Maybe they don’t want to clean up a fresh install of Windows, maybe they don’t own a computer, maybe they don’t have arms, maybe they can’t read

There once was a Whateley so brash,
Who thought all critique was just trash,

But your tongue's been too sharp,
You ignite a dull harp—
Your abrasiveness is nothing but ash.

Your retorts may be quick and they fly,
But they’re empty like clouds in the sky.
If you fail to relent,
Keep on being so bent,
You’ll continue receiving an AI reply.

It’s because your data is orders of magnitude more valuable if it has enough information to identify you as a person.

They can’t sell it to data brokers for a lot of money if those data brokers can’t find any information to link that data with their existing profiles.

Surveillance capitalism 101, companies obtain the most value by enabling other corporations to spy on every detail of your life.

If you can’t use a service anonymously, without it being linked to your actual person, then you can either be okay with living with the panopticon, or don’t use the service.

Discord has been slowing rolling this out over the years. It started being offered as a “spam protection” feature and eventually it’ll be a requirement to have an account.

They depend on the masses of people who will trade all of their privacy in exchange for not having to learn how to use VoIP software, video streaming software or IM software.

TempleOS is all anyone needs

Ah, I see DDG has started the slow slide into enshittification.

Start off with a good service, gain a userbase, then start to slowly boil the frog an extract cash.

Average qtwebengine updater

Mad? If by mad you mean passionately tired of playing the fools while you parade your supposed superiority, then maybe I am. Your reduction of a pointed critique to a feeble attempt at rhetorical dismissal doesn’t even scratch the surface of the issue. It seems easier to label my words as a verbose expression of anger than to confront what they truly represent—a demand for accountability and a refusal to accept complacency as virtue.

You wear your certifications like a shield, but they hardly cover the gaps in your empathy or understanding. Call it intellectual posturing if you wish, but my critique is less about academics and more about challenging a system that thrives on silence and mediocrity.

Maybe it’s time to let go of your petty defenses and acknowledge that passion—whatever form it takes—can be a sign of someone deeply committed to change. Until then, I’ll keep calling out complacency, regardless of whether it dents your ego or sparks some uncomfortable self-reflection.

Grow up? Perhaps. But only if you dare to step beyond your comfortable haven of condescension and join a genuine dialogue about the issues that matter.

👍

Whateley, your constant parade of condescension and self-importance isn’t just laughable—it’s a disservice to any real dialogue about real issues. Every time you dismiss valid frustration with your smug claims of intellectual superiority, you reinforce a tired, elitist mindset that’s utterly out of touch with the struggles most people face.

Instead of taking the high road, you choose to belittle anyone who dares point out the cracks in a system you conveniently ignore. Your rhetoric isn’t an act of mature debate; it’s a display of insecurity, a desperate effort to elevate yourself above others while failing to recognize your own shortcomings.

So here it is, plain and simple: Stop hiding behind your certifications and pompous catchphrases. Grow up by engaging with the issues instead of perpetuating an attitude that’s as juvenile as it is self-serving. If you can’t see the harm in your approach, maybe it’s time for a reality check—a step away from the intellectual posturing and a move toward genuine, inclusive dialogue.

You missed by about 30 years, junior

There’s nothing wrong with having money or expensive hobbies. It’s not like he’s collecting Senators or buying himself a seat in the Oval Office

Wow, Whateley, your response is a real gem. It’s almost impressive how you manage to dismiss genuine frustration with a wave of condescension. You talk about aspiring to more, yet you seem perfectly content to belittle anyone who dares to express dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Sure, let’s all just line up for our certifications and play the game, right? Because that’s clearly the only way to navigate this late-stage capitalist nightmare. Your approach reeks of complacency, and it’s disappointing to see someone who claims to be part of a progressive movement resort to such tired arguments.

You might want to take a moment to reflect on what it means to truly engage with the issues at hand instead of throwing around insults like confetti. It’s not about being “im14andthisisdeep”; it’s about recognizing that many people are struggling and looking for ways to articulate their pain and aspirations.

So, while you’re busy polishing your stack of certifications, maybe consider that there’s more to life than just playing by the rules set by a system that’s failing so many. Let’s aim for a conversation that’s more about solidarity and less about tearing each other down. Grow up? Maybe you should try it first.

