Microsoft said Windows 10 would be the last version I’d ever use. They didn’t know how right they were. I’ve been gradually switching to Linux, and will absolutely never use Windows 11 or any other version they put out.
I built a new gaming PC and installed Linux on it. After years of threatening to do it, I finally followed through and made the switch.
I just bought a laptop last year (portability and space constraints, I’d love to build a pc when I have the space for it) and it was supposed to come with windows 10.
I got a windows 11 model shipped to me. I didn’t ask for this. And I have to say… I fucking hate it. Why does the start menu need to change locations…
My next computer will absolutely be Linux, and it’s Microsoft’s own stupid fault. Windows 10 WAS supposed to be my last windows OS…
Why does the start menu need to change locations…
The INFINITELY bigger question is why isn’t it my choice? I actually just modified my windows 10 to have the start menu be centered, but like, it should just be completely customizable to your liking… as if it were your own computer or something. If I wanted everything locked down and baby proofed I would have just bought a Mac.
Oh fuck yeah gimme that customization and personalization options
I used to use a program on one of my computers called rainmeter I think, and it allowed me to customize my desktop to look like the Animus menus from Assassin’s creed 2. Then decided to go with hexagons everywhere, with the replacement start menu dead center screen and other buttons areayed out from there.
Haven’t used it in many years, but I’d love that level of customization* on a pc nowadays. It seems like no matter where I go, every UI looks the same. Good for familiarity, not so much for “oh this is neat, they made it their own” factor.
*without learning entire programming languages, I hyperfixate on things but programming has never been something I’ve been able to get into
Switch to Linux. KDE is pretty easy to customize out of the box. There’s other DEs that can have more or less, harder or easier options too, but KDE is probably the best moving from Windows.
It is your choice, and you can customize it to be on the left.
I don’t think you read my comment before you decided to respond to what you thought it said.
I bought a laptop right after windows 11 was released. I hated it so much, I returned the laptop a few days later and bought a windows 10 one instead.
Completely Linux now except that gaming laptop, but this year is the year of the Linux desktop! For me at least.
Win 11 is the reason I finally decided to switch. My work gave us all Win 11 machines and I hate it.
Fortunately I don’t do too much on my computer besides gaming so Steam can do all the heavy lifting for me
That would be great, but unfortunately for me I have too many programs that depend on windows, don’t have Linux options, and if I’m being honest with myself I really just don’t want to learn an entirely new ecosystem. I will if forced, but the moment this laptop shits itself or they discontinue support for the OS, I’m getting a crash course.
I’d love to turn an old tablet or somethinf into a Linux device in the meantime so I can at least start something. Too bad my parent’s old kindles won’t work, there’s enough of them laying around their house…
I’ve been making the switch on my own new PC, some programs I was concerned about can be run ok through Lutris. It’s been an adjustment but no regrets
Most Windows programs can run through WINE, and the ones that can’t can usually be run in a Windows virtual machine. Try a Bootable USB with the distro you might want (I personally recommend Garuda). You don’t need to commit right away, but I bet you’ll have an easier time than you expect.
Windows 11 is shit and you’d be much happier with Fedora. You don’t need a nrćew computer, just install it on this one. That said, you can move the start button to the left and even install https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu if you force yourself to try sticking with Windows
There’s no reason to wait. You don’t need to buy the computer with the OS installed. Just install Linux now. They should be punished for forcing Windows 11 on you, not rewarded by you using it for a few more years.
Good luck and godspeed
The second creative cloud is on Linux the share of windows users will drop dramatically.
Adobe needs to be abandoned as well. Clip Studio, Krita, Gimp, Affinity are either free OSS or one-time-payment great alternatives without the AI and privacy BS.
I’ve also mentioned this before but for those that need a more photoshop-like GIMP experience, try taking a look at PhotoGimp, it’s essentially a reskin+remap of all of the hotkeys to more closely match those of photoshop, and it works wonderfully.
Once they update it to use Gimp 3 it should be a blast
Copium. Gimp is more akin to MS Paint than Photoshop.
Lol. No. You just don’t know how to use it yet. That’s fine, but don’t blame the software.
Cooooooope. 🤣
Affinity
Unfortunately, I seem to recall that Affinity doesn’t run well under wine. If only they would officially port it to Linux, that would be a major move for them and for Linux. Follow DaVinci Resolve’s and BitWig’s examples.
what about virtual machines?
Sure, that’s definitely an option, I suppose with GPU passthrough (I’m not sure how well this works). My idea when I switch to Linux is to have Windows 11 and macOS VMs.
Are any of these a smooth transition coming from Adobe programs? I really don’t want to re-learn my entire workflow in InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop.
