this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Your Windows 10 PC will soon be 'junk' - users told to resist Microsoft deadline::If you're still using Windows 10 and don't want to upgrade to Windows 11 any time soon you might want to sign a new online petition

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[–] maniacal_gaff 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just made this exact switch a few months ago, so, yeah, it happens.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And I did it 18 months ago!

(Spoiler: it turned out fine)

[–] Sanyanov 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Almost a year here! Working great! (No, for real, modern desktop Linux experience is surprisingly refined, it's more stable and performant than Windows!)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And I never did. I just started with Linux Mint when I got my first laptop.

But I do see the perspective of Windows users, perhaps. I did briefly try using Windows, but it was frustrating. I don't know how to set anything in there. For some reason there's 2 setting apps (control panel and settings), each only being partially usable. My Wi-Fi kept dying, the only solution was replacing the Intel Wi-Fi card for one from Qualcomm. Bluetooth only worked randomly like every 20th restart. Drivers for my 20 year old printer didn't work in either 10 nor 11. Only up to Windows 7.
Painful experience.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yeah, when they went from 7 to 10 (there's no 9 for horrible hacky reasons, and 8 was the mandatory half-baked test-run of the next proper version), they tried to redo the aesthetics of those systems to be more touch-input styled, but they only half-did it. If you want anything more advanced than the settings app gives you, you need to dig into the control panel. Then there's the deeper settings - device manager, computer management, startup services, firewall, the registry, and on and on, all of which are designed entirely differently and many of which haven't seen any update since windows 2000 at least. I wouldn't be surprised if some went back further. It all speaks to ancient legacy code nobody wants to touch and the unfathomable depths of technical debt that implies. I get the sense the settings app change is another in a long line of updates that became legacy and added yet another layer to this byzantine system.

Then there's the lovecraftian user permissions system that seems like it layers three levels of abstraction that you have to utterly master to get literally anything done and which I have given up trying to understand. If I need permissions, I run a third party batch file that assigns complete ownership of everything in a folder to me, and then I don't think about the consequences.

I really want to move to Linux, but I've gotten burnt out on attempting and not being able to do all of the many things I'm used to on Windows. I've been hearing good things about it lately and I may just have the energy to try again soon.

[–] Sanyanov 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wish you a good luck! And don't hesitate to ask - often times it's very simple, actually!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks, it's been many years since my last attempt. I have a Linux server since about a year ago, I just need to switch my main computer.

Honestly shifting from reddit to lemmy has lifted such a mental burden that I feel like leaving Windows will be even better. It's so oppressive dealing with the unending - and apparently increasing - current of enshittification.

After purging Edge from my system it came back after the latest update, and I got some notification that turned out to be an ad. When I went to turn it off I found they were all already off so idk if I even can disable that without first finding a tutorial that acknowledges the problem - rather than just telling me to turn it off - and following whatever arcane bullshit I need to fix it.

I remember once there was X setting, and it did nothing. Then I found a tutorial that explained how you could dig into the registry and flip the "RespectXSetting" setting. Actual gaslighting.

Sorry, I realise I am trauma dumping now. I just want off mr bones wild ride.

[–] Sanyanov 3 points 1 year ago

We've all been there, buddy. I gope your switch is nice and easy, and you'll be ready to leave all that shit behind. Life really is better on Linux :)

[–] Sanyanov 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wow, a real Linux native here! Wonderful to know.

Yes, I gotta say after running Linux for like a week I seriously couldn't think of coming back to Windows. I just began to understand how much of a trash Windows systems are.

[–] Aermis 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah but I use my pc to play games. And to read all the Linux coping strategies to run modern games with software bypasses or strategies... I don't need to jailbreak and run through 150 pages of forums and guides so I can play my steam games.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have ~200 games in my steam library, all of which run by pressing "play" in steam. I may just accidentally like games that run on linux, but running through 150 pages of forums definitely isn't the norm nowadays

[–] Aermis 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well I was playing starfield when considering dabbling in running Linux and I got shy reading how to run it on Linux, let alone any of my other games.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you look at its protondb page, it seems there was an issue with the nvidia drivers that got fixed, so it may work better now. It's still only silver-rated though, so there are probably issues left. Admittedly, I'm sidestepping a lot of this as I have an AMD gpu, but even with nvidias quality drivers games with such issues tend to be more of an exception.

[–] Aermis 3 points 1 year ago

I have AMD.. Maybe I should dabble in Linux. Lemmy is challenging a lot of my software beliefs. Especially now my opinion on Google. I need to get off it and use Firefox but I'm just so integrated with Google.

[–] Sanyanov 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Majority of games are launched as easy as pressing play in steam, or even just launching the .exe with regular Wine. Software bypasses are mostly a thing of the past. I'm saying this as a gamer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is Starfield one of them? I installed Ubuntu next to Windows 10, and like it just fine, but I've read that getting Starfield to run on Ubuntu is not possible yet? If not for Starfield, I'd be 100% Ubuntu now.

[–] Sanyanov 1 points 1 year ago

Starfield may sadly require a little more work - some players report a few missing textures and performance issues. Others, though, are playing fine. You can always check that at ProtonDB, highly recommend.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

And I'm halfway there, laptop on mint, pc still on windox.