Microsoft Recall should make you consider Linux
creativegood.com
creativegood.com
Once you step out of programming or hobbyist use it is 90% Windows for the use cases one uses a full fledged computer. Yes you can replace many things with a tablet or a smartphone.
You can't replace a PC with a tablet for accounting, customer management, CAD, printing, publishing, manufacturing, simulation, advanced reporting, large document processing, centrally controlled IT and many other things.
The professional grade software you do those built on Windows, Office and Active Directory. They trust the backwards compatibility and wide range of API and integration Windows ecosystem provides.
People don't use computers because they like them. They use them because they do work for their goals.
Even for nonprofessional use case Windows still has the best hardware support. For example you cannot use old low DPI monitors with Macs anymore; the text is unreadable. Certain audio workstations doesn't work with ARM chips.
For each one of those examples there's already a superior Linux based choice.
No.
Being tech-illiterate is where Linux shines. Point them to a browser, set up unattended-upgrades, and you're good for a few years - at which point they'd have needed help installing a Windows update (98 -> XP -> 7 -> 8) had Microsoft not decided that thou shalt update, whether the user wants to or not.
Doing any of the above turns it into a hobby. All hobbies require tools, and many software based hobbies require one to learn software. It doesn't seem unreasonable to learn to use publishing software because you want to self-publish a book. Same with learning CAD because you want to learn to 3D print doo-dads and helpful thingamajigs.
And if we're discussing office workers? Well, the IT department is paid handsomely for a reason. One of those reasons is to make the OS as close to invisible as possible. Which again, seems reasonable enough to me.
If you want to say Linux isn't there, then fine. But please don't derail parent's thread by changing the hypothetical user and moving the goalposts.
I have a tech-illiterate grandfather using Linux who is a gearhead. During the pandemic he wanted to get into sim racing to stay in contact with his friends and enjoy his hobby. I ended up having to write drivers for all of his equipment for Linux because almost none of it was supported, whereas it would have been a simple plug-n-play task on Windows.
Just because somebody only needs a browser for now doesn't mean their OS choice won't restrict them in the future from enjoying their life.
Try finding alternatives to Excel with its entire feature set (no cheating all SQL db integration and VBA equivalent scripting, plugin APIs should be there), PowerPoint with all the integration with other Office, Solidworks with its entire feature set, Altium with its entire feature set, Siemens NX, Catia, SAP, Ansys, Active Directory, Adobe Creative Suite or Affinity or CorelDRAW, Cubase, Sibelius just a start. And the software you mention has to have succesful companies behind them and has to be used widely.
If you need those many features you should not be using Excel.
> PowerPoint with all the integration with other Office, Solidworks with its entire feature set, Altium with its entire feature set, Siemens NX, Catia, SAP, Ansys, Active Directory, Adobe Creative Suite or Affinity or CorelDRAW, Cubase, Sibelius just a start
The most critical business software in the world never left the mainframe. The one that did now runs on Linux somehow or their competitors do. If it doesn't run then it can run on a compatibility layer like Wine or on a VM.
> Active Directory
The most overhyped software ever. Some phishing e-mail can bring an entire organization using Active Directory to its knees.
It is a restrictive/closed copyleft ecosystem by design, and that’s actually completely unsuitable for a world where you must have some kinds of software (including open/libre software) and some parties simply will not license that way.
(And I know people will object to the term but it undeniably is more restrictive and closed than BSD/MIT/CDDL-style licenses - intentionally, openly, and by design. The point is that you are supposed to license your software GPL too - and when that is not possible, your freedom is denied. Intentionally, by design. But it is a closed ecosystem - you are either in it, or not, and there are large swaths of code (even open/libre code) that is excluded by design. That is a closed model, just as much as, say, CUDA. You play by their rules or you play in a different sandbox. And open CUDA code exists too, etc - that doesn’t mean anything to the overall ecosystem if licensing precludes people from using it.)
