Upgrade, to Linux.
I haven't even tried windows 11 even though my PC is compatible.
Went full Linux and I'm not sure what I was missing at this point that I needed from Windows.
Ran Pop OS (cosmic) which is the new Wayland based one but unfortunately it's still buggy and then I switched to a gaming focused Linux called Bazzite which has been perfect.
Tiny learning curve because it's an "immutable" OS but have everything I need running on it plus everything gaming related works out of the box.
If Linux supported all the games I wanted to play, I would ditch Windows on my home PC.
It just depends on application compatibility and to a smaller extent driver support, though that shouldn’t be a problem for an older laptop.
But Firefox on Ubuntu is not very good. It can expand to fill the whole machine and get killed by the OOM killer. Sometimes during long text input it hangs and has to be killed and restarted. 8 GB isn't enough any more.
It’s become a boring appliance that just works every time. Just they way I want it. I even forgot how to use grub.
I just upgraded my PC’s motherboard, CPU, memory, and video card and used Claude as a build buddy to help me lay out steps to follow. I also used it after installing CachyOS for the second time, but on this new hardware. It had me double checking to make sure I had all the proper drivers set up by running commands, but everything was already setup correctly by CachyOS. It even helped me figure out that I had a fan wire half plugged in, which was causing a fan not to throttle. I would alternate between Claude Sonnet 4.5 and ChatGPT 5.2. But it’s so much easier and quicker than the old days of sifting through the manuals and forums, if you could get online to a forum that is.
Both Mac and Windows are for suckers.
Linux was designed to run on potatoes and has very little bloat over the years. The UX isn't terribly worse on fairly old hardware.
In windows, the bloat is built in by default. You don't get to chose how the start menu works, you get the windows default start menu and you better like the ads in it. It takes work to pull that garbage out.
In linux most stuff is opt in.
The other part of linux is most stuff isn't simply there running in the background by default. Firefox eats a decent amount of memory, but it's not doing that when I don't have my browser open.
Nobody is yelling at you not to remove it, or trying to prevent you from removing it, or obscuring where it is and cross-linking everything to make it harder to remove, but it's still there and requires substantial work to remove, just like in Windows.
You should try Haiku, and read about its package virtual file system, Linux in comparison will forever after that look like a bloated hog.
Most people with ad blockers don't realize how unusable the web is for those that don't have ad blockers. I think most would agree this is a poor state that industry incentives have landed us in, and with the web being distributed, it's hard to know how to fix.
Similarly those who use Linux probably don't realize how bad Windows has got recently.
Microsoft has managed to replicate this awful ux problem on a system that they entirely control...
Expanded Security Maintenance for Applications is not enabled.
0 updates can be applied immediately.
108 additional security updates can be applied with ESM Apps.
Learn more about enabling ESM Apps service at https://ubuntu.com/esm
> You do not have a valid subscription for this server. Please visit www.proxmox.com to get a list of available options.
every time I log in.
I haven't recommended Ubuntu to anyone for years but there are still people recommending it because it was great years ago and they don't seem to know it's now lagging other distributions.
I get what the author is trying to say, but...like... obviously?
[0]: https://guix.gnu.org/en/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-...
> Reproducible builds are only as good as the compiler used to compile them.
Which is so so so much better than "as good as nothing".
Of course every time I run an update, they can install whatever. But that's different from what Windows is doing as I understand it...
https://documentation.ubuntu.com/server/how-to/software/auto...
sudo apt-get remove --purge unattended-upgrades
OTOH the real issue with Ubuntu is snap(d). Snap packages definitely do auto-update. You may want to uninstall the whole snap system - it's (still?) perfectly possible, if a little bit convoluted, due to some infamous snaps like firefox, thunderbird, chromium, or eg. certbot on servers
Or just use Debian or any snap-free fork for the matter.
Edit: fixed
None of them comes close to what Microsoft is doing. To me, your comment looks like you do not understand the Linux eco-system. Plus IIRC, LFS can now come with compiled binaries.
The other OS distributions let you turn it off.
In the case of Ubuntu and Debian, and to a lesser extent RedHat, I trust the developers not to do that because they have a history of not "just pushing whatever".
Also in many cases I actually know these developers, and I can go round and ask them / remonstrate with them / put a brick through their window / other response if required about it.
Yep. And you got what you've paid for.
Look at it. This is "pro" now.
From my earlier comment to another Windows post:
Windows 11 has transitioned from a standalone tool into a digital storefront that prioritizes recurring revenue through aggressive prompts for Microsoft 365 and OneDrive subscriptions. By mandating cloud-based Microsoft Accounts, the OS effectively anchors your identity to a marketing ID, allowing the company to track behavior and monetize your data. The interface now functions as an advertising platform, injecting "recommended" apps and sponsored content directly into the Start menu and search results. Ultimately, this shift means users are no longer just customers of a product, but recurring assets whose attention and telemetry are sold to sustain Microsoft’s ecosystem and maximize shareholder value.
Windows is what it is because it's really not important to Microsoft to anymore. It's effectively unmoored from the rest of organization and left to fight for some kind of financial relevance in an organization that doesn't care about it anymore.
This isn't specifically or even unique to Microsoft. In fact, it perfectly explains Windows because this pattern has been repeated so often by so many other companies.
Personally, I think Microsoft's strategy when it comes to Windows is a mistake. There are so many companies that would kill to own a platform (see Meta) and Microsoft has this dominate platform. It's Windows that, I believe, is responsible for their cloud success. It also makes decent revenue. But they have a cloud CEO and they have cloud success and desktop operating systems are out of fashion.
Microsoft is trying to escape this trap by pivoting to Windows as a subscription service. It will get worse, not better.
Also, even when they are the same, on certain laptops you literally hit the key-rollover problem.
Detached keyboards seem to be more of a wild west, especially when they target multiplatform -- and it's always the stuff they don't document that screws you.
When the Eject key became obsolete, Apple had a perfect opportunity to fix this omission with essentially no effort. NOPE. Meanwhile, everybody else managed to have a proper Delete key on their laptops.
Backspace makes sense if you see the computer as a fancy typewriter.
Delete makes sense if you consider the actions from first principles.
Consider the various forms of deletion (forward, backward, word, file deletion, etc.) Each of these just has a modifier key in Apple's way of thinking. (None, Fn, Option, Cmd) which makes complete sense when viewed against how consistent it is with the whole set of interface design guidelines for Apple software.
The only reason that this doesn't make sense is that it's incompatible with your world view brought from places with different standards. They will never "fix" this as there's just nothing to fix.
Backspace on a typewriter only moved the position (~cursor) back one space. Hence why its symbol is the same as the left arrow key's.
Backwards Delete was a separate additional key, if the typewriter even had one, and its symbol was a cross inside an outlined left-arrow: ⌫. Current Apple keyboard has this symbol on the "Backspace" key in some regions instead of the text "delete", but older ones did have the left arrow.
Apple calling it "Delete" goes back to Apple II. Many other older computer platforms also called it "Delete". DEC used the ⌫ symbol.
Apple also had separate Return and Enter symbols on keyboards for a while, which also sounds like typewriter territory but their intended use was a bit different: https://creativepro.com/a-tale-of-two-enter-keys/
The problem is missing functionality. And hiding it behind unmarked, multi-hand hotkey combinations is neither equivalent nor discoverable.
And delete is a perfectly fine name -- it deletes the character you just typed. I've always thought the supposed distinction between backspace and delete was bizarre. If anything, it's the forward-delete that needs a better term, like... well, forward-delete. Fwd-Del.
It's just deleting. And that's a questionable assertion for which you've provided no support. You seriously think people Backspace old E-mails away? They Backspace unwanted files away? They Backspace selected areas away in Photoshop? OK.
"I find it much easier to just Fn+Backspace"
Except most people don't find that at all, because it's not marked on the keyboard. And again, you're asserting that a secret, two-keyed, two-handed hotkey is easier than pressing a clearly marked button?
If you watch real users when they're faced with the lack of Delete, they use the arrow keys to move the cursor across the characters they want to delete, and then Backspace them away. Twice as much work. Or they reach for the mouse or trackpad and tediously highlight the characters to delete.
And there is no separate function row on Apple laptops. The Eject key was right above the Backspace key... easily reachable.
You're the one who's provided zero evidence that the Del key is used with any appreciable frequency at all. And the fact that Apple doesn't even bother to include one strongly suggests it's rarely used. You're literally the first person I've ever heard even complain about it. Since you've started this topic, if you want evidence from someone else, you really ought to start by providing your own.
> You seriously think people Backspace old E-mails away? They Backspace unwanted files away? They Backspace selected areas away in Photoshop? OK.
Um, yes? If you insist on calling it Backspace, the key that deletes the previous character is also the key that deletes e-mails in Mail.app, that deletes files in Finder (with Cmd), and that deletes the selected area in Photoshop on a Mac. Which is why it also makes sense that it's called Delete on a Mac. It's all extremely consistent and logical.
> Except most people don't find that at all, because it's not marked on the keyboard.
And most people don't need to, because they never want to use it anyways, even when it's a dedicated key wasting spacing on the keyboard.
> And again, you're asserting that a secret, two-keyed, two-handed hotkey is easier than pressing a clearly marked button?
