That’s only true if the sample is capped, like they stop sampling at X number of submissions. Given the automated nature of their hardware survey, I’m not sure why they’d do that. I’ve gotten that survey several times, so it’s probably a huge, uncapped sample or I’m very lucky(?). You’re right that if it’s capped, though, it’d be no different from percentages.

As for the fraction not consenting, attrition should be roughly the same month to month (although the attrition certainly is non-random by OS and region). In other words, it biases a snapshot, but you wouldn’t expect those biases to change over time unless there’s a reason like politics changing over the year.

I can’t really see the data on mobile (or can’t find it anyway), but does Valve really only show %s? It’s easier to see changes if we have raw numbers, as percentages have the problem you describe.

Tbh, it would help to have workplaces like mine that required MS formats, although budget cuts in education actually cut the offline MS365 subscriptions. We’re now encouraged to use the browser version and that works in Linux (although at this point I’ve decided to let compatibility be damned cause that shit sucks so goddamn hard).

Fucking lol.

Although, at least Obama was old enough to be president in 2001 (it’s not like he was 35 in 2008 when elected), but Mamdani was 10, probably playing Sim City 2000 or something. Lol

Yeah, I figured Chromebook is just the next generation of this stuff and the mac gifting is probably on decline now that they’ve got their market share. It’s good to hear an edtech perspective though. It’s all about cost at this point, I imagine…

Ironically, the US is practically already off MS in schools and has been for a while but it’s Mac and Google Suite that took over. I literally had a college student in my class ask “What is Excel?” as it was listed as an option to conduct calculations.

It’s not better, but I thought that was funny. Big reason that happened, btw, Apple gifted whole computer labs to schools back when it was trying to get market share in the 90s, and now Google does likewise with Chromebook. Too bad there isn’t a Linux organization with enough money to do something like that, as it’s much more effective than banning something.

It’s not too unusual, as subscription sales might be worth the risk if they figure the exclusively isn’t keeping people on Windows/Xbox. And that’s probably true, there’s a ton of Windows users who haven’t swapped for work reasons or because they want kernel level anti cheat, etc.

Plus aren’t most of those games already available on Linux through Steam?

I admit, I’m tempted to read the AI answer when I search something; but holy crap is it a patronizing waste of time. Just now I was searching about a game and the long page of AI answer essentially boiled down to “kill stuff to get stronger,” like brah, I know, I’m trying to look up exact formulas here, you piece of shit.

My questions are never answered by it, and when it tries, it’s wrong even with follow up info. Man I really could live without it, lol.

Edit: oh, and this is a relatively new game but on both Google and Bing indexes, the first page and a half are clearly AI generated. Same boilerplate nothingburger answers. No surprise the search AI isn’t good, it’s regurgitating other AI answers. MAN I could live without it.

When playing with prompts before I realized how stupid this whole thing was (in 2023 lol), I found myself also copying and pasting a lot so… it’s probably not even going to speed things up in prompting, even ignoring the whole thinking part that we’ll omit here since, well, they probably aren’t.

They mention the old character map, but that’s not quite the same. It also looks like it’s from '95, lol. In this case they have a shortcut and everything now.

Well, I’ve mostly only ever needed pacman but I did have to flatpak something once, which on Cachy is a nightmare.

None the less, the updating point is quite valid; I forgot how many auto updaters I had on Windows (that yes, I disable but they come back). I think the main thing is the repository method of installing is just superior when it has what you need and it’s a shame it can’t be done at the scale needed without more Linux adoption.

As for themes… well, I have no idea what he was trying to run that had such inconsistent themes but it sounded like he was using some very old programs. My experience with KDE differs from yours though; I was surprised just how many apps took my customizations. Granted, they won me over with icons for virtually every app I use, which is something I’m not even sure Windows could do legally (e.g. custom icon for Steam, slack, etc).

I agree with you on settings, though. My guess is it’s more aligned with other OS’ settings menus, but I personally like the old control panel more. And task bar? Well, given my system has a tenth as many things running in the background than I used to have on Windows, I haven’t noticed Linux missing anything.

In any case, I also agree there’s still room for improvement. The way I look at it, Linux has better concepts built into it that need larger adoption to fully get to where it wants to be. Microsoft has the resources and scale but wastes it on old broken code and enshittification. It’s a shame, really.

I had a student who had that, I think. It’s like parental controls for adults. She couldn’t use any of the software we recommend because it wasn’t in the windows store.

Dang, hope you don’t mind me fixing that real quick.

That was a delightful read. I somehow forgot you had to download every program yourself and update it yourself or put up with a third party update app at all times. I’ve only been away from Windows for like a year but it’s like “I completely forgot about that”.

Tldr for you guys, tons of issues with installing and basic functionality but he did say Edge was fine and so was Outlook after paying the ransom subscription and neglecting privacy concerns. Ads though? Yikes. Also they finally got an emoji/character picker, which was news to me. But yeah, massive corporate dumpster fire otherwise.

I wonder if you can get it to auto run if you stick it on a USB and let someone find it…

I’ve noticed some installers have at least a voting system (e.g. Octopi) which helps… slightly. At least in knowing what the right package name probably is. Crowd source reviewing is probably the only option for such a vast and open system, even if it can be gamed sometimes.

I was thinking that too, like downloading random .exes and complaining your Windows got a virus. At least now a days, Windows .exes have a signing process that warn you, but that’s just like using non-AUR sources; they’re verified.

But we like Linux because it doesn’t give you a big scary full screen warning every time you try to open something… so IDK. If that’s what you need to keep you from installing malware, get off Arch.

Useful list for those who do use Arch; I’ve only got like two things from AUR and neither is on that list (although I kinda recognize a couple with slightly different names, like what, knock off plugins for official stuff?)

Maybe not my biggest pro, but I was able to customize my UI way more than I ever could on Windows. I made an FFIX theme for my wife and I might make an Earthbound theme for myself whenever I get around to figuring out how to make a customized window style.

Is the phone integration a iPhone thing? My KDE Connect app lets me text and share files pretty easily, plus a few other nifty features, but I use Android.