That is what they are going with? Okay. It is certainly another step towards locked down desktop which could possibly be really bad. Though to be honest I am not sure how much impact this specific...
While these mechanisms were often used to bypass Microsoft account setup, they also inadvertently skip critical setup screens, potentially causing users to exit OOBE with a device that is not fully configured for use.
That is what they are going with? Okay.
It is certainly another step towards locked down desktop which could possibly be really bad. Though to be honest I am not sure how much impact this specific step will actually have. How large is the overlap between someone technical or privacy conscious enough to skip that step and someone not willing to install an os?
But it will certainly make things more annoying. For me I recently had to replace my previous notebook after only half a year. I could just wipe the disk and reinstall but I usually just shrink the Windows partition in case I need it for something and install another one. If it was not possible to skip account creation from the OOBE I would likely just wipe it. I wonder what would happen if I wanted refund for the Windows license? I imagine no retailer gets all that much of these requests.
Also the plugging holes phrasing really makes it seem like something sketchy instead of using your property without mandatory check in with a random third party.
The best time to install Linux was after Windows 10 released. The next best time was after Windows 11 released and after that the best time is now. I understand people who took a look and decided that their current workload is not compatible but specific workloads are incompatible and dual boot is always an option. I use Windows 11 daily and I must say using it more is not something I would be enthusiastic about. Currently I use Fedora and while I have my problems with it, it really seems like what Windows could have been if it was forced to care about the actual end user.
I currently use Rufus to install Windows to a USB NVME drive, which of course is not permitted by default Windows 11. It used to be a feature of Windows 8, but for some reason they took that away....
I currently use Rufus to install Windows to a USB NVME drive, which of course is not permitted by default Windows 11. It used to be a feature of Windows 8, but for some reason they took that away.
It is a shame, with SDIO and DDU, it basically lets me plug in my windows install to whichever PC I need it for, for that 30 minutes or so to use a few tools that are a massive PITA to use on Wine/Proton/VM.
I suspect we're only a short while away from the feared-from-beginning universe where PC manufacturers completely disable enrolling non-Microsoft SecureBoot keys and Microsoft refuses to sign any non-Microsoft OS. I even paid for a Pro license so this is technically legal.
Do you ever experience any driver or stability issues? Some years ago I hot swapped hard drive with my Windows installation from one host to another, the 64 bit architecture was the same, but the...
I currently use Rufus to install Windows to a USB NVME drive
Do you ever experience any driver or stability issues? Some years ago I hot swapped hard drive with my Windows installation from one host to another, the 64 bit architecture was the same, but the motherboard, CPU, and RAM were not. I could boot just long enough to see the login screen, before getting a BSOD with various hardware errors. Researching more into it, at the time, led me to believe that on OS installation only the drivers necessary for the hardware present were persistently installed, so I did not have the correct drivers present for the components in the new host.
Interestingly, when I did the same thing with a hard drive containing an Ubuntu installation, it had no problems at all. I ended up just reinstalling Windows on the new host and migrating over important files, but I've never considered hot swapping Windows post-install since. Perhaps it's better supported now? It had to be 10+ years ago that I did all that.
This was a big issue with XP, it was very restricted, changing GPU and CPU would work most times, but a motherboard change would cause a BSOD. Windows 7 was better, but sometimes would require you...
This was a big issue with XP, it was very restricted, changing GPU and CPU would work most times, but a motherboard change would cause a BSOD. Windows 7 was better, but sometimes would require you to uninstall certain drivers before you move things. More often than not you'd have to "upgrade" the OS, meaning, just putting the install disk and choosing the upgrade option keeping all settings (it would still let you upgrade if it was the same exact version of windows), it essentially clears all drivers but leaves all programs and user folders untouched. I used 8 very little so I don't have any personal experience with it, but with 10 and 11 you can just plug a hard drive into another PC and it boots just fine, you just get a "Windows Update is running" screen the first boot on new hardware.
Which version of windows? If I remember correctly, that could be problematic with Windows 7 and before. Windows 8.1 and 10 were actually pretty decent about swapping hardware around.
Which version of windows? If I remember correctly, that could be problematic with Windows 7 and before. Windows 8.1 and 10 were actually pretty decent about swapping hardware around.
Likely 7 then. Starting with 8, though mostly after 8.1, default or generic drivers were packaged into the OS rather well. If I didn't have the drivers for the wifi radio or network adapter on...
Likely 7 then. Starting with 8, though mostly after 8.1, default or generic drivers were packaged into the OS rather well.
If I didn't have the drivers for the wifi radio or network adapter on windows 7, I'd have no internet to update any other drivers. That caused some unintended frustration more than once.