Yes, because the Del position on most PC laptops is awkwardly far away and smaller than Backspace. If you find two hands or two keys difficult, are capital letters with Shift hard for you?
> And there is no separate function row on Apple laptops.
I don't know what that means? Apple laptops certainly have a function row, which is where the Eject button you're talking about has always been. And where the Eject key was is where the TouchID button is now.
> ... easily reachable.
Eject/TouchID is one of the two farthest keys on the keyboard, the polar opposite of "easily reachable". There is literally no position less reachable on the keyboard. It's not ergonomic to make it something used in regular text editing, if you're one of the few people who utilize forward delete.
I never said it was. You're the one who pompously declared the opposite. I merely pointed out an easily-verifiable fact: Apple neglects to provide it.
But since you've exposed yourself to statistics-based ridicule now, I'll lazily rely on Google's so-called "AI"-based indictment of your absurd position:
"Apple's global PC market share generally hovers around 8% to 10%"
This indicates that 90% of the world's computer-using population apparently DOES find Delete to be a compellingly distinct function from Backspace, and sees fit to include a dedicated key for it on its keyboards.
So you can continue to protest and cry about the harmless inclusion of a useful key that doesn't impede YOUR mode of operation at all, while the vast majority of the computer-using world demonstrates its disagreement with you by including it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I don't know what you're bringing up market share for. The idea that most people buy non-Apple because it has a DEL key is not plausible. Like INS, it's a vestigial key maintained mainly for backwards compatibilty with legacy enterprise software used by a tiny minority of businesses. Not for everyday use by normal users.
Now, you started this conversation by complaining about the lack of a DEL key, yet you're the one going on about how I'm continuing to "protest and cry"? Honestly, you might need to look in the mirror there. You're the one asking for a feature almost nobody uses, and all I'm doing is pointing that out. It's much better to respond to disagreement in a productive way by engaging in substance, not defensively by hurling insults.
To reiterate: no, it shouldn't be included on Macs because it's completely and utterly unnecessary. If you need Del functionality, just use the Fn modifier. That's what it's there for. And it's more ergonomic, as established.
Says the guy who declared, without evidence, that "Not many people use forward-deleting."
And who, after complaining about my digging-up of statistics, doubles down by crowing about "a feature almost nobody uses," again without any evidence.
See, when rebutting an argument, you gain credibility if you at least make an effort to back up your assertion with facts. It's a fun and useful exercise, because everybody learns something... if they're willing to.
Meanwhile, your comments provide an amusing clinic on hypocrisy.
Have you not noticed that you're also providing zero facts? Again, I suggest you look in the mirror. Do you somehow think that when you make a claim you don't need facts, but when people disagree with you they do...?
There aren't any actual studies on rates of usage of the DEL key. So I don't know what you're expecting.
I suggest, in the future, that you don't apply such double standards, where you demand empirical evidence from everyone else, but neglect to give any yourself. It's not a good look, and you aren't going to gain much respect doing it. Hopefully you can learn from this exchange and be better than that in the future. Good luck.
And yet... I'm the one who DID supply statistics, which you ignore in your maniacal histrionics. Have fun!
You're criticizing Apple for not having a Del key. Presumably this is based on the idea that people mostly want a Del key. Which would need to be based on statistics, just as much as my claim that they mostly don't.
The only alternative would be if you thought Apple's "infantile refusal to put a (real) Delete key on their laptops" was their refusal to cater you just you personally. I'm assuming you're not that much of a narcissist?
> And yet... I'm the one who DID supply statistics, which you ignore...
I didn't ignore anything. I already responded directly to what you said about market share, and explained how it's irrelevant and why. Irrelevant numbers aren't any better than no numbers at all.
> ...in your maniacal histrionics.
Perhaps you don't just need to read the HN guidelines again, but bookmark them and re-read before each comment you post. Also maybe check the dictionary, since you don't seem to know what those words mean? They don't just mean someone who disagrees with you.
Not sure Windows as a subscription service is the end goal though. But maybe we should all wish for M$ to do that, maybe that would be what's needed to finally bring about the Year of The Linux Desktop™.
Open source drivers, and a sense that Linux support will forever be top priority, would be a motivator for me. Most of my tech spend has been with Valve in the past few years. I'd love if there was another company I actually enjoy giving my money to.
This allows Microsoft to protect parts of their software even from the user that owns the hardware it's running on. With TPM enabled you finally give up the last bit of control you had over the software running on your hardware.
(But my understanding is there were other things like bumping minimum supported instruction sets that happened to mismatch a few CPUs that support the newer instruction sets but were shipped with chipsets using the older TPM)
For example - it's not possible to protect SSH keys from malware that achieves root without hardware storage. Only hardware storage can offer the "Unplug It" guarantee - that unplugging a compromised machine ends the compromise.
Do new computers have such a button? I've failed to locate it.
As a bonus, it prevents those pesky Windows API compatibility tools like Wine from working if the application is designed to expect signed and trusted Windows.
People who 5 years ago didn't give a hoot about computing outside of running steam games are now actively discussing their favorite Linux distro and giving advice to friends and family about how to make the jump.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Linux-gaming-growth-SteamOS-sh...
Going back to my Windows install every now and then to do things feels uncomfortable. Almost like I'm sullying myself! The extent of Microsoft's intrusiveness kind of makes it feel like entering a poorly maintained public space...at least compared to my linux install.
I'm not sure that the majority of people feel this way about Windows 11. They just put up with it in the same way as they do YouTube ads, web browsing without ublock origin, social media dark patterns etc. But certainly, never been a better time I think to move to linux for my kind of user, i.e. the only mildly technologically adept.
Major tech reviewers are talking about Bazzite. Reddit gaming forums are full of people talking about Win11 vs Linux.
Microsoft only has two strangle holds on PCs - gaming and office apps. For home users they literally have 0 lock in now days other than familiarity. No one is writing native windows apps outside of legacy productivity apps and games. Even Microsoft is writing Windows components in React now days.
I moved to Linux earlier this year and literally none of my apps were unavailable. Everything is a browser window now days.
15 years ago that would've been crazy, I had tons of native windows apps I used every day.
But by saying 'For home users they literally have 0 lock in now days other than familiarity.' I think you severely underestimate how powerful familiarity is in anchoring non-tech users to particular platforms. However dysfunctional they can be.
As I mentioned, I moved to linux myself earlier this year. But the first time I tried it was probably around 2004. And I've dipped in and out occasionally but not stuck with it until this year, when I've found it to be a significant improvement on the Windows alternative.
Microsofts own creation presents a real opportunity for an uptake in linux adoption. But I do think it still presents sufficient friction and unfamiliarity for average non-tech users to take on. The only significant issue I had with your initial comment was with your reference to a 'mass' exodus, even if it is confined to the gaming community.
Happy to be proven wrong of course. And perhaps to the annoyance of my friends, willing to help anyone I know interested with a linux install.
But looking forward to the Dec 2025 steam survey. Looking forward to the tiny contribution my little install will make to the linux numbers!
Give people chrome and most won't be able to tell the difference from Windows.
Windows 11 was a large change to the UI, arguably just as large a change as from Windows 10 to any of the contemporary Linux DEs.
What familiarity? Microsoft has changed the look and feel of the OS to the point that it no longer retains that familiarity from version to version.
There are a lot of Steam gamers with 5 games in their library who log on once a month. There are a few Steam gamers with 5000 games in their library who are permanently logged in. There's folks who play one game obsessively, and folks who tinker around with many games.
I'm willing to bet that the 3% are the kind of people who buy a lot of games.
I'd love to see that "what percentage of games have been bought by people on which platform?" metric. I think it'd be a lot more than 3% on Linux, even if you count Steam Deck as a separate platform.
I think SteamOS being available for PC and promoted by Valve could be a game changer. It provides a trusted and familiar pathway for a different way of doing things. But while it would perhaps reduce Windows installs, I can't see it help grow a user base of DIY linux tinkerers, if that is of any importance. I can kind of see it being a bit like Android makes the majority of phone users linux users, but not entirely sure what that means for linux desktop.
I think SteamOS's desktop mode will get used more as people discover it. I was kinda impressed that I could just switch out to a desktop on my Steam Deck, and then used it to play videos while travelling.
The whole "it's better than a console at being a PC, and better than a PC at being a console" thing. It'll be interesting to see if it takes off.
Being in kernel mode does give the rogue software more power, but the threat model is all wrong. If you're against kernel anti-cheat you should be against all anti-cheat. At the end of the day you have to chose to trust the software author no matter where the code runs.
If malware does get executed in user mode it could take advantage of the anti-cheat kernel module to make the attack even more damaging to the OS.
There's a demographic of gamers who only play the one competitive multiplayer game (such as Fornite or CoD). They don't buy many games, they're not the most lucrative market for game publishers, but they do keep those titles in business. And yes, for them, anti-cheat is important and they're unlikely to move to Linux.
intel can't even get SGX to work
The overwhelming majority of users never had any kind of control over the software running on their hardware, because they don’t know (and don’t want to know) how the magical thinking machine works. These people will benefit from a secure subsystem that the OS can entrust with private key material. I absolutely see your point, but this will improve the overall security of most people.
Uninterested is vastly different than unable, especially when that majority is still latently "able" to use some software that a knowledgeable-minority creates to Help Do The Thing.
