4 ms·

I dunno, installing Windows from scratch is still pretty slick. You don't normally end up having to do extra work to get basic things like Bluetooth working, o

by louthy 3y ago

I dunno, installing Windows from scratch is still pretty slick. You don't normally end up having to do extra work to get basic things like Bluetooth working, or whatever. Pre-installed Linux laptops is great - and is clearly the way to get someone less techy on-the-way. But, for most, if they're sick of Windows and they want to move (dual boot their machine) then god help them. Linux is much better than it was, for sure, and I think the community is much better at answering questions than it was - it's less patronising than it used to be (like this guy [1]) - but I when I think of most people who I know who use Windows (non techy users), and whether I think they could survive in a Linux environment - I have to say no, still, which is a shame. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38903915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38903915

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> installing Windows from scratch is still pretty slick. You don't normally end up having to do extra work to get basic things like Bluetooth working, or whatever. Did it... get a lot better recently? Last time I installed Windows on a laptop I had "fun" getting it the drivers so it could use the Wi-Fi card so it could pull the rest of itself down.
- louthy 3y ago
  I guess I’ve always been lucky with Windows, it has always resolved all my devices automagically. The only thing I need to manually install is the drivers for my UAD Octo card. The last but one Linux Mint install I did didn’t even recognise the mouse and keyboard I had plugged in, haha! (The installer recognised them, but not the OS post install!) It turned out I needed a slightly different flavour of mint, but yeah, the average user might even throw in the towel at that point.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > Did it... get a lot better recently? No. "My OS makes it easier to do X" is generally an illusion because you learned what arcane nonsense your OS requires in order to do that ten years ago and now it takes two seconds, but the other OS requires you to learn some different arcane nonsense which would also take two seconds if you already knew what it was.
nickjj 3y ago
> installing Windows from scratch is still pretty slick Non-technical folks might be able to click their way through the installation but in the process every anti-privacy setting you can think of will be turned on by default because you have to really go out of your way and click dark-pattern-enabled links to opt into a few settings that help protect your limited privacy when using Windows. In some cases you have to either disconnect your internet or purposely fail logging into a MS cloud account multiple times before you're allowed to login to your personal computer with a local account.
Macha 3y ago
> I dunno, installing Windows from scratch is still pretty slick. You don't normally end up having to do extra work to get basic things like Bluetooth working, or whatever. I have to wonder what hardware and distros you're using, as the most dominant vendors (Intel, Realtek) work out of the box on the major distros. Or are you recalling experiences from 15 years ago with ndiswrapper and older Broadcom devices still? The difficulty of dual boot is to do with something being already there. Already Ubuntu etc. have installers that will do repartitioning for you intelligently. Windows by comparison will just pave over whats there if you let it do the happy path and if you want to set up dual boot, requires as much knowledge about resizing partitions.
- Eduard 3y ago
  Things broken in Debian 12 Linux with the Framework 13 AMD laptop: amdgpu i2c bluetooth autosuspend wifi connectivity issues resume after suspend sometimes crashing usbc-pd sometimes not charging There are so many warnings in journalctl / dmesg, since getting the laptop one month ago, I'm nonstop searching for solutions. The only reason I'm doing this is to learn the inner workings of the current state of how things are done in Linux.
  - Macha 3y ago
    Windows installation on the same laptop is not plain sailing either: https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Windows+11+Installation+on+the+Framework+Laptop+13+(AMD+Ryzen%E2%84%A2+7040+Series)/214 https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Windows+11+Installation+on+t...

by louthy 3y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

> installing Windows from scratch is still pretty slick. You don't normally end up having to do extra work to get basic things like Bluetooth working, or whatever. Did it... get a lot better recently? Last time I installed Windows on a laptop I had "fun" getting it the drivers so it could use the Wi-Fi card so it could pull the rest of itself down.

louthy 3y ago
I guess I’ve always been lucky with Windows, it has always resolved all my devices automagically. The only thing I need to manually install is the drivers for my UAD Octo card. The last but one Linux Mint install I did didn’t even recognise the mouse and keyboard I had plugged in, haha! (The installer recognised them, but not the OS post install!) It turned out I needed a slightly different flavour of mint, but yeah, the average user might even throw in the towel at that point.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Did it... get a lot better recently? No. "My OS makes it easier to do X" is generally an illusion because you learned what arcane nonsense your OS requires in order to do that ten years ago and now it takes two seconds, but the other OS requires you to learn some different arcane nonsense which would also take two seconds if you already knew what it was.

nickjj 3y ago

> installing Windows from scratch is still pretty slick Non-technical folks might be able to click their way through the installation but in the process every anti-privacy setting you can think of will be turned on by default because you have to really go out of your way and click dark-pattern-enabled links to opt into a few settings that help protect your limited privacy when using Windows. In some cases you have to either disconnect your internet or purposely fail logging into a MS cloud account multiple times before you're allowed to login to your personal computer with a local account.

Macha 3y ago

> I dunno, installing Windows from scratch is still pretty slick. You don't normally end up having to do extra work to get basic things like Bluetooth working, or whatever. I have to wonder what hardware and distros you're using, as the most dominant vendors (Intel, Realtek) work out of the box on the major distros. Or are you recalling experiences from 15 years ago with ndiswrapper and older Broadcom devices still? The difficulty of dual boot is to do with something being already there. Already Ubuntu etc. have installers that will do repartitioning for you intelligently. Windows by comparison will just pave over whats there if you let it do the happy path and if you want to set up dual boot, requires as much knowledge about resizing partitions.

Eduard 3y ago
Things broken in Debian 12 Linux with the Framework 13 AMD laptop: amdgpu i2c bluetooth autosuspend wifi connectivity issues resume after suspend sometimes crashing usbc-pd sometimes not charging There are so many warnings in journalctl / dmesg, since getting the laptop one month ago, I'm nonstop searching for solutions. The only reason I'm doing this is to learn the inner workings of the current state of how things are done in Linux.
- Macha 3y ago
  Windows installation on the same laptop is not plain sailing either: https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Windows+11+Installation+on+the+Framework+Laptop+13+(AMD+Ryzen%E2%84%A2+7040+Series)/214 https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Windows+11+Installation+on+t...