This is mostly click bait . The first 3 mentioned by the author are not ads. If you are a new windows user, those tips and tricks are somewhat useful as they tell you what’s new in Windows 10 compared to Windows 7 or an older version.
The first (lockscreen thing) is definitely an ad. If you misclick by accident trying to type your password, you get sent to a bing site opened in edge regardless of if edge is even your default browser. It will then nag prompt to switch to edge which could bring in a good bit of money for MS.
I guarantee that factored into their decision to add it far more than "this would be a fun thing to innocently engage users with."
> Someone cleverly pointed out that Windows changed from "My Computer" to "This PC" in recent years.
- arwhatever on Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” op... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21104910)
First of all, I don't understand why Microsoft is doing this. They are making more from online services than they ever made from selling windows licences so it's not like they need the few cents advertising generates. Probably the windows group trying to up their own numbers, not noting they are hurting the company as whole.
With that said, I don't consider all things author disabled as "ads". Some are just annoying attempts to get people to explore w10 and the included software.
What I consider ads are:
1. The stupid preinstalled games and apps that fill your start screen upon your first boot.
2. The preinstalled Microsoft games (these contain actual ads)
Maximizing shareholder value is about pushing everything to the limits, to fully explore every opportunity for potential revenues.
Not saying I like this concept and what it does to the world. But at the same time I am invested in the stockmarket, meaning that I want to profit from it. I guess I want it all...
Anything which spies on me for Microsoft, I want disabled. I'd like my Windows to:
* Occasionally grab a list of patches available, see which ones apply to my system
* If I install new hardware, with my permission, find drivers.
Sending random information about me to Microsoft is not okay.
But no, the author doesn't disable all Microsoft ads as advertised; you also need to uninstall the massive number of paid pre-installed craplets, which as far as I know, can only be done with command line incantations.
I think Microsoft is doing this since OS licensing costs will disappear at some point, with
(1) actual increasingly fierce competition from places like Android
(2) ease of future free OS competition as things moving online (20 years ago, no business could run Ubuntu because Word; now, Ubuntu, Chromebooks, etc. are enough to run a business on)
The Microsoft tax will become increasingly unsustainable on the low-end, and that may quickly trickle up.
> First of all, I don't understand why Microsoft is doing this.
For money. All companies do things for money.
> so it's not like they need the few cents advertising generates.
Few cents? Advertising is behind some of the most profitable companies in the world today.
> Probably the windows group trying to up their own numbers, not noting they are hurting the company as whole.
When windows 10 was released, MSFT had a market cap of around $400 billion. Today it has a market cap of $1.4 trillion. If the windows group is hurting microsoft, that isn't being reflected in its market cap.
I used Windows almost exclusively from mid 2016 to mid 2018. Ads, tracking I couldn't get rid of and annoying questions on the beautiful login screens drove me back to a Mac for most things, despite the bad video card other hardware deficiencies.
I recently got a new "Microsoft Ergonomic Desktop" keyboard. It has a the "Office key" which if you press launches an ad to buy Microsoft Office. AFAICT there is no official way to disable it!!! and at least for me it was easy to hit by mistake.
Apple isn't as bad but I run into ads for Apple Music on my iPhone unintentionally in a similar fashion. Meaning have no intent of ever subscribing to Apple Music but Apple has designed the UX so that users are likely to hit the ad to sign up from time to time.
> ["Microsoft Ergonomic Desktop" keyboard] has an "Office key" which if you press launches an ad to buy Microsoft Office.
That is the funniest and saddest thing I've heard today. Ergonomic indeed..
With their work in open-source, like developer tools and programming languages, Microsoft has been regaining some of the trust they lost over the years with their business strategy and product insanity. I'm surprised to note that these days I'm using more and more of their products regularly.
At the same time, it's widely recognized that the company culture is still sick in some ways, with incredibly questionable design decisions in Windows 10 and other products.
That's what worries me, for example, about their acquisition of GitHub and NPM. I never want to be stuck being dependent on Microsoft, because you never know when they might slip into crazy mode and ruin a good thing.
On a related note, while my wife and I were trying to remember how to put the Apple TV to sleep we accidentally subscribed to Apple Music. I only found out the next day when I saw an email informing us of our 3-month trial.
There are registry tweaks to disable or reassign buttons, and utilities that make it easy to do them. I made my left Windows key be inert this way, by mapping it to another key that does nothing. The software I used is SharpKeys from randyrants.com.
Can you remap this monstrosity out of the way (or making another control key or something more useful)? I always remap control and caps keys on my keyboards, which is a pretty minor one-time regedit incantation.
They are trying to kill the idea of local apps and exe's, aka they can finally turn "files" into property by using active directory and NTFS for the entire internet.
You all seem clueless as to the last 20 years of software theft in the game industry.
Everyone 20 year ago on slashdot was worried about software and hardware drm, windows 10 is the first version of windows where they are trying to turn the PC into a mobile locked down platform because of the success of walled gardens like steam, world of warcraft, and the appstores like apple/googe play.
The level of stupid on hacker news is disturbing, we used to get complete PC games in the 90's and early 2000's before the public fell for mmo scam of the late 90's which put PC gaming on the path of massive game theft.
Valve is basically a criminal game stealing empire by infecting games with client-server code. The whole indsutry wants to take us to mainframe dumb client computing.
> First of all, I don't understand why Microsoft is doing this. They are making more from online services than they ever made from selling windows licences so it's not like they need the few cents advertising generates. Probably the windows group trying to up their own numbers, not noting they are hurting the company as whole.
Maybe you know more than me, but I think it's possible that your assumptions aren't right.
Do you remember the Ask toolbar that everyone hated Oracle putting into the Java installer on Windows? I think it was even opt-in rather than opt-out, and it was just in the installer pretty unobtrusively. I heard recently that this earned more money than all of Java licensing at the time, and supported the hundreds of people working full time on Java.
For reference: Drive by installation of adware/malware is very lucrative. The going rate is around $1 per install.
One perfect example is Google Chrome, that used to pay the usual price per new install. That's why Chrome got bundled into the installer of every software and their mother, and got so many users so quickly.
For me Catalina is already a dumpster. In fact, it had been so since Sierra (when, for example, the default Korean keyboard layout was silently changed to include a Won sign in place of a backquote) so that I had been very reluctant to update; I only updated to Mojave months ago.
This doesn't work. When we have only 3 major choices, and each one is exceptionally complex, it can't work. It's literally impossible to "send a clear signal" about dozens of different issues using (slightly less than) 2 bits of information.
Something you hate, is something you would like to track and destroy. But it's all the opposite: that's ads which want to track you.
Now please consider getting a copy of my last new world exclusive publication "The book I will never write" for free¹.
¹ First 42 microseconds are free of charge, after what you tacitly renew your subscription into a premium plan, including a varying minute fee whose amount will be changed at our will, and you concede the total complete worldwide eternal exclusive rights on your soul. Download of this page is considered an explicit consent. Any form of pleasure, displeasure, or any other form of emotion risen during the reading of this text might be charged with extra fee.
I use Windows (not 10), I like the convenience of it that most things, drivers work out of the box.
But given the direction Microsoft is going it's likely my next machine will run Linux. All the software I use is available for Linux too, so I guess the main unconvenience will be that I'll have to pay attention when buying hardware to make sure there are proper Linux drivers for them.
I guess there are plenty of people using Windows for convenience, but if the longer trend is that it will have ads, I'll need a Microsoft account to run it, etc. then many of those people who know their way around computer OSs may switch to Linux instead.
In regards to his tip "Disable advertisements from File Explorer". Also after clicking "Apply" do chose the upper button on same window that says "Apply to folders" - it will make the settings done there to be applied to folders of same "style". One only need to apply this to local drives, documents, pictures, videos and a few other "styles" to have an unified view of all folders when using Windows File Explorer.
But I recommend using Total Commander instead (personal favorite).
It has. Since it does not boot most of the time, you are going to shut down your computer and do other, meaningful things instead, like reading, writing, painting, hiking or hanging out. Install Linux and wasting time on HN and Facebook is a problem of the past.
(I'm joking, I have been an happy user of the Linux desktop on laptops for many years)
Huh? I get a full work day and then some (~10 hours) out of my Dell XPS 13 running Linux. Quit spreading bullshit. Linux has come a long way, to the point where I and many of my colleagues genuinely prefer the experience over that of Windows or macOS. Maybe you should give it another try yourself. I recommend Manjaro over Ubuntu for newcomers nowadays.
Honestly the fear of using Linux is mostly due to people not trying it and people being used to Windows already. If you look at it objectively, and look at the built-in parts and not the obvious availability discrepancy of third party software on the more popularly used platform, I think Linux might come out ahead.
The prime example I can think of is printers. In Windows, my dad now learned how to reinstall a printer since, in our experience, most computers need to reinstall the printer every single time you want to print because it'll show the printer as offline but find it when it searches for it. In Linux this just works, I add it once and it just talks to its IP address, no problem. My girlfriend (Windows) will ask me (Linux) to print something via USB because it just works. Printer support in Linux has turned around somewhere about 5-10 years ago.