The corporate goal is to block anyone else from providing users that control if/when the situation becomes intolerable enough for the majority to desire it.
Most people don't move away from their state of residence either, but we should be very concerned if someone floats a law stating that you are not permitted to leave without prior approval.
You mean the Microsoft vacuum cleaner ? /s
The only computer lineup MS ever sold directly, to my knowledge, were the Surface things - an absolute niche market.
Do we actually want that?
If Linux ever reached mass adoption, big tech companies would inevitably find a way to ruin it
This big push for Age/ID verification & "trusted" operating systems is going to ruin what's left of free (as in freedom), general purpose computing. Governments are getting frothy at the mouth for every device to have remote attestation like google play protect/whatever iOS does.
I have a brand-new work laptop which absolutely crawls compared to my nearly-15-year-old Thinkpad T430. Is this slowness the Windows 11 advantage? My personal laptop runs plain ordinary Ubuntu 24.04 perfectly, and everything works.
There's a reason as to why people were reluctant to jump on win10. There's a reason people didn't want win8 at all.
For what it's worth, that machine is being used while I upgrade my 2001 Computer Of Theseus once more. It's now getting it's third motherboard with CPU - this one salvaged from a 2018 or 2019 gaming machine. It's on its second case, and has seen more hard drive and memory upgrades than I can count - all of them piecemeal. Other than perhaps the motherboard screws and hard drive screws, I'm not sure if anything actually purchased in 2001 still survives in there. Maybe the power cable and pc speaker. And I don't remember ever replacing the rear case fan now that I'm looking at it.
If any, your email client should open any attachment under a sandbox, such as Sandboxie, under a libre license:
https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie
Of course no Office macros would be allowed, ever.
- from the C64 to the Pentium
- from the Playstation 1 to the Xbox360
- from the Nokia 3310 to the iPhone 4.
Each of these in roughly a decade.
But 2015-2025 in terms of desktop PCs? Some decent (but not revolutionary) steps forward with GPUs, and much more affordable+speedy SSDs. But everything else has been pretty small and incremental.
And when enthusiasts upgrade, the old parts usually find new homes. My old 6th-gen i7 from a decade ago still has more than enough power for my Dad to use as a home PC for basic photo editing, web browsing, and spreadsheets. But Win10 end-of-life wants to turn that machine into e-waste.
The middle bit is where the disadvantages of the early phase has gone, but the disadvantages of late phase hasn't kicked in yet.
Coincidentally I can run it all on a 10 year old PC. I see no reason I need to upgrade. I’d happily pay a small yearly fee for patches.
But that’s not why Microsoft did all of this. Their goal is to Hoover all your data into their cloud and lock your PC down so you can’t do anything but use their stuff. Their profit numbers are insane despite losing marketshare. It’s working because the current CEO is a ruthless non-tech moron.
People want to hate on Microsoft. Rightfully so. Apple has done the same thing. Once you’re locked into the Apple ecosystem it’s hard to switch. They push iCloud and Siri on you at every turn. They just made a “one OS” choice so it doesn’t feel as bad.
Anyone who says Linux solves all the problems has not tried to make something like solidworks and masterCAM run on it. I love Linux, I use it on servers, but it has 3% marketshare for a reason.
Both performance and performance-per-watt continue to improve with each new generation of CPUs.
I had to return to Windows as a daily work platform after a long time away (on Macs). I already knew that it had devolved into a grotesquely defective, regressive parade of UI blunders and deleted functionality... but its actual performance is TERRIBLE. I'm waiting for simple operations that I wouldn't have expected to wait for 20 years ago, even on bog-standard office desktop machines.
a 128GB SoC m4 pro max can do pretty wild data science with close to a terabyte/second speed without the latency of typical offloading/back-and-forth
Copying a tiny file at 1.1 MB/s should feel instantaneous. But on Win 10 and Win 11 with an SSD, you can get a multisecond progressbar. And if you dare to cancel this tiny operation (because you chose the wrong destînation or wrong file), you get another progressbar.
Opening a folder window for a local directory with only a few items in it should never trigger a "Working on it…" message. It should be instantaneous.
Searching for filenames with a substring "foo", when an item "foobar" was already visible on the screen, should never result in failing to find "foobar", nor in a long delays before showing any items. VoidTools Everything displays live results as you type. Windows 10/11 often fails on both counts even when searching "indexed" locations; Outook also seems to also suffer from this inability to reliably include in search results items that were already on display. Something is deeply wrong with search.
Devs should be required test against machines hobbled to run at most 10% of rated speed, and to make it buttery smooth.
Would also be nice to have all my screenspace back by being able to turn off what appears to be Simply Enormous Margins & Padding mode…
An eleven year old computer is still useful, which is kind of cool, but also kind of bothers me in that apparently we haven't made enough progress in software to justify buying new hardware, apparently.
I think the better way is honestly just to make something competitive, preferably FOSS, and I actually do think we're getting there. Blender, for example, is an extremely decent animation tool nowadays, Krita is a very good digital art program, OpenToonz/Tahoma2D are pretty ok 2D animation programs, Godot is a decent-enough game engine, etc.
Yeah there are still gaps and I'm not claiming everything has parity with everything with awful pricing models, but I think we're getting there, and I think that's a more sustainable model than piracy.
My point being, with time performance might go up. But instead of that making my device faster/long-lasting, developers use that extra performance to cram in more stuff, at the end of which I come out only slightly better if not worse (as is in my case)
Which is exactly why MS is pivoting to begging you to buy a new computer by harassing you with an apparently undismissable "upgrade" dialog.
They have to keep the upgrade treadmill running, and lacking "better performance" as the bait, they have resorted to outright harassment.
Compile times, game frame rates, computation time for simulations.
2026 seems to just be becoming the "please don't break" era unless I can find some proper work this time. Car is on its last legs, a variety of housing appliances to repair, computer I use professionally. If nothing else, I upgraded my phone this year so that should get me through 2028 at least.
The Windows team and its product manager is determined to trash the product. Good work!
If Windows had a slogan, this would be it.
Linux FreeBSD NetBSD OpenBSD DragonflyBSD Haiku Plan9 Redox ReactOS Debian Gnu/Hurd FreeDOS Genode SculptOS
And probably some others I haven't heard of. Using Windows in 2025 AND complaining about it is complaining about a self inflicted wound.
But 2nd was this: https://www.linux.org/pages/download/
It shows 24 distributions, but no newbie guidance. Maybe a wizard UI would help, vs the open-ended "Explore different Linux distributions and find the one that fits your needs"
Spring for a new hard drive, just in case you hate it with the fires of a thousand suns and need to go back. Then you just swap back to your old hard drive.
It's good that there are options, but most people aren't interested in having a dozen decent choices. They want one, solid, good choice, or at least obvious and clear reasons to pick the different options, and they certainly don't have time to try out everything between heaven and earth, especially for something that needs to Just™ Work™.
The thing is, a healthy ecosystem thrives on diversity. Rallying behind one or two tends towards a monoculture.
I have just seen this first hand with my significant other: they are very technical and more than capable of it, but have zero interest in learning Linux and instead just bought a MacBook on Black Friday specials when their 5 year old HP laptop finally got too annoying to use.
Also, MacOs is as difficult to learn as Linux is for someone who never used it. Resistance to change exist in all directions.
I'm eyeing up a shift to apple when my current hardware fails me, but it's impossible for me to just go Linux.
I really wish free(libre) tools existed that allowed you to do your work. Hopefully they will in the future, I am sure someone has tried/is trying to build them.
Wine is getting better and better, but it's still not perfect yet. I am so wishing that they figure out a way to get modern MS Office working, and then I feel like a lot of people's only reasons for staying on Windows would suddenly disappear.
Sounds like we're back to self-inflicted then? If you're self-employed supposedly that software suite was your decision.
If I had the confidence that I could play a new release on Linux day 1 without trading an enormous amount of performance, I wouldn't need Windows at all.
I run Arch with an Nvidia GPU (which historically had poor Linux support compared to AMD), and I’ve been able to play 100% of the games that I used to play on Windows with no noticeable performance decrease.
There is one significant issue with Dx12 on nvidia, but even that has been root caused and should be fixed next year.
Yes there are alternatives, and possibly even good enough web versions of these tools, but most of the world isn’t like you and me.
To be fair, it probably works. I doubt it's doing anything weird, so Wine should work, given a distro which will just take exes and pass them to Wine. But if it doesn't, TurboTax can't help her, where as they would have been able to help her if it was a true Windows install.
[1] https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/cd-download/insta...
I do worry sometimes about fonts. The default Arial replacement should be geometrically idential and thus not lead to issues. TBH I don't know if there are significant rendering issues between LO and MS Office, as I always use PDF. I sometimes upload it to Google Docs to see if it's displayed identically. So far I've never ran into an issue. TBH I think LO is better except for the performance which is okay but not great.
At this point Office programs are commodity. Apple has good options. Google has. And any Linux distro will come with LO. Really a non-issue I think. Even for older people.
I agree with the sentiment though; nowadays Linux has gotten good enough for most stuff, to a point where I don't really see why anyone still runs Windows. If only I could convince my parents of that...
Ask yourself why your parents still use windows and you'll have your response.
