https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu6zViY3sbo&t=1s
I saw this pop up and I found it pretty interesting, it looks like Microsoft is making more DRM moves on Windows generally and like it or not they're going to force everyone to upgrade to Windows 11. I went through the pain of learning the bypasses early on because I knew this was going to happen but it looks like they really are going out of their way to shut down local account setups.
This is important to bring up, oh I wish, I wish the Linux community would get their thumbs out their arses and make some kind of easy to use normie distro. The microsoft market share is ripe for the taking with every dick move that they attempt.
I would have jumped ship ages ago but the problem is the ease of use when it comes to windows the beauty of the simple double click and GUI is not to be underestimated. It's going to be a lot like anything that big tech does now it seems and people are going to be pushed more and more towards open source options because of big tech stuff simply becoming unusable crap due to the types of people that are being hired en masse at these companies.
I guess I should potentially look into Linux again and at least research my options but I don't know if in 2024 things have gotten any better beyond the god awful endless terminal nonsense that reminds me of a worse version of DOS. Please autists, please make a normie distros for Linux that let's me do gaming easily because I want to do stuff like play Morrowind and other old windows based games.
I fucking hate Windows 10 as-is. I'd still be on 7 if I hadn't been required to upgrade due to hardware requirements.
The more I hear about 11, the more I realize it'll be time to switch over to linux.
The day I realized I could no lobger run 7 was the day I vowed never to run Windows again.
Apparently, my new motherboard won't even let me install it.
Windows 11 may be what finally forces me to switch entirely to Linux, if I can find a distro that isn't run by commies. I was happy the other day when my non-work-PC came up with a warning that it was not eligible for Windows 11, but I'm assuming that it will take some manual prevention efforts to keep it off of my work PC.
I'd have switched to Linux long ago if not for Visual Studio. It's simply leaps and bounds better than every other IDE. Back in the early '00s, Microsoft basically hired all of Borland's IDE talent (Delphi and C# were both designed by the same dude) making Visual Studio the only real IDE left in the world. (Sorry, XCode users. It has some nice features, yes ... when they work ... and it doesn't crash.)
And I'm always amused when I have this discussion with web or Apple developers who respond with, "an IDE is just a text editor that launches your app, XCode/Notepad++/VIM/whatever works fine."
Visual Studio Code has been officially available on Linux for years.
Visual Studio Code is not Visual Studio. It's not bad; I use it almost daily for non-C++ projects, but it's not Visual Studio.
Yep. Visual Studio has way more functionality than VSC can provide. Nearest Visual Studio replacement would be jetbrains Rider
I've honestly most ever only built Windows software from Makefiles and the like. So basically ports of Linux stuff. And then I just edit with vi or whatever.
Some video game mods have come as VS projects, and I open them on Windows, but I ended up editing the xml manually anyways to make the build-test-debug cycle work.
Visual Studio project files and solutions are easy and work great, until they don't. Everyone I know that develops on Windows eventually has to go and tweak those xml files when something automagical did the auto part but not the magic part.
XML make files / dependency trees are a good way to do it. IDK if Microsoft thought of that. I haven't spent a lot of time on build systems, other than simple make and VS, though I have used the systems that people have already setup for a project. Usually I just hope it works, and I don't have to mess with it too much.
But yeah when you end up dumping xcopy commands in your XML files, which is what I had to do, something isn't working ideally.
You are basically describing MSBuild, of which Visual Studio project files are (used to be? the last project I worked on which made heavy use of it used VS 2012) a subset. It's not a bad system all things considered, at least once you install/start using the MSBuild Extension Pack
You used to be able to embed MSBuild commands into VS project files, but you had to be careful because you could very easily confuse VS by doing so.
Yeah, and nothing ever goes wrong with makefiles, CMake, or Gradle setups.
I'm talking about features like built-in profiling, extremely flexible memory inspection, edit-and-continue, and .natvis customization just to name a few.
I disagree but that's because I'm an opinionated motherfucker who's tired of having idiot sysadmins tell me that Powershell ISE is deprecated as if that means it isn't still the superior environment in which to write my code when VSCode keeps sperging out on me every time I try to use it whereas ISE has always just fucking worked without requiring any coaxing or configuration.