Things like tabs in explorer or multiple workspaces is something we've had for decades but Windows is just getting around to it. Installing software from a "market" or "store"? That has been a thing for decades as well, it's called repositories and the packages are customized to work with other software in your OS version. Works great, but in Windows developers have to repack all the dependencies they need for every piece of software. Not to mention that, after installing 50 programs, you also have 50 updaters pinging and downloading away when you're in the train on a mobile connection. (Nowadays metered connections mitigate that mostly, and people also have larger data plans, but the software all has to individually build support for it.) Everything is third-party and you have to hope that you clicked the real download link and not an ad. The unified software and update management is something I found hard to believe (as a former Windows user) before seeing it in action. How could a niche volunteer project be doing better than this OS that I just paid 130 euros for? (As student, that was a lot of money. I'm still not sure why I didn't just pirate the crap, in the years ahead I paid for enough Windows licenses that came forced down your throat with laptop hardware, not to mention the Microsoft tax on Android devices...)
Windows has been trying to catch up but with every step forwards, you also hear of things like "ads in your OS" which just sounds entirely backwards.
> Windows has been trying to catch up but with every step forwards, you also hear of things like "ads in your OS" which just sounds entirely backwards.
You still don't get ads in WordPad so there's still way to go.
Linux isn’t the end all be all like every programmer thinks it is.
I switched to Linux (specifically Arch because I wanted the challenge). While most programs I use were available on Linux in some form (LibreOffice, VS Code, etc.) and some had replacements (HxD -> wxHexEditor), there’s still things I miss from Windows. As in, even though Wine works great for things like Steam and Exact Audio Copy, some programs just don’t work. In my case, namely iTunes and Adobe (yes I still use iTunes).
You may think, “who needs iTunes, etc.” or “just use FOSS replacements for Adobe,” but the fact of the matter is that people still use these programs for various reasons, and if they don’t work out of the box, the average user gets upset.
If you want an Average Joe to switch to Linux, you need to make sure all his stuff works. I know a few (non tech savvy) people who hate Windows 10, but just deal with it because the alternative (Linux) isn’t as easy to set up.
> and if they don’t work out of the box, the average user gets upset.
Adobe tools are specialized and not for the average user, getting upset doesn't help anything, should MS be blamed that designers can't use Sketch on Windows?
Average (read: least common denominator) of users needs MS Office, Skype, Dropbox etc. Some work and some don't on Linux. Hardware compatibility isn't completely solved issue on Windows or on Linux. My relatives couldn't upgrade without issues to Win10, so that machine went into the dumpster after a couple of drilled holes through the hard drive. Such a shame, environmentally speaking because it wasn't slow, RAM could have been upgraded (stationary i5 Haswell CPU and Intel graphics) and could just have bought an SSD. But they couldn't be assed to "upgrade" to Linux even though I offered my help with this, simply just went to the store and got a new Windows 10 machine. It is a commodity after all. Too much precious time can't be "wasted" to learn Linux and Windows is "always the same".
My apologies. I wasn’t implying that it won’t work for everyone; It will. It’s just that for what seems to be a majority of the population, if it doesn’t work, they won’t use it.
Windows S stands for Store (I think) and you can't install anything on it otherwise. Had an impression that it was ad free but I'm not completely sure.
The fact that this is necessary at all is completely ridiculous. Thanks, but I'll just stick with Windows 7 for my Windows machine. That works and doesn't have any of 10's bullshit.
I think it is fascinating that there seems to be huge differences between the amount of ads seen. Not being signed in to Microsoft account probably is the single biggest factor, followed by having Pro edition and being located in EU instead of US. And of course not having an OEM edition. Obviously I opt-outed everything during installation, but I don't remember going through any special hoops in at any stage.
While I can't say that I haven't seen any ads, they have been singular events (I think at least one for O365, OneDrive, and Edge, maybe something else too) instead of any sort of constant stream. Of course it is valid to argue that any ads, however few, are too many, and I don't disagree. But I definitely do not remember seeing any third-party ads in my Windows 10 and I think that is pretty important distinction.
But as someone who has become extremely wary of installing any mobile apps due the infestation of ads there, I feel my desktop to still be pretty decent oasis against ads.
For me, Windows 10 is where I felt like I was no longer in control of my own computer.
Microsoft doesn't do discrete OS updates anymore but I definitely feel like it might time to give Linux another go next time I upgrade my hardware. There's less and less software the holds me to MS. This is due to so many programs going to the web - Google Docs suite, dictionaries etc and partially due to better Linux support for software I use such as Unity or games via Wine. What's held me back until now has been poor graphics driver support.
They are trying to kill the idea of local apps and exe's, aka they can finally turn "files" into property by using active directory and NTFS for the entire internet.
You all seem clueless as to the last 20 years of software theft in the game industry.
Everyone 20 year ago on slashdot was worried about software and hardware drm, windows 10 is the first version of windows where they are trying to turn the PC into a mobile locked down platform because of the success of walled gardens like steam, world of warcraft, and the appstores like apple/google play.
The level of stupid on hacker news is disturbing, we used to get complete PC games in the 90's and early 2000's before the public fell for mmo scam of the late 90's which put PC gaming on the path of massive game theft.
Valve is basically a criminal game stealing empire by infecting games with client-server code. The whole industry wants to take us to mainframe dumb client computing.
They are locking the PC down, aka no more general computing, they want to turn it into a dumb terminal, future cpu's wont run older versions of windows OS.
There is still CD Project Red which seems to be the last bastion of DRM free games. I hope Activision (aka Tencent) will never buy them out. China is a cancer also in gaming industry.
The polemic style writing is really off-putting, but I wholeheartedly agree with this.
I know Microsoft keeps trying and failing, but I think they will eventually succeed with a separate version of Windows that is clearly a separate "walled garden" product, that is far more secure, far better performance, only supports UWP apps, and is uncoupled from being in the backwards-compatibility hell that the "main" Windows variant is.
Such a product "powered by Microsoft Office" would be an incredibly compelling Chromebook competitor. As to whether or not it will support ARM, support AD, or even be open source, only time will tell. I could definitely see something like Windows X or a rebuilt Windows S (locked into S) being a glimpse into this future.
You can make great points without saying everyone else on the site is "levels of stupid". That's unnecessary, unhelpful, and just escalates the debate immediately. OP is the one who brought an incensed and polemical tone to this thread - asking everyone else to only react to the substance just gives them a free pass on what is innately anti-social behavior that detracts from a civil discussion.
>That's unnecessary, unhelpful, and just escalates the debate immediately.
Stating facts about the fact that everyone is losing control of their PC's because of their stupid consumer behavior is not in any way inflammatory.
Why would you give away your basic rights to own and control your own PC and have it coded honestly unless you were irrational?
There are dire implications for privacy and human rights if you believe in "cloud computing" which I refer to as "stolen software as a service"
SaaS can only exist in a world where the public is irrational, you are building turnkey dictatorship infrastructure, if the world ever goes south because every piece of software can monitor and spy on everything you do and is broadcast to foreign companies and governments, you are naively trusting these foreign entities have your best interests in mind.
I'd say that qualifies the word "stupid" in my post. You've just allowed every big company to spy on you permanently and helped wipe out privacy for the rest by producing perverse market incentives for software that locks down our devices and removes our freedom and privacy.
No, I know. I get the ideological desire for the point you make. But I find some levels of rancor endearing, genuine and humanizing especially when the points seem to merit it.
Some of it is also the OP seems to have a history of just going around making incendiary posts and insulting the intelligence of anyone they disagree with. It's endearing the first time - when you've got a pattern of it, and often don't actually bother to reply or discuss with anyone, you're just a flame-bait.
Marketing it would be an incredibly tiny needle to thread-- promoting the OS can run Microsoft Office while immediately changing the message when they ask about every old no-source-available compiled-for-Windows-98 app.
It feels like the people who can switch easily probably jumped to Chromebooks already.
In what way is World of Warcraft a "walled garden"? It's a single game. If anything, it's one of the most extensible online games made by a major studio. Do you just mean "walled garden" as "not FOSS"?
It's a game as a service, sure, but that doesn't make it a scam. That's like saying that renting an apartment is a scam because you don't own it. You can question if it's a good financial decision, but that doesn't make it not a fair exchange of money for a product.
You don't get that mmo's are just rebranded PC RPG's, they are a fake genre invented to convince gullible people like you to give up game ownership.
Someone who was rational would have demanded the server exe and the ability to own ultima online, you could have had the same "MMO" for a fixed price, no montlhy fee and the server EXE.
Client-server is the same as INCOMPLETE SOFTWARE, why would you buy a game or operating system where the second CD/DVD needs a foreign computer with the "key disc" that disables your software remotely? You don't get that the true purpose of "MMO's" was to move undermine software ownership for every piece of software on the planet, you don't get if you accept client-server for one piece of software, you accept it for ALL SOFTWARE.
Because all software is, is a list of binary numbers, instructions, if you are not given a complete set of instructions to run the entire APP locally you are being conned because it won't stop at RPG's, that is how we ended up with "client server" windows 10, no one should want an operating system, or Microsoft office, where part of the applications files is held hostage on some remote server, it's the same as buying incomplete software, or software with a second DVD missing that they mysteriously kept in their office.
You and the rest of mankind are gullible to an insane degree.
You don't get the agenda, so I'll have to spell it out for you.
Imagine we have a 5 PC lan, and the person in the middle of the network is the programmer and he is making games, mainly PC RPG's, that means if he makes a "client server" rpg and you buy his idea "software as a service" he will do that to EVERY FUTURE PIECE OF SOFTWARE to enrich himself, he is now OWNER of that 5 PC network you dolt, including the operating system, including word processor. EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF SOFTWARE CAN BE MADE CLIENT SERVER IN A NETWORKED WORLD.
That means the death of software ownership and personal privacy on your PC.
AKA it's literally stealing the software, there is NO FINANCIAL INCENTIVE to go back to local applications if you buy ANY client-server software.
For 99% of cases, client server anything, whether that is an operating system, game or word processor is irrational.
