Context: the creator of Linux is from Finland
For a slightly better chance against Linux he should have called himself windows XP man. 95 was shit if I remember correctly.
Every Windows version was shit when it came out, then became good through updates by the time the next version came out.
Except for Windows ME and 8, which were just shit.I think Windows has been shit since it was an app that sat on top of dos. It’s gotten a lot better now in countless ways, but overall, it’s gotten worse than better. There was a time where I couldn’t/wouldn’t consider an alternative as a daily driver from 95 through to the end of 7 support really.
The enshitification of windows got worse with 10 (11 is another order of magnitude) and the oncoming eos, drove me off again about 18 months ago and I’ve been happier for it.
95 was amazeballs for what it did at the time to personal computing.
But there was a reason it got replaced with NT.
Windows 95 was revolutionary. It introduced an incredible amount of “this is how you use a computer” that has stuck around to this day. The concept of the start menu and the three buttons in the top right that so many applications use today originated there, for instance. The “open file” dialog on just about any computer today takes inspiration from or is designed after the one that came with Windows 95.
There was no alternative for it other than Windows 3.11. Windows NT existed but had no drivers. Linux had no GUI. Macintosh was around, but the OS required Apple hardware, or cheap clones thereof, and only ran on slower CPUs. Apple was terribly mismanaged at the time, almost going bankrupt two years after Windows 95 launched until Microsoft loaned them some money to stay afloat; kind of ironic, really.
Windows 95 managed what Windows 3.1 set out to do, and made running DOS programs inside a GUI usable. Subsequent releases and Windows 98 would improve that support, but there was a huge difference. Microsoft put in an ungodly amount of work to make Windows 95 work with existing software despite being incompatible at its core (after all, in MS-DOS any program has complete control over all of your hardware, and now those programs had to share). You could take your five year old software and run it on Windows and it usually actually worked.
Microsoft also invested massively into UX design, in the way that they don’t today. Every single control, window, menu, had been designed from the ground up, while remaining familiar and compatible to existing Windows software and users.
It may not have been as stable as today’s modern operating systems (none of the consumer operating systems at the time are), but it changed the face of computers forever. Windows 95 is where Microsoft’s near monopoly took off. Jay Leno agreed to copresent the unveiling of the thing in one of the cringiest attempts at making computers funny in history, perhaps only topped by Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry doing a “guide to Windows 95” for home release.
In hindsight, it looks old and lacks shortcuts. At the time, stores were running out of copies, for an OS released at $210 ($420 in today’s money if you add inflation). Almost nobody had a computer, so in absolute numbers very few people cared, but for any computer owner, Windows 95 was huge, whether you were seething about Microsoft copying “your” preferred operating system or if you were about to go through your network of floppy copiers to get a version of your own.
Linux absolutely had a GUI. It ran X just fine. I know because it was my desktop at the time.
And you had to write your own modeline
Indeed you did. Linux was more fun back then.
…no thanks. I would take atleast LXQt or dwm as minimum baseline today.
You’re forgettin literally all the versions of unix that existed at that time, solaris being prominent, but ibm had their own version, and so did many other companies, all of these ram x11 desktops, win95 was much farther from being the only option than windows 10 was before windows 11
Unix existed in an entirely separate market. High-end computers, data centers, CAD workstations, that stuff used Unix. There was no Unix for home users (though I think Microsoft tried to sell that with Xenix at some point?). Novell (owner of the Unix IP at the time) targeted its OS as competition to Windows NT, rather than consumer Windows versions. Sun’s Solaris only came with computers ten or twenty times the price of a normal computer. It’s no wonder Linux and macOS ate Unix’s lunch.
There were early versions of free BSDs and Linux, but those had market shares smaller than OS/2.
I’m a bit partial to Spain’s performance this year with their Bitch (“zorra”) song… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSZqlQZ0_us
On the day he won, he was accused for being a right-wing advocate on front page, but for some unknown reason those articles disappeared in just couple of hours.
I know I’m late but do you remember what those accusations were about?
En kyllä todellakaan jaksanu lukea sitä :D menin iltalehden etusivulle ja ensimmäisenä vastassa otsikko jotakuinkin “huomasitko viisufinaalissa? Windows95Man ja äärioikeistolainen symboliikka” Ei sanasta sanaan noin, mutta noita sanoja käyttäen.
Pari tuntia myöhemmim yritin etsiä uutista näyttääkseni sen kaverille mutta ei löytynyt enää mistään.
No höh, ei löytynyt mitään kun etsiskelin. Varmaan mennyt peukkua näyttämään tai jotain yhtä dramaattista ja se sitten ylitulkittu.
Linus gets that this is a joke, just like Windows.
they came in second last year and couldn’t handle it so they have to go back being last.
Kärjää was so fun. Far and away the televote favorite, too.
Jury votes
Sweden 340
Israel 177 (seriously?)
Italy 176
Finland 150
Televote
Finland 376
Sweden 243
Norway 216
Ukraine 189
The jury system is bullshit and needs to go.
*second to last!
The last spot is reserved for us, Germany.
You guys should have picked Eskimo Callboy
Tell me about it … 🤷
Plot Twist: Windows95man is Linus Torvalds. Have you seen him lately? Maybe that’s his thing now.
Never seen them both in the same room
Someone needs to crash it dressed as 90’s Linus
Windows 95 is quite capable of crashing itself.
It showed a blue screen when you ejected a CD with the button on the CD drive, while it was reading from the CD. (At the same time, Linux would just disable the button until the CD was not in use aka unmounted)
That performance was peak Eurovision though! I have never been so entertained by an entry before!
He won’t be allowed to perform at Eurovision with the Windows 95 name/trademark/logo, so it would be hilarious if he switches to a name like Linuxman during it.
It’s still unclear if he’s allowed to use the logo and such. The national broadcaster Yle (which itself has a strict policy against advertising) allowed it in the national show and argued that (quote) “Windows 95 is no longer a protected trademark today. The product is hardly used by anyone anymore. Thus the name and the costume are allowed”
But EBU might have a different stance ofc
But Linux is a registered trademark, too.
Windows95man in the streets, Linuxman in the sheets.
He’ll resolve all your dependencies
Now that’s actually arousing.
Version requirements? No rules!
But if you piss him off, he’ll turn right back into Windows95man and send you into DLL-hell.
ReactOSman
just dress up as john hodgman instead
You may not like it, but this is what Peak Male Performance looks like.