I've been using Arch for about two months now. It's been great, yeah, but it's still a massive, long drawn exercise of friction because I have two literal decades of experience using a windows machine. That experience has value and the idea of throwing it away is a barrier.
Because if they switch to Linux, I'll be on the hook for tech support. If they stay on windows, then it's mainly my brother's problem.
BTW Windows doesn't seem easy or make much sense to them at all either. Linux wouldn't be any harder for them aside from getting support from random places, or buying random bits of junk with no research expecting them to kinda work.
That's the thing that annoys me. People say Linux is "harder", but I really don't think that's true. People seem to just ignore all the weird awful bullshit in Windows that pops up and accept it as just part of the world, and when Linux has slightly different issues, OMG WHY IS IT SO HARD I'LL STICK WITH MY ADWARE MACHINE BECAUSE I LIKE HAVING UPDATES BREAK EVERYTINGGGG.
They don't. They switched over to iPad 10-ish years ago. Most normies I know use phones and/or tablets full-time for their personal computing. Laptops and desktops are either work machines, for games, or for work without wages (studies, excel, other things which are inconvenient or impossible on a phone).
Grandma is on Linux Mint since she still wants to do her banking on a computer and not an iPad. She'd be on Windows 11 if I weren't her tech support, since then she'd have bought whatever idiot at the local shop would have recommended, wasting a lot of money, and probably still have thrown her arms up in despair after a while due to the shit user experience. If the local shop had machines with Mint preinstalled, I'd imagine that would have gone well, if a lot slower than it would have with my help.
No Windows casual out there has ever even installed Windows, never mind another OS, on their computer, even if they theoretically want to. They can't have what they don't know about, and that barrier is probably never going to go away.
Windows is actually terrible for non-technical users now. The constant pop-ups, nagging messages, and decision prompts create genuine anxiety. People don't know what they're clicking on half the time. Yet somehow most technical people I talk to haven't caught on to this.
Look at what younger generations are actually using: Chromebooks in schools, Google Drive instead of Microsoft Office. Even people who legitimately need Office aren't on Windows anymore, they're on Macbooks. That's the case at my company anyway.
At this point Windows is really just gamers, engineers who need CAD, and office workers stuck on it from inertia. There's nothing inherently attracting new users to the platform anymore. I honestly don't know who their primary audience even is at this point.
They're not? They're combining it with Android, which honestly seems like a decent bet for what Chromebooks are meant to be. The end result will have a different name, but it will still be a cheap laptop to do school work and simple computing, and that isn't a Windows machine.
> Also Windows is increasing in its share again.
Is it? And is that pie even getting any bigger?
They're not killing it, they're merging it into Android. Makes sense. Android already does everything ChromeOS does, it just needs better desktop input support. Google said this was to compete with iPads, which only reinforces my point.
> Also Windows is increasing in its share again.
Short-term fluctuations don't change the long-term trend. We're talking about where things are headed over the next decade vs where it once was
> Maybe that is due to companies that want AI in there systems.
My company went all-in on Copilot, but I'm not seeing this translate to more Windows usage. Copilot works fine on Macbooks, and that's what most people here use. When management gets excited about it, they talk about Outlook and Teams integration. Nobody cares about Windows-specific features. What does OS integration even buy you? Access to local files that are already in the cloud anyway? I'm using Copilot on my company-issued Ubuntu laptop right now. And honestly, the fact that IT at a massive, conservative corporation even started offering Ubuntu as an option says a lot about where things are headed.
Microsoft will be fine, but I'd bet on Windows declining over the next 10 years, not growing.
I have. They are convinced it will be "harder". I have tried to explain to them what seems a lot harder to me is when Windows Update decides to brick their computer [0], and they have to call me in a panic and I have to waste an entire day walking them through diagnosis stuff and eventually walk them through flashing multiple thumb drives of Linux and Windows 11 [2] and then walk them through nuking and reinstalling.
As I've said before, before I get any kind of "live and let live man if they want to run windows let them", I would like to point out that whenever their computers break, they call me to fix it, so I do not think it's unreasonable for me to want them to use an operating system that has recovery tools that actually work, with and with filesystems built after the neolithic age so that system backups are easy and cheap and actually do what they're supposed to.
[0] dig through my comment history if you details.
[1] made more annoying because, as far as I can tell, none of the Microsoft recovery tools have ever worked in any point in history.
[2] Linux because Microsoft doesn't have any kind of LiveCD/LiveUSB support anymore, so I had to boot into a live Linux so I could walk them through installing tmate and then I was able to mount the drive and rsync all the files over to my server for recovery.
I personally wouldn't use it as a serious OS.
Most people don't like doing it, but in order for the operating system to be "good", you really need most of this unsexy stuff to work; you need to be able to easily install WiFi drivers, you need to support most modern video cards, you need to suss out the minutia of the graphics APIs, you need to test every possible edge case in the filesystem, you need to ensure that file associations are consistent, etc.
I've mentioned this before, but this is part of what I respect so much about the Wine project. It's been going on for decades, each release gets a little better, and a lot of that work is almost certainly the thankless boring stuff that is absolutely necessary to get Wine to be "production ready".
I ran Haiku a bit on an old laptop, and I do actually like it. It's ridiculously fast and snappy (even beating Linux in some cases), and I really do wish them the best, but as of right now I don't think it's viable quite yet. I'm not 100% sure how they're going to tackle GPU drivers (since GPU drivers are almost an entire OS in their own right), but I would love to have something FOSS that takes us out of the codified mediocrity of POSIX.
> The hardware limitation is specifically TPM 2.0
Almost every even half decent CPU made in the last decade does have TPM 2.0, albeit for some strange reason OEMs used to ship with it disabled. You may be able to turn it on in the bios.
Where is the requirement then in modern CPUs and TPM 2.0, Microsoft? Didn't you mean "nice to have" so additional but perfectly optional security features could be enabled?
Then say "i told you so!"
I wouldn't personally work for them ever. I've only heard bad things about their codebase... and I know people like to complain, but it's usually comedy levels of bad.
My usb scanner would like to have a word with you. Its last supported driver was for windows 2000 and it still works well on Linux.
Hardware support vary between the 2 operating system and new stuff may be supported earlier on windows but I can't say that windows driver library is unparalleled, quite the opposite actually.
Some niche accessories also have issues, or at least niche features on those accessories.
https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
I run this as the first step on any new Win 11 machine, the recommended defaults remove nearly all annoyances I care about. It's a popular tool that's been around for years with a lot of users so isn't some random repo, and it's just Powershell so pretty easy to understand what it's doing if you want to audit the code yourself.
After running it once, I've seen nothing that I would consider an "ad" on Windows 11, and search looks only at the filesystem without any web/store trash. Somewhat ironically, it makes for a cleaner experience than MacOS where I regularly get spammed by Apple trying to cross-sell me something (iCloud, Apple TV, Apple Music, etc).
(FWIW, I have also never needed to re-run after an update or anything, based on 6+ full Win11 installs across three different devices.)
The option to enable a local account was through the command line only. The dark patterns and persausion to convince me not to was off putting.
But every time I boot in to have to go through the nag screen is off the wall.
It is truly crazy how much I understand the dedication people have to avoid using a unfamiliar system.
That said the rufus workaround can work for these - I'm writing this from a machine that's not a supported cpu that I just upgraded to Win 11 with rufus. Runs just fine. Fun fact about my cpu: no cpu with the same socket is supported, so to be officially supported I'd have to also upgrade the motherboard.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate]
"ProductVersion"="Windows 10"
"TargetReleaseVersion"=dword:00000001
"TargetReleaseVersionInfo"="22H2"https://gpsearch.azurewebsites.net/Default.aspx?PolicyID=151...
It may not work on Windows Home, however.
Between these and services that suddenly suffer from amnesia and spamming me with marketing notifications and emails after months or years of silence, it’s becoming more tiring to use any service that grows significantly enough where they don’t need to care about what their users actually want.
I can offer a slightly different perspective. I remember Microsoft from the 90s and early 2000s. And while technical details differ, their attitude towards users didn't change that much.
[ ] don't show this message again
Do you think Windows OS is a profit center, especially after factoring in the cost of security fixes for older less secure releases? I'm guessing not (I don't have the figures) and Microsoft would rather you replace your 10 year old laptop that can't run Windows 11 or run Linux on it. They really don't care which, just as long as you go away and they don't have to support you anymore.
I'm not assosciated with Microsoft, just someone who has been using their products for 40 years. I am someone who can read in between the lines, and this is my take.
Microsoft isn't that into you either. With Windows 11 you are not a customer, you and your data are the products.
He could buy new hardware and run Windows 11. But this pattern will only continue from Microsoft. The only way out is to run a non-Microsoft OS (assuming he can).
Microsoft doesn't want him to go away. They want him to buy their new product.
The consumer editions are not all there is to Windows. Nearly every seat of Windows 11 Enterprise used in corporations is a paid license and there are a lot of corporations. Nearly every instance of Windows Server is a very expensive paid license and is required to run Active Directory, MS Exchange, SQL Server, etc.
They get money out of almost every computer sold all over the world. Are you saying that's not enough to keep a system that hasn't seen improvement in 2 decades and barely get bugfixes?
