Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu.
Luckily you can disable these ads, or “recommendations” as Microsoft calls them. If you’ve installed the latest KB5036980 update then head into Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.” While KB5036980 is optional right now, Microsoft will push this to all Windows 11 machines in the coming weeks.
Microsoft’s move to enable ads in the Windows 11 Start menu follows similar promotional spots in the Windows 10 lock screen and Start menu. Microsoft also started testing ads inside the File Explorer of Windows 11 last year before disabling the experiment and saying the test was “not intended to be published externally.” Hopefully that experiment remains very much an experiment.
If I see your company or app advertised on windows 11, you can be sure I will be actively avoiding said company/ App. Even if I need the services advertised, I will be looking for an alternative just because.
I have the same policy for pop up ads.
I’m not sure these ads are even paid for by the developers of the apps that show up. It looks like this is an ad for the Microsoft Store in general, as Microsoft gets a percentage of any sales.
They also may be included if you pay for your app to be on the homepage of the Microsoft store
Yeah if your app has in app purchases or requires payment it probably can show up here. Probably in the contract you sign to put your app in the Microsoft store
Don’t disagree with the sentiment but I didn’t think companies had this much leeway in how their ads were displayed.
They can pick which type of ads they buy which this certainly will be its own premium category
No candy crush for this guy!
Or 1Password, apparently
Meirl
The only place this will be active is on the computers of home users who don’t know how or don’t care to deactivate it. The computers of the common clay of IT usage. You know. Morons.
And to tie that meme in with an older one: A fool and his money are soon parted.
I appreciate the Blazing Saddles reference 👌
How did the default attitude toward the user get so hostile? The amount of toggles you need to set just to have a smooth experience with minimal tracking is insane. The people in here defending it by the fact it can be disabled are missing the point: we shouldn’t have to deal with it in the first place.
You shouldn’t. I haven’t. Microsoft is a plague and a choice.
You’re not wrong, but there’s a larger issue here: the fact that there’s an alternative does not make what Microsoft is doing okay. This shit ought to be prohibited by consumer protection law.
Yeah it’s not just Microsoft. Fucking ads in my doorbell app, Google TV, etc.
Putting ads in a product you paid for should be illegal.
TBH I am fully expecting a world where, in the next 10-15 years, some company will make a car that plays unskippable audio ads every X number of miles/km which can be disabled for $9.99/month.
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Before you can place this emergency call, here’s a word from our sponsors at Nord VPN.
I hate it as much as the next guy, but I certainly don’t see why it should be illegal (and disclaimer — Debian on all my personal machines, macOS for work).
Should it be illegal for books to have a list of similar material from the author/publisher? Should food staples not be able to list recipes on the back?
I completely agree that pulling the rug out from under the customer should be illegal (i.e., effectively changing the terms of service for an already-purchased product), but having a shitty product shouldn’t be illegal IMHO.
It really goes like this:
I buy product. Product has no ads, and works really well.
After updates, my device starts showing ads and works worse than it had before.
I bought the device. It is my device. I should be able to do what I want with my device, that I spent my money on, the way I like it. If that means I don’t want your shitty ads, then I should be able to avoid or opt out of those by default.
From your thought:
You buy cookbook. Cookbook has what you need already, which is why you purchased it.
The one you purchased it from comes and “updates” your book by scribbling in ads for it’s other recipe books, and they did it really sloppily to boot.
Now, when you are looking for a specific recipe that you knew was in the book before, instead it is an ad for their other recipe book in place of where the recipe you were looking for was.
Sure, you can still find your recipe somewhere in the book, but as you flip through the books pages you see more and more and more ads for their other recipe books, and oh, now they are also showing you ads from some of their sponsors.
You paid for the book. It is rightfully yours to do with it as you please.
The recipe book company already got your money, yet they are insistent you buy more from them, and have even gone as far as defacing your book.
You should be upset.
Yeah I think we’re in violent agreement to an extent — as I said in my last graf, if it’s effectively changing the user agreement, absolutely not ok. But if it’s a shitty product to begin with, then I’m just not going to buy it in the first place.
So yeah, Windows doing shitty things for users who have already paid for the product is definitely not cool. But for all users going forward to have a shitty experience? That’s… shitty, yeah, but I personally don’t think it should be illegal?
Hardcopy images in a book are a bit different from the typical proprietary software doing who knows what on your personal computer. Not saying ads should be illegal but I would argue for software freedom where you can remove ads from any software running on your computer - like you can rip pages out of any of your books.
Yeah, I guess it’s a matter of what the analogy is to “page.” I would say my computer is the book, and the pages are the software. If some developer wants to make a piece of shit ad ridden software, well, great — but I won’t install it :)
The choice is hard to make when Microsoft’s garbage has been shoved down your throat for decades, it’s the default pretty much everywhere and the only viable alternative, for 99% of the population, is Apple.
