Installing OS, 10 years ago:
Windows: click a couple of buttons enter username and password
Linux: Terminal hacking, downloading shell scripts from github
Installing OS today:
Linux: click a couple of buttons, enter username and password
Windows: Terminal hacking, downloading shell scripts from github.
Link to video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qKRmYW1D0S0
You don’t download shell scripts from github for windows. You download batch scripts and exes from random file hosting sites, and they don’t even fix your problem.
They probably talk about the unlocker script.
The post is describing the scripts to disable telemetry, OneDrive, ads, etc.
But the thread not.
CMD is a shell, homes.
You’ll be lucky if it’s even hosted on random hosting sites and not some discord channel.
Oh how I hate Discord.
iTs iN tHe PiNnEd cOmMeNtS bRo
some random .exe from mediafire to install drivers
or one of those shady ones with tons of ads and slow ass downloads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_(computing)
tldr: batch is a scripting language, which interacts with the windows shell, so in that way it is a shell script.
sorry for being pedantic, hope this info is interesting for somebody anyway
Talking here about regular x64 OS install not ARM though, have not played with that myself.
Not really, it is usually PowerShell scripts from trusted blogs or in case of local account creation, you run a batch file that is built in installer (oobe\bypassnro) that adds a single registry value. Not sure I would call this hacking. Then again I don’t think Linux 10 years again had problems with account creation as well.
Would be nicer if you could create local account out of the box? Sure. Do some prefer MS account? Also true.
2012’s debian (I think it was 6, which was my first one) was pretty straight forward to install even for a newbie
Yeah this is more like what Linux was like to install in the 90s or very early 2000s.
Installers haven’t really changed in the past 10 years
I didn’t use a terminal to install Linux 20 years ago…
people here seem to think 20 years ago was the 90s…
25 years sounds about right
Idk, installing Linux was pretty easy 10 years ago too. Can’t comment about anything earlier than that though.
They are probably like me, thinking that the year 2000 was 10 years ago.
And I don’t think GitHub existed in 2000. Probably even git.
Git was released in ‘05, GitHub ‘08.
Yeah, it was SourceForge and SVN.
Around that time I moved from a company that was using perforce to one using cvs.
thinking that the year 2000 was 10 years ago.
This is patently absurd, 10 years ago was 1994.
Hi everyone, I’m not even a year old!
Stop, I can feel my bones crumbling to dust!
Even 20 years ago Linux was easier to install then Windows.
Last time I recall Linux being tricky was like late 90s.
Yeah, all my Linux installs after about 2003 were liveCDs. I used to carry my Gentoo CD around as my diagnostic tools for a while helping people fix their windows machines (or just backing up everything off it before reformatting).
I think Knoppix was the first live CD I used. It was mind blowing. Now you can just carry around a whole personally configured system on a USB stick. Pretty cool.
And then you find ventoy…
I was going to say “but ventoy only mounts the filesystem as readonly. Great for testing new distros, but not great for rolling installs you carry with you to use on different computers”
Then I quickly found https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html, so TIL!
good
Solid.
20 years ago was still xorg.conf times
Have you met Anaconda?
But no, you’re right…
Giving you, if you were lucky, VESA graphics and maybe a mouse pointer because XFree86 somehow insisted on being told whether you have a PS/2 or USB mouse. 3d acceleration only with nvidia and that required manual installation because nvidia never provided anything but blobs. IIRC ATI drivers were simply non-existent (didn’t have an ATI card back then), that only changed when AMD bought them. Whippensnappers won’t believe it but once upon the time, nvidia was actually the company to go with when running linux. And Epic didn’t hate Linux yet, UT2004 came with linux binaries on the dvd.
I once tried to install Linux around then, not long after ISA cards with Plug n Play became a thing.
Linux: So now to even pretend to get the card to work you have to download and run a tool to generate a config file to feed to another tool so you can then install the driver and get basic functionality from the card (which is all that’s available on Linux). Except the first tool doesn’t generate a working config file - it generates a file containing every possible configuration your hardware supports hypothetically having and requires you to find and uncomment the one you want to actually use. Requiring you to manually configure the card and thus kinda defeating the point of Plug n Play (though I guess that configuration was in software, not by setting jumpers).
Same card in Windows at the time: Install card, boot Windows. Card is automatically identified and given a valid configuration, built in drivers provide basic functionality. Can download software from manufacturer for more advanced functionality.
