Windows 12 May Require a Subscription
(www.pcmag.com)
from billiam0202@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 2023 13:24
https://lemmy.world/post/6392283
from billiam0202@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 06 Oct 2023 13:24
https://lemmy.world/post/6392283
[A]n INI configuration file in the Windows Canary channel, discovered by German website Deskmodder, includes references to a “Subscription Edition,” “Subscription Type,” and a “subscription status.”
threaded - newest
Maybe this will finally convince the world to move to Linux Mint
You’ll be surprised/dismayed how resistant people are to learning something new.
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LMAO
People like you are the reason I haven’t tried Linux.
It’s extremely obnoxious to suggest that people don’t use Linux because they don’t want to learn something new. They don’t use it because there’s absolutely no need for them to do so when Windows is a fantastic OS for their needs
Even when you’re a bit more savvy it’s easy to configure Windows to your liking without all the bloat and spying
I’m perfectly happy programming a Pi for little projects so I know Linux wouldn’t be a problem for me, but I simply have no need for the hassle
Linux users are like militant vegans; they do more to put people off Linux than promote it
Bootlicker spotted.
This has not been true since at least win10
Try stopping start or search services from pinging daddy sataya microshit and see how that shit works for you
Also, they revert privacy settings after updates.
👆
You sound like a 12 year old
Least insane windows fanboy
Well, then don’t. But don’t be surprised when things keep getting worse.
For me new Windows releases grow more annoying, slow and counter-intuitive. Switching PCs at work made it mandatory that I went through all ‘bad’ Windows, like Vista and 8, now on w10. Sure, XP-7-w10 weren’t\aren’t that bad, but they all feel worse than the previous one. Nevertheless, I could’ve sticked to one of them, get used to, no problem. But they all get outdated, can’t use X RAM, don’t have DirectX N, aren’t supported with security updates and are blocked from installing latest software.
Configuring it was very limited too. In W10 I can’t call TotalCMD or other file manager instead of win expoler from other apps. It eats RAM like candies for no reason. Touchscreen interfaces with empty spaces and no right click are everywhere. Undoing telemetry and defender requires know-how or executing scripts, otherwise it’s bloated. Start up times aren’t the best too.
Linux is a headache and it’s still far from a thing regular PC users would trust without a doubt to handle their usual tasks. The same state Windows slowly comes to, imho. But without being free and insanely customizable. The only things that I need to emulate are superproprietary DRMed products with no alternatives. They are a minority. Most users don’t need them, so they have one less argument against switching.
That’s my personal account tho. I’m a bit asurprised you like windows as a home system, so I’d want to hear about your positive experience with it if you have some outstanding moments with it.
A Linux user watching someone use (and bitch) about Windows is like watching someone right click to copy & paste.
If you know of a vast improvement, why would you keep the benefits of better things to yourself?
Think about how often Windows users bitch about Windows. Think about how many zillions of things they bitch about and how many new things they find to bitch about all the time. Think about how many Windows users say things like, “I love this OS!” or, “This OS is so cool! Look what I can do!”
Now think about how many Linux users you see bitching about Linux. Think about how many are super excited about it and how many instantly become, “fanatics” practically overnight.
There’s a reason
When was the last time you used Linux on the desktop? It has come a long way and is getting better every month
The issue has never been whether Windows is a good OS or not. Almost anything you can do with Linux you can also do with Windows[1]. The issue has always been the risk that Microsoft could pull the rug from under your feet and the fact that there’s nothing you can do about it as long as you’re on their platform. You can see all the bullshit that people have had to deal with in the past 10 years as the result of people being comfortable with taking that risk - shitty upgrades, telemetry, ads, and now this. And nobody even knows what other kinds of bullshit they’ll try to pull in the future.
None of this to say that you have to choose one platform or another. Everything is a calculated risk. Use Windows if that’s what you want, but by this point, it’s clear that you will have to continue with putting up with more and more of this abusive behavior from Microsoft if that’s the choice that you’re making.
[1]: This is somewhat starting to change though. These days, for a lot of programming- and data science-related tasks, Linux is starting to pull further and further ahead and Windows is becoming more and more unusable.
People don’t use Windows because it’s a “fantastic” OS for their needs. It very evidently is not “fantastic” (or anywhere close) for anyone’s needs but Microsoft’s. People use Windows because it comes bundled with their PCs due to Microsoft’s monopolistic malpractices, and because they can’t get bothered to figure out how to get rid of that bloatware / malware (or, they would get rid of it if possible, but are held hostage by the software — or malware, e.g., Adobe — they need to work only working on Windows, again due to said monopolistic malpractices).
I'm technical and I still prefer Windows at home. Linux, as great as it can be for development, is not great for everyone. It doesn't "just work." My favourite example of Linux not "just" working is when Linus tried to install Steam on Pop_OS. He accidentally nuked the entire desktop. I could have easily done the same if I wasn't paying careful attention. One should never, ever be able to destroy their OS by installing Steam. That's part of the issue. When things go wrong, all of the instructions which present on Google are people providing terminal commands. Unless one is very comfortable with using the terminal, they're going to be copying and pasting these commands in and hoping for the best. This is what went wrong for Linus. This is far worse than following GUI based troubleshooting techniques which guide the user through defined and safe resolutions.
This over-reliance on the terminal is pervasive, and I find myself having to use it for everything from basic OS configuration to software installation to software configuration to drivers to hardware installation and troubleshooting. Every year I boot up a new flavour just to see if things have improved, and they haven't. Ultimately Linux is built by developers, for developers. That's great, and it does many things really well. I've just come to accept that it doesn't do consumer stuff very well. It lacks the UX polish present in Windows and MacOS, and most consumers like that. It fails especially hard when it comes to gaming. I literally cannot install any of my Fanatec wheel/peddle/shifter peripherals in any distro. Only 18% of games on ProtonDB are Tier 1. Even of those, it doesn't guarantee a trouble-free experience. Half the top streamed Twitch games just don't run on Linux at all, or require absurd workarounds and suffer from terrible performance.
I'll keep using Linux for my home server, but it's along way from replacing my PC or laptop OS.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
when Linus tried to install Steam on Pop_OS.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Linus fucked up his os by entering the command that prompted him “are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do? if you don’t know, then it isnt.” and presed yes. windows does the same when doing a factory restore, if you click “yes i’m sure” then that’s on you. yes, ideally steam worked and he wouldn’t have had to try to fix it, but that kind of thing happens all the time on all software, linux just gives you the option of fixing it yourself instead of going “welp i’m not using that”.
this fix-it yourself mode of functionning is really what sets it apart from other OSes, for examp,e if you have a windows problem good luck finding anything beyond “have you tried dism /online?”, which by the way is also a console command and is like the very first step in all windows troubleshooting.
as for gaming, I daily drive debian and i’m not really encountering any setbacks beyond the obvious “this game developpers is incapable of making a linux anti-cheat so it won’t run on there at all” problem, or its cousin “this game developper is incapable of going into their EAC dashboard and click ‘enable linux support’” (yes, it is that easy, i have done it personally).
Also worth mentionning that Linus is accused by ex-employees of misconduct, and is generally an asshat when it comes to technology despite being a technology reviewer.
The thing with your first statement is there’s so many times dealing with software when you are meant to just click ‘yes I’m sure’ that I’ve become desensitised to those warnings.
And see, this is the kind of bullshit response that drives home why, even using it for a ton of things myself, I absolutely hate having to use Linux. Any time you ever encounter a problem, you always get the absolute shittiest responses imaginable from people. It’s always your fault for being such a filthy uneducated peasant, and never the OS’s for being incredibly unintuitive and esoteric at times.
“How do I do ‘thing’?” invariably receives a response of “What kind of fucking idiot are you for wanting to do ‘thing’? No one should ever do ‘thing’. Thread closed”
After using Windows for nearly 25 years at this point and doing thousands of installs, do you know how many times I’ve encountered some basic thing that’s utterly broken, and hasn’t been fixed by one of the basic commands like dism or some other relatively painless fix? I can probably count it on a single hand. Do you know how many times I’ve used even very “friendly” distros of Linux and spent at least tens of hours having to fix something that completely shit the bed after doing something basic like Linus did? Damn near every single time.
Here’s the thing: I don’t mind dealing with those issues (aside from any time I have to ask questions, see the aforementioned community behavior), because I like fixing things and appreciate the incredible power and flexibility Linux offers, hence why I use it for my dev machine, homelab setup, etc. But 99.9% of the population is never going to put up with that shit, and the insanely toxic community doesn’t help things either.
Also, nice ad hominem there. I had no idea that being a shitty person made it okay for the OS to nuke the desktop environment when trying to install Steam. I guess if it only happens to asshats, then it’s totally okay then.
From his perspective, he was sure he wanted to install Steam. I don’t understand why you find that confusing. It’s only people with experience who understand that that message might indicate a system incompatibility, and it might nuke the OS. IMHO, no consumer OS should ever run the risk of being broken by installing Steam. There is no excuse for that.
No, this kind of thing doesn’t happen all the time on Windows. There’s no way to nuke Windows by installing Steam.
There was nothing accidental about Linus. He did it on purpose, the system very clearly told him not to.
And Proton works much better than you imply. I don’t know about their new “tiered” rating, but 30% games get Platinum rating (top 1000 most popular titles by player count). Besides that 45% have Gold, and nowadays more often than not that means the game simply just works.
Trying to say “oh, but it doesn’t always work perfect!” is just nonsense.
How many games work perfectly without any issues on Windows?
And please don’t say anything about “UI polish” on Windows when it can’t even keep all its UI consistent - it’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
And Twitch… almost every game in top #10 works perfectly without any troubles, so what’s your point exactly?
I had the exact same thing happen to me once, except I didn’t get an ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE warning. It just listed a bunch of packages like it always did, except this time it was listing packages it was about to remove, not packages that could be upgraded like it usually does. That was 8 years ago, so maybe they added the warning some time after that? But by that point I’d already dealt with enough issues that I just lost all motivation to use Linux as a desktop anymore. It’s just always something.
Happend to me without any warning.
I wanted to uninstall icons from the GUI and it did remove all desktop environment.
No, the system asked him if he was sure he wanted to install Steam. He was.
You think telling players that 30% of their games are playable without issue is a benefit. What I read is that 70% of my games are not guaranteed to run.
I’m not sure how you can compare different menu styles with allowing the entire OS to self destruct. That’s quite the disingenuous comparison.
Of the top 10 video games playes on Twitch right now, these games either don’t run at all, or Proton reports game-breaking issues:
M
No, the steam install failed, and he went looking for solutions and one of the potential solutions he found literally says “proceeding might break your system, continue?” And he said yes. The thing that broke his system had nothing to do with steam apart from being recommended by someone somewhere to fix the issue he was having.
Also you can very much play GTA V on Linux.
You know when’s the last time I nuked my Windows install from trying out suggestions on how to fix a failing steam install? Never.
If you think this should be a normal thing to happen, you can just continue to dream of seeing Linux desktop ever reaching mainstream status.
And I never did it on Linux either. Just because Linus is a dumbass who can’t read doesn’t mean you should disregard an entire os.
It’s pretty clear you’re doing your best to misrepresent the reality, so arguing any further is useless…
Check you facts, see what Linus really did, as a self-proclaimed technical person you should be able to understand very clear warnings he ignored after running random commands he didn’t understand.
Maybe read again. 75% of the most popular games on Steam have at least Gold rating, which means they have minor glitches or need trivial workarounds.
You’ve brought up the point about UI polish.
You’re the one trying to compare UI polish to ignoring simple warnings.
Breaking your system on purpose does not quality as self-destruct.
I only use my over speed PC for one thing. Gaming. I’ve looked into going to Linux and shuddered at the immense trouble trying to make it work for me. I’m with you in that I have the knowledge, having used it for a couple decades, but I just don’t care to put myself through mountains of bullshit for an idea.
I also do programming and am fairly used to the terminal, and I still have a headache when thinking of going back to linux, because even when I want to do something as simple as watching netflix on firefox I had to go through a maze of troubleshooting via the terminal to get the correct packages installed. I can’t imagine what someone who isn’t tech savvy who tries to switch to linux would do.
The user experience on linux and its distributions just aren’t there for the everyday user, and until they are, windows will always be the preferable choice because it actually works. You don’t have to end up having a dispute with it on some arbitrary software download because it doesn’t quite like it, and have to wrangle through many software alternatives that aren’t always available or even anywhere near feature ready because they aren’t available on the platform.
This is actually funny because I installed steam on pop os without issues. But that said, sometimes it freeze my whole pc and I have to hard reboot it (idk why)
edit: I don’t understand the down votes, it was supposed to be (as stated) funny and not insulting
Precisely
I’ve been watching Reddit and Twitter, nothing can surprise me anymore.
That’s not the problem… The problem is Linux isn’t “normal”. Their work laptop comes with Windows or osx. Their home computer comes with the same.
Now go tell the average person to install Linux… To them, you might as well be telling them to open up their computer and snip a jumper to make their computer faster. To them, you’re telling them to take their working computer and do something they don’t really understand and is beyond their ability to undo.
It’s an aftermarket modification to them. If you want to make Linux approachable, it’s really damn simple. Hand them a computer running Linux, with a pretty desktop manager, and a GUI for everything you expect them to do with it. Better yet, add an app store so they can try out software and run updates without feeling intimidated
My point is, if manufacturers start selling Linux machines again, a lot of people will get on board
People aren’t opposed to learning, they’re just scared of breaking it, and they need to at least be able to use a web browser without going up a learning curve
Most of my tech literate (yes, literate, not illiterate) friends were actually supportive of this.
So imagine what tech illiterates will be like.
Most people will just accept it as a cost of computing, I fear.
Humans are creatures of habit. The average user won’t switch until the pain of using what they know outweighs the pain of learning something new + the fear of something new.
It’d certainly convince me. I run windows 11 since my laptop came with it but if I had to pay for my OS I’d run to Linux. The existence of Proton makes it much easier to switch now as well.
Arch
btw?
I could probably move to Linux now but I have a couple windows applications that connect to audio hardware for configuration. I wonder if such applications would work with Wine…
I'm in the same boat and have been waffling about it for some time. At least we kind of have a target for when our research needs to be done.
I have mint dual booted on my laptop with Win 11. I find myself using Win11 more.
Idk why, linux mint doesn’t feel finished to me:
It does work mostly ok though and is quick, but it doesn’t feel polished. Ubuntu was great but fuck snap packages.
If you’re using synaptics as the touchpad manager, there is a config element to control the speed of the scroll
For personal use maybe. Im 100% my job (and possibly most workplaces) will just eat the subscription cost to stick with what they know.
Switching to a Linux can be overwhelming. A few distros have made great strides to make most of the OS work right after installing it. But even if there’s only 1% issues due to hardware, drivers, gaming, etc., troubleshooting those issues would often require using terminal and are not accessible to everyone. There’s no customer support to reach out to, and online forums can be difficult to navigate for someone not familiar with coding.
It 'can' be overwhelming, yes. I've never found, however, so MANY online guides that literally tell you step by step what to enter in the terminal window to succeed. There's always a learning curve, it's just about whether or not you want to pay Windows every month to avoid figuring this out. This is why I mentioned Mint specifically, btw. It's the most user friendly.
Would fit in with the fact that Microsoft has just patched the remote activation exploit that was used for years.
They patched KMS‽
They patched HWID, but looks like a new version dropped shortly afterwards
I think they’re referring to the use of a Windows 7 key to get a Windows 10/11 upgrade?
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There might be a subscription option or a subscription tier with a windows suite like office and stuff included in it, but for normal windows OS, they’re decades away from going to a subscription only model, at best.
I imagine they’ll split it into an enterprise version and then multiple consumer tiers, with a “free/lite” version with ads and progressively more function or less ads. Folks that dont use a computer for more than web browsing will jump on that
might as well be that they change their licensing model for businesses to some sort of Subscription. The resale of volume keys has been a pain in their butt for a long time.
