this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 73 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Why the hell is Gates on that image?? The guy stepped down as a CEO 26 years ago, and left the board of directors six years ago.

The enshittification is all Nadela's baby.

[–] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You somehow made me aware Gates had to use either an UNIX derivative (iPhone) or a Linux derivative (Android) daily.

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 days ago

I'd assume that for the majority of his career he was using something like Series 20 OS (Nokia's proprietary OS) or the BlackBerry OS (before it was rewritten to be based on UNIX-like QNX).

But since then, yeah. There are literally no other options since MS killed Windows Mobile with prejudice.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Did you ever use windows before XP?

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 days ago

Friend, I used computers before DOS.

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[–] Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What in the fake news is this source ??

[–] CaisideQC@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I feel like if you made a Venn diagram between Lemmy users and Linux users, it would just be a circle. I say this as also a Linux enjoyer.

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[–] Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 133 points 5 days ago (18 children)

I moved to Linux entirely because of how shit Windows is, but I do not, in general, get higher fps. It's very case-by-case, but in general, my performance seems to be ever so slightly worse.

[–] wischi@programming.dev 64 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (18 children)

I probably hate Microsoft roughly as much as most people here but in a lot of ways Windows is way more polished than Linux. The second you try something "unconventional" in Linux the shit is going to hit the fan. Fractional scale DPI - half the apps crap their pants. On screen keyboard - and don't get me started with OSK over Firefox in kiosk mode (for example in touch screen settings). Also try to make a custom shortcut on your gnome desktop to run some application with some arguments without writing config files in random directories you have to Google and reloading some configs via a terminal.

Microsoft really went downhill fast and certainly adds a lot of crap to windows lately, but sadly in the Linux world we don't have 1-3 well polished distros, we have hundreds of them. All good at one or two things, but suck at everything else. There a so many options the choice alone is probably the biggest reason everyday people will not switch to Linux if their device doesn't already come with Linux. Even people thinking about switching end up with analysis paralysis because everybody tells them stuff like, try it - if you don't like it try something else. As if they have nothing better to do than trying Linux distros all day long.

[–] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 46 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (12 children)

This is exactly the type of shit I've been trying to explain to the Linux fanboys for years and all of them dismiss outright.

Until simple shit like this is easy for the average person, Linux will never replace Windows as a default OS option for regular users. 99% of people are scared of config files and the terminal, and they're still just too commonly needed in every distro.

A LOT of work has been done to minimize it, but there's always still basic functionality that just isn't in the GUI. That's not an issue for most of us here... But it is for most people. Fediverse users are a small minority.

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It's funny, i use both. Work is Windows, Linux at home.

90% of troubles literally come down to what you are used to and expect. I have had hundreds of problems assisting with company IT that I never would have had on Linux. People just ignore it or write it off as "expected", but when something they doesn't work on linux, they go crazy and say that Linux just doesn't work. Windows has just as many basic functionality things that don't work, if not more.

Linux isn't perfect, but work is being done to fix it, where in windows, the support tells you to fuck off, try the only 2 GUI tools they have, then enter random command line commands and if that doesn't fix it, fuck off.

Examples:

  • Searching in the start menu literally won't return the program if the program doesn't start with what you are searching instead of simply "contains" like every other search on earth

  • File search in fundamentally garbage on windows compared to Linux (both GUI). Not to mention that until last year there was no option to find where the fuck the file was in windows without ending the search and having to start the search over (hell on network shares). Luckily it has gotten better

  • One drive forcing itself as default, sync problems, losing files, etc... That often has to be fixed through powershell. Not to mention lying to you that files are synced when they are not.

  • Teams silently installing a random DLL that causes teams to bootloop endlessly, no resources online about it until last year late where you had to manually console command your way out of it via powershell

  • Microphone completely just not working at all. No possible way to re-enable it via settings, control panel, manual controls, registry, etc... It wasn't broken. Microsoft secretly disabled it in the background and you had to install the old version of the audio troubleshooter because their new one is AI slop and it would say "oh it was disabled, I will re-enable it" when literally every single other tool in windows said it was enabled and working fine. This was a problem with >10% of people. Again, the GUI wouldn't fix it until you downloaded a sketchy old version of a troubleshooter.

  • installing windows without internet working. They are making it almost impossible, actively. Literally the single most basic thing

  • Microsoft office being layered on top of each other all in one gigantic pile because one font was installed from a path that it didn't like this brought PowerPoint in my old company to a halt for days

  • Font blurring when moving windows between monitors (especially PDFs). Linux doesn't have this problem that I have seen. Windows fonts look like smeared shit after dragging them from screens of different sizes

  • If one single file has an issue in one single office project e.g. a warning dialog open or a frozen excel window, all office programs are no longer able to be closed, and often even interacted with. That is like the basic of the basic of having multiple program instances open. I have seen unorganized people with 10 excel instances open literally have to restart their computer because no office windows will respond enough to even find the problem instance

  • Update hangs and failures are a daily occurance in windows. I haven't had an update fail for years in Linux and when it did, it said "this is why" where windows just says "try again" and keeps failing. Basic basic functionality.

