this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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This popped up over the weekend on my work PC. It was an emergency and I absolutely needed to get to my desktop ASAP.
Nope. Full screen advertisement for Windows 11 demanding my immediate and undivided attention. Blocking all other functions, commands, and inputs. I must interact with this ad or else I cannot use my computer.
Fuck. That.
I am never installing Windows 11. I am never buying another Microsoft operating system. Specifically because of this sort of heavy-handed dark patterned bullshit. Not to mention the fact that Windows 10 is dog shit.
I paid full price for Windows 10 twice, from Microsoft's website. I believe in paying for good software but Windows 10 was anything but. After the whole forced Microsoft account thing I had very little patience and then Windows 11 dropped. I switched to Linux and never looked back.
I understand if anyone can't switch or disagree with my point of view, you don't have to leave a comment.
What do you mean by forced Microsoft account? You can make local accounts out of the box in 10 and 11. It's just annoying to get around.
There isn't much stopping them from patching the workaround and forcing a setup screen right after the update. I'm glad it works for you, I'm just not interested in making excuses for a three trillion dollar company .
The point being that he paid for the software and he shouldn't have to get around if
I agree, but I'm just pointing out that it's possible to get around it. Microsoft fucking sucks, but I want people to know ways around stuff so they aren't wasting time and money if they don't have to.
Yup. Personally only use it for work. Linux all the way on all my machines
I've never worked with Linux and I get so drained from work, that I don't even want to look at a computer when I get home. Idk if I have the energy to learn Linux lol.
I switched to Linux in 2014 mostly because Win 8.1 happened to me.
Learning Linux MInt felt about like learning a new Windows version. Think about what it was like to cope with 7 if you're used to XP, or 10 if you're used to 7. It's about like that. But on Linux, it doesn't go through those dramatic pointless UI changes. Features get added, they sometimes change the default theme, but they don't drastically change the workflow from one version to the next. If anything, the UI felt more familiar to me than Win 8.1 did. Coping with things like the new way file systems are handled can be a thing, but as I was already playing with Raspberry Pis and had learned how to type cd and ls in a terminal I was kind of okay with that.
Install mint (cinnamon). Very easy to use for starting. Will make computers fun again. As for games. Most work fine but ymmv
I'll have to look into it once I get a Steamdeck. I won't need to game on a computer at that point lol. What kind of specs should my computer have in order to run mint well? I know Jack shit about Linux other than the Arch btw jokes and the penguin mascot.
Anything at all. I run on raspberry pis, old lenovo laptops, new gaming laptops, amd pc with 64 gig ram and nvidia 4070ti. Make a bootable usb and test it to see if you like it without installing to the drive (live mode), then if you want to make the plunge, install.
Dope. Thanks! Do you have any other recommendations other than Mint? I wanna try different stuff and see what I like best.
Hopefully my almost 5 year old HP gaming laptop can run Linux better than it does Windows. The thing is on its last legs rn. It isn't anything hella fancy and only has 8GB of RAM. Can't remember how big the SSD is. I got the thing before I was more knowledgeable about computer specs and hardware and all that. I needed a laptop for college at the time and figured that a gaming one could also keep me occupied in the 6 hours I had between classes lol.
Unfortunately for me, my college didn't teach about hardware and specs and all that, despite like 50 or 60 students going to the dean with multiple professors' support asking for at least one new course. We even typed up a whole request and outlined what we wanted to learn and made a petition.
With my major you have three career choices they prep you for: programming, network administration, or database management. Like half of the people in my major wanted to do helpdesk and thought this major would help with that until we were like 1.5 years in and too invested to change majors. The dean turned our request down immediately.
A semester after I graduated, the university merged with two other universities and now they have a whole ass major that revolves around hands on shit that preps for helpdesk jobs. I suck at programming database stuff. I was okay in my four Cisco courses, and those almost got canceled because students were not interested in them because they were hard af.
I got a 4 year degree to increase job prospects. Totally would have went to trade school if I knew what I was getting myself into.
I'm so sorry for rambling like this omg. My sleeping meds kicked in and I tend to go on tangents when that happens. I'm too lazy to get rid of the shit I already typed up, so I apologize if the wall of text is a conversation ender lol.
