#win11 is the actual worst

[whateverposting]

KDE and pretty in the same sentence???

Stop talking shit about Linux Desktop Environments!

KDE is Pretty! XFCE is Efficient! Gnome... Mate is Traditional!

[ilex-manor]

PC problems - I may have lost all my data

Late 2024 sucked for me, and to round it all off my hard drive died on me. I should have replaced it sooner, but I'm broke. As luck would have it, one of my brothers-in-law was looking to give me an old desktop PC he no longer uses, and already floated the idea of selling it and using the money on an upgrade for my PC. So, I have a new drive.

But all my data may be gone. My own fault for not making backups. I'd convinced myself that this wouldn't happen, because it's a HDD, and I was wrong. (Desperation makes you do the worst things, sometimes). I've not been able to access the old drive, but it is a HDD. I can't afford professional data recovery services, but the drive still powers up and my system sees it. I need a docking station or whatever-you-call-it to make the drive external, and another drive to make a byte-to-byte copy onto. I'm talking to family to see what we can do. There's hope.

I know I can rebuild from here, but a lot of things may be lost forever. The links are dead, or I can't re-create the project exactly, or w/e. All my released work is still online, of course. Feels... I can't put into words how I feel. My emotions are all over the place. Like the ball in a pinball machine.

The upcoming projects I posted about still stands, actually. Mostly. If I can't recover my data, I'll have to restart that blonde Fledgling. The updates to existing things I can just go do. I can easily grab the models off my Google Drive or the Workshop, de-compile them, and update from there. Will have to redo giving VV new eyeballs is all.

Another major issue that's looming is Microsoft axing Win10 later this year. My PC is too old to run Win11. It's old, period, and needs replacing before anything else breaks. I tried switching to Linux, and while I like what I saw, the lack of compatibility with Windows software is too big of an issue.

So... I'll have to try again to get more attention online to see if I can monetize my stuff. (The only consistent thing has been donation points I earn on Nexus Mods, and after more than a year-and-a-half that hasn't even reached the minimum amount you can withdraw to Paypal. lul). I'll make a Bluesky account, and see if I can post more frequent WIP posts. Simple "I finished that, I'm now working on this, I'll do this other thing next", every 2-3 weeks. I'm trying to find my footing, still, so we can probably write off January, but I'll restart.

Obligatory Patreon link

[saoarmyvid]

As someone who drives Linux and Windows close to daily, this is only half true (yes I know this is supposed to be mostly humorous but I want to sprinkle some knowledge into this).

Let's break it down; Starting with Windows, pro: you have one of the most robust and polished OSs of the big 3 and one of the largest library of applications that natively run on Windows without any middle-man for programs as far back as the Win95 days. Con: Microsoft is actively commuting OSSuic1de with Win11 by pushing Copilot and the rest of the categorically unfinished AI and ML crap that literally no-one asked for.

Now let's move to Linux; pro: Its extremely customizable down to the kernel level and is infinitely compatible with everything given community support and community-made tools. Con: it is really hard to go to Linux from another OS and get the same level of performance or compatibility without an actual shitload of research, experimentation, and guess work. Linux is extremely niche and really only works in specific situations where you can, without a doubt, rely on community-made tools.

Now mind you, I am an avid Linux supporter, and if I could fully switch over and have access to all of my tools there instead of Windows, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But the reality of it is that unless everything you do is fueled by open-source projects maintained by a few hobbyists and don't need literally any of the professionally made programs that are leagues more stable and feature rich than any of the free alternatives.

And before people swarm to the notes to tell me "oh but you can run Windows programs on Linux with Wine", yes, *but* that compatibility comes with a huge asterix, it doesn't always work. There is a whole host of programs that just don't work properly or even at all when run with Wine, and even the ones that do still end up with stability and performance issues as it all has to be basically translated in real time by Wine from Windows to Linux.

And for those who are gonna say MacOS, you're in an even worse boat, as you have all of the worst restrictions of Windows and the compatibility issues of Linux, but worse. Mac will often throw errors trying to run programs from as short a couple years old, and the customization options are either practically non-exsistant or extremely surface level.

All in all, for creative professionals and even hobbyists, Linux is often too unstable and requires too much additional maintanence out of the box as opposed to Windows. Do I like Windows? Not really, there's a lot of shit that Microsoft has done to it that really pisses me off, and I have made the decision to stay on Win10 for as long as I can so I don't have to suffer through all of the crap that Microsoft is trying to dump into Win11. But unfortunately my creative process is locked to Windows, mostly since the program I use for music, Cakewalk, is Windows only and its the only I actually like and can stand using.

If you can move to Linux without sacrificing anything from the move, please do it. Linux is extremely powerful and can do pretty much anything, but if you are stuck with Windows, specifically Win11, because of your programs, while you can look into compatibility with Wine, I wouldn't worry too much on it. If you're on Win10, STAY THERE! Win10 might not have all of the bells and whistles that Win11 has, and its grave has already been dug with its end of service date rapidly approaching, it is by far the better option. I'd still look into open-source tools, as they are often made with utility in mind instead of marketability, but aside from that use what you already have.

This is not a call to move to either system, as both has their drawbacks, but don't be compelled to switch OSs on a whim because of the AI crap. Someone is going to find a way to work around it all and possibly even disable it entirely, but until then it may have to be something you work with. Use what you're comfortable with and don't think that you're incorrect for using one or the other.

Also @cyanroxanne your art is fucking awesome and I didn't mean to turn the funny Linux Fox into giant ramble about Operating Systems and I hope you anjoy your pride month

🐭Xenia here to remind u that u don't need to deal with windows! There's a better way

(art from 2023)

[afniel]

I never actually learned to fix computers anywhere. Like, I do come from a family with two parents in IT/repairs so yeah there's a lot of tech shit that was dinner conversation, but even so, my method was basically to ask my parents if they knew what the problem was offhand, and if they didn't, I'd just go figure it out. How? Iono. This was before the internet was that helpful for things, even.

My method is still basically to just run all the diagnostic things, stare into the event log viewer, and then go with my gut and see if that solves it. And this works for some reason? Like I was having an IRQ conflict a while ago, which shouldn't even exist as an error that you can have under Win11, what the shit and fuck, and I still managed to pinpoint and resolve it.

You can do almost anything as long as you don't fear bricking electronics and are reasonably okay at using Google and a command line. Or, well, I can do anything, but I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work for anyone else either.

And like, worst case scenario, you reinstall the OS or factory reset. Annoying but very doable. It's whatever. Just back up your data. (I need to back up my data...)

I went to play Stardew Valley but instead my computer has decided to throw a BSOD every five minutes for no clear reason that I can get from the event viewer, so I guess I'm waiting for the memory diagnostic to run instead and that's going to take...at the speed it's going and the amount of RAM I have...all night at minimum. Yaaaaay. >:\ I can fix it, I'm pretty sure, but man, let me play Stardew Valley. I was excited about the update.

I'm so glad I write on my phone. I'd shit the bed at least as hard as my computer is if I had to stop just because SOMEONE decided to throw a goddamn KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE multiple times in a row and die instead of doing their job. Like bro come on I throw errors all day and you don't see me shutting down about it, Dagstjarna.

(That's my computer's name, and also a FFXIV RP character, but that's traditionally how I name electronics. The only real exception was The New Hotness, my previous desktop.)