Anyone who thinks this is new, please read this, this and this.
And there’s also this. It’s a topic since shortly after the standardization of the Open Document Format 2006. MS then feared to lose whole governments as customers, so they (pseudo)standardized their own format, with a whole bunch of traps (in the format) and abuses of market power.
The problem: our desire for convenience
This hits it right on the money. As nice as open source and open standards are, at the end of the day none of that matters to the 99% that want/need to do X as fast and painlessly as possible.
To people like my wife MS Office/LibreOffice/Google Docs are all the same thing in the category of productivity suite. And one of those does not meet her where she lives in day to day life. And it doesn’t because there is no money in doing so for LibreOffice. And there is no benefit to her to seek out LibreOffice for her uses.
Hell, just take a look around at the number of people that preach about the evils of Microsoft, Google, or whoever but love them an iPhone and Macbook. As bad as Microsoft and Google can be for screwing over the user with vendor lock-in they don’t hold a candle to Apple. But they get the money despite there being “better” options technically and philosophically for nearly everything they make, but Apple knows all of that pales in importance to 99% of potential customers compared to being convenient.
The piece on using the tech is a bit much. We cannot get by without a smartphone in modern life and they essentially do not exist outside of apple and google.
Sure they do, but all of the alternatives are not nearly as convenient. But you can absolutely get by without an iPhone or Android phone with Play services.
The example actually proves the point more strongly than LibreOffice vs MS Office does by the increased level of effort it requires of the user to go out of their way to not actively support the bad things Apple and Google do.
afaik our digital identification system does not work well outside of iOS or Android (most of the time, not at all - since it breaks on updates and they update basically daily). so we’re stuck with their duopoly. because digital id is mandatory.
Once upon a time they did support linux on desktop but then ubuntu went and decided to make a phone and linux support was mysteriously discontinued a week after.
I honestly don’t understand why I would ever write up or share a Microsoft document.
As for word, it’s just fucking rich text format. It’s obvious they’re manipulating the format to lock down users with less computer knowledge. Otherwise, why is it so fucking complicated?
Markdown accomplishes 90% of what a word doc does and it is legible with or without rendering.
EDIT: If I want data in or out of a spreadsheet program, I’m using CSV.
All of the “special features” of office docs wind up being security nightmares, unusable junk, or both.
I honestly don’t understand why I would ever write up or share a Microsoft document.
Corporate execs literally cum over MS’s next big thing. A lot of companies use MS-based infrastructure and applications.
My work just issued me a Surface 7 a few weeks ago (RIP my former Thinkpad T15 G2), and while it’s nice, the fucking copilot key is driving me absolutely insane. I can’t disable it unless I turn on “Fn Lock” which switches it’s function to open up the Context menu (i.e. right-click menu). HOWEVER, if I do that, then the F1-F12 keys’ volume, brightness, and home/end/pgup/pgdn functions are disabled. I’m convinced this was an intentional decision by MS.
My understanding is that Proton Docs web editor is a markdown editor and I’ve seen people complain about the limitations there but I’m not a power user to compare with. Don’t know how well collaborative annotation/suggestions/replace would work with markdown. Fully out of my knowledge base but interested in learning what office text document abilities can’t be done in markdown. There’s still ODF for whatever markdown can’t do
When in save for myself I like rtf or markdown. But when I need on my work it’s normally something from a template or something already on the server that is using Microsoft format, when your employer decide this for you, there isn’t any choice.
No, there’s not often a choice.
But I include and discuss a 4% penalty when making wage calculations in an interview.
Even though Office, OneDrive, Teams, Ansible, Jira and Confluence are different toxic apps/websites, it’s still the same “shit tool stack” penalty, one hit.
Shit, I’ve been right about microsoft for thirty-plus years and it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference.
They are. A. MONOPOLY. They have never “fought fair”, and it wouldn’t ever occur to them to do so. Their heart is all BOGU.
The only reason Apple still exists is because Microsoft didn’t want to get broken up, so they invested in Apple to stay competitive for 150 million in 1997.
Wasn’t there even a Simpsons episode about it?
“Buy him out, boys!”
“Buy him out, boys.”
Das Bus
Season 9 / Episode 14 (19:10)
“You don’t think we got rich by writing checks?!? Ahahahaha”
I remember when Microsoft first attempted to prevent the standardisation of Open Document Format (used by LibreOffice and others) and then bullied its way into getting approval for own OOXML standard. Already back then, supporters of FOSS warned that Microsoft would use the overly complicated OOXML to maintain its stranglehold on users of Office-like software.:
Whenever applicable and possible, standards should build upon previous standardisation efforts and not depend on proprietary, vendor-specific technologies. Albeit, MS-OOXML neglects various standards and uses its own vendor-specific formats instead. This puts a substantial burden on all vendors to fully implement MS-OOXML. It seems questionable how any third party could ever implement them equally well, especially when a standard comes with 6000 pages of specifications without serving its minimalistic purpose.