The minimum standard for even reaching usability would be to guarantee a BSD-style stable ABI such that kernel upstreaming is not required in the way that it currently is, and that’s a nonstarter with the current kernel leadership team. Actually they have in many cases gone out of their way to explicitly break compatibility to push others to relicense, even when they know that it’s not going to happen and their users will suffer.
When you get to the point of rejecting interop with other libre code due to license, and actively take steps to break other libre code to prevent interop - you certainly are not fully libre in the typical sense anymore. There’s a degree of fairly open hostility to other libre code at this point, in fact.
Again, it’s not 1992 anymore, Linux could absolutely maintain a stable ABI through major releases. Not only do they not want to do that, they are actively, willfully, maliciously breaking other libre code (GKH has done this repeatedly). Which gives sort of a different color to the former: kernel upstreaming is one of the most potent weapons at this point, for pushing more stuff into their closed ecosystem. It’s not exactly embrace-extend-extinguish, but certainly of a similar tone and kind - join or die.
NVIDIA drivers being one example of that.
If this is a problem to you don't use Windows.
Lets talk reality. More and more applications users access live in a browser.. you technically could run the entire company on dumb terminals if you were so inclined ( and jobs were sufficiently.. in dire of automation, but for one reason or another human is doing those ). Windows is not needed for that.
You could argue banking/finance with excel ( and there are some neat things Office introduced with 365 ), which is presumably why that sector is going to be locked in for a while, but then.. my last class at university, all kids were running google docs and they will be making decisions one day. I am not sure that bodes well for MS/Office/Windows.
As for "accounting, customer management, CAD, printing, publishing, manufacturing, simulation, advanced reporting, large document processing, centrally controlled IT", you might be right, but somehow I doubt it. There is nothing magical about Windows. It is currently held by inertia and contracts, but even inertia ends eventually.
Corporate use looks nothing like that. I was actually working in an accounting firm that tried to move people over to google sheets and docs. Took about a week for people to realise the sheets plan is utterly idiotic.
Docs lasted about a month before even the “thought leaders” in charge of pushing the initiative went quiet.
For casual use sure, but it’s no more replacing office than ms paint is replacing photoshop.
He will waste hours, maybe days learning about different distributions, window managers, packaging, etc. This is true even for experienced professionals. It's demotivating IMHO.
There's a book named "The Paradox of Choice", it gives a good psychological overview of this topic. No distribution is ready to compete against Windows
Here comes the perfect business opportunity for purveyors of Linux laptops.
I know, they exist. But, If Microsoft really pulls off that shitshow (and even the mainstream press is not very kind about it) there could be a significantly large market for such offerings.
Give some market demand, they could switch back and support Linux
Lot of these are .Net based and .Net is now more or less cross-platform.
Your os is still a gatekeeper. I get the appeal of Apple products and the desire to work on a Mac and the rage of going back to Windows (Your file system uses backlashes? Your mount points use drive letters that can be hard codes into files, making resources unreliable users and devices that aren't mapped perfectly? Your files include a newline and a carriage return just in case you reach for the teletype machine? You did what to your start menu? My laptop battery just dies by default when I close the lid unplugged? The list goes on).
Famously, life is suffering and you suffer differently (maybe less?) by going where your tools are (for CAD in AEC it's still very much Windows).
1. Don’t turn recall on
2. Switch to Mac
Jumping straight to the Linux Desktop deep end after using Windows for years is an unlikely change path for most. These arguments ignore the fact that most Windows users have a lot of Windows-specific apps that they use, such as games.
I think the real audience for these articles isn’t Windows users at all. It’s for Linux users to pay themselves on the back for not using Windows.
When I try to use a Mac, everything is just ... different. CMD instead of Ctrl, buttons on the other side of windows, inconsistent maximize logic between programs, whatever Finder is supposed to be doing with folder navigation. It's certainly learnable with effort, and I can move around the OS competently now with some practice, but it's just unpleasant enough that I'd rather not use it as my daily driver.