They don't care about the consumer at this point they have their market captive. Most companies are going to put up with this shit for way longer then they should and that will help drag microsoft...
They don't care about the consumer at this point they have their market captive. Most companies are going to put up with this shit for way longer then they should and that will help drag microsoft along for another few years until they can find a new and interesting way to screw people over. At this point they only care (ever so slightly) about the business market. The consumers who still use them do so because they are either too ignorant or too apathetic to care and microsoft knows it. All this screeching and complaining will do fuck all to change anything. There will be, like always a new method to bypass this bullshit in time for those who still want to use microsoft for whatever stupid reason, but until large corporations start jumping ship it will never get better.
Aren’t online installs generally preferable for businesses? I’m not in IT, but afaik online installs make it way easier to do business device management at scale. In my experience, businesses use...
Aren’t online installs generally preferable for businesses? I’m not in IT, but afaik online installs make it way easier to do business device management at scale. In my experience, businesses use Windows because of these policies (and price), not in spite of them.
I agree that this is consumer-hostile, and I’ll never have a Windows machine as my personal computer. I’m just hesitant to say that this is corporations “putting up with shit” rather than Microsoft giving them what they want.
In Windows Enterprise, so called domains are used. Historically, these are networks where the accounts are managed centrally by servers in the local corporate network. Microsoft doesn't know...
In Windows Enterprise, so called domains are used. Historically, these are networks where the accounts are managed centrally by servers in the local corporate network. Microsoft doesn't know anything about these, as all the information stays in the local network.
But Microsoft also offers several cloud-based solutions for account and identity services.
I know it's not a "smart man's Linux", or at least it's portraited as such, but I switched to Linux Mint about 4 months ago now and it's been amazing. I had been in between using windows as a...
I know it's not a "smart man's Linux", or at least it's portraited as such, but I switched to Linux Mint about 4 months ago now and it's been amazing.
I had been in between using windows as a daily driver and Linux shells for several years now, but the crap Microsoft has been pulling, which is too much to list here, has had me out the door.
I've had a surprisingly amazing experience on Linux Mint, things just work. Even every single windows app I used before, right out the box.
Honestly, that retoric about "easy" distros and "hard" distros is nonsense. Linux Mint and something like Arch don't differ much under the hood and when you boil it down, and anything you can do...
Honestly, that retoric about "easy" distros and "hard" distros is nonsense. Linux Mint and something like Arch don't differ much under the hood and when you boil it down, and anything you can do on Arch you can do on Mint. I mean, Linus Torvalds uses Fedora to develop the Linux kernel.
It's not so much what's under the hood that's the issue, it's the end-user portion that's the problem for most people. They're either used to how windows works or they're Mac users. Setting up...
It's not so much what's under the hood that's the issue, it's the end-user portion that's the problem for most people. They're either used to how windows works or they're Mac users. Setting up something that isn't out of the box ready for the average person isn't going to be easy, and that's what they want. The easiest setup and least amount of hassle, privacy be damned.
And the more closely the desktop environment resembles that of the platform they’re coming from, the better. Even differences that users with a technical inclination might consider minor can be...
And the more closely the desktop environment resembles that of the platform they’re coming from, the better. Even differences that users with a technical inclination might consider minor can be the fly in the figurative soup.
I really don’t think that Linux world recognizes this enough.
Oh yes, I fully agree there. And I think that the Linux world is waking up to that now, in the KDE side of things there's people like Nate Graham doing great work on that front. What I was more...
Oh yes, I fully agree there. And I think that the Linux world is waking up to that now, in the KDE side of things there's people like Nate Graham doing great work on that front. What I was more trying to get at, is that this elitism about "hard/real" Linux distros vs "easy" Linux distros is nonsense. I fully agree that some distros have a better OOTB experience for non-power users/people that are new to Linux which we need more of. It's just that a "beginner distro" is not somehow fundamentally less powerfull.
I've refused to update to Windows 11 in part due to not liking the OS and the push to requiring a Microsoft account. I didn't mind it being a feature available in Windows 10 since I know some...
I've refused to update to Windows 11 in part due to not liking the OS and the push to requiring a Microsoft account. I didn't mind it being a feature available in Windows 10 since I know some people may find it useful or want to use that functionality, but I got increasingly frustrated with it being pushed and needing to do workarounds over the years if I needed to reinstall Windows when I didn't want to use it.
Since I need to take my personal laptop in to get the battery swapped, I'll be taking this opportunity to switch to Linux as my main desktop OS, with Windows 10 being available as a dual boot for the few things that don't play nicely with Linux. I already planned on wiping my laptop before bringing it in to the PC repair shop, so this will be as good as time as any to switch to Linux being my main desktop OS when I do use my own computer.
