Does anybody know if when using Windows on a computer but not paying for anything windows related: is windows/ Bill Gates profiting from it? Is it worth installing linux as a protest?
Does anybody know if when using Windows on a computer but not paying for anything windows related: is windows/ Bill Gates profiting from it? Is it worth installing linux as a protest?
From my experience (Linux Mint exclusively) you might need to edit config files, fiddle with drivers and packages, and compatibility software like wine, lutris etc. ChatGPT proofed quite helpfull with most of these tasks, and there are passionate ppl on lemmy ready to help you out.
Gaming is in a great spot imo. I can run abt 90% of my steam games thanks to proton, and I was pleasently surprised that some EA games ran without the EA client. Competetive games on the other hand are a bit of a gamble since most of them don’t have an anti cheat solution for Linux and won’t run.
Would a windows emulator be possible? Or is that basically like running windows anyway?
Proton kinda is that already. I mean it’s not technically doing “emulation” (it’s based on WINE, which literally stands for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”), but it is a reimplementation and translation layer of the Windows API, such that Windows games can run in Linux.
Anyway, it works fine (except for kernel-level anti-cheat) and has done for quite a while now.
Also, to answer your original question: absolutely you should use Linux. Everyone should, including US folks, because Windows is literally malware. Don’t even run it in a VM, let alone on the bare metal machine.
@Liljekonvalj @KokusnussRitter
I just finished installing Wine (which, as the name itself says, is not a Windows emulator). If you really need to run a Windows application, Wine will do the trick for many apps you may need. So, my suggestion is: switch to Linux, find any alternative for your needs, and, in case you don’t find some alternative apps, install Wine and get rid of Microsoft once for all.
You don’t really need Microsoft at all.
I don’t have a lot of experience with that. I had a Win10 Virtual Machine ages ago, so it is possible but I don’t know if/to what extend it could collect your data and sell it.
A virtual machine running Windows will act exactly like a bare metal machine, with all the telemetry and advertising and such.
In any case, it at least won’t touch anything outside the vm.
That would depend on how directory and clipboard sharing are configured. There are some potential problems if the user is looking to share files between the VM and the host.