Microsoft, doing it’s part to make the world a better place.
I built a new PC last year and bought a copy of Windows 11. Holy moly the login process required so much bullshit that I skipped through. It also every few days tries to get me to go through it again. After learning about all the Spyware and other bullshit I decided to just take the plunge back into using Linux as a main OS.
Reject Windows, emabrace Linux and FOSS Software
Why would you send 240 million PCs to the landfill when you can install Linux on all of them?
Windows 11 can suck my stinky cock. Windows will successfully force my LAZY ass to Linux. I am already testing the waters with my laptop.
For us Linux users it’s just a fire sale. Diet cheap PCs incoming.
This is why I switched over to Mac back in 2022. I knew that I didn’t want to move forward with Windows but had to get a new computer anyways. I already have an iPhone and a Mac Mini M1 was only $700. Thanks Microsoft for forcing a Windows user of 30 years away from your OS.
This is such an old article at this point. PCs don’t get sent to the landfill because the OS isn’t supported anymore. That’s idiotic.
No it won’t.
240 million grandmas, cheapskate businesses, and cash-strapped public schools will continue to use whatever operating system their computers already have, forever, until they break, security implications be damned.
This is a huge business opportunity for someone with the know-how. They should offer a consulting service that does the following:
- Catalogs the software your company is using.
- Identifies which ones have native Linux versions, which ones work well under WINE, and which ones will need to be replaced with either a different native application or an online equivalent.
- Installs and configures Linux with a Windows-like UI on your old systems, and gets them set up with the replacement software.
Offer a support contract that severely undercuts anything Microsoft is
gougingselling. Offer basic training, too.Anyone who does that can make bank.
I feel the issue is if you’re successful with this idea and get on radar of Microsoft, they will make sure to snatch away all deals from you by bidding even lower. They have money to lose. Small firms generally don’t.
Would also need to get a burner phone number w/ answering machine to take calls from 240 million grandmas, cheapskate businesses and cash-strapped public schools for any & all tech support questions until the end of time, because if there was an issue with system stability in any way whatsoever, or if the router went down or the printer stopped working, they’d assume it was the fault of ‘the guy who changed everything’.
Linux is great & everything, but this sounds like a recipe for utter disaster, not a way to make an easy buck.
Easy fix: don’t offer support
More expensive easy fix: contract with a call center in India to do “support” for you.
I can’t agree with this more. People like to sell Linux as a magic bullet, but it does not and will not everything everyone needs without maintenance and people really like to hand wave or downplay that need.
Sure, you could find a solution for what they’re using now. What happens when they need something else and they’re so tech illiterate that they don’t even know what you did to their machine? They wouldn’t even know how to install new software, and if they did, they wouldn’t know they need to click the Linux version, etc. It’s not always about feasibility and available options, it’s often about the fact that people just won’t fucking know what to do. Even if you assume there are enough options available, they won’t know how to do so.
And every step Microsoft takes to shoot themselves in the foot, and every step Linux takes to make this easier, everyone comes screaming about how much this could change things.
But until Linux has a HUGE market share - like in the 30-70 percent range - developers are not going to take it seriously and alleviate this process. Even with how well MacOS does, this is not even a solved problem entirely there - there are still hang ups and still software that doesn’t get released for mac. Linux would have to pass where Apple is today for this to become remotely accessible to an every day person.
And even THEN there’s the question of different Linux distros.
I lived in this town and there was this"computer and pawn" place. They did this to people’s computers. I constantly had people come into the computer place I worked at very confused. Not knowing why they needed a password to install things, where is Microsoft office, how do I print, etc. Most of these people didn’t have the money to put windows back on, but, those that did, did real quick. All this did was scare people away. If we started replacing Linux on people’s computers it needs to come with a intro tech support plan and a short intro class explaining the basics.
At this point the people that benefit the most easily are those who only need email, Web browsing and or are old. People who work off their machine are going to use Windows and that former demographic usually just use their phones or a tablet now. At least in the US
Most people only need internet access. Look at Chromebooks.
While I don’t really disagree, look at the market share of Chromebooks. If “most people” only needed internet access, “most people” would be on Chromebooks by now. It’s not like they’re unknown anymore.
Not really how the market works. Inertia is huge, brand image (Apple) is huge, social pressure (Apple) is huge, simply not knowing is huge. The newcomer always has the disadvantage to get converts. (Not to mention many of the people that only need internet have iPads only.)
Yes, but Chromebooks are far from “newcomers” these days. They’ve been out a while. Many people who grew up using them in schools are now making their own purchasing decisions, etc.
Yeah hard pass.
Will I take advantage of the heavily discounted used market this causes? Maybe. (Assuming they manage to actually convince people they should move to 11, which also sucks.) But there’s good reason not to be IT for people who can’t manage it themselves. It’s a huge headache.
That’s actually a decent idea if people are using boilerplate windows software. Unfortunately institutional software is unlikely to cross over, and even if similar software can be found to replace private users’ needs, there is going to be resistance to change. This doesn’t even touch anyone using specialized software. The resistance will be commensurate with the differences in workflow and usage between the windows and Linux software.
I mean, the whole point is people don’t want to change. The only way you’d win people over easily is directly cloning their windows setup.
And there’s a cost to that change. Reduced performance. Could easily be measured in lost $ or increased costs.
Yeah, and it’s likely way less costly to the company to just buy a new win 11 computer than it is to pay an employee to train on new software. Not to mention the cost of paying someone to find someone to do a Linux conversion, paying the person doing the conversion, and the loss of productivity as the person learns. Not to mention the cost of changing IT infrastructure, hiring new IT people to manage those machines, etc.
There’s a reason companies don’t just switch at the drop of the hat. There’s too much commitment and institutional knowledge already and moving is not a simple change.
Companies won’t pay. Even SMB.
There’s way too much stuff that only runs on windows, their users are used to windows.
You’re telling them to spend a lot of money to transition, and take on a lot of risk.
