Posted on 04/08/2025 7:22:00 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Except that for some reason developers think a "Start menu" should be one of spaced out icons (looking at MS default especially) and lacking expanding menus which enable quick efficient access to the tools and places you want.
And lacking the ability to right click on an icon shortcut and quickly go to its location. Or send such shortcut to the "Send to" (buried in Windows) to add the list of locations or apps that you may want to send a file to. As well as so do with right click menus (composite).
And when you cannot enable two rows on the "task bar" (as per MS "update" removal, and most Linux distros).
Linux is not Windows! Never has been, never will be.
But it should not be averse to being like Windows if there it would provide a positive improvement. I have no found that Linux distros can now easily enable the customization I want and obtain in Windows, or that "equivalents" are all as good, but thank God for browsers and word pros that equally work on both. And that we can allow disagreement.
What I’m trying to say is that these Windows-like Linux distributions are basically selling you a “package”—one that plays on the anxiety you might feel about stepping outside your comfort zone when exploring something new (and amazing) like Linux...the real beauty, flexibility, power, and freedom of Linux has never been about the packaging. It’s all about what’s under the hood and what you can do with it.
Actually, as I have said before, you need to step outside a comfort zone to enhance Windows and enable it to be far more efficient and aesthetically improved, which I find can be more easily and safely freely done in Windows (even if it means reverting aspects of the W/11 shell to W/10*) which for me would take far more time to enable with Linux than is warranted. A least presently.
Linux isn’t usually built to give you a perfect, polished user experience right out of the box.
Neither is Windows, unless you are content with the defaults.
I hope it’s becoming clear that there is no such thing as “Linux for Windows users.”
But there could be, but which means improving both.
However, while I offer constructive criticism in the interest of making capable and beneficial systems better, as one in need of much improvement myself, I thank God for the tools we have, at little software cost (I only paid $28 for an upgrade to W/8, on the Retail channel, which led to W/11 Pro via free upgrades), which I want to use for what is good in the eyes of God.
My old home built PC runs Mint daily, while an old donates PC rdult boots W/10 with PC Linux OS (KDE plasma) which I found to be the best distro myself, though it has seen little use by me, and I do not employ proprietary codecs TMK.
Thank God for options.
*https://www.quora.com/Why-should-Windows-be-loved-over-Linux/answer
"Win 7 to Vista"
“Any “Windows” people that went FROM Win7 TO Vista has some serious mental issues...”
Yeah, I agree. I was able to stretch out Win 7 through that mess. But when Win 10 came out I used it one time and saw the writing on the wall, this was just going to get worse. So I didn’t even care if I had to learn a whole new language like DOS and go back to a Command prompt environment, or even just quit computing altogether I was done with MS forever. Enter Linux Mint... Full GUI and all. Never looked back... The few little quirks and adjustments have all been absolutely worth it to be rid of that MS ball and chain. You don’t own MS, MS owns you...
"Except run software that is only supported on Windows."
"And there it is... There is always “that one game” no one can live without no matter how bad windows gets."
"with floppy disks. (This sets the era for the story.)"
BTW, no idea where the “80s Hit Songs” bookmark came from. It has been exterminated!
I liked it, back in the day, when the only computer users were the command line interface.
Only experienced people could use them, so very few screw-ups.
When Windows came out, I made a face palm because I knew that the era of errors was coming; Point and click.
Users see, “Are you sure?”, and click “Yes” without even knowing what they were clicking.
Now, they are calling me because they “accidentally” formatted their HD, or some-such. (That was back then)
The thing is, and point I was trying to make, is how folks will put up with enslavement and so much abuse from MS rather than just retire that “one game” and learn to play a new one similar on Linux. It is illogical and irrational to me...
I had a few MS games I liked when I switched to Linux. But the minimal sacrifice was absolutely priceless to be rid of MS for good. Never missed them at all because MS no longer owned me anymore. Small stuff in the bigger picture. Very small sacrifice for such huge benefits...
I was fortunate to dodge the user support role. Instead, I had a network of 80 UNIX machines supporting a user community of 30,000 users that were on in shifts 24x7. I was constantly looking for ways to make processing more efficient to avoid having to pony up $250k for another machine. I found ways to do distributed processing over that set of machines...after getting Ethernet installed on all of them. My HP-UX box could knock out about 5k transactions per second with the 80 boxes underneath. That was 1986.
One of my later co-workers was stuck supporting a county office as Windows support. He got a call almost every morning from the same woman..."It don't print. Make it print". Each morning the same defect repaired the prior morning reappeared. After 3 iterations, he dug into the logs and found a "corporate" maintenance server was overwriting the fixes during the night. Uggh! He tracked that down and the problem was resolved.
Only with OS software. Windows OWNS the non-computer technical world. I am an analytical chemist (PhD). If I run a mass spectrometer, gas chromatograph, liquid chromatograph or any other hard-core analysis instrumentation, the software for those instruments runs on Windows, and only on Windows (and quite possibly on only a specific windows version).
Would that it were not so...
Of course there is the specialty stuff. But even at that Linux is now taking over all that specialty stuff. Robotics, Automation, Smart Devices, things that require or operate on firmware, etc. I bet that if you dug deep enough Linux software just might be available to replace a lot of that specialty stuff. Because that is actually where Linux is exploding in the market. Scientific and medical devices... It is lightweight and extremely reliable.
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=linux%20for%20mass%20spectrometer%3F
I hope it happens...
Fortunately, I am retired and no longer need to fight it. The wife (also PhD Chem) is still working and requires Windows for her job (and for whom I am “tech support”...which is the sole reason I run Windows). Once she retires, Windows is gone!
Yep, I get it... :)
I know it is probably too late in the game for your wife now at this point but check that link, they are already doing it. That top one is a “live” version where you just plug in an external storage device with the software and it takes over and runs the whole shebang over the top of whatever OS the device uses. So Linux to run those devices is already here. :)
But why wait for your personal stuff? MS is going to make sure there are a whole bunch of very cheap good used laptops out there very soon because they are going to force everyone to buy newer computers to even run MS. Perfect timing and opportunity to set up a separate Linux box... :)
A geek who can’t imagine priorities and choices beyond those of a geek.
I already have Linux Mint running on a Dell laptop that I occasionally fiddle with. Got lazy in retirement....
The hardest part of getting that machine up was finding a wifi dongle driver that both the Dell and Linux recognized.
But that is done.
Oh good! Well that is a start! :)
And I don’t care what anyone tells you, stick with the Mint. I have tried every most popular Distro out there and have settled on Mint as the best. :)
The solution to this is for MS (or M$ as my old Java open source buddies liked to say) to commercialize desktop Linux. This seems unlikely but not impossible given some of their other changes over the last few years. I don’t mean WSL. I mean a Linux without Windows. Or, a combined monster that makes it easier to use WSL with a UI right out of Windows. Wouldn’t need much memory, would it haha.
MS, or someone, if another company rises to challenge MS in the part of the market desktop Windows dominates. Which I don’t see. I spit in Apple’s general direction.
One problem is that there’s little demand. It would be a subscription-free release, but then the poor dumb users have to support it themselves.
I would like to see better integration for WSL and every possible usage of the command line and running services on the machine. I need to try the Warp terminal soon.
+1
And one reason some people do not switch is because their network of support contacts only know MS Windows - not Linux.
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