The police state wants more ways to criminalise normal behaviour, so that more of the public comes under their thumb. The point is to always have some excuse to persecute whoever they were already planning to persecute.

Don’t use encryption? Great, we can eavesdrop.
Do use encryption? Great, we can destroy you.

It absolutely is on the cutting edge in lots of ways. It can move faster than other systems that have to wait for full releases to make major changes, and those changes don’t have to satisfy a board of directors by incorporating the latest buzzword scams. The problem is that it doesn’t have critical mass. This works on a similar network effect to what we see in the fediverse. It will just take getting to a tipping point where hardware and software makers can no longer ignore it, and then I think we’ll quickly see a change. It’s already happened in servers and general hacker gear and maker stuff. It just hasn’t quite made it there for the desktop. Who knows how long that will take.

Nobody owes you a reply, and this is the last one you will get. If you can’t figure out what’s wrong just from reading the way you write, there’s obviously nothing I can do to help you.

Again with the toxicity. You’ll forgive me if I leave this conversation now. Well, you probably won’t, because of the toxicity, but a reasonable person would.

Yes, I can install VLC, but honestly I spend almost no time on that machine, because it is linux and everything it does creates friction. Every time I go back to it it’s a coin flip if the program I had to install to configure my mouse & keyboard will actually work or will just break again. So I can’t be bothered fixing it at this point. I have it to the point where it barely does what I need and now I am avoiding it.

I was hoping it would act as a gateway to transition everything over, but it just ended up being yet another cautionary tale about relying on a system that is made for and by enthusiasts only.

And sure, I’ll just buy another VR headset that I can’t currently afford when my other one works just fine. Or maybe I’ll do without and one of my main forms of exercise will just be gone. VR is currently notoriously bad on linux, but I guess that’s not so different to getting a logitech mouse working, or something else equally basic.

Glad to see linux evangelists are as toxic as ever.

I’m sure you’re about to offer to “help” me with this, and just like the stack overflow guy, I’ll have to tell you that I would not want help from someone like you.

I have heard that before, to be quite honest.

My resolve is building for a new attempt, but I have repeatedly tried for over 15 years now to make this switch, and still it remains the domain of servers and raspberry pis in my house.

The problem is not getting the base system running to a reasonable level. It is fixing the slew of problems that occur when I try to do literally anything beyond web browsing and text editing. Every single new program or piece of hardware seems to take hours of investigation and troubleshooting.

Did you know that the Ubuntu I installed on my second machine can’t play MP4s at all? Like… the default program just refuses to play anything. I’ve tried to fix it but it’s not an issue anyone else seems to have. It’s that broken out of the box. And this is after I got Samba working which took several attempts when I had the energy, and I cannot face the notion of installing another flavour of linux just to go through all that again and find out whatever new issues there are, so I guess the server I use to capture footage just can’t play back that footage. Great.

One of the hardest transitions will be my Pimax VR headset, which runs on a proprietary program made in house by the sole hardware manufacturer that interfaces with SteamVR and only runs on Windows. The program is temperamental at best without running it through Wine, which I’ve never heard of anybody successfully doing.

So like, nice idea, but you linux evangelists need to stop being so glib about the switch and understand that the ecosystem just doesn’t have the critical mass it needs for switching to be an unambiguous good.

I want to be able to switch. I have read the articles. I have reviewed the flavours. I have trisd the livedisks. I have had a toxic fanboy attack me under a 7 year old stackoverflow thread because my question mentioned using PuTTY. I am a programmer. I have tried for literal decades. It is not. That. Simple.

I do actually. It’s just a lot of work that I haven’t had time or energy for. Not everybody has the spoons to switch to linux.

You kind of are forced to use Edge though. There are certain functions via which Edge and only Edge will always launch. F1, the help button, is bound to a function that launches Edge anywhere in Windows Explorer, so you have a hotkey that cannot be rebound ready to pop Edge into your face at any time if you happen to fat-finger it.

The only way you can prevent it from launching Edge is either to intercept the keystroke with AHK or similar, or remove Edge in an unsanctioned manner that requires deep system fuckery, which will often be reversed on the next system update. There are other links within the system settings dialogues that do this too.

At that point I’d call it mandatory.

Oh lol, well thanks, good to know.

Oh… “in support of CSAM legislation”. Yeah… I can’t read apparently.

I’m gonna need a breakdown on what “in support of CSAM” means in this context, since the link doesn’t provide any.

I assume they’re doing something bad because it’s lobbyists and cops advising on internet security, but I still don’t understand your title.

Edit: I misread the title and missed the word “legislation”. Reading it properly it is completely clear.

Edit 2: The title was apparently edited, I can read just fine, and this question is no longer terribly relevant.