Ubuntu: one line message in the terminal about we released <new thing> thing, feel free to try it.

Yeah, basically the same thing.

A text ad on the first page of a book is not a slippery slope to a billboard right outside your window.

I use a Linux terminal everyday. I completely forgot it has any ads at all until reading this thread. I have to put conscious effort to find where the ad is.

It would be impossible for a daily Windows user to forget their OS has ads.

My 2 cents at any rate

A vendor of a web browser and email client, sure. A vendor of an operating system and one (or both) of a web browser and an email client, hell no. If anything, an operating system should be forced _not_ to tightly integrate to vendor-specific apps and instead should provide integration loosely and in a way a user can plug in their choice of app (or disable entirely).

The whole OS is a mess of tightly coupled software with messy boundaries. I don't think the coupling is the thing that matters.

Springboard definitely isn't OK.

There's no good reason that Airdrop shouldn't be in the Linux kernel and it probably would be if the protocol were well documented.

You can use game overlays other than the Steam one, so there's nothing stopping Microsoft from creating an overlay that provides the Edge browser.

Rich integrations are great but when the boundary is perceived by the user as being two different programs or systems, both sides of the integration should have well-documented public interfaces that support swapping out the other side (no "private API" funny business).

What's not:

* Not allowing controls to manage integrations. Maybe I want to connect A to C, D, or Q instead, or not allow a connection at all.

* Accidentally-on-purpose clobbering customer choices (ooh, whoops, we reset all your file associations for the sixth time this year, perhaps now you'll stop changing them).

* Using undocumented APIs or similar gimmicks to ensure a competitive product will be inherently hamstrung.

* Pretending a seperate product is an indivisible component of the whole. I'm sure there are a bunch of places where Edge could be pulled out in favour of an external help-file/PDF/etc viewer.

Obviously, I want the best experience as an end-user. But I think it’s ridiculous, at a certain point you should have to invest the billions of dollars to build your own equivalent operating system. You really can’t expect all of that. Microsoft already has a pretty flexible system.

Maybe there is a business model for that massive investment. I don’t think that 100% native integration for third party applications is a big draw to most people. It’s mostly something people complain about on this forum.

Proof of that is Apple. It’s relatively inflexible, and people seem to like it quite a bit. They are doing very well. Then there’s also Linux but then people complain things aren’t tightly integrated enough.

Basically people want to have their cake and eat it too on someone else’s 1 billion dollar investment.

I don't much care about Windows, but as someone who has to use it for certain work I feel like I have the right to complain about Microsoft trying to force it's other products on me. And they probably could survive by having their OS be a bit more end-user friendly,, and if they couldn't, we would use some other OS.

Linux is a server kernel primarily. It gets used elsewhere, but that’s the core focus for development. Windows is a consumer OS. They’re really two different tools for two different jobs.

What you didn’t mention before, but now you are, is that you would choose a different product that works as you described. That sounds better. The only problem is that it doesn’t exist. Again, no one is going to spend $1 billion to build a system for everyone else to essentially have native integrations into as they sit back having spent all of that money to build this hypothetical extremely flexible product. Those types of ideas are basically the typical HN pipe dream.

I do too, but as someone who doesn't use Outlook or Edge, having those two specific products integrate doesn't give me any practical benefits, whereas having the OS try to force products like Edge that I don't use on me because they happen to also be made by Microsoft gets in the way of me just trying to use a computer the way I want.

In theory, something like Linux has a good model with multiple distributions, with each making different choices for the end-user. In practice, only a handful of distributions get any kind of traction and/or support.

I've seen promoted links in Win10/11, but never anything that harmed my productivity. Most importantly, the OS just fades into the background. I never think about it.

Linux required almost-daily googling and opening up a terminal to fix or change something. It became maddening eventually.

I usually try to avoid discussions of the OS, since it's such a terribly boring topic. However, this is quite an extraordinary claim that is made without any details. Perhaps you could elaborate. As someone that has used various Linux distros for nearly twenty years, I don't think I could construct a scenario in which someone doing the usual things has to open a terminal to "fix or change something" on a daily basis. It's probably less than once a year that I have to fix anything on my Linux desktop computers.

Did you build your own Linux distribution? Were you running IT at a company with 50,000 Linux desktops? Were you testing the development version of a desktop environment?

And no, not every UI has made needless changes since then.

Many, many hours and late nights figuring out how to turn off telemetry, Edge and more. Multiple Group policy editor settings to force it to do what is asked and no more. For some reason updates and uninstalls take forever and uninstalls can’t be batched. (A powsh I found didn’t work) I could go on…

“Fades in the background” my ass. :-P

Part of the reason Windows doesn't fade into the background for you is that you insist on fighting it, you're tweaking stuff you should just leave alone... according to Microsoft.

Physically it's not possible for me to use Windows, my hand cramps up, not completely sure why that happens, but it provides a constant physical reminder that I'm using Windows.

Why are you worried about 20-30 GB again??