That soured me on Linux for a long time. Might try it again sometime soon just to see what it’s like if nothing else. ProtonDB doesn’t have the most positive things to say about my Steam collection, and I imagine odds are worse for stuff not available on Steam.
ProtonDB doesn’t have the most positive things to say about my Steam collection, and I imagine odds are worse for stuff not available on Steam.
If you ask around or search, you can get answers easily. You can install games from Epic, Ubisoft etc. using other Linux applications.
You can install games from Epic, Ubisoft etc. using other Linux applications.
Like Heroic for GOG And Epic, Lutris for everything else.
Get yourself an old lenovo laptop t440p/t480. You’re missing out.
There were installers like today even ~20 years ago.
I had a pretty trivial time of it almost 20 years ago.
Fuck I’m old.
I remember the Slackware dozens of floppies install, things have gotten stupidly easy with time
It hasn’t change since mid-2000s if you only talk about the installation process itself. Usually you would have at least some piece of hardware that wouldn’t work out of box and it used to be a lot of work until getting everything in place
NDISWrapper used to be the worst.
Nvidia was also more painful than now.
Nvidia has become pretty painless in the last few years. A year ago a guy told me to try wayland so I did and surprisingly I’ve been on wayland ever since on my desktop. The last time I don’t think I was even able to see my desktop. Now the 555 drivers made things even better.
I had forgotten about that and now I am sad that I’ve been reminded.
Winmodems
Modems in general were either entirely PnP or a total goddamn nightmare in my experience. There was no in between. I remember setting up Slackware in the late 90s and my serial modem just worked. Even after I changed it, it worked. Even after I installed an internal modem, it worked. A few years later I set up Debian or one of its kids (probably knoppix, but I won’t testify to it) and couldn’t get a modem to work to save my life. It was so bad that I just didn’t use any Linux until I got DSL.
Edit: a couple of letters
I installed redhat on my machine in the beginning of 2000’s when I was 13 or so and it was pretty easy. English is not even my first language.
That was the case even 19 years back. Ubuntu nailed it back then. You could install it without knowing anything about your computer. Before that, there were text based UIs which required deep understanding and lots of decisions.
Related, I predict Windows on ARM will be a massive failure, again.
Windows is Windows because a critical mass of their market is terrified of being vaguely incompatible with any software they use today. Wine will never give them enough confidence just like ARM emulation of x86 will never give them confidence.
Extra bizarre, from what I’ve seen the Windows devices vendors are treating the ARM variants as a premium model and charging more for them, despite having no real compelling story for the customers. You can either have an x86 offering that’s from all appearances just as overall capable and absolutely able to run your software today, on an ARM offering that is more expensive and maybe a bit less compatible, with maybe better battery life (either sincerely or at least a belief).
Mac is able to force the issue because the hardware and software all wanted to make ARM happen and forced it, but with Windows on ARM, only Qualcomm really cares, Microsoft and all the device vendors would prefer to hedge their bets, which in this case tie goes to the incumbent.
I believe this time Windows on ARM will make an Intel Arc-like launch. It won’t be a failure but it won’t capture a massive audience either. QC will keep developing chips and some Windows users will be able to daily drive ARM.
Windows was never that easy. You forgot, waiting for a hour and retrying steps
Love Linux, but had to wipe it from my system due to frustrating incompatibilities with my NVidia setup. I will pick Mint back up when I get another PC though, with the goal being to keep a Windows setup only for gaming and nothing else.
That sucks, I guess I have been fortunate that my I haven’t had any major issues with either of my Nvidia cards using the proprietary drivers. Are you using the 4000 series cards? I haven’t tried them as my 3070 is still doing fine and has been since release.
It may be due in part to age. Partly why I’m replacing my laptop is that gaming hardware stayed pretty accessible for three years, but this year has leapt forward significantly and my laptop isn’t keeping up as well as it used to.
It’ll be a perfect PC for non-gaming though. :)
Just a heads up, if you use an AMD GPU, the drivers are built into the Linux kernel itself by AMD engineers (and others helping/supporting/contributing to the kernel like themselves). So you don’t even have drivers to install, unless you’re one of the 10 people that want to use AMD GPUs for Machine Learning. Then you’d do a quick install of AMD PRO (those are proprietary so that’s why they aren’t built into the kernel).
That’s good to know for the future. Thanks!
Dualbooting with nvidia atm. Using other drivers than the nvdia one in linux. Most things work except a few games. Highly recommend it
Word.
