I love how in a world where we banned straws we are somehow OK with Microsoft pushing people to recycle their old but otherwise adequate system for what, to the vast majority of people, are some paper thin security advantages.
Anybody who asks me about Windows 10's EOL date will be introduced to the option of using Linux before i'll help them select a replacement system. Especially if they literally only use a browser there really is no reason to go through hoops to stick with Windows.
And dont listen to zealts who say its not a viable option.
It is a viable option, especially for old hardware. I mainly don't use it because I want to install an OS exactly once: When the computer is brand new. This is exactly when some shit is not working properly on Linux. But if you have old hardware, it will run no problems. Just install Ubuntu and Libre Office on it, pray that you get the printer set up, done.
i’ve been on linux on and off since 1998, however I fully switched about 5 years ago and never looked back.
I was curious around 3 months ago, between distro swapping and I installed W11. It lasted 2h until I rage installed linux and took me an entire day to wash the windows taste off. bleah…
I just lost out on the sale of two Lenovo P51 thinkpads because the CPU has been literally arbitrarily cut off. 32gb ddr4 2400mhz, quad core xeon, Nvidia GPU w/ 4gb gddr5, 512gb SSD. Because Microsoft decided to leave it off of a spreadsheet. Fuck this company….
Yeah, my old desktop computer is getting turned into my first dedicated Linux machine and my current desktop isn't getting updated to 11 until October 13th.
Does anybody know the best way to transfer all my files to Linux? I dabbled in it a bit, but I was a little worried I'd have to reinstall everything, considering I had to make a (relatively small) partition using my unused d drive space
Is there a way to transfer ~2TB worth of steam games, outside of uninstalling then reinstalling them?
Some of those games have native Linux build, and even though Windows version will work under Proron, native version will work better, worth checking out.
It will be difficult, but technically possible. You’d have to ensure bitlocker is disabled on your windows drive. If you’re not sure what that is, don’t assume that means it’s not enabled. Windows does enable it by default in some cases. It encrypts your drive and you won’t be able to access it.
But in all honesty, I’d recommend just starting from scratch if steam games are what you’re most worried about. First, some of them might not work on Linux. Second, you may encounter strange issues that require redownloading much of your library anyway. Lastly, you’ll want to transfer them to a drive with a Linux file system which will take time. That’s if you even have the drive space to spare. More likely is you’ll be formatting that drive anyway to a Linux filesystem, wiping the contents anyway.
Even with slow internet, redownloading games as needed will be way easier and likely faster.
If you’re unsure what distro to go with, I recommend going with Bazzite. It’s a distro optimized for gaming and is an atomic distro. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it, just know that for most casual users, an atomic distro makes way more sense and is much less likely to break. Additionally, if you have nvidia hardware, the drivers come pre installed so it’ll work right out of the box.
Just copy C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/ to /home/yourname/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/ and Steam will recognize those games are already present when you try to download them.
That moment when Microsoft tells people to throw away perfectly good working computers because they're running Windows 10. When Windows 10 was just coming out or had just come out, Microsoft promised that Windows 10 would be the last OS of theirs, and there would only be updates. Also Microsoft is constantly sending messages to people running Windows 10 urging them to update.
I really wish there was something regulatory that could be done about this. There are millions of perfectly good fully working computers that are going to go in the fucking trash because of this. I understand the desire for a TPM on every machine. It makes sense in a way. But the pure environmental impact is just indefensible. All of those computers had a significant environmental footprint to build them and ship them and again to dispose of them plus building and shipping their replacements.
If Microsoft had such a hard-on for TPM, they should have worked with computer manufacturers to make some sort of retrofit system or way of easily determining if a TPM can be added to an existing computer
This is the biggest garbage a tech company did to almost 256 million PCs in use and fully working. I installed Linux Mint on all three PCs I own. Free and works far better than I thought.
My parents are now using Zorin os because it feels like Windows, and they don't even know it's not windows. For the vast majority of people who only use a browser it's a no brainer to switch.
