a few years ago I had a really stupid issue with my laptop. about twice a year, for whatever reason, Windows 11 decided my internal wifi card wasn't worth existing and would just wipe it off the face of the earth. Just completely remove it, delete the drivers, everything. hard resetting the laptop didn't work, physically unplugging and replugging the card back in didn't work, manually installing the drivers didn't work. the ONLY way Windows would accept the card again was on a fresh OS install. So twice a year, like clockwork, i'd have to do that except the last time I couldn't because I needed an MS account. well I couldn't get online. for whatever reason it wouldn't allow me to connect to wifi and I didn't have access to an eithernet connection. So I gave up and finally decided to give this Linux thing a try. Installed Mint within 15min.

The added bonus of installing Linux on the laptop was it suddenly brought my battery back to life. on Windows I MAYBE got 30min out of a full charge. On Linux with a WM like Niri it's now a few hours. Linux also made me fall in love with the PC again. Now I'm on NixOS and i just love configuring my system or doing more dev work with ease thanks to nixshells.

I always have time to talk about The Admin. Should I make some tea coffee to sip as we talk?

I ran into my first people doing that for Jesus in many years last weekend. Was so bizarre. They just approached me randomly on the street.

Only if you have a few minuets to talk about our Lord and Savoir Theo de Raadt

Don't forget stallman! (Yes I know about the scandals but dude did contribute essential software and ideas of libre to the foss community).

Google onboarding on Android...

Also win8: Hey, would you like NOT having a desktop? We've got tiles now!

More "Microsoft doing their part to get people used to the idea of having to login with an internet connection so that they can make Windows 12 subscription based."

Thats what this bullshit is. Training the user base for OSaaS.

And they will have enterprise by the balls because they control like 90% of the enterprise market. The consumers, they could give a fuck if they take it or leave it. Windows licensing is such an teeny tiny part of the equation that screaming at them is going to get as much traction as screaming at Nvidia for the fact that a midrange GPU is 1000 bucks now. Nvidia doesnt care if their consumer gpu market disappears tomorrow, they've got the AI fucks locked in.

You should keep an eye on Gnome. Their recent release, Gnome 50, just introduced parental controls to limit access to programs and they're looking to implement website access as well.

I don't like Gnome, but my kid's first PC will have Gnome on it now because of these new features, which I greatly appreciate

Mocking up whole websites seems like a pain. With a Pihole, you can create different service groups for computers and apply a whitelist to just their machines. Plus you get adblocking too!

I saw a deal for a pair of mini PCs with decent specs on eBay right after I got my annual bonus, so I jumped on it because I want to do the same thing for my kids. May be jumping the gun a bit...my son just learned the alphabet (uppercase only) and my daughter just learned how to flop off the couch head-first.

My kids’ devices are blocked from internet access in my OpenWRT firewall and I run a Squid proxy on my server with an allowlist of domains they can access.

Just put 3.1 on those and let them play solitaire to their hearts content.

Smart move, with the brain rot cancer that internet has become these days, it's best to keep your kids away from it until their brains finish developing a bit

They know that, that's why they do it.. And that's why you should go ahead with it..

Yeah I'm in a (primarily) Windows shop too, but we have many Linux servers that I manage and maintain. My DD at home is CachyOS, and I'm very familiar with management of a fleet of Ubuntu servers. I've already told the guys on my team I'm ready to just switch at work too. Might cause me some management issues at times though because of needing Windows Server management tools (e.g. RSAT), but I suppose I could jump box that.

I literally just recommended CachyOS to my boss while we were complaining about Windows 11 in our one on one meeting today

It's like that vegan joke. How will you know if someone is a linux user? Don't worry, they'll tell you.

how the turntables

I mean I don't really recommend Linux like a lot of people do. I just mention it when it's appropriate and give a list of its drawbacks and benefits, according to specific use case. For home users I just say that Linux Mint or Zorin OS are fine and even better that Windows for this scenario, but I must be honest and also say that something like ChromeOS might be even better if an user spends their whole time in a web browser.

For professional usage (except coding lol) I never recommend or even mention Linux for variety of reasons.

Just moved my parents onto Mint, they were hesitant at first but now doing great. MS is digging it's own grave.

I also just replaced Windows 10 with Mint recently. I did sadly buy Windows 11 proper at some point for my new office PC, which thankfully has been okay after I turn off the copilot shit. And I'm stuck with it until a few programs get some Linux support.

But regardless, I sure won't be buying anything more from Windows.

Nah, Hanlon's razor has worn put here.

Microsoft probably knows what they're doing with their anti-customer approach... and it's nothing good.

Was it a hoax that Microsoft came after Massgrave?

LTSC is pretty much what Windows should be. And MS hates people are using it so it means it's the best choice.