Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#801

Post by deaddodo » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:06 PM UTC

AuthAuth wrote: post #583

DrBazza wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows 11's file browser lags when opening directories with more than 100-ish files. Windows 11's file browser takes a few seconds to open at all. There's a guy that has written their own version of explorer that's so fast in comparison to the built-in, that you'd think they were cheating somehow because of everyone's experience with explorer. And someone has written an IDE for C++ that opens while Visual Studio i…

The problem is on windows you're competing directly against the guys who own the operating system. So even when there is a gap for a better file manager the one that microsoft makes is so entrenched and microsoft can make sure they always win. It sucks.

That was the argument used for IE/Edge. But eventually it got so terrible that the first thing everyone does now is install Chrome/Firefox/Brave.

They obviously have an advantage, but it’s not insurmountable to being garbage.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#802

Post by jdboyd » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:07 PM UTC

I think Windows 11 would have had much more consumer buy-in in the early days if they would have at least extended non-OEM support back to the Skylake generation, if not further, which it looks like it would have be easy to do, since it ran just fine on much older machines. I didn't object to them making TPM 2.0 mandatory for new OEM builds, just to the making it mandatory for people wanting to upgrade to it.

Of course, then the ads and other broken-ness got a lot worse. But people might put up with that more if they had upgraded to Windows 11 years ago instead of just looking at doing it now that Windows 10 support has ended.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#803

Post by CamouflagedKiwi » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC

dist-epoch wrote: post #697

CamouflagedKiwi wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar issue with Windows. The machine already dual-boots Linux, but it is simultaneously demanding Windows 11 and telling me that it doesn't support it. It's a three year old Ryzen, it plays every game I've thrown at it flawlessly - which admittedly is only just so many things, but if it could manage Oblivion Remastered at launch it should manage a bloody operating system surely. I hear it might be some TP…

Something is disabled in your BIOS. Ask an LLM to guide you.

I can solve this problem if I have to. Right now, I don't.

But I think you miss my core point. If "Ask an LLM" is the answer to this, Microsoft are doing an unforgivably shit job of maintaining Windows. Why on earth should that be necessary? Surely they can provide the minimum of information about why they think the upgrade isn't possible.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#804

Post by mminer237 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:13 PM UTC

anon291 wrote: post #574

pier25 wrote: post #116

> You had unsaved work? Too bad, it's gone, get bent. This has happened to me a couple of times. I put the PC to sleep and the next morning I discover it has decided to close everything to install an update. Not using Windows ever again to do any work. Say what you will about Apple but at least they don't do crap like this.

Correct. Windows is not a serious operating system. It really never has been. I've been on desktop linux for decades now. Linux is a serious operating system. Nothing happens without you asking it too. My linux computers are never turned off, since they day I turn them on, except for the occasional kernel upgrade. Otherwise, all upgrades are live. Even most kernel upgrades can be avoided if you use one of the modern…

I literally cannot count the number of times I put my Linux computer to sleep and it just doesn't wake up, and I have to hard reset the power to get it to do anything. I would never leave anything unsaved open for an extended period of time on a graphical Linux system.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#805

Post by nickjj » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:15 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #259

I just started a new job where I'm subjected to Windows 11. They gave me a behemoth of a laptop. 64GB of RAM, absolute screamer of a CPU, big GPU, the whole deal. Windows 11's file browser lags when opening directories with more than 100-ish files. Windows 11's file browser takes a few seconds to open at all. Context menus take a noticeable amount of time to appear. I'm getting used to a new keyboard, so I keep hitti…

I'm definitely not defending Windows but when I ran Windows 10 Pro for 11 years straight, I had no problem with performance.

We're talking a 4 core i5-4460, with 16 GB of memory and an SSD running WSL 2, Docker Desktop, real work loads, video editing, etc..

It was very performant and never got in my way. I'd leave the computer on 24 / 7 and only the monitors turned off. It only got rebooted for forced Windows patches.

With that said, my hardware can't run 11 and even if I did patch around that, I'm choosing not to run 11 so Windows for me was over near the end of 2025.