Governments have been way too lenient and passive towards Microsoft for far too long
the only viable alternative, for 99% of the population, is Apple
This is largely because Windows and MacOS come preinstalled and that’s how the vast majority of people interact with operating systems. If you had to choose your OS, I’m sure there’d be more choice in the market. Not necessarily Linux, but just more choice in general.
That’s pretty much my point, 99% of computers sold are sold with Windows on it and the leftover percent is 99% Apple and maybe 1% Linux.
And that’s mostly because no one did anything when Microsoft licensed their crap to big OEM.If any given computer sold was Linux (or any other free OS to be fair) by default and Windows as a paid option, it would change the market massively I believe. It would take time obviously but I’m convinced it would work in the long run.
You don’t choose your childhood education. Microsoft and Apple offer schools deals to create adults dependent on it - after all they’ll be using it in work too.
so?
This greatly affects the likelyhood of people choosing a particular OS later in life.
This is a direct result of our Wall Street economy. Wall Street demands that each corporation’s stock price shall increase every quarter. No matter what. If that means the customer is unhappy or that a corporation must consume itself from within. Doesn’t matter.
Pretty simple. Stock go brrrr.
Fewer people are buying PCs now that Smartphones have replaced the need to have one for most uses, but Microsoft still has to make more money every quarter than the quarter before because the stock market doesn’t value stable profits.
It got here because it’s super profitable, and that’s all the C-suite cares about, and they’re the ones calling the shots at the end of the day.
I also think that engineering ethics has, in general, been strongly de-emphasized, and true holistic ownership of technical products is now usually held by business and finance types instead of engineers, with all the negative consequences that that entails.
Having control over other people’s computing gives you power over them: you can gain from their detriment. It’s not like everyone is uncaring or greedy but even people with good intentions do not have infinite willpower to resist temptation. When the user doesn’t like a change from an update their choice is usually to put up with it. Defending ads in a menu or opt-outs that should be opt-ins in hidden menus is less mental work than learning what an operating system is and that you can use a different one.
By sharing the source code instead you give up that power - if you fail to be good to the users then other devs can work on it without you.
You don’t give up anything by sharing source code. If anything, you share your power with the world. All other perceived outcomes are attributes of capitalism baked into your thought pattern.
MS doesn’t care about the desktop operating system except how can they control it like Apple and iphones. All the money is in O365 and Azure these days.
Didn’t I pay for the OS?
You know, I get if they want to do this to Home editions, but why in the world would they do this to all editions? At the very least, this should never apply to domain-joined computers.
Money
Seems short sighted to annoy the people who pay you the most money already.
What are they going to switch to?
Most orgs will just put up with it because of inertia: existing software that has to work, employee’s having to learn new skills, “sysadmins” who only know Microsoft, etc.
… “sysadmins” who only know Microsoft, …
HEY
Nothing personal, lol, but I stand by my quotes.
I feel like sysadmins need to be comfortable in multiple environments. I also work with some really crappy ones who only know how to reboot a faulty system or crawl to Microsoft for support. No reviewing logs, no digging in at all, just “welp, a reboot didn’t fix it. Gonna submit a support ticket and make no further effort”.
There’s a lot to be said for a good generalist, but at some point, specialization takes you farther. I ended up with Windows server and Active Directory, as well as Exchange (lots of other stuff, too, but those are the main things). Apart from mass workstation management, or when a help desk person asks for a hand, I haven’t dealt with non-servers in a loooong time.
No reviewing logs, no digging in at all, just “welp, a reboot didn’t fix it. Gonna submit a support ticket and make no further effort”.
My last few experiences with Microsoft support (spread over many years) have been “If I can’t figure it out, Microsoft probably can’t, either.” For a smaller company, with a limited IT staff, having someone who is able to efficiently interface with vendor support without necessarily having all the answers themselves can be a useful thing. But I totally get what you’re saying.
Profits now are all that matter. The future is a problem for after dividends and bonuses get paid out.
But they could be paying the most money even more.
how soon do you think ms gets hit with a lawsuit because a malicious ad infected BlackRock or Deloitte or some shit
If there’s anything that I’ve learned, it’s that lawsuits are more often than not, just a joke to the large companies.
Hell it’s often easier for them to just classify whatever fine they get slapped on the wrist with as a business expense, than to do the right thing, it seems.
I installed Linux Mint a few days ago. It’s been great so far.
Windows 11 made my girlfriend’s laptop so slow, even she asked me to install Linux, and she is not even a techy type.
Nature is healing!
I installed Mint for my elderly mom a couple years ago, because Windows 7 was EOL and even 10 would’ve been too slow (had an experience with an involuntary upgrade on our family laptop years earlier).
I installed pop os and libre office on my wife’s laptop not long after Pop was released, and by now I don’t think she would know what to do on Windows or Mac. So proud of her.
I wanna like Linux but I play too many games with anti-cheats that just don’t work on Linux yet :(
I mean, you’re not wrong. Anticheat is pretty much the one thing that Linux doesn’t play nicely with. Given, it’s largely on the game producers to fix, not on the OS. But it’s still a valid complaint from an end user perspective.
