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Not that I don’t (started to) hate M$, but why always just them? What about oracle? Or all the major CRMs? Or adobe? Or… They all are totally not European.
i’d say microsoft is the biggest threat because they hold a lot of critical data… if oracle snuffs out of existence, companies can probably migrate reasonably easily (don’t get me wrong there would be gnashing of teeth but alternatives exist), CRM there are EU alternatives (ERP, whilst different, is i think a superset of this and yall have SAP which is german) which tend to throw money at companies wanting to switch, adobe… i mean, they don’t really hold business critical data - it’d be disruptive, but not catastrophic if they disappeared
microsoft however hosts huge amounts of business critical data - email, one drive, sharepoint, office, and of course windows: it’s easy to say that email migration is easy, foss alternatives exist for all of this, but the data is particularly problematic and getting users to embrace a whole suite of new systems is pretty difficult
True in all your points. Granted. But I just pulled some outta my behind. What’s with google (workspace)? Slack? Zoom? Jira? And all those I don’t just think of right now.
Yet, while your points are basically true, even if moving away from a software pose a medium hassle, there has to be an equal contender first. For ms there is Linux. Libreoffice…and that’s about it. Covers at least the most important stuff. I don’t know a European or Foss ERP/CRM. What about creative cloud from adobe? Gimp is fine, but just a part. Etc etc.
Before we run into details, the major point was: even though MS sucks, it’s really not THE epitome of corporate evil. They all are, together. And any company that roots itself into digital slavery to the bigger overlords is hanging at their mercy.
yeah i certainly thought about linux in there, but im just not sure it’s viable for company-wide use… again, users are not all technical and “forcing” a platform on them that has a kinda hodge-podge of user experiences and isn’t something they’re used to think wouldn’t end well
i do think however that the EU has the resources to invest into a really great linux workstation platform to compete with windows: an easy SSO system to replace AD (heck perhaps some cool AF system that uses OAuth so you can use existing web SSO?!), management like group policy, easy interfaces for things like network file sharing, fleet management, etc and design a really slick user experience
it could be amazing, but users are stubborn so it would have to be amazing i think
for creative cloud, my default is to say the affinity suite (no idea where they’re based, but they’re at least pay once and get a download: subscriptions can’t cut them off so less risk), but it’s mac and windows only… perhaps the EU could do an apple and have them onboard as a “launch partner” with their new cool linux-based distribution
gimp is getting better, but really i don’t think it’s there yet - especially the UI. inkscape is the same but further behind, and i don’t event know of an alternative to indesign
davinci resolve is a great alternative to premiere and after effects, but afaik blackmagic is US-based… it does run in linux though so supports this EU-OS. the free version also has just a download and AFAIK no dial-home, and their paid version is pay once and download a package and you’re good to go … can’t remember how the license works? it might dial home to validate, or it might just be an algorithmic key… even most professionals wouldn’t need the pro version though TBH (unless you’re exporting 8K or doing some intense effects and AI filtering/fixes etc)
i think in general my critique of a lot of the FOSS alternatives are all kinda the same: they lack polish and ease of use, which isn’t super difficult to fix… they have great bones, and with a concerted effort from entities not looking solely for direct profit i think they could really get off the ground as real alternatives… i’m just not sure for regular users they’d accept them as they are right now (but wouldn’t it be so cool for the EU to spin off a whole distro with clean branding, management, interfaces, and a FOSS productivity and creative suite that was branded, skinned, and followed well thought out design patterns)
Valid points…as for the user itself, they’d adapt. They’d moan and struggle, but who cares. They still get paid and it’s for the greater good.
And yeah, the EU should really do their own OS. But OK, replacing win is simple, replacing their servers/ad ain’t. They do excel, hard to deny that. I got every MS-cert under the roof, so I know their shit (not a fanboy tho).
Still, my initial argument stands. They might be horrible and #1 in volume. But don’t forget google or cloudflare. You’d still be using those, even if you completely ditch MS. And you might not even know.
i think that’s very valid re cloudflare… i’d probably consider them “core internet infrastructure” at this point unfortunately
same with google: gsuite is just too easy and has a load of data (same arguments as o365)
I wasn’t even speaking of googles office-stuff, but their grip on everything internet. Is there even one single site left that isn’t reliant on tons of stupid “free” google-scripts, -fonts, -captchas and whatnot? It’s the whole body-cancer of the internet. Cloudflare is “just” a very nasty zit.
