Comment by BizarroLand
1 day ago
They hit peak with Windows 7 and will never have an operating system that good again.
Some flavors of Linux are approaching the Windows 7 peak as well as far as ease of use for newbies, software "just working", and for familiarity for users of other OS's.
Their days as the default OS for most people are numbered unless they pull an incredible heel turn.
On a whim I gave my 14 year old an old System76 laptop with ElementaryOS on it then sent her back to her Mom's house on the other end of the world. Then she switched schools and ended up requiring a laptop instead of an iPad to do her work. I about crapped my pants but she's been using that laptop almost problem-free for two months now (two glitches with Firefox that she got around). She even figured out how to install Sober so she can play Roblox. While that probably says as much about my parenting as Linux's progress I have to say, I'm pretty impressed.
Have you tried Windows 11? The WSL2 integration works really well. And the work that is being done in regards to safe vms so games can move away from kernel anticheat is also exciting.
As was the case with Windows 7, I'll move off of Windows 10 when they pry it from my cold, dead hands (or some new hardware is no longer compatible). Each "upgrade" from Microsoft is a regression.
As someone that was really into WinRT, pity that the whole UWP stack went bust, it was so mismanaged that outside Windows team themselves no one else cares any longer.
I have to use Win 11 for work. It's terrible.
I have to run several windows debloat tools and powershell scripts to both remove AI and spyware, apps that I do not want or need, and to also force windows 11 to not reinstall the apps and spyware that I have removed.
It's fine as long as you don't mind Microsoft recording everything you do, every game you play, every keystroke you make, all for the purpose of selling to other businesses so they can invade your life and sell things to you, and for them shoving their terrible microsoft software and their microsoft preferred way of doing things, not taking no for an answer, and even when you forcibly pry their invasive shitty fingers out of your hardware they just force them right back in on an update or a random reboot.
Fuck Windows 11. 10 was pretty shit, too but at least once you ran scripts to remove the microsoft bs from it it stayed out.
They still need to land on consumer PC shops for regular users to take notice, until the trend of online only, and zero OEM support, rather reverse engineering even when there are systems out there like Dell XPS, Windows and macOS will keep being what most regular users buy.
Either that or a mix of tablets with detachable keyboards or Chromebooks, none of them GNU/Linux powered.