________________________________________________________________________________
Is Windows even an operating system any more? An operating system is software that is supposed to make it easy to run other applications on your computer. Here it seems like Windows is trying to prevent people from running the applications they want. That's the opposite of what an operating system is for.
It's not just Windows - the whole commercial OS system market is going to shit.
Operating systems are now treated as nothing more than a gateway to online services. Many commercial operating systems now require Internet access to obtain a working installation and some require an online account for things like creating a user account or adding applications. And then there are things like forced telemetry and forced system updates.
I personally don't like any of this.
Can you provide an example of an OS that requires internet for a working base system? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
Apple's iDevices and T2/M1 Macs all require Internet access to finish their setup.
Windows 11 Home requires Internet as a Microsoft account is needed during setup. Unless there is a workaround that I haven't read about.
> Apple's iDevices and T2/M1 Macs all require Internet access to finish their setup.
If by "finish" you mean "log into iCloud," then yes, but that goes without saying. You can absolutely have a working device without an internet connection.
Edit: Misread question.
Windows 11 Home Edition. You can't set up without a Microsoft Account, and the disabling Wifi/Ethernet trick has been patched.
That's funny. When I heard it mentioned the speculation was they might add a more obvious way. Good they "fixed that bug"
Windows 11 Home Edition.
I wouldn’t know these days. A while back I decided to break up with anything I was in an abusive relationship with.
In what planet are you living these days?
Planet "Linux"?
No that’s emotionally abusive. Just when you’ve got it all working, one apt update and your GPU drivers start dumping core. And when you close the lid on your laptop it’s like playing Russian roulette. On the desktop it’s needy, brittle and like wading in sewage.
I use an ass end iPad. I can hear the laughing now but it’s the least abusive and time consuming thing I own. It just works and keeps out of the way. It’s also not perfect but it’s less imperfect than all the other options.
Edit: to note I spend a hell of a lot of time wrangling hundreds of Linux boxes. I don’t like taking work home.
> Just when you’ve got it all working, one apt update and your GPU drivers start dumping core. And when you close the lid on your laptop it’s like playing Russian roulette. On the desktop it’s needy, brittle and like wading in sewage.
My spouse needed a new laptop, and I decided to get a laptop with coreboot/FOSS EC Firmware on it (A Purism L14). She also needed windows, and I was told that it should suport Windows through Coreboot. Since Purism wrote properly behaving UEFI and a properly behaving EC Firmware, Windows actually worked out of the box, and worked better on this laptop than I have seen for most vendors that actually support Windows. UEFI on it also behaves wonderfully. I see that and compare it to my current laptop where half the time, I cannot even boot into the UEFI menu (as it doesn't register my keybnoard presses) and have to rely on GRUB to get into the menu.
I say that to say, when you buy a laptop/motherboard whose firmware is slightly better than hot garbage, of course Linux will have issues with it! Most of the time Windows is barely better than Linux with half of these things since their Windows "drivers" are a hotpatched mess.
I bought my spouse a MacBook Air. It just worked and I haven’t had to unfuck it once.
> And when you close the lid on your laptop it’s like playing Russian roulette.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29430111
I would not call that abuse free, though. Sometimes it is quite frustrating to get things working on Linux.
Linux will annoy you due to honest-to-God bugs, misconfigurations, or other genuine mistakes. The authors of the software would _like_ it to work effortlessly and they're trying their best, they just didn't quite get there.
As a developer, I can sympathize and put up with the occasional afternoon spent hunting down firmware patches or whatever.
Windows >= 8 will _intentionally_ annoy you because _Microsoft is trying to squeeze as much money and data as they can_ from you. It is a truly hostile piece of software and I resent each single minute spent trying to turn off the malware far more than I do all the hours spent clashing with the Linux bluetooth stack or whatever.
I'm definitely not blaming the developers. At least with Linux I can talk to them through various channels directly or even fix stuff myself.
Things like what?
I've been running Ubuntu with absolutely no issues for like 13 years. I did my entire university education with an Ubuntu laptop. I'm curious how people are having 'issues'? Do they constantly mess with things? Buy super obscure hardware?
Every time Linux gets brought up, there's always somebody who says "I've had no issues ever!"
