Plus, once you get done de-bloating Windows, the next Windows update will undo all your hard work and reset everything back to “allow all bloatware and spyware.” It’s a battle you’re never going to win unless you ditch Windows completely.
I’d like to try Linux with minimal commitment and no setup. Give it real test drive with some of my most important tools.
If and when I decide to make the switch, I want to have access to my normal windows machine. I’d keep it around if I need it. But prefer if it went away slowly. I want to work with and communicate with windows users with neither of us having to jump through weird hoops.
I want my printer to work.
Problems will come up, but I don’t want it to dominate my time.
I’m sure most of you will say not to worry, but until I’ve logged some real hours, I will.
I installed Linux on a secondary hard drive in case I needed to get back on Windows for anything. So far it’s been a few months and I haven’t needed to, so I’m considering having Windows in a virtual machine or just getting rid of Windows instead.
I recommend downloading a Live Linux distribution and booting it from a USB stick.
This let’s you try out linux without making any changes to your Windows setup. It also lets you make sure linux detects all your computer’s hardware. If the live session works fine, the it will detect all that same hardware when you install it for real.
Look, if it takes you 2 days to debloat windows, linux is gonna take a real fucking while to learn right.
The average Winblows user doesn’t even know how to lock the screen without using their mouse or touchpad. Don’t give me that “It’s hard for people” bullshit. Most people can barely handle recognizing icons, which are the same regardless of OS.
2 days? He said 2 weeks haha
oh fuck that’s even worse.
Debloating windows is not a one-time adventure, it’s what you’re subscribing to do every now and then.
source: am recovering windoholic.
OneNote re-installing and re-adding itself to my startup after I absolutely turned it into swiss cheese was my final nail in the coffin.
Windows now lives in an image file that I can boot into using Linux as a thin client to start up a Windows VM for the occasional time I need to do some heavy Excel work. Absolute trashware.
It takes less 2 hours really. Playbooks exist now and makes it way easier to use Windows XP 11. Cuz that’s all anyone really wants.
Microsoft’s incompetence is the best thing to happen to Linux in recent years.
I walked this path at first, too. For me, it was more like my stubborn battle with Microsoft than not wanting to learn Linux (I had already learned Debian some time ago).
I’ve flip flopped back and forth, but after the recent bs with screenshot and OS-side ads (for a PAID software, mind you) I haven’t even given Windows a second glance anymore.
If you’ve got the knowledge to truly debloat Windows, you have the knowledge to set up Linux.
Lost four installations at my house, and I have Microsoft certifications professionally so I’m fairly invested.
Likely to be another few as I move the rest of my immediate family over to Linux slowly also.
Yup, with ya brother. I have Microsoft certifications dating back to NT4. I’ve never been bothered by anything Microsoft has done, with the possible exception of WinME. I have done thousands of installs for friends and family. When MS started actively preventing me from installing W11 to “older” hardware and requiring a login, I started looking into Linux. I had run Slackware in the 90s so figured Arch couldn’t be that bad… It was actually easier than I remembered.
That was 2 years ago. This past weekend my Dad had somehow been force upgraded even though I had group policies in place to prevent upgrades past 22H2, and he wasn’t happy with the result. Brought Linux Mint, booted from the USB and asked him to do everything he normally does on Windows. Almost all of his activities are browser based so I installed it and have yet to get any calls asking questions.
I got an oldish mid range Asus gaming laptop the TUF Dash f15, what’s a good distro for this? something that’s as close as windows in perfomance as windows 10 is
something that’s as close as windows in perfomance as windows 10 is
You’ll notice better load times on Linux 9 times out of 10 than any variant of Windows. With that being said, I would suggest Kubuntu.
Fun coincidence, when I was about to write a supporting comment to this thread, my Fedora 42 running on X1 Carbon hard froze without any apparent reason and I had to hard reboot it.
Usually that is a oom situation in my experience, check out earlyoom
Possible, I guess, although I have 32GB RAM + 8GB swap and I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary at the time.
Both the hardware and software are kinda cutting edge, so I think an honest crashing bug is more likely.
GUYS. Linux is stupid because there’s no way to get LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga NPC Spawner mod to work. Maybe it fails because there isn’t a way to get DirectX SDK installed in protontricks but some mods work without this anyway. I’m going to go back to Windows Vista as GOD intended. Or maybe Windows Longhorn.
Thanks in advance.
This was physically painful to read
I just did a fresh install of windows 11 last week, after my attempt to switch to Plasma on Debian did not go very well. While it’s absolutely true that some de-bloating must be done right after install, it took me like 15 minutes. I spent at least that long just finding the three different goddamn places I had to go to change the wallpaper in Plasma.
The problem is you used Debian which is missing bug fixes for KDE, and is on a frankly ancient 5.27 - I have had nothing but an awesome experience on KDE 6, with both VRR, and HDR, working under Wayland.
Recommend trying a rolling release
Whoops, I was actually using Fedora. I had to go check the kde website, as that is where I got it from and thought it would be weird if they recommended something so out of date.
Unironically, I find Arch easier to use than Debian
With the CLI guided install the barrier to entry is also super low now. The only thing I’m still battling is GPU video acceleration with Firefox.
I am a happy Debian user, but TBH, it doesn’t take too much longer than 2 hours with Chris Titus Tech’s
winutil.If you know the right tool for the task, very few things take time. IMHO what’s more problematic is that with enshitification you’re swimming upstream. Sure as long as the maintainer finds the right trick, you can postpone indefinitely bad “surprises” but ultimately, why do so when proper alternatives more aligned with your Worldview exist?
