5 ms·

Too little, too late. I switched to Linux and I'm never looking back. Good riddance, Microsoft.

pipes 6mo ago
I've done this several times over the last 18 years or so. The most recent was a few months a go. And my steamdeck persuaded me. Unfortunately I ran into the same WiFi networking issue I've never managed to resolve. Even on different hardware. Pings to my default gateway are ridiculously slow compared to windows. I spent countless hours trying to resolve. I gave up and have gone with windows 11 ltsc.
- graemep 6mo ago
  What is the constant? You have something that is unusual and that has not changed for 18 years. Is it specific to your home network? I have not had any issues I can remember with Linux wifi for as long as I have used wifi.
- ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
  Like what sort of response times for each?
- k4rli 6mo ago
  This is the type of thing that AI is actually good at diagnosing in my experience. Haven't had anything similar happen but seems more of a router issue upstream. Maybe worth checking what Steam Deck's connection has configured differently given it's on the same network?
  - exographicskip 6mo ago
    100% With ssh access to the underlying arch/fedora fork, it'd be an easy fix with AI
    - pipes 6mo ago
      Do you mean access to the source code?
  - pipes 6mo ago
    That is a very good point, what on earth was I thinking, I didn't try pinging it from my steamdeck. Actually, I'll try that, but now I'm back on windows the ship has sailed. Good point about AI too. This is on mint Linux and unless I'm remembering wrong years ago it was mint Linux that had the same issue completely different hardware and network
- ikidd 6mo ago
  You can mess around or go buy a $10 gbit USB dongle that you know works like a tplink.
  - pipes 6mo ago
    I was thinking same thing. But it is a tplink pci card, with the right drivers.
- tombert 6mo ago
  Interesting; I haven't had wi-fi issues in Linux for more than a decade, but admittedly I sort of selection-bias towards laptops that are known to work fine with Linux.
- slekker 6mo ago
  I had a problem with a Realtek wifi card, where it would become slow for a few seconds every couple of minutes, had to disable a setting , maybe it helps you: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration/Wireless#Troubleshooting_drivers_and_firmware https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration/Wirel...
  - pipes 6mo ago
    I would have looked at this if I hadn't already jumped ship. It sounds like the problem I was having.
- ninjagoo 6mo ago
  > Pings to my default gateway You have a non-default gateway in addition to a default one?
  - pipes 6mo ago
    To fair I'm using windows terminology when I say default gateway, I just mean the router supplied by my isp
WarmWash 6mo ago
The problem with linux is that it is made and maintained by people who love linux. Until product people start getting involved, it's damned to it's eternal ~5% consumer market penetration.
- yoyohello13 6mo ago
  Frankly, I hope Linux keeps the product people out. Product people always turn what they touch to shit. It’s the product people who made Windows the ad ridden mess it is today.
- user432678 6mo ago
  I actually hope “product people” won’t be involved as long as possible. “Product people” is mostly a reason of our current state of enshitification of most of the products. I would actually try my best to gatekeep.
  - Tostino 6mo ago
    You really think it's product people pushing enshitification rather than the people who want to financialize every aspect of our lives? Every product person I have worked with was just a SME in their domain, and pushed for a cohesive piece of software that solved their (users) needs.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - voxl 6mo ago
    "Product people" have long been involved, it's called Ubuntu and SteamOS. Do we think these companies aren't selling anything??
    - mikkupikku 6mo ago
      Ubuntu is a good example of why you don't let "product people" near the thing, Ubuntu is not even remotely the most noob appropriate distro but costs on marketting. As for SteamOS, Valve does many things which everybody else fails at, so they're not a good model for typical outcomes.
hhlevnjak2 6mo ago
I recently changed my distro to Bazzite expecting it to work well on a laptop since it's supposedly optimized for handhelds. While it "just works" and I had no hardware problems, it still required tweaking to get the battery life anywhere close to what it would be in Windows. "Normal people" would still need someone to support them with the installation to get it to work well for their machine.
- legacynl 6mo ago
  The website of Bazzite says it comes with 'cpu-governors that are optimized for gaming'. A governor basically decides when and how to change the power level of your CPU. If a core is experiencing high load, it might increase power and clockspeeds to compensate. Of course this draws more power, so 'optimized for gaming' kind of means unoptimized for battery. I think most distros come with a 'power-saver' governor by default. This option should be available in power settings called 'governor' or 'power profile' or something like that. Also, I recently switched from KDE Plasma (one of the Bazzite options) to xfce4 and I've seen massive gains in battery life, about 1-2hrs extra. I don't remember how many hours I used to get on win10 on this laptop, but I'm sure it has never been as good as this.
exographicskip 6mo ago
The only two moats MS has for desktop OS usage are: 1) Kernel-level DRM for multiplayer games (looking at you, Marathon) 2) Intentionally nerfed MSO 365 apps on web and macOS You could make a strong case that MDM (which InTune uses as well) negates the AD + GPO advantages of the past 20+ years in enterprise.
- Helmut10001 6mo ago
  I found virtual files support also somewhat critical. This is not really stable on Linux yet and makes using Nextcloud with 8TB and Million of files pretty difficult.
  - aprilnya 6mo ago
    What are you using for virtual files? I definitely found it to work much much better when I added Nextcloud through Gnome’s settings rather than the Nextcloud client
    - Helmut10001 6mo ago
      You mean via WebDav? That is definitly an option, but then it is not possible anymore to mix working file directories within Nextcloud. E.g. I have a long list of ignored files for nextcloud [1], such as .git folder etc. I would need to create a separate file tree, splitting my work between nextcloud maintained files and working files. That feels cumbersome. On Windows, I could directly add my whole drive to nextcloud as a virtual file system. [1]: https://gist.github.com/Sieboldianus/280afdb2f994fae6e5f6b183888f659d https://gist.github.com/Sieboldianus/280afdb2f994fae6e5f6b18...
- skipants 6mo ago
  > 1) Kernel-level DRM for multiplayer games (looking at you, Marathon) This finally forced me to quit League of Legends (this is a buff)
  - Peaches4Rent 6mo ago
65 6mo ago
Now this is the type of comment to farm upvotes on Hacker News!

