Well, anything is easy if you stay within the boundaries of the OS as it is shipped. For arch, that means no desktop environment at all, just the TTY – which is super easy to use if that happens to be exactly your use case. IMO a reasonable test is not whether is it easy to use if you stay within the boundaries (as that is true for everything), but whether those boundaries are reasonable.
I completely agree that ripping out system components does not have to be easy. But not wanting Cortana, OneDrive, Edge or other microsoft programs to be preinstalled, hard to remove, and constantly nagging you to use them over other programs is not an unreasonable request.
Last time I installed Windows for a friend, you needed a workaround to be able to use the computer without a user account tied to some microsoft account. And that triggered the same response in me as in the meme – this is not some cloud service where I make an account and they provide the hardware. I want to use the computer that is sitting in front of me, in my house. Why should I need a microsoft account for that?
Ok, but now we’re changing the context, and we’re back to my original point: Making Windows work for you is possible, and roughly as hard as making the switch to Linux.
But complaining that power-user functioanlity isn’t easy is just… asinine. If you understand the underlying design, it becomes awfully obvious that Microsoft is far more lazy than malicious. Same end result, but it helps make the entire process of using and configuring Windows make a lot more sense.
Yeah, Linux is obviously the better choice long term. But “fixing” Windows isn’t impossible, and switiching to Linux isn’t a “it just works” experience. Simple shit like HDR support still isn’t as plug and play as it “should” be.
So seeing people wrongly claim that doing certain things with Windows is literally impossible while they talk about dealing with similarly complex shit in Linux is frustrating. If you can do X in Linux, you are more than capable of doing Y in Windows.
You’re not wrong. It shouldn’t be necessary to tell Microsoft to fuck off at all. It’s not an unreasonable desire to want Microsoft to fuck off with their anti-consumer bullshit.
All I’m saying is that the skills needed to make Windows work for you are roughly equivalent in difficulty to getting Linux to work for you.
Both take work, and knowledge about the underlying design to do properly. The asinine “hot takes” from both sides are largely fuelled by people spouting off without the background knowledge to understand why things are designed how they are.
It’s definitely possible to make windows suck less. But no matter how proficient you are with windows, I don’t think it is possible to recreate the look-and-feel of Linux.
Fundamentally, it is just not a modular system where you can switch out e.g. the bootloader, filesystems or the desktop environment. And even if you tried to, there is no source code, no mailing list, no comprehensive wiki, no Github issues where people already figured out the exact problem you’re facing, and it feels like the OS is fighting you every step of the way.
So what I’m saying is this: If you have very low knowledge about computers, windows kind-of works, but many things feel out of your control and you learn to hate your computer rather than like it (why does it want me to create an account, why does it update without me telling it to, why is all this crap preinstalled etc.).
And even if you were to learn more about the inner workings of windows, it’s way less accessible due to its closed source and you still don’t get the same customizability that Linux would give you.
Well, anything is easy if you stay within the boundaries of the OS as it is shipped. For arch, that means no desktop environment at all, just the TTY – which is super easy to use if that happens to be exactly your use case. IMO a reasonable test is not whether is it easy to use if you stay within the boundaries (as that is true for everything), but whether those boundaries are reasonable.
I completely agree that ripping out system components does not have to be easy. But not wanting Cortana, OneDrive, Edge or other microsoft programs to be preinstalled, hard to remove, and constantly nagging you to use them over other programs is not an unreasonable request. Last time I installed Windows for a friend, you needed a workaround to be able to use the computer without a user account tied to some microsoft account. And that triggered the same response in me as in the meme – this is not some cloud service where I make an account and they provide the hardware. I want to use the computer that is sitting in front of me, in my house. Why should I need a microsoft account for that?
Ok, but now we’re changing the context, and we’re back to my original point: Making Windows work for you is possible, and roughly as hard as making the switch to Linux.
But complaining that power-user functioanlity isn’t easy is just… asinine. If you understand the underlying design, it becomes awfully obvious that Microsoft is far more lazy than malicious. Same end result, but it helps make the entire process of using and configuring Windows make a lot more sense.
Yeah, Linux is obviously the better choice long term. But “fixing” Windows isn’t impossible, and switiching to Linux isn’t a “it just works” experience. Simple shit like HDR support still isn’t as plug and play as it “should” be.
So seeing people wrongly claim that doing certain things with Windows is literally impossible while they talk about dealing with similarly complex shit in Linux is frustrating. If you can do X in Linux, you are more than capable of doing Y in Windows.
You’re not wrong. It shouldn’t be necessary to tell Microsoft to fuck off at all. It’s not an unreasonable desire to want Microsoft to fuck off with their anti-consumer bullshit.
All I’m saying is that the skills needed to make Windows work for you are roughly equivalent in difficulty to getting Linux to work for you.
Both take work, and knowledge about the underlying design to do properly. The asinine “hot takes” from both sides are largely fuelled by people spouting off without the background knowledge to understand why things are designed how they are.
It’s definitely possible to make windows suck less. But no matter how proficient you are with windows, I don’t think it is possible to recreate the look-and-feel of Linux. Fundamentally, it is just not a modular system where you can switch out e.g. the bootloader, filesystems or the desktop environment. And even if you tried to, there is no source code, no mailing list, no comprehensive wiki, no Github issues where people already figured out the exact problem you’re facing, and it feels like the OS is fighting you every step of the way.
So what I’m saying is this: If you have very low knowledge about computers, windows kind-of works, but many things feel out of your control and you learn to hate your computer rather than like it (why does it want me to create an account, why does it update without me telling it to, why is all this crap preinstalled etc.). And even if you were to learn more about the inner workings of windows, it’s way less accessible due to its closed source and you still don’t get the same customizability that Linux would give you.