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What I learned from 3 years of running Windows 11 on “unsupported” PCs
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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If you need Windows, don’t run it on hardware that doesn’t support Windows 11. If you need it, do it the right way, so you can count on it working.
Now, what do you do with your old hardware? There are plenty of good ideas in the comments here.
Or instead of installing Linux as a workaround and having to learn how to use a new OS and having to troubleshoot a ton of inevitable issues to make it work as well as the setup you're used to just... Use a workaround to skip the hardware requirement! In the end both are a way to work around Microsoft's requirements, one is something you need to deal with once just requiring you to follow a guide and you're done, the other will be an ongoing learning process.
Honestly the only people worried about learning a new OS are people that have not even tried another OS for longer then 15 minuts in the last few years.
The desktop is still a desktop so is the taskbar.
The mouse works like a mouse, browser works like a browser and the majority of apps these days are browser apps.
The single actual difference i can think off is that rather then downloading an exe you use something similar to an appstore if your non technical or the command line if you don’t.
And if you are just a little technical you can acutely download that exe and install/run it just fine. (Wine)
Worrying about learning an new OS isn't as simple as you make it. It takes time, dedication, and will power to work through the pain points.
Most Linux users give answers like "just use Linux" but it's not that simple. Yes, it's easier to switch these days because more and more apps are browser/cloud based. But technically a chrome book would be an easier switch if that's the mentality.
I "use" my PC. I don't simply check email and go on Facebook. I'm currently trying Linux for probably the 4th or 5th time. It's easier to get into these days, but it still functions completely differently than Windows, as it should.
For example, It took me at least an hour to figure out how to partition and mount a drive. There's some not so clear information out there so finding the right info wasn't as easy as it should be. OK no big deal, now I know, but I don't necessarily want to chase answers like that every time I use my computer.
Lastly, I've never accepted using Wine as a work around for unsupported programs. OK, maybe if you have 1, but not if you have 6. That's not an acceptable solution when your needs scale up like that. And I have many. I'm not going to 100% get away from Windows. It sucks, but it's reality.
You do sound like a person knowledge enough to solve their own issues and you have been trying linux so I wouldn't lump you in with the majority of users that believe that all of linux requires terminal knowledge.
I let you in on a secret. I still have my windows drive in dual boot. I was very scared of linux, i just saw a hyprland gif and fell in love. As a windows poweruser i could not fully commit on that whim.
I have not booted into it in months and i use the same drive to install proton games. (So i can theoretically launch them from both sides) but i do plan to keep it there, just in case. At least for as long as i use that machine.
So by all means you are pretty much as much a limux user as i am, the only difference is with what os we dedicate time.
Recently i got into a powershell course from work and i know you can use 7 on unix, but i am actually thinking of spinning up some windows vm. My work is all windows so i do need to keep up. And there are good things i could say about it.
But i have a personal drive to learn linux, rooted in the philosophy of technological freedom, unrestricted by corporate whims. One day i hope to truly leave windows for a foss new world (does not need to be linux) and i hope sincere that on your own time, you will also join me there.
I'm with you on the philosophy of tech freedom, which is why I'm back to trying Linux again. So yeah, we'll take that journey together.
I just think its over simplified by most, and I guess I got the wrong impression of you by your 15 minute comment.
I've seen multiple people recently post something like, I've switched to Linux and can never go back...but I hated it for a year. That makes so much sense to me, and I just feel that most Linux users leave off the learning curve part, and just gloss over to fully knowledgeable use.
So many people just don't have the time or energy to just jump into something new. I've been using windows for 30 years, and learned a lot along the way. Its going to be tough to learn Linux without daily usage and experimentation (and totally screwing stuff up). That's a tough pill for most people to swallow.
It sounds entirely like FUD. In my opinion Plasma wayland is prettier, far more simple, and much more mature than Windows. Windows feels old, clunky & now uses dark design as part of its UX.
This is honestly surprising to me, because the process is basically the same on most Linux DEs as it is on Windows:
The UI is a little different, but the two major DE families (GNOME and KDE) have a partition tool built-in with a nice graphical representation of what's going on, which is IMO more intuitive than what I've done w/ Windows in the past (hasn't been since Win 7, so things may have changed).
That said, if you search for it, you'll get a half dozen (or more!) answers because everyone has their favorite tool (fdisk, cfdisk, etc). But what's provided in the default installs of most major Linux distros is dead simple. And that's why I recommend Linux Mint to new Linux users, it comes with pretty much everything you'd need out of the box.
Agreed. If you need specific Windows software and it isn't available on Flatpak, I'd tell you to stick w/ Windows.
But if you're okay with learning using something similar (i.e. you can use any word processor and don't specifically need Word), then by all means, muck about with WINE if you want to give it a shot, because you have a high quality alternative as a backup plan.
