What's up with GPUs under Linux?

[Little stoned kiwi]

Microsoft is a walled garden and the walls are getting higher. Those in the Steam walled garden are more entrenched in the Microsoft walled garden. Everything in the Steam walled garden (past, present, and future) runs in the Microsoft walled garden.

I think it's nice to see positive commercial input. It's a side-effect from Valve's motivation to continue dominating their market for financial gain.

[zip accident]

And, of course, Windows has no such problem because it's pre-installed on 95+% of all PC desktops and laptops in existence.

Windows 11? nothing like it. I dunno, is Windows 11 even 50%?

Well, I said "Windows". As in generally. All versions of Windows combined.

Why would you want to do that? The ones Microsoft is getting paid for are Windows 11 and maybe Windows 10. The rest are people waiting for a decent OS to upgrade to, some of them are maybe still on Windows 2000 or XP.

Windows doesn't come pre-installed in my computers, I have installed it, last time about 5 years ago and finding Windows 7 at that point was easy enough, but not simple.

Mind you, if it could do graphics, which last i knew it couldn't, I'd love to see a desktop Multics.

[Rhythm]

I think you're talking at crossed purposes.

Windows prevalence in the end-user space sits at around 70%. Mac is around 20%, the remainder is ChromeOS, FreeBSD and Linux flavours. There's only Chrome and Apple doing any large scale preinstalling there. (Well, Microsoft have the Surface range but it's seen very little success outside corporate). Any other installations are agreed with a manufacturer and almost all of them now give a choice of Linux or Windows.

I want to like Linux - I tried it many years back and did see promise but TBH I'm in the lazy camp of "I know Windows, it doesn't cost me anything and given that I have no personal info on my computer I'm comfortable with the data sharing shit".

OSX I just can't get on with at all. I find it impossibly difficult to use. It's so insanely cluttered.

Android vs iPhone... Again, I know I should like Android, but every time I've tried it's ended in failure. My preference for mobile was genuinely Windows. I settled on iPhone because at least the phones get supported for more than 18 months

[KlaxonCow]

Any other installations are agreed with a manufacturer and almost all of them now give a choice of Linux or Windows.

Excellent. Tell me where this is occurring.

Because I'd loved to have bought my gaming laptop here without any pre-installed OS, so I could have saved a few quid on paying for the Windows I never use.

As to the "agreements" with hardware manufacturers being free of coercion. Umm, look down at your keyboard, there's two fucking Windows logos on it. This came about because it's part of the "Designed for Windows" criterion - you have to include those keys, with the free subconscious advertising for Microsoft's product, or you don't pass the "Designed for Windows" criterion to be allowed to stick the "Designed for Windows" badge on your hardware.

Which is total FUD, of course. Windows is designed for PC hardware, not PC hardware being "Designed for Windows". But it's clearly an effective FUD - scary enough to all hardware manufacturers that they roll over and comply to Microsoft's demands.

I don't know what you see, but what I see is ONE logo from the actual hardware manufacturer and TWO Windows logos on the keyboard. There is more advertising for Microsoft's product on the hardware than there is brand logos from the manufacturer themselves (and used to be even worse, as there'd also be the Windows licence stamped onto the bloody thing as well, back in the day - so 3 adverts for Windows - one of which is like a big "stamp of ownership" bolted to the thing - against one brand logo of the actual manufacturer themselves).

Yeah, bollocks that it's genuinely a "free choice". It's only a free choice in the sense that, like, you do always have the option of defying the gunman pointing a gun at your head and being shot. You always have the choice of committing commercial suicide, if you really want to do that. But, come on, that's not really a genuine free choice, is it?

It's not as bad as it once was, I'll grant you. But, like, I'm someone who was actively looking for a laptop that had a "no operating system" option to save a few quid on the bundled cost of Windows and, sure, there's some budget laptops that come with a Linux option (and you've got your Chromebooks in that category too). But if you want something with grunt - a gaming laptop with dedicated graphics - then, sorry, this is not theory. I actively looked for that. But it doesn't really exist.

(Plus, sure, this is laptops. If we were talking desktops, then I always build my own and then it's easy to not have Windows, as you just don't buy it. But, like, in this forum, PC building is probably quite popular, sure. But that's not the case in the wider population.)

If your point is that Windows dominance has been on the decline - because things like Chromebooks have entered the market - then, yes, that's a thing. But this is hardly a "free choice".

(And, specifically, when talking about Microsoft having pre-installation monopoly, we're talking about PC hardware. Apple do also exist, of course, but they exist in their own sealed-off ecosystem. Indeed, now they've moved to their own ARM silicon, from x86, they've gone back to doing their own thing in their own separate universe again. When talking about Windows pre-installation, I meant on "IBM PC compatible" hardware, obviously.)