It is the biggest fish in the front. How many people use Windows? How many of those use Microsoft Office?
And now think of how many of those people use Oracle or a CRM? In comparison, it is a minority, even if you throw all CRMs in one pot.
Sure, but ms is (at least with OS and office) replaceable. Many other stuff isn’t. And don’t forget google. They’re in ALL of this, even when they’re not. Or cloudflare…
I think (partly) because Microsoft proved we have a point and the rest hasn’t yet. Not as major as blocking a judges access to his email at least.
Yeah sure, right. But what about google? They proove constantly they’re the corporate devil.
To regular people yes, but in the minds of ceo’s and policymakers less so i guess.
True 😒
Oracle have SAP as European based competitor.
They all suxxxx
For me it’s mostly down to Microsoft being such a douche about their Windows 11 upgrade. My windows 10 PC can apparently not do thd upgrade due to “incompatible hardware” but at the same time I can still run pretty much everything I like to play / do just fine. It’s really making me consider switching to Linux, I might give it a shot on an old laptop soon and if that goes smoothly then I’ll switch on my other PC as well. No need for Windows anymore if they’re pushy and there’s a good alternative available.
If you do try Linux, I highly highly recommend Linux Mint, since it’s the most newbie friendly.
I’d rather recommend an immutable distro like bazzite. Mint was ok, but pretty messed up if something didn’t work. If you mess up your immutable distro, all you need to do is reboot.
Immutable distros will likely become the standard in the future, but at the moment I think they’re a poor choice for newbies since there’s very little documentation around them, very few people who can help if something goes wrong, and often can introduce their own problems due to flatpak permissions that require their own specialized knowledge that a newbie won’t have.
When I tried bazzite, I encountered an issue that someone else had reported on the forums months ago, which had never received a response due to how stretched thin the UBlue team are.
Mint on the other hand works fine 99% of the time, and has heaps of help resources available for it. It also strongly suggests setting up a snapshot of your system that you can rollback to if anything ever messes up, which pretty much puts it on par with bazzite in that department.
When I last tried Mint a year or so ago, the onboarding told me how to set up automatic Timeshift snapshots.
True it’s rather new but I’ve had basically the opposite experience. Mint broke a lot of stuff, couldn’t get my audio working properly at all, lots of help forum posts are for old versions and fuck up your system, while bazzite just worked and I could jump straight into customization. I’m not trying to dissuade the use of mint, I just think by now there are a lot of valid alternatives.
I think Mint can be a bad option if someone has newer hardware, but the onboarding process is just so butter smooth for non-techies. From what I recall of bazzite, the onboarding process for someone completely unfamiliar to Linux isn’t the best.
And while Mint is bad for new hardware, Bazzite can be sort’ve the opposite problem. I have a laptop with switchable graphics that has massive glitches with Wayland still. Since Fedora dropped X11 support entirely, Bazzite unfortunately inherited that, making it impossible to use on my hardware. However, Mint worked with it flawlessly thanks to it still supporting X11.
The immutability aspect of Bazzite could be a massive strength for new users if they focused on their onboarding process.
Or else, https://distrochooser.de/ might be a useful help to make a suitable choice (which probably comes down to Linux Mint or Zorin anyway)
If you decide to dual-boot because you still need windows for whatever reason, try the mass grave script and turn it into windows iot, same windows with updates till 2032
+1 for Linux Mint, switched from windows 10 recently.
Terminal is annoying but not needed as much as I feared, and usually it’s copy + paste anyway (ctrl + shift + v to paste in terminal). A lot of stuff is easier on Linux, like updating, and (sometimes) installing things. Also, it’s a feeling that your computer will stay the same or get better, not get worse.
Also:
In Steam, you use Proton when your install button is grey, by tapping the gear icon on the right, selecting Properties, Compatibility, checking the box that says “force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool”, and choosing the first thing from the drop-down menu. So far everything I’ve done this with has worked immediately after.
In Steam, you use Proton when your install button is grey, by tapping the gear icon on the right, selecting Properties, Compatibility, checking the box that says “force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool”, and choosing the first thing from the drop-down menu.
I think Proton is enabled by default in recent Steam client release.
And right it is. No American influence!