Recently i have bought a refurbished elitebookG8 (with amd) and as soon as it arrived i wiped out the windows 11 installation and installed Fedora42. For basic needs is just perfect, doesn't get...
Recently i have bought a refurbished elitebookG8 (with amd) and as soon as it arrived i wiped out the windows 11 installation and installed Fedora42. For basic needs is just perfect, doesn't get in the way... and it's just beautiful. But most important thing... i feel i'm in control, not the other way around.
In all honesty i think that if someone does not need special applications that run only on windows (so 90% of the people who goes to a mall and pay for a laptop) linux is ready... and can offer them a better experience.
Said so... i still have windows 11 on my gaming rig but every single day i think about wiping it clean and install one of those "gaming distro" because it's getting worse than ever. Every now and then it reset the configuration i've done... and in the beginning i just fired up the pc, 5 seconds and i was into steam with big picture... now after the last windows update it takes 1 good minute to go there. i have not been able to figure out why :/
for your gaming rig, try nobara linux. i mostly use my pc for games (my work isnt pc related) and ive had the same or less problems as on windows with it. nobara is also based on fedora.
for your gaming rig, try nobara linux. i mostly use my pc for games (my work isnt pc related) and ive had the same or less problems as on windows with it. nobara is also based on fedora.
You already like Fedora 42, check out Bazzite, it is a Fedora Atomic Image. It comes with tweaks and software for gaming, including gamescope, the window compositor developed by Valve. It's an...
You already like Fedora 42, check out Bazzite, it is a Fedora Atomic Image. It comes with tweaks and software for gaming, including gamescope, the window compositor developed by Valve. It's an immutable image, so it is fairly hard to break your install and rolling back is easy if you want to. Forewarned its containerizations can make running some programs a bit finicky, like I had to go through DistroBox to get mono to work, but that did not take long to learn and do.
Hmm maybe I should too. I like the idea of having the keys to the kingdom, but whenever I have something with a terminal I inevitably end up bricking it in my enthusiasm and have to roll back. I...
Hmm maybe I should too.
I like the idea of having the keys to the kingdom, but whenever I have something with a terminal I inevitably end up bricking it in my enthusiasm and have to roll back. I don't want that hassle in my daily driver OS so I haven't. Immutable may be the solution..
I haven't gotten a new device since 2023 (which I did set up with a local only account) so I am surely out of the loop, but do these OOBE onboarding flows allow you to create a new account? If...
I haven't gotten a new device since 2023 (which I did set up with a local only account) so I am surely out of the loop, but do these OOBE onboarding flows allow you to create a new account? If they are really going to force this on me, I'm just going to spam them with empty, useless accounts from a data collection standpoint, just creating a new, empty account not connected to anything else for each device "bobs_asus_laptop_2025@outlook.com" and "bobs_galaxy_s22_2026@samsung.com", etc.
I believe with an online install you are forced to sign into a Microsoft account when setting up Windows, which not everyone wants. I think as of right now, with the latest changes, an offline...
I believe with an online install you are forced to sign into a Microsoft account when setting up Windows, which not everyone wants. I think as of right now, with the latest changes, an offline installation is no longer possible.
And to still install a windows 11 version without MS account requirement:
Using this tool to generate a certain .xml https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/
I don't exactly remember the steps remaining, but it should be:
Download the official iso from microsoft
Usage of a certain tool to put the xml generated by the tool above into the iso
Use this modified iso with your bootable usb
Get a setup that don't include the online account requirement.
Going to go hug my Win 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC install and it's continual updates until 2032. Linux will finally be ready for mainstream by then right? Right‽ ...do not... ..come at me with "Linux...
Going to go hug my Win 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC install and it's continual updates until 2032.
Linux will finally be ready for mainstream by then right? Right‽
...do not...
..come at me with "Linux is ready now" because it just plain isn't.
I am going to come at you with "Linux is ready now," because the issue isn't the readiness of Linux, it's the unwillingness of software vendors to support it. The distinction might not be...
I am going to come at you with "Linux is ready now," because the issue isn't the readiness of Linux, it's the unwillingness of software vendors to support it. The distinction might not be meaningful to you personally, but it's integral to understanding the broader problem of Microsoft's near-monopoly on end-user OSes.
I'm not even saying it's all sunshine and roses on the Linux side of the fence, just that framing it as "Linux just isn't ready" is reductive to the point of being misleading.
Could you share a bit more about what’s holding Linux back for you? I’m always curious what rough edges other users run up against. I promise I won’t respond with evangelizing!
