So I’m a total Linux noob are there issues with drivers? I have a laptop I would consider doing this on if I wasn’t worried about it breaking.
I solidly refuse to believe you’ve had no issues with WiFi drivers on a laptop. Otherwise, yeah it’s fine.
It’s so funny watching people have this problem for a literal decade, and they’re still complaining instead of using FOSS.
if you think FOSS makes anything better for the average user, especially UX, I have a bridge to sell you.
Do you have any specific notable examples? In my experience, FOSS tends to take a more no-nonsense approach to things.
How does a product that defaults to its own proprietary for-profit offerings providing a better user experience?
The argument I hear most of is that people are just used to what they’ve used in the past, and having difficulty moving to an alternative because of that isn’t indicative of the alternative offering worse UX, but rather an unwillingness to learn anything by the user.
unwillingness to learn
If you try to get a professional Photoshop or After Effects or Resolve or Solidworks or Quickbooks etc etc. user to use a FOSS equivalent you will be laughed out of the building.
It’s not that they won’t learn, it’s that the alternatives literally can’t do so much of what people need it to do. And at the same time they most often look worse, are harder to use, and are sometimes less stable.
A prime example myself, I have tried to use kdenlive for YEARS to do simple subtitling. Every few years I try the latest version. Without fail it ALWAYS crashes within 20 minutes.
Same for Audacity. 5 minutes into clipping some audio… crash. 3 times in a row. And it looks dog ugly enough to turn me off to even wanting to try it in the first place.
Or GIMP, it can’t do non-destructive editing, this makes it completely unusable for many professionals.
It’s not just one or two things here or there in these apps, it’s huge sweeping problems across the entire FOSS landscape, almost none of the options are comparable for professional users.
I had to run an alias every time I wanted to change the brightness on my laptop, and it defaulted to max brightness every time it was restarted.
I get that if I was a better person I could just pull myself by my bootstraps and teach myself to sync the brightness buttons on the keyboard to work again but I’m not. On windows it just worked.
Whenever I get to use windows and I face their byzantine directory structure, I wonder how people put up with that shit.
Do you mean the byzantine directory structure for system files? The default of installing to “Program Files” doesn’t seem too unusual, although adding “x86” bit seems unnecessarily complicated for a typical end user. Same with the rest of the standard directories that people use most often.
The directory structure for system files is bad, but that’s true for Unix-derivatives too. Unix has /bin and /lib, /sbin, /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /var/opt, etc. Different versions of Unix have different ideas of what belongs where. Even different flavours of Linux have their own ideas.
People don’t know what files and folders are anymore.
Ask a non-tech person where they JUST downloaded something to… they can’t tell you.
The average windows user is tech illiterate. They don’t know what a directory is. I work with a person who opens .docx files by opening Word and using its internal search function. She does not comprehend how or where files are stored.
This. Straight up this. Just fucking use Linux, it’s ready for casual everyday use.
In what way is it not? It has a desktop, a browser, free app for a word processor. For the CASUAL user it’s fine. Just don’t go into the terminal, like you wouldn’t for the command prompt.
Tell me you haven’t used Linux recently without telling me you haven’t used Linux recently.
Bro I actively challenge you to install Mint and have problems with it. It’s nearly impossible. Worst case you’ll need to wineskin some niche Windows-only game or program, but honestly even that isn’t necessary all that often in my experience. You’re going to have a no-stress install finished in a quarter the time that a windows install would be, and a robust OS that apes the windows environment to such a degree that average non-technical users won’t have any idea they’re even using Linux.
Barring some sort of hardware incompatibility that I haven’t experienced personally, I’ve installed Mint on around a half dozen machines in the past several years and have yet to recieve a complaint from the end users. It just works.
No, it isn’t.
Linux on a laptop can’t even reliably wake the system when you close then open a laptop lid. There are some basic things that need to work 100% of the time before Linux can be considered ready for casual everyday use.
Can you provide an example of this? Only time I’ve encountered that behaviour was with a laptop that had a defective lid-switch.
In 2003 I could have made a living selling subscriptions to 5-GB cloud storage that was tightly integrated into Windows.
