No plug & pray but easy peasy communication. Never mind the high prizes and walled pay garden. Ease of use and design is top priority for some. Does it makes sense to re-educate people and inform them ? I believe yes, but only if they are interested and have some spare time.
I blame the Linux gatekeepers, keeping people on Windows. By pushing out misinformation to Linux newbies who ask a question online, and scaring them away.
There are no Linux gatekeepers. There are assholes everywhere, that’s the human condition. I came across these assholes and I learnt that I should take advice and consider it myself.
If you close your brain and listen to random online people without thought, you’ll have a bad time, Linux or no Linux.
This stereotype of people in Linux or open source as assholes is FUD spread by people who have a vested interest in spreading it.
I’ve found people mostly very helpful and courteous.
Unfortunately, they are the loud minority and other arch users don’t tell them to spout such nonsense. Recommending the distro to linux newbies is not helpful. The minority will be willing to open a console in order to get stuff done. When I started, all I wanted was it to work and never see a console. Recommendations like gentoo and arch might’ve turned me a way from linux altogether.
i mean tbh ive never had issues with arch i couldnt solve without a quick google(neither has a update ever broken anything) and manjaro sets everything up 4 u
You also know all of the terminology, what a console is, what you’re searching for when something goes wrong, what sites are likely to have his answers, and how to search for it in a way that works.
That’s fine for tech literate people willing to spend time on that. But non tech newbies don’t want to open a console. Recommending Arch to them is a shit move.
Perhaps it’s changed in the years since I ditched Windows, but at least for a good while, just knowing what Linux was as a concept already represented a certain degree of awareness of tech that would have me surprised if they were unable to do any sort of troubleshooting. Whether or not they decide it’s worth their time to do so was a different matter, of course.
That said, while being too hostile to new users is detrimental to broader adoption, the level of handholding that many users want just isn’t reasonable to expect from a free OS being supported by volunteers. There’s only so many times I’m going to put up with something like:
“My computer says it has an error.”
“What’s the error?”
“I don’t know, it doesn’t work.”
on and on for a dozen messages or more only to realize the message is literally right in front of them the whole time and they’re just deliberately being helpless, rather than put in any modicum of effort. After a while, I’m looking up if anyone has found a method to throttle someone via the internet the next time I see one.
Yes, you do need a certain level of independence to run Linux. I’m not sure why we make so many excuses for self-sabotage with computers, though. These are ubiquitous devices, and they’ve been around for a fair bit. I could understand someone who retired in the early 90s never having gotten into them, but it’s absurd otherwise. So many people have an attitude with computers that would be like someone who’s never looked at a cookbook, a youtube cooking channel or even done a cursory google search for a recipe coming to a stranger and saying, “Hey, I’m bad at cooking, so I don’t get all this cooking stuff, but could you teach me to make beef bourguignon? Oh, and I need you to do it for free. What do you mean, ‘chop the onions’? I told you I’m not a culinary person, I don’t know this stuff. What, I need a knife for this? Oh my god, this is so complicated, can’t you just show me an easy way?”
Even the person with the best of intentions will burn out helping with this sort of stuff, day after day, in their spare time. When it comes to tech support, many non-tech people have an absolutely insane sense of entitlement to the time and effort of strangers volunteering on the internet. Unless someone whips up an absolutely idiot-proof UI for Linux that is entirely self-explanatory, users will need to choose between putting in some amount of effort in the form of educating themselves even the slightest bit, or paying for the privilege of having someone else manage their computing and be at the mercy of that third-party whenever it makes a decision they dislike enough, or just ceases providing support altogether.
i feel like using a computer makes you part of the tech people and im sure theres an arch clone out there with a gui for tha aur also typing in like 2 lines aint gonna kill anyone people who google do it on the daily
So what’s the statement here? As long as it doesn’t affect you, you shouldn’t care about how it affects others? That’s kind of a shitty way of thinking.
In a sense I wouldn’t berate coworkers and family for smoking and drinking stating facts about the detriment to their health every chance I get. I’d lend a hand when they need me the most, when they’ve looked in the mirror long enough, when they are looking for change.
It’s a fact I’ve come to realize some people don’t want to change others have a limit they reach before they can change. If your always there to help when they need it, the outcome will almost always be better.
I don’t like being told what’s best for me or what I should be doing as much as the next guy so I don’t really bring it up unless they ask.
No, you’re angry at IBM. When news of the IBM acquisition broke, sector veteran colleagues I’m close with moaned and groaned that IBM was sure to do something to piss everyone off again, which was apparently their habit a couple decades back. Sure enough, they could not have been more accurate in their assessment.
Turns out IBM is three hot messes in a trenchcoat and always has been. Hence why they have already lost the Quantum wars and likely the GenAI wars as well. One AI vet I know says they’re posed to even lose the AI war altogether, which is pathetic given the groundwork provided by Watson alone.
I complained that Microsoft was doing that and this and made it difficult for me to change x.
Then in Linux I changed x and broke my system and complained about how I fucked up.
So well one has advantages over the other in some aspects and in others the other one is better.
I personally don’t like windows because of the ads, weird settings, and the spying software. My whole experience is not that great on windows. And I love tinkering in Linux.
The problem I have is normalization. People complained about micro-monetization in video games, but that was normalized. People complained about corporate interest in open source, but that’s normalized. Now people are complaining about your operating system advertising to you against your will, it will be normal soon.
Well, first of all, determinism precludes any notion of free will. Second, even if we allow random chance, free will is still an incoherent idea. Behavior is either caused by certain factors, in which case it is deterministic, or it is at least in part random, in which case it is just that - random. There’s just no conceptual mechanism - that I am aware of - that allows for free will to be anything more than an illusion.
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