If you 'play' an operating system as if it was a game, what is the final boss, and how do you beat it?

I say you've won an operating system once you've contributed code that got into its kernel

The fear your code will break something one day and Linus will hunt you down will forever your thoughts.

Game over.
- Your comment seems to have a ----- missing..
Alright, have an upvote 👍

But.. If you wrote the boss (or even just portions of it), then defeat the kernel boss you partly wrote, isn't that like cheating?
- Windows when you can activate it without giving MS your info. Of course, like so many final bosses, it tends to come back harder the next phase.
So the final boss il Linus Torvalds, got it!
Kernel, compiler and WebKit back in the day, taking the hat trick.

There is literally written that :q to exit!
- Wont work if you have unsaved edits or are in insert mode. Escape then :q! will.
- If you read the clues, yes.
- I typed :q and it just says :q on the bottom, all this advice and I'm still stuck in vim. My electricity bill has been high since 2022 because of this heavy editor with no x button
- People who have never had the pleasure of experiencing vim might not realize that the colon is a part of the command and will start recording a macro instead.

TempleOS, and you need to fight Terry Davis

Oh shit..!
The secret final boss is Windows ME though...
- That game is too easy though, it crashes itself.
We all know that CIA prison escape segment was harder than any of the bosses, though.
Not the glowies?

Blue screen of death and you defeat it by installing linux.

Then how do you defeat the new bsod in the Linux kernel? It's got a fancy QR code!!

https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/08d5fc94a843f41a90209010df41b75f92616ce2/2024/09/16/54eb298b-1bb0-44de-a1fa-1f8e136796fc/linux-6-11-panic-screen.png?auto=webp&fit=bounds&height=2000&width=2000

(It's "install bsd" isn't it...)
- Where my freebsd homies at
- That looks purple to me, clearly not a BSOD.
  
  For real though, a QR code for a kernel panic? 🤦‍♂️
Tsch, that's the opening sequence.

"You have broken free! Now what do you want to do?"

Nvidia drivers. You beat it by ripping out your GPU and casting it into a volcano

Nvidia is Sauron confirmed.

God.

You patch God out of TempleOS

windows 10: uninstall edge

windows 11: uninstall copilot

windows: uninstall
Windows 10 DLC just dropped. Copilot added from Windows 11.

Windows 11, the settings panel, a terrifying combination of old and new technology.

Win10, the updates that keep loading bloatware and undoing debloater
- That shit was the final straw for me...
  
  I was spending so much time trying to fight it to stop doing weird shit that learning Linux was easier path forward.
Happy cry Linux mode activated.. 🐧

Kill screen: Uninstal McAfee

Instructions unclear, uninstall what?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yIaNZXgDtRU

Grub Rescue

Same way you overcome any of life's challenges: decide it's impossible bullshit and move onto another game

I won't lie, I've considered almost totally giving up modern technology, and going back to refurbishing wristwatches like I did in my teens.

Analog/Digital? Hardly matters, as long as I can get parts..
- A friend of mine works in IT during the week.
  On the weekend he works as barkeeper.
  He keeps track of the tabs with a pencil on paper, adds them up with a mechanical calculator, and only accepts cash.

First you pay money to Canonical, and then you load the disc into the PC.
Animal noises and bongo drums play for some reason and you're presented with an orange game menu.
You click on one of the squares stacked clumsily on the left and nothing happens.
You click it again and it drags with your mouse up the hierarchy.
Finally, it lets go and a big white square fills the screen, knocking you off your chair.
A popup window spawns from an empty corner and informs you that there are 25 packages that can be updated.
Daunted by the unending onslaught, you curl up into a ball and weep

Microsoft Windows ME is the Battletoads of operating systems.

The final boss is acknowledging the hubris of believing you could ever win.
- That final boss is easy. Just do Ctrl+Alt+Del, and then start killing all processes one-by-one until you get the blue screen of victory

Not sure what the boss is, but SUDO

Instructions almost clear..

sudo uninstall windows

BTRFS deciding it's corrupt and refusing even read only access.

Edit: You beat it by trashing the disk, using any other file system, restoring from backup and accepting any losses.

Uninstall Skype

Mission accomplished. Synaptic is awesome, plus I wasn't using Skype anyways.

Figuring out how to print...nobody knows how to beat it yet, some just get lucky

3D printers are easier to use than getting ink on paper and it's appalling
Network printer will change your life for the better.
Brother laser printers.

Was shocked when it randomly showed ip everywhere automatically, it showed up and worked on my fresh freebsd install, I thought shit was haunted.

Guru meditation

I am not nearly computer literate enough to understand what all these comments are talking about. But I expected personal bias to be one of the answers.

Have an upvote just for commenting.

Yes, there's always gonna be some sort of tech bias regarding such questions. Every OS has flaws, somewhere..

The final boss of Windows is to crowbar out a metric shitton of bullshit and you do it with a bunch of registry tweaks and GPedit

I figured systemd is a 90s-JRPG boss with multiple phases taking over more and more of the screen.

You hold up a Slackware CD like some sort of vampires-and-faith-objects bit.

It would be General Failure reading the disc. I would fsck him up, and replace disc if necessary.

Yes, I know those may be different oses, but I was thinking multiplatform

The shutdown button, a very anti climactic finale

Who needs a button?

shutdown -s -f -t 0

Edited to include the missing -s argument
- /s /t 1 Get it right tho

UNIX: rename your NIC to something human readable

I dunno, wlxaa392a001f7d has a nice ring to it

Seems relevant: https://youtu.be/nhv5uv6Na_A

That's extremely relevant LMFAO! 👍

If it's unix, sudo rm -rf /* the system without mercy! If it's windows, nah, it will win.

Love this Insert Credit type question

If the game is Elder Scrolls, then I beat the OS by waving my Wabbajack and the Windows OS turns into Linux.

The final boss was Arch in the early days.
The boss fight was troubleshooting your display settings in Xorg.conf blindly, because you didn't have any screen output after an update.

Bill Gates, communism.

William Gates retired, MicroShaft is now headed by Satya Nadella, who is apparently some fuckwit that's out of touch with humanity.
- i do know that, Bill wasn't innocent either. I do like quite a bit of what he's doing, but back in the day that was a ruthless motherfucker.

I have always found the manual of the manual page two a bit scary.

John mcafee's ghonnerea

I'm just gonna leave this here...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yIaNZXgDtRU

Make your own, and don't be so professional about it.

Compiling the Linux kernel.