I hear you. I’m not as doom and gloom as everybody else, but its definitely a shift away from their model. I mean, technically they are keeping their word by keeping Affinity separate and not subscription based like Canva. But I still don’t like it nonetheless.

The problem though is that there isn’t an alternative. Affinity was the alternative. Inkscape and Gimp have their place, but they are not the same level of software. I guess I’m just going to run my v2 into the ground waiting for other software to step up.

Like others said, bazzite and pop os, though I’ve never used either. I use mint and never had a problem.

Though it should be pointed out that some MP games that use a kernel level anti cheat can’t be played (battlefield 6 for instance).

But I also wanted to mention, you can run Linux from a USB flash drive. So of you want to try out one of them without actually installing it, you easily can. If you don’t like it you don’t install. If you do, then you go for the full install. Easy non committal trial so to speak.

Yeah, I always bring this up because it’s what I dealt with. Mind you, it was amplified because I set up a media server right away and got seriously confused.

What? Permissions don’t get inherited? OK fine, so how do you set permissions? This site says 755 and this site says drwxr-xr-x. Can’t I just get a straight answer?

It’s a fundamental functioning difference between the OS’s that not a lot of people talk about when talking about switching.

Even my Windows machine that is set up with an admin/user structure (as God intended) doesn’t give me any fuss with file access.

I find that one of the biggest differences is the file ownership/group design, and the non admin user. Sure, it might not come up in a straightforward manner, but it will.

Why do I need to put in a password all the time? How come I can’t just move this file to another drive?

This might be too “advanced” for what you’re looking for, but I think even basic usage comes across this.

I switched to Linux about a year ago. I was a windows power user and now I’m a Linux noob, but couldn’t be happier.

I hate to say it, but there’s still reasoning to have Windows. I use a VM with ameliorated windows running for the few things I can’t get away from.

For others, I tell them my story. Most people I talk to won’t or can’t make the switch, which I’m respectful of. To those that would benefit, I recommend at the minimum O&O Shutup but highly recommend ameliorated. This has been more welcomed.

People won’t care until they have a reason to care. I’ll still be around when they do.

Oh, good to know. I had no idea this was a thing.

Its pretty straightforward. You just need to have secureboot disabled in bios so a third party driver can load.

Welcome to the club. I switched about a year ago and its been fine.

Mind you, I was a windows power user and I Linux I’m just a below average minimalist user, but its been fine. Also mind you, I run a windows VM for some stuff I’m still tethered to (virt-manager is your friend if this is the case). But I have 3 machines in my house that are all Mint boxes and its smooth sailing.

There are some things I wish were different, but you need to choose your battles. Like I don’t want any kernel based anticheat on my system so those kinds of games I play on console if available, or don’t play at all.

As far as advice, part of what I like about Mint is their forum. Yes, you can always search and find answers but with so many variances between distros having a forum tailored to your specific OS is a nice perk. You will find a lot of answers there.

Hot tip: read up on file permissions, users and groups. Permissions aren’t inherited like they are in windows so that’s a mental adjustment you need to make.

You’ll probably pick up on the file structure fairly quickly. Though I didn’t unhide the hidden folders in my home directory because I needed to (I forger why but it came up)

And honestly, I’ve used an AI tool to help walk me through getting some stuff to work (somehow I broke my Samba sharing) so that’s always a resource to help guide you and troubleshoot.

All that aside, I just wanted to say I really like your name.

My take on this is a little more fundamental than the whole ID/age thing. We all knew this would happen, and why? Because nobody has addressed the first problem. Security is only as strong as the weakest link, and companies are not transparent with customers.

Companies spell out in their Terms and Privacy statements that they have Affiliates that data gets shared with. And they want you to accept them all blindly, without clarifying who they are and what they do.

Even here, with a reported breach, they are not naming them and just calling them “third party”. So they screwed up and many people have their information and IDs out in the wild because if them, but we don’t even get to know who they are?

His are we to trust a company of we don’t know who they’re in bed with? How are we to rate their security and assess our risk of using their service without all the information?