It's a PITA it's not made more obvious, but there are free options, paid options (30$ a year if I remember well), all straight from Microsoft fully supported. Sailing the seven seas for a LTS if the other way.
No Microsoft, I'm not buying new hardware just to get the new OS. No, I'm not going to let you nag me every single day until I get pissed off enough to. No, I will not tolerate all the little things in your OS that piss me off everyday. Your software sucks. Your filesystem sucks. Your constant nagging sucks. I don't want your cloud TPM security bullshit and I DEFINITELY don't want Copilot or Recall.
Seriously Microsoft: fuck you.
Giving up being able to play certain games - which require me to install malware into my computer anyway - is a small price to pay to have my sanity and freedom back. I own my computer, not you. Goodbye and good riddance.
I already used MacOS and Linux for work anyway. But don't worry Apple, you're riding that line pretty dangerously too - you're gonna be next on the chopping block if you don't get your act together. Framework Desktop is looking like a mighty capable replacement for my Mac Studio.
The silver lining is that my dad's finally getting a new Linux machine for Christmas :^)
Bonus is it strips out all the crap and is super fast
Downside is a few specific pieces of software refuse to install (for no good technical reason). Adobe Photoshop for example
There is also win11 LTSC iOT which I believe might actually install on older hardware that normal win11 will not (don't quote me on this)
Seriously though, don't get why anyone would voluntarily use, let alone purchase, any windows distro.
But with a 3050 upgrade from the 1050 and later 1030 (best GPU for eternity if you discount VR) I had in it it's good for another decade. If a game comes out that does not run on it I wont play it... simple as that... 150W is enough. So far only PUBG stutters, what a joke of bloat and poor engineering that game has become...
Win 10 improved NOTHING over 7. Win 11 improves NOTHING over 10.
YMMV but recommendation is still: do not buy new X86 hardware; do not use new OS/languages.
Build something good with what you have right now.
Make it so good it's still in use after 100 years.
You had me up to this point. The problem is that there are actually quite a few improvements under the hood over those upgrade paths, but they are unfortunately hidden under all of the bullshit. I was an early adopter of Windows 11 specifically because of their efficiency core support over Windows 10 when I upgraded my CPU.
I'm going linux with TWM (desktop with design look from the 70s) on ARM because M$ is clearly not thinking about the long perspective.
We need a stable platform to build quality software.
And that's saying alot seen how linux is deprecating libc after very short time and the legacy joystick API is not being compiled into modern kernels anymore.
Stability is way more important than bells and whistles.
Also, if any, CTWM (with the welcome screen disabled) can be as good as TWM but with better features (sticky menus and the like).
Edit: TWM is less cluttered and less features is actually more here...
On CTWM, you can straightly import the TWM config modulo some slight error on a single line (if any). Once you set profer TTF fonts for it (by default they might look huge on smaller screens), you are done. Set the sticky/persistent menus (on a laptop/netbook it's a godsend) and you are done.
Maybe you would like to disable the startup screen (-W flag for the 'ctwm' binary) or some obvious option in the man page in order to be put at ~/.ctwmrc or ~/.twmrc.
For sticky menues you need to just put
StayUpMenus
Just copy the content from your former ~/.twmrc file and append that on top.
Windows 7 doesn't have compressed memory (ZRAM). Doesn't support TRIM for NVMe SSDs. Doesn't have WSL. Doesn't have ISO mounting built in. Doesn't have HDR, variable refresh rate, etc...
RAM maybe wears quicker if compressed?
NVMe will break long before a good old SATA drive.
WSL... lol
ISO you can do with daemon tools for free...
Displays are good enough at 60Hz 5:4 matte.
What gave you that idea?
> RAM maybe wears quicker if compressed?
Is this serious? The rest of your post seems serious, but that's such a silly idea.
If you run Windows 7 on it then it sure will!
They have said that DDR3 RAM causes mouse stuttering and that a 2011 atom is the best CPU that will ever be made. Unfortunately I think they are serious.
I installed Open-Shell day 1 when I got Windows 8, and continued with that on 10, since the new start menu did not convince me, so I can't really vouch for that. I don't see a need in having tiles and such in my start menu.
> Task View (virtual desktops) were added in 10.
Never used it in Windows. On my Mac I use it to put individual apps in full-screen, so they're easy to switch to with 3-finger swipe. Then again, I have three screens, so the demand for more desktop space is close to zero on what would be my Windows machine.
> Task Manager is so much better, that one is probably objective.
Technically a Windows 8 addition, but I'll give you that one. I'll have the old task manager back if I could get the old photo viewer back though. I can manage with the old task manager. I couldn't manager with the Win10 Photo app, and had to install Irfanview to get a usable picture viewer (at least before I went to Linux).
Tiles are gone in Windows 11.
But this is exactly my point. Some people were so happy with how Windows XP worked but things are so much better now. It's repeating again where Windows 7 is the new XP.
Things may be better, but saying that Windows has gotten better, without a comma and a but, or an asterisk, is disingenuous. Much better is a matter of opinion, and one I don't share. Where things have gotten much better is Linux.
Did grafana die when I wasn't looking? Does datadog still make money?
What's weird about this article is that it's the same thing being said 20 years ago. Is this a sign of people not learning from the better parts of Java deployment stacks?
On the Windows side, things started going downhill starting with the Windows XP era, and on the Mac the annoyances began sometime in the mid-2010s.
It seems Microsoft, Apple, and other companies realized that they’re leaving money on the table by not exploiting their platforms. Thus, they’re no longer selling simple tools, but rather they are selling us services.
Yes, there are good Linux distributions that don’t annoy me, and the BSDs never nag me, but the problem with switching to these platforms is that I still need Microsoft Office and other proprietary software tools that are not available outside “Big Tech.” There are other matters that make switching away from Windows and macOS challenging, such as hardware support and laptop battery life.
(God forbid banks be required by law to offer a web connector that allows you to request your own data. A workaround I've tried is to have my bank send me an email alert on every transaction over a penny, so at least I have a record, but never got around to setting up an auto import from my inbox)
And thankfully this was before a time when everyone’s computers and phones had access to their bank accounts, credit cards, and before email was the gateway to virtually your entire life.
> System 7 and Windows 95
If Windows 95 was the complexity level of a pencil to you, Win 10/11 is merely a color pencil. You should be fine getting rid of the nagging and adapting it to your needs, it hasn't become 10x or 100x more complex, merely incrementally more.
> Microsoft [...] not exploiting their platforms.
That's a phrase I didn't expect. What part of Microsoft do you feel was leaving money on the table, as they were sued by basically the whole globefor their business practices ?
Meanwhile, my personal machine continues to be Linux.
This is what I'm doing at my work now. I'm lucky enough to have two computers, a desktop PC that runs Linux, and a laptop with Windows 11. I do not use that laptop unless I have to deal with xlsx, pptx or docx files. Life is so much better.
A variation I've done occasionally is to run the Microsoft Windows software in a VM on my Linux laptop.
When I last had the MS office suite inflicted upon me, a couple years ago, I was able to run it in a Web browser on Linux.
It's important to remember, though, that these measures probably won't work long-term.
Historically, MS will tend to shamelessly do whatever underhanded things they can get away with at that point in time. The only exception being when they are playing a long con, in which case they will pretend to play nice, until some threshold of lock-in (or re-lock-in) is achieved, and only then mask-off, with no sense of shame. (It's usually not originating bottom-up from the ICs, and I know some nice people from there, but upper corporate is totally like that, demonstrating it again and again, for decades.)
Also, a company requiring to run Microsoft software is probably also a bad place to work in other regards.
The Windows 10 bait n switch to Windows 11.
Hundreds of millions of PC users worldwide on old hardware using old Windows OSes were offered Win10 as free upgrade, with the promise that Win10 is the final Windows edition.
Later though, M$ announced Win11 and it would work only on new hardware (BIOS TPM 2.0 constraint), and Win10 is no longer being supported for personal use (except via some complicated ways to get an extension for the Win10 updates). And not only is Win11 buggy and full of ads, its performance is also bad.
Well, the good thing is that such shenanigans are pushing PC users to migrate to Linux.
This makes me wonder how much better the world would be if corporations didn't have to answer to shareholders. Valve isn't publicly traded, Microsoft is.
They really did a good job.
Now servers and other backend stuff, on the other hand, linux and illumos.
Despite Microsoft's behavior and all of Windows' flaws, when properly managed and controlled in an enterprise, it's not so bad, and there's still a ton of software out there that is Windows only.
Where I work now is pretty much like that. Windows on end-user endpoints, Linux everywhere else.
Yes - I have "noodled" with Linux in VM's and Raspberry Pi's - but it has never been my primary OS.
Thanks to Microsoft, that is about to change...
My current employer is so great that I have casually mentioned that I might stay until I retire a bunch of times since joining. I've never said that about any other job. We have Word because there are industry requirements that it meets in terms of formatting legal documents. Can other apps supplant it? Possibly, but no one is spending the time and money to find out and it's not my decision to make.
I understand the motivation of the statement, but it's a fallacy.
Congrats on findind that situation, but I don't think it's evidence of fallacy of my statement.
Microsoft being shitty notwithstanding…I think you don’t really grasp just how prevalent Microsoft is in the business world - it is not the indicator you think it is.
