this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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Oh man, don't read the comments, sad to see the smartasses saying "report back when you install windows again in two months" while getting utterly fucked by Windows.
I mean, I understand being resistant to change but being a fanatic of Windows or anything for that matter just because that's all you know is really ignorant, it's not a sports team for fucks sake, of course it's not easy switching and you will have problems just dont be afraid to ask and read the error warning.
Rant over
I use Windows for work and I miss Win10, I don't like it but I'm aware that's currently the target of most Consumer SW for good reason but that reason is starting to break (say it with me! BAD BUSINESS DECISIONS!!!).
Happy to see Linux getting mainstream, not all comments are bad but I the trolls got me.
It kind of reminds me of the whole Rust situation in a way. The evangelists were so heavy-handed that an active counter-movement developed, and with the adoption being wider the fanatics are heard less and what remains is their counterpart. We certainly aren't quite there yet with the Linux discussion, but it seems to be what we're heading towards.
It's like do-gooder derogation. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-gooder_derogation )
Someone doing something good? Fuck them. They think they're better than us?? Where do they get off??!?
A lot of people are trash and are emotionally invested in both the way things currently are, and that they are a very good person
TIL there's a name for this
There's a name for everything. There's probably a name for there being a name for everything.
Panominism.
(edit: I made this up, probably.)
What’s the name for that sensation that’s somewhere between a taste and a smell but it’s mainly at the back of my mouth near the throat and good food can have it in bad ways for some reason
It's regedit!
Well, if you honestly think about it, Linux has always been tried by many of people that eventually went back to Windows because something wasn't entirely straightforward. Don’t get me wrong, I love Linux, but I don’t blame people for thinking that. Trying Linux is very different than sticking to it. Linux is amazing OS for people who put at least some effort into learning it, but like it or not, it can be absolute pain for those expecting things to just work without any interest on why they experiencing issues. Given how many sets of hardware and peripherals people have, weird quirks, bugs and required workarounds aren’t unheard of. Maybe it’s just something very simple to fix for an advanced user, but normies will just run away.
Linux Mint just worked.
There's the key flaw.
Maybe if we kept speaking of Free Software philosophy, people would not have these misplaced expectations they've been conditioned to as dis-empowered consumer cash-cows of the monopoly.
Unlikely, cons0omers don’t buy ideology and don't care about reason. They want to pay money and get complete product that is easy enough for person with not too many brain connections, not to just justify missing features for values.
Fortunately, they not not have to remain, and are not innately and inescapably "cons0omers".
I was such a corporate fanboy consumer in the 90s... Until I (frankly) "turned on, tuned in, and dropped out".
I sure wasn't the first, not the only since / wont be the last.
... Even despite the promise of "AI" (LLM/HRM/MCP) atrophying people's brains even further into dependence.
Also worth noting: ... ... Linux use % keeps rising slowly. (Currently over 5% I hear.)
I must say on mine laptop it took fewer tries to have Linux mint working. When I was installing the Nvidia drivers I was losing the WiFi ones and couldn’t do anything to fix without internet there
So after some reinstalls I learned I need to update mint first, than do the Nvidia update, this did the trick for me.
As someone who tried it for a few months then switched back for several years before returning permanently two years ago: Linux has long had the problem that it's completely ready for different people at different times.
In 2017 it was in pretty good shape if you weren't a gamer, didn't mind tinkering a fair bit, were prepared to learn a completely different two ways of installing software, and didn't rely on proprietary apps (I couldn't get Netflix to work). I was only ready for the tinkering. Also I'd used Ubuntu and gnome just added more changes.
Five years later a lot had changed. I wasn't using Netflix (especially not in the app) for one. But Proton had come around and made gaming just work. My wifi drivers just worked unlike before. Years of mobile app stores and a few months of lemmy had prepared me for repos, even though it still took some getting the hang of to switch from just downloading and double clicking an exe file. But also the software options are increasingly available rather than having to learn to use old school wine while in the middle of a massive change. I still think I should switch away from garuda at some point as I dislike some of the choices it made (no flatpak support for one), but I love aspects of it. And all throughout that time that Linux was getting more accessible to someone like me who isn't a coder, but was tech nerd curious, windows was increasingly getting in my way and becoming anti user.
