Could 2025 be a good year for free operating systems?

[DigDog]

i hate to admit it but, my recent M$ experience has been rather pleasant. Is what i say to YOU, certainly not what i would say to microsoft.

W7 was fantastic. I dont know why they never did a Windows 8.
W10 was also really good. Not as much of a jump between XP and 7, but a very solid OS.
of course, i had to install a whole bunch of aftermarket fixes and software to make it work like *I* want it to. And i would give M$ an earful about all the nonsense they installed in the default build, god knows, X-Bar, Cortana, the microsoft store (say this name in a really whiny voice), but hey, they did do LTSC which essentially it's the enterprise version, and that kept me going until 2 weeks or so ago, where i moved to W11.

Same grief for the first 2/3 days, have to burn some holy incense to ask the gods why on earth, heaven or hell did someone decide that the Start button needs to be in the center of the spacebar.
You know, i am a reasonable guy. But i think the individual responsible should be caught, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be burned at the stake.

Fortunately Windows UI mods are like mods for games on Nexus Mods, you can't turn around without some modder having already fixed the problem before you've actually bought the thing.

If you are willing to untick a whole lot of "disable animations on the desktop" options to make your OS work, then W11 LTSC is probably the best you can get now. Without needing to compile your own MP3 player app.

 

[nakedfrog]

Not sure if you're joking, Windows 8 was their attempt at taking over the tablet space.
Everything in Win10 & Win11 is worse than Win7.

 

[repoman0]

Without needing to compile your own MP3 player app.

You know this but for the record building your own software as a regular Linux user doesn’t happen anymore unless you want to. Package management via something like apt is way better than windows.

I keep meaning to give gaming on my mint install a more serious try. I use Ubuntu full time for work (software dev) and I’ve become a lot more comfortable with Gnome 3 than anything MS or Apple have ever done.

edit: just realized I said basically the same thing in here five months ago lol.

 

[lxskllr]

People act like you spend all day in a terminal when running gnu/linux. You can if you want, but you can also remove it, and live a fully functional life without a terminal. I use a terminal sometimes just cause it's easier, but it isn't essential. I haven't used windows since vista was still in support.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I think Toronto Maple Leafs will win the cup this year, if that happens, it's also going to be the year of the Linux desktop, and self sustaining fusion will be ready by 4th quarter of 2025.

 

[Brainonska511]

Same grief for the first 2/3 days, have to burn some holy incense to ask the gods why on earth, heaven or hell did someone decide that the Start button needs to be in the center of the spacebar.

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the center start button, but those things are easy fixes. And it's easy enough to turn off other features you don't want.

My one big complaint is in the privacy settings stuff: sometimes, it's almost too fine grained with choices and it becomes hard to say what each little toggle is doing.

 

[BurnItDwn]

People act like you spend all day in a terminal when running gnu/linux. You can if you want, but you can also remove it, and live a fully functional life without a terminal. I use a terminal sometimes just cause it's easier, but it isn't essential. I haven't used windows since vista was still in support.

The best things microsoft has in windows are Powershell and WSL.

 

[QueBert]

People act like you spend all day in a terminal when running gnu/linux. You can if you want, but you can also remove it, and live a fully functional life without a terminal. I use a terminal sometimes just cause it's easier, but it isn't essential. I haven't used windows since vista was still in support.

Linux has came a long way since I 1st installed it a few decades ago. If it had better software support, I'd probably run it. Compared to the 1st time Installed Red Had way back then, I installed Mint last year and was shocked at how everything in my system just worked, sound, wifi, all that. And I didn't have open terminal once, or even install a package. The fact we're at a stage where a n00b could more than likely install Linux without any help is really mind blowing. My 1st go around was diasterous, I'd been on computers since a TRS-80 in the late 70s and boy Linux was a bitch and a half.

The fact it's maybe easier to install now than Windows 95 is really remarkable. I never expected Linux and user friendly to be interchangeable. And if you're hardcore you can still open a terminal and have access to do everything under the sun.