I got PopOS a month ago and its freaking awesome. Cant believe how long I used Windows, Linux is amazing. It is extremely overblown by people saying it is hard to use
Yeah I lost it when I saw this too. But, because I waited so long to switch to Linux, it’s to the point where I feel it has so much of what was lacking the last time I used it. Easily over ten years ago. Thank you to everyone who slogged through it to get here.
It took about a year of dual booting for me to finally feel confident using it, but now I'd never go back. It's definitely not an overnight or weekend thing, learning the "Linux way", but it's worth it. It's so much easier than it was even just 5 years ago, let alone 15
It depends on what you use your computer for, really. My partner isn't very tech savvy and doesn't use their computer for anything more than watching youtube and writing emails, so porting them directly to Ubuntu was super easy.
Guess my parents will continue and will use unsupported OS in the future. Maybe i install Linux to my mother, as a beta tester for the family when i go visit them in the summer.
I recommend Zorin. My mother didn't notice a difference. I just told her I "upgraded it", and most she said was "oh they changed it again". Did the normal setup of helping her sign into things, but haven't heard a peep since
They use it for basic everyday stuff like web browsing? I installed Linux on my mom's aging laptop that she just used to sell stuff on eBay, browse, listen to music, back up photos, etc. Linux glides with ease on the machine when Windows slogged and she was able to understand the OS fine. Users today don't really have to touch the command line at all unless they are doing something advanced. The GUI is just as easy to understand as Windows.
I don't know. They maybe use only their phones now. I'm not sure. I better check before start anything. My father's computer needs AutoCAD and office so probably gonna stay in Windows 10.
This is me. I've always been too lazy to switch (I have some of the worst hardware for it. I'm running my old surface pro into the ground and have hardly any internal storage so hard to dual boot for testing).
But now, well hey, Windows 11 is stupid, windows 10 has been spying since forever.
Linux it is, thanks Microsoft for giving me the push I needed.
I'm trying but the girlfriend refuses. She watches YouTube on the TV and does everything else on her phone; literally only uses the laptop to play The Sims 4 (which her 1080ti can handle just fine), yet she's convinced that she will need a brand new gaming machine with a 4090/5090 as soon as Microsoft dumps WIn10. She's afraid that she'll completely break the OS if she switches to Linux. (Which is plausible, though unlikely.
I'm hoping she'll change her mind as soon as she realizes just how much more GPUs cost these days, especially mobile ones.
Create a live USB stick and demonstrate it to her, without deleting Windows. Bonus points if you rice the fuck out of it with some kawaii shit for your GF and make Sims 4 work with Wine.
It's called dual-booting, and yes there are so many tutorials availiable. But you have to be a little more careful in that process. I do dualboot but almost never uses windows. I have heard situation where windows updates messing linux installs on same drive. The safest route might be to do what others suggested but it is possibe to install that way. Be careful with partitioning and formatting. You also have to determine the sizes for each partitions yourself too
Weird hill to die on perhaps; but I'll never forgive Microsoft for arbitrarily deciding to not support my Core i7 6700K 4Ghz CPU on Windows 11.
Simply because: I cannot find a single actual technical reason why it wouldn't be compatible (yes, my mobo also has TPM). It's even higher specced than many other 'supported' chips.
MS apparently just decided I hadn't spent enough money lately. Well now I won't - on your products - ever again, while this i7 will continue to run Win 10 for games and Linux for all else.
In the same boat with the same CPU.
The beast is running Cyberpunk 2077 fairly well at 1440p with a DLSS/ray tracing card but it can't run Windows 11 🙄🙄🙄
Gaming is great on Linux nowadays btw. I installed Fedora a few weeks ago and haven't had a single problem with any of my games - I'm getting better framerates, too.
Any good step by step explainers nowadays? Been over a decade sinceI set my last Linux machine up for a friend, and have been thinking about trying one for a Jellyfish server.
Knowing that my gaming PC could get a few extra frames might intrruige me into performing the upgrade there too if the jellyfish machine goes well.
Any reason you went with fedora? I've been partial to fedora for a decade, but last I knew it wasn't recommended for a daily driver given the upstream fuckery from redhat.