Yeah, the issue is not “Microsoft’s usage of the XML format”. The issue is that they blatantly bought their format’s standardization, and then intentionally released an implementation that substantially deviated from the specs, making sure that MSO was the only “compatible” implementation.
The comment about convenience trumping almost everything else reminded me of this old post (wasn’t originally on The Urban Dictionary but they have it now under the definition of Linux).
If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines
When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, “You had to do what with the seat?”
That’s highlighting perfectly the real problem: too many people can’t assemble basic IKEA furniture properly even with clear, logical, fool-proof instructions.
It’s not given to everyone.
I’m not sure which of the subgroups of this is more frustrating: the ones who refuse to put the necesarry thought towards understanding it but would be able to do so if they did, or the ones who do try their best but still can’t figure out such simple instructions.
I use the term idiot instead of fool. I also use the term resistant instead of proof. Nothing is idiot proof. Things can be idiot resistant though.
The irony here, I think, is that many people will have actually put together the chair they use to sit in front of their computer.
Yes, but only once, until they decide to upgrade the chair.
I think the point about convenience is more about familiarity than Windows being inherently easier. Speaking as someone who switched from Linux to Windows previously, I found the change very difficult as a lot of the FOSS software I was using didn’t have Windows versions. I had a nightmare trying to read one of my LUKS-encrypted drives on Windows. I was practically using WSL for everything. That’s not that Windows is inherently harder than Linux; it’s just that I was used to Linux and the FOSS ecosystem, just as some are used to Windows and their proprietary ecosystem.
If your hardware isn’t working properly, you have to find drivers that run on Linux; if the developer never made Linux-compatible drivers, you have to figure something else out.
Most drivers come pre-installed with the Linux kernel or your distro—I never had to manually install any drivers for my current hardware. Compared to Windows where you will have to go out of your way to install graphics drivers for NVIDIA or AMD depending on your graphics card, if you want to make the most out of your card’s capabilities.
Installers made for Windows don’t need any special TLC; you double-click them and they work.
See, I think if you’ve used Linux for any length of time you’d quickly find the system of package managers way easier than the system of having to hunt down an .exe on the internet, guess whether or not it’s a legit copy or if it’s malware, and manually manage updates for all the different software you have installed.
I agree that people stay on Windows out of convenience, but it’s not convenience as in Windows is inherently easier, but it’s convenience as in you’re used to the way things work on Windows. Because in my perspective, things do “just work” on Linux, and that’s because I’m used to the way things work here.
I’ve been on and off into linux for years, but finally decided to go full in on my main. Now using windows is HORRIBLY unintuitive. Its really gone downhill. Xp was peak.
You have to install nvidia still whether you chose to do it manually or rpm. If you did none of this you’re staring at nou and if you never had more than one screen you probably didn’t even notice. And if you never ever had to do anything more complex than documents or watch movies( which you couldn’t do without installing some codecs) you’re probably untouched by it.
Additionally some (complex) software won’t run unless you also install something other than Wayland. This isn’t stuff you’d have to consider on windows. in fact sessions are not even a thing on windows you have to think about when it comes to software or graphics.
And then there’s permissions…
So just pointing out not all drivers have been installed. You do have to customize the build to needs which isn’t so much the case on windows.
That said : it’s not a big pain in the ass once you figure out installing is just like the same command over and over again and there’s no going and downloading from a website or clicking install or clicking through a wizard. ( other than the initial ‘y’)
Overall I found the Linux install process a giant relief over windows.
it’s just a bit to realize first time doing it and would prefer we be transparent about this and not over sell Linux as if it’s some sort of magic coconut oil. Be realistic : yes there’s some learning moments. No, it’s not that bad. Personally I thought it was worth it and less painful than what up I had to do with windows.
EG: I no longer have to keep a folder of ‘favourite software’ in case I had to reinstall windows/get a new computer
I just had to keep a backup list of ‘sudo dnf install’ commands and it just conveniently sits on the non boot drive that is accessible for copy pasting after a fresh install which is really quite nice.
Thank you for being rational here. It drives me bonkers how many people try to act like Linux is “just as easy” as windows. Like, yeah, to some degree it’s getting used to the differences, but there are definitely considerations and complexities that you simply don’t have to worry about with a windows machine.
As a relatively recent convert, I can say it was easier than I was expecting, but it was not “just as easy” as installing windows. It took more time to set up all the extra bits I needed/wanted, and I’m still not fully set up the way I’d like to be.
The first time I updated some 50 programs by running a single update command, I wondered why it hasn’t been the standard since the start.
This, so much. Looking back, it’s just insane that pretty much every program you don’t regularly use will beg for updates on Windows. There are some bandaids like WinGet now that I appreciate, but it’s still nowhere as seamless as when the OS and the whole ecosystem around it are designed with a package manager in mind.