That said, I emphatically despise a lot of the decision making behind Windows and a lot of MS products... I really wish it was managed/governed more by technical influences than business/fincancial ones in practice. You can see where a lot of the lines are drawn and it's a bit fascinating.
This seems like an over generalization, though I agree with your other points. Microsoft is not a good company, but are any of the big tech behemoths?
I could buy an argument that requiring Windows for devs might be a red flag, unless said company is making Windows software or games, but there are plenty of valid reasons to standardize on Windows & Microsoft 365 across the office, especially in very large companies. Even if a company issues macs, they are still probably on M365 unless they are in silicon valley or a startup using Google Workspace.
Consumers aren't Microsoft's customer, and to be honest, I get the vibe that Microsoft would just prefer to stop selling to and catering to consumers/personal users entirely for Windows. Windows in an enterprise, properly reined in by a competent IT department, isn't too bad. Windows gives a lot of tools to IT and the business that you would otherwise have to build yourself, which for non-tech company or a company where software isn't their revenue generating product, has a lot of appeal.
The distaste everyone feels for it is because Windows isn't built for the end user anymore, it's built for the person signing the checks at the company, who usually has different needs. Doesn't mean it's a bad product (although, it's not great), just that you, the user, isn't who its designed for.
If you come at it like a sinner asking for penance, the englightened may come to guide, but that's not what I'm talking about. If you to rage, these same people will become inquistors. Rage isn't all about solving a problem, it's about catharsis. It's not so much about technical support, it's about emotional support. A bad design decision (like the GNOME desktop redesign) is not a technical problem. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
Like Apple used to warrant, it just works.
I raged a lot when my Arch machine would break after an update and I'd have to do config file surgery on a machine that no longer wanted to boot into a graphical desktop. I've never had that sort of thing happen on Mac or Windows.
It's actually surprising just how stable Arch Linux can be considering that it's typically using the newest code for everything. If you really want Arch and stability, maybe using something like SteamOS would be better - Arch, but designed to be stable.
"There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now."
I don't know, apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all.
I do like the Arch wiki though - probably the best source of information on Linux tools etc.
I used to daily Arch, and I read landers/docs/community pages as a hobby, basically.
I’ve never seen this.
I’m not doubting you, to be clear - I just really want to see it! lol
Link?
e.g.
> NVIDIA 590 driver drops Pascal and lower support; main packages switch to Open Kernel Modules
> 2025-12-20
> With the update to driver version 590, the NVIDIA driver no longer supports Pascal (GTX 10xx) GPUs or older. We will replace the nvidia package with nvidia-open, nvidia-dkms with nvidia-open-dkms, and nvidia-lts with nvidia-lts-open.
> Impact: Updating the NVIDIA packages on systems with Pascal, Maxwell, or older cards will fail to load the driver, which may result in a broken graphical environment.
> Intervention required for Pascal/older users: Users with GTX 10xx series and older cards must switch to the legacy proprietary branch to maintain support:
> Uninstall the official nvidia, nvidia-lts, or nvidia-dkms packages.
> Install nvidia-580xx-dkms from the AUR
> Users with Turing (20xx and GTX 1650 series) and newer GPUs will automatically transition to the open kernel modules on upgrade and require no manual intervention.
Personally, I used to just run an upgrade and then go look for known problems if pacman threw an error. Of course, the recommendation is to have a good backup before running the upgrade and just roll it back if it has issues (then read the notes).
Edit: The warning is shown on the system maintenance page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance
> 3.1 Read before upgrading the system
> Before upgrading, users are expected to visit the Arch Linux home page to check the latest news, or alternatively subscribe to the RSS feed or the arch-announce mailing list. When updates require out-of-the-ordinary user intervention (more than what can be handled simply by following the instructions given by pacman), an appropriate news post will be made.
That's your problem right there. EndeavourOS is also a beginner-friendly Arch derivative but less breaky.
> Wifi to work ootb
I definitely feel you on that one, it's just the luck of the draw sometimes... If you haven't considered it, in some laptops the wifi module is a replacable mPCIe or m2 module and if that's the case, more compatible replacements shouldn't be hard to find for cheap or salvaged from broken laptops.
Ubuntu with support is totally a thing, not sure if it is good or not.
Windows 11 Home: $139/license Ubuntu with support: $150/yr
On the one hand, yes, this is not a nice thing to have happen. The frustrations shouldn't happen to begin with, and then people shouldn't be using the reverse Uno card on you just for that.
On the other hand, Linux has a lot fewer of these frustrations (in my experience), and a lot of frustrations are being fixed with time, since you're likely not the only one who is frustrated by it.
On the third hand, the situation being shit for obvious human reasons, not enough dev time, disagreements about the way forward, as is the case with Linux development, is a much, much nicer thing to have your problems caused by, rather than the source of Windows being shit, that is, someone wasn't happy with their dashboard this morning and decided to make that your problem today.
There are also people who often claim that their installation of Linux always crashes after every single update, their favourite commodity hardware that's a decade old still doesnt work out of the box on Linux etc etc.
The truth is somewhere in between and its a lot closer to the positive experience these days compared to the old days.
And meanwhile my Windows and MacOS experience has gotten much worse. So I feel pretty good with using Linux as my daily driver for the past 6 years.
But yes, ideally I'd have two machines to separate my career from my personal life.
Apple used to allow installing a second copy of MacOS without it being subject to the work profile - completely isolated from the work partition (because you could ignore the "set up work profile" prompts after installation).
I would simply restart my MacBook into the personal install after work & on weekends.
Apple have recently updated the MacOS installer to be always online so I can no longer install a seperate MacOS partition without a work profile.
I ended up buying an ROG Ally but it's honestly not that portable. The power brick is almost the same size as the handheld and it occupies about as much space as a laptop in my carry on.
My work lap is so locked down I cannot do anything personal on it, so when I go into the office I always carry two laptops, and the personal one is an old thick heavy dinosaur; it’s got to be at least five pounds. However, with a good bag that has a (non-padded) belt and sternum strap, it is not difficult. The belt carries most of the load and my shoulders don’t hurt; they hardly feel anything.
I deliberately park in the farthest spot at the other side of campus (about a half mile, and up four flights in the garage) to get in exercise steps with the heavy pack.
It’s good exercise but I absolutely need a belt and sternum pack to do it. Wouldn’t dream of trying that with only shoulder straps.
But I hear you. It's annoying that I can't reuse perfectly good hardware, but it's fine - we make do.
As a side note, this is an excellent habit, sadly I noticed people discover that avoiding effort is not always the best strategy when their muscle mass decreases, and adding elements of strength exercise to their daily routine can be more effective than going to the gym, for various reasons.
Heh - going on 20+ years, my "running joke" is if the only exercise I truly get is lugging my laptop(s) around (sometimes as many as 3, depending on client-load) + "kit" (Kobo eReader, cables, powerbricks (although if it is an ongoing thing, I leave those onsite or rely on docks), powerbank, and various other gear (occasionally an active "gimbal", occasionally an HT radio + it's gear) - then at least one of them might as well be extremely heavy...
Haven't seen many "laptop-focused" backpacks that have both belts and sternum straps, would love any recommendations.
Usually, the iPad apps are "good enough" (in some ways, they are actually better for travel, as they are designed with features like offline downloads), but if they are not a "real" computer is only a tailscale connection to my home network away over VNC.
Edit: specifically, the iPad + Laptop combo never raises an eye at customs houses. Inside the USA, I've taken as many as 3 laptops for a work trip before, and I can not express how much the TSA does not care. On the other hand, when you go through customs in another country, they can be bit ornery (i.e. suspect you of trying to avoid import tax), so I never want to take more than one laptop through a customs barrier.
p.s. if you want to game in your downtime, such trips are an awesome time to break out the emulator and retro game, an iPad has more than enough power for this, and SNES / d-pad type games work great with a keyboard case as a controller (or, you can just bring a real controller).
They can't be used on battery; the discrete GPU will chew through your battery in minutes. They are heavy, loud, hot.
Tried one for a while a long time ago, hated it. I never wanted to bring it anywhere it was so heavy and bulky, so I figured what's the point in having a laptop if I never want to take it with me.
Got a powerful desktop for gaming now, and my portal device is either my iPad or a Macbook air, and I can just remote into my desktop anytime I need.
or not review/understand their required specs,
or both!
So it was used primarily like a desktop, and as my only system having power was useful. But the fact that I could put it in my backpack and transport it was super valuable.
Now I do have a more portable laptop and a full desktop setup. But at the time that wasn't the best option.
I actually ended up buying a travel router and 60% of my gaming was done by remoting into my ROG Ally from my work laptop (they didn't block Steam). The remaining 40% of gaming was done plugged into a TV + controller.
For normal browsing I would use RDP - though it would be amazing if Apple supported some kind of displayport in on the MacBook so it could be used as a screen for an external device.
I've been considering selling my Ally and buying a mini PC with a half decent APU as I seldom use it as a handheld.
