Windows 11 still sucks.

[Moonchild]

Off-topic:

I try to avoid stuff like systemd as much as possible. Aka, I don't use systemd.

Systemd doesn't come into the picture. This is 100% userland. You can be on systemd or sysV or anything else, that makes zero difference.

[Bilbo47]

Did people reject subscription-based [gaming, music, movies, audiobooks, software?]

My answer is Yes to all that. If you didn't *buy* it then it isn't yours, and it could be rug-pulled at any time. That's no way to run an economy.

[back2themoon]

I came across a software developer which touts its soon to be released upgrade version as Windows 11-only. Can't remember a time when only a single Windows version was part of the official supported OS specs for a piece of software.

Let's hope this doesn't become a trend...

[Mæstro]

You know it will, even for applications which, by all signs, could just as well have been designed to work with Windows 2000. (This is the chief reason reason why I, as a Linux user, lost interest in visual novels after 2021.) Only the creation of Windows 12 (or 26 in this round of the big number arms race against Apple) could ‘break’ this trend, of course without helping the real problem one jot. I hoped for a while that the approaching physical limits on Moore’s law would check the software world’s rampant presentism, but capital demands endless growth whether possible or not, so the death march marches on.

I have encountered several friends and acquaintances who speak vaguely of being interested in Linux, but surrender to Windows 11 whenever their computer with 10 (or more rarely 7) breaks. Why is the common man so resigned that this is his fate?

[moonbat]

Why is the common man so resigned that this is his fate?

People just want things to work when they aren't enthusiasts of the thing concerned. Just as with cars, we only have to get them serviced every few months and very few people care about tinkering with them now as compared to the old days when they required a lot more routine or daily maintenance from the owner. Windows is the comfort zone for them despite it borrowing the same 'modern' UI metaphors these days and there truly are no Linux replacements for certain software and games; if the amount of tweaking (say with Wine) to get the latter to run is non-zero then these people aren't interested. They just want things as they are and if that means being the frog boiled slowly in the water as Windows worsens with every update, then so be it.

[Massacre]

I have encountered several friends and acquaintances who speak vaguely of being interested in Linux, but surrender to Windows 11 whenever their computer with 10 (or more rarely 7) breaks. Why is the common man so resigned that this is his fate?

They actually wait for a distro that will offer 100% compatibility with their Windows software

[Moonchild]

They actually wait for a distro that will offer 100% compatibility with their Windows software

Read: They actually wait for a distro that allows them to do what they are currently doing without massive compromise.
Most people aren't particularly married to specific software from specific vendors, as long as the alternative allows them to do the same -- and that's where Linux often falls apart pushing things (often to a fault) that simply don't offer equivalent quality or ease of use *cough*GIMP*cough*

[frostknight]

They actually wait for a distro that will offer 100% compatibility with their Windows software

That would be boneheaded...

Read: They actually wait for a distro that allows them to do what they are currently doing without massive compromise.

That sounds more likely... in the cases of smarter people, but dumber people? nah... i bet its true for them more what the other dude said.

[UCyborg]

Version of MS Teams on work laptop stopped working this week, said it should be updated, but new version refused to install. This is on Windows 10 1809. Visual Studio 2022 installs and compiles C# project, though installer complained about unsupported OS.

But this is all MS stuff. Google has already been snooping on how many people are still on 10, I think they're just waiting for the moment to pull the plug.

Most people aren't particularly married to specific software from specific vendors, as long as the alternative allows them to do the same -- and that's where Linux often falls apart pushing things (often to a fault) that simply don't offer equivalent quality or ease of use *cough*GIMP*cough*

I wonder what Linux people use for PDF viewing.

I personally like KeePass for password management, the original 2.x version. Its author claims being .NET (Framework) based is an advantage since it can run on Mono. While true, I'm a picky bastard and Its UI just looked weird to me on Linux last time I checked and I'm not particularly fond of KeePassXC either. Again, the UI. And this one uses Qt5. Original KeePass is lean and mean compared to it. And I guess being able to talk to Pale Moon with right plugin and browser extension is also a factor, though transferring TOTP codes to the browser is missing.

I have VCDS on the laptop, this program talks to Volkswagens' and other VAG brand cars' controllers over ODB-II port, being able to change settings and perform diagnostics. Not that I need it much, just thought it would be interesting to mention, all sort of random things for which there is no native equivalent simply because everyone targets Windows.