I understand why Windows is trying to capture you into it’s cloud ecosystem. Just saying that between M$, Apple, and Google you can do some robust backups, basically for free. And if you’re worried about privacy, just encrypt.
I actually don’t hate onedrive that much. I’ve used it for a while now and it’s one of the best ways to just share a folder with some people very easily. And they can even use the desktop app and you can all have a cloud synced folder, it’s really convenient for collaborating on projects. I know other things can do this, but few do it as seamlessly.
That said I’m trying pretty hard to ditch it because I hate how Microsoft are just making it the default behaviour without really making it apparent that all your documents just get uploaded to their servers. I hope proton drive gets the features I need soon,.
It’s not about whether the product is good or bad. It’s about the way they maliciously and deceptively try to push it on people.
I’ve commented on this meme before. All I’m going to say this time is that OneDrive has redeeming qualities. The way that Microsoft pushes it, like many things Microsoft has pushed lately, is pretty shitty.
Quickly: good examples of shitty Microsoft pushes for what they want you to use: persistent pop-ups about upgrading to Windows 10/11 from earlier versions, making the default browser setting in Outlook/office/teams/whatever, to be separate from the system default, and that default is always edge, OneDrive… I don’t need to say more about the push to OneDrive, considering it’s the point of the post.
Regarding OneDrive specifically, you can change the default save locations for MS apps to be not OneDrive. However, OneDrive does offer benefits that are great for the less technically savvy, specifically syncing user data (mainly desktop/documents/pictures)… If you don’t need a crazy amount of storage for your images/documents, etc, then having the OneDrive backup/sync enabled is a good backup solution. The only thing you need to keep on top of is that OneDrive is actually still connected to the service (logged in) and working as intended. OneDrive seems to have this tendency to logout or expire your connection, so checking on it monthly just to ensure its still backing up is the best practice.
The benefit to this backup is that it’s built into Windows, and almost entirely transparent to the user. “Saving to OneDrive” is just putting the information into a dedicated OneDrive sync folder (usually under "C:\users(username)\OneDrive - (account name)" ) which saves locally, then syncs to OneDrive in the background using something similar to the “BITS” service (background intelligent transfer service, also part of Windows).
Since this is normally very transparent to the user, it’s good for less tech savvy people, in case they suffer a failure like a hard drive loss, system crash/failure/corruption, lost/stolen/destroyed hardware, etc. All their files are synced/saved to OneDrive and they lose nothing, all they need is a Microsoft account (Hotmail/outlook.com/live.com), and to take the 30s or so to set it up. Then use the computer pretty much normally and their data is safe from loss.
There’s an absolute shit ton of alternatives, not just from cloud storage providers. I personally use both OneDrive (personal, on a Hotmail account - free tier, which IIRC is 100G), Google drive, and my Synology. OneDrive on my PC backs up documents/pictures mainly, which I use as a sync to my laptop, and I use “Synology drive” to back up my entire C:\users\username folder to my local NAS. Google drive is exclusively used on-cloud, mainly for shared documents that I collaborate with others on; mainly financial records (no credit/debit/bank info, just costs, etc), and other tracking type documents and stuff I need to share with others.
I won’t get into other alternatives just due to the sheer number of them. Needless to say, I’m very contentious of my data and losing it. I am aware that my free/public account data might be anonymised and used to train some AI somewhere, so I tend to be careful about putting any password/account data/confidential data on a service that may have access to something I don’t want it to. I use a password manager, so I don’t generally keep login info anywhere except there.
Anyways, enough about me, I want to hear what people use for their backups!
“All I’m going to say this time is that OneDrive has redeeming qualities.” Proceeds to say several more paragraphs.
The main thing people are upset about isn’t that OneDrive exists or that Microsoft is pushing it. It’s that updates have made it so that OneDrive folder backup is automatically enabled without user permission. Backing up files to OneDrive without being asked to. That is a privacy nightmare.
I personally host my own copy of Nextcloud and use that for anything I need to sync or back up. I have a regular back up job that snapshots the Ceph cluster it uses for storage and copies it to my own NAS box here in the house, which is automatically replicated via a Nebula network (like TailScale or Zerotier but fully self-managed) to an identical NAS at my parents’ house across town.