Could you share a bit more about what’s holding Linux back for you? I’m always curious what rough edges other users run up against. I promise I won’t respond with evangelizing!
not parent, but I run a windows box for media and gaming -- so Kodi and pretty much only GTAV via Epic. Kodi wouldn't be an issue and I think GTAV would be fine with a little work. The only real...
not parent, but I run a windows box for media and gaming -- so Kodi and pretty much only GTAV via Epic. Kodi wouldn't be an issue and I think GTAV would be fine with a little work. The only real thing that keeps me with Windows is widevine quality with channel4.com and foobar2000.
I run macos as my main and also have another laptop on Endeavour (right now.) -- I use WSL a lot, too.. and all of my VPSs are Debian or Ubuntu. Long story short, foobar2000 is the main thing holding me back. I love it so much and I dont want to fuck with Wine.
the widevine issue kills me. I hate it so much and I really need to sort out ripping it... but as it sits now, Widevine stuff looks like shit in any browser that isn't chrome (which I force mv2 on.)
Foobar2000 has worked flawlessly on WINE for as long as I can remember. You don’t really need to “fuck with” it either; after installing your distro’s package it generally will automatically be...
Foobar2000 has worked flawlessly on WINE for as long as I can remember. You don’t really need to “fuck with” it either; after installing your distro’s package it generally will automatically be assigned to run all .exe files and make it like native.
Can’t help you with widevine though. DRM is, has, and always will be the devil.
yeah, I ran it in wine for macos for ages until the other one came out. Wine has always been pretty great, really. I fuckin haaaaate widevine so much. I'm in a tough spot with this, to be honest....
yeah, I ran it in wine for macos for ages until the other one came out. Wine has always been pretty great, really.
I fuckin haaaaate widevine so much. I'm in a tough spot with this, to be honest. I use a VPN to watch this UK game show (Countdown) and the Channel4 site has a lot of insane commercials that I normally skip with an adblocker. with mv2 going away, I've got to force Chrome to accept mv2 so I can use uBo proper since lite is detected... and then the actual quality is terrible with every other browser. Widevine sucks... fine.. but at least have it work with other browsers just as well. That's gotta be some sort of anti-competitive thing.
One day I'll move that system over. Its very much a 'you exist but I never want to think about you' system. Honestly, I dont know how non-technical people use Windows as a daily driver.
I switched to Mint earlier this year and I really missed foobar, too. I've installed a wide amount if audio players and nothing really satisfied me. For now I've settled with tauon, which seems to...
I switched to Mint earlier this year and I really missed foobar, too. I've installed a wide amount if audio players and nothing really satisfied me. For now I've settled with tauon, which seems to do the job well enough for me. Maybe you can have a look and see if it's something for you. It's easy to control with your keyboard, fairly customizable and takes an approach on many things that just makes sense. Plus, it comes with smart playlists that lets you do a couple of fun things and it's easy to refresh/rescan a playlist, instead of having to add new stuff manually. Though I have found nothing that watches folders so nicely like foobar, so I don't have to do anything manually for adding new music other than copying it into the library folder.
Widevine is really a PITA, though. (but I can't blame Linux for that)
I love foobar so much. Its pretty much held me to Windows for over a decade now. Tauon looks alright. It looks like it can be customized a bit, too, which is important. it's probably because I've...
I love foobar so much. Its pretty much held me to Windows for over a decade now.
Tauon looks alright. It looks like it can be customized a bit, too, which is important. it's probably because I've been using it since it came out, but foobar is basically perfect -- hacky for a lot of things, but ultimately perfect in its imperfection. this is my theme that I've been tweaking over the years.
Anyway, that's a good sell for it. I'll pop it on my laptop and give it a swing. I used to use deadbeef with *nix and it was alrigth.
In the near future I am going to figure out this widevine ripping stuff. I hate a lot of computer stuff -- but I think widevine might take the cake.
Yep, that theme definitely looks like a well-oiled machine that runs smoothly :) If you ever end up finding something that you like enough to replace foobar with it and you happen to remember me,...
Yep, that theme definitely looks like a well-oiled machine that runs smoothly :)
If you ever end up finding something that you like enough to replace foobar with it and you happen to remember me, feel free to let me know, I'm interested! And good luck with tauon, glad it seems decent enough to at least give it a shot.
will do. I'm really surprised someone hasn't flat out copied foobar2000 --- at least with the basic library functions. But yeah, if I find anything, I'll definitely be in touch.
will do. I'm really surprised someone hasn't flat out copied foobar2000 --- at least with the basic library functions. But yeah, if I find anything, I'll definitely be in touch.
