Windows 11 still sucks.

[Night Wing]

I also had bad Linux experiences in the past (driver-related and missing software - not games). I'd be willing to try again though, if Windows 12 is even worse than 11, which is highly likely.

If you pick Mint, when installing it, during the install you will come to page which asks you if you want to install the "codecs" with an unchecked box in front of it. By default this little box is "unchecked". Just click on the box which puts a check mark in it and Mint will then load all the drivers for wifi (if installing Mint on a laptop), driver for you graphics and the driver for your audio sound.

In MX Linux, you have to install the codecs "after" MX Linux is installed. You would just go to MX Tools and click on the codecs heading. Click "Apply" and you're done. Everything you'll need codecs wise will be installed.

So if Windows 11 and 12 are not to your liking, Linux can be a very good alternative. This is why there are so many linux distros. Many Windows users say there are too many linux distros to choose from. They view these too many choices as a disadvantage. I am in disagreement with them. I consider too many choices as an advantage.

With so many distro choices, you will eventually find a linux distro that literally, you will really like and the distro will make you feel like someone created that distro "just for you". When I found Mint, I was very comfortable using it after only 35 minutes of time and it gave me a very good feeling.

Before I found Mint, I had played around with other distros first. They were SolydXY, Linux Lite, Xubuntu, Zorin and Debian. But Mint for me felt like I was "home" with that very good feeling.

When I got really proficient at using Mint, I decided I wanted to learn another linux distro. I tried the Manjaro distro, but it didn't appeal to me like Mint did. But then I found MX Linux and this distro REALLY "wowed me" because it is highly customizable, easy to learn and use.

[back2themoon]

Thanks Night Wing, I'll keep all this in mind.

I remember that the hot Windows alternative of the era (Ubuntu) went onto a downward spiral too (similar to Windows). Of course, there are many alternatives now.

[Night Wing]

@ back2themoon

Mark Shuttleworth is the main man behind Ubuntu. Ubuntu is his "baby".

Mint is based on Ubuntu. The three desktop environments of Mint are Cinnamon, Mate, Xfce and they are Ubuntu based. But Mint does not follow Ubuntu in lock step. There is also Mint in LMDE which is based off of Debian.

Right now LMDE 6 is in Beta. Not publicly released yet. The Beta release is for power users to find as many bugs and other problems and fix them. Once there is a concenus among many people, then LMDE 6 will be released publicly and it will be shown on the DistroWatch site first. The only desktop environment LMDE comes with is Cinnamon.

I'm assuming if the developers of Mint do not like going down the same path which Ubuntu is going down right now (with Snaps), in the future if there other things the Mint developers do not like about Ubuntu's path, they would drop Ubuntu and go down the path of Debian. This is why LMDE exists. Sort of a parachute to speak of if you get my drift.

Right now, Ubuntu is "big" into Snaps. They want their users to use Snaps programs. Why? Because Snaps comes from the Ubuntu Store. This is the same BS that Microsoft started with the Windows Store which didn't go over very well. In essence, a "walled in garden".

Mint instead has Flatpacks. Mint will not load any Snaps upon installation. If you want a program which is Snap based, you can download and install it on your own. But then you will be tied to the Snap Store in Ubuntu.

If I am correct, MX Linux also has reservations about Snaps too. But MX Linux is Debian based, not Ubuntu based.

[Kerebron]

But MX Linux is Debian based, not Ubuntu based.

MX Linux is antiX based, which is Debian based.
Mint is Ubuntu based, which is Debian based, as well.
Mint LMDE is Debian based directly, leapfrogging Ubuntu.

[back2themoon]

Yeah, you've lost me with all these combinations.

Anyway, I will catch up when the time comes.

[Kerebron]

In a nutshell - they are all Debian based.

[Night Wing]

Yeah, you've lost me with all these combinations.

What Kerebron is referring to is the "family tree" of linux which can be seen at the link below picture wise. Since the picture is so large, you will have to do a little scrolling down and horizontally to see everything.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ee1210.svg

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Since the picture is so large, you will have to do a little scrolling down and horizontally to see everything.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ee1210.svg

Curious that being SVG (where S should stand for Scalable) it cannot be zoomed out with NoSquint.
Anyhow (with scroll) it is rather instructive. I wasn't aware of so many distros.
My personal exposure (but for the pre-Linux world of SunOS, Solaris, Ultrix and Tru64 and little HP-UX not talking of pre-Unix OS's) was just to SuSE and (X)Ubuntu, following the choices of my institution.

[Night Wing]

Since the picture is so large, you will have to do a little scrolling down and horizontally to see everything.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ee1210.svg

Curious that being SVG (where S should stand for Scalable) it cannot be zoomed out with NoSquint.

I no longer use NoSquint and uninstalled it. I can make the page larger or smaller simply by pressing my "Control" key down and leaving it pressed down with one finger on my left hand while scrolling forward or back with my right index finger using my mouse wheel. I use a mouse on both desktop tower computers and laptop computers.

Why don't you uninstall NoSquint and see if you can do what I do. Of course, I don't know if you can do the above if you use your fingers on a touchpad with a laptop.

If it doesn't work for you, you can always re-install NoSquint.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

Off-topic:
Thanks. All this is off-topic for the current thread. Your control+mousewheel (with NoSquint disabled) works ok on the SVG (except that that particular one has an aspect ratio which is portrait-like while my screen is landscape-like, so the scrollbar is better anyhow). I tried it also on some SVG of my own. I will however keep NoSquint because it has other features I like (default larger zoom; per-site zoom factors; per-site colour settings). It is an accidental feature that it does not work with pages which are SVG. Maybe it was a misunderstanding pn my side about the "scalability" of SVG ... they are perfectl y scalable when imbedded into HTML ... which is the way I sometimes use them. Thnaks anyhow
BTW I normally work on a desktop. I hate touchpads and prefer to carry a mouse along with the laptop if I have space in the luggage

[mtosev]

I have been using Windows 11 for 2 years now and I generally like the OS. I didn't notice many changes from Windows 10.

