- A new patch is being quietly pushed to Windows 10 (and 11) PCs
- It’ll force upgrades in certain circumstances to keep the PC in support
- This update will mean more nag prompts coming to your PC
Finally, the year of the Linux desktop
Once Cosmic DE release, trust me bro
I’ve been hearing that since 2007
That’s the joke.
But damned if MS aren’t trying to make it a reality at every turn.
How is it gonna nag me to upgrade to Windows 11 when I don’t have a TPM?
I’d love to upgrade, the system is completely capable of running it, but because it doesn’t have a useless bit of hardware I can’t. Fuck em.
Mine said I couldn’t upgrade because of the no TPM thing. Turns out it’s just off by default on a lot of mobos.
Secondly, there’s a program called Rufus that can create a bootable flash drive with Windows 11 but removes stuff like the TPM requirements, the need for Microsoft account sign in, all the bad stuff etc
I’d been avoiding it for a year until I learned about Rufus but now that I’ve installed it, you know what? Without all the bloat, it’s a fucking smooth OS. Really excellent multitasking windows and fast too
Lemmy shits on it because “muh Linux” but if you install it right, it’s fucking excellent for the vast, vast majority of people
Rufus is the first (and only) program I install on Windows =]
You use Edge? Why?
Was a bit tongue in cheek. Edge can download Linux. Rufus puts it on a USB stick, and goodbye Windows. Then, I can use my computer.
My only gripe with Windows 11 is how it constantly puts in crap I don’t like without my permission and I’ll have to spend time to remove it.
Other than that and the incoherent UI philosophy, the OS is pretty smooth.
No, just familiarity what you’re sold on.
Yup, even though I’m 95% linux now, I realized that having a debloated windows on a separate drive for a small handful of stuff was easier than trying to make it work on Bazzite.
but if you install it right
Basically eliminates the vast majority of people who don’t have the technical knowledge to deal with Rufus
True, it’s as difficult as plugging in a flash drive and clicking three things
Your average yank can’t attempt to tie their shoes without accidentally committing genocide lol stay away from installing operating systems
as difficult as plugging in a flash drive
That’s a gross over-simplification
They have to
- Download the windows ISO
- How do you find the original ISO and not a cracked one?
- Get instructions to modify the ISO
- Hope you get the right set of instructions from a genuine website
- Download Rufus and install
- Make backup of their data
- Hope you disabled Bitlocker also
- Reboot and press the F? key to change boot order (F? varies from system to system)
- How do you even find the right key for this?
- Follow the installation process
One of the reasons Linux is not widespread is because following these “simple” instructions is too much for an average user. So I doubt a Windows user will be bothered to modify their OS. I have installed different variants of Linux 100s of time and even I need to check online if their are any hidden gotchas.
Exactly. You’d get your family “computer person” to do it.
If they care about the OS you want to use, they’ll upgrade to W11 this way.
If they’re obnoxious, self congratulatory Linux users, they’ll try to force you onto an OS you don’t understand
Which is better for the average person?
- Download the windows ISO
We shit on it because you need a crack to make it work properly in the first place.
I don’t use linux for my desktop either though because my computer is a tool, not a hobby.
Don’t you want the best tool for the job?
Yup, that’s why I got a Mac. It works perfectly out of the box, no rugged edges apps, no drivers/hw concerns, excellent battery time. Best UNIX laptop for the time being.
I give you as main flaws the cost and the irreparability of the hardware and maybe missing out on a few games but that is probably a tie with Linux, since it runs the same emulators/transcoder if needed.
maybe missing out on a few games but that is probably a tie with Linux
As some one who runs both: no, not even close. Mac has more direct ports than Linux true, but proton vastly outweighs that. I have dozens of games that show up on steam on my mac as unplayable where as I dont have any that wont run under proton.
Five years ago you’d probably have been right, but Linux is far superior to OSX for gaming now.
(E: assuming you’re talking about an apple silicon macbook, IDK the status of proton on x86 macs maybe it works there?)
I’ll give you that as I honestly don’t care much about games so I don’t know much. I’ve read somewhere that apple has a game porting toolkit similar to proton and whisky was good enough the one time I wanted to launch a windows one but I don’t know if it’s any good.
simple, Linux.
It’s not useless. It will enable MS to build the walled garden they want, where you are forced to use the software they permit you to and nothing else.
Euh… How? Coming from somebody that has a dualboot system with tpm and secure boot lol
Microsoft: Our computer.