Huh, 1k+ stars, almost a clone in functionality and name and yet you don't see this mentioned anywhere. Great, thanks! Configuring it right as I write this :)
Huh, 1k+ stars, almost a clone in functionality and name and yet you don't see this mentioned anywhere. Great, thanks! Configuring it right as I write this :)
I didn’t know widevine had such poor support on linux. From a quick glance it looks like some chromium browsers support a convoluted method of installing widevine on linux, but it still requires...
I didn’t know widevine had such poor support on linux. From a quick glance it looks like some chromium browsers support a convoluted method of installing widevine on linux, but it still requires you to source your own binary. Thanks for the insight, I hope this obstacle is removed soon.
I won't as it is in the personal direction of someone to decide what os to use and what their needs are. Personally I can only share my opinion. As another comment pointed out the not ready part...
I won't as it is in the personal direction of someone to decide what os to use and what their needs are. Personally I can only share my opinion.
As another comment pointed out the not ready part is not something that Linux can influence. It is also something that only applies to specific workflows.
It is the general unwilingness of hw and sw vendors to support Linux, or to open source their binary blobs or to closely follow standards. That will not change until there is higher adoption of Linux. Either by individuals or as we are seeing at some places, public institutions. My guess is it would take about 8% marketshare on desktop for a more visible change.
How did you get the enterprise version, if you don't mind me asking? I'd like to hang on to W10 as long as possible as well, but am on the home version.
How did you get the enterprise version, if you don't mind me asking? I'd like to hang on to W10 as long as possible as well, but am on the home version.
How much of the not ready Linux do you think was involved in getting your post from your device to my eyeballs? Hard to tell, exactly, but it’s not zero. How can this be? The problem is not that...
How much of the not ready Linux do you think was involved in getting your post from your device to my eyeballs?
Hard to tell, exactly, but it’s not zero. How can this be?
The problem is not that Linux (a kernel) is not ready, it and the software around it have been ready for a long time, if there’s any problem, it’s a people problem.
Been using linux as main OS for 12 years, so for some it is most definitely ready now. I game on it (among other stuff). But, I keep a dual boot Win10 around (same as yours), which i use once is a...
Been using linux as main OS for 12 years, so for some it is most definitely ready now. I game on it (among other stuff).
But, I keep a dual boot Win10 around (same as yours), which i use once is a blue moon for compat reasons (very occasionally wine can't do the job).
None of this benefits the user. This means you should ask why this is the direction they're going in.
That is what they are going with? Okay.
It is certainly another step towards locked down desktop which could possibly be really bad. Though to be honest I am not sure how much impact this specific step will actually have. How large is the overlap between someone technical or privacy conscious enough to skip that step and someone not willing to install an os?
But it will certainly make things more annoying. For me I recently had to replace my previous notebook after only half a year. I could just wipe the disk and reinstall but I usually just shrink the Windows partition in case I need it for something and install another one. If it was not possible to skip account creation from the OOBE I would likely just wipe it. I wonder what would happen if I wanted refund for the Windows license? I imagine no retailer gets all that much of these requests.
Also the plugging holes phrasing really makes it seem like something sketchy instead of using your property without mandatory check in with a random third party.
The best time to install Linux was after Windows 10 released. The next best time was after Windows 11 released and after that the best time is now. I understand people who took a look and decided that their current workload is not compatible but specific workloads are incompatible and dual boot is always an option. I use Windows 11 daily and I must say using it more is not something I would be enthusiastic about. Currently I use Fedora and while I have my problems with it, it really seems like what Windows could have been if it was forced to care about the actual end user.
I currently use Rufus to install Windows to a USB NVME drive, which of course is not permitted by default Windows 11. It used to be a feature of Windows 8, but for some reason they took that away.
It is a shame, with SDIO and DDU, it basically lets me plug in my windows install to whichever PC I need it for, for that 30 minutes or so to use a few tools that are a massive PITA to use on Wine/Proton/VM.
I suspect we're only a short while away from the feared-from-beginning universe where PC manufacturers completely disable enrolling non-Microsoft SecureBoot keys and Microsoft refuses to sign any non-Microsoft OS. I even paid for a Pro license so this is technically legal.
Do you ever experience any driver or stability issues? Some years ago I hot swapped hard drive with my Windows installation from one host to another, the 64 bit architecture was the same, but the motherboard, CPU, and RAM were not. I could boot just long enough to see the login screen, before getting a BSOD with various hardware errors. Researching more into it, at the time, led me to believe that on OS installation only the drivers necessary for the hardware present were persistently installed, so I did not have the correct drivers present for the components in the new host.