Ha. No worries. List of distributions...
I would try them out as either live usb tests or in virtual box first to see what tickles your fancy. In the mid to late 90's I was using slack and Debian. Debian is generally used as a base in docker images for its stability, so getting to know that to get into herding containers can be a good thing.
Many others out there, that's just a small list off the top of my head.
List of distros
'nother list
distrowatch used to be my go to when hunting fun distros.
Have fun!
Break shit!
Learn how to fix it (almost every catastrophe is recoverable)
Thank you! I realized that I will need a backup PC to use for my work if my work laptop goes down. Is there some fuckery that can allow me to boot from both OS's somehow? Like choose before anything loads
Oh yes!
If you have a big enough hard drive then you can install Linux alongside Windows. You will get that option when installing. When you boot, you will be able to choose...
Caveat, win11 requires secure boot which I haven't dealt with, so you may have to research if that's the case. There will be lots of info online though - it will depend upon your distro though
Awesome! Thanks!
What is the way around Microsoft accounts during 10/11 setup?
10: put no@thankyou.com as the email and whatever the fuck you want as a password. It'll give you an error then let you proceed with local setup. That's if it forces you to connect to the Internet. I prefer saying I don't have Internet and choose the limited setup option.
11
This right here is exactly why I jumped ship. Linux questions tend to be "How do I do this?" and ya learn something.
Microsoft questions tend to be: "Windows is trying to force some new commercially motivated shenanigans on me when I'm just trying to use the OS I already paid them for, how many clever steps must I take to work around their unending, ever-evolving nonsense... Until they pull something else with the next update?"
The complete obfuscation of making local accounts and pushing M$ accounts was infuriating.
I feel this in my bones. Can't tell you the number of times I've been working on some late night or weekend work emergency when fucking Microsoft throws some random unnecessary bullshit in my path. Haven't run into the Win 11 mandatory commercial yet. But MS is notorious for wasting our time with push notifications, Teams drama, mandatory updates, and slow ass software that glitches at the worst possible times.
MS lost the way years ago. They forgot that software is supposed to work for us. They demand we work for their shitty software.
"Just use Linux" indeed. Will be doing that in my retirement.
Whenever that switch to linux comes, I recommend linux mint.
Works out of the box, the community using it seems friendly and happy to help, and can be pretty easily configured to fit with windows habits.
Thank you for the recommendation. I have dabbled but have a lot to learn. Looking forward to it.
It seems like every other time I interact with teams I get a "ARE YOU AWARE OF THIS FEATURE" popup that I have to close before I can do whatever it was I was trying to do. It's annoying as fuck. Then there's outlook fucking up my view every time I open the calendar across all my work PCs.
Pain. Very familiar. They went full Clippy on us.
I feel you. I wish I wasn’t supporting 3500 windows endpoints but that’s the job. Refuse to use that shit at home though except for gaming. Luckily my home windows 10 has all that dumb shit slipstreamed out. I use a Mac or iPad for most other stuff.
I work at an MSP and it has made me hate Windows with a passion. I don't even want to look at my own computer when I get home. I do almost everything I need to at home on my phone (a pixel 7) and I game on my PS5, switch, and I will be getting a Steamdeck at some point soon.
I adore my steam deck! I play it at home more than my gaming PC because I can be on the couch with my partner instead of another room. Luckily when I do game on my PC I never have to mess with windows, it’s just opening steam and picking something.
I'm saving up for a fence for my yard and a new patio roof, because those take precedence over fun shit. After that I'm gonna get a steam deck. I wanted to get one with my Xmas bonus, but I had vet bills for my puppy and I was out of work for two months due to an injury.
You can support a Windows domain and tons of endpoints from Linux. I know. My work PC runs Arch, btw.
xfreerdp is much better than mstsc.exe
Welcome to the real corporate world where we have teams of people and good luck trying to get your help desk to support Linux, they can’t even figure out Macs
I doubt my helpdesk staff will support my PC. I manage the company including helpdesk PCs from my PC.
It will probably be last PC working when the dummies in that department manage to get spearfished and all windows boxes are encrypted.
There's not a lot you can do against idiots with Domain Admin credentials other than off-site backups (on a non AD joined Linux PC of course).