> I can hop between Linux (KDE, Gnome, whatever)
If you’ve been using Linux long enough to be familiar with KDE and Gnome and even know the difference between them, you’re very firmly a Linux enthusiast user. It’s easy to forget that the average computer user isn’t really interested in the details of their window management. They want the OS to get out of the way and support them, not be something they’re actively invested in.
Windows desktop users are all over the planet. Only a small percent of them could ever afford this.
I've been a Windows user since Windows was originally released (and was an MS-DOS user before that), but Windows 11 is the straw that broke the camels back for me. I've dabbled with Linux before, but the lack of gaming support and the hassles to configure it properly to get all my hardware to work made it to inconvenient to switch, but I am 100% going to switch when support for Windows 10 expires. As I am the one who offers tech support to numerous relatives who are less tech savvy, I will also migrate them to the most user-friendly Linux build I can find. Almost all of them, especially the older ones, use their computers almost exclusively for web-browsing and streaming videos, and this will be a virtually seamless process for them. Most of my Gen-X friends are of the same mindset (except for the ones who have been captured by the Mac ecosystem).
Certainly Windows is not going to go away no matter how terrible and odious their OS becomes, but I think many people have underestimated just how far they can push the envelope without seeing a significant migration away from MS.
I do agree that Recall isn't the reason to switch though. The abuse Microsoft has put their users through the last few years has been unimaginable, to the point where switching to anything will feel liberating. Even Linux desktop.
This is kind of an outdated argument and nearly a solved problem - the majority of Steam's library can be run near-effortlessly on Linux today. I'd expect a large portion of Windows PC gamers to be aware of that, too, at least in the US. I don't really know anyone who's tied to any Windows-specific apps that aren't games, either.
As if many Windows games don't work on Linux via proton, to the point that Valve's Steam Deck runs on Linux and is "good enough" most of the time. Compatibility purely depends on the game and more often than not incompatibilities are caused by anti-cheat mechanisms.
And about jumping to Linux: we had Windows computers in my family, originally with Windows 7, then upgraded to Windows 8.1, and once 8.1 was EOL, they were reinstalled with Linux (KDE as desktop environment). Since these computers were mainly used for email, web browsing, and some basic "office activities" like writing a simple document occasionally, there was exactly no issue with it. KDE itself is also similar enough to a Windows desktop that it wasn't hard for anyone to learn the few relevant things that are different. I'd be quite surprised if this was different for the majority of current Windows users.
But those multiplayer online games are the most popular games on the planet. It's another topic of discussion but people want to play them
I think nowadays you would have a much worse experience switching from windows to mac, as you said, the user wants their apps and games to carry over, but you are actually going to have a much better time getting those to carry over to linux. Specially regarding games, just the fact that Steam runs almost any Windows game effortlessly on linux is a big deal. Meanwhile, Apple has made sure to burn all the bridges they could with game developers and game compatibility in the last decade or so.
I have Mac, Windows, and Linux machines that I use for different purposes. None of them has been perfect, but the amount of time I’ve lost fighting driver issues, weird upgrade quirks, software incompatibility problems, and other little loose ends over the users has been a magnitude worse on the Linux machines than anything else. In the moment it doesn’t really feel like much because it’s similar to daily work with Linux servers, but looking back it’s just so much more predictable to have basic things working on Mac or Windows than on Linux.
Anyway, we should all be glad how far linux has improved over the years and how it is a viable alternative to many use cases now. Hardware support used to be appalling and it used to be painful to use it for basic things like internet, video, music, games etc. Even developers had a rough time, with windows being the gold standard dev environment. But look at it now, linux is the gold standard dev environment, meanwhile microsoft is having to course correct and embed a copy of linux into windows, buy github and create a multiplatform text editor to try and lure developers back.
I also think it's important people keep giving linux a chance every couple years, If it doesn't work for you now give it another chance 2 to 5 years from now, it might finally click.
It's on by default if you have the right (wrong) hardware as I understand it.
