Installing OS, 10 years ago:
Windows: click a couple of buttons enter username and password
Linux: Terminal hacking, downloading shell scripts from github
Installing OS today:
Linux: click a couple of buttons, enter username and password
Windows: Terminal hacking, downloading shell scripts from github.
Link to video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qKRmYW1D0S0
You don’t download shell scripts from github for windows. You download batch scripts and exes from random file hosting sites, and they don’t even fix your problem.
You’ll be lucky if it’s even hosted on random hosting sites and not some discord channel.
Oh how I hate Discord.
iTs iN tHe PiNnEd cOmMeNtS bRo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_(computing)
tldr: batch is a scripting language, which interacts with the windows shell, so in that way it is a shell script.
sorry for being pedantic, hope this info is interesting for somebody anyway
CMD is a shell, homes.
Talking here about regular x64 OS install not ARM though, have not played with that myself.
Not really, it is usually PowerShell scripts from trusted blogs or in case of local account creation, you run a batch file that is built in installer (oobe\bypassnro) that adds a single registry value. Not sure I would call this hacking. Then again I don’t think Linux 10 years again had problems with account creation as well.
Would be nicer if you could create local account out of the box? Sure. Do some prefer MS account? Also true.
Idk, installing Linux was pretty easy 10 years ago too. Can’t comment about anything earlier than that though.
They are probably like me, thinking that the year 2000 was 10 years ago.
thinking that the year 2000 was 10 years ago.
This is patently absurd, 10 years ago was 1994.
Hi everyone, I’m not even a year old!
Stop, I can feel my bones crumbling to dust!
And I don’t think GitHub existed in 2000. Probably even git.
Yeah, it was SourceForge and SVN.
Around that time I moved from a company that was using perforce to one using cvs.
Git was released in ‘05, GitHub ‘08.
Even 20 years ago Linux was easier to install then Windows.
Last time I recall Linux being tricky was like late 90s.
Giving you, if you were lucky, VESA graphics and maybe a mouse pointer because XFree86 somehow insisted on being told whether you have a PS/2 or USB mouse. 3d acceleration only with nvidia and that required manual installation because nvidia never provided anything but blobs. IIRC ATI drivers were simply non-existent (didn’t have an ATI card back then), that only changed when AMD bought them. Whippensnappers won’t believe it but once upon the time, nvidia was actually the company to go with when running linux. And Epic didn’t hate Linux yet, UT2004 came with linux binaries on the dvd.
I once tried to install Linux around then, not long after ISA cards with Plug n Play became a thing.
Linux: So now to even pretend to get the card to work you have to download and run a tool to generate a config file to feed to another tool so you can then install the driver and get basic functionality from the card (which is all that’s available on Linux). Except the first tool doesn’t generate a working config file - it generates a file containing every possible configuration your hardware supports hypothetically having and requires you to find and uncomment the one you want to actually use. Requiring you to manually configure the card and thus kinda defeating the point of Plug n Play (though I guess that configuration was in software, not by setting jumpers).
Same card in Windows at the time: Install card, boot Windows. Card is automatically identified and given a valid configuration, built in drivers provide basic functionality. Can download software from manufacturer for more advanced functionality.
That soured me on Linux for a long time. Might try it again sometime soon just to see what it’s like if nothing else. ProtonDB doesn’t have the most positive things to say about my Steam collection, and I imagine odds are worse for stuff not available on Steam.
Get yourself an old lenovo laptop t440p/t480. You’re missing out.
There were installers like today even ~20 years ago.
Linux is honestly great, literally the only things holding it back is programs supporting it. I’m painfully tied to a select few windows programs for work and hobbies, Wine tries its best but programs need to start supporting linux before proper adoption can kick off.
Lots more is holding it back, but I’d agree apps is a huge issue.
It’s still has significant issues with being end-user friendly. Needing to use command line for some things that should be a right click, not supporting right click, ambiguities galore when looking at a package repository, odd defaults in packages that one really wouldn’t expect to have to check (e.g. Selecting RDP connection in a Remote app, but it defaults the security to something other than RDP?)
As for apps, there’s problems like Libre Office devs refusing to support tables in the spreadsheet app, saying data management should be done with a database tool. While they’re not wrong, it takes a LOT more effort to setup a DB than to simply click “make table” in excel, which millions of people are familiar with. I create tables every day for run-of-the-mill stuff that simply doesn’t need a database. No one has time for that.