Until now I have used the following oses 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, XP, vista, 7, 8.1, 10.

[Tharthan]

This is part of the problem transitioning to linux.

[...]

People don't need a hundred different operating systems. They need only one.

Although I myself will be setting up my brand new XFCE Linux Mint computer within the next few weeks, I echo this sentiment.

But for me, it was a choice between putting up with the unacceptable antics of today's Microsoft (which also, more and more by the year, amounts to an indirect toleration of the antics of Google & co.), or putting up with an unideal GNU/Linux situation.

[LuftWafflePilot]

I finally convinced my father in law to buy a new notebook. I specifically sent him two links to such machines that came without an OS so I can install it the way I wanted (I am the IT in the house), and he bought a different model with Windows 11 on it. Meh. I hope it's the Home edition as an icing on the cake.
Anyway, I looked at it for a short while and aside from the weirdly centered icons on the taskbar, I didn't object to the visual side of things.
I presume the thing is running the last 23H2 version.

Now I feel compelled to install this in a VM to get a taste.
Is there anything I should know before I start playing with it? Like, any warnings before I suffer or anything?

[athenian200]

Now I feel compelled to install this in a VM to get a taste.
Is there anything I should know before I start playing with it? Like, any warnings before I suffer or anything?

I have a laptop with Windows 11 on it. It's fine if you just want to run Office and use Edge, which is what I am doing with my laptop for school anyway since they have Office 365 Education and my classes expect me to use PowerPoint, OneDrive, etc. It's also capable of compiling Pale Moon and Epyrus, apparently. I decided to test out of curiosity and it works, though I have yet to test if the binaries it produces work on older Windows... wouldn't trust it without further testing, though.

The main complaint that resonates with me is really that it requires TPM and much newer hardware than Windows 10, so I can't run it on my old PCs (of which I have a ton thanks to the slowing of Moore's Law plus Windows 10 allowing me to keep systems from 2012 working without a hitch for so long). Plus, it requires Secure Boot, so I can't dual-boot with a different OS if I install it. As for what other people are saying... mostly it's just ugly and the taskbar is less functional, and also you have more menus buried and oversimplified, more was removed from the Control Panel and put in awkward places, etc. The big one that other people hate is that it's a lot harder to use a personal account instead of a Microsoft account, and that's a dealbreaker for some as well.

Could I use it if I had to? Probably. But it really doesn't offer anything Windows 10 doesn't, it's just more locked down, corporate, ugly, and looks truly soulless in a way Windows 10 didn't. It feels like it's trying to emulate MacOS and ChomeOS, like they just don't care anymore and are mindlessly imitating their competitors thinking that's the way forwards. At least Windows 8 and 10 still had a personality (even if you didn't like that personality), Windows 11 is just painful to look at.

The one positive? It has better support for subsystems and VMs, on such a level that it can run Android and Linux applications far more easily, as well as allow you to install Windows 11 on the base hardware and run other operating systems on top. So you can easily just have this as your supported base for Edge and Office, but do all your real work in a Windows 10 Sandbox or a Linux Sandbox, basically.

[Moonchild]

The one positive? It has better support for subsystems and VMs, on such a level that it can run Android and Linux applications far more easily, as well as allow you to install Windows 11 on the base hardware and run other operating systems on top. So you can easily just have this as your supported base for Edge and Office, but do all your real work in a Windows 10 Sandbox or a Linux Sandbox, basically.

That isn't new for Windows 11! It's easy to set up and run native Linux applications on the Windows desktop.
Here's an example of a native Linux build of Pale Moon running inside my Windows desktop, right next to the native Windows one, just using tools supplied with Windows 10 (WSL). And as you can see there's no virtualization overhead to speak of (1% CPU load) as it uses a hypervisor.

[suzyne]

Here's an example of a native Linux build of Pale Moon running inside my Windows desktop, right next to the native Windows one, just using tools supplied with Windows 10 (WSL).

That is a very cool screenshot! I think I will need to find out easy it is to do, because while I don't have an immediate need I am curious and didn't know that Windows 10 can do such things.

And I am currently stuck Windows 10, because I really, really like having my Taskbar down the left edge of the screen, and don't think that is possible on 11?

[Moonchild]

I think I will need to find out easy it is to do

Just do a search for "Windows subsystem for Linux". There's howtos on YouTube as well as written guides around.

[LuftWafflePilot]

Oh the online account is stupid.
But I have been using unattended setup for a decade or so now, and the basic stuff including accounts is configured through the answer file, so maybe that is still working? I don't know how much is Windows 10 infested with Microsoft accounts, but the way I have stuff set up automatically I never got prompted to anything even remotely related to this once.
TPM, dual boot and whatever else is not relevant to me.

[UCyborg]

I've been trialing the OS for about half-year, I found it manageable with the usual 3rd party software to restore/enhance features we've grown to like from the older days. Seems like a heavier Windows 10 with a bunch of extra questionable UI decisions, an OS with an apparent identity crisis. I personally appreciate Windows 10 for some of the under the hood changes. eg. memory management / pagefile usage algorithm (less swapping than previous versions is quite apparent in some usage scenarios) and the way compositor is integrated and how it plays with fullscreen games, among other things.

I imagine Windows 10 will be the XP of the 2020s. At least I'll probably stick with it for a good while. I'm not aware of any "killer feature" I'd need in Win11, nor the application, but my needs aren't that complicated. Win11 24H2 probably won't work on my machine anyway, it looks like it will have CPU requirements that won't be bypassable.