I’ve heard that Clip Studio is pretty close but I have not tried it yet. My experience with Gimp and Krita is that they are fairly close to Photoshop. That is to say that it would be easy for a Photoshop user to jump into those and start working. I have searched for the occasional “how to do XYZ in Gimp or Krita.”
Thanks! I’ll eventually give them a try…
I will never stop laughing at the absolute fucking joke of a suggestion that Gimp is a suitable replacement for Photoshop. It’s like saying MS Paint is a good enough replacement for Photoshop. No. Not even REMOTELY. I want alternatives, but Gimp is absolutely not it.
PEBKAC
Cooooooope.
under the marketing it’s still 10.x.
Marketing is 11, I think you’re referring to the kernel version, which can’t change due to stupid legacy software.
I upgraded to Windows 11 on my gaming rig two days ago, and at the same time I switched the default boot option to Linux. Let’s see how this pans out.
I’ll still need Windows around for specific games, but the ones I usually play seem to work on Linux.
i’ll just use virtual machines for win11
I’m curious which specific games you still need Windows for? I’m only aware of a handful (Riot games and some Chinese ones).
The ones using rootkit drm stuff probably :/
I can get Start Citizen running on Linux, but I want to use head tracking when I fly, and there is currently no Linux support for the Tobii eye tracker I have.
Then again, maybe Tobii adds Linux support before SC becomes playable enough for me to actually enjoy it, 🙃
Just like a Linux user to tell everyone they use Linux. Classic.
“How do you know [thing you only learn if people tell you]? don’t worry, they’ll tell you”
The whole point of the Sword of Damocles was that the threat was always looming and Damocles didn’t know when it might fall. We know exactly when Microsoft says they are going to drop support. There’s a decent chance that they’ll push that date back due to slow adoption at least once.
This is more about rats not fleeing the sinking ship until the sea has reached the bow.
More like rats not joining a leaking ship. I’ve been through enough windows upgrades to know: Don’t be the first! You’ll only end up paying to be a software tester for a product MS had to ship before it’s ready to keep the shareholders happy.
Don’t be the first one in the water after the shark warning …
With the shit they built into 10 I really would not be surprised if they put in a kill switch
“Sword of Damocles” like bitch we used service pack 2 XP for ever. “We won’t support something” means nothing if the original product was built right.
…Ohhh now I see the problem. Nevermind, everybody, carry on.
I know people still running XP sp3 (firewalled off the net) and it still does the job. They claimed to have killed 7 but between FOSS and enshittification pushback I reckon it’s gonna be like the PS2
Well, the real moment it becomes an issue is when a significant vulnerability is found after EOS. So I guess after EOS is when the sword of damocles starts hanging above every win 10 user…
Personally I’m on the edge of the ship just waiting to jump off once i have my new pc (probably next week).
They are gonna have to pry windows 10 from my cold dead hands. I was sold 10 on the premise that it was going to be “the last windows OS I would need”.
Fuck you Microsoft.
Windows 10 LTSC is supported until 2032 or so. I’ll be avoiding upgrading for a long time.
How do you get a copy of that? I tried poking around but MS has the shittiest docs.
Something about a mass grave.
Something something .dev
deleted by creator
Found a copy on archive.org.
After that, you just need a KMS activator. Massgrave’s is typically the recommended one.Ngl that looks sketchy as fuck. Definitely gonna check the hash on that one if I can.
You can also get the iso direct from Massgrave’s site, along with the KMS activator. Your choice, but I do expect the people behind the Internet Archive to have checked for malware in some capacity. They do have a legitimate research and archivist reputation to uphold.
Looking through things available in the Internet Archive, I don’t think there’s a lot of active moderation, to be honest.
I checked the hash, it matches
I’m pretty sure the final version of Windows 10 LTSC 2021 had its window of support shortened to five years to align with the end of support. Only windows 10 LTSC 2019 has 10 years of support. If you’re using LTSC 2019 for gaming please be aware you will be missing any features released for windows 10 that were released after version 1809. This will harm game performance for a lot of newer titles and hardware.
LTSC 2021 - until 2027 - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-enterprise-ltsc-2021
But…
IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 - until 2032 - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-iot-enterprise-ltsc-2021
I’m on IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021. As far as I’m aware it’s up to date, and if not I don’t really use my PC for modern games anyway. Still good to know though.
I enjoyed the visual design of Win 11, but the bloatware, spyware, and AI slop it started to install was just too much. The Steam Deck has proven 99% of Steam games run fine on Linux, so I made the switch and killed my Windows partition a few months ago.