Or you plug in the most prolific wireless mouse on the planet, that’s been around since 2000 (Logitech), and it doesn’t work. Now pick any random piece of hardware and this is the stuff you run into. You go down the rabbit hole of searching for a solution
Or CAD (which falls in your app argument).
Linux is great for many things (things I run, UnRAID, TrueNAS, Proxmox, etc), it’s just not a great general purpose desktop for the average user, yet.
I understand the face value of it, but I really hate the argument of (basically) “Linux isnt going to take off until it just becomes Windows (or emulates it perfectly click for click)”
People always act like Linux is less buttery smooth two click accessible as a style choice, but cranking out a system like that and keeping it up costs money. If Linux dedicated to supporting every dongle on the planet themselves and all this other shiz, they’d have to monetize too.
So much less now needs the terminal. Personally, I don’t get why people don’t mind doing a search to find where windows hid some particular setting 3 submenus deep, but lose their fucking mind over the thought of doing a search to double check which command they need.
Linux doesn’t need to change, people’s priorities need to shift. This obsession with free services and not having to know shit about how shit works is how we got here, and shaking that is the only way out. For example, People will recognize that google is bad but if you point out you can get a domain and basic email hosting for $20/yr or whatever, its always “sucks teeth yeaaaaa but i dont have $20 for something like that and idk how stuff works” conveniently, you dont need to “yeaaaaa, but nooooooo”
Like, I hate cars, but I can’t imagine not knowing how to change a tire or my oil, etc basic stuff, but there are people who call AAA when they get a flat. Its nuts to me.
In my defense as a AAA member, my super compact in-town car doesn’t have a spare tire, not even a doughnut.
Linux wont take off until the friction for new users is low enough that the layman can resolve issues without resorting to techniques outside of their understanding and patience. Even as someone who uses linux, there are a ton of things that should have a GUI / just be a context menu entry. If you can get the same amount of work done with a button click rather than typing out a complicated command line string, you might as well use the GUI, right click menu, etc. and make it easier for the typical person. People these days can barely use tablets, and those already dumb things down to icons you tap. Unfortunately, making it accessible to the lowest common denominator is
what makes things populara major factor in making things popularBut you can do nearly everything with the GUI in Linux for a while now. The level of stuff you would need to use the terminal for is the same level on Windows you would need the command-line for, or (SHUDDER) the registry.
In fact, I would argue that doing things in Linux via the GUI is easier than even on Windows. I’m speaking as a user of KDE Plasma. I personally dislike Gnome.
Last week I installed Windows 11 on a new laptop that came with FreeDOS installed. It was a really dreadful experience, I never thought it was this bad.
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The windows 11 installer couldn’t find any hhd partitions or hard drive, while FreeDOS could. After googling for a while I had to download an Intel Rapid Something driver from the manufacturer’s website and load it up when installing windows 11.
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After installing Windows it required an internet connection to proceed but I assume the wi-fi drivers were not installed. USB tethering didn’t seem to be working either so I had to continue the setup elsewhere, where I had physical access to the router.
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I had to skip a lot of things throughout the installer, which kinda shocked me. Office 365 and even games, before I even booted the actual OS.
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Fully updating Windows took 2 hours. Fresh ISO, gigabit Ethernet connection, nvme HDD. Damn.
Pretty miserable experience and completely impossible to an unexperienced user.
My last windows 11 installation took over 7 hours divided over 3 or 4 days, I dont even remember, I’m trying to forget. It was an absolute horror show and indont get why anyone accepts this. If I want to pay and get fucked I’ll find an escort, but I have Linux AND a wife.
Even after finally booting the OS you still have to remove mcafee and cortana with revo uninstaller.
Actually, after a grueling 7 hours installation journey, i removed those peasky things by tossing an LUKS LVM filesystem over it and using that drive as a secondary drive on my desktop. Fuxk windows
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I tried to help my brother, who is a computer scientist to install windows 11 on his new am5 motherboard build. Am5 was really new and even with our combined knowledge it took all day of fucking with it to find a way to get windows 11 to recognize the m2 ssd. We had to load it with an older driver from the manufactures website and we had to do some kind of shenanigans to get the installer to actually recognize the files. Iirc this was a gigabyte motherboard, a reputable brand.
