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I had to help my sister keep her 8 year old Mac going or buy a new secondhand (cheap) machine. With the options out there and with the state of Windows, I didn't even consider it.
She's ended up with her same 8 year old Mac with Ubuntu 24.04, and I've been really impressed with how it's actually great for non-technical users these days! And works really well on old hardware.
This should give her another few years of life out of the thing without worrying about software support.
It's frustrating. There's a lot of Windows 11 that I do actually like: Massively improved HDR support, far better DPI scaling features, tabbed file browsing, a unified control panel again (yes I know if you look hard enough you can find legacy panels), configurable snapping regions for Windows, gaming focused features with screen recording, intelligent capture, etc. On the power user side: the terminal, winget, built in ssh support and broader compatibility with Linux development toolchains, and if you're the kind of person with a family or friends you do tech support for regularly the Quick Assist's current iteration is a godsend.
But then the tradeoff is ads, increased telemetry, AI integrations, inability to move the taskbar, a piss-poor local file search, increasingly restrictive desktop customizations via third party tools, shorter support periods for Windows feature updates, and generally a lack of overall feature control due to low level integration with core Windows services.
I don't think Windows 11 is a bad operating system in the sense that I believe it to be a marked improvement on a feature by feature comparison to Windows 10. But it feels like two development arms at Microsoft are consistently at war with eachother. Some want to implement really cool features and tools for end users, and the others are hellbent on locking the system down and forcing this Apple philosophy of "use it like we want you to".
yes I know if you look hard enough you can find legacy panels
In some case you have to actively looks for the legacy panel, because the new ones don't allow to change certain settings.
I hate local file search in Windows. So many times I've wonder why my machine is crawling and I go to the taskbar and discover Windows search indexer is killing my machine.
For the other stuff in Windows 11, I wonder if it knows I'm in Europe because I've not seen any egregious advertising - it has the default shit they set up for you like the MSN home page in Edge which is annoying but it can all be changed.
Windows 11? Let's see here...
Spyware/malware since that infamous Windows 7 update sending everything (including passwords) to Microsoft. Ads spread across the UI in W11. Simple features hidden or disabled. Bing Internet search results in the Start Menu that can't be disabled unless you edit the registry. Search engine in the Start Menu cannot be changed. Numerous other previously simple settings changes that now require registry edits. Menu items gone, and others that still exist but inexplicably have been removed from the Start Menu search. Edge browser forced down your throat no matter what you set as the default browser. Upgrades that you can't do at your convenience and forced restarts that happen even if you have open files that you're editing. Long (sometimes really long) upgrade restart times. Forced Microsoft account use to install and use the OS & Internet access required to even install the OS. Absurdly inflexible hardware requirements that make no sense for most people. A taskbar that can't be moved. Numerous programs and garbage spread through the OS that cannot be removed or disabled.
Besides that, what's not to like?
You left out the forced rounded corners.
Holy shit.
I fucking hate that rounded corner mania which is spreading all over UI design decisions almost everywhere you look.
I can tolerate it with window borders, but if rounded corners hide content, e.g., of videos or images, it really irrationally infuriates me.
My screens are rectangular. Not rounded. I paid for those pixels, so fucking use them! ò_ó
Its a downgrade. It offers nothing but ads. Who wants ads? Why do they feel the need to keep altering the interface? If microsoft manufactured automobiles they would switch the brake and gas pedals every other year.
Why are people still surprised?
XP fucking sucked. It wasn't good until service pack 3.
You skipped 8.1 which was the good version that fixed the stuff that sucked about 8. It's existence is almost completely forgotten.
Then Windows 10 came out and it was bad.
They then had about a 10 different OS builds that all had the Windows 10 name instead of giving each build a new name or calling them service packs. The OS that exists now (22h2) has almost nothing in common with the OS that came out in 2015.
Windows 11 has also had several major leaps since that name started. What's current (23h2) is much much different than the OS that came out in 2021.
I can't really think of a reason why 10 is listed as good, does it actually do something better than 7? Even just graphical interface?
Windows 7 is good compared to Vista, but bad compared to Windows Xp SP 1 or SP 2 (in my memory at least). Windows 10 is good compared to Windows 8, but bad compared to Windows 7.
After a couple more years of MS pushing win 11, we'll probably get a win 12 that is less good than win 10, but better than win 11, so thanks to people's short term memory, it will then be considered "good", but anyone with a memory and some critical thinking ability will recognize it as shite.
