Even if most of those trying it out eventually go back to Windows, this is still great for Linux!
I was þinking þe same. Even if many switch to Mac, or even back to Windows, now þey have exposure. Even if it’s not perfect, or even if þey don’t like it, þey’ve been þere, and I believe it increases þe chances þey’ll try it again when wiþout 11, þey may never have.
I was binking be same. Even if many switch to Mac, or even back to Windows, now bey have exposure. Even if it’s not perfect, or even if bey don’t like it, bey’ve been bere, and I believe it increases be chances bey’ll try it again when wibout 11, bey may never have.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that a freshly cut rose is your favorite flower, and that you’ve got several potted cacti about your home.
Huh. Oooh, I get it. No, my favorite plants are not prickly. I like orchids, sadly especially ones which I lack þe skill to keep alive.
D. Stenophylum (an orchid!):

Paphiopedilum:

Clearly something’s going on here, but I’m uninformed, would you mind doing an ELI5? I figure it all ties to the weird characters they used.
The weird character is called a thorn. Roses and cacti are known for their thorns.
Makes sense for the reference s, thanks, what’s the subtext leading to the downvotes?
Bot or moron… take your pick
Some people just really seem to dislike their use of that character for various reasons
Ok, that explains the references. What’s up with the downvoting? I see the Nordic/Islandic connection, is artificial use of the character some kind of white supremacists viking dog whistle or something?
Nah, the downvotes are from people who think they’re punishing a nonconformist.
They’re not even using thorn rn why are they still downvoting this guy?
Lemmy celebrates ANY thing not mainstream.
Also lemmy, “FUCK YOU FOR USING A WEIRD LETTER!!!”
Sxan should come out and say, “I’m a trans, queer, neurodivergent, furry, drag queen communist with Tourette’s Syndrome, ADHD and autism, so I have to replace ‘th’ with ‘þ’ or I’ll suicide. I like pictures of little girls in sexy attire. It’s ANIME, you wouldn’t understand. And if you could mix animals into my sexy anime? Perfect! Also, I have stuff up my butt 24x7.”
They’d be the most popular person in this place.
It’s to poison ai scrapers
Can’t wait for the “FOSS enables the bad guys to download 2 marijuanas” headlines from MSM.
Pff, amateurs. I can download 8 marijuanas simultaneously.
I can haz a torrent of marijuanas.
Dude, you have a serious problem, man. That’s way too much marijuanas.
My cousin downloaded Linux and died from injecting 3 Marijuana’s at once.
It was Arch btw.
Is Zorin OS recommendable? I’m ready to at least dual boot if folks think thats cool
Glad to be a statistic
Same.
Don’t be so gloomy! You’re an individual number too! 😜
True that. There are many Toms, but only one newLinuxUserWindows11Vagabond_578428
Zorin needs your email and payment
No, it doesn’t.
https://help.zorin.com/docs/purchasing-zorin-os-pro/payment-methods/
For extra apps and some layouts
So it doesn’t then. Cool.
You chose the Pro version. The free version has a “skip to download” button under the email field.
I downloaded Mint last week and started the installation but got cold feet when it came to drive formatting. I still want to keep my win10 operational in case I won’t be able to run something on Linux.
I never actually used Linux before… I installed it 3 times before and always quickly went back to windows due to some compatibility or driver issues, but…
<Rant mode=“venting”> I am NOT switching to win11… It’s enough that I am forced to use it at work. That system is so fuckin stupid… They took a lot of minor elements and just made each of them worse… I get that the sales department told you to shove OneDrive and Copilot everywhere, it’s stupid and annoying but I get it, it’s just plain old greed, but why can’t the Calendar show the whole month and don’t work on the second monitor?!? (Are you planning to add it as a paid subscription later?!?) </Rant>
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I used disk2vhd to virtualize my laptop windows disk and put it on a USB stick and then got it running on Linux with VirtualBox. I’m gonna need it once a year for taxes.
I did run into some trouble getting secureboot working in virtualbox, but solved it after I figured out the kernel drivers were compressed.
