“Reserve Cloud PCs” will be preloaded with Microsoft 365 apps and a user’s preferred security policies and other Windows customizations.

You need a working PC to access this ‘reserve’ PC. Why not just install Office on your own PC and ignore this extra cloud thing?

I’m confused, OBS works well. What is missing you are desiring?

I wouldn’t worry about it too hard, there isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with Ubuntu. Both it and mint are in the same family after all.

Sounds like you should just keep Ubuntu and get the non-snap versions of the apps that need codecs.

O, yeah. Snaps basically live in their own little system. Anything you do to your wider system, like installing codecs, will not affect a snap. Easiest solution is to remove the snap VLC and install normal VLC. Same for Firefox and MPC.

I have heard nothing good about snaps and Canonical pushing them is a big reason you don’t see people recommending Ubuntu, and instead recommending things like Mint (me included).

Yeah, I’m not sure why anybody is mentioning Windows IoT. When you lookup where to buy this, Microsoft themselves tell you to call or email a salesman; it’s an enterprise-only thing. Recommending this for individuals is misguided.

Full guide here for Linux Mint. But the easy version is:

1. Download iso

2. Create bootable USB drive

3. Boot to that USB drive

4. Press next a bunch in the Mint installer

If you have two computers, highly recommend dipping your toes in with Linux on the secondary one. That way any stress related to the unknown is much reduced.

I know when you install Mint there is a ‘install codecs’ checkbox during the installer, not sure if the same exists for Ubuntu.

For Ubuntu, you could try this and see if it solves your problem.

Most people are willing to buy new hardware, and nobody pays for a Windows key tbh.

Many people are also not willing to buy new hardware. I have several friends where each PC purchase is a massive hit on their budget that requires other things to be sacrificed. And one does pay for a Windows key every time they buy a Windows PC. SIs who sell PCs with Windows as optional offer the Linux PCs for cheaper since you don’t have to pay the Windows license fee.

Even if they did it would be a free upgrade from 10 to 11.

Depends on the PC, some of them just will not go to 11, in which case you are talking about spending hundreds of dollars to go from Win 10 to Win 11, but $0 to go from Win 10 to Linux.

Enhanced Privacy

Once again not something people strictly care about.

Privacy is exactly what got me and one of my other friends to switch. Many, many people don’t like being spied on. And taking reasonable steps to reduce it is very much so within our control.

The implication that carbon emissions is something an individual can do something about has been objectively disproven.

Not buying something new and using what you have demonstrably helps. There is no world in which throwing away a perfectly good PC just to manufacture and transport another is somehow better for carbon emissions. Microsoft should not be rewarded for creating so much unnecessary ewaste by encouraging people to go out and buy another Windows PC.

Two of my friends switched recently precisely because Win 10 was going end of life. ‘I have to change the OS anyway’ was the final motivator.

intimidating complexity of installing Wine

I would give that a shot. The full guide is install ‘wine’ and ‘winetricks’ the same way you install any other software you use. Then in winetricks, select ‘default prefix’, then ‘run arbitrary executable’, and point it to your .exe installer. After that, you just open the program like any other program on your system.

You generally don’t need to do more than that and might let you forgo ever dual booting again.

Microsoft already lost enterprise servers to Linux, and has lost significant ground over the years in consumer PCs to ChromeOS, MacOS, and Linux. Hell, the top PC gaming handheld is a Linux offering. That was an unheard of idea just five years ago.

While I agree that business laptops will continue to be dominated by Windows for awhile, the market shifts we see everywhere have downstream effects on business laptops too. When you find yourself having to train more and more people on how to use Windows than you did in the past, the value argument for Windows on your employee’s laptops quickly comes into question.

That’s a totally different situation from a totally different time…a singular, mostly unrelated action

Both situations are about Iran closing the Straight of Hormuz and the US response to such. It’s hard to draw up a more similar event. Second up would be the ongoing operations against the Houthis who are attempting to close a different straight.

Do they want to lose half their navy in a day, again?

For those who want to watch a great animated video on the event: Operation Praying Mantis

Ukraine regularly reports Russian casualties and destroyed equipment. The Russian casualty number ticked over 1M a few days ago. I’m guessing ‘casualty’ got lost in translation at some point and turned into ‘killed’. I do see people making this mistake a lot with casualties, which is both killed and wounded.

Iran has multiple enrichment sites, with a reported 83.7% pure U-235. Such purity is only needed for one thing, and it isn’t nuclear power plants which typically only need 3%-5% U-235.

The international response would be much stronger if Iran did something like that. Much like chemical weapons, actually employing such tools brings on unwanted responses.

Lots of updates, videos, and pictures in the article.

Why the hell would we need AI summaries of a wikipedia article? The top of the article is explicitly the summary of the rest of the article.

No. But much like an erratic hobo with an unfolded knife, I have zero desire to allow them the ability to attack anybody.

The Baltics are part of NATO because they didn’t want to be part of the failed Soviet Union or the modern Russian Federation. And with Russia invading Ukraine, twice now, it isn’t very hard to see why.

Get fucked Russia.