If Linux fans truly want to encourage migration, stifling valid complaints isn’t the way to do it. The issue with everyone going “oh it’s so easy, it’s so much better, you won’t regret it at all” is that as soon as a user encounters a hangup they’ll be more inclined to just abandon it altogether. Because if everyone is going “oh it’s so easy” but you’re not having an easy time with it, then you’ll quickly conclude that maybe it’s just not the right fit for you. And the people going “lul just don’t play those games then dummy” need to get some friends. Because when all of those friends are playing the shiny new game but they’re locked out of it due to their choice of OS, they may consider dual-booting Windows just to be able to keep up with their friends.
But this is Lemmy and the Linux fanboys can’t tolerate a single toe out of line. So I guess it makes sense why you got downvoted.
Anticheat is pretty much the one thing that Linux doesn’t play nicely with.
It’s the other way around.
Anticheat doesn’t play well with Linux.
Did you stop reading right there to comment? Because I say exactly that in the very next sentence. I agree with you. It’s just odd that you’d quote that one specific sentence with a “well akshually” when I literally addressed that exact thing one sentence down.
you say its on the game devs to fix, but game devs don’t usually roll their own anticheat. And when they do it would then be their problem, i suppose it could be them having had a bad decision i suppose?
An important distinction, for sure
Edit: this was not sarcasm, I honestly agree. Lemmy needs a not sarcasm tag.
I will say the solution to that IS to not play those games, but that only starts to work when enough people do that to hurt the bottom line of the devs
But it’s still a valid complaint from an end user perspective.
If Linux fans truly want to encourage migration
it’s technically a valid complaint, it’s not a linux problem though. Don’t come crying to us when your game doesn’t work, we’ve literally made 90% of all games ever work under linux with zero effort for the end user.
It’d be like buying a proprietary macbook for instance, and then when you find out that the only people who want to service it, are the people who sold you it at an aggressive price, who will then still, ask you for even more money. Only to complain about right to repair not letting you repair your device, even though it’s an apple issue.
What do you want us to say? We can’t physically test every game to ever exist, and premeditate every issue to ever have possibly occurred to someone. Part of linux is literally learning how to solve these problems, that’s why linux is such a great system OS, when you have problems, you can often just fix them yourself.
I mean sure maybe linux is too hard for you, how hard did you try to understand it? Maybe it’s not the right fit for you, but then i would expect people to just not care about linux. Rather than call it shit, because they didn’t understand it.
Also, dualbooting is a valid option, a lot of linux users even have a dedicated windows machine somewhere in their house just because of how shitty everything is these days. Nobody is saying you can’t do that.
Honestly the best solution is to find alternatives
If the audience stays on Windows then there is no incentive to support Linux
Its not that easy. There is no alternative for some of the big games. I play genshin impact and honkai star rail and these games do not run on linux.
I use linux but keep windows dual booted purely for these games.
Asking people to give up their hobby is not a solution.
genshin works now btw
Oh thats great! Thanks for the notice :)
I hear you, it sucks sometimes, especially with Asian-made games/software which LOVE locking themselves to one OS or platform literally for completely random, arbitrary reasons. You can still play them on mobile though. Especially given that you don’t quite want to install a Linux OS on your phone yet (I mean traditional Linux, not Android or a de-Googled Android offshoot) since that’s still largely a work in progress and not ready for primetime yet.
Asking people to give up their hobby is not a solution.
A solution doesn’t mean everyone will use it
Even if no one uses it that is still what has to happen for devs to target Linux instead of Windows
Imagine every Genshin player moved to Linux. Would the game move to Linux or just die?
genshin impact and honkai star rail
aren’t these both like pay 2 win, or at least free to play? Isn’t the whole genre of these games to make money off of it’s players?
Sounds like a really healthy hobby.
If you want the characters, yeah. I have been playing since it came out and never paid a cent.
While playing you get a ton of the gems you need to get characters. I play for the story and the world and music etc. If i get a character, that’s great. If i don’t, i don’t.
The whole game and story and world is free. Only the characters cost gems.
The only part to me that is pay to win is the abyss, but even that i got through with my free characters.
Also, it’s not nice to tell me my hobby isn’t healthy when you don’t know me or how i play.
Also, it’s not nice to tell me my hobby isn’t healthy when you don’t know me or how i play.
i mean, i just said it sounds like it. Doesn’t even mean im right or wrong. We all have really unhealthy habits, and hobbies tend to accentuate them as well.
As far as I know, pretty much the only anti-cheat that doesn’t work on linux is the kernel-level malware kind. I personally avoid those games at all costs regardless. That’s easy for me to say though, since I barely play any competitive games…
Easy solution, stop playing those game /s
shrug.
its what I did. Its not that hard a sacrifice.
really only asian mmos that had the obnoxious no-worky-linux anticheat to begin with, in my experience with what i played.
