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Windows 10 kept throwing up full screen ads for whatever bullshit they were trying to get me to sign up for while also telling me my computer wasn't good enough for Windows 11.
And that's how I ended up with Mint on my desktop and laptop a couple months ago.
I have to use Windows for work, but my personal machines are Linux and macOS at this point, and I have zero intention of buying another windows license.
Just moved my parents onto Mint, they were hesitant at first but now doing great. MS is digging it's own grave.
My 80 yr old mother got a laptop recently, W11. I installed W10 LTSC, and dual boot with Mint, and ran the util. Two weeks later she had allowed windows to trick her into upgrading to W11 again.
She's been using computers since the 70's, and owned PCs since the DOS era, but she just doesn't want to bother with anything but using her PC in autopilot mode. Couldn't care less about exploring Mint.
Do you have a few minutes to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Linus Torvalds?
a few years ago I had a really stupid issue with my laptop. about twice a year, for whatever reason, Windows 11 decided my internal wifi card wasn't worth existing and would just wipe it off the face of the earth. Just completely remove it, delete the drivers, everything. hard resetting the laptop didn't work, physically unplugging and replugging the card back in didn't work, manually installing the drivers didn't work. the ONLY way Windows would accept the card again was on a fresh OS install. So twice a year, like clockwork, i'd have to do that except the last time I couldn't because I needed an MS account. well I couldn't get online. for whatever reason it wouldn't allow me to connect to wifi and I didn't have access to an eithernet connection. So I gave up and finally decided to give this Linux thing a try. Installed Mint within 15min.
The added bonus of installing Linux on the laptop was it suddenly brought my battery back to life. on Windows I MAYBE got 30min out of a full charge. On Linux with a WM like Niri it's now a few hours. Linux also made me fall in love with the PC again. Now I'm on NixOS and i just love configuring my system or doing more dev work with ease thanks to nixshells.
Linux also made me love computing again!! So fun actually knowing your machine and being totally free to break it completely.
The best thing about breaking it is having a chance to set it up again more efficiently
Praise be!
In capitalist USA the computer own you… Or something like this?
If by "complicates... basic PC ownership" they mean "infringes on your property rights as a computer owner," then they're finally catching on to what I've been saying for damn near a decade.
You should not accept having an abusive relationship with your operating system, and that's what Windows has been since at least 8 (when they started infecting it with "telemetry"), if not earlier. Have some goddamn self-respect, people! Kick Microsoft to the curb!
Quit trying to make it happen
I literally just recommended CachyOS to my boss while we were complaining about Windows 11 in our one on one meeting today
Microsoft doing their part to get people to move to Linux
More "Microsoft doing their part to get people used to the idea of having to login with an internet connection so that they can make Windows 12 subscription based."
Thats what this bullshit is. Training the user base for OSaaS.
And they will have enterprise by the balls because they control like 90% of the enterprise market. The consumers, they could give a fuck if they take it or leave it. Windows licensing is such an teeny tiny part of the equation that screaming at them is going to get as much traction as screaming at Nvidia for the fact that a midrange GPU is 1000 bucks now. Nvidia doesnt care if their consumer gpu market disappears tomorrow, they've got the AI fucks locked in.
Wow. This is absolutely has to be the reason. There is nothing better than a recurrent revenue stream. Look at Spotify, Netflix business model.
Really. And even better, now they can granularize Windows even further. Windows 11 Home or Pro? Naw fam, that's not enough. You'll have the baseline Windows 12 sub for $10 per month...seems reasonable, right? Except that's the baseline. That's the version that can only make use of, at maximum, 4 CPU cores. Want to use all the cores in your bomb ass new processor? You need to bump up to the $20 per month subscription which includes the CPU-MAX add on. Not a fan of the basic Windows wallpaper? Well, fret not! You just need to download the Personalization add-on for an additional $5 per month and now you can change your wallpaper. Hey, is that a new GPU you got there? Yeah, you're going to need to spring for the Gamer bundle...$20 a month for that, on top of the base sub. Oh and don't forget about your local storage...they can subscription lock that, too. "You don't even need local storage anyway! Just use OneDrive!!! It's only a few bucks extra per month, deliberately priced cheaper less than the local storage subscription so that they can scrape all your shit for marketable data which you'll see in the fine print of the ToS they're allowed to do with abandon.
