The PC revolution started with the idea that you can own a computer. Now, by your operating system choice, you don't own it nor what it runs, you don't own the computer, and you don't own anymore the data that used to belong to you that you put there. And with your data it goes along you, eventually.
And if you decide that you must install that operating system because it runs a particular game or app, think all you are sacrificing for that as an implicit extra cost.
The headline post here is about a user having to exercise an incredible amount of effort to remove features they don't want but which the vendor will deliberately reinstall despite user preference.
Things like this and other custom "Windows distros" are a sign that MS would have no problem selling a version of Windows that's nothing more than a base OS, but clearly they would rather take the user-hostile route.
MS was hostile towards competitors, not users/customers. You can run a VM of Windows 9x or NT and see how quiet the experience was. No pervasive spyware or ads to bother you while you work.
That’s only because they had no practical way of doing that since no computer was expected to be online 24/7.
Had they had the opportunity, they would 100% have taken it. Windows was never about serving a good experience to customers, it was always about serving the Microsoft-owned experience to customers—and these two things are very much mutually exclusive.
I don’t think they would have done it any other way, it always had to be a slow ratcheting of control over the user. If the user hostile experience that exists today was the default back then, everyone would have moved to something else while they still could.
Internally, it was Embrace, Extend, Innovate, used in an executive memo from 1994 [0].
But it doesn't matter where it originated or who first said it. The reason this phrase gained so much popularity is that outside observers could see that's their strategy was (and still is).
It’s all about signaling and posturing to Wall Street. To this date, I’ve not encountered any user that said: “I have a need for this, how much does it cost?”, kinda like how you would buy a software license. Instead it’s sold like a street drug “Wanna try? The first’s on me” Except that is not good and the user doesn’t get addicted and now, they’re trespassing onto people’s space.
Every comment that seems pro AI either falls in “I’m playing with it now and it’s a nice toy” or “It’s very useful for me, I can’t tell you how, but trust me that it is”.
Yes, people steal ideas and sell as their own. That is actually happening. Communities share less publicly, but if you know how to poke, you can find a gem or two.
Anybody actually productive with LLMs just doesn't want to invest energy to fight the unwinnable mob mentality.
I don't remember any time in my career, where you got such a backlash for using a tech.
Had I been still working with computer graphics, this would've been a true game changer.
You can see how little views this video has. There is however a whole subreddit dedicated to sell this exact workflow (and even only the first node).
There's a similar story with programming, but people are disincentived to share that. Github
Copilot has potential, but seems abandoned already and I find it very odd, because it's the one product with actual substance
PowerShell 5.1 is the last of the .net framework version. Everything newer switches to .net core open source flavored which is cross platform. it's mostly compatible but not really either.
As someone in this exact position, I swapped to CachyOS this week and have been extremely impressed. I've yet to come across a game that didn't function extremely well (I have not tested bf6 yet, which I suspect the anti cheat may fail on).
Really that's the problem - Anticheat. Sure, at this point most games work on Linux. The problem is, most people don't play most games. Most people play a handful of games, and where the players go, the cheaters follow. In response, the game studios deploy more and more aggressive anticheat measures, ultimately breaking the tiny minority of people who would've otherwise been able to play the game on Linux/Proton.
Take a look at https://areweanticheatyet.com at some of the biggest games on the planet, and how most of them don't support Linux or Proton.
Windows virtual machines are much slower than bare hardware, especially for things GP mentioned like games. I have also found Linux lags behind in many areas that matter to me in functionality, performance (even compared to Windows 11) and general ease of use. Lots of people Linux or Chrome OS is sufficient for them, and that's great, but it's not enough for everybody.
In response to your initial question, I believe everything must be criticized, especially things we like. Internal criticism, such as criticism of Windows, is just as important as external competitors, such as Linux.
I'm confused by your statement. I'm a serious gamer and I've been on Linux for years. It's there, and it's been there for a while.
I feel you on liking things about Windows though. I'm a Windows guy by nature. I genuinely like the OS, and if Microsoft wasn't being so absurdly user-hostile I would switch back in a heartbeat.
I use NVIDIA hardware which objectively have superior maximum performance compared to AMD graphics cards. I use HDR high pixel density monitors as well. I like laptops with decent battery life and decent touch pads.