Good for you - but it doesn't take super-exotic hardware at all to run into problems. Having problems doesn't make your hardware exotic. I tried running Linux a decade ago and none of them would have Wifi because they had Broadcom cards without some patching and package installs on Ubuntu which didn't come with the packages needed on the ISO. I tried running Linux again only to find that I couldn't use Wayland on my GTX 1050 because NVIDIA.
That means I have hardware that doesn't run well on Linux, not that I have exotic hardware.
Edit: Also I forget to mention that sleep/hibernate is seemingly always broken whenever I talk to people about Linux. _All the time._ They don't have exotic hardware.
> That means I have hardware that doesn't run well on Linux, not that I have exotic hardware.
As with most things, it's worth trying again every so often. You'll be surprised how easy it is for even your mother-in-law to use Linux nowadays.
Thing is, I'm not my mother-in-law[0], I have a different use case for computing than that strawman does so the suitability of Linux Desktop to that person has no bearing on its suitability to me.
[0] I really hate when people use this kind of term. 'Normal people', 'grandma', 'non-technical users', etc. It's inherently drawing an unnecessary us/them line to service an argument and which, I believe, is an attitude that directly contributes to the suckiness of modern desktop computing, particularly as regards Linux.
> it doesn't take super-exotic hardware at all to run into problems
Why do people demand that Linux must work on all "not super-exotic" hardware in the world? It's just impossible with their resources. Just get a compatible device.
> Why do people demand that Linux must work on all "not super-exotic" hardware in the world?
Why do Linux people come on threads like this and say that if you have problems, it must be because you have exotic hardware or that it's a really rare issue when it's dirt common?
Edit: I guess my point is, the Linux community's definition of "exotic hardware" is extremely broad in real life. It's almost like if Apple called PCs "exotic hardware" for MacOS.
> it must be because you have exotic hardware
I never said that you had exotic hardware. Your hardware is just not designed to be used in this way by the vendor. Why does Linux community (for free) has to invent the workarounds for you to use this machine? Linux is free software. You can improve its source code yourself, or pay someone to do that (unlike with Windows).
And yes, your MacOS will certainly not work reliably on a Windows-certified laptop.
> has to invent the workarounds for you to use this machine?
I never said they had to. They don't have to support it or any machine.
However, that doesn't change that there are problems that can be attributed to Linux. For example, sleep/wake's incompatibility with the "Modern Standby" is a Linux problem that affects a wide variety of laptops.
It also doesn't change that it is tiresome when people come on to internet threads and say "I've had no problems - _you_ must have exotic hardware!" We don't have exotic hardware - Linux just doesn't support certain common-enough hardware well. That doesn't necessarily mean Linux is to blame for it, but don't blame the user's "exotic setup."
Edit: On the contrary, it's often the people who say they have no problems who have the real exotic hardware - because they bought System76 or Purism or an XPS or something designed to be Linux-friendly.
> problems that can be attributed to Linux. For example, sleep/wake's incompatibility with the "Modern Standby" is a Linux problem that affects a wide variety of laptops.
How can you attribute these problems to Linux? The "Modern Standby" relies on proprietary drivers and closed specifications, which are only shared with Windows developers under an NDA. Linux community has to reverse engineer the hardware to make it work. You should not expect that it will be successful for "a wide variety of laptops" for free.
> On the contrary, it's often the people who say they have no problems who have the real exotic hardware
Yes, but it does not matter whether you have "exotic" or "not exotic" hardware at all. What matters is whether it was _designed_ to work with Linux.
P.S. Standby and wake-up work 100% of the time on my Librem 15, which was designed for Linux.
> What matters is whether it was designed to work with Linux.
I 100% agree with you! I'm trying to say that whenever Linux is mentioned, there's always a Linux user who dismisses people who have problems as having "exotic hardware" because they've not had any major problems.
This is aggravating because "exotic" implies that most hardware is compatible - you were just unlucky with a particular purchase choice. Never mind that about half the GPUs you could buy would give you a hard time. I'm trying to say these users should stop defining "exotic" so broadly - just say "you probably need a machine designed for Linux. It could work on your computer but you'll probably have issues." It's so much clearer and more honest that way.