pipes 6mo ago

I've done this several times over the last 18 years or so. The most recent was a few months a go. And my steamdeck persuaded me. Unfortunately I ran into the same WiFi networking issue I've never managed to resolve. Even on different hardware. Pings to my default gateway are ridiculously slow compared to windows. I spent countless hours trying to resolve. I gave up and have gone with windows 11 ltsc.

graemep 6mo ago
What is the constant? You have something that is unusual and that has not changed for 18 years. Is it specific to your home network? I have not had any issues I can remember with Linux wifi for as long as I have used wifi.
ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
Like what sort of response times for each?
k4rli 6mo ago
This is the type of thing that AI is actually good at diagnosing in my experience. Haven't had anything similar happen but seems more of a router issue upstream. Maybe worth checking what Steam Deck's connection has configured differently given it's on the same network?
- exographicskip 6mo ago
  100% With ssh access to the underlying arch/fedora fork, it'd be an easy fix with AI
  - pipes 6mo ago
    Do you mean access to the source code?
- pipes 6mo ago
  That is a very good point, what on earth was I thinking, I didn't try pinging it from my steamdeck. Actually, I'll try that, but now I'm back on windows the ship has sailed. Good point about AI too. This is on mint Linux and unless I'm remembering wrong years ago it was mint Linux that had the same issue completely different hardware and network
ikidd 6mo ago
You can mess around or go buy a $10 gbit USB dongle that you know works like a tplink.
- pipes 6mo ago
  I was thinking same thing. But it is a tplink pci card, with the right drivers.
tombert 6mo ago
Interesting; I haven't had wi-fi issues in Linux for more than a decade, but admittedly I sort of selection-bias towards laptops that are known to work fine with Linux.
slekker 6mo ago
I had a problem with a Realtek wifi card, where it would become slow for a few seconds every couple of minutes, had to disable a setting , maybe it helps you: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration/Wireless#Troubleshooting_drivers_and_firmware https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration/Wirel...
- pipes 6mo ago
  I would have looked at this if I hadn't already jumped ship. It sounds like the problem I was having.
ninjagoo 6mo ago
> Pings to my default gateway You have a non-default gateway in addition to a default one?
- pipes 6mo ago
  To fair I'm using windows terminology when I say default gateway, I just mean the router supplied by my isp