Windows simply offers a cleaner, more well put-together experience when it comes to these edge cases. I have many tiny nitpicks about how Linux behaves, and every time I go back to my Windows Enterprise install it is a breath of fresh air that my 170% scaling and HDR just work. No finagling with a million different environment variables or CLI options. If a program hasn't opted into resolution independent scaling then I just disable it, and somehow the vector elements are still scaled correctly, leaving only the raster elements blurry. Nowadays laptop touch pads feel like they are Macs, which is high praise and a sea change from where Windows touch pads were about a decade ago.
If you strip away all the AI nonsense, Windows is a genuinely decent platform for getting anything done. Seriously, MS Office blows everything else out of the water. I still go back to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint when I want to do productivity. Adobe suite, pro audio tools, Da Vinci Resolve, etc, they just... work. If you haven't programmed in Visual Studio or used WinDbg then you have not used a serious, high-end debugger. GDB and perf are not even in the same league.
As a Windows power user, I want to go back to the Windows 2000 GUI shell, but with all the modernity of Windows 11's kernel and user-space libraries and drivers. I wish Enterprise was the default release, not the annoying Home versions. And I really, really wish Windows was open-sourced. Not just the kernel, but the user mode as well, because the user mode is where a lot of the juice is, and is what makes Windows Windows.
I have a computer running fedora with a 5080 GPU. The newer games all work fine (e.g. cyberpunk 2077, BG3). The really old games mostly work fine (e.g. system shock 2, original Deus Ex) . The in-between games... are really hit-or-miss (e.g. I can't get witcher 1/2 or Deus Ex Human Revolution to run).
I have played through Deus Ex HR (and MD) on Bazzite albeit on an AMD GPU. You should generally be able to do it with Proton (GE recommended) either Steam (recommended) or Heroic (if you bought them from GOG).
Witcher 1/2 at least also worked OOB via steam.
For some context/ user comments, see Deus Ex HR[0] and System Shock 2[1] on protondb.
Not OP, but as I'm sure you already know, there is a small but significant minority of games that don't play nice on Linux. Generally these are triple-A games that either have very competitive MP scenes, and/or which are thinly disguised casinos (e.g. Madden).
There's also more friction with gaming on Linux the moment you step off the beaten path (i.e. Steam). Yes, yes, Lutris etc, but you're still going to run into things that refuse to play ball from time to time. You can generally solve these, but it's friction you don't get on Windows, and that you might not be in the mood for when you want to play a game.
I've been a gamer on Linux for years too. I'd say it's ~80% there. (95% if you don't play competitive triple-As and stick to Steam.) It drops dramatically though if you want to play oddball 90s and 00s games, or use modding tools, etc.
Personally, I've been toying with the idea of putting Windows on my gaming PC again, after many years. It's not my daily driver, so I'm not too fussed what runs the actual games. My time is limited and valuable to me, and I do not want to spend it nailing down cryptic Proton incantations (admittedly rare, but not yet rare enough). I love tinkering, but that's not tinkering, that's a chore.
I don't know if you are aware but Steam has a Linux compatibility layer which they use on their Linux-powered devices. But you don't need their hardware, you can install Steam and play most games that doesn't require Kernel backdoors to play. And if you don't own the game on Steam, you can install their compatibility libraries from your package manager and/or GitHub.
I have been doing my PC gaming exclusively on Linux since the Jan 14, 2020 when Windows 7 was end of lifed.
Not my downvote, but you surely wouldn't be able to operate most of the scientific equipment in most laboratories without Windows and PC's of some vintage or another.
Exactly, and the further tweaking has been getting so bad it might as well be Linux :\
Another way of looking at it is that Windows XP is the enterprise version for many well-built pieces of expensive equipment which normally outlast PC electronics 5 to 1.
Or asking "What distro of Linux has an enterprise version where you can install the high-dollar setup.exe in administrator mode?" WINE won't help you now when most versions and configurations of Windows were never even supported. This is no game.
Now only some of the relatively newer instruments are validated using enterprise versions, this only started with Windows 10, plus it sometimes took years while only Pro was supported before Enterprise is now an option too. Only some vendors too.
Must also work totally air-gapped start-to-finish (no downloading packages) and draw from the largely Windows-familiar ranks of chemists who need to be the most efficient mouse operators, so they have more time to accomplish their natural scientific duties which can be confusing enough.