That honestly makes sense B2B, wouldn’t hate that as a policy but I do dislike it on the consumer front. But I’ll never use windows personally again so I really only care for how it affects the rest of the computing world
Why? They could roll out W12 with subscription-only plans. Besides the contracts they currently have that specify a specific amount of security updates for X years, they can let W11 and previous versions die. No more updates besides what they need to protect themselves.
It's not like governments and businesses will balk. They already pay a premium for Windows licenses and they'd probably get deals, anyways. Average home users might not upgrade, but all new PCs sold will have W12 and require a subscription if you want to be able to use most of the features.
This is what happens by not breaking up MS more or imposing penalties for anti-competitive behavior.
Judging by this decade I don't estimate in decades anymore.
Too true brother. I went from decades to years to months to weeks to, ah fuck… tomorrow?
I could see them releasing hardware that’s tied to a subscription that Windows would track, perhaps, or offering subscription as a payment model for Windows.
You’re right, though I can’t see a straight migration to subscription-only happening. They haven’t even gotten Office to subscription-only yet, despite their wish to.
Getting closer every day. Having a M365 subscription for Office is now the normal way that SMB and larger businesses work with it and at home Microsoft’s “Family Plan” that includes Office has been doing nothing but growing since they introduced it. Last I checked they were over 50 Million subscribers.
Windows as an OS will eventually be going subscription. You’ll pay the licensing to unlock features like the Windows “S” mode model or you’ll pay the licensing in order to access a Windows 365 Cloud PC that’s part of your family plan.
Most home users will have hardware similar to a Chromebook. “PC” gaming will be done via streaming or you’ll just buy an Xbox.
Welcome to the future.
For the average consumer, this would help Apple and Google out more than anything. People want what they know.
On the more savvy user side and for gamers, this move would, potentially, help Linux adoption rates.
Yup, Chromebooks are already cheap and pretty intuitive, I think this will bump their sales a lot. I’ve ditched windows long ago except for my gaming PC and the PCs at my office (I don’t have a say in those though, I just much prefer Linux
Won’t matter to Microsoft at all. You’ll use your Chromebook to connect your Windows 365 Cloud PC . They’ll add it to the Microsoft Family Plan, same one that has MS Office in it, for free when its introduced and then slowly raise the price as people get embedded into it.
Gaming? You’ll buy the WinBook Ultra that can handle streaming gaming or buy an Xbox.
Welcome to the future, it’ll be here in 10 years or less.
Chromebooks generally encourage you to use Google’s family of office apps. So I don’t know about that.
It’ll be a legal battle where MS will claim Google’s closed ecosystem as a monopoly and force them to carry the “MS Cloud PC App” in the Play Store. Or you’ll just go buy a “WinBook” made by HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc…
And tablets, which most people seem to be using these days.
Exactly, which is why this will probably work, do you really think the average consumer that’s used to Windows is going to switch to Mac when they can just pay 5$/month instead? Lol
As long as the price isn’t ridiculous like 50$/month or some shit, the average consumer is just going to pay it lolol
Yeah the only people whose minds this will change are agnostic techies
To start, I don’t think it’ll be a “subscribe or else” type deal. My assumption would be something like a forced S mode unless you subscribe.
Second, people won’t jump right away. To start, word will get around and they’ll simply not update. Then, when it comes time to buy a new computer, the average user will be possibly swayed to look at entry level MB Airs (They often go on sale for like $750) or Chromebooks.
The people who will get really pissed will be power users and gamers who will be forced to shell out money to get back features they had in previous versions of the OS.
Honestly, I don’t even think it’ll be S mode. Just Home really and for pro users they’ll end up with the subscription model
It would help all of their competitors. A non zero number of people would move from windows to each of the others.
Whether or not the number moving away from windows and on to each of the others is significant or not is a different matter.
The biggest thing helping Linux right now is Valve’s work improving the gaming experience, IMO.
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Even the rumor of this makes Valve’s focus on Linux seem that much smarter.
I’ve never used Linux but if Microsoft goes subscription I’m out and I’ll be learning Linux.
NGL PopOs is easy and the works with steam/most things easily.
I really hope Windows doesn’t go subscription based because of the proliferation of ads.
I’ve been meaning to install Linux on my primary gaming PC but haven’t yet due to laziness. This would 100% get me to pull the trigger if/when I ever had to upgrade/reinstall.
valve would be really happy if Microsoft do windows subscription, lmao
Yeah, and steamdeck might gain more customers too
I’d switch at that point. I’ve only not switched because the pain isn’t worth the reward right now. I’d have to learn a bunch of new apps and hasn’t been worth it.
Start charging a subscription fee. I’ll learn to use whatever tools a priority.
Trust me, it’s already worth it. Literally every other operating system in existence is better than windows. I’d use Temple OS before going back.
And a lot of linux programs take inspiration from Microsoft’s design because they’re the norm. When you think of a word processor you think of Word, same goes for all of Office 365 actually.
I think of Word 2007. All downhill after that…
Edit: Or was it 2011? I can’t even remember anymore…
They implemented the ribbon menu in ~2007 office iirc, somewhen around Vista. 2003 is the old WinXP styled one with all these little menus and buttons, fugly but usable. Is that the one you’ve meant?
No I think it was 2011. Whatever the stable most streamlined release was before Office 365 rolled out.
Aha, okay. So we have different tastes in software. Are we supposed to fight each other now?
Yes. Grab your mswords! 🤓
I’m having to use windows+office for work after a few years of being linux only, and god do I hate modern office’s interface.
The ribbon, on its own, isn’t super offensive to me - its just a chonky toolbar. But why on earth did they have to get rid of the classic menus?! If I don’t know where a feature is, it’s so much easier to skim through text menus than flipping from ribbon to ribbon, hovering over each button for tooltips, and popping out secondary toolbars of icons to find what I want. It’s maddening for someone who only needs to use office intermittently.
If i remember correctly, 2010 introduced the ribbon and 2013 was the last edition before 365 took over
That’s the one!
I think of Google Docs now because the inconvenience of not being able to have word on my own system without a price caused me to use the free alternative.
@solivine Same, and it just works better. Whenever I need a word processor or spreadsheet at home I don't need that much, and I need to be able to access it on all my devices, not just my home computer. So having the free alternative work faster, better, everywhere, then I don't even see Office as relevant anymore.
@billiam0202 @q47tx @wintermute_oregon @WeirdGoesPro @H2207
Only if you’re a cretin! The only thing one should envision when thinking of a word processor is WordPerfect 1.21a for the Apple IIgs!
Envisioning Calligra Words is also acceptable.
Does that include the Miley Cirus operating system?
Yes.
I was thinking, “Wait…what…?” But there it is:
hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/Site/Home.html
Caveat: if the software you need is supported. Unfortunately that’s the major reason I haven’t switched
Now that’s just some bullshit and you know it
Haven’t used windows by choice in over a decade, and no regrets.
Remove the bloatware with a free program like ShutUp10++, and Windows is a fine OS. Linux may very well be better still, but better enough to go through the effort of switching over, reinstalling everything, relearning everything, finding alternatives to programs, etc.? I doubt it. Not for me at least.
Then save yourself and use a Mac! /s
I think the general consumer mostly uses the web browser tbh.
Start trying some of the open source apps on Windows. For example, try using LibreOffice for a bit and see how it compares to Microsoft Office. You may be surprised to find that the difference isn’t as big as you thought.
Like garbage. That’s why I haven’t invested in the time. I write large documents and do lot of research for publishing. As such learning a new tool is a pain in the ass
It does the same job but when you’re using it constantly the small QOL things really matter.
Exactly. It’s taking the time to learn everything to produce a document quickly for publishing.
Even going from pc to Mac word requires an uplift.
I figure when I make the switch, it’ll cost me about 100k in lost productivity. Nothing has driven me to take that loss yet but a subscription might.
Favorite OS be damned when you have a fiscal consequence. Switching to Linux full time will cost me money at the end of it and I can’t justify that until it costs me more to NOT switch to Linux.
LibreOffice works at least as well as Word on its own terms, the problem is how Microsoft deliberately breaks interoperability so you can’t reliably share the documents you create on Libre with people who are going to open them with Word.
Absolutely. Works great for printing or converting to pdf, though. I just export them to docx anyway and see what happens.
Don’t they both use the open format now? .odt? I haven’t needed to use an office suite for a while, but I would have thought that it would force compatibility.
Word does not use odt
Sorry, first chance I’ve had to check.
I’ve just opened a new file in Word and gone to Save As, and .odt is the default choice.
OpenDocument Text (*.odt)
Since most companies are moving their tools to web-based versions, the switch will be even easier.
Office already has extensive een versions. They’re not entirely there yet, but good enough if you don’t need advanced functionality.
I wish. Try editing a document with tables.
LibreOffice is fine if all you are doing is writing a Dear Princess Celestia letter, but when you actually start doing advanced things, the jankiness of LibreOffice starts to become wasted effort. If I have to spend more time fighting the program than actually doing work, it’s worth the money for Office. Especially at $70/year for M365, which is roughly 1-3 hours of work depending on what job and such.
Unfortunately the difference is huge. It’s not just the cost of learning a new tool, it’s that 10% of really important features are not there. For me for example it was the ability to apply a theme to an existing presentation in Impress. Well in the corporate world, it’s mandatory.
Using Linux daily since 99, as my only personal OS since 2013, and still struggling with the office alternatives.
I started using a lot of the same open-source tools that are on Linux as replacements in Windows to ease the transition. As someone else mentioned, most of the top projects strive to match the workflows of traditional Windows options. Some lemmy instances have huge posts of top tier open source alternatives to most things you need and somethings you don’t.
My biggest argument for Linux is: Windows isn’t going to get better, but Linux will.
I’ve been hearing a variant of this since I joined Slashdot in 1999. “Microsoft really messed up this time, mainstream Linux adoption is right around the corner!”
Right!
If I had gotten 10 cent each time I heard (or said) this I would be close to 10 € by now :D
I switched to Linux back in 2006 but not everyone has the knowledge, the capacity or the motivation to do so.
I have the capacity and the knowledge but not the motivation.
2025 is the year of the linux desktop!
It legit could be. When Win10 support ends you have three options:
None of those three options are easy, and Linux is the only option that’s free and guaranteed to work. Although to be fair most computers made after 2018 have the TPM chip, and so I don’t know how many folks will actually be running 7+ year old hardware at that point. It’s probably more likely to cause a jump in PC sales more than Linux adoption.
Personally, mine has TPM but Windows is complaining that it didn’t give itself enough space in the bootloader to upgrade itself to 11 and this is somehow my fault. I’m debating whether I’ll bother to try troubleshooting it when 10 goes EOL or just move my gaming PC to linux. I do like having at least one Windows machine around for compatibility but it’s getting too annoying to get caught up.
I’ve been using linux on my laptops and tablets for years so it wouldn’t be a huge hurdle for me to switch.
Someday Linux desktop percentage will jump up, but not how the optimists have thought. It's going to be more because the younger generations don't think they need desktop operating systems, leaving them exclusively to to younger gen-X, older gen-Y, various hobbyists, and those who need a desktop workflow at work and like it enough to bring it home. The desktop will settle into its niche, like live theater, fountain pens, and a thousand other mass culture relics, and Linux will still be there chugging along while Windows and OS X (as we know them) slowly molder due to reduced profits in the desktop space.
I have a kid, and yes, there's a laptop she uses, but to her it's exclusively for games and for dicking around in Roblox Studio or TinkerCAD. I've even seen her close a game, settle into her chair at the very same desk, and pull up Youtube on an iOS device. And this is from a kid who is more comfortable with a PC than most of her peers.
We’re already there. The Millennials, and every Generation after them, by and large don’t give two shits about the Operating System, they’re used to working in an App Driven ecosystem…just like your kid.
Yeah, except the Steam Deck has been giving a huge reason to provide compatibility with Linux, and Valve/WINE have been pushing hard as hell to help facilitate it.
Unity pushed me to go with Godot. Unity already had a Linux editor, but this has pushed me to also move from Photoshop to Krita, since we’re in that kind of mood.
I tried several games last night that were rated gold or platinum rather than native on ProtonDB. While some people provided launch options, they all worked flawlessly out of the box. I’m even the first person to file a compatibility report for Furry Cyberfucker, let’s fucken go.
Piper let me configure my mouse and keyboard without the need for GHub. My HOTAS works flawlessly without the Saitek software, since I’m used to configuring buttons in-game.
I tried this last year, and went back to Windows with the same “it’s not quite there” response as everyone there. But I’ve been keeping an eye on this since I had to use ndiswrapper to get Ubuntu to play nice with my wlan adapter, and this month, I installed PopOS, and have been getting along pretty well. I haven’t encountered a single issue or compatibility that outright breaks this move for me, and I’m generally stubborn as shit to learn new things.
It may not be the “year of the Linux desktop” for everyone, but it is for me. If you’re expecting some monolithic mass adoption, keep dreaming, but this progress doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
I have two main concerns with switching. I may eventually switch when these get better.
I was just reading that ACT doesn’t work will with overlays on Linux. Here’s hoping though! I can’t for the day when I have a solid free/open source Linux desktop running all my games. One where I’m not afraid to update in fear of breaking. One where I don’t need to use docker to host Overseerr and nginx. One where I have the control like I (mostly) do on my work laptop.
One day….
I can’t speak for your FF stuff, that’s outside of my wheelhouse. However, Piper has taken care of my configuration for my G502 mouse and G815 keeb. Even the lighting options work. Will need to re-record your macros, probably.
aaand he replies with a gaming rant. Most users arent children nobody gives a fuck about steam and le wholesome gaben chungus. We want excel and word. Witcher 3 is not a selling point. You live in a teenager reddit bubble.
Hey, that’s cool, man. You do you.
Or folks like myself that refuse to get a TPM just to run a worse OS. I’m fine with Windows 10.
Only if they manage to contain pirates.
if microsoft doing stupid shit with windows affected linux adoption rate, we'd all have switched by now.
I’ve played around with Linux before, but never really wanted to use it. I’ve always just been happy with windows. Without a doubt though, if they started a subscription for it. I would switch to Linux.
I’m the tech savvy guy in the family. I’ve always said that I keep windows around for gaming and some level of music production. However, if this happens with Windows 12, I’ll move 100% to Linux and deal with the ramifications. Most of my game collection is on Steam which I know has some Linux support now for certain titles.
im really sad to say this because linux bros are cancerous but if they did a windows subscription i would probably have to swap linux…
BWahahahahaaaaaa! Ahhhh shoot that’s funny.
That’s the most Microsoft thing ever.
I will happily just not use it. My desktop usage is already 99% Linux, and it has been for considerable amount of time too. The only thing holding me back is my Destiny 2 guild. The moment that is allowed through Proton, I will be removing the partition completely
I’m so confused why Bungie doesn’t just flip the Linux switch on… they don’t have to do anything else. Cheating can’t be the problem, since most cheats are developed for Windows anyways… as for support, the Linux community is very self sufficient, look at all the games running on through proton out of the box
They’re already struggling with cheaters as is, because battleye has never properly prevented things properly. Supporting another system that can potentially flood their backend with more stuff they can’t handle properly isn’t in their interests.
They claim to have grasped interest in what’s happening but some 200k views and half as many active responses later, nothing had happened
The idea that windows would require a subscription for an OS pisses me off more than I thought.
Good way for them to guarantee a exodus of people switching their OS.
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I will be very curious to see how the KMS works after all this
Kinda like the reddit exodus…
“Like all reddit protests, this will blow over too”
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If reddit decided to charge for access I’m sure everyone would leave
But why though? Like, the major complaint people have with Windows now is that it’s starting to advertise. They need to consistently provide updates and security patches, and the consumer has clearly shown it’s willing to pay subscriptions. This is kind of a blending of that. As long as they remove the advertising, and keep their “AI” out of my files I’d actually be happy paying for Windows again just like the “old” days except as a subscription. If it means that every windows install doesn’t come with Candy Crush and other bloatware I’d actually chalk this up as a win for consumers rather than the “free” windows right now that’s ad ridden and full of trackers.
Of course the realist in me also knows though that they’d fuck it up and make you pay while tracking everything, but I’d rather have an either or.
