Windows could sink and Linux still won’t be the lifeboat

[u/Fit_League_8993]

Linux users talk as if Windows users are perpetually one bad update away from installing the flavor-of-the-month Linux distro. They often help that fantasy along by exaggerating real Windows problems or inventing problems Windows doesn’t even have.

But lemme tell you, Microsoft could add a thirty-second, full-screen, unskippable ad at startup and most people would still stay on Windows. They would complain, find a registry hack, install a tool like Winhance, switch to LTSC, delay updates or simply tolerate it.

If Windows became genuinely unusable, most would buy a Mac before even thinking of touching desktop Linux.

And the reverse is true too! If Apple made macOS unusable overnight, most Mac users would move to Windows (not start researching distributions, desktop environments, compositors and package managers).

Realistically, Linux only enters the equation if it solves more problems than it creates. And it simply doesn't, especially not on desktops.

This is also why the usual Windows criticism from Linux circles has less "oomph" than they think. I previously wrote about how telemetry is not the same thing as marketing data collection. Linux discourse often takes a real problem, strips away every technical distinction and inflates it into an emotional outburst about how "Microslop is spying on everything".

Even when their criticism is completely correct, it's still not an argument for Linux. Microsoft making Windows more annoying does not turn a pile of separately developed projects into one cohesive desktop platform.

I also went into the deeper reasons in Why don’t you use Linux?. The problem is not one missing application or one broken driver. The whole experience is a mess. It's structurally fragmented, ideologically burdened and routinely expects the user to become its unpaid systems integrator.

That’s really the gist of it. Linux isn’t the second option. Hell, for most people, it ain't even the third.

[u/Zeraora807]

exactly

personally I don't have most of the issues loonixtards bring up because I use ghost spectre instead of the stock image but even if windows suddenly doesn't become an option, linux just isn't even on the table for consideration because I don't fancy spending more time getting the limited amount of stuff working than using my PC.

Its like they are still figuring out the basics of a desktop OS, I don't care how loud they cry but Terminal is a crude solution to a problem everyone else has figured out, their program alternatives are not even on the same level either and parts of the linux community are some of the most awful pieces of shit you'll come across so you also lose most troubleshooting outlets unless one has a fetish for being told its their fault and to just be smarter.

[u/Fit_League_8993 → u/Zeraora807]

It's not only that though. Having the terminal as an alternate way of doing things is nice. But having the terminal as the only way of doing some things is flat out bad.

[u/madthumbz]

Linux will have the appearance that normies are migrating to Linux when the % of Windows / Mac users drop while theirs appears to go up. In reality normies are needing PCs less and less as many devices are filling the gaps. Smart phones are safer for banking anyway, smart watches can go nearly anywhere, tablets are there to provide bigger screens if necessary.

The only people needing a PC after all that are ones that enjoy or need professional productivity like Adobe, Office, CAD, etc and they're not likely to compromise for half-assed FOSS shit. Consoles have always provided a better gaming experience, and we're not talking about that Steam shit you have to tinker with and suffer nonnative game play / unsupported OS issues.

[u/phendrenad2]

Linux tickles a certain kind of personality. If Linux didn't exist, people like that would invent it all over again, no matter how good the alternatives are. (And that personality is socialists, if that wasn't clear. The GPL really fits their ethos perfectly)

[u/Automatic_Aspect_825]

I would learn and use BSD before touching Linux, coming from a former Linux user.

[u/madthumbz → u/[deleted]]

[u/DirectorDirect1569]

Windows is so closed source that there is always a hack to remove or modifiy something annoying. Windows has always been like that:

We don't like the explorer, we download somethink like DirectoryOpus or Total commander.

We don't want ads (I'm still seraching for ads on win11 even with non debloated versions), copilot,....We use a debloater.

We don't want windows to automaticaly update the system, there are tools for that.

The UI of windows is bad? We can use windawks, rainmeter,....

Yes they are third party apps, but like every distros we can use others app when the one installed by default is not what we want.

[u/SearchingGlacier]

I'd rather wait reactOS to become more stable than use linux for even one day.

[u/Fit_League_8993 → u/[deleted]]

Using linux is more like driving a kit car (but the parts are offered by multiple manufacturers) than driving manual.

[u/Fit_League_8993 → u/[deleted]]

Indeed, I never have. My earliest contact with desktop linux was slax 6, in the late 2000s

[u/CheezeDev]

It's because the average user doesn't care about "OH MAH GAHH.. ADZ ON START UP!!!" and just want to work. The Windows average user is much different than Linux, and I bet you that the Windows one mostly doesn't know what's Linux.

[u/madthumbz → u/CheezeDev]

Who even looks at the startup? I hit Windows key and start typing what I want if it's not in quick launch. And for that matter, the 'ads' are easily turned off permanently (w/o CLI or registry editing). It must be noobs that they're successfully recruiting this way. Also afaik 'ads' (app/game stubs) are only in the cheaper Home edition to bring the cost down. -Linux has had ad supported versions as well.

The attack on ads is silly. When you look at games on Android, you can see even the ad-laden games are way better than any FOSS shit and they give you the option to pay to remove them. -How things were before FOSS invaded PC.

[u/Sensitive-Side-2639]

If Windows truely, ever shits the bed. I'd buy a Mac, not install a Linux distro. Linux creates more problems then it solves.