Normies dont see an issuesz the merchant is much obliged
Capitalize the computer, socialize your hardware.
Microsoft: your computer, my choice
its bad enough i have to constantly kill the oobe crap every few minutes. glad i dont have that to pile on
I actually had a nightmare last night that my computer updated itself to some horrid version of windows and I spent it all frantically looking for my windows 7 ISO and keygen among old backups to blow it away and start again.
I’m going to upgrade to Ubuntu
Glad I switched to fedora
Until the AI stuff I would have loved to get an upgrade. Now… Not so much. And good thing my computer doesn’t qualify due to their arbitrary standards.
Genuine question: why not try Linux? You’ll continue to get updates without the nagware. There are very few games I play that cant run on proton at this point.
Multiplayer gaming. I love games like Foxhole and they usually have a bit of trouble on Linux.
With my TPM chip off I do not qualify either, I guess at some point windows will upgrade without my intervention then be bricked, plz Proton make the 70 missing vr titles in my library work, you are my only hope!
Anyone know where I can buy a gaming PC with linux preinstalled instead of windows?
I have a system76 machine. It’s been really good with steam. Or a steam deck, it’s just a PC.
Their laptops are not worth it if I’m honest. They have issues with the hinges. I had two of them give out. They use a very cheap plastic. But you are guaranteed no driver issues if you use PoPOS on their own machines.
System76 desktop is not gaming per se but it will game
They develop PopOS which is one of the better “normie” linux distros and supports nvidia gpus if you cuda is ur thing.
Steam deck maybe
Just build one, cheaper to boot.
Ew and buy components? No thank you, just mine, smelt, and build them, cheaper to boot.
Well…you’re not wrong.
It’s the specialized tools you’ll also need to do all of that that’ll get you, though.
Easy peasy just 3D print the tools. CPU and GPU fabrication in your garage. 😁
TSMC hates this one easy trick!
I’m sure if you searched for stuff nearby you could find a small local shop who could help you out.
I built one — took about 4 hours once all the parts arrived. My first build. Installed Linux Mint from a flash drive and it worked perfectly. Ended up switching to Zorin OS later — also works fine.
I have been able to play every game I wanted, except one requiring a VR headset.
Were you able to play other games requiring a VR headet?
Didn’t really try. Couldn’t get SteamVR working without lots of hacking. I ended up buying a smaller second hard drive and installing windows just for that use. Once I was done with that game, I haven’t booted into Windows since, as there is no reason to.
Build one!
System76, Dell, HP.
That said, I feel it’s very worth taking an evening to backup and install yourself
Writing this on a Tuxedo Pulse 14 gen 3 - great laptop, flawless Linux support and a coding workstation. Perfect for a bit of eg. Disco Elysium or Crusader Kings 3 on the go, but it’s no gaming machine; it has a lot of pixels for a Radeon 780M to push. They do have a list of gaming laptops, though, if you wanted a speciality machine?
And for those on the other side of the Atlantic, there are several computer shops that will just put a computed together for you without an OS.
Here’s a random example “configure your own computer” from a computer shop in France. In this one the OS (Système d’exploitation) is not included and you have to pay extra for it.
In my experience with custom assemblies like this the OS is never included.
When I live in the UK at some point I’ve even used of these kind of stores there to get a custom notebook.
It’s basically an “assemble your own computer” for people who don’t know how to do it and aren’t confident enough to try (understandable given that the parts value of a whole desktop PC adds up to at least €1000 so there generally is some fear of fucking it up if you’ve never done it before).
Yeah, you buy a gaming PC with Windows and you insert a USB stick and install Linux. Otherwise, you’ll be paying a high premium for a company that does basically the same thing. Things to look out for are try to find a PC with Intel networking and bluetooth adapters. Realtek is relatively well supported, but has been known to have issues.
If gaming is top priority. Go all amd, disregard Nvidia. AMD has extraordinary linux support and if it runs on the steam deck it will run on any all AMD machine.
True, but Nvidia has come a long way and I believe announced support in the recent months, but don’t quote me on the last part. I have a desk and laptop both with Nvidia GPUs, and I don’t have any issues. Wayland did not work until 4-6 months ago, but everything is pretty stable now.
My biggest fear is that so far Nvidia has a track record of introducing regressions and new bugs with each new driver version. Just a week ago all my flatpaks weren’t working on Wayland, again. It happens almost with every single update. Some games that are native or platinum randomly stop working and it takes several updates before they start working again. While on AMD everything just works all the time and regressions are solved in a day not weeks. It’s just annoying.