 

[MrSquished]

10 & 11 have been very good to me overall. But Linux won't run a bunch of software I use daily, such as both of my preferred photo editing programs. Games. Have to futz to get a sub-par Tidal experience, etc..

Just not worth the hassle. Not enough software developers support Linux that I use.

 

[Indus]

10 & 11 have been very good to me overall. But Linux won't run a bunch of software I use daily, such as both of my preferred photo editing programs. Games. Have to futz to get a sub-par Tidal experience, etc..

Just not worth the hassle. Not enough software developers support Linux that I use.

Which distro did you try with?

 

[jmagg]

I think Toronto Maple Leafs will win the cup this year, if that happens, it's also going to be the year of the Linux desktop, and self sustaining fusion will be ready by 4th quarter of 2025.

Florida Panthers hockey gives the Jamaican bobsled team hope, but my Mint install continues to be trouble free.

 

[Kaido]

Florida Panthers hockey gives the Jamaican bobsled team hope, but my Mint install continues to be trouble free.

We say this all the time lol

 

[thedighubs]

many thanks for the replies. I am so glad and i am just overwhelmed!
Need to go out to catch the train - but will read more thouroughly later the day

have a great day.

 

[DigDog]

we really need to start from the basics here.

the vast majority of users do not decide which OS to use based on the quality of said OS. Linux could be 10x better than any Windows and that still would not matter.

I understood this back in the 90s when all the Kinko's were running some Apple OS. I asked why would they do this to themselves and they explained that, the printing world started using Apple / Mac because the one best software for printing was on it, and everyone in that world was expected to have the same OS for compatibility reasons, and this just never changed, as far back as 2008, which probably means it's still the same thing today. Legacy lock-in.

I use Windows because all the things that my world is made of are on Windows; which means my apps, the apps my coworkers use, those my friends use, those my mom uses. When the government wants me to complete an online form, they are gracious enough to give me TWO browsers to chose from when doing so, both Edge, and also Chrome. Explaining to THE GOVERNMENT that i have Firefox is already difficult, imagine doing the same with Falkon or Epiphany.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I found the best compromise is 2 machines with a KVM switch. Daily driver with Linux and a Windows machine for games and other stuff that can't be done in Linux.

I find myself rarely turning on my windows machine now days.

 

[biostud]

I dual boot and do 90% in Linux, and rest in Windows.

I like having redundancy and be able to switch and not tied to a single OS.

 

[mikeymikec]

If (and that's a huge if) Microsoft continues to shit the bed with whatever crayon-eating development strategy they're using with Windows for years to come, then I think that where enthusiasts and techies go, the rest will inevitably follow. The shifts will be incremental (ie. not necessarily in one direction e.g. Linux), then avalanche-like as a tipping point is reached. It also wouldn't surprise me if Windows's reliability steadily drops towards Win9x levels, accelerating the shift.

Despite how mind-bogglingly arrogant and therefore as profoundly blind as Microsoft currently is, I would be astounded if they didn't see the signs and react appropriately before it is way too late. However, I do think that mis-steps like Vista and 8x have cost Microsoft because I think each one of these generated shifts away from Windows, and for example if they largely miss a generation of new users due to one of these mis-steps, that's potentially huge swathes of resulting users on alternate operating systems/platforms. Having said this I think Microsoft's current development strategy is a *far* more serious problem that one OS mis-step. It's been poisoning the Windows codebase for many years, and unfucking the codebase along with all the other desperately-needed clearing out work of legacy code is going to take a long time even if MS doubles the number of Windows devs and re-builds their QA department.

IMO it's inevitable that Microsoft will lose their market dominance in the general purpose computing space (I say general purpose though perhaps it's better defined these days as the productivity space); hopefully this loss of dominance will result in a more even split of OS usage which would result in a much healthier marketplace.

 

[jmagg]

Lack of TPM causing no upgrade path in windows will cause increased Linux use. I just got 3 perfectly functional I5/8g machines in with no upgrade path, which will be donated with Linux installed. That will make approx 15 machines recently repurposed.