What I learned about design decisions, especially in IT, is that there’s a reason why things are designed the way they are. Before proposing an entirely new solution to problems that can be seen due to the current design, I’ve learned to try to understand first. Only tech bros will reinvent trains or build Cybertrucks.
It’s to prevent you from accidentally opening the door.
I installed Bazzite last June. That the local account is just a fact of life made the installation process easier than Windows. KDE (the interface) feels snappier than Windows. Also, the auto-hide Start menu doesn’t get stuck anymore. The Win 11 Start menu won’t hide when you want them to, and hides when you didn’t want it to every single time you accidentally move the mouse cursor to the bottom. I hate that I had to reach for the keyboard every time, while watching videos and such. That drove me nuts. When your wi-fi or bluetooth is not working, Win10 and 11 love to pretend they don’t exist, so you can’t fix them unless you reboot. So many things they can fix, but most of their project teams are probably focused on adding new bullshit or integrating Office/Teams/Copilot into everything, because the OS is no longer the product.
What is not social media? Were the forums from before Friendster, MySpace, Facebook social media too? I don’t know anyone here. Is a mall a house?
I installed Bazzite last month, installed my games on Steam and I just played all my games. Cyberpunk, RDR2, Cities Skylines, Divinity Original Sin 2, no additional setup involved, no turning off the wi-fi just to create a local account. I was ready to reinstall Windows if it got too difficult. I got rid of Mint too. I thought I’d need it as people say it’s easier.
I hate the auto-hide feature of the start menu. It doesn’t work right. I started using Bazzite/KDE, and it’s done correctly there.
They just had to copy the walled garden approach of the competitors, and badly at that. They could have not pursued forcing users to a Microsoft account. They could’ve avoided the telemetry and ads business(/bloat). Google has them beat there anyway. They had the more open alternative to Google and Apple but they’re trying terribly to be second fiddle to them. And now Linux has become a good enough alternative to what Windows should’ve been. They are still the choice for business machines, but they’ve been terrible with consumer devices.
Of course computers can “compute” faster than humans. In that case, safety should not be compared with the average human. We should be expecting a lot better. It can also fail faster, and in unpredictable ways, than a human depending on the condition, which is why you can’t skimp out on sensors.
If I’m building a PC for gaming, I wouldn’t limit myself to $600. Would you? I’ve never not had PCs or laptops since I first had one in the 90s. I’m building again now to go Linux. 7800xt and 2 Tb SSD cost as much as a PS5 Pro in my part of the world. I only started getting into consoles because I can afford it now, and for physical games. I don’t really get why today it’s PC vs. consoles. I was into PCs but never judged consoles as inferior, just different.
I don’t remember in my 2 decades of working my work machine causing me to lose work due to a Windows update. In the last year, it happened to me 3 times. One was due to Crowdstrike. The latest update also recently broke my remote setup. Not completely their fault but still a crappy time. The one other time was due to an update (must’ve been the forced win11 one) killing the wifi and then Windows hiding any options to fix it, a bug from Windows 10.
The same justification we give other scams like crypto: greed. Some of us made money at the expense of more people who lost even more, so it’s okay.
For almost 20 years, I’ve never lost hours of work due to the OS. The Crowdstrike incident was one of three times I was interrupted by the OS in the last 2,3 years. All of the interruptions are from Windows 11, not 10. This week for, for some reason, Windows is slower to respond than usual, when going to different tasks. I’m one formatting away from getting rid of the Windows 11 in my laptop. I was thinking of dual booting Mint there but it’s looking more and more I don’t need Windows. Bazzite has been fantastic.