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Ugh. I’m going to have to seriously look at Linux, aren’t I?
Absolutely no idea where to start with that, nor whether any of the software I need for work (or indeed anything else) is compatible, not how I’m going to find the time to learn all this.
Bleugh 😔
EDIT - Just want to say thanks to everyone for all the helpful tips and advice below. Will make it my mission this summer to at least understand Linux better and work out if it’s for me. Cheers, you lovely people 👍
Most distros have official forums, and may have sections specifically for people using Linux for the first time, which can also be great sources of information.
Is your hardware not W11 compatible or you just don’t want to upgrade? Because you can just install the pro version (ISO on Microsoft’s website) and choose English UK during installation and that will solve most issues… I’m sure you’re able to figure out how to get it activated ;)
Or if you just use Rufus there’s a checkbox you can select to disable the TPM check, and disable the “force online account” thing too.
More people need to see this comment.
Rufus is flagged as malware by Microsoft
Just something to keep in mind
Really? Ive never been notified of it. And I just checked on my work laptop too
What does UK change?
Different laws, Microsoft is more limited in what they can push to UK users. Works with any European countries really…
Ah, I’m actually in the UK, so maybe this is good news for me! :-)
It’s compatible, but I don’t want to go to W11. Plus, I’ve been thinking for a while that I should check out Linux, but just never have the time.
Ubuntu is the typical go-to replacement for Windows as it’s arguably more plug-and-play than other distros.
alternativeto.net is a great place to find Linux alternatives to the software you use. Many products already work on Linux without switching, but some areas might be more difficult. For example depending on your needs you might not find a great drop-in replacement for Photoshop.
Ah, thanks, that looks a useful site.
Sadly, this is my work as well as personal PC, and Photoshop and Premiere are more or less essential for me. I know there’s Photopea, which can handle PSD files, so that would probably do to replace PS, but not sure about Prem.
Happy to try something else, but it’s finding the time to learn everything again that’s my real issue.
Still though, that’s a great resource, so thanks 👍
I mean Adobe is a piece of shit company and if there’s any way you can ditch them, do it. If you can’t, I get it. In that case a Mac is probably the easier way out.
you might not find a great drop-in replacement for Photoshop.
I’m not a photoshop user, so maybe I’m just being dumb and not getting it, but…isn’t that gimp? I remember that one because the program name “gimp” made me laugh first time I heard it. It’s like a BDSM thing, and then you’re like “Oh, it’s photoshop? My mind went a totally different direction…”
GIMP is really powerful, but goddamn its UX is abysmal, unfortunately
This describes many Linux software suites…
Most of the people devoting time to foss projects are uber technical geeks that at best consider UX design an after thought if they consider it at all.
TBH it’s probably one of the biggest things holding Linux back today.
The name is so stupid, and it is straight up a reference to the character in Pulp Fiction.
Pulp Fiction came out in 1994, GIMP in 1998. “Gimps” as we understand them came entirely from the scene in the movie - like yeah, full bondage suits have always existed but the term “gimp” and that style were invented for the movie (and then became a real thing later).
Yes, there are certainly alternatives and there are several with a better UI than GIMP (see Krita and Pixel). But I’ve been told there are specific tools and workflows that are missing. Partly it’s probably a matter of finding new ways of accomplishing your goal.
If nowhere else, make a post on NoStupidQuestions and I’m sure there’s a few people that will help. I made a reply here suggesting raspberry pi os as a good starting point. No command line skills needed and quite a bit of software is available free from Debian (Linux which raspi os is created from).
The user interface is similar with a start menu etc.
If you’ve got a spare PC, I’d use it as a guinea pig system first before moving onto the main system.
Thanks, good advice. Will do a bit of research myself first I think.
Sadly no spare PC to try it on at the moment. I do have a laptop running Plex, but don’t really want to mess with that right now.
Maybe I can buy a cheap one to have a play around with first.
Cheers, much appreciated 👍
Its only 32-bit.
Oof 32-bit support is becoming less and less on all OSes these days. Debian still has 32 bit releases at least
Debian is dropping support in the future
Linux Mint is one of the most recommended for newbies.
You can use a live CD/USB to try it out without installing.Mint, Zorin, and Ubuntu are the ones I always hear.