And yes, a few older drives are kinda small here. Laptop vendors overcharge on storage so most of ours have a half TB, which goes fast.

We could buy a number of new drives, or we could look up an esoteric CLI and free up 30g.

Point taken!

I know many power users of Windows that bring up their terminal frequently as well.

What were you using if I may ask? I use manjaro with plasma and.... idk I really don't have to use the commandline much if at all when i'm not coding. Last time I was forced to was a few months ago in fact with an old niche wifi dongle that didn't work without some tinkering but this now works out of the box as well.

lmao, not because I don't believe you really think what you write, but because how user hostile everything in Windows seems to me, if you only want to change a single setting. It will be hidden behind 3 level deep settings dialogs and a "material design" flat links connecting those setting dialogs, so almost no visual indication, to make things stand out. It is horrible UI design. Basically any modern GNU/Linux DE will offer more feedback and visibility in their settings dialogs and windows.

Whenever I have to change any settings on Windows, I get a feeling of dread, because I know I will be searching for that setting. And never is the search any help, because they will name things different than I expect or it simply will not find the settings dialog I need to change that setting.

It is almost like they intentionally hide the settings ... Windows feels like a system that protects clueless users from themselves.

I'm sure Windows 11 works perfectly if you teleported in from a dimension without computers and never had to unlearn any prior experiences. You'll use the defaults, which of course expose you to the most possible Microsoft revenue streams, and not notice the friction points. It's probably a net positive for that user if they make customization limited and frustrating-- don't give him any paint and he can't paint himself into a corner, resulting in an expensive support session.

The most cynical take on this is that the advanced users, who are suffering from the constant abuse from the software undermining attempts at personalization and breaking workflows, are not a priority. They've already paid, and are unlikely to suddenly turn into a new revenue centre.

Even giving up on that and disabling sleep on lid close requires using the terminal. Sure the Gnome Tweaks tool has a setting for that but it's not installed by default and check the comments here, it doesn't actually work.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/15520/how-can-i-tell-ubuntu-...

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-nz/000179566/how-to-di...

And sleep doesn't always stay slept. We've had machines wake up in bags so when later needed they have near flat batteries and are nice & toasty³.

So sleep/hibernate not working right is hardly a significant difference when comparing Linux to Windows. In fact one of the laptops I had trouble with did sleep and hibernate properly when Linux went on it for a while, so at least sometimes the difference is not in favour of Windows.

----

[1] the couple of times that happened to me, the machine would still work via RDC and other such so an orderly restart could be arranged if I had another machine on the same network, but if I had no such machine available like when travelling a hard-reset had to be forced

[2] I'm told you can force it to be available again, but I assume the removal is an admission that is doesn't work properly so enabling it is risky

[3] being in a bag isn't great for cooling airflow!

I've seen a hypothesis for this relatively common issue, which is: laptop goes to sleep while connected to charger, then charger is unplugged but the laptop still believes it gets charged and starts downloading OS updates, emptying the battery and almost overheating in a bag.

I don't have a Windows laptop to test it myself, though.

Hell, while asleep on the desk (so plugged-in, grated) it tends to be hotter than while under active use. Under Linux, the fan basically never spins as long as I don't compile stuff and the PC is cool to the touch.

I also make a point of unplugging it before I close it because, contrary to Linux on the same machine, there's a very high probably that if I unplug the dock while the PC sleeps, the screen won't wake up again in a usable state (it's typically on, but it's either blank or it displays random colors). It gets its power via said dock.

This is a run-of-the-mill, full-Intel HP Elite book, with an HP dock running Windows 11, as recommended by HP.

Pretty much every sleep issue I've encountered in the wild is due to the hardware manufacturer's shitty implementation.

The only reason some features "just work" with Windows is because they only care if it works with Windows.

Ultimately it still sucks if it happens with your hardware, but you should direct your frustration to the right party. Maybe one day people will care enough and interoperability can become the default.

I use each OSX, Ubuntu and Windows daily but I could never recommend my mother switch to Ubuntu or Mint because of things like this.

What I found happens often is pure confirmation bias. People already hate Linux and love Windows/OSX, then find reasons to confirm that. I'm sure I have some of that too, but I try to see all sides.

The amount of blue screens and shitty issues my wife puts up with on Windows is astonishing. Disconnecting/reconnecting dongles so they work again. Manually searching for drivers. She re-installs Windows every few months and normalizes it.

Same goes for OSX. Apple fanboys at work having random segfaults on services, OS upgrades that sometimes takes them down a full day. A coworker of mine still runs a years old OSX version because last time he updated he had to pay hundreds of dollars for Apple care to get his MacBook working again. I still remember when I had to use OSX, wasting days searching for solutions after every OS upgrade.

My point is: there are issues with all OSes and this generalization that "Linux is the bad one" is a plain lie. Especially for basic usage, which is what normal people usually stick to.

Yes, if you pick a bad distro and sometimes gets hardware from manufacturers that intentionally fuck Linux over, you're gonna have a hard time.

