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I know everyone here foams over Linux, and for good reason… but please remember the average user is a techno-fobe who struggles to find the start menu. Linux just isn’t an option for a lot of people. Windows has been around so long and feels familiar. Until there is a major demographic shift and ECE training on general computer use an basic troubleshooting… the majority of the population will stick with whatever arrives when they turn it on because “It’s what they know”.
If Linux is to take over it must come PRE-installed, Must be fully compatible (read: plug-n-play); even with the weird printer your aunt found in a garage sale, at-least feel familiar to the majority of users… and for corpos… run MS office (read: excel) natively.
Weird printer on windows 11, that’s not a thing. A weird printer in your CUPS server in Linux, totally a thing
I have never connected a printer to my network or via USB, clicked the add printer button, and was able to print on my first try.
Then I tried to add a printer on Fedora Linux.
Cant say never anymore.
Also Brother printers have their shit together for Linux drivers.
To Brother’s credit, this is also true for their windows drivers. As an IT admin, anytime I need a new printer they’re my preferred brand.
The more of us that buy computers with it preinstalled the more it signals that there is interest.
Popular brands offer it. I’m not saying you have to go buy, but you can also let people know it’s an option.
I bought an XPS Developer edition and when asked I explained that when Linux had support from the manufacturer it can be as reliable as their Macs, often even more reliable.
If Linux is to take over it must come PRE-installed, Must be fully compatible (read: plug-n-play); even with the weird printer your aunt found in a garage sale, at-least feel familiar to the majority of users… and for corpos… run MS office (read: excel) natively.
Or we could just not care if it “takes over”?
Even if Linux was and did all of those things – and many of them are already crossed off of the list – it may not “take over” and despite some corporate spend from some of the backing corporations, it’s not really a profit driven ecosystem. Linux doesn’t have to take over and do exactly what Microsoft does, Linux is just fine as is.
It actually is a profit-driven ecosystem, otherwise Mr Poettering’s creations would still be something as weird and unpopular as Leechcraft, if somebody remembers that software, and so would Gnome after 2.* and KDE after 3.*, and we would probably have something more interesting instead of Wayland as the coming X11 replacement, but you are right, waiting for the rest of the world to move to Linux before you do is an illogical position to say the least.
It’s not solely a profit-driven ecosystem is probably a better phrasing.
I’d argue it will be Android/iOS/ChromeOS over Windows, for better or for worse. This fucks over companies and governments than it does the average user, in aggregate.
I spend a few months here and there just using my iPad for everything I can (I got through my college degree with one a long time ago and it’s nostalgic for me), and it’s crazy to me how feature complete it is for most work flows. Exactly programming is an issue, for me, but I can create an STL to printing it all on device! Much less office and what not.
Yeah, you’re right. Also, how bad Windows 11 is is massively exaggerated, once my machine was set up, all I’ve done is remove a few programs like One Drive from loading on start, and it’s been fine.
I do need to figure out how to get rid of the news and weather thingy on the start menu, to be fair.
even with the weird printer your aunt found in a garage sale
Windows isn’t supporting that anymore either.
at-least feel familiar to the majority of users
Start menu is at the bottom left of the task bar, you can start Chrome from there.
Some random old printer is much more likely to be plug and play on Linux these days than it is on windows.
Seriously, I’ve had way more printer issues on Windows than linux.
Thank you Microsoft god bless I will stay on core 2 duo forever 🙏🙏
It would be safer to use a Linux flavor and run the apps you need using Wine/Proton…
Does it have Windows Aero?
KDE Plasma + Klassy can do that. I think you can pull off a Win7 look with just those two.
KDE Plasma can get you far with its customization options, and Klassy adds more customization on top of that, and adds the translucent/transparent effects you need to emulate the Win7 look.
Old Gnome2-era themes will always win out imo. I tried looking for neat Plasma themes but a lot of em are just very basic colour swaps, nothing out there
There is a KDE windows aero theme. The panels won’t mimic the start menu and bar perfectly. But it absolutely gives it an overall flavor.
The important questions. I miss aero so much.
Just a heads up while the look might be easy to emulate the feel part will at best be close. Which is actually good because a lot about that is rather shoddy in windows… and focussing on getting what you had with windows might make you miss stuff you didn’t think you wanted. Like MMB click on scrollbars, or dragging and resizing windows with Super+LMB/RMB
It has KDE, which I believe has something close to it.
Yup, Linux can look like whatever you want. I made my old Ubuntu install look like Windows 7 for the lulz once, but now I’m too lazy to change the defaults.
