The recent pop-up ads, automatically downloading of Windows 10 by Microsoft and bricking devices by Microsoft's friends seems like a good indication of the tipping point for many people. Stallman was right, then?
About 10 years ago I made the jump from Windows to GNU+Linux. It was quite annoying because at the time I was still heavily invested in web design and such, so not having photoshop was quite a loss. Nowadays I am so glad to have an OS that works for me and not artificially limits me to what it thinks I should do. As extreme as Stallman was, I came to appreciate him more and more for what he has done to protect users' freedom and privacy.
It's not just Microsoft making a mess out of Windows. Third-party vendors are conspiring to ruin the PC platform. As often comes up in these discussions, I only use my PC for gaming. I've upgraded to 10, and downgraded back to 7 again, twice, just to make sure it really was that bad. (I downgraded both of my boys' PC's as well, just recently, because of strange problems they were always having.)
Last time I updated my nVidia video drivers, I found I had to create an account with nVidia to get into the configuration options of the driver on my machine. So, let me get this straight: I need to create an account... and log in... just to set the graphics options... on my own computer? Screw that! I downgraded to a driver that was over a year old, just to get away from all of nVidia's "improvements," like this "ShadowPlay" which was causing performance problems on my machine.
The driver for my execrable Razer Chroma keyboard was like this as well, but the build quality of that thing was so bad, I threw it out, and uninstalled the driver.
Microsoft has shifted into a whole new gear with Windows 10, and made it clear, despite user feedback, that they intend to stay the course, and continue the data collection, and advertising, and everything else that gets discussed on HN. I think this has sent a clear signal to the aftermarket vendors that they're free to do the same things, and we'll see more and more of it.
It looks like there are about 3 years of patches left for Windows 7. After that, there's Linux, Mac, Playstation, iDevices, and, now, the Switch for gaming. (Sadly, my boys already have an Xbox and an Xbox One.) There are plenty of other options to waste my time. I won't be upgrading to 10, and, thus, after 25 years building serious gaming rigs, I'm done buying any more PC kit. I just can't take all the hassle involved any more.
> Last time I updated my nVidia video drivers, I found I had to create an account with nVidia to get into the configuration options of the driver on my machine.
I see a lot of people with this confusion between the NVIDIA Control Panel and GeForce Experience.
You do not need to create an account of any kind to use the NVIDIA Driver Control Panel. You never did and hopefully you never will.
GeForce Experience on the other hand you do need an account now, but it's also completely unnecessary (and buggy) software. You don't need it at all unless for some reason you want Shadowplay (recording) or can't be bothered to set game graphics settings yourself and want GFE to 'optimise' the experience for you.
GFE is garbage. I have a GTX10x0 (I forget exactly which one but one of the faster ones) and it insists that the 'optimum' settings for games are wayyyyyyy lower than what I use.
Like medium settings or something. I switch it to ultra and 4k and they work AOK.
Now nVidia installs some tracking phone home shit, regardless of using advanced setting during setup and removing all unwanted "features". I had to remove to EXE files that were running, I found out about them with a Firewall and ProcessExplorer.
Yes. Even removing it with Autoruns brought it back, so I tracked down all nVidia EXE and services and removed the files physically and just kept the graphics driver, the HD audio and the physics driver. Now I have to do that everytime I update the driver, which I do of course when I want and by manually downloading from nvidia.com.
Though I hope AMD gets more competitive, and I would really like to go with them next time.
>>Microsoft has shifted into a whole new gear with Windows 10, and made it clear, despite user feedback, that they intend to stay the course, and continue the data collection, and advertising, and everything else that gets discussed on HN
Well if you would just Subscribe to o356, put all your documents in OneDrive, and buy every app in the windows store they would not have to show you ads ;) /s
Microsoft's willingness to actively disrupt its users (whether it's through forced updates or artifical limitations) is indeed a tipping point for me. I always chose Windows for its convenience, and the fact that I could use it on my own terms. Clearly, this is no longer the case.
As for Stallman, there's a fine line between a madman and a genius. Reality has shown us that he definitely is not a madman.
Some people could see his point by thinking about it. To them he was a genius. Others thought he was a madman because his point was too hypothetical for them, but now that it's becoming a reality they can see he was a genius all along.
You may say that it's because they couldn't see the future, but RMS experienced it back in the 1970's at MIT. Things have not actually changed, they've just started to influence a wider swath of the population.
