Windows 11: The number you have dialed has been disconnected
theregister.com
theregister.com
My family is just casually using Linux now. I didn't even have to "train" them when I switched. The only thing we keep windows around for now is the unbelievably awful Cricut software, which is clearly a ramshackle product barely managing to run in Windows as it is.
I also use it for work, and the only significant delta I've noticed is that Zoom doesn't want to share individual apps in my setup. (Maybe it does in Wayland, I dunno.) It has otherwise been quite a while since I've had to tell someone "No, I can't do that, I'm on Linux."
The marketers for Windows face a problem they will be incapable of perceiving or acknowledging, which is that they are now the primary problem with Windows. Their need to change things just so they can say they changed things, their need to pile another feature on top of the ever-larger tottering stack of backwards compatibility already in place, their need to murder my experience using their product with ads so they can get another $3/year of revenue from me, these things that they did are the primary reason I switched away, am staying away, and am advising people around me to do the same. Eat that seed corn, marketers. Who needs $25 billion/year in revenue anyhow? A pittance, surely.
It runs on a phone or tablet if your Cricut does Bluetooth. We just make an SVG on a PC in whatever we want, make the quick tweaks in the Cricut software and send it that way.
Saves us from needing Windows PCs.
And there lies the problem with linux.
You basically have to know how it works to use it and maintain it. You, at the very least, have to be a lightweight diy computer technician (or have someone you know like this) to figure out some intractable issues, like "copy paste isn't working" or "my screen is black."
You can be actively hostile to learning desktop computing and still kinda muddle through using Windows.
I have yet to find a distro I would, say, trust with my mother or some former work colleagues, but immutable distros like Fedora Kionite are getting closer.
Well, I mean, it never really was the paradise that it is often presented as in the Linux vs. Windows debate. I don't know where you're getting the idea that a normal user can fix "my screen is black". I've fixed a lot of relative's Windows machines over the years, in ways that often involved some relatively deep web searching and wizardry. That's just ahistorical garbage.
But now even a baseline and otherwise functioning install of Windows does not start out user friendly. It is a nightmare of popup hell that none of my family like to use, and I must deduct major points from considering the user a monetization source and stuffing ads down through your operating system.
Thanks to the marketer's decisions, Windows is simply not a 10/10 automatic default choice anymore, and the first derivative is clearly negative. More and more Microsoft wants me to upgrade Windows so they can grab more stuff and more things to stuff ads into, not because they're bringing their users any value.
Jerf is presumably not using wayland nor a Zoom developer, so not knowing whether something works on some other random system (as in "not used by me") isn't exactly a problem with Linux.
> You, at the very least, have to be a lightweight diy computer technician (or have someone you know like this) to figure out some intractable issues, like "copy paste isn't working" or "my screen is black."
This can happen on all systems.
My HP-recommends-windows-11 laptop had a "my webcam is not detected" issue for a full year after I bought it. It worked fine out of the box on Linux, so the hardware wasn't defective.
My it-just-works MacBook Pro became terribly laggy and had blinking patches on the external screen after some update. Hell, I even knew what the issue was (botched nvidia drivers) but there wasn't much I could do about it.
A different it-just-works MacBook Pro had the "my screen is black" issue. I also knew what the issue was – shoddy soldering job of the GPU. Nothing I could do about it except, paradoxically, slap a Linux on it which could be convinced to not turn on the dGPU and would happily run on the iGPU exclusively.
Computers just suck sometimes.
Not really, at least not any more so than with any other OS. Linux hasn't been that way for a long time, unless you're using a distro specifically intended for a more technical audience.
Why would that be? A browser is almost all many people use a laptop for. I had to retire mine from about ten years ago but that's because it was out of support and the only reason I won't replace it probably is because I have an old spare MacBook and no one makes a particularly good Chromebook optimized for traveling.
I've never been able to make a tablet and keyboard work for me for productivity, especially balancing them on my lap.
Today I am 100% windows desktop.
Linux still suffers from the same problems it did when I left, terrible multi monitor support. Right now I am running 4 Monitors, an UltraWide, 1080p Landscape, 4K Landscape, and a 1920x1200 portrait mode. This configuration of different sizes of montiors, in different orientations has always been, and continues to be a nightmare on linux.