I ran a dual boot setup for about six weeks, but the performance issues and bugs just got too annoying over time.
I’m planning to get a new PC later this year for gaming. Just gonna wipe windows off this one and make it my “all other stuff” system when that time comes. :)
I waited to install Linux until I put in another drive to dual-boot, and proceeded to never go back to my windows install.
I was surprised at how easy it was to get things running, and any difficulties I had were mostly the result of me assuming things were more complicated than they are and not looking for simple solutions.
Install MacOS X: get a bopping song from Röyksopp
🎶you know we’re happy up here🎵
I think the biggest shift in the last 20 years is troubleshooting in Linux and windows.
20 years ago and I had to troubleshoot issues and Linux. It genuinely required a good bit of computer knowledge to get it done. Sometimes hours of work to figure out how to get a webcam to work Or how to fix grub?
Windows back then used to be so easy. And there was usually something that would do a quick fix.
However, now and I run across a windows issue. It’s a nightmare. I can put hours of work into trying to fix a driver issue or an issue with updates and get nowhere. Then go to reinstall the operating system and have to spend more hours just to get it installed.
Now in Linux, not only do I rarely have issues but also fixing those issues are pretty straightforward. And if I can’t fix it a reinstall takes minutes and I’m back up and running in no time.
However, now and I run across a windows issue. It’s a nightmare. I can put hours of work into trying to fix a driver issue or an issue with updates and get nowhere. Then go to reinstall the operating system and have to spend more hours just to get it installed.
Now in Linux, not only do I rarely have issues but also fixing those issues are pretty straightforward. And if I can’t fix it a reinstall takes minutes and I’m back up and running in no time.
THANK YOU. I’m sick of this rhetoric about Linux being hard and user-unfriendly because of the command-line.
Windows is such a pain to use for a while now. You need a ton of post install scripts and hacks to make it even remotely usable and when something goes wrong good luck figuring out what. The event viewer is usually just a bunch of vague COM errors with an ID. Then when you look up that ID it’s barely more useful than “something went wrong”.
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I went through that phase too! The tweak times are so much fun and breaking things is a good way to learn.
Now I am in a sane defaults mode. Where I just want everything to work well. Pop on so far has been rock solid. I actually have been trying to not touch the terminal to see how that feels as a user. In been 4 months and so far it hasn’t been a problem.
May I recommend a versioning or snapshot capable filesystem like BTRFS? It lets me tweak and make mistakes with little fear.
With that said, always keep proper backups of data you care about.
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Sometimes hours of work to figure out how to get a webcam to work Or how to fix grub?
The easiest solution was just “eh, I probably don’t need that anyways”
Honestly was my solution for years I never use my webcam 😂
Windows tries to obfuscate any useful information while Linux tries to give logs and man entries to walk the user through what went wrong.
When the BSOD code has nothing to do with your actual problem
Well OBVIOUSLY you need to set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session\Windows\Microsoft\Win10\MSWindows\CockNBalls\BSODWord to 0 then restart your computer.
Sorry, that was before KB1103995. The new method requires you to check a box in your OneDrive account first before the entry is respected.
Except you already have that update installed, the box is not checked and the entry is still respected, nobody could possibly tell you why because that’s not how it’s supposed to work and everyone else works as stated! And now you have to live with the knowledge that your system is in some unobserved quantum superposition with a critical fix in place which may stop working at any moment for any reason and nobody can tell you how you even managed to get into this situation…
NOOOOOO please you’re reawakening 20+ years of accumulated Windows trauma 😭 😭 😭
That was so confusing and stressful I don’t know how I --or anyone-- survived the mental strain of regularly troubleshooting Windows
You forgot that you also need to create a new 32bit word entry with the value of the amount of system RAM in gigabytes times 2 divided by the square root of your age times 10.
Otherwise BSODWord won’t be picked up.
Edit: also you need to redo that every time your system updates because Windows update will reset all those values
As a part-time sysadmin at my small company. We use Altium and Solidworks, so we need windows.
I have 10x more windows problems than Linux problems like a bug for around 5 or so people where a windows update would disable the microphone, but every single microphone menu and setting would say it is enabled and working properly. You HAD to use their troubleshooter (which they are now phasing out, wtf) in order for it to be auto fixed. So soon it will probably be replaced by something else that won’t fix the issue.
0 information online about it, 501 different way to fix audio issues, none of which work.
Nowadays the only problems that I have with Linux are slight bugs or user errors, honestly.
