windows 10 not dead

[nikos]

apparently us europeans get another year of updates (Extended Security Updates ESU)
others must pay $30 a year to stay away from windows 11

[Tuxman]

And yet, a plethora of ill-informed computer novices flood my corner of Social Media™ with unsolicited praise for the inadequate nonsense system that is Linux. As if there were something to be gained from it.

[Kilmatead]

...the inadequate nonsense system that is Linux.

I thought you liked it... You mean you've been faking it this whole time? Oh, the emotional betrayal! Think of the children!

Or, more aptly, without falling into the joke about Democracy, what is your suggested alternative? Ironically, the only time to update to a new Windows is when they actually stop updating it with "features" and it can be consider stable - Win10 only became useful in the last couple of years or so (by that criteria), so that means Win11 won't be worth anything until 8 years from now, as it (now) only appears to be degrading, not improving.

Linux has its uses (or at least, it is functional), and for many "younger types", certainly its gaming capacity has improved dramatically in recent years, as that was always one of the things people found it difficult to stop using on Windows.

Apple isn't a serious contender, for a multitude of reasons.

So why is Linux "inadequate" (ruling out that it can't run Windows programmes)? There's nothing that can't be written for it, so you can't criticise something just for being young, inexperienced, and not prepared for the reality of the world. You'd have to euthanise most of humanity for that crime. Why would you expect their "creations" to fare better?

[nikos]

I thought you liked it.

I take it that it is a german attempt at sarcasm

[Kilmatead]

I take it that it is a german attempt at sarcasm

You may be right - that's what happens when you read things at half-six in the ante meridiem. Apparently I take the world too seriously in the mornings. Is that a psychosis of some sort?

I was a loyal servant to Win7 for 3 years after its abdication, so my opinion on these things is kinda conservative anyway.

Come to think of it, his last post was so rational that it made me suspicious, and I read that one in the evening, so I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Obviously it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers become real. It's gotta be.

[Tuxman]

I thought you liked it... You mean you've been faking it this whole time? Oh, the emotional betrayal! Think of the children!

It's been a while since I last "seriously" used Linux. The inadequate quality assurance too often ruined my day (and sometimes my weekend). Occasionally, I still take a look at Gentoo, but I've largely moved away from it as a system for daily use since (roughly) 2010. You might or might not remember my previous comment on this subject.

what is your suggested alternative?

The short answer is: It depends.

The long answer is: Most people who now – misinformed by hype merchants – absolutely want to get away from Windows, but definitely don't want to switch to macOS, which I consider quite good, if only because a large proportion of the Windows software for which there is no "free" replacement is also available for Macs, could certainly be happy with other free systems; or at least satisfied. Happiness is something that mentally healthy people shouldn't necessarily experience by installing software...

Linux has its uses (or at least, it is functional), and for many "younger types", certainly its gaming capacity has improved dramatically in recent years, as that was always one of the things people found it difficult to stop using on Windows.

Transport Tycoon (or rather, OpenTTD) would, if necessary, also be capable of running on OpenBSD and Solaris. (For those who are not content with classic strategy games: even Steam works on FreeBSD, at the very least.)

However, it would be short-sighted to equate "young people" with "gamers". As far as I can tell, most of those currently falling for the blind Linux craze hardly want to do more with their gaming boxes than browse the web, get annoyed by emails, and perhaps write a document. For none of these activities does Linux offer any significant added value compared to the multitude of other, more mature, and more stable free operating systems.

Apple isn't a serious contender, for a multitude of reasons.

It is, for a multitude of people.

There's nothing that can't be written for it

One of my favourite arguments when talking to Linux fans, who unironically try to tell me that Linux wipes the floor with Windows and macOS, so to speak, is that this simply isn't happening. The Linux crowd have now been trying for about thirty years to produce something to rival the Adobe Suite - and the result is, of all things, GIMP and Inkscape? For heaven's sake. It is possible, as Serif has proven with Affinity, but apparently something like "good, reliable software with a user interface that doesn't give you an itchy rash" is not on the cards in the Linux world.