Edit: That's very different than "you should download Linux and install it today, stop sucking up to our corporate overlords! Have problems? Must have been that exotic GTX 1050 or that exotic Broadcom Wi-Fi card!" Instead, please say, "you should see if Linux will run on your computer well, we don't support a lot of hardware people expect (though we do support quite a bit). If you aren't sure, you should buy a machine built for it instead of trying to get your current machine to work, which will probably be an exercise in frustration."
I mean, Linux supports more hardware than any other OS out of the box.
> It's almost like if Apple called PCs "exotic hardware" for MacOS.
Ummm, good luck running modern MacOS on PC hardware.
It's perfectly possible. I ran Mojave and Big Sur on my Thinkpad T460s for a few weeks, and even the ACPI tables worked out-of-the-box.
At this point I've spent dozens of hours trying to fix sleep/hibernate on this laptop without success, it's a dell xps 9500, doesn't feel like it should be considered super obscure hardware.
Not to mention the occasional bluetooth issues.
I appreciate it's the manufacturer's fault but it's still a problem.
Dell seems to have issues with sleep/hibernate in general. There was a recent article about how they don't recommend putting a new sleeping laptop in a bag because of modern standby not actually sleeping the laptop.
I think their exact words were "If you put your Dell laptop in standby, and then put in a bag, a) it might die b) that voids the warranty".
> I appreciate it's the manufacturer's fault
Is this a manufacturer's fault if you have problems with your Windows on a MacBook? No, it's your fault to use hardware in unintended ways. Same here: get a device designed for Linux.
I bought an officially supported and qualified laptop as recommended by canonical and the GPU drivers shit the bed at least two times an hour. Power management didn’t work. The battery got shitcanned after an hour.
Just no.
Lenovo T495 for reference.
> Warning: Currently this device does not work well under Linux. Please see known issues for unresolved AMDGPU drm bugs in the LTS 5.4.x kernel and more recent kernels such as 5.12.x.
Exactly. That wasn’t specified when I bought it. It’s a regression.
Is it actually a regression or did it never really work in the first place? Hardware manufacturers are in my experience pretty unreliable sources when it comes to compatibility and I've had my fair share of issues even with 100% unmodified straight-from-the-factory machines regardless of OS.
Edit: I also 'member Dell shipping some of their XPS laptops with Linux preinstalled despite them having missing drivers / functionality.
It worked fine for three months until a kernel update.
Are you saying that regressions only occur on Linux?
Simple things like making RGB work on my Logitech keyboard without having to debug why it behaves in a non determinist way.
Most of the time things just work on Windows because someone is seeing a business case in working software. I'm sure if more businesses would treat Linux Desktop with higher priority, things would be better.
Linux Desktop does itself no favors in attracting the business world. It is the most fragmented "platform" in common use, is actively hostile to closed source drivers and software, and has no unified application management mechanism. Add in it's abysmal market share (gee, I wonder if any of the above is related to that?) and there's good reason business don't bother with it.
Linux is what you use when you like working _on_ your computer more than _with_ your computer.
That’s exactly how I felt running it for years on desktop.
If you choose supported hardware, it will get _much_ better (just like with Windows or MacOS).
Linux often has problems working with software too. It's great if you like using a Linux Desktop man, but don't pretend like there aren't any problems over there the same as there is in any OS.
The parent comment however is correct - it's not abusive, instead sometimes incompatible or buggy.
I think that's a bit debatable actually, but I will concede that it isn't abusive in the same way that Microsoft is.
I didn't say it would be perfect. Software problems obviously depend on which software you are using (and how).
Does it? I've seen people get System76s in 2021 and still have problems.
Which problems? Everything is flawless on my Librem 15.
Librem 15 is Purism, not System76.
At least in Linux you get them working. In windows you enjoy the breakage.
To be fair hardware and driver problems never bothered me on windows. They mostly just worked and stayed working.
Apart from printers which are a shit show.
I see you never tried Intel ANS for VLAN or link aggregation support ;).
Do you have to install the drivers again every time you need to use the network?
That’s where I got to with my Laserjet pro on windows 10. I usually just printed it to a PDF and emailed it to my phone and printed it from there rather than fix it.
I am so spoiled by the Linux/Debian/Gnome OS which lets me pick and use the tools and workflows that work for me.
Windows and iOS are the exact opposite of that, they constantly push me towards their "ecosystem". Opting out of those is a constant battle.