Windows has the absolute best multi-monitor support, and even after going with an UltraWide I still find I want many montiors
It's horrifically terrible on Xorg. It's not bad on Wayland.
for example in the image there are 2 monitors above the laptop with the laptop being a 3rd screen, assuming they are all 1080p, x/wayland sees that as 3840 x 2160, then in effect attemts to block out 540 px on either side of the lower monitor, that only works sometimes
Then the shit really hits the fan when you go to play a game, windows is always very good about going full screen only on the primary monitor. X Wayland, I have no idea how it chooses were to go,
also placing things gets really weird if you monitors are out of order, as 0x0 coordinate may not be where you think it is...
There is just 1000 little things that deep in the core of X that were carried over in Wayland that makes multimonitor support poor in Linux, and I dont think it will ever change.
I'm not sure if the issue you're having is with the compatibility layer or the desktop environment support or what, but Wayland shouldn't have that issue and your experience doesn't match mine.
You got those mixed up.
I am both joking and dead serious. Which is why the graphics ecosystem should be indicted: engineers are far too keen to conveniently exclude user stories (or be fundamentally uninterested in them) to document to 1001 corner cases they should be covering with tons of nasty code, instead of finding and optimizing for the One True Way. Nothing changed with Wayland. Xorg is dead, long live Xorg.
I have no issues, and haven't had any issues with Gnome for a long time.
KDE is great, and is highly customisable, but that also means it has a lot of footguns.
And maybe I'm just the luckiest guy, but I can't get Windows 11 to project between my two displays: a 14" 1080P 60Hz eDP panel and the 42" above. I've only spent enough time in Windows to know that the eDP panel doesn't work there, but I for certain don't care to wrangle with any of the different utilities, cleaners, and interfaces when it just works elsewhere.
Every platform has issues. I prefer Linux when I get a choice simply because it aligns with my values.
This is exclusively an issue with Xorg. (as the other commenter also mentioned), the Wayland OOB experience is pretty solid these days, as much hate as Wayland got these are the real problems that it was designed to solve properly.
I would love to hear other complains, 100% linux to 100% windows is quite a strong transition, definitely not one I'd be comfortable making so your situation must have been mired with issues much larger than feeble mixed DPI support; because honestly speaking Windows has significantly larger issues than that.
There are issues like the requirement of a microsoft account, there are issues with snapping windows and global hotkeys and every piece of software needing its own bespoke update mechanism (often interrupting you while doing things).
Theres issues with ransomware, theres deep seated issues with the default filesystem which not only has abysmal performance but also does absurd cache things making it behave extremely strangely with even minor bit flips. I have never experienced inaccessible files except on windows. The permissions system btw requires a damn PhD to understand if you have more than one user on the system.
Or the fact that errors are by default opaque and hidden, the event logger is practically useless both providing no information relevant to the issue and simultaneously far too much information so you drown in irrelevance.
As a power user, windows is about as hostile as it possibly could be.
As a normal user the experience is really unclean, the 17 pop-ups I get when installing and the forced online account are enough, but honestly the weight of the OS is so much: you literally cant even run the thing on a standard spinning drive anymore.
Today, 100% on Linux (Arch btw + KDE). (It's been years since I booted into my Windows drive. I don't even know if I remember the password.)
To me, using monitors of the same size (not that I've ever not done that) is a tiny price to pay for an OS meant for engineering and that doesn't fume with spyware and condescension for me. (That said, I wouldn't've survived long without Valve supporting Linux. :p)
Lots of DEs are vaguely Windows-like, but this isn’t enough for non-technical users. It’s still different, and this adds enough friction that anybody who might’ve been interested quickly loses interest.
On the other hand, if a distro could be sold as “Windows but better” (using a modern Win10 like DE) or “like Windows in the good old days” (using a Win2K/XP/7 DE), it’s significantly more compelling. Add in something that’s like Proton but more intelligent and automatic (e.g. it sees you’re trying to install X version of MS Office, and so configures everything to work correctly automatically) and it’s even more interesting.
I know that Lindows used to be a thing, but it made a few critical errors: selling the product (opening them to litigation), not throughly duplicating the Windows desktop well enough, and the integrated WINE not being mature enough. All of that is avoidable now.
The group that I'd expect to be most likely to stumble with a clone DE is the group that is just technical enough to get themselves in trouble. This group tends to overestimate their own technical capabilities and quickly frustrates when discovering unexpected differences. For this group, yes I'd agree they'd be better off with a more standard "Linuxy" DE.
I had a UNIX zealot phase, starting with Xenix in 1993, used most well known commercial UNIXes since then, started my GNU/Linux travel with Slackware 2.0 in 1995's Summer, bought all Linux Journal issues until they went out of business.