It just ain’t gonna happen.
Look at the current VMware issue to see what companies will do.
Anyone who does that can make bank.
See, the key flaw in your plan is expecting companies to shell out to upgrade their systems. Putting aside organizations who’s infrastructure can’t realistically transfer to a new system without scrapping it entirely, pretty much every business will run their systems until they have literally no other choice (ie it is functionally unusable/affecting sales) instead of “losing money” upgrading. MS stopping updates won’t push them over that line, at least not for a while.
… pretty much every business will run their systems until
Cousin Vinny gives them a little taste of ransomware and reminds them your upgrade plan is actually a great deal
Meh, ransomware won’t really drive an upgrade plan. That’s what backup is for.
Any business incompetent enough to get owned by ransomware without a recovery plan isn’t exactly the type with $ to spare for a migration.
I mean, yeah, if ethics are no barrier, you could probably make it work, hah. That said, there are much better money makers at that point than being tech support for businesses to switch to Linux.
ROFL, and for a half of that cost and none of the risk, companies will just drop in new windows computers and keep the status quo…
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@FonsNihilo @kescusay this is painfully true. I remember some well meaning techies wired up an entire lab for the school district once, included free repurposed PCs running Linux. Didn’t take long before the district paid HP to take all of it away and give us the crappiest speced machines tax money could buy. But hey, that deal gave the football team money to AstroTurf the field (with a donation from HP)🤦♂️
Your post reminded me. I worked tech support for years at an ISP and we would not help people with Linux systems. Only Windows or Macs. Android on a cell but only help with connecting to Wi-Fi and very basic settings up email if they used the ISP email.
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Support is a major cost/pain point, that Linux pushers just don’t get.
They’ve never worked in enterprise (or hell, even in SMB IT). Moving from windows Hu doesn’t make sense. It’s a lot if cost, up front, to take on lots of risk.
I’m not sure Linux will ever significantly compete with Windows for the desktop. At a minumim it would require a single shell to become dominant, in addition to all the compatibility issues you mention.
Then there’s management: Windows has SCOM, with a well-established app packaging/distribution model, settings config, user management (AD/Exchange), etc, etc.
Linux is fantastic as a base OS for other stuff. Like Proxmox/TrueNAS, or to use as a server with containerized services. There’s a million ways Linux is the answer, a much better one, than Windows - largely in the server/services hosting realm
You never used Linux then. There are well defined packages in the way Windows is trying to get with their store apps and chocolatey can mimic if you build the packages. You could also look up containers, flatpaks etc. Similar to how Windows has msis and store apps and exes.
Linux has Foreman plus puppet. Or chef or Ansible. You can also use those on Windows.
The idea that a company could not decide their shell standards or their support company or people for Linux is like saying they can’t handle the competition in fleet vehicles or cloud providers or pen companies.
Like he said as the second sentence of his comment…
You’ve never worked in enterprise then.
These solutions are skipping the majority of the core problems he mentioned. And even the problem you’re trying to solve here isn’t even fully solved by this solution. You’re taking a narrow sliver of one point in his argument and arguing about that and just tossing out the rest. Even if we accepted your proposal, Linux still isn’t enough of an answer here.
What are the core problems I am skipping? That people like to bitch about Microsoft just like they bitch about gas prices but don’t take any steps to address the issue?
Look we suck it up on Windows for very specific legacy software, but every year more and more LoB apps are web apps, either we write them that way or they’re cloud versions. These all work fine on Linux and Mac, you do not need Windows.
We are even seeing companies like Autodesk provide some products on Mac, and there are competitors on Linux too.
If you actually used Microsoft in the enterprise you would also be up to speed on how they are pushing against “over management” of the fleet, and you should just use update rings and intune and stop wasting time with SCCM / MCM / Whatever it’s called this year. This argument about managibility is Microsoft 2005, not Microsoft 2025. Linux has more management now than Microsofts modern management suite, by design. And if you’re using 3rd party to fix that on windows, you are not just fighting Microsoft but you can not then disregard 3rd party on Linux.
The problem with this argument is not that I am saying you can do everything you can do with Windows on Linux, just like there’s a lot you can’t do on Windows you can on Linux. I am saying that it’s practically like Dodge vs Toyota trucks. There’s way more of an overlap than people like to admit.
Maybe there is a specific app you all are thinking of that you need Windows for, but I don’t actually think the average person needs Windows anymore except inertia. And the needs are going down as more stuff is cloud available.
Lol, ok, sure,right.
Show me a company that’s willing to take the risks you’re talking about. Because it may work today, but what happens tomorrow when they acquire another company with systems that simply aren’t linux-friendly
Laughable.
Go home, let the adults talk. Kids like you always come in with grandiose ideas thinking everyone else just doesn’t “get it”. No, we’ve seen these ideas, but there are risks, requirements, etc that you simply aren’t aware of, yet in your hubris think you know better.
“Never used Linux”, really son? Had my first UNIX class when you were shitting in your diaper, and was doing Fortran on a Sperry Rand UNIVAC well before you were born.
Any other snarky comebacks?
Oh, Linux now has package management… Like Windows did pretty much 30 years ago. Wow, yea, you really told me.
Now wait, when you pull a package, which shell is it expecting? How are dependencies controlled in your business environment? Oh, you have to build that in your distribution system? Why would anyone switch, do all that work, when they already have a Windows infrastructure that does the same?
Oh, wait, where’s CAD? How about supporting, software with license dongles that control CNC machines? Oh, yea, practically no vendor supports Linux this way.
Are you paying for all your users to learn a new system? How about all the poor performance from end users because things work differently now?
How about the thousands of spreadsheets in a company that now get mangled by Open/Libre, let alone the inability of either to handle tables (which basically every Excel spreadsheet has).
Tell me, what do you do when you meet that must-have app, with zero choice (say, regulatory compliance) that lacks a Linux option. Oh, and doesn’t like RDP?
