Is it only me, or do you find all those "I deleted Windows"-posts annoying too?

Personally, as a noob myself, I enjoy reading about others' experiece when they switch. No idea why. Just fun to read usually.

I don't mind them any more than I mind a bunch of other dumb posts that people feel compelled to share for reasons I don't understand.

And a lot of them do seem earnest, like they're showing off a macaroni picture they're super proud of.

If my adult roommate came home and showed me a macaroni picture they're super proud of, I probably wouldn't be personally impressed, but I would be happy for them that they've found something they like and are proud of.

Post better content to the community that is more interesting. The problem isn't these posts, it's the lack of other engaging discussions.

I will install Windows and remove it again just to annoy you.

Idk, I try to be there to cheer on people that make the switch and post about it.

I get that the same type of thread several times a week is annoying. However, sometimes I think there is stuff to learn/remember about people switching over now, since there are things I would have long forgotten/gotten used to since initially switching 8-ish years ago, the new user experience is valuable and important to get feedback to help more people transition better.

Not at all. You seem to think there's a more appropriate forum for people to join the Linux community, and introduces. Where is that? And how do new Linux users find it? Knowing nothing about Linux distros, where should they ask about distros? Distrowatch catalogs 274 distributions - how do newbies navigate those?

I do think having a "which distro" stickie or sidebar would be handy, but I don't at all mind the "I ditched Windows" posts. It beats random venting, ranting, and flame wars.

No I don't mind them. I am a linux noob myself and these kinds of posts are what helped me decide to switch.

While we're complaining, you know what I don't like? Completely incomprehensible posts about some super specific subsystem. "fdplq updated to 0.5.pi.007.69!" Wow, that will change my life the next time I boot up my computer to read some Lemmy and play a game for an hour or two.

But they are all part of the linux community. I'm not gonna say the way I use linux is any better or worse than anyone else.

And fortunately, nobody is forcing us to click on those posts we don't care about.

I deleted windows btw, and I'm very happy about it.

Thing is, I don't know what else you'd really post here. Linux is an OS (don't get pedantic with me), there's only so much to talk about other than using it for the first time or getting recommendations on distros/desktop environments/apps/hardware/etc. There's always something going on with Linux, but most of it is specific to one distro/desktop environment so people will probably go to forums for those specific things to discuss them.

Also, yeah he threads are pretty tired for people who have been here even for just a few months, but for the people switching over, it's all brand new. They want to talk about their experience and I can't really blame them. Maybe there should be megathread as suggested elsewhere.

What would you like to see posted? What could give this community more of a direction?

Yeah, I don't mind. Everyone has a survivor story.

Although it is interesting isn't it... That Linux usage is still seen in opposition to the horrors of windows. I mean, few come here talking about adopting in spite of having a great time with windows, or even without mentioning it at all.

I hope that one day it isn't seen as an alternative to but as a thing in its own right.

Maybe they are, but this is the way the medium works - you don't get to control what people post (unless you are mod). Scroll past and move on.

This was a solved problem on other sites via wikis and weekly threads. There's no value in another "what distro should I use?" post. It's great that people want to contribute, but there should be a more centralized resource we can refer people to where people can focus this energy.

As for the Windows threads, they've been a staple of every Linux-focused community for as long as I've been browsing them. I guess if it makes people feel better then I suppose that's enough of a reason to keep them around.

I often do like these posts, because it usually shows their past suffering, and the new freedom they enjoy. It is also an opportunity to share the common community feeling with them.

After all, to me many years ago when I saw Linux booting for the very first time (no GUI, just lots of text from the kernel) that was one thing about Linux that I liked : names of human beings visible. If you look at software by Microsoft or Apple on computer installations you will normally see zero names, it is all very formal.

Social interaction between Linux users, starting with solving Linux questions, has been there for years in forums. I like seeing people help other people and move forward together.

Same with newcomer posts. I think if the posters get redirected to the correct sub

And what sub would you suggest ?

How about we make a dedicated community for "I deleted Windows" posts?

They all get a downvote from me.