This was when am5 was newer so it’s kind of understandable I guess, but I also installed arch for troubleshooting purposes that day and it only took 30 minutes 🤷
Usually got problems with Windows not recognizing drives during install only on Gigabyte mobos. Turning off all forms of Fast Boot in BIOS fixed it for me, but it was an older motherboard (one for AMD FX series, IIRC).
I didn’t use a terminal to install Linux 20 years ago…
people here seem to think 20 years ago was the 90s…
2012’s debian (I think it was 6, which was my first one) was pretty straight forward to install even for a newbie
Yeah this is more like what Linux was like to install in the 90s or very early 2000s.
Installers haven’t really changed in the past 10 years
Back in 1997 I was like “Ooh, Debian is mildly easy to install (compared to Slackware). Just need to engage my brain a few times maybe.”
(The first Slackware guide I read in 1996 had an ominous warning about getting the ModeLines right in XFree86 or the monitor will catch fire. This, fortunately, was a little bit of exaggeration. Over/under refresh frequency protection was already a thing.)
Now? “Oh no I fucked up my password shit and can’t login. I’ll need 5 more minutes to completely reinstall this Raspberry Pi image. I should have engaged my brain!”
Shit, we’ve gotten to the point that your average desk jockey can probably install freaking FreeBSD on the first try. If that’s not a good sign I don’t know what is.
Recently I decided I no longer wanted LUKS encryption on my laptop because I don’t travel anymore. So I followed the steps to do an in-place drive decryption. It worked, but I had missed a step to update the bootloader. So I fired up a live distro, chrooted to the installed system and 2 minutes later I had a working system.
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Windows is only for games; macOS and Linux are for work. Once they catch up, it will be bye-bye Windows.
Games have largely caught up. Fifteen years ago, you couldn’t run anything other than shitty FOSS games or the occasional Platinum AppDB rated game like World of Warcraft on Linux, and even for the latter the install instructions were convoluted. With WoW, you had to manually copy the files from each CD, save them locally and then run the installer because otherwise the installer would shit the bed and fail halfway through Discs 2 or 3.
The final hurdle for gaming on Linux is anti-cheat and that’s going to be a mountain to overcome. Only two solutions (to my knowledge) currently have native Linux support and those are Easy Anti Cheat (EAC) and Valve Anti Cheat (VAC.) You’re not gonna get anything requiring Ring 0 access (like Vanguard) running on Linux anytime soon.
You’re not gonna get anything requiring Ring 0 access (like Vanguard) running on Linux anytime soon.
Good. Kernel mode anticheat is fucking malware. Anticheat for a game should never have the same power over the system as a driver, which needs those privileges to communicate with hardware.
been playin games on linux for a long ass time now, with minimal issue.
with almost no issue in the past 3-4 years.
Its caught up.
Pretty much any game short of ones that have invasive kernal DRM run without much issue.
What’s your recommended Linux distro for a Windows gamer to try?
Nobara 39.
Its easy and quick to set up, easy to use, and has a lot of ancillary tools and stuff preinstalled to make getting into the gaming easier.
I’m not gonna say its the second coming of christ, or all sunshine and rainbows, so to be upfront and honest… Dualboot at first, if you can. Its, presumably, your first time using linux, so you will run into more roadblocks to start simply due to lack of knowledge and experience on how to navigate things, but you’ll get your baselines down quick and start getting into the windows-like usability and flow.
This is why I ask around! Haven’t heard that suggestion yet
An extra suggestion is to put the /home mountpoint on a separate volume ( if you’re comfortable doing so). This will make reinstalls easy, should you have need
I play games on Linux
Currently school holidays here and we have multiple machines running Steam on Linux all day playing a good variety of games. None of them are competitive online games that require a rootkit so we are just fortunate I guess that the household prefers co-op lan games, sims etc. I suspect these rootkits are about as effective as anti-doping in sports. Determined cheats still cheat so anyone installing malware to play those sorts of games is probably fooling themselves.
Games is mostly (say 90+95%) there. Windows won’t go bye bye though, MS ensured customers by making government’s and companies sign contracts that will be a bitch to get out of. Expect windows to be around for a long time.
