I’ve been seeing all these posts about Linux lately, and looking at them, I can honestly see the appeal. I’d love having so much autonomy over the OS I use, and customize it however I like, even having so many options to choose from when it comes to distros. The only thing holding me back, however, is incompatibility issues. A lot of programs I work with very often are Windows-exclusive, and alternatives supporting Linux are rare. So I guess I’m stuck with Windows, since I deem those particular programs really important.

Any advice from Linux nerds here? All constructive replies are very appreciated.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I recently reinstalled Linux. 5 minutes download, 5 minutes USB write, 15 minutes install including setting up an encrypted drive, everything works out of the box. Installling the graphics driver for my RX 7800 was “hard” because it was two steps instead of one, and that added an additional 5-10 minutes. Now I’m having convenience and productivity beyond all coworkers who constantly battle with windows problems, but hey, windows is windows, it always has some issues, it’s fine.

    Over this past weekend I installed Windows 11. 1.5 times the size. Took about 7 minutes to download, 20 minutes to write to usb, fine.

    Then the nightmare started.

    First try: boot windows installer, go to install, about 3 minutes later I get an error about windows installer needing drivers. Wut? Search the internet, turns out that windows installer won’t work if Linux partitions are available on the system. WTF, can’t just ignore them? Nope, I gotta screw out the m.2 drive. Fine.

    Second try: boot windows installer, go to install, about 3 minutes later I get an error about windows installer needing drivers. Wut? Search again, find that windows installer can have driver issues if it sees a mix of m.2 drives and other devices. Fuck me. Open up the other side of the computer, disconnect the other drives. fine.

    Third try: boot windows installer, go to install, about 3 minutes later I get an error about windows installer needing drivers. Wut? Search yet again and it turns out that windows can have issues if it’s using a mix of usb 2/3 port and device. Try a various different USB ports, keep running installer until find one that is accepted. Fine!

    Thirteenth try: boot windows installer, go to install, about 3 minutes later I get a new error, turns out that you can’t use Linux ISO writers for windows installers, apparently Microsoft fucked around with why because we gotta make shit hard for non ms users, right? “Luckily” I had a virtual box install, rewrite the usb there.

    Fourteenth try and hours later: boot windows installer, go to install, about 3 minutes later I get a new error. My AMD Rhyzen 5 64GB 3000MHz system with an AMD RX 7800 XT and 1TB m.2 dedicated to windows doesn’t match the specs for windows 1, it can’t run windows 11. That’s what it actually said. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK! Search again, about an hour later I figre out that Microsoft finally started implementing the evil TPM system and it was disabled in the BIOS. Go to bios, enable it, now I can run the installer.

    The install the requires 4 reboots just for the operating system, took about another hour to do so, it asked me loads of times if Microsoft could please please please sell me more shit that I don’t want, it required me to connect it to Microsoft services even though I don’t want that and finally I had a desktop. Installing graphics drivers took about another hour and a reboot.

    Then I didn’t wanted to use Microsoft’s shit browser, at the least I prefer google to spy on me rather than Microsoft. Go download gogle Chrome, immediately get bombarded with “please no please use our shitty browser, you get the Microsoft experience ™!!!”

    Welcome to the fucking Microsoft experience! It took me over 6 fucking hours to complete. I could have installed Linux arch in LESS time, a version known to be finicky and HARD.

    Why does anyone pay money for windows? It’s insane. Their shit doesn’t work because Microsoft never cared a single shit about good software. They care about money and so their marketing department is doing the heavy lifting. Just lie to people, tell them that their shit is all superior and the “best experience”

    I run into trouble with Linux sometimes, but NEVER this level of shitty incompetence and sabotage.

    • statist43@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Everytime I install windows again for some reason, its always a fucked up hourlong shit. And after installing then comes the disableing of unnesessary bullshit it comea with.

      Linux just works, I use Ubuntu because Im just a normal user, and I don’t know why people even use windows.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Same, I don’t have a clue why people actually use and PAY for that shit. It’s like buying a new car. You get into he agency, get in, want to start and drive away but right out of the gate the battery is empty. Okay, let’s charge it? But yeeaaahhh, the great 12v standard that works everywhere doesn’t work for windowagon, you need a 15.9v because that way microshit can sabotage those people that just want to get from a to b without having to deal with their bullshit.

    • Kühe sind toll@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      I could have installed Linux arch in LESS time, a version known to be finicky and HARD.

      I recently had to install arch 3 times since. First time I fucked up, second try the system fucked up and third time worked. With me trying to fix the system this took me 2-3 hours. Most of them trying to fix the second install. The third time I used the installation script(which didn’t worked in the beginning) which made the install easy as hell taking about 10 minutes configuring the install and about 5 minutes installing everything. Later I just had to install gnome which were about 10 minutes total.

      • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        And yet Microsoft in 2023 still is stuck with “this computer cannot run windows 11” when all that was wrong was that TPM was disabled in the bios. Just say you need TPM and that I need to enable it, why is it impossible for Microsoft to ever give a clear and concise error message?