Yet by the time Windows 7 came out, I had enough of always making up for Year of Desktop Linux continuous reboots of subsystems, fragmentation and what not, and VMWare did it for me.
Like many people that went to OS X for their UNIX fix, for me using GNU/Linux was always a cheap way to have UNIX at home, so anything that does POSIX well enough will do, and it is a pity that we lost Solaris.
So Windows, macOS and Android it is.
There is always something that doesn't quite work, even on System 76, Tuxedo, Framework or Dell XPS 13 devices.
Sure GNU/Linux might work perfectly alright on classical desktop hardware, a dying breed outside gaming.
Speaking of which, where GNU/Linux needs to emulate Win32 and DirectX to be relevant at all.
Not even Android game developers care about GNU/Linux, despite the NDK being about ISO C, ISO C++, GL ES/Vulkan, OpenSL, Open MAX.
The Muggels can't see it coming replacing all their devices usually bought at the shopping mall downtown.
On the one hand - game consoles are becoming more like PC's. More and more people are eschewing Laptops/Desktops outside of work in favor of only using mobile devices / game consoles. I certainly am increasingly hearing from friends that they don't own a computer at home - and one of these guys is a director of development.
I see this trend continuing - people just finding that they don't need more computing power at home than their mobile devices provide. I think docking a mobile device to use as a desktop environment will still be niche, but probably really impressive and finally ready for prime time for those interested in it.
Desktop Linux is a pipe dream, because like as not desktop computing itself will become less relevant. Relegated to the confines of your working life, and outside of that most people will be using controlled devices which are part of a locked-down ecosystem.
My 2 cents anyways.
It is visible a trend of newer student generations eschewing traditional laptops.
Ironically this vertical integration is a return to how computers used to be like before IBM failed to prevent PC clones to take off.
We've reached the point where companies feel the need to continuously release new versions but all they can conceive for the new versions is meaninglessly changing things that worked fine - @see Apple getting rid of a headphone jack.
https://pureinfotech.com/move-taskbar-top-side-windows-11/
Typical nonsense which didn't make the cut from 10. Although a lot of that stuff got quietly added back in.
Except you aren't driving auto, but manual.
The truth is that yes OS's are bloated, especially Windows 10 and 11. Apple has its own problems with locking down their hardware platform by preventing upgrades and repairs, but to say that there isn't anything new under the sun in the OS improvement department is missing the point. There's always room from innovation. Its just that our current culture is being driven by market forces more then it should. We need to get back to the basics and stop worrying about the bottom line. And many are independent developers are already doing that.
I'm a Windows IT professional/Gamer and because Microsoft the crossed the line with forcing online accounts and their attempts and preventing 3rd party browsers in Windows 11, last year I switched to PopOS and wrote about it[0]. Overall the past year has been a good experience with Linux, but I often struggle with updates that break the boot process and getting my Epson multifuction device to work reliability. I'm thinking of switching to Manjaro because I need more stability for my work environment.
[0]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...
The moral of the story is, innovation isn't dead, there is plenty of room for exciting improvements and new ways to work with technology, It's just that we've given corporations to much power over our lives, and that has to be corrected for things to get better. Eventually that will happen, but it will take time.
I moved to Arch but only out of curiosity ~~and masochism~~. It taught me a lot more about Linux, allowing me to optimize the system to my liking a bit more (like in the partition layout). :p
(It's not difficult to switch kernels on Arch, btw; it's only a tiny bit harder in that you have to memorize/document the workflow instead of being able to use a GUI.)
Both Arch and Manjaro, however, have been way better than Ubuntu, paradoxically. Ubuntu's supposed to be the user friendly distro, but it's more user friendly to use the AUR than hunt for expired PPA links on StackOverflow or suffer frequent DE crashes cuz the DE is old or have to reinstall the system to upgrade to the next version. Meanwhile, the trade-off with rolling, you think, is instability, but it's really MORE stability and faster hardware support! Wild.
Bonus meme: there was a bad kernel a while back. 5.13 or something. It was freezing people's machines at random, and I was one of those people. I was using both Manjaro and Ubuntu at the time. On Manjaro, I was able to quickly work around it by bringing up the kernel switcher, clicking on the previous kernel, and rebooting. On Ubuntu, I thought I was safe since I was using an LTS version that predated the bad kernel. Alright, see, now it makes sense -- at least you have a haven or stability in an LTS point release, where you never hit bad kernels like this like you might on rolling. :) ...But then a system update bumped the LTS kernel version to the bad one! :| With no way to switch like on Manjaro. Frozen Ubuntu. Like, what's even the point?