Linux but with windows xp installation music
I use this as my ringtone, have for several years
Aww yeah
I’ve seen someone with that on their Steam Deck. Don’t let your dreams be dreams.
But can it sort by penis?
Length or girth?
My dad’s bringing his PC to my house when they visit for Christmas so we can setup Linux as a dual boot for him to see if he can switch from Windows 10 to Linux instead of buying a new PC
My dad (in his mid 80s) told me proudly that he had just bought Linux and installed it on his computer. It’s great that he wanted to try Linux but I wonder what malware-riddled scam distro he found, and how I’ll sort it out on my next visit.
Maybe elementaryOS? There is a Purchase button on the site, with a pay-what-you-want option. If possible to enter 0 though.
Not sure if it was Mint or Ubuntu, but one of them shows a donation box with a default amount when you click download. It’s already downloading when the box shows up, but maybe he misinterpreted that.
I gave my distro dev $20 for the bragging rights. More than I ever paid for Windows.
You used to be able to buy physical media. And that may be what they’re talking about? Hard to say. For a long time this whole write it to a USB stick and install it was newfangled and not at all common. I 100% have a version of red hat in a box that I bought off a shelf of a local Best Buy back in the 90s. Yes you could have just downloaded and installed it or created your own install media. But having your own CD burners even weren’t that common at the time. I remember 1999 being when I got my first CD burner and how special that was lol. It seems almost quaint by today’s standards. And downloading wasn’t really an option either. 56 kilobits per second if you were lucky would have taken days and days. Now it’s just minutes over most broadband.
Can’t be that bad. Some distros accept donations. It just could be that he felt he was making a purchase rather than just a donation.
Hopefully it’s just something like this, not a scam.
Come back and let us know what you find out, please. If it’s a malicious distro, let us know the site so we can warn others.
Zorin has a pro tier that costs money but it’s supposed to have the look and feel of classic Windows - maybe it’s that?
Doesn’t Ubuntu and a few other distros still sell physical install discs?
They used to, but I don’t think they do anymore. In fact, I think they used to send one to you for free. I got an official Ubuntu install disk for free at college (someone was handing them out), and I’ve been on Linux ever since.
I do see Ubuntu install USBs on Amazon, but I wouldn’t trust those.
I ordered one years ago, still got it in the display cabinet but I’m sure it’s long rotted at this point.
Yeah, I wish I still had mine, it was from before I started hating Canonical. What a great piece of history that would’ve been.
But no, I threw it out like I did so many other things at the time, because having less stuff makes moving a ton easier.
I think my retiree parents (and in-laws) are going the same way. They only use their computer for email and search, and the options are just better.
I’ll have to ask my parents about it. They mostly just use a web browser, but they also occasionally use Word for writing Christmas letters and whatnot. I could probably get them to switch to LibreOffice, Google Drive, or Office365, but not completely sure about that. They are interested in getting a Chromebook, so I guess we’ll see what they end up needing.
I try not to force Linux on anyone, but I have brought it up before as a suggestion (they were complaining about their computer being slow, and ended up buying a new one). My dad really likes Windows, but they really don’t use anything Windows-specific other than Word anymore.
The used market is going to bomb if older machines can’t be setup with newer windows version.
All the better for us running Linux!
yes!
I think I can see 3 “new” laptops in my future!
‘incompatible’ hardware will be dirt cheap, and 8th gen or newer will sell for more than it would have otherwise–especially if tariffs jack prices up on new hardware.
i have a couple dozen older systems here. most were given to me before win11’s requirements were known. fixing and flipping them for a few bucks was a small but relatively steady income stream, but not anymore. hardly anyone wants them.
the couple that are new enough to be blessed by microsoft will be kept, and i’ll hang on to the better ones of the rest (like skylake, kaby lake) to put linux on. everything else will end up at ewaste recyclers even though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of them other than the fact that a profit and ‘shareholder value’ driven megacorp says they can’t be used anymore.
It’s fairly trivial to bypass Microsoft’s hardware requirements for windows 11 afaik. Just install via Rufus and click the relevant options. I agree with you that MS should have made these optional recommendations though, we shouldn’t have to use third party tools.
microsoft keeps tightening the screws; there’s no guarantee a loophole to do that will remain–but rather the opposite: they will disappear.
You can do that, but then the major updates MS pushes out twice a year won’t install via Windows Update anymore.
Maybe the tariffs will serve to cull a bit of the consumist impulse the US suffers of.
Regarding if a machine is desirable or not: I’m still seeing Windows XP machines being sold today for over 100€. No monitor, no peripherals, no nothing: just the machine. And people needing a machine to type a report, do a spreadsheet, do basic office work, with no other option, pay for it.
i run my machines until they stop working, period.
