On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:24 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:

> LO should have stopped copying excel long ago and taken its users to a
> better spreadsheet experience.

Actually, it already did. Note recommendation in this research paper
<https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008984>,
that if you really must use a spreadsheet to work with important data,
at least make it LibreOffice Calc and not Microsoft Excel.

> LO should work with Posit and build a proper analytical/statistical data
> platform based around R.

We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.

On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:

>> ... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and
>> Excel.
>
> In the professional world that's pretty accurate.

Doesn’t sound like that adjective “professional” extends to the actual
quality of results, then.

On 2025-01-02 16:59, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>>>
>>>> You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
>>>
>>> “Semantics” means "meaning”. So “now it’s purely meaning”?
>>
>> Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
>> license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
>> in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
>
> So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?

I'm just going to say this again because it bears repeating:

1) I don't need to make an account to download software to Linux.
2) I don't need to make an account to use the software I downloaded.
3) I can install Linux without needing to log into an account I have or
create one.

If privacy is a concern, those are interesting advantages. Even if you
don't care about privacy, you might be sick of logging in everywhere.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
Telegram: @AndrzejMatuch
Zephyrus G14 GA401QM on Fedora 41
KDE supporting member

Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> On 2025-01-02 16:59, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> > On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
> >
> >> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
> >>>
> >>> ?Semantics? means "meaning?. So ?now it?s purely meaning??
> >>
> >> Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
> >> license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
> >> in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
> >
> > So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?
>
> I'm just going to say this again because it bears repeating:
>
> 1) I don't need to make an account to download software to Linux.
> 2) I don't need to make an account to use the software I downloaded.
> 3) I can install Linux without needing to log into an account I have or
> create one.
>
> If privacy is a concern, those are interesting advantages. Even if you
> don't care about privacy, you might be sick of logging in everywhere.

FYI, you don't need to do any of those things for/on Windows either.

But most people don't know or can't be bothered that they have that
option.

For Windows, it's quite easy and practical. No so much for, for
example, Android.

On 2025-01-03 06:26, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
>> On 2025-01-02 16:59, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>>>
>>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
>>>>>
>>>>> ?Semantics? means "meaning?. So ?now it?s purely meaning??
>>>>
>>>> Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
>>>> license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
>>>> in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
>>>
>>> So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?
>>
>> I'm just going to say this again because it bears repeating:
>>
>> 1) I don't need to make an account to download software to Linux.
>> 2) I don't need to make an account to use the software I downloaded.
>> 3) I can install Linux without needing to log into an account I have or
>> create one.
>>
>> If privacy is a concern, those are interesting advantages. Even if you
>> don't care about privacy, you might be sick of logging in everywhere.
>
> FYI, you don't need to do any of those things for/on Windows either.

Installing Windows 11? The installer won't allow you to continue without
logging in to your account. Sure, there are workarounds if you pray five
times a day and stand on your head doing so, but it doesn't allow it be
default.

> But most people don't know or can't be bothered that they have that
> option.
>
> For Windows, it's quite easy and practical. No so much for, for
> example, Android.

And what does Android have to do with this conversation?

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
Telegram: @AndrzejMatuch
Zephyrus G14 GA401QM on Fedora 41
KDE supporting member

On Thu, 1/2/2025 5:05 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>
>>> ... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and
>>> Excel.
>>
>> In the professional world that's pretty accurate.
>
> Doesn’t sound like that adjective “professional” extends to the actual
> quality of results, then.
>

People using Office, there is an amazing range of skills.

We make fun of the people, who can barely tie their own
shoe laces using computers. But there are also those,
who win programming contests, who can run circles around you.

Sales people sending materials to me at work, they always
sent them in .docx (not PDF) and the documents were always three pages
long. You had to wonder why all the documents were three pages
long... I bet there is a funny story involved there.

We had a senior manager, who could rewrite any procedural language
problem you brought to him, in Excel. One of our guys, a masters grad,
was using Fortran and Numerical Recipes and had been at that for
six weeks, and was having trouble finishing it. The senior manager
overheard the conversation, about how hard this was to do in
Fortran, he came out of his office, got the details (he's actually
a Radio/Microwave engineer) and in *two days* he wrote an Excel
spreadsheet following the requirements, and the spreadsheet added
datapoints to an electrical waveform plot, as the program
calculated them (in real time). I didn't watch this, but someone
who got a demo of this, was blown away by it.

These are the people we waste in offices, shuffling papers.