Because they can now destroy the software you paid for. No one who was rational would buy software with a self-destruct button on it that could be disabled remotely.
You don't grasp that most of us hardware gamers in the 90's were expecting PC RPG' to continue with dedicated servers, and saw the mmo supporting half of the nerd kingdom as clueless and dumb, you are the reason why STEAM exists, steam can only exist in a world where the average game buyer is irrational and doesn't get the corporate agenda.
I was with you until MMO Scam. The people behind Mazewar, Ultima Online, MUDs, etc. were not trying to scam you out of money and ownership. They were innovating heavily on what games could look like in a networked platform. It was revolutionary at the time.
Not everyone in the industry is on one side here, and if you want to fight this war efficiently and intelligently, you need to know precisely who your enemies are.
MMO's were a scam, they were just rebranded PC RPG's, you don't seem to get you are the gullible one here.
If you buy ANY piece of software in an internet enabled world that you don't own or ontrol, you have just broadcast to the entire corporate world that you are gullible. They will try to client-server EVERY game and EVERY piece of software, what the hell do you think mobile is?
Steam is by definition an irrational piece of corporate malware that shouldn't exist, up until 2004 we were getting complete local applications, or honestly coded PC games. That is why as you go backwards in time before internet penetration reached the computer illiterate, we had level editors, server exe's and dedicated servers embedded inside the main game exe.
Descent 3 came with server executable. MMO's are just RPG's where the server exe isn't given to you. You can see this "MMO" racing game you can play completely "offline" proving that mmo's were a scam. Need for speed world was just a fork of most wanted and rewritten to be client server, AKA a scam. Think of this, you can run Need for speed world entirely from your PC without monthly fee or micro-transactions, then that means that paying a monthly fee for software you don't own is irrational.
Anytime you see a login screen on a piece of game or other software you're seeing stolen software buddy.
You don't get they've already won, the battle was won between 1997 and 2004.
Ultima online and everquest were trial balloons to undermine software ownership on the PC, they are tests of your gullibility to literally steal PC RPG's out from under you.
I know you find this hard to believe, but see the science, I can tell you the facts and you won't reason to the right conclusion, see the science:
Also with such highly populated games they have to do a TON of ongoing work to support the infrastructure to the point that they would lose money on customers in a matter of months if they didn't charge subscription fees.
> Valve is basically a criminal game stealing empire by infecting games with client-server code.
Uhh.. Valve release all their game server binaries for anyone to run, and sometimes even the source code (Half-Life, Half-Life 2). If you're going to rag on any games company, it shouldn't be them.
Valve did so because they had steam money to rely on, they were boiling the frog slowly.
Notice what they did to TF2 and now the are making artifact (totally microtransaction based game).
Notice how all that money from Dota 2 and TF2 were the end game, you don't get that STEAM malware client, was for valve to ultimately to get to in game stores. Valve was very careful in how they manipulated you into not owning your ow games so they could shove in game stores and mtx into them.
For other games like battlefield or modern warfare, and even overwatch... the problem remains that they can shut down the game remotely, aka Overwatch is not coded in an honest way where you own the game outright, you can't use its multiplayer as a stand alone app, aka you're using stolen software that is coded in a criminally screwed up way so that Activision maintains control.
The whole goal for the game industry was in game stores and mtx in every game and to do that they need to undermine game ownership.
Fortnite, Dota 2, and league of legends would have been fully boxed product games with LAN multiplayer/dedicated servers in a past era, aka for most AAA games we no longer get server exe's and get matchamking.
Quake champions is literally a stolen quake game where you don't get to own it, quake fans wanted a quake they owned and controlled like the first 4 quakes, with QeRadiant, dedicated servers, etc.
Quake champions can only exist in a world where companies have won and games are being coded in criminally underhanded ways to deny local application game files.
> Valve did so because they had steam money to rely on, they were boiling the frog slowly.
Citation needed. Valve have been very good to the TF2/Dota 2 communities. Again, you _can_ run the servers for these products. Worst comes to worst, if Valve turns evil, then pirating the software is easy.
There's good points to be had that Overwatch is terrible for not releasing the server, but Valve are not.
You don't seem to understand VALVE is an outlier because they have so much power, for the rest of the AAA game industry, dedicated servers largely have been under attack. Because client-server and drm ridden software allows them to put in game stores. They don't want people to have dedicated servers if it interferes with their microtransaction business model. AKA in game stores means further eroding software ownership.
You don't grasp the reason quake champions is a server locked game is because of gamers buying client-server coded software.
You're a corporate fanboy. You don't grasp the reason Doom 2016 and no level editor is specifically because of the last 15 years of the war on PC game ownerhsip that began with mmo's in the late 90's.
That all those "MMO/freetoplay" games on steam would have been boxed products with lan/server exe's in a former era, of the public had not taken them up to begin with, valve would have never come up with STEAM. Steam was a direct reaction to ultima online.
Valves long term plan was to remove ownership from his customers, and valve no longer needs to produce games because their long term agenda was making money, they want to be the middleman that skims money from every game sold.
Unrelated to the "walled-garden" debate Valve has invested heavily into their Linux game compatibility tools and invested in the upstream projects that make them happen. That allows people who game on PC to break out of the pending Windows walled garden dystopia that the original commenter fears.
Over the last 10 years and 1000+ of hours of gaming, I've literally never used a single "feature" or had a single positive interaction with steam other than downloading the games (for which a zipped installer would have worked just fine), yet I had many cases where I couldn't play because steam forced update but couldn't download it due to slow connection/really wanted to go online on the plane because offline mode used to be buggy/had the update install and completely break steam/couldn't login/connect to valve servers, etc.
They were fixing these but new stuff always comes up (and is 0% justified), and some stuff is by "design" e.g. "offline" mode still installs steam updates. At this point I have steam completely firewalled out and I turn that off only when I want to get a specific game or a DLC.
Steam is malware (so are Win10 ads, forced updates, etc.)
Windows has always been like that. Want to shutdown? Oh I'm sorry windows I didn't realise you planned on doing an update! How about I pull the power cord out and we discuss this again later? Computers are our slaves, I don't want to know what is most convenient for them.
Installing updates during a shutdown or restart is a recent phenomenon in the lifetime of the Windows NT family. Windows XP post-SP2, if memory serves, attempted to offer-up updates via the Explorer shutdown/restart/logoff dialog. Windows 8 (again, if memory serves) was the first version that was more "militant" about forcing update installation. Windows 7 was the last of the client-oriented versions of Windows that permitted you to (easily) defer updates indefinitely.
Windows 7 regularly wanted to force me to update on shutdown. I remember it well, because at the time, I was doing my first startup and had a train to catch in the evening, so I regularly had to hit the power because the train wasn't going to wait for Windows to update. It infuriated me so much.
A few years too late. Pity it wasn't discoverable, because I never knew about it. I'm happily running anything but windows nowadays. (MacOS for work, Linux at home)
Windows 7 update installation was easy to bypass, however, and still get a clean shutdown. You could use the command/line shutdown command to restart or shutdown w/o installing updates. In Windows 8 and following they put that idiocy into logonUI.exe (which runs outside your logon session) to force update installation.
Well, if there was a way to bypass it, I never found it. Often when I shut down, it gave me the "windows is updating, please wait and don't turn your computer off" message with no options.
For me, OS X has always been worse about that. Want to shutdown? Better get ready to manually close every single application, because if any of them disagree then that shutdown ain't happening.
Input to computers used to be treated as commands. You would command computers to do things and they did them. Now, our input is treated either as unreliable ("Are you sure?" dialogs), treated more like a suggestion ("close app" vs "force close"), misinterpreted (oh you didn't want to run update when you issued a shutdown command?) or ignored entirely. It's gotten me irrationally angry.
I remember getting angry when I first had to ask the computer "pretty please, could you shut down," and having that possibly fail, rather than just throwing the power switch.
I remember getting angry when I first had to ask the computer "pretty please, could you eject the disk," with a non-zero chance that no, the computer is busy and you can't have your disk back.
I remember when undelete was an option, and delete was delete.
Now everything is a request. Everything second-guesses the user. Every button and switch is soft button that puts "software with lots of excuses" between you and what you want to command the computer to do. Every software iteration puts the user further and further into the backseat as a passenger rather than where they should be as the driver.
> Want to shutdown? Oh I'm sorry windows I didn't realise you planned on doing an update!
Also recently "shut down" became "hibernate without fully taking the filesystem offline". Because clearly, that's what I meant. Not actually shut down.
I wish I had a tenner for every time I swore I disabled the last power-sucking feature only to find my ThinkPad battery was again dead after being shut down for three days.
I actually did after I installed windows 8. And never installed windows 10. Dont understand me wrong, linux IS a mess not the kernel but the whole userspace is a catastrophy, from systemd to the networkmanager. I never liked it but I started to use it, not becoase it became better but as windows became so much worse. I would prefer freebsd as on my servers but as most of development is going on on linux it doesnt stand a chance. Which is a pitty.
Well, to be fair, these user space components are often judged as catastrophes from the point of view of Linux/UNIX users/admins. In other words, Windows components for same tasks were never scrutinized at this level. Windows users used often scoff at me when I am troubleshooting problems with my Linux boxes. But the fact is, I can troubleshoot and in most cases fix problems with systemd/NetworkManager, whereas when corresponding problems arise on Windows boxes there's really not much you can lean on, because inner workings of these components are not public, so 95% of Google searches result in total crap, and the remaining 5% reveal that design of these components isn't at all that perfect. (NetworkManager equivalent in Windows is big pile of steaming crap.)
