Op-ed: PC makers used to need to bring their own add-on bloatware—no longer.
  • grue@lemmy.mlEnglish
    163·
    11 months ago

    ITT: folks who think Linux is too complicated or whatever, but are perfectly willing to jump through endless hoops to work around some of Windows’ deliberate hostility.

    The Stockholm syndrome is real.

    • MullMaster@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      : folks who think Linux is too complicated or whatever, but are perfectly willing to jump through endless hoops to work around some of Windows’ deliberate hostility.

      Man I realised this when I found myself running a third party program just to get my audio to simultaneously play out of multiple outputs on windows. I had regular issues with games and my killer ethernet adapter (they’re notoriously bad, but after switching to linux didn’t have any issues). Reformatting for home was getting longer and longer. Start menu search started to become slow and bogged down. Windows store was a nightmare. It was a constant battle to remove all the advertising and tracking “features”. I game, but mostly a PC for me is a tool. When a tool stops doing its job, it gets replaced.

      Funnily, when I play games with my friends, I rarely have issues… but as soon as I do, they they’re pretty quick to jump down my throat about my OS of choice.

      EDIT: WSL is pretty nice though, I use it on my work box.

      • exohuman@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        I think Windows makes multiple audio input/output hard as a piracy measure and it drives me crazy as well. Perfectly good audio ruined the moment I plug my mic in. Makes it harder to game without a headset.

    • pearsche@lemdro.idEnglish
      31·
      10 months ago

      I use Linux full time since 2020, and have known it since 2013~, but I don’t ever recommend it to anyone. It’s full of papercuts.

    • spider@lemmy.nzEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      folks who think Linux is too complicated or whatever

      At one point this was true, but that was many years ago.

      Unfortunately, that reputation has kind of stuck.

      • heartlessevil@lemmy.oneEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Not really. You are underestimating how stupid the average person is. They cannot peel an orange.

      • Sybs@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        The barriers are still too steep. My Ubuntu machine updated it’s kernel and then refused to boot after that. I had to look up how to manually lock the old working kernel.

        Windows has never completely broken itself on an update for me.

        If that happened to my parents they’d be angrily driving to the shop to get another cheap windows laptop.

    • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      04·
      11 months ago

      I actually like to be able to play games on my gaming PC so no thanks, I will stay with windows

    • 1ird@notyour.rodeoEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I just reinstalled Windows after not having a computer for a long time. I’m glad I just happened across this beforehand because it was the best.

      Everyone should use this to some extent, even just to disable tracking

  • MrFlamey@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    10 months ago

    God, I hate reinstalling Windows. Whenever I see “Try reinstalling Windows” as a serious solution to some tech problem on the Windows forums I feel so irritated because to get everything back to how it was (*hopefully *minus the issue) is basically a half day to full day undertaking because of all the bloat and annoying settings I have to change.

    Linux never annoyed me as much as long as I put my home directory on a separate partition, though to be fair, I didn’t use it as much and was never quite as balls deep in custom settings and apps as with Windows due to Windows being a requirement for work.

  • rodneylives@lemmy.worldEnglish
    93·
    10 months ago

    I think we’re starting to see the beginning of the end of the Windows hegemony, for one reason: the success of the Steam Deck has made gaming on Linux mainstream. The two things that have always kept power users tied to Windows have been games and office, but GAMES were the big one. Suddenly, it starts to look like it might be possible to do without Windows for gaming, if not now, then soon.

    • PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      6·
      10 months ago

      I’m still on Win10 but I just can’t see myself moving to win11, it’s ugly and I hate if. If I need to get a new OS in the foreseeable future it’s gonna be Linux.

    • GreenBottles@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      games is certainly a big appeal and will bring a lot of people over and has already frankly, but there’s still a lot of device driver issues with consumer hardware and professional level hardware that is a barrier for a lot of people

      and general Windows applications that just don’t fly in Linux I guess

        • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.comEnglish
          01·
          11 months ago

          Yeah, I remember XP and Seven as solid OSes where everything just worked.

          Now it’s a mix of crap, hey this app is in night mode, this one isn’t! Want to change a parameter? Ha ha you can’t! You want to share a folder? Good luck!

          And it’s heuristics/analysis just because Windows is inherently insecure drags any pc down to a crawl…

          And publicity??!

          Aurgh

          Edit: can I run my old CS3 Photoshop in wine or something? And 3dstudio without crazy lags? If so I’ll stop using windows completely.

          • Rob Bos@lemmy.caEnglish
            0·
            11 months ago

            Why cs3 when krita would have more features and be free? Familiarity?

            • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.comEnglish
              01·
              11 months ago

              Because I’m used to it I guess, and I haven’t found a single app that handles pixels and transparency well.

              Like zoom in like crazy, update 1 pixel, save, transparency is still there.

              Haven’t looked for a bunch of years though, maybe it’s time to try again :-)

              • Rob Bos@lemmy.caEnglish
                0·
                11 months ago

                Yeah, I try never to underestimate the value of sheer familiarity. New software is like breaking in a new pair of leather shoes, sometimes you have to bleed a little before your feet adapt and you adjust it to fit.

              • rem26_art@kbin.social
                0·
                11 months ago

                Krita’s always done transparency just fine for me. It’s pretty good these days. There’s also a built in option to set your keyboard shortcuts to the same ones that Photoshop uses.

          • Sendbeer@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            11 months ago

            Windows 7 was peak Windows. They smoothed out all the problems of Vista (plus hardware caught up to the recommended specs) and all the new tech that Vista introduced matured a bit. Was one of the nicest looking operating systems they ever released too - though that is highly subjective.

            Everything after has introduced some form of garbage in it’s iteration. Windows 8 had a garbage tablet interface that sucked when used with keyboard/mouse. Like the majority of devices that it was installed on. Windows 10 rolled back some of those shit changes but was the version Microsoft started implementing their adware. Windows 11 took it to 11 and put in a bunch of hardware requirements that conveniently required you to dump some money into Intel hardware.

            Been running Linux for last six months and it is crazy how much better it runs. It isn’t as cumbersome to use as the old days… But every once in a while I run into something that requires Googling and tweaking in Terminal. It’s been my best experience with the OS though going back to WAY back (Mandrake and Slackware days - or are they still around? Early 2000’s maybe???)

  • TheBlue22@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    10 months ago

    Once Windows 10 ceases to be supported, I’m moving to Linux. By that time, the majority, if not all the games I play and want to play will be supported.

    • masinko@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      If you’re not playing games that require kernel level anti-cheats, chances are, they already work on Linux.

      If your running Steam, enable running proton in settings. If your running GoG or Epic, use Heroic Launcher.

      I’ve been Linux mainly since 2019. Only thing I really go back to Windows for is Photoshop and Vegas.

  • exohuman@programming.devEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    What’s annoying to me isn’t even a Microsoft product. Norton sends pop up’s and reminders every day by default after you purchase it and it drives me crazy.

  • Andi@feddit.ukEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    When choosing the region/language, choose “English (World)”. Boom, bloatware be gone.

    You can safely change it to your correct region once you’ve logged in (Note: the Windows Store won’t work until you do).

      • Andi@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Remember some ‘core’ apps, such as Paint and Calculator are delivered via the Store now too - so they’ll also be missing.