Though I've also encountered software that runs on both Windows and Linux, but performed poorly on Windows. I was going to backup all my then new smartphone's flash storage, just in case. SP Flash Tool on Windows just kept failing in the middle while reading phone's memory while it worked properly on Linux.

Recently, I was looking into how to replicate Subversion repository in Git. What basic support Git itself has for interacting with Subversion, I read one of the guides and author said if it may take a day on Linux, the same repo may take a week on Windows.

Generally, I think it's advantageous to have both Windows and Linux handy, even if only one is used more often.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

I wonder what Linux people use for PDF viewing.

Off-topic:
For a long time I used acroread, then I tried okular, evince, atril and settled on the latter.

[Moonchild]

This is on Windows 10 1809.

You'll probably just have to use a less ancient version of Windows 10 if you want to use the latest versions of Teams, VS, etc.

[Blacklab]

-- and that's where Linux often falls apart pushing things (often to a fault) that simply don't offer equivalent quality or ease of use *cough*GIMP*cough*

Yes... with bells on... had the displeasure of trying to use GIMP to add some photos to labels... simple task... gave up... had to find someone who'd been using GIMP's quite dreadful, unintuitive UI for years to work the (probably capable?) underlying software for me.

Reminded me of fighting with the impossibly awful UI (DOS pre-GUI) on early 1990s Oracle relational database software... one mistake and you had to start over... and go round the whole input loop again.

[moonbat]

I wonder what Linux people use for PDF viewing.

I'm on KDE Neon and I've found the default apps it ships with (file management, image viewing, screenshots, text editor etc) are quite powerful and useful. For PDFs it's Okular.

[UCyborg]

You'll probably just have to use a less ancient version of Windows 10 if you want to use the latest versions of Teams, VS, etc.

Maybe, though I realized I forgot about -SkipLicense parameter specifically when sideloading MSIX. I'll try next week. Maybe it still won't work, but we'll see. I forgot about the steps noted in the top comment here.

MS keeps making Explorer heavier and buggier without noticeable usability improvements. Ever since Windows 7, you can crash it if you start file renaming, open context menu with right-click in the field with the file name, then press backward or forward button on the mouse, if there is a folder to navigate back / forward to, it will crash. Unless you replace the component for listing files with old ListView. Two methods are listed here, QTTabBar can also do it.

They also borked undo history at some point if operations on folders/files requiring elevation are involved, if I recall correctly, the history didn't get cleared in that case on Windows 7. It's also possible to accidentally overwrite file with undo/redo operation for which there was a warning in Windows 7. If you rename file1.txt to file2.txt, then some other program writes file1.txt in the folder in question, then you undo in Explorer, file1.txt will be overwritten with content of file2.txt.

Finally, when was the last time you deleted the file that in the root of portable flash drive or disk? In that case, the file deletion conformation dialog always displays that file size as 0 bytes regardless of actual size.

Millions of updates and basic things like that stay broken forever.

[gabrgv]

that's where Linux often falls apart pushing things (often to a fault) that simply don't offer equivalent quality or ease of use *cough*GIMP*cough*

Krita is OK compared to Photoshop if all you’re doing is basic editing (just the rulers absolutely suck). But I’ve been using GIMP anyway xD—Krita is too Qt and bloated with too much dependencies.

I wonder what Linux people use for PDF viewing.

I use mupdf.

I personally like KeePass for password management, the original 2.x version. Its author claims being .NET (Framework) based is an advantage since it can run on Mono. While true, I'm a picky bastard and Its UI just looked weird to me on Linux last time I checked and I'm not particularly fond of KeePassXC either. Again, the UI. And this one uses Qt5.

I tried to run KeePass on Linux trough Mono before… it’s bad. Currently, I’m using KeePassXC, even with its horrible UI and toolkit (I started using it before they ruined the icons).

On Linux, with all its toolkit madness, I figured the ideal is to get rid of GUI programs, and, when this is not possible, stick to GTK2 (or Tk or Motif or FLTK or even TQt; GTK3 is trash, but you can get it to be usable with a few patches).

The 3 GUI programs I’m still using regularly are Basilisk (GTK2), GIMP (GTK2) and KeePassXC (Qt):

• GIMP is probably impossible to overcome;
• Basilisk idem. I do intend to work to remove its UI someday, though (maybe “just” baking its back-end to surf would be enough);
• KeePassXC I managed to make it look better just by setting an environment variable to force Qt programs to use the current GTK2 theme (QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk2), and setting View > Theme > Classic (Platform-native) in KeePassXC. But I’m planning to move to pass soon (there was a XUL extension that maybe works with Pale Moon).

