And even more nines' worth of people want nothing to do with Slashdot.

Statistically nobody wants their OS to break, but Windows is fragile AF and breaks all the time. It produces a lot of revenue for a lot of different people in the process. I got a good PC (a dual-core Athlon back when that was still pretty neato) for fifty bucks because it came with Vista and they had problems with it, and were all like fuck this whole PC. Without changing any hardware at all, I put Linux on it, and it was fine. I reinstalled Vista from the restore files on the disk first just to see what that was like, fucking agony. I think the machine had maybe 2GB of RAM.

Anyway, enough about Microsoft's greatest misses, it's been a while now since Windows 7 (IMO their greatest hit) was supported. Whichever enemy of theirs convinced them to do that dumb Windows 8 UI shit is a goddamned superhero, what a masterstroke. And frankly, I can only just barely grit my teeth hard enough to bear Windows 10, I don't even want to think about when they finally "upgrade" me to 11...

By comparison, practically any Linux distribution is a peach. If you want the least drama and also nominally the least bullshit then I suggest you run either Debian or Arch. Either one is fine and has a large community. Just stuff it into the VM of your choice and poke at it, it's not a large time investment.

It was charming before systemd. Now I have to use Devuan to get rid of that. (Once burned, no thanks.) It is not a big delta from Debian, but it's enough that it's a hassle to replicate the effects on your own. Not being on the cutting edge just isn't charming any more, because development of enough of the system is sufficiently active that not being current is a significant detriment.

I had to go scrounging around for firmware for I think literally all of my ethernet devices, except maybe the onboard RTL8125 2.5 GbE, but some is weird and some is old: I also have a dual BCM5709 GbE and a M.2 WiFi-slot MT7925 (160Mhz WiFi 7/BT5.2) and I definitely had to go find some for both of those. Otherwise, no complaints.

I went Nvidia one last time for this PC (5900X/4060Ti 16GB), but the poor quality of their drivers is going to scare me off next time if not addressed. They will weep all the way to the AI-scam bank, I'm sure. I use the runfile for Nvidia drivers, so that they don't cause problems with Debian and therefore Devuan's multiarch setup. Fun fact, you have to both set TMPDIR and specify --tmpdir=/dir if you don't have room to unpack Nvidia drivers in /tmp. Why not just respect TMPDIR?

You ever try doing that with Windows?

In any case they're wrong. Converting Linux between being a server and being a desktop is trivial.

Debian often has unfortunately old packages. I've resorted to removing a lot of software and building it myself. And since Debs can be a bit of a hassle I usually just install to local or opt.

Japan is not even kind to repatriated Japanese, many of whom have left again because of the discrimination they experienced. They're discriminated against abroad for being Japanese, then come home and get discriminated against again for not being sufficiently racially pure.

I've had many Windows upgrades fail. Some of them resulted in an unusable system, others reverted themselves and only wasted hours of my time. And for that matter, just running Windows Update without an upgrade to a new Windows version very frequently breaks Windows Update so that it will not work, and on a few occasions has resulted in an unbootable Windows system. In fact even my work machine has rendered itself unbootable with a Windows Update, and I work remotely... I had to go in to the office to have them address the issue, that was a fun waste of time.

No, Linux is not perfect, but you don't get to declare that Linux is not ready for the desktop when it has problems that Windows also has.

They have lots of problems. We know because we see their confused posts on Microsoft forums, which are usually followed up with "solutions" which don't work.

Our IT department forces a windows reboot once a week even if Microsoft doesn't, because they have found that this prevents a lot of problems.

I don't have to do this with my Linux systems. This is not to say that they are trouble-free, only that they don't need to be rebooted weekly to work as well as they are going to.

"a statement that a situation is unsatisfactory or unacceptable."

What prevents you from accessing a dictionary? It's easy and free.

Thanks for agreeing with me, and also being a cautionary tale of illiteracy.

Thus solving the problem forever!

FOREVER!

Capitalism does dumb shit all day. Virtually nothing about it is sustainable. Almost everything it does is abusive to someone. When you are complaining about this, which is driven purely by capitalism, you're complaining about capitalism whether you know it or not.

Like water running in pipes, not like a stream.

I don't know if they make a different noise in the UK, but I sure hope they do, because this one gives me a headache.

I have personal experience which proves that you are factually incorrect. Literally the only time when Kia/Hyundai EVs make more tire noise than artificial noise is when they are moving quickly enough for the artificial noisemaker to shut off. I know this to be true because there are two of the fuckers on my street and the noisemaker absolutely, positively, and conclusively drowns out the tire noise any time it is active, from any vantage point and range. I have heard it in every conceivable context down to and including when I was underneath a vehicle that one of them was parking next to and then leaving again. I can easily hear the noisemaker inside my home, where I cannot hear the tire noise at all unless the vehicle is pushing around a corner and the tires squeak.

MOST ICEVs (the vast majority of which are now little four bangers) are in fact quieter than the artificial noise from these EVs even while in motion. My '08 Versa is quieter than they are, unless I get carried away with the pedals while moving off — it's a stick, so I can reasonably rev it up to the point where you would hear it accidentally. That wouldn't happen with a slush box.

Now, to the point raised, drone delivery is absolutely louder than an EV if you do not count the noisemaker. I own several multicopters, and ALL of them are louder than typical tire noise, period. So you're wrong about the EV noisemaker being quieter than tire noise (it isn't, that's WHY IT EXISTS) and you're also wrong about the drones being quieter than tire noise (even a 250 size quad isn't, and that's too small to reasonably deliver anything larger than a loose cigarette.)

Most music is talentless schlock with poor production quality and provides nothing novel. This barely moves the needle on that. The vast majority of music ever produced was total fucking garbage made only because some producer thought there was a chance that some crowd would latch on and make it profitable, and not for reasons which have anything to do with quality. Far more musical artists have been rightly forgotten than have ever been successful or noted.

This doesn't change that significantly. You're still going to need a map and compass to navigate the shit swamp of mass market music, same as it ever was.