Abandoning Microsoft Windows
Ever since I got my first computer, an AST Advantage! Adventure 6066d, I have been running some version of Microsoft Windows. But now I don't think I'll use Microsoft Windows ever again. I think the people at Microsoft understand this as well, and that's why they're branching out so hard with other software endeavours — GitHub, Copilot, Visual Studio Code, and so on.
Look at this amazing computer. It couldn't even play MP3's because MP3's required CPU extensions only available on Pentiums.
It is known that breaking a camel's back takes a lot of weight. In this essay I will list the final straws, as well as what I'm replacing Windows with.
Second-to-last straw: Keyboard shortcuts
Some people (gamers) usually call keyboard shortcuts "hotkeys". But I've learned to adapt to normie culture, and now I sometimes call hotkeys by their real name. Keyboard shortcuts are very important to Microsoft, because they empower users to reach essential functionality fast. I remember my favorite shortcut, WinKey + Pause/Break, which brought up System Properties.
An amazing, almost magical place, where you could reinstall your friends' network drivers. Reinstalling drivers was super common at this time. I had a friend that needed to reinstall his network drivers every time we had a LAN party because his brother uninstalled them as soon as he went back home after a long weekend.
I don't remember any keyboard shortcuts from Windows 3.11, but Windows 95, 98, ME, and Windows 2000 all had a bunch of useful ones. They were generally unobtrusive, meaning they didn't interfere when playing computer games!
In Windows 11, it's really hard, to the point of being almost impossible without some intrusive changes, to turn off a bunch of new standard keyboard shortcuts, which bring up stupid guides supposed to "help" the user. I never could figure out how to turn them off! I could be playing StarCraft 2, and in the middle of an important skirmish some dumb Microsoft Windows Wizard would start because I happened to press WinKey + F or something like that. Windows even has a "game mode", which I never understood, because it doesn't turn these hotkeys off! On top of that, the nvidia drivers add their own unnecessary hotkeys, which have overlays that vomit themselves onto the screen when you're unlucky enough to randomly hit some combination of keys.
I suspect some of the keyboard shortcuts exist to guide people towards subscriptions that Microsoft can make some money off of.
Final straw: Copilot keyboard key
On January 4, 2024, Microsoft announced that all new Microsoft Windows computers are required to have a Copilot key. This new key will replace the current "application key" on the left hand side of the keyboard.
This is a mostly harmless change, and it definitely won't affect me — because I'm switching to Linux. I won't be using Microsoft Windows anymore.
Fedora 39
My first attempt at a new Operating System on the desktop is Fedora 39, which is a Linux distribution. I was worried that it would be hard getting StarCraft 2 to run smoothly on Fedora, but it really wasn't. Installing the nvidia graphics drivers was a bit of a hassle! My computer has "secure boot" enabled, so I needed to add a signing key that the computer accepts, and then use that to sign the drivers, but following a simple guide worked flawlessly. I lost a few hours before I understood what was going on, but now that it is solved everything is sunshine and roses.
I get about 300 fps in StarCraft 2, which is equal to, or better than, what I got in Windows! Installing the Battle.Net launcher using Lutris (available from the software store on fedora) was very convenient!
My daily driver is an Apple MacBook Pro M2 Max computer, and I interface professionally with Linux almost every day, so using Linux on my desktop computer will certainly not pose any challenges.
There are still a few challenges getting Linux up and running — understanding that "secure boot" is a thing, installing the graphics driver separately from special software sources, understanding the "falling back to noveau" error message on the boot screen, and so on.
My only regret is paying for Windows 11 in the first place.