Tech related news and discussion. Link to anything, it doesn't need to be a news article.
Let's keep the politics and business side of things to a minimum.
No memes
Killed Windows 10?
Seems quite alive on my personal laptop.
i used 11 the other day for the first time in 12 months on my gf's laptop, what the fuck ... I have had Mint on my desktop for 4 years now. Once year I run a legacy Tax program here in Australia that I can't get to work properly in Wine. This is the last year I need to run it thank fcuk.
It's me, I'm holdouts.
My experience with Linux hasn't been good enough for me to move yet. I want to, but I'm really resistant to having to fix a bunch of stuff and use CLI for basically anything.
I have zero desire to distro hop until I find what I like, but when it comes to my PC, I'm lazy.
What?
I moved to Fedora this year and barely had to touch the CLI and I even have Nvidia.
There are distros that do literally everything for you.
The only reason not to switch is software for work, or laziness.
Just FYI, I am another holdout but Linux hasn't been a command line required OS for like 20 years. (Unless you're doing driver installs) You should try KDE. I'm mainly holding it out because several games that I still play with my friends will not run in a non-windows environment.
I have an Ubuntu server I set up recently for streaming and I was surprised at how much it was still necessary to do about 50% of setup and troubleshooting in the terminal. Maybe Ubuntu is the issue instead of other distros.
I find using the terminal better for many things, mostly because you can actually just copy and paste solutions / install links / etc. I recommend getting to know at least the basics.
But just saying, as I get that you can't argue on preferences.
One day I'll remote into another PC to browse the web, and only allow steam protocols on my win10 machine through a firewall to play games. Life will be good.
Inb4 Steam drops support for Windows 10, foiling your plan
Doesn't mean it won't work on it still
At first, yes.
But eventually you'll have the same kind of trouble that we see with Steam on Windows 7 today
There are websites where you can demo distros. You don't have to download or install, and can just check them out from the browser.
To his point, that requires effort and just not interested.
And I use Linux every day for servers - ESXI, NAS, Proxmox, etc - because it's fantastic for those uses.
But a desktop replacement is a much bigger thing to tackle, and I'm not interested in spending time on that. I've done some (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint) and ran into issues just doing what I consider basic things on a test machine.
Windows has its issues, for sure, but all the basic tools are there out of the gate - my 10 year old Logi mouse just works (doesn't on Mint), RDP to/from any machine just works (doesn't on Ubuntu), etc. And I only found out by running those distros as a desktop on hardware.
This is the gap we have getting people to switch. Regular users don't have our interest in getting things to work - to them a PC is the tool for doing the things they want to do, and tinkering with the PC isn't part of that.
Being in IT for most of my career ruined me on troubleshooting and fixing my own stuff. If it just works without needing to fix it then that's all I really want.
I have an Ubuntu server that required a decent amount of tinkering to get going but it's more of an appliance I use for Plex, music, and audiobooks. I just don't have the desire to tinker when I have time to play.
Same deal here. I'm happy running Linux servers, just not as a daily driver.
That's where I'm at as well. I don't want to think when it comes to just playing something. I have a streaming server setup on Ubuntu and that required a lot of tinkering that I just didn't feel like doing on my minimal downtime.
Switch to Linux you actual cowards.
It's not that hard.
Right.
Over and over I hear this from people who've clearly never managed a business environment where you have entrenched processes.
Or processes dependent upon specific software that has no Linux counterpart (CAD).
Even if an org could switch desktops to Linux, there's a massive cost just in the switching, then making sure it all works, then the lost production as employees figure out new ways to do things they've done for years.
Then what happens when you take on a new client or new vendor who only works with "this thing" that only works through windows? Now you have to spend time and money validating whatever solution you develop, instead of just using "the thing" which has already been validated through years of use by that ient/vendor and their clients/vendors.
Or when you're dealing with regulatory processes that have been addressed througjout your industry with a specific set of Windows tools, and those tools have been approved/validated by the regulatory agency or insurance agencies - and now you need to get the same process validated under Linux with Linux tools, hoping the regulators or insurers won't just say "nope, not interested".
