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My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore
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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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It’s so weird to me that Lemmy is full of anti-Windows, anti-Google posts but the comments are always “I’m thinking about switching.”
How about… just do it?
I don’t know what I’m trying to say but being 20 years into “Windows-free” a few years of “Google-free” it’s tiring. I know everyone isn’t me but it’s tough watching this from the other side.
You know it's not the same person posting every time
Some people have moved passed thinking about it. Others have just started. Its a growing sentiment and more people are starting to feel it.
It's not easy committing to the change when you have no knowledge of the platform. The status quo is always easier until it no longer is.
Having seen how different Linux is from what it was 20 years ago, it's way more approachable than it used to be. Most people could adjust pretty quickly, but with so much of the technical bits hidden from sight, the average PC user these days isn't as tech savvy as they were many years ago, and making the switch can be intimidating.
Good point — I’m pretty far down the rabbit hole. I haven’t really wanted to mess with a non-UNIX/Linux based OS in ages.
Side note: what OS would that be besides DOS or Windows? Old-school Mac OS comes to mind (System 7) but I like playing with modern platforms more than older ones.
BeOS/Haiku?
Linux won't work for my needs. I would switch if it did.
What are your needs, if I may ask?
Specific flight simulator hardware and specific audio/video hardware and software
I built my entire flight sim setup around Linux, X-Plane 12 has a native Linux version and all my hardware works flawlessly. MSFS2020 also works through Wine/Proton. But you can always create a Windows VM with GPU and SSD passthrough, (you can also pass through other PCIe and USB devices) and use that for your Windows-specific tasks. I use that for online games that require Windows-exclusive anti cheat solutions.
If you have windows in a VM do you need a license key
Nah, just use massgrave.dev
I can relate to the anxiety that comes with the thought of switching and finding out you're missing something essential.
It wasn't a big deal for me since I've used FOSS alternatives for almost everything even on Windows and was hardly gaming anymore when I made the switch (but somewhat ironically I started again on Linux). But that's hardly the position most unhappy Windows users are in.
That’s a good point too.
I’m primarily a web developer so essentially my entire toolkit is already FOSS and it doesn’t make sense to even run half of it on Windows. Windows is usually the odd one out with weird hacks to make it play nice.
I use macOS a lot too and because it’s UNIX my Linux toolset is available and ported to the OS with (what I understand to be) minimal changes.
And I’ve never needed to deploy to some Windows Server either (the thought frightens me).
Every day, a large number of people start using Linux for the first time. But the internet has a lot of people on it - so you can expect to see "I'm thinking about switching" posts for many years to come. Posts like that won't slow down until Windows is in minority. (And that is unlikely to happen any time in the foreseeable future.)
Only computer I have Windows on is my laptop and that's only because it's fairly new and laptops are notorious for proprietary hardware that's hard to get decent drivers for. My desktop has had Linux for a couple of years and everything else runs Linux.
If you've got an external USB drive bigger than the laptop's, and are willing to take the time, you could back it up by making a disk image with Clonezilla so you're sure you have a backout option if you run into too much trouble getting Linux working
I tried a live USB image of Ubuntu and couldn't get the touchscreen to work. I didn't try out everything, but that was the first major issue.
I gave Linux a try 2 or 3 times back when I was in school. It was a horrible user experience and games wouldn't work back then.
Now that games on Linux are a thing, I would love to give it a try once more. But now I have a full-time office job and a family. When I'm off work, I just want to fire up the PC and have everything work, which it does with windows. I also have the Pro version of Windows 11 and don't experience all of the ad horror that everyone here is talking about.
If I gain back the free time and mental capacity, I'll give it a try.
It's not like it's difficult to switch these days. Try something like Bazzite or Nobara and gaming should work out of the box.
Bookmarking this comment, never heard of those distros!
They are gaming and content creation specific distros designed to work out of the box for those use cases. Lots of patches and stuff to improve performance and compatibility for gaming. Some hardware compatibility stuff is added too, such as bazzite having different images for laptops.
Getting rid of Google would require switching phone for me as there isn't a google free ROM for the Redmi K50 Pro.
GrapheneOS for the Google Pixel. I'm using a Google Pixel 4 which was like $120 and super easy to flash. I'm from the US, so I understand if things might be different where you are.
That would be a hilariously bad downgrade. I could probably afford to replace mine with a Google Pixel 6, but that would still be a significant downgrade (90Hz screen). After having two phones at 120Hz, I won't go lower.
They have the Google Pixel 8 which has a 120Hz refresh rate, if you can afford it.
I am sure it's great, but I don't want to spend that much on a phone. Honestly I think I will just keep my current phone for a couple more years, then buy something.
Also I don't really want to lose access to my banking apps.
The Pixel 9 will come out in October, and the Pixel 8 will get much cheaper. Also there will be many used Pixel 8's that will get sold for relatively cheap. These things aren't like iPhones, they lose their value on the used market very quickly.
I've never owned an iPhone, so that comparison isn't needed.
Just mentioned iPhones, because they tend to keep their value on the used market for a pretty long time. This is definitely not the case for most Android phones, including Pixels.
Calyx uses ug and I haven't had banking issues. You can check plexus for your bank.
25% reduction in refresh rate to only 4x the historical standard that most humans alive grew up with balanced against any semblance of privacy seems like an easy win...
Give it a couple weeks and maybe by then I'll hopefully have upgraded from win10 on my desktop to either Spiral or Netrunner. Only thing holding me back from upgrading on my desktop right now is how much stuff I have to save to my new external drive and how it feels like a Herculean task.