4 ms·

I was still using Windows 8.1 at the start of 2024 and was trying to slowly shift away to Linux at the time, but circumstances beyond my control ended up throwi

by Jigsy 11mo ago

I was still using Windows 8.1 at the start of 2024 and was trying to slowly shift away to Linux at the time, but circumstances beyond my control ended up throwing me into the deep end a lot quicker than I expected. I'm really enjoying Linux. It's one of those things that makes me somewhat passionate about computing for the first time in a long time.

switchbak 11mo ago
I'm one of those weird people that has been on Linux so long (wow, like over 2 decades now) I quite literally don't remember how to use Windows - even though I cut my teeth on it in the 90's. I dabble on the Mac to a moderate degree, but I'm just mostly comfortable on Linux, despite more BS than one would prefer. The benefits certainly outweigh the downsides (for most purposes), especially if you're technical enough to be self-sufficient. When I see the adware monstrosity that Windows appears to have turned into, I'm actually quite shocked to see sharp folks using it. I must be missing something, like do they have cheat codes to make it usable? If I wasn't super tech savvy, I can see why people would pay the absurd Mac tax - just throw money at the problem enough to make it go away.
- Jigsy 11mo ago
  > When I see the adware monstrosity that Windows appears to have turned into, I'm actually quite shocked to see sharp folks using it. I must be missing something, like do they have cheat codes to make it usable? I think the sad reality is a lot of people simply don't care. I specifically avoided Windows 10 because of the telemetry and the whole forced reboots for updates seem pretty annoying, and I didn't see it getting any better which is why I decided to try and move to Linux. The only thing that held be back at the time was I was too ensconsed in my eight-year-old setup, so I needed to be able to do the same things on Linux; and I needed gaming to be viable. Which it thankfully is now to Proton. And it's even more disgusting how Windows 11 has become considering it has the "we'll take screenshots of what you're doing every five seconds" stuff now. Sure, Microsoft claim they'll never see what people are doing, but what's stopping them from doing that in a future update? At least people are slowly wising up to this; though a believe a good majority of new Linux users are because they don't want to create e-wase and replace a perfectly good computer just because Microsoft says "No." Personally, I wish I'd swapped sooner.
- wonger_ 11mo ago
  > When I see the adware monstrosity that Windows appears to have turned into, I'm actually quite shocked to see sharp folks using it. I must be missing something, like do they have cheat codes to make it usable? There's at least a few factors: - like boiling frogs, where things worsen gradually and you don't notice / hurt enough until it's too late - accumulated bandaids over time to keep it bearable. e.g. knowing what settings to disable, perhaps having powershell scripts to debloat new machines, etc - inertia. Hard to make big changes in general, even if they would help, because change is hard and usually costly - forced to use Windows at work
  - tombert 11mo ago
    I think MS Office is also singularly keeping people on Windows. That’s the only argument I don’t have a response to for getting my parents to switch. I am confident that the lovely folks working on Wine are working as hard as possible to get maximal compatibility, and Wine (and Proton) is really a marvel of engineering at this point, but man I wish they would figure out how to get MS Office 2024 working. To be clear, this is not a dig at the Wine people; I suspect MS Office is made purposefully difficult to get working on Wine, but man if they could get that working then there could be a huge exodus.
    - ashirviskas 11mo ago
      Genuinely interested - why particularly MS Office 2024, and not any older version?
      - tombert 11mo ago
        It would have to just be a recent-ish version. I tried getting 2016 working as well and was unsuccessful.
    - Jigsy 11mo ago
      Do people hate LibreOffice that much?
      - 11mo ago
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- makeitdouble 11mo ago
  > I must be missing something, like do they have cheat codes to make it usable? Some of us are in the weird spots where no OS "just works" and will require inordinate amount of setup and adjustments anyway. I recently did an arch and Ubuntu install for two machines, and spend half a day each to get something mildly viable, and still tweak things from time to time two weeks after. Sheer hardware support was only a third of the pain. Back in the days macos also took me about the same time to setup the local system , configure input and disable/workaround the silly stuff. Windows is on par IMHO (stuff are sillier, but disabling them takes about the same effort). For any of those I end with a fully working *nix system/subsystem, so the end setup makes very little difference to me. The huge difference is windows having exotic[0] form factor support turned to 11, where linux will be rougher. [0] I only care about tablets, I wonder if Bazzite could help, I'll be giving it a try in. few months I think.
- TulliusCicero 11mo ago