People hate advertising. That is why people switched over to cable. If you give companies money directly, they won’t have to do ads to make money… just like how cable has no ads! Or Netflix!
And that will be the end of me using Windows for anything aside from AutoCAD & ArcGIS.
And even then Proton will probably let them run just fine in Linux.
Is it possible to invest in Linux?
you can learn to code and submit a PR
I said invest, not donate! But this is also a good idea.
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I said invest, not donate! But this is also a good idea.
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Relax, it was a joke you raging fuckball
IF there is going the be a subscription based windows version, it’s most likely going the be the cloud version of Windows 11
I mean, Windows has been basically free(as in beer, of course) for some time now. I don’t think this will gravely affect personal users. I don’t think they’re stupid enough to actually expect personal users to understand SUBSCRIPTION OS. Maybe Enterprise edition gets the subscriptions model for the support?
Either way, Windows sucks. Surface laptops are real great though.
What support lmao
It’s not free, when you pay for a laptop or something that has a valid windows license on it, it’s actually included in the price of that laptop
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Microsoft can suck the juices out of my ass and thank me for it.
They gotta be crazy to do this to consumer Windows, since it's been like, free for a lot of people now.
Except for Onedrive, office365 and your data
So basically, finally Linux time? I actually like Windows but I ain’t putting up with that shit.
Guess it’s time for templeOS then?
Aha-a-haha-hahahaHa!!! Oh lord, that’s so dumb.
I don’t think this is anyway a serious option. They aren’t idiots.
My guess is they’ll follow the Office model: offer both as an option, but slowly improve only the subscription version until it’s not really feasible to stay on the pay-once model. Then kill it off. So maybe we have another 5-8 years before it’s fully enshittified?
I mean, they already advertise in the operating system, is it really that far of a stretch? Shareholders have to squeeze that rock as much as they can.
I think it’s a stretch, maybe not a big one but still. This could cause a shift to another os, at least in countries where having such a model is out of the question. And something like that can cause a snow ball effect of people switching. Right now Microsoft is still in a sweet position, problems already coming from apple. They wouldn’t.
I would imagine if it does happen, there will be another reddit style migration. The pissed off leave and everyone who doesn’t care or aren’t upset enough stays.
Subscriptions need to fuck off. I made a stand a few months ago. I will not subscribe to anything at all unless i’m getting INSANE value.
Cancelled streaming, random apps, patreon etc. I now have usenet and backblaze b2 for about £3 a month each. Saving me a fortune 🏴☠️🦜
Windows was kind of cool until Windows XP (Windows 2000 was also really good), because at the time you felt like you had software where you could see that lots of engineering went into it, and most importantly that you could feel you owned (EULA-aside obviously): you pay once for the license and it’s done, the OS is immediately usable. Recent Windows versions went through enshittification and Microsoft now harasses you from time to time to join their online services. Even on the first boot you immediately get harassed to create a Microsoft account and allow them to use your data, and you need to say no many times. Microsoft still makes you feel like you aren’t done paying.
It’s frankly hilarious how Microsoft is killing its own product. Windows went from something that used to be good and felt like a real software engineering product (Windows 2000 and XP) to something now that feels like a sketchy malware-infused phone app.
What will be the Windows equivalent to "drink verification can?"
I dare them to try
Yeah, I’ll just get Linux.
Do it now, it’s great :D
I actually have a machine set aside for it, but I just haven’t taken the plunge yet.
So there is already a thing with Windows 11 where you can, as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription, upgrade your Windows 11 machine from Pro to Enterprise.
The idea of having the base OS be a subscription is really just a stones throw away.
… but the Pro -> Ent activation process is really a PITA and often randomly PC’s will revert back to Pro after they’ve been ugpraded, so I guess we’ll have fun with that.
I’ll switch to fucking Apple before I pay a subscription for Windows.
"Windows 12 is now included with game pass ultimate "
I am on Game Pass Ultimate right now because I got a free trial month, which I am using to play Starfield. I have 18 days left on it, after which I intend to cancel the subscription and wipe Windows out of my life forever.
Spend your remaining 18 days playing Lies of P instead. Or TMNT Shredders Revenge. Or Arcade Paradise. Or Exoprimal if you wanna get wild.
If they launch a subscription that includes ad-free Win12, Office, OneDrive and GamePass for like $20 a month, a lot of people would actually be happy about the change. Especially if the base version of Win12 was free with ads.
Then once people are happy with how good the deal is, they start raising the price and removing things that were once included.
Its the classic slow boiling frog, slowly raise up the temps until its fully cooked
*200$
I’m just so sick of it. God I miss the early 2000s era of just about everything.
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Steamdeck ahoy, then. The only reason I have a Windows box at all is for gaming.
If your games are running on the Steam Deck, they should run on Linux just as well :)
True enough. Did a little looking into that earlier today. Proton is pretty sweet.
I donate to Gentoo every once in a while so I don't have to live this life.
I know there’s always someone evangelizing Linux when you mention Windows anything, but when Microsoft requires a subscription for Windows is the day I will actually move to Linux.
Why not now?
Because he is lost
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It’s ok to be lazy
Possibly
Not OP, but Linux isn’t much good for professional creative work. Would love to try it out, but without a functioning Adobe suite it’s not gonna happen.
In my opinion, Inkscape is a great competitor to Adobe Illustrator. The problem comes in with the fact that we don’t have a viable image manipulation software. Gimp just aint it.
Not the commenter but the answer is easy - right now, it’s not costing me anything to run Windows on my PC, and installing Linux takes research, time, and attention that I don’t feel like investing in my home PC at the moment. Probably the next PC I build (whenever my 10 year old Dell i7 is too damn slow, only now starting to get laggy) will run Linux. Previously I only installed linux on laptops I retired from active use, just for shits and giggles. Never once had a linux powerhouse, but now that linux gaming is a reality, I’m very interested in getting away from the advertising platform that Windows has become.
We’re running a 6 year old selfbuilt gaming rig on Garuda Linux … Runs like a charm. Husband is playing Warthunder which uses Anti-Cheat - so far everything runs out of the box.
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Linux gaming has made mind blowing progression thanks to Valve.
If you’re using Steam, most games run, zero fiddling needed.
I’m running Void Linux and have no issues running most games. Proton pretty much handles everything. And performance is often better than on Windows these days.
Other platforms are a bit more difficult. There are several apps that take care of the heavy lifting, but a bit more knowledge is required.
Pretty much thrown out every Windows installation and haven’t missed them at all.
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Check out protondb.com … click explore and check out how many games run perfectly on Linux now.
Valve / the steam deck is really pushing development.
This website is a godsend www.protondb.com
You can search any game in steam, and it will tell you exactly what to expect.
For most games, it’s as simple as checking one box in the steam settings for the first time.
Tbh you don’t even need to check unless it’s a competitive multiplayer game or something with anti cheat. I just buy games and assume they work.
Also areweanticheatyet.com for just anti-cheat compatibility of non-Steam games. Also has Steam games but you might as well check ProtonDB for those.
There has been a lot of progress recently due to the SteamDeck, but it’s still not as good as Windows gaming. There are a few outlier examples where games run better on linux, but those are few and far between. Give it another few years, and hopefully things will improve even more.
It’s been at the point for awhile now that I can just buy games on a whim without looking up any sort of compatibility, and I just assume they work. It’s worked every time so far. Right now I’m like 100 hours into Bauldurs Gate 3 lol. The other online game I play is Genshin Impact, which I just had to install with the exe through wine and then it just works.
Pretty much the only games that don’t work now are games with anticheat.
Steam really pushed windows games on Linux after the steam deck.
Pretty rare that you run into an issue at all these days, but one big bummer is that non-steam-workshop mods are a pain to install. Basically anything that uses a mod manager.
Short answer: no. You can expect to fiddle at least sometimes. Many games will run out of the box in proton, but there a million things that can throw a wrench in the gears. I’ve personally never had a 100% seamless experience for the duration of a game.
This has been true across a couple distros, although none that were specifically geared toward gaming. Maybe I’ll change my tune next time I hop distros.
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There’s Valve’s custom Distro they built for the steamdeck, unfortunately they haven’t fully released it yet, for the time being it’s only available via steamdeck recovery software.
I’ve heard that Mint, PopOS, and Manjaro are good for gaming, but I have not tried them myself. Mint is high on my list for my next distro.
I’m on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS now, which I chose in the hope that it would eliminate a lot of fiddling since it’s a common, stable target officially supported by most companies (like Nvidia). Unfortunately, it is simply too old at this point.
I assume that if you are running AMD instead of Nvidia, you will have an easier time. Nvidia’s drivers have been a pain point on every distro I’ve used.
Article: “We don’t know how, but Windows is taking away a pint of blood from the user every time the OS is booted up”.
Some guy at the edge of fainting: “I swear, I am this close to switching away”.
Windows would always give you a homeopathic dose of value to being kept from switching out.
I have friends that no longer use Facebook to chat, but still doomscroll their timeline anyway, because once per twenty ads there is one post that barely interest them. They won’t switch, they won’t even try other media, they just keep telling themselfs about those two times per year they got something useful out of it.
Hello Linux my old friend…
Ha! They can blow me all the way to my full Linux conversion at that point.
How to lose marketshare speedrun?
Ahoy Mateys 🏴☠️
Incredibly unlikely to happen to home versions. MAYBE “pro” could be subscription, but I assume this will be a paid support model instead.
Because Microsoft’s market share comes from everyone pirating copies and getting free copies from university. It is the same reason Apple has so many discounts for students and position themselves as “required for art”
Because when those people enter the corporate world? It is easier to support the OS that people sort of know how to use and like.
So yeah, there is almost zero chance of consumer grade windows requiring a subscription. And any outlet that would even entertain the thought mostly shows itself to not understand the market.
Microsoft overcharges for Windows anyway. You can go to StackSocial and regularly get Win 11 Pro for $30, when the retail price is $200.
In any case, everything else tech is moving to SaaS. It’s not hard to believe that MS would “give” out a free (read: ad-laden) version of Windows, with various features enabled depending on tier of subscription. They’ve already got the technology in place with Azure Active Domain and this seems like a logical extension of that.
Except that already have that with the Enterprise/SA tier and have for a long time. Sure, Pro is still required but it’s typically an OEM license included in the cost of the hardware.
They’ve also already got the embedded ads feature ready to run in windows.
It eludes me why people purchase these grey market products over just running unactivated. They’re not valid licenses, they just overcome the technical limitations of non-activation. Generally speaking, you’re supporting criminal enterprise for the sake of being able to change your wallpaper.
Edit: Truth hurts, I guess.
StackSocial’s parent company, StackCommerce, is listed as a partner with Microsoft, so they’re probably legit. Speaking for myself, the Win 11 key and two Office keys I’ve bought before haven’t had any problems.
Two things that boggle my mind:
In a thread where the discussion is about Microsoft possibly giving away a “free” future version of Windows and monetizing features, someone thinks it unlikely that Microsoft could sell Windows now at a loss hoping to push Office 365 and OneDrive subs, and
That some people feel such a sense of entitlement they’ll go to fantastic lengths to not pay for services or products they use. They think that just because they decide a movie, or album, or operating system is too expensive they can can acquire it without paying for it. (Not you obviously, since the nagware version of Windows is technically free, just… other people).
Two thoughts on StackSocial. Even if they legitimately are an MS partner that bar is so low as to be irrelevant. I know, I’m an MS Partner. All it takes is an email address and two (maybe three) checkboxes to become a Partner at the lowest levels. Additionally, the product isn’t actually being sold by SS. the vendor is “SmartTrainingLab” which appears to only exist in the context of selling cheap keys via Stack Social and it’s clone, other clone, e-commerce sites.
As for selling Windows at a loss… They’ve always been split-brained on that front. They only just stopped giving away free upgrades to Windows 10/11 in the past few weeks despite that offer having expired over seven years ago. The real Windows Desktop OS money has historically been from the fees that OEMs pay for licensing. That’s why the retail price is so high; it establishes the baseline from which OEM discounts get negotiated. The $199 actually is pretty reasonable considering inflation, etc. Windows 3.1 was $149, Windows 95 was $209 and Windows NT 4.0, which current Windows is descended from, was $319. I wouldn’t even pretend to know what they’re going to do on that front but a subscription service seems highly possible, though I see it most likely being bundled as part of the Microsoft 365 products; you get the upgrades for “free” with one of the (product formerly known as) Office 365 consumer subscriptions OR you get ad-laden upgrades for free OR you pay $99 upgrade pricing.
Those are typically grey market keys, and subject to being voided.
Not saying it’s not a good deal, or not worth the small risk, just that those aren’t true retail prices.
And Microsoft doesn’t care. Because the profit made off a single person’s license is nothing. That is why they have never cared how many people called to unlocked FEED-BEEF-1234-5678. They know we all got that off dc++ and they don’t care because, again, the goal is to get corporate sales and to more or less make it a requirement for all OEMs and prebuilts to include a key in the sticker price.
And even if they did, fully hacked local install versions would be created… adobe photoshop is subscription only and I see full installs for it all over the place (and I might even have one myself but Im admitting to nothing)
Microsoft already has more than 50,000,000 consumers (not businesses) on Office 365 personal or family plans. It’s a small step from there to adding Microsoft 365 Cloud PC to it. With a marketing push people will gladly buy cheap WinBooks to connect in. You can do it NOW if you wanted too, all of the low cost hardware already exists as do the Windows VDs, it’s just not being packaged for and marketed directly to consumers yet.
I strongly suspect that Windows 12 will come with two licensing models “Install on your own hardware” and “License for Virtual Desktop”. Over time Microsoft will push ever harder to get people to go for the second one. They did it exactly like this with Office and it worked quite well.
MS Office has long been replaced with Google Docs. To the point that students pretty much use it from kindergarten until they graduate high school. At this point, the only people really buying MS Office have no choice or are old idiots.
So… it is a lot closer to the Adobe model of “What else are you going to do?”
No it hasn’t. My Son is currently in Engineering School here in the States and MSO is a requirement. My Niece is working on her BSN at a different College and MSO is a requirement.
Then you graduate and find out that nearly every business is also using MSO and you’ll be interacting with it daily at work. So when you get home and need to type something up…well…there’s a reason that Microsoft has 50 Million subscribers to it’s MS Family Plan.
So what you are saying is that MS is still incentivizing universities with cheap copies and licenses so that companies will use MS Office?
That doesn’t mean that you, as a consumer, at all need MS Office just like you, as a consumer, do not need Adobe Acrobat in any form.
But, if you have an effectively free license, you might well use it.
What I’m saying is that despite anyone’s thoughts or feelings MSO is in no way shape or form dead. It is the standard that all other Office Applications and Suites are judged against. None of us have to like it but its not going anywhere. Windows itself will die before MSO does.
As someone who installed Slackware 3.1 from floppy disk in 1996 I’m a veteran of the OS and Application Holy Wars. The fact is our wishes don’t matter, most businesses will make the easy purchase, most users will follow along with that at home and the easy purchase is Microsoft.
Microsoft has already shown success at getting Home Users to sign up for Microsoft Family in order to get MSO. So while us olds may remember the “better” GUIs of previous versions of Office, which were hated in their day too, there’s now over a decade of users who are used to the Ribbon. When they fire up Open or Libre all they think is “Ewww, this looks old!” You may as well tell them to install WordPerfect 7.
Ah. Well, just so long as you are in your thirties then I am sure you require ms office for personal use and totally aren’t wasting money.
I would happily subscribe to an operating system for a fair price, as long as it’s stable, compatible, has timely security updates and - and I highly doubt MS will do this one - without any bloat-, nag- or crapware. Make your default browser a browser, not a spying shopping coupon Bing AI mess. Let me choose the search engine the start menu uses (or use none at all), stop telling me to sign into OneDrive every chance you get, fuck off with your widgets, etc.
If I pay, you have no business trying to fuck me over, Microsoft.
They are going to try and fuck you over.
I want to pay for a Linux desktop
i kinda get this now with Mint and patreon. secure os, managed application source for easy install/uninstall. fortunately, i dont require a ton of windows-only nonsense
Windows 12? Did they ever explicitly revoke the “Windows 10 will be the last”?
