Web search on the start menu.
🤮
Web in the search, AI in the search, personal assistant in your files, things in your things that you don't want, didn't ask for and are struggling to extract.
things in your things that you don’t want, didn’t ask for and are struggling to extract.
We have a word for these. It's called "parasites."
I wouldn't mind that as an optional function, having a single global search field that brings up whatever you are looking for seems really convenient on paper.
Of course not the way msoft does it, where you never get the thing you want unless you are being really precise (like searching for appdata only yielding web results until you specifically type %APPDATA%).
Its even worse than that. It is completely unpredictable and just does what it want. When I type in "Vi", the first choice is Visual Studio. It will stay on Visual Studio until I have typed in "Visual Studi". But if I'm a fast typer, and I type in the entirety of "Visual Studio", it opens Visual Studio Code.
So the fastest way to open up Code is to type "VSC". This doesn't work with "VS" for Visual Studio.
I have to type out "Spot" specifically to open Spotify. Typing out Spotify opens edge.
There are also files and programs it cannot find despite having been installed for years, even though I've MANUALLY added the paths to the searched directories.
If anyone of you is on Windows for whatever reason and want your mind blown, try downloading a little program called Everything. It can literally find every single program on your computer as fast as you can type. And it looks up exactly what you type in. It also supports wildcard characters etc. This is the kind of behavior I expect from my computer. Sure, make a shiny frontend for casual users who don't need to see every single file on their system, but please, why do I have to go through third parties to get this experience on an OS that my company paid for, when I can get the same experience out of the box on any free Linux distro?
For about a year or two, windows had an amazing search from the menu that used a blazing fast index search to search files, directories, and file contents locally and almost instantaneously. It was a glorious thing.
I cannot think of a case in which a user would not need to distinguish between web search and file search (other than the convenience of a single click). I do use a unified search on my phone that includes files, apps, and contacts, and if it's not in any of those, it will launch a web search using the query. That is more than adequate. If it were performing the web search in real time, I wouldn't be able to easily access apps and contacts, and the results would slow and change while typing.
math in start menu is also powered by bing.
“Holy Hannah!” That’s great
“Montana Banana!” also an acceptable exclamation
Normal people (idiots) would rather spend 4 years of their overall life "hacking" with Windows to avoid 30 minutes learning to use a forward slash.
Meanwhile the entire Internet :
https://example.com/Laura/EpsomLaura Epsom? Is that Lorem Ipsum for the barbaric tribes of Britannia?
Tfw windows uses forward slashes too. Now let's talk about how *nix is case sensitive because laziness.
But all fall short of God's glory that is Temple OS.
I won't have the perfect OS until I've rewritten Temple OS from scratch as Hannah Montana's Temple, The OS
I've spent ways less time editing the windows registry than I've spent trying to fix all the dual monitor bugs with linux.
Windows issues/changes are a 30 second google search away, linux issues often enough require a 1 hour deep dive into multiple forums.
Wayland pretty much solves every single dual monitor issue. Only problem now is getting complete Nvidia support and patching out edge cases. I dual monitor all the time, and not just normal dual monitor either, the monitor count increases or decreases on a whim and not a single screen in use are the same. They all have different refresh rates, resolutions, orientations, vrr & hdr support, color ranges, etc. everything works as expected.
I do technical support (mainly Windows but some Linux) and fully agree; most people just want to project for one reason or another. My main concern is privacy and bloat, but those are easy enough to address on either platform.
You sound like an (idiot); you as an individual are not defined by your OS of preference of all things, and by all means, you are one of the normals.
yeah, and most people dont even know linux exists
thats like calling a kid dumb for not understanding how multiplication works when they havent yet learned it in school
One thing Linux needs to do is change the perception of how hard everything is compared to Windows. Some things are extremely less difficult on Linux.
Both OS are hard if you don't know how to use them.
Both OS are easy if you know how to use them.
Linux's problem is fragmentation. There's not a single OS that many people are familiar with like Windows. Instead there's hundreds of different distros that all function in a variety of different ways. Even if a person learns to do something on Mint or Ubuntu, they will be completely lost trying to do the same thing on Fedora or Arch.
hundreds of different distros
And out of those "hundreds" only a handful of them are actually popular and progressing innovation...
As someone who's distro hopped across a wide verity of distros, the fundamentals are more less the same across all of them. Just go with a popular distro with good documentation and you'll be fine. If you've learned enough from mint to feel comfortable tackling Arch Linux, then the documention (e.g. ArchWiki) will be your strongest asset.
I'd argue that there's like 4 ways that 90% of distros work like and even they are extremely similar to each other. You got Fedora, Debian, Arch, and whatever Gentoo users do when they are in the dark in the basement. The rest are niche and weird stuff that not even Linux hardcore fans know all about. Similarly there's only two desktop things that matter, GTK or QT. Everything else is us nerds nick-picking.
Ok, there's also nixOS and the new wave of atomic monolithic containerized whatever distros, but they are like, super new and the resulting system is indistinguishable for the end used from the other 4 main.