So yeah, I don't like design of systemd. But hell, compared to dealing with Windows, it's precious.
I feel like many who level this charge have unfortunately never really looked into its design or compared it realistically to what came before, because I can tell you that if I am comparing the ability to write a systemd service in a declarative way and having it working with the same set of commands across all major distros, I'll take that over having shoddy quality bash scripts that vary across distros just slightly enough to annoy and that rely on a patchwork of PID files that is very easy to mess up, I am taking systemd any day of the week.
I have never really understood the "Linux is a mess" argument. While I do agree that it is a mess, it is not as though Windows is any better. The big difference is that the Linux development process is open and the end user is more likely to tinker so a lot of criticism bubbles to the surface. Contrast that to Windows, where there is very little point in discussing how things work under the hood. You may have to know enough about it for setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting. That is about all.
The arguments also ignore some of the great things about Linux. One of the things that I marvel at is how easy it is to setup and maintain a Linux system. Things like software typically being installed and updated through a single source is a tremendous time saver. While many device drivers are lacking specialized features, most hardware will work out of the box. There are also fewer concerns about what is happening behind the scenes. Walkthroughs like this one are fairly common in the Windows world: disable advertising, delay updates, block telemetry, improve performance.
None of this is meant to imply Linux is good and Windows is bad. Both platforms have their benefits and drawbacks. Neither is ideal for everyone. It's all about which trade-offs you're willing to accept.
As someone who uses all 3 OSes to various degrees, the while "mess" thing just strikes me as something that's supposed to be said around Linux and mic drop, as if that in itself meant something.
Linux is often installed on shoddy hardware that Windows no longer runs acceptably on and then people complain why it runs shoddily compared to their new Macbook/DELL XPS that they just purchased.
This very topic shows that Windows is a mess too, there's now been multiple updates that deleted user data as well. Why is that not a mess? Or why is so much more attention paid to the Linux mess? macOS allowed users to log in without a password, leaked encrypted HDD secrets, borked curl & SSH, borked user machines with an update, throttled user machines etc. and that's just from the top of my head. And that's bearing in mind that Apple controls almost all the variables.
It is 100% to the point and nothing has changed in 6 years since (and not only on debian), except that the mess is being solved by docker. Which is crazy. And windows is heading into same direction (when I have seen the manifests the first thing I have said was... omg... .dll.1.4.3)
Just additional info, to help you get into my mindset - system level developer for linux AND windows for 25 years.
(anyway, I have thrown tomatoes into directions of two largest fanboy camps, guess what will happen? =/ )
IMO Linux still has pretty poor graphics drivers, and the whole Wayland thing is in a weird spot right now too. My primary use my my PC is a work machine, for which Linux is very well suited. I also game on my PC. For that, I have tried limiting my self to native Linux games, Wine, directed assigned graphics with a windows VM, and plain old dual booting. In the end I keep end up dual booting. Gaming graphics cards don't work well under Linux. However, I've had great luck with low end workstation graphics cards, especially those running the new AMDGPU driver.
If you are an expert, there has never been a better time to move to Linux. If you are a novice, there still hasn't been a better time, but its also still not for everyone.
at present there are about 6500 working games in Linux that take advantage of advanced 3d graphics. These include the latest Doom, Fallout 76, and Borderlands 3. Im currently running a Radeon RX 470 and playing everything from Aragami to P.A.M.E.L.A. and Wolfenstein New Colossus at 60fps or higher.
Yeah, performance certainly has come a long way. The bigger issues these days are stability and compatibility. Both nouveau and nVidia proprietary are pretty crashy (and not just for me). nVidia proprietary isn't great with wayland. Catalyst is pretty bad. AMDGPU is great, but I haven't really pushed it beyond a low end workstation card. Intel is fine, but intel doesn't offer high end graphics.
I actually bought a second graphics card for use with linux because I was sick of deciding between slow (nouveau) and crashy (nv proprietary). I have a WX2100 and it has been completely rock solid. I can't use X11 without some as-yet-to-be-discovered workaround because it won't give up on using my nvidia card, even though I have that card attached to vfio-pci. Wayland is solid though.
I mean you linked the meme? That pretty well sums things up. Like I said in my original comment, workstation graphics cards tend to do great, as do older graphics cards.
I've used mix of old and new graphics cards and I have never experienced issues with drivers related to how recent the graphics card was. The few issues I had were always with the driver itself. And I've never used workstation-grade graphics card, always consumer ones.
> IMO Linux still has pretty poor graphics drivers.
IMO Intel is generally very well supported with the open-source kernel driver and amdgpu is getting there. This feels like a trope that always gets repeated but never updated, kind of like "you need CLI to use Linux".
> the whole Wayland thing is in a weird spot right now too
The whole Wayland thing is already much smoother for many than X11 ever was and it actually takes security seriously. I am running GNOME on Wayland full time since 2018 and by this point there's nothing I miss from X11, any specifics?
There are plenty of applications that still depend on Xwayland, and the nvidia proprietary can't accelerate these. There are some other weird stability issues related to the nvidia driver as of mid last year at least. Wayland is missing a bunch of features from X, which bothers some people. I personally miss network transparency from X. That said, I do run wayland full time, and have for a few years now. I just can't recommend it without reservations.
I can't comment on catalyst, or AMDGPU on current generation AMD gaming graphics cards. What I can say is that you can pretty much blindly assume that whatever gpu you want to buy will work well under Windows.
> IMO Intel is generally very well supported
I would add AMDGPU to that list as well. Still, AMDGPU is new, and Intel doesn't offer a high end graphics card. nVidia proprietary causes problems, such as those it causes for wayland. I am very happy with my AMDGPU compatible WX2100 for linux, but it is certainly not a good gaming GPU.
Sure, nvidia is problematic, hence Linuses now famous rant, but that's to be expected, they don't cooperate at all.
I understand it may be the only option for high-end gaming, but in that case one probably doesn't have switchable graphics, which causes the most issues, so X/Xwayland is the one compromise one has to make.
This however does not mean that Linux graphics is a mess in general. I have both Intel and amdgpu machines that work out of the box, no problem. And this does not ever gets asked in relation to macOS, because everyone "knows" nvidia just wasn't a thing there in recent years. So perhaps we should assume nvidia just isn't a thing as well, unless you're willing to put up with crap?
So does Linux and Linux on the desktop work for everybody? No. Does it work as good for a high-end gaming machine as Windows? No. Does Windows work as the most productive fronend/backend/systems OS for programming out there? No. Does Linux? Yeah.
So while they both have their strengths and weaknesses, Linux works perfectly well for a lot of use-cases, the graphics driver situation included.
As for Wayland not being network-transparent, the fact that it worked in X in the way it did was in fact a massive hack and a security hole and while sometimes convenient, I personally didn't need GUI over SSH almost ever, apart from playing around, so I'd take a proper security architecture, like Wayland has, over network transparency.
This is also not a feature supported by Windows/macOS, so not really a point against Linux in my book.
The early complaints, like screenshots etc. re Wayland were all resolved some time ago too.
> X/Xwayland is the one compromise one has to make.
No you don't. You could use Windows.
> So perhaps we should assume nvidia just isn't a thing as well.
Sure, that is what I do. How do you explain that to a novice that is just trying to run linux on their computer for the first time?
Look, I use linux full time for most tasks, both at home and at work. Professionally I am a kernel engineer. I am very pro linux, and pro new linux users. I think that we do linux a disservice by pretending that there aren't issues. The simple fact is that the linux graphics experience is not seamless like it is on other operating systems. We shouldn't pretend that it is just because experts can make it work.
Of course, provided you don't mind the ads, the telemetry, the updates that delete your files [1], this is assuming you're actually interested in Linux.
> How do you explain that to a novice that is just trying to run linux
That perhaps you do look for Linux HW before purchasing and do not install Linux on any old crap?
Look, I could hand somebody a Chromebook and ask them to try how well Windows would run on it. The experience wouldn't be great. Same on a Talos II or some other obviously problematic HW for Windows where Linux fares much better, but it's a pointless game.
Most people don't run into this situation because BestBuy laptops come preinstalled with Windows. If they came with Linux, there'd be a reverse situation.
But with macOS people somehow don't assume they can run it on a random POS HW and indeed know that it's best to get one designed to run macOS.
Why is the standard Linux is evaluated against always different?
Just get a Linux-compatible machine and you're good, that's it. I know as I've done it many times now.
It's not about pretending there aren't issues. But I've realized we're being held back by always trying to snatch this mythical 'new user' with his BestBuy laptop, or someone with a knowingly problematic HW, (unless nVidia cooperates, there's little we could do) and Windows will continue to come preinstalled on the majority of PCs, so a mass exodus isn't happening anytime soon.
What we could do, instead of being this "honest" and just reinforcing the idea that Linux doesn't work, we could be even more frank and just say avoid this vendor, but this and this one is fine.
Reinforcing the idea that Linux is crap because of some shitty corporation that refuses to support it gives too much importance and power to said corporation when they don't deserve it.
> Gaming graphics cards don't work well under Linux
They work fine, haven't had a problem with them for years, using nvidia cards. Most distros just ship the proprietary drivers now, and those just work.
There just aren't masses of native games. That said, Steam now has a built in version of wine called "Proton" that's worth checking out.
"For me, Windows 10 is where I felt like I was no longer in control of my computer."
If Microsoft cannot not stop Windows computers from becoming controlled by a botnet, the logical solution is to create their own. Well, that is what it looks like.