Interestingly, when I did the same thing with a hard drive containing an Ubuntu installation, it had no problems at all. I ended up just reinstalling Windows on the new host and migrating over important files, but I've never considered hot swapping Windows post-install since. Perhaps it's better supported now? It had to be 10+ years ago that I did all that.
This was a big issue with XP, it was very restricted, changing GPU and CPU would work most times, but a motherboard change would cause a BSOD. Windows 7 was better, but sometimes would require you to uninstall certain drivers before you move things. More often than not you'd have to "upgrade" the OS, meaning, just putting the install disk and choosing the upgrade option keeping all settings (it would still let you upgrade if it was the same exact version of windows), it essentially clears all drivers but leaves all programs and user folders untouched. I used 8 very little so I don't have any personal experience with it, but with 10 and 11 you can just plug a hard drive into another PC and it boots just fine, you just get a "Windows Update is running" screen the first boot on new hardware.
Which version of windows? If I remember correctly, that could be problematic with Windows 7 and before. Windows 8.1 and 10 were actually pretty decent about swapping hardware around.
It would have been in the era of Windows 7/8, I think
Likely 7 then. Starting with 8, though mostly after 8.1, default or generic drivers were packaged into the OS rather well.
If I didn't have the drivers for the wifi radio or network adapter on windows 7, I'd have no internet to update any other drivers. That caused some unintended frustration more than once.
They don't care about the consumer at this point they have their market captive. Most companies are going to put up with this shit for way longer then they should and that will help drag microsoft along for another few years until they can find a new and interesting way to screw people over. At this point they only care (ever so slightly) about the business market. The consumers who still use them do so because they are either too ignorant or too apathetic to care and microsoft knows it. All this screeching and complaining will do fuck all to change anything. There will be, like always a new method to bypass this bullshit in time for those who still want to use microsoft for whatever stupid reason, but until large corporations start jumping ship it will never get better.
Aren’t online installs generally preferable for businesses? I’m not in IT, but afaik online installs make it way easier to do business device management at scale. In my experience, businesses use Windows because of these policies (and price), not in spite of them.
I agree that this is consumer-hostile, and I’ll never have a Windows machine as my personal computer. I’m just hesitant to say that this is corporations “putting up with shit” rather than Microsoft giving them what they want.
In Windows Enterprise, so called domains are used. Historically, these are networks where the accounts are managed centrally by servers in the local corporate network. Microsoft doesn't know anything about these, as all the information stays in the local network.
But Microsoft also offers several cloud-based solutions for account and identity services.
I know it's not a "smart man's Linux", or at least it's portraited as such, but I switched to Linux Mint about 4 months ago now and it's been amazing.
I had been in between using windows as a daily driver and Linux shells for several years now, but the crap Microsoft has been pulling, which is too much to list here, has had me out the door.
I've had a surprisingly amazing experience on Linux Mint, things just work. Even every single windows app I used before, right out the box.
Honestly, that retoric about "easy" distros and "hard" distros is nonsense. Linux Mint and something like Arch don't differ much under the hood and when you boil it down, and anything you can do on Arch you can do on Mint. I mean, Linus Torvalds uses Fedora to develop the Linux kernel.
It's not so much what's under the hood that's the issue, it's the end-user portion that's the problem for most people. They're either used to how windows works or they're Mac users. Setting up something that isn't out of the box ready for the average person isn't going to be easy, and that's what they want. The easiest setup and least amount of hassle, privacy be damned.
And the more closely the desktop environment resembles that of the platform they’re coming from, the better. Even differences that users with a technical inclination might consider minor can be the fly in the figurative soup.
I really don’t think that Linux world recognizes this enough.
Oh yes, I fully agree there. And I think that the Linux world is waking up to that now, in the KDE side of things there's people like Nate Graham doing great work on that front. What I was more trying to get at, is that this elitism about "hard/real" Linux distros vs "easy" Linux distros is nonsense. I fully agree that some distros have a better OOTB experience for non-power users/people that are new to Linux which we need more of. It's just that a "beginner distro" is not somehow fundamentally less powerfull.
Forget the "smart" and "power user" Nix shite. You are already miles ahead of the average PC user just by switching to *Nix. Good on you.
Thought you were badmouthing a different community with the missing asteisk (and capitalized N) for a second there lol
https://nixos.org/
Oh my god. I did not even realize that might be misconstrued. I swear I'm not a racist just a weird Linux zealot lol
I've refused to update to Windows 11 in part due to not liking the OS and the push to requiring a Microsoft account. I didn't mind it being a feature available in Windows 10 since I know some people may find it useful or want to use that functionality, but I got increasingly frustrated with it being pushed and needing to do workarounds over the years if I needed to reinstall Windows when I didn't want to use it.
