Technology

a few years ago I had a really stupid issue with my laptop. about twice a year, for whatever reason, Windows 11 decided my internal wifi card wasn't worth existing and would just wipe it off the face of the earth. Just completely remove it, delete the drivers, everything. hard resetting the laptop didn't work, physically unplugging and replugging the card back in didn't work, manually installing the drivers didn't work. the ONLY way Windows would accept the card again was on a fresh OS install. So twice a year, like clockwork, i'd have to do that except the last time I couldn't because I needed an MS account. well I couldn't get online. for whatever reason it wouldn't allow me to connect to wifi and I didn't have access to an eithernet connection. So I gave up and finally decided to give this Linux thing a try. Installed Mint within 15min.

The added bonus of installing Linux on the laptop was it suddenly brought my battery back to life. on Windows I MAYBE got 30min out of a full charge. On Linux with a WM like Niri it's now a few hours. Linux also made me fall in love with the PC again. Now I'm on NixOS and i just love configuring my system or doing more dev work with ease thanks to nixshells.

I always have time to talk about The Admin. Should I make some ~~tea~~ coffee to sip as we talk?

Google onboarding on Android...

I literally just recommended CachyOS to my boss while we were complaining about Windows 11 in our one on one meeting today

More "Microsoft doing their part to get people used to the idea of having to login with an internet connection so that they can make Windows 12 subscription based."

Thats what this bullshit is. Training the user base for OSaaS.

And they will have enterprise by the balls because they control like 90% of the enterprise market. The consumers, they could give a fuck if they take it or leave it. Windows licensing is such an teeny tiny part of the equation that screaming at them is going to get as much traction as screaming at Nvidia for the fact that a midrange GPU is 1000 bucks now. Nvidia doesnt care if their consumer gpu market disappears tomorrow, they've got the AI fucks locked in.

You should keep an eye on Gnome. Their recent release, Gnome 50, just introduced parental controls to limit access to programs and they're looking to implement website access as well.

I don't like Gnome, but my kid's first PC will have Gnome on it now because of these new features, which I greatly appreciate

Mocking up whole websites seems like a pain. With a Pihole, you can create different service groups for computers and apply a whitelist to just their machines. Plus you get adblocking too!

I saw a deal for a pair of mini PCs with decent specs on eBay right after I got my annual bonus, so I jumped on it because I want to do the same thing for my kids. May be jumping the gun a bit...my son just learned the alphabet (uppercase only) and my daughter just learned how to flop off the couch head-first.

Just put 3.1 on those and let them play solitaire to their hearts content.

They know that, that's why they do it.. And that's why you should go ahead with it..

Microsoft wants to kill on-prem for enterprise. Windows 11 Enterprise is a monthly subscription to your Office 365, sorry Microsoft 365, wait no Copilot 365 account. Exchange Server 2019 is the end with their subscription only version replacing it. They're retiring Dynamics on prem to move you to the cloud.

The cloud services are parted out just right that you get almost everything you're trying to do with one package, only to need the next level up at double the price for one little thing, or an add-on service that just so happens to need the E3 version instead of E1. Oh but you can pay twice as much again for the all-in-one bundle, it comes with everything! Expect that thing you need for regulatory compliance, that's still extra. It's like they studied the predatory pricing of freemium games and went "we can do better than that"

Selling you an OS once is of no interest to them. Monthly charges? Better but still not enough. All of your data flowing through their systems, ripe for harvesting and vendor lock-in? That's the good stuff.

Just an idea:

• Get an HDD
• Use dd to clone your NVME Windows drive.
• Install Linux on your NVME.
• Boot Windows from the HDD as you find you need it (which I suspect would be a lot less than you think).
• If you find you need to go back to Windows, just reclone onto the original drive.

I bet you'll eventually reclaim the HDD, though. I kept mine for about two years, and I nuked it last week, because I hadn't even opened it, much less booted it, in over a year.

There's an easy workaround : install W10 with a local account, then upgrade. No need for any kind of workaround. Disclaimer : this might have worked because I'm in Europe.

Otherwise, there are workarounds for a vanilla install with only local accounts that still works to this day, I did that in a VM. But that's flimsy.

Of course, this leaves you to the whim of "fucking microsoft, we'll screw you forever, bork your data when we want, force you to change computer every other year, and you'll love it", but the option exists.

they didn't have room for "is entirely fucking unnecessary" in the headline