Fuck Micro$oft

It’s time to switch to Linux! Because it’s free as in freedom.

  • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    What is the point of this “revelation”? When did Microsoft claim that windows were free in any way?

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yes, they called themselves the “most open operating system”. Which in fairness doesn’t imply all the “free” FSF freedoms, but at least being unable to work around restrictions or reverse-engineer to me definitely contravenes “open”.

      That said, this is just beating a dead horse; literally anyone with a brain who knows what Linux is knows that Windows is less open.

      • Zak@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        This is marketing puffery. It’s an imprecise claim about the product’s goodness that cannot be objectively tested.

        • LiPoly@lemmynsfw.com
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          1 month ago

          Duh

          (I know, you watched a recent WAN show and just wanted to brag with the word puffery)

          • Zak@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I hadn’t heard of the WAN show before this comment. I learned about puffery as a kid when my parents were shopping for a car and I was very excited to inform them I had just heard on the radio that a specific dealership was the best.

      • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        that specifically says open, not free. it is marketing buzzword you can project really anything into.

        • conciselyverbose
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          1 month ago

          It doesn’t resemble open in any legitimate interpretation of the word, though.

          Even if you hack your way to a tolerable experience, they can and will randomly revert changes you make on a whim.

            • conciselyverbose
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              1 month ago

              We’re not. The point is that Microsoft is lying and pretending Windows isn’t a locked down pile of shit.

              • 14th_cylon@lemm.ee
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                1 month ago

                we are. “open” can mean lot of things, and the original post was not about open, it was about free. no one has to be convinced windows are not free, it is as surprising as the fact people don’t fuck for love in brothel.

                if anything, this is far more funny:

                • conciselyverbose
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                  1 month ago

                  Open absolutely cannot mean a lot of things, and there is no possible legitimate definition of open that could ever in any context be used to describe Windows, with the sole exception of “open to bad actors”.

                  It’s a locked down, restrictive, broken pile of shit.

  • Shihali
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    1 month ago

    In other news, snow is cold and wet.

  • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    As a Windows “normie” for a long time I used to roll my eyes when people said try Linux. But getting ads in Windows when trying to do a simple admin thing was the last straw. I followed instructions to install Debian on a spare drive and gave it a go and do you know what, it was fine. It made me realise 90% of what I do is in a browser anyway, so why did I have a hang up about having the exact same browser experience in a slightly different operating system?

    Using libre office instead of word was a bit of a shift but, again, for the majority of what I wanted to do I it was fine. Libre office works with words .docx format. In fact, I noticed that for a quick document or spreadsheet I’d been using Google docs so much that this wasn’t affected at all.

    Gaming was a concern, as this was something I (lazily) believed just didn’t work on Linux. But I was totally wrong. Not only is steam available on Linux, but even very recent titles work fine run through a Linux based windows emulator. I guess the important thing is that far more of this was automated than I thought it was going to be. There’s a stereotype that you’re going to be buried neck deep in obscure command lines trying to get basic things working but in my experience I didn’t have to do any of that, it all just worked.

    Bonus was along the way learning that those “obscure” command lines were not actually that obscure and were actually convenient. Typing “sudo apt install vlc” on the command line and having VLC installed and ready to use about ten seconds later was amazing. (I know package managers are available for Windows, I’m just referring to the ‘norms’ of each platform)

    • moody@lemmings.world
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      1 month ago

      Linux based windows emulator

      Wine is not an emulator. It’s in the name.

      I’m really just joking, but it’s a translation layer which has much less overhead compared to an actual emulator. That’s why you can get performance that is so close to Windows, and sometimes even better since the OS itself takes up fewer resources as well.

    • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      those “obscure” command lines were not actually that obscure and were actually convenient

      Yes, let the darkness flow through you.

    • Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      I’ve been running Pop OS strictly for a few months now, but in terms of gaming, it just doesn’t quite feel like it’s quite there for me.

      Take Half-Life 2 for instance. Valve is one of the few devs/publishers actually making an effort with Linux, and it shows, but it still manages to be inferior.

      By default, it uses OpenGL, which is… a mess. Just plain a mess. It’s bad. Busted lighting, models look off, effects don’t draw right. This has no business being the default.

      So, command line options, turn on Vulkan. 1 billion times better. Looks right, feels right… crashes on boot occasionally… and the workshop uploader crashes too…

      Well, there’s always Proton, except… yeah, performance is decreased a bit. That’s nothing major here, but since I don’t have the best hardware, it becomes more of an issue with newer games. In regards to HL2, though, it also introduces microstuttering, which is absolutely a big deal.

      • wewbull@feddit.uk
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        1 month ago

        You are talking about a game that was developed before Vulkan was a glint in Khronos’ eye.

        • Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          That response doesn’t make any sense. You do know this game received a major update just last week and has native Vulkan support, right?

          • wewbull@feddit.uk
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            1 month ago

            The graphics API isn’t something superficial. The source engine was designed from the ground up around APIs from 20 years ago. Any Vulkan adapter will be a bodge.

            • Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 month ago

              Source was branched off of GoldSRC, which was built around OGL and D3D simultaneously, but for Source, OGL was excised from the final engine. Meanwhile, D3D functionality was later removed from GoldSRC altogether. And further back than all that, the engines are both based on Quake, which only had a software renderer, so going by your logic, it could be said that every renderer in Source and GoldSRC is a “bodge”.

              Besides all that, I said the Vulkan renderer is the absolute best way to play the game on Linux, so your point in the first place isn’t even totally really clear.

      • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I’ve been playing Half Life 1 on windows (geforce RTX 3080, latest drivers etc) and it’s buggy as hell. I guess my expectations are low…

      • conciselyverbose
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        1 month ago

        “Proton decreases performance” isn’t a fact. Benchmarks tend to very from very minor drops in some games to meaningful improvements in others.

        • Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          Eh, in my testing, I’ve found a drop of a few fps across the board, with a few games that are just plain problematic. I haven’t found any performance improvements yet myself, but I also only have a part of my library right now due to a drive failure.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I followed instructions to install Debian on a spare drive and gave it a go and do you know what, it was fine. It made me realise 90% of what I do is in a browser anyway, so why did I have a hang up about having the exact same browser experience in a slightly different operating system?

      That’s how it’s done people. Alright let’s go 2025 Year of the Linux Desktop (Again)! Chop chop! Let’s move out!

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      Using libre office instead of word was a bit of a shift

      Btw, you can change the look under Appearance > uh, “Benutzeroberfläche” in german.

      I’d been using Google docs so much

      Just so you know, Google owns your documents, not you.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      For what it’s worth, if you want an office suite that’s perhaps not as feature-rich as Libre Office, but has an appearance and UX like MS Office, as well as better compatibility with MS Office out of the box, there’s always OnlyOffice.

      It’s especially good if you’re putting it on a parent’s PC who’s only used MS Office before.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      The command line will be needed for exotic ways to solve a problem or troubleshoot unusual products.

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      It is if you don’t pay for a license but at this point I don’t even want to use it for free.

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          You don’t have to pirate it, you just download it off their website and don’t activate it. It’ll work, but you can’t change your desktop background.

          • accideath@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            And you get an annoying watermark. And an even more annoying operating system, so it’s not really worth it.

            • sugar_in_your_tea
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              1 month ago

              Works fine for the handful of times I need to run an Windows app throughout the year.

          • TriflingToad
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            1 month ago

            I reset my BIOS and I guess it forgot my windows key, googled it and ran a single command in powershell (found on GitHub a microsoft owned platform) it instantly activated. I don’t understand why people pay for it, it was literally so easy to get around it.
            I hear “oh go to a key reselling website you can get it for like $15” and it feels like how I imagine taking damage in Minecraft is lmao

          • nixcamic@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            That’s basically pirating it but worse lol. You still are violating the license but also get an annoying watermark.

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    I work as a Windows/365 technician, I have thought about switching ti Linux at home, but I worry about loosing my Windows skills if I do…

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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      1 month ago

      I found that switching to Linux made me able to understand both OSes better, and computers in general. Half of my computer science knowledge comes from screwing around with Linux.

      You can still dual boot to keep self-teaching yourself latest Windows concepts so you don’t fall behind there, while experimenting and learning on Linux in your free time.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        I have actually switched once before, back in 2009-2010 I daily drove Ubuntu, but came back to Windows because of gaming.

        At my last job I was a helpdesk technician, 365 admin, VIP technician and their only Linux sysadmin.

        • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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          1 month ago

          Might want to give it another shot these days. Gaming has become exponentially better since then with Steam’s Proton software. Still not perfect, but being able to do 90-95% of them ain’t bad. The last technical hurdle is games with kernel-level anti-cheat.

          • stoy@lemmy.zip
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            1 month ago

            Oh yeah, if I didn’t have to do computer support at work and only dealt with the backend I would absolutely try it!

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        That is not enough I am afraid, I work both as an admin and as general user support, so I need to be in the user side with current skills.

        • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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          1 month ago

          I regularly fix Windows bullshit of my team members without actively using it myself. Windows doesn’t really change that much, I just make sure to check it out for a few days when some huge changes arrive, other than that I don’t care.

          • stoy@lemmy.zip
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            1 month ago

            I am glad that works for you, sad to say, it doesn’t for me (:

  • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    Sorry Microsoft, I actually had a served all rights already. Nobody else has rights. That’s just how it is and I work around all limitations.

  • mindbleach
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    1 month ago

    Books also claimed they were “licensed, not sold.”

    If you can pay cash for an object off the shelf… that’s a sale. There weren’t any negotiations. There’s no recurring payment, for a service. You purchased and own that software. Tell anyone sneering otherwise that they can go fuck themselves.

  • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    It’s called windows because they are always looking in at what you’re doing. It’s “open” so they are now public about looking inside your windows.

    They were stealing my data from my desktop as it was syncing to their cloud. Seeing those sync icons when I had one drive disabled made me switch to linux about the time they were taking about the AI tech screen shots. F that, I’m out.

    Been on Linux for a while now and it’s been great.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

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