Windows 11 keeps trying to install different stuff, notifying you about how great edge is, requires new hardware, and more. Windows 12 is rumored to be cloud only with a subscription?
What will do you?
As 12 comes out I think we will see a lot of gamers moving to Linux thanks to the much anticipated SteamOS release. Windows 12 will still be “successful” among the general public but Linux usage will skyrocket as Microsoft break that straw on the camels back for the more experienced users.
Personally I will move to Linux, likely start with dual boot in the transitional phase and as SteamOS improves and game publishers realise they need to support Linux and take it more seriously.
Not a Linux fan at all but with my steamdeck usage and setting up Mint on a NUC for a server I’ve been very impressed with Linux progression. It’s still not perfect, needs to be more user friendly but it is getting there.
They said that with Windows 8 and Steam OS
Every year is the year of Linux
If they had dropped support for win7 and earlier to force users to win 8, it might have happened more. Though at that time, Linux gaming wasn’t in the state it is today, too.
Linux is just the base OS. There’s not much to like or dislike about “Linux” as a whole from an end-user perspective, unless you happen to have hardware that’s not well supported, or software you use that isn’t available. Single distros or desktop environments, you can definitely dislike, but “Linux” itself is just a kernel and a bunch of hardware drivers. You’ve seen it yourself with the Steam Deck. Its what the distribution maintainer makes it, and what software you run on top (including the UI/desktop environment/window manager you interact with).
I’m curious what you find less user friendly about Mint (guessing you went with the default Cinnamon environment?) vs the Windows UX. IMHO, the modern Windows experience is a convoluted mess of options hidden in different places, inconsistent UI, and confusing options that like to disappear between releases? Hell, my tray icons refuse to stay all visible on my Win 11 partition, I can’t move my taskbar to the top anymore (really useful with a large monitor), etc.
IMHO, the only reason people still find Windows user friendly is familiarity. I think the largest problems with Linux these days are:
- how confusing it can all be to figure out what’s a distribution, why there are many, which one to choose, etc
- obviously drivers, especially WiFi stuff and very new/bleeding edge hardware (cough cough and Nvidia being assholes)
- software availability/compatibility: the biggest one, IMHO, and it’s getting much better in certain areas, especially gaming, with Proton which you’ve experienced already.
It’s interesting that you find the taskbar to be better in Mint, that’s the thing I’ve had by far the most trouble with. Specifically the fact there doesn’t seem to be any way to mirror the taskbar to all screens. You can’t copy it from one screen to another either, you have to meticulously recreate the taskbar on each screen. Even then some elements can only appear on one panel so if you need to adjust sound level but you happen to have something full screen over it you’re shit out of luck, either close the full screen application or go into the full sound manager instead. Then the taskbar only shows windows that are open on that screen too, which I suppose some users would like but is absolutely not what I want. I believe there was a “show all workspaces” checkbox but that either didn’t work or doesn’t include second screens. The best part is if you open a window on one screen then move it with keyboard controls in some cases it doesn’t update the taskbar, so now your window doesn’t appear in the taskbar on the correct screen at all but might show up on another.
Overall, not impressed. I need one taskbar that appears identically on all screens.
Needing to remount my Steam library from other drives every time I reboot is a tad inconvenient too.
See, this is exactly two of the points I just made.
One, the criticism you just made, and the one I keep hearing, is that you don’t like that it doesn’t work like Windows. We jump in it with some preconceptions of what a computer should act like because of familiarity.
Second, Mint/Cinnamon is merely one desktop environment on one distribution. It’s not Linux, it’s that one program (Cinnamon’s taskbar) you happen not to like. Same for the disk auto mounting, many desktop environments support doing that. Seems like Cinnamon doesn’t?
Are you really trying to dismiss criticism that the taskbar’s Grouped Window List doesn’t always display windows visible on that screen is just an issue of the user expecting Windows? Dismissing every user issue as “just stop expecting Windows” is exactly toxic fanboy the attitude that drives people away from Linux. You might notice that I didn’t even mention Windows once, I was talking exclusively about taskbar issues affecting my workflow in Mint.