Honestly same. The game I gave up was Planetside 2 but it works on Linux now
i mean, most of those games just aren’t very good games. Drugs are pretty cool, alcohol is pretty fun, people actively avoid that shit though.
It’s up to the person whether they value playing a single game more than experiencing a wholly different and more respecting operating system i suppose.
Technically they do work, but the publisher is blocking Linux.
The launchers work. The games do not. But plenty of games are going that way.
Hopefully those games go to steam deck as that seems like a way to have a market share they might then cater for (I can’t play BF on Linux due to the antichear requirements)
Only BFV. BF1, BFBC2, BF3 and BF4 all still run perfectly.
Is this true for 2042? Honestly would use a Linux distro otherwise (probably Ubuntu but might look for an alternative)
2042 always used EAC, and EA refused to enable EAC for Linux.
check https://areweanticheatyet.com to see if they work, they might
Demand better from the devs. And seeks out games that work on linux. There are plenty of them.
Another option is playing not on your hardware entirely - at least where I live, there are computer clubs where you can use high-end gaming computers for a small per-hour fee.
What do you like and don’t like about it so far? What system did you install it on?
For now it just works. I have no complaints. I ran into just a few tiny snags and was able to resolve everything with a google search. It’s installed on my 10 year old desktop.
Welcome to the good life, with the exception of VR and (rootkit) anticheat for multiplayer, it’s all smiles over here.
Hope Mint treats you as well as it’s treated me! (Even though most of my tinkering breaks stuff, reinstall incoming I suspect)
I don’t play anything multi-player so it’s not an issue. And I have to little time to play single player games I can simply ignore stuff that’s not compatible.
As far as VR, I am holding out hope that valve will make a Quest like VR headset.
I’m getting extremely close to making a tiny partition for windows (so I can play gamepass) and then using a Linux distro for my day to day. Are there still issues with Nvidia drivers on Linux? Its been a long time since I’ve run Linux.
PopOS handles nvidia drivers perfectly.
I recently installed Nobara with Nvidia on my three year old alienware desktop because of Windows 11 turning to advertising shit. Nobara is finicky enough that I might jump over to PopOS. Lots of shearing and frame skips in video, let alone in gaming. I don’t have this issue on my other laptop with PopOS on it.
Sounds like you’re not using the proprietary binary blob.
Are you referring to the additional installs in the Nobara Welcome App?
I dunno what DM that is but if it’s gnome, in the about it will tell you what graphics card you’re using and what kernel extension
System Details Report
Report details
- Date generated: 2024-04-24 17:43:52
Hardware Information:
- Hardware Model: Alienware Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition
- Memory: 64.0 GiB
- Processor: AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900 × 24
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 3080
- Disk Capacity: (null)
Software Information:
- Firmware Version: 2.2.1
- OS Name: Nobara Linux 39 (GNOME Edition)
- OS Build: (null)
- OS Type: 64-bit
- GNOME Version: Not Available
- Windowing System: Wayland
- Kernel Version: Linux 6.8.5-201.fsync.fc39.x86_64
I’ve used both Linux Mint and Manjaro, and my Nvidia card has done fine in both. I switched to Mint from Windows because it was easier and faster to set up under Mint (Windows was missing a bunch of drivers and the OEM’s site didn’t have updated ones). The only configuration I had to do was select the proprietary driver (and Mint has a nice little GUI for that). If you’re on the fence, I highly recommend trying Mint.
Seconded. Mint is the best distro for anyone who wants to get started with Linux with the least amount of hassle. Installation is a breeze and it just works.
Thirded. I set Mint as the default boot, then have a copy of windows available as an alternative OS option when required.
I installed Mint last night as a dual-boot and had a few issues, the boot loader would not load into Windows Boot Manager and when I manually selected Windows Boot Manager in UEFI Windows booted but hard locked until it reindexed the drive I partitioned for Linux.
The Mint OS works fine, to be clear. My issue with the dual boot is mostly getting Windows to play nice.
Dual boot is definitely more tricky to get going. I just set up a Windows partition again to play a game that uses Easy Anti Cheat, and it took some time to have everything working happily.
I have not tried it, but I’ve heard good things about bazzite as a good steam deck clone that has a strong community committed to Nvidia support.
Worth looking into at least!
steam deck clone
No way Jose. If anything their approach is inspired by Fedora Atomic, which is the cornerstone of Bazzite.
Other than that, yes, a very very solid approach for daily usage for casual gamers.
Oh it’s my time to shine! I just installed bazzite onto my ROG Ally yesterday.
It is pretty fantastic so far. Not perfect but very good.
Also, it doubles as a pretty OK developer machine because it comes with buildutils, unlike the steam deck. I was able to get my Nix dotfiles set up on it and do a little Rust work to try it out.
Bazzite is a neat concept, and I run it too. Still haven’t gotten VR to work properly, though (Quest 2)
I made it through two whole top level comments before getting to a switch to Linux comment.
