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It would genuinely cause worldwide panic if the Windows source code leaked, and that brings joy to me
… until I realize I still have Windows because I still haven’t moved to linux
Do it now. We love you and want you to join with us.
“We run Arch btw, Carol”
If it’s because you’re worried and not because you have proprietary software you need that’s keeping you tied to it, Mint was super duper easy for me to install (I’ve never installed Linux before) and it’s been essentially out of the box compatible with the games I play since most are already optimized for the Steam Deck.
If it’s the software thing, sorry man, my spouse is in the same boat.
Seconded. I started with PopOS but wasn’t sold on it, so quickly switched to Mint and it was perfect. Once my wife test drove on my installation, she gave it a shot on her laptop, and now she gets frustrated when she’s forced to use Windows for her college test proctoring spyware she has to use.
Here’s a link for anybody curious to get started. I like Cinnamon. Just download the OS and flash it to a flash drive, boot into BIOS, select the flash drive to boot from, and you’re testing a live version of the OS. If you like it, you can install through pretty easy install wizards. It doesn’t pester you to buy shit like Windows does. And there’s a safe and easy app store for most of what you’ll care about, and it just works. It gets the fuck out of your way. And if you have issues, just google it and you’ll probably find somebody already figured out the solution and shared it with plebs like us.
This is the way. I always recommend people to get their feet wet with the live boot. I’ve been using Linux for almost 3 decades. Live boot is the easiest way to find out what will work for you. I’m not a Mint user, but it’s great for the people who like it; best part about FOSS.
Hello old-timer! I’ve been using various Linux versions for about 30 years as well. Started on Slackware, then jumped to Redhat around 6.0, then jumped to Ubuntu after the RHEL release. I’m still on 24.04 Mate, but will soon be switching to Debian. I like the Mate desktop but I’m tired of Canonical’s ongoing attempts to embrace and extend Linux.
Good to hear from you. I started with Slackware as well, skipped Slackware 5.0 and 6.0 (hehe) and went straight to Slackware 7.0. I eventually jumped to Ubuntu 7.0. Stayed with Ubuntu until recently I’ve switched to PopOS with CosmicDE. Worth a test drive at least, but the DE is not quite finished. Although, what is finished is very stable. I switched from Ubuntu because I’m tired of Gnome wasting years on bike shedding. I didn’t mind Canonical’s Embrace and Extend too much, mostly because I always knew I would be able to slide over to another distro with little fuss. When CosmicDE came out, that was my sign.
If it’s the software thing
There’s a fair few projects working towards getting windows software to work in Linux beyond wine. WinBoat and bottles to name the two I use frequently. I set-up WinBoat for my wife because office360. Took a little bit of fiddling with settings for WinBoat to run nicely on her 2017 MacBook air with a Ubuntu derivative OS…but it works as it would on windows…so poorly.
I set up WinBoat for FL Studio and it’s close enough to be functional.
FL Studio was the reason it took me so long to ditch windows. Try bottles. Don’t bother with the automatic configuration, just install it in a default gaming setup. Very minor tweaks got it working better than in win11 on my laptop.
Thanks, I’ll try it out
No worries. It’s way less resource hungry than WinBoat, so should have a much smoother experience.
Worst comes worse, one could install a VM with Windows. And for the edge cases where neither VMs or compatibility layers suffice, the user can install Windows on a different physical drive and plug it in just when needed.
WinBoat is essentially a VM, but it runs in the background and you can add installed programs to your hotbar/start bar/desktop. So that’s neat.
It’s judt about time, I need more storage devices to transition… I need to setup windows alongside it too… Generally a mess. And yea I want to go with Green Ubuntu lol
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I convinced my spouse to give it a try on our family laptop. I installed Mint and she never complained. Granted, if there is something more involved that needs installing or fixing she relies on me but I think this isn’t so different if it were Windows. She seems happy using it all these years on a device that otherwise would have to be written of as scrap due to Microsoft shenanigans with 10/11 compatibilities, but the machine works as if brand new. Also our kid grew up using it. He knows basic usage and I glee in the fact he has never used Windows so far in his live.
It has already been leaked a million times because they sell the source code to governments and anyone (well, at least up to Windows 2000 which was the last decent version).
Someone I used to know claimed to have Windows 11 source.
Doesn’t compile because it wants to include Nvidia drivers which aren’t in the repos
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I think that has happened before, though?
The entirety of Windows XP was leaked and people even managed to build it from source. This was after XP being EOL though.
Some years ago I think windows source was available to be studied in some universities? No sure how true that is and if any recent version is available. Sure would be fun if the slopmachine just ingested all of it…
I think it was that the XP source was leaked. There was a huge deal because those who saw it were highly discouraged from contributing to wine.
ReactOS also.
The source code for windows has always been fairly widely available among industrial actors (provided suitable NDAs were signed). So, nothing exceptional there.
I think Windows server 2003 source code was leaked before
It has been leaked before
The question is, what is stopping you?
Gut feeling, but I think the panic would last 2 days. Then issues would be found and unofficial patches would be made faster than fire spreads in dry folliage.
Keep in mind if you transition to Windows you will need to relearn a few things! Lots of your software might have issues and I sure hope you have Nvidia because AMD is straight to broken with all their open source code. Yuck!
Windows is just better (I use Windows 11 PRO BTW) because you get lots of background processes and there’s even a copilot that’s right about stuff sometimes. Microsoft even keeps a backup of lots of your data up in something called a Cloud, which I assume is good because clouds are up there in the sky like heaven!