WarmWash 6mo ago

The problem with linux is that it is made and maintained by people who love linux. Until product people start getting involved, it's damned to it's eternal ~5% consumer market penetration.

yoyohello13 6mo ago
Frankly, I hope Linux keeps the product people out. Product people always turn what they touch to shit. It’s the product people who made Windows the ad ridden mess it is today.
user432678 6mo ago
I actually hope “product people” won’t be involved as long as possible. “Product people” is mostly a reason of our current state of enshitification of most of the products. I would actually try my best to gatekeep.
- Tostino 6mo ago
  You really think it's product people pushing enshitification rather than the people who want to financialize every aspect of our lives? Every product person I have worked with was just a SME in their domain, and pushed for a cohesive piece of software that solved their (users) needs.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- voxl 6mo ago
  "Product people" have long been involved, it's called Ubuntu and SteamOS. Do we think these companies aren't selling anything??
  - mikkupikku 6mo ago
    Ubuntu is a good example of why you don't let "product people" near the thing, Ubuntu is not even remotely the most noob appropriate distro but costs on marketting. As for SteamOS, Valve does many things which everybody else fails at, so they're not a good model for typical outcomes.

hhlevnjak2 6mo ago

I recently changed my distro to Bazzite expecting it to work well on a laptop since it's supposedly optimized for handhelds. While it "just works" and I had no hardware problems, it still required tweaking to get the battery life anywhere close to what it would be in Windows. "Normal people" would still need someone to support them with the installation to get it to work well for their machine.

legacynl 6mo ago
The website of Bazzite says it comes with 'cpu-governors that are optimized for gaming'. A governor basically decides when and how to change the power level of your CPU. If a core is experiencing high load, it might increase power and clockspeeds to compensate. Of course this draws more power, so 'optimized for gaming' kind of means unoptimized for battery. I think most distros come with a 'power-saver' governor by default. This option should be available in power settings called 'governor' or 'power profile' or something like that. Also, I recently switched from KDE Plasma (one of the Bazzite options) to xfce4 and I've seen massive gains in battery life, about 1-2hrs extra. I don't remember how many hours I used to get on win10 on this laptop, but I'm sure it has never been as good as this.

exographicskip 6mo ago

The only two moats MS has for desktop OS usage are: 1) Kernel-level DRM for multiplayer games (looking at you, Marathon) 2) Intentionally nerfed MSO 365 apps on web and macOS You could make a strong case that MDM (which InTune uses as well) negates the AD + GPO advantages of the past 20+ years in enterprise.

Helmut10001 6mo ago
I found virtual files support also somewhat critical. This is not really stable on Linux yet and makes using Nextcloud with 8TB and Million of files pretty difficult.
- aprilnya 6mo ago
  What are you using for virtual files? I definitely found it to work much much better when I added Nextcloud through Gnome’s settings rather than the Nextcloud client
  - Helmut10001 6mo ago
    You mean via WebDav? That is definitly an option, but then it is not possible anymore to mix working file directories within Nextcloud. E.g. I have a long list of ignored files for nextcloud [1], such as .git folder etc. I would need to create a separate file tree, splitting my work between nextcloud maintained files and working files. That feels cumbersome. On Windows, I could directly add my whole drive to nextcloud as a virtual file system. [1]: https://gist.github.com/Sieboldianus/280afdb2f994fae6e5f6b183888f659d https://gist.github.com/Sieboldianus/280afdb2f994fae6e5f6b18...
skipants 6mo ago
> 1) Kernel-level DRM for multiplayer games (looking at you, Marathon) This finally forced me to quit League of Legends (this is a buff)
- Peaches4Rent 6mo ago

65 6mo ago

Now this is the type of comment to farm upvotes on Hacker News!