I understand the CPU hardware limitations due to Spectre/Meltdown issusles, but at the same time it is an ecological disaster. Two decades ago you would ditch your hardware frequently, simply because it could not run any new application. Now I have systems which do have more than appropriate computing power for my specific tasks and are forcefully obsoleted. They should at least extent Windows 10 critical fixes until 2030.
I believe the situation will cause to Windows 10 to become the next Windows XP immortal ghost for quite some time.
Same here. There is nothing wrong my my 7 year-old PC. I built it to last. It runs everything fine with good graphics and yet I’m being forced to change hardware for what? It’s just a waste of money and something I can’t afford.
That is a fucking awful suggestion for someone who just switched from windows lol. And I say that as someone who uses Arch (btw) as a daily driver
Arch is great for power users and hobbyists, but I can’t think of a quicker way to turn a casual user off Linux lol. Ubuntu wouldn’t necessarily have been my first choice either, but it’s a perfectly serviceable windows replacement
Honestly I use Ubuntu as a server OS knowing full well there are better OS’s simply because there’s so much documentation out there for Ubuntu that if I have an issue I’m struggling to solve, someone else already has. Which is what people who are swapping OS’s need more than anyone.
And if you’re going to offer someone to switch to something over the snap controversy anyways, maybe recommend Mint or a similar distribution (Mint is basically Ubuntu without snap)
I guess it wasn’t too apparent but ‘twas a little joke… why does everyone get so heated so quickly 😭 I just thought it was funny to say “Arch” to a Ubuntu user because of the stereotypical “I use arch btw” behavior of arch users And yes I agree, arch is great for power users and hobbyists and not for the casual. I’d figure, Ubuntu is usually a first choice for casuals, they look up Arch, and just say “ok I’ll stick with Ubuntu this is too complicated for me” I use Arch btw
I’m not a windows user but it seems every time there’s a new version people swear they’ll never use it and that the old version should be supported forever… and then eventually that “horrible” version becomes the next version that people won’t let go of… Are you guys okay?
Basically Microsoft tends to release operating systems in a 2 stage cycle. Every other version of Windows does something new and innovative, and then the next version is more polished, stable, and normal.
95 - new, innovative, and crappy
98 - solid
Then it got weird. They wanted to stop building the consumer version of Windows on top of DOS, and move it on to the NT kernel as 2000. The consumer version wasn’t ready by the deadline, so they released 2000 for business only, and released a new DOS based Windows Me.
2000 - Really nice but boring. Extremely innovative new features for business use (Active Directory). The amount of work they put into Active Directory is probably why they didn’t have the new consumer friendly UI ready in time. It’s a rock solid OS but they significantly missed their goals.
Me - Absolute garbage, a cash grab. They basically put something out to satisfy the bean counters since they couldn’t market NT to consumers yet.
XP - They finally pulled it off, and it’s a pretty good OS that has the stability of NT, and all the multimedia features that consumers want.
Vista - They rewrote a huge portion of NT to be 64 bit, require signed drivers, and be more stable. The release version was pretty crappy but after 1-2 service packs it was actually pretty decent. But by then its reputation was already tarnished, and overall it was innovative and crappy.
7 - This was a very solid release. They took Vista and refined the UAC system to be less intrusive. Also a really nice new feature where you can use the taskbar like a dock where an app’s icon stays in one place, even if it’s not running.
8 - Experimental implementation of adding a touch UI to Windows. They made a decent effort but it really felt like a tech demo and nobody recommended it for anything outside of tablet devices. It was dreadful for people using traditional mouse and keyboard.
10 - Another solid OS. They basically took 7, added 8’s touch UI features, and figured out how to blend them without it being annoying. The touch interface doesn’t get in the way if you’re using keyboard and mouse, and vice versa.
11 - I’m really not sure what the purpose of this OS is. I guess they’re experimenting with trying to make the Windows UI more Mac-like. The taskbar centers the icons by default so it looks like the MacOS dock, and they’re really pushing the new app store where all the apps have to be written with the newer UI libraries that work a lot more like mobile development platforms. So it really seems like Microsoft is planning for a future where Windows can run on many different types of devices and run the same apps. And Windows 11 is kind of a stepping stone to get there.
So Windows 12 should be interesting.
Also, while all of this is going on, with every new release generally comes a server version as well. They’re constantly expanding the Active Directory schema and adding a lot of cool new features to Active Directory, such as new Group Policies that can be applied to groups of computers and users throughout an organization, which can automate a ton of things. If you want everybody in an accounting department to have a Q: drive with their QuickBooks files in it, you throw them all into an AD group or OU, and set up a new group policy on that group to map that Q: drive. And now all of those users will have that drive. I think it was starting with Windows server 2008r2 (Windows 7 server basically) and Windows 7, they added new Group Policies that did the drive mapping differently, and they would automatically map without the user even having to log off. Also, if the Group Policy is removed from a user, or a new user is moved into that group, it will automatically handle the changes. There’s so much more to Windows than most people realize.