That's also the kind of person, who could put an AI into
an Excel spreadsheet. That would be a perfect problem for
our guy. I bet he'd enjoy that. (There was a Tomshardware
article about someone releasing an AI demo, which was
controlled from Excel, but it used VBA so I couldn't
run it in LO.)

Portions of Excel, can run on more than one thread, so you
can get a slight speedup from your multi-core processor.
But it can't use all your cores, so it does not have
infinite scaling. As far as I know, the capability is
"two core max". It then depends on the characteristics
of the spreadsheet (VBA or no VBA maybe), as to whether
it will switch to two core mode.

Paul

Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> On 2025-01-03 06:26, Frank Slootweg wrote:
> > Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> >> On 2025-01-02 16:59, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> >>> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ?Semantics? means "meaning?. So ?now it?s purely meaning??
> >>>>
> >>>> Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
> >>>> license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
> >>>> in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
> >>>
> >>> So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?
> >>
> >> I'm just going to say this again because it bears repeating:
> >>
> >> 1) I don't need to make an account to download software to Linux.
> >> 2) I don't need to make an account to use the software I downloaded.
> >> 3) I can install Linux without needing to log into an account I have or
> >> create one.
> >>
> >> If privacy is a concern, those are interesting advantages. Even if you
> >> don't care about privacy, you might be sick of logging in everywhere.
> >
> > FYI, you don't need to do any of those things for/on Windows either.
>
> Installing Windows 11? The installer won't allow you to continue without
> logging in to your account. Sure, there are workarounds if you pray five
> times a day and stand on your head doing so, but it doesn't allow it be
> default.

The worarounds are not that difficult and some are even trivial. And
there is (well, at least was, didn't check recently) one, which doesn't
involve any hacks, just some 'clever'/'creative' answering of the
questions. In the latter case it does it allow to be the default.

> > But most people don't know or can't be bothered that they have that
> > option.
> >
> > For Windows, it's quite easy and practical. No so much for, for
> > example, Android.
>
> And what does Android have to do with this conversation?

Nothing, other than that other (than Windows) commercial OSs have
these kinds of restrictions, i.e. comparing apples to apples. Oops! :-)

On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 09:09:35 -0500, Paul wrote:

> Sales people sending materials to me at work, they always sent them in
> .docx (not PDF) and the documents were always three pages long. You had
> to wonder why all the documents were three pages long... I bet there is
> a funny story involved there.

A little paranoid but our FSDs were docx in house but were converted to a
read-only PDF when sent to the clients. I'm not sure anyone read them let
alone tried to alter them. That fight came later when what we said we were
going to provide wasn't what they thought we were going to do.

On 2025-01-03, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 09:09:35 -0500, Paul wrote:
>
>> Sales people sending materials to me at work, they always sent them in
>> .docx (not PDF) and the documents were always three pages long. You had
>> to wonder why all the documents were three pages long... I bet there is
>> a funny story involved there.
>
> A little paranoid but our FSDs were docx in house but were converted to a
> read-only PDF when sent to the clients. I'm not sure anyone read them let
> alone tried to alter them. That fight came later when what we said we were
> going to provide wasn't what they thought we were going to do.

Everything I have ever had to do regarding lawyers and legal or government documents
was requested to be in PDF.
I haven't done anything like this in a few years so maybe things have changed.

--
pothead

"Give a man a fish and you turn him into a Democrat for life"
"Teach a man to fish and he might become a self-sufficient conservative Republican"
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up,"
--- Barack H. Obama

On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 09:09:35 -0500, Paul wrote:

> People using Office, there is an amazing range of skills.
>
> We make fun of the people, who can barely tie their own shoe laces using
> computers. But there are also those, who win programming contests, who
> can run circles around you.

Using Excel? I’d go up against a champion Excel user, armed only with
Python and Jupyter, and I would likely show them a thing or two.

rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>
>
>> Very few people pronounce anything like her. Other than perhaps "crypto
>> scam".
>
> That was interesting. My mind hasn't quite unraveled the whole crypto that
> doesn't really have any crypto behind it but then I never understood NFTs
> either. I guess there is an unlimited supply of greater fools.

I feel she was also taken advantage of.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>>>
>>>> You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
>>>
>>> “Semantics” means "meaning”. So “now it’s purely meaning”?
>>
>> Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
>> license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
>> in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
>
> So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?

In most cases, not.

Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> On 2025-01-02 16:59, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:27 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>>
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, 1 Jan 2025 16:47:42 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> You still don't own it, but now it's purely semantics.
>>>>
>>>> “Semantics” means "meaning”. So “now it’s purely meaning”?
>>>
>>> Correct. With FLOSS you don't own the software, as it's still just a
>>> license, but you can do with it more or less whatever you want. Meaning
>>> in practice it is indistinguishable from ownership.
>>
>> So the distinction from actual ownership ... is that meaningful or not?
>
> I'm just going to say this again because it bears repeating:
>
> 1) I don't need to make an account to download software to Linux.
> 2) I don't need to make an account to use the software I downloaded.
> 3) I can install Linux without needing to log into an account I have or
> create one.
>
> If privacy is a concern, those are interesting advantages. Even if you
> don't care about privacy, you might be sick of logging in everywhere.

That's not unique to linux. Even macOS does 1/2 and probably 3 with a
little effort.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>
>>> ... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and
>>> Excel.
>>
>> In the professional world that's pretty accurate.
>
> Doesn’t sound like that adjective “professional” extends to the actual
> quality of results, then.

Based on what, exactly?

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:24 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>
>> LO should have stopped copying excel long ago and taken its users to a
>> better spreadsheet experience.
>
> Actually, it already did. Note recommendation in this research paper
> <https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008984>,
> that if you really must use a spreadsheet to work with important data,
> at least make it LibreOffice Calc and not Microsoft Excel.

LO must have changed their behaviour as when I tested this many years ago
when working with genomic data it behaved the same as excel. I noticed
recently that excel finally has a toggle for date recognition and
conversion. Which is way, way too late as it is a moot issue as the
problematic gene names have officially been changed to circumvent excel:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-020-0669-3

>> LO should work with Posit and build a proper analytical/statistical data
>> platform based around R.
>
> We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.

Not user-friendly enough.

On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:19:07 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 12:09:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>>
>>>> ... suggests that people don't do much other than open up Word and
>>>> Excel.
>>>
>>> In the professional world that's pretty accurate.
>>
>> Doesn’t sound like that adjective “professional” extends to the actual
>> quality of results, then.
>
> Based on what, exactly?

Based on the known issues with over-reliance on Microsoft products.

On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:32:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>
>> We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.
>
> Not user-friendly enough.

If by “user-friendly” you mean “aimed at those accustomed to Microsoft
mediocrity”, then you’d be right.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:32:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.
>>
>> Not user-friendly enough.
>
> If by “user-friendly” you mean “aimed at those accustomed to Microsoft
> mediocrity”, then you’d be right.

I mean if presented to someone for the first time do they have a fighting
chance of creating *anything*. With jupyter that's a big fat nope.

People aren't coders and typically don't want to be.

Le 31-12-2024, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca> a écrit :
> On 12/31/2024 5:10 AM, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>> Le 31-12-2024, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca> a écrit :
>>> On 12/21/2024 7:26 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:
>>>
>>>> The moment you require an online account to verify if you are the person
>>>> who bought the software, you don't own it.
>>>
>>>
>>> You don't own GuhNoo-GPL software either. The only sofware you actually
>>> own is stuff you write for yourself, or that you get copyright to.
>>>
>>> You don't own public domain stuff, either.
>>
>> It means nothing to own an immaterial stuff in a general sense. Nobody
>> owns any software, music or book. Some own the right on it, it's not the
>> same. Or some own a digital copy of it. It's still not the same.
>
> It means a LOT to own digital and intellectual property:

Yes, that's what I said. Owning rights on something isn't the same as
owning something in a broad undefined way.

>> Now, you can own the exclusive privilege to manage what's on your own
>> computer (in a large sense, a smartphone is a computer, too). With FOSS,
>> you can be the master. With Windows and Mac, you can hope they won't do
>> anything bad, but you have no certainty.
>
> Linux users THINK they can be the master,

I don't think, it's too difficult. But I know I'm the master on my
computer.

> but since virtually nobody audits FOSS code it's easy for a bad actor
> to mess with Linux systems.

When you find a piece of code on Internet, agreed, nobody audits it and
so if you don't do it by yourself, you can't know what it does. Agreed,
nobody is auditing the all full code. But, there are three other points
you are missing.

First, popular FOSS code is followed by a lot of people. A lot of them
look at small parts on it. And when someone send a patch, you don't need
to audit the all FOSS code to know what it does, you just need to look
at the patch. Which is done for big projects, like Linux.