Definitely this. I have been eyeballing Linux for years, always intimidated by the CLI and the notion that everything you try to do on Linux requires user research and work first.
Now I finally made the switch a couple days ago, and while it took a bit of tinkering and googling here and there I am amazed how simple, even way simpler than on windows, the experience for a an average user is, particularly with the very beginner friendly distro I went with (bazzite/gnome).
It just works right out the box for 90% of whatever I want to do, configuring it is simply flipping some switches in the software and extension apps. Feels more like setting up a new smartphone than a PC. I didn't even have to mess with the CLI all that much, perhaps half a dozen times so far, and each time i followed specific steps in a guide or tutorial, or tried out some basic things like file search.
It is good to send new users to something like Gnome they can branch out. I think Cosmic will be a great fit as well. Outside of updates, you don't have to do too much in the CLI really. But long as you learn some of the basics how to get around and maybe make an alias. I think that will get you by just fine on Linux. I do think people should get users to try less Windows like experiences on Linux. Because a Windows like UI will just make them miss Windows.
Problem is is that is that too many people insist on doing things the Windows way and they get frustrated because of it. For example, instead of going to the software center, they choose to download their programs from a website, even though that's not how you're supposed to do it most of the time. They'll also spend hours trying to get Windows only programs to run, when there are alternatives available that work just as well.
I always show people single click printer setups.
Linux (and sometimes Android) is the only platform printers actually work reliably.
Using Linux isn't hard. Switching to Linux is hard.
To be fair, comparing terminal to the registry is not comparing apples to apples. The registry is more like a complicated config file full of barely documented options. Still miserable to work in, but that's beside the point.
The terminal equivalent to windows is Powershell which id say is much more favorable.
That's even more complicated than half the stuff normal users on Linux do
I have been using Linux for more than 15 years and would consider myself a semi-advanced user, but that thing in the screenshot - it scares me.
It is nothing but opening regedit, going to the path described in the text, and adding a variable with a certain name and value.
It can even be done by a single powershell command line.
I'm starting to think Linux users like yourself aren't as technologically capable as you guys claim you are.
What if I told you you can create and set a registry entry with a single line of powershell
What if I told you I'd rather bash my skull in than use powershell.
You can install gentoo with a single line of bash
Imagine not having all your system settings in plain text files 😬
What if I told you you can make a backup of a config file and edit a single line in a conf file, all with a single line of bash?
sudo cp config.conf config.conf.bak.$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S") && sed -i 's/^\(CONFIG_NAME\s*=\s*\).*/\1new_value/' config.conf
Wait, this is actually a good tip lol
I even have to tell stupid windows to interpret the bios clock as UTC.
Or set the clock in Linux to local time
Pay no attention to gconf, dconf, GSettings, or whatever else there is.
Or messing with text configuration files in various different formats
I'd take plain text files over the registry any day of time.
GNOME
LiNuX uSeR iNsTaLlInG A BrOwSeR haha
yeah uh...
sudo apt install firefoxsudo xbps-install firefoxsudo pacman -Syu firefoxnix-env -iA firefox
Bro I think you got too many package managers in your setup. Prob this is gonna cause conflicts.
Ahahahah imagine writing a short story to install a browser
Yeah, totally.
Just imagine trying to do this with Windows Powershell, without a package manager like chocolatey to make it simple like linux...
$workdir = "c:\installer\" If (Test-Path -Path $workdir -PathType Container) { Write-Host "$workdir already exists" -ForegroundColor Red} ELSE { New-Item -Path $workdir -ItemType directory } $source = "https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-latest&os=win64&lang=en-US" $destination = "$workdir\firefox.exe" if (Get-Command 'Invoke-Webrequest') { Invoke-WebRequest $source -OutFile $destination } else { $WebClient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient $webclient.DownloadFile($source, $destination) } Start-Process -FilePath "$workdir\firefox.exe" -ArgumentList "/S" Start-Sleep -s 35 rm -Force $workdir/firefox*
sudo pacman -S firefoxis also enough. -Syu is for updating.yay firefox
It's been 8+ years since I last used Ubuntu on my laptop. I faced massive issues with staying on the latest version of Firefox because apt had a much older version, and installing using the gui installer wouldn't replace the apt version etc etc. Probably a PEBKAC issue...
But, I do want to know- is this not an issue any more? Will
aptinstall the latest (or almost latest) version of Firefox? Can I update it from the inbuilt update tool in Firefox?When you choose a distro, you generally choose to follow what the maintainers give you as the "latest".
Or you getsnap/flatpak/AppImage.I, personally, would go with AppImage, probably because I once made some myself and liked them.
Not unless you use the nightly repository.
Can I update it from the inbuilt update tool in Firefox?
Universally regarded as a bad idea on Ubuntu based distros as far as my research goes.
Probably a PEBKAC issue...
Staying on the OTB repos in LTS distros and then complaining about software being slow to update is like staying on the OTB mirror, and then complaining that your download speeds suck.