It does ask, but often the Yay, thanks for changing my setting that I didn’t ask you to change button is much more prominent than the Wtf I didn’t ask for this put it back how it was button, so people think they’re being told rather than asked and just confirm it without realising they had a choice. Also, a lot of people just click the Next/OK button without reading and are surprised by the consequences. It’s not a major difference than just changing the setting of people don’t realise they’re being asked to opt in and can therefore opt out, but it is a bit of a difference.
Hostile UX design. The “yes, make this change I don’t want” is often highlighted in a brightly colored button, meanwhile the “no thanks” is often grey or a simple link looking option, not dissimilar to what you would find for help.
They make it seem like you don’t have a choice when you absolutely do.
Having a choice in what software does is actually a big highlight for me with Windows, apart from being aggressively persuasive in getting people to do whatever they want you to do, in the end, you are given a choice.
They’re slowly eroding this away though, starting with local accounts, and I’m sure much, much more will follow.
With Linux, the only option you get is to customize your experience. Often defaults are either not apparent or not given, so you kind of stumble around trying to figure out what to do, unless you really know what you want, it can be a terrible experience.
Mac is customizable… With one big asterisk on that. You basically need to be a very advanced user to really customize anything beyond whatever the mighty blue Apple wants you to be able to do. You’re given a short list of “options” and if you want anything beyond whatever is sanctioned by Apple, here’s the command prompt, good luck 👍
Windows has been in this middle ground for a very long time. Not as free as Linux, with recommended settings across pretty much every piece of software, and defaults that generally work and provide a good experience in general. They might not be optimal, but they work. You have the option of basically doing whatever the hell you want, within reason, without having to get a PhD in computer science to do it.
With Mac, you either fit into the Apple ecosystem box, or we’ll make you fit.
Linux has no box. No walls, no limits, no rules, not even a guideline. Figure it out yourself.
… At least, that’s my take on it. I’ve used all three to some extent for various purposes. Mac is awesome when doing everyday things, a lot of what you need is abstracted away and “just works” ™, so thinking is at an all time low. Windows is very meh, it does what you want, but it’s like a moody teenager at times. It’ll just go to hell and you’ll be left to figure out wtf is going to fix it. I use Linux mainly for servers, but the UI/UX for it is essentially the aesthetic of Windows 9x/2000, but after you’ve taken LSD. When you need to get anything fixed, here’s your console, good luck. Don’t forget to sudo.
Unpopular opinion: OneDrive automatic integration is amazing. Get a new PC, login, boom. PC at your parents’ house? Boom.
I tried open source file syncing and it was jank. Everyone making their own cloud is inefficient anyway.
I just wish windows phone was still a thing and it could all be on the Microsoft account. It remains better value than any other offering.
That said, if it’s not your thing and you don’t want any of it, I agree there should be a big red “I’ve got this” button if you want to go full manual transmission. Well, windows style, maybe circa Windows 7. Linux is only for those for whom playing with settings is why they computer.
Also “personalisation” can eat a dick. And stop fucking asking me for feedback. You get 1 star everytime just for asking. I’m done. /rant
Even if it wasn’t spyware, there is 0 reason to use it over other options.
To paraphrase Office Space:
Let me ask you something. Where you work, does anyone ever tell you to “think different?”
No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you’d get your ass kicked sayin’ something like that, man.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, OneDrive is not a backup solution. You should not be using it to sync files between PCs. It’s at best a data sharing solution which also extensively mines your data. If you’re using OneDrive to backup important information you’ll regret it when your data is gone and there’s no support from Microsoft to resolve it.
Do you have any evidence to support this claim?
Sounds utterly illegal, and likely to lead to countless lawsuits. They’ve got better phone support than Google, especially when you’re a paying customer, and I’m not expecting one of the biggest corporations on the planet to just up and leave with my data, and I’ve sure as shit never heard of it happening.
Microsoft products have a bunch of problems I’m happy to moan about, and a UX team that I swear doesn’t even use M$ products, but data security does not seem to be one of them.
It’s not MS but Google Drive suffered data loss back in November. Any company can accidentally fuck something up. That’s why I self host. When I eventually loose data, it will be my own damn fault!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sidekick_data_loss
Microsoft’s loss of cloud data for the Sidekick phone was one of the biggest disasters in cloud computing history.