Today I typed in sudo to see if I still felt anything and there were no updates to any repositories. Sometimes you stare into the void long enough to play nethack

Thanks for putting the TL;DR at the top instead of at the bottom where I'll never see it because I already decided not to read

This is a Linux community, so of course people will be moving away from other operating systems and installing Linux. I don't see why everyone that does it needs to post about it. It's like the people that make a big deal about leaving a party instead of just leaving.

It's annoying. Maybe there should be a separate "SwitchedToLinux" community for these posts.

It feels like a common and repetitive theme that doesn't bring much discussion to the table. I might be an old grumpy fart, and I probably would've done the same posts back in 1997 when I left Windows NT 4.0 in the rear view mirror.

I'd much prefer to keep the discussion on Linux and not other operating systems. I enjoy AmigaOS and MorphOS as well, but I can't recall anyone every comparing those to Windows on the forums.

I really like them, along with all the other repetitive types of posts people make. For people who have been using Linux awhile, or have been a part of this community (or any Linux community really) they get a bit old, sure, but each new post is an opportunity for other new Linux users to learn and contribute.

I think sequestering discussion like this into nicely planned neat boxes like sticky threads or weekly discussions is harmful in the long term. While it may keep the posts in this community "clean" I believe it will reduce interest and turn away fresh blood.

I think those of us who have been using Linux awhile should embrace these posts and view them as opportunities to mentor, and as opportunities to continue to stoke the fires of interest in Linux.

As a recent convert, I completely love the idea of "One week of Linux" posts or reserving switch over stories to weekly posts or something. FOSS Fridays?

I find them mildly annoying, but generally tune them out.

The offensive responses, are much worse. Linux users can VERY much be a "boys club" and treat newcomers as lower life forms.

I don't mind them. I like to hear what drove people away from Windows and into Linux' loving embrace. I'm still pretty new myself, so grain of salt I suppose.

I feel the same way. Most of the feedback on your post seems to be from newbies who like it, so maybe we should start a new community for us advanced folks instead of referring everyone to !linux4noobs@lemmy.world.

Personally, I'm not interested in the type of posts you mention. However, I don't mind it. In general I think it's great to tell the world if you ditch Windows for Linux, because it shows other (Windows) users that they can do it, too.

Though I have to agree that for a dedicated Linux community, it doesn't add too much value. If I think a post is a bad fit for the community, I vote it down.

Not yet. I'm sure I'll get there eventually, but for now I'm enjoying watching people make their own choices for OS.

I don't read them, but it's like advertising to get the Linux train rolling. I'm pretty sure those posts have significantly contributed to a lot of people giving Linux a try.

I don't remember seeing a single one, so they're probably not annoying me.

Exaggerated complaint posts about non problems there are way to many, though.

Yeah. I deleted windows, too.

3+ years ago and I didn't make a post about it.

I've said this sentiment before, but I'll repeat it here.

If you're a pro uber-1337 Gamer, you probably have over 1TiB of storage available. Keeping 64 or even 100GiB of space free for a Windows install isn't really going to break the bank. IMO it's worth keeping a Windows 10 install around just in case you need to use something that only runs on Windows, or some game really doesn't agree with Linux. Nuking a Windows install feels a bit reckless, especially considering the pain of installing it and getting licenses set up.

Part of me worries that these posts are making it seem that deleting your Windows install is some kind of "rite of passage" people have to go through, even though I bet many devout Linux users here still have a Windows install "just in case".

I would like to see a sticky "shill your distro" and/or "guide to recommended distros for a new user" thread. Most people making those threads are usually fine with something like Mint, Ubuntu, Pop or Fedora, and replies sometimes get into technical debate or people shilling their favorite distro (which would be better served in a dedicated thread).

However, we're only a small community here, so most activity is good activity, as long as we don't repeat the exact same posts over and over.

I guess a sticky post titled « ditching windows, looking to find my way on Linux » would help and new posts about doing that should be forbidden in the community rules/redirected to the sticky post 😇

But it’s also important to welcome properly newcomers.

It's a phase. I understand the annoyance, but the community isn't big enough to create a dedicated community for "I deleted windows" posts. It comes down to how many people we have in each camp: actual linux users, newly transitioned users, prospective lurkers. Given how many people came to lemmy for non-linux reasons, I assume that last camp currently outweights the rest.

