• frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Wouldn’t moving Windows into the cloud basically make computers non-functional without internet? Because I can see a few problems with that, particularly for those in rural areas or who are travelling a lot.

    I’ve hesitated to switch over to Linux in recent years, primarily due to concerns about compatibility with software and games, but I’d rather have to find new art software than pay a subscription for an operating system that I can’t even use offline.

    • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Omg are you in for a treat!

      Steams work with proton, steam OS, and the steam deck means after switching my gaming pc to Linux last year, the only games out of the hundreds I have that don’t work are the ones whose launchers refuse to run on Linux.

      Even Denuvo games work with a little effort

      Highly recommend you give Linux another shot 😁

      • TheFriendlyArtificer@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Gotta mention Pop_OS! as a fantastic beginner distro. My 72 year old mother refuses to use anything else. It’s simple, has automated backups and disaster recovery, and installs non-free drivers for graphics cards.

        I don’t personally use it since it doesn’t yet support Wayland and my gaming rig has a HiDPI screen and X11 doesn’t support fractional scaling. Or per screen scaling.

        I’m legally obligated to inform you that I run Arch.

      • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        I’d need to check into whether Linux is also viable with the software I use: I’m starting a game design degree in September, so there’s a wide variety of software, including the Adobe suite, that I’ll be tied to for at least the next three years.

        • sfera@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          It’s also worth to mention that there are options like Blender/Krita/Godot wich are quite good and don’t require tooling like Wine.

          But those might not be a viable option if your courses are specific to Adobe products.

          But really, check those out anyways, it’s worth it.

          • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            My plan at the moment, I think, is to wait until I have a full list of which softwares I’ll be using (which I won’t get until the course begins - the college pays for it all), and then make a decision. Based on the partial list I have, about half are compatible with Linux. I do also have the option of having Linux on my desktop and Windows on my laptop.

            I’m definitely going to do some more research. The last time I looked into it, Linux wasn’t compatible with the vast majority of the software I used and games I played, and there weren’t many suitable alternatives. That situation has definitely changed by the looks of it, so I just need to research some more specific things.

            • Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              For anything that you really can’t get on Linux:

              People have probably told you that Wine is the way to use it anyways, but maybe no one’s mentioned Bottles which makes using Wine dead easy. Most of the time you can sort of just open up Bottles, run the installer for the software through there, make sure Bottles knows where the .exe is for the actual program is and you’re good to go.

              • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                Brilliant recommendation, thank you! I was looking at Wine and feeling a bit intimidated by it. Bottles looks more straightforward.

            • sfera@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              That’s a good strategy and it makes sense. Don’t forget that you don’t have to decide for one alternative or the other. You could always have multiple options available and use them as suitable.

              Just out of curiosity: when was the last time you looked into Linux?

              • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                Oh, it was a good while ago. I thought it was 3 years, but it was definitely pre-Covid, so it’s probably more like 4 or 5 or more. I was annoyed with Windows (not that I can recall now exactly what it specifically did that irked me, but I do remember yelling at it so it was probably bad), so looked into alternatives, and the biggest thing that stopped me was the MMO I was playing a lot at the time was not compatible and nobody had found a way of convincing the two to work together. That has definitely changed since then.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          1 year ago

          Most software works with wine anymore, including the adobe suite. Be warned there is probably going to be some tinkering to get it working perfectly, but nothing a bit of searching can’t solve.

        • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Ngl, getting those tools working on Linux is going to be as marketable as working with them in the first place

          Get hacking!

          • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Ha! Yeah, I can definitely see that being an incredibly marketable skill, but I would not even know where to start!

        • millie@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I feel like it’s worth keeping in mind that you’ll likely be able to continue using some iteration of locally stored Windows for quite a while. The point at which Windows 10 becomes unusable is likely well past the point at which it makes sense for most people to use Windows 11 or whatever comes next.

          I’ve definitely straight up skipped Windows releases before and kept moving along just fine. Of course that depends on what you’re working on and how much control you have over your own PC in the context of whatever class or company you’re dealing with.

          But even then, there’s nothing to say you can’t dual-boot or run a second machine over a network and synergy the things together.

          Personally, I’ve been using Windows 10 exclusively on my own machine for quite a while now, but I don’t like much of anything that I’ve heard about 11 so far. If it came down to letting Microsoft control most of my usage of my PC or to using Linux as my primary OS, I feel like it would be worth the hassle.

          • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Oh yeah, for sure. I’m definitely keeping that option in mind, if only because there’s inevitably going to be some software or games that just won’t work in Linux. Having Windows 10 available for when it’s needed just makes sense, and its ability to be annoying is reduced if it’s essentially quarantined on its own hard drive where I can ignore it except when I need it. I have also skipped Windows releases in the past, and I don’t think I’ve ever voluntarily gone to a new one rather than been pushed due to hardware or software requirements.

            Have to agree with you on Windows 11, too. My laptop has 11. I thought when I bought it that it was shipping with 10, but it came pre-installed with 11. It’s not completely horrible in terms of actual functionality, so it’s tolerable for a device I’m using solely for college work. But there’s no denying it also gives me creepy vibes that I mostly just try not to think about. I do feel like 11 is spying on me in a way that 10 doesn’t. It might be getting a reformat once the warranty has expired, though I also have to acknowledge how irrational it sounds to say “I’m reformatting you because you creep me out.” 😀

        • lvl13charlatan@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          You can always run a windows VM on your linux computer. I used to do that when I had to use citrix receiver for work.

          • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            It’s definitely an option under consideration, but one of the softwares I use that doesn’t work correctly in Linux is also very resource intensive, and VM’s are less efficient in that area. So I think in that instance, dual-booting is more suitable. But the suggestion is appreciated. 🙂

      • Darkrai@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Yeah I switched in 2020, but finally deleted my Windows partition a couple months ago. Never going back now.

        And anymore, I feel like niche windows software is gonna be harder to run than almost all the games. The only games that don’t work are the annoying anticheat ones.

        • sadreality@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          went this route few weeks ago, went 100% pop os recently… good times.

          fuck you microshit, i am gaming fine.

          • Bri Guy @sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            I’ve unfortunately still run into some issues running games on Pop_OS, most recently Street Fighter 6 which is weird since it runs perfectly on the steam deck. I still keep a windows installation mainly for games like that

  • Meow.tar.gz@lemmy.goblackcat.com
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    1 year ago

    It does not mean anything for me because I am not a Windows user. For Windows users it means subscription models and renting software. It could also mean eventually booting your computer into a desktop that is in the cloud. I hope to god that does not happen because it may make finding hardware that will run Linux and BSD that much harder.

    • TheTrueLinuxDev@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think it’s possible for them to do so, because that would means killing the gaming aspect of Windows. GPU on cloud is stupidly overpriced and expensive, just look at Standard_NV6 for an example, it easily cost $10,000/yr according to this (Just look for anything that have “N” in it’s name for GPU enabled VM and they are all expensive.)

      If they try to ban everyone from being allowed to use their own computer hardware, I really doubt people would stay on Windows, they most likely would be in the 5 stages of griefs and then contemplate on switching to either Linux or Mac OSX.

  • techviator@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    My take on this Cloud-First-Windows vision that was leaked from a Microsoft presentation with very little details and just a lot of speculation:

    If it actually happens, it will be more similar to a Chromebook, they will provide, likely an ARM based, low specs device with a basic Windows install that perhaps only has the cloud-connector (probably RDP based), One Drive to sync files, and Edge with extensions to run Office365 in offline mode.

    Apps would just be either web-wrapper based apps, or RDP Apps, or you could just deploy your cloud desktop to do some work that requires more power.

    I also think they would still provide an x86_64 based Windows for more powerful PCs for content creators and gamers.

    • giloronfoo@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      In the very late 90s or early 2000s there was a leaked “October papers” or something like that. It detailed Microsoft’s plan to move to Windows as a service. It seems like it is taking longer than they thought, but they’ve been moving this way for a long time.

      I wish I kept a copy or was better at searching the old internet…

  • theshatterstone54@feddit.uk
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    1 year ago

    It means Windows is switching to a subscription model. It could be a good thing for some Linux users, if they need Windows for specific applications and don’t want to spin up a VM. O can’t see a reason for using it beyond that, other than being forced to, because Microsoft kills off yoir local Windows and turns your computer for a bootloader for a cloud system, which is itself a bootloader for your browser, for most people. What a terrible world we live in. Zero privacy guaranteed, a subscription model making Windows more profitable (again).

    ALSO, good luck stripping down Windows, removing bloatware, ads and telemetry. I GUARANTEE you it will be impossible to remove ads and telemetry on Windows in the Cloud. And thus that crap will be FORCED on you!

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      However, since most retail hardware is built to target Windows compatibility, it could mean fewer options for hardware that will be easy to install Linux (or any other OS) on.

      In fact, I would count on Microsift making their hardware spec intentionally be difficult to load anything “unapproved” on.

      • Kerb@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        they are doing that already with secureboot.

        altho i fortunatley haven’t encountered machines yet where you can’t disable it.