The PC revolution started with the idea that you can own a computer. Now, by your operating system choice, you don't own it nor what it runs, you don't own the computer, and you don't own anymore the data that used to belong to you that you put there. And with your data it goes along you, eventually.
And if you decide that you must install that operating system because it runs a particular game or app, think all you are sacrificing for that as an implicit extra cost.
Hmm... I own my computer and the software it runs. I license access to features that I want.
Define own. Because you barely own the hardware. Everything else you are granted temporary licenses that can be revoked without warning.
The headline post here is about a user having to exercise an incredible amount of effort to remove features they don't want but which the vendor will deliberately reinstall despite user preference.
Yeah, this makes sense, in a world where the things sold to you are produced by profit-maximizing capitalists.
If the company were instead owned by the users, such as a consumer co-operative, then its products would serve the interests of its users.
Things like this and other custom "Windows distros" are a sign that MS would have no problem selling a version of Windows that's nothing more than a base OS, but clearly they would rather take the user-hostile route.
Microsoft has always been the bad guys. Does nobody remember Embrace Extend Extinguish any more?
Those of us who came up in the 80s and 90s remember that bad behavior and even worse software is baked into Microsoft's DNA.
That sort of organizational culture doesn't just evaporate.
MS was hostile towards competitors, not users/customers. You can run a VM of Windows 9x or NT and see how quiet the experience was. No pervasive spyware or ads to bother you while you work.
That’s only because they had no practical way of doing that since no computer was expected to be online 24/7.
Had they had the opportunity, they would 100% have taken it. Windows was never about serving a good experience to customers, it was always about serving the Microsoft-owned experience to customers—and these two things are very much mutually exclusive.
I don’t think they would have done it any other way, it always had to be a slow ratcheting of control over the user. If the user hostile experience that exists today was the default back then, everyone would have moved to something else while they still could.
[dead]
>Does nobody remember Embrace Extend Extinguish any more?
EEE was something a single Microsoft employee allegedly came up with 0 evidence of it being used internally within Microsoft.
Internally, it was Embrace, Extend, Innovate, used in an executive memo from 1994 [0].
But it doesn't matter where it originated or who first said it. The reason this phrase gained so much popularity is that outside observers could see that's their strategy was (and still is).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
why would ms do that when they could make more money by not doing that ?
> & ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI/m...")))
Finally, we can do 'curl https://host.com/script.sh | bash -' in Windows!
Yes, that's called
Famously used in the Windows Activation Scripts.im not exactly sure why they have chosen to execute as scriptblock, but normally, you can just do ``` irm <url> | iex ```
which essentially sends a request (curl) and runs everything (iex)
It's easier to use the LTSC: https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
I find it odd that Ms seems to invest in AI so heavily and yet, I can't still do a basic text selection in copilot's chat in Intellij and VSCode
It’s all about signaling and posturing to Wall Street. To this date, I’ve not encountered any user that said: “I have a need for this, how much does it cost?”, kinda like how you would buy a software license. Instead it’s sold like a street drug “Wanna try? The first’s on me” Except that is not good and the user doesn’t get addicted and now, they’re trespassing onto people’s space.
Every comment that seems pro AI either falls in “I’m playing with it now and it’s a nice toy” or “It’s very useful for me, I can’t tell you how, but trust me that it is”.
Yes, people steal ideas and sell as their own. That is actually happening. Communities share less publicly, but if you know how to poke, you can find a gem or two. Anybody actually productive with LLMs just doesn't want to invest energy to fight the unwinnable mob mentality. I don't remember any time in my career, where you got such a backlash for using a tech.
One example of a an absolute gem is this: https://youtu.be/vlD8CXr20OI?si=J2A5nrqjkFCqU_6R
Had I been still working with computer graphics, this would've been a true game changer. You can see how little views this video has. There is however a whole subreddit dedicated to sell this exact workflow (and even only the first node). There's a similar story with programming, but people are disincentived to share that. Github Copilot has potential, but seems abandoned already and I find it very odd, because it's the one product with actual substance
Here's another potential example
https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1pm5ik5/so_slig...
Could be a dud, but I'd ask the person about details and perhaps it's a good use case
That sounds a bit like shareware
It would be useful to separate "AI that stays on your device" from "AI that makes you send more personal data to the cloud" - maybe two scripts?
