War of the OS – Linux Elitists and Windows Greed

Just like the war between video game platforms, there is war like what cellphone you use, cars, even things like what you use to clean your floors with. Just look at those Swiffer commercials!

But one that people might also think about from time to time is what operating system (OS) your computer uses.

In high school, I took a course called Media Studies and one time the teacher showed us videos of two men, one representing Mac and the other PC a.k.a. Windows and the commercials were aimed to show why Mac is better by providing some humor to it.

Now it seems like the conflict is between Mac and Windows, but also Linux too which doesn’t get mentioned as often. I noticed that when I joined Mastodon, I saw there was a cult of Linux users who often shared on their bio how proud they are to be using Linux.

Okay fine, but here’s my honest opinion. I do not brag about using Windows to do things like play games. It’s just an OS and it does what I need it to do.

I didn’t want to share this but, I am against all forms of bullying and to me, this particular experience felt like bullying. I made a friend on Mastodon once, they were really into Linux, cybersecurity, and other technology associated with how computers and the internet work.

I think what made us get along at first was we were both socially awkward. But what bothered me was this person getting a little too ranty about things like Linux and cybersecurity, why everyone should use Linux and Windows sucks etc. Plus they were tagging me all the time which I didn’t appreciate.

But, the tipping point was last summer when I just got Teletraan-1 back from the shop with her specs upgraded: new processor, graphics card, RAM, cooler, storage and even motherboard. I excitedly posted about the upgrade on Mastodon with a photo and this “friend” replied:

Delete this, you’ve gone and doxxed yourself for realsies.

Nothing enrages me more than ANYONE telling me on the Internet what to and what not to post. Remember when I wrote about some bossy Ghost fans practically harassing me to not post any fantasies regarding the band as they believed the band would be repulsed by that, or that moment Tobias caught a kiss I blew at him during my first ritual when he was Papa Emeritus II? Yeah, I instantly despise people like that.

I replied back:

Don’t you fucking tell me what to post on MY profile, this is your last warning.

Sure, I could have just ignored them but I felt like I had to stand up for myself and call out how this type of behavior is not acceptable.

I don’t care what you say, as long as I am not hating and discriminating. I will post whatever the fuck I want on my online profiles. They then went on to express their concern via Discord that I was putting my safety at risk and needed to take that post down immediately. Which was bloody ridiculous and made me so mad because they nearly ruined the excitement of the day I got my computer back with new upgraded specs that would hopefully give more more years of gaming. Plus my safety is no one’s concern but mine.

They never gave any real context of how I “doxxed” myself. Was it the fact that the original text of the post had the new specs listed? Or was it the fact that behind the monitor was my old bulletin board and there was a photo of me with one of my friends from high school. If it’s the latter, that shouldn’t even count because that photo is over a decade old and I don’t even look like that anymore! Nonetheless I stood my ground and told them to back off while also expressing my disappointment that if they were really my friend, they would be happy for me that I was able to upgrade without getting a new machine entirely. No, not the case, they continued to rant about safety, Linux, etc. so I cut off contact on all platforms with the block button.

I also never took down that post it’s still there on my Mastodon profile. No matter who you are to hell with you if you start to give me orders about what to post online.

From this experience, do I believe all Linux users are like this? No, but this is an example of how passionate some people can get about things like software and consoles that it does turn into bullying where they try to convert you instead of minding their own business and enjoying whatever it is they like. You do your thing and I’ll do my thing, plain and simple.

Windows is far from perfect but I continue to use it because it is a software that I am familiar with. It is also easy to use and when it updates to a newer version, it doesn’t take me long to figure out where the features are and what I need to use the most.

This also brings in to mind something I recently learned of. I thought, like so many others, that Windows 10 was going to be the final version of the OS for the rest of time, but then two years ago, Microsoft launched Windows 11 which was meant to be like 10 but better. Windows 10 had a rough start but eventually it became really popular, and now, Microsoft has announced that it will continue to update it until October 2025. That means between now and then, users will have several choices to make:

1. Upgrade to Windows 11 for free before this deadline if they meet the requirements
2. Keep Windows 10 but then they will have to pay for security updates after this deadline and the updates will be limited, unless they install a third party security system like AVG (which I used to have on my computer for OS’s that came before 10)
3. Buy a new computer with Windows 11 on it
4. Convert to Mac or Linux

Now this does seem greedy of Microsoft and not to mention, bad for the environment because it leads to a lot of trashed old tech. I weighed the options and knew that I definitely didn’t want to replace my entire computer because I love my current one and I certainly did not want to say, switch to Linux, no matter how great people claim it to be. If I did that then I would have to learn an entire new system and plus there would likely be extra things I would have to manage which I don’t want to spend my time doing. I’ve been using Windows for decades so it made no sense to do so. Therefore, I decided that for the long run, it was better to see if I could switch to Windows 11 and if I could do it on this computer, then it would be free. What I wasn’t prepared for though, was what I needed to do to get Windows 11.

It turns out that my computer did not meet the requirements at first, and it was because my motherboard was running on Legacy BIOS and not UEFI. This is computer jargon so most of this shit I don’t remember what they stand for. If I worked in IT then I would definitely be able to explain it better! I just had to learn them so that I knew what I was doing. When I couldn’t find a way to change it, even after trying to do so on my BIOS, I did some more digging and found out that in order to get UEFI it was very simple, I had to change the storage disks from MBR to GPT. This video helped me do just that via command prompts.

I was worried about messing around with this stuff because I thought that it would impact storage but it turns out I was able to make the conversion successfully and nothing was lost. Then I was informed in my update settings that I now met the requirements for Windows 11 and could download it for free once it was ready.

This is where we get to the risky part. Back when I still had a laptop that ran Windows 8, there was a time when MS was rolling out Windows 10 and I hastily installed the upgrade, my laptop stopped working properly and then I had to downgrade via system restore. So once again I took my chances with Windows 11 and I had ten days to downgrade back if it didn’t work out. Well, that deadline has now passed and Windows 11 surprisingly works really well on Teletraan-1. The only difference I have seen is my computer boots up much faster and the tabs are in the center rather than the bottom left corner.

I’ve also noticed that I can have multiple desktops open which is a little different from switching between windows. This could be handy since I only have room for one monitor on my desk at the moment.

Like I said, it’s for the best and it’s still a very new OS so it’ll likely serve me well for at least a decade.

So, back to the conflict at hand. I get it why some people might get frustrated with Windows when it comes to things like sudden discontinuation of software for instance. But whether you continue to use Windows, or you converted to Mac or Linux, if you want to brag about how great your OS is, I’m not sure why you’re doing that because it’s just an OS. For me, as long as it works, that’s all that matters to me. But also, don’t bully or belittle me for not using the same OS as you.

Yeah, this is a conflict that doesn’t get talked about much compared to say the conflict between gaming consoles but remember, just like with this, I used to be an Xbox gamer. I could go on for hours about why I think PC gaming is superior, I could brag about it on my online platforms outside here, but I don’t, because I recognize that not everyone is going to make the same decisions as me and I would never try to convert anyone ever.

👽Emily