Big tech companies will tell users that they will "protect" them from this, that and the other thing (including protecting users from themselves), but they cannot protect users from the company. Obviously, showing ads demonstrates that the user, what Microsoft knows about her, is now a "product". Nevertheless, it is fair to ask why any user would prefer to control their own computer 100% instead of letting Microsoft control it for them. It is possible that, outside of HN commenters and voters, most Windows users are ambivalent.
I can remember when Windows had no way to access the internet, only local area networks. It was much faster. Why not temporarily bring down the interface to the internet gateway when it is not needed, or just delete the default gateway from the routing table. For example, if one is only using a program that does not need internet access, e.g., a word processor, spreadsheet, dictionary, calculator, etc., there is no need to have a connection to the internet. A script could be used to automate this procedure. This way the user has some control over when Microsoft can install updates, send telemetry data, etc., i.e., when the company can "take control". When the user is done with her offline work or game playing, she can bring up the interface or re-add the default gateway and let Microsoft have control.
> I can remember when Windows had no way to access the internet, only local area networks. It was much faster.
> When the user is done with her offline work or game playing, she can bring up the interface or re-add the default gateway and let Microsoft have control.
By that reasoning deleting System32 folder is also an option, and should make your computer 10 times faster /s
Does anyone know how to disable the "Like what you see" text that is shown over the lock screen images (also known as spotlight images)? If you click on that text Bing comes up in a browser after you login. I've followed some online guides but so far no luck getting rid of it.
It drives me nuts how complicated it is to simply have ALL of those 'spotlight' images at login nixed. I don't want any stock photography of landscapes or whatever, thanks - I just want a plain black background.
Unless something's changed in the year or so since I last tried it, it's basically not possible (there was some hacky solution, but it dismayed me, so I never bothered).
For me the routine is always the same: Install Open Shell to make it look reasonable and then ShutUp10 for things under the hood. While that may seem too much work, it has honestly always been like that. I remember tweaking Win98 and the massive tweaking community around win XP.
Windows 10 was the final push for me to switch to Linux once and for all. And so far I'm super happy with it. I'm using Linux mint and I must recommended it highly for any long time windows user as they've hugely reduced the learning curve.
The only thing I miss is Photoshop. I've tried so many alternatives like gimp, etc but I find graphics editing a big struggle, for example I can't even do simple things like adding a red arrow to a screenshot till date without googling for it first. Also wine it didn't work for me for some reason. But thankfully my graphics requirements are pretty less so I boot up windows for that, other than that I don't miss Windows at all now. Rather it would be very hard to go back now.
I find Dia easier to use than Inkscape and both do vector graphics, but Inkscape might be better to learn how to use in the long run because it can do more things.
For me the same. Since the mid 90s I had Windows and Linux installed at home. But Windows 10 was a no go. I mean I even have the Pro Licence. But serious, Candy Crash and XBox all over the place. After one week trying to delete all that things, I had to accept, thats not what I want and deleted it. So I'm also a Linux only now.
Photoshop was a big one that I missed, until someone posted their self-made online editor to reddit: https://www.photopea.com/
I'm not sure what modern photoshop looks like, but the interface is completely familiar to me as a former CS2 user.
While Photopea is online, its completely satisfactory for small editing tasks that I need to do. Only gripe is that saving massive pngs with 100% quality causes the site to freeze
>Only gripe is that saving massive pngs with 100% quality causes the site to freeze
Png or jpg? Pngs shouldn't have a quality % level given it's a lossless format.
If the site is freezing while it's trying to compress the image, you may have better luck saving in a clunky format like bmp and using a local program to compress it later. Hard to tell what issues can arise from trying to do cpu-intensive tasks in a JS browser app.
They’re probably referring to png compression level. All levels are lossless it’s just about how long it takes to encode/decode and resulting file size. Actual image quality is identical (which can be verified via hashing the decoded images)
Photoshop is the main reason I still have a Windows boot on my home desktop. I wish Linux had a comparable alternative to Photoshop (for which I would gladly pay a sum comparable to what I paid Adobe). Any time I tried Gimp or something similar I really missed the clean visual UI of CS, ability to accurately work with at least 16-bit color and support for printing large files (say, 17x40" panoramas) without killing my workstation.
I have not tried Krita yet. It seemed to be geared to artists drawing / creating images, where my main (in fact only) use case is enhancement of my DSLR or phone-captured photos. That said, Krita is on my "to try sometime" list.
Didn't Google sponsor some work to run Photoshop under Wine? That's ages ago, so it probably doesn't apply to modern Adobe stuff, but sitll, I'm curious, can't you use Wine for that? Not saying it's silver bullet, but usually popular programs gets love from Wine contributors. Sadly, Richard Burns Rally is not that popular. :(
Windows 10 was the reason for me to switch back from Linux to Windows, due to WSL.
I hate the ads and build in tracking like any other, but in the end this is my work laptop and I need to get the job done. I can't be spending hours fiddling with graphic drivers and GTK issues when a customer is paying for my time.
My experience with troubleshooting on Windows has led to a lot of websites like this - no-name businesses, a wall of ads, and SEO-optimised content derived from performing the same web search I'm doing.
Unless I add 'Ubuntu' to the search term, troubleshooting on Linux OSes tends to take me to primary sources e.g. internet-hosted manpages and docs.
It's probably just an inevitability of success but it does make the ecosystem more frustrating to use.
> It's probably just an inevitability of success but it does make the ecosystem more frustrating to use.
For searching online, probably yes. If Linux were used by all the people currently using Windows, there would surely be just as much crap.
But for the OS itself, if the current (open) development models of most distributions would remain open and not become like Canonical's Ubuntu, I don't see that such an OS would ever get ads or become frustrating to use as a law of nature. Volunteers don't do work they don't believe in, few people would work on a change or feature they don't think will be an improvement.
It may go against the grain here, but I think advertisements in Windows 10 is crucial. It's strange, because you would expect the HN audience to be in favor of getting products in front of eyeballs.
Operating systems in 2020 have evolved into thought systems that enable our lives in the emergent digital economy. Think of it like real-estate in the "real" world. People hate billboards because they're gaudy, yet they relish Times Square. Operating Systems are like the Times Square of the computing world, allowing us to navigate and consume and vote with our dollars. It makes total sense for them to contain advertisements. In fact, I encourage it.
Are you in favor of your landlord or the HOA replacing your wallpaper with advertisement too? My desktop environment's role in my life is much more like that than Time Square's.
Tourists visit Times Square and then go home. Similarly I might tour some virtual hell hole covered in ads for Candy Crush but then I’m going home to an ad free existence because I’m not a crazy person.
198 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 640 ms ] threadI guarantee that factored into their decision to add it far more than "this would be a fun thing to innocently engage users with."
With that said, I don't consider all things author disabled as "ads". Some are just annoying attempts to get people to explore w10 and the included software.
What I consider ads are:
1. The stupid preinstalled games and apps that fill your start screen upon your first boot.
2. The preinstalled Microsoft games (these contain actual ads)
3. The third party app suggestions.
Maximizing shareholder value is about pushing everything to the limits, to fully explore every opportunity for potential revenues.
Not saying I like this concept and what it does to the world. But at the same time I am invested in the stockmarket, meaning that I want to profit from it. I guess I want it all...
* Occasionally grab a list of patches available, see which ones apply to my system
* If I install new hardware, with my permission, find drivers.
Sending random information about me to Microsoft is not okay.
But no, the author doesn't disable all Microsoft ads as advertised; you also need to uninstall the massive number of paid pre-installed craplets, which as far as I know, can only be done with command line incantations.
I think Microsoft is doing this since OS licensing costs will disappear at some point, with
(1) actual increasingly fierce competition from places like Android
(2) ease of future free OS competition as things moving online (20 years ago, no business could run Ubuntu because Word; now, Ubuntu, Chromebooks, etc. are enough to run a business on)
The Microsoft tax will become increasingly unsustainable on the low-end, and that may quickly trickle up.
For money. All companies do things for money.
> so it's not like they need the few cents advertising generates.
Few cents? Advertising is behind some of the most profitable companies in the world today.
> Probably the windows group trying to up their own numbers, not noting they are hurting the company as whole.
When windows 10 was released, MSFT had a market cap of around $400 billion. Today it has a market cap of $1.4 trillion. If the windows group is hurting microsoft, that isn't being reflected in its market cap.
Alternatives to google search exist but they’ve still been declared a monopoly by the EU, with something like a 90% share of searches.
In the US we’ve blocked cell phone company mergers that would take them over 40% share for comparison.
Of the office suite front Gsuite has ~57% share and MSOffice ~43%
I am fine with the pictures they are nice. But the click bait link is distracting.
Apple isn't as bad but I run into ads for Apple Music on my iPhone unintentionally in a similar fashion. Meaning have no intent of ever subscribing to Apple Music but Apple has designed the UX so that users are likely to hit the ad to sign up from time to time.
That is the funniest and saddest thing I've heard today. Ergonomic indeed..
With their work in open-source, like developer tools and programming languages, Microsoft has been regaining some of the trust they lost over the years with their business strategy and product insanity. I'm surprised to note that these days I'm using more and more of their products regularly.
At the same time, it's widely recognized that the company culture is still sick in some ways, with incredibly questionable design decisions in Windows 10 and other products.
That's what worries me, for example, about their acquisition of GitHub and NPM. I never want to be stuck being dependent on Microsoft, because you never know when they might slip into crazy mode and ruin a good thing.
You all seem clueless as to the last 20 years of software theft in the game industry.