You can get a cheap ssd and install linux on it. Before installing disconect existing windows drive. After install reconnect windows drive and make sure that windows boots. Then boot to bios and choose linux as default drive and after booting to mint desktop update grub to include windows. On each boot you will be able to choose which OS you want.
If you have issues with mint, try something based on Debian or Fedora rather than Ubuntu like Mint is.
For Fedora I recommend Bazzite if you do gaming and nothing too technical. Flatpaks make it easy to find and install software without messing things up. Otherwise Fedora Kiinoite.
For Debian I recommend Debian itself really. Also runs very well on much older machinery.
The Mint team also puts out a very stable version called LMDE which is based on Deb rather than Ubuntu.
If you didn’t know, Ubuntu is based on Debian.
Yes but also no.
As in, it is based on Debian, but it’s kinda like how a zebra is a horse
lol I forgot about the calendar issue
a perfect example of them making it worse for literally no reason at all
Bruh, they moved rename file. That shit has been in the same place since 3.1. Fucking why.
You can just test Mint without installing it… run it off of USB.
It’ll be slower, but you can see if it fits your needs.Just add a new partition and dual boot, it is pretty easy.
Also I do not recommend Mint for Windows users, because the officially supported UX layers are more apple-esque. Use a distro that has KDE support baked in. Adding KDE to Mint is easy but may not be for people switching.
For that reason, I recommend going with distros with KDE Plasma by default. Kubuntu or KDE neon.
Why KDE? It feels like where Windows should have gone. It’s like the glory days of Windows (windows 2000, etc) in the modern age. It is a drastic upgrade from Windows with more freedom than you ever had.
I do not recommend Mint for Windows users, because the officially supported UX layers are more apple-esque
you can’t have a more classic desktop look and feel than using MATE, and it’s from the same people that maintains Mint
Mint has the Cinnamon desktop environment which isn’t that different from Windows/KDE. You’re probably thinking of Gnome?
Cinnamon, to me, is an in-between, more like modern Windows, which moved in a more macos direction. KDE is like golden age Windows. Gnome is like macos.
When I used Mint (maybe 10 years ago now?), I had all kinds of problems with Cinnamon. KDE was like magic and I always use it now. Perhaps things have changed but we can only make recommendations based on our experiences and knowledge.
Aye, Cinnamon i’d say is pretty Windows like now (taskbar, start menu and tray) but definitely not as good as KDE. The average user would be happy with either I think.
I’m on Cinnamon for my first linux OS, it feels pretty Windows to me.
I’m glad to hear that, thank you for sharing.
It sounds like Windows users have a lot more options now, which is a good thing.
One can resize the Windows partition from Windows itself, then install Linux alongside it. But have backups and be careful.
One pretty safe way is if you get a separate drive for Linux and completely swap out the Windows one. It’s not dual booting but at least you can switch back if it doesn’t work out for you.
Just make sure you have whatever you need to get the Windows drive working again if it’s encrypted.
I know some who went to Linux and a few who moved to Mac. But no one is seeing Win11 and saying “oh man, I gotta get in on that”.
I have two win 11 licensed for older Dell computers. I shudder at the thought of ever needing them.
I know some people who shoot and hunt their own venison. Some people moved over to butcher shops. But no one is finding roadkill and saying “oh man, I gotta get in on that”
It’s actually not terribly uncommon for people to take roadkill if it’s fresh and in decent shape.
In my state (PA) you’re supposed to report it to the game commission within 24 hours, and you’re supposed to surrender the hide and antlers to them unless you pay for a separate permit.
In the UK it’s illegal to claim roadkill if you’re the one who struck the animal.
If you weren’t, it’s free game (unintentional pun, nice)
At first that didn’t make sense to me, but I now realise it’s to prevent someone purposely striking an animal just to take it.
When I was a kid I visited my cousin in backwoods Missouri, and we heard on the radio that there was an uptick in leprosy because of people eating roadkill armadillo. It was a real wtf moment in my life
Shit. Is there a certain kind of roadkill that’s safer to eat?
Don’t know, and don’t care to find out. I only visited the backwoods, I certainly don’t live there
Comparatively, carnivores are riskier, as they continuously collect parasites from the animals they eat, especially if they eat them not freshly killed.
