this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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Yeah, it's a minor annoyance... another minor annoyance on top of all the others. And another personal data leak (or siphon) to go with all the others.
This on its own is not worth switching OSs for - but as a piece of a larger picture it's yet another reason to consider it. And for some people this may be what tips the scales in their evaluation.
It's a boil the frog scenario. Windows users will always cope with more and more shit thrown at them.
And Linux fanboys will get up on their high horses while googling how to fix their driver issues.
Certainly better than throwing a perfectly working machine because Microsoft won't support it 🤷♂️
This may have been true historically but I'm not sure it still holds up. I switched to Linux Mint as my regular OS a while back and the only driver issue I've had was that the installer didnt properly install my wifi card's proprietary driver (which was working during live boot from usb), so I had to tether to my phone to download the driver through the driver manager. It even installed Nvidia drivers just fine.
It might still be an issue for more barebones or heavily customisable systems but I'm fairly certain nobody's recommending people switch to Arch for their first Linux experience.
Driver issues usually only happen if the manufacturer doesn't provide a Linux driver. Usually it is best to do some research to ensure the hardware will work before purchasing. Otherwise, the driver usually is included with the kernel so it is plug and play even for things that require manually downloading and installing on the Windows side.
Also, I'm not trying to get on any high horse. I personally think Linux is a great alternative to Windows and would love for everyone to at least try it out and see if it is right for them. It could save them tons of headaches and open the door to a new skill set, or just to breathe new life into that old laptop in your closet gathering dust. Linux has a lot of great uses that aren't possible with Windows. Give peas a chance.
Oh, I use both, I was just poking fun. That being said, I unfortunately I don't feel comfortable trying to get my parents on Linux... or even friends.
Most people just want things to work and won't do any sort of troubleshooting themselves. "It just works" is worth the intrusiveness that comes with Windows.