  • pathing are the worst thing ever in windows. You have import library after library to get windows paths to work in different codebases where in Linux it just works.

  • windows and printers... You know how everyone has problems with printers? Yeah, a lot of that is from windows shit printer drivers. With Linux, I haven't had a print job fail in years. In windows, sometimes it will serially send a PDF to the printer, corrupt itself, and balloon the 10MB PDF size to 10GB and overload the printer until you have to hard reset it.

  • windows constantly resets your printer settings in word, even after you manually set printer settings in the OS. How many times people have printed double sided because auto-switches back after you change it. That is so basic.

  • SVChost or "system interrupts" eating 60-90% CPU for minuten on end where there are no programs running, making everything work extremely slowly and lag all over the place with no way to fix it.

  • not going to sleep. Windows sleep is so damn broken ever since they fucked with sleep levels. My new work laptop will literally sleep and turn itself off after a few hours (only if it is plugged in) so I have to unplug it before leaving. My old one with the exact same power settings works fine. Not to mention with modern sleep, laptops will just turn themselves on in a backpack and overheat and dump their battery to 0 for no reason. Windows had sleep right in 7 and then decided to completely break it all and increase power consumption 100x for 1s faster wakeup times... In Linux. If you tell it to go to sleep, it goes to sleep and doesn't wake up until you wake it up.

I could go on for an hour, literally.

These are very basic functionality that is critically broken or hot garbage and just works on Linux. Again, there are tons of things wrong in Linux too like other users have mentioned, it comes down to the problems the individual user is used to having and living with.

People are learning to deal with a different set of broken things and problems while not seeing the previous problems they had to deal with invisibly just work (because that is how the human brain works).

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[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 32 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (18 children)

i switched over to Bazzite about a week ago, and it has been super frustrating. though it’s not in where you think. the game my group is playing (Arc Raiders) worked without a hitch.

  • but my speaker system, and microphone forced me to learn a whole lot about USB hand shakes,
  • ghost usb profiles,
  • usb cable choice,
  • what a flatpac is and why people hate it,
  • nano eccentricities (including how to save and quit, just labeling ctrl-o as save and not overwrite would stop so much bs),
  • sink states,
  • device name resolution,
  • pipewire,
  • pipe plumber,
  • pipe wire holding devices hostage,
  • usb power flapping because i plugged my speakers and my mic to close to each other causing the os to just give up on the both of them.
  • the timing of when the os asks for usb identifiers, verses when the usb devices are given power
  • out dated guides relying on depreciated methods and acceptable code used in modifiers to os procedure.

my experience and days of trouble shooting the “easy” replacement os for gaming has frightened my friend group far away from linux.

[–] PureTryOut@lemmy.world 20 points 4 days ago (6 children)

what a flatpac is and why people hate it,

Huh, most people actually like Flatpak, and for good reasons too.

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[–] spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Exact opposite experience here, coming from using Linux as toy desktops for the past few years. My main PC is EndeavourOS, and my gaming laptop is Bazzite. Bazzite has been a really good hands off "just works" distro that I don't have to think about.

[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

i think the real issue is my computer has been silently suffering for all these years as windows just didn’t tell me my hardware is borked and old. and just has a shot gun full of code that fixes whatever it can stick to. and Bazzite either does not have that, or i fell into an exception in use due to hatred and old hardware.

but getting into the weeds was very difficult, and my desk is not as flat as it once was

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 9 points 4 days ago (8 children)

nano is the Fishcer Price's My First Text Editor and you're expected to quickly graduate to something that sucks way more

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[–] lapping6596@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I just installed cachyos after using mint for a year. Overall, was smooth until i tried to use VLC. Video played fine, but an hour of settings later and i could finally hear the movie. I was an inch from saying fuck it and going back to mint. I debug software for a living, last thing i want to deal with is debugging my personal computer when I just want to watch a movie.

May go back at some point, mint really is so easy and just worked, but the performance and aur are pretty great.

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[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 102 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Title implies a big move, pretty far from the steady growth their sources say and that they explain throughout the article. But I guess a more honest title like "Linux among gamers sees new record after continuous steady growth" isn't as click-worthy.

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[–] commander@lemmy.world 22 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Switched when the OG Steam Machines came out. It wasn't great then. It wasn't really good until Proton Steam integration. Became great after the fast iteration with the Steam Deck

I know the hot thing is Bazzite but if you want to use it as a desktop as well, please at least use Fedora Kinoite or Silverblue. Personally I use the latest Kubuntu release so now I'm on Kubuntu 25.10, will upgrade to 26.04 when prompted, do the same with 26.10. Update cycle not so different than the larger windows updates each year. Just that every now and then a new Windows software ports to Linux, it'll almost always be a deb installer is reason enough to me to prefer Debian based distributions than Fedora or Arch especially for new users. Don't need to get people to install distrobox and boxbuddy. Kubuntu should just be enabling flatpaks and flathub by default rather than it being a option in the software center settings

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I know the hot thing is Bazzite but if you want to use it as a desktop as well, please at least use Fedora Kinoite or Silverblue.

why? other than not being a "main branch" os I don't think there's anything wrong with it, it seems quite white glove.