I can think of one…
Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel?
Close. RFK Jr.
But no one is finding roadkill and saying “oh man, I gotta get in on that”
Fun fact, there was enough public outcry in '16 for the state of Washington to amend it’s laws and make it legal to harvest roadkill for food.
Of all the states, I wasn’t expecting Washington.
Alabama? Sure.
Mississippi? I can see that.
Georgia? Yeah, ok.
Washington? Of all the states, WASHINGTON??? Oh god damn…
I mean if you hit a deer with your car, why let all that venison go?
My uncle loves to tell a story from his youth about when he was driving his VW bug up in Maine back in the 70s. As he was winding through the woods on a back road, he struck and killed a rather large buck, which is honestly a fairly impressive feat for a 1970-something VW bug. As he’s standing there assessing the (thankfully minimal) damage to his car, a game warden pulls up and informs him that, in Maine, if you kill an animal while hunting, you’re legally required to haul carcass home with you under threat of jail time.
And so began his several-hour task of cramming a 6-point buck into the back seat of a 1970-something VW bug. As far as I remember, he was successful, too.
Oregon also has roadkill salvage permits available!
Gotta make fresh roadkill, then it’s edible sure.
I jumped in to the Win11 beta and really liked it, they finally got most of the control panel into the new settings architecture and I never once had to dig deep into things to adjust something small, a lot of stuff that took finagling just worked.
And now I fucking hate it. The release version is jammed so full of bullshit features and useless AI junk that it is an active hindrance to whatever I’m trying to do. And more and more stupid fucking bugs bubble up in to the desktop and never get addressed, all while I get pop up after pop up urging me to try some bullshit new feature.
I already had one foot into Linux with my desktop but kept this because it was a Surface and nice at some point, but my next buy has to be a Linux 2-in-1, I can’t deal with Microsoft’s horseshit any longer.
I do want to emphasize that for the moments that it was unadulterated by rent-seeking, the new Win11 actually was kinda great.
did you try the ltsc version? i heard it comes without all these unnecessary “features” and feature updates.
In case you weren’t aware there’s an ongoing project adding Surface hardware support to Linux kernel. It’s in a pretty mature state, with most of the features already implemented and working (here is a full breakdown per device). I’ve been using it on my SP6 for a few years with zero issues.
It might be worth a look until you get to buying new hardware.
Thank you for this. I haven’t figured out what to do with my Surface yet, but this sounds promising.
Kde is working really well on linux-surface. Had to change the OSK to maliit(?) but everything I need works. I haven’t tried to install the camera driver because I never needed it. Stylus works really well ootb. Use it with Krita. Screen rotation works great and I use it as an e-reader. I choose an easy arch distro because disk encryption works with the native keyboard although it has been some time since i tried a non rolling distro and other distros could have addressed the startup keyboard issues by now. 10/10 would recommend.
Posting from a Surface Go 2 running Debian Trixie with Gnome+Phosh. Everything except the webcam just works on the stock kernel (for webcam support you need the patched Surface kernel). Vanilla Gnome is fine, too, if you use a hardware keyboard. I run Phosh because the onsceen keyboard is much better than Gnome’s.
I left Windows for Linux in the early 2010s. Windows was shit then, but this is a new level of shit. I don’t know how anyone does it. After discovering the freedom Linux can provide I could never go back to Microsoft.
I finally committed to the switch last weekend. My desktop PC was the last holdout still on Windows in my fleet, because of Adobe Lightroom. I decided to just force myself to learn Darktable, and nuked the Win 11 install and replaced it with Fedora 43.
Fun side note, some of my games run way better than they did on Windows, despite not having native Linux builds. lol.
My bottles borked my battle.net install somehow so instead of tackling the issue I’ll put it off for months/years and continue dual booting
My condolences
everyone goes through that phase. logs often help a lot, and you will start to get a feel for what may be wrong like you did on windows. once some things become second nature you will stop needing windows altogether. meanwhile, friction means you are learning.
i usually favor lutris for gaming anyway, it’s better at keeping everything together and updated ime. bottles tends to lag behind a bit by default which is not ideal for games atm.