And yes I am stubborn and mad enough about this that I have managed to make Powershell 7 work with ISE because goddammit it's my preferred environment but that doesn't even matter because Powershell 5 does everything I need.
Visual Studio is nice though. I need to get back to brushing up on my C# one of these days so I can make the jump to more dev focused work.
I haven't confirmed it myself as I don't use visual studio for anything anymore but the experience I found when I was using Linux previously for stuff like that is support would be often claimed but when you tried using it out of the box the actual support is shit and riddled with nonsense errors and that was definitely my experience getting Unity to even run correctly on Linux with my project which relied on Visual Studio heavily.
It's another classic example of why you can never trust a corporation or company that has a bunch of checkboxes to tick and makes spurious claims on their website with zero video footage demonstrating it all working. Which is also why I appreciate anybody that takes the time to record video evidence of their software working all the more these days.
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux
Can be installed in about 30 seconds with something like flatpak too. Linux has the wrong reputation for easy install of software. I find it much better myself for the majority of things. I can update 95% of what's installed on Linux the same way. It's not a bunch of bullshit like Windows where I have the "java updater" and the "adobe updater" and all trying to constantly run. Two commands to run my dnf and flatpak upgrades every so often, whenever I feel like it, without being compulsory, and I'm done.
I still like actual Visual Studio at times, but low level programming and web projects work great in VS Code.
I suspect we have different definitions of "low level programming" since "low level programming" and "web projects" by my definitions would put them on almost the exact opposite ends of the spectrum, and for the former, VS Code is inadequate.
Well I had in my head C for microcontrollers, because that's what I've used it for the most recently. I also played around with Gameboy assembler a year or two ago. Granted both are uncomplicated projects, but I would consider pretty low-level.
Of course if you're doing some mega-project in C++ it would not be all that great. I still like Visual Studio don't get me wrong. Especially in it's more current formats. I didn't care for the early iterations, like when they first went from Visual Basic, Visual C++, etc. to the whole Studio.
Fair enough, I've used VS Code to do some Arduino projects and the like, but that's mostly because full Visual Studio isn't available for platforms like that.
And yeah, the earlier IDEs were not great compared to what Borland offererd, but after all the employee poaching, VS basically became a Borland IDE.
The "but my sound drivers" schtick is just half-remembered sneery nerd shit from 20 years ago at this point, anybody who goes into the routine now has absolutely no idea what they're talking about but wants you to think they do.
It really isn't, I had huge issues with wifi drivers on a raspberry pi that were fixed by turning it off for 24 hours and coming back recently.
Nvidia has entered the chat.
Many of my drivers, like with art tablets barely work on Windows. I have zero expectation that they would work on some Linux distro.
I can speak for exactly one brand of tablet (Ugee) that I sought out that was officially supported on Linux by the company and it works fine. I have absolutely no idea about any kind of generic tablet driver solution.
I think I had problems with a USB Wi-Fi adapter years ago that kept me from migrating to a Linux desktop 8 years ago instead of 4. It was a total piece of Chineseium Wifi adapter anyway. Gave me issues in Windows at times too.
Like the other said, I've heard about Nvidia issues, but I don't think I've tried Linux on an Nvidia system.
I bought a little tiny USB wifi thing for a desktop a few months ago and it plugged in and worked out of the box with no drivers or configuration. I've never had a single Nvidia driver problem and I've set up multiple systems with different Geforce cards in the last few years.
I use Godot and GDScript now which has proper Linux support, don't need it anymore, thank fuck.
I loved Delphi back in the day.
Never been a fan of Xcode.
Vim on the other hand...
Now I have the time to get everything up and running because renovation work was not helping my stress levels when dealing with Linux I may be able to go full Linux. I think my main problems are I want to be able to sail the high seas Linux style that way I can delightfully have everything offline when I want rather than be at the mercy of Microsoft and also Blender cycles compatibility is a big issue in relation to my work.
It does seem like research is the way to go here like you point out, it's all well and good what other people have post online but when I use Linux at times I ran into nothing but pain in the arse issues. Luckily though I have been transitioning to exclusively open source software for almost all my stuff. I have Krita now so I'm not some photoshop user scrub that's being forced to rely on that, golden, then I finally found Godot so that meant I could abandon the buggy bloatware that is Unity.