I'm in the lazy camp of "I know Windows, it doesn't cost me anything and given that I have no personal info on my computer I'm comfortable with the data sharing shit".

No, it absolutely is costing you. Microsoft is not a charity. You are paying for it.

Microsoft are very adept at hiding the fact that "Windows tax" is being paid when you make your purchase of a pre-build system. Providing free upgrades from Windows 7 and 8 to Windows 10, from Windows 10 to 11.

But it's not actually free. To qualify for these upgrades, you must have legit copies of the previous versions. It's a free upgrade, but it is NOT a free operating system. Not at all.

I mean, the proof of that is to go look at those few rare cases where you are genuinely provided the option of pre-installing Windows or Linux and then watching the price go up and down, as you toggle between Windows and Linux. You do pay, but it's bundled into the PC costs to neatly hide this fact from the average person. Indeed, Microsoft are very sneaky in how they present things - "free" upgrades, etc. - to keep the "Windows tax" brushed under the carpet where most people don't notice it's there.

It's not even insignificant, choosing the Linux option - where it's provided - can knock up to a good $100 retail off the price.

[Rhythm]

Any other installations are agreed with a manufacturer and almost all of them now give a choice of Linux or Windows.

Excellent. Tell me where this is occurring.

Dell, HP, Acer, Samsung, to name 4 that I've dealt with in recent years. My current Razer gaming laptop came OS-free so I could put the copy of Windows I already owned onto it. My GF bought herself a cheap Acer just before first lockdown - she bought the Linux one because it was cheaper and we bunged Windows on there.

Before I moved into software licensing, IT procurement was literally my job. We're not talking about "speak to the vendor to reimage the laptop" stuff here. The manufacturers all give choice. Whether your choice of reseller will or not.... that's on them.

Umm, look down at your keyboard, there's two fucking Windows logos on it.

There's one, but OK. The laptop I bought was a gaming one (which obvs came with Windows) and I wanted a Windows keyboard to go with it. :shrug:

[Little stoned kiwi]

You can't look past people wanting Windows. Whatever the reason, whatever the cause. Some people out their have a positive association with Windows and their favorite Rolling Stones song.
People want it, people want the option of it, and that includes needing the Windows key that generates an alt+ESC event.

[KlaxonCow]

You can't look past people wanting Windows. Whatever the reason, whatever the cause. Some people out their have a positive association with Windows and their favorite Rolling Stones song.

I didn't do that.

I said:

Some people would still choose Windows as their preference, of course. But I don't think it'd be anywhere near what it is, thanks to pre-installation basically making the choice for you

You said: "whatever the reason, whatever the cause".

Well, I'm questioning that. Again, I don't doubt that there are some who are absolutely choosing Windows as their valid freely-chosen preference, of course.

But I'm questioning that there is a genuine "free choice" here, and the effect this has.

If you built your own PC and then you went out and bought Windows and installed it, then that's a positive choice. Even there, I'd want to question that choice - did you really want Windows, unto itself, or did you want the software that's only available on Windows (games, Adobe suite, etc.) which pushes your hand in making that choice? But that is a positive choice, of sorts. Because you could have done differently, but positively chose to go down the Windows route.

But most people are not building their own PC - and you can't feasibly build your own laptop (though nod to Framework laptops for getting as close as possible to that, with an extremely modular design) - so, sorry, but the degree to which there's a positive choice for Windows here IS questionable.

I do get why there's resistance to my point. I totally do.

You go to the local shop for washing powder. And all they've usefully got on the shelf at the moment is Persil. Ah, fuck it, I'll get that one, then. But it works out okay, so you get Persil the next time. Then it becomes habitual and a thing happens in the human brain.

You start justifying why you made the right choice. Even though you didn't, in fact, make any choice whatsoever. You took the only thing they had, and it actually wasn't a positive choice you made.

While this TED Talk is more about how privilege affects human behaviour, it contains this same psychological quirk:



They're playing a rigged game of monopoly. One player is assigned being "rich" and one player assigned being "poor", and then they operate under a completely unfair biased system as they play the game.

Then when the "rich" player inevitably wins, they interview them about their victory. And they start justifying their actions and choices, as if they chose to win. Rather than, you know, it being a foregone conclusion from the rigged rules of the game.

The openly rigged rules of the game. Because they're all witness to the coin flip. They're directly told what the different sets of rules are - I mean, you have to tell them that, or they can't play the rigged game.