Yeah he’s skipping over the fact that windows 10 was when windows really started to be aggressive about advertising and anti-privacy measures. I agree that it’s UX was pretty good, but it had big issues on other fronts
That was just one dev saying something off the cuff, and the media ran with it. It was never an official stance, or even said by anyone with the actual authority to make decisions like that.
It would be like you saying “tomorrow our company is shutting down” to a reporter about your work.
I don’t think that’s available for private customers. Unless of course you pirate it; but even then it comes with the limitation of being English only. And there are plenty of people in other countries who want/need their OS to be in their native language.
If Win11 didn’t fucking go “naw bro you don’t have a LoJack on your motherboard so no install” I’d be like whatever but since it does they need to keep supporting it for at least a decade or remove the Trusted chip requirement. I know you can bypass it, but nobody in business is gonna do that and neither is Grandma.
Freedom respecting operating systems have been painless for most machines for at least a decade at this point, for that long anyone could have installed an easy distro and just used it normally. The problem now with getting people to switch is that they expect zero adjustment period, when they could just get used to something new that still functions 95% the same as Windows on the user’s side.
I recommend against dual booting because sometimes it may seem easier to switch back to Windows than try again to overcome an adjustment (or a painful problem that is harder to solve that a bug in Windows/Mac because of that lack of experience).
I don’t know how rare it is, but it hasn’t really been painless on laptops from my experience. I’ve had to deal with trying to find the right kernel parameters to stop my laptop from freezing, to having an incredibly high default scroll speed which I’ve still haven’t figured out how to change, to having to ask the orange alien place to figure out why my Internet card was not working. It may just seem like a hassle to some people, but I believe for most, it’s enough of a hassle to just give up and go back to Windows.
Yeah I have one laptop that doesn’t play nice with default Debian drivers, and even the special .iso with a bundle of different wifi drivers, still can’t connect during install. Debian derived distros all work fine, but Debian itself gives me problems with that one machine. Hate when it happens, but sometimes you just gotta try out a distro with different default settings.
Last time I used Ubuntu it had made some really bad UI decisions. The scrollbars and grab areas to resize windows was 1px wide, making it pretty mich impossible to use. There was no setting in the system preferences, but I had to run some command overwriting some config …
I switched my old-ish laptop to EndeavorOS (based on Arch, btw), a few months back, as my first Linux experience. After a week or so of hiccups and getting things the way I like it, it’s been an amazing experience. Ridiculously stable. Better than Windows 11 even. I’ll never go back.
Get Adobe to port their software to Linux. They’re literally all that’s holding me on Windows. I know there’s some options to replace them, but those seem to be a mixed bag of seemingly deliberately difficult to use, or require way too much setup time to port my existing portfolio (LR to DT).
They didn’t. It’s kinda weird how many people “remember” advertisements that never existed. It was literally one Microsoft employee saying things, in an unofficial capacity.
Edit: If anyone can show me an advert that claims this, I’ll happily eat my crow.
They really should. Windows 11 has the bullshit “requirement” of needing SecureBoot so it can’t work on BIOS motherboards, only UEFI ones. This is different than saying you no longer support 32 bit CPUs. There’s no reason to require fucking SecureBoot. Seriously. It’s like someone saying they won’t sell you a TV if your house doesn’t have a lock in the door and then advertising their TV as secure because of that.
Your entire statement here stems from not knowing what you’re talking about. That’s OK. I’ll provide some insight.
Secure Boot is a security feature of UEFI that only allows trusted, cryptographically signed operating systems to boot. The nature of this prevents rootkits. Software that runs before the OS and injects itself. BIOS has many hard limitations and disadvantages over the modern standard that is UEFI. Your comparison going from 32 to 64 bit architecture is quite fitting. It’s not that different. There are many hard limitations and disadvantages to 32 bit. It’s unfit for today’s standards due to lack of features and security. All aspects of technology have to move forward.
I know all of that. Tone down the condescension. That’s why it’s bullshit for Windows 11 to say it’s secure because of SecureBoot when in reality it’s a feature of your motherboard.
Having a mechanism that only accepts trusted boot binaries is pretty critical to fighting malware. Rootkits effectively have total control of whatever you decide to boot because of their persistence. When your hardware has its own security features (Secure Boot, TPM) why not take advantage of them to make the software you run more secure?
If you didn’t know, Android, macOS and iOS have their own TPM and Secure Boot implementations that have been enforced and present for over a decade.
And those secureboot implementations in mobile devices are frequently called out as primarily a way to prevent usage that the manufacturer doesn’t want you to do.
Yes, but you could still buy a new motherboard without UEFI support a year ago, and there are still some units in stock online.
It’s way, way too early to drop support of an OS that is the latest version that can be run on hardware that current.
People who spent 3 grand building a computer in 2021 should be able to have OS support for at least a decade. They can’t upgrade their OS, so the latest OS they could purchase should be maintained longer.
Alternatively, this is perhaps the only way for Microsoft to pressure hardware makers to stop shipping BIOS motherboards. They won’t naturally go away unless there’s an incentive.
