4 ms·

It does make me wonder why people keep running this OS...

by johnea 4mo ago

bigstrat2003 4mo ago
Because they feel (rightly or wrongly) there is no viable alternative. It might be that they have software which requires Windows, it might be that they think it's too complicated to set up Linux, or it might just be that they aren't aware any other option exists. But those all boil down to the same thing: people think they have to use Windows, so they tolerate its nonsense.
1over137 4mo ago
Some important software only works on Windows alas. Not everyone does everything from a web browser.
- tcfhgj 4mo ago
  Alternative OS are not limited to browser software...
  - hoppyhoppy2 4mo ago
    Right, but that doesn't solve the problem they brought up in the first sentence of their comment.
- keithnz 4mo ago
  a lot of the compatibility stuff on Linux runs windows software, so that's usually not a huge blocker. Having recently switched to Linux as my main (used to run it in a VM) the real issues are all these things that don't quite work out of the box (different distros might get different results). For instance my audio when playing dota2 would randomly cut out and not return when using discord. It took a bunch of fiddling around to get both to work. Then there's weird compatibility things depending on choices you make, for instance, I used RustDesk a lot in windows. But it doesn't really work well in linux with wayland. So while my overall experience is Linux is pretty good... I'm now in a world where I can end up with all kinds of random issues, all likely solvable, but all likely semi unique to my setup.
noah34 4mo ago
to many people, Windows, IS "computer"
stubish 4mo ago
It is too intimidating to change for one. Most users I deal with are terrified and bewildered by settings and can't even take the few steps to install an adblocker (and they want the adblocker!) And from the article: "Technician's know how to get around this, but not everyone using a computer is a technician." To use an alternative, you need to know someone with the knowledge and ability and able to request their time. Backing up data, burning USB sticks, installing, setup new backup solution, resyncing bookmarks, creating shortcuts to their email, replacements for the apps they use... all the details takes a lot of time, and it is ongoing work. Someone has to become 'the technician' and provide support. Otherwise, people have no option except to keep bumbling along with the default or somehow become 'the technician' themselves without any guide but web forums and ChatGPT.
- CamperBob2 4mo ago
  To use an alternative, you need to know someone with the knowledge and ability and able to request their time. Fortunately, my old pal Claude Code is always there for me. Need something installed/fixed/changed? Just ask... in plain English. I don't need him for Windows, but man, that dude can make Linux walk and talk.
  - _carbyau_ 4mo ago
    > Fortunately, my old pal Claude Code is always there for me Is this just a form of changing one subscription for another?
    - CamperBob2 4mo ago
      No, because pretty much any model and harness could be used as a robotic Linux admin instead of Claude Code. I haven't tried Codex or Gemini for that, but I'm sure they'd be fine. Ultimately that particular Linux box is going to be used to host local models, which should also work. An account with an AI provider gets me the ability to submit prompts and run agents with their model. I pay them, I get a useful service in return, and I can stop or switch providers anytime. Conversely, I get absolutely nothing in return for logging into my own machine with a Microsoft account. It benefits Microsoft -- somehow, I guess, who knows? -- but not me.
tgsovlerkhgsel 4mo ago
Because when I want to play a game, I want to play a game, not debug someone's hacky attempt to make it work on Linux. Implementing a strict "no fiddly shit on my game machine" policy was one of the best choices for my mental health that I've made: It's a dedicated machine for gaming, with nothing really sensitive on it aside from gaming related accounts, and its only purpose is to play games with the least amount of immediate hassle. In other words, if the choice is installing something ugly or fiddling, that launcher, kernel level anticheat or whatever it is gets installed.
- abeyer 4mo ago
  Implementing a strict "no games on my no fiddly shit machine" policy was one of the best choices for my mental health that I've made Windows can be just as bad, I'm quite happy to restrict my games choice a bit to run them on a console that someone else makes work.
- denkmoon 4mo ago