I no longer buy this argument at all. Between the work Steam put into Proton, this is had been largely a non-issue. About the only game I needed to use VM for was Fallout 3 ( I didn't feel like messing with it for more than 15 minutes ). There are some things Windows is still good for, but that list is growing shorter.
<< I think the real audience for these articles isn’t Windows users at all. It’s for Linux users to pay themselves on the back for not using Windows.
The intended audience is the people, who most need to hear it, because they do not realize there are options other than OS1 or OS2. And that it is not nearly as hard as it was only a decade ago.
Linux is great, love it on the server, but it's never a "just works" experience on any modern laptop type hardware.
It's doable, but it doesn't "just work".
But yes; Nvidia has been the sore thumb of Wayland and Linux adoption for almost a decade now. It's interesting to see the tides finally start turning!
Granted, this won't be for every flavor of Linux, just the one I happen to be using. I imagine there's all kinds of different issues with the proliferation of Window Managers and graphics servers. Users looking for "just works" are not looking to dive into the various overlapping software processes.
Worse, the UIs themselves don't give you insight into what underlying settings you're manipulating when you click some button or toggle in the GUI settings. As a Linux user you know there's a conf file somewhere. But the UI obscures that from you. Perhaps the doc (or the source code (!)) says what the UI is doing. I'd love for there to be a little fly-over in the UI or even a path to the underlying configuration files. I'd be perfectly happy tweaking those in Emacs or Vim but I'm less happy hunting them down to figure out what they are.
I'm determined to avoid Windows, and I want x86 hardware because I can load it up for AI workloads. So I'm happy to be on Linux, but it comes with an overhead that most consumer level equipment doesn't. Linux is the equivalent of those shop tools that aren't safe by default, and are intended to provide the flexibility needed by machinists that know what they're doing. I'll accept that trade-off, but I'm not going to sell it to anyone who is a developer.
Funnily enough, it totally depends on the hardware. If your audio hardware is supported by Core Audio on Mac, chances are it will also work on Linux without problems. If your audio hardware is older, chances are it will not work on Windows due to the lack of modern drivers but will work on Linux without problems. This also applies to a lot of other older hardware like scanners/printers/... or even built-in peripherals in older laptops.
But if it's something strange (e.g., MOTU MIDI interfaces come to mind which use a non-standard USB protocol), you'll have to hack your own kernel driver which you probably don't want to do. Of course if you are adventurous and do hack your own kernel driver, even this will work, and you'll probably even find someone else's driver code on github.
What's also interesting about hardware support on Linux is that a lot of things which require extra drivers on Windows just work out of the box on Linux, especially if it's in any way relevant for servers like various network cards or if it's one of the many "standard" USB UART chips.
My brother, the least tech-oriented person you can imagine, got tired of windows updates breaking his drivers and ended up with a linux system sold by and supported by Dell. I get zero calls for help.
Other than browsing, he uses Libre Office for random documents and a photo management app I forgot. I take his experience as a very positive sign for linux.
From Dell, supported by Dell. Save your $15/month.
I saw recall about the same time as I was thinking of using the mini pc for something else. Seeing what Windows had planned, and seeing Copilot shoehorned into my taskbar after a Windows update was enough. I blew away the install and only have Linux running now.
To be fair, it really is scores and scores of jabs to avoid in Windows - with more added bi-weekly. Today I had to counter (for many users)
1) the orange notify dot (start menu->user) trying to lure users into a non-consensual Microsoft account setup and
2) the clickable suggestions on the lock screen, carefully positioned in the click-space where the password box will be.
It's like MS found a copy of Creepy Uncle For Dummies and hovered for hours over every page.
At a certain point it becomes apparent that proprietary operating system vendors don't have your best interest at heart, and the only winning move is software freedom.
For those that don't the downsides of using Windows are generally less than the downsides of using Linux. For many people, the idea that their computer will be making a full recording of literally everything they do on their computer might be enough to tip the scales.