I'm very pro-linux by personal preference, but I always find it silly when Linux tools are billed as good. They're powerful certainly, but what we as a community should hear when someone remarks "Can Windows really be called an operating system?" is that our tooling is so supremely bad that, despite its raw power, people would rather deal with a locked down ad-ware mess than have to consider our tools.
We're not spoiled, we're just deviants.
Have you tried editing text files on iOS and copying them to another machine without an online service? On every other OS you have OpenSSH and some text editor installed already, on iOS the easiest thing to do is install iSH but it's still pretty painful since it's slow and can't see everything.
I operate my own pastebin for this purpose, running software which works in almost any browser.
It appears like ransomware runs just fine on it.
Don't mistake concepts and reality. Windows has always been a bridge between hardware and sales. It was the platform that MS made so dev and users would depend on to meet.
"applications they want" is kind of hard to convey though. If you run a game with a rootkit, is that something you "want"? If you open a malicious document and it ends up encrypting your data, did you "want" it? Do people who install toolbars "want" the spyware or cryptocurrency miners that comes with them?
A modern operating system tries to guess what the users "want", because that's by no means clear.
Of course, it's a matter of judgement, and judgement comes with its own problems.
A good rule of thumb is: Would the users do it to themselves? It think that's pretty easy to guess.
Would the users try to make themselves not run the browser they want to run? No.
Would the users try to avoid malware? Yes.
By that logic, antivirus on my employer's laptop is malware too? Assuming I don't care for it being installed and sometimes am mildly annoyed when it hogs the CPU every now and then.
That's not your laptop so you don't decide what should run on it. (When I said user I really meant owner)
The problem with that is that malware is different things for different people. Location trackers for insurance. A virus under research. A remote access tool. DRM. An outdated but working driver. A non-encrypted messaging tool. A cryptocurrency miner.
What about DRM?
Is it malware? Is it needed to run because the game publisher said so?
We're not talking about rootkits or malware, but about a default browser application, and a default search engine.
That's why I mention judgement: we expect OS vendors to make a judgement (that fact is what the top post seems to be missing).
And Microsoft makes a bad judgement now.
Microsoft isn't forcing bing as the default search engine because their judgement is poor. They do it out of malice.
Relying on judgement opens the door to malice IMO. But we agree, and it's only a matter of wording.
With edge now actively promoting "buy now pay later" services i'm not sure microsoft still gets to claim they are protecting users from their own poor choices.
Man I miss the days when Windows didn't treat me like an easily-exploited idiot. I used to get so excited when the new Windows came out, and followed its development like a true fan. I wish I could feel the same way I did the first time I installed Windows 95, 2000, 7.
I started programming Windows 3.1 in C with the Charles Petzold book. (I have a sentimental attachment to it because of that). Then NT came out, what an operating system! But just a few months ago I switched the home PC to linux.
Windows is just a big ball of shit now. Along with all the adware they had some office quickstarter service that was using 100% disk (known issue but no sign of a fix - I don't have an SDD so maybe they just decided not to bother with that segment of the market). I would disable the service but every update it would end up enabled again.
I've no regrets. The linux experience is just so calm and functional.
> Windows didn't treat me like an easily-exploited idiot.
What if, horror of horrors, this is because most Windows users _actually are_ easily-exploited idiots...
If I type "download firefox" in edge/bing, the first thing at the top is foxload.com with a low contrast Ad marker.
When I ask edge/bing "is foxload.com safe", the very fist thing says: "Safe Browsing status for Foxload.com is Unsafe."
Old habits die hard. Corporate culture and mindsets often remain the same despite the smooth verbiage of Satya Nadella who was an insider anyway. Credit goes to him to duping many in the tech community on fundamental change which is now obviously window dressing.
Seriously, the company which broght the term FUD into mainstream use and is behind the Halloween documents[0] is acting unethically towards its cusomers. Am I allowed not to be surprised?
0.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29251775
Microsoft going back to its old ways. Hopefully this time when they get slapped by regulators it ends this type of behaviour once and for all (break them up into Windows and enterprise software; Azure; Office 365; Surface).
They have seen Google, Apple and other tech players get away with it for years with no repercussions and large number of users even defending their favourite overlords. Does "its their platform, they can do what they want on it" sound familiar?