  FWIW, with minor exception, Linux is better at "no fiddly shit on my game machine" now. I feel strongly about this too, to come home from work and debug some shit going wrong on my gaming system is no bueno, I'd rather just not play games. It has to work without fucking around. Windows is now the OS that fucks with me and causes grief, since moving to cachyos the experience has been so bloody blissful it's not funny. I can, amazingly, just come home and launch a game and play the game and not deal with bullshit like taking 30 minutes to install some random update. Nothing randomly breaks. Nothing updates unless I let it. Nothing randomly pops up asking me to do some bullshit I'm not interested in for a result I don't care about. etc.
  - charleslmunger 4mo ago
    I mean this is sort of true in that windows is constantly introducing trash, but I've run into all kinds of nonsense: 1. Amd HDMI 2.1 fiasco and adapter workarounds -> debugged the adapter compared to the displayport spec pdf, emailed the company, got a firmware update, patched my kernel. Fixed! This one is going away for good with FRL support upstream soon. 2. Game stops responding to controller input after playing for a bit. Debugged, turns out the service for doing something fancy with shaders has shared fate with the steam input process. It launches a zillion threads and OOMs from virtual memory exhaustion which takes out steam input; fixed by adding a wrapper script for steam that reduces thread stack sizes to the windows default size. 3. Xbox elite series 2 controller back buttons not supported in 2.4ghz wireless mode; reverse engineered the USB packets, contributed support to out of tree xone driver. 4. Flydigi controller software not supported on Linux; find random GitHub project that reversed their hidraw protocol. It's got bugs, so fix them and use it. 5. Terrible banding in Silksong. Set up gamescope to apply dithering; this breaks steam input, figure out all sorts of incantations with LD_PRELOAD But all of these are very much off the beaten path problems, lots of people have fun with normal controllers, no VRR, etc. My steam deck has been just perfect with zero effort, and I assume that's because I'm not treating the system configuration like a puzzle game.
marcelox86 4mo ago
the Linux distro I want does not yet exist.
BobbyTables2 4mo ago
Try doing a full screen rdp session from Linux at 4K resolution. The lag will be with you. VNC won’t be any better. He’ll, even some YouTube videos are overly taxing from Firefox in Linux. Also Stream seems to think Windows is more equal than Linux…
- amlib 4mo ago
  > Try doing a full screen rdp session from Linux at 4K resolution. You should be using Sunshine/Moonlight for that anyway. You will get ultra smooth low latency 4k@120fps streaming to and from linux. I regularly play games streamed from my noisy big linux pc all the way across to the living room linux pc. It's brilliant.
- pkphilip 4mo ago
  How often do you do a 4k RDP session on Linux?
14 4mo ago
Uncertainty of how it all works is my opinion. Like how is it installed. What is making a partition and what are these warnings? What happens to all my pictures and documents? What distro is best? Do I lose all my paid for software? How do I now do all the things I am used to doing? I remember the first time I partitioned my hard drive and did a dual boot and I was really unsure about so many things. It is intimating.
themafia 4mo ago
...don't look now, but, there's a trillion dollar gorrilla in the room right behind you.
Havoc 4mo ago
Switching to something else is still quite intimidating to the non hn crowd
CM30 4mo ago
Games and niche software for the most part. Yeah, compatibility on Linux is better now, especially with Valve implementing Proton so games would run on the Steam Deck. But there are still incompatible games, and non-Windows operating systems are generally not a priority for many game developers. So, you have to hope that either Valve or the community have found a way to make them run on other systems. And then there's the aforementioned niche stuff. Yes, your games may be compatible with Linux, but what about the tools needed to mod them? Plenty of modding and ROM hacking communities only develop for Windows, so anyone looking to get involved in those scenes has no real choice other than to use Windows. Wouldn't be surprised if plenty of non-gaming communities made heavy use of tools from the days of Windows 95 or MS DOS too, whose creators haven't bothered to update them in years or who have no interest in porting them to Linux in general. Bonus points if the tool is closed source freeware from some site that looks like it was made in 1995.