I’ll see you all on SteamOS in six months
Love Linux and steam deck, but AS IS, steam os is a horrible choice for a desktop general use computer.
It’s immutable without layering, so there are things that you can’t install/keep after an update. Case and point, printers. You can’t print, period. Valve knows, they don’t need a gaming device to print so they don’t care.
Hopefully they will do something about this, but I don’t hold my breath for 2025
They wont do anything about it because SteamOS is not and will never be a general purpose desktop OS. Its a gaming distro designed to do one thing and one thing well, game. It can do other things but its not meant to, kinda like a reverse MacOS.
Currently, you’re right. But it’s a bad move, I think, moving forward for valve.
They have already confirmed they want steamOS to be a distro everybody can install on any computer. Being more limited than most distros is going to make it a hard choice to pick. On the deck, it’s fine tuned to that hardware. What is going to offer that Bazzite won’t replicate a few months afterwards, while offering a better general OS experience?
I think that just having layers and a recovery partition that can restore the system while preserving steam games (even if removing all configs) would increase the appeal a lot.
I think printers is kinda going the way of having to support winmodems for Linux… Just not as important as it used to be.
Last time I printed something was for a pistol permit. 3 years ago. And I just sent that to Office Depot to print it, and picked it up on the way to the permit office.
Students at the local uni don’t really need printers, either. Generally, the few times they do, there’s public printers to email the doc to, and go pick up (Or, QR code and a phone, etc).
Personal printers just aren’t that big of a deal these days.
You might like Bazzite. Its like a general purpose version of SteamOS with layering and printers
My desktop is Bazzite and my htpc is Aurora (the non gaming version of Bazzite), so I have to agree with you haha
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-home-and-pro
Windows 10 Home and Pro
Retirement Date: Oct 14, 2025
Sounds like 2025 is gonna be a good year for PC manufacturers.
I’m waiting for the planned obsidence lawsuit myself
the wut?
The planned obstinance lawsuit.
I still don’t know what you are talking about and I’m not trying to be stubborn
My bad, I thought you were making a joke about Pika saying “planned obsidence” instead of “planned obsolescence.” I did not realize you were making a genuine inquiry.
Planned obsolescence is when businesses intentionally design a product to become useless after a period of time.
For example, imagine a high end camera company that also sells replacement parts. They change their lens shape every model, and only keep the most recent models’ lenses in production. When an older model’s lens inevitably breaks, the customer cannot buy a replacement, and thus has pressure to buy s new camera, and the company hopes that most customers will buy from them again.
We see this in tech with smartphone companies only giving OS updates for a few years, causing older phones to go end of life, so even if the phone is fully functional it needs to be replaced. Again, the company hopes the customer will again buy from them rather than going to a competitor (who is likely running the same scheme.)
OP suggests Microsoft’s TPM requirement is there to force new computer sales, which will include a purchase of a Windows 11 OEM license bundled with the PC.
With sales from companies? Yes. With sales from average consumers? Maybe not. Depends on what they can afford. There’s people out there still using things like windows 7. If the computer still works they’re unlikely to upgrade unless they care about having the newest stuff.
A friend of mine just messaged me, that we cannot play a few selected games anymore, as his notebook was acting up. Upon further investigation I found out, that he is still running Windows 8.1 and cannot use Steam anymore, since Steam support on Windows 8.1 ended about a year ago and a Chrome update “finally” broke Steam on windows 8.1 a few weeks ago.
My mom only upgraded from her original surface pro running windows 8 when my siblings and I bought her a surface pro 7. She watches Netflix and checks her email and plays like plants vs zombies and solitaire. Some people really do live by the rule of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.
They don’t need the hardware to run an OS. They need the hardware to run their AI shit for reasons nobody ever needs - except Microsoft.
So maybe it is not Microsoft closing the door for older hardware, but older hardware closing the door for Windows 11?
They need the hardware to run their AI shit
The requirement is for TPM, not parallel processing hardware. It provides trusted hardware, facilitates things like DRM.
There are tons of low and medium boards that provide TPM, and they don’t suffice, IIRC.
Did you read the article text? It’s specifically discussing how Microsoft will not relax the requirement for TPM 2.0.
Which is on the market for more than six years now. That was my point. It does not only need TPM2.0, it also needs CPU and RAM in regions that are way more recent than TPM2.0
The CPU is due to instruction set requirements. The first version of W11 is technically compatible (with hack to pass the checks) with older CPUs than the newer versions. And it’s not Gusty’s guaranteed that there ones that currently can run it will do it after a few updates.