I tried Lutris before and it would constantly stop installing and freeze up… and when I let it set up in the default directory it will install and then when I launch bnet it doesn’t show any games at all… anddd when it inevitably decides to force quit out of bnet and I click stop on lutris I get “sequence item 0: expected str instance, int found” … also constantly slowing the fuck out of my mouse/computer… I think I fucked my install up when I initially set up mint… might just wipe and start over again…
huh. i don’t think you did anything wrong with mint.
did you try the flatpak or deb version of lutris? was it recent? old versions were hit and miss for me too.
Flatpak, I’m pretty sure that’s what the software manager installs right? I tried again today and it gave me the same shit. I do want to keep trying to get it to work though if you have any ideas!
EnoughZorinSpam
More!! More! Everybody get others into Linux Mint and Pop OS Cosmic as well!! I am doing my part if we want better we must grow the community
I tried Mint and it’s just too buggy to use.
What video card do you have? Do you plan to use the machine for gaming?
I switched to mint 3 weeks ago at the gentle age of 48 and so far it’s excellent. I had several issues which i almost all solved with googling and some AI. And I don’t know anything about programing. AND IT DOESN’T PUSH ANYTHING ON ME, IT’S UNREAL.
Isn’t it lovely? I switched like 15 years ago but I still appreciate everyday not having some new “feature” being shoved down my throat.
Geforce 3060, and yes. Sometimes my primary screen gets locked at my secondary screen’s framerate. The whole OS is especially wonky after wake from sleep, I often have to restart Firefox and Cinnamon after wake. WebGL things in Firefox are especially finicky. The panel-applet-spice things are horrendously single-threaded, some of lock the whole UI regularly.
I’m going to try some other Debian-based OS in the hopes that this is just Mint+Cinnamon and not the state-of-the-art.
I’d suggest trying a gaming focused distribution. I’m running Ubuntu on my machine. Now using Nvidia but previously with AMD and used the Nvidia for VFIO (passing through the GPU to a virtual machine). I’ve had a lot of trouble switching to Nvidia with my current install, especially Snap apps like Firefox and electron apps like VS Code. Snap apps are sandboxed and don’t get appropriate permissions for GPU acceleration. Firefox decodes video on CPU for example.
I did try several distributions when I had the AMD Radeon as primary GPU and overall had good success passing through Nvidia card to the VM. I tried Ubuntu (2023.10 I think?), Debian, Fedora, and Bazzite.
Debian doesn’t have snaps unless you want them and seemed to work Ok. Bazzite and Fedora both worked well.
The main difference it seemed was using Flatpak. You can install a flatpak GPU driver for your Nvidia card and then all the problems go away. Flatpak steam games get to run at full frame rates whereas you’d need AMD for snap.
Also it seemed like some problems were caused by Gnome, issues that are supposed to go away in the future but are nasty now. The gnome Videos/Totem app totally fails on Ubuntu 24.04/wayland/nvidia. It’s possible to get it to work but it’s so much trouble that I wouldn’t recommend it.
KDE Plasma didn’t seem to have these issues. There are things I don’t like about KDE but overall it seemed to work better. It even has dumb features like controlling the brightness of your monitor when connected via USB, a nice feature that even MacOS required a third party app to match.
Everyone has a strong opinion on the subject but if you don’t have a specific need, I’d try Bazzite next. You already know it will work with Nvidia because of the gaming focus. It has KDE so you avoid some Gnome issues. Browsers are the default app of any OS so you know the game/steam expectation means the browser should work as well.
Good luck and please update us with what you figure out!
Mint and Pop OS really aren’t usable for cutting edge GPU’s tho.
Edit: I’m probably wrong about Pop OS.
Can it play .exe without wine
no
Can windows play .DMG ?
No
What a bizarre qualifier.
You may as well complain about a kitchen by saying “but can it roast my turkey without using that oven?”
Of course it needs some form of translation layer or emulator in order to run programs from other OSes.
I use popOS and am really enjoying it.
I mean I downloaded 4 to try out.