It's like the 10th man thing in that Israel stuff. Someone has to intentionally disagree with the mainstream and just worry about long tail shit. You never know when that 32 MB video file included with the OS is too much. But he will know, guardian of the space. Love it. Genuinely.
It's not a perfect system but it's fucking ridiculous to complain about wallpapers. But it's The Register. They have ten fantasy criticisms they use for strawman arguments for any single legit criticism.
Well, that's a dumb and misinformed argument. Only the one out of the box is included with macOS - the rest are download on demand.
> Look at Windows 11's sluggish take-up, largely because it's Windows 10 demanding you buy it a new computer.
Actually, it's been widely reported that Windows 11 take-up is widely exceeding Microsoft's projections.
... and cleaned up automatically when more free space is needed.
Additionally I like the Mac Dock-esque revamp for the taskbar, and though it still has an annoying number of UI conventions that one snakes through like exploring the layers of Aperture labs, the new ones are actually quite nice, very usable, and don't feel like simply a barrier I must pass to access the settings I actually want.
My sole beef is that changing audio outputs now takes four clicks instead of three as they buried that button next to the volume control in whatever they're calling Command Center. But that's not a huge issue.
It wasn't a massive upgrade to be sure, but it was the first Windows release in awhile where it felt like an overall improvement to the experience across the board. Everything is a little shinier, a little better done, a little polished, etc. I wish more were like it.
Edit: Cohesive, that's the word I was looking for. It feels much more cohesive than 10, or really any of them since like 7. It feels like something that was actually designed for purpose, not just a mashing together of the various outputs of various departments.
1. one too many. 2. What about all the other non-removable wallpapers, apps and other useless-to-many OS components and data like graphics drivers for graphic cards that you'll never have on your locked down laptop?
> Actually, it's been widely reported that Windows 11 take-up is widely exceeding Microsoft's projections.
Actually, the author is not required to use MS's projections as the basis for his own judgement
Well, two can play at that game. Do you want me to make a list of all the drivers that come with a Linux installation that you will never use? What about packages? How much backwards compatibility within those packages is included that you will never use either? Fedora and Ubuntu come with like 2 dozen background images out of the box, everyone knows it shouldn't come with any and I should provide my own. Most Linux installations still come with drivers for floppy disks, those space-wasting maniacs!
Also, "locked down laptop" is a common nonsense argument because booting into Recovery Mode and doing `sudo csrutil disable` is all it takes to disable SIP and be able to mount the root partition. If you want to disable Gatekeeper, it's `sudo spctl --master-disable`. Super locked down, I tell you, when 2 commands is all it takes to burst all the locks. Saying macOS is locked down only shows the ignorance of the person saying it. Windows is arguably more locked down because it will violently prevent you from changing anything that the internal SYSTEM user doesn't want you to do.
> `sudo csrutil disable` is all it takes to disable SIP and be able to mount the root partition
> Saying macOS is locked down only shows the ignorance of the person saying it.
Oh, the irony of an ignorant calling out the ignorance. It used to be that "simple" (though you still had to waste time figuring out which spread-out junk was safe to delete).
But it isn't that simple any more with the newer OS, it's much more, yes, locked down, since you forgot about that minor crypto-signed thingy called Signed System Volume (SSV) (https://eclecticlight.co/2020/11/30/is-big-surs-system-volum...)
You can check some more complicated setup here https://nektony.com/how-to/uninstall-default-apple-apps-on-m..., but then it's much more involved, but also more risky, and then there are still updates..
Two can play at that game. Have you ever tried upgrading Ubuntu 20.04 to 22.04? Or tried going from Fedora 35 to 37?
Gigabytes of space required and not too much appears to have changed! Gasp!
Most of what's fetched/installed replaces bits... and the package caches can trivially be cleaned after (if not implicitly; I haven't looked close).
Windows installations in my experience have grown rather unbounded by comparison.
I can upgrade Linux with 5% disk free - on Windows I'd have anxiety.
The PC was pristine, but the best we could do was install a version of Opera which supported ME and might allow him to access the internet with more modern code.
I agree though, it is a strange thing to diatribe against in such a way.
LOL, I wish. Here's my prediction: Microsoft will make Windows a subscription, and still shove ads down our throats, as many as it can legally get away with. The only hope is maybe a more expensive "Premium" version on the horizon where they cut down on the ads a little bit.
We need, in order to have people moving to better&newer hardware.