But the human mind does this. Our psychology, at its root, really can't understand random. It always wants to impose meaning and purpose on things, even when it's not there.

There are people who made a positive free choice for Windows. There are people who've tried everything out and then made a positive free choice that they prefer Windows.

Absolutely. Of course. Not denying it for a second.

I'm just - I feel rightfully, as it's not often discussed, for fear of going into conflict with people's natural "justify the non-choice after the fact, as if it were a choice in the first place" psychology - asking how often is that genuinely and truly the case?

Did you choose Windows or did Windows choose you? Think carefully. Try to recall exactly what happened, those many moons ago, when you first encountered it.

If I put money down on this, though I wouldn't win every round, for sure, I would walk away with a profit for betting that it wasn't really - not genuinely - a free positive choice.


(And, to be clear, the underlying reason for pointing this out is to help people. Help people recognise when this is happening. Help them re-configure their psychology to realise what's really going on. I have made umpteen "non-choices" throughout my life, as capitalism very much forces your hand on that one often. But, like, it's good and useful to realise when I really did positively choose something, and have actual reasons that I can articulate, and when I just took the only thing at the store and, ah, it's okay, so I'm just rolling with it. Indeed, a positive attribute of capitalism is supposed to be "consumer choice", right? But how often is this really and truly actually happening, in a non-caveated non-asterisked way? It's like I point out the bullshit of religion - but the underlying point there is because I feel that the religious are victims of a scam, and I'm just trying to help them see the "confidence trickery" that's going on. If they still want to believe afterwards then, fine, more power to you. But you need to have the options available... otherwise it's not actually a free positive choice.)

[VNVObit]

You can't look past people wanting Windows. Whatever the reason, whatever the cause. Some people out their have a positive association with Windows and their favorite Rolling Stones song.
People want it, people want the option of it, and that includes needing the Windows key that generates an alt+ESC event.

And the refrain “ make a grown man cry” was very apt I thought for the many unexplained thing windows/microsoft does (still trying to figure out why the cell highlight in excel disappears requiring a restart , of app, to reappear)

[KlaxonCow]

and that includes needing the Windows key that generates an alt+ESC event.

And just to pick up on this, there is, of course, nothing wrong nor unusual in the modifier key itself.

The Commodore 64 had the Commodore key. The Amiga had an Amiga key. Apple has the Command key. Sun had its "meta" key. Et cetera.

The objection is that it's got the fucking Windows logo on it.

When Microsoft had nothing whatsoever to do with the manufacture of that keyboard. When, as I say, there's often two Windows logo against a single brand logo from the actual manufacturer themselves.

When the reason they're even there is a bullshit FUD by Microsoft, with their "Designed for Windows" campaign, making manufacturers jump through silly hoops - like adding Windows keys to their keyboards - to earn a "Designed for Windows" badge for their machine.

Which is just bullshit. Windows, as an operating system, is designed for PC hardware, not the other way around.

But the invention of the prominent "Designed for Windows" badge is to seed FUD into the minds of PC purchasers, thinking "wait, this machine has 'designed for Windows' on it. But this other machine doesn't have the badge. Does this mean that Windows won't work on the machine without the Windows badge?". No, it doesn't mean that. It'll run just fine and dandy, no issues whatsoever.

It's all manipulative FUD "scare story" bollocks. But manufacturers, fearing that exact scenario that a non-savvy consumer might actually think the lack of a "Designed for Windows" badge meant that it wasn't a PC capable of running Windows, all rolled over and let Microsoft have their bullshit demands.

And, yeah, it's now established that you've got to have these keys, so it perpetuates by "tradition".

This is bollocks. It's based on bullshit FUD that was never true. It's quite unacceptable commercial blackmail.

And if everyone can get over their "Stockholm Syndrome" for five minutes to reach "a moment of clarity", then this needs to be openly acknowledged as the case.

[zip accident]

and that includes needing the Windows key that generates an alt+ESC event.

And just to pick up on this, there is, of course, nothing wrong nor unusual in the modifier key itself.

The Commodore 64 had the Commodore key. The Amiga had an Amiga key. Apple has the Command key. Sun had its "meta" key. Et cetera.

The objection is that it's got the fucking Windows logo on it.

The "Apple" key didn't/doesn't have an Apple logo on it?

[KlaxonCow]

The "Apple" key didn't/doesn't have an Apple logo on it?

The "Command" key doesn't have an Apple on it anymore.

But it used to:



And the Apple III keyboard (plus some of the later Apple II revisions) had two keys with an apple on it (bottom left of the keyboard). The "open apple" and "closed apple" keys, as they were known:

[Little stoned kiwi]

Keyboard? The entire device is Apple.