It was my turn this week!
So you’re saying we should do better?
Indeed it’s so weird the practically only alternative to Windows comes up when discussing Windows issues.
Perhaps BSD or ReactOS should be mentioned more. Or people told to buy a whole new Mac and throw their computer away.
I’ve had the rare issue with my 4070ti that probably wouldn’t have been a problem with AMD, but most things run great. Using endeavorOS
Not really. With the super easy, friendly distros it basically just goes.
I switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon a while ago expecting to just fool around a bit but mostly boot back into windows to do stuff. I’ve now found that the ONLY thing I need to go back to windows for is when I’m forced by dumb policies to use an MSOffice product, which fortunately doesn’t happen to often (and no, LibreOffice is absolutely not a sub for MS Office. The spreadsheet app is worse than google docs, and I’d rather work in typst than have to deal with the libreoffice writer – especially as soon as I need to display an equation/figure/table of contents. Of course, I’d rather work in typst than deal with MSWord too…)
That said, I don’t really play games anymore. Games may still require frequent windows visits. But… I’ve been looking forward to a complete edition of horizon forbidden west and all accounts say it’s linux compatibility is near perfect, so maybe things aren’t so bad these days on the gaming front.
Well I changed my nvidia settings from on demand to a lower value and rebooted Mint a few weeks ago. Then there was no display at all and several hours/days of searching led me to reinstall Linux again and I did not have good backups. There was probably an answer there, but my frustration with Linux is real!!! I still refuse to use anything else and flop between manjaro and mint. I think having proper system backups and a live USB ready to go is helpful…I’m much more defensive running Linux because I keep getting shitty surprises, but I still feel better about it over using windows.
If you like arch based, may I suggest you try Garuda?
It’s a gaming distro, which I don’t know if you care about, but it’s very stable, should work with NVidia and has many quality of life features.
But a tiny partition will not do for Windows.
I did the same for the few game I can’t run. Nobara installed working drivers in 1 click. My GPU runs a bit more than it should on the desktop but the last driver update made a big difference.
Im planning on switching the Window install back to 10 since 11 is too shit.
I switched to Pop OS a year ago and the Nvidia drivers are fine. There are definitely some things that are a pain in the ass. My fingerprint scanner won’t work even though it is in the list of ones that work in fprintd and I don’t feel like going through the process of submitting a ticket and troubleshoot it. Getting some games to run properly in WINE can also be a pain. Overall though, I’m fine with it.
I haven’t had driver related issues with nvidia for a long time, last was some kde wayland stuff fixed a while ago, before that using x no issues for a long time
Tried the same thing, but ended up running into issues with Linux constantly and needed to use Windows more than I wanted, so just ended up back on Windows 10. Once all the shit is disabled it’s perfectly fine. Linux is getting there, but still only really good for general web browsing/office suites (unless you wanna play around in the command line for ages).
It’s frustrating that the answer to any of the questions/issues I have are generally reams of commands and walls of text that I only partially understand. If I find answers at all now that all discourse is being sectioned in to walled gardens like Discord. 😬
Ah yeah, it’s hard to find good support for Linux. Lot’s of people with their heads in their asses, who will say “why are you bothering going through Windows settings to disable tracking when you can just use Linux!”, then proceed to tell you to enter a million different commands in the terminal to try and get basic functionality you had on Windows.
The sooner they start being more welcoming to new users, the sooner the market share will grow.
Win11: less functionality, more ads
And what’s with the weasel words like “recommended”? Just call them “sponsored” or “ads”, like they really are.
How hard is it to make a decent OS Microsoft? Haven’t you got enough of our money already?
Honestly they peaked at windows XP.
I haven’t needed a upgrade and every time for the past 15 years, it’s been forced on me.
XP was great, but Windows 7 was the peak.
its been all down hill from 7.
Win7 was somewhat better IMO, at least at one point.
I consider Windows 7 to be Windows XP 2.
I consider XP to be Windows NT 5.1 and Win 7 to be Windows NT 6.1 :)
And we don’t speak of NT 6.0
And NT 5.0 was fucking awesome at the time, (just not quite ready for the home).
That’s what I was going to add… After Win7 the dissatisfaction mounted enough for me to try Linux… Then I kicked myself for not switching sooner
Nah, I preferred Windows 2000. It was basically XP, but without the stupid taskbar design. I also liked 98 SE or whatever it was called, and 3.1 was pretty okay as well at the time.
XP was bad enough that I was determined to switch to Linux then. I think you have Rose colored glasses.
2000 was windows Peak.
well i mean tbf, most modern software doesnt work on XP anymore, so.
The shareholders must be appeased.
When your business model revolves around indefinitely maintaining backwards compatibility with every weird bug and quirk your enterprise customers baked into their workflows back in 1983 while also trying to be on the cutting-edge and constantly overhauling your products, it’s hard to develop and maintain a modern operating system that isn’t a completely horrible shitshow.
