Well this news helped motivate me to overwrite my Windows 10 install with Linux Mint as of yesterday. So far so good.
this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Privacy
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I switched to Linux Mint a few months ago on my main PC. I do not regret it. In fact, when I need to use one of my windows PCs for something, I am instantly reminded why I switched. If you are new to Linux, there will be some bumps here and there, but it can all be overcome with some help from LLMs. I hope more people make the switch. As a windows user since 3.11, I don't want to go back to windows now.
This is what forced me onto Linux for the first time, and permanently.
It's partly great, mostly fine, and 10% of the time god damn fucking annoying. Mostly having to learn the fucking game of thrones factions of installing things.
But I don't feel like there's a piece of shit company in my computer trying to completely ruin it, so it's a win. The positives outweigh the negatives, even as someone who wasn't really into the idea of switching.
But even if it was half as good, it would still be an improvement, given Microsoft destroying itself.
@jaggedrobotpubes @zdhzm2pgp have you considered Mint. It's almost as user friendly as Windows.
The only thing I haven't been able to work out is SMB sharing which I need for my server that currently runs Windows and for my Jellyfin server.
I don't remember what I did to get smb sharing working in Linux mint, but I do remember asking chatgpt how to do it and it definitely works for me now. Anytime I get stuck I ask chatgpt or Gemini how to do what I'm trying to do and its made my switch to mint extremely successful.
Unfortunately most users don't care about privacy, they only move then (subscriptions) prices rises
I'm reading this on a Microsoft Surface that I flashed with Linux Mint. Quite satisfying!
Message to Microsoft:🖕
How's that working for you? I've got a surface, and I like it, but I know that Windows is not exactly an efficient piece of software.
Listen, telling other members of a privacy community on lemmy to "just switch to Linux bro" is an enormous waste of time. What this problem needs is outreach beyond tech communities. Ever see those basic ass shorts on Facebook or whatever for "top 7 tips and tricks for becoming an Excel master"? That's the stupid shit this problem needs. Some broccoli haired tiktoker needs to get in front of people and show them that Linux is not scary. That people have a third option aside from Windows and Mac.
Then, when increasing groups of confused people filter into these threads asking how to uninstall an app, we need to be fucking nice and not admonish them for being new. Lead them through the DE, not CLI. Seriously, want to break 5-6% of OS marketshare? Hold people's hand through it.
After that, then maybe...just maybe, the likes of Autodesk and Adobe will perk up and start supporting Linux.
Yeah,there is one dude in the Linux group here that is just a complete jackass. Half answers your question, and most of it is just telling you a line of code with no other input and basically treating you like an ass hole for even asking. I don't remember his name, I have him blocked, but absolutely hated seeing Linux posts with this fucking turd each time. Very demeaning and completely ruins the community. I feel like his personality is just trash and he's always in a "roll your eyes / deep sigh" mood.
You've described like...half the IT guys I've worked with over the years. You've got them on one side, and the super awesome, slap you on the back fun IT guy. Nothing in between.
There's one (at least) of them in every special interest group.
Personally I'm tired of people telling disgruntled Windows users to switch to Linux.
Linux is not your backup plan, it's not a "Windows alternative". Yes, there are projects out there that try to make Linux easier for Windows users, and honestly they can fuck right off. Way too many people are trying to dumb down this incredibly powerful operating system to expand the market into the "gamers" and the "grannies who want to browse the web and send e-mail".
Just... just stop.
Why do some say "its not a windows alternative"? As someone who replaced windows with it, that doesn't make sense to me. I can do almost everything in Linux that I did in windows, and it keeps getting better. There's no negatives to be had from making it more user friendly and approachable to those who want to ditch windows. You can keep using Arch or whatever distro youre using.. You dont have to use one that makes things easier for non linux users. Im happy with the variety of projects. As someone whos learned a lot about linux after switching, this just sounds like gatekeeping to me.
I thought the whole point of Linux was that there was one for everyone? A computer itself is an incredible potent tool, but most people just want to use Facebook and YouTube.
A. Fuck Adobe
B. I tend to direct people to Linux Mint. It's so user friendly and similar to Windows its perfect for the Windows Refugees to start out with. It's what I installed two months ago after having used Windows since Windows 95.
I want to dump Adobe very badly but it’s still the industry standard for creative firms everywhere
- Illustrator
- InDesign
- Photoshop
- AutoCAD
- Revit
- Civil3D
- ReCap Pro
- Outlook
- Bluebeam Revu
- Large Format printer support drivers
- AMD drivers
- Steam VR
I can run outlook and MS 365 in a browser so it's really the other stuff I need functional to be able to switch.--
You are using all of these yourself? What kind of crazy job is that?
I use mint and only had one game so far with a problem. The game was 20 years old and couldn't scale to an ultrawide monitor.
So far most things just work. Except the locked streaming services that force anti-Linux. For that I just sail the high seas.
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Former Win10 user here, also a former MS employee, now on Mint. I never even heard of Recall but holy crap on a cracker, Microsoft - seriously? SERIOUSLY?
You guys have absolutely lost your fucking minds. My advice is to make Microsoft great again by quitting and forming a bunch of startups, where you can work on innovations that are actually good and useful. For the sake of your own sanity.
Let me also tell you a story about them dumping windows mixed reality...
Please do! Are we talking about Microsoft Bob or what?
While I was there they were working on integrating presence detection. I saw some demos where lights would go on and off when you walked from room to room, and music you were listening to would follow you. If you were using a computer your desktop environment would migrate to a computer in the new room. Never saw that hit the market in any way I was aware of.
Lots of stuff MS Research did never saw the light of day. One time when my kids were playing Toontown I found a bug that let a player slip behind the graphics. You could see that the clerk at the store was just a legless torso floating in the air, and you could even go behind the walls and fly backwards into empty space until the whole world shrank to a dot. This same bug was present in a MS project called V-Worlds I had worked on a couple years earlier, so I always wondered if they had made a deal with Disney to use the code or if it was just a common graphics bug.
I firmly believe this will go the way of Cortana once the AI bubble bursts. What I'm more concerned about is the normalization of terrible security and privacy practices.
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I wouldn't be surprised if they get a class action suit over security/data violations.
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