Asking cuz I'm about two weeks from kicking win10 in the dick and moving to alma or something.
My GPU runs out of memory if I try to play DRG on linux (fedora), Zerotier and XLink Kai run but won't connect or plainly don't work inside the games I've tried with, and the mumble server just won't work (even using the docker) because it seems my motherboard's network isn't compatible or something, so if I want to use Linux I'd have to upgrade my pc anyway.
Gaming on Linux has taken huge steps, but I'd hardly call the current state as great, it's ok and improving, but still requires tinkering and knowledge beyond just turning it on, installing and using... And something might not work because fuck you.
assuming you use steam, see which of your favorite games run with proton compatability layer and which absolutely require windows. You may be suprised.
I run everything on steam with proton that I did on my windows PC, nothing was left behind. If you 'add a game' from outside steam, you can run the installer and then change the game location to the executable.
Ubuntu or Ubuntu mate are what I install on everything. Recommend.
WINE works surprisingly well too. I've seen people talk about gaming on Linux using Lutris or launching it through Steam as a "Non-Stean game" but I just put my files in my WINE directory and have better success.
I'm in a similar boat. My computer meets all of the other requirements like TPM and whatnot, yet they are arbitrarily deciding that my processor is too old. And for some reason you can walk into your local computer store and buy a laptop with the shittiest processor and other specs possible that somehow runs Windows 11. Just because the processor on the new shitbox was manufactured more recently. Ridiculous.
I have that same issue. My older laptop barely misses the cutoff, even though everything meets the requirements except the cpu. I have a newer laptop with Win11, and the old one runs circles around it. It's faster and has way more RAM, yet somehow won't run 11? I'm going to keep it and just run Linux instead. I'll use the crappy Win11 lappy just for MS office and keeping papers from blowing off my desk.
I figured it was related to the hardware architecture, but I'm curious if this is for security reasons (potential exploits that the OS can't resolve) and/or just a support bandwidth concerns managing 2 OS code bases (on top of the obvious revenue from new licenses).
If the hardware security isn't the issue, then switching to Linux is a good money saving choice for those that are tech savvy.
I have a computer in the basement that I pretty much only use for Zwift (an online cycling game). For whatever reason it doesn't have that TPM chip, despite the fact that I bought it in 2021 or so. So it won't upgrade to Win 11.
But...it turns out Zwift runs great under WINE....so now it runs Debian with WINE. (Which probably wasn't my best choice - should have gone with something a little more up to date - but it does work.)
I'm already using linux, but my laptop is an older dell with a 5th? Gen i5 dual core. Still works fine, but i had to jankily push down on the keyboard ribbon cable with a piece of cardboard, still has sata ssd, screen could be nicer, bezels are an inch wide, etc. This an oportunity to get an uograde if companies are going to dump perfectly good hardware.
I'm waiting for decent support for the snapdragon x elite chips. From what i can tell from discourse online it's still a very rough experience with linux.
I don't want to drop £1500 on a laptop i can't really use.
I have a 10-year-old Surface Pro 4 and I was able to freely upgrade to Windows 11 and it works fine. It wasn't technically supported but I enabled preview builds or something like that (I think I had to enable the Insider program) and it showed up as a Windows Update. I don't know if this is applicable to all PCs that don't support Win 11, but surely it's applicable to some of them that Windows says don't support Win 11.
Yes, it's known that it is possible to do that, but Windows 11 has TPU 2.0 requirements for a reason. As they say, it's for security. In my opinion, if you have to jump through so many hoops and loops to use a damn OS, just to use it as a home desktop or to use old tech, just move to Linux. You have Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora KDE, Steam OS (not yet fully out), and many more. For a beginner who came from Windoes, I recommend Linux Mint. If you already have a Steam deck, for example, I recommend Bazzite (it's non-imutable) or Fedora KDE Plasma.