Second, which derive from the precedent, is that when someone send a
patch, he puts his name on it. And his reputation. It has been shown
that when a code is made public, it's nicer than when it's hidden for
this reason. And so, when someone send a bad code he puts his reputation
and when it's discovered, it will be more difficult for him in the
future.

Third, in FOSS everyone does what he want. Unlike in a company in which
a programmer has to do what the company tells him to do. So, if he
disagree with the code delivered by his company, he can only quit his
company. In FOSS, he can fork it and brag about it, which has already
happened in the past. To say it differently, to do quiet bad thing is
easier for a company than for a FOSS project. In FOSS, it has to be done
by a malevolent isolated guy which has to be discret about it. Not only
in the public, but even in the project community.

Fourth, you can look at what your computer's doing. And when I started
to discover Linux at the same time I was discovering Windows, almost
thirty years ago, that was a really big important discovery. With Linux,
I was able to understand what it did. Compared to DOS/Windows 3.11/NT,
where I was only able to know what I can do with it. It was really a big
hit.

And it means something: years ago, I discovered by myself that by
default, Firefox send information to Mozilla. So, when I saw that, I
looked at every option possible to deactivate this crap. I didn't need
to monitor all Firefox code to know what it did, I just needed to look
at what happened on my computer.

> For instance, until I told him about it, the pathetic and smug Feeb
> didn't know his precious Cooledit spyware program phoned home upon
> install to tell the developer about the computer it was being installed on.

OK, the killer argument. So, let's have a little bit fun with your
almost magical sentence which proves exactly the opposite of what it was
mean to prove.

In this sentence, you seem to claim that LP/NV/DG/FR/whatever is the
master of the IT universe and what he can't do can't be done. But, here,
I have to tell you a secret: he's not. And it looks I have to explain
you why you should have avoid this argument.

My first argument was about popular code. And he can only use obscure
unknown software. So what he's using is not audited by anyone. And as
he's unable to audit anything, and as he's unable to monitor his own
computer, there is no way in which he could known what happens on his
computer. And as his repeated claims about security are always the same:
it's useless because there is nobody bad in his asylum, he can't even
use tools to help him compensate his lack of abilities.

So, let's rephrase it: he's doing everything humanly possible to have
viruses running on his computer. The only fact that he's having a
running computer is a wonder in itself. And it's the ultimate proof that
FOSS is working: he's protected by it against his willing.

> Open or closed source, it's all based on trust.

Of course there is always trust at the beginning. But trust don't avoid
control. Which is more easily done in a FOSS environment than in an
obscure close environment.

> But day to day, I don't even think about it.

I'm not paranoid, I don't spend my time thinking about it. But being a
little bit careful is easy enough to have confidence. When I upgrade my
computer, I look at what's upgraded, and when a change in version is
important, I look at what it brings. And being interested in what's
happening on my own computer brings me confidence on what it does.

>> Look at what Amazon did, when people believed they managed the kindle
>> and the books they bought. Before, there was no proof. After, there is
>> proof, but it's too late:
>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html>
>> You can say that they removed illegal stuff refunding the customers, but
>> the fact remains: people discovered Amazon, not they, manage the kindle
>> they had in their hands and can interfere.
>
> ALL this is a battle between good and evil:

Ah, OK, now I understand why some people are so willing to bring
wokeness inside/outside of technology.

> Good: content creators and Windows users
> Evil: pirates and Linux people

Which means
Good: masters and slaves
Bad: freedom fighters
Understood.

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

On 2025-01-03 23:50, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 02:32:28 -0000 (UTC), Chris wrote:
>
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> We have that, too. It’s called Jupyter <https://jupyter.org/>.
>>
>> Not user-friendly enough.
>
> If by “user-friendly” you mean “aimed at those accustomed to Microsoft
> mediocrity”, then you’d be right.

At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more
user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint
and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in the
applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them. For
drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't work
right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which is
impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the Control
Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store, others
through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
Telegram: @AndrzejMatuch
Zephyrus G14 GA401QM on Fedora 41
KDE supporting member

On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more
> user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint
> and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
> friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
> don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in the
> applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them. For
> drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't work
> right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which is
> impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the Control
> Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store, others
> through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
> uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
> Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.

Right-click on the Win11 Start button.