Does Windows have literally any "AI" features that are the former
Yes. They actually deploy a number of small models that run on NPUs on copilot PCs that only run locally.
Which are these? Information online didn't seem very clear on that split?
That is a good idea, as new categories of bloat and performance compromise appear for different reasons.
> Running the script with PowerShell 7 can cause issues, to avoid this ensure you are running Windows PowerShell (5.1)
Interesting, I'd expect it to be more backwards compatible given the overall reputation
PowerShell 5.1 is the last of the .net framework version. Everything newer switches to .net core open source flavored which is cross platform. it's mostly compatible but not really either.
[flagged]
There genuinely are some great things about Windows as a developer. Also, I like to play games and Linux isn't quite there yet.
As someone in this exact position, I swapped to CachyOS this week and have been extremely impressed. I've yet to come across a game that didn't function extremely well (I have not tested bf6 yet, which I suspect the anti cheat may fail on).
Really that's the problem - Anticheat. Sure, at this point most games work on Linux. The problem is, most people don't play most games. Most people play a handful of games, and where the players go, the cheaters follow. In response, the game studios deploy more and more aggressive anticheat measures, ultimately breaking the tiny minority of people who would've otherwise been able to play the game on Linux/Proton.
Take a look at https://areweanticheatyet.com at some of the biggest games on the planet, and how most of them don't support Linux or Proton.
I'd be more (or at least as) worried about these sketchy 'debloat' scripts and the root kit's in your game's anti-cheat than Microsoft's AI.
I'd say Linux is most of the way there considering the existence of the Steam Deck. Even then, why not use a Windows virtual machine?
Windows virtual machines are much slower than bare hardware, especially for things GP mentioned like games. I have also found Linux lags behind in many areas that matter to me in functionality, performance (even compared to Windows 11) and general ease of use. Lots of people Linux or Chrome OS is sufficient for them, and that's great, but it's not enough for everybody.
In response to your initial question, I believe everything must be criticized, especially things we like. Internal criticism, such as criticism of Windows, is just as important as external competitors, such as Linux.
> Linux lags behind in many areas that matter to me in functionality, performance
I'd be interested to know about the gaps you see? I miss desktop excel, but not a whole lot else.
To turn your first question around - if you care that much about games, why not just run Windows and remove the parts you don't like?
The VM won't have access to the GPU in a meaningful way unless you have multiple GPUs and can dedicate one to the VM.
Because a VM will still be running the AI components?
Why would you care?
For all the same reasons you don’t want data leaking from a native OS running on bare metal? Not sure where you are going with this.
I'm confused by your statement. I'm a serious gamer and I've been on Linux for years. It's there, and it's been there for a while.
I feel you on liking things about Windows though. I'm a Windows guy by nature. I genuinely like the OS, and if Microsoft wasn't being so absurdly user-hostile I would switch back in a heartbeat.
I use NVIDIA hardware which objectively have superior maximum performance compared to AMD graphics cards. I use HDR high pixel density monitors as well. I like laptops with decent battery life and decent touch pads.
Windows simply offers a cleaner, more well put-together experience when it comes to these edge cases. I have many tiny nitpicks about how Linux behaves, and every time I go back to my Windows Enterprise install it is a breath of fresh air that my 170% scaling and HDR just work. No finagling with a million different environment variables or CLI options. If a program hasn't opted into resolution independent scaling then I just disable it, and somehow the vector elements are still scaled correctly, leaving only the raster elements blurry. Nowadays laptop touch pads feel like they are Macs, which is high praise and a sea change from where Windows touch pads were about a decade ago.
If you strip away all the AI nonsense, Windows is a genuinely decent platform for getting anything done. Seriously, MS Office blows everything else out of the water. I still go back to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint when I want to do productivity. Adobe suite, pro audio tools, Da Vinci Resolve, etc, they just... work. If you haven't programmed in Visual Studio or used WinDbg then you have not used a serious, high-end debugger. GDB and perf are not even in the same league.
As a Windows power user, I want to go back to the Windows 2000 GUI shell, but with all the modernity of Windows 11's kernel and user-space libraries and drivers. I wish Enterprise was the default release, not the annoying Home versions. And I really, really wish Windows was open-sourced. Not just the kernel, but the user mode as well, because the user mode is where a lot of the juice is, and is what makes Windows Windows.