What’s a CD?
It’s like a vinyl record, but fancier.
Waaaaay less fancy
By newbie do you mean people who don’t know anything about computers ie me?
idk if this is going to help or not, but I’ve had Mint on every machine since 2010. If this laptop I’m using were a car, I’d say I’ve learned to change a tire and I’ve learned where to go for answers to problems as they come up, but that’s it. I remember being worried I’d bork everything the first install, but instructions are absolutely For Dummies (thank fuck). Easier than putting an Ikea desk together imo.
Tried changing distros a few times to see what the fuss was, but I actually just don’t care, and that’s ok. You don’t have to care about everything. I also buy the same jeans all the time and no one gaf about that.
Though if you DO enjoy shopping around (or find you’re intrigued by the possibilities and want to play) here’s one place to get a lay of the land that’s been a cool, helpful hub over the years that even I find accessible, and that’s saying something.
Anecdotal: I’ve never been locked out of anything to do with work that I couldn’t find an easy work-around for (the MS threat). It’s nbd.
Yes. It’s probably the friendliest Linux distro. But there’s still a learning curve so don’t go in thinking it’s as plug and play as Windows.
Source: Tech savvy guy that changed over recently
@maniclucky @nevermind
Linux Mint is indeed the friendliest of the Linux distros but one still needs at least a bit of experience with installing OS. The fundamental problem with Windows is that it comes pre installed on everything and most people had never needed to install an OS.@nevermind, you need to find a friend who’s done it or someone online willing to walk you though it. It’s not very difficult but if you’ve never done it it could be a bit weird.
Thanks!
I won’t even ask what plug and play means…
Plug and play essentially means “it just works”. Like as simple as plugging in a USB mouse and using it. When something isn’t plug and play, it means it takes a bit of fiddling with.
Ah yes, thank you. A tiny part of my brain wondered if that was the meaning but it’s never safe to assume something when I’m as clueless as I am.
Actually I think that term was coined by Windows 98 for hardware you could connect and it would Just work™ (I.e. without the need to install drivers).
I’d mean people who don’t know linux in particular but are marginally tech-savy.
Mint has been described as “the distro your granny can use” (and some do), but it does require some knowledge to at least install it — but it’s nothing a tutorial somewhere won’t help with, it’s a low bar.
Ah, interesting - that could definitely be an option, thanks 👍
Installed mint on an older computer I had so my oldest daughter could have a pc for school. She has had zero problems using it.
The Linux community here on Lemmy is extremely helpful but as a complete novice I’ve found ChatGPT to be quite useful tool for this as well. I can ask it how to do something and if I run into trouble I can just take a picture of the terminal window and it’ll tell me where the issue is.
People would probably advice not to insert code into terminal, given by an LLM that you don’t even understand but the alternative is to put that same blind faith onto a stranger on a messaging board. In my experience the options are either to do that or not use Linux at all - unless you first spend few years learning it all yourself.
Oh ok, cool - although I’ve actually never used Chat GPT either (I sound like a total luddite here, I know!)
Thanks for the tip though, will keep it in mind 👍
Weird hill to die on perhaps; but I’ll never forgive Microsoft for arbitrarily deciding to not support my Core i7 6700K 4Ghz CPU on Windows 11.
Simply because: I cannot find a single actual technical reason why it wouldn’t be compatible (yes, my mobo also has TPM). It’s even higher specced than many other ‘supported’ chips.
MS apparently just decided I hadn’t spent enough money lately. Well now I won’t - on your products - ever again, while this i7 will continue to run Win 10 for games and Linux for all else.
It boils down the CPU microarchitecture
I figured it was related to the hardware architecture, but I’m curious if this is for security reasons (potential exploits that the OS can’t resolve) and/or just a support bandwidth concerns managing 2 OS code bases (on top of the obvious revenue from new licenses).
If the hardware security isn’t the issue, then switching to Linux is a good money saving choice for those that are tech savvy.
6700k is 64 bit.
They mean the x86-64-v1, x86-64-v2 stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Microarchitecture_levels
This bit me before. It seems like some PlayStation game ports use those commands. Both Helldivers 2 and Death Stranding wouldn’t work for me because of this.