Everyone 20 year ago on slashdot was worried about software and hardware drm, windows 10 is the first version of windows where they are trying to turn the PC into a mobile locked down platform because of the success of walled gardens like steam, world of warcraft, and the appstores like apple/googe play.
The level of stupid on hacker news is disturbing, we used to get complete PC games in the 90's and early 2000's before the public fell for mmo scam of the late 90's which put PC gaming on the path of massive game theft.
Valve is basically a criminal game stealing empire by infecting games with client-server code. The whole indsutry wants to take us to mainframe dumb client computing.
https://tifca.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ClienttoCloud_V...
Maybe you know more than me, but I think it's possible that your assumptions aren't right.
Do you remember the Ask toolbar that everyone hated Oracle putting into the Java installer on Windows? I think it was even opt-in rather than opt-out, and it was just in the installer pretty unobtrusively. I heard recently that this earned more money than all of Java licensing at the time, and supported the hundreds of people working full time on Java.
One perfect example is Google Chrome, that used to pay the usual price per new install. That's why Chrome got bundled into the installer of every software and their mother, and got so many users so quickly.
While I agree that this is advertising, note that they're not really preinstalled. Those game icons will download and install the app on first click.
Sadly, so are Linux machines, since the company doesn't support them.
Now please consider getting a copy of my last new world exclusive publication "The book I will never write" for free¹.
¹ First 42 microseconds are free of charge, after what you tacitly renew your subscription into a premium plan, including a varying minute fee whose amount will be changed at our will, and you concede the total complete worldwide eternal exclusive rights on your soul. Download of this page is considered an explicit consent. Any form of pleasure, displeasure, or any other form of emotion risen during the reading of this text might be charged with extra fee.
But given the direction Microsoft is going it's likely my next machine will run Linux. All the software I use is available for Linux too, so I guess the main unconvenience will be that I'll have to pay attention when buying hardware to make sure there are proper Linux drivers for them.
I guess there are plenty of people using Windows for convenience, but if the longer trend is that it will have ads, I'll need a Microsoft account to run it, etc. then many of those people who know their way around computer OSs may switch to Linux instead.
But I recommend using Total Commander instead (personal favorite).
Step 2: Install Linux
Linux on desktop is somewhat bearable with the right distro but on a laptop it's a big no no (terrible battery life etc).
(I'm joking, I have been an happy user of the Linux desktop on laptops for many years)
The prime example I can think of is printers. In Windows, my dad now learned how to reinstall a printer since, in our experience, most computers need to reinstall the printer every single time you want to print because it'll show the printer as offline but find it when it searches for it. In Linux this just works, I add it once and it just talks to its IP address, no problem. My girlfriend (Windows) will ask me (Linux) to print something via USB because it just works. Printer support in Linux has turned around somewhere about 5-10 years ago.
Things like tabs in explorer or multiple workspaces is something we've had for decades but Windows is just getting around to it. Installing software from a "market" or "store"? That has been a thing for decades as well, it's called repositories and the packages are customized to work with other software in your OS version. Works great, but in Windows developers have to repack all the dependencies they need for every piece of software. Not to mention that, after installing 50 programs, you also have 50 updaters pinging and downloading away when you're in the train on a mobile connection. (Nowadays metered connections mitigate that mostly, and people also have larger data plans, but the software all has to individually build support for it.) Everything is third-party and you have to hope that you clicked the real download link and not an ad. The unified software and update management is something I found hard to believe (as a former Windows user) before seeing it in action. How could a niche volunteer project be doing better than this OS that I just paid 130 euros for? (As student, that was a lot of money. I'm still not sure why I didn't just pirate the crap, in the years ahead I paid for enough Windows licenses that came forced down your throat with laptop hardware, not to mention the Microsoft tax on Android devices...)
Windows has been trying to catch up but with every step forwards, you also hear of things like "ads in your OS" which just sounds entirely backwards.
You still don't get ads in WordPad so there's still way to go.
I switched to Linux (specifically Arch because I wanted the challenge). While most programs I use were available on Linux in some form (LibreOffice, VS Code, etc.) and some had replacements (HxD -> wxHexEditor), there’s still things I miss from Windows. As in, even though Wine works great for things like Steam and Exact Audio Copy, some programs just don’t work. In my case, namely iTunes and Adobe (yes I still use iTunes).
You may think, “who needs iTunes, etc.” or “just use FOSS replacements for Adobe,” but the fact of the matter is that people still use these programs for various reasons, and if they don’t work out of the box, the average user gets upset.
If you want an Average Joe to switch to Linux, you need to make sure all his stuff works. I know a few (non tech savvy) people who hate Windows 10, but just deal with it because the alternative (Linux) isn’t as easy to set up.
Adobe tools are specialized and not for the average user, getting upset doesn't help anything, should MS be blamed that designers can't use Sketch on Windows?
Average (read: least common denominator) of users needs MS Office, Skype, Dropbox etc. Some work and some don't on Linux. Hardware compatibility isn't completely solved issue on Windows or on Linux. My relatives couldn't upgrade without issues to Win10, so that machine went into the dumpster after a couple of drilled holes through the hard drive. Such a shame, environmentally speaking because it wasn't slow, RAM could have been upgraded (stationary i5 Haswell CPU and Intel graphics) and could just have bought an SSD. But they couldn't be assed to "upgrade" to Linux even though I offered my help with this, simply just went to the store and got a new Windows 10 machine. It is a commodity after all. Too much precious time can't be "wasted" to learn Linux and Windows is "always the same".
1. Buy LTSC license from sketchy resellers on eBay (I found out it's usually the same Vietnamese guy with 100 of different usernames)
2. Install Windows LTSC
3. Enable Windows Store in LTSC by this repo - https://github.com/11lein/LTSC-Add-MicrosoftStore (it's a fork of some other repo that doesn't work for me that much)
LTSC is available to buy legally too, but it costs around 300$... all the "bulk resellers" are kind of sketchy. But hey it usually works.
0: https://github.com/11lein/LTSC-Add-MicrosoftStore/commit/b5b...
If there is an edition that has Store, but doesn’t have ads, and doesn’t cost 300 usd, I would prefer to use that...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18156955
thanks
* some don't show up on LTSC/LTSB
* your admin might have disabled it for you via group policy
While I can't say that I haven't seen any ads, they have been singular events (I think at least one for O365, OneDrive, and Edge, maybe something else too) instead of any sort of constant stream. Of course it is valid to argue that any ads, however few, are too many, and I don't disagree. But I definitely do not remember seeing any third-party ads in my Windows 10 and I think that is pretty important distinction.
But as someone who has become extremely wary of installing any mobile apps due the infestation of ads there, I feel my desktop to still be pretty decent oasis against ads.
Signed in, pro but off an enterprise sub, not EU but probably counted as EU for this. Actual I do recall seeing an add for office a couple years back
https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script
Microsoft doesn't do discrete OS updates anymore but I definitely feel like it might time to give Linux another go next time I upgrade my hardware. There's less and less software the holds me to MS. This is due to so many programs going to the web - Google Docs suite, dictionaries etc and partially due to better Linux support for software I use such as Unity or games via Wine. What's held me back until now has been poor graphics driver support.
Everyone 20 year ago on slashdot was worried about software and hardware drm, windows 10 is the first version of windows where they are trying to turn the PC into a mobile locked down platform because of the success of walled gardens like steam, world of warcraft, and the appstores like apple/google play.
The level of stupid on hacker news is disturbing, we used to get complete PC games in the 90's and early 2000's before the public fell for mmo scam of the late 90's which put PC gaming on the path of massive game theft.
Valve is basically a criminal game stealing empire by infecting games with client-server code. The whole industry wants to take us to mainframe dumb client computing.
https://tifca.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ClienttoCloud_V...
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3025399/microsoft-wont...
I know Microsoft keeps trying and failing, but I think they will eventually succeed with a separate version of Windows that is clearly a separate "walled garden" product, that is far more secure, far better performance, only supports UWP apps, and is uncoupled from being in the backwards-compatibility hell that the "main" Windows variant is.
Such a product "powered by Microsoft Office" would be an incredibly compelling Chromebook competitor. As to whether or not it will support ARM, support AD, or even be open source, only time will tell. I could definitely see something like Windows X or a rebuilt Windows S (locked into S) being a glimpse into this future.
Stating facts about the fact that everyone is losing control of their PC's because of their stupid consumer behavior is not in any way inflammatory.
Why would you give away your basic rights to own and control your own PC and have it coded honestly unless you were irrational?
There are dire implications for privacy and human rights if you believe in "cloud computing" which I refer to as "stolen software as a service"
SaaS can only exist in a world where the public is irrational, you are building turnkey dictatorship infrastructure, if the world ever goes south because every piece of software can monitor and spy on everything you do and is broadcast to foreign companies and governments, you are naively trusting these foreign entities have your best interests in mind.
I'd say that qualifies the word "stupid" in my post. You've just allowed every big company to spy on you permanently and helped wipe out privacy for the rest by producing perverse market incentives for software that locks down our devices and removes our freedom and privacy.
Marketing it would be an incredibly tiny needle to thread-- promoting the OS can run Microsoft Office while immediately changing the message when they ask about every old no-source-available compiled-for-Windows-98 app.
It feels like the people who can switch easily probably jumped to Chromebooks already.
The latter (designed for dual screen laptops) is coming to single screen devices. https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/4/21246561/microsoft-windows...
It's a game as a service, sure, but that doesn't make it a scam. That's like saying that renting an apartment is a scam because you don't own it. You can question if it's a good financial decision, but that doesn't make it not a fair exchange of money for a product.