But on the other side, you have a choice. You can choose a more stable distro, you can tweak it as you like. Something other OSes can't offer.

Everyone is free to choose, but this meme against Linux is plain tiring.

As an example of such a behavior on Windows. My customers (too often) complain that my console-based program suddenly stopped and they tried everything and can't make it to restart.

The problem is that they don't realize that selecting some text in the window blocks the stdout and the program won't continue until they remove the selection.

So for a more experienced user it's nothing, but for someone new to terminal behavior it's a huge obstacle.

On Linux you have much more traps like that.

Time spent is not necessarily experience, especially if you are trying to do something else at the time. In this case trying to do DayJob so not having time/care to commit much operating system management knowledge to memory, which is more understandable than the people mentioned in my first sentence who were failing to learn what was their job.

This, on a machine that you can buy with Linux.

I had great experiences with Windows in the past, but not anymore.

Configuring Linux is fun, so yes, I've done a reasonable amount of playing around with it. But I chose this. There was always the option of picking a "batteries included" distro and just running that with no playing around. I've never encountered a situation where I had to open a terminal to fix or change something that I didn't cause.

Windows repeatedly gets in my face about updates, often at inconvenient times. It's just generally a worse experience, in part because it seems so condescending compared to Linux. The tone is always "are you sure you want to do this?", "these are super-advanced settings that we don't think you should be messing with", and so on. I'm always swearing at the bloody thing to just get out of my way.

This is my experience as well. To use a power tools analogy, Windows is the DIY line of equipment: moderately powered, relatively easy to use, if it breaks/wears down you buy a new one. Linux, on the other hand, is the professional's choice: much more powerful, harder to master, but it's user servicable and infinitely better customizable for each use case.

Really? What kind of things do you have to google for Linux to work these days? The opposite is true for me in Windows, I am not about to relearn how to use the Windows terminal.

There's also been a fair amount of googling for how to set up X in Linux to do Y only to find a trail of half-functional or abandoned packages. Getting global menus set up in your DE of choice for example takes a surprising amount of twiddling and even at its best doesn't work with a lot of software. Getting everything functioning as expected with a minimal WM setup is also a surprising amount of work (e.g. laptop volume keys not working if some daemon isn't running). Admittedly it's not as bad if all your want is a Win9x-type or iPad-type desktop.

And is one click and works with all apps in Windows ?

But as you admit in Linux you have infinite more power to attempt setting up a global menu, but this feature is not something a mainstream distro offers by default so IMO is not a fair complaint.

I strongly disagree with this. When I am forced to use windows, I am constantly fighting with it to not be obnoxious. It takes many seconds to do something as simple as bring up an explorer window. I can't count the number of times I have had to dig into menus to disable this or that ad panel or other bloatware. In linux, I occasionally have to figure out how something works and fix it, but there are generally many months between those events, when everything just works and gets out of my way.

Several seconds sounds like an exaggeration, but it never seems anything but sluggish to me.

One UX delay that irritates me is the time it often takes between hitting Win+R and the run dialogue finally being ready for input. Regularly the first few characters of what I type after that ends up going to the app that originally had focus. That used to be instant, on much older kit.

I don't use Windows often enough to go out of my way to customize it, plus I know that the next update will probably undo everything anyway, but now I have to wait around multiple seconds for it to realize the files are not there. And it won't even remember it from one instance of explorer to the next, or try to check on those files without blocking the entire app's UI.

This shitshow also happens in the open / save as dialogs when called from other apps.

I've mostly used OS X and Linux the last 25 years, but have been forced to use Windows at work and recently on my gaming computer, so I'm not really defending Windows here. But honestly, I don't have any big problems with it. It works OK for the most part.

I cannot list any of the bugs I have had with Windows off the top of my head, but I can with linux. Driver issues, Pulse audio randomly playing static, updates breaking my system, fractional scaling not working, I could go on.

I've been using using Firefox on Linux and Mac for a long time now and I'm yet to see any bug(a rare occurrence) that is a show stopper(for me atleast).

To give you an example - I have a small+fast SSD for my OS and a large+slow spinning disk for data storage. When I install software on Windows I sometimes point to the other drive. This task is easier to do on Windows. The last I looked at it, Linux had a solution, but it was very convoluted. I see computer hardware and software products as purely a means to an end, I will use whatever that gets the job done.

Each person only has a limited quota of things that they can give a lot of energy to, and for me F/OSS is not something that I particularly go out of my way to support. My 'things that I give a shit about' quota is filled to the brim with the work I'm doing in healthcare.

Microsoft already forces ads on Windows users so I guess it'd be something like the current situation.

My Arch box has never once tried to display an ad to me, or coerce me to use any particular piece of software for that matter.

The package manager works well.

The installer is very solid by now.

It comes with absolutely nothing preinstalled, perfect for techie people.

Google is the dominant mobile OS and doesn't cram ads into basic functionality of the device. You won't see ads when opening the app launcher or settings.

On Windows 11, you can see ads if you open the start bar.