I can do work on the computer running BSD/Linux, save it in a text-only format, transfer it to the work computer then import into Excel, PowerPoint or Word
It's been over 20 years since I had a home computer running Windows (and well over 30 since I've used a mouse)
I think the GP comment is evidence that Microsoft can get away with what it is doing. Even people who can use Linux or BSD will not stop using Windows at home no matter how obnoxious it becomes
There is a substantial difference between complaining and actually taking action and the company seems to recognise that
I 'member the days of Win 98, Win ME and Win XP... made good money cleaning up malware - browser toolbars, dialers, god knows what - from computers. Some came from the hellholes that were Java, ActiveX or Flash, some came from browser drive-by exploits served from advertising networks, but others just came from computers that were attached directly to the Internet from their modems.
And I also 'member Windows being prone to crashes, particularly graphics drivers, until Windows 7 revamped the entire driver model.
Oh, and (unrelated) I also 'member websites you could use to root a fair amount of Android and Apple phones.
All of that is gone now, it has gotten so, so much better thanks to a variety of protection mechanisms.
Things get more nuanced when we talk about other types of notifications and about whether updates should be automatic or always require a user’s explicit consent. I personally believe that a key tenet of personal computing is that the owner of the computer, not the hardware or software vendor, should have full control over the hardware and software on the computer. This control is undermined when systems are designed in ways to give users less control. There may be legitimate security benefits to mandatory automatic updates, for example, but there are risks, such as buggy updates leading to broken installations or even lost data, and there’s also having to deal with unwanted UI/UX changes.
As a power user, developer, and researcher, I want control over my computing environment. Unfortunately Windows and macOS have been trending toward more paternalism, more nagging, and more upselling. Thankfully Linux exists, but at the cost of needing to switch away from convenient proprietary software tools like Microsoft Office. I can do without Word or Excel, but PowerPoint is what keeps me on Office (I’ve tried LibreOffice and the Beamer LaTeX template). I’m also concerned about hardware getting increasingly locked down, which will hurt Linux.
It might be easier to swallow the message focusing on Windows 8+ when it really jumped the shark. Windows 7 was a pretty good OS holistically I think even if there are aspects lost compared to the pure simplicity of those really old ones.
The fact there were security concerns is unrelated with the MAIN points discussed not only in the post, but in OP's reply:
> No upselling services
> No automatic updates
> No nagging.
Without auto-updates you could take a guess how many systems wouldn't get patched in months.
The problem is, users are still part of the Internet. And historically, users haven't taken care about update nags, that's how we ended up with giant ass botnets.
The size of the botnets and raw bandwidth they have access to now is staggering. (DDoS, "Residential Proxies", ”Anti-Censorship VPNs”, etc. All just compromised residential devices.
[1] - According to minneapolisfed.org, which uses the official economist-approved inflation rates. Not that I'm implying that there's anything wrong with that. I have all of the orthodox beliefs about inflation that a good citizen should have.
I assume you used the overall CPI rate rather than the software rate. but using the Software CPI its more like $58. and that seems like an easier sell (for the user, maybe not the developer).
http://data.bls.gov/dataViewer/view/timeseries/CUUR0000SEEE0...
Software CPI-U
2001 Oct 77.0
2025 Nov 22.182
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/windows-11-pro/dg7gmgf0d8h...
Even Windows 95 came bundled with MSN on the desktop which had a paid monthly fee to access. And its lack of automatic updates was a real problem, as you had to manually find the service packs and security patches. The automatic updates in Windows XP were vastly more convenient.
Automatic updates are needed for security. The only era when you didn't need them was pre-Internet. They're not something we want to get rid of.
Give me functionality updates, cumulative service packs, and the just after BBS days when an exploit discovered in your software meant it was used by no one, anywhere, because we no longer trust your coding or your 'fix'
Do you not see the constant stream of zero-day exploits coming out for consumer operating systems? Do you think those don't need to be fixed?
I'm genuinely curious -- I've never come across anyone with your perspective before, so I'm struggling to understand where it's coming from.
I live life so that at any moment, if modern services of society (food, internet, power, shelter, entertsinment, transport, personal defense) ended, and I was forced to use what I had access to, that my quality of life would persist. Besides physical considerations (hydroponics, solar, guns, hardened vehicles), I maintain nonvolitile backups of the same software I use daily - vanilla(unpatched) OSs from xp to 11), current and older browsers, non-ssl based content and servers, games, music, movies, hoards of older hardware in a cage that may may an emp.. never tested it. Anything computer related I have works from a bare metal install with no internet connection period.
I use the same retail desktop, laptop, wifi, cellular, and wan hardware used by most consumers but only if I can reset and inialize it offline, and can use the built in firewall to restrict outgoing connections to a single executable single port whitelist including my phone. Which means no nags, no updates, no new features, no removed features, no app stores, no federated os logins, no new terms of service, and no telemetry unless I choose to connect that program to the internet and the program is flexible enough to use a single port.
Zero day exploits won't work on my android 11 s9 with no play services, deny all firewall, and non standard chrome build. In app browser updates don't work until I manually install the binary, most AI features are broken by default even on my win11 laptop.
It's not an easy life. But if you insist that software and hardware do what you wish, your actions should back that. My actions probably more than most. I pass on a decent amount of IT gigs because they require app tracking or that I use their monitoring software, or vpn... but everything I have I KNOW I control now and until it stops working and I buy two more identical and grossly obsolete replacements.
That was true right up until companies started routinely pushing updates that broke things, removed useful features, added user hostile features, or even outright ads. If I have to give up automatic security updates to not have my software get worse on me over time, I will gladly do so. I would rather have security updates and not have the user-hostile stuff, but we seem to be unable to get that, so the next best thing would be no automatic updates at all.
Automatic updates arrived in Windows ME.
It's interesting the timeframes on Windows are often earlier than you think they are. Admittedly, a lot of users skipped Windows ME and its strange reputation, so Windows XP may have been their first time seeing automatic updates.
I finally moved everything to just Debian itself that never nags me and just works with everything I need, including games (thanks to steam)
Only time I boot a Win10 VM is to compile apps for for windows, otherwise it has zero use or need anymore
It wasn't until 2001 that the US reached 50% of users having internet access.
Without internet there wasn't really a good way to distribute updates to most users.
As a developer in that era working at a company that made software for PCs and Macs it was great. It meant that the way most users would get our software was buying it on floppy disk (or later CD) from a retail software store like CompUSA or Egghead.
We'd only make more money from someone who bought our software if that software made a good enough impression that they bought more of our software. We'd lose money if any software went out with enough bugs or a confusing enough interface or a poorly enough written manual that a lot of people made a lot of calls to our toll free tech support.
This was great because it largely aligned what developers wanted to do (write a feature complete program with a great UI and no bugs) and what management wanted (happy users who do not call tech support).
With internet giving us the ability to push updates at almost zero cost and as often as we want people who release incomplete programs early and add the missing parts in updates are going to outcompete people who don't release until the program is complete and nearly bug free.
Once you get there it is not much of a leap to decide that what you are really selling is not software to do X but rather the service of providing software to do X. Customers subscribe to that service and you continuously improve its ability to do X.
On the topic of Windows, this is why Microsoft's commitment to backwards compatibility was and is such a huge deal.
It wasn't so easy to just update your software if Windows ever made breaking changes, and your users would, rightly, be pretty ticked off if suddenly what they bought no longer works because they upgraded from Win 95 to 98, or 98 to XP.
You had confidence that you could buy a program once, and it'll just happily continue to run for the foreseeable future.
This also made businesses happy. If you liked a particular version of a software product, you bought it, ran it on Windows, and could rest easy knowing it'll just continue to work through version upgrades of the OS.
Basically anything in a social network needs to learn to defend itself against threats. Make computer a hermit, and it can go without updates for a long time.
(Oh, but you don't like that? Well, Microsoft doesn't like getting in the news for some worldwide botnet of all Windows 10 machines. I bet they'll figure this out sooner or later.)
Microsoft Office Online works fine on Linux. In fact, it’s superior to native MS Office in terms of stability.
It may work for your case - good. Many companies have custom VBA macros that runs on their Excel sheets to get data or validate it. Try to use a document like this on your online Office and you will understand why most Office users can't easily migrate.
It isn't perfect. You'll probably have a better experience with AMD than Nvidia GPUs, most fingerprint readers probably won't work, and newly released hardware might not have drivers for a few months, but most stuff just works.
What LibreOffice misses, and sheets to a lesser extent, is that Excel isn't just a spreadsheet app. It's a general-purpose programming environment for non-devs (although, at a certain point, you could argue they are effectively programming even if they don't see it that way).
Yeah, there are better solutions. At a certain level of complexity, you probably shouldn't be using Excel and should switch to Python+some SQL database, but there's something to be said about the visual environment Excel provides.
Excel is Microsoft's killer app
Google sheets's programmability is way better (than the last time I used) Excel, with direct support for python, which Gemini can write just fine. It's a bit fiddly in places, I'll admit, but Google sheets is definitely a programming environment.
This is not true except as hyperbole. Most docx open and let themselves edit quite well in LibreOffice Writer, and they look right.
However, you still have a point. There are always some cases when the compatibility is not good, and the only way to use said docx files would be in MS Word.
I underestimated the economic forces trying to turn them into devices for enforcing the interests of a large company onto the owner and turning the owner into a renter.
They never changed.
I think that the spectre mitigation are not a problem in win11 because win11 is not supported on CPU that are vulnerable, which might be a reason they encourage people to get win11 and get a new PC, but that's an unverified guess, I am just trying to get them the benefit of the doubt.