  Each time I've tried throwing Linux onto a new machine it's been a pain with drivers and compatibility. Things have slowly gotten better, but the last time I tried (using Mint) it still sucked big time. I've used Linux for work (and school before that) for a long time, so I'm not intimidated by it, but it just feels like more effort than it's worth each time at home. I won't deny that Windows keeps getting more annoying though, so I'll probably give Linux an N-th try soon. Edit: also, I'm a PC gamer, and I like having the option to play games like Fortnite or Valorant, even if I don't do so very often. But of course, I can solve that with dual booting if I really want to.
- ewzimm 11mo ago
  I'm also a long-time Linux user, but there are some things that still need Windows, so here are my cheat codes to make it usable: O&O Shutup: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 All the missing privacy switches you'd want. Run it after any updates. PowerToys: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/ The real utilities you'll want to control your UI as a power user. Just autohide the taskbar and disable showing badges and flashing. It's a lost cause, and you can mostly just forget it exists. Use alt+space to launch things and keyboard or mouse shortcuts for window management. It's actually pretty good at mixing floating and tiling. WSL: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install I'm sure you know about it, but it works well even for most GUI apps these days, although it still doesn't support fractional scaling.
kwanbix 11mo ago
Windows 8.1 in 2024? Why? You have Win10 which is miles better if you needed Windows.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
1bpp 11mo ago
Very curious what kept you on 8.1.
- Jigsy 11mo ago
  "If it ain't fixed, don't broke it."
  - spartanatreyu 11mo ago
    But it was broke, security support ended 3 years ago. I wouldn't use a condom that broke 3 years ago.
    - Jigsy 11mo ago
      Support ended in January 2023...
      - sitzkrieg 11mo ago
        who cares? it impacts nothing. windows updates are counter productive for a decade. "but security and zero days!!" ok surely that firewall and home lab and ability to not download and run garbage is enough for someone on the supposed "hacker news" to handle. but no, we got heaps of people using "out of support" as some sort of argument whatsoever to upgrade to absolutely dogshit versions of windows. make it make sense
        esseph 11mo ago
        People get their identities stolen every day, and it is a super, super, super shitty process to go through depending on how deep it goes. It can change your life forever. Having oldass OS and application versions make that a thousand times easier when you have so, so, so many CVEs you can exploit. And LLMs have been show to make this very trivial now. All you need to do is click on the wrong pop-up, or the wrong link in your email, or tap something on your phone screen, or have a poorly configured (often from the factory) router, and the initial intrusion takes place. After that, an outbound encrypted session quickly gets setup, and congrats, now your network is acting as a residential proxy that can be sold to criminals that want to download CSAM from your IP, AI companies that will use your connection for scraping, and other elements that will either mine the data on your systems (your PII, logins, etc) and scrape your screens. But if you don't care about your life becoming a living hell, then I can't make you. This happens all the time, every day. If you have a car, you maintain it. If you have a bike, you maintain it. Power tools? You maintain them. Your electronic devices also need to be maintained. They have access to your most sensitive data, and potentially private conversations.
masfoobar 11mo ago
> but circumstances beyond my control ended up throwing me into the deep end a lot quicker than I expected As a Linux user since 2006/7, I totally understand. I had atleast 1 computer at home that would dual-boot to either Windows or Linux. Regardless, I had to have a Windows system. My reasons may not be the same as yourself - but I do still get stuck and HAVE to use Windows from time-to-time. It's not just for playing games or work related. It's sometimes a simple file I have to download, fill in and email back. The file is likely a Microsoft Excel or Word file and while OpenOffice/LibreOffice is good most of the time, there is bound to be something off. Sometimes my kids will have homework (going back a few years now) and it would only work on Internet Explorer despite the fact Chrome was dominant back then. (I remember, back in 2008, I would ensure the websites I created had decent support for Firefox as well as Internet Explorer, despite my boss telling me "everyone uses Internet Explorer" - that soon changed by 2010 with Chrome) Thing is these problems are not the fault of Linux, or the Office suite, or the web browsers. The problem was the people using files specific to a brand, or focusing on specific web browser, etc. However, many people wont view it like that. In these scenarios.. Linux was the problem. I always remember writing my Resumes for recruitment agencies. I would hand over it is 3 formats. ODT, PDF, and DOCX. I did this because I was not sure how the DOCX version would look on Microsoft Word. Of course, it looked great in Open/Libre Office. I always encouraged the PDF version. > I'm really enjoying Linux. It's one of those things that makes me somewhat passionate about computing for the first time in a long time. 100%!