Since I need to take my personal laptop in to get the battery swapped, I'll be taking this opportunity to switch to Linux as my main desktop OS, with Windows 10 being available as a dual boot for the few things that don't play nicely with Linux. I already planned on wiping my laptop before bringing it in to the PC repair shop, so this will be as good as time as any to switch to Linux being my main desktop OS when I do use my own computer.
Recently i have bought a refurbished elitebookG8 (with amd) and as soon as it arrived i wiped out the windows 11 installation and installed Fedora42. For basic needs is just perfect, doesn't get in the way... and it's just beautiful. But most important thing... i feel i'm in control, not the other way around.
In all honesty i think that if someone does not need special applications that run only on windows (so 90% of the people who goes to a mall and pay for a laptop) linux is ready... and can offer them a better experience.
Said so... i still have windows 11 on my gaming rig but every single day i think about wiping it clean and install one of those "gaming distro" because it's getting worse than ever. Every now and then it reset the configuration i've done... and in the beginning i just fired up the pc, 5 seconds and i was into steam with big picture... now after the last windows update it takes 1 good minute to go there. i have not been able to figure out why :/
for your gaming rig, try nobara linux. i mostly use my pc for games (my work isnt pc related) and ive had the same or less problems as on windows with it. nobara is also based on fedora.
Thanks, I will try it out.
Just the fact is based on fedora makes me love it :)
You already like Fedora 42, check out Bazzite, it is a Fedora Atomic Image. It comes with tweaks and software for gaming, including gamescope, the window compositor developed by Valve. It's an immutable image, so it is fairly hard to break your install and rolling back is easy if you want to. Forewarned its containerizations can make running some programs a bit finicky, like I had to go through DistroBox to get
monoto work, but that did not take long to learn and do.https://bazzite.gg/
Thanks! I will try it too. I kind of like the idea of an immutable image too...
Hmm maybe I should too.
I like the idea of having the keys to the kingdom, but whenever I have something with a terminal I inevitably end up bricking it in my enthusiasm and have to roll back. I don't want that hassle in my daily driver OS so I haven't. Immutable may be the solution..
I haven't gotten a new device since 2023 (which I did set up with a local only account) so I am surely out of the loop, but do these OOBE onboarding flows allow you to create a new account? If they are really going to force this on me, I'm just going to spam them with empty, useless accounts from a data collection standpoint, just creating a new, empty account not connected to anything else for each device "bobs_asus_laptop_2025@outlook.com" and "bobs_galaxy_s22_2026@samsung.com", etc.
What even are the pros and cons of offline/online install? Is it still possible to do an offline installation?
I believe with an online install you are forced to sign into a Microsoft account when setting up Windows, which not everyone wants. I think as of right now, with the latest changes, an offline installation is no longer possible.
For the online install, I can only see cons:
And to still install a windows 11 version without MS account requirement:
Using this tool to generate a certain .xml https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/
I don't exactly remember the steps remaining, but it should be:
Going to go hug my Win 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC install and it's continual updates until 2032.
Linux will finally be ready for mainstream by then right? Right‽
...do not...
..come at me with "Linux is ready now" because it just plain isn't.
I am going to come at you with "Linux is ready now," because the issue isn't the readiness of Linux, it's the unwillingness of software vendors to support it. The distinction might not be meaningful to you personally, but it's integral to understanding the broader problem of Microsoft's near-monopoly on end-user OSes.
I'm not even saying it's all sunshine and roses on the Linux side of the fence, just that framing it as "Linux just isn't ready" is reductive to the point of being misleading.
Could you share a bit more about what’s holding Linux back for you? I’m always curious what rough edges other users run up against. I promise I won’t respond with evangelizing!
not parent, but I run a windows box for media and gaming -- so Kodi and pretty much only GTAV via Epic. Kodi wouldn't be an issue and I think GTAV would be fine with a little work. The only real thing that keeps me with Windows is widevine quality with channel4.com and foobar2000.
I run macos as my main and also have another laptop on Endeavour (right now.) -- I use WSL a lot, too.. and all of my VPSs are Debian or Ubuntu. Long story short, foobar2000 is the main thing holding me back. I love it so much and I dont want to fuck with Wine.
the widevine issue kills me. I hate it so much and I really need to sort out ripping it... but as it sits now, Widevine stuff looks like shit in any browser that isn't chrome (which I force mv2 on.)