I am considering moving off windows but am extremely not tech-savvy. Is there a good place for me to start?
I do free infinite troubleshooting on matrix and specialize in this exact situation, feel free to message me. I recommend something based on immutable fedora because it’s breakage resistant (immutable means the core system is read only and updates all at once on reboot) and fedora because it’s very up to date but still stable, try aurora (it’s fedora immutable with some small improvements)
do kde, always kde or gnome unless you know what you’re doing, but kde is better
If you’re not humblebragging, perhaps you oughta get a Linux-preinstalled laptop like System76.
If you were humblebragging, check out https://fedoraproject.org/workstation/ and get the Plasma edition.
Give CachyOS a shot
extremely not tech-savvy
You managed to make an account and post on Lemmy so you’re probably underestimated your technical knowledge. That being said IMHO it’s best to first list what software you use then find alternatives that work on Linux. Once that’s done then yes sure try whatever distribution you want.
Sure, here are instructions for getting Linux Mint running: https://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
These instructions are for creating a USB flash drive that functions as both a live environment or an installer. If you don’t want to install it yet, this allows you to try it out while booting just from the flash drive, without modifying your hard drive at all.
Most of my machines are Linux, and I can say the desktop experience still doesn’t match up with Windows. And there’s still so many third party tools that are Windows exclusive.
I would love to be able to shut down every Windows machine I have for good, and I’ve tried, but there are simply many things that still require Windows. Stop gaslighting people, and acting like they’re staying by choice.
If all you need is web based stuff, why even go to Linux? That’s overkill. Just use a tablet.
For the vast majority of usecases it is ready, niche applications sure, but most people could use linux these days.
Most people could use tablets/phones and have a superior user experience. PC’s in general, whether running Linux or Windows, are becoming a niche product again.
Not if they care about typing, repairability, or long term support though
Most of them don’t. The vast majority of people interact with their devices using a touchscreen or controller. They don’t want to repair it themselves, and they’ll turn it in for another one as soon as their payment plan is up.
You’re right that they don’t, but they should at least care about long-term support and repairability, and maybe they would with a little education.
That’s exactly the attitude of most Linux people, and it’s completely out of touch.
You don’t win people over by telling them what’s good for them. You do it by appealing to what they want. It doesn’t matter what you think they should care about.
For me Linux surpassed the Windows desktop experience in 1996 and even though Windows 2000 was a pretty good upgrade, I don’t think it has surpassed desktop Linux yet. Windows 10 was not bad either, but now that has gone mostly downhill whereas Linux has merely plateaud at worst or has been improving slowly at best.
I disagree. Using a Linux desktop always feels like a trip back in time.
But it’s not just a question of Windows vs Linux anymore. For web browsing and basic apps that the vast majority of people use the internet for, tablets & phones are offering a superior user experience.
This is a big driving force in the decline of desktop computer sales. A desktop or laptop is overkill for what most people need, so it’s become specialty equipment (again). And if you’re going to need a pc for specialized needs, the Windows os is going to cover all of those. Linux probably will cover your needs.
What exactly feels back in time about a modern kde desktop for you?
The aesthetics and the menu access/organization is straight out of the 90s. Hell, many of the customization options require a third-party tool to edit with the gui, or you’re stuck using the cli.
Where Apple products and UI are clearly made by designers, Linux environments are clearly made by techies who consider a gui optional. And what’s worse is all the techies gatekeeping to keep it that way.
Honestly, I don’t see what you’re saying.
What looks wrong with it exactly?
also I just type what I want in the search and just hit enter tbh and so do most linux users so I can’t imagine caring much. The people who do care would probably like the older experience.
It has the aesthetics of Windows 10, which is at least 10 years old.
I mostly just game and browse the Internet and my daily driver is Linux. I have not come across anything that I needed Windows for so far, in a year and a half of not using Linux. There may be some games I was vaguely interested in that don’t run easily on Linux, but day to day tasks, 3d printing/slicing software, basic image editing software, browsers, coding IDEs, all work native on Linux.
Sure, if there is a specific software that you really want to use, maybe that specific software isn’t available on Linux. But one individual running into multiple things that only run on Windows sounds like it is a fairly specific use case. At best, someone might need to use an alternative program. At worst, maybe that person needs to keep a windows environment around. But that doesn’t seem like the case for the majority of people.
The problem with this pro-Linux argument, that only specific use-cases need Windows, is that also now applies to Linux. Probably 90% of people can do everything they need to with a tablet or phone. Even your listed day to day tasks are fairly specialized.
I personally prefer to run my daily driver as a vm, so I can remote into from all of my frontends. I tried to tough it out with Linux for over a year like that, using multiple different remote solutions. Every single one felt like using a machine from the 90’s. Just not anywhere close to acceptable by today’s standards.
Thanks to the steam deck standardizing support, Linux is probably fine for most pc gamers. Doesn’t work for me, but I use some very specific third party tools and hardware peripherals for simulators.
My reply was more about special use cases not being a good excuse that Linux isn’t ready. You’re right, most stuff people can easily do on a tablet or a phone, and that same stuff works just as well on a Linux machine. So someone that wants to do that stuff, but wants a machine more powerful than a tablet, can run Linux without issues.
But a Linux machine can only handle most special use cases, while a Windows machine can handle all special use cases. If you’re going to have a machine set up for specialized needs, it might as well be Windows, unless you’re someone running multiple machines.