I feel like Linux respects me as the user. Like, I don’t know why this broke, but you get to keep both pieces. We believe in you. Good luck!
For me, one of the other annoyances is that both Windows and Mac OS push their services. Windows it’s gotten ridiculous and on Mac. I just don’t have the compatibility with all the stuff I want to use. Like I’m not in the ecosystem so it just doesn’t work for me as an operating system
I wanted to dual boot Windows 10 for a few games after I switched off. I can’t get the damn drivers for my hard drives to work. I just gave up on Windows entirely.
Nowadays I just roll my Linux installation back to before the updates using the BTRFS integration with the package manager. It works great and I’m never at a point where I can’t use my computer because updates broke it. Heck, even if I bork it myself it’s no biggie.
Yeah, same for me with NixOS
I just tried to install Ubuntu on an old MacBook and after booting neither the keyboard nor trackpad work. CMD +R reset the whole thing to a working Mac so I’m still not sold
You tried to install a non apple approved software(being the entire OS) on a Mac system. Imagine how hard it is for linux developers to support this blackbox hardware configuration?
Try using something actually easier to program/use for running linux type OSes. I usually will suggest AMD.
If you need a strong graphics card on a laptop, I think those frameworks will be more than capable of offering that kind of flexibility. The potential of packing it up so that if you feel like the power-hungry gpu will take too much battery, then it can be flexible in allowing you to remove the gpu without thinking about a screwdriver
If you need ARM, then you should be mindful of the fact that the arm ecosystem is still quite new for pc users. There are not many software choices, but it does show some promise.
If you think you need Mac hardware, then you don’t need to go around throwing linux on it. MacOS is already Unix like. You are going to live with the fact that no one outside of apple will have proper hardware support at the OS level. Let alone driver support.
Heard and understood. I just wanted to mess around with a laptop collecting dust and Linux is all the rage these days. Don’t particularly need it for any purpose, just tinkering
Well, it seemed from your comment that you just expected this to work without tinkering. However, now you admit to be tinkering? This is a rather confusing story. When I’m tinkering, I’m exploring and expecting to run into edge cases or unsupported environments. Linux may be great, but it’s just a kernel with GNU on top to help build the larger OS. I believe the attitude towards linux is a bit misguided. It is a great tool, and its strengths mainly lie in the freedom of usage that allows for both fine-tune control and automatibility. I say windows and MacOS are strictly non automatable environments unless you venture into the developer side, and that will undoubtedly bring some with it some problems. As such, many systems that require the user to be more hands off and operate with high uptime will use Linux kernels. Being able to automate the process with minimal user input is essential in the performance and reliability of critical systems demand.
Again, I did not wish to be condemning your actions and rather alert you to the differing problems these tools are made to solve. MacOs and thereby its hardware was geared towards being an apple only product that is only properly supported by apple, and the problem it solves is to be a tool for rich and self-conscious individuals.
Windows was created to be a home and enterprise OS that can be used in almost any system that is quite an outstanding feat, but it really is because of the number of developers and users offer the ability for things to work. Mind you that even Windows was not made to be extremely automatable. yet there are tools being created to offer automating tasks, but many are closed source and tied to requiring funding. I even ran into some odd issues every once in a while.
Linux was expressly made to be a minimal system that offered high uptime and high automatibility that was free for everyone to contribute or use. This allows users and admins to set up their systems to be more hands-off when it came to tasks that were extremely time-consuming or continually have to be worked on without deadline while keeping costs low. It is just recently that Linux-based distributions are able to make use of features and packages that are geared to users who need to make manual tasks. Wayland is finally being more stable, driver support from large manufacturers, and even emulation of Windows APIs with use of proton/wine is getting better. Thus offering users the ability to do manual tasks and mix custom made automated scripts/tools into their environments.
Many see the hype and equate it to being able to use Linux systems like they did with the very much well funded manual systems that Windows and MacOS offered. Instead, Linux is just a tool and can be useful when it is needed.
Lemme guess: You have a Mac with T2 chip. You need prebuilt ISOs for those Mac models. https://wiki.t2linux.org/
A 2019 with an i5 and a 2012 with an i7. Admittedly I haven’t tinkered much with either but the keyboard and trackpad being completely unresponsive wasn’t a great first foray
The first one has T2. Input devices not working is a known issue, that’s why you need custom ISOs. How was your luck with the 2nd one? Older Macs usually run much better with Linux but WiFi and bootloader installation (efibootmgr specifically) may be janky.