So yeah, as it turns out, maybe I'll give it a try again now I have the patience. I wouldn't be shocked if I went back to Windows 11 with my tail between my legs I need to think about what I do every day and double check Linux compatibility.
You and me both. I use linux all the time for work and it is always a pulling teeth experience to get things working the first time. Microsoft gets a lot of shit for Windows, but they have always hit the sweet spot between configurability and usability. Linux is always to the far end of configurability and OSX is idiot-proofed waaaay too far toward the usability side.
Like the saying goes: linux is only free if you don't value your time.
I'm not going to hold my breath that this will ever change though. Linux die-hards are too proud to cater to normies, so it will always be relatively niche. And with the way normies have ruined everything else they have invaded, I can't say I really blame them.
I imagine SteamOS will might become that one day.
That said, when was the last time you gave linux a go? It's still more work that Windows, but it's not a huge time sink anymore. Most things "just work", including games via Proton. Biggest "gotcha" seems to be Nvidia and Wayland atm, but that seems mostly up to application developers now.
The issue I have with anything Steam is at the end of the day it's still DRM, doesn't matter how they market it or how user friendly it gets. If you want to play a game legitimately without it unless devs are very specific about support you can't. Not really a fan of that I can appreciate how the user friendliness is definitely a plus for people if they're desperate to get away from Microsoft and their cancer.
Not Steam (though I agree with you on that) - SteamOS - the OS that runs on the Steam Deck. It's Linux running KDE, but having Valve behind will no doubt improve user friendliness over time.
The last time I gave linux a go was three days ago. I use RHEL on several different machines for work. I hate it.
RHEL kinda sucks, but was there a particular issue?
Nvidia drivers were a pain to get installed and working. Lots of docker/podman problems, manual installation of drivers for certain specialty usb devices...
Once we figure out what the problem is and get it fixed, everything works fine. It's the constant tiny things that would take 30 seconds on a Windows machine, but require a non superuser to browse forums to find the list of terminal commands to diagnose the problem, and then more searching to find the list of terminal commands to fix the problem. It doesn't help that a lot of the linux or die types you ask for help are smug, sanctimonious fuckwads who make communicating with them even less enjoyable than working with linux.
edit: I forgot about the worst problem - PKI support. We have been banging our head against that one for years and still don't see any light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm sorry but this is bullshit. I haven't done a Linux install in 15 years that wasn't just "boot from live USB/CD, click install, answer 5 questions, wait for installer + reboot, now everything just werks."
Quit trying to install Gentoo and Arch for memes and just slap Ubuntu / Mint in your shit.
And if you like Arch for the rolling-release basis on which it gets software updates, there's Manjaro which is basically Arch for people without the time to fuck around.
Manjaro:Arch::Ubuntu:Debian
I don't know anything about Gentoo. I have used Ubuntu a bit, but mostly RHEL. If you think either of them are easier to install and setup than Windows, then you are the one talking bullshit here.
Linux fanboys gonna Linux fanboy.
Linux has its place but that place is in an enterprise environment as a server running some shit that end users never know about or interact with. Anyone who thinks Linux is a remotely viable desktop environment is out of their fucking mind.
Removing the telemetry shit and making windows 10 work properly last time I out a PC together took several hours of fuckery anyway. If I have to crawl around in virtual crawlspaces anyway, I'll do it on something that won't keep trying to force re-enable updates for everything through their security software, or do other fuckery.
This is why I agitate for some kind of normie distro and we should call it that for the lulz, get all the normies on that and away from Microsoft. If you can setup a stall in a street and get the most boomer person to use it that will be considered a success. This will serve as containment against the normies as well if the autists want to have their own special distros for specific purposes.
Honestly, Linux is not hard. If you're any sort of a power user, and especially if you're doing any programming, you're really doing yourself a disservice if you don't know at least some linux.
I can't imagine being a Windows-only dev. The *nix/*bsd commandline tools are just so insanely powerful.
It can't get much easier than installing Ubuntu.
You probably think that because like a lot of autists you forget what being a complete beginner/new user is like to certain software lol. This is very much the achilles heel of the Linux community.
It depends.