Ah, yes, how absolutely shocking that Microsoft should choose not to support a processor that didn't even exist at the time that version of Windows was released. Why, everyone knows, especially on HN, that updating and retesting software costs nothing at all and so that's why we all eagerly go back and retrofit all versions of software we've ever released, no matter how old, to support the latest hardware just as soon as it's released. This outrageous behavior is right up there with Ford not retrofitting anti-lock brakes on the Model T and VHS VCRs not providing a HDMI output. /s
(I'm sorry for the early morning jocularity but I just can't take this topic seriously.)
Upvoted because it's true: Microsoft has no obligation to support old software, any more than it has an obligation to respect its users. I mean, it would be nice if they did, but clearly they aren't in it to do good for the world.
But this stuff is built of a platform that allows standardized parts to work without a lot of extra support. This has always been the users' expectation, one that Microsoft has managed well -- you can use new hardware on your existing Windows, but driver support might be minimal.
This new tactic is a complete change of pace. We are seeing businesspeople make technical decisions.... hurl
For the Photoshop part, check out Krita (https://krita.org/en/). Although it isn't exactly like Photoshop, a non-power user wouldn't notice the difference between the two. And Krita is really the only program I've come across on Linux that actually has a really nice UI.
I still can't move over to Linux fully, even though I want to, it's just not there for me yet. Gaming being the biggest issue, but also general user experience is mediocre at best, even on a vanilla Ubuntu installation. Kubuntu is definitely better thanks to KDE, but still problematic. I still haven't tested out Elementary OS, but most my problems stems from driver issues (especially WiFi, printers and trackpads), which I believe would be the same since it's a kernel issue.
Depending on what you are using it for, I generally would not recommend Krita as a photoshop replacement.
Here is my mini replacement list:
Use Case | windows | Linux
digital art | Corel Paint | Krita
image editing | photoshop | GIMP
simple image editing | paint.net | pinta
vector image editing | illustrator | inkscape
photo editing | lightroom | darktable
I'm not a power user, but I want my tablet to work (DisplayLink on Linux is dodgy, though I did eventually get it to work--not Krita's fault but Linux in general remains a mess with hardware at times) and I want to be able to combine filter effects and behaviors with painting--and Krita has trouble with that. It is a good-not-great program (I even gave them money for it!) but it's not a Photoshop alternative unless the subset you need is pretty restricted.
(The mess that is Krita/GIMP interop makes it a non-starter, IMO.)
Buy a PS4, use Wine in Linux or keep Windows 7 around. There is no single game that doesn't run on Win7, except FH3 with its WinStore shit - anyway it seems so arcady to me I wouldn't want to touch it.
One does not simply tell a PC gamer to buy a console... There's a reason I'm playing games on PC and has invested a lot of money into a fat gaming rig.
I am a PC gamer as well. But Microsoft agenda with Win8/10 is so off-putting I will stay on Win7. Plus I opened myself to other consoles (Nintendo, Sony). I know it feels so wrong to play a shooter on condole with a gamepad, and I wish they would just support a mouse.
> automatically downloading of Windows 10 by Microsoft and bricking devices
Downvote for falsely claiming PCs can be bricked[1], even more so by simply using Window-update, which at worst might require a reinstall if the install is botched.
[1] The definition of a brick is that something is now completely non-functional, beyond repair and thus "as useful as a brick". Something which can be recovered is by definition never a brick.
I didn't say it bricked the PC -- but they literally did brick shit that gets plugged in to the PC. It's a binary blob that comes with windows update and it breaks your hardware, intentionally.
It is a brick, because (1) It was working before, it doesn't work now, (2) The hardware is fucked, you plug into another computer, it still won't work (3) You can't expect anyone except for the experts to be able to fix it.
Sure, off the top of my head Nvidia drivers contain a binary blob you don't get to see. Does it brick fake hardware? No but this is a very special case.
Is it out of the realm of possibility that a vendor could ship a kernel module with a proprietary binary that could damage your hardware? Absolutely.
Why would people accept these proprietary closed blobs over the open alternative drivers? Because the open drivers suck. Can you fix that? Not in the near term.
So how is this not a problem for Linux? It's a problem there too.
If you use Nvidia, then the open driver sucks. It is like GIMP sucks, and that's a very real problem. But the open drivers don't brick my hardware, GIMP doesn't go and send my shit to the cloud without me knowing it, and won't refuse to let me edit whatever I want (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation).
This is a trade-off I am willing to make - that is all, nd I have mentioned it from the beginning.