I thought 11 was an exception die to the hardware requirements.
But I guess any big enough change can be a new reason for the next.
Win10 support ends in 2025. It is not in fact the last version of Windows like they originally claimed.
I’ve seen some people saying that there’s no way Microsoft is this stupid. Some really, really, really obviously bad choices (see: Wizards of the Coast’s OGL debacle) have been made because MBAs got greedy and convinced themselves it would be fine. I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would fuck up this badly, but it’s not out of the spectrum of possibility. What I think is more likely is that this is one of those ‘leaks’ where they’re testing the public reaction, like when Wizards leaked the changes to the OGL via journalists. Hopefully (or not, if you’re a Linux fan) Microsoft plays it smarter than Wizards, because Wizards saw the immense public backlash, gave the sorriest corporate half apology ever, and then proceeded to double down, and it blew up in their face big time.
My desktop PC kicked the bucket after 10 years a few months back and I ended up using my Steam Deck as my primary computer for about a month. In that time I learned that Linux isn’t so bad.
If forced to either pay a subscription for Windows or switch to Linux the choice seems simple for me at this point.
I’m looking forward to the Year of the Linux desktop ™️
Right now, my Windows 10 installation is pretty bloatless and is easily revertable when an update wants to change things. However I’m definitely looking for a more mainstream Linux solution because I know these times won’t last.
I’ve got a windows 10 PC that I built as a gaming computer like 10 years ago. To be honest it spends a lot of time turned off because Linux has become much better for gaming using Proton.
However sometimes it is really useful to have a windows computer around. Being able to use Visual Studio for C# and C++ projects is particularly good given how much scaffolding their frameworks give you. Still, if I end up having the system being forcibly upgraded or when it leaves LTS it will probably end up being sold for spare parts.
Check out Endeavor OS. I’ve been using it for about 3 months now as a full replacement to my old windows 11 set up… everything I’ve needed it to do, with the exception of a few games has worked either right out of box or with minor tweaks. The forums are active and the Arch Wiki has answers to nearly every question you may have about the backbone of the OS. System updates are incredibly easy and are done on your schedule, not Microsoft’s.
I use EndeavourOS and it’s great, but for linux newbies or folks who just want a stable OS as a daily driver i’d recommend some other ones. I used POP_OS before switching to Endeavour and that was a solid one for me
I’ll add another option that is great for people trying out Linux for the first time (though it’s great for seasoned Linux folks, too): ZorinOS. It’s based on Ubuntu LTS, but has a few beginner friendly options and features straight out of the box. Note that there is an optional “pro” version if you like to support development, but it’s completely optional.
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Irish, actually. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorin_OS
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Here is an interesting link that a user can answer questions to refine Linux distro choices:
distrochooser.de
Nice, thanks!
No experience with Pop, but I’ve heard good things!
I daily drive it at work and it’s perfectly solid, but I also don’t do anything cuhRAAAAZY because it’s a workstation. 99% of the time I’m just running Flameshot to take screenshots, a few Firefox windows with one or two dozen tabs total, a company chat program, and on rare occasions I’ll use LibreOffice to open a file or do some very light image editing.
Fedora is my recommendation of choice. The default Fedora + Gnome workflow out of the box is absolutely flawless.
Yeah that’s the beauty of it isn’t it… a lot of distros and desktop environments to choose from; there is a flavor for anyone!
For anyone switching from windows I recommend KDE Plasma as it’ll feel closest to what you are used to.
Yeah, as a Windows user it’s very intuitive and easy to navigate. My only problem with KDE Plasma, and this would not prevent me from using it altogether, is that there’s this relatively large hover window that pops up if you accidentally swerve the mouse over anything on the task bar, and takes a couple seconds to die. Soooooo irritating.
This hover thing would probably take thirty seconds to turn off if I knew how, but it’s hard to search for when I can’t figure out what it’s called, and “hover” doesn’t get me anything useful.
If I could turn that shit off I would have zero problems with KDE Plasma. It’s a legit great interface.
Right click on the panel (Not running application) -> Task Manager Settings -> General -> uncheck “Show Tooltips”
I will absolutely try this as soon as I have a Plasma DE loaded again. THANK YOU. Seriously.
If I may ask, have you tried MS Office on your Endeavour OS box, and if so, what version and what were your results? Seriously, if you have a minute, I’d really appreciate hearing your specific experiences with MSOffice if you’ve tried it on Endeavour.
I inquire only because MSOffice is the only reason I wasn’t on Linux years ago, and any distro that can run MSOffice out of the box, macros included, I will install today. Not exaggerating: I have been trying out various distros for the last month, and MSOffice is literally the sole dealbreaker. I even have an Endeavour Cassini Nova LiveUSB ready to go; I’m on Zorin 16.3 Core right now for the same reason.
Let me know if you can, and thanks in advance.
I Don’t use MS Office, unfortunately. You are going to have a lot of people say just try LibreOffice, but that does not work for everyone so I understand the hesitation.
Yeah, I’ve tried and still am trying, lol. I’m still going to move the rest of my stuff to Linux, regardless, but I need one box with an operable copy of MSOffice at least for now.
I’ll definitely keep EndeavourOS on my list of distros to try, especially because it has all the resources of Arch behind it. That’s a huge plus on its own. Thank you for taking the time to reply!
Right on and no problem!
Libre office aint bad. If you want something like office365 check out nextcloud office.
Have you tried using OnlyOffice? It’s pretty much a 1:1 recreation of Microsoft Office, there’s a flatpak build. It’s scripts are made in Javascript but it seems simple enough to convert a VBA script.
No, I have not. I actually thought you were talking about OpenOffice but looked it up to be sure, and no, I’ve never heard of OnlyOffice. I will definitely give it a shot. And thank you for the VBA conversion plugin as well, that will be awesome if it works for me. Much appreciated.
We would need large companies and developers to start making their applications for linux and right now thats very hard because linux has 2500 different package managers and no one wants to maintain version of their apps for even the top 5 linux packaging methods, so unless that changes they will continue to make windows/mac only apps
Companies have got around this by only officially supporting one distro, like Steam with SteamOS (I think they also support Ubuntu). Steam also do static linking of the common libraries inside of ~/.local/share/Steam so that developers can be guaranteed to have something like zlib installed.
I think there is also an argument that linux distributions are converging due to systemd being ubiquitious. Although I personally don’t enjoy using it and have substituted openrc on my Linux desktop, I can accept that developers can’t reasonably support it and I would need to find a workaround to use their software.
we should have them support flatpak it seem to work on every distro i tried
The rise of Flatpaks will alleviate this issue, I think. Build a Flatpak for your app and you’re good to go.
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It’s the decade of the Linux desktop over here.
Actually, yeah, that’s a cool way to look at this. Imagine everything getting support over night. The only reason I don’t use Linux is because a ton of the things I do on a computer require windows.
Cries in having to use office 365
I assumed that was all possible in their browser web app these days
cant use the web version?
For some word documents the layout is just fucked. Especially headers and footers seem to be problematic.
I had to do a video call with Teams and it worked in browser pretty well
it may actually come now if this happens
Been and gone for me.
Literally can’t happen, at least not on the scale y’all like to imply, not in the way Linux is today. If your OS doesn’t work with a ton of peoples’ hardware at all, no wide adoption. Don’t pretend this doesn’t happen-- it happens all the time. I was never able to get sound working on Ubuntu with mainstream hardware. If your OS requires a ton of technical knowledge to get any basic hardware or software feature working, no wide adoption. If your OS runs any commonplace software in a glitchy, super-slow way, no wide adoption. Wide adoption of desktop Linux is just not going to happen until a distro has a well-organized, goal-oriented, QA-pushing non-profit such as Mozilla making sure it works for the masses, on almost any hardware.
Please do this microchumps
Good thing that not one OS is Windows in our household and workshop.
There is literally no advantage in using Windows anymore for us.
Great for you! My only reasons to stay stuck with Windows are 1. anti-cheat and 2. niche programs that don’t work correctly under Linux because they use several Windows programs in daisy-chain
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I’m currently trying my best to substitute the latter one of them using free software tools, I’m currently facing a technical problem though. As for anti-cheat, I’m dropping Destiny 2 as soon as I finish the main story
Wondering how will F2P games with anti-cheat react to the news. Knowing that much of their player base may jump ship to Linux to avoid the subscription fees, will they relent and start using less invasive anti-cheat programs, or will they try to adapt specific versions of Wine / Proton to work in rooted mode?
I think an optimistic view would be 1% of their users jump ship…until they see their game isn’t available and they jump back
I can’t imagine this is entirely true. I bet they will charge for advanced features
windowscentral.com/…/no-of-course-windows-12-wont…
?
Fair enough. Give me a clean windows without ads, auto installs from the store, telemetry and other data theft, Cortana/copilot/clippy, onedrive, edge, teams, Microsoft account and nag screens and I will gladly pay 1€ per month. Otherwise, Linux it is.
Microsoft please make the default OS a subscription. I want what happened to Reddit+Lemmy+etc to happen to Windows+Linux
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Remember when Microsoft said that Windows 10 would be the last edition?
tbf, it was Jerry Nixon who said that, a developer evangelist for microsoft, not the company itself. the media just ran with it.
Yeah it’s crazy how often it gets quoted as fact. I mean, just think about it from a logical standpoint, why would a profit-driven software development company just stop making new versions of one of their main money makers?
Pretty much nobody purchases Windows. Microsoft peobably makes all the money from OEM licenses sold to manufacturers and I don’t really think there’s that much of an increase in sales once they release a new OS.
You forget enterprise licences. Most medium sized business.
I figured they’d just start calling it “Windows” and continue naming future updates with the date like they do now (ie 22H1, 22H2, 23H1, etc).
But then they wouldn’t be able to sell new enterprise licenses with that model (to OEMs/businesses).
It wasn’t killing new versions of Windows, it was the decision to move to more of a rolling release model over the historical point releases which we saw as 10’s lifespan went on and still see in 11 with their “moments”. Specific Windows version was going to become less emphasized in favor of having a larger install base for the Store and whatever MS wants to do to that install base. And the big buyers of Windows were always volume sales too.
And then something changed, whether OEM’s complained, someone decided a change was necessary, etc. and boom, 11.
In effect, it will be for some people fed up with all this bullshit.
As someone who switched to Linux primarily because of Windows 11’s never ending BS (bugs, resource mismanagement, etc) and the inevitably end of Windows 10, I can confirm that Windows 10 will be my last.
I’d say the most extreme bullshit began with Windows 10. At least the threat of “upgrading” to it was the final push to Linux for me.
It was for me. 11 was the reason why I switched to Linux.
They’re not wrong. It’ll be the last Windows for me.
At this rate I’m gonna be on 10 for forever
I mean, how the hell wouldn’t it? What’s more surprising to me is that they didn’t do this with 11. Everyone is totally used to this model at this point and while we all hate it, it’s become the accepted way of living for most tech products now. If you are a big corporation and can get away with making customers rent your product instead of buy it, you are going to make so much more money. Of course they will choose this.
What’s laughable is how quickly they’re abandoning Windows 11
Eh? 11 has been out for what, 2-3 years now? And it’ll likely be supported for another 5-8, easily. This article is talking about a beta version of 12, which means it’ll likely be another 2 years before public release. Most enterprise settings won’t even bother with 12 until at least a couple years after it’s launched.
They need to bring ads in at 11
Then use 12 for ad-free subscription
Then both sides are justified by virtue of the other existing
This guy corporates.
There’s a limit to how willing consumers are to continue adding new subscriptions. We’re seeing this happen right now in the car industry. Subscription is only a proven model in content delivery systems, and even those are slowly starting to fail. I think that the average consumer would be very resistant to pay monthly for an operating system. Most people barely even understand what an operating system is. There’s no way places like the EU will allow this either.
What are they going to do? Learn Linux?!? /LAUGHS in a big board room. Laughter is echoed by middle aged white men in room.
They will pay.
No, people just won’t upgrade. For the average person there’s almost no reason to upgrade anyway.
I dunno. I heard they are shifting the start button to the right side of the screen in 12 and there will be a bing widget that recommends when to wear long underwear based on local weather forecasts. Not sure the masses can resist these upgrades.
Laughing in Debian 12
meh debian is great as a server but needs a lot of work out of the box to be used as a desktop. Better off with mint if you want a great out of the box experience
I use Debian 12 daily as a desktop and its going great. Just select KDE or GNOME on install it just works.
IMO, XFCE has a far better feel. Debian was my first distro btw.
Same here. Debian 12 at work and Debian 12 at home. I don’t understand the problems other people seem to have with Debian. It’s rock solid.
They can’t even consistently get people to pay for one time and they’re expecting a subscription? Lol they’re massively out of touch.
Gestures broadly
Have you looked at the tech sector recently? Out of touch describes most corporations at the moment.
Too sad that there is not the Office suite for Linux because it’s really powerful
(I do use Open and LibreOffice at work. Personally they are mostly worse in comparison.)
Besides that I don’t have a high dependance except for games. And looking at my SteamDeck it’s not a high dependency.
If Steam can solve the anticheat and maybe even releases SteamOS as a desktop distro it would be very tempting to switch if I can’t get anything else than a subscription or a free key.
In my use LibreOffice is superior
No ribbon UI, better compatibility with .xls files, better python integration
It’s very subjective topic but I (personally) think the ribbon menu is way better for usability and can be more easily customized if you don’t need some specific tool.
This doesn’t make sense to me
…microsoft.com/…/video-customize-the-ribbon-9ce81…
I can confirm if Windows ever required a subscription I’d be swapping to Linux so fast. So Fast.
Am not convinced this will happen with Win12 or anytime soon. Microsoft realizes if they did this they would be losing monopoly over desktop operating system and with that they will lose a lot more than just OS money as people will migrate towards alternative software, like Google Docs or LibreOffice. What might end up happening is subscription based pro edition or something similar. If there’s ever subscription for all of Windows am assuming they will make it easy to pirate.
This feels most likely to me too, though maybe even for an Edu or “managed” Windows install of some kind where you get more support and more opinionated stable installs or something. Sort of like Windows S mode but maybe with more help.
Maybe the subscription edition means that it will be a different tier, so you will buy Windows for cheaper, but you have to pay a monthly or yearly subscription.
Or it has some connection to your Microsoft 365 subscription, and it would give you more Copilot/Other AI features.
I’m already planning to. I run Windows 10 and as soon as that stops receiveing security support (or really as soon as I have the time) I’m gonna be swapping over to Linux for good.
So does Linux, I subscribe to the Arch rss feed, which is the operating system I use btw.
Oh thank goodness you told me, I thought you might be an Ubuntu user there for a sec
typical Arch user :).
If an arch user was a vegan what would they tell you first?
I want to see MICROSOFT burning along with streaming services, not only for the subscriptions they want to offer, but because they think they can do what ever they want, and that we will say yes and hand them the money! (harsh I know) What they want to achieve with subscription idea? profit monthly ? make more money than before? Yet people can install linux, but in our side as linux users, we have to provide safe interaction in linux environment to new uers.
the only reason why I still using windows is gaming. give me a platform where I can use steam and gog and I will not be touching windows ever again if not in a professional capacity.
Fuck subscription models
Lutris + Proton.
Baldur’s Gate 3? Yep.
Cyberpunk with raytracing, DLSS, and mods? Yep (a bit of tinkering required)
I boot Windows only for Battlefield 2042 now, thanks to DICE’s implementation of EAC
You can use Proton on Linux to make Steam and windows games work. It’s the same way the Steam Deck runs games even though it’s Linux based.
I need to have a look at it. thank you for the suggestion
I have been playing CS2, War Thunder and so many games on Linux (Zorin OS). Three years now full time on Linux. And I am a newbie, never used the command line ahah
We need to support true open hardware or less ACPI-WIndows first one. MS can do whatever they want with their OS BUT it should not mess with hardware.
I expected Framework to be a FOSS first laptop but eventually, it just became a wintel derivative.
I have been using computers since before there was an internet. I have used DOS and now Windows 10. Is there a good place to learn about Linux with a GUI and which one I should purchase? I’m so tired of M$.