A huge chunk of the time I have to spend on tinkering is probably already saved by me not having to wait for updates.
As a recent linux convert I found printer drivers and setups to be a pain and getting java runtime working was a process but everything else was about a days worth and it just works. Hell, even hitting the windows key on the keyboard and typing the ms name for stuff pops up the relevant linux program. If you didn’t know you were looking at something different, it wouldn’t be obvious for the most part.
Just curious, what brand of printer do you have?
Brother. Weirdly, the scanner setup was completely painless and even easier than in wondows.
I did not even notice putting in a driver for my brother but I use it by usb. Is this more a wireless thing?
No, the generic usb driver wouldn’t work for me. I only was able to get it to print a test page weirdly.
I had a way different experience and its kinda funny as I use an lts distro that is even out of date for that. I have things that would not print properly in windows and it was easier to do it with linux.
Once I got it up and running, it has been like you described, way better than windows.
Yup. I started wirh Linux, and trying Windows was a bit of pain.
I had to run some mystery (included in installer) script to create local account (BypassNRO.cmd), then I remember having to change something in registry, but I don’t remember what that was, disable BITS and SysMain because they were slowing down the PC, disable automatic updates in Group Policy Editor because there’s no other way, get printer drivers from archive.org because despite HP saying it should automatically install, Windows said to get it from manufacturers website, and the Bluetooth would just randomly dissapear despite always working on Linux (Mint).
Well, and on Linux Mint I just had to install Nvidia driver and Realtek WiFi drivers in Driver Manager (GUI).
And of course, Arch was a bit harder to set up, but the Wiki is done well, so nothing too crazy. But I should probably revisit it, because honestly, I don’t remember how I set up my PC anymore. I went with encryption and boot separate from ESP, which differ from the default guide.
Also they already start shortening the live cycle of the non subscription office licenses, calling it „Modern-Lifecycle-Policy“. Up to now you hat 7-10 years of update support. But this year Office 2016 and 2019 phase out, next year already Office 2021! And Office 2024 only has support til 2029. Thats from today only 4 years (at the same price!)
There’s a phrase that gets passed around the tech scene: “Linux is only free if your time has no value.” Because, yes, Linux and other open-source apps are free to download and use. In a world driven by money, you’d expect the free version to overtake the paid one. The problem is, the paid option…just works.
Sure, until the paid option does something anti-competitive or gets too expensive or shuts down entirely, and you have to switch to a different paid option, sometimes burning dozens of hours in switching time (and/or hundreds of hours of work through lost or corrupted data) in the process. Not to mention the transition costs of just figuring out the new thing. Why not just switch to something that won’t go away, or be changed under your feet?
The problem is that it needs that initial time investment to get it working the way you want it.
Maybe I’m just enough of a tinkerer in any situation that I’ve put pretty much the same amount of time into fiddling with my Linux settings as I did with my last Windows computer.
If your hardware isn’t working properly, you have to find drivers that run on Linux; if the developer never made Linux-compatible drivers, you have to figure something else out.
People have been talking about this for my entire life, but in the past year of my switch to Linux, it has literally never happened once. I downloaded a new, open-source driver for my drawing tablet because it had some extra features that I wanted, but even it worked out of the box. I’ve never experienced this incompatibility. Honestly I’ve never even had trouble with software I wanted not being available for my distro.
Am I doing Linux wrong?
Windows doesn’t have this problem.
LOL.
Installers made for Windows don’t need any special TLC;
ROFL!
you double-click them and they work.
OH wait they’re serious?!
Once they’re installed, they work. If you need to install a driver, it works. You open a document in Office, it works.
Sure, if you don’t run into a permissions issue. And if the system registry doesn’t get corrupted. And if you’re not on an ARM machine. And if your TPM is the right version. And if you’re on the right subversion of Windows. And if a previous install didn’t leave some remnant of itself behind. And if you don’t want to do anything with an Apple device at all. And if sometimes you have the right fonts installed?
Honestly, I think I’ve had fewer problems installing Linux applications than Windows applications, but I can’t attest to that. I think I can be pretty confident in saying that they’re mostly equivalent. Both of them are pretty mature platforms with fairly minimal hiccups, in my experience.
And if something doesn’t work, we can yell at Microsoft until they publish a fix that makes it work again.
That’s a weird way of spelling “until they ignore it for six months and then lock the support thread for inactivity.”
Microsoft has gotten us into a state where we don’t need to think, tinker, or troubleshoot our software. We just double-click the icon and wait for it to “just work.” If it doesn’t, it’s someone else’s issue to solve, and we flood social media and support emails until the issue is resolved.
Here I have to agree with the article, because whatever the reality of installing applications on Windows, this is the fiction they’ve sold us. Apple, too. All operating systems have troubles, and all vendors try to downplay them and fix the stuff that causes problems for most of their users. Linux is just honest about the fact that they can’t make everything a perfectly smooth experience for everyone.