As far as I can tell Discord handled it pretty well as far as breaches go. But maybe if I know they are using a shit company as one of their vendors I might think twice about using them.

Its the same logic as the next article in my feed, where crunchyroll is getting pushback from the subtitle service they are using. And that’s not even their own security in mind. People make choices based on what companies do, so be transparent with it all and we will have the warm fuzzies if things match up. If they don’t then the company gets customer feedback so they can adjust.

Is that an internal KB article or something you send to the customers? If it’s public I’d like to read it for a chuckle.

I get what you’re saying, but my point wasn’t really about viability of their price structure vs cost.

It was the fact that they are offering a personal M365 license AND CoPilot license for $20. If they can do that, they’ve already done the math and are OK with the price.

So if they are OK with the price, why not offer that same discounted bundle to business, adjusted to whatever business license is included?

But no, they want to charge business $30 for CoPilot alone, with no M365 license.

So this strategy is clear, they are trying to compete and gain adoption in the personal space, competing against $20 chatgpt or similar subscriptions. With that in mind, its a great strategy. They gain market share, gain your personal data for their advertising, and further cements people in their ecosystem.

So, lengthy way to get to the point of, they are screwing over businesses without a similar (if not comparable) deal, and then forcing problems because people will just start using their own LLMs for business use which adds a huge shadow IT strain and risk. So business will react in turn and shut it all down, which then kills adoption.

So they’re purposefully shooting themselves in the right foot so they can take a step with their left. It won’t work out in the end.

Their logic is: Workplaces aren’t buying copilot licenses So make a good price on personal licenses

If price is the barrier, maybe bring down that $30 license fee for business (which is on top of the M365 license) to see if adoption grows.

This is not going to win any friends in the business world and will most likely result in blanket bans of AI tools in the workplace to counteract this.

In all my many years of gaming and superfluous amount of controllers, I’ve rarely had problems with a Sony internal battery. When I have, I simply opened up the controller and replaced it (mind you I needed to source the battery). But its never been an issue and a fairly easy process.

The controllers I’ve always had any kind of issue with ensuring I had charged and/or replacement batteries has been Xbox controllers.

If 12 modems simultaneously handshake and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? You’re damn right it does and probably shattered glass too.

Oh definitely. Xlookup and sumifs are probably my most common formulas. But I also source and combine data sources on a regular basis which is the real hitch in my use.

LibreOffice is great, but one of the problems is its not a business product. So sure, most everyone can do basic stuff and its fine. But if you’re a business, it really won’t cut it. And if you’re a power user of any of the app types, shifting away might not be possible.

But yes, my goal is 100% shift from MS. I just can’t shake excel until there’s a better alternative (or I stop having the need).

No, they shut down Wordpad since it was the awkward step between simple notepad and full blown word processing. It didn’t do anybody any harm, but it never really had a home.

To be fair, I use excel (2019, not 365) frequently and I’m never prompted for anything. I had to jerry rig the installation so only excel installed and not the full suite of products, but other than that it’s been clean and perfect. Sure, I’m missing some features from 365, but one of those missing features is copilot. Everything else is perfect (and I need data sources and some other functions that aren’t in Calc which is why I still use it)

It could be viewed as reasonable if viewed alone. I think that its fine and could make a lot of sense for control over their platform.

The history of reddit sheds a different context in my mind though. Mods are volunteers. Subreddits were established to moderate themselves, implementing nuanced rules for their specific topics that might differ from other subs that need completely different rules and approaches. Its part of what made reddit unique compared to alternate sites.

Then they made moderating much more difficult by eliminating third party apps. Then they started implementing their plans to take the platform where they wanted it, which is fine because its their platform, but they wanted all their mods to do a bunch of work and in a certain manner to make it so. Very demanding on free labor.

So there’s mods still around and they want to restrict them more? Who knows, maybe that’s a great idea but they made the mess they’re in. This decision isn’t a single on on its own, its part of a stack of them.