I sure hope 2026 is the year of the Windows PC!
(/s cause writing this joke hurt my soul)
Get well soon, friend 💐
My friend, that was a true effort to channel the spirit of pure evil. I hope you’re OK. Do you need some tea?
Not to mention subscriptions. 🤭
My friend tried to install Windows after trying Linux for a year and he couldn’t find a driver for his hard drive. I also warned him that he may end up playing League again and divorcing his wife.
Ill be honest. Reading it all the way through was a challenge in critical cringe management even being certain it was a joke.
The criminal
Oh fuck. The linux stock is going down!!
They’ll have to fire the Linux CEO over this just like they fired the Antifa CEO
Shit, the linuxsucks community is gonna go wild over this!
Isn’t that whole “community” mostly just one clearly unwell person?
There are dozens of us!
Oh, I’m never really paying enough attention to not have realized it wasn’t satirical
There is such a thing?!
There is literally such a lemmy community, but it is not much of an actual community of people over there. From what I’ve read it is more or less one person who bans anyone who challenge their critique.
Oh shit! Which windows distribution do I switch to? Any recommendations?
11 is the GOAT, it even has FOX NEWS on the TOOLBAR and a LINKEDIN keyboard shortcut!!!
And AI built in to EVERYTHING. You don’t even have to think.
(Looks at my life) Are you sure thats actually a bad thing?
If you installed Win11, odds are you weren’t already…
Meh I prefer Windows 9
I get it, the debate around 9/11 is pretty heated!
Remember to choose Enterprise or Ultimate to unlock all features!
I’ve been doing some research, apparently all of them are rolling releases and tend to break often.
Rolling releases on unstable branches
xp, 2000, or nt obviously.
ME
98plus
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Who do I contact to get a refund on my compromised Linux?
Yea, we would like to talk to the manager of Linux
Is FreeBSD safe to use?
Yes but you risk becoming insufferable in casual conversation
It’s alright, we’re already Linux users, we’re used to it.
Yes but you will be insufferable even to us linux users
Not as insufferable as those who use ExpensiveBSD (aka macOS)
I really appreciate ExpensiveBSD’s hardware. the software though… oh my. ZSH
Not gonna lie: I really like both. I like variety in my life.
I also really like fedora on my old iMac. It makes for an excellent Plex server.
But macOS is getting much less impressive with every iteration, and as cool as Apple Silicon is, I’m less and less attracted to it because of its narrowing support for software.
But Apple has a new CEO now, and I’m interested to see what direction he’s gonna take the company.
I’d love to have Mac hardware with different Linux options (with mature power management). But I guess before that will happen, other CPU manufacturers might catch up. Fine by me as well.
The Asahi Linux Project has made a great deal of progress on that front. They’ve got it running on up to the M2, with the M3 in development.
Yeah, but I got an M4 😭
If expensiveBSD laptops had reasonably easily replaceable batteries I’d love to get an old one for Debian. But they don’t so I use old Thinkpads when I want a laptop.
They were easy to replace when the hardware was meh 🙄
But I really want to check out framework.
systemd users hate this one trick!
Even FreeBSD is too well known. Gotta go with Plan 9 from Bell Labs to be obscure enough for security.
If you want obscure, you can always go with A/UX running on an bunch of Apple Quadra 700s. If it can run Jurassic Park, it’s good enough for me!
If you want to go most obscure, write your own OS in assembly.
Nah, I’ll just use Menuet or Kolibri. That’s too much work.
write your own OS in assembly.
NO! I WILL NOT!
A little off on the lines of code… it’s only around 20 million. I’d be a little worried if there was billions of lines of code, it would be unmaintainable slop.
This is how you know Microsoft windows is better. More lines of code = better software.
Hey! I just finished beta release of my brand new AI developed word processor! It’s a single python script with just under 1 million lines of code! Isn’t that great?!!! 😸
I bet someone from /linuxsucks (banned me, yay) genuinely believes every word
r/linuxsucks101 is the real deal, r/linuxsucks is kind of an ironic sub currently
Irony of my comments were lost on them, lol
Oh shit we are talking about c/linuxsucks
Couldn’t even imagine that being a thing on Lemmy.
Wasn’t there a long time ago a genuine bug report in Mozilla’s bug tracker reporting that the source code was publicly available and this was insecure? I can’t quickly find it because I can’t think of good search terms…
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=949446
Name makes it hard to search, yeah. :V
That’s the one, thanks. I thought this happened much earlier than 2013 for some reason.
It feels like a century has passed since then. Probably because of the Nazis flooding the field.
Anyone else noticed that it says paid partnership?
It’s a Microsoft ad
I figured it was something along those lines. Brilliant idea from marketing.
wait, did they say there’s billions of lines to do?
Al those Linux geeks with their tails between their legs as they go back to the secure windows environment. Whose smug now guys? Hope your Linux subscription has a refund policy.
I wrote in, and they gave me a 100% refund, and said I could keep the software. They must know how badly they fucked up.
Nooooo!!
When are patches coming from upstream? When will they be in package repos? Ilm assuming the major distros like Hannah Montanna Linux will have them out first? I have so many servers to patch. Is windows just like the next version of Xwindows?
No, see, Xwindows is the newer version of Windows… They usually put the version letter first but decided that Wwindows would confuse people so they left the leading letter off on that release.
The latest version is Ywindows, commonly known by its codename “Wayland”.
In my head cannon, Hannah Montana Linux is the upstream source of all Linux repos.
