this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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They're isn't one positive thing to say about it at all. Not even one.
Sure there is: Sometimes it doesn't boot. And nobody can deny that it's been great for driving linux adoption!
Of course there is. It's compatible with almost any software and hardware (if you ignore their arbitrary W11 "requirements" which you can in most cases) that you can get your hands on. Microsoft and Windows deserve most of the flack they're getting, but we should be honest.
Take Linux as a comparison. Compatibility is pretty good nowadays and is only getting better, especially with all the work going into Proton from both Valve and the community. But certain things are simply not supported which can make it either difficult or straight up impossible to get to work. Not that Linux is to blame for that, of course, but it is reality.
No we cannot. I have a perfectly capable gaming machine, which meets my needs perfectly yet it's not supported by Windows. It's not some old work laptop a fricking gaming machine.
I didn't mean it in a philosophical or ethical sense. Yes, their formal W11 requirements are stupid, but you can literally ignore them.
Some of the requirements are just there on paper and the installer will let you continue regardless. And the rest can be disabled by flashing the ISO with Rufus and toggling that option on. Yes, this risks you not getting updates in the future and may affect certain (not very important) functions, but you absolutely can ignore the requirements if you want to, and as far as I know no one has been denied support so far.
The depths you have to sink to to get what honestly feels like an attempt at a charity point, but if that wasn't assumed it wouldn't have become the product in its position.
If there was an actual push to get compatibility worked out, it very well could. Seems more like a corporate holdback than a technical issue.
Almost any software or hardware? Better to phrase it as almost all desktop software
Well yes, but this whole thread is about Windows 11 which is a desktop OS, so I thought that went without saying.
Oh did you forget server and embedded?
FYI Windows has a different edition for servers, so that's why we are not talking about servers since the thread is about the desktop edition
Oh I thought this thread was about the OS, nevermind then..
There's one thing Windows does that I miss. The big preview pane in file explorer.
Dolphin seems to have that feature. Menu (the three lines button in the top right) > Show Panels > Information
To be fair Dolphin's defaults are insane, they seemed to have approached it as 'how can we allow file/folder navigation but hide as much information as possible'. If you're a minimalist you might like it, if you want to use a file manager to manage files I can't really see how the defaults are useful.
I remember finding this out a while back. I tried to install it, but had some problem I don't recall. I'll try again. Thanks.
EDIT: Ah, right. It doesn't find my mounted drives nor my shared drives from my server. Nor does it show previews of any filetype but images (which IS nice), just a big icon for text files, for instance.
I suppose there are fixes for these things, but I didn't find anything in configuration or in the help section of the website after a quick search. That's as far as I'm willing to dive into this, because I know I could spend hours on this, and still not find a solution from past experience.
Thanks, anyway.
Dolphin is plugin based. So there's plugins for adding previews for more file formats. For network share stuff you may want to check if "kio" is installed and any optional dependencies on your distro for more functionality
Mounted drives
They should show up in the bottom of the Places pane on the left, in the "Devices" section. If it literally cannot find them, then I can't say anything about what is wrong.
Shared drive
You should be able to add a network folder in Places (the left pane) > Network > Add Network Folder (in the top menu). If that wizard doesn't work, you should be able to do it manually by typing
sftp://trackendakracken@192.168.1.123or whatever into the URI bar and press enter.Enable text preview
Menu (the three lines button in the top right) > Configure Dolphin > Interface > Previews > Text Files
It's not Millennium Edition?
That would almost count, if it was significantly different at this point.
Uh yeah there is. Which that my games and software run without issue on Windows whereas on Linux I have to constantly fiddle with shit to make it work. But no one's ever honest about that.
Nah, 98% of my tweaking is because I have a laptop as a daily driver. The last 2% is trying to get pipewire to ignore my headset mic in favour of the built-in mic and breaking things in the process, but I couldn't even get windows to actually use my headphones for years.
I constantly wanted to fiddle with windows, but couldn't, and then had unrelated things just decide to break. And this was in the 7 days. Everything after that has actively hated me.