Feels so clean and light running Linux - my god I never knew my PC could run so fast! Windows was really truly awful and I had no idea until I removed it from my life completely. Games run flawlessly on it - I’m using Elementary OS because it’s clean and user friendly.
Welcome to the club!
Hmmm never had an issue with bloatware/spyware in Win11. I just turn things off if they ask me after and upgrade and away I go. Everything just works properly and the best part is all my devices work as expected.
Shhh, people don’t want to hear that they can change things they don’t like. They just want to complain about things they’ve never used.
At the moment I’m 50/50 between switching over to Linux full-time, or full booting Windows 10 LTSC.
But having had to use it for work, I am adamant in saying that Windows 11 will never touch my home system drive.
Linux
One of us, one of us, one of us.
I finally upgraded to 11 last week by accident. Apparently one misclick means straight to next version with no cancel. So after the upgrade first thing I did was get o&o shutup10 to kill the spywares.
P.s. I know I can revert. But that’s also effort.
Revert then.
This is exactly what Microsoft are counting on, that people will simply go “oh well” and just carry on with Windows 11, because any effort needed to move away is too much effort.
Prove them wrong. Stand up for yourself.
Y’all are crazy. This is a holy crusade lol
TIL having self-respect is “crazy” and a “holy crusade.”
What a fucking simp you are. Sad.
Lemmy be toxic yo
You say as dozens of foaming mouth lemmings pile on thinking themselves somehow as good for being this ingrained in their group think.
In other words, yeah, totally agree.
Why don’t you go smoke some weed you angry little man
Hadn’t heard of shutup10, I’ll be digging into this tonight
Have you succeeded in making things less crappy? I’ve been debating the upgrade for a while and I’m basically hoping this is possible by the time I do it. I already use shutup10 on win10, but I wasn’t if win11 kneecaps it somehow or not.
Start menu is permanently lacking features. But besides that it’s not a major change. There is third party softwares that puts back 10 style or other start menus, but heard there are issues with windows updates. Besides that just get shutup10 again and tick stuff off. Pretty much solves it imo.
What’s missing from start? I don’t actually use the start menu much so not sure I would miss anything anyway.
I thought I already replied to this, but apparently not. Sorry for the late response.
The start menu no longer has the windows 10 tiles. It’s just search and icons of apps you’ve pinned. Similar to phone app menu. You can put some into folders/groups together. And that’s it. There’s no further customization possible.
You can get third party solution to bring back more features such as Start11 from Stardock, but that means paying for an additional software and I’ve heard it gets buggy with windows updates.
No worries, and thanks for the reply!
Get a copy of Win 11 Pro
Install with English (UK) as your language (doesn’t prevent you from using whatever keyboard layout you want or setting your clock to your timezone)
Activate using tools that can easily be found on the interwebs
Deactivate the privacy infringing stuff
Tada, none of the problems people complain about
This is a good overview though I wouldn’t know how to do the specifics like get pro (I have 10 home), or deactivate all the infringing stuff.
What’s the UK trick? Is that just a better version or something?
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11
Download multi version ISO
Windows settings has all the privacy stuff but they ask you to approve (or not) a bunch of it on installation
The UK trick makes you “a European” and there’s a bunch of laws that restricts the bullshit…
I thought I already responded to this, but thank you!
Miss click? You could’ve read what it said though.
Sword of Damocles? More like the sword of Microsoft can go fuck itself!
If I did anything other than use my PC as a glorified gaming console, I might care about w10 not being updated anymore. Until games literally can’t work on the OS, I’ll stay on it. And when they do stop working, I’ll probably just install Linux.
Linux
Join us, you know you want to.
I tried to switch to Linux several days ago, but there were clear issues regarding games that weren’t tied to Steam. Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, Bottles, and so forth all had shortcomings regarding compatibility, handling of DLC, or lack of user-friendliness. Then I tried to use a VM, which was a frustrating rabbit hole. Virt-Manager supports GPU passthru, but you have to jump through hoops to identify PCI addresses and to configure correctly. Boxes initially seemed promising, but had no apparent way of storing the VM on my gaming drive. (Linux terminal commands are beyond my understanding.) Considering how big games are getting, and the size of my collection, that is a bad combo. Virtualbox doesn’t have GPU passthru, so the performance sucked.
As a gamer, I currently find Linux to be insufficient. I was wanting to switch due to security concerns regarding Microsoft, especially in light of the Trump Regime’s willingness to ignore law and norms. My concern is that they could use Windows as a spy, or to seal up my computer to punish those who go against Dogey America. As it is, I will have to use some scripts from Github to break Windows Update if I hear of Richmond being infiltrated by the Xitler Youth.