I have that same issue. My older laptop barely misses the cutoff, even though everything meets the requirements except the cpu. I have a newer laptop with Win11, and the old one runs circles around it. It’s faster and has way more RAM, yet somehow won’t run 11? I’m going to keep it and just run Linux instead. I’ll use the crappy Win11 lappy just for MS office and keeping papers from blowing off my desk.
I’ll use the crappy Win11 lappy just for MS office
LibreOffice works very well. I use it often in a company that uses Office exclusively, and I’ve never had a compatibility issue.
I use power query and so far haven’t found a replacement that works in Linux. Otherwise I would drop MS office altogether.
Gaming is great on Linux nowadays btw. I installed Fedora a few weeks ago and haven’t had a single problem with any of my games - I’m getting better framerates, too.
Any good step by step explainers nowadays? Been over a decade sinceI set my last Linux machine up for a friend, and have been thinking about trying one for a Jellyfish server.
Knowing that my gaming PC could get a few extra frames might intrruige me into performing the upgrade there too if the jellyfish machine goes well.
I can help you through a fedora install, I just did it for the first two times myself. If you want to dual boot, it’s easiest to have windows set up first too, so you’re in good shape for that
Might take you up on that in a couple of months if I don’t feel like destroying the old gaming PC hahaha
That’s what’s nice about dual booting! You can add a hard drive and use both! Easy to set up so you can choose to launch windows or Linux when it boots up! Gives you the opportunity to play around and get a feel for it without giving up your tried and tested setup!
Most distros have a great getting started guide.
If you have an Nvidia card, make sure you’re looking at distros with Nvidia support and are using the correct installer version for Nvidia support.
Some great distros to look into with above in mind:
- PopOS
- Ubuntu: Nvidia requires a few additional terminal commands unfortunately.
- Mint
- Fedora
- A handful of others that I’m sure you’ve seen mentioned
Also avoid Arch linux unless you’re ready to dive into the deep end of linux. As much as I thing it’s a great distro, and abstracts away a lot of the difficulties or Arch, Garuda Linux, should probabaly be avoided as well until you’re more comfortable with Linux due to its Arch roots (even if the docs are robust, they dive deep on tech concepts and require tons of requisite knowledge).
Awesome, that’s some great leads especially with a Nvidia card.
I’ll try and pick the easiest one without any grub work, I faintly remember my old school courses and have a faint reminder of hearing about grub. Didn’t sound like something to touch without the knowhow, Ill be careful.
Thanks!
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You’re also describing what happens on Windows. Gaming on PC requires some tinkering and knowledge. If you want to turn a machine on, install a game and play it you’ll buy a gaming console.
Regarding Mumble, Zerotier and XLink Kai, sorry to read that. Hopefully there’ll be something in their docs that help you or other alternatives you can switch to. Deep Rock Galactic can be a bit of a resource hog, but there’s probably a solution for that too. Have you used the latest community recommendations on it’s ProtonDB page? https://www.protondb.com/app/548430?device=pc
Three consecutive replies because of an app I’m testing. Sorry about that.
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Any reason you went with fedora? I’ve been partial to fedora for a decade, but last I knew it wasn’t recommended for a daily driver given the upstream fuckery from redhat.
Asking cuz I’m about two weeks from kicking win10 in the dick and moving to alma or something.
If you’re into gaming, Bazzite is based on Fedora (SilverBlue, so immutable), and it works amazingly for gaming and everything else.
It was my first experience with anything Fedora after coming from Arch, and I have to say that I’m pleased.
I’m actually using Nobara, but it’s not very popular so I just say Fedora in day-to-day conversation. From my understanding, Fedora-based distros play better with Nvidia GPUs.
Best of luck to you my friend. Like I said, fedora was my go-to for years, and I regularly fought against the Nvidia drivers and kept going back to windows.
I’m running AMD now, so I’m hoping my experience is better than it was when I was using nvidia
I’m responding to you, but this is more for others to see since you moved to AMD.
I used Nvidia cards for many years on Linux and only recently switched back to AMD. The main issues I ran into with Nvidia were related to driver updates breaking things rather than things not working in general. So, I eventually found that holding Nvidia drivers to versions that worked without issues was the best bet and only updating them on occasion after they had been out for a bit and the consensus was that they weren’t breaking stuff.
