12 months left to keep Copilot off your desktop or learn Linux
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Windows 11 - used it $day job$ and it's ok. That's as charitable as I can be. They're looking to move staff to Macs and Linux, and retire W11. It's only in use because of things like Office, Outlook, and the odd bit of software that's Windows only. Which is kind of ironic, because there are quite a few programs I've come across that download only for Mac or Linux which is the opposite to 20 years ago.
It's funny and a bit sad that Windows 11 is the kind of version of Windows I would have associated with Ballmer. A sort of in-your-face money making machine with all its ads and cruft. Yet, it's Nadella. Does Microsoft, at some level, have a 'we know Windows is dying' attitude? They have their other billion dollar 'pillars' of Azure, Office, XBox, and so on.
You can use Office apps in the browser now. I've only really used Outlook and Teams there, so YMMV.
Though it unfortunately broke with Wayland, so had to move my work machine to Windows using WSL.
I only use Windows at work and was recently forced to switch to Win 11. That's pretty much my review as well. There are UI changes that I hate quite a lot, but I could find utilities and settings that mitigate much of that.
I didn't find anything (yet) that I consider an actual improvement.
Serious question: has there (ever?) been any, since say, Windows 2000?
Some progress has been made with regards to stability, but other than that? Usability hasn't improved and i'd consider Windows 10 and especially 11 extremely user hostile and full of spying.
Start menu search in Vista (of course then we had to wait for 7 for a semi-decent Windows)
Past that... WSL? But it sort of says something that the biggest improvement to Windows is adding Linux.
Although i actually prefer Spotlight (both on macOS and iOS) - it just works that good (imho, haven't seen any better desktop search).
That's the thing with Linux: most updates, including security updates, do not require a reboot. And the thing is rock stable solid.
> No random pauses, and everything, including search, just work.
One detail I really love about Linux, since forever, it's that when you ask it to turn off, it turns off. Not in minutes. Not in a minute. No: it's turns off nearly instantly.
When you ask to turn Windows off, for oh-so-many people, "stuff" happens. You don't know what exactly: it's probably sending your whole life as "telemetry" to "enhance your user experience" back to M$FT. Yup, it maybe childish to write M$FT like that, with a '$', but it doesn't change the fact that stuff happens when you turn Windows off and you don't know exactly what. And it's by now certainly related to '$' going somewhere to Microsoft seen how much that thing is spying on people.
But the original point wasn't whether Linux could, but whether it's different from Windows.
And as someone who compiles DXVK from git: dx12 won't work out of the box; it is different from Windows. Not particularly difficult, but different...
I've only been using Linux for 20 years so can you explain what you mean by this?
So, no, "no problems" is a bit of overselling it.
For those considering it, I wrote this blog post which might be helpful: https://neluplatonov.com/posts/2024/the-mere-mortals-guide-t...
Caveat: I don't use any special hardware like audio interfaces or racing wheels, so no idea about the experience with those (I'd assume getting drivers to work might be a PITA/impossible?).
I think if Microsoft would focus on quality of life improvements and fix the mess that Windows UX often is, maybe implement a fancy new theme every once in a while, then they could get people excited about updates again.
I remember in 1995 a few of my fathers coworkers lining up for a midnight launch of Windows 95. By 2007 and Vista the same people were saying that you'd take XP from their cold dead hands.
Much of the anticheat tech is still windows only. Same with video streaming DRM.
HDR still doesn't work properly, there are no codecs (Atmos, DTS:X) for my surround system, latest nvidia driver broke Microsoft Flight Sim and other games on wayland. The list goes on.
And as for Copilot - I'm sure I'll be able to rip it out, just like the other crap MS forcefully pushes on people.
The Steam Deck OLED has an HDR screen and as far as I can tell it just works.
MS should take responsibility for all the trashed hardware that they cause with their idiotic upgrade policies and ever increasing system requirements.
The article is calling windows 10 a "winning formula" - while it is already a dumpster fire.
If you want to try out games on linux and make it easy, try out Lutris.
Apple with its ARM CPUs and requirement for Metal isn't there really.
Never tried LoL, but dx12 games like Horizon ZD/FW run well enough with ultra settings for the former, high for the latter.
Hat tip to any Linux switchers. I hope you get what you need out of it.
If my options were Windows or OSX, I would be swallowing copilot.
I'm so damn thankful Linux became a viable option. Switched to Linux fully a couple of years ago, and have been very happy since.
All the complaints are about bloat-ware and ads.
During the Pro install, Choose International vs US and you don't get any bloat. With Pro ($90?) nothing is pushed on you. The small things that are, can easily be removed with Powershell.