time to block microsoft in pihole then.
no Microsoft, no updates.
With the different distros of Linux, do different things support different distros? Like Zoom is support on Arch but not Mint, and Steam is supported in Mint but not Arch; or if an app supports Linux, it is on all distros? And if there is differences, do you have different partitions for different types of Linux?
All distros are equivalent, as far as software is concerned. They all have access to the same open source software, and Flatpak; AppImage; and Snap can be used for extra portability.
Think of a distro like a pre-configured image of linux. You can always change the configuration later, if you desire. For example, the Desktop Environment. All you have to do is just install a different DE package (usually via command line)
The DE has a major impact on user experience. Use KDE plasma for a more windows-familiar experience, or Gnome for a more Mac-familiar experience. Or experiment with others
The Linux Experiment is a good resource
When an app supports linux, it can do so by either:
- packaging it for popular distro repositories,
- giving instructions on how to build the app from the source code
or
- package it on distro-agnostic, package management solutions like flatpak or appImage.
These last ones are sandboxed environments. That means they have their own dependencies isolated from your system, so they dont have to deal with every distros pecularities at the cost of using more storage space. This is very useful for developers and in your case benefitial for the user because you can have both steam and zoom via flatpak on mint, arch or any obscure distro that has flatpak available, without any major problems.
Edit: Formatting
Yup. The big downside to flatpak is that, as you said, it takes up more space.
To make a Windows comparison, imagine needing to install Java separately for every single program that needs it. Flatpaks tend to be orders of magnitude larger than technically necessary, simply because they’re sandboxed and come with everything they need to run, even if you already have it installed.
Distributions are all of the same operating system, they differ in the set of applications and installation management tools. Except for those with different libc than glibc, things will generally work everywhere. Maybe with some effort.
I have an old pc running windows 10, it would be cool if it stops getting updates. Makes for a nice offline pc to get some old apps and games running in the future.
This will be the best thing that ever happened to Linux. Hell, it might even make it up to 4.5% market share.
Linux is already at 4.5%
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/
Last I heard it was 4%.
Maybe it will make 5% next year, then.
I’m definitely migrating to Linux at some point before then
Already switched to linux. I still have one windows drive that I haven’t booted for about a year. Haven’t relied on virtual machines or anything.
I’ve turned a few older neighbors on to Linux when they complained that window updates caused their PC’s to run too slow.
I’d tell them 'before you go out and buy a new computer, let me install Linux if you don’t like it, you lose nothing. In the end, each one of them was happy their computer was running like new again.
Have my second pc on running Linux mint for about half a year now and it’s been a pleasure so far.
I think I’ll be prepared to switch over fully in a year.
So fucking refuse to switch over to 11
Similar to yourself, I switched to Mint about 9 months ago - initially on dual boot before ditching Windows altogether (the Windows updates kept fucking everything up). For the one piece of software that I missed on Windows 10 (Fugawi Digital Maps) I simply created a Windows 7 VM, that doesn’t connect to the internet, and installed it on there. In fact, it has made me realise just how crap 10 was in comparison to 7. Linux has been a pleasure. Not only has it made computers interesting to me again, but I’ve learned a shitload along the way. It’s nice to have a computer do what I want it to, rather than the other way around.
What do you use to run the VM? I run Mint and have been meaning to get a Windows VM up but there are too many options
VirtualBox for me
virt-manager
Thanks, I ended up going with virt-manager and it was relatively easy
VirtualBox.
Same bruv.
All of the random BS it requires is a bit of a turn off but the 10ish percent drop in gaming performance is a no go. Linux with proton should outperform the os the games are designed to run on but here we are.
Me too, but im betting windows 10 gets an extension. Microsoft will take too much flack ending support while so many people are still on 10 and too many computers that can’t upgrade are still in use. They’re going for a scare tactic to try and fluff up 11’s numbers a bit before doing it is my guess. 62% of computers are still on 10 right now. They won’t end support.
I keep trying but I can’t make Xlink Kai work with Dolphin, nor play using Zerotier for some lan games (tModloader, mostly)… Managed to make my DRG and Gunfire Reborn run, so I got that going for me.
Until I can make those 2 networks work, I’ll have to stay on Windows.
I’m using Linux mint all day at work, while I have a couple of rarely-used Windows machines at home. I think the swap to Linux on those home machines is going to be a winter project this year.
It might be more accurate to say the project will be setting up the Linux version of a few key pieces of software. The actual installation of Linux Mint is the easiest part!
I only have one computer that can run 11 because of the TPM module, it upgraded by accident.
All others will run linux
Pretty telling when the only way you can get your users to “upgrade” is by stealth. I wonder what the % of involuntarily upgraded win11 users is vs people who knowingly and willingly did so.
I would’ve upgraded to 11, but either my computer doesn’t support TPM or I just refused to turn it on. So instead I upgraded to Ubuntu. There are probably better distros but I had a limited about of time to fuck around trying them.
Mint is pretty nice, too. It felt familiar, as a windows user. But I kept installing stuff that broke the updater. So I switched and found it’s me, not the updater, and I just need to do
apt update/upgradeanddpkg -iregardless, but anyway now I’m on Ubuntu.I still have my full windows install on an SSD somewhere if I had an emergency, but I haven’t had any such emergency in about a year.
Cool, now I can try and remember to get fully migrated to Linux before October next year.
I’m probably one of the last people who use Win 8.1. The only thing I use there is Smart Switch to back up my phone. For everything else, there is Mint. I’ll keep up with that setup until my hardware fails.