That said, if you only need one or two Windows-specific apps occasionally, I'd recommend setting up a VM or dual-boot. I had a VM for years because I needed a couple Windows-specific apps occasionally, and I was okay with the performance hit on the rare chance that I'd need to run it.
How is having to apply workarounds to keep windows working on old machines any different from troubleshooting the occasional linux issue? It's a rethorical question, the difference is that the workaround on Windows is mandatory while the Linux troubleshoot is nowadays rare and usually related to edge cases.
Some of the workarounds in this article are far more involved and convoluted than what I've ever had to do in 15 years of linux. Some are even dangerous for system stability and security. My very recent install of bazzite in a new laptop has been a perfectly out of the box it just works experience. Not even having to open the terminal. 100% friendly GUI without compromising flexibility, power and customizability. Today, suggesting linux with a solid desktop environment like KDE plasma is just foolproof. The end user will be using exactly the same knowledge and habits of Windows, without the harassment machine that is MS now. The change is not learning a new OS, is just switching a few assumptions on how some advanced things work.
Meanwhile I started on Bazzite, my display signal just stopped whenever there was load on the GPU, two days trying different things to make it work, switched to Mint, GPU works but wifi antenna doesn't, another couple hours to make it work... Windows? Install it and... Well, that's it, it just works.
Let's not pretend there isn't driver hell on Microsoft, sometimes its even worse than Linux.
Yup, on Linux, you have three possible outcomes:
Ideally, you end up with 1 or 2, because 3 gives you hope that you'll get it working properly eventually. I had this happen on my desktop, when I got a new motherboard, the WiFi chip gave really crappy performance because it was stuck on an old Wi-Fi standard or something. I got it to work at ~20mbit/s, but eventually gave up and bought a new Wi-Fi card for $20 or something and now I'm getting way better speed. And this was despite following my own advice to only buy Intel hardware, this chip is just notorious for having issues and is certainly an outlier (replacement chip is also Intel, but a more capable chip).
I had a lot of frustration on Windows w/ my wife's computer running AMD's audio driver and AMD GPUs, whereas both just work on Linux. After a couple hours, it mostly works as expected, but it's still a bit janky. So it absolutely goes both ways.
I’ve had weird Linux issues similar to that before. However, I’ve also had weird Windows issues too where it didn’t “just work”. I’ve had 2 experiences that really stick out to me with Windows
The first was Intel ARC, I absolutely love the card I have and was using it on a dual boot system. Linux ran it like a dream under Mesa, I just had to install a few more packages to get GPU compute for things like Blender. But Windows was an entirely different story. The driver worked great but Windows update was the absolute worst thing to ever come out of this. I’d have my driver all up-to-date and Windows update would come along, and completely downgrade my driver, to this one specific driver (I don’t remember the exact version) that didn't even support Intel ARC Control. It would do this randomly too, sometimes during a game, or during Blender renders which caused those things to crash and waste hours of time. It also had a 50% chance to just completely blue screen my system, which lead to a broken/incomplete driver install. It was a mess
The other was with a friend’s laptop I was helping repair. It was running Windows 11 and kept blue screening left and right for what seemed like RAM and driver issues. Tried switching out the RAM sticks, ran Memtest86, all tested good. Tried a new SSD and a fresh install of Windows 11, same issue even before any drivers were even installed. Tried the same thing but with Windows 10 and it worked flawlessly. The laptop had full support with Windows 11 and no workarounds was necessary but Windows 11 just didn’t work at all.
Not to say that Linux has been a smooth ride the entire time, far from it. But Windows has been pretty much the same from my experience in terms of weird bugs and crashes.
TL;DR: I’ve had my fair share with Windows shenanigans, been way too many times where it didn’t “just work” as much I would’ve liked. From GPU drivers to the entire OS.
On Mint, you troubleshoot the wifi antenna following a guide once and then you're done. On Bazzite you probably just needed to click to change to X11 instead of plain Plasma, on the login screen. I would bet money that you have an Nvidia GPU. Sometimes Nvidia breaks the drivers support on Wayland. They intentionally neglect it in order to keep your kind of mentality around.
On Windows, MS is going to eventually fix the workarounds so you can't update your computer anymore.
All AMD setup
Funny how people are downvoting when all I've done is specified that no, it can't be justified by the hardware I'm using.
How long ~~with~~ will working around the requirements work? If I need Windows, I’m not going to risk it.
Then get newer hardware, simple as that, anything from 2017 or more recent will work.
Yes, that’s what you should do to run Windows.
And then use the noncompliant hardware for Linux.
That's not true, the OG Ryzen technically meets the requirements (has the TPM chip), but at least when I ran the upgrade check, it failed. So maybe update that to 2018.
"to avoid learning new things, just learn these new things instead and repeat as needed until it doesn't work anymore! duh!"