I'm a Linux noob through and trough, use Glorious Mint, but like... How to get a newer version of VLC, than distributed by upstream is probably the first thing I figured out how to do.
paru -S firefox
Voidtools "Everything" is how we mimic a fraction of your power thank-you-very-much.
Everything is still far superior than plasma search and I can't imagine that gnome/other DEs get close to it neither. Fsearch is close but it needs to do a complete resacn every time you use it instead of scanning in the background like everything
Funny enough, the regedit of my work PC was already there with the value set (seems like I already did that a few weeks ago)...
Startmenu is still slower than my personal Linux machine.
I just tested it on my work laptop and it's ridiculous how much faster search is now. Gonna propose to implement it company wide on workstations. I mean, I would do so in a heartbeat, but I still want our CIO to sign off on it.
For servers though, I'm creating the policy first thing in the morning. The slow search has been the bane of my existence for years (although admittedly I could've googled it many times and never did, so that's on me).
Literally a KDE setting. In the GUI.
And nobody needs that, otherwise there would be a plasmoid.
The other day I was trying to disable Ubuntu Pro stuff and the way to do it reminded me of Windows. Once I get my media backed up I'm switching to another distro, just not sure what one yet.
You seem to me like a fedora or mint person 😁 like in the sense that I think you’d like them
I threw Ubuntu 24.04 in a VM it’s been a few years since I’ve used it.
I was unpleasantly surprised.
Wtf windows search is so much snappier now!!!!
Thank you!
Lol
I mean, fucking with the registry was always a thing in windows
Well, sure, but this has a user hostile motive behind it.
Microsoft could have offered a right-click/disable internet search to facilitate. However, they wanted people to just give up and soak in start-menu driven internet action, so they buried the option in an obscure registry key.
The key is the start menu search to internet really makes the experience suck, as you try to type something on local system and some internet result gets prioritized, and by nature of the internet search, the internet search is unpredictable, so the search you do every day that usually opens up what you expect suddenly starts going to some internet site in edge.
don't get me wrong, by no means this isn't shitty, it is.
I'm just saying Windows too always had its tinkering with the registry or in text files, you just normally did that on the GUI or used EDIT.
Why are we even comparing the terminal with registry? What is registry mimicking from Linux?
In this case, I'd say it's less about how the registry works, and more about how deliberately obnoxious Microsoft makes the experience for the sake of their agenda.
Sure if you have to deal with the registry at all, it's "hard" but that's casting stones from a glass house as dconf can be just as hard, and then you have the odd occasion where someone suggests dbus-send, which certainly doesn't have room to mock registry handling as hard. The point is that most people never have to touch dconf/dbus directly to do what they want, and in Microsoft some things are deliberately obscure due to user hostile intentions.
/etc
People not using Powertoys Run as their search…
Ha nerds Imagine using the terminal!
Wait. Wait. Nevermind
(Me rn)
You're not using a command line web browser? I wouldn't either.
Piece of advice: add -qv to your emerge command to let Portage show the things you need to know but stay quiet otherwise. Way less gets shown on the terminal window and on some systems it might slightly speed up the process.
Thanks for the info! On a seprate note gentoo package managment is so magical! You get to choose whats built and all the amazing features portage has like distcc and ccache. Its so much fun playing with this kinda stuff!
I agree that this is bullshit and Linux is better. But as someone with a Windows work computer, this was a huge help.
You think you're powerful? now try to enable bing results in Linux search
That's literally the easiest thing.
Of course KDE supports that...
Lol Interesting
What about ChromeOS on this subject matter? (besides being liNuX, I intentionally wrote it that way)
I was actually just looking for this the other day. I'll let you know if it actually works.
Reminds me of when I tried to install Firefox on Ubuntu and it said it couldn't open the download as there was nothing associated with it. Ended up with another copy without an icon but it worked. Then I moved to Fedora which seemed to work as intended. Couldn't run Mint on this laptop as it boots to a black screen - presumably the wrong GPU. Daily Driver is Windows 10 by necessity.
I get the impression "opening a file" is treated as a different action in Linux from "executing a file". They don't want the user request of "Oh, I guess I'll look at this image" to accidentally result in a system takeover - so any "run this file" actions are more manual.
I think it's becasue I downloaded a deb file or something that Canonical had decided was not allowed any more. Recent conroversy
Unlike us power users, many people like the web search.
Still the fact that this can be easily disabled with a single registry key is an advantage of Windows, not a detriment.
It's the fact that it could just be a checkbox in search settings, but they make it as hidden as humanly possible, not only is it in the registry, but it's not an existing flag you can change, it's a flag you have to know the exact name of to add. It only takes a minute if you're the type of person to be here commenting on a Linux meme on Lemmy, but to the average user, the option almost doesn't exist.
Editing the registry is also potentially dangerous and I have had to reinstall windows more than once because of it.
The fact that windows does not provide a safe configuration environment within which to make such changes, is most definitely a detriment.
Season 2 of Invincible really hasn't been great. Was it made during the writer's strike?