Edit: I am primarily a PC gamer that uses Steam and this is what has kept me from using another OS in the past.
I would recommend linux mint. Its completely free, has a nice gui, and is fairly straight forward to use. All you need to do is download the iso file from their website. If you want to try using it you can put it in a virtual machine to try it out first and then if you want to actually use it just download a program called rufus to flash the iso file onto a flash drive and then boot from the flash drive. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this on youtube.
Linux mint does seem to be the best Debian based distro. It comes with cinnamon. There are a respectable frequency of protondb entries where people successfully run newer games in mint. Ubuntu is bad because snap. Debian cares more about open source drivers than hardware compatibility which isn’t what the average user wants to fuck with. Somehow even after enabling “non-free” drivers in Debian, it still works on a lot less stuff than other distros.
Thank you.
Yeah seconded on Mint. Works really well, is very stable (way more than windows), has a lot of out of the box configuration and tools in the GUI. Connectivity (printers, wifi, network shares) and security are both excellent and intuitive. I use it 10 hours a day 5 days a week and its glorious
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Linux is pretty much universally free, with the exception of a few select distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and even then, there’s variants of RHEL that are free like CentOS and Fedora, the main attraction for RHEL is paid support).
Most distributions are fairly similar, these days, with the main differences being the desktop environment (i.e. how the UI looks and feels), the update cadence (some distros are much more aggressive about deploying updates to the software and utilities underlying the distro, which gives new features faster at the cost of breaking things more often, while other distros prefer to stay on older, known-stable versions longer, at the cost of being slower to deploy new features that sometimes a program needs to run), and the methods used to configure settings (some distros go out of their way to make as much configureable in the GUI as possible, while others are primarily configured through console commands, and others like Gentoo expect you to manually compile pretty much all the software yourself–this makes it extremely customizable, but extremely difficult), and the default file format for package installation (rpm, deb, flatpaks, snaps, etc).
My personal recommendation is to check out a few of these:
Ubuntu
Linux Mint (or Cinnamon)
EndeavorOS
Pop!OS
I also recommend that when you first format the disk, you make two partitions: one smaller 50-100 GB partition for the root partition (where Linux stores its system files and software), and a larger partition for /home, which is where all your personal files are stored. This way, you can easily swap between different distros without needing to really worry about losing your files.
I third Linux Mint. Everything you need is in the same place as you’d find it on Windows. Everything simply works out of the box. It’s a very smooth transition. If you dual-boot you don’t even need to get rid of Windows before you’re comfortable. (I keep Windows available for games.)
Youtube. There are a lot of content creators in the Linux realm.
As others have said, Mint or Pop_OS are your best options. It really depends on what you want in terms of layout. Do you want a more apple mac osx look or a Windows look, if you want Mac then pop, if you want Windows then mint. They’re both based on the same OS, Ubuntu, and in Mint’s case there’s a Debian edition. None of these have a price, they’re free, you have nothing to lose trying them out.
Realize this is a hot take, but, honestly I’d suggest Fedora, as it just always seemed more stable than Pop OS. Mint had core security issues some years back when I last look at it, not sure they’ve been resolved?
I use the KDE version of Fedora. I installed Steam and Bottles, and I haven’t had a problem since.
All AMD set up though, I can’t speak towards the Nvidia side of things.
Only version of fedora anyone should be using for games is Nobara. The simple fact is fedora may be rock solid, but it’s definitely not as intuitive for a new user to add things like the copr repo for additional software etc.
The COPR is the only other thing you have to do, at least that’s all I did.
Click a checkbox to allow third party (COPR), install Steam, and install Bottles, all from the store UI. You’re making it sound more difficult than it is.
And the problem with Nobara is it’s created/developed by just one person who’s doing it for his dad (per comments I’ve seen made by the developer) (I don’t know if that’s still the case). I rely on my OS, so I’m not willing to put myself into that situation of depending on just one person doing it as a hobby.
The thing I like about Fedora is it’s (ultimately) backed by IBM, and it has more support for more hardware, fixes, etc.
Thanks. My being a gamer (Steam) has kept me from using another OS as I was worried about compatibility issues. I will check it out.
Thanks. As a gamer, I am primarily looking for an OS that will run games without a hitch. To be honest this is what has kept me from switching previously.
Hi there! I’m you. My first computer was a TRS-80 in the early 80s, and my daily driver today is Debian (a flavor of Linux). I’m not an IT person, but I’ve had some skin in the game for a while.
You won’t need to purchase a thing unless you have some weird/old hardware where drivers will be a challenge.
There are a million flavors (“distros”) of Linux. The most straightforward ones to start with are probably Ubuntu and Mint.
Most Linux distros have a “live CD” version that you can “install” on a thumb drive. That allows you to take the entire OS for a test spin without changing anything on your “main” computer.
Thanks! I have been a gamer for a while now and have primarily been using Steam. One of the main reasons that I have not switched to another OS is I have been worried about compatibility issues.
You don’t need to purchase Linux. If your computer can run virtual machines (e.g. via VirtualBox) you could just download various distros and try them out in VMs. If you find one you like you can then install it as the main OS. If you’re worried that you might want Windows back, buy a cheap SSD and swap it into your PC, then install Linux on that, keeping the old Windows one on a shelf just in case.
Personally, for a beginner-friendly Linux with plenty of community support I’d recommend Linux Mint.
Here's a Reddit post with some people talking about Linux distros if you want to see some additional opinions: link. Manjaro with KDE is a good option as well I'd like to add, my personal recommendation is to install a Linux partition separate from Windows and ease into it, if you enjoy the experience you'll find yourself using the Windows partition less and less until you are able to finally delete it.
That feel when you just moved to Linux and you still enjoy Halo and Forza.
Gaben literal god tier status
I don’t really know how your gonna sell people on this exactly. Like people will just stop buying laptops. The average person just buys a laptop at walmart in the desired size, from any brand. They don’t even really think about windows. I just don’t really see this working for anyone. What will end up happening is Chromebooks will overtake the laptop market if microsoft goes all in on this.
You’ll go to Walmart and buy a WinBook that connects you to your Windows 365 Cloud PC. If your WinBook dies you toss it in the trash and go buy another one, sign into it with your MSA and pick up right where you left off. If you want to game on it then you buy the “Ultra” edition to do game streaming or you buy an XBox.
The first one is doable today since Microsoft already offers VDs in both M365 for SMB use and “roll your own” VDI in Azure for Large and Enterprise customers. The Second one, streaming gaming, is nearly ready and it creeps a little bit closer all the time.
Subscription based Windows is not only coming but will probably become a very normal use case in the next 10 years.
Guess Microsoft is set on enshittifying itself to death like a sort of disgusting business dysentery.
Under capitalism a company is either growing or dying. Either the company is making their shareholders money or they get abandoned.
Microsoft has bleed as much money as they can from their customers under their current model. Only way to continue growing to survive is by taking even more money from their customers.
Due to having no long term strategy to grow their business by extending/improving their platform they’ve instead doubled down on their current model by charging extra money for value that isn’t there.
Enshitification is proof that companies like this have exceeded their ability to grow. Their only move now is further Enshitification, and further charging even more money for value that isn’t there because without that they will die.
As far as I can see it’s purely self-cannibalization until nothing is left.
They are doing the same with Windows that they did with Office. Win12 will come as either one time purchase or subscription based but over the course of 10 years they’ll push harder and harder on getting people into the subscription version. Once it has enough uptake, and it will get there, they will then start pushing the “Why run it on local hardware when you can put it in our cloud and access it from anywhere?”.
They’re already doing the Virtual Desktop thing in both M365 and Azure now so it’ll be a pretty easy transition when comes.
I don’t believe for one bit that windows will move to a pure subscription based model. They are greedy, but not stupid.
What’s more believable is that the base OS will be the same as usual, but if you want fancy AI assistants in your OS, you must subscribe, with the justification being that MS must pay for the servers running the models you’re using.
…which would be valid
Yeah this sounds like the most reasonable outcome but companies have been surprising me recently with how dumb they can be.
I don’t think 12 will be pure subscription, but if its not, 13 definitely will be
I agree, corpo world is already 100% in subscription mode and consumers buy windows through OEM. If you buy OEM laptop, how would you sell subscription windows with it? I see it as a no go, it would force OEM laptops to be sold with Linux.
If you sell updates through subscription, you would end up in 2000’s when malwares infected the whole internet with non-patched windows machines. This hurts your PR so poorly that I don’t think they are that stupid.
Of course they are thinking their ass off how they could convert consumers to subscription, but I don’t see way to do it.
“SomeShittyAntivirus free for 12 months with purchase of this laptop!”
What happens when the trial ends? Windows won’t load? Would brands like Dell/HP/Fujitsu/Acer really agree that, their customer service would be full of old people complaining that their laptop is not working.
My guess is that MS will figure out a different approach. Maybe the enterprise versions are behind a subscription while the consumer version stays the way it currently is. They could also take the Apple approach. Offer a little bit of something for free (like iCloud) and charge if you want more of it. There could also be specific features that are not available if you don’t pay (like Apple Music). MS could offer a certain part of consumer windows for free, and charge for some other part, like advanced settings.
Corporate are already in subscription mode, pretty much all companies have some sort of per user subscription with MS. E3/E5/F3 etc licenses include windows+m365+office+defender etc.
The article addresses literally all of your points. Installing windows would be free for oems so it’s actually good for them, and MS would probably offer a free tier with ads for end users who don’t want to pay.
To me that’s completely believable and sounds exactly like something MS would do.
Probably AD free+AI features are behind subscription, and in sense I would be Ok with it.
It could be for their cloud based OS
Kind of funny to me how the role of operating system has evolved.
We’ve gone from “low level software to manage memory and hardware” to “bloatware that will let you use our hardware with your hardware”
The difference between greedy and stupid grows smaller every time the shareholders demand a profit. The only proof you need of that is tracking the OS development from win7 to win11.
The logic “We know you guys pay $120 for a license but here’s ads on your lockscreen” was called stupid 10 years ago.
Then, “We know you guys pay $120 for a license and deal with forced updates and lockscreen ads, but here’s a framework for ads in your file explorer” was called stupid a few years ago.
Now here we are listening to them say, “We know you guys pay for a license and deal with ads all over everything you’re doing with mandatory updates and setting reversion when we don’t like what you’re doing, but we’re also gonna charge you $10/month indefinitely” and saying to ourselves that they can’t be that stupid.
The reality is that there’s no reason to push a new version of windows that doesn’t make them more money. This is that.
Jokes on them, I don’t want their invasive AI crawling my system and reporting back to MS
So I can pay less and have less of their bullshit on my system? Sounds like a great deal
Microsoft is most definitely stupid. I mean, look at the mess that is Windows 10. That OS is just plain stupid.
Yeah, the average consumer doesn’t buy Windows. They buy a computer and it happens to come with Windows most of the time. Those consumers aren’t going to want to pay for a subscription. Especially when you look at the prices of the kinds of computers that most people are buying. They’re budget machines. No way a subscription would go over well. And why would OEMs want to deal with the fallout of people not buying their computers because of subscriptions?
You can already purchase Windows through a subscription. Windows Business and Windows Enterprise are 365 subscription based editions.
This will be the first day in years I will try to make gaming work on Linux once again.
Its so fuckibg easy for most games now. I just click install ad than play on steam
Indeed, the process has really been streamlined. The configs and additional stuff from the olden days still exist, but they're configured really well by default and someone would only ever need to touch them to try and eke out as much performance as possible.
Steam and Bottles (for non-Steam games).
Games using Bottles can even have a link inside of Steam to launch them from inside of Steam.
It’s Linux time then.
Time to contribute heavily to Linux open source and make Linux desktops super useful to everyone.
They already are.
Folks who haven’t moved yet are luddites.
Hey, some of us are trying to do a huge server migration before we switch so that we can make sure all of our stuff is backed up properly.
I can’t wait to go back, especially since proton is so much better.
Hopefully my Nvidia card doesn’t suck too bad.
Or business. The standard is Office and it’s file formats. Open source equivalents still don’t quite have the same compatibility. Everyone expects office files to get shared.
FOSS alternatives like LibreOffice are completely compatible with MS Office file formats.
I use LibreOffice at a medium size company where everyone else uses MS Office. Not a single issue.
That hasn’t been my experience. They also aren’t collaborative with those that use Office, that’s half the issue.
Yeah, we’re already there bud. Come on in, the waters fine
What’s the best place to start for newbies you think?
YouTube!
I would 100% start by dual booting Linux Mint or KDE Neon alongside your windows install. Mint is more like windows, Neon is similar but has tons of configuration options so can be a bit much. Either will do you well though.
You can see reviews of both on YouTube to see how they look, and also watch some instructional on how to install a dual boot system. You’ll end up with Linux and windows both on your PC and you can pick which to boot at each start. That way you can go back to with does to get stuff done or checknon things while you’re learning.
Lastly, just be aware that things do work differently. That’s the good bit though! If you’ve used a Mac before you’ll be familiar with Linux already. The big differences are in how the file system works and how programs are installed. Again, YouTube will help you to figure those out.
Taken it slow, learn what does what and why, and you’ll be up and running in no time :)
I’ll completely jump ship once SolidWorks can run on Linux. Wine is still a little iffy with it.
I would switch to Linux… Gaming has gotten much better on it thanks to proton.
It’s not perfect, but by now the only games that do not run either use rootkit anticheat or are purpose built to not function on Wine.
Not for PCVR it hasn’t. Likely won’t ever work with Oculus VR games. All steam vr releases are windows only. Including from developers who traditionally would publish normal games on Linux and even macOS. Although I have high hopes for the upcoming Valve Decard doing for linux vr gaming what the Steam Deck did for normal linux gaming.
Hopefully this is just some business related version and not for standard consumers
at this point is there even a reason to use windows? I genuinely want to know from windows users, why are you still on this operating system?
for many years (since windows 8.1) I switched to using only linux (and at times macos), and I have never regretted my decision; what keeps you using this hellish platform?
Because I use programs that only work well on windows, for example Solidworks
does solidworks not work under wine?
I can’t manage to get any architecture software working so that’s a whole field, but they do have MacOS, so being rich bastards that’s a good option for them.
My partner refuses to even look at it until there’s full version excel support. Anyone who uses excel in a business capacity can’t switch
interesting, what features of excel are you missing in libreoffice, onlyoffice or cryppad?
I’m not the one you asked, but speaking for myself, reliably working Visual Basic. It’s what sets MSOffice apart for me, and honestly I just prefer it.
LibreOffice isn’t bad; when I moved a heavily customized installation of Word to Writer I found it’s fairly easy though time-intensive to switch, and sports a similar enough interface. But without all the VB macros that were impossible to run or recreate in Writer it pretty much fell flat. On Linux, VB can be problematic even if you’re running MS Office via Wine or Play on Linux, and just fail to load at all even if the rest of Office works fine.
Also, there’s LibreOfficeBasic: good, but not the same. For example, in Word and Excel there is a specific long form time and date macro I use to accurately and instantly preface entries in the body of an ongoing doc with just a single click; it saves a lot of time and errors and it’s worth taking the time and trouble to recreate. But I wasn’t able to. I searched and searched in LibreOfficeBasic but could not find any equivalent in LibreOffice that would allow me to do the same simple little thing.
That was a couple of years ago. It might be better now, but because so much of what I use MS Office for involves speed, precision, and dependability, that’s my holdout. I’m testing distros now, and have Zorin Core loaded for another try specifically with MSOffice because Zorin makes a big deal about having Windows app support built in, but so far it’s been dicey: when I load it, will it just work?
I’m going to Linux either way, I’m done with MS, but that’s my holdout.
This is where I’m at; upper management has already greenlit moving all data to a OneLake Data Hub so the rank and file can try power bi instead of excel for everything. Suggesting moving away from their ecosystem at this point is moot
Linux does not work with the Adobe Creative suite or Office365 Sharepoint and One Drive syncing.
adobe creative I get, I know plenty of people that are forced to use their products because of the stubbornness of other people they work with.
sharepoint I kinda get, I assume that your company is a windows-only shop?
but one drive? why would anyone use one drive?