This is the end result, the precedent has been set and we are all going to pay for it in the coming years.
Well one big difference is that neither Google nor Apple enjoy a de-facto monopoly the way Microsoft does on the Desktop. Of course, where one draws the line on that sort of thing is pretty arbitrary.
Personally I've played devil's advocate for Google and Apple mostly because the reasoning I see for forcing them to open their platforms seems post-hoc. For instance many assert that phones need to be open but, for some reason, game consoles do not. People seemingly deciding what they want and then twisting their reasoning until it fits.
I have been using Safari and Firefox for years. Never have I got a pop-up in Safari when I visited the Chrome website to tell me that I should stay on Safari. Strange, because you say that Apple has been doing this for years yet it has completely escaped me!
Also, never have I seen a pop-up in iOS to tell me to use Apple Maps when I opened or downloaded Google Maps. Again, very strange, because you are claiming that Apple is doing the same disgusting tactics as Microsoft, yet I have never felt as an iOS or macOS user to be bullied into using Apple Maps.
How do you download Firefox on iOS? Real Firefox, not just a Safari reskin.
Why do you ask about iOS? How do you download Firefox in a Tesla? How do you download Firefox on a Nintendo Gameboy? Those are special devices which have special requirements. I wouldn't compare that to a computer.
On my laptop it's super easy. I opened Safari, went to the Firefox website, then downloaded it. At no point whatsoever did Apple bully me into not downloading Firefox.
The issue with what's a 'computer' we could say is a general computing device.
General computing devices enable you to install software freely and use it however you'd deem fit. Desktop computers are general computers. So are laptops. And for the vast majority of people, an iPhone or Android device are general computing devices. However, the Android device allows the user to actually do 'general' things like write code and develop software on itself. While the 'i' device doesn't.
The issue is that the 'i' device is often sold as a 'general computing' device like all other smartphones and computers.
The issue with the 'Tesla' computer is that it isn't a general computer. The purpose of the device is solely to control and manage the vehicle.
> Those are special devices which have special requirements. I wouldn't compare that to a computer.
So iPad is not a computer? What is it?
Media consooomption device
Not, it's not, according to Apple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t92B-qbLnNE
.
After installing a new version of Mac OS X you do generally seem to get a (single) notification plugging the new version of Safari, IIRC. But it's far less extreme than what Microsoft seem to be doing.
I don't know what you were looking at, but my Mac spams me via notifications to advertise use of Safari.
Meet the new Microsoft, same as the old Microsoft.
At this point I believe they are doing it just to show that they can get away with it.
They also show a warning in edge/bing when you google "google chrome". Must be their highest search term :-).
Since this has popped up I have started reaching for mozilla.org directly. Spooky times we live in where I trust so little of the sofware I run. How long until default hosts file redirects mozilla.org to bing.com?
Could you please share a screenshot of that warning? I'm unable to reproduce it.
I don't have access to Edge, maybe it only happens there? I'm just curious to see what it says.
Sure!
https://i.imgur.com/NblOFPt.png
classy
This is hilarious
Google has engaged in similar tactics across all of their major platforms for years and years, it’s how Chrome catapulted into the top spot in the Blink of an eye. At one point you couldn’t visit any of their top sites without them begging you to download it and telling you it was the best browser ever. Whether you were searching for a browser or not.
World's most popular way to download Firefox!
I wouldn't use Windows at all, but I'm a gamer, and that means Windows.
(yes, yes, I know, but the games I play tend to not do well with Linux... some will even ban your account because they misidentify you as using cheat software)
It's improving recently though, e.g. see here:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/11/steam-play-proton-6-3-...
Imo worth watching the space, also there is protonDB for checking your individual favorites:
Glad to hear it's improving!
This would be a nonstarter for me though:
https://www.protondb.com/app/1371580
Hopefully with Steam Deck coming along, those anti-cheats systems will start working on Proton
The compromise I've found is cloud gaming whilst on Linux for those few Windows-only. Even for competitive FPS and MOBAs GeForce NOW runs great for me.
Interesting all this hand wringing - my mom's Apple computer is almost constant in it's interrupts to promote Apple's paid icloud service. Seems we're already way past an OS getting in your way to promote affiliate services. Bing seems more harmless to me.