Here’s hoping that Gabe decides to invest much more heavily in Linux to make it casual friendly - I want my mods, cheats, Japanese locale games, emulators, and so forth to all work seamlessly and without compromise. I would seriously pay $400 smackers to have an OS that is capable, flexible, compatible, friendly, and most importantly, MINE.
The days of just buying Windows 7 Ultimate and not thinking about Microsoft was glorious.
Sorry it didn’t work out for you like Linux Mint works for me (I switched full time to LM in December 2024).
If you haven’t already, switch to Windows 10 LTSC in the interim. I have a feeling Linux will only improve over time with greater compatibility with Proton. Since Win 10 LTSC is supported until 2029, that’s plenty of time for for more kinks to be worked out and you can potentially try Linux again.
I am already on a Internet of Things edition, which is the debloated version of Windows. However, that still leaves the possibility of Microsoft going fascist and sending out a Big Brother update.
Regarding Linux, it was indeed Mint that I tried to use - it seemed similar to Windows, at least visually. Getting standard software was easy enough, and things seemed promising until I started to migrate my gaming. I mod my games a fair bit of the time, or play niche stuff that hardly has support on Windows. It became very apparent that Linux can’t handle that, not yet. In a couple of years I will revisit Linux.
What distro did you try?
I’ve been on bazzite for some time now and haven’t had any of those problems
You should definately look at PlayOnLinux for those game. It is an app to help leverage all Wine setup and configuration. Normally with Steam and this would should be able to run almost everything.
tried to use a VM
Yeah, this is where you went wrong. It’s possible, but it really doesn’t solve anything IMO, has the possibility of getting detected (so anticheat bans), and can often run worse. It’s possible to get a sane setup, but what are you really gaining over just dual booting? You’re still running Windows, after all, but now you have drawbacks (and some benefits) of a VM.
Can you be more specific about what didn’t work? As in, games, platforms, etc. If it’s a game with anticheat, you’re probably SOL on Linux, but I have Heroic working just fine on both my Linux desktop (openSUSE) and Steam Deck. I usually launch through Steam to use Steam input and manage Proton versions, and it seems to work fine for GOG and EGS. Some games have issues, so check protondb.com if that’s the case, but most work just fine.
The idea here with the VM is two-fold: First, to keep a potential Windows Big Brother update from spying on my documents and whatnot, while also preventing it from tampering with the security of my PC. Secondly, to maximize compatibility, since I lost trust in Linux to not have technical issues with my gaming. That means mods, Japanese games, emulators, and so forth. Windows is simply more reliable and documented, unlike Linux. If something goes wrong with a game playing on Windows, there is decent odds of me troubleshooting. My hardware should be able to handle a VM, it being a 5950x with a RTX 4090+3060, and 128gb of RAM.
Anyhow, I don’t really remember the specifics regarding how my efforts with Lutris, Heroic Game Launcher, and so forth went: I don’t like remembering unpleasant things. All that I recall is assorted errors or lack of features that rattled my willingness to trust Linux for gaming. I will try again some years for now, if I hear Linux has become more suitable to the task.
If it’s not an anticheat issue, Linux is probably suitable right now. Linux is quite different from Windows, but most problems have simple solutions if you know where to look, which usually means knowing who to ask.
That said, I think you’d be better off with a dual boot. That way you only need one GPU, and you can slowly move your gaming to Linux, falling back to Windows if something doesn’t work right.
That said, I totally understand if you’re burned out from it. Just know that there are a lot of Linux users who are happy to help if you get motivated to try again.
I switched to Nobara Linux at the end of last year, and for the most part when I consider how often I’d have to fix Windows stuff, it’s not that much more work. Still not the same though, and I keep a Windows partition around for certain stuff even though I groan having to load into it
Except it isn’t even remotely a sword of damacles situation. 🤣
Yup. There’s a big timer, and a ton of alternative chairs you could sit in that don’t have a massive sword above them. It’s not like there are any surprises here…
There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age. My intuition says most people will be able to use Windows 10 for at least one more decade with minimal issues, after that it will gradually become trickier, but it will still be usable even in 20-30 years with advanced hacks if humanity doesn’t go extinct by then.
“Powerful” probably wouldn’t be the word I’d use given that security updates have stopped. Maybe “foolhardy”?
Yeah, I don’t use critical software that doesn’t get security updates, and an OS is super critical.
If you’re going to stick with ancient software, at least throw it in a VM so it can’t screw up everything else (and don’t let it touch the rest of your network).
There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age
Those people are called doctors and they deserve your respect!