We are about 2/3 Windows and 1/3 Mac depending on preference and role. One Drive (for Business) is part of the Office365/Sharepoint package and it automatically backs up documents, desktop, pics etc and syncs with Office online. Really comes in handy in cases of hardware failure, damage, loss, theft. We are all laptops except for conference rooms and servers.
Some windows-specific professional software that cannot run on Linux.
Also, work-related stuff. I may be able to make a custom setup of Linux if I try hard enough, but when it comes to dealing with servers and VPNs it’s a bit beyond me. Not to mention the time it takes to figure it out and set up.
Although, the more I hear about subscriptions from Microsoft the more I want to switch.
Work. If I’m not making programs on Windows and not keeping up with the changes in Windows, then I’d be very distant from the customers I work with. I am absolutely not in a position to tell them to just switch.
After seeing what the Steam Deck does with Windows emulation for games, my interset in having a windows gaming computer is barely hanging on.
This would 100% influence my next gaming computer to shy away from Windows 12
Wine Is Not an Emulator (WINE)
Every time I read this I have an eternal mirror panic attack.
GNU’s Not Unix (GNU)
(We really love our loops here)
Just try fedora, you wont be able to go back
Hmm, I’ll be running Windows 10 after EOL then. I won’t pay for Adobe subscriptions, I won’t pay for ANY monthly subscriptions. I will license lifetime software with 1 year of updates but that software works after the update phase has passed.
Ok and I’ll just crack it like I do with every other windows version.
Once I paid $250 for Windows pro and a month later my licence key stopped working, and Microsoft didn’t do shit.
I even bought it directly from them!
Never paid money for Windows since.
Can anyone confirm that my understanding of the source article is correct?
The "Windows 12 may require a subscription" is coming from the fact that the word "Subscription" exists in a Windows config file somewhere?
That seems like a pretty big leap to me. Not that I don't think it's impossible that Microsoft would do this, but the evidence here seems thin to say the least.
Yep!
Also lemmy is full of open-source Linux nerds who will upvote anything that bashes on Microsoft (oh excuse me Micro$oft for the old heads).
I see more comments like this than comments of these boogeyman you guys speak of. You guys are doing your own little circlejerk, thinking you’re cool and smart.
…what? The fact that this post is at the top of my feed is proof enough. They’re absolutely right, it’s purely speculation with very little evidence that has been upvoted to shit.
Also, “Lemmy is full of open-source Linux nerds” is NOT a controversial statement. I am an open-source Linux nerd. YOU are an open-source Linux nerd, looking at your comments. This place is absolutely riddled with nerds, look around my dude.
You think everyone who upvotes or participates in the bashing of Microsoft is a “open-source Linux nerd”? You think people who use Windows love Windows and love their business practices and don’t have a history of being shafted?
Just unbelievable with you people.
You mean this whole thread doesn’t exist inside your mind?
Everyone here is an “open-source Linux nerd” because they hate Windows. The only people who hate Windows are "open-source Linux nerds.” You are very smart.
Of course it is. Open source nerds created lemmy and operate the instances. They are the primary audience that would care to abandon reddit over the API change and now the privacy policy change.
This is like going to a gun club and campaigning for better gun control. You might find a couple supporters but for the most part you’ll just be pissing everyone off.
Guilty as charged
They already have their staple programs subscription based, why not windows too? People must be paying.
It looks like they will add a subscription edition, doesn’t necessarily mean current editions will go away. If they don’t offer free upgrade again, for a lot of people they will need to decide to either buy a full license or roll a subscription.
There is not a lot known here tho, will Windows be part of the existing 365 subscription? Will OEMs offer a full license any more? Or will it be a trial before adding a sub or license.
No one knows
It’s more likely to be some sort of license for companies than anything else. I’d be impressed if they actually think the average windows user would pay for it.
Microsoft has been moving more and more of their products to a subscription service. Doing it with Windows itself has been theorized for a while now.
.
I think the most likely outcome is that this is somehow integrating an o365 or m365 style subscription into windows, carving out “pro” features into the subscription. Either power-user features, or org management features like Ad-joining and management. Maybe subscription versions of Windows that only work with m365 managed accounts, and don’t actually support local accounts.
It could replace professional edition, maybe it will be an alternative product SKU, but that seems like the most Microsoft thing that those config strings could mean.
Hey, guys. I found the word “subscription” in Steam’s terms of use.
I guess sometime soon, GabeN is gonna start charging $5 a month for people to access their gaming libraries.
They’re seemingly making windows less and less enterprise friendly. Which I thought was their bread and butter. It’s crazy since they’re not even competing with other OS on a price level. Linux is free and MacOS is free but with hardware. It’s like MS is purposely tanking Windows I don’t get it.
They see the writing on the wall. OS are mature. Competition is good and new versions bring little but cosmetic changes. So they will wring their customers for all they are worth while inertia prevents moving to alternatives. All the whole, forcing upgrades to Windows with monopolistic behaviour and nagging and misleading prompts.
Enshittification?
More like monetization phase. As seen with Netflix and Co.
You’re 100% correct. My previous employer was actively drawing up plans to eliminate Windows because of maintenance concerns. The systems they produce are used in manufacturing and will not have an internet connection which is becoming an increasing problem in Windows.
A few years back, the last word was the future licensing model of Windows was incompatible with the business.
“We’ll shut down your computer after this quick message from our sponsor!”
Unlock right-click for only $4.99 a month!
drink verification can?
Not even confirmed but people here are already losing their mind.
Microsoft has a long and storied history of doing the worst and dumbest possible things with Windows as a platform, so, it’s pretty easy to see why people find it very easy to assume the worst here.
.
The rise of Linux is upon us
The one thing Microsoft will never do is try to deliver a good product. The executives would rather gouge the users for every last penny and steal all their data, and this will be it’s downfall. Linux has the advantage, and is only getting started.
I don’t think they actively try to release a bad product, but anything good is an anomaly of using minimal effort
windows would cease to exist as a company lmao
Spoiler alert: Windows does not exist yet as a company
Lol 🤣
😂 😂 😂
I love how you are a good sport about it!
Windows doesn’t exist as a company.
The perpetual year of the Linux desktop.
Year of the Linux desktop for most users is always n+1
For me it has been since 2012.
The year of the Linux desktop already came and went.
I’d be down with Valve making a proprietary distribution of SteamOS that’s easily installable, and works with other CPUs.
Wasn’t this the basic premise of SteamMachines?
Valve is planning on Making SteamOS available to install for regular Desktops at some point, though it has taken them awhile. In the meantime, Linux Mint is pretty terrific.
Proton will be ready by then.
It’s ready now
already on linux. The only reason i ever load windows is my capture card doesn’t work with linux yet (so like 2 times a month) this is how windows dies
yep i guessed it end of windows 11 will begin growing of linux
I knew sooner or later they’d push me to Linux, but that’d do it alright
.
I’ve never used Linux before but if this happens I’m going to have to figure out how.
Nowadays? You just install it. It’s all plug and play. Mint is great for starters.
Fuck that noise
I'm already using Linux alot, and Windows 10 sometimes. I would drop Windows entirely if it were subscription model.
Just wondering, why do you still sometimes use windows 10?
Some specialized industry software might only be developed for windows.
I’m considering moving to linux for my main daily driver, but the 3d scanning tools I use is only available for windows so I’m keeping a machine nearby.
You can thank Microsoft sabotage for that fact.
Look at reactOS for a redo of golden-age windows.
I don’t even want windows 11. What makes them think I’m gonna actively buy and pay a subscription for Windows 12. Linux exists and I will absolutely buy a computer, wipe it and put a Linux distro on it. Microsoft is way too invested in this subscription nonsense.
Lmao!
And then Linux will finally get the attention it has always deserved.
2024 will be the year of the Linux desktop.
Linux. Again. Install Linux
Ubuntu Linux Debian Linux Fedora Linux Pop!os linux Arch Linux for all i care
Install Linux, stop accepting this bullshit from Microsoft. ALL of their software sucks, they care more about marketing and pulling money out of your pocket than actually giving quality software.
Open source software blows everything Microsoft out of the water, stop accepting the bullshit
Ok. Can you point me in the right direction?
I am building a gaming pc this weekend. I got to the bios screen tonight. I was going to install windows tomorrow. But I’ll give Linux a try.
Mint Cinnamon?
I know Proton works for Steam games. Can you twitch stream with Linux?
Look up Garuda, Nobara and Pop!OS
They are tailored specifically for gaming. I love my garuda with KDE
If yoı don’t have much Linux experience, probably Ubuntu or Nobara. You don’t need to use the terminal just as much in these distros.
Let’s not get carried away. Office suite (particularly Word, PowerPoint and Excel) is some of the best software I’ve used. Crazy powerful, easy to use, consistent across iterations. Outlook could have some QOL things but it’s still better than Thunderbird. VS Code is awesome too.
LibreOffice is good enough. Thunderbird is good. There is no shortage of development tools on Linux, if anything, it is the best development platform.
I switched 100% for 2012 when I changed job from game development to Linux development . I’d been 100% Linux at home since 2005, but changing work platform was the acid test.
Microsoft can get stuffed. I’ve not needed them for over a decade.
Yeah, I’m not saying Libre office isn’t…fine, or that development tools on Linux aren’t good or even better. But the idea that all Microsoft software sucks is as demonstrably false as an opinion statement can be. They’re really good, and with Office the alternatives aren’t close. Do most people need all the functionality in Excel or PowerPoint? No, but they’re great pieces of software and ignoring that is just plain tribalism.
Good enough for who?
I’ve seen too many cases of word docs being hosed, or not working right in Libre. So from a business standpoint that’s a no-go. And that’s the challenge.
So don’t work in Word docs. It’s not a proper standard anyway.
It’s an industry standard.
Go see what lawyers use. Until fairly recently Word Perfect was still a thing for them (well, about 10 years ago anyway).
You don’t get to choose the formats other people use, or what you’ll have to deal with.
Your attitude is the stereotypical never-had-to-face-reality mindset.
It’s a monoply, not a standard. It’s not a standard as no one else can properly implement it. There are undocumented binary parts that were meant to be transitory to get through ISO. Which was just one of many dirty MS tricks to get it through ISO. The reference implementation is closed.
I don’t expect normal people to understand formats. I expect law makers to.
The UK government got this right : www.gov.uk/…/open-standards-principles
The EU have clobbered MS before over this kind of nonsense and should again. And Google and Apple and others.
Competition needs to be possible. We need to avoid today being tomorrow’s digital darkage.
Nice pedantry, you’re good at purposefully ignoring the forest for the trees.
Industry standard, as in what pretty much everyone uses - you know, a colloquial term, but you knew that and chose to ignore it to get on some high horse.
So you don’t get a choice about being incompatible.
I didn’t say I liked it, just it is what it is. Let me see you deploy 10,000 laptops/desktops in an enterprise without office, and find out how much that costs you in lost productivity. Or how many things you simply can’t do, at all. Like using OneNote, with the server infrastructure for syncing between people with domain level user administration. Nothing, and I mean nothing at all in Linux/OSS world comes anywhere close to the capabilities of ON.
And Excel, again, people have decades of experience and pre-built docs/templates that have little chance of perfectly importing into any other systems.
Similarly, find me a CAD program competitive with Auto desk or Catia that runs on Linux.
Keep on screeching that people should just squander hundreds of man-years of effort to switch, that’ll sure convince 'em. People have more important things to do with their time, like the work in front of them.
It’s about competition, heathy market and legacy. You can’t have that with formats like OOXML. Deliberately so.
I can’t find the story, but I think it was of the British library, trying to recover documents in very old Microsoft Word. They had to chain together VMs of old Windows with old Word versions to get it the documents to the modern world. Formating will have been mangled of course.
That is how it is with proprietary “standards”. It’s like ensuring today is a digital darkage.
The very reason why that cross compatibility is so hard and broken is Microsoft sabotaging the fuck out of it. Microsoft has always been about money, dead stop. If theyust make great software for money, they will. If they can get away with mediocre to absolute shit software while sabotaging the competition, then that is what they will do (and have been doing for decades)
I just feel like such a noob when using linux. Most of the time when im putting commands in the terminal I have no idea what im really doing. Also still not too familiar with how to navigate the file structure.
Though console is way more effective and efficient, it’s not required. Install KDE and you have a beautiful near windows experience that actually works
Show me a real competitor to OneNote on Linux.
Once I find that, I can switch.
Show me a real competitor to “insert app here”
I don’t know your app, I don’t know all apps. A quick simple search got me this: alternativeto.net/software/microsoft-onenote/?lic…
I would definitely pay a subscription for windows 12 if hell froze over and it was the only operating system on Earth. I have very little experience with Linux, limited entirely to my steam deck, and it certainly hasn’t been awful. It isn’t what most of us are used to but it’s not like it’s completely insane and unusable.
If they go through with subscriptions, check out Linux Mint, it’s the most polished and easiest to use for those of us coming from Windows.
I actually rather like win 10. Win 11 I’m holding off on until they fix the taskbar.
If they go subscription, I go Ubuntu.
I used StartAllBack to fix the Win11 taskbar, works well.
I haven’t had any problems with the task bar recently, they fixed most of the problems I had with it and it’s worked pretty well for me.
I dock my taskbar to the left edge of the screen with full text labels. Afaik win11 still doesn’t support that.
You can just set win 11 to win 10 Taskbar. First thing I ever did. I haven’t minded win 11 at all. Unlike win 8 which was so much trash.
I feel like I’m the only one who actually likes the centre position of the Start menu, haha. I do use Stardock’s Start11 to have the layout of W10, because the W11 menu is trash imo. But having a very wide/large screen, it’s way nicer to have the menu in the center.
I don’t get why they removed the option to place the bar anywhere you want tho… That’s always a step back. Even if I don’t use it personally, I can see why this would be a massive pain for others.
I used a Macbook for 10 years so perhaps I’m conditioned to it at this point, but I also like the center taskbar. I use it on my personal Win11 laptop at home and I think it’s perfectly fine.
On the other hand, I support IT for a large enterprise of users who are mostly computer illiterate and I am dreading our inevitable upgrade to Win11 if the taskbar is not preconfigured to the left-side setting. Expecting a flood of tickets from people wondering why their buttons aren’t in the right place.
I’d suggest try openSuse, it’s way better than Ubuntu. I used to use Ubuntu but prefer the desktop feel and rolling updates.
Good thing I’ve been learning to use linux for the past couple of years, if they double down on this I’ll switch permanently, just got to find a distro I like because I haven’t been able to find anything that just “works” without eventually having to open the terminal for one reason or another.
I am trying to make the switch. The final straw for me was the starfield ad on my lockscreen followed by an accidental click that led to an ad for gamepass. I just watched 3 or 4 videos trying to do something simple that I don’t know how to do. Each video from different creators have this running on a screen. Thought it was kind of funny.
Edit I really struggled getting games to work so I quit trying.
Oh I know exactly the ads your talking about, the setting for that is misleading option that is super easy to miss during setup, Microsoft has been doing that since Windows 10 released and its quite frustrating.
Yes the terminal can be daunting for a beginner, in my first experience with linux was all the way back when Ubuntu was the most popular distro and the only way I got through some of the confusing stuff was from copying and pasting commands from a youtube guide.
Honestly, the terminal is probably not going to be that hard to use for you. Considering that you’re on lemmy, you’re probably ahead of the curve in tech skills. Maybe don’t go picking something in the deep end like arch though.
/j I use arch btw.
Yeah I’m slowly learning most of the terminology and commands, it can be a bit overwhelming at times.
I had the most success with Manjaro but for some reason chunks of it randomly break over time as updates go on, some Arch enthusiast have mentioned to me its because of some weird shenanigans done by the folks who maintain Manjaro’s software distribution, something about updates being held back for “stability” but in the end they end up doing the opposite.
Right now I’m running a Fedora dual boot config with Win11 but keeping the bootloader on a separate drive so Windows doesn’t touch it at all.
