Re: Microsoft warns of blue screen crashes caused by April updates

On 2025-04-17, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-04-17 10:04, Borax Man wrote:

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.advocacy.]
On 2025-04-17, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-04-16 23:06, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Wed, 16 Apr 2025 08:55:12 -0400, CrudeSausage wrote:
>

At what point do we finally give up?

>
When the people start to see through those vendors’ multi-million-dollar
marketing campaigns telling everybody how wonderful they are.
>
In other words, never.

>
I would blame the ignorance of the common user much more than any
marketing campaign. You'd be surprised at how oblivious most people are
to the operating system they're using. Heck, this complete disregard of
the operating system is part of what made it easy for me to "sell" the
idea of using Linux to people who owned HP laptops which had tremendous
problems with Windows or to teachers who simply want to be able to use
their computers rather than constantly be locked out of them. As long as
the operating system manages to get the job done, they don't care if
it's Linux or Windows. My dad is one such person. He actually much
preferred Mint to Windows when I installed it on a cheap laptop I got
him, but he's fine with Windows on the Intel NUC he eventually replaced
that machine with. Until it bugs out, there is no reason to switch over.
>

 
Can confirm, at least in some cases.  My wife needed a new laptop, but
she wanted Apple.  They're expensive, far more so when all you do is use
a web-browser.  So I said I'll take care of the laptop, I'll find one
that is second hand, and will be supported for a long long time.  (One
of the bugbears she had about Apple was how the OS and software become
obsolete and could not be upgraded).  I put Linux, and there was a tiny
bit of teething because it was different, but she's been using it for
years successfully.  She's has no idea about Linux, doesn't know she's
running Fedora.  Shes used my desktop machine, so had a little
familiarity with it.  But surprisingly, theres be no issues, and few
questions, aside from "how do I copy files from the USB stick" and some
desktop config.

>
That's part of why I didn't mind that my very low bid for this Apple
laptop was successful, and that I needed to pursue the purchase. To an
Apple user, this MacBook Air 2017 is obsolete and meant for little more
than recycling. For me, it does everything I would need a laptop to do
at work. With Linux, it stays out of the landfill and can continue to be
used for another decade. Heck, I might use it until I retire. Unlike
most other teachers, I am _aware_ that it uses Linux, but I am also
aware that our work does not require this kind of hardware to be
upgraded as often as our boards and manufacturers require us to.
>

I think that people who know next to nothing, will find a switch to
Linux easier, because they have so few ingraned workflows and
expectations, and use the system at such a shallow level, that you could
switch and they'll barely notice, as long as the desktop is roughly
similar.  It is more the intermediate users, who would be disrupted the
most.

>
The desktops being roughly similar is only a necessity for users who
were already old when they learned MacOS or Windows and did so
stubbornly. Considering how difficult it was for them to adopt that
much, you wouldn't want to put an entirely different operating system in
front of them. For anyone else, a switch from Windows to Gnome or
Cinnamon shouldn't be such a chore.
>

I switched a friend to Linux, as he wanted to escape Microsoft AI and
surveillance and the like.  He wanted a distro most similar to Windows
for the desktop, but as I had already installed Linux Mint on the
laptop, using Cinnamon, I decided he's better off having his desktop
computer configured to be the same as the laptop.  No issues so far.
Cinnamon is quite Windows-like.  Gnome on the other hand, I think that
is more of a leap.  I myself didn't really find it all that usable or
appealing.