[Kilmatead]

You might or might not remember my previous comment on this subject:

"Never again would I think of having anything to do with Linux."

Yes, I did misplace that memory - can't get much more definitive than that. The papists will indeed give your door a wide berth this pagan season. Curiously, though, you haven't denied being a pod-person, so what you said "before" may not be the same "you" saying it now.

However, it would be short-sighted to equate "young people" with "gamers".

My grouping them together was ironic, for I, aging as I am, have a whole collection of games I never find the time to play. Though that doesn't stop me from keeping the installations up to date and fully modded in rapt anticipation of my attention. This détente has been persisting for some time now. Dragon Age Origins only came out in 2009 - that's not THAT long ago. I'll finish it one day.

The noise the Linux crowd makes is distinctly disproportionate to its size, though quite how they accomplish this I'm not sure. They are VERY good at complaining loudly. My neighbour's irksome "gang" of Chihuahuas suffer a similar misconception of their own place in the world's pecking order. Are they bigger than a horse? They think so. Could they win a fight against a forklift? They think so. They are very annoying creatures. I use a VPN, and just lurking on their forums would give the unwary tourist an impression that not only are the vast majority of users Linux-based (of course, they are not), but that the Linux support is apparently so woeful that all other companies "care far more about Linux" than this corporation-X does. I would not be surprised to learn that Linux users have a higher proportion of Chihuahua DNA in their veins than anything else.

One of my favourite arguments when talking to Linux fans, who unironically try to tell me that Linux wipes the floor with Windows and macOS, so to speak, is that this simply isn't happening.

Too true - it does at least have excellent compiler support (far superior to anything MS could dream of), and with Apple funding LLVM to (partially) keep their own C/Obj-C legacy on life support while pushing Swift for everything outside of Kernel support and security, the rest of us can leech off the coattails in the multitude of forked forks (of previous forked forks) of enough half-finished projects to fork enough future forks to fork their way to the mythic land of the meta-fork.

I do at least comfort myself to think that were I to switch to Linux, I'd probably have to write anything I'd want to use for myself, which is at once both an invigorating and exhausting thought. So I file it under the same thing my gaming library is filed under, colloquially, "on the never-never". If I ever create anything qt-based, you'll know the end is nigh. Not likely to happen soon, though.

The funniest thing (to me) is that while Apple has given Ireland 14 billion quid (and the Government predictably can't decide what it wants to waste it on first), the irony is that few here actually use Apple stuff anyway, so it's free graft as far as the people are concerned.

Curiously, EU denizens still have to "sign up" for this free-extra-year of Win10 support, and when I went to do so, my MS account cheerfully told me that since I had already "previously backed up my settings to one-drive" (I did not), I qualified all-around for free support. Which is odd, because the first thing I did with Win10 was to uninstall One-Drive and kill every service it could ever dream up and I've never heard a peep from it since.

However, I'll take their free-year, and keep using it beyond that, so no skin off my nose.

I do install Linux from time to time just to see if it's gotten... well, I don't know how to describe it, but like the lower-classes always self-consciously excuse their ignorance of fine-art, "I'll know it when I see it."

And Linux isn't there just yet.

[Tuxman]

Ten years ago, one of my favourite witty forum posts not written by me was posted on daemonforums.org: "There is a copious amount of noise on Linux fora." That very post remains my first choice when I'm asked to describe the Linux community from the outside. Chihuahuas, indeed. However, ten years later as well, a movie reference accidentally made by me here in the zabkat forums can be chosen as well: They're a mouse, but they roar.

I can't quite shake the feeling that there are people on this planet who clearly worry far too much about what software strangers intend to use on their computers.

[johngalt]

I was a loyal servant to Win7 for 3 years after its abdication, so my opinion on these things is kinda conservative anyway.

I think most of the world was while Micro$oft tried to peddle Win8 to us all.

I kept Win7 until WIn10 came around in beta form, then made the move, skipping Win8 entirely. I suspect many Win7 enthusiasts did similar (if they moved on before being forced lol).