A normie user can do just as fine on modern Linux as Windows because they don't do anything interesting. A Windows power user is going to go "where is all my stuff" and have to relearn the wheel, but will eventually realize it's a better wheel.
The place where it still really suffers is still device drivers. Generic stuff like mass storage, CDC, Ethernet are pretty decent these days but GPU is convoluted and god help you if you have some non-consumer specialty device. Printers, flip a coin.
Yeah, my computer-illiterate parents have been using Linux Mint for 12 years. I turned on autoupdates and Timeshift backups... It just works, and switching from XP was a lot easier than figuring out Windows 8. All they care about is that it has a web browser (Firefox), email (Thunderbird), and can print out tide charts from an old program that doesn't work under newer Windows.
I find AMD for GPU and Brother for network printer work out of the box.
Just use basic Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Just keep in mind that instead of downloading random .exe's from the internet that there is an "app store" that manages the software for you (just search and click the one you want)
Not at all! I'm not saying there aren't things in Linux that are more complicated, nor am I saying that you won't have to learn anything new. But, it's not rocket science. If you can program in Godot or what not, you can pick up Linux.
Seriously, try it out with a VM. Get an Ubuntu installer, spin up a free Virtualbox VM, and have at it. You can have a desktop up and running in minutes.
(Ironically, I'm not a huge Linux fan. I've been running FreeBSD on various devices for more than 20 years now. I feel like it's kind of falling behind now due to the dominance of Linux and the lack of Docker, but it's just amazingly solid and consistent for servers.)
I made the switch. It's not hard but it does take some effort. I refuse to use reddit and one thing that is cool is most info you need can be found on other sites.
Single player games on steam have been pretty easy, but I don't game a whole lot anymore. Usually a quick search on protonDB gives you the best way to run the game. This is usually just a steam setting change of what proton version to use and sometimes adding a launch command.
Last time I used Rufus to make Win11 image USBs it created an admin account automatically and skipped the entire OOBE.
That's gone now?
Allegedly they're patching stuff out, haven't confirmed it personally as I thankfully haven't had to re-install Windows 11 in ages. I may have a look at Nobara now I have the time and have a serious hunker down in getting myself to be pure Linux to avoid Microsoft though because if they're taking measures like this it likely means they have something worse down the pipeline. I'm on Godot now for my main software so it should all be way more doable in terms of my daily work.
Joke's on them - Windows 10 thinks that my machine is incapable of "upgrading" to windows 11 so they can nag me all they want and it'll never work.
lol shitposting about that aside that's usually a stupid warning about the TPM requirement which is another aspect of Windows 11 I do not like. I shouldn't have to change anything in the BIOS just to run a damn OS. Most machines are actually Windows 11 capable and I did do some digging into that.
Mine doesn't qualify either but I never get nagged about it. I do expect to be nagged when Window 10's end-of-support happens next year, though. It may as well be off support now because every Win10 machine I have isn't fully up to date because Microsoft royally screwed up one of their updates. I'm sure as hell not jumping through any hoops to manually install it.
Ubuntu, Mint, Pop_OS, Zorin. Used Zorin to play the old switcheroo on my parents and they barely noticed. In fact, the only time I was "required" to enter the terminal was to add the repos for LibreWolf so they have a decent privacy-focused browser. And that's only because I wanted to be lazy and copy/paste that task. Everything regular people might want is in the GUI. And, let's be honest, power users on Windows are dropping into command line / powershell anyway.
Lutris is fantastic for a "just work, damnit" gaming shell. Surprisingly it's even easier and better at running Windows 98 era stuff on modern graphics hardware than Windows 10 is. Half an hour of reading is all you need: wine prefixes, runners, etc. No one is born knowing it, but give it a shot and it will pay dividends. Switching up between playing Sacrifice (2000) and Mad Max (2015). My wife is playing Baldur's Gate 3 (ulg, 2023). Wrapped up playing some Touhou games (Lutris has a retroarch wrapper) a while ago. All within the same UI.
Current complaints about Linux:
(a big one) Support is shit. Always been shit. Lots of really old no-longer-useful advice floating around out there. And if you don't know a magic word to search for, you might never find it. If you're having printer issues, for example, you're just going to have to know to add "CUPS" to your searches. We do have a woefully slow c/linux so getting some activity here from like-minded people would be good.