Tbh I haven’t tried the older one, but thank you for the advice on the ISO
I’ve got enough ‘advice’ on this thread that I don’t even know which flavor to try and put on the Mac. As some have said it’s a waste of time even installing Linux on a Unix. I just like projects.
Well that was a mistake. Apple hardware is designed to run Apple OS.
Yeah well I’m not sold on mac hardware, all bets are off as that is designed to be as FU to anything but Apple software. I’d say screw apple but they even managed to fubar screws just to be as consumer unfriendly as possible.
Any time I had to install on my old MacBook pros, I had to refit or refind every install, kajigger all the whatzits, then pray that it would all work. And then be pissed off because I couldn’t access my journalled partition.
In a nutshell, fuck apple for their hardware lockdown.
Apple, like Nvidia, are a hostile hardware platform. I have a lot of respect for the ingenuity of the people who invest time and energy to unlock closed hardware. That is the true foundation of the free software movement. I am far less sympathetic to people who support these vendors financially and then complain when things don’t work. Caveat emptor.
Linux is still a bit hit and miss, I say that using it from a Thinkpad which I was told would be a 100% sure thing but the trackpoint has never worked and the mouse randomly cuts out until I restart. It’s my daily driver tho cuz I find its brand of BS more tolerable than Windows or Apple’s.
I have a PC that I use for work and a couple old Mac laptops sitting around so I’d like to fool around with Linux, found a hundred articles on how easy it is but every time I try I literally can’t make the machine do anything. Maybe I just need a cheap usb keyboard
One thing I do know is that Mac support is sketchy at the best of times. The comprehensive “Linux on Mac” project IIRC is Asahi Linux, so next time you want to try I would suggest using that distro specifically.
Back in 1997 I was like “Ooh, Debian is mildly easy to install (compared to Slackware). Just need to engage my brain a few times maybe.”
(The first Slackware guide I read in 1996 had an ominous warning about getting the ModeLines right in XFree86 or the monitor will catch fire. This, fortunately, was a little bit of exaggeration. Over/under refresh frequency protection was already a thing.)
Now? “Oh no I fucked up my password shit and can’t login. I’ll need 5 more minutes to completely reinstall this Raspberry Pi image. I should have engaged my brain!”
Shit, we’ve gotten to the point that your average desk jockey can probably install freaking FreeBSD on the first try. If that’s not a good sign I don’t know what is.
Recently I decided I no longer wanted LUKS encryption on my laptop because I don’t travel anymore. So I followed the steps to do an in-place drive decryption. It worked, but I had missed a step to update the bootloader. So I fired up a live distro, chrooted to the installed system and 2 minutes later I had a working system.
Oh how the turn tables
It’s a topsy-turvy world.
it’s a world-turvy topsy!
They differ a lot. I don’t understand why Microsoft does not want to improve on this situation. At minimum take all questions at once, or collect answers from existing installation. Maybe have some profiles of answers like wipe disk and privacy mode.
Microsoft’s most important customers are businesses, who generally don’t deal with this (they have corporate images). Home users also generally don’t deal with this given they buy a computer that has already been configured.
Linux-based systems have always needed to be better because almost no one buys a computer with $DISTRO already installed and configured.
You are right, most don’t need it. Yet they still have the wizard guide, and with several new GUI questions implemented. So they are maintaining the setup wizard - just does not want to improve it. I am sure Microsoft have the money to improve on it and make more users happy(read not leaving Windows).
Windows have come to a point where they don’t need to improve much more. So they only focus on the stuff that might bring in extra money instead(ads and data harvesting). This will be their downfall if it does not align with what the users want. It will be interesting to see how the deal with ARM - problem to bring legacy programs. Yes, one day we will move to ARM on all new computers as they are just so much better. A good opportunity to rethink a lot and for Microsoft lose its big walls around Windows. Easier for competitors to come in.
Linux have also improved due to users always want a friendly GUI. And the users have more power to actually make a difference due to the nature of being open source. Automated installs here are still needed. A few sell OEM with Linux.
Just look at Apple, how big market share they have despite Microsoft have existed for so many years. 15% https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide The competition have started.
I don’t understand why Microsoft does not want to improve on this situation.
Windows is the side hustle, They sell server space now.
Right, so lets shutdown Windows as it does not bring in enough money.
I don’t think that would be a good idea, to let it rot away. It is a business that brings in money after all, and it keeps the users using Microsoft office(Office 365) and all their products. They need to keep it alive.