I’m still using Mint+Cinnamon but I’m not going to pretend it’s perfect.
Oh, there are indeed issues and bugs. For what it’s worth, I get a similar bug on Windows where sometimes a window doesn’t change taskbars when I drag it to the next monitor, and my app windows get all moved around after waking from sleep ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Again, my point was your arguments are illustrating my initial take really well. You’re - rightfully so - criticizing Cinnamon, but describing it as a “Linux” thing. You didn’t mention Windows once, but you also did describe Windows’ multiple taskbar’s behavior as the thing you need. Can we not dismiss everything I say like I’m being a fanboy just for telling you software issues and bugs on one desktop environment are not a “Linux” thing, but a "software on top of Linux " thing? Yes, on Windows, your window manager is part of Windows. On Linux, it isn’t. Hell, some don’t even have panels by default.
FWIW, I’m far from a fanboy. I love macOS, still use and like Windows for other reasons, and am also extremely critical of Linux where it fails to perform. OSes are just tools, means to an end, IMHO. Please, let’s not devolve the conversation to this kind of tribalism. The Linux world can be confusing enough as it is, coming back to my first comment again… Sometimes the “fanboys” are just people who have been bitten by these things for longer than you (I’ve been using some form of Linux for ~16+ years) and wanted to help or explain some common misconception.
If this can help, I think all of KDE Plasma (both the default ones, and Latte), MATE and XFCE lets you duplicate panels.
but describing it as a “Linux” thing.
Where? Please point to the part where me responding to you commenting on Mint+Cinnamon’s taskbar is criticising all of Linux.
You said “not a Linux fan […] needs to be more user friendly”, I straight up asked you what was more user friendly about Windows, and this was your answer, which sparked this very exchange.
Edit: OK, I see where my confusion came from. I thought you were the person I was answering to initially, and you are not. My bad, you indeed didn’t say that.
Really help things out if all the anti cheat software would be Linux compatible. I’m stuck using windows (and not getting to use my steamdeck) on some of those damned games because of it.
It’s one of the biggest problems, yeah. The thing is, the way these work, they range from rather intrusive process/memory watching to literal rootkits that can access and do anything on your computer. Unless the anti-cheat software’s developers make it explicitly compatible with Proton or natively to Linux, the chance they’d work on anything not Windows is close to nil. So it’s up to game developers.
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I had Windows 10
I tried Windows 11
I moved to Linux
Windows isn’t the only choice, but I also won’t flame anyone who decides to use Windows over Linux.
After seeing how incredible the Steam Deck is, I’ve completely have no reason to stay with Microsoft and Windows.
I am running Win11(pro) because the new Intel CPUs require it.
It’s completely fine. I use Firefox without edge annoying me. There are no apps that just pop up out of nowhere (that I know of). It’s fine. I locked down all the temeletry shit like I did on Win10.
The only thing annoying me is the change in the preview in folder icons. I wanna see the pictures that are in the folder not the. xmp files Darktable creates.
This. If you’re used to working with windows, 11 is the usual song and dance of disabling a bunch of telemetry shit and making sure windows update only runs when prompted.
I don’t even bother to do the latter on my windows machine since it’s my gaming rig and that doesn’t stay on unless I game (my server runs Debian), so there’s plenty of chances for it to install updates when rebooting.
Sure, sometimes it adds some half baked garbage “feature” like the weather widget and you gotta kill it, but that’s hardly an issue.
Thank you. I think it’s silly the amount of work it takes to initially learn how to properly debloat, install, and configure Windows nicely but once you’ve learned it it’s not tough to do. It’s only time consuming at worst, even with changes to an entirely new version. Even with Linux Distros there’s a certain amount of time you need to set aside to set up stuff how you want.
I am running Win11(pro) because the new Intel CPUs require it.
Say what? Why does it require it?
