I’m really rooting for SteamOS :D
More OS competition the better. As both a windows and Linux user I can tell you 100% Microsoft has been prioritizing data collection over productivity, ease of use and hardware longevity.
Their OS has become more cluttered and awkward than ever
It takes days to clear out all the pop-ups and disable all the things you don’t want. I find the ways of configuring networks and hardware is becoming more convoluted yet no more capable than window XP; nor any simpler.
To disable copilot AI assistant it took IT over a day to figure out. In our business we are legally not permitted to share client data with third parties for any reason. It required doing some obscure command line situation not documented outside of a forum post on Microsoft’s support forums. Same with installing without a Microsoft account and disabling one drive.
Unfortunately we also need to be able to use commercial software that isn’t supported under Linux and sometimes need more obscure software that is Windows only, so we are a bit stuck.
At home I use a couple Linux OSes on my workstation and servers. They are genuinely programmed to operate in as efficient and clean way as possible and I can build from there. It runs just as reliably on 15 year old hardware as it does on my latest rig. I also have a MacBook that runs really well, works seamlessly with my servers, offers the same terminal experience I have on my *nix workstations and never crashes.
*Nixes are more straight-forward, better documented and starts with most addons turned off. If you want, you can install an AI assistant. You certainly won’t have to choose to waste a day figuring out how to disable a pre-installed AI assistant or paying someone hundreds of dollars to disable it.
And I shouldn’t even start on how much a pain in the ass drive letters and fucking backslashes that need to be escaped/unescaped and translated to/from OS-X/*nix paths in data stores… And what the fuck they can’t get a proper sym-link implementation going?
They shoulda done what Apple did with OSX. Recognize OS-9 was saddled with too much complicated under-structure and start over with a clean, mature, standardized, optimized and extensible *nix. NT was a huge improvement over the OG windows, but it’s time for another refresh and what they got cooking with power Shell, Linux subsystem and their obsession with data collection and forcefeeding one cloud/copilot/accounts is not good.
Ah hell, you got me going. I’m ramblin again.
Point is, I’ve daily driven Win, OSX and *nix for decades. Hell, I started with MS-DOS 'cause Windows took too much space on my state-of-the-art 286 with 1 meg of RAM and have been a windows user for the majority of my life. Windows is the most convoluted and bloated and least secure of all the OSes. They’ve only kept their dominance through educating a generation of engineers on .net/direct-x, locking companies in with Office/outlook and promising corporations to spy on employees…
…The end.
I think pressure should be put on the US to divest from genocide. Sanctions from our allies would be helpful… Surely with the international court declaring Israel’s actions a war crime it is easy to make a case for it.
Our election system has fucked over anti-zionists and needs reforming, which is happening, but not by this November.
Ranked choice voting is gaining popularity, electoral college is under pressure and people are fed up with voter suppression and gerrymandering and things are moving in a positive direction on the local and state levels.