(Yes, there's always been telemetry, but we're talking the difference between some guy that sits outside your neighbourhood and writes down what time of day cars come and leave versus some guy with a video camera that follows you between your bedroom and bathroom and records while you sleep, shower and shit, but totally promises to not show anyone the recording. This is pretty obviously different.)
I say this as someone that's used Linux and BSD for over three decades... on servers. Ran Windows on my desktop (including Windows 10 for over half a decade). Every year or two I'd throw Linux on my computer and see how it did. A couple years back is when we finally got to the point where at least all the essential functionality I needed worked out of the box. The downsides of using Linux were less than that of Windows, and I immediately wiped the drive, installed Linux, and have used it exclusively since. This sort of stuff, if it couldn't be disabled, would have definitely tipped the scales in Linux's favour much sooner.
> Turns out that LLMs learn a lot better and faster from educational content as well. This is partly because the average Common Crawl article (internet pages) is not of very high value and distracts the training, packing in too much irrelevant information. The average webpage on the internet is so random and terrible it’s not even clear how prior LLMs learn anything at all.
People keep assuming that AI companies want to pipe any old junk into their models, but I'm increasingly convinced that this isn't true.
Maybe at some point they will try to create their own, very limited, "knowledge base" but then those AI assistants cease to be a jack of all trades, while still being masters of nothing.
It's the trick used by ChatGPT Browsing mode and Bing and Perplexity and Google Gemini and the new Google Search.
meanwhile in dimension reality: Google's AI tells people to put glue on their pizza, the only source being a single reddit comment from user "fucksmith"
Now it's those machines only, and opt-out.
Eventually more and more machines will come with the necessary chips.
And it will be more of an effort to opt out. Then only professional versions will be able to opt out, through more and more complicated pathways. Eventually it'll just be part of the OS.
Meanwhile they'll find ways to sell the side effects of the functionality to other organisations, for example to monitor employees etc, to begin with. Then to governments, why not.
- Forced Cortana (oops no let's shut that down) - Forced OS Updates (oops your computer doesn't have the requirements) - Ads in your start menu - "Yes" and "maybe later" interactions everywhere - Edge force defaulting itself on occasion - Literally needing configuration management to run powershell on a daily cadence because settings might not get respected - 5 Layers of failed UI frameworks duct taped together
Basically Windows is becoming such a bear to wrangle that you might as well use Linux and save yourself the pain and $100 per computer.
This fragmentation is biggest barrier against the wide adaptation of Linux. I mean Debian and Ubuntu and Arch and openSUSE and Gentoo and.
I see Linux as an idea. Or more like an umbrella of ideas that several OSes share. Which sounds good on paper but not enough for end users and for the 99.99% doesn't make any difference. At all.
The only thing I personally I recommend to friends who switch to Linux is to use an immutable distro because those are the most breakage resistant ones. Fedora Kinoite or Silverblue are nice. But then we will have Ubuntu Core Desktop soon as well. And other distros. So the wheel of fragmentation rolls forward.
The problem is approaching these decisions as if there were final and irreversible decisions from which one answer is right and the other one is wrong followed by eternal doom. That's not the situation at all. Most of these decisions are similar and you can change your mind at any time.
Choosing a Linux distro / DE / whatever is not going a supermarket and choosing a bottle of water. It is choosing a bottling factory next to a sewer or bottled distilled water.
Of course, each of them possesses some advantage that Windows lacks out of the box, and sometimes at all.
Now, I am sure there will be not a few disagreements that Mint should be the canonical beginner's choice. Honestly, fine, if there's a distro even more dead-simple it could be that, but bike-shedding won't help. We don't need to find the best distro for each user, we just need to give them a safe and comfortable starting point.
The reason was the introduction of copilot, ads and other shenanigans.
Those willing to seek something different will embrace but if I gave my mother a computer with Linux installed, I'd never not be tech support.
And my mother is technology oriented. Her first computer was a Wang Labs machine back from the 80's. She can create her own website, operate photoshop and she even built her own system. She's 73.