    • Rentlar@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Precisely. Putting more of the control onto Microsoft server means this: you do anything that they don’t like? No Windows for you. Oh, now we need more money so now we’re putting in a shitty change, don’t like it? Suck it up.

  • Deathsauce@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I personally don’t see the “Eureka!” moment that big tech apparently does in moving EVERYTHING to the cloud when they struggle to design safe and reliable services as is. The whole cloud stuff just kind of says “sure it will be a privacy nightmare rife for exploitation from bad actors, but THINK of the money we could earn from it in the long run!”

  • Deemo@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I doubt people will pay for a windows subscription. Most will stay on 10/11 indefinitely and Microsoft will probably backtrack pretty quickly (look at windows 10 to 11 migration) 😉

    • Balssh@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      And some will probably give Linux a try. I only stopped pirating Windows because it got free, but I have no intention to pay a subscription to be able to use my fucking PC.

    • PenguinTD@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      everytime I am tempted at thinking maybe give w11 a try then some news pop up about how badly they put ad in everywhere. :P

  • gortbrown@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    I’m not entirely a fan the idea of having my OS run somewhere other than my own computer, unless it’s like a remote lab I use for specific tasks. Like if I could use Linux, and just use this for my classes that run Windows exclusive software, then I’d maybe use it. Otherwise I think it’s a bit weird to have your whole computer basically be in the cloud.

    • blirdo@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, good luck preventing forced “upgrades/updates” every time a new Windows OS comes out too. No thanks, I’ll take my software locally thank you haha.

    • vraylle@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Bingo! Rural in particular is slow and unreliable. Something like this isn’t a practical option even if I was OK with it. I’m already planning to switch to Linux when I get a new PC or when Windows 10 hits EoL. This would make the switch a necessity.

  • techno156@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    That sounds like a horrid decision. Imagine having to troubleshoot a relative’s computer, which isn’t working because their internet is down, or is too slow to support streaming Windows like that.

    It just sounds like a nightmare all-round, both from a Microsoft Standpoint, since they would have to build all the hardware to support it, people who would have to troubleshoot an issue that might show up on either the local or networked version of Windows, but not both, and from a security standpoint, since it seems like it would make it a lot easier to just hijack the whole computer using that kind of mechanism, with the user being none the wiser, for the most part.

    • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Guaranteed this is so they can run even more malicious proprietary software because client side malware scanners are a blocker for “progress”

      And in the peak of all irony, they will likely have Linux running the client to stream in all the proprietary dogshit

  • axum@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Considering how stadia panned out, this is a nothing burger for at least the next decade.

  • PenguinTD@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    honestly if not for DirectX and whatever windows specific thing, I would have use linux for a long time cause I am heavy gamer. I know this version of windows OS is probably experimenting offering stuff that are directly on the cloud(like office/team etc), I don’t see them suddenly throw away local OS market and just let whoever wants to take over. (oh, and all the telemetry data, right? )

    • sadreality@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      made a switch to linux recently due win11 changing privacy settings with updates and installing tiktok icons. i paid good moeny for this hardware, fuck off satya microsft

      steam on linux supports everything i play but CoD and new BF so not a big loss imho

      • PenguinTD@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I also hope that software companies also move to have better support on linux. (so home/work can all be on more stable OS. ) Using api wrapper isn’t really a good solution.

    • sfera@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Telemetry won’t be a topic anymore under such circumstances because will be implicit and the least of your worries. Tracking the input of the users will be part of the service they are paying for.

    • Balssh@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’ll be more than happy for more people to migrate to linux (or mac, but many people just can’t afford it) so MS doesn’t have such a monopoly on the OS space.

    • LennethAegis@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      That’s something I want to do, but I’m afraid of missing something while backing up up my files and losing it in the OS wipe. It’s a lousy excuse, I know, but it still stops me. Mostly since I play a lot of games and don’t want to lose any save files tucked away somewhere unexpected.

      That stuff should all be in C:/Users, but what if its not. And would have to go to each of my installed pieces of software to make sure any of my files are properly backed up which is so much work. Which only reveals another issue that I am terrible at keeping my stuff backed up.

      • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Buy a new hard drive, boot and run off that until you’re comfortable

        Linux can run off a thumb drive, and continue to use your windows install drive as storage, losing you nothing at all.

      • Darkrai@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Just dual boot at first, you don’t have to wipe the windows partition. That way if/when you find a save file you need to copy over, you can go looking for it on your still existing Windows drive

        • LennethAegis@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I know I don’t want to dual boot permanently, but I had not thought about doing it for just the setup period.

          • millie@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            It’s honestly really nice to have that second OS if something goes wrong with the first drive.