I’m actually into terminal and abadonned two distros because they weren’t terminal centric for me. I recommend openSUSE and ZorinOS for people not into terminals.
Id rather be a femboy then use subscription windows
So the year of the Linux desktop is finally happening
Someone build active directory and domain join all the PC so that organizations can replace Microsoft .
There are many AD alternatives already, like Zentyal and FreeIPA or even Samba. But you’ll never see any existing organization (certainly not medium or large ones) making a switch to a complete Linux environment, because then you’ll have to deal with users - and no one wants to deal with users. I remember when back in the day our old company tried to roll out Office 2007 with the new ribbon interface - there was such a strong resistance from users that we had to cancel the rollout halfway and downgrade them back to Office 2003. Now imagine the kind of hell that would break out if you were to suddenly replace Windows with Linux…
Just say its for security and privacy reasons and make these users sign a statement saying if they won’t agree then they will be held responsible for any breach or hack and see how easily it gets deployed. End of the day it all comes down to the decision makers and most of them in IT are spineless bunch because I think most of their life they have spent time doing customer service.
It’s an interesting thing when companies will gladly take all routes possible to make their employees miserable just to pinch a few extra coins of profit out but when a truly money saving action is available it will not be rolled out because of “fear” of people complaining about minor details.
IT changes usually affect management as well, while “cost saving” in production doesn’t.
Again, interesting how real cost saving solutions are never implemented.
Because it’s not a real cost savings when everything is figured in…like hiring/training help desk staff to support Linux, or management signing off on risks (or even spending the project time on quantifying those risks).
Enterprise IT is far more complex than most people realize. Sometimes the upfront cost difference is quickly lost in a sea of predictable (or unpredictable) down-stream costs.
Above all, pushing changes with unknown/unvetted risks will be met with a lot of resistance - because risk usually comes with hard to predict costs, in IT terms and in downtime, lost productivity, exposure to legal issues, etc.
When someone says this, it’s a recurring joke, but when I’ve read your comment, it’s the first time I actually think it may happen.
Well, I don’t expect a takeover at all, but perhaps I envision something like this year’s Reddit migration: I imagine some individuals or companies won’t stand for it and switch to Linux.
So maybe in one year Linux on desktop will go from 2% global installations, to 3% or 4% which would be a colossal uptake!
(I admit I’ve not checked the current percentage of Linux installations, it was 2% years ago, but maybe it’s already higher)
According to this post, 2016 was the year of the Linux desktop. … But yeah, we’re on about 3%.
First time I heard it was about 1998…
A subscription really would push me to linux. I already prefer it at work anyway.
I’m only on windows because it’s easier for my setup and game support. The second that becomes costly or annoying is when I nuke my C drive and reinstall Mint. I used to use it as my daily before I started gaming heavily, I can easily go back.
Generally curious how many people that have clung to Windows largely due to gaming have made the switch or plan to make the switch now that Valve has done such great work with Proton. I know I am certainly considering it and this is the kind of thing that will expedite that.
Bigger thing for me is the Adobe shit. Those fuckers have monopolized creativity tools, and I haven’t heard of good alternatives for Linux.
Assuming you’ve tried Gimp, Krita, Inkscape, Blender, Darktable, what your deal-breakers for these open source tool? Any particular missing features?
Video editing and compositing are the main things. These don’t seem to specialize in those tasks, while Adobe offers too many features and has too many quality 3rd party plugins to really be replaced. Even if there were programs that could compete, learning how to do things you know how to do in another program is a pain in the ass. The way programs work together is also a key thing Adobe can offer because they own multiple programs. Ideally there would be common standards to allow programs from different teams to work together just as well, but I’ve yet to see it.
Fortnite and Valorant don’t work on Linux.
I would rather switch to Linux then miss playing two games.(I understand there’s more games that don’t work under Linux, but you understand my point). Also theres plenty of games out there.
But that’s just me.
As someone that’s been gaming under Linix since Steam was released for Linux, these days I’m more surprised when a game doesn’t run under Linux
I’ve tried a few times in the past but always come crawling back to windows for gaming.
Last time it was terrible performance in TF2 that did it, this was after battling against fstab, drivers for my sound card and GPU. Oh and USB drives also refused to work.
Next PC build I’ll give dual booting another shot. Will certainly try to get hardware that others have reported as working.
I still run Ubuntu with Kodi on my HTPC and that’s usually good.
Uhhhhh…
windowscentral.com/…/no-of-course-windows-12-wont…
From the article:
These references are almost definitely tied to the newly discovered “IoT Enterprise Subscription” edition of Windows 11, not the client version of Windows vNext.
With that said, I don’t think it’s unlikely that the next version of Windows will have some new capabilities that require a subscription to utilize, tied to your Microsoft account and services.
That would make sense. With business buying so many of their licenses as subscriptions anyways, especially o365. That an enterprise version designed to unlock all the features of azure ad and intune would be a subscription product is logical.
Yeah, and… theverge.com/…/windows-10-last-version-of-windows
Kinda… pcworld.com/…/why-is-there-a-windows-11-if-window…
I hardly think MS is going this route. It maybe for AI stuff they are pushing in the OS and not the OS itself
Yes, that’s also what I was thinking.
I have used Windows for a decade now and keep using it because my workflows and the application support are there. But as someone that uses Linux on my server, has tried out Linux desktops, and uses WSL, I can confidently say that I am gone if they start charging me a subscription. It will be annoying as hell but just like leaving Reddit I am willing to give up some niceties to keep my money and my morals.
Leave now. I was using Windows for years until I finally made the full switch to Linux last year. I dropped iPhone too as well for GrapheneOS. I may honestly just keep an emergency phone on me and store it in a Faraday bag, I don’t see a point of carrying around a tracking device.
Use Signal Desktop and have your co workers/family call you there and/or use email. On my resume I heavily point out that I highly depend on Linux and avoid Windows. Its up to them if it will be compatible with the line of work such as becoming a Help Desk in IT. Obviously, if you need to use Windows at work, only use it on your work PC. Eventually I’ll become a Linux System Admin so that’ll help out. I’m so much happier too as I stopped using social media like Instagram, Snapchat, etc. You don’t need that proprietary garbage.
If you want to go extreme buy an X60 and flash Libreboot on it. Also, check out the LibreCMC R1400 router by ThinkPenguin. Achieve that Richard Stallman level freedom.
Make the switch, you won’t regret it.
I will regret it actually, as I would constantly be struggling to play games my friends want to play (they are a picky bunch) and I would have to take probably a whole month installing and learning new applications, rewriting scripts, and so much more to integrate into Linux. Not to mention I would probably want to reformat and move 20TB of data to switch from NTFS. It’s not something I want to do right now, but it is definitely something I am willing to do given enough provocation.
As for phones, I need one for work. Getting rid of it is a no-go.
For the beginning you can also dual boot. For games it depends. A lot of stuff works right out of the box but a lot of stuff requires additional steps or doesn’t work. You can also check if a game is playable on Linux on protondb.com
I wouldn’t mind dual booting, that’s for sure. I looked into it previously but was put off because I saw discouraging information about Windows 11 with all the secure boot nonsense, but looking further it seems it may be a minor hiccup.
These can be bypassed with some registry editing in the installer. Press Shift+F10 to open cmd, type regedit, and in regedit, go in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Setup and in setup right click and create a key named “LabConfig” in it, you can add DWORD 32-bit values to bypass stuff. And double click them and set the value to 1. Here are the possibilities:
BypassSecureBootCheck
BypassCPUCheck
BypassTPMCheck
BypassRAMCheck
.
Damn, I would be hoping it would be more inclined to using Linux in the field but who knows, maybe I might find a company that values it and utilizes it daily. I could utilize Windows 10/11 in a VM, which I would be fine using for work purposes. I wish more people would learn how to use Linux. It takes awhile but once you know how to use it, its so much better imo.
doubt it. you still use it? stockholm syndrome.
I hope so the Linux adoption can grow up
Fck them. Fck all subscription models. I ended every subscriptions which I was forced into apart from proton ecosystem which is worth 10$ monthly to me. Either I own it or go fck yourself.
There ins no fcking way I’d pay monthly subscription for social networks… 🤣
I L O L from Linux.
I have ran GNU/Linux since the early 1990s. Practically since it first existed. Distributions like MuLinux, Yellowdog Linux, Slackware, Debian, etc. This generally has lead to multiple difficulties. Sometimes I had to dual boot to get around said difficulties. Around 2010, I got good enough with WINE, software work arounds and alternatives that I didn’t need to dual boot anymore. I did like to play various games still back then, but around 2010 Valve’s GNU/Linux support was improving (unless my memory deceives me)
This post has made me feel that for the first time, all that struggle was worth it, heh.
On a side note, there’s some sort of dark irony with personal ownership dying under capitalism. I feel like the majority of us hate all these subscriptions models, but we keep playing along .vs. becoming cave hermits.
I felt it was worth it from day one. Had so much fun over the years with it too.
Yeah there is a lot that was promised with capitalism that turned out to be not so.
Turns out we weren’t the Capitalists.
We’re, “Glorified indentured servants”, 1800s USA Irish immigrant style.
…An I think that is the best case scenario.
Cave hermit here and I was delighted the first time I launched Quake 3 Arena on a linux distro. I’m wading deeper into the linux pool since Microsoft has lost their mind. Ads have no place in an operating system.
Gaming has tied me to Windows for decades, but thanks to companies like Valve and System 76 the long awaited shift may continue accelerating.
I’m glad to be here to see it.
My System 76 laptop I bought a few years back is still alive and well. Ubuntu MATE or Manjaro I typically run now. Sometimes it makes me feel like a sellout running those distros. I know that’s a goofy thought. Is underdog syndome a thing? Ha.
.
That will be the final kick in the pants I need to switch to QubesOS. How much fucking money do they actually need?
If they do this. I’m going to use WINE on QubesOS…but then again. If the only penalty for not paying is ads, there’s going to be ways of blocking those.
If I may ask, why QubesOS in particular?
Is it for the extra security? Then why aren’t you using it now?
Is it for the virtualization? Then why not any other Linux OS ?
Compartmentalization for keeping all my shit separated and also to keep things more secure.
I am not convinced this will make people switch to Linux btw. That has been said about every new Windows edition. Especially in case of an ad supported free tier (as the article mentions as possibility). Then most consumers will just use that.
For people to do that they need a seamless way to transfer from Windows to Linux. Come all the files and programs and such, that doesn’t happen. It won’t happen
While I don’t think this in particular would cause people or businesses to switch away from Windows, more and more applications work from browsers so they depend less and less on apps you can install. ( Where I work we already put many people on M365 basic because they do just fine with accessing their mail and spreadsheets from the browser. No point in paying extra for options they’ll never need)
Yep.
My killer app (or Achilles Heel) is OneNote. I need a real competitor on Linux before I can switch.
Yeah it’s hard to say what form a subscription might take. I hope it’s for a developer version and they leave home alone. Actually I hope it doesn’t happen at all but who am I kidding? I expect to be paying a subscription for DLSS in 5 years. What I can easily imagine happening is that a base version of Windows will be free and they’ll teir the available features and services through the subscription. They don’t want to lose their dominance in the market.
.
If only Photoshop and After Effects worked on Linux / Wine I wouldve switched long ago…
Don’t work with Wine?!
You can get it to work, but it’s tedious and then still sometimes just doesn’t work right.
And that’s acceptable for professional use how?
I never said that it is.
.
Emacs is my motion graphics compositor of choice on linux.
I prefer to composite motion graphics using ed
Not feasible for most, but maybe time to switch software stack.
I’ve started to transition into linux to prepare for the future. It’s been good so far.
Transitioned 3 years ago. I dual boot for one reason:
Games with anti-cheat.
Once devs start treating us penguins like people I can delete some partitions.
Have not used windows on my personal computer and laptop for 3 years now. I still game, proton is awesome.
5 months now since I installed Pop on my desktop, keeping windows 11 as a dual boot. I have booted into Windows 2 times since then. I feel no need to. I’m trying to help other friends transition as well.
I tried helping family and friends as well however the reasons why I wanted to switch (privacy issues and getting served start menu ads) where not shared.
Most people don’t care how something works or the moderations behind it just that it works and more importanty that it works exaclly the same way each time.
Ignoring an ad or slightly modifying your tolerance for a increasing shit process is more easy that trying a completely new approach.
The way Mac OS overcomes this is with “buy in”, its expensive so people are more motivated to actually learn the Mac OS way to do things so their purchasing choices are validated. There are more reason but this is a big one.
Just keep yours expectations reliatic. Just because someone complains about windows does not mean they are ready to switch.
This is great for linux, but I think many laptops come with a protected BIOS that won’t allow you to boot other OS’s what do you guys do in this case? Also, correct me if I’m wrong!
This is called Secure Boot, it’s part of the UEFI standard which replaces BIOS. Nowadays it’s supported OOTB by most major distros (Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, …), but you can usually disable it with a simple toggle in the UEFI config menu.
Thank you!!
Wait until people make the tools required to unprotect the BIOS on the brands doing this, if they are. Not much else to do at that point than either wait or just buy from companies making laptops made specifically for. That, or if you are in the EU, complain like Hell that a protected BIOS on a laptop is anti-consumer if it doesn’t let you boot anything besides what the vendor allows and hope they look into it a decade down the line.
Okay, thanks! I’ll try to see which laptop require this BIOS tinkering and which ones don’t before hand
I’m somewhat amused by the fact that lots of people are suggesting Linux as an alternative but can’t agree on which flavor to use as the alternative.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Linux is awesome, but this is the problem. You’re never going to get the saturation necessary to bring average consumers over in significant numbers until they have a clear choice.
So, Linux is written by system programmers for system programmers.
The rest of us get to outsource that work by using a premade distribution, where system programmers mostly volunteer their time and efforts to package togther the system they want to use and they distribute it for free. Of course, there is no consensus of what anyone wants to use so there are lots of different distributions.
This isn’t a problem and there will never be consensus.
If you need a “clear choice”, you can always subscribe to one from Microsoft.
I thought the whole point here was to suggest people not use Windows… That seems to be what all the people saying “switch to Linux” are saying…
Your money, spend it how you want. Me, I’ll eschew the bloated system designed to separate customers from their money in favor of the free and open source alternatives.
I guess I feel like “spend your money however you want” does a disservice to people who are not tech savvy who will now be pushed into a subscription model because they don’t know any better. And they don’t deserve to be kicked to the curb just because they don’t have the computer knowledge to understand that Microsoft is fleecing them.
Offering them an alternative is great. Offering them 10 alternatives is just confusing. At best it will push them over to a Mac or a Chromebook because at least they know what those are.
The move to a subscription model is the disservice and requires no particular savvy to differentiate from free.
Macs and Chromebooks are fine for some people and won’t require as much hand holding as a direct Linux install regardless of the distro.
People are going to rely on what others recommend when they don’t know themselves. It’s up to those people to cull the list from ten to two.
Is the person a budding tech that wants to hack on their system? Send them to Arch.
Are they a creative looking to craft? Throw them into Ubuntu Studios.
Maybe they’re grandparents who barely understand tech. Ok, Mint or Elementary are good options… Just maintain SSH access with keys.
The options are a strength.
That’s community software!
If you want to stick your fingers in your ears and go “LALALA” we don’t care. We’re not selling you anything, do what you think is best for you.
If you want to be treated as a consumer (aka milked for money), then go right ahead, we are not here to convince you otherwise.
Whenever you want something better, you know where to look. Some of us will be here to help you along.
This must be one of the most uninformed comment in a long time. Already 2001, there was quite a lot of UI work being done by the company Eazel, founded by Andy Hertzfeld who from Apple and with a bunch of former Apple people. Around the same time, Ximian (I think) was pushing project Utopia with the idea to form project teams of people from kernel devs up to UX, to ensure common tasks worked out of the box. One result of this is that printer configuration on Linux is a much easier than on any other OS. This all happened 20+ years ago, there have been quite a lot of UX people involved after that. And my experience is that people with little prior knowledge have an easier time with a modern Gnome desktop, than with Windows. The problem here is that most people know Windows to some extent, and are used to the weird quirks there, but any slight inconvenience on a new OS make them quit.