I hate it, and they could have done things to allow more compatibility, but it’s not without a technical reason.
…
I feel that this is diverging from your original comment, but okay, Windows 11 – as with all prior releases of Windows – has minimum CPU and memory requirements. That isn’t what the article text is discussing, but fair enough.
But I don’t see any association with that and AI. This isn’t parallel processing hardware being discussed.
But I don’t see any association with that and AI. This isn’t parallel processing hardware being discussed.
The one big eater of CPU power in future Windows will most likely be AI. Most of which will probably be useless for the user, which is a common problem with Windows “features” in recent years.
I can easily see a Microsoft AI engine churning the users data in order to determine which ads to serve - in the start menu, the screen backgrouns, the login screen, or as blatant popups. If people notice that such a thing is seriously eating into their machines’ power, they will try harder to kill this. Therefor it is the interest of Microsoft that the user has more than enough power. And this is just one example.
This feels like such a fuck you to working class. People can’t afford another layer of these costs right now.
… This is bait right? You want somebody to tell you there’s a simple and free solution, and then you’re going to say it’s a bad solution?
FINE! I’ll bite: Pirated copy of Windows Enterprise LTSC. It’s less useful, more resource hungry, privacy invasive and has worse support for older hardware than Linux though.
Objectively speaking Linux is not a Windows replacement, its a minix replacement and competes with FreeBSD. Not everyone wants Linux and tbh I wouldnt reccomend Linux to most people.
AcKsHuAlLy!!!
I’m very interested on a longer explanation of this take, considering how many people use Linux as a replacement for windows.
And if the argument is “not everything that runs on windows works on Linux”, remember that can be said with windows vs Mac, iOS vs android and even windows 10 vs windows 11.
Objective is a very strong word there. “[OS] Replacement” could mean any number of things.
They’re “technically” correct. That’s what Torvalds initially created it as. But what it initially was, and now is are very different things. I’m sure they would call OSX a BSD replacement and not a Windows replacement. Despite many people replacing windows with it. It’s pedantically obtuse.
Right now the biggest wall from wider consumer adoption of Linux. Is honestly, simply the lack of systems offered to consumers with it. Outside of a few games with kernel level anti cheat. Or highly proprietary specialized softwares. There’s very little that you cannot currently do on Linux that you can do on Windows.
Your Average user/consumer doesn’t install any operating system. Whether it is Windows Linux or Mac OS. They simply run what the computer came with. And that’s always been windows unless it is an Apple computer. That’s part of what the 1999 antitrust suit would have sought to remedy. Microsoft punished any company that had dared to even offer systems with Linux for a long time. And nothing was ever really done to stop it.
I’m sure they would call OSX a BSD replacement
No they wouldn’t. That’s Linux, among other things, because when it was gaining popularity, BSDs were defending from lawsuits and rewriting litigious parts belonging to AT&T (that is, preserved from original Unix sources).
Right now the biggest wall from wider consumer adoption of Linux. Is honestly, simply the lack of systems offered to consumers with it. Outside of a few games with kernel level anti cheat. Or highly proprietary specialized softwares. There’s very little that you cannot currently do on Linux that you can do on Windows.
No. Actually no, that’s not the biggest wall.
Under modern Windows you can run software compiled for Windows XP. Under Linux you’ll have a lot of sex with your system before achieving that kind of backwards compatibility.
Since you mentioned BSDs, and they are similar to Linux in daily usage, with FreeBSD you may install compat4x, compat5x and so on packages and run rather old binaries. FreeBSD version of Opera browser (yep, they made a FreeBSD version), which was a binary from Opera Software, didn’t receive an update since 2013 and till 2021 and it was in working condition.
This wall for your typical Windows user is hard to describe. They are doing something the only normal way they understand and are told that they are holding it wrong. Say, they install a package for the previous major version of their distribution. Or just try to run some binary downloaded from somewhere and it tells them angry things about libc version and possibly other libraries.
Also the “advanced” things under Linux are not usable for many people, and the “user-friendly” things are complex and buggy.
Of course, Windows users also would really like to use their familiar Windows applications, but that’s not as important, Wine solves a lot of it.
Drag would recommend Linux to everyone, except for the very small minority who plan to install a non-Linux OS on their android phones.
Written from a mobile phone powered by a minix replacement.
Also from my laptop that’s running on Alpine Busybox/Linux
Working class doesn’t have time to do this research and just needs a working machine
Working class doesn’t have the money to change to machine either.