Just to make things easier on others (or myself if the AMD drivers have similar issues), how would one go about holding the driver at a specific version?
Just to make things easier on others (or myself of the amd drivers have similar issues), how would one go about holding the driver at a specific version?
I’m on a Debian based distro, but it is super simple. To hold a driver, or any package to a version just use “sudo aptitude hold <name or package here>” to undo this at any point just use “sudo aptitude unhold <name or package here>”. If you use the GUI package manager, there is a “Lock Version” option in a menu that does it.
If you’re on a Redhat based distro, Federa et al, I believe the keyword is “versionlock” for yum or dnf, but I would definitely recommend looking at a reference for the command before blinding following me on that one.
Everyone should use the most polished, solid and up to date distros. Opensuse and Fedora. There is no fucked up. Fedora is a serious project that Red hat uses to base their distro on. And Opensuse is German engineering. Serious is not even the correct word here, they are state of art distros.
Good to know, thanks! Like I said, I’m going to be diving back into Linux in the near future, so I’ll be looking into the best distro to try.
I’m in a similar boat. My computer meets all of the other requirements like TPM and whatnot, yet they are arbitrarily deciding that my processor is too old. And for some reason you can walk into your local computer store and buy a laptop with the shittiest processor and other specs possible that somehow runs Windows 11. Just because the processor on the new shitbox was manufactured more recently. Ridiculous.
In the same boat with the same CPU. The beast is running Cyberpunk 2077 fairly well at 1440p with a DLSS/ray tracing card but it can’t run Windows 11 🙄🙄🙄
assuming you use steam, see which of your favorite games run with proton compatability layer and which absolutely require windows. You may be suprised.
I run everything on steam with proton that I did on my windows PC, nothing was left behind. If you ‘add a game’ from outside steam, you can run the installer and then change the game location to the executable. Ubuntu or Ubuntu mate are what I install on everything. Recommend.
WINE works surprisingly well too. I’ve seen people talk about gaming on Linux using Lutris or launching it through Steam as a “Non-Stean game” but I just put my files in my WINE directory and have better success.
For people who still need Windows:
I have a 10-year-old Surface Pro 4 and I was able to freely upgrade to Windows 11 and it works fine. It wasn’t technically supported but I enabled preview builds or something like that (I think I had to enable the Insider program) and it showed up as a Windows Update. I don’t know if this is applicable to all PCs that don’t support Win 11, but surely it’s applicable to some of them that Windows says don’t support Win 11.
I for one will be looking forward to getting mid-spec PCs dirt cheap.
They act like the computer’s just going to stop working or something… People are going to use win 10 out of support for years.
E: specifically note, please, that i said “act”. I’m aware they state it will keep working in the little FAQ.
People in these comments act like the computer will just stop working.
There are lots of IT/SysAdmin on Lemmy so their work will have to switch. I think their concern/sentiment gives others the impression that personal PC owners will also have to switch.
The OneDrive plug at the end is *chefs kiss*
Well at least the second hand laptop market will be flooded by the companies deciding to upgrade to newer laptops for Win11, so a small upside.
Throw it away.
Gently
In my direction
Yeah once windows 10 is done I’m moving to Linux. Use mint on the laptop but I’ll install it on my main PC unless valve launches steam os
I want steamOS too, but Ive been dual booting bazzite for a couple of weeks and I love it.
Its steam OS isn’t good or isn’t fully cooked I might grab bazzite and check it out
I recommend you to use a regular Linux distro for your PC, SteamOS is always going to focus on handheld devices which may not provide de best possible experience for desktop. Bazzite seems to be the hot Linux gaming distro at the moment, it’s based on Fedora (my personal favorite, also a good option for gaming IMO). Maybe, give this one a try ?
I might have to give it a shot. I only use my computer for gaming so since I’m familiar with the steam deck I figured holo OS or steam OS or whatever it’s called would be nice. I’ll wait to see some reviews before I do it
I just installed Mint instead.
I took the last message I got from them as an invitation to ditch Windows for Linux. Now I wish I did that earlier!
It’s probably a non monitored email but I just replied, “I already switched to Linux because of this”
Haven’t had mine online for 4 years now and it still chugs along
Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux
Just switched to Linux Mint. So worth it