SteamOS looks like it might take a lot of the windows cake, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to.
So far it doesn't look like SteamOS supports most of PC hardware out there, but it could be a next step for Valve.
Is Rufus any different?
Haven't lived under a rock until now must be relaxing.
I really hope this mess will lead to a significant uptick in Linux usage though. That would be a great effect. Unfortunately, most people will either adapt or go with macOS and be in a similar spot in a few years.
I myself have fully switched to Endeavor for my personal desktop, though I still use a MacBook for work (as I have for 17 years now, if you include college). It's been a surprisingly seamless experience, I highly recommend it over Ubuntu-based distributions, especially for Steam (I was a former Mint adherent but the general stability has gone way downhill).
Microsoft is using aggressive dark patterns (undismissable upgrade prompts) to force hardware obsolescence and create e-waste. This isn't about security - it's about maintaining the upgrade treadmill when performance improvements have stalled.
The real issue is consent. Users should be able to say "no" once and have that decision respected. Instead, we get daily nagging designed to exhaust users into compliance. This is the opposite of user-centric design.
Time to consider Linux seriously, or at least Windows 10 LTSC IoT which has support until 2032.
With the "requirements" check bypassed, Windows 11 actually runs on the Intel 1st gen Core i-series and newer, as well as any Ryzen CPU and, I think, a couple of earlier AMD generations. (It requires the popcount instruction, which isn't present on the Core 2 and older.)
Anything older gets Windows 10 IoT which gets updates until 2032.
How-to guide: https://windowsforum.com/threads/how-to-install-windows-11-u...
Alternative options that don't involve any third-party software: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2121461/...
O&O ShutUp10++: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
Firefox: https://www.firefox.com/en-US/
uBlock Origin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...
Yay Linux.
Company insisted that I upgrade to Windows 11, I decided Linux was better.
The caveat with this is that it will fail the check on subsequent version upgrades too and will refuse to upgrade.
Non-Enterprise editions are only supported for 2 years so your 25H2 (or whatever it is) installation will go sour in 2027.
Because they want to charge a monthly fee for the profit and share price.
Apple and Android are doing the same thing (using photos backup as the first step to charging monthly).
I've never figured out how to best use O&O ShutUp10 so I can use it without constantly having to figure out why something stopped working.
Do you have a setup you'd recommend?
The one trick I figured out is that things are split between the "Current User" and "Local Machine" tabs, and I have to enable the Location Services on both.
They’re harassing you because in not too many years, connecting your computer to the internet on their OS will be dangerous. They’re trying to save you from yourself.
And, quite reasonably, they don’t want to patch an OS that debuted 10 years ago so that it supports your hardware that’s even older than 10 years old.
It’s time to get over it. You’re using a commercial OS that you likely haven’t even paid for since Windows 7 debuted 20 years ago and that vendor needs you to at least upgrade to a still-pretty-shitty-and-old used laptop to remain compatible.
You’re free to switch to something else like Linux and, frankly, if you’re at the point of writing redundant blog posts of the same subject we’ve heard all about for the last 4 years, you definitely should. I did! And pretty much all of my Windows stuff runs on Linux effortlessly including and especially games.
Or you can disconnect from the Internet and kill the nags with some group policy stuff. As a bonus, being disconnected from the internet will stop these blog posts.
Anyway, why would I do that?
Well, I got windows free at some point, a lot of years ago, and I am happy enough to jump through a few hoops to keep that going. I don’t use it day to day, I’m not sure why anyone would. I use MacOS and Linux as daily drivers.
But once in a while there’s a game I want to play that’s not that Linux-friendly, and there’s windows up to date and supported, without MS getting another cent out of me since about 2009. What’s not to like?
Though you can bypass tpm requirements if you want to upgrade to win11, and also can switch to ltsc Win10 version for a few more years of support
And in my experience, nothing “just works”.
Meanwhile Windows has been getting worse and worse. Completely unreasonable and unnecessary hardware requirements, spyware, constantly running antivirus and other processes you don't want, forced updates and reboots, shoving AI down your throat. In other words, you pay money to have a worse experience and less control over your own PC.
I've been ideologically opposed to Windows for a while, but a few years ago Linux required many trade-offs and compromises, to the point I wouldn't have recommended to most people. But now things are completely different and I would happily recommend it to anyone except those who have a hard requirement for MS software (or Adobe).
You mean "absolutely relies on being able to work with Office formats". Which most Linux distros do well out of the box. I'm not aware of any feature that LO doesn't support, although admittedly I usually exchange PDFs.
> Citavi
According to the WineDB page for Citavi:, "native Linux alternatives include: - BibSonomy / PUMA - JabRef - Mendeley - Zotero - Colwiz"
Of course when going through education you don't want to take risks, there is a lot on the line. But it may be worth to play with the alternatives a bit, albeit on a VM or something. Of course maybe the Citavi format needs to be exchanged; that could actually be a problem. Annoying.
It turns out that a recent Win11 update bricked the network adapter. After some digging, it is this problem: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4378104/...
I‘ve tried:
- Uninstalling the update and disabling updates for 5 weeks. But Windows just decided to reinstall the update after 2 days. Bricked again.
- Disabling fast start. This reactivated itself the next day.
- What finally worked, was disabling hibernation entirely.
That's not how contracts work, at all. MS hasn't bought anything from him, nor was he able to require them to agree to anything in order for him to install the OS.
With my latest computer, I noticed that some kind of boot protection was added in the BIOS which made it harder to install Linux from USB... I had to disable the safety mechanism in the bios before it would let me boot... It's a shame because, at a glance, I actually thought the Windows UI had improved since the last version a few years ago which was appalling...
But yeah I hate Windows' coercive approach. This is why I was never an Apple fan. I hate how Apple keeps trying to hide the underlying hardware like the file system and external (non-Apple) devices.
These companies are basically PsyOps in my view. There are many better free (open source) alternatives available where you actually own the OS. I don't understand how people can stand renting inferior software for 10x the price as owning a better alternative.
It's like if I offered people to rent a Ford car for $20k per year or get a free Mercedes Benz, and 90% choose to rent the Ford because it feels familiar and their friends also rent a Ford... What is wrong with people?
There is something seriously wrong with people. It's like someone (or something) hypnotized them. Are we sure we don't have ASI controlling people? This is not normal.
This is like; what kinds of people are trying to accumulate fiat money nowadays? There's nothing behind it. It's just digits inside a bunch of different databases without any consensus between them and where the government can create unlimited digits for free. Something wrong with people.
But I am grateful my PC basically does whatever I ask it to.
A desktop PC lasted 10 years before dying. A laptop another 6 years. No NAGs, no service subscription.
And no ads from software (browser sometimes excluded), no nothing.
I could still install it on a very old machine, with some extra work needed, I could still use less than 1GB RAM.
So I am grateful, despite some extra work is sometimes needed. Nothing is really free. It's a matter of tradeoffs.
"No" must always be an option, and notices must not be shown again if this is selected.
Fortunately o265 web versions are pretty capable, including Teams, and most of the development work I've done is not specifically tied to Windows, and even where it is hasn't been too bad in actual business/enterprise environments (beyond typical corporate/govt hinderances). That said, I like what WSL brings to the table.
Another really remarkable thing is how cloud connected it is. For instance, the lock screen had online feeds shown. The setting to disable them is on a remote website, not in the screensaver prefs or some other local system pref. That was astonishing, and IMHO absurd. If it hadn't been clear to me before, that made it crystal clear that what MS wants the OS to be and what I want the OS of my personal computer to be are not remotely the same thing.
The goal is to get everyone on Windows 11.
This is not 1998 or even 2008. Times have slowly and "progressively" moved on. Truth is you NEVER OWNED a copy of Windows. You always purchased the rights to USE it. Now that technology has improved especially the internet Microsoft have tried to gain more control over YOUR computer.
Look at Nintendo and their Switch 2. In their world you do not own it. If they think you are doing something "you shouldn't" they will brick it! Sure, I am not suggesting Microsoft does this with Windows but I am 100% certain this type of tactics has been discussed in high-end meetings. The key here is CONTROL.
Today - if Microsoft want to push a program and "encourage" you to use it.. they will install it without any form of consent. Sorry, but if I OWN a computer then I want control with the software installed, including an Operating System. Microsoft has always been a huge '??' in this field and, to me, it is getting worse. I am not even talking about government involvement with the big techs, either.
Copilot -- I dont care.
This rumour (is it a rumour) that Windows takes photos of your screen every so oftern... NO THANK YOU!
I might have to continue using Windows (11) in my job, being given a work laptop, etc. At the end of the day I do not care as its not my laptop and decisions are taken outside my control by specific IT departments. Whatever. At home I am 100% GNU/Linux. It is sooo much faster and programs loads in <1.5 seconds compared to 5-20 seconds on Windows 11.
My biggest concern is the future of GNU and Linux. Well, the Linux kernel more so especially when Linus hangs up his keyboard. Hopefully the next guy in charge cares about our Freedoms. Honestly I imagine an alternative world where a corporations takes control. The beauty, thanks to the GPL, is people can branch off an continue their own. Sadly... GNU/Linux MIGHT get infiltrated one day and most of that will be people NOT caring about our FREEDOM. This, in my opinion, is all dependent on the future generations.
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It describes so much
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