IIRC it has something to do with the process scheduling in 10 and lower that is not discerning between efficiency and performance cores
Yeah, Win10 can’t properly handle the efficency cores. So it’s either upgrade to Win11 or disable the cores. (Or play with terrible random stutters)
W11 works fine for me. I’ll update to 12 if there are no major issues with it. Same thing I’ve done with every Windows update. Like it or not, Windows still wins in software compatibility, and that saves me the most amount of time.
I bet you’d be surprised at what saves you the most time. Sure, short term sticking with what you know may be faster, but I switched to KDE Neon the other day and it’s great.
One thing I didn’t consider that’s an amazing QoL feature is updates to software, including the OS, are all handled mostly in one place. I can view all updates and install them all with one button press. With Windows you need to launch the application (assuming it’s set up to check for updates, if not you have to check manually), wait for it to check online for updates, go to the web page to download the installer, run installer, relaunch the application. It sucks. Theres many other features Linux just handles more elegantly than Window’s pile of shit software. Windows functions but it isn’t good or fast.
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That would be a big problem. I would not pay a subscription. But I’m also not buying into the hype saying that it’s going to have a sub. That was based on a “leaked” email that wasn’t even clear about what they were talking about.
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Even apple hasn’t gone to a subscription based model yet. I highly doubt Microsoft is gonna be like “yeah that’d be a great idea.”
The last time I heard about something going subscription based was with Bungie and Destiny 2 from a “leak,” which was just bollocks.
I’m sure they’d know that going that route would result in a lot more problems.
First off, I highly doubt the ‘cloud only’ rumors are true. By definition, an operating system must help the machine itself operate. The only way I see something like that being feasable is if the extra app bloatware is web based, which I certainly wouldn’t complain about.
I currently use Linux quite heavily and have a Windows 11 VM on my desktop for all my unsupported software. I am using the Ghost Spectre version and I’m enjoying it quite a lot, it actually makes Windows a good experience. As for 12, I’ll wait and see what it’s like and decide then (for my VM, not bare metal).
I’m just afraid Windows 12 will be something like ChromeOS that just starts Microsoft Edge fullscreen and opens a login screen to some computer in the cloud that I have to pay for.
Rest assured, I’m pretty confident that won’t be the case. While web apps certainly have gained their fair share of popularity, some things still need to be localized on your machine. Chrome OS is just proof of that since it has really taken off after it had forgone its original goal of being fully web based. Last I checked, it even had Steam working allowing you to play games on YOUR computer. Also, keep in mind if your fears did come true, Microsoft would have to run a cloud instance for every single computer running windows on the planet at the same time. This might just be my optimism and faulty assertion, but I don’t think that’s something they would want to do. A subscription based OS is likely, though.
Maybe long term, but plenty of businesses rely on apps that can’t or don’t run on the cloud. I can see them pushing low end devices to this. They have tried several times.
Wow, I’m not alone. Been trialing linux in preparation of what’s to come and it’s actually quite OK. Went with Kubuntu because Ubuntu doesn’t feel like Windows and Steam has official support for it or something? It was easy as pie to install.
Once Windows 10 doesn’t work, it’s probably curtains for windows on my PC.
Honestly, ubuntu has been rough a couple times and had I not tried it on a server for a long time before, I‘d probably given up. Most people strongly recommend mint these days. I should check it some day.
But steam is insanely good. Running most games and a lot of them faster than on windows these days. Most normal software has an open source equivalent and if you know scripting, you basically have a spaceship. Linux can do a lot of cool stuff.
I‘ll not go back, pretty sure.
Personally I’m switching to Pop!_OS and installing KDA Plasma on top of it. I’ve already tested it out on my old laptop
Steam has official Linux support, distro doesn’t really matter
Linux is so approachable now, I don’t see a reason not to make a full dive.
How well does Linux handle HDR? For me it’s now a requirement and I don’t see myself switching until it’s fully supported.
It’s theoretically possible right now if you use specific drivers with an AMD GPU and use Gamescope, but that’s not very easy or usable. KDE Plasma 6 is going to release in February with HDR support so that should be nice, and Cosmic is being worked on and should support HDR as well when it comes out.