I think adoption will continue to increase as Linux continues to get easier for more people
Garuda was a great distro for a hot minute. It was right where it needed to be to access Steam on Linux right as the Steam Deck came to market. It got all the performance benefits of Proton immediately as other distros had to play catch-up.
It still is a great distro, but it's lost some is that exclusivity.
I love the eyebleed aesthetic of it I'm just now skilled enough to get that on something like fedora or Debian. And these days what I want is for more things to work easier which puts me out of the arch sphere. If garuda hadn't committed hard to the aur I'd probably love it but the aur does everything 3 ways 1 of which may still be maintained and it leaves you just wanting the actively maintained flatpak.
Like I don't hate it, it was the right distro at the time for me as it was noob friendly and had plasma 6 when few others did. But I don't need the bleeding edge anymore.
I appreciate that arch's package manager is a bit of a monster - but that's also what made it the prefect choice for me.
In the immediate aftermath of the release of the Steam Deck, there was many hot weeks where arch's ability to turn on a dime was exactly the tool needed to run all the new things valve released (fast development to deploy is aur's specialty). This advantage was destined to not last more than 6 months, as that's the release cycle for other distros.
Nothing prevents ya from using Arch to install Flatpack, tho. It's also really well documented at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Flatpak 😅
I think that describes computers.
Windows does the same thing, only worse because it is harder to trouble shoot, and harder to fix if you find yourself at the point where a reinstall is the only way out.
I am dealing with a laptop like that now for someone else, and it would be simple if it was linux, but of course its a pain in the ass because its windows.
For me, I've been using Windows for so long that when I want to change something, there'll be a UI for it somewhere. In Linux, you have to learn a bunch of text commands and modifiers. And if you don't already know what they are, you don't know what to search for to find them.
One of these days I'll learn out of necessity. Until then, Windows it just too convenient
This is not true. People repeat it all the time but it not true at all.
(EDIT: I think the reason why people think this is because it is FAR easier to support someone by simply telling them a command. They can copy paste. Describing a GUI sucks horribly, and is very inefficient. Windows is like this too. Any support will tell you get out powershell.)
Windows is far more difficutlt even in this regard because now you have essentially two control panels.
Also discovery of what you want to do is harder in windows.
And the kicker is if your windows is broken and you need to fix it, guess what, it's command line for you.
Not to mention the fact that windows is basically unchangeable now.
You want a menu at the top? Get out regedit or download a patch or use powershell.
While I have a GUI to simple click and edit my desktop, choose from several launchers and I can put them where ever I want. Even choose to have none at all.
So can you name one thing I would need a command line for instead of a GUI in Linux?
Maybe I've just had bad luck. I had an issue where my second monitor wasn't being detected at all in Linux, but was fine in Windows. There was a fix, fortunately someone in a forum had the same issue, but it was a command line fix. And IIRC it wasn't permanent either - I think I had to retype it on reboot.
I also have a 3 button mouse with the middle button set to double click in Windows. There was no linux driver for it. I'm sure its possible to get it working, but quite how, I've no idea.
Basically I've installed various flavours of Linux maybe 5 times, and each time had to abort and go back to windows after a day or two because I couldn't find how to fix a particular issue.
That distinction makes a difference. I was thinking you were saying once installed you had to do command line stuff. Like a person was here the other day that thought it passwords could not be changed without a command line.
But since you did clarify, hardware is indeed a pain if it isn't supported. I put a lot of that on the vendors. Why would a mouse need its own drivers and software? That seems crazy.
And to put it into perspective: I have 3 monitors, different resolutions and refresh rates. I did nothing to make it work, it just did. My desktop and laptop have been pretty much zero effort on my part to make them work.
On the other hand I have 3 windows machines that I am dealing with for others and the audio driver is clearly the issue with one, nvidias driver with the other, and a failed MS update with the third.
Guess what? Every fix requires the command line. In Windows. Computers can suck. And after hours of working with the broken install (DISM, Scannow, ISO downoader extraction, and on and on, it looks like the only fix is a reinstall. It bluescreens and will not update. Yet the hardware is fine, its all drivers.