I don't really mind either way whether these posts are allowed to remain or should be culled.

If you keep them around, they will just keep shitting up the feed. The overall browsing quality of the community goes down, hindering the user experience. I don't think it's uncontroversial to say these posts have next to no value; they're essentially equivalent to birthday notifications or "I voted" stickers. Like... congrats! You and everyone else! Now what? Where's the discussion here?

On the other hand, I do want to think thrice about controlling this with moderation. All too often on Reddit I've see the trope of a sub that appears to be crawling, and you get the idea to join in with an enthusiastic post, only to get removedsmacked by automod because you posted this on the wrong day of the week, or this post type is outright banned because the community is sick of seeing it. It's sensible, yes. But ugh, what a demoralizing filter for newcomers. Overly curated subs/communities are not public forums, they are increasingly impenetrable cliques. That may not necessarily be a bad thing if we think the tradeoff is worth it. But we have to keep in mind what we become when we make that trade.

The one thing I will say willl absolutely not help anything at all is making a designated containment community for this specific kind of post. The whole complaint here is rooted in there being no discussion value for these types of posts. You think a community comprised entirely of those would be a community anyone would want to post in? It'd largely be the Lemmy equivalent of a donotreply@ email address. A dumping ground where unwanted posts go to die. And I don't know about anyone else, but somehow I find being directed to a designated dead-end forum by mods is an even bigger slap to the face than simply having my post removed.

I like them as long as they're describing their experience and/or motivation behind the step.

What I don't like is posts that are simply bashing on Windows (because apparently it's cool?) and praising Linux like it's some sort of silver bullet. Share your negative experiences and describe hoops and workarounds you had to jump through to make Linux work for you. Or describe why it didn't work out for you and why you're back to Windows (and then, dear commenters, don't flame the guy).

Can't have linux without a hint of elitism.

"Im much better than all my other friends who are still using Windows ... yuck"

Nah it's cool.

maybe a different structure could work where main linux community is for noobs and we have some kind of seasoned linux community

They are top posts for a reason. It's because people enjoy them. Everyone has the choice to ignore them.

I don't mind. I understand the enthusiasm since i switched recently (again) too.

As for windows; i think one of the main reasons people switch has to do with how bad windows has become. It's bloated, it feels like everything is spied on, and in 11 they add AI and not to be helpful to their customers. So, a lot of people will say: hey, i switched to linux and finally, i'm rid of that evil windows. Many people might not know that much about linux just yet, so they are maybe - i'm speculating here - moving away from something unpleasant, rather than switching to linux because of the many advantages.

As for the linux 4 noobs community, i joined but it feels pretty dead and so, i ask my noob questions (apart from trying to do my own research) here, rather than over there. Are you implying that noobs are not really welcome to ask their questions here? It would be fine with me if the noob community was filled with people who are enthusiastically asking questions, but the most recent posts are a month old, so not very inviting.

I don't mind them. If this type of social media had existed when I first installed Linux 24 years ago, I would have probably done the same thing.

I really don't get why anyone would be annoyed about this specifically when recurring topics and posts are just pretty common.. about litterally anything. I find it even more weird since it's about people ditching windows (I mean how many topics and posts hating on windows, praising Linux, suggesting Linux, and whatever else...just lots and lots, and somehow people are fine with that, so why would it be any different here ?)

Beside, people just want to share things, regardless if others did exactly the same an hour or a decade ago. Why care when it's just so easy to move on to something you'd be more interested in ?

One thing I do find tiresome more than anything within the Linux community though is talks about noobs like they are some cringe childs being boring and acting childishly...everyone have been noobs seriously, even you mentioned toxicity and the lack of openness/friendliness towards noobs if we ostracized them..yet you are suggesting it anyway. I get noobs aren't always fun but come on ! And about newcommer posts...noobs will seek help wherever they can seek it, having another place to help them is not going to change that, so we might just as well help them and redirect them to helping sites anyway.

No

oh yeah, it's been annoying me, too. I haven't subscribed to read countless blog posts of people who set off on the exceptionally unique journey of installing Ubuntu and liking it more than Windows.

