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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