They can half ass it, stuff it with ads, rake in the income and not lose enough users to worry. They have a monopoly and can just keep milking users.
It works for a while but they will lose market share over time. The home users are mostly not locked in to anything. It is just them that might use their pc at home for work(they should use their work laptop for that). Nowadays most things are webbased. Console/Steamdeck/Android/Chromebooks exists. Microsoft even made Visual Studio Code for any OS so coders can use any OS. The need for Windows is shrinking as people development alternative software for other platforms. It just take time.
It works for a while but they will lose market share over time.
The average user thinks their having a spell cast on them if they hear Linux. People are too afraid to learn how to use Windows let alone switch.
I think many is afraid. It is unknown OS. No one likes change. Many thinks IT is hard. especially elder people. However:
- There is to few places to even buy a computer with Linux on it.
- No ads on TV or similar, nowhere to test, not a single .exe file to run and test it out
- Works differently - need to relearn.
A kid does not have any problem with the above. This is why Steam Deck is selling. It is just fun to test something new with your friends and see what all the buttons do. Seen as cool. Any guess where this is going when they get adult?
The people able to figure out Linux will move over, but I don’t think a typical Windows user that goes on Facebook and uses Excel is going to understand or care enough to leave. They are use to being abused.
privacy mode
Keep dreaming. Only Apple has privacy mode they call Lockdown mode. Linux distros have real lockdown mode.
I meant - privacy mode just means answer no tracking on all the questions. Yes, they will still turn those back on when the next Windows update happen, but that is beside the point.
So how would I go about installing Linux on my shitty $200 refurbished Dell laptop? Would it continue to support my USB docking station with mouse keyboard and three monitors? What about remoting into work?
I don’t otherwise particularly do anything on it. No gaming or any such thing.
Yes. One question, what software does your company use to connect remotely?
All I can see is that it’s an RDP extension
Type: remote desktop connection
Otherwise I didn’t see a product name in properties
Chances are you’d be fine. Either using something like remina, or a web Citrix client.
- Download image
- Flash to USB
- Reboot
- Follow instructions
Might have some trouble if it’s a typec dock and the monitors are connected to it. Laptop’s own outputs might also be wonky if there’s a hybrid gpu setup going on, but support for thosr has improved a ton lately. Mkb should work fine out of the box as long as it’s not some unified proprietary bullshit wireless kit with smarfridge integration.
Overall, I would suggest just ripping an image of ubuntu, or pop_os if you got nvidia card, boot off it, just close the installer to try live mode, and see for yourself if everything works. Takes like an hour to do, no installation required. You can even install software, except gpu drivers, as everything would be all wiped on reboot and gpu drivers need reboot, hence popos suggestion as it has them built-in. You can try remmina on it - it’s the most common remote control software, supports both rdp and vnc and a bunch of other obscure protocols.
USB docking station should be supported (unless it’s one of those external battery ones that plug into the bottom of the laptop). Remoting into work is fine but depends on the setup. For example, openssh with rdp works fine, can’t vouch for other solutions but I’m sure you could get them working.
Edit: I have been informed that displaylink docks require additional software. I didn’t even know those were a thing so I don’t know how difficult it would be to setup.
I had to manually install displaylink on Fedora in order to use my USB-C docking station. Its not included in the fedora repos. But it drives 4x1440p monitors
I had no clue those were a thing, thanks for letting me know. Does the dock require additional software on windows as well?
That’s true for any OS though. DisplayLink dock is software dock and must have proper drivers installed to work.
dodos is claiming that it should be supported by the distro (meaning work out of the box).
Well, hardware-designed dock station would work, sure. They don’t require any additional software. For example, for M1 MacBook Air with MacOS there are two options: HW docks would work out of the box, no software or tinkering needed. But you are limited with only one external display (Apple decided so). SW docks (DisplayLink) work great and give you multiple displays and stuff, but require drivers. And also after reboot you have to log in before dock can launch its software companion. Also, since it’s software, OS updates can cause malfunction and/or incompatibility. I expect situation be more or less the same with all OS.
To be entirely unbiased here, this covers user friendly distros that pretty much blow windows away for “default experience”.
Windows has adware and scareware - more so it has config-cluster-fuckification (I believe this is the academic term for it?). This is where windows lost me - when it started bundling basic config options together to force you to relinquish your privacy. Now it’s “edit the registry or gtfo”…