Microsoft has shit developers, but they have great marketing people and lawyers, so many lawyers…
Don’t need to compete when users don’t have a choice.
It breeds complacency.
To be entirely unbiased here, this covers user friendly distros that pretty much blow windows away for “default experience”.
Windows has adware and scareware - more so it has config-cluster-fuckification (I believe this is the academic term for it?). This is where windows lost me - when it started bundling basic config options together to force you to relinquish your privacy. Now it’s “edit the registry or gtfo”…
It took me two hours from the moment I started popping my laptop case open to add a new SSD to first boot on Linux. And figuring out how to disable secure boot on Acer’s fancy ass BIOS was what took most of the time.
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Maybe Linux is 10 years ahead. Let’s give our windows users some insight about their future:
Don’t remove the French language pack with sudo!
If you have a 64 bit computer, you gotta delete system32.
This took me a minute to figure out 😝
I don’t get it.
sudo rm -fr /Add
—no-preserve-rootif you really want to make sure it’s gone! /jI know just enough about Linux to know that’s problematic. I don’t know anything about language packs to know why someone try to remove one this way though. Just seems wrong from the get go.
It’s an old joke:
sudo = admin rights
rm = remove
fr = force recursive (the more popular syntax is
“rf” but for the joke its “fr” which looks like a short form for French)
/ * = C:\
It doesn’t remove the French language pack, it removes the entire harddrive.
Tbf it does remove the french language pack.
And then some more.
Related, I predict Windows on ARM will be a massive failure, again.
Windows is Windows because a critical mass of their market is terrified of being vaguely incompatible with any software they use today. Wine will never give them enough confidence just like ARM emulation of x86 will never give them confidence.
Extra bizarre, from what I’ve seen the Windows devices vendors are treating the ARM variants as a premium model and charging more for them, despite having no real compelling story for the customers. You can either have an x86 offering that’s from all appearances just as overall capable and absolutely able to run your software today, on an ARM offering that is more expensive and maybe a bit less compatible, with maybe better battery life (either sincerely or at least a belief).
Mac is able to force the issue because the hardware and software all wanted to make ARM happen and forced it, but with Windows on ARM, only Qualcomm really cares, Microsoft and all the device vendors would prefer to hedge their bets, which in this case tie goes to the incumbent.
I believe this time Windows on ARM will make an Intel Arc-like launch. It won’t be a failure but it won’t capture a massive audience either. QC will keep developing chips and some Windows users will be able to daily drive ARM.
I think the biggest shift in the last 20 years is troubleshooting in Linux and windows.
20 years ago and I had to troubleshoot issues and Linux. It genuinely required a good bit of computer knowledge to get it done. Sometimes hours of work to figure out how to get a webcam to work Or how to fix grub?
Windows back then used to be so easy. And there was usually something that would do a quick fix.
However, now and I run across a windows issue. It’s a nightmare. I can put hours of work into trying to fix a driver issue or an issue with updates and get nowhere. Then go to reinstall the operating system and have to spend more hours just to get it installed.
Now in Linux, not only do I rarely have issues but also fixing those issues are pretty straightforward. And if I can’t fix it a reinstall takes minutes and I’m back up and running in no time.
However, now and I run across a windows issue. It’s a nightmare. I can put hours of work into trying to fix a driver issue or an issue with updates and get nowhere. Then go to reinstall the operating system and have to spend more hours just to get it installed.
Now in Linux, not only do I rarely have issues but also fixing those issues are pretty straightforward. And if I can’t fix it a reinstall takes minutes and I’m back up and running in no time.
THANK YOU. I’m sick of this rhetoric about Linux being hard and user-unfriendly because of the command-line.
Windows is such a pain to use for a while now. You need a ton of post install scripts and hacks to make it even remotely usable and when something goes wrong good luck figuring out what. The event viewer is usually just a bunch of vague COM errors with an ID. Then when you look up that ID it’s barely more useful than “something went wrong”.
Nowadays I just roll my Linux installation back to before the updates using the BTRFS integration with the package manager. It works great and I’m never at a point where I can’t use my computer because updates broke it. Heck, even if I bork it myself it’s no biggie.
Yeah, same for me with NixOS