[frostknight]

Currently, I’m using KeePassXC, even with its horrible UI and toolkit (I started using it before they ruined the icons).

Off-topic:
I have less than zero respect for them as they are okay with adding bad stuff like dbus as a dependency despite the fact people have told them its a security/privacy risk...
https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/issues/828
but long story short, I cannot help but hate them for that alone

[UCyborg]

On Linux, with all its toolkit madness, I figured the ideal is to get rid of GUI programs, and, when this is not possible, stick to GTK2 (or Tk or Motif or FLTK or even TQt; GTK3 is trash, but you can get it to be usable with a few patches).

Off-topic:
Well that wouldn't fly with me, I generally prefer GUI.

Last time I checked, you couldn't even bridge wired and wireless network adapter easily. I gave up when I realized I'd have to mess with obscure configs and having no clue whether it would work at all. On Windows, it's as simple as going to Network Connections in Control Panel, select both adapters->right-click->Bridge Connections. It was also easy on Linksys WRT54GL, a 20 years old Linux based router, at least with custom firmware.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Off-topic:

On Linux, with all its toolkit madness, I figured the ideal is to get rid of GUI programs

Personally I'm really fond of terminal-oriented no-GUI programs for most tasks which do not require a real graphical approach, say maps, image processing or plotting ,,, after all I wrote a graphical equivalent width measuring program for spectral lines in early '80s on n IBM mainframe with Tektronuix terminals

mess with obscure configs and having no clue whether it would work at all.

I feel the opposite. I like programs which are controlled by a single text config file, usually in the form of keyword=value lists. For instance the window manager I use, fvwm with .fvwm/config; or the mail client I use, alpine with .pinerc and things like

Code: Select all

Style Xephyr        StartsOnDesk 2, !Title, !Borders, !Handles
PointerKey 1 R C GotoDesk 0 0

sort-key=Arrival
folder-sort-rule=alpha-with-dirs-last
url-viewers=/usr/bin/palemoon

which, after some reading of the man pages, allow me to get what I want in a way which can be easily remembered and located ("change the value of keyword url-viewers") while with GUI-oriented configs I have to describe some sort of paths through menus, submenu, tabs, buttons ...

[moonbat]

Off-topic:

after all I wrote a graphical equivalent width measuring program for spectral lines in early '80s on n IBM mainframe with Tektronuix terminals

But that shows you aren't the average PC user either
The point is that as an end user one never ever has to go to the command prompt on Windows. Even then ordinary folk have struggled to grasp the basics of using a desktop GUI despite Windows offering a consistent experience until version 7. And if one was a power user on Windows, it get annoying at having to search online how to fix something that one doesn't even have to think about on Windows, like UCyborg's bridging networks example.

[UCyborg]

Turned out I actually did include -SkipLicense parameter when installing Teams, but no go. Settled for using it in Floorp (Firefox) for the time being. Teams couldn't use microphone in Edge for some reason.

I also noticed with Edge and Edge WebView, it used to be that if both were installed and they were the same versions, the files would be hardlinked on the disk (meaning single copy of each file on the disk, but appearing in multiple locations). They weren't, there were two physical copies instead. Hardlinking also means one copy of huge msedge.dll in RAM at the time if both Edge and WebView are in use. Accidental bug or the sign that the quality of MS products keeps declining?

Off-topic:
The thing with networking on Linux, it's typically managed by network-manager and I didn't have the nerve to mess with it. It also happens sometimes when you're searching for how to do something that it may not apply to the distro version you're dealing with.

It's also easy to quickly run into trouble if you're trying to break out of some commonly used pre-defined boundaries, be it some specific configuration changes or maybe changing desktop environment. I managed to break the audio one time simply by turning off audio jack detection on the live system. That was supposed to be supported! Although running into trouble in such cases is not exclusive to Linux.

At one point, I knew how to get the system to load NVIDIA binary drivers after installing them without reboot. Though since you still lose user session, it's not as attractive option as it could be.

Messing with partitions is also one thing where I tend to just use Linux tools; fdisk, sfdisk or GParted. So I'm not a total stranger.