I'm running Arch now on the same box and except for GPU memory leaks, it's quite snappy. CPU intensive tasks finish faster and disk I/O feels even faster than Windows. There's also unlimited flexibility to tweak things however I see fit. Gaming performance is substantially worse for the few games I play. No regrets, except for gaming.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#806

Post by grepfru_it » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:21 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #364

grepfru_it wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steam and Proton work perfectly I am a hardcore DayZ player. DayZ does not work on Proton[0]. I cannot use Linux as my main gaming platform. Battlefield 6 does not work. Latest Call of Duty does not work. You can talk about voting with your wallet, but when millions of people are buying the game, your one non-vote means nothing. So either you punish yourself and refuse to play with friends, or you punish yourself a…

This is really just a subset of competitive shooters. Arc Raiders, The Finals, Hunt Showdown, Halo Infinite all play fine. I have a Windows drive for Battlefield but I stopped booting into it after interest in the game waned. Playing on console is also an option. Most games allow you to alternate between keyboard/mouse and controller. Discord works fine, and every game is cross-play.

Oh ok. I’ll just stop playing my favorite games

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#807

Post by sundvor » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:21 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #633

ryukoposting wrote: post #259

I just started a new job where I'm subjected to Windows 11. They gave me a behemoth of a laptop. 64GB of RAM, absolute screamer of a CPU, big GPU, the whole deal. Windows 11's file browser lags when opening directories with more than 100-ish files. Windows 11's file browser takes a few seconds to open at all. Context menus take a noticeable amount of time to appear. I'm getting used to a new keyboard, so I keep hitti…

> Windows 11's file browser lags when opening directories with more than 100-ish files. Windows 11's file browser takes a few seconds to open at all. > Context menus take a noticeable amount of time to appear. I can almost guarantee this is from some endpoint management software your company installed. I have a Windows 11 workstation that I use all the time for some CAD software and the occasional game. Everything is…

The endpoint stuff kills laptop performance. I left my previous job and they let me keep my X1 Nano (1st gen; 16GB memory) which was performing abysmally towards the end.

Deleted all the partitions and did a 100% clean install (multi boot Win11/Fedora), and it's suddenly what feels like 2-4x as fast. Made sure to disable some of the Copilot and Internet content in search menu rubbish etc with a few registry tweaks (yay for having admin access to get rid of the bloat/junk).

Fedora/Wayland/Plasma still feels faster though - I just had some issues getting my video to work properly across all of Teams and Zoom.

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#808

Post by grepfru_it » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:21 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #590

grepfru_it wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steam and Proton work perfectly I am a hardcore DayZ player. DayZ does not work on Proton[0]. I cannot use Linux as my main gaming platform. Battlefield 6 does not work. Latest Call of Duty does not work. You can talk about voting with your wallet, but when millions of people are buying the game, your one non-vote means nothing. So either you punish yourself and refuse to play with friends, or you punish yourself a…

Isn't call of duty the game where Nikki Minaj shoots the cat from the Simpsons? I think I'll pass.

That’s Fortnite and while you can pass, I don’t want to pass.. I want to play it!

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#809

Post by upcoming-sesame » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:24 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #259

I just started a new job where I'm subjected to Windows 11. They gave me a behemoth of a laptop. 64GB of RAM, absolute screamer of a CPU, big GPU, the whole deal. Windows 11's file browser lags when opening directories with more than 100-ish files. Windows 11's file browser takes a few seconds to open at all. Context menus take a noticeable amount of time to appear. I'm getting used to a new keyboard, so I keep hitti…

I am also subjected to Windows at work and I hate it. WSL is an okay experience until it just crashes and stops working.

The only reason I was forced on Windows was because they couldn't find an edge management system for Linux

Re: Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux

#810

Post by vladvasiliu » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

caycep wrote: post #766

sedatk wrote: post #382

My 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…

is there a good windows rdp client for Linux? I went looking for one a few months back but didn't find anything definitely

I use remmina, which uses xfreerdp under the hood. It works well, but I haven't managed to get smartcard authentication working, if that matters for your environment.