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Microsoft accidentally leaks internal tool that can enable hidden Windows 11 features
(www.windowscentral.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
We getting to the point where some Linux distros are objectively better systems... all around. Having way less issues with PopOS than I did with Win11
True, I've been using NobaraOS and have no problems at all, I moved my mom from windows to ZorinOS and she only noticed because her laptop no longer "freezes up" randomly, and I'm talking about a surface book that runs better on Linux than on Windows. Gotta love the irony
Hah, same here. Nobara for me and Zorin for mum, works like a charm. If only mainstream OEMs pre-installed Linux and promoted it more... But I guess this is fine too. One day, when I have enough capital, I'll launch my own Linux Desktop company and be the change I want to see.
Yep! Co-worker had 2 old laptops, threw a SSD into one of them and put Zorin OS on it for his daughter to do schoolwork on. Not one complaint or question about how to do anything, and it's been a year. The other one was very very underpowered so I threw CasaOS onto it and got him setup with Home Assistant and Adguardhome.
How did you get past the website? It's bloody awful :o
Joking aside though, I hadn't heard of CasaOS, so I just did a quick search. That website is awful on mobile. I swiped up, assuming that there was more than just the live demo link, but nothing happened for a while. Then, loads of content popped up at once and scrolled past >.<
I've sent it to myself to check out on the computer. Hopefully, if it does what it claims, it could resurrect an old laptop :)
I once installed Zorin for my gf's ancient laptop, it was so much faster and she loved the color schemes for xfce
Yup, just moved to Mint on my laptop since I’ve been getting some issues with Windows draining the battery quick despite it being in “good health” according to Dell, and just general performance hiccups across Windows.
Super low CPU and RAM usage, snappier performance for word processing and surfing, and a longer battery life? With no tracking features to boot? All for free? Hell yeah I’ll move over to Linux lol.
Yeah, I switched my gaming PC over to popOS and noticed no major issues - steam and heroic just worked as I expected.
Does this mean the games that worked on steam for windows will also work on steam for popOS?
Usually. Proton by Steam (versions of wine tuned specifically for games) makes just about anything run flawlessly with one click to turn it on in the settings and occasionally some fine tuning for particular games like setting it to run a particular version of proton. This works on any Linux distro.
Outside of Steam, and when trying to mod Steam games, it's a lot more hit or miss.
You can run non-steam games through steam to use Proton.
Damn, I didn't know we'd come this far to adopting Linux on gaming machines. Makes me hopeful for the future.
I've had good success using heroic for epic and gog games, but lutris gave me some trouble
You can check if your Steam games work on Linux in general here: https://www.protondb.com/. PopOS is a noob friendly distribution well adapted for gamers and artists.
The other thing worth noting is that just because a linux distro is noob friendly, it doesn't mean advanced users should feel the need to use more complicated distros. Quite the opposite in a lot of cases - I've used Linux for work over ~10 years (first tried it in 2007) and yet find myself back on Ubuntu for my laptop. PopOS for my desktop because of nvidia convenience (+ less issues than most other distros).
We've been past that point for awhile.
Arch Linux has been an objectively better system for years.
If I didn't use my pc primarily as a gaming pc I would absolutely be running Linux. Hopefully one day we can get there with compatability and performance.
I use mine for gaming and shit posting... only anti cheat triple AAA does not work like new BF and CoD, everything else runs great or fine.
Let's all thank the steam deck. Now Linux is bigger in gaming than mac
Valve doing lords work but let's NOT bootlick too hard they are just defending turf and we happen to benefit
I mean I'm going to date myself but the game I play the most on my steam deck is dungeon keeper 2 from GOG and it works fine
The bad news, for me at least, is yes I can get most games to run fine. Skyrim, cyberpunk, Sims 4 etc. The issue is modding. Sims 4 is excluded from this as you littlery just drop .package files in the mod folder and just works. But games like cyberpunk and Skyrim...you often need external tools/injectors/animation riggers etc for a lot of the 'good stuff's. And getting those tools to work properly can be a nightmare.
I don't remember it being much of a nightmare for Skyrim, but then again some mods were indeed broken. Pretty normal tho :/
Why do those tools work differently on Linux if the games are fine? At most a script extender would need is a Microsoft Dell and don't those come with wine or whatever?
Honestly asking. I use Windows. But if games work I'll switch.
Generally you use some kind of tool to manage/update the mods and set them to load in the right order. While those tools may also work under Linux with Proton/Wine/etc, each app you launch typically has its own isolated folders. So in order to get it to work, you'd need to change where that mod manager app uses to use the folders that Proton/etc configured for the actual game like Skyrim. That's compared to just installing the mod configurator/launcher app and having it start Skyrim for you on Windows.
The fact that there's a 60 page guide on how to do it tells you it's not as easy as on Windows: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/91500?tab=description
Aaand I'll be using Windows for awhile I guess.
Kudos for the author putting that together.
I think the best you can do is still dual boot Linux and Windows, not ideal but at least you're avoiding most of these issues.
I might try that, just to get used to it and learn how it's structured. All I use my PC for now is gaming, music and movies. I barely even browse the Internet on it anymore.
They can use any number of extra libraries and such. Idk I'm not a programmer. But I've certainly tried. Though tbh it's been. A while. Sadly I dual boot just for the games that I mod that require a bunch of external tools to mod. I don't have the time anymore to try and force em. A me problem yes.
There are definitely "quirks", even with a lot of the gold/platinum rated games on protondb. E.g. Titanfall 2, horrible crackling audio issues at times, even though it runs great otherwise. Firewatch, random choppy slowdowns, but rare. BattleBit, sometimes (not too often) 20 seconds of 20fps, then back to normal.
Check if your games run on Linux here, you may be surprised: https://protondb.com
What games are you playing?
I’m tempted to try vfio but for now I just dual boot -_-
Currently demo-ing Mint, and might actually switch.
Mostly because almost every non-UWP app works fine and good alternatives exist for things that don’t, and partially because the PC doesn’t sound like it’s taking off when it starts up.
Same, switched to an easy Mint install and immediately felt more in control of my computer again. Some professional software does still cause problems though so a 100% switch sadly isn't possible... yet.
Amen, pop here too
My keyboard and trackpad often don't work on resume in PopOS but otherwise I really like it.