I have a computer running fedora with a 5080 GPU. The newer games all work fine (e.g. cyberpunk 2077, BG3). The really old games mostly work fine (e.g. system shock 2, original Deus Ex) . The in-between games... are really hit-or-miss (e.g. I can't get witcher 1/2 or Deus Ex Human Revolution to run).
I have played through Deus Ex HR (and MD) on Bazzite albeit on an AMD GPU. You should generally be able to do it with Proton (GE recommended) either Steam (recommended) or Heroic (if you bought them from GOG).
Witcher 1/2 at least also worked OOB via steam.
For some context/ user comments, see Deus Ex HR[0] and System Shock 2[1] on protondb.
[0]: https://www.protondb.com/app/238010 (gold, deck status: playable) [1]: https://www.protondb.com/app/238210 (platinum, deck status: playable)
VR on Linux is buggy and worse than on Windows in some important ways.
Not OP, but as I'm sure you already know, there is a small but significant minority of games that don't play nice on Linux. Generally these are triple-A games that either have very competitive MP scenes, and/or which are thinly disguised casinos (e.g. Madden).
There's also more friction with gaming on Linux the moment you step off the beaten path (i.e. Steam). Yes, yes, Lutris etc, but you're still going to run into things that refuse to play ball from time to time. You can generally solve these, but it's friction you don't get on Windows, and that you might not be in the mood for when you want to play a game.
I've been a gamer on Linux for years too. I'd say it's ~80% there. (95% if you don't play competitive triple-As and stick to Steam.) It drops dramatically though if you want to play oddball 90s and 00s games, or use modding tools, etc.
Personally, I've been toying with the idea of putting Windows on my gaming PC again, after many years. It's not my daily driver, so I'm not too fussed what runs the actual games. My time is limited and valuable to me, and I do not want to spend it nailing down cryptic Proton incantations (admittedly rare, but not yet rare enough). I love tinkering, but that's not tinkering, that's a chore.
1. Does any other operating system come with a complete implementation of win32 and directx and good hardware drivers?
> why not use another operating system?
on pc hardware, no alternatives exist that support sleep/wake properly while also providing for good battery life on modern hardware
> why not use another operating system?
Can I play Helldivers 2 on another operating system?
Yes: https://www.protondb.com/app/553850/
> Custom Proton: GE-Proton10-26
> (Flatpak), Set launch options
> gamescope -W 2560 -H 1440 -r 144 -f --force-grab-cursor --adaptive-> sync --expose-wayland -- > %command%
> Audio: Crackling
> Windowing: Size, Other
> Whiteborder at the top and left > of the screen without Gamescope
I don't know what this means but it sounds buggy?
Ignore all that, people get a wee bit enthusiastic.
I'm on arch, the steps to get playing are:
- Install Steam
- Install Helldivers2
- Launch game
(I just downloaded and launched to confirm!)
Yes.
Which one?
I don't know if you are aware but Steam has a Linux compatibility layer which they use on their Linux-powered devices. But you don't need their hardware, you can install Steam and play most games that doesn't require Kernel backdoors to play. And if you don't own the game on Steam, you can install their compatibility libraries from your package manager and/or GitHub.
I have been doing my PC gaming exclusively on Linux since the Jan 14, 2020 when Windows 7 was end of lifed.
Not my downvote, but you surely wouldn't be able to operate most of the scientific equipment in most laboratories without Windows and PC's of some vintage or another.
If you're using Windows in a laboratory you'd be buying the Enterprise versions.
Exactly, and the further tweaking has been getting so bad it might as well be Linux :\
Another way of looking at it is that Windows XP is the enterprise version for many well-built pieces of expensive equipment which normally outlast PC electronics 5 to 1.
Or asking "What distro of Linux has an enterprise version where you can install the high-dollar setup.exe in administrator mode?" WINE won't help you now when most versions and configurations of Windows were never even supported. This is no game.
Now only some of the relatively newer instruments are validated using enterprise versions, this only started with Windows 10, plus it sometimes took years while only Pro was supported before Enterprise is now an option too. Only some vendors too.
Must also work totally air-gapped start-to-finish (no downloading packages) and draw from the largely Windows-familiar ranks of chemists who need to be the most efficient mouse operators, so they have more time to accomplish their natural scientific duties which can be confusing enough.