Let’s go into a legal environment and push Linux… Oh you’ll love that.
The way you overlook basically everything speaks volumes.
I’ve been hearing “Year of the Linux Desktop” since, well, forever. After 25 years it still ain’t happened.
Have you used a modern version of Linux or Windows? You can basically use most Linuxes like Android with a guide app store, and there’s almost no way to break it. Windows also will still let you be admin and let you break it. Neither is particularly easy to break anymore.
Peripherals certainly do not just work on Windows. More and more I fight with getting anything to work on a clean Windows OS install. First I have to go find a network driver and copy it via USB. Then hope Windows will find drivers from there, which often it doesn’t get good ones for say Nvidia. Printers often take me to the manufacturer website and hope. For things like mice or Wi-Fi adapters Linux just works, same hunt for less standard stuff.
Maybe I just deal with a wider array of hardware but to say it plug and play on windows and not Linux is just not true.
For someone who just uses Facebook…there is no learning Linux. I moved my mom from XP to XFCE and Firefox just copied right over. She has a lot less issues with Enterprise Linux than she did with XP and Facebook still just works like 8 years later.
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I think you don’t have any idea on what modern Linux desktop is doing. For most people, installing any sort of drivers on Linux is something of the past. If you use a beginner’s friendly distro like Linux Mint or PopOS stuff like Nvidea drivers will be taken care of or you’re guided through it. Mint offers Timeshift out of the box and guides you to set it up for easy restores may you break your system one day (or an update does).
In theory, the store has virtually every application your version supports and that you ever want to use. No hunting on the internet etc. With Flatpaks, even dependency issues (however rare nowadays) are essentially a thing of the past. The user doesn’t need to know what that means, they can just click install on their application store as they’re already familiar with on their mobile device.
Doing more “complicated” stuff and breaking it is just simply your fault then. I have worked end user customer support and repair for a few years and shit like that happens all the time on Windows. Very few clean or wholly functional Windows installations I have seen. The UAC just presents you “yes/no” and install whatever the fuck you want. People click yes on everything.
I have a little headphone amp that has always been a huge fight to get to work on Windows with its drivers, but on Linux I later realized, wait, it just worked. Since Windows 10 drivers have been much better on Windows too, credit where it is due.
Linux has made enormous strides the last couple of years of becoming more general user friendly. And it’s only getting better.
Does this mean it’s all roses and happiness? No, of course not. Once a driver doesn’t quite work and you don’t have the Mint driver utility to help you out it’s a bit of a pain. You don’t need the CLI on desktop at all nowadays, but guides on how to do things usually are, because it’s universal. Problem is, the CLI scares people. Linux DEs are not Windows. It’s simply not the same, however much Mint is friendly to it, or Zorin’s efforts, it’s still different. There’s no hardware compatibility guarantees on any system, if you’re not using a Tuxedo, System76 or Framework system. App compatibility and sometimes there’s no app available. Wine and Bottles work pretty well, but that’s a little more advanced.
It’s not a drop-in replacement. That’s just how it is.
In an enterprise and business environment it’s still tricky. For personal use for a user that will happily use a Chromebook, they can use a suitable Linux distro (that’s literally what ChromeOS is btw, it being able to run Android apps was added later, it’s not Android). Yeah, don’t install Arch or god forbid, Gentoo lmao (unless you wanna have a laugh). If they do email, web-browsing, etc, and they are okay with some change, then Mint will most likely serve them pretty well.
Also, Linux runs Chrome just fine? However much it pains me, I can even install Edge right from the store lol.
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I understand what you were trying to say just fine and have responded to all of it. You choosing to ignore it doesn’t make that less so.
Literally the statement was just Facebook. She doesn’t install software, nor did she on Windows. She uses Facebook. She never used Explorer so Firefox on XP to Firefox on Linux was no learning. The performance was better on Linux.
I have corrupted Windows plenty of times over the years. You’re just used to Windows so intuitively know how to fix it or not break it again.
The problem with modern computers is many don’t take a ethernet cable. They only have Wi-Fi. Maybe you are buying ones speced with a NIC but that’s a special order for most laptops, and likewise I can special order for Linux.
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The point is, if you buy a pre set up laptop with Linux the drivers are pre installed too. You cannot take a clean Linux install and not compare to a clean Windows install.
As to my Mom, she didn’t set up Windows either. In either case you’re paying someone to set it up if you’re like her. Just because you already learned Windows doesn’t make Linux harder, just different. Do you think an enterprise is not going to have IT in both cases? It’s not like the users are setting anything.
Have you used a modern version of Linux or Windows? You can basically use most Linuxes like Android with a guide app store, and there’s almost no way to break it. Windows also will still let you be admin and let you break it. Neither is particularly easy to break anymore.
It’s still something that can happen. I’ve run into an issue trying to install Ubuntu onto a PC which worked fine on the live USB but installed the incorrect Nvidia driver and ended up failing to boot. Took me a whole day, even as a software engineer, to fix it and even then, that’s just to get it to display, I had to do a lot more digging to even get CUDA to run on it since I was still using an incorrect driver. I’m fine with that but I can’t imagine most people are.
Even if Windows doesn’t get the best driver for the job, more often than not it will still somewhat function for the hardware that most people use.
It’s a lot better than it used to be but there’s still issues here and there. For the average user, better the devil you know than the one you don’t.
Well it’s not like Windows hasn’t bricked some pcs with their driver updates. It does just happen sometimes. The argument I’m making is if I went to Burger King and every time I went I was disappointed in the food quality, price and speed of service I would eventually risk Wendys.
Heck my family was GM but after years of breakdowns and getting stranded by 3 different GM cars and weird / bad performance in a 4th, we changed car manufacturers.
Sometimes you ought to give up on the Devil you know if it’s costing you too much money and time.
On an individual level, having a computer is better than not having one. Even if you need a different OS.