It's atomic and fedora, which are also the same issues with silverblue and kinoite.

[–] prenatal_confusion@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago

Yeah didn't have problems with it as a desktop.

[–] spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 8 points 4 days ago (14 children)

Linux is at a point where we really shouldn't be using distro specific installers.

[–] AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Linux was at that point two decades ago. The dogmatic infighting between Linux developers users is ultimately what prevents Linux from being actually useful as a desktop OS.

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[–] ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 32 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

88 comments and nobody has noted that the article itself looks like AI slop?

Lots of signals here: the writing style, bland and wishy-washy use of statistics, bullets and formatting that arbitrarily organize without adding value, the rule-of-threes clauses, and redundant details, the intro summary list, the lack of sourcing links, and "written" by an author whose bio specifically mentions AI.

I specifically looked for backup to the assertion about higher FPS and it's just a random unsourced percentage. Maybe it's true but this article has no value as a source.

[–] Sektor@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

God damn slop fuckin everywhere. Tnx man.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 days ago

but it confirms my preconceived biases...

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[–] Jaysyn@lemmy.world 29 points 4 days ago (16 children)

Did this last May & haven't missed much. I don't play AAA slop though.

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[–] FreddiesLantern@leminal.space 23 points 4 days ago

I honestly hated W11 so much that I jumped onto Linux whether I’d be gaming on it or not.

It runs great, but even if it didn’t I wouldn’t go back.

[–] Valorie12@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (6 children)

I made the move to Linux about a month ago, and it's been super smooth (and yes I have an NVIDIA 3080). I went with CachyOS though. The ONLY thing keeping me dual-booting windows though is Cubase (DAW), which is unfortunate but whatever. I don't really play any games that use EAC / kernel-level anti-cheat so it doesn't affect me, but is a bummer.

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[–] m3t00@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

game companies are entrenched, tools, libraries, think hardware emulation layers like DirectX. and installed os monopoly. linux exists because of diy types unwilling to pay someone else to do it. if you know how, make lusers pay you to do it for them. they can't understand the details. wasting your breath

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Many games are still not functional on Linux. Here is a link showing which ones aren't just due to their anti-cheat features. That doesn't include games that aren't compatible for other reasons.

https://areweanticheatyet.com/

[–] offspec@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

It's pretty rare to find a game that doesn't work for a reason that isn't anticheat. I would say the few that are incompatible definitely classify as the exception and not the rule.

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

If you can find a game that doesn't work on Linux at this point not due to anti cheat that would be honestly rather impressive.

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[–] yesman@lemmy.world 34 points 5 days ago (15 children)

I saw in a recent Youtube video that between web services and AI, Windows licencing is only about 10% of Microslop's business.

IDK if that number is true, but it sure would explain how much they've put into user experience. Does anyone use Windows because they like it?

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 45 points 5 days ago (5 children)

I saw in a recent Youtube video that between web services and AI, Windows licencing is only about 10% of Microslop’s business.

That's correct. Here's some data on Microsoft's revenue:

40%     Server Products and Cloud Services
22%     Office Products and Cloud Services
10%     Windows
 9%     Gaming
 7%     LinkedIn
 5%     Search and News Advertising

IDK if that number is true, but it sure would explain how much they’ve put into user experience.

It does but it's really short-sighted from MS's part. Sure, Windows might be only 10% of its business, but the other 90% heavily rely on it. Or rather on Windows being a monopoly on desktop OSes; without that people Windows servers, Office and MS "cloud services" (basically: we shit on your computer so much you need to use ours) wouldn't see the light of the day.

[–] kungfuratte@feddit.org 27 points 5 days ago (8 children)

Also: even if they are not directly connected, the fact that one monopoly crumbles might result in the next one falling apart too. Someone who successfully got out of Windows might try to ditch their MS365 subscription too.

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[–] SPRUNT@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What does Bill Gates have to do with Windows nowadays?

[–] amlor@piefed.social 27 points 5 days ago (1 children)
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[–] FE80@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

I installed Bazzite on my gaming pc this weekend. It runs Cyberpunk 2077 just fine.

This immutable Fedora + Gnome 49 is a bit weird coming from Xubuntu; seems to work though.

[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 20 points 4 days ago

Tossed SteamOS onto my Legion Go last week, and the performance is sooooo much better. I was beginning to wonder why they used such a sharp resolution screen on it because Windows wouldn’t run games very well at the max resolution.

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