I highly disagree with recommending regular users to use virtual machines, it defeats the whole purpose, at the end of the day, you are still using windows, and on top of that, it adds additional complexities that can only create frustration to users.

OP asks a relatively simple question, and gets scolded as it committed murder.

For all we know OP is the only user and is just playing with Linux, and just wants a simple (probably unnecessary) shortcut because he’s GUI oriented.

This is kind of someone asking how to open their lunchbox easier, and get treated like they are giving a copy of their house keys to everyone in town.

Chill… Not everyone is running a maximum security level server. If OP screws their system (like most of us do at some point), I’m sure a fresh re-install would be enough for them.

Ha, jokes on you for thinking him and his followers think white immigrants are “immigrants”. They use that word because it’s the only acceptable one, but it’s clearly not what they are referring to.

It doesn’t matter though, he’s not the president and is not involved in any politicalmatters. Sure, he should be investigated if he did something wrong, but why is that relevant?

How is acknowledging a bad connection by your ISP contrarian? Are you saying his problems do not exist?

Don’t know… I hope you are right, but too many people were saying the same in 2016

Yeah, they do, that’s what living in a society is, not everyone does as you want, and you have to compromise.I have my own choices (in other aspects) which they probably have to live with. But I’m not going to ghost my mum (and close family) just because she uses WhatsApp, that’s plain entitlement and immaturity.

I can’t contact my mum via msm (not the same country), and are you seriously suggesting email over chat messages? They serve two different purposes.

As a Spotify user, I’m not really ok with how much they pay artists… But I don’t use Spotify for “streaming” even though I stream a lot from them, I use it to discover new music, find obscure bands, their algorithm is amazing at that.

I could easily selfhost as you suggested, but then it would be my own music bubble.

I go to concerts and buy merchandise as much as possible when I want to support an artist.

This is not your uncle selling an old TV to your neighbour, this impacts lots of consumers and other businesses.

As a consumer I’m a part of the business , so you are actually advocating people to be involved, even though you are contradicting your self because I don’t think you understand the implications of “minding your own business”.

Work use. The are hardware requirements (XRD machines, potentiostats, CNC machining) and software requirements (3D design). My workshop asks for files in Autodesk Inventor, if I send it in any other format, they just won’t fabricate my pieces, and I completely understand, who am I to change the workflow of a complete department just because I refuse to use Inventor (which is provided at work).

Read my other replies. 1 and 2 don’t really work, the performance of using wine, or the alternatives, is just not there, if you do amateur work, maybe that’s fine, but for professional collaborative work, good luck using freecad instead of autocad.

Personally, I use 3 and 4, but you have to understand that the regular user is not going to go through that much hassle to set up a virtual machine.

Nah man, I value way more the contact with my mum and close friends than refusing to use an stupid app.

If my mum is in trouble and try to message me via WhatsApp: “sorry mum, I don’t answer WhatsApp messages, good luck next time trying to get someone to help you”. Nah man, that’s so shitty.

Data plans exists, but there is no good middle ground. You have the unlimited 4g connection for 20 USD , or the WhatsApp only for a few dollars.

Most of the people, specially older age or people who already have unlimited data from work phones, do not need 4g unlimited connection, so why spend extra 15 USD (which is a lot in latin America), if you can still communicate perfectly fine via WhatsApp.

Yeah, that’s small little thing, that everyone uses it. I’ve been waiting to get away from WhatsApp for years, but I would be an idiot to say that I can get away from it and still communicate with my family and friends via text.

So you can say Yucatan is Mexico, the same way Ubuntu is Linux. Or the same way people say Windows, instead of Microsoft Windows NT.

OP is technically correct, but that’s not how people express themselves in real life, there’s an unspoken understanding in the community that when someone says Linux (when talking in a general sense), there’s no way they are referring to the kernel only.

I mean, that’s what I do. Will I be able to convince my 60 yo colleague that had been using the same workflow for decades? No, not a chance.

That’s my point, I use linux as much as I can, but if 80% of your colleagues use Windows… You don’t have much choice.

I wish Wine worked well enough to use Excel. We are not talking about adding up numbers in a cell. Once you include macros, or a reference manager in Word, Wine is not good enough. The same can be said about propietary software, like autocad, or software used to control equipment. Also, good luck convincing a regular user to get familiar with wine.

WPS is great for simple files. Again, not good enough for complex files, especially if it is a corporate collaboration environment. I have lost count on the amount of ppt files that didn’t display well when it used WPS.

Every other year I try all the alternatives you mention, hoping they got better, and I always come back to use a dual boot or a virtual machine, which is not a thing your regular user wants to do.

But can it run proprietary software used in the industry? From Excel to Photoshop, if you are in a collaborative professional environment, you can’t run away from those, and don’t tell me you can use the alternatives in Linux, because no, you can’t. This is not linux fault, but it’s still an issue you can’t handwave.

I love linux, but you can’t expect people to adopt it just because it’s objectively better than windows.

A cheap USB hub solves everything you are describing. You can just leave it dangling from behind.

Saying that, I’m not in favour of only usb-c motherboard though.