On a societal level, we should want to limit both ewaste and insecure OSs. We could legislate MS and other vendors not to do what Microsoft is doing here. But we probably don’t want to legislate updates for 20 years or something. (maybe we do IDK). The more likely thing is kicking known EOL OSs off the internet, but then we’re back to ewaste.
I think your info is out of date, at least from what I see. Schools are going to Chromebooks because that’s all the budget allows. I think it’s going to be scary when these kids enter the workforce and can’t use Windows office.
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Sigh, yes everyone knows that ChromeOS is built on linux. That’s not what people mean when they say running linux.
AFAIK Chromebooks can run Office 365 (the online one, whatever it’s called now). Microsoft had to do that to try to keep Office relevant and accessible.
How do you break away from something you were programmed to use?
You don’t, you get the next generation to use your product first. They start with chromebooks in elementary school now. That’s the first computer kids will have and likely have all the way to grade 12 for school (after that is who knows what). Kids today will be programmed to use Chromebooks, not windows. That’s my point.
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yeah, other than the obvious “haha-ing in Linux” (which… I also use Linux) - the REAL answer is people will just keep using the outdated Windows until THAT computer dies it’s natural death.
Also third world countries where people can’t afford to spend their yearly salary on a mouse.
When that time comes, would that create a period of insane amounts of scams?
Yes.
ChromeOS has entered the chat
I wish you were right. Instead what we will likely see is an increase in year to year E-waste until the majority is phased out into land fills.
I dunno, computers aren’t like phones where your provider is offering you incentives to chuck your old one every 2 years. There’ll be an increase of waste from businesses for sure, but I think most people don’t really pay attention to their security updates and will just keep using their pcs until they need a newer one for personal reasons (playing newer games, old one bricked, etc)
My 76 y/o spouse loves Linux Mint. The 2017-bought desktop was deemed insufficient for Windows 11 and now runs Mint.
If all they use is a web browser and solitaire then putting them on Linux is super easy. Got my dad on Mint for years now. I recommend KPatience for solitaire needs.
Windows
10XPTook this picture a couple of days ago:
i saw a kiosk once booting opensuse
JSYK a lot of embedded devices use XP and 7, and some of those manufacturers pay for extended support. The military also pays for extended support for XP
But yeah, most of those devices are not patched and vulnerable AF.
I always laugh at, after being in the military and a government employee, things being marketed as military grade. So what, it runs on windows server 2003 and hasn’t been in production for 20 years?
My mother-in-law ran an Army reserve center in the 1990s. They were still using DOS once XP came out because the Army wouldn’t pay for the upgrade.
From what little I’ve seen, there’s a divide between old and new tech.
Like how headset visual tracking for attack copters was a thing already back when Nintendo released the Virtual Boy, alongside the fact that there is still equipment in service running software that had to be millennium bug patched.
I was aware of that, but had imagined that newer machines would have slowly migrated to something else. I’m also always astonished by the fact these are running full OSes.
No manufacturer wants to take the risk to reinvent a wheel that may be less secure.
I mean, yeah it would be ideal of the manufacturer created their own OS but I also know that nearly everyone hires the cheapest, least skilled devs for projects like this.
And not all of them are full OSs, XP had a bunch of creative ways you could remove system components to make basically a kiosk with almost no other functions.
0patch offers microcode patching for EOL windows systems, I have a subscription for my Win7 gaming box and will be getting one for my win10 daily driver, because FUCK win11.
It’s a good company, they’ve won several bounties from Microsoft for 0-day fixes and have had their code published in official microsoft updates.
I’m seriously thinking of trying Linux when Windows 11 is forced. My computer has the specs to run it, but I’m just tired of Windows and Microsoft.
Do yourself a favor and do it now. Maybe then you’ll be able to help others move to Linux who haven’t done so before.
… Linux can run on a potato.
Pretty much all computers have the specs to run linux. Of some flavor.
Or you could try Tiny11, which is basically Windows 11 but much less Microsofty 😉
Then don’t hesitate! You could easily install both side by side, in case you need some Windows exclusive software.
I have switched a dell laptop that windows 10 didn’t support to pop os. (It was 7 years old) My whole family has used it for a few years to do everything without any issues. Ironically I have had problems with the Pop OS install on my newer more powerful machine.
Yeah I’m not as much of a fan of PopOS as I thought I’d be. I have it on my daily driver laptop, and every system update seems to introduce some wacky bug/glitch or another. Nothing major, just random small annoyances that usually get fixed in the next update.
It dual boots Pop and Debian, and Debian performs flawlessly. It’s a Thinkpad, so Linux support has always been fantastic. I’m thinking of just dropping the PopOS partition and going back to my original love, Debian.
I’m seriously thinking of trying Linux when Windows 11 is forced.
Sorry for the uncalled advice, but if you’re considering it, you might as well try it now. Specially in ways that don’t limit your access to Windows, such as live USB and dual boot (Windows and Linux in the same machine, at the same time). So if you do decide “I’m ditching Windows”, in the future, you’ll have an easier time doing so.
Yup. Don’t wait until the W11 upgrade is imminent. Start it now, so you have a year of experience under your belt and can help your friends switch too when they’re forced to upgrade.
The only thing stopping me from switching over to Mint is procrastination.
Unless you run some really niche software or are a heavy gamer, you’ll likely have no problems and enjoy it. Most software that you need for daily use has a FOSS equivalent that’s equal or better. Usually those are also available straight from the package manager (if not there, then most likely Flatpak).
Just stick with a well supported distro like Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, or PopOS, and it’ll be super easy.
I’m actually looking forward to the perfectly good Linux boxes that are bound to be popping up at yard sales or on ebay once that happens.
I’m kind of a power user.
Gaming. Multimedia (Video, Image, Audio). Application development. Web development. Getting into cybersecurity, so using a lot of VMs. Watching videos.