So, could users just ignore that and just buy an anti-virus product or use 0patch? If it’s like Widows 8, most apps will still be updated for a few years.
Generally speaking that’s ill-advised, antimalware tools rely on heuristics and active samples.
You don’t wanna be the first person to get xyz virus. It’s certainly better than nothing though.
Unless you have an app you can’t live without Linux is the most accessible than it ever has been.
As a heavy user of Playit Live, Excel with macros and Google Drive, I’m stuck in a Windows World for a while yet. The first two could maybe run in Boxes if I send the audio to a USB device.
The most important thing to get updates in the browser tbh. That’s the source of nearly everything bad these days, and the main reason somebody would bother to update their PC.
I reckon they’ll continue providing updates for those for as long as there’s enough people using it. It’s not like Google are going to willing turn round and go “whelp, no more adverts and spying for these millions of users!”
My biggest worry for this is, there’s probably dozens of black hats out there that have found some very large exploit for Windows 10, and are holding off on abusing it until the day Microsoft ends support.
Currently, my plan is to make a partition for Linux Mint, set up dual boot, see how much of my daily computer obsession I can execute through there, and then try to slowly transition while slowly moving stuff from Windows. (I am vaguely worried I’ll run into that Windows issue where files accessed from outside the OS login are security-restricted. That has even screwed up my Windows reformat fixes)
PR nightmares will keep significant exploit fixes coming. Microsoft isn’t that stupid.
might be better to separate drives, windows has been known to fuck up Linux partitions recently.
Just keep regular full system images (as you should be anyways, as part of your 3-2-1 backup plan), and you’ll be fine as you can just restore an image if everything gets broken.
My what now?
This sounds like something I should be wary of, but it’s the first I’m hearing of it. Any other info?
only anecdotes unfortunately.
Microsoft took a big bite out of GRUB, which is the utility that your motherboard uses to dual boot OSes. A Windows update basically borked it and set Windows as the mandatory default OS. It basically makes it so your motherboard can’t properly identify your Linux install(s).
Luckily, you can fix it directly in Windows Command Prompt. But still, it’s a dirty trick that Microsoft has been using recently. Windows has historically been a bad neighbor for other OSes, (for instance, the Secure Boot Module is basically an attempt to make booting other OSes difficult,) but this was the first time in recent history that they have outright prevented another existing OS from booting.
It typically happens during updates. People have reported their grub screwing up. If you’re able I would honestly suggest separate drives
I haven’t booted into Windows since
Mint’s sweet I switched from 10 a few months back. Biggest difference is getting use to the different file system, only 2 games have been unplayable (didn’t try to make them work tbh).
NTFS file reading and writing is reasonably well supported under Linux, though exFAT or native filesystems are preferable. Actually finding software that will understand your files is one level removed, and getting equivalent or even the same software running is another level still. e.g. reading MS Office documents - LibreOffice is pretty good at that. For games, Steam and Proton have a lot of that covered.
If all you do is on websites, most if not all of the usual web browsers are available and work indistinguishably.
That said, I will leave you with these three words: Backups. Backups. Backups.
I’m not worried about interpreting the NTFS filesystem or individual files of given formats. Mainly, I’m worried about a Windows security-level problem I’ve had where Windows restricts access to whole directories based on user-level permissions, since the old “user” that owned them on a given operating system has been obliterated. It’s an issue I’ve had even when reinstalling Windows to the same computer.
As far as I know, Linux ignores NTFS permissions when given raw access to a disk, or rather, acts as thought it’s SYSTEM or some other high-level user, working around anything Windows might have set.
Worst case, you could still move your important files to an exFAT partition (or into an archive) where permissions don’t apply.
As far as I know, Linux ignores NTFS permissions when given raw access to a disk, or rather, acts as thought it’s SYSTEM or some other high-level user, working around anything Windows might have set.
I think that was the case for ntfs-3g.
I’m not certain that’s the case anymore with the new kernel NTFS driver, though I havent tested it. If it isn’t, it should be correctly handling the file premissions.
LMDE6 still uses ntfs-3g as far as I can tell, so I’m going to assume that regular Mint does too.
lsmodreports nothing like ntfs, and the tried and tested, if no longer developed, ntfs-3g suite is installed.Things might change as and when the kernel driver is more stable for writing. I’m sure more bleeding-edge distros are already running the kernel driver, but then, those who run those distros are deep into Linux and NTFS is not really something they deal with regularly.
I believe it actually is used in regular Mint (the Debian kernel doesn’t include it, but it looks like Ubuntu’s and Mint’s do). But yes, I suppose it is still in the process of being adopted by various distributions.
Good. I happen to know companies that will have to kick out some rather nice machines that happen to be just under spec for Win11. Those machines are still top for running Linux.
I’d rather pay for security updates than invite more AI and Microsoft sponsored spyware onto my computer…
The year of OpenBSD desktop it is, then!
I’m serious, I’m getting burnout not just from Windows, but even from Linux.
And saying that every GUI is easier to use than every TUI or every config file format is wrong.
GUIs can be hard and easy to use. Config file formats can be hard and easy to use.
The fallacy is that GUIs can theoretically be navigated “intuitively” without looking for documentation for setting up stuff, but in fact I dare you try it.
OpenBSD was the easiest system to maintain on desktop I’ve had.
Unfortunately, I wanted Wine and gamez.
OK, no rtw88 for OpenBSD, so … no.
We have all heard this song before and know how it ends.
Yeah. A lot of people loudly declaring that they’re switching to Linux, followed by them staying with Windows anyway.