It does make me wonder why people keep running this OS...

by johnea 4mo ago

It does make me wonder why people keep running this OS...

bigstrat2003 4mo ago

Because they feel (rightly or wrongly) there is no viable alternative. It might be that they have software which requires Windows, it might be that they think it's too complicated to set up Linux, or it might just be that they aren't aware any other option exists. But those all boil down to the same thing: people think they have to use Windows, so they tolerate its nonsense.

1over137 4mo ago

Some important software only works on Windows alas. Not everyone does everything from a web browser.

tcfhgj 4mo ago
Alternative OS are not limited to browser software...
- hoppyhoppy2 4mo ago
  Right, but that doesn't solve the problem they brought up in the first sentence of their comment.
keithnz 4mo ago
a lot of the compatibility stuff on Linux runs windows software, so that's usually not a huge blocker. Having recently switched to Linux as my main (used to run it in a VM) the real issues are all these things that don't quite work out of the box (different distros might get different results). For instance my audio when playing dota2 would randomly cut out and not return when using discord. It took a bunch of fiddling around to get both to work. Then there's weird compatibility things depending on choices you make, for instance, I used RustDesk a lot in windows. But it doesn't really work well in linux with wayland. So while my overall experience is Linux is pretty good... I'm now in a world where I can end up with all kinds of random issues, all likely solvable, but all likely semi unique to my setup.

noah34 4mo ago

to many people, Windows, IS "computer"

stubish 4mo ago

It is too intimidating to change for one. Most users I deal with are terrified and bewildered by settings and can't even take the few steps to install an adblocker (and they want the adblocker!) And from the article: "Technician's know how to get around this, but not everyone using a computer is a technician." To use an alternative, you need to know someone with the knowledge and ability and able to request their time. Backing up data, burning USB sticks, installing, setup new backup solution, resyncing bookmarks, creating shortcuts to their email, replacements for the apps they use... all the details takes a lot of time, and it is ongoing work. Someone has to become 'the technician' and provide support. Otherwise, people have no option except to keep bumbling along with the default or somehow become 'the technician' themselves without any guide but web forums and ChatGPT.

CamperBob2 4mo ago
To use an alternative, you need to know someone with the knowledge and ability and able to request their time. Fortunately, my old pal Claude Code is always there for me. Need something installed/fixed/changed? Just ask... in plain English. I don't need him for Windows, but man, that dude can make Linux walk and talk.
- _carbyau_ 4mo ago
  > Fortunately, my old pal Claude Code is always there for me Is this just a form of changing one subscription for another?
  - CamperBob2 4mo ago
    No, because pretty much any model and harness could be used as a robotic Linux admin instead of Claude Code. I haven't tried Codex or Gemini for that, but I'm sure they'd be fine. Ultimately that particular Linux box is going to be used to host local models, which should also work. An account with an AI provider gets me the ability to submit prompts and run agents with their model. I pay them, I get a useful service in return, and I can stop or switch providers anytime. Conversely, I get absolutely nothing in return for logging into my own machine with a Microsoft account. It benefits Microsoft -- somehow, I guess, who knows? -- but not me.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4mo ago

Because when I want to play a game, I want to play a game, not debug someone's hacky attempt to make it work on Linux. Implementing a strict "no fiddly shit on my game machine" policy was one of the best choices for my mental health that I've made: It's a dedicated machine for gaming, with nothing really sensitive on it aside from gaming related accounts, and its only purpose is to play games with the least amount of immediate hassle. In other words, if the choice is installing something ugly or fiddling, that launcher, kernel level anticheat or whatever it is gets installed.