I’ve been making a Linux transition. So far, the stuff I still need to iron out:
-Adobe. Make it work somehow or replace. Can use it on a windows VM 🤷♂️. Happy to replace because fuck em. Working through options.
-VST managers for digital audio workstation. Most aren’t on Linux (spitfire audio, iZotope, IK multimedia, iLok). Haven’t begun trying to make them work. I e heard most can be configured in WINE.
-old MIDI program not working. No audio for MIDI. One program works, another doesn’t 🤔
That’s it. Everything else is working. Big challenges Ive had:
-bluetooth gaming controller took a lot of effort. Works great now.
-Epic games through heroic… Through steam on Linux… Through remote play on my phone… That was difficult. But it works!!
-remote desktop troubleshooting. Works fine now.
Oh and I can’t get windows subsystem for Linux to work in my windows VM on my Linux machine. 🤷♂️
windows subsystem for Linux to work in my windows VM on my Linux machine.
Ignoring the blasphemy of that, the fact it doesn’t work may prove that we are, indeed, living in a simulated universe. lol
Hahaha, right, right.
Most users would get lost on a Linux box, even with the truly great user-friendly distros today. I use a few for testing and things like LXC, and it’s still frustrating at times - and I started with UNIX 35 years ago.
You’re seriously over estimating the capability of most users.
People can’t find controls in Windows when I guide them.
I suggest Mint for new users (and lazy old users like me). All of the simplicity of Ubuntu, without Canonical’s shit
What about Arch? I was told:
mint is garbage. The only thing easier about mint or any of those “noob friendly” distros is the initial install
any time you want to do anything outside of its strict little ecosystem it becomes a massive headache
arch’s wiki is unparalleled
Sounds like neckbeard bullshit honestly, Mint is just fine. Arch is “better” if you like tinkering
Mint is for people who generally don’t want to do weird shit, which is most new users. If you do, it’s not any harder than doing it on Ubuntu or Debian.
If you want in-depth tinkering, go with Arch. If you want newer packages than a Debian base but not necessarily much tinkering, go with Tumbleweed. You’re just going to have to learn a different package manager for each.
I personally am most comfortable in an environment that has
apt, and I don’t change much on my systems, so Mint is nice. My servers are straight Debian
I almost went back to Mint on my last rebuild, but ended up going with Debian + Cinnamon. So far so good.
Not a good choice for people who want to play games. Debian focuses on stability so their packages are typically outdated.
Ah, so them Arch is the way to go.
Any rolling distro that you enjoy is the way to go here I suppose. I’d also hitch my wagon to and arch variant personally but tumbleweed wasn’t terrible either. Just not my mojo.
a heavy gamer
Why I am still hesitant to make the leap. Not just do I mostly use my PC for gaming but I have a tendency to jump into a new game for like 3 weeks and then off to the next like the horrid ADHD having fuck that I am. I don’t want to possibly have to work to make a game work each and every time. I know its gotten a lot better about that but still. Convivence has me trapped yo.
Try dual booting so you can test if it just works or if the friction involved is acceptable.
As an intermedia Linux user prior to making the jump 2 years ago, if you mainly game on Steam you’re fine. Wine and Proton are mature developed now that most games ‘just work’. Almost all the problems I’ve run into for gaming on Linux have come from trying to do something outside steam (although Blizzard and Activision games seem to be pretty low effort).
Once you get outside that, it’s hit or miss (sometimes good hits. Sometimes bad misses).
What you’ll have to say goodbye to is alphas, betas, and release weekends. They CAN function (I did all 3 Diablo 4 beta weekends last year with no issues at all), and there’s plenty of early access stuff on steam that works fine even though the developers didn’t care about Linux one bit. But usually if you’re reporting issues on opening weekend for a new game, they’re more concerned with making their game launch work for the 95%+ of users instead of the 5%. If you want stuff to ‘just work’ and don’t want to spend your weekend tinkering with waiting for hot fixes or patches, you’ll probably not want to make the switch. Or will want to change your mentality about which games you play and when.
That being said, the experience is constantly getting better. So in a year or two it may be a different story.
I run Pop!_Os. Steam with Proton is a gamechanger. Yet to find a game that doesn’t just work with zero configuration.
People still have sound issues with gaming on Linux.
It’s tremendously better, but it’s not guaranteed.
Even in this very thread people are to make certain gaming features work in Linux.
That speaks volumes.
Check ProtonDB. The overwhelming majority of games work just fine on Linux with Steam’s Proton. I encounter a game that genuinely will not work on Linux only like once or twice a year.
How is graphics card stuff with them, all okay in terms of drivers? I assume VR might be an issue?
Graphics drivers are fine. No idea about VR since I don’t use it personally.
I haven’t tried my VR on Linux because the general consensus of people who have say it’s bad. It’s impressive how far Linux has come in terms of gaming in such a short time. Proton is incredible.
That being said, niche things like VR, or running multiple monitors with different high refresh rates and freesync simultaneously are still rocky.
The biggest issue in see however is multiplayer competitive gaming. There’s no easy path to that in sight due to aggressive anti-cheat software.
As such Linux is currently relegated to mostly single player games that don’t do anything crazy. That’s honestly good enough for a lot of people, but misses the mark with a lot of gamers.
or running multiple monitors with different high refresh rates and freesync simultaneously are still rocky.
Not really an issue anymore with most Wayland compositors (KDE and wlroots, soon to be fixed with Gnome). That’s mainly an X11 specific problem.
Actually with ADHD it’s nice. Making something work under Wine (following the instructions from winehq.org) is a bit similar to a game itself
EDIT: Oh, there’s another such comment.
There has been a LOT of progress since the SteamDeck launched. The only real barrier now is multiplayer games that run anticheat. And even some of those have been figured out.