by Jigsy 11mo ago

switchbak 11mo ago

I'm one of those weird people that has been on Linux so long (wow, like over 2 decades now) I quite literally don't remember how to use Windows - even though I cut my teeth on it in the 90's. I dabble on the Mac to a moderate degree, but I'm just mostly comfortable on Linux, despite more BS than one would prefer. The benefits certainly outweigh the downsides (for most purposes), especially if you're technical enough to be self-sufficient. When I see the adware monstrosity that Windows appears to have turned into, I'm actually quite shocked to see sharp folks using it. I must be missing something, like do they have cheat codes to make it usable? If I wasn't super tech savvy, I can see why people would pay the absurd Mac tax - just throw money at the problem enough to make it go away.

Jigsy 11mo ago
> When I see the adware monstrosity that Windows appears to have turned into, I'm actually quite shocked to see sharp folks using it. I must be missing something, like do they have cheat codes to make it usable? I think the sad reality is a lot of people simply don't care. I specifically avoided Windows 10 because of the telemetry and the whole forced reboots for updates seem pretty annoying, and I didn't see it getting any better which is why I decided to try and move to Linux. The only thing that held be back at the time was I was too ensconsed in my eight-year-old setup, so I needed to be able to do the same things on Linux; and I needed gaming to be viable. Which it thankfully is now to Proton. And it's even more disgusting how Windows 11 has become considering it has the "we'll take screenshots of what you're doing every five seconds" stuff now. Sure, Microsoft claim they'll never see what people are doing, but what's stopping them from doing that in a future update? At least people are slowly wising up to this; though a believe a good majority of new Linux users are because they don't want to create e-wase and replace a perfectly good computer just because Microsoft says "No." Personally, I wish I'd swapped sooner.
wonger_ 11mo ago
> When I see the adware monstrosity that Windows appears to have turned into, I'm actually quite shocked to see sharp folks using it. I must be missing something, like do they have cheat codes to make it usable? There's at least a few factors: - like boiling frogs, where things worsen gradually and you don't notice / hurt enough until it's too late - accumulated bandaids over time to keep it bearable. e.g. knowing what settings to disable, perhaps having powershell scripts to debloat new machines, etc - inertia. Hard to make big changes in general, even if they would help, because change is hard and usually costly - forced to use Windows at work
- tombert 11mo ago
  I think MS Office is also singularly keeping people on Windows. That’s the only argument I don’t have a response to for getting my parents to switch. I am confident that the lovely folks working on Wine are working as hard as possible to get maximal compatibility, and Wine (and Proton) is really a marvel of engineering at this point, but man I wish they would figure out how to get MS Office 2024 working. To be clear, this is not a dig at the Wine people; I suspect MS Office is made purposefully difficult to get working on Wine, but man if they could get that working then there could be a huge exodus.
  - ashirviskas 11mo ago
    Genuinely interested - why particularly MS Office 2024, and not any older version?
    - tombert 11mo ago
      It would have to just be a recent-ish version. I tried getting 2016 working as well and was unsuccessful.
  - Jigsy 11mo ago
    Do people hate LibreOffice that much?
    - 11mo ago
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
makeitdouble 11mo ago
> I must be missing something, like do they have cheat codes to make it usable? Some of us are in the weird spots where no OS "just works" and will require inordinate amount of setup and adjustments anyway. I recently did an arch and Ubuntu install for two machines, and spend half a day each to get something mildly viable, and still tweak things from time to time two weeks after. Sheer hardware support was only a third of the pain. Back in the days macos also took me about the same time to setup the local system , configure input and disable/workaround the silly stuff. Windows is on par IMHO (stuff are sillier, but disabling them takes about the same effort). For any of those I end with a fully working *nix system/subsystem, so the end setup makes very little difference to me. The huge difference is windows having exotic[0] form factor support turned to 11, where linux will be rougher. [0] I only care about tablets, I wonder if Bazzite could help, I'll be giving it a try in. few months I think.
TulliusCicero 11mo ago
Each time I've tried throwing Linux onto a new machine it's been a pain with drivers and compatibility. Things have slowly gotten better, but the last time I tried (using Mint) it still sucked big time. I've used Linux for work (and school before that) for a long time, so I'm not intimidated by it, but it just feels like more effort than it's worth each time at home. I won't deny that Windows keeps getting more annoying though, so I'll probably give Linux an N-th try soon. Edit: also, I'm a PC gamer, and I like having the option to play games like Fortnite or Valorant, even if I don't do so very often. But of course, I can solve that with dual booting if I really want to.
ewzimm 11mo ago
I'm also a long-time Linux user, but there are some things that still need Windows, so here are my cheat codes to make it usable: O&O Shutup: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 All the missing privacy switches you'd want. Run it after any updates. PowerToys: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/ The real utilities you'll want to control your UI as a power user. Just autohide the taskbar and disable showing badges and flashing. It's a lost cause, and you can mostly just forget it exists. Use alt+space to launch things and keyboard or mouse shortcuts for window management. It's actually pretty good at mixing floating and tiling. WSL: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install I'm sure you know about it, but it works well even for most GUI apps these days, although it still doesn't support fractional scaling.