Positivity is good. I would rather see 100 positive posts than one negative one, even if there's a lot of redundancy. It helps encourage others to switch to Linux, which is good.

I like reading about these experiences and helping people along if I can, each one is different.

There's a huge middle ground between constant reposts about the same topic and hostility to new users. Megathreads have often been the solution to that particular problem. I don't know if Lemmy has a merge functionality, though. It seems like the mod tools are kind of limited.

It's not only you. I suppose we need a separate community, linux-newbie or something like this, for such posts and questions about choosing a distro.

Perhaps a pinned, weekly post? It's not like federated sites have enough traction yet to make a weekly thread full of buried posts, so it should work in the meantime

Maybe we can just fire up a new community specifically for that - /c/linuxevangelists or /c/linuxplunge /c/linuxswitch or something conceptually similar, and then direct posts of that nature to that community.

Don’t get me wrong, I like seeing more people get into it, but I’ve always thought of /c/linux and adjacent/similar communities as community technical support, so I just tend to ignore or hide “wooo I switched to linux” posts.

For me I'd rather people post something over nothing even if it's the same post to us it's clearly something the poster felt was important to them.

Maybe it bothers you more because your Lemmy feed is not as well populated with interesting posts as you would hope?

I do wish people would check the post history here before asking "what distro should I use." Or search the web for "how to pick a Linux distro in 2024" there are no shortage of those, although to be fair to them, you are a lot more likely nowadays to find nothing but AI-generated bullshit.

Like this commenter here mentions, there are pinned posts saying "share the story of how you met your distro." I would love it if moderators could take posts and turn them into comments on pinned posts like "share. But we don't have that as far as I know, so what can you do but contribute a patch to the Lemmy software maintainers, or else just deal with the noise.

I like to hear other peoples experiences

It's nice to get some idea of how many people are switching over, it seems to have had an uptick recently, 3 people I know in real life have tried using Linux as their daily driver in the past few months who hadn't previously

Responding with a meta level tangent comment, but I can't help feeling that when I read these type of comments that it's just Microsoft astroturfing, trying to shape the narrative away from migration to Linux.

Especially when you see those "I still can't get my favorite single game that uses anti-cheat tech or strange peripheral to work with Linux, so Linux sucks for all gaming" posts.

Just kind of seems like there's this stealthy narrative warfare going on.

Perhaps we can make a new community here: c/ditchedWindows, for example.

I like seeing the posts of people finding comfort with their new linux installs even tho they might appear a couple of times.

Linux is still considered a niche so the most likelihood of the newer folk appearing is higher then the more experienced ones. Also I wasn't always experienced and if it wasn't for newbie friendly content I wouldn't be here helping other people as well.

After all, information doesn't spawn out of thin air, it requires someone to carry and distribute it so that other people become also educated in those ways.

Which is way I find weird finding some people say "people are dumb they should do x, y or z cause its better" but then they don't provide any information and expect others to also know what they already know/have learned recently.

In conclusion, sharing is caring and I don't mind people sharing their experiences which also helps others on the same situation.

Permanently Deleted

I feel like limiting or discouraging them would really hurt adoption.

Many times people share their use cases.

If someone with similar use cases finds out "wait, it us possible for me yo use Linux?" they could become tomorrow's post.

Uff, where to start? I'm slit 50/50 on your view. I think you're absolutely right that the best option would be a sticky saying something along the lines of "welcome to a new and better life of freedom. We're here to help you. Please start by reading (whatever sticky post to make them feel welcome and give them a jump start), and we look forward to evolving towards full cyber freedom together".

And I agree that, some times, we can be a bit vexing to newcomers. Having said that, most, if not all of us, have been that newcomer all too happy to notify everyone that "I've finally gotten free of the poisonous claws of the devil, Microshot". So, I also understand why people would do that. I was there once, and was so happy I switched, I wanted to put an ad on Cable TV and every newspaper and magazine in the world for every creature to know.

After a while, I still blast windows every now and then, but inly to die-hand windows advocates.

Having said that, the sticky is just one of many potential options to curb these posts, but they will never cease to happen. As I said, the feeling is so awesome that lots of us just want to scream it to the top of our lungs.