Good, keep going, people have become way too complacent about how much control their OS has over their lives, with a little bit of patience anyone can get on the Linux train these days.
I am a macOS user for work and had windows mostly for games on my personal computer, when I got a new laptop last year it came with win 11… it was so annoying to need to skip literally ads for Microsoft services… that even being my “leisure” computer… I spent the time getting Linux Mint, deal with Nvidia drivers on Linux just to have steam there
The games I am playing recently are working great on Linux and my computer feels faster now.
This particular laptop had a problem with WiFi drivers and Nvidia drivers, but getting past this first setup, I must say Linux Destop is easier and fast to use.
I would bet money the fanspeed also got much quieter.
Yes, and comparing resources it issues much less CPU while “idle”
Everytime people say there is a problem with nvidia driver, what kind of problem do people have? I am running nvidia drivers on two different machines on arch linux. It was just
pacman -Syu nvidiaand thing just workOn my laptop, I was using the tool available on Mint to find ans install drivers and after I reboot I was losing the WiFi drivers
This laptop did not have an Ethernet port, so I needed to re-install the OS and try again
I just bought a machine with an NVIDIA card which I am going to install Mint on. Do you have any advice?
(I had planned to get an AMD GPU, but was unable to for various reasons.)
Send it! I’ve heard it has gotten better for nvidia users. The nice thing about a live USB is that you can just remove it and reboot if you don’t like it.
Pop!_OS has a dedicated .iso just for Nvidia hardware.
Mint worked the best for me out of the other distros. 3060ti
Multiple monitor setup. One a 4k tv via HDMI others display port.
Had a helluva time getting it to not fuck the displays when one went on/off with anything other than mint.
YRMV
Do all updates first, save a snapshot of the system, than install the latest Nvidia driver.
For me, installing Nvidia drivers before the system update was the issue
I keep hearing about ads on computers, smart tvs, fridges and shit, is that solely an american thing? I’m in Europe and never get any of that shit. Sure, Microsoft will tell me at installation that they’d like to “personalize” some adds for me, but I have never actually had a single one. Did the EU block them or something?
You definitely get more in the US, but Europe isn’t free from ads.
Windows still shoves OneDrive, office, and other things in your face in Europe. They still have featured news stories and the like. They still have recommendations in the start menu and such.
These are all ads, though we’ve been conditioned into thinking MS plastering OneDrive and OneDrive recommendations all over their OS isn’t advertising. It very much is.
If you have an Android TV in Europe, 1/3 of the home screen by default is an ad banner, just like in the US. Etc.
We are not free from ads. We just have it slightly better than the US.
I don’t get any of that. No ads for microsoft products, my start menu is literally just a blank space with Project Diablo 2 and Calculator as quick access. Not even on my Samsung tv do I get ads unless I choose to tune into one of their free channels.
It might be the version of Windows 11 you have installed, too. Enterprise has no ads (or can be configured not to have ads, at least). Same for Professional, I think?
You can also use a post-install “Playbook” to rip all the adware and spyware out of Windows. I used ReviOS in my Windows 11 VM and it works well for me, but I’m guessing that’s not what you’ve done since you’d know about it, lol.
I’m super happy with my switch to CachyOS. Canadian laws roughly mirror US laws, so it’s a breath of fresh air to not need to deal with Microsoft’s bullshit (well, outside of the VM I need for work, anyway.)
You can also use a post-install “Playbook” to rip all the adware and spyware out of Windows
Does that actually persist across forced updates? I know they’ve been known to re-install things on updates before.
Most disable Windows Updates for that reason, afaik? You can manually patch security updates without getting automatic updates, I think.
I don’t really care about Windows Updates for my use case since it’s just a VM and I know how to prevent most virus vectors anyway, but yes; there are major trade-offs to “debloating” Windows.
In the longer term, I want to try getting all my must-have apps for work running in browser apps or compatibility layers so I can just stay in Linux.
I just have windows 11 home
Ms has different releases for Europe due to legal requirements
This is why you have no ads
Those are crazy numbers, really exciting.