You are technically correct, but it's not the best kind of correct despite the meme. For any average user, it's a brick, which is what matters : they can't use it, lost all data, don't understand why, and will have to use SAV to have a working computer again.
You are splitting hairs. My dad's PC was as useful as a brick to him after it downloaded Windows 7 and then wouldn't boot. If you think 'reinstall' is an acceptable or realistic solution for average users, you are badly mistaken.
You act as if this is something unique to Microsoft.
Ubuntu distro upgrades were so bad (don't know if they still are) that you were better off reformatting and reinstalling. If the upgrade didn't flat out brick the device, it was almost certain to screw up drivers and setting beyond repair of even more power users.
Apple had it's fair share of El Capitan and Sierra upgrade brickings and those require you to take your Mac to a Store.
The only difference is that Windows is 90% of the market so problems from them generate way more noise than any other OS.
I do ubuntu dist-upgrade since 2009. I have done 2 full reinstall. Once to try linux-mint. And another one a little latter when I bought a new ssd drive (switched to ubuntu gnome).
The main upgrade issue was with systemd in 16.04: it found a dependency loop between net access and my nas drive and decided to cancel net access.
I ran Ubuntu on a netbook and a laptop from ~2007-2012. Wireless support was beyond awful and distro upgrades would break it beyond repair. There were also numerous bugs with Audio and their transition in desktop environments failed horribly.
Linuxmint based on Ubuntu has been my go to since 2013. Everything I want just works.
I use debian on my servers with the occasional rhel/centos for those folks who want or need that.
Windows never touches bare metal around me anymore. That has been the cause of so much pain and lost time ... Virtualize it, put specific snapshots on the vm, and I've got a working Windows in a window.
2012 was a very different time. Stuff sucked so much back then, especially wireless. It doesn't help, also, that most people don't buy hardware for Linux but expect it to run on a random machine that they spared. Buy good hardware (Thinkpads, Chromebooks), do research, never worry about stuff not working.
If we're talking anecdotes, then I should mention that I've had very little problem with many Ubuntu installs and Mac installs. Certainly no 'brickings'.
But you're missing the point. My Dad did not ask to install Windows 10 (n.b. I put the wrong version in my first post), Microsoft did that for him. Other OS upgrades may not be perfect, but at least they give users the choice.
Well there are PC bricks, just not software bricks. I'd argue pouring coffee on your motherboard can brick it pretty easily. I think once the term became more widespread on mobile people used it for everything.
There was also that arch Linux debacle, where users with a certain motherboard mounted the uefi partition with write permission. Some motherboards were bricked that way.
Not exactly bricking, but a habit that Windows 10 developed is to force install drivers, even if they don't work.
I.e. it will install something, it won't work, do a rollback. Then, a day or two later, it will do it again, with the same package that didn't work last time. And again. And again.
Of course, meanwhile, your computer is unusable while it does the install/rollback dance and as a bonus, it does unnecessary wear and tear to your SSD.
My friend returned his Surface Pro 4 a few days after he got it when a mandatory Windows update bricked it, as in it turned off instead of restarting, and wouldn't turn back on.
I had a similar problem with a Surface, but some persistent going through the reboot options (of which there are about six, in increasing order of nuke-it-from-orbit-it's-the-only-way-to-be-sure) fixed it eventually.
There were no reboot options. The damn thing wouldn't turn on. My friend now has an XPS13 (which he had for just over a year before an issue with the fan prompted him to return it to the retailer for repair; amusingly the retailer screwed that up and offered him a new one as a replacement).
I had a dual boot since years, but I really switched to ubuntu only in 2009 (thanks to vista64 not supporting my scanner and printer). It is the main home computer that is also used by my wife. In order to make the switch as smooth as possible, we were already using openoffice and chrome on windows years before. On ubuntu, I have checked that photoshop was working correctly with wine. Sometimes, after an update, I had to configure the desktop to not highjack the alt key. This is the single issue I had with photoshop on linux (I am using an old release of photoshop).
I still did not achieve to migrate to gimp (steep learning curve).
About 10 years ago I made the jump from Windows to GNU+Linux. It was quite annoying because at the time I was still heavily invested in web design and such, so not having photoshop was quite a loss. Nowadays I am so glad to have an OS that works for me and not artificially limits me to what it thinks I should do. As extreme as Stallman was, I came to appreciate him more and more for what he has done to protect users' freedom and privacy.