Is it a bit annoying to see that every time you come in here there are 10 new posts with the exact same thing? Yes, sometimes it is. But it's also true that I enjoy it when I see another person finally managing to open their eyes and risk having to learn something new, different to the only thing they've know probably for years or even decades. This helps put Gnu-Linux on the map of developers, which in turn can attract more people, so, full-circle benefit.

I can't think of any options right now, but when I feel a bit annoyed by it, I just move on and keep browsing for what actually interests me at the moment. Other times, I may actually upvote, reply while congratulating and letting them know we're here to help navigate these new waters, and share a few tutorials, options and all that good stuff.

At the end of the day I think it all boils down to each of our moods the moment we see those. My mood towards them is pretty "bipolar", to say the least, lol.

Most of those posts are fake too, just karma farming.

I don’t personally get anything from this threads. It’s kinda self congratulatory. I guess I understand being excited about it though

If you send the noobs to a noob specific community with other noobs, then you pass the chance to share some of your knowledge that may save the noob from doing some silly stuff because of the bad habits he picked up while using Windows.

I think that it may be slightly annoying and repetitive, but it is important to give noobs a nudge in the right direction.

You can always ignore the posts, or contribute with fresh content. 😉

Yes.

These posts are the "I voted for peace" decorative lapel button of the '60s and '70s. These posts were the leading edge in the '90s and a little of the '00s.

Now they're tiresome. It's like people who've come late to the party and want their fanfare; people who came last in the race and proclaim themselves the leaders. The race is over, the banners are down, the spotlight's off and the newsmedia's gone home. No need to proclaim victory, nor virtue-signal inclusion in a group that isn't exclusive.

The F Windows posts are great and can be very therapeutic. But guaranteed those users haven’t issued a command that accidentally wipes out their entire drive accidentally. Or they haven’t had their Window Manager just up and decide it doesn’t feel like working anymore because of an update.

I work with Linux a lot simply because of my 3D printers and I love it. But being on a community driven edge can be a nightmare sometimes when something updates and you’ve got to track down the problem. For me that’s half the fun since I usually get to help someone else out with the same issue.

I'm working on phasing out windows in my office as much as I can entirely because of the end of win10 and the dumb requirements of windows 11. I'm still running it on my main home PC though because I'm insanely busy and like to game for like 5-10 hours a week and and want to spend zero hours getting games to run. If I buy a game on steam and it doesn't work I instantly I refund it even if I could probably figure it out.

It doesn’t help much if there are the same threads every day, with people circlejerking on hating Windows and recommending Mint a hundred times, just like 100 people before did on the same thread.

I hate Windows too, but it feels like we’re identifying and comparing ourselves with the bitter ex-partner we had a while ago. No, not being Windows shouldn’t be the main reason Linux is great.

We should focus on what makes our software great, and not what the “bad ex-partner” did wrong.

I completely agree with you and said many times that while I don't like the fact that Windows isn't open-source it does provide a LOT of value for a LOT of people who work on certain fields and haver certain software requirements. With Windows there's a lot of commercial support when it comes to Linux desktop it simply isn’t there.

If you require “professional” software such as MS Office, Adobe Apps, Autodesk, NI Circuit Design and whatnot Linux isn’t a viable options. The alternatives wont cut it if you require serious collaboration… virtualization, emulation (wine) may work but won’t be nice. Going for Linux kinda adds the same pains of going macOS but 10x. Once you open the virtualization door your productivity suffers greatly, your CPU/RAM requirements are higher and suddenly you’ve to deal with issues in two operating systems instead of just one. And… let’s face it, nothing with GPU acceleration will ever run decently unless big companies start fixing things - GPU passthroughs and getting video back into the main system are a pain and add delays.

To make things worse the Linux desktop development ecosystem is essentially non existent. The success of Windows and macOS is the fact that they provide solid and stable APIs and development tools that “make it easy” to develop for those platforms and Linux is very bad at that. The major pieces of Linux are constantly and ever changing requiring large and frequent re-works of apps. There aren’t distribution “sponsored” IDEs (like Visual Studio or Xcode), userland API documentation, frameworks etc.

It's because half the people that post here's entire personality is using Linux.