But it’s just gonna take off here anyway because it’s a switching to Linux article which is like offering HN users free coke.
Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
511–520 of 1001 posts
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#512Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in the exact same boat. I was a little unhappy with the ads etc in Windows, but perfectly willing to give Windows 11 a try. But Microsoft decreed that my admittedly a bit old but perfectly workable CPU was incompatible, due to not having a feature I wasn't interested in. I'd need to replace most of my existing hardware to switch. So why not try Linux? It certainly seems reasonable when Windows apparently needs mo…
You can bypass the warning really easily, I googled it the moment I saw it and it was very easy. A keyboard shortcut to open the command window during the install and one cheeky command. I agree though that it’s silly they don’t offer it officially. But I get the feeling you were on the edge of transitioning anyway, which is fine! Sounds more like the straw that broke the camels back.
Honestly, I am really surprised this is a top comment here. This was an extremely easy work around. We are all mostly curious nerds here.
All this work because one couldn't google a easy work around?
Last time I tried Linux it sucked for gaming and I've spent hours trying to install a printer.
Not to excuse Microsoft in this situation, Linux is obviously more open.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#513My story is simpler. Microsoft dropped the support for Windows 10 and gave me no upgrade path to Windows 11 because my CPU was 5 years too old apparently. So I installed Fedora on that machine, I learned the process, I went through the hurdles. It wasn’t seamless. But, Fedora never said “I can’t”. When it was over, it was fine. Only if Microsoft had just let me install Windows 11 and suffer whatever the perf problem…
Switched to Linux 8 years ago and haven't looked back.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#514I really want to like Linux but every time I try it (and I tried a lot of distros and DEs) it is death by a thousand UX paper cuts.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#515This was me in 2022 or 2023. I have posted on HN about my shift a few times. I gave up with Windows 10 because you needed Windows Pro in order to make an "offline" account, I spent $2000+ for a gaming rig, and I couldn't add new users, one program told me to use the other program which brought me back to the original program... I had to go out of my way, buy a license just to make it work. I just went and installed L…
> idk why Arch doesn't invest in whats standard in every other major distro Because its supposed to be stripped down. To serve as a base to create things like Endeavour, Manjaro, or Cachy. There's still a lot of utility to doing things the hard way. I do suggest people that want to actually learn Linux install Arch and live in the terminal. You learn a lot very fast because you're forced to. But it's not for everyone…
I switched to arch 15 years ago to learn Linux. And it is by far the best way to understand it.
Having used Arch I can easily maintain almost any distro out there, but it doesn't work the other way around.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#516My story is simpler. Microsoft dropped the support for Windows 10 and gave me no upgrade path to Windows 11 because my CPU was 5 years too old apparently. So I installed Fedora on that machine, I learned the process, I went through the hurdles. It wasn’t seamless. But, Fedora never said “I can’t”. When it was over, it was fine. Only if Microsoft had just let me install Windows 11 and suffer whatever the perf problem…
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#517Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in the exact same boat. I was a little unhappy with the ads etc in Windows, but perfectly willing to give Windows 11 a try. But Microsoft decreed that my admittedly a bit old but perfectly workable CPU was incompatible, due to not having a feature I wasn't interested in. I'd need to replace most of my existing hardware to switch. So why not try Linux? It certainly seems reasonable when Windows apparently needs mo…
You can bypass the warning really easily, I googled it the moment I saw it and it was very easy. A keyboard shortcut to open the command window during the install and one cheeky command. I agree though that it’s silly they don’t offer it officially. But I get the feeling you were on the edge of transitioning anyway, which is fine! Sounds more like the straw that broke the camels back.
I still kicked itin the can. Am a happy Arch User & Ubuntu (will probably migrate that one to an Arch derivate as well, though) nowadays. I still use WIN11 in my day job. And it is an okay OS. I had worse. I had better.
What I find interesting is, that I gained on average 30 - 50% more battery time from the laptops I switched to Linux. It is quite unexpected and to me quite frankly amazing. I am writing this on my day job quite expensive Surface machine. I pulled it from the power connection to sit on the sofa about 20 minutes ago. My battery? At 73%. And I am running Firefox and PowerPoint at the moment (plus whatever corp crapware is installed underneath).
Except for exactly one set of tools (older Affinity progs) I have no need for WIN anymore. And as my day job provides a WIN machine...
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#518I've been running Ubuntu Linux for a long time now (over a decade, started with 8.04). Linux still has it's fair share of bugs but I'll take having to deal with those over running Windows or MacOS any day. For me the biggest thing is control, with Windows there are some things like updates that you have zero control over. It's the same issue with MacOS, you have more control than Windows but you're still at the whims…
I remember when Ubuntu decided to reroute apt installations into SNAP installs. So you install a package via apt and there was logic to see if they should disregard your command and install a SNAP instead. Do they still do that? It annoyed me so much that I switched to mint.
Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#519Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux
#520So after making sure I had everything I wanted to keep copied off that computer, I was going to try out Bazzite, but something made me try out the plain old SteamOS steam deck installer first. To my surprise, it actually worked, but only because I had the exact type of system it expected:
64-bit Intel or AMD CPU. (I have AMD.)
AMD Radeon graphics.
NVMe SSD primary boot drive.
UEFI BIOS support
Even the wifi worked. Well, it didn't work the first time, so I thought it wasn't supported. So I hard wired it with Ethernet, but then I saw the Wifi was working. It's possible it updated something or maybe it just needed a reboot.
If it hadn't worked then Bazzite or something similar would have since it's designed to run Steam but with more driver support.
So my complete Windows history is: 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, XP (set to the classic GUI mode), 7, and finally 11, skipping all the others. Windows 7 was peak.