"I grow tired of asking, so this will be the last time. Where is your Linux boot disk?"
"Help us Linus, you are our only hope"
I'm looking into backing up data so I can make the switch. We're out here. For decades Windows was good enough. But this recent stuff is just ridiculous.
I keep checking videos on YouTube from time to time about whether it is worth upgrading to Win 11 now (which people keep releasing regularly). Keep deciding it's not worth changing.
Then I sold my laptop and had to use my Steam Deck for a couple of months. At that point I thought if I'm going to learn a different OS, then I might as well go all the way and jump over to Linux. Been very happy with OpenSUSE ever since.
That's one hell of a thumbnail
It goes so hard, I love it
Maybe I'd they added more ads I'd be tempted to use it....
/S
No it needs more AI. Maybe AI-generated ads. The killer tech of 2024. The shareholders will be so pleased.
All the reviews (written by Ai) say that windows 11 is the bees knees!
Y'all need to get yourselves that Windows 10 2021 LTSC IoT badboy (IoT part is important). It's supported until 2032 and it's only bloat is edge. If I had to use windows again it would be that.
Oh no, that's not all actually.
That version doesn't even have the Windows Store, which is a huge bloat of it's own. Oh and it doesn't even stop there, apparently Microsoft treats even their Pro-users like trash nowadays, that you have full control of what you do on the Win10 2021 LTSC/LoT as opposed to the Pro version and it costs more.
Yeah, this sounds like Louis Rossmann's "rapist mentality" that he's been harping on for a while. They think they own your hardware just because they make software, so they'll force you to do whatever they think is "best" for you (which is probably using more of their products).
Just say no.
Software should give you an incentive to upgrade. I use Linux 100%, and I'm excited to use the next version because it'll fix issues and add features that I'll actually want to use. I'm on openSUSE, and here are some things that I've been excited about recently:
Software should entice you to upgrade, not force you to upgrade. That has never been the case for me for Windows, so I bailed and now use Linux, where it absolutely is the case.
I must admit I'm on the edge of jumping ship, even the software which has been keeping me locked to windows is getting less and less appealing.
Do it. Get a second hard drive and distro hop. Eventually you’ll find what you like and use windows less and less. Doesn’t have to be all or nothing at one point in time.
Do a flip!
Do a barrel roll!
It enticed me to start gaming on Linux. So its definitely doing some enticing
What was your experience switching over to Linux and getting it set up for gaming?
The main setup went smooth. I can recommend nobara which is what I used. I tried garuda as well, but it wasn't my style. Personal preference, no hate :).
Most steam games work pretty good ( see protondb ). ( make sure to set your steam settings > compatibility to all games ).
Any game with invasive anti-cheat will likely not work. LoL and valorant come to mind. I think some of the cs2 ones like faceit won't work on Linux. But standard cs2 and competitive work fine.
Battle.net gave me some issues on lutris until I forced it to proton.
Overall I've had a good experience. Sometimes a weird issue if I alt tab ( hots ) that it comes back super tiny. I worked around it by running it windowed fullscreen.
Overall I've no regrets so far. I installed nobara and it's quite user friendly. I've never used a fedora distro before ( more extensive experience with xubuntu/Ubuntu/pop ).
Helldivers 2, heroes of the storm and ff crisis core worked flawlessly.
Hots needs to run full screen ( windowed ) or alt-tab will make the screen tiny for some reason.
So far: no regrets.
When you first play a game it needs to compile the shaders first. So on your initial game there's a few minutes ramp up time. But any next times you start the game should be fine.
Thank you for mentioning hots, because that’s like the ONE steam game I couldn’t live without. Good to know it’s possible, even if I have to play true full screen vs windowed.
For hots: install lutris through the nobara app store. Start it and leave it for a few minutes while you run other updates or something ( only the very first time ).
Go to the settings/preferences, ( three dots top right ), click runners, scroll all the way down to wine.
Click the cog and change the runtime from wine-.... to proton-GE. Thrn you can just install the battle.net app through lutris. From the battle.net app you can install hots.
Using the built in wine-.... Runtime I got errors like missing Microsoft arial or unable to validate certificate.
with proton it just instantly worked.
You can also add the battle.net installer as an external steam app and run/install it that way. The only downside would be that you can't play a steam game AND have bnet running ( which you can through lutris ).
Exiting battle.net doesn't seem to be enough to stop lutris running it. So you might have to click the stop button in lutris if you want to restart it.
Battle.net is a bit wonky. But once you've got it IP and running it's okay.