Foobar2000 has worked flawlessly on WINE for as long as I can remember. You don’t really need to “fuck with” it either; after installing your distro’s package it generally will automatically be assigned to run all .exe files and make it like native.
Can’t help you with widevine though. DRM is, has, and always will be the devil.
yeah, I ran it in wine for macos for ages until the other one came out. Wine has always been pretty great, really.
I fuckin haaaaate widevine so much. I'm in a tough spot with this, to be honest. I use a VPN to watch this UK game show (Countdown) and the Channel4 site has a lot of insane commercials that I normally skip with an adblocker. with mv2 going away, I've got to force Chrome to accept mv2 so I can use uBo proper since lite is detected... and then the actual quality is terrible with every other browser. Widevine sucks... fine.. but at least have it work with other browsers just as well. That's gotta be some sort of anti-competitive thing.
One day I'll move that system over. Its very much a 'you exist but I never want to think about you' system. Honestly, I dont know how non-technical people use Windows as a daily driver.
I switched to Mint earlier this year and I really missed foobar, too. I've installed a wide amount if audio players and nothing really satisfied me. For now I've settled with tauon, which seems to do the job well enough for me. Maybe you can have a look and see if it's something for you. It's easy to control with your keyboard, fairly customizable and takes an approach on many things that just makes sense. Plus, it comes with smart playlists that lets you do a couple of fun things and it's easy to refresh/rescan a playlist, instead of having to add new stuff manually. Though I have found nothing that watches folders so nicely like foobar, so I don't have to do anything manually for adding new music other than copying it into the library folder.
Widevine is really a PITA, though. (but I can't blame Linux for that)
I love foobar so much. Its pretty much held me to Windows for over a decade now.
Tauon looks alright. It looks like it can be customized a bit, too, which is important. it's probably because I've been using it since it came out, but foobar is basically perfect -- hacky for a lot of things, but ultimately perfect in its imperfection. this is my theme that I've been tweaking over the years.
Anyway, that's a good sell for it. I'll pop it on my laptop and give it a swing. I used to use deadbeef with *nix and it was alrigth.
In the near future I am going to figure out this widevine ripping stuff. I hate a lot of computer stuff -- but I think widevine might take the cake.
Yep, that theme definitely looks like a well-oiled machine that runs smoothly :)
If you ever end up finding something that you like enough to replace foobar with it and you happen to remember me, feel free to let me know, I'm interested! And good luck with tauon, glad it seems decent enough to at least give it a shot.
will do. I'm really surprised someone hasn't flat out copied foobar2000 --- at least with the basic library functions. But yeah, if I find anything, I'll definitely be in touch.
fooyin is coming along nicely.
https://github.com/fooyin/fooyin
@zonk
Huh, 1k+ stars, almost a clone in functionality and name and yet you don't see this mentioned anywhere. Great, thanks! Configuring it right as I write this :)
well, look at that --- that's wicked! also has relatively the same formatting, too, which is very important to me. Great find!
I didn’t know widevine had such poor support on linux. From a quick glance it looks like some chromium browsers support a convoluted method of installing widevine on linux, but it still requires you to source your own binary. Thanks for the insight, I hope this obstacle is removed soon.
I won't as it is in the personal direction of someone to decide what os to use and what their needs are. Personally I can only share my opinion.
As another comment pointed out the not ready part is not something that Linux can influence. It is also something that only applies to specific workflows.
It is the general unwilingness of hw and sw vendors to support Linux, or to open source their binary blobs or to closely follow standards. That will not change until there is higher adoption of Linux. Either by individuals or as we are seeing at some places, public institutions. My guess is it would take about 8% marketshare on desktop for a more visible change.
How did you get the enterprise version, if you don't mind me asking? I'd like to hang on to W10 as long as possible as well, but am on the home version.
massgrave.dev can help.
Even ms support uses it and made it to news
No kidding - does the 2038 registration mean security updates until then too?
How much of the not ready Linux do you think was involved in getting your post from your device to my eyeballs?
Hard to tell, exactly, but it’s not zero. How can this be?
The problem is not that Linux (a kernel) is not ready, it and the software around it have been ready for a long time, if there’s any problem, it’s a people problem.
I believe there's an implicit "for the daily-driver personal/work desktop envrionment" in this context.
Been using linux as main OS for 12 years, so for some it is most definitely ready now. I game on it (among other stuff).
But, I keep a dual boot Win10 around (same as yours), which i use once is a blue moon for compat reasons (very occasionally wine can't do the job).
Linux is ready now
Even moreso if you're willing to pay $100 to $300 annually for a pro desktop license.
$300 for 24/7 1 hour response time from Ubuntu is a steal.