Edit: Sorry if I came out harsh, I didn't mean to sound like that, I just feel frustrated at how shit Windoes has turned in too
Ah, no worries. I'm just sharing for folks who might need Windows for one reason or another. It's a one time thing to upgrade either way, not a hassle at all. They might own weird niche unrepairable devices like my SP4 which may not handle Linux well or who knows. For clean installs there's that nifty place with serial keys and builds whose name I forget right now.
As for Linux, I'm kinda torn. I had my time tinkering with config files in the early 2000s in the days of Fedora Core 3 and KDE 3.x before all this Plasma stuff. The whole "year of the Linux desktop" that never came left me disillusioned, although I did enjoy the Compiz/Beryl days. It's probably better now but I'm too comfortable nowadays. We'll see if things get dire enough that I need to jump ship again, I hope not.
i run nobara (a fedora spinoff) for a few months now, and it's a great experience, i learn a lot about how the os works and it's all visible! i feel like i modded my pc into a transparent machine - i can read up about simply every part of the os. i freakin love it :-D and all this while i can use it as before.
my last experience with linux was debian jessie - i was not so happy with that, and after i landed in dependency hell for the first time, i switched back. nowadays, with flatpaks and appimages, all those issues i was having in normal operation are gone.
I can't get the more elaborate functions of my common Logitech mouse to work properly. And Linux systems like to cause my computer to periodically hang for some reason. In Windows, it used to BSOD, and I managed to fix the issue in Windows but it seems impossible for me to fix in Linux because of how vague of an issue it is.
As much as I dislike Windows, it's incredibly uncommon for it to blue screen unless there's some kind of hardware fault. And if it's happening in Linux too, you've got bad/dying hardware.
In Linux, if your system is hanging for a bit then coming back, then it's probably a drying hard drive.
One thing you can check with is Burn In Test on Windows. It will stress all the individual components and tell you what's failing.
I've been gaming on Linux for close to two years now. I believe there have been two games that actually caused some issues in getting them to run. But for the most part Proton does everything out of the box. And especially older games work way better than on Windows. There are no problems with compatibility mode or deprecated WinAPI-Calls. It just works.
The only thing I would advise is to install Steam and all your other launchers via Lutris. That will save you some hassle.
I’ve been gaming on bazzite and haven’t found a game that doesn’t work. Haven’t had to touch a command line or anything, everything has been stable out of the box
Dude......c'mon now. Check my history. I am NOT a linux defender. I am more along the lines of a linux user mocker. I find the OS to be confusing, but I find the userbase to just be SO.....SO mockable. Just making fun of linux brings them out in droves. And it's so funny to point out how the whole OS is clearly terminal mandated to enjoy the OS. Just say something like that, and you'll twist somebodies knickers.
That being said, of all the things that are legitimately awful about linux, you chose the GAME SUPPORT??? My god. Steam is THE storefront on PC. They have a vested interest in helping linux's development, as long as that development goes towards making games work. The steamdeck is literally their financial incentive to make certain that your claim isn't close to being true.
And sure, you could say you disagree with Steam's practice of LICENSING you a game. Not selling. There is a difference. I get it. That is something that is in itself a problem, but that also doesn't relate to your issue. Because even if you stayed on Windows, you'd still have to buy from Steam. They're just as dominant on Windows, as they are on linux.
So, you COULD buy from GOG. The issue is, they specialize in retro games. So, their library may have massive gigantic gaps in titles. But again, this would also be true on Windows.
So.......yeah, I don't know how you would defend linux game support being lackluster.
Check out distros like Pop!_OS or Nobara. Linux gaming has come a long way recently due to Valve going all in on linux for the Steam Deck. Frankly even just the standard mainline distros aren't terrible for gaming these days tbh.
Before you recycle your Windows 10 PC (or just switch to Linux and avoid wasting resources), keep in mind while Windows 10 22H2 is ending in 7 months, 21H2 LTSC Enterprise is still good for 1 year 10 months:
Disclaimer: I haven't tried this myself so there may be some bugs/issues along the way. For my next laptop, I'm thinking about switching to Linux and specifically Ubuntu or Fedora, so this won't really impact me
Ubuntu user here. I get glitches from time to time, and the newest update caused a more than small issue with booting. However, compared to the litany of glitches, bloatware, and user-anti-interface of Windows, I'll sing the praises of Ubuntu all day long. Even the few games I play, like Cyber Punk, run perfectly.