I also have ADHD and concerns that my 40p game library would be an issue
I’ll report back on this comment when I find a game that doesn’t just work with Proton, cuz I haven’t tried one yet that didn’t (admittedly I haven’t tried a kernel level anti cheat game)
Even FFXIV, an MMO, works and installed reshade with no issue
Literally the only issue I had installing Linux Mint was my sound card refusing to output sound even though the OS could see it. Every other jack worked, just not my sound card. Fixed it by plugging my phones into a different DAC lol, and the other jacks were fine anyway so it was NBD to begin with
I was in the same boat. But Valve seriously made it easy to install and play games on Steam. If you have a spare drive, give it a shot.
Things I had to do were to turn on proton in the steam settings and installing vulkan drivers for my AMD card.
I honestly might with my next build this summer.
In a desktop (which is what you want for gaming anyways) why not? Easy enough to slot in a new drive and dual boot from there, no need to much about with partitions like with a single-drive laptop.
If it doesn’t work out, oh well, go back to Windows. But maybe Linux is finally there, and you’ll find you don’t need to go back
I was surprised by this.
Admittedly, I haven’t played many video games in the past few years but I was a little disappointed when the list of Steam games for Linux was quite short.
Then I read about Proton. The first Windows-only game I tried worked great so I’m happy.
I play older games on a 1060 so I don’t have a good sense of what the performance is compared to playing directly on Windows though.
You’re attacking this from the wrong angle. Tinkering every few weeks with something new on linux can keep your ADHD occupied ;-)
As someone with ADHD this is exactly what happened to me when I switched to Linux. Continues to keep me occupied 3 months later
I think you should try it yourself, see if you like it. Who knows, perhaps it’s not actually as troublesome as you think. You can always reinstall windows again anytime you want.
Try dual boot. Ideally install both OSs on separate drives and do windows first. Best of luck!
I don’t want to possibly have to work to make a game work each and every time.
as long as it’s not a competitive multiplayer, it’s more likely than not that it’ll work out of the box.
Only thing I’ve found to really not work is head tracking. That’s pretty niche though and I’m expecting someone to figure that out eventually. Almost every game ran no problem.
Like VR you mean? lol my next build is when I want to finally get into VR and try all the games I haven’t been able to play yet :(
No, not VR. Headtracking. The head is tracked with something like a webcam to move the camera.
Wouldn’t you look away from the screen?
You calibrate it so that a small head movement translates to a large camera movement.
Anecdotally; I am running Manjaro, with a valve index, and other than a few need-to-disconnect-and-reconnect my HMD, it’s been solid and painless.
https://github.com/opentrack/opentrack Used this years ago in Elite without issues.
Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, or PopOS
What about Arch? I was told:
mint is garbage. The only thing easier about mint or any of those “noob friendly” distros is the initial install
any time you want to do anything outside of its strict little ecosystem it becomes a massive headache
arch’s wiki is unparalleled
Arch wiki is a useful resource, even for users of other distros. But seriously, do not use Arch Linux unless you’re an experienced Linux user. I have no idea why so many Arch users recommend their distro to new Linux users. Even the Arch wiki tells you it’s not a distro for beginners:
It is targeted at the proficient GNU/Linux user, or anyone with a do-it-yourself attitude who is willing to read the documentation, and solve their own problems.
Arch is cool until it isn’t. If an update breaks your system, then you better know how to fix that by yourself, because the wiki is definitely not the holy grail that some people make it out to be and the community can be toxic as hell. Also, Mint is based on Ubuntu so I would not call that a “little” ecosystem. In the end, each distro has its pros and cons and you have to weight & figure out what fits best for you and your personal needs.
Niche hardware meaning an asus laptop
Eh, my last Asus ran Linux fine. Though until Ubuntu 18.04 came out, I had to patch the i2c driver and recompile the kernel in order to make the touchpad work lol.
Even heavy gamers are getting a much better experience on Linux these days (yay Proton!). There are a couple of anti-cheat systems that are still trouble some, but honestly if the developers don’t want to to put in the much smaller amount of effort to make it work on Linux, I don’t want to give them my money.
Sadly I have niche software and I’m a heavy gamer. But now it’s becoming as much of a headache to deal with Windows threatening dumb upgrades that I might as well switch and fight with compatibility.
The more we do it, the more companies will be incentivised to make Linux work.
By looking at data from statcounter, both windows 7 and xp had dropped support when they were at around 3% and 0,5% of global usage, respectively. This time, Microsoft plans to drop support for windows 10 next year, but it’s still on 67% of usage. Either I’m missing something here, or they’re going a very weird route…
Yes. But to be fair they would have ended up there anyway.
I’d guess that’s sooner than needed and that means more waste
I’ve got a computer with a copy of XP on it that still runs. Not connected to the Internet anymore, but it still functions as a computer otherwise.
just use linux instead.
why are people allergic to windows?
Gaming is the primary driver behind my PC choices by a humongous margin. I’m not really concerned about imvasive anti-cheat software, I don’t want to tinker with settings, I want to turn on my computer and play video games. That means I use Windows.
As someone who just installed Linux Mint as a test and uses their machine mostly for gaming:
Linux is perfectly fine for that, too. I had one minor issue that was fixed by plugging a cord into a different plug on my machine and have otherwise had 0 issues getting things to run on the Linux partition of my system.
I actually have seen mostly better performance in the realm of about 10fps better per game than the Win 10 install on the same hardware
Spent less time tinkering with the settings (done via GUI that makes more sense than windoes’ 15 different settings menus) than I never have in any version of Windows, synched my firefox over, boom.
Not gonna say Linux is perfect for everything but it does seem a lot of people think it’s harder/worse than it is by a mile
That doesn’t compute here. Like I have literally 0 problems with Windows. That’s certainly not been my experience with Linux. Oh bought a new drawing tablet, nah that won’t work. Oh need to update for firmware on a device, yeah better have windows. Oh you bought a recent printer, better not use Linux.
I’ve had tons of problems with windows AND Linux. Neither are perfect. In my latest, elden rings anti cheat window needs to be closed from the task manager when I quit it. In Linux I do not get this and they work the same otherwise. YMMV
Fucking nailed it, and peripheral manufacturers have almost zero interest in providing their own linux tools and drivers because of how tiny the marketshare is.