BTDT, with alternate Windows tooling, and just got shut down because existing tools were available. "Why would you want to use a different tool when X process/tooling exists?"
It's just not realistic, even for many small orgs.
Switching is an investment in the business, not a cost. If you're already locked into proprietary software and you can't problem solve your way out of it, is it really your business at that point or are you a victim of racketeering? If the business can't adapt, one way or another it will fail eventually in any case. Not switching means you're giving more and more away and getting less and less in return. That also is not sustainable.
If you can still do the job your client is paying you for, they can be negotiated with on the terms of how that job gets done and what tools are used for it. That's what contracts are for.
As far as what people know how to use, they weren't born with CAD knowledge and things got done before CAD was a thing. New tools can be created, adopted or repurposed. Employees can be trained again, even if they grumble about it.
Regulators and insurance is a sticking point for sure, but they will follow if these tools become more ubiquitous or people start calling their representatives. Those businesses will lag behind, but those businesses are not the majority of businesses.
Change is inevitable and doing something the same way as it's always been done eventually becomes a major liability.
FreeCAD for CAD, PrePoMax, openfoam and calculix for FEA.
I wouldn't worry much, AI will free you from your CAD burden soon probably.
I love/use FreeCAD but let's not kid ourselves. It's nowhere near as capable or usable for serious engineering projects as the big name commercial CAD suites. It's starting to get there, but it has a very long way to go.
Blender, on the other hand ...
Sure but I highly disagre with you. I've been an engineer for 45 years. At least 20 of those years we did not have CAD and if FreeCAD had shown up, we would have jumped on it. Would you want to learn how to use an electric pencil eraser?
A true engineer doesn't blame his or her tools. It's people without experience who do.
I'll wait for windows 12 thank you very much. I don't care fire switching every few years I only withstand changing maybe once per decade. Fuck off windows. If you want to be an innovative yearly thing find another industry.
I'm pretty much entirely Linux but I still dual-boot one machine for work and... I literally can't upgrade to Windows 11 because of the TPM requirement. And I'm not upgrading my PC during a massive surge in component prices just to accommodate Microsoft's nonsense.
maybe Windows 13 will be a good one.
Is that the midterm OS that’s surprisingly stable until SP1?
Windows 27
If you want to install Win 10 for whatever reason, you can use this to activate it: https://massgrave.dev/
I use Linux for most desktop things and Win for gaming.
I don’t get “sales” of windows faltering, because I think to this day you can still activate win11 with valid win8 keys.
Oh okay they mean OEM keys but those are tied to new computers so that seems to be wholly encumbered by a different problem which is needs for more compute haven’t gone up since 10 came out?
Windows 11 requirements are a big part of why the hardware costs are skyrocketing.
A laptop with less RAM can still run windows 10, but not 11.
Switched to linux a couple years ago. Been mostly fine. The day to day is a basic-ass plasma kde desktop. I power the machine on. Type my password. Open firefox, steam, etc. It's fine.
One time after updating and foolishly following some "sudo apt stuff" to try to fix something preventing it from updating, it booted without a graphical environment, but reinstalling the nvidia drivers fixed that from the terminal. That was admittedly scary, but people in the discord were helpful.
I'd still rather have that kind of hiccup than support Microsoft.
Holdouts? We moved on. Microsoft has nothing to hold out for.
~~This is likely looking at “live” windows 10 installs compared to a recent peak, not “total windows 10 machines that never made it to 11” because a large number of machines can never make it to 11.~~
Not even that
Windows OEM revenue fell 27% as Windows 10’s upgrade boom faded
I had to switch because my laptop couldn't handle windows 11 and I needed a new one anyway.
Honestly had zero problems with windows 11 but still happy windows and microslop are dying
Hold outs! Fuckers said throw my perfectly working gaming computer in the trash and buy a new one. Get fuck Microsoft!
Switched to Linux, it’s so much better. Only thing windows is good for now is playing those shitty “AAA” games with rootkit anticheat, and frankly with how much market share Linux is picking up in gaming thanks to the steam deck etc, those corpos probably won’t want to hold onto the sinking garbage scowl that is M$ + EAC for much longer.
There has never been a better time to switch to Linux. Just do it!