Is there a reliable, thorough site that gives up-to-date information on Windows software compatibility in Linux?
It’s not the things that take up 80% of my time that worry me. I am sure it will be seamless to manage a word-compatible document or spreadsheet or browse the Internet. But the edge-cases - FL Studio, a specific game I want to play, some niche app I don’t even notice I need until it’s gone - make me hesitant to devote time into trying.
Some good starting points:
FL Studio on WineHQ: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=178
These databases are crowdsourced, so less popular apps will have less eyes on them. You can see on that FL Studio page that the tests are all over the place, with different app versions, different wine versions, and different ratings all the way from “garbage” to “platinum”. This does not inspire confidence.
FOSS, WINE, and reducing tech clutter.
It’s not perfect, but this is the Life of open source and proprietary software.
My plan is to have a Windows VM for when I can’t make it work, but Wine should cover most cases.
You can always install Linux on a USB key to try it out and see how it would go using it for your main tasks.
That’s a good reminder, thanks. I’ve done that in the past, but way too long ago to be relevant now.
I will update my Arch distro to Arch 2
“If Arch is so great, why haven’t they made Arch 2?”
I refuse. Running Linux on every single device that I own
Hot take: Microsoft stops supporting Windows altogether and switches to maintaining its own Linux distro (yes, it does exist, but it’s not for consumers)
Yeah, no way that’s gonna happen. They’re never gonna kiss those Windows licensing fees goodbye. If anything, they’ll double down and make it a subscription. Linux is too free for Microsoft and their shareholders.
A subscription based operation system is what I like to call my worst nightmare.
Well, isn’t it gonna fail since everyone is gonna be so mad about it that they’re just gonna leave? Or is brand loyalty way too powerful?
In my experience, it isn’t as much about brand loyalty as it is about a mix of convenience and damage control.
For as many faults as Windows has, Microsoft would definitely reel themselves in from jumping the shark. Yearly fees could be justified by saying they’re really affordable + you get customer support. Add onto that how entrenched Windows is and how unapproachable the competition is by comparison(seriously, how many computers come with Linux or BSD pre-installed?) and you basically can’t lose.
Sure, there will be a subset of people will switch to an alternative or pirate Windows, but regular home users aren’t the major source of Microsoft’s revenue anyway, it’s businesses that largely depend on Windows.
Right.
I saw W11 in action on a different PC and that made me stay on W10. In the meantime, I researched Linux and dipped my toes in it for a while. Just made PoP! _OS my daily driver (installed on my main NVME), with much less pain than I thought, while I moved W10 on a secondary, old and small SSD, only for those games that don’t work in Proton/Wine.
It is a bit difficult to learn everything from scratch, but it’s a small price to pay, to be honest
As always: I’ll do what I have to to be able to play the online games I want to play. Linux for everything else.
I’m looking at Linux for my next gaming PC with either a Win10 partition or VM for poorly supported games/tools. But I also only update hardware every 5-10 years, so I’m not a bleeding edge kinda fella anymore.
I went all in with Linux and dumped windows and android…
You’re using a Linux phone? Which one
Android Is technically Linux tho
Not just technically. The killer combo of FOSS operating systems is GNU/Linux on desktop and Android OSP on mobile.
I’m curious what the person you replied to is running on their phone if it isn’t Android based.Let’s be honest it’s probably iOS. Gross.
Maybe Ubuntu touch?
I’m getting a second SSD to load Linux on to get used to it. When staying on 10 is no longer an option I guess I will just be full time Linux.
I’m in the same boat but I’ve had that SSD sitting in a box next to my PC for the past six weeks. I can’t seem to dredge up the time to work on this project.
I feel the pain: began my Linux journey some four months ago, tried Ubuntu first, played with it a bit for a couple days, abandoned it; then tried PoP!_OS, got it up and running, broke it, wiped it; tried again and it finally clicked! I’m now dailying it, and it’s been pretty good so far!
Keep trying without forcing yourself, maybe try different distros depending on what you need!