kwanbix 11mo ago

Windows 8.1 in 2024? Why? You have Win10 which is miles better if you needed Windows.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

1bpp 11mo ago

Very curious what kept you on 8.1.

Jigsy 11mo ago
"If it ain't fixed, don't broke it."
- spartanatreyu 11mo ago
  But it was broke, security support ended 3 years ago. I wouldn't use a condom that broke 3 years ago.
  - Jigsy 11mo ago
    Support ended in January 2023...
    - sitzkrieg 11mo ago
      who cares? it impacts nothing. windows updates are counter productive for a decade. "but security and zero days!!" ok surely that firewall and home lab and ability to not download and run garbage is enough for someone on the supposed "hacker news" to handle. but no, we got heaps of people using "out of support" as some sort of argument whatsoever to upgrade to absolutely dogshit versions of windows. make it make sense
      - esseph 11mo ago
        People get their identities stolen every day, and it is a super, super, super shitty process to go through depending on how deep it goes. It can change your life forever. Having oldass OS and application versions make that a thousand times easier when you have so, so, so many CVEs you can exploit. And LLMs have been show to make this very trivial now. All you need to do is click on the wrong pop-up, or the wrong link in your email, or tap something on your phone screen, or have a poorly configured (often from the factory) router, and the initial intrusion takes place. After that, an outbound encrypted session quickly gets setup, and congrats, now your network is acting as a residential proxy that can be sold to criminals that want to download CSAM from your IP, AI companies that will use your connection for scraping, and other elements that will either mine the data on your systems (your PII, logins, etc) and scrape your screens. But if you don't care about your life becoming a living hell, then I can't make you. This happens all the time, every day. If you have a car, you maintain it. If you have a bike, you maintain it. Power tools? You maintain them. Your electronic devices also need to be maintained. They have access to your most sensitive data, and potentially private conversations.

masfoobar 11mo ago

> but circumstances beyond my control ended up throwing me into the deep end a lot quicker than I expected As a Linux user since 2006/7, I totally understand. I had atleast 1 computer at home that would dual-boot to either Windows or Linux. Regardless, I had to have a Windows system. My reasons may not be the same as yourself - but I do still get stuck and HAVE to use Windows from time-to-time. It's not just for playing games or work related. It's sometimes a simple file I have to download, fill in and email back. The file is likely a Microsoft Excel or Word file and while OpenOffice/LibreOffice is good most of the time, there is bound to be something off. Sometimes my kids will have homework (going back a few years now) and it would only work on Internet Explorer despite the fact Chrome was dominant back then. (I remember, back in 2008, I would ensure the websites I created had decent support for Firefox as well as Internet Explorer, despite my boss telling me "everyone uses Internet Explorer" - that soon changed by 2010 with Chrome) Thing is these problems are not the fault of Linux, or the Office suite, or the web browsers. The problem was the people using files specific to a brand, or focusing on specific web browser, etc. However, many people wont view it like that. In these scenarios.. Linux was the problem. I always remember writing my Resumes for recruitment agencies. I would hand over it is 3 formats. ODT, PDF, and DOCX. I did this because I was not sure how the DOCX version would look on Microsoft Word. Of course, it looked great in Open/Libre Office. I always encouraged the PDF version. > I'm really enjoying Linux. It's one of those things that makes me somewhat passionate about computing for the first time in a long time. 100%!