So, what’s the advice that you would give you working class? Pay, pirate or learn?
Working class people at large don’t know about these alternatives, I’m certain you know that. IT folk and nerds alike do, but anyone outside of these circles don’t necessarily see the choice they have
Working class people at large don’t know about these alternatives,
You mean only the elite know about Linux? Preposterous!
*proceeds to clean monocle
Jokes aside, it might be a good time to teach and learn. Or pay, or have less security moving forward.
It was a staple of the “working class” to be resourceful, to know to repair stuff. It’s on Microsoft best interest that you change the computer, that you pay another OEM license, that they can drop support for older hardware… And this will happen again with windows 12.
Those people that don’t know options exist are also people that don’t care about or know about support life for something like the OS - they just see it as what the computer comes with. Most of them probably wouldn’t have upgraded from 7 to 10 without it just doing it itself. A lot of them will just keep using 10 well past the end of support.
Also, I really enjoyed Railcar’s subversion of expectations with all that lead up to what we all assumed was a Linux recommendation to end up being pirated windows. That got a chuckle out of me. I feel like the haters didn’t get the joke.
I feel like the haters didn’t get the joke.
Their computer didn’t come with sense of humor pre-installed, and it’s too hard to do it themselves.
Yay!
blessing in disguise. at least you can build a system so poorly that 10 won’t be forcefully upgraded on you.
Fyi you can install it without TPM 2 hardware, if using Rufus to create the installer, you can just tick an option to remove tpm forcing.
That’s if you want to keep using Windows after 2025 on a 7+ year old hardware.
Not endorsing it, just saying you can, at no extra cost.
That’ll work until they actually make it do something with the TPM.
I bet in 3 years they’ll require an AI accelerator.
I bet in 3 years they’ll require an AI accelerator.
You’re right, better get out now!
As far as I’m aware TPM 2 pretty much does with hardware, what is otherwise software emulated. It’s more efficient and secure when using something like bitlocker etc. Everything should work, just is more suspectible to tampering and malware.
if you want to risk random update potentially bricking your computer or at least your os breaking, not worth it
Another shitty decision from Redmond.
Why have we stopped talking about how the $15 TPU can make upgrading older systems possible? Does that not work anymore?
I think they also prevent most CPU released before 2017ish from installing as well so computers just missing the proper TPM are few and far between anyway. You can still get around all the requirements pretty easily though.
My Ryzen 1700 system was prevented from upgrading and it met the TPM requirement, it just wasn’t whitelisted. That CPU was released in 2017, and that whole gen was pretty popular (1600 sold like hotcakes). I think anything newer should work though.
That said, my primary OS is Linux anyway, so it doesn’t matter, this is just an install on my other disk in case I need something Windows-specific (haven’t needed it in years).
I think anything newer should work though.
I’ve got a Ryzen 3700X and my computer told me it couldn’t do the upgrade, either.
Your CPU is supported. It’s probably just a matter of enabling the fTPM (firmware TPM) option in your motherboard’s BIOS settings, which would satisfy Windows 11’s TPM “requirement”.
Dang. Is your board in the 300-series? Maybe it’s that?
I haven’t checked, but I think my 5600 is compatible. Maybe I’ll check sometime, but I’m not looking forward to the mountain of patches I’ll need just by booting into it again.
Linux adoption intensifies
Maybe in a decade from now Linux will achive 7.5% market share, maybe
You only need about 15% for commercial support.
Microsoft really playing into the bit. This is all just hype for Windows 12
That’s fine, I’ve closed the door on supporting Microsoft. They could have just charged for the ‘upgrade’ and that would have been better since it wouldn’t result in the colossal amount of e-waste that this is creating. Even without the forced obsolescence, their products have become hostile, invasive and generally just a PITA to use. Meanwhile Linux distros are knocking it out of the park lately.
I really don’t know what Microsoft are thinking. They haven’t made particularly good strides towards gaining any kind of goodwill, so once it becomes common knowledge that alternatives not only exist but actually show them up, those lost customers are people that they will never get back. Look how pathetic their marketshare is for Edge for example, even though it’s the default browser on Windows. They still haven’t been able to shake off the bad stigma that Internet Explorer had (and to be fair, they aren’t doing people any favours with Edge either).
The new Outlook is fucking awful.
How did they fuck up email? Just put them all on the left and let me read and move them in the fewest clicks possible.
also trying to add more emails to outlook. How do you fuck that up. You only get the options for suggested emails or new email creation.
If you go to Google and search for xview mailtool screenshots, you might realize just how fucked up today’s email UIs are.