I already spend most of my waking days fixing work related computing bullshit, I don’t want to have to spend 3 hours of my free time trying to get my fuckdamn video capture card to work when it’s all seamless in Windows.
I mean I have a lot of problems with windows, forced updates, telemetry, the uselessness of modern error messages, but if I just want to chill and relax with some media or games, Windows is clearly the simpler solution.
A million percent this. Linux is great for servers at work but I don’t want to spend my free time doing what I do every day at work. I just want things to be hassle free. But also at the same time, fuck Win11. My 8 year old PC still runs the latest games with a nvme and a better gf card, why do I need to toss it out.
Same I dual boot, Linux for most things windows for games and a few other things which I find easier on windows.
People don’t seem to like this answer but it’s really the only legit one for most home users.
Companies don’t switch because enterprises like support contracts…
Did you forget that MacOS exists and is a member of the larger UNIX family? If you don’t game on your computer, it is a far nicer option for home users than Windows in many respects.
“Legit options” are entirely based on your skill level and intended use.
No…no it’s not. Macs are super overpriced for what you get. You can get a cheap windows pc for a quarter or less of a damn MacBook and if your not using it for gaming then that’s what people will get. There is a reason osx has a market share barely above Linux OS.
It is a legit option to understand that the majority of steam users use Windows.
They’re also a piece of shit company and their OS sucks so much. I’d rather use Linux over OSX any day. The fact that I’ve been working on an apple project for the last year now has made me despise them even more than I did before.
I’m forced to use osx at work, and have been for almost half a decade now… it’s soooo bad. Plus yea apple is a terrible company, I never understood why most of the people who are all about eating the rich usually are using an apple product lol
If you don’t play any blacklisted games (read actively blocked by the developer on linux, go figure), you can expect higher performance a lot of the time.
Well I do, so.
well if you like fortnite and valorant that much
This right here. Lutris, proton, WINE, proton-QT, winetricks… Just so much shit.
I’m really trying to learn it but…it’s a bit much
You don’t have to go all in, use Steam for purchased games, and use the already created Lutris templates on everything else.
Proton-QT is for updating Proton used by Lutris.
I don’t think allergic is the word you were looking for.
You mean addicted? If they were allergic, they wouldn’t use it.
i meant to say linux not windows
derp
Hmm, I dunno maybe because of the elitist community, or the massively fractured distro ecosystem where everyone suggests a different entry point with zero meaningful consensus, or the sporadic driver availability that makes using a laptop GPU an exercise in suffering?
Or all of the above? Probably that last one.
I’m an IT professional with 3 decades of experience, including admin work on linux and unix boxes, and I’ve been repeatedly trying to go Linux as my daily driver for 15 years and so far every time I have tried it has stalled out in screaming bloody frustration.
And EVERY time I make a post like this, some yahoo comes along and says something like ‘Well acktshually GPU support is so much better now why don’t you just code your own driver oh you haven’t spent 5 years memorizing these 2000 tech references well I can’t help you if you don’t want to learn’
Hm, also an IT professional with over 2 decades of experience. Most of your points were true except GPU shit is easy now. I’ve been daily driving arch for the past 9 years, and gaming on it. It’s not perfect but it works well. Even some games work better in it. There are certain software categories that will be problematic, such as CAD, but you can do most anything else easily enough. For 80% of the population that needs it’s for some games and just a web browser it works fucking great. It’s been an awesome web browser OS since forever too. Most people just use what comes with their computer and don’t want to figure out how to install something. Most people are used to a thing and they don’t like change.
Ok, well, I was planning on trying again in a few months, as is my yearly ritual.
If you are fucking with me and I end up stuck because whatever the fuck distro I picked out of a hat doesn’t like my northbridge firmware or whatever, I will come back and in painful detail explain just how wrong you are.
Most people are used to a thing and they don’t like change.
I’m pretty sure a fucktonne of people are eager to jump ship from windows, but the fact that linux (os and community) is still user hostile is a stronger motivation for them stay with their abusive proprietary binaries.
I know for a fact that is the case with me.
Are you sure the Linux community is user hostile? Because in these threads, your comments come up as overly combative and dismissive, like inviting people to pick a fight with you. Even your comment above has an air of entitlement, like the guy you replied to owe you something.
Well maybe that’s what happens when you try and get support from a community for two decades and get nothing but arrogance and elitism.
Calm your tits lol. There’s not no issues with Linux and nobody is claiming that but if you go in expecting Windows don’t even bother trying.
But if you do, I would suggest Linux Mint (Ubuntu or LMDE version, also try the Edge version if you have recent hardware it ships with a newer kernel). PopOS is pretty good if you float more towards Gnome, but their new Cosmic desktop is coming at some point so be aware of that. I would avoid Ubuntu at this point. A lot of people have success with Fedora. Oh and actually OpenSUSE seems to be a good choice for people as well. There is no single point of entry, no, because it’s not a single project. It’s reality however. Goodluck this time around.
Uh I don’t have time or wish to subject myself to the frustration that is Linux. I’ve tried it at least 5 times in the past 10 years and strongly prefer Windows.
Can I ask what roadblocks you hit?
My Wacom tablet doesn’t work properly, neither does my Canon Pro 1000 printer. I’ve also had a few issues with my graphics drivers and games.
Nowadays Windows is the frustrating crap, what kind of issue are you having?
My Wacom tablet doesn’t work properly, neither does my Canon Pro 1000 printer. I’ve also had a few issues with my graphics drivers and games.
printers are admitedly a mixed bag, but your wacom tablet should just work.
tbf the troubleshooting shouldnt be harder than on windows, though, just adding it driverlessly.
It works, just not as well as it does in Windows. Mapping buttons and controls is a pain without the Wacom control panel.