The prices have already been cratering for anything with 7th gen and older Intel CPUs. Full systems seem to be under $100 now where just a year or two ago they were around $200 or more
Every now and then a little devil on my shoulder says "you should set up a cluster computer that serves a secondary function as a smart space heater" and it's gonna be really hard to ignore if the deals are good enough.
Oh good. My PC is actually 11 years old. The hard drive died a few months ago. So I replaced the 3.5inch sata 7200rpm drive with an enclosure that holds 2 2.5inch drives. I'm using solid state for the first time. I was able to clone my Windows 7 drive to a solid state drive. It works even better than the original drive.
But! That enclosure makes it so that I can just turn off the PC, eject the drive, insert a different drive, and now I'm on an entirely different OS. It's my first time using linux.....it still sucks, but it's useable. Last time I tried linux was right before I bought this PC 11 years ago. I tried using linux on a PC that previously was running Windows XP. I couldn't even get it to boot. Now things generally work, but it has BEEN a constant struggle, and a constant learning experience.
In other words, someone may be willing to pay you for parts, rather than you just getting nothing for it (recycling).
They are not going to recommend you use an alternative OS, and probably not because they're worried about market share, but because they then have some responsibility for every time a person fucks up a Linux install.
It would be funny if they struck a deal with Canonical to start offering an upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 using some of the same dark patterns they use with Windows 11
Instructions unclear, now I'm using the Windows terminal to launch Ubuntu and also have it running in Hyper-V. How does that help me if my windows is out of support? /s
On the one hand, rare Microsoft w to help users transition to their competitor.
On the other, they kinda yadda yadda over probably the biggest and most important part: choosing which of the billion distros is best for your needs and preferences..
Ugh. I'm going to have to seriously look at Linux, aren't I?
Absolutely no idea where to start with that, nor whether any of the software I need for work (or indeed anything else) is compatible, not how I'm going to find the time to learn all this.
Bleugh 😔
EDIT - Just want to say thanks to everyone for all the helpful tips and advice below. Will make it my mission this summer to at least understand Linux better and work out if it's for me. Cheers, you lovely people 👍
Most distros have official forums, and may have sections specifically for people using Linux for the first time, which can also be great sources of information.
Ubuntu is the typical go-to replacement for Windows as it's arguably more plug-and-play than other distros.
alternativeto.net is a great place to find Linux alternatives to the software you use. Many products already work on Linux without switching, but some areas might be more difficult. For example depending on your needs you might not find a great drop-in replacement for Photoshop.
Sadly, this is my work as well as personal PC, and Photoshop and Premiere are more or less essential for me. I know there's Photopea, which can handle PSD files, so that would probably do to replace PS, but not sure about Prem.
Happy to try something else, but it's finding the time to learn everything again that's my real issue.
Still though, that's a great resource, so thanks 👍
you might not find a great drop-in replacement for Photoshop.
I'm not a photoshop user, so maybe I'm just being dumb and not getting it, but....isn't that gimp? I remember that one because the program name "gimp" made me laugh first time I heard it. It's like a BDSM thing, and then you're like "Oh, it's photoshop? My mind went a totally different direction..."
The Linux community here on Lemmy is extremely helpful but as a complete novice I've found ChatGPT to be quite useful tool for this as well. I can ask it how to do something and if I run into trouble I can just take a picture of the terminal window and it'll tell me where the issue is.
People would probably advice not to insert code into terminal, given by an LLM that you don't even understand but the alternative is to put that same blind faith onto a stranger on a messaging board. In my experience the options are either to do that or not use Linux at all - unless you first spend few years learning it all yourself.
If nowhere else, make a post on NoStupidQuestions and I'm sure there's a few people that will help. I made a reply here suggesting raspberry pi os as a good starting point. No command line skills needed and quite a bit of software is available free from Debian (Linux which raspi os is created from).
The user interface is similar with a start menu etc.