Maybe that’s true for gnome, but gnome isn’t linux just like CUPS isn’t an operating system and systemd isn’t an operating system (which is based on launchd).
It all has to be packaged together and distributed and unless you’re doing all your own packaging (and LfS is an experience, but not really an OS!), you’re relying on a distro maintainer to do that for you.
Mint. The answer is Mint.
As a windows user, that desperately wants Linux to be user friendly enough, Mint is the only one that comes close.
Last time I tried the switch, it was just miles ahead of the rest of the distros.
I can vote Mint. I try out distros every once and a blue moon. And the one I keep coming back to is Mint.
Windows is for the average person, but there’s a linux distro for everyone.
Basic Internet-Browser/Email users should either get an ubuntu distro, or a debian distro, but not directly debian. Enthusiast Gamers and Power Users may prefer arch-based distros for their lightweight, and bleeding edge updates. Developers, and Power Users might prefer Debian over arch for it’s intense stability over any other distro or OS.
If you’re the type of person who wants a drop-in replacement where you don’t have to learn anything new ever, and can just be 1:1 with windows, keep dreaming.
This isn’t even the case between versions of Windows itself. This is a pipe dream and an excuse made up for some inconceivable reason.
It’s an issue of culture not an issue of a clear choice. This is kind of the entire point of the Fediverse. Defaulting to the “Big Social Media” because it’s easy and everyone knows it, and we know many people will go to it. But Once they’re in, they’ll begin to understand how the fediverse works.
It may seem entirely fascinating to us that people can’t comprehend how the Fediverse works, but they eventually learn. Similarly we do have an easy Linux Distro that most people start with. Ubuntu.
Is ubuntu the best linux distro? no. Is Lemmy.world the best instance? also no. But looking for the best “x” in an ocean of choices is the wrong question to be asking. What we want to ask is “What is the best ‘x’ for them?” Ubuntu has the foundations of most everything linux. Most people know Ubuntu, some before they even know what linux is. Once they’ve gone through and learned more about linux they typically go through the phase of distro hopping for desktop environments, not understanding quite yet that those two are not married to eachother. Slowly they’ll start to come to this understanding, but it won’t click until they go to a distro originator like Arch or Debian. Where the install process includes selecting a desktop environment. Then from there more things will begin to click.
The best thing we can do is forward people along this path. Imo, the average user should probably start with installing debian in a virtual machine and installing every desktop environment. Allowing them to switch between them until they decide which one is the best for them.
For the “I just want things to work because I got home and I don’t want to deal with any troubleshooting” crowd like myself, should look to Ubuntu, Mint, and Pop!.
Different hardware combinations may work slightly better/worse on each, but they are all plug and play.
Mint is what I generally recommend
The thing is you won’t find people discussing which service pack of windows to use. The cool thing about Linux is the diversity in environments. If win12 is a subscription based build, I will be joining the flock moving to Linux. After that moment linux will have all the saturation necessary for whatever is in store. I just hope it stays FOSS.
Most of the major components to Linux can’t become not-FOSS. It’s more likely that Windows will be made into a good, quality, user-respecting operating system.
(Also they can all be forked.)
I make it a habit to not underestimate corporate greed.
This user to be Ubuntu. I think I see probably something like SteamOS maybe being a standard in the future since many who stay on windows are doing so for gaming reasons, and that’s the best prebuilt distribution for gaming.
The future is riddled with choice. That’s kinda the point and it encourages competition and results in better products. The choice may not be obvious now but will become with time. Leaving reddit? A year ago, the alternative was unknown, today the choice is clearer.
I’ve been hearing Linux is the Future for… Well almost since Linux existed.
And at some point, it may just become the present, too :)
OpenSUSE looks the most like Windows. The real problem is driver support being Windows first.
I’ve been linuxing for about a year and a half now and have tried Manjaro, mint, Ubuntu, Kali. And fedora. I could not for the life of me get my graphics card working with it. So I moved on. Ubuntu ran like hot ass which lead to mint. Which just kind of did what it should. Manjaro was a g=st way to dio my toe into arch l, and I use it as a backup os on a spare ssd. Kali is occasionally useful when I want to do some digging or broaden my knowledge on infosec.
I guess my point is that there isn’t really one flavour that does it all. For me anyway, there’s just kind of a handful of daily driver candidates and ones for specific use cases. \ete I tk get back into gaming id imagine pop os would appeal.
And the average consume would probably rather have a piping hot ramen enema then learn or tinker with any of the above. Command lines are intimidating and most people will give up as soon as they see one.
This is good news for everyone.
This coupled with a few years of proton becoming very usable is an interesting mix.
Is this the year?
let us pray together
And Windows 12 will become business use only.
edit, i only see this being the case for an enterprise version tied to azure ad. There will still be a retail version.
I’m probably going to get flammed for this, so let me just say I’m already a Linux user.
We need to cool our jets here. Windows 12 isn’t even confirmed yet, and there’s no proof that it will require a subscription. That being said, a subscription service isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it will allow users to have access to features they need, or replace other existing subscription services like xbox game pass, cloud storage, media, etc…
.
You’re the type that gets excited every time postage stamp prices increase.
Everyone on Lemmy is already a Linux user in some form or fashion.
How would cooling our jets help? I really like the idea of going into Linux, and the more MS pushes the subscription/rental model, the more I’m encouraged to do so. Corporations like to float their ideas to the media as a way of surveying the market. These rumors could be just that. The idea of building a Linux PC sounds fun. I never had the need for any of these subscription services. I have a backlog of games I own, my own HDDs, MP3s, from CDs or the like, that I bought. I don’t need to pay yearly for those.
I disagree. Our lives are all subscriptions now and you own nothing. I will avoid any subscription if possible
The base piece of software for your computer being tied to a subscription is unacceptable, period.
Subscriptions are already too heavily pushed and for the most part are just being used to eek more money out of people.
I’m sure this subscription will also get mixed with the ads systems they are bolting into Windows and that stuff is already unacceptable.
Microsoft is treating the market as cattle to farm money, their behavior quite frankly has strayed into morally reprehensible. “Cooling jets” is not necessary, breaking up Microsoft is.
I mean, Windows 8 chased me off.
Bahahaha okay. Linux here we come!
Steam Deck demand might not be met next few years.
How do you mean? I’m talking desktop environment Linux distros. I do want a steam deck tho🫡
Sign me up! I need yet another monthly subscription!
Sorry man, your subscription to SignMeUp Subscription Subscriber isn’t active.
Ooh, sorry. Looks like you need SignMeUp Subscription Subscriber Plus to manage more subscriptions.
As much as I’d like a Linux rise from this, I think it’s not unlikely Google will make a desktop OS (not the half done chrome OS.
They would probably shut it down after 2 years. Sooner if it was any good.
First they’ll have to split the functionality of every program across multiple programs, then they’ll shut it down.
Google’s vision is that chromeOS will be seen as a regular operating system with everything being done through Google’s browser while interacting with Google’s services.
Sometimes moneygrubbing shareholders do us a favor by steering companies into implementing terrible policies. If Reddit wouldn’t have been so greedy with it’s treatment of third-party app developers most of use wouldn’t be on Lemmy right now. If Microsoft forces Windows users to pay a subscription I think it sends more people away from closed-source garbage and into the arms of the open source community. I’ve enjoyed watching Reddit implode, hopefully I get to watch a similar show from our friends at Microsoft.
Looks like the push I’ll need to finally move all my gaming over to a Linux box.
Been using Ubuntu for gaming for 99% of the time for half a year now. Basically no issues, most of my steam library works out of the box with proton. It’s very doable now, no need to wait.
Highly recommended pop_os its made gaming easy
Mint was always my go to; feels just enough like the best parts of Windows to be immediately comfortable. Didn’t have any problems until I switched to bleeding edge hardware; since then, I’ve been on Garuda, which had also been fine but more fiddly.
Maybe this isn’t for personal editions.
I’d suspect Microsoft would prefer to move personal editions to being mostly perpetual and OEM licenses, while a subscription service for business/enterprise makes more sense. Windows licensing for business is a nightmare and a per-install subscription model could be much simpler to manage while still offering good breaks under Enterprise Agreements and putting license and support under one annual sku.
ETA: Also, worth remembering that “Windows 365” is a thing and it’s very useful for DaaS. Term-based licensing makes tons of sense for DaaS/Cloud Desktop/VDI environments.
And actually, that could make a lot of sense in a future home/personal market with purpose built thin clients. Or perhaps even a set top box. Maybe, even, the Series S. A small monthly/annual fee to to make your Series S into a full-fledged desktop PC, sounds like a hell of a deal to me.
That’s IMHO the best scenario we can hope for, though it doesn’t seem promising even to pessimists like me.
My updated edit has an even better scenario that I just conjured up. Essentially bringing Windows 365 (cloud desktop) to home thin clients, netbooks, or even STBs like the series S.
The Series S (and its descendants) would be a hell of a versatile system as a cloud desktop with official licensing and support from MS.
It would also give people a reason to actually buy a Series S which can only be a good thing. Currently their market share for the console is basically in the toilet.
As a casual gamer, I like my series S, but mostly because of Gamepass. I don’t tend to replay games after I beat them, so game ownership doesn’t mean much to me.
That has the drawback, though, of needing a lot of storage if I’m working on a few modern high-end games, and the kids have a bunch of games that they want to play, too. The built in storage on the Series S is pathetic. The supplemental storage is confusing as hell and the proprietary drive that you can launch X|S games from is ridiculously expensive. I do really hate having to plan which games I’m going to play (and when) around download and copy times, and balance that against the games that I have currently and want to play.
Now, if the Xbox could easily be paired with a keyboard/mouse/4k display to be a fully-functional desktop computer while still retaining its capability as a current-gen gaming system? Shut up and take my money. What an incredible value add, and MS gets all the sweet sweet telemetry of a family computer.
“Error 200067 our login servers are currently busy. Please try doing business again in a few hours”
This might finally provide the momentum to switch to Linux.
As much as I dislike Linux because of its extremely annoying user baser I might even consider switching then
Don’t write it off just because some users are obnoxious about it. I use Linux myself, but I just sidestep any bs I come across and go about my business. If you’re curious about Linux, try it out. If you’re not, no sweat.
If you ever do try it out, I highly recommend the Linux mint forums, even if you choose a different distro. They seem friendly enough there.
I’d also recommend installing time shift for system restore type functionality and an external USB drive for backups of personal files just in case.
Annoying OS that constantly gets in your way anytime you try to do work
IS WAY WORSE THAN
Annoying users I electively interact with occasionally on social media.
My hate for subscriptions > my laziness.
I will either go Linux or Windows 95.
Linux or Windows ME
<img alt="" src="https://ttrpg.network/pictrs/image/4dd7002f-e0ce-40bb-9458-3075bb7ddb07.jpeg">
They should make everything subscription corporations cant have enough money.
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Looks like M$ really got to like Linux! It does everything to promote it! :D
With this subscription, the year of the Linux desktop will finally be here.
It is for me.
For a lot of people, yeah. But everyone assumed that the year of FOSS media software would come with Adobe Creative Cloud, but most people just grumbled and paid it anyway.
Most people would probably end up paying the subscription rather than relearning everything they already know. It may have long term impacts, but, like… I don’t think this would make the average person switch to Linux. If any migration happens I’d expect more people to switch to Macs than Linux over time because that’s more of a mainstream option.
That said there’s lots of interesting stuff going on in the Linux world right now, and it’s slowly but surely becoming a more interesting option for a lot of people. Valve’s work on Proton / Linux in general is pretty huge. I still think you’d need a huge marketing push to convince the average person (which people on Lemmy are not) to install Linux themselves, or prefer buying a laptop with Linux pre-installed, though. It could happen eventually, and has happened in special cases (like the Steam Deck)… But short term I think most people are just going to pay a yearly subscription rather than upend their entire computing life.
Yep. I’m even a FOSS fanboy and the most I can manage is dual-booting, since I need some Windows-only applications for work.
At least for now. A monthly OS subscription would be reason enough to switch.
Yeah, I use Linux full time and have always used unixy operating systems and have never really used windows. So, like, sure, I think a lot of people could switch to Linux and be perfectly happy… but I’m under no delusions that people will and wouldn’t just pay a little more for a windows license instead. There’s probably a good chunk of people (particularly here) who would be more on the edge and willing to just drop the windows in this situation… but I doubt the average computer user is dying to try Gentoo in the event that Microsoft charges a subscription fee, haha.
Mac would absolutely be the big winner in such a case.
Although that said… Microsoft is trying to take some market share back from ChromeOS and iPadOS in the education world, and I can’t imagine schools devoting any budget to Windows rentals.
Depends how Microsoft handles education licenses. I think historically they’ve been pretty good about giving university students licenses for free, and if they consider the education sector important enough (which they probably should) I am certain they could provide generous terms. If the schools don’t have to pay for the licenses I’m not sure they would bother switching off of windows at least. It will be interesting to see how the ChromeOS dominance in education plays out in the future, though!
True. K12 would probably get a really good deal.
Except redhat, they already do subscriptions lol
that year is going to really damage my hipster cred
I’ll just use the pirated versions with the malware ripped off of it, thank you. Tiny11 is a beauty to run already.
I would assume that the subscription they found is similar to existing subscription models for enterprise like E5, which includes Windows 11. I doubt this will get to the consumer level.
This has already been debunked.
Kind of. Seems they’re going for a subscription creep model rather than just forcing into users all at once.
autokms is gonna get a lot more popular if microsoft do this
Please don’t make me go back to Linux. Linux has become an unusable clusterfuck of bugs, poorly implemented trash, and garbage over the last several years and after using it since the late 90s through a few years back when it was good, I’ve recently decided to free myself from it because I couldn’t take it any more. I’ve accepted that Windows is the only OS that has itself together these days (fuck Apple and its trash, overpriced, hardware-tied OS, fuck the extremely limited ChromeOS, fuck NODRIVERS *BSD, and especially goddamn fuck horrible user interface crappy system mobile OSes), so if Microsoft makes some shit moves to make their OS unusable, I’m just going to throw all the computers in the trash and go live in the wilderness in a shack chopping wood.
Guaranteed this is just some enterprise-level shit someone found and decided to publish for clickbait, though, so I’m not too worried. Too.
Linux has been becoming more and more beginner friendly for a few years now, almost everyone gets frustrated by Windows.
The only reason Windows is big is because it’s the only computer OS where you can do gaming, other than that it sucks as much as the next OS.
Microsoft would be as stupid as your typical League of Legends player for going down that route. Doing this would be an own-goal and would give Linux market share instantly.
I doubt that Windows 12 itself will require a subscription. There will probably be a subscription for all the AI trash Micro$oft has been implementing into the OS.
Microsoft: “Windows 12 is free but all our great built-in apps like Candy Crush, Linkedin, and MegaStomp are unavailable without a subscription.”
Me: “Yup.”
Microsoft: “But if you don’t subscribe, you’ll miss out on hot celebrity gossip and the latest fashion news! And you won’t be able to use Bing AI to find great deals on amazing products from our trusted corporate partners!”
Me: “Sounds good, thanks.”
Me: *Tries to install Firefox.
Microsoft: Sorry, but your current subscription level does not allow for the installation of unauthorized 3rd party software. Click here to upgrade your subscription and enjoy those great benefits.
Me: *Installs linux
Microsoft: I can’t let you do that Dave.
Oh great now my mind’s totally at ease
Honestly OneDrive is actually very good as far as cloud storage platforms go. It just works. I paid for a subscription for a few years.
But starting around the 1000th time Microsoft tried to install even more bloatware I started looking for alternatives. For the low low price of “spend a few minutes learning about Tailscale” and buying a few extra hard drives, I’ve got 24TB of storage. My most important stuff gets encrypted locally and backed up to B2. I use Immich to manage my photos, so now I dropped my Google Drive subscription as well. Still on the fence about Nextcloud’s office suites but LibreOffice works great.
The only reason I still use Win11 is because gaming on Linux still has some issues with the games I play.
kagis tailscale
Kagis?
.