I get the joke, but lots of people, me included, start to understand why people pay so much for a Mac. It’s not the hardware, it’s not having to deal with Windows.
Not a joke. Linux is genuinely better in most cases, barring some niche, very specific stuff.
I have 20 years of experience in Linux. I’m not the average “I’m using Arch btw” Linux user. I managed several services at work with Linux and have a homelab at home.
If I wasn’t a PC gamer, Windows was gone from my house. That’s how I prefer Linux.
Having said that, your statement is objectively wrong.
my lived experience for the last half decade is… wrong?
i managed servers for a few decades too if thats what matters, and its different from desktop.
You’re changing the environment to favour your fight. I agree with you, 90% of the times in servers space, Linux works better.
not really.
im saying desktop linux is just as good nowadays since the beggining
I wish.
As an IT person, Macs shouldn’t exist.
They aren’t computers, they are fashion accessories that just happen to compute.
No offence but you’re a bad it person if you really think like that.
I love to suggest Apple products to my relatives, because they’re too dumb and I don’t have to give technical support, lol.
And what type of person are you who judges by their spending habits? For all you know I could be a 5 gallon lifetime blood donor that volunteers to feed the homeless. But since I don’t like your chosen consumer identity product, I’m a bad person.
Get every manner of fucked.
I don’t want to argue with you, because your thoughts are right and you raise valid good points when interacting on social media.
But just to add something, I didn’t say he’s a bad person, I have no clue about that, I did say he’s a bad IT person. In other words, not qualifies for the role, if I can have an opinion on that.
Supporting such a fucked up company makes you a bad person, so 🤷🏻♀️
I support the right tool for the right task, I’m not a company cultist, I’m sure Apple is as fucked up as Microsoft, I believe you. But I don’t care.
That’s fair. I have to build stuff for apple and it makes my work life miserable because they hate their users so much.
I’ve been saying for years I was going to move back over to Linux. This will be the push I need. Sadly my Dad is bad at computers and will need Windows 11 when using 10 becomes a problem. I’m throwing this at my brother since I was the one who got our Dad a Windows 10 computer. FU Microsoft, you peaked at XP.
Linux doesn’t require you to be good at computers.
I don’t know about that. I recently switched from Mac OS to Linux Mint. I’m savvy enough to understand what I’m doing for the most part, but I have not had to use the terminal so much in ages just to get things working the way I need them to. The average person using a CLI all the time? I don’t see it happening.
Even the install was not an easy task. I had to go into the BIOS, change a setting, install it, go back into the BIOS, change the setting back, then it worked.
I know everyone here wants people to switch over to Linux, but there is still a higher level of experience needed than the average person who just wants to watch Netflix is capable of or interested in learning.
Even the install was not an easy task. I had to go into the BIOS, change a setting, install it, go back into the BIOS, change the setting back, then it worked.
Well, that’s outside Linux.
but I have not had to use the terminal so much in ages just to get things working the way I need them to. The average person using a CLI all the time? I don’t see it happening.
I’ve tried openSUSE recently, it seems you have to use it very little there.
but there is still a higher level of experience needed than the average person who just wants to watch Netflix is capable of or interested in learning.
I’m not sure. I think those people just ignore their problems with Windows due to being used to them or due to their relative or friends solving those for them.
“Don’t blame Linux that people won’t adopt it because they can’t install it” is an odd attitude.
“Don’t blame Linux that people won’t adopt it because they can’t install it” is an odd attitude.
I don’t see anything odd in saying that something universally needed for installing any OS is Linux’ particular fault.
This is about mass adoption rather than throwing away old hardware. If Linux can’t easily be installed on the old hardware, it will be thrown out.
Installing Linux is as easy as installing Windows.
I was in your place when Win7 died (Win 7 was the true peak, fite me :p) and made the switch myself, then.
Also linux is easy, probably easier, for parents to use. They don’t game or do anything complicated, all they gotta do 99.999999% of the time is just load the web browser to do whatever they are doing. I have several astonishingly stupid family members running linux, with less issues than when they had windows… So maybe you can swap out your dads OS without much issue. Just use a distro that has a more windows-y interface with a start button and the bar across the bottom.
I could see the argument that 7 was peak, but I think it was XP. My Dad pretty much downloads pictures from his phone and browser the web. One issue is some of the sites he uses are set up weird. That why he finally allowed me to upgrade him from 7 to 10. He complained about certain sites, which I really didn’t pay attention to which, would give warning about browser being out of date, then the sites refused to even load. That is when he allowed me to upgrade. They probably would work but I don’t want to risk issues with any sites having problems with Linux.
would give warning about browser being out of date,
Which was likely the reason.
I.E. 6.0 usage intensifies
I liked 7. 10 is OK.
my Dad is bad at computers
Have you looked at Endless OS? It depends on what your father uses his computer for, but if it’s mostly web browsing, it could be nice for him.
Maybe a ChromeOS machine? It doesn’t get more simple to use than that.
Nope. For a family member you just install ubuntu. Maybe if you feel strongly about it, you uninstall snap firefox and install apt firefox, but otherwise you just leave it alone.
it’ll run forever, auto update, etc. completely hands off and stress free.
Doesn’t apt install the snap package on Ubuntu when it’s available anyway? I’d say Mint is probably easier then. Ubuntu has gone a bit off the rails in recent years.
unfortunately it can be a minefield with each ChromeOS machine having a set update expiration date from date of first availability.
Once upon a time, updating your hardware every couple of years was essential. Your new hardware was a lot faster for normal use, and everyone benefitted.
Over time, however, people could wait longer between updates, as new hardware didn’t impact daily use all that much.
The powers that were grew displeased, and then decided to force people to update more often. Newer hardware had shorter lifespans, software forced newer hardware, software as a service became king.
The End?
You forgot the part where we all return to poverty so the rich can stay rich in the face of climate change.
That story isn’t written… yet. The future can be changed, if enough people drive that change (valve is working wonders here).
