Dae

I don’t mean superficially. Linux Mint was very similar in feel to the Windows 7 days. Just thinking about it makes me nostalgic.

I mean in the way that sometimes you gotta run something in WINE, or trying to mod a game only to run into how different the file structure is. Back end things that make you go “Oh, this really isn’t Windows.”

And it’s not. But that’s okay. It doesn’t need to be. It shouldn’t be. We moved to Linux before it’s not Windows. It’s a little frustrating at first, but taking the time to learn how it works was worth it. I’ve never looked back.

I swapped away from Windows about a year and a half ago. The last straw was them sticking ads in the OS. And from everything I’ve heard, they continue to boil the frog; they continue to add more and more telemetry and unasked for “features” and bloat the system more and more and more with every update. Even my own parents are growing tired of Windows; it’s a clunky, poorly optimized operating system that’s positively frustrating to use.

I will concede that not everything that runs on Windows will run on Linux. It’s true. But I severely disagree that Windows is “easier to use.” Of course, when you grow up on Windows, Linux has a learning curve. It’s different OS. But once I got past that? Nah, Linux is far easier and more intuitive in most cases.

Installing programs? Open your software manager and click a button.

Playing video games? Open Steam or Lutris and click a button. Occasionally you might need to tweak things, but you have to do the same on Windows sometimes, especially for older games!

I could go on but those are the biggest two examples that come to mind immediately.

As to another point you made, I personally gave up almost nothing. Destiny 2 and League of Legends don’t work, but I quit league before fgsh added Vanguard and neither of these games want me. That isn’t my fault, and it isn’t a short coming in Linux’s fault, it’s the devs being assholes.

In spite of this, I do acknowledge some people would have to give up more than me, and for some people that’s too much, and that’s valid! I hope one day they truly get a choice.

Terraria. Hands down. No other game I’ve ever played has had the same sheer amount of value for $10 fucking dollars.

A honorable mention would be Stellaris and good ol’ Skyrim. But their larger price tag definitely means that Terraria is greater value.

Didn’t know that my autism made me racist too. Damn.

I think there’s many contributing factors. I actually was thinking about the same thing before I found your post, and the answer that came to mind outside of some of the ones people posted here was:

It feels like a breath of fresh air because we’re outside the Walled Garden. We’re not trapped on a platform who’s soul has been crushed and wrung for every penny’s worth like Reddit or Twitter. And we can see that there is a world on the Internet besides the Walled Garden and that fact is very liberating. It makes you feel like you don’t have to go back.

That honestly makes me very happy to hear! I really hope that catches on in more games. A kind and helpful community is important for the survival of the gaming community as a whole, but doubly so for individual games.

It makes me very glad to hear that Lemmy has this effect on people! It gives me a lot of hope for the platform. I also came from Reddit. I joined yesterday, actually. Immediately, I didn’t miss it. I still don’t. I miss the resources I had there, but I’m not gonna wait around while they slowly bleed out.

But I did notice what you said here. The disliking something just because people didn’t like it. Reddit is infected by pervasive, toxic elitism and sophistry. I hope Lemmy does better in those regards, and your post here reassures me it will. Or that at least Beehaw will.

I really think it’s just a toxic culture thing. I’ve seen similar instances in people coming from places like League of Legends of World of Warcraft to other games or communities.

When you hang around in a toxic environment and the powers that be do nothing to curb that behavior, you begin to feel like you have to also be toxic in self-defense. It becomes your only recourse.

Then you go somewhere that’s not toxic and it’s like a culture shock: people actually get banned for bad behavior, other people aren’t nasty to you all the time, and you suddenly realize that you don’t have to be defensive.

I have a lot of hope for Lemmy. I hope it keeps growing and I hope people don’t just join the platform, but join the culture and contribute in positive ways. Reddit is dying and people need to let it and make something better.