Go to turn on HDR..."sorry, you need the graphics booster add on". Try to output 5.1 audio? "Sorry, no can do, you get 2.0 only, peasant, you didn't sign up for the media add-on." Want to throw another stick of memory in your rig to extend it's life? "Sorry, base Windows can only use 16GBs...you need the performance package to address anything more."
And you know what the best part is? This shit would all likely be legal. Know how I know? Because Windows enterprise server and software licensing is already like this, and has been for years.
Shit is so fucked man...
Today is a good day to try Linux.
(maybe best to start with Mint or Ubuntu? At least that's how I did. They have a "live" version you can try out before committing to it)
I'm sure the fact that the Steam Hardware Survey just hit 5.33% Linux has absolutely NOTHING to do with Microsoft's continued pants-on-head stupid and anti-consumer approach to things.
Chris Titus' windows utility will decrapify Windows quite a bit, including removing telemetry, copilot and much more stuff for those unable/unwilling to move to Linux.
For those a bit more adventurous he provides a Microwin install image creator that tweaks a standard ISO to be as light as possible, removing as much crap as possible during install, making install un atended, and creating a local account.
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC is supported until 2032 and free to activate.
And what does that accomplish? Delaying the actual problem to 2032?
It gives you 6 years to transition to a better OS. Or to become CEO of Microslop and improve things.
It's honestly great, even for me who only boot into windows once every few months.
I'm in the process of getting my kids their first PC this Christmas. They'll both get a mini-PC, with severely restricted Internet access. I'm actually thinking about just letting them connect to the home server where I'd mock the Web sites I pick for them. For this reason, Win11 with its online account requirement is automatically excluded from consideration. I wated to give them Mint anyway, but this was the argument that convinced my wife.
Mocking up whole websites seems like a pain. With a Pihole, you can create different service groups for computers and apply a whitelist to just their machines. Plus you get adblocking too!
Windows 11 has given me so many headaches at work I have genuinely explored moving the entire corporate environment to Linux. Unfortunately it would be a massive multi-year operation that would not bring the amount of benefits required to get such a thing greenlighted. But simply the fact that I, and many peers, took a good hard look at it tells you just how incredibly shit Windows 11 is. It's a fucking nightmare on so many levels, it's ridiculous.
This is the actual reason i didn't end up going with win11, and tried Linux. Seemed like about a similar amount of bullshit to get to know my way around linux as it did doing regedits and getting around using an account.
I am now firmly in the camp of every option being terrible in some way.
Still using bazzite though, so it's not worse.
Everyone is thinking about this wrong. MIcroslop will only do their enterprise customers dirty at the very end, when they are dropping the Windows product altogether. How do SysAdmins do Windows 11 installs at their workplace? How are we expected to provision PCs without a MS account. Select add to domain and use your router as a 'fake' DC and then set the settings back to normal after the install. They can not remove that method, it is absolutely required for using DCs and MS makes a shit load of money licensing DCs. You have to pay per user.
Microsoft wants to kill on-prem for enterprise. Windows 11 Enterprise is a monthly subscription to your Office 365, sorry Microsoft 365, wait no Copilot 365 account. Exchange Server 2019 is the end with their subscription only version replacing it. They're retiring Dynamics on prem to move you to the cloud.
The cloud services are parted out just right that you get almost everything you're trying to do with one package, only to need the next level up at double the price for one little thing, or an add-on service that just so happens to need the E3 version instead of E1. Oh but you can pay twice as much again for the all-in-one bundle, it comes with everything! Expect that thing you need for regulatory compliance, that's still extra. It's like they studied the predatory pricing of freemium games and went "we can do better than that"
Selling you an OS once is of no interest to them. Monthly charges? Better but still not enough. All of your data flowing through their systems, ripe for harvesting and vendor lock-in? That's the good stuff.
Oh? Who would have thought? I sometimes wonder what kind of limbo people live in that this hasn't been the clear picture for most since Windows 7.
Microsoft and privacy shouldn't be used in the same sentence other than for sarcasm purposes.
Or as a warning.
The only reason I don’t install Linux on my NVMe drive and leave it on my SSD is that I can’t reinstall Windows with a local account (though maybe there’s a painful workaround). If they break, they’re gone forever.
"complicates" is the mildest, nicest perspective
they didn't have room for "is entirely fucking unnecessary" in the headline