On 2025-01-04 10:29, DFS wrote:
> On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>
>> At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more user-
>> friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint
>> and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
>> friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
>> don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in
>> the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them.
>> For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they
>> don't work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which
>> is impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the
>> Control Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store,
>> others through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
>> uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
>> Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
>
>
> Right-click on the Win11 Start button.

You missed the point: there is inconsistency. Why would you update
through Windows Update but manage through Device Manager? Why would
Device Manager be listed by right-clicking the Start button (by the way,
how would anyone know it's there?) but not in the Settings? People are
likely to be more lost in Windows than in Linux Mint.

--
Andrzej (Andre) Matuch
Telegram: @AndrzejMatuch
Zephyrus G14 GA401QM on Fedora 41
KDE supporting member

On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 10:29:06 -0500, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca>
wrote in <vlbk3v$h0k1$1@dont-email.me>:

> On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>
>> At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more
>> user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux
>> Mint and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
>> friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
>> don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in
>> the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them.
>> For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't
>> work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which is
>> impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the Control
>> Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store, others
>> through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
>> uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
>> Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
>
>
> Right-click on the Win11 Start button.

That's not how I found the Spice tools for my Win 11 Pro
For Workstations guest.

The "Microsoft Store" was no help either.

The system is very "micro" -- and very "soft"...

--
-v System76 Thelio Mega v1.1 x86_64 NVIDIA RTX 3090 Ti
OS: Linux 6.12.8 Release: Mint 21.3 Mem: 258G
"SYSTEM ERROR: press F13 to continue..."

vallor wrote this post while blinking in Morse code:

> On Sat, 4 Jan 2025 10:29:06 -0500, DFS <guhnoo-basher@linux.advocaca>
> wrote in <vlbk3v$h0k1$1@dont-email.me>:
>
>> On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>>
>>> At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more
>>> user-friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux
>>> Mint and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
>>> friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
>>> don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in
>>> the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them.
>>> For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they don't
>>> work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager which is
>>> impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out the Control
>>> Panel. Some programs are available through the Window Store, others
>>> through the web which means that some are repairable and easily
>>> uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For new users,
>>> Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
>>
>> Right-click on the Win11 Start button.

What, no middle-click? :-D

> That's not how I found the Spice tools for my Win 11 Pro
> For Workstations guest.
>
> The "Microsoft Store" was no help either.
>
> The system is very "micro" -- and very "soft"...

--
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
really make them think they'll hate you.

On 1/4/2025 10:38 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
> On 2025-01-04 10:29, DFS wrote:
>> On 1/4/2025 10:01 AM, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>>
>>
>>> At first glance, there is a lot about Windows that is way more user-
>>> friendly than Linux. However, if you take something like Linux Mint
>>> and compare it to Windows 11, you'd wonder _how_ Windows 11 is
>>> friendlier. In Windows 11, some applications can't be removed and you
>>> don't get an idea why. Some Windows components aren't even listed in
>>> the applications so you have to wonder how to install or remove them.
>>> For drivers, they're installed through Windows Update but if they
>>> don't work right, you just have to know about the Device Manager
>>> which is impossible to find on your own because they're phasing out
>>> the Control Panel. Some programs are available through the Window
>>> Store, others through the web which means that some are repairable
>>> and easily uninstallable whereas the others aren't... and so on. For
>>> new users, Linux Mint is actually _much_ simpler than Windows is.
>>
>>
>> Right-click on the Win11 Start button.
>
> You missed the point: there is inconsistency.

Which Linux distro offers perfect consistency?

I agree there is significant overlap/duplication/confusion between
Win10/11 Settings and Control Panel. Either it was too much work to
migrate all the Control Panel functionality at once to Settings, or they
left Control Panel intact for a while because of the massive installed
base that expects it.

> Why would you update through Windows Update but manage through Device Manager?

That's how it's done in ALL operating systems, right?

> Why would
> Device Manager be listed by right-clicking the Start button (by the way,
> how would anyone know it's there?

How does anyone know to right-click on a desktop or taskbar or icon or
file? You just do it as part of OS usage and discovery - since Windows 95.

> ) but not in the Settings?

It's right there: Settings | Bluetooth and Devices

(which is an odd combo)

> People are likely to be more lost in Windows than in Linux Mint.

Maybe. Maybe not.

I haven't picked apart a GuhNoo distro in years, but it's always
entertaining to find glaring distro bugs, even in 2025.

Apparently GuhNoo devs get so distracted by their long blue hair and
uncomfortable ball-tucking that they can't focus on the unpleasant task
of testing.