Seriously the posts on here make me laugh so much. Linux has never felt like more of a cult than since I’ve been on Lemmy… And I use Linux! But I also use Windows! I used Windows XP, 7 and 8 all well past their prime and will do the same with 10.
I mean, I tried for about a week…
Got a larger SSD and I wanted to reinstalled Windows, so I went through the whole getting Win11 thing, and it wouldn’t let me install it. Although I have a full blown paid for Home Edition Win 10 linked to my microsoft account.
It said I had to install Win 10 first, so I did… AFter all that, I went into windows update like is said, looked for the Win 11 update option… Doesn’t exist…
My AMD 5800X and everything else on my PC supports Win 11. It’s just not giving me the option.
So I gave up…
I’ll likely use Win10 until SteamOS is released…
I use Linux mint. Steam works great. The desktop works great. Like 5 min a month checking on updates and backups.
If you’re gaming then bazziteos is pretty good
So is pretty much any Linux distro. Don’t pick a distro because it says “gaming,” they’re all extremely similar. Pick a distro because it looks nice and you can get help when you need it.
That’s what I initially thought too, but as soon as you install it, it gives you the option to install Steam, lutris, Wine, and some other gamer stuff. It basically feels similar to Windows people know and has been stable for me.
Sure, you can use vanilla Fedora and put all of the stuff yourself but the point of this is it’s ready to go out of the box.
But it’s really not hard to install on any distro. I could pick up any distro and be downloading games on Steam and Heroic in <15 min, just like on Windows, and that’s without knowing anything about the distro. I don’t even use Lutris anymore, Heroic + Steam is more than enough.
That’s my point. A “gaming” distro doesn’t have any pivotal secret sauce that make games work there that don’t elsewhere. It might be tuned a little, but unless you’re watching framerates closely, you probably won’t notice. And you can always rice whatever you pick of you really want those 1-2FPS gainz.
I’m not saying they’re “bad,” just saying Linux is Linux, so use what makes you happy.
Definitely, but bazziteos is catered to more new people or people who don’t want to spend a lot of time getting stuff to work. I use arch on two computers and have bazzite on another computer I know I want to be more stable than arch and not spend time fixing it
There are a lot of options between Arch and Bazzite. Arch is bleeding edge with very few guardrails, whereas Bazzite has a read-only filesystem and tries its hardest to stop you from breaking stuff (e.g. like a console).
I never recommend Arch to new users because there are just way too many ways to break it. it’s a great distro (I used it for 5+ years), but it’s not a good option for new users. I usually recommend Mint, Debian, or Fedora, because they’re pretty stable, popular, and you’re unlikely to break stuff by normal tinkering. I personally use openSUSE Tumbleweed, which is safer than Arch (openQA testing of packages + snapper by default) but still bleeding edge, which works for me, but I also don’t recommend that either just because of how much churn there is in the packages.
If you only want to play games and want something like a Steam Deck experience, Bazzite may be the best option. My point isn’t that Bazzite is bad, but that it’s not the only or necessarily best option.
They recently made changes so that you can’t easily upgrade anymore. I think you still can if you find the right hoops to jump through but this exact issue came up recently
There’s ways to force the upgrade without doing it via Windows update
Pry it from my cold dead hands. I have linux on multiple computers, but it still can’t play all the games and give me my 5.1 surround. Despite all the claims, it’s still not ready for primetime to do all the things windows does.
What’s the issue with sound? I thought that was solved since… 15 years or so.
Can’t help with the games though, must anti cheat games won’t work without developer support. Do what you gotta do, but I’m interested in any issues that should be solvable with some config or swapping out a cheap card or something.
Can’t get the surround on my A50s. Yeah, normal stereo is fine out of the box.
Have you tried messing with either pulsesudio or alsamixer? https://askubuntu.com/questions/1304002/how-to-enable-5-1-sound-on-ubuntu-20-04#1304054
I personally just use stereo on my PC, but I’ve seen home theater setups w/ surround sound, so I know it’s possible.
I did try alsamixer. It just didn’t like something about the headset. I use an optical connection and a 3rd party surround card, so I don’t know if that’s the issue. It’s pretty much moot because the game I use surround on the most won’t run because of anti-cheat.
That’s too bad. If Linux becomes an option, please hop on a chat or something and I’m sure someone can get you sorted.
I’m one of them. My 6th generation processor means that Windows 10 will be the last version of windows that this machine runs.
This, to me, is the worst sin of Windows 11. One of the greatest benefits Windows had compared to macOS was that it used to be backward compatible with really old hardware. Real pro move to get rid of that.
Edit: I bought a cheap micro form factor PC that I thought would support Windows 11 natively. Haha, no, the 6 year old CPU on that was not supported.