Someone who was rational would have demanded the server exe and the ability to own ultima online, you could have had the same "MMO" for a fixed price, no montlhy fee and the server EXE.
Client-server is the same as INCOMPLETE SOFTWARE, why would you buy a game or operating system where the second CD/DVD needs a foreign computer with the "key disc" that disables your software remotely? You don't get that the true purpose of "MMO's" was to move undermine software ownership for every piece of software on the planet, you don't get if you accept client-server for one piece of software, you accept it for ALL SOFTWARE.
Because all software is, is a list of binary numbers, instructions, if you are not given a complete set of instructions to run the entire APP locally you are being conned because it won't stop at RPG's, that is how we ended up with "client server" windows 10, no one should want an operating system, or Microsoft office, where part of the applications files is held hostage on some remote server, it's the same as buying incomplete software, or software with a second DVD missing that they mysteriously kept in their office.
You and the rest of mankind are gullible to an insane degree.
You don't get the agenda, so I'll have to spell it out for you.
Imagine we have a 5 PC lan, and the person in the middle of the network is the programmer and he is making games, mainly PC RPG's, that means if he makes a "client server" rpg and you buy his idea "software as a service" he will do that to EVERY FUTURE PIECE OF SOFTWARE to enrich himself, he is now OWNER of that 5 PC network you dolt, including the operating system, including word processor. EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF SOFTWARE CAN BE MADE CLIENT SERVER IN A NETWORKED WORLD.
That means the death of software ownership and personal privacy on your PC.
AKA it's literally stealing the software, there is NO FINANCIAL INCENTIVE to go back to local applications if you buy ANY client-server software.
For 99% of cases, client server anything, whether that is an operating system, game or word processor is irrational.
Because they can now destroy the software you paid for. No one who was rational would buy software with a self-destruct button on it that could be disabled remotely.
You don't grasp that most of us hardware gamers in the 90's were expecting PC RPG' to continue with dedicated servers, and saw the mmo supporting half of the nerd kingdom as clueless and dumb, you are the reason why STEAM exists, steam can only exist in a world where the average game buyer is irrational and doesn't get the corporate agenda.
Not everyone in the industry is on one side here, and if you want to fight this war efficiently and intelligently, you need to know precisely who your enemies are.
If you buy ANY piece of software in an internet enabled world that you don't own or ontrol, you have just broadcast to the entire corporate world that you are gullible. They will try to client-server EVERY game and EVERY piece of software, what the hell do you think mobile is?
Steam is by definition an irrational piece of corporate malware that shouldn't exist, up until 2004 we were getting complete local applications, or honestly coded PC games. That is why as you go backwards in time before internet penetration reached the computer illiterate, we had level editors, server exe's and dedicated servers embedded inside the main game exe.
Descent 3 came with server executable. MMO's are just RPG's where the server exe isn't given to you. You can see this "MMO" racing game you can play completely "offline" proving that mmo's were a scam. Need for speed world was just a fork of most wanted and rewritten to be client server, AKA a scam. Think of this, you can run Need for speed world entirely from your PC without monthly fee or micro-transactions, then that means that paying a monthly fee for software you don't own is irrational.
https://need-speed-world.en.uptodown.com/windows
Anytime you see a login screen on a piece of game or other software you're seeing stolen software buddy.
You don't get they've already won, the battle was won between 1997 and 2004.
Ultima online and everquest were trial balloons to undermine software ownership on the PC, they are tests of your gullibility to literally steal PC RPG's out from under you.
I know you find this hard to believe, but see the science, I can tell you the facts and you won't reason to the right conclusion, see the science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
Uhh.. Valve release all their game server binaries for anyone to run, and sometimes even the source code (Half-Life, Half-Life 2). If you're going to rag on any games company, it shouldn't be them.
Notice what they did to TF2 and now the are making artifact (totally microtransaction based game).
Notice how all that money from Dota 2 and TF2 were the end game, you don't get that STEAM malware client, was for valve to ultimately to get to in game stores. Valve was very careful in how they manipulated you into not owning your ow games so they could shove in game stores and mtx into them.
For other games like battlefield or modern warfare, and even overwatch... the problem remains that they can shut down the game remotely, aka Overwatch is not coded in an honest way where you own the game outright, you can't use its multiplayer as a stand alone app, aka you're using stolen software that is coded in a criminally screwed up way so that Activision maintains control.
The whole goal for the game industry was in game stores and mtx in every game and to do that they need to undermine game ownership.
Fortnite, Dota 2, and league of legends would have been fully boxed product games with LAN multiplayer/dedicated servers in a past era, aka for most AAA games we no longer get server exe's and get matchamking.
Quake champions is literally a stolen quake game where you don't get to own it, quake fans wanted a quake they owned and controlled like the first 4 quakes, with QeRadiant, dedicated servers, etc.
Quake champions can only exist in a world where companies have won and games are being coded in criminally underhanded ways to deny local application game files.
> Valve did so because they had steam money to rely on, they were boiling the frog slowly.
Citation needed. Valve have been very good to the TF2/Dota 2 communities. Again, you _can_ run the servers for these products. Worst comes to worst, if Valve turns evil, then pirating the software is easy.
There's good points to be had that Overwatch is terrible for not releasing the server, but Valve are not.
You don't grasp the reason quake champions is a server locked game is because of gamers buying client-server coded software.
You're a corporate fanboy. You don't grasp the reason Doom 2016 and no level editor is specifically because of the last 15 years of the war on PC game ownerhsip that began with mmo's in the late 90's.
That all those "MMO/freetoplay" games on steam would have been boxed products with lan/server exe's in a former era, of the public had not taken them up to begin with, valve would have never come up with STEAM. Steam was a direct reaction to ultima online.
Valves long term plan was to remove ownership from his customers, and valve no longer needs to produce games because their long term agenda was making money, they want to be the middleman that skims money from every game sold.
Over the last 10 years and 1000+ of hours of gaming, I've literally never used a single "feature" or had a single positive interaction with steam other than downloading the games (for which a zipped installer would have worked just fine), yet I had many cases where I couldn't play because steam forced update but couldn't download it due to slow connection/really wanted to go online on the plane because offline mode used to be buggy/had the update install and completely break steam/couldn't login/connect to valve servers, etc.
They were fixing these but new stuff always comes up (and is 0% justified), and some stuff is by "design" e.g. "offline" mode still installs steam updates. At this point I have steam completely firewalled out and I turn that off only when I want to get a specific game or a DLC.
Steam is malware (so are Win10 ads, forced updates, etc.)
It does my bidding.
It would of course be nice if the GUI just consistently did what it's supposed to, but oh well...
I was always under the impression that shutdown -h ran more shutdown scripts?
```flatpak permission-set flatpak updates $APPID no```
I remember getting angry when I first had to ask the computer "pretty please, could you shut down," and having that possibly fail, rather than just throwing the power switch.
I remember getting angry when I first had to ask the computer "pretty please, could you eject the disk," with a non-zero chance that no, the computer is busy and you can't have your disk back.
I remember when undelete was an option, and delete was delete.
Now everything is a request. Everything second-guesses the user. Every button and switch is soft button that puts "software with lots of excuses" between you and what you want to command the computer to do. Every software iteration puts the user further and further into the backseat as a passenger rather than where they should be as the driver.
Also recently "shut down" became "hibernate without fully taking the filesystem offline". Because clearly, that's what I meant. Not actually shut down.
So yeah, I don't like design of systemd. But hell, compared to dealing with Windows, it's precious.
I feel like many who level this charge have unfortunately never really looked into its design or compared it realistically to what came before, because I can tell you that if I am comparing the ability to write a systemd service in a declarative way and having it working with the same set of commands across all major distros, I'll take that over having shoddy quality bash scripts that vary across distros just slightly enough to annoy and that rely on a patchwork of PID files that is very easy to mess up, I am taking systemd any day of the week.
I am not saying it's perfect. I am just saying it is generally better than what came before.
The arguments also ignore some of the great things about Linux. One of the things that I marvel at is how easy it is to setup and maintain a Linux system. Things like software typically being installed and updated through a single source is a tremendous time saver. While many device drivers are lacking specialized features, most hardware will work out of the box. There are also fewer concerns about what is happening behind the scenes. Walkthroughs like this one are fairly common in the Windows world: disable advertising, delay updates, block telemetry, improve performance.
None of this is meant to imply Linux is good and Windows is bad. Both platforms have their benefits and drawbacks. Neither is ideal for everyone. It's all about which trade-offs you're willing to accept.
Linux is often installed on shoddy hardware that Windows no longer runs acceptably on and then people complain why it runs shoddily compared to their new Macbook/DELL XPS that they just purchased.
This very topic shows that Windows is a mess too, there's now been multiple updates that deleted user data as well. Why is that not a mess? Or why is so much more attention paid to the Linux mess? macOS allowed users to log in without a password, leaked encrypted HDD secrets, borked curl & SSH, borked user machines with an update, throttled user machines etc. and that's just from the top of my head. And that's bearing in mind that Apple controls almost all the variables.
https://youtu.be/5PmHRSeA2c8?t=474
It is 100% to the point and nothing has changed in 6 years since (and not only on debian), except that the mess is being solved by docker. Which is crazy. And windows is heading into same direction (when I have seen the manifests the first thing I have said was... omg... .dll.1.4.3)
Just additional info, to help you get into my mindset - system level developer for linux AND windows for 25 years.