Recall just doesn't matter to those out of the geek sector. As with privacy for that matter. "I got nothing to hide"
Icepack Linux was my first Linux OS:
https://distrowatch.com/table-mobile.php?distribution=icepac...
Where Matrox S3 drivers were something you needed to modify yourself and Xorg was XFree86.
If I was to gloat; sadly my open mind has become a cynical one a long time ago.
I agree with the commenter 100%.
Giving me life and supporting me though it; I've not been an easy child.
Windows reached its peak through deals where it comes preinstalled.
Windows is bloated and OEM manufacturers add even more bloat to it. The result is sluggish machines that are a complete waste of potential.
Forced updates, ads and now outright spying makes Windows the inferior choice. Having 3 extra FPS in some dumb game is not worth your privacy.
As a legacy gamer when of the age 20, I didn't care about the crap that Microsoft pushed upon. I just downloaded some rogue batch script, probably infecting myself with a trojan and just played games.
Looking at porn after hours and downloading matrix.reloaded.2.pif.gif.exe from Kazaa. Teenagers just don't care otherwise TikTok wouldn't be thing.
Other than browsing, he uses Libre Office for random documents and a photo management app I forgot. I take his experience as a very positive sign for linux.
Just because people are not aware that Recall exists and is actively collecting data without their knowing does not mean it doesn't matter. The people that believe it doesn't matter is precisely why these companies get away with what they do.
Those who know about it, and don't care and those who don't know but do care.
Those who do live in the world of part time computer usage. They check their facebook, shop amazon, grocery shop. But are the "I've got nothing to hide, so what does it matter" category.
And those who are concerned for it are unable to embrace the difference. As like teaching an old dog new tricks. By all means they can, and they want to change. The learning curve is however too steep.
What they have learnt is what they can handle. They don't the same time to learn as the younger audience does. My mother wants the internet to look up patterns of leaves so she can lino print not wanting to diagnose why systemd hangs at night when she turns off her computer.
If you take an existing install of Linux
First of all, who is the one going to give them a USB key and let them install the OS? Burning an ISO is tricky enough for anyone. Google usb iso burner and you get swamped by download promiscuous download sites. My father doesn't know about Rufus, my mother doesn't know about DD.
And this is where Windows and OSX leaps ahead. They come pre-installed, press the power button and your good to go.
Back to Linux you then have to run some chonky installer. Ubuntu's installer is astrocious in requiring to be connected to the internet. You then have to hope that the drivers work.
Compatibility is better than how it used to be but with OEM computers it can be easily sabotaged by the vendor and then on top of that the decision of the Window Manager and hope they like.
It's not an easy change.
But the linux hostile (even though unlike some comments behind the screen they tried to help it seems) and nvidia absence need to have some windows pc to run linux and windows.
For the compatibility, my hp Vr headset will be gone soon. And so will be my windows 10 AI cum VR due to missing some feature.
Meta Quest 3 just bought to prepare the lost of VR with most users run on windows and mac … possibility just a knowledge issue as it is a standalone Vr but to run pcvr …
Anyway I restrict myself to sdl and gl for cross platform.
As said you cannot escape … all will co-exist and each of us (and probably thee is no us) will have to find a way to live in this jungle.
I know someone who works for Qualcomm, he says they are taking Linux support very seriously.
At home I have used Linux (Slackware) for decades. At work, about 20 years ago we were allowed to dump windows and use Linux (RHEL) on our Work Laptop. I switched as soon as I could. About 10 years ago, MACs were allowed.
If you are a developer, you should be on Linux or a BSD. It is almost as if Microsoft is trying to kill of Windows.
Maybe Finance people have a reason to use Windows, but, the Finance people I work with all when full in on MACs. So, really, people should be off of Windows at this point.
Sadly, the "make you consider" part of the article title here is not applicable for most people, but of course is valid and good.
I didn't mean constantly as in nagging. I meant constantly as in how often MS would have the opportunity to break this with their updates