They absolutely should push manufacturers to stop using non-UEFI boards. And they should do that by not offering an OS for sale that is compatible with the older tech.
But they also need to support the customers who purchased Windows 10 near the end of its lifecycle without knowing that future upgrades would be impossible. Microsoft is forcing users with relatively new computers to replace them.
Microsoft has nothing to do with the manufacturer of mother boards and if you chose one without UEFI in 2021 then you are free to choose Linux. I honestly haven’t seen a motherboard with out UEFI in about 10 years so I’m not sure what you are even talking about, especially on the high end.
Linux is something I’ve tried to switch too a few times but but the cost of lost software would make it a more expensive choice than windows. Its gotten better and more things work but I’d still be losing some stuff I use quite often, both games and tools for work.
I have multiple machines for different use cases, so I switch between Windows, MacOS, and different Linux flavors constantly. They all have their benefits and drawbacks.
People like to push Linux gaming, but 90% game support still can’t beat 100% support. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t let Windows ever even touch a server machine. You can trust software like Ubuntu Server or Amazon Linux to be stable if you’re not touching it, while Windows likes to keep you on your toes…
MacOS is a good middle ground but not one I would personally use outside of a work machine. It’s fairly stable, and it has a Unix style base so it can run Shell happily. Meanwhile software is seemingly a horrible mixed bag that has only been exasperated with the Arm jump. For a computer noob however, it’s great. If you don’t mind staying in Apple’s little zoo then you’re not going to have issues.
You don’t get 100% support on Windows. “it works on my machine, format and reinstall Windows” is 99% of the support you will get on Windows. I can play dozens of retro games on Linux today that no longer work on Windows and never will ever again. And that’s not even counting the myriad of game breaking bug reports that are reduced to “yeah, we don’t care” that never get fixed.
MacOS is a good middle ground but not one I would personally use outside of a work machine.
I fail to see how it’s a “middle ground” between the drawbacks you mentioned before.
When it comes to gaming, Mac OS is the absolute bottom of the barrel, compatibility is utterly atrocious. With Apple’s insistence not to allow Vulkan drivers, they pulled the rug out of any leaps Mac OS could have made in that regard (like Linux did).
Apple also pulled the plug on any server capabilities Mac OS once had.
So, when it comes to gaming or server use, Mac OS would be my absolute last choice, not a middle ground.
Software choice is limited, but software quality is generally high and for some professions, the choice is flawless: when it comes to content creation, Apple’s ecosystem is hard to beat.
Meanwhile software is seemingly a horrible mixed bag that has only been exasperated with the Arm jump.
I haven’t had this experience - The rosetta emulation is so good I honestly couldn’t tell you whether much of anything is Apple Silicon native or running in emulation mode.
Might be specific to my ops job then, as I seem to keep running into software that goes ‘lol the fuck are you doing’. Most of my Mac experience is post-Arm jump so maybe they’re mostly general MacOS issues.
That’s fair. I would also agree with your “If you don’t mind staying in Apple’s little zoo then you’re not going to have issues.” sentiment. It used to be better in the Apple ecosystem where there were many ways to skin the cat, but it seems like if something gets “sherlocked” by Apple, most people seem to be fine with keeping the Apple thing and not straying too far afield.
I find Linux always breaks on me, and eventually it breaks in a way I am unable to fix. Windows never does this to me, I am always able to fix an issue on Windows.
I would love if Linux was as easy to use, but my personal experience is quite the contrary.
Sure it is easy to set up and get running, but windows is even easier , and then the breaking happens… inevitable and everything time.
Interestingly enough, the exact opposite happens to me. Just about every time I use Windows, it breaks horribly somehow and I can never seem to fix it without a complete reinstall. There’s just no way to get into its innards to fix things.
I’ve never had that kind of problem on Linux.
I imagine this sort of thing comes down to what platform you know.
Can confirm; this is exactly why I switched to Linux. After my fifth-ish reinstallation of Windows, Microsoft pushed an update that caused the OS to use 80-90% of my CPU and I couldn’t fix it because they locked down the service that was doing it despite it being entirely unrelated to my use of the computer (it was an Edge-related service that scanned web traffic for “optimization” if I remember right - one of those where Microsoft says “it’s necessary but we won’t tell you what it is and it wasn’t in the OS before a couple months ago”).
funny how peoples experience differs. Been using linux for years, and never had something break in a major way. I understand your point but would encourage you to try again someday.
Never had something break on Linux that was not my fault (outside of running hardware so old I had to fix some boot options). Meanwhile, using Windows feels like I’m back at my bug test job. Issues persist for years with no solution!
If you’d be open to try Linux again if it were less likely to break than your past experience, look into the recent trend of what they commonly call “immutable” distributions. This should give you the ability to always switch back to a working OS if anything goes wrong (which should be much less likely in the first place). It’s similar in concept to Android or Chrome OS, from what I understand. I’m watching this space very closely because I’m concerned about experiencing the same thing as you if I switch to Linux, and not having the ability to fix the system myself.
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