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Windows needs to stop showing tabloid news

(www.tomshardware.com)
1725 points taubek | 4 comments | 27 Mar 23 05:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.838s | source
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PrimeMcFly ◴[27 Mar 23 06:33 UTC] No.35323525[source]▶
I don't want anything, any type of news being pushed by my OS. It simply isn't it's job. Maybe, as an option or optional add-on, but not the way MS does it.

I use 10 now, as locked down and 'fixed' as I was able to make it (custom ISO via NTLite with a bunch of crap removed and some fixes steamrolled in), but really I look forward to ditching it altogether - which is a shame. For all the MS hate in the OSS community, I always thought Windows did a lot of stuff well (when it was good at least).

The telemetry, changing things for the sake of changing things and forced crap constantly being added is enough. I'm so in love with awesomewm at this point, and the fact that I can customize and program every part of my UI, allowing me to have something absolutely perfect and tailor made.

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midoridensha ◴[27 Mar 23 08:01 UTC] No.35324087[source]▶
>I don't want anything, any type of news being pushed by my OS. It simply isn't it's job.

Yes, it is. The job of a proprietary OS is whatever that company says it is. If it's shoveling annoying ads to users, that's its job, and having annoying ads is a very sensible thing in a proprietary OS since the company is driven by profit, and they can make more profit by including lots of annoying ads. If you don't like the product your vendor has sold you, then you should choose a different vendor. A Free OS that doesn't come from a company with a profit motive won't have this same problem.

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alkonaut ◴[27 Mar 23 08:08 UTC] No.35324131[source]▶
The whole "just go elsewhere" idea doesn't really work in a total monopoly like Microsoft has on desktop OSes for some use cases.

There is not, and has never been an alternative to windows for all use cases. Most notably: a gaming rig (One of few remaining use cases for stationary home PCs these days, so perhaps the most relevant for the idea of the Microsoft monopoly on the desktop). If you want to reply that Linux is a perfectly usable OS for a gaming rig these days then please reconsider. It's just not.

I actually don't understand how Microsoft reasons around these things. There is zero way that these news links actually "pay for themselves" in income vs customer alienation. There must be something else to it.

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1. eloisant ◴[27 Mar 23 08:41 UTC] No.35324329[source]▶
> If you want to reply that Linux is a perfectly usable OS for a gaming rig these days then please reconsider. It's just not.

The fact that Valve recently released a gaming handheld that runs Linux, and is wildly successful, should be a hint on the status of gaming on Linux

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2. falcolas ◴[27 Mar 23 12:21 UTC] No.35325732[source]▶
I love my steam deck, but the subset of games it can play is exactly that - a subset of games that work fine on Windows.

About 3/4 of my library is marked with “no” on their compatibility chart, and from some experimentation, they’re largely not wrong.

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3. eloisant ◴[27 Mar 23 12:49 UTC] No.35325989[source]▶
> About 3/4 of my library is marked with “no” on their compatibility chart

It's unlikely as they haven't checked that many games, I suspect most of your games are still "unknown" (but are very likely to just work in practice).

Anyway you're very unlucky with your library, in my case most of the games work out of the box regardless of the rating, and most of the games marked "unsupported" can be played by changing the proton version or using protontricks.

Did you check ProtonDB for full stats about your library?

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4. alkonaut ◴[27 Mar 23 13:44 UTC] No.35326602{3}[source]▶
> most of the games marked "unsupported" can be played by changing the proton version or using protontricks.

I'd call that "unusable" if you need to tweak it. It's possible for power users like me or you, but if it requires some knowledge of computers, or being able to google an error message or visit a forum to look for solutions, it's way beyond usable for most people.

I'd say using any tweaking at all would for most people fall under "nope". It's only enthusiasts that can do that.

My point remains: only enthusiasts who are ready (and able) to tweak even small settings - particularly e.g. visit a forum or google the occasional error would this work for.

Let's measure it this way: how frustrating would an average non-power user find the desktop Linux gaming experience today? I'd argue that while it's a lot less frustrating to them than it was a few years ago, but it's still not so frustrating when put next to the windows start menu ads frustration.