One of the strangest phenomena that I’ve encountered when occasionally using Windows is that sometimes there’s a problem that’s so stupid you can’t smart your way out of it. As an example: when trying out Windows 11, I made a restore point after a fresh install so that if I fucked something up I could roll back to a clean install. I then fucked something up and thought “no worries, just roll it back.” I then discovered that Windows only keeps one restore point, and manages it automatically by itself, meaning that when I fucked up, it decided to take the state of the machine immediately after I broke it and overwrite the clean restore point with the broken one and at no point asked or informed me that that’s what it was doing.
Like how do you even begin to deal with an issue like that? The only solution I know of is to pre-assume that everything actually made by Microsoft will behave in an idiotic way sooner or later, and to replace as much of it as you can with third-party solutions as quickly as possible immediately after a fresh install, but anyone new to Windows/not a tech person has absolutely no way of knowing this.
Incidentally, I must also be paid to use Windows.
I’ll gladly wait for the Node.js start menu to render on company time 👍
It’s react
Windows 11 also has a combined emoji/symbol picker now (Super + .)
Me: “Huh, that’s neat. I wonder if KDE has anything like that.”
Me: Tries pushing (Super + .)
KDE: instantly pops up an emoji selector 🖥️
Well, I guess I learned something from reading this, so it was somewhat worthwhile.
(Now I wonder which of them introduced that first… I’m betting on KDE.)
Not really, it was actually Apple that introduced an emoji picker in 2013. The Windows one works since 2017 and KDE has it since 2020.
That’s called a job buddy. There’s no way I’d be using windows otherwise.
As a Windows user that was an interesting read. For some reason I thought Windows was catering to Americans whilst Linux was being the international all rounder.
How would an operating system even cater to a country? Is there a distinctly American way to access files
Super Sized.
When people comment about having issues with Linux, this is what that should be compared with.
Or not, since linux distros ideally shouldn’t be bound to windows. (but realistically they are)
As a long time less-technical linux user I don’t really wanna be that person but I do think its important to point out that generally the issues they were frustrated with are things that would be invisible to average users, and would irk the hell out of technically competent people and power users pretty much exclusively
I adore linux and have used it exclusively for like 10+ years, but it has a fair bit of jank that is most noticable to normal folks, and is frankly invisible to technical folks because it just doesnt pose a meaningful obstacle or speedbump to them. So yes, talking about the ways in which its way better is fantastic, but much of this is not a useful comparison for anyone except the people who already use linux and have happily done so for ages
There’s kinda this disconnect where technical folks will tell you linux is light years ahead and so much better than dreadful proprietary options, and as a less technical art and design nerd, I can tell you it still really needs UX polish and attention to usability (like more graphical ways of doing things), and those are things that impact the kinds of folks who don’t use linux and have been standard on windows and Mac for a long time.
It’s both, but I do wish technical folks could see the things that less technical new users get hung up on, because that stuff is REALLY important for linux to keep improving if we want more and more adoption
Thats one of the reasons I’m so excited for it to be gaining steam (hah, Valve pun) with gamers, since volume of users that aren’t sysadmins or pen testers is really important to those issues becoming visible to folks building linux and talking about where it needs to improve.