abeyer 4mo ago
Implementing a strict "no games on my no fiddly shit machine" policy was one of the best choices for my mental health that I've made Windows can be just as bad, I'm quite happy to restrict my games choice a bit to run them on a console that someone else makes work.
denkmoon 4mo ago
FWIW, with minor exception, Linux is better at "no fiddly shit on my game machine" now. I feel strongly about this too, to come home from work and debug some shit going wrong on my gaming system is no bueno, I'd rather just not play games. It has to work without fucking around. Windows is now the OS that fucks with me and causes grief, since moving to cachyos the experience has been so bloody blissful it's not funny. I can, amazingly, just come home and launch a game and play the game and not deal with bullshit like taking 30 minutes to install some random update. Nothing randomly breaks. Nothing updates unless I let it. Nothing randomly pops up asking me to do some bullshit I'm not interested in for a result I don't care about. etc.
- charleslmunger 4mo ago
  I mean this is sort of true in that windows is constantly introducing trash, but I've run into all kinds of nonsense: 1. Amd HDMI 2.1 fiasco and adapter workarounds -> debugged the adapter compared to the displayport spec pdf, emailed the company, got a firmware update, patched my kernel. Fixed! This one is going away for good with FRL support upstream soon. 2. Game stops responding to controller input after playing for a bit. Debugged, turns out the service for doing something fancy with shaders has shared fate with the steam input process. It launches a zillion threads and OOMs from virtual memory exhaustion which takes out steam input; fixed by adding a wrapper script for steam that reduces thread stack sizes to the windows default size. 3. Xbox elite series 2 controller back buttons not supported in 2.4ghz wireless mode; reverse engineered the USB packets, contributed support to out of tree xone driver. 4. Flydigi controller software not supported on Linux; find random GitHub project that reversed their hidraw protocol. It's got bugs, so fix them and use it. 5. Terrible banding in Silksong. Set up gamescope to apply dithering; this breaks steam input, figure out all sorts of incantations with LD_PRELOAD But all of these are very much off the beaten path problems, lots of people have fun with normal controllers, no VRR, etc. My steam deck has been just perfect with zero effort, and I assume that's because I'm not treating the system configuration like a puzzle game.

marcelox86 4mo ago

the Linux distro I want does not yet exist.

BobbyTables2 4mo ago

Try doing a full screen rdp session from Linux at 4K resolution. The lag will be with you. VNC won’t be any better. He’ll, even some YouTube videos are overly taxing from Firefox in Linux. Also Stream seems to think Windows is more equal than Linux…

amlib 4mo ago
> Try doing a full screen rdp session from Linux at 4K resolution. You should be using Sunshine/Moonlight for that anyway. You will get ultra smooth low latency 4k@120fps streaming to and from linux. I regularly play games streamed from my noisy big linux pc all the way across to the living room linux pc. It's brilliant.
pkphilip 4mo ago
How often do you do a 4k RDP session on Linux?

14 4mo ago

Uncertainty of how it all works is my opinion. Like how is it installed. What is making a partition and what are these warnings? What happens to all my pictures and documents? What distro is best? Do I lose all my paid for software? How do I now do all the things I am used to doing? I remember the first time I partitioned my hard drive and did a dual boot and I was really unsure about so many things. It is intimating.

themafia 4mo ago

...don't look now, but, there's a trillion dollar gorrilla in the room right behind you.

Havoc 4mo ago

Switching to something else is still quite intimidating to the non hn crowd

CM30 4mo ago

Games and niche software for the most part. Yeah, compatibility on Linux is better now, especially with Valve implementing Proton so games would run on the Steam Deck. But there are still incompatible games, and non-Windows operating systems are generally not a priority for many game developers. So, you have to hope that either Valve or the community have found a way to make them run on other systems. And then there's the aforementioned niche stuff. Yes, your games may be compatible with Linux, but what about the tools needed to mod them? Plenty of modding and ROM hacking communities only develop for Windows, so anyone looking to get involved in those scenes has no real choice other than to use Windows. Wouldn't be surprised if plenty of non-gaming communities made heavy use of tools from the days of Windows 95 or MS DOS too, whose creators haven't bothered to update them in years or who have no interest in porting them to Linux in general. Bonus points if the tool is closed source freeware from some site that looks like it was made in 1995.