Which is like 95% of people.
Imagine if cars worked this way. Imagine you needed to be a mechanic to operate your vehicle. To start and drive your car, you first have to do automotive work, and know how to do automotive work.
A lot less people would drive themselves. A lot more Ubers.
I mean that’s exactly how cars were for the first ~50 years they existed.
Wait what? Hahaha, it is only a problem when things don't work. Same with cars, as in your analogy, if your car is not starting your are taking that Uber...
You don't need to be a mechanic, but you need to know the lights in your panel, know how to check the oil, know how to change a tire, etc... For when things go wrong and maybe you can repair what's needed yourself.
Bringing it back to Linux, you can try Linux directly from a USB without installing anything and most of the time it just works. If gradma is only reading the news or watching youtube she doesn't care what OS it is.
Fits with the recently announced 5% Linux use.
Maybe eventually people will increasingly realize the folly of this expecation.
Maybe even "AI" atrophying their skills will wake people up to this problem, right through to no longer wanting to be consumer cash-cows of the monopolistic corporation.
Convenience, so sweet, in the short term. Maybe eventually people will learn, the sweeter the juice, the more dangerous the pitcher plant. And then people will learn to drive. And to be able to mend their own. And stop buying the ones that make it difficult to mend. Seeing the folly of such dis-empowerment.
*Dreamer*
Who knows, maybe Autodesk will finally start thinking about Linux.
They already use Qt anyway, so the .NET part is all they'd need to fix.
There's Mono. I don't know what portion of .NET compatibility issues that addresses in 2025.
Well of course, there's probably other Windows stuff they are also using, considering how much they aren't even trying to ship for something like Ubuntu, which would be super easy otherwise.
I can only imagine how big of a push Autodesk can easily put towards Linux. That would easily make the current rise to 5% be nothing in comparison. Maybe MS is paying them too, to keep them together.
Of course it might also just be that MS makes it easier for them to setup a DRM (Digital Rights Management) as compared to Linux, not that it matters considering how much they have been pirated.
Then there was this person who was not using Linux because of the CAD software he wanted to use and when I asked what exactly it was, he said, "KiCad"^[it's available in Arch and Debian official repositories].
KiCAD is available for most distros. You can even get it via flatpak
Yeah, so you see, they just don't know that the stuff is available.
They are also the types to download from stuff like Softonic/MegaUpload etc. when the official website has downloads available, so even if the website were to advertise Linux availability, they would never end up seeing it.
I'm suspecting around 80% of the people who switched to Linux after Win11/AI stuff, will switch back within 6 months.
I'm saying this as a Linux user.
Yes and that's ok, but the comment you tagged is about the people just shitting on linux without even trying it, they are kind of Windows hooligans.
I'm still going strong two years later! :D
I’ve been using Linux as my daily driver for over a month. The only thing I miss are some old windows apps that I’m too lazy to troubleshoot in Wine.
I've been daily driving Linux for about 3 years now and one major tip I can give is to avoid using non Linux apps as far as possible. When I started with Linux I also tried to get windows apps running on Linux, but this, at least as far as I remember, never worked the way I wanted ans always caused more troubles. Currently I'm at a point where I dont even know when I used plain wine (I am not counting proton) the last time. It has been 2 years at least. I Am using native Linux apps for everything I do. Much less trouble shooting, no need to learn wine additionally to the command line and much less prone to breaking because of an update.
Yup. I've been daily driving linux for about 22 years now, and seeking solutions to what I want to accomplish was[/is] a much more enjoyable exploration than trying to wrestle the square peg in the star shaped hole.
It's the free software (free as in freedom), not the "can I get this proprietary software for windows to run in linux". Best to understand this and make that leap. Then life gets so much better. The more of your software that affords you (and everybody) the 4 freedoms of free software, the better.
This is the right approach but IF you must and IF you have decent computer, try Winboat
What if you run windows apps through proton
Havent done that (except for games ofc)
The top comments don't look too bad now... Maybe they're ranked differently or something
they removed the comment section now 😅