Oh look another reason why I’ll be switching to Linux next time I have to upgrade my pc. Fml I’m going to have to learn what a package manager is ew
Fml I’m going to have to learn what a package manager is ew
Two minutes later
“Wait, you mean I get fast, convenient package delivery without being advertised to?”
The package manager was actually one of the simpler things about switching to Linux in my experience
Here i was thinking we were talking about men’s underwear
;) package managed
damn, i wasn’t ready. i got fucked up
Package managers was one of things that I had hard time adjusting to when I first adopted Linux, since I was so used to just searching for software on the internet, downloading, and installing it when I was using Windows. Now that I’m comfortable with a package manager, I find the Windows experience of installing software to be so much worse. It’s so much nicer to just install software using one or two commands in the terminal.
it’s often really hard to get around that “culture” barrier of just not downloading EXEs. Once you figure that out, it’s so much easier.
This was my experience precisely. These days, installing some .msi or .exe.from some obscure corner of the internet seems somewhat ass backwards.
Out of all of things in Linux a package manager most of the time is there to save your sanity.
I feel angry when I have to hunt down the installer for an application under Windows, and then know I have to go find it again later to update it. I have no clue how I got by without a package manager on Windows. Though if they had one, you have to know it would be complete intrusive dogshit about 5 minutes into its existence.
You can use the official WinGet package manager for Windows pretty easily.
you can also just use linux. Every flavor of linux except for nix (kind of) and LFS have a package manager
Shhhhh Windows bad! /s
I mean… Windows is bad in many respects, but that respect isn’t necessarily one of them.
idk man, it’s pretty bad, there’s winget, there;s chocolatey, and theres also microsoft store, and they’re like, all different?
Oh and you can just install exes wildly like a rogue. Thats another option.
As opposed to having a bajillion specific distros, repos, and sources flying around…?
Obviously I’d never touch the Microsoft store though.
are you using three distros simultaneously? (there are also like three or four primary distros, anything else is just that but different) Repos are a non issue because you literally just add them to your repo list, and then they just show up under your package manager. Sources is a non issue given package managers, unless you’re building from source, but that has nothing to do with it i suppose.
To my knowledge, everything i listed their is a separate package manager, managing packages in different ways. It’d be like running pacman, apt and dnf on one machine simultaneously. Which isn’t possible unless you use void because you hate yourself. (jokes aside void does it a little differently)
As a former Windows user, Chocolatey is a great way to get used to a package manager through Windows. I used it to install stuff like hwinfo or wiztree.
Chocolatey’s saving grace is that it’s third party. IDK how well it’s maintained and expanded, it’s been some time since I used it and there wasn’t much on it when I did.
They have a database of packages on their site. This page also popped up with info on how packages are moderated and stuff too.
i still dont fucking understand updating packages on windows. God forbid you install it in a different directory 3 months from now when you no longer remember where you installed it.
I’ve been using some Linux flavor for about 15 years. The biggest thing about switching (at least back then) was I knew how to configure Windows just to my liking. With Linux it was a lot more difficult because I had to google everything. Like “how do I change the wallpaper?” How do I get the login screen to appear on the correct monitor, etc. It was just frustrating because I knew how to do this in Windows, but I felt like a major noob again with Linux.
15 years ago, you had to google everything, but people starting today will find it much easier with any of the modern GUIs.
Plus consider the whole systemd fiasco. Old timers find it difficult to adjust to such a different paradigm and lose so much knowledge, but someone new to Linux doesn’t have any previous knowledge in the way, and may find it more similar to their Windows experience
Yup same here. But I’ve compiled my own kernel already…copy pasting instructions. I’ve chrooted to a failed X computer from a USB Linux to then fix X and go back to a good computer. I mean there are levels of engagement and it just takes time to learn. But certainly android users are using a Linux-like system themselves not knowing anything about the levels below where all the action is. You can make Linux as dumb as windows 3.0…well maybe not as dumb. And you can make it as configurable as you want. I mean, you could even rewrite all modules and recompile them such that if a virus is hitting all other Ubuntus or mints, your system would be fine because it was different by a single letter or something as such.
use NixOS to get absolutely fucked.
I use NixOS btw
(don’t actually use NixOS as your first distro. It is really amazing and cool, but the learning curve will be so steep, it will kill you)
Dont forget dependencies
I didn’t know about them in order to forget :,(
package managers are your heaven, and a windows users hell.
They’re great.
Thank god I use linux
Windows sucks. I wish I could put Linux on my work computer.
I brought an acer leptop a couple of years back and acer made it nearly impossible to install any other os then windows onto it
Because of Intel RST? I just had to deal with that but was able to get a dual boot of mint on my acer.
edit For those who come across this who has the same issue as I did. Video: https://youtu.be/sGJL62ZYRTU?t=77 Text: Boot to your BIOS. Get to the MAIN tab and hit CTRL+S to show hidden bios option. Disable Intel RST. Exit and Save. Re attempt to install Mint.