"Not invented here" anti-pattern, probably more accurately stated as "Not invented by a woke marxist." Commies and SJWs are working hard to strip away old stuff that works and replace it with new stuff that doesn't but is woke (Wayland over Xorg, systemd over initd, and more). But if you just want to use your machine and not mess around in the internals, the defaults are all very sensible and usable.
Thanks for the tip on Lutris. 100% going to be trying that out at some point. I might have to grab a cheap SSD or something, or use an external HDD and try to dual boot a bit on my actual gaming PC.
I'd been considering 86box with Windows 98 to run old games. I'm going to give this a shot first.
The Linux kernel has a code of conduct. I was very vocal against its introduction, preferring merit over politics for code submission, but I am just one voice in a sea of wokeness. At this point, if you want to avoid all the CoC in the FOSS sea, you're going to have to create your own operating system and that needed to start in the 90s at the latest because, as with consoles on the market, it'll be impossible to gain traction from companies to support it if there is more than three (ask the BSD crowd).
The thing is, source code doesn't know anything about a code of conduct. There is no way for the repo to know if it's being cloned by a communist ally or an actual human.
Don't forget that these scumbags have been using software written by normal people for decades to satisfy their needs and advance their causes. Stupid anti-capitalist idiots on iphones or a deliberate mindful decision, doesn't really matter. Rejecting the use of something useful for failing a purity test isn't very pragmatic.
Although I did talk about Lutris, and KiA is gaming centric (maybe still?), non-entertainment software is something to be used. Unless we all want to go back to CPM and 16 bit PCs?
Give these Linux orgs money? Hell no. And using paid commercial software (or using Microsoft software which spies on you for financial gain) gives them money. But I don't see a practical reason to not use a hammer that's just laying on the ground in front of me just because its imagery is part of the hammer and sickle.
my steam deck has all the features of a Windows machine, can run 99% of Windows programs, and is regularly updated with both security and feature updates. I tried doing Linux customization with it, but ended up reverting it since the default setup was just fine. it is become my default PC, I don't use Windows anymore.
I've heard similar experiences about PopOS, mint, and Arch Linux.
I do like the look of the steam deck precisely for the reasons you describe, I want to make that a second PC for me to use while I do things like cycles renders, will also make for a great portability option.
My next PC will be linux. It's in a state where competent laymen can figure it out, now. Microshit can burn - 10 was already bad enough, lobotomizing it's spyware takes more effort than learning how to work linux will.
Yep, it seems we've finally reached that point now.
I feel it was pretty much there in 2010, but it's gone backwards since.
I remember Gnome back then would just work. Other than some sound issues (it's always sound issues) I could get programs to do pretty much anything and the use interface had at least as much control as Windows.
Today, it feels like they've deprecated all the useful GUI interfaces. I used to have a couple of programs that could handle mounting ISOs as drives (great if you're, say, running an old PC game from an image of the disk). Now I can, technically and with much research, do so with the command line, but there's no good GUI interface to do this. I feel the settings and a lot of the utilities are same way. The Start menu is completely fucked and impossible to edit, how they failed to copy the Windows "each menu item is a folder with shortcuts" is beyond me. Software Center should allow you one click install any program you could need, but it's slow, can't search for beans, and often breaks.
The old trick used to be that you just keep the computer offline by unplugging the cable until the the install was over. This forced a local account instead.
If that's not possible anymore, then I don't want it.
Windows is pushing towards a model where it is dependent on an external server when the OS is installing. It may never fully get there, since people will always want to join windows machines to domains, which is the one bypass that still works.
Linux long ago switched to a model where it is dependent on an external server every time you install anything (package managers). From what I've seen, if you ask for help on actually installing something yourself you'll usually get told to use a package manager instead.
Of course you can always compile from source and manually resolve dependencies on Linux, but that feels like a lot more work that bypassing some account creation. So, for me, Windows actually feels like the better option for a system actually under your control.
Eventually it will become a cloud OS and you'll be expected to pay a licence (with the purchase of your computer or a boxed copy) and an ongoing subscription fee to use it like with Microsoft 365. I expect Apple to go the same way.