Nadella: Stop what you're doing. Time for step three.
MS devs: But sir, that would mean we extinguish our own OS ecosystem, our bread and butter, the thing we build everything upon, the reason why people love us.
Nadella: Do it! I only know 1-2-3.
Yeah, I don't understand how people say the heavy push towards Edge, crappy addons and pervasive analytics is some middle-manager that needs to increase their performance metrics, and not an executive order coming from the top. As if Nadella is the reason why Microsoft has been gaining mind-share and good will with developers, but Windows becoming more and more spyware has nothing to do with him at all.
It's all part of their internal strategy, and it's coming from Satya Nadella himself. If he doesn't know what's going on at his company, that's even more damning for him.
Of course it is coming from Satya. Of course it is. Of course.
Satya seems to believe AI is the new cloud. To businesses he speaks about how AI improves his software, how it makes it smarter, more inherently customizable to each and every company's needs and in doing so he's riding the AI wave, perfectly.
Satya decides to create an Edge wave. Make Edge default in all OS related hyper text.
Then he rides the Edge wave with BNPL.
Then he talks to the Bing team. They're not getting enough attention, they say. I'll fix that, Satya says.
Then he talks to the Windows team. "I need to ride your wave, baby", he says.
Ah ah ah, so much pleasure I have seeing that!
For all the persons here that were saying that it is ok to use MS soft and cloud products, vscode, ... and let them become big stakeholders of OSS stacks, because they are not the same as they used to be...
And haters are just stuck in the past or trolls...
From the comments:
I'm still waiting for Microsoft to let me change the default search engine in Notepad. Hopefully they add macros too.
What does even the "search with bing" do from Notepad? Like... open "default browser with bing to let you search?" by a hotkey and menu entry? That's just... silly.
probably uses selected text as a search query
Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot here. Who will take real security warnings seriously after that?
That ship sailed years ago. Windows has trained people that all system dialogue boxes are a choice between "Use my computer" and "Don't use my computer."
Classic example in security UX how it's not done.
Have other operating systems done a better job, though?
UI/UX is not something I can claim to be good at, but getting it right when it comes to security is difficult.
Android, as an example, will at least tell what broad class of elevated privilege a program wants/needs so someone can make a guess as to whether or not that makes any sense.
The worst part of the whole farce of Windows access control is that NT has a rich role-based security model that can apply granular controls to nearly any type of system object, but absolutely none of that is exposed in normal Windows user interaction and UAC is a completely separate band-aid that interacts with the ACLs in strange and often surprising ways.
I’m intrigued why companies are fighting so hard over what really should be a simple/boring commodity bit of software. There must be a good reason for it, given the huge amount of investment.
What’s the game of 4-d chess that I’m not seeing?
Ask the same of adtech. The attention economy has wealth in mindshare. No one knows who IBM is but everyone knows who Microsoft is for one reason: everyone runs Windows.
System software gives you a ton of control over the user. It's easy to say "oops that doesn't work" when they use apps that don't make you money or give you more control. With an app the user would just install something else but switching OSes means work, not just installation but adopting the differing paradigms.
It worked in my case, at least for Edge. I didn't care enough for using Chrome over Edge to be pestered. I use Windows for gaming primarily. My productive stuff is on Linux. Still wouldn't be using Bing though.
Is it 1998 again?
Throwback Friday, apparently. I'm almost disappointed that Firefox doesn't Substitut hn orange with the old /. petrol for a page with this content.
Related recent discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29415031
.
I use Bing for privacy because nobody would ever expect someone to use it for anything they cared about.
This has been the case in Windows 10 for at least a year.
Ugly. Hope it encourages users to consider safari relationship with iOS.
I had moved my computer life away from Microsoft ecosystem long time ago, then away from Google. I'm happier person now. In case in a workplace I'm forced to use Windows I pass on the opportunity.
Time for the EU to start another anti-trust suit.
I would argue Microsoft is fighting fire with fire here. I don’t like it either… but I like Google and its tactics and policies even less. They’ve been on top for years with essentially nobody making any dents in their market dominance in either the browser or search engine sphere. I think getting the average mom and pop to switch away from Google, one of the farthest companies from being innocent, is ultimately a good thing.
