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Comment by AnIdiotOnTheNet | Hacker News Reader

> Microsoft can sell me their operating system in a minute if they just stop all the stupid telemetry, remove the bloat and by default turn all privacy and security options to on and not off

I don't think Microsoft is in the business of selling desktop OSs anymore, despite the fact that they still charge money for them. All of their behavior suggests complete disdain for the desktop and users of the desktop. I think Windows is only still being developed because it is a delivery platform for ads and telemetry. For the moment I'll still take it over the alternatives, but I'm confident Microsoft will eventually push me over the edge.

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I have the opposite experience. MS has enabled our company to save tens of thousands of dollars because of their unwillingness to compromise on backwards compat. Literally we take CD's burned a decade(s) ago and the software installs and functions just fine. In our field, software tends to cost five digits and upwards so its a big F* deal. I can't imagine any other vendor coming even close. I don't particularly care for their other products, but Windows has earned a ton of respect from me.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I still choose Windows over the other desktop OSs. PowerShell is also great. The problem is that they take this great base and plaster a slow, dysfunctional, half-thought-out, user-hostile interface on top of it stuffed with telemetry, ads, and dark patterns designed to push you to their cloud services.

Agreed, No argument there.

The question as always is what you could replace it with. We have an unfortunate situation where Microsoft had a near-monopoly on the desktop for so long that credible alternatives are lacking for many users. Even if they like some particular flavour of Apple or *nix as an OS, the applications they need might not be available on that platform. I wonder what the forever-defenders of Windows think they will do if Microsoft continues along the course set by Nadella and the current senior team and the situation with intrusions and lack of control over your own equipment continues to deteriorate.

Honestly I'm probably just going to stop using computers so much if that happens. Linux Desktop has consistently proven that it has no interest in doing anything in a sane or consistent manner, and Apple is just as bad as Microsoft in terms of fucking shit up for no reason, only in different ways.

If we're very very lucky, something like Haiku will gain a hypervisor, WINE port, and graphical acceleration, then take off in popularity and become the last refuge of the desktop. I'm pretty skeptical it'll go down like that though.

> Honestly I'm probably just going to stop using computers so much if that happens.

The state of mobile software (including the OS) has become so awful that I've already decided to stop using a smartphone entirely.

> Linux Desktop has consistently proven that it has no interest in doing anything in a sane or consistent manner

Could you explain that a bit more?

Yes, but I won't because I find that posts like yours are only interested in performative argumentation for the sake of convincing some nebulous group of "future readers" that Linux Desktop is worth considering.

I'll save you the trouble: Dear readers, Linux Desktop is fine if you like the way it works. I encourage using tools you like. If you haven't tried it, it might work for you.

I don't like the way works, I've expounded upon the details many times, and I'm not interested in further performative argumentation on the subject.

This weekend I was traveling with my kubuntu machine and despite searching for at least 20 minutes, I was unable to find the controlpanel/settings page/widget/app that will allow me to connect a WiFi network, so I gave up and switched to gnome.

Who do you imagine this "Linux Desktop" is, that you attribute lack of interest to?

Various groups make desktop environments that may be used on Linux, as diverse as KDE, Gnome, Chrome, and Android. It could possibly make sense to complain about one or other of them, or even several. As it is your complaint is entirely nonsensical, a category error like saying red is too hot.

> Who do you imagine this "Linux Desktop" is

The community of people who make and distribute Linux distributions and software intended for the Desktop use case, when taken as a whole.

> Various groups make desktop environments that may be used on Linux, as diverse as KDE, Gnome, Chrome, and Android.

Calling Android or ChromeOS a Linux Desktop is incredibly disingenuous.

> It could possibly make sense to complain about one or other of them, or even several.

Every distribution has the same problems because they are all built with more or less the same hodgepodges of desperately developed software.

> Every distribution has the same problems because they are all built with more or less the same hodgepodges of desperately developed software.

In other words, slightly better than trying to change system settings in Windows 10?

Well no. The new settings panels in Windows 10 certainly do suck ass and contribute to the general UI fragmentation, but the systems that are the foundation of the Windows operating system are not disparately developed hodgepodges. The same cannot be said for Linux Desktop, although with SystemD taking over everything that might not remain true indefinitely.

With ARM, the lack of control might deteriorate even further. While the underlying architecture might not have much to do with it, the accelerators in these SOCs just give more options for Microsoft to collect data and lock down devices even further.

Enterprise desktop is still a cash cow.

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