Damn appreciate the details. I’ll def give it a go!
If you primarily game using Steam then it's easier than ever on most popular distros. Biggest hassle is likely still GPU drivers. I've never had any issues there but depending on what card you have you may be better off with either proprietary or FOSS drivers depending on what your distro of choice likes to provide by default. After that most games tend to just work, a handful may require you to pick a beta version of proton or something.
If you want to try it and don't want to do a lot of tinkering check out PopOS. It's probably the friendliest distro for gaming out of the box.
I've heard a lot of people reference PopOS and Garuda as of the last few months but I've never heard of them. When you say popular distros I immediately think Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Suse, etc. Does your comment include those as well or when you say popular do you mean "popular for gaming"? Also how is the Linux support for external controllers?
To be fair outside of Proxmox and some Debian containers with Docker I haven't spent much time in the Linux space for the last 7 or 8 years. I'm thinking about finally making the switch.
Driver installation is really only a hassle for NVIDIA users. AMD and Intel GPUs simply work out of the box on most Linux distros these days (with the main issues being related to using slow moving distros that lack support for the newest hardware). Use a fast moving distro such as Arch and you likely won't have any issues even with recent GPUs. Hopefully NVK will make the situation for NVIDIA cards better too, been testing it on my laptop and it's starting to be viable for gaming.
Arch?!? lol. Terrible advice for a newbie. You are one update away from fscking your system. Better go Fedora/Nobara way. The kernel and drivers will be updated frequently enough. Also, no, propiertary NVIDIA driver installation is not a hassle, Ubuntu/Manjaro and some other friends literally have "wizards" that let you click->click->next the driver.
Windows 11 was what finally forced me over to linux for good, no more dual booting. I know it sounds strange, but the straw that broke its back was the taskbar. I have an ultrawide monitor, so I ALWAYS have the taskbar vertical on a side. It makes zero sense to have it at the bottom. Massive waste of space. Windows 11 DID NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO MOVE THE TASKBAR. I was flabbergasted. This is a feature that has existed for decades in every OS. I just couldn't comprehend the stupidity, so I just didn't. Formatted the drive and went to Arch, then to Tumbleweed. Couldn't be happier.
I ran a poll a few years ago on Reddit asking people what event made them switch to Linux from some other platform. Interestingly enough it was not the EOL of a preferred version of Windows or MacOS, but the introduction of a dreaded new one. In other words, according to my poll, more people quit using Windows not because Win 7 support ended, but because Win 8 was released. Which was counterintuitive to me.
It feels to me like every second version of Windoof is shit if you start at XP (my first Windoof OS, no experience with earlier ones):
Until now I was able to skip every second version and could wait until the newer and better one was released. But now it seems that I need to make a complete switch to a suitable gaming Linux OS. I don't have any other use for Windoof.
Your poll results feel therefore relatable to me. I want a system that just works and with which I can do everything I need to. I don't mind testing new features. Often I welcome them. But if I can already expect that I have to adjust to new features which are unavoidable, and from which I can tell – either by reading reviews or testing myself – that I really don't like them, then of course I stay with the system which doesn't have them as long as I can still do everything I need to.
Honestly, windows gamers upgrade to windows 11, Linux users stay on Linux, and everyone else is on android/ios and in no hurry to do anything about the laptop collecting dust most of the time.
Companies are also more likely to pay the extended support a year or two and update when the computer is replaced.
Its only on here on the fediverse people have time to complain about windows 11. (well some of the gamers might but more likely due to unstable systems on the newest i9 chips, since you launch steam, discord and a browser and alt tab between them.. ignoring the start menu)
Here seems like people think everyone will say "welp, that's it, going linux!". Dude, most people I've talked about it, regular people who don't spent their lives experimenting with tech, don't even know what linux is
They should have just kept incrementally upgrading W10. People don't like big changes and there's not much encouraging people to 11 except 10 going EOL.
IIRC, that was actually the plan. I remember Microsoft saying way back that 10 would be the last version of Windows and everything would be just upgrades to 10 moving forward.
System as a service. I remember that as well. Obviously they didn't make as much money with it as they wanted to. Sooo they just draw an arbitrary line regarding supported CPUs, ditch Windoof 10, push 11, force users to upgrade their hardware and therefore often force them to buy new licenses and making new friends that way by starting that in the middle of the chip crisis. Then, captivating the user in their new OS, shoving ads down their throat, harvesting their data to make even more. What a shitshow.