If you've got a spare PC, I'd use it as a guinea pig system first before moving onto the main system.
Is your hardware not W11 compatible or you just don't want to upgrade? Because you can just install the pro version (ISO on Microsoft's website) and choose English UK during installation and that will solve most issues... I'm sure you're able to figure out how to get it activated ;)
They've been saying that about every single one since that notoriously insecure one. ME, I think?
Also, I'm pretty sure that Tiny11 or the like is more secure if you consider data privacy important, since a lot of the privacy issues of Windows 11 are coming from the unnecessary parts of Windows itself..
I mean, one would hope that whenever there is a new version it's more secure than the last one. Not that it's true, but that's how it should be, so nothing weird about the claim.
that's how it should be, so nothing weird about the claim.
As long as you consider every claim Microsoft makes to be either a lie or inherently unprovable until the opposite is proven, that is. Which you should tbh.
You know this stuff isn’t actually recycled, right? It just ends up in a giant toxic burn pit in west Africa and then they have kids with small hands pick through the smoldering wreckage looking for blobs of metals.
Infuriating for sure. People can’t afford groceries or rent and Microsoft chooses to ride in with a, by the way, your computer needs to go, just buy a new one, k?
There are lots of IT/SysAdmin on Lemmy so their work will have to switch. I think their concern/sentiment gives others the impression that personal PC owners will also have to switch.
I recommend you to use a regular Linux distro for your PC, SteamOS is always going to focus on handheld devices which may not provide de best possible experience for desktop. Bazzite seems to be the hot Linux gaming distro at the moment, it's based on Fedora (my personal favorite, also a good option for gaming IMO). Maybe, give this one a try ?
I might have to give it a shot. I only use my computer for gaming so since I'm familiar with the steam deck I figured holo OS or steam OS or whatever it's called would be nice. I'll wait to see some reviews before I do it
I would highly avoid getting Windows from anywhere but Microsoft. That's just asking for trouble.
Instead install Windows 11 Pro and then go though and remove the unnecessary apps. Then use group policy to tweak the system in a way you are happy with. You can do everything from disabling Bing search in start to preventing full screen popups from Edge.
Some of us have older processors that is more powerful than some current gen processors yet Microsoft decided that it's too old and won't let you install it.
Tiny11 is a community driven OS. I have been using it for years and has never given me any problems. If your computer is not able to legitimately upgrade to Win11, you can either spend money to buy a newer computer or install Tiny11.
I'm getting annoyed with windows.. I have a small laptop I like to use for streaming, and the stupid updates keep on maxing out the drive space.. It is 32gb, and i can't get it to download the updates on an external drive. I wish they'd have an option to turn off automatic updates, and just let me do a single click and download the updates manually to an external drive so i can have a usable goddamn computer.
Microsoft claimed that Windows is compatible with 32gb drives but that's not actually true. Those will get automatically filled by winsxs updates within a few hours. It's impossibile to use one of those windows mini PC with a 32gb emmc unless you exclusively use it offline for typing with a word processor.
All those $100 32gb emmc "computers" available on Amazon are just "direct to landfill" ewaste
I have the exact same problem. I've maxed out my hardrive and every week or so it complains that there's no storage space and I'm like, I HAVEN'T DOWNLOADED OR INSTALLED ANYTHING IN MONTHS, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS YOU SHITTY OS! So I delete some stuff so it will continue to operate, maybe free up 1 or 2gb, and then a few weeks later it's full again.
There also isn't space to install Windows 11 😑 I only use it for DJing and I'm not sure you can run Rekordbox on Linux but I need to find out.
That’s assuming the user knows that and didn’t just buy a prebuilt tower from Costco, and that it isn’t a laptop or something where changing the motherboard is much harder if not impossible.
Try Linux on it, specifically have a crack at raspberry pi os first. https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ . See the section for Raspberry pi desktop for PC and mac .
One of my win11 machines can't even open the file explorer. It worked right up until I got an 'update', and I've been unable to open it since. Got to access all my files through the command line now, which, I mean, I can do, but it's still a PITA.