That’s fair. My next build will be AMD. I only switched to Linux the past December, and I already had my gear, so it is what it is for now. Further, my case is too small for new GPUs, so I’m riding my 2080ti to the end.
if your work involving CUDA then nvidia is the only option.
As others have mentioned, it’s incredibly easy to install yourself. You just need a flash drive and another device with internet access.
If you’re gaming, I’m using Garuda Dragonized, which is set up for gaming. I’ve liked it and seen many others like it too. Regardless, KDE is probably the DE you want if you’re coming from Windows, but there are plenty of others you may prefer.
You probably can’t get it pre-installed, which I think is probably monopolistic if the only OS choice presented to customers is Windows. That’s how it’s spread so far, not because it’s easier. The issue with pre-installing is they’d either have to let you choose from a ton of options or just limit your choices. It’s easier to let the customer handle it.
At least when it came to a laptop, I bought mine without a preinstalled OS - that is far more common than preinstalled Linux.
Pretty much all modern Linux installers offer to wipe the existing drive and overwrite. Just prepare a USB drive and boot from it, then follow the steps in the wizard.
Always remember to disable secureboot and remove bitlocker before installing linux on a oem windows machine. They make it hell to remove that malware from newer machines.
Bitlocker doesn’t mean anything when you delete its partition.
I would recommend keeping secure boot enabled if your OS supports it, and manually enrolling the key if it doesn’t. Boot chain attacks are a real concern.
Some linux installers will refuse to erase the bitlocker partition automatically. Then you have to manually erase it before running the installer.
I get that, and this is likely what I will do for my existing PCs. The reason I ask is three fold: 1) To save time. I don’t have a ton of spare time, so I would rather spend it gaming than messing around with wiping drives and installing stuff. 2) To encourage my friends to switch over, many of whom are less likely to spend time and effort than I am. 3) This is less important, but wouldn’t I be paying for a windows license I won’t even use? Not a fan of wasting the money, not a fan of paying Microsoft for a service I’m actively fighting to get away from.
Nonetheless, thanks, I will try to find some time to fiddle with installing on an older machine I have and see how that goes.
- The actual time needed to wipe out Windows and install is under 30 minutes.
- See above.
- Prebuilt machines use OEM keys, which are $10-$20 at best - whoever you buy the system from is definitely getting a volume discount. In my opinion, a small sacrifice to be free of M$.
System76, tuxedo computers or for handheld a steam deck
If they keep this up when are they going to offer to buy me a new PC for the new OS?
Yes, it’ll be part of the subscription package. Similar to your phone.
They won’t, but they bought me a brand new shiny copy of Linux Mint.
I’ll keep running W10 on my current machine, but when I build the next one I’m very seriously considering going Linux. My only concern is that many of the software I use regularly don’t have Linux versions.
I wanna do that ngl same concern.
But I managed to run affinity on wine which is great.And also every piece of software you use in Linux has to have some form of backing from the community or it dies. That said there have been well supported softwares over the years that are still here with us and support everything you did with them for 20 years or longer. Sometimes you just gotta open an old file with an old version of the software so you can bring it up to date.
I’m just saying that the software is different, does different things, Acts differently and is differently supported than windows. It also does differently. As an example or recent memory…scyncthing, the crazy cool backup thing is now “dead” because nobody gave money to the developer and he got tired of putting up with Google and Android. Scyncthing-fork came from it and who knows if anyone is going to keep using that. I’m migrating to a gui-less tool called rsync. Yeah, stuff can die overnight. But it keeps running for a few years, you just gotta remember to jump ship ⚓🚢. Linux is for those who like the adventure or support the software.
Why not timeshift?
Wait what, Syncthing is dead? But it’s what I use!
I know, surprise!
Only the android client, just use the fork I think he updated before the official one did anyway. Still it’s another case of Google constantly changing the rules on developers for no reason.
We’ll see. I’ve set the Group policy to limit feature updates to Win 10 22H2. I will be unhappy if they over-ride or reset a GPO.
Took me a second to realize she wasn’t incarcerated.
M$oft: “Your hardware, my computer”
Not as bad as a recent security patch which unexpectedly upgraded Windows Server 2022 to 2025 causing at least a few outages I know about for our clients.
as per usual, Microsoft remains the biggest advertiser to Linux
Makes sense, they are a big contributor to the kernel
