I haven’t meaningfully used Windows since September 2023. I'm approaching two years on disability and am about to take early retirement for health reasons. My work laptop (still running Windows) has sat unopened this whole time. Once the paperwork is finalised, it’ll go back and good riddance to it.

I use Mint, Debian, and OMV across my machines. My daily driver is a Framework 13 with an AMD board and 64GB of DDR5 RAM. Total overkill, but I love it. Even when I code, I barely touch its resources, but that's likely down to the fact that I rarely compile anything. In my work life, I was a data scientist, so I coded in Python and R, and when I code now, it's Python or BASH scripting itch-scratching utilities. Anyhow, just browsing Slashdot and syncing with NextCloud, my CPU idles around 2%, RAM at 4%, and it's running at a balmy 41C. Why add bloatware to that?

Now contrast that with a family friend I recently helped. She's almost 80 and only uses her computer for email and browsing. Her CPU was pegged at 100% and her 4GB of RAM was constantly maxed out. I’d already replaced her spinning drive with an SSD a while back, and recently upgraded her to 16GB of spare DDR3, yes, DDR3, I had lying around. Still, her system crawled. Why? Windows telemetry alone was eating 49% of her CPU. We cleaned up startup junk and malware, but she’s still stuck on Windows 10, on a dated Lenovo G505 that was low-end even when she bought it. If that's Windows 10, how much worse is 11, with its Copilot interference, Microsoft malware, and nearly irremovable junk?

I honestly don’t understand why non-technical users who only browse the web feel locked into Windows. It's like people with limited computing resources feel the need to give away their processing power to corporations that monetise their data and make their machine unusable for what? a familiar UI? Her only installed application is Firefox. She doesn’t even use a stand-alone email client. Meanwhile, I keep an old first-gen i7 Toshiba Tecra running Debian 12 with XFCE around just for its optical drive. That chip is from 2009 and it still feels faster than her 2015 Windows 10 machine.

This isn’t 2001 any more. Running Linux on the desktop isn't niche, just practical. Most web traffic is bots, spam and a few portals anyway. It just sucks that Windows is so abusive to the folks who buy it and they as for plead for 'more please'.

I think it’s time I updated my .sig. Spammers have moved on from polluting blogs...

I've been using Linux since I've been on Slashdot. I use Mint now mostly because I can't be arsed to use anything else. I am not sure if it's faster than Windows or not because for my last two laptops, I removed the SSD, put a new one in and installed Linux. I'll take your word for it.

I bought a friend a laptop and let Windows 11 install itself. What a pain to install. It took hours with all the updates and reboots, then hours removing bloatware, copilot and ads. Something is messed up when it takes editing the registry edits to remove crap. That's before even installing apps. I'll bet the unwanted stuff comes back on the next update.

SMFH I don't remember Windows being that much of a PITA back in the Windows 7 days or was that just forgetting stuff because it was so long ago..

Is that not the norm? I think I've done 3 returns in 15 years, one was an empty envelope, one was a "new' tablet that couldn't connect to WiFi with someone else's data on it. The other was a car part that I got wrong.

0) Document what you do on your Windows computer then categorize them as must haves and good to haves so that you're ready for the second bullet.

I've mostly used Linux in headless devices as a NAS, torrent thing or a web dev server etc since 1999 though it tapered off considerably after I finished college. I'm on disability for the time being and back between Christmas and New Year's I took the SSD out of my laptop and installed Mint on a new SSD. I was a a Slackware user, so Mint was dead easy to use. I don't miss Windows and the reconfiguring and registry edits that I had to make to make it usable was annoying. It was especially annoying that ads started appearing even though they were disabled. Mint is wonderful. I don't miss Windows, but i have no use cases that require Windows and I am happy to go to the command line if needed. I recently bought a framework laptop and it worked out of the box. I'm not the typical 'convert'. It's not for everyons, but that's fine. I miss Slackware though. I could always put it on an older machine for fun and nostalgia. I wish that I had a need for it.

I'm okay with subscriptions for apps that provide ongoing services hosted by the vendor that I want. Streaming services, cloud storage etc, but I resent an app that should be stand alone like Office trying to be subscription-based. I always used Linux for servers, and would keep an old Laptop to run Linux, but now the situation is reversed and my daily driver is Linux Mint and the old PC has Windows 10 on it. i don't have sunscription BS on the computers anymore.

I've been using Linux for a quarter century, mostly for servers. Over Christmas Windows 11 got unbearable. I'm off work due to illness and I replaced the SSD in my laptop and put Mint on the new SSD. The only thing that I miss is Google Drive, but even my Google Drive can be mounted. It was dead easy to switch over after I stopped needing proprietary software to work considering most of what I do is in the browser. I don't think that I'm a typical switcher. Most folks will suffer and complain.

They better not try that with me. I use Linux Mint.

This has to be the dumbest thing I've read all day, and I've read a couple of newspapers already. I don't employ anybody when I go to a restaurant. I contract for goods and services and that contract is with the owner of the restaurant. I am not obligated to pay the server anything.

I went through that with Link. I bought overpriced electronics in exchange for lifetime service to control lights. Will I am thought that he could could change the deal but didn't realise that these switches can be operated manually. I'm sure that I coule even rig up anold Raspberry Pi to do it as well. It's funnyhow little a product is worth when someone tries to monetise it.

I was thinking something along that line. Maybe not fishing, but smething equally stimulating and relaxing. I may be forced into retirement due to health concerns, so that day may be coming sooner than planned.

I've been using Linux since 1999 starting with Slackware, I've been using Mint since maybe version 13. Unless I'm getting paid, I'm not using the terminal. Jettisoning a computer outright might be a challenge. There is so much medical, insurance and paperwork. So, as long as the drivers on the machine load up without as much as a Google search, I'm happy with anything, but I'd still rather stick with Mint. I have a Windows 12 laptop and it took forever to remove as much crap as Microsoft would allow and another eon removing the HP crap. I'd rather just forego that when I don't need to run software that requires Windows.

I wouldn't be too concerned about a Windows-using retiree poking around on the command line. I doubt that there are many use cases for that.

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I just installed on my $60 Black Friday Amazon Celeron solution looking for a problem mini PC. It replaced Mint, now what? I guess Iâ(TM)ll have to learn Debianâ(TM)s quirks. I should be somewhat prepared using the green OS for years.

According to Father Guido Sarducci, half of Mother Theresaâ(TM)s miracles were card tricks. Iâ(TM)m sure other religious folks also grasp for anything.

I saw a couple of videos from Tesla in my feed. I thought it was Google being scummy inserting ads in the new videos from subscribed channels list. It was just Linus being negligent, but not outside the realm of possibility for Google.