- A Chrome extension called “Microsoft to Microslop” that renames Microsoft references in browsers as a protest against the company’s aggressive AI integration.
- The extension reflects widespread user frustration with Microsoft’s Copilot AI, which faces extremely low adoption rates and growing privacy concerns among Windows users.
- Many users actively seek ways to remove AI features from Windows, highlighting significant backlash against Microsoft’s AI strategy despite CEO dismissals of complaints.
If you really want to freak Microsoft out, switch to Linux. Nothing terrifies them more than the moment you decide to leave.
Does it really freak them out?
If you really want to freak Microsoft out show up at their executive’s houses.
This weekend. I’ve asked my significant other to check through and backup any files she may need but we’re switching off Microslops ecosystem this coming week. Got it down to Ubuntu or Mint for an ease of use while not jumping in the hole too deep. But we are in agreement at least to turn away.
It can be hard to convince partners and family, so congrats on the success. My partner worked in IT support but is not a computer person and does not own a PC. I simply provide a family Linux computer and some hosted services to be used by anyone in the family, usually EndeavorOS with KDE. They are aware of world happenings to understand why it is important and the biggest complaint I received was that I need to apply more scaling because the text is too small. :D
With all that said, I think both our situations are anomalous, though becoming more common.
Linux Mint is a fantastic place to start (I would say the best place, personally). It’s especially good if you use an Nvidia card, as it makes the driver install trivial with the built-in driver installer tool.
If you don’t use an Nvidia card, I’d personally recommend going with the Linux Mint Debian Edition.
What if I do have an Nvidia card? I’ve been to and fro on switching for such a long time. I have so much random shit on my PC that it’s making the overhead to leave daunting.
Avoid Ubuntu - it’s made by the Microsoft of the Linux world. If you want an easy transition from Windows specifically, then you really ought to run KDE Plasma as your desktop environment, as that is by far the most similar to Windows in terms of look, layout and workflow, and it is very flexible in what can be changed and adjusted. GNOME is the other big one, but it feels more Mac-like or tablet-like.
It’s preferable to pick one of those two, as they support the modern Wayland protocol, whereas other desktop environments still only support X11 or only partially support Wayland - I don’t want to infodump on you right now, but suffice to say that Wayland is more secure, and is widely regarded as the future of Linux, while the old X11 has security issues, and is only in maintenance mode now.
Mint, for whatever reason, and unlike almost every other distro, doesn’t come with KDE Plasma as an option. I would recommend Fedora - it’s very solid and well developed, an all purposes workhorse that can do anything you need it to, and it’s a first class citizen anywhere, since it is one of the most commonly used distros by far. My runner-up would be OpenSUSE. If you’re dead set on something Ubuntu-based, then I would take a look at Tuxedo OS, or perhaps just going back to the roots, and install Debian.
I’m definitely not knowledgeable enough to contrast and compare linux distros but I’ll chime in with my experience for two years now on Pop!_OS.
So far, I’m super happy! Was simple to install and setup. Aside from Photoshop, there’s nothing I miss, and when in a pinch I’ve got photopea ready to go. I’ve got steam on there for gaming with little to no issues. My ds4 Bluetooth works out of the box, better than it did on windows. The options for how to install apps are great (love the pop shop ‘app store’).
I do a lot of go development using vscode (happy to try an alternative but the go ecosystem and plugin support is fantastic for vscode) and it’s smooth sailing.
My biggest hiccups were trying to use experimental nvidia drivers but rolling back to stable releases wasn’t too painful.
Second vote for Fedora. I set up my wife’s laptop with Fedora KDE, and she uses it with no issues. She gets easily frustrated by tech hiccups, and Fedora KDE just works for her.
Mint is good. Avoid Ubuntu; snaps just make your life hard. You don’t need to know what those are, and if you avoid Ubuntu you never will need to know.
Tried both, Mint wasn’t great for me for gaming because of older kernels and such so I switched to Nobara.
Damnit I just switched to Ubuntu. That explains why I kept getting lost. What about Debian?
Debian and Mint are both good. The former is aimed at servers and the latter is aimed at desktop use. They are otherwise very similar under the hood.
Anything specific I could help out with?
Hmm, okay. Yeah I was trying to set up an environment to dabble with machine vision and had trouble finding good instructions or guidance for programming env setup. I think in college we used something-Unix but it’s been so long I don’t really have a frame of reference anymore. So I’m looking for a low-overhead daily driver that’s also relatively common or amenable to maker communities
If that makes sense.
Hmmm, now that is not something I’m qualified to answer. Hopefully someone else speaks up.
No worries, it’s all part of the experience
And cancel any subscription you have!