I think I may give Nobara a try because it looks like it should be exactly my thing and I fucking despise Microsoft anyway, let's see how it goes and if I end up reeeeing back but I think it will be a good challenge this year for myself to go Linux daily. Just got to back up my browser stuff and I'll be good to go.
Nobara was very nice OOTB, I tried it when I had actual hardware issues and tried to narrow my issues down. Might even install it on a new machine if I ever do plan to reinstall.
Nobara does a lot of things well out of the box though, OBS for example is dreadful on Arch to install with all functionality, some stuff just doesn't work and installing the flatpak isn't an option as that one brings other issues with it, too.
My MAIN issue with it is though the fedora package manager, just not the biggest fan but that's from someone who's mainly using arch. My work laptop has Fedora on it and I've had to read up on how to use the package manager. After I got used to it but isn't as great as pacman.
I'm seeing good things about it and maybe distros like Nobara are the way forward because yes dependencies and other crap like Nvidia drivers were a massive pain to deal with when I tried it. If they have stuff running out of the box and you really can use everything find then it would very much be worth the switch in that case. I need OBS as an example for recording my project footage and showing off gameplay. So I can't be having to spend several hours fiddling about with crap online just to get the damn software to even run.
Agreed, Nvidia's the ONE thing that's pretty hard to fix mostly because Nvidia themselves are very much special about it. Auto driver install, latest drivers and making stuff as painless as possible is probably the main thing that Linux really needs since everyone and their mother has an Nvidia GPU(me included, AMD's shown to have issues for me for some reason, that was the aforementioned hardware issues).
My media server is currently running Windows 10 and I refuse to upgrade to 11. Is there anyway to block all updates? I want to keep them from forcing the update. I also would switch over to Linux, but that would require me to get a 20TB external hard drive to move data around and I would need to take a day off work to do the transition. All because Linux is not too friendly with NTFS drives.
EDIT: Reading the rest of the OP's post. You do not want an easy to use normie distro. Well, not any easier than what SteamOS currently is. Because the more people that use an OS, the more likely you'll have security issues with that OS. Mainly because scammers tend to target very popular operating systems.
EDIT2: Reading the top comment here. I don't think my media server would be eligible for Windows 11 to begin with. It's a Dell Poweredge R720XD and I don't think it has that TPM that Microsoft has been trying to push on everyone.
I'm pretty sure you can block updates with a group policy, but it's going to be irritating to set up I'd guess. But like your second edit, just go into the BIOS and disable all TPM. I have that on a Windows 10 machine and it never bugs me about 11 because it's "ineligible"
Unless its changed there is a registry entry you can change that lets you turn off windows update completely.
Generally speaking the older a game is, the MORE likely it is to run flawlessly on Linux. And funny you mention Morrowind in particular since OpenMW started as a Linux project.
Any recommendations for linux security software?
I switched to Linux around 15 years ago having dipped my toe into SuSE back when KDE 3 was the latest release.
I am that individual who says "I use Arch, btw" because I prefer timely updates (tested quickly before release) of software I am using rather than having a snapshot and a wait of months before I get updates.
There are a few things that I wish Linux had. The ability to do BIOS updates. Easy support for Secure Boot as in the future, Microsoft is going to mandate it for all computer manufacturers who want to install Windows (that will be all of them). Even I look at this with dread, how is someone new to Linux supposed to understand this? There are also issues with getting firmware and devices to work if they are new because everyone tests for Windows and calls it a day. And I do understand the concerns of people who want an easy way to install Linux on a PC. It has come leaps and bounds but I am that one person who still installs Arch if I ever need to from a command line.
I see your comments, I get it, you're not a fan of Linux or whatever. I'd like to see some improved gaming support for sure, it works great when it does, but can be a pain when it doesn't. I'm considering maybe a dual-boot or something to ease myself into it for games and really see. I've only played a handful of low-performance games in Linux so far. I won't be pushed into having a MS account on my Windows, I've been down that road and it ended very badly with me losing a lot of data. So for when the day comes I can't get around it, I'll just start going backwards to Windows 7 or something.
Worse version of DOS though? Uh yeah, that's absolutely insane. I was just cleaning up some things on my DOSBox setup yesterday and it's irritating once you've gotten used to a Linux command line. There's so much that's just a pain to do or just doesn't exist without a highly custom config.