(anyway, I have thrown tomatoes into directions of two largest fanboy camps, guess what will happen? =/ )
If you are an expert, there has never been a better time to move to Linux. If you are a novice, there still hasn't been a better time, but its also still not for everyone.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=dota2-ma...
at present there are about 6500 working games in Linux that take advantage of advanced 3d graphics. These include the latest Doom, Fallout 76, and Borderlands 3. Im currently running a Radeon RX 470 and playing everything from Aragami to P.A.M.E.L.A. and Wolfenstein New Colossus at 60fps or higher.
You can still use X though, speaking from experience Nvidia drivers don't work at all on Wayland.
Furthermore this is a great resource which will certainly be useful to OP
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2019/03/15/linux...
The situation is like this: https://preview.redd.it/79011affulj11.png?width=800&format=p...
nVidia: I've been gaming on nVidia proprietary drivers without any issues. Though most demanding games were CS:GO and The Talos Principle.
AMD: At work I'm on workstation with some 2 years old Radeon and AMDGPU drivers (mainline). No issues so far.
Intel: I'm using it on my laptop. No issues so far.
What poor graphics drivers do you have in mind?
IMO Intel is generally very well supported with the open-source kernel driver and amdgpu is getting there. This feels like a trope that always gets repeated but never updated, kind of like "you need CLI to use Linux".
> the whole Wayland thing is in a weird spot right now too
The whole Wayland thing is already much smoother for many than X11 ever was and it actually takes security seriously. I am running GNOME on Wayland full time since 2018 and by this point there's nothing I miss from X11, any specifics?
There are plenty of applications that still depend on Xwayland, and the nvidia proprietary can't accelerate these. There are some other weird stability issues related to the nvidia driver as of mid last year at least. Wayland is missing a bunch of features from X, which bothers some people. I personally miss network transparency from X. That said, I do run wayland full time, and have for a few years now. I just can't recommend it without reservations.
I can't comment on catalyst, or AMDGPU on current generation AMD gaming graphics cards. What I can say is that you can pretty much blindly assume that whatever gpu you want to buy will work well under Windows.
> IMO Intel is generally very well supported
I would add AMDGPU to that list as well. Still, AMDGPU is new, and Intel doesn't offer a high end graphics card. nVidia proprietary causes problems, such as those it causes for wayland. I am very happy with my AMDGPU compatible WX2100 for linux, but it is certainly not a good gaming GPU.
I understand it may be the only option for high-end gaming, but in that case one probably doesn't have switchable graphics, which causes the most issues, so X/Xwayland is the one compromise one has to make.
This however does not mean that Linux graphics is a mess in general. I have both Intel and amdgpu machines that work out of the box, no problem. And this does not ever gets asked in relation to macOS, because everyone "knows" nvidia just wasn't a thing there in recent years. So perhaps we should assume nvidia just isn't a thing as well, unless you're willing to put up with crap?
So does Linux and Linux on the desktop work for everybody? No. Does it work as good for a high-end gaming machine as Windows? No. Does Windows work as the most productive fronend/backend/systems OS for programming out there? No. Does Linux? Yeah.
So while they both have their strengths and weaknesses, Linux works perfectly well for a lot of use-cases, the graphics driver situation included.
As for Wayland not being network-transparent, the fact that it worked in X in the way it did was in fact a massive hack and a security hole and while sometimes convenient, I personally didn't need GUI over SSH almost ever, apart from playing around, so I'd take a proper security architecture, like Wayland has, over network transparency.
This is also not a feature supported by Windows/macOS, so not really a point against Linux in my book.
The early complaints, like screenshots etc. re Wayland were all resolved some time ago too.
No you don't. You could use Windows.
> So perhaps we should assume nvidia just isn't a thing as well.
Sure, that is what I do. How do you explain that to a novice that is just trying to run linux on their computer for the first time?
Look, I use linux full time for most tasks, both at home and at work. Professionally I am a kernel engineer. I am very pro linux, and pro new linux users. I think that we do linux a disservice by pretending that there aren't issues. The simple fact is that the linux graphics experience is not seamless like it is on other operating systems. We shouldn't pretend that it is just because experts can make it work.
Of course, provided you don't mind the ads, the telemetry, the updates that delete your files [1], this is assuming you're actually interested in Linux.
> How do you explain that to a novice that is just trying to run linux
That perhaps you do look for Linux HW before purchasing and do not install Linux on any old crap?
Look, I could hand somebody a Chromebook and ask them to try how well Windows would run on it. The experience wouldn't be great. Same on a Talos II or some other obviously problematic HW for Windows where Linux fares much better, but it's a pointless game.
Most people don't run into this situation because BestBuy laptops come preinstalled with Windows. If they came with Linux, there'd be a reverse situation.
But with macOS people somehow don't assume they can run it on a random POS HW and indeed know that it's best to get one designed to run macOS.
Why is the standard Linux is evaluated against always different?
Just get a Linux-compatible machine and you're good, that's it. I know as I've done it many times now.
It's not about pretending there aren't issues. But I've realized we're being held back by always trying to snatch this mythical 'new user' with his BestBuy laptop, or someone with a knowingly problematic HW, (unless nVidia cooperates, there's little we could do) and Windows will continue to come preinstalled on the majority of PCs, so a mass exodus isn't happening anytime soon.
What we could do, instead of being this "honest" and just reinforcing the idea that Linux doesn't work, we could be even more frank and just say avoid this vendor, but this and this one is fine.
Reinforcing the idea that Linux is crap because of some shitty corporation that refuses to support it gives too much importance and power to said corporation when they don't deserve it.
1 - https://www.tomsguide.com/news/massive-windows-10-fail-new-u...
They work fine, haven't had a problem with them for years, using nvidia cards. Most distros just ship the proprietary drivers now, and those just work.
There just aren't masses of native games. That said, Steam now has a built in version of wine called "Proton" that's worth checking out.
If Microsoft cannot not stop Windows computers from becoming controlled by a botnet, the logical solution is to create their own. Well, that is what it looks like.
Big tech companies will tell users that they will "protect" them from this, that and the other thing (including protecting users from themselves), but they cannot protect users from the company. Obviously, showing ads demonstrates that the user, what Microsoft knows about her, is now a "product". Nevertheless, it is fair to ask why any user would prefer to control their own computer 100% instead of letting Microsoft control it for them. It is possible that, outside of HN commenters and voters, most Windows users are ambivalent.
I can remember when Windows had no way to access the internet, only local area networks. It was much faster. Why not temporarily bring down the interface to the internet gateway when it is not needed, or just delete the default gateway from the routing table. For example, if one is only using a program that does not need internet access, e.g., a word processor, spreadsheet, dictionary, calculator, etc., there is no need to have a connection to the internet. A script could be used to automate this procedure. This way the user has some control over when Microsoft can install updates, send telemetry data, etc., i.e., when the company can "take control". When the user is done with her offline work or game playing, she can bring up the interface or re-add the default gateway and let Microsoft have control.
> When the user is done with her offline work or game playing, she can bring up the interface or re-add the default gateway and let Microsoft have control.
By that reasoning deleting System32 folder is also an option, and should make your computer 10 times faster /s
Unless something's changed in the year or so since I last tried it, it's basically not possible (there was some hacky solution, but it dismayed me, so I never bothered).
Unfortunately there's no way to get the pictures without the text overlays.
EDIT: In fact it's the first suggestion in the article.
See: https://i.imgur.com/mzXI6Em.png
Thanks!
https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
The only thing I miss is Photoshop. I've tried so many alternatives like gimp, etc but I find graphics editing a big struggle, for example I can't even do simple things like adding a red arrow to a screenshot till date without googling for it first. Also wine it didn't work for me for some reason. But thankfully my graphics requirements are pretty less so I boot up windows for that, other than that I don't miss Windows at all now. Rather it would be very hard to go back now.
I'm not sure what modern photoshop looks like, but the interface is completely familiar to me as a former CS2 user.
While Photopea is online, its completely satisfactory for small editing tasks that I need to do. Only gripe is that saving massive pngs with 100% quality causes the site to freeze
Png or jpg? Pngs shouldn't have a quality % level given it's a lossless format.
If the site is freezing while it's trying to compress the image, you may have better luck saving in a clunky format like bmp and using a local program to compress it later. Hard to tell what issues can arise from trying to do cpu-intensive tasks in a JS browser app.
Adobe Illustrator is no problem. And I can sort of fumble my way through other Adobe products. But Photoshop is another story.
I think this is another great thing about using linux, the super helpful community that jumps on the first chance to help someone out. Thanks.
Windows 10 was the reason for me to switch back from Linux to Windows, due to WSL.
I hate the ads and build in tracking like any other, but in the end this is my work laptop and I need to get the job done. I can't be spending hours fiddling with graphic drivers and GTK issues when a customer is paying for my time.
Unless I add 'Ubuntu' to the search term, troubleshooting on Linux OSes tends to take me to primary sources e.g. internet-hosted manpages and docs.
It's probably just an inevitability of success but it does make the ecosystem more frustrating to use.
For searching online, probably yes. If Linux were used by all the people currently using Windows, there would surely be just as much crap.
But for the OS itself, if the current (open) development models of most distributions would remain open and not become like Canonical's Ubuntu, I don't see that such an OS would ever get ads or become frustrating to use as a law of nature. Volunteers don't do work they don't believe in, few people would work on a change or feature they don't think will be an improvement.
Operating systems in 2020 have evolved into thought systems that enable our lives in the emergent digital economy. Think of it like real-estate in the "real" world. People hate billboards because they're gaudy, yet they relish Times Square. Operating Systems are like the Times Square of the computing world, allowing us to navigate and consume and vote with our dollars. It makes total sense for them to contain advertisements. In fact, I encourage it.
If I buy the software, the screen "real estate" is mine.