You’ll become better at spreadsheets

Great! Thing is: a day only has 24 hours and right now I need to get better at managing IT infrastructure and business processes, not spreadshets.

If you have the time to research Excel - go for it! Absolutely nobody is forcing you to use Copilot.

What is stopping you from playing Minecraft itself on Linux?

I wanted to try something new.

Some useless nonsense, like generative AI.

This is a very ignorant and prejudiced take.

AI in Excel is an amazing feature that will help TONNES of people do what they never could It can design tables and write (but not insert) advanced formulas for the user.

Sure, you could say “just be an Excel expert”, but - for example - my daily work is nowhere near Excel. Learning its advanced features would be a 100% waste of time, just to be able to prep a fancy chart every couple of years. So, instead, I can just ask Copilot to do that fancy thing for me, instead of wasting hours online, trying to figure out XLOOKUP, or some such.

Copilot can design a table, and even fill out some data, but it won’t input any formulas. It will write them for you and tell you where to put them, but you have to copy-paste them on your own.

Also, with versioning, even if it did and caused a problem, you could always just roll back to a previous version of the file. Not really an issue.

I can just imaging an AI tool going in the messing one little thing up, and it being near impossible to find the error.

It doesn’t put formulas into the cells. It will write the formula for you, but you have to put it in yourself.

Also, there’s versioning in Office, so your spreadsheet blowing up for whatever reason isn’t a problem at all - just roll back to the previous version of the file.

Ah, yes it does! Thank you! I had no idea what “aux_1” is and just pressing it didn’t seem to do anything - just didn’t think of pressing it while moving. Thanks!

I bet they would have helped though

No, they wouldn’t. I’ve seen so many posts on r/techsupport and r/windows from people complaining about Search or other OS functions not working. They always claimed that they “did nothing”, only afterwards it would turn out they used some of that crap software, which broke half the OS.

laptop had a weird antivirus software preinstalled

That could’ve been the reason for A LOT of problems too.

Let me put it this way: me, my family, and my business all run essentially clean Windows + Defender. Nothing else. And by “clean” I mean: install from ISO, leave as is.

Last time I had a BSOD was three years ago which was around 6 years since the previous one.

Meanwhile, the Tuxedo OS that I’m running right now (and, generally, enjoy very much) just hung up completely when I put it to sleep and then awoke. As in: not even the cursor moved when I moved the mouse, had to hard reset the thing. Things like that just don’t happen in the Windows world these days.

Out of curiosity - were you using any “debloaters” or other scripts/apps that were supposed to “fix” or “speed up” Windows?

Are you OK, buddy?

1000% this!

Hold on… You’re saying that you supported other people using Linux, and NEVER encountered ANY issues?

I don’t believe you. :)

Through my own experiences not just what I’ve read

Right. You can’t say “empirically [based on my hands-on experience] YOU are getting things mixed up”. That’s not how reality works.

It’s like saying: “I just ate great breakfast, therefore world hunger doesn’t exist”.

ESPECIALLY with things as fragmented as Linux.

Google and Valve are US companies so I don’t think people are sticking it to the US when they use their products

More and more people are getting interested in /e/OS, GrapheneOS, and LineageOS, turning away from Google. Valve is always considered to be “that one good company” so they’re in a pretty good spot, but even with that, more people are showing interest in GOG than before.

Install and forget, the only issue I’ve had that isn’t a 5 minute fix is a broken pipe error on updates that doesn’t interfere with anything.

I’m really glad you had a great experience with Linux, truly. Now go and read my first comment in this thread to see the other side of the fence.

Have you tried either?

See above.

Windows is always blue screening, black screening, or having apps freeze

When was the last time you tried Windows? 20 years ago? 15 years ago? Because “always blue screening” suggests something like that.

Windows 10 and 11 are on par with MacOS in terms of stability, mate.

What are you trying to argue here, mate?

We’re talking about OSes for the average user. You said that Windows with 128 GB is “not stable and not ready out of the box, unlike Linux”.

Then you said “if it doesn’t work on that, then it’s not for the masses”.

So what exactly is your point?

Empirically, you are getting Windows and Linux mixed up

I’m honestly not sure you understand what “empirically” means… But I might be wrong! Please elaborate!

Also more end user devices are Linux than Windows

Yes, nowadays especially, when people are trying to “stick it to the US”. Which doesn’t change the fact that most of these will return to Windows within 6 months, and even with them it’s still an insignificant minority compared to the hegemony of Windows and MacOS.

Linux is ideal for people who don’t want to spend all day troubleshooting and not getting anywhere

I’m sorry, WHAT?

It’s for people who want things to just work without extra effort

You have GOT TO be joking right now…

Sure, mate. 128 GB of RAM is clearly “for the masses”. :D

To quote the classic: “the best thing about Linux is the community. The worst thing about Linux is the community”.

Rebooting Windows doesn’t remove the advertisement, data collection

We’re not talking about any of that.

AI integration

No such thing exists.

TPM requirements

And thank goodness for that! I like my devices secure and sound, thank you.

which is driving people to switch to Linux

[citation needed]

I’m not talking about the average user

But… Everyone else is?

The OP is about Linux replacing Windows. That means: “Linux for the masses”. THAT means: average users having to deal with all the Linux shit.

The average user needs to be coached on how to double click or to open a PDF. Holding a conversation about any software or technical topic from the point of view of an average user is a fools errand.

Correct. Which is why the issues I listed in my comment make Linux impossible for the average user.

The difference is that even given access to an expert

THAT is also part of the problem. If I’m a noob but know someone who “works in IT” and “uses Windows”, they’ll be able to help me.

If I’m a noob but know someone who “works in IT” and “uses Linux”, I might get help, but I might be shit out of luck. Maybe my issues is unique to KDE and they use Gnome or Xfce? Maybe I have a problem with my Ubuntu, but they’ve been sitting on Fedora for the past 20 years?

if an average user was involved they’d immediately give up and post on Reddit about how their computer is dumb.

That’s false. And, again, I’m saying this as someone who’s worked in IT for the past 20 years - if you have a problem with Windows (nowadays - this is critical), 90% of the time rebooting fixes it.

And sure, a lot of people post about how their computers are shit, because something happened, but the amount of people who can help in the case of Windows is just immeasurably larger than in the case of Linux - because of the massive fragmentation between DEs and distros.

Hey, thanks for being the voice of reason in this thread!

Windows is, by all means, not a perfect OS. But people claiming that it’s “easier to use” for the average user are just detached from reality.

Linux at least gives us useful logging

Mate, don’t take it the wrong way, but you’re living in a fantasy world if you think an average user has any semblance of idea as to where logs are or how to read them.

The Linux community support can actually fix your problems without boilerplate copypasta

LOL, nice one! :D

I’ve read “just recompile the kernel” together with “just switch to [distro_x]” more times than I can count to… :D

Randomly change registry settings, delete files, install software on the advice of random Internet people/LLMs until the software works or the randomware kicks in.

See? Here’s your problem. You’re doing random stuff without understanding what it does or even without a guide. Try that on Linux and tell me how well your OS works. :)

In general, seems like you’ve been sheltered from Windows for the past, I don’t know, 15 years? In terms of reliability and stability, 10 and 11 are on par with MacOS.