It's less that I'm not a fan of Linux, it's more that I'm very mixed on it, I wish Linux was everything people claimed it is and then some. However I'm just pointing out the realities of being an end user for it and not bullshitting people. I want Linux to succeed and get mass adoption, however there are some clear obstacles in the way that the Linux community has a lot of trouble acknowledging and praising that stupid fucking terminal is a big one.
You've obviously no experience with headless servers then. Networks and the internet live on the Linux terminal, not a GUI. I did some Windows Server work for clients in the past, it's pretty and clickable. It's also a total pain in the ass when they ask for anything beyond the default things Microsoft wants them to do. If you don't want it on a desktop machine, that's fine. A lot of things work okay without it, and the improvement is real. I couldn't bear Linux as a main desktop just a few years ago and it's great and easy now. If you want a "stupid fucking terminal" gone forever, then well, go ahead and hand the entire internet over to Microsoft. What of it still exists I guess, as it will be limited to what MS decides to allow in the "Set Up My Website Now Wizard"
Yes I'm not a web developer or a server admin so none of this applies to me but it also explains why people post these responses because they're looking at it from the perspective of "I'm a server admin, why would you want a GUI?" lol. You can't write responses like this if you expect Linux to gain mass adoption and act like it's the end users fault when you're clearly expecting Linux to only be used in very specific tasks rather than as a general daily driver.
This is admittedly the sort of thing that makes me rip my hair out when it comes to the Linux community as a whole. The terminal example is something I bring up because it's always a massive contradiction between autist Linux users and normie users who want to escape Microsoft. Bearing in mind as well I'm not someone who's afraid of complexity, I just don't want to have to spend several hours trying to install Fallout New Vegas.
I'm not sure I want mass adoption really. Mass adoption of computer things has gotten me required acccounts everywhere, TPM and secure boot requirements, software that runs like shit because it's dragged and dropped by someone who has no idea what even happens inside the computer much less how to optimize for it. I'm to the point I say gatekeep away.
I'd be curious what you've used on Linux that is requiring so many hours to set up though, or a command line at all. Fallout New Vegas is a horrible example, that game is actually broken on Windows now too. I admit, gaming is a disaster and it's going to be something like SteamOS that comes the closest to fixing it. Everything else, that isn't advanced user stuff, you really don't need terminals and hours to do.
I agree Fallout New Vegas is a terrible example but I posted on this thread about my experience with Unity which 'claims' to be Linux compatible or supported but that's the problem when you try to use it nope. I find learning wine to be a bit of pain in the arse as well so I'll need to look it up for specific use cases.
Weirdly and perhaps I need to do deeper research on this, I found it a struggle to find a simple lightweight music player in Linux. Will maybe poke around again but I found it very odd how bloated the music players were. I come from the era of Winamp you see and the closest thing I've found is Foobar2000 but that's really a windows only program from what I understand. I don't want to spend a million years clicking through bloat crap just to play some music in the background while I work but that's the sort of thing I tend to do on my PC because of course writing code and 3D modelling in silence isn't exactly motivating.
Edit: Holy shit this video perfectly explains what I'm talking about, yes incredibly long, but if you glance through the UIs you'll see what I mean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ5wMhRXEOM
Edit: Well I didn't know about that, there was a very helpful comment in the youtube video that suggested Strawberry Music Player. It seems to be open source? Seems to have a straightforward UI so I guess that solves that problem.
If you go into the "app store" there's a category for multimedia and you can try out players pretty easily. It's usually called something like Software Center, Discover, or whatever depending on which Linux you have. Every one of those options is in there on my system except Gnome--but I'm not using Gnome desktop. Click to install, try it out, click to remove.
For me, I just use VLC on Linux and Windows, because it does what I want. I don't really use an old Winamp style music organizer anymore.
DeadBeef is looking exactly what I wanted, no silly album art nonsense or any extra streaming capability, bog standard minimal music player. Posting it here just in case people are looking for something similar.
https://deadbeef.sourceforge.io/
POP OS it is.
At the very least I'm probably going to be backing up OS' generally just in case Microsoft completely bork Windows 11 now which if they're fucking with something as basic as the setup process is looking very likely. That feels like the more sensible option overall.