Isn’t it ironic

The current moment is like the recent wildfires. All this trash built up over the years and it sort of has to have its time to burn out. Everything just has to find a way to survive it until it runs out of fuel. When the pendulum swings back the other direction, just be ready to rebuild from the natural disaster.

-Author unknown, February 1933

👍 very based and skibidi reddit-pilled response.

They’re isolated on vlans and my clients primarily communicate over a VPN and don’t see the LAN. Things talking on the, wired, client LAN that are not speaking wireguard have their ports turned off.

There are entire distros that exist just to be a gaming desktop, they come with Steam installed and configured as a default so you just boot, login to Steam and install your games. All of the weird wine/proton stuff is handled automatically by Steam and if you have any problems, you can go to a single site (protondb.com) and see what settings you need to change.

The entire installation process is just as simple as Windows: click the drive you want to install on, choose a username and timezone, let the bar fill up and reboot.

I lost half of my system and didn’t even have to rm -rf /

I still use and support the users of Windows.

I do like winget (and chocolate), but the software repo doesn’t have everything and so people are still conditioned into going online and searching for executable file to run as admin.

I can’t count the amount of times that I’ve had to reinstall Windows because a user was tricked into downloading the wrong file and infected themselves (and the rest of the network).

I’d say that if you had a brand new person who needed to learn an OS then Windows and Linux are very close in difficulty as of today. I prefer to use Linux because I like the amount of information and control that is afforded to me

But, I play video games, use VR and deal with applications that only support Windows so I have a Windows drive handy.

Sure, mapping a (Samba) network drive is easy, and possible via GUI, in Windows, but have you tried to use NFS?

You need a Professional license ($100) first of all, and even then, you can only use NFSv3. The Powershell command cmdlet to mount is a trainwreck: >!New-PSDrive Z -PsProvider FileSystem -Root \10.40.1.1\export\isos -Persist!<. It’s so bad that Microsoft implemented an alias, ‘mount’, so you can pretend it’s a Linux command and it translates it into Powershell-ese.

Now you gotta upgrade to Windows 11 by next year, use a Microsoft account (Yes, I know the workaround) and let your computer’s contents be indexed and fed to Microsoft in the name of integrating an AI feature that’s complete opaque to the user.

I’m not a frog that likes to be boiled, so I deal with Linux problems which seems quaint by comparison.

They’re likely using a gaming distro that has those settings enabled by default.

It isn’t perfectly seamless but enabling Steam Play or changing proton versions isn’t any more of an advanced task than verifying game files (something that Windows users are asked to do the moment that they have a problem).

It has come a long way from the days of manually creating wine environments and writing custom launch files.

If you can install Skyrim or Minecraft mods (not using Steam Workshop) then you’re sophisticated enough to game on gaming distros like Pop and Bazzite.

If you can use cheat engine without a guide and write your own mods then you’re ready for Arch.

I mean, I was able to figure out how MS-DOS worked as a child just be flailing on the keyboard and reading the errors. It was “easy” because now I know it while Macintoshes may as well have been alien technology. A “mouse”?, moving windows?, you have to find programs and click on them instead of just typing?

You’re just used to Windows annoyances and not used to Linux annoyances, that’s all.

For example:

Installing and updating a program on Windows is a horror show compared to using a package manager. It expects average users to find, download and run executable files from the Internet and conditions them to approve elevation for anything that asks.

If Windows breaks, how do you troubleshoot it? Maybe Google knows, maybe rebooting fixes it, if not then possibly re-installing the entire OS. It’s so bad that if you work with Windows clients you probably already have an image of a Windows install because troubleshooting is so much of a pain it’s easier to just completely re-image the machine.

Don’t even get me started on how often Microsoft changes the layout of administration tools and system menus or their tendency to change the name of various system components for no logical reason.

I don’t think Linux is for everyone, but only because most everyone already has years of Windows experience and forgets all of the frustration and learning.

If you used Linux for just as long as you’ve used Windows, then editing fstab would seem as trivial a task as pinning an item to the start bar taskbar, or launching a program starting an app from the system tray notification area system tray.