Let me preface that with I’m a bloody linux and every releated noob and it’s been like 5 years so my memory is a little fuzzy: I never figured out why Ubuntu didn’t run but it just didn’t, after i got mint working i realized that there are no drivers and a leptop with out touchpad/wifi isn’t why I needed it in the first place…
It was an aspite 3 a315-41g. I quickly googled to refresh my memory and I read something about that, I can’t recall if I tried it out though. I needed to changed a few settings so maybe I tried.
Ah, I have the aspire a315-56. Mint was pretty painless for me after the RST issue. I didn’t have to worry about wifi/bluetooth/touchpad drivers at all. Right out of the box its been smooth (for linux) for me.
Interesting what distro did you use?
How long until Mom gets malware from them?
This is what i fear. How much curation and monitoring will be done on the ads, or this will be another vector for malicious application
How long until we get to the default “I don’t get paid to ask questions” mentality of ad services.
I assumed it was “just” for apps in the Microsoft store. So they shouldn’t get viruses, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t getting software that is garbage.
Note:
- disable ads on moms notebook
“All you have to do is set some flags in GPO policy editor and relogin the first time and every time there’s an update. Easy”
- some Windows fanboi probably
The post literally tells you that the option to turn it off is in the settings menu at: Settings > Personalization > Start Menu > “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more "
It’s not good, but it’s way better than you are making it out to be.
At least until Microsoft decides to hide it deeper, like they do with all of their most useful options. Nothing like navigating fifteen layers deep into your settings just to change something basic.
Hopefully WinToys will have an update with this option, so it won’t matter where Microsoft decides to move it this week.
yeah and they also made an online account, optional.
Good thing it’s still optional.
Did I miss something about online accounts being required? I don’t remember hearing about that.
yeah no, so there’s this cool thing, where when you install windows, it shows you this screen where it asks you to connect to the internet, and if you do (because god forbid you want updates) it requires you to sign in via a microsoft account. (yes technically you can just enter bogus information, or not connect to the internet) but you can also just not get caught by the police after committing a crime.
They USED to have a “skip” button, but they removed that years ago.
dude istg i see windows users coping harder than linux users.
It’s kind of sad.
And the wind screams Linux
If only Linux wasn’t so frustrating to use for the average enduser. I’d never recommend it as a daily driver for 95% of people.
I’d argue that for the vast majority of users, a stable, modern Linux distro will meet their needs perfectly. Web browsing, watching YouTube, checking e-mail, looking at pictures of cats on the internet…
It’s special/professional use-cases that are still lackluster. Try doing professional level photo editing on Linux… It’s a nightmare. Integrating with corporate cloud solutions? Nah. Are these things doable? Absolutely. By the majority of users in that specific use-case? No.
But day-to-day, general use PC stuff? Yeah, absolutely. Even gaming is more accessible than ever. There’s exactly one game in my Steam library that doesn’t just work… To be clear, it doesn’t work at all, but that’s just because of my hardware setup. (Halo Infinite + Intel ARC + Linux = Game can’t even launch. Worked fine with an AMD card, but when I upgraded late last year it borked. Known problem with Vulkan, DX12, and ARC)
Try doing professional level photo editing on Linux
I can be on a tirade about this. If only Krita decided to expand their focus instead of being conservative about their goals, or if GIMP actually had competent people years ago. But, now I’m at a point where I just don’t give a damn about FOSS editing, and fine with let it all burn.
Lol! I’m fine with GIMP, actually. As a matter of fact, I prefer it to Photoshop. That’s likely due to GIMP being my first introduction to photo manipulation though, and so I’m used to its paradigm.
Photo EDITING, though? There’s no competition on Linux for the likes of Lightroom or Capture One Pro (my preferred RAW editing software). I gave up photography for a while because I hated editing my photos on Linux so much. I tried EVERY alternative Linux had to offer, and they all suck. Eventually, I started carrying around a USB-C SD card reader and just transferring photos of my camera to my phone to edit them in Snapseed of all things, I hated editing on Linux so much.
My try with GIMP is that I find that the interface is clunky, and the absence of non-destructive editing, and it’s nowhere near the level of Krita/PS at a mechanical level. I tried the version with NDE in GIMP, but I just hate the flow and I find the absence of ease of access to filter as well as lack of inherent mask a issue. So, I’ll stick with Krita instead, and it works out for my needs, but I’m not fully satisfied unless I have better selection tools in there.
Yea, that was my take as well. Try RawTherapee, they said. Nope, inferior, there were some photos where I could spot them in full-screen view, not even at 100%.
The one everyone always drones on and on about is Darktable… Don’t get me wrong, it’s a powerful piece of software. But… It’s lackluster compared to the competition. I used it for a long time, figuring if I just made myself keep using it I’d get used to it… And then I actually stopped and thought about that sentence, lol. I shouldn’t have to Stockholm’s myself into liking a piece of software.
Oh yea, I tried that too, nope, just simply can’t compare. That’s why Adobe still gets my money as much as I don’t want to give it to them. Luckily the Photography plan hasn’t increased in price… yet.
It really doesn’t. My girlfriend needed to enable the Japanese keyboard on Kubuntu. That required half an hour of searching documentation and forum posts about how to install/enable FCITX5, then another hour debugging to find out it doesn’t work on apps installed via snap.
I still haven’t been able to come up with a KDE based distro (because it’s way more familiar to Windows users) that actually meets the needs of non technical users.
Don’t use snaps.
People shouldn’t be using Ubuntu either but I suppose that’s not going to happen. Just use a derivative like Linux Mint
Straight Debian with Cinnamon.
This is, again, an atypical use-case. Despite that, it’s not hard to find the answers. Googling for “Linux Japanese keyboard layout” comes up with an easy-to-follow guide in the first 5 search results, literally on the Ubuntu forums. Understand I’m not saying the use case is particularly RARE, but it’s not the norm either. And honestly, Snap sucks anyway. 😂
It could certainly be better supported and better documented, but you’re looking through the lens of your specific experience, not realizing your experience is not that of the every day, average PC user.
Put up a dart board of the most widely used KDE distributions and throw a dart. You’ve got a KDE distro that actually meets the needs of a non-technical user. Kubuntu, Linux Mint’s KDE edition, Fedora, OpenSUSE, hell throw Manjaro with KDE on. The desktop environment has zero bearing on a distro’s ability to act like a computer, it’s only the paint on the walls. If a distro “fits the needs of a non-technical user” by your definition with, say, GNOME or Cinnamon or XFCE or Budgie or whatever else, it’ll do it with KDE too. Desktop environment != distribution.
Windows is frustrating for average people, the thing is that they get used to ms bullshit because they think there are no other way.
Understanding Linux kernel is medium hard, but not frustrating. Using a DE is NOT frustrating if you understand what’s up with their core ideals. D-Bus, HOOKS, env variables… meh I can give you that. But 95% of users live in the web and/or office apps. And for that literally any flavor of Linux will do. My in laws would never in their lifetimes be able to distinguish Arch + KDE + SDDM + themes from Windows. I can bet my right testicle.
Linux isn’t frustrating at all. Not sure what you’re on about.
@aniki k
That’s a fair criticism, but I wouldn’t recommend Windows as a daily driver to 95% of people either. If you like/care/know about computers, use Linux, otherwise I’d recommend MacOS over Windows (unless said person uses their computer for gaming, in which case Windows’ll give you the least hassle)
Really? MacOS? Why’s that? I’ve never had the pleasure of working with a Mac, but I’d be open to trying it.
Actually, I’m thinking about picking a previous gen MacBook for my wife, I just need some confirmation on how it handles The Sims and Minecraft… 😂
I am honestly guessing but as long there’s mac compatibility on those (older) games I’d expect them to run just fine. MacOS is probably my favorite OS from an overall coherency standpoint, power with the command line, aesthetics and usability. You’re just not going to find a lot of overlap between people who use linux and the traditional mac crowd (except when it comes to software development weirdly, which is where I sit), but it is criminally underdiscussed around here every time Windows enshittifies. (BTW, not a fanboy, running multiple Windows, Linux and MacOS systems at home)
Everyone? This shit will be on my work computer???
I’m not sure tbh, but this should be deactivateable by gpos. Work machines should not be affected if the IT staff is on to it.
I hope they are and the world will be forced to either make a law against it or goodbye windows because fu.
Imagine having to pay employees to watch ads that make microsoft money, what a fucking joke that would be.
Just like other enshittification, they don’t care if you turn off the ads because they have a captive audience in your grandmother. Think of all the non-techies who will just accept this. Or not even conceive of a way to turn it off. The question is how many will this push to give up Windows? So far it’s proven extremely “sticky”, they have freedom to abuse their customers, who have to come back for more.
So it’s at least somewhat of a losing proposition for Microsoft as well, if people follow through. There are more choices available everyday, but it means learning something new.
I do need to revisit Window’s myself. I consume media on iOS, work on OSX and Linux, do home projects on Linux, so a lot of my time is other platforms. However my laptop is still Windows, for one remaining game plus tax prep software. I should try these again
what the fuck is a gpo? Is it like a gmo?
Group policy. They’re a windows feature for domain management that allows admins to make lots of changes to a potentially infinite amount of computers remotely. Efit: for example, changing the start menu to be on the left automatically, setting default home pages in the browser, mounting network drives etc
When they rolled out the beta Microsoft said it wouldn’t be, but they could always change their mind with the general release. Excerpt from a previous Verge article about the beta rollout (https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/12/24128640/microsoft-windows-11-start-menu-ads-app-recommendations):
“This will appear only for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel in the US and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations),” says Microsoft in a blog post.
Unfortunately, this article doesn’t actually quote Microsoft saying it’s rolling out to ALL machines. That bit in the article is from the author.
