Not only free, but private and secure. Won’t even spy on you, and if it tries you can just tell it no and it listens!
Fuck, I love Linux.
GOD can you imagine paying 140 dollars for an ai generated OS with ads? could never be me
Gotta love a free product that also does not suck.
Please, i never once paid for windows either.
Heh. Paid for Win 7. Still not ashamed. Best system I had, even if it had it’s weird stuff. And it’s licence carried on to Win 10 and prolly 11. Cannot say with 11 as I am highly uninterested in it xD
I paid for a ticket to the Windows 7 launch event back in the days. Cost a few euros, in return I got a day of talks, networking, a laptop bag full of sweets and a retail copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. The serial also worked for Windows 10 and 11, so I’d say that was a pretty sweet deal. I honestly cannot say if that technically counts as having paid for Windows though.
You paid the markup when buying hardware with OEM license though.
Not if I’ve never bought a prebuilt PC.
Not even a laptop?
system76 let’s go
Nope. Never bothered with a laptop until work provided me with one.
Cant say for them, but I’ve never owned a laptop until about 6 months ago, and thats used enterprise hardware off ebay.
What did you get? I’m interested but not really sure what to look for in that niche
HP zbook 17 G6. Big, thiccc, can take a 2.5 inch drive AND a slim disk drive (but it might be hard to find the front/bezel piece to use one properly), and 2/3 m.2 slots (i think sata might be disabled if i use one?)
No soldered ram BS, and I’ve got an 8c/16t xeon. I spent about $300. G6 and G5 only difference is the processor IIRC
I owned only MacBooks and not pre-built PCs, so it’s the same for me. Never bought a single Windows license, even the OEM one.
Never bought a Windows license… But happily paid the Apple Tax.
They’re the same picture.
I paid my sins, father! Now all my MacBooks are on Linux! All of them!
Yep, and not a small price at that. While the home license is not as expensive, it’s still mid two digits. IIRC pro version typically costs around 100 € even as the bundled OEM license, especially if you’re buying a laptop from a smaller manufacturer. That’s the amount I remember the price going down if you drop windows licensing from a corporate laptop lease.
In any way it’s not an insignificant price.
The OEM license price is also based on the performance of the PC (specifically the CPU iirc). Low powered devices might get a OEM home license for only $30, but a OEM home license for a gaming PC is going to be more like $80-90. Pro licenses will be more of course.
Makes sense, there wouldn’t be many 200-300 € laptops if Windows cost 80-100 € for them.
Aye, I did buy a prebuilt once in 2004.
Damn, Microslop’s got you by the balls.
You’re forgetting piracy. I didn’t buy any parts with OEM licenses. Granted I went grey market for my Windows 10 so I paid someone like $20.
At least nowadays it’s so much easier to find FreeDOS laptops. I remember that it was not a thing here 20 years ago, and Windows was included in the warranty so you couldn’t remove it for at least 2 years (if you care about warranty).
Nah, not for me. I have only built my own PC’s since 2006. If i had a laptop (and a few surfaces) it was through work.
I know all about the OEM license thats now hardcoded on the board due to my job. Our company was buying devices with windows, essentially paying more per device, then imaging them with our image with an enterprise license…
Yes, but no. They know you’ll pay (e.g.) $700 for a PC. If windows were free, you’d still be paying $700. It would just go to a different billionaire.
I did and it was every bit as degrading as you might imagine.
Hey now, most of us didn’t imagine that we were funding Bill Gates to go get an STI from Russian children. That adds a layer.
Just imagine the stuff with the lid still on…
All I knows is that FOSS folks are too poor and on the spectrum to get wrapped up in this kind of shit.
I’m not touching that one with a 9 foot pole.
… Is what many Russian kids wished they could have said.
wow. dark. I mean, it’s lemmy and everything but wow.
Eh, whatever floats your boat, I say, no kink shaming
It didn’t float my boat.
Same… Multiple times.
I paid once for a full license for Windows 98, not an OEM one that comes with a computer. They then gave free upgrades indefinitely since technically it was always the same computer, so I only needed one copy. Simplified it by avoiding a lot of the pirating crack issues and risks. Every other computer than that desktop has always had Linux, and now it does too since I dont really do much gaming anymore.
now it does too since I dont really do much gaming anymore.
Tbh now gaming just works on Linux. I primarily game and I see no reason to ever go back.
It’s a trap. Once you accept linux, you will become a linux person. At every technical issue your friends and family encounter, you’ll say stuff like “have you tried switching to linux?”
It’s too late…
Maybe if they stopped having issues Linux would fix.
Oh, Windows broke the printer driver? Yeah my Linux laptop still works. Can’t turn your PC off? Yeah my Linux boots and shuts down fine still. Oh updates randomly restarting your PC in the middle of processing something? Yeah Linux let’s you control updates.
I could go on.
I became more aware of things breaking on Windows after switching at home. Everyday there is some weird bug or just very inconvinient behavior coming from Win, Office or platform-exclusive software. And with everything screwed to the floor and witholding information, you either find a sketchy workaround or wrap yourself around the issue. It’s so weird, like I took a red pill. Linux quirks are challenges that I’ve chosen for myself, and there were several huge problems, but oh well going into windows is not a safe haven either, and that’s a paid product and a standard OS for PCs.
“Installing Arch is really easy these days!”
I don’t think I have anyone in my family that I hate quite that much.
Perhaps you just don’t know Arch well then.
A gif? On lemmy? How queer
They used to not work well as uploads (and/or I just didn’t know what I was doing), but since this one seems fine, maybe I’ll start posting them more. I don’t really have a smooth process for creating gifs on my phone.
Instead of an end user you shall have an ADMIN! NOT BEHOLDEN TO MICROSOFT BUT BEAUTIFUL AND TERRIBLE AS THE DAWN! POWERFUL AS THE SEA! ALL PROGRAMS WILL WORK FOR ME AND DESPAIR!
Free as in freedom AND beer :)
I asked her for one desktop environment from her golden head. She gave me a handful.
To be honest: Windows has been free (for home users) for a while now. To be brutally honest: Most of the users who’ve abandoned Microslop did so with free plugged into the value proposition.
Massgrave says it’s actually $Free.99
Absolutely brilliant. 👍
Thanks! I assumed there would be plenty of community crossover to appreciate it.
Yeah but… If it’s